Modern DSGE models are microfounded and have deep parameters that should be invariant to changes in economic policy, so in principle they are not subject to the Lucas critique. But the literature has already established that misspecification issues also cause parameter instability after policy changes in DSGE models. This paper will look at the implications of parameter shifts for econometric policy evaluation, to see whether policy advice derived from DSGE models would have differed fundamentally from that which the policymakers of the 1970s derived from their reduced-form Phillips curves. The results show drift in most parameters, including those that are supposedly structural (such as the share of capital in production, habits or the elasticity of labor supply to the real wage), and major shifts in the impulse response functions derived from the real-time estimation of the model. After the expansionary monetary shocks of the early 1970s, a standard DSGE model would have behaved very similarly to an old-style Phillips curve, with marked shifts in parameter values and impulse response functions.


This paper presents a research project that aims at creating a methodology for evaluating IS/IT projects in the Portuguese health care system. This project is being jointly developed by the Center for Organizational Engineering and a task force from Saude XXI, the Portuguese health operational program. In order to create a framework on which to base project evaluation, the project team developed a model of the Portuguese health system, using the CEO framework. The CEO framework is a UML based organizational modeling framework that uses business process and information systems modeling techniques to represent, monitor and simulate organizational behavior. The model created reflects the reality of the Portuguese health care system, including the entities involved, the inter and intra-organizational processes that are executed, the current information systems architecture and the in force information systems strategy. Based on the created organizational model, the project team created a tool that facilitates the evaluation of IS/IT projects, by measuring (1) the support to the current processes; (2) the conformance to the IS architecture and strategy; (3) the relation with other past or current projects. This paper describes the organizational modeling process that was executed, the developed evaluation methodologies and tools, and the preliminary results regarding ongoing project evaluation.


Retropharyngeal infection is mainly a disease of early childhood, caused by an extension of suppuration to the retropharyngeal lymph nodes. These nodes usually atrophy prior to adulthood. Retropharyngeal infection in adults is considered rare and has received little attention in the recent literature. Our purpose is to report four cases in adults and to emphasize the essential features of two distinct life-threatening syndromes associated with this illness. Patient Summaries Cervical Prevertebral Space Infection.—Patient 1. —A 58-year-old man was admitted to the Nashville Metropolitan General Hospital with a fever. He described posterior cervical and left shoulder pain of two to three years' duration. Ten days prior to admission, he developed a "cold," and five days prior to admission he noted fever, dyspnea, and dysuria. He was acutely ill with a temperature of 39 C (102 F) by rectum, a pulse of 92 beats per minute, and labored respirations of 24


I. Role: March 29th, and March 30th, 2014, 7:30 p.m. and April 1st, 2014, 2:00 p.m., Aycock Auditorium, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Elvira, Don Giovanni (Mozart). II. Solo Recital: April 19th, 2013, 7:30 p.m., Recital Hall, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The Clan of the Lichens (Abbie Betenis), "Non disperar" and "V'adoro pupille" from Giulio Cesare (Handel), Three Irish Folksong Settings for Flute and Voice (John Corigliano), Jagerlied (Brahms), Ach Mutter, liebe Mutter (Brahms), Walpurgisnacht (Brahms), Nuit d'espagne (Jules Massenet), Guitare (Georges Bizet), Le Bachelier de Salamanque (Albert Roussel). III. Solo Recital: The Sweetness of my Dreams (Jocelyn Hagen), Canciones para ninos (Xavier Montsalvatge), La regatta veneziana and Le Pesca (Giacomo Rossini), "Celle qui vient" from Thais (Jules Massenet), "Evening Prayer" from Hansel und Gretel (Englebert Humperdink), Wiegenlied (Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss), What if... and Jabberwocky (Lee Hoiby), If you become the moon (Kevin Helppie) IV. Lecture Recital: October 20th, 2014, 5:30 p.m. Recital Hall, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The Worst One Ever (Gary Belshaw), excerpts from La Pizza del Destino (Steve Cohen), Review (Jeremy Beck). V. D.M.A. Research Project. THE MINI-OPERA CONCEPT: A STUDY OF SHORT WORKS IN THE OPERA REPERTORY AND THEIR VIABILITY ON THE EDUCATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL STAGES. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the merit of mini-operas as a tool for pedagogic study through the discussion of Gary Belshaw's The Worst One Ever, Steve Cohen's La pizza del Destino, and Jeremy Beck's Review. These works were chosen because they presented specific pedagogic challenges in three areas of study vital to the success of operatic stage performance: vocal technique, acting (theater arts), and operatic stage direction. In addition to their relevance for the training of university-level opera singers, these works were written in the last five decades. This is of importance for two reasons, the first being that the study and performance of these mini-operas supports the effort of composers who are currently contributing to the advancement of the repertoire. Second, students are encouraged to learn and present works that strive to develop the operatic repertoire.


In Part I of the current two-part series, a comprehensive simulation-based study of impact of Jacketed projectiles on mild steel armour plates has been presented. Using the modelling procedures developed in Part I, a number of parametric studies have been carried out for the same mild steel plates considered in Part I and reported here in Part II. The current investigation includes determination of ballistic limits of a given target plate for different projectile diameters and impact velocities, and effects of plate thickness and projectile parameters such as mass, diameter and nose shape on residual velocity. In all cases studied, trends consistent with earlier experimentally-observed behaviours for similar impact problems have been found, thereby establishing the potential of the present simulation technique using LS-DYNA as a powerful tool for the design of steel armour plates.


Social media has been a buzzword for the past nine years, and has grown up through several phases before becoming what it is now - one of the most powerful ways for businesses to promote products and services and build reputation at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing methods. Managing the reputation of a business used to be an expensive exercise limited to those with access to big budgets and creative content creators. The digital revolution, however, disrupted the marketing industry by making it possible for anyone with an Internet connection to circumvent the privilege and limitations of traditional mass media.


. Measurement incompatibility and quantum non-locality are two key features of quantum theory. Violations of Bell inequalities require quantum entanglement and incompatibility of the measurements used by the two parties involved in the protocol. We analyze the converse question: for which Bell inequalities is the incompatibility of measurements enough to ensure a quantum violation? We relate the two questions by comparing two tensor norms on the space of dichotomic quantum measurements: one characterizing measurement compatibility and the second one characterizing violations of a given Bell inequality. We provide sufficient conditions for the equivalence of the two notions in terms of the matrix describing the correlation Bell inequality. We show that the CHSH inequality and its variants are the only ones satisfying it.


Despite general agreement that development projects should be 'participatory' and 'evidencebased', achieving meaningful stakeholder engagement remains problematic. Meanwhile, substantial evidence indicates that visual research and communication techniques are both well suited to community engagement and have the capacity to elicit different, more nuanced information than traditional survey, focus group and interview tools. This article reviews an array of visual techniques practiced across a range of fields, highlighting their relevance and potential applications to development work. Rather than offering detailed methodological instruction, this article aims to stimulate interest in visual techniques while demonstrating both their potential and rigor.


A 32 factorial design was used to develop Natamycin cubosome nanoparticles with enhanced corneal permeation, so as to effectively treat ocular fungal keratitis. Probe sonication technique was deployed to disperse the dry lipidic film to obtain colloidal dispersion. The colloidal dispersion was characterized for critical quality attributes such as particle size, poly dispersibility index (PDI), zeta potential and entrapment efficiency. The optimized batch exhibited a particle size of 158.2 nm, zeta potential -40 mV, PDI 0.328 in addition, entrapment efficiency of 99.85%. The in vitro drug release of natamycin from optimized cubosome demonstrated a cumulative %drug release of 84.29% at the end of 8 hours. The optimized cubosomal dispersion exhibited enhanced in vitro antifungal activity against Candida albicans and Aspergillus fumigatus as compared to a pure drug suspension. The optimized formulation was further analyzed for polarized light microscopy (PLM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and small angle Xray scattering (SAXS) to state the morphology of formed cubosome nanoparticles and was noted to be Im3m bicontinous cubic mesophasic structure. X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies affirmed the complete encapsulation of natamycin into cubosome vesicles. Ex vivo corneal permeation studies of optimized formulation revealed enhanced corneal permeation in comparison to a pure drug suspension. The ocular irritation studies performed on rabbits indicated the cubosome to be non-irritant. Finally, the developed natamycin cubosome nanoparticles demonstrated sustained drug release and increased corneal penetration. Thus, these cubosome nanocarriers present a propitious delivery system for effective management of ocular fungal keratitis.


Purpose
Rapid sequence homicide offenders (RSHOs), formerly spree killers, are an understudied population due to the confusion surrounding their classification in relation to serial murderers. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory, comparative analysis of 56 RSHOs and 60 serial murderers was conducted on US-based data from 2014 to 2018 derived from the Consolidated Serial Homicide Offender Database to determine similarities and differences between the cohorts.

Findings
RSHOs and serial murderers are similar in that they often kill their victims using a singular method, have limited mobility, kill a similar number of victims both known and unknown to them and are both supremely motivated by domestic anger. There is an inverse relationship between serial murderers and RSHOs: as one group increases in prevalence the other decreases.

Practical implications
In order to divert men into more pro-social activities, attention must be dedicated to increasing mental health services that provide them with the tools to diffuse their hatred and couple that with effective gun control strategies and ways to enhance the compromised anger management skills of a generation of volatile men.

Originality/value
Academicians have been hesitant to juxtapose these offenders but based this conclusion on surface-level differences. A reimagining of these categorical structures is needed. The once clear delineation between these cohorts may continue to shrink and synchronize until one subsumes the other.


A novel model on dynamic resource allocation in the WDM optical networks is proposed, basing on the integrated considerations of the impacts of transmission impairments and service classification on dynamic resource allocation in the optical layer.In this model, the priorities of optical connection requests are mapped into different thresholds of transmission impairments, and a uniform method which is adopted to evaluate the virtual wavelength path (VWP) candidates is defined. The Advanced Preferred Wavelength Sets Algorithm (A-PWS) and the heuristic Dynamic Min-Cost & Optical Virtual Wavelength Path Algorithm (DMC-OVWP) are presented addressing the routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) problem based on dynamic traffic and multi priorities in wavelength-routed optical networks. For a received optical connection request,DMC-OVWP is employed to calculate a list of the VWP candidates, and an appropriate VWP which matches the request's priority is picked up to establish the lightpath by analyzing the transmission qualities of the VWP candidates.


Cloud computing has grown to become an integral part of present as well as future information technologies. This technology has been designed to be used with internet by providing features such as information storage, remote access, etc. Cloud computing has been proved as an effective tool for all the provided services but it also comes with various types of threats. Over the years of its development, different fire attacks and data theft has been reported as a crucial factor since the data stored in the cloud by an organization or an individual user is basically confidential and sensitive. These data are illegally accessed by many hackers and further it will be used to fire attack the user. This paper mainly aims to highlight such attacks and provide suggestions for sorting the data breaching issues.


In mid 2000s the tv rights income reaches a 873 million euro for the 2005-06 season, with the Serie A tv rights annual income to gradually increase from a 844 million euro for the 2009-10 season to an amazing approximate 1,4 billion euro for the 2018-21 season. All these years Lega Calcio experimented a lot in the designing and application of a tv rights selling mechanism and its accompanied tv rights income distribution model. The Greek Superleague followed similar paths with Lega Calcio, when for many years in early 2000s clubs could exploit their tv rights by themselves. Even later, in late 200s and after the establishment of SL and with the collective selling mechanism in use, this mechanism didn't include all participating clubs. The study aims to show how could Greek Superleague higher management staff learn from the Serie A tv rights deal history and follow the league's recent tv rights optimal collective selling practices.


This paper proposes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the rise of emerging economies innovative firms and the implications of their governance and control of global innovation value chains. The paper identifies that the rise of Chinese innovative firms poses a challenge to the traditional geography of innovation and governance of global value chains, where most of the value chain activities were mainly coordinated by developed economies firms. The governance of global value chain in this paper is understood to entail not only the coordination of production, but also the control of innovation. By taking a holistic view of innovation, we show that some Chinese firms have accumulated significant innovation capabilities. We argue, however, that many of the new breed of GVCs exert control of production but not yet innovation. Their governance structure is different from that of existing 'orthodox' GVCs where DMNEs enjoy control of innovation and coordination of GVCs at the same time. As Chinese lead firms continue to strengthen their innovation capabilities, we expect them to exert a stronger control of innovation in many sectors, which will entail a change in power relationships in and the governance structure of GVCs.


Continuous sampling (CS) of blood through a nonthrombogenic catheter is presented as a tool for determining various pharmacokinetic parameters after a single injection ofa drug. In addition to defining many of the usual parameters used in pharmacokinetic analyses, CS provides an accurate and direct determination of the total area under the plasma concentration curve. The theoretic background underlying the CS method is derived, and a practical [ormulation for its use in a clinical setting is described. The aminoglycoside antibiotic, amikacin, was chosen to exemplify the use ofthis technique. The drug was administered to 6 children, and CS was used to define plasma and single organ (kidney) clearance, volume of distribution, half‐life during the final elimination phase, the shape of the plasma concentration curve, and the exponential factorization of this curve for multicompartmental analysis. The CS method has several theoretical and practical advantages over the usual technique of intermittent blood sampling; such as accuracy in the determination of the plasma concentration‐time curve integral, relative model independence, requirement for few samples, and ease in obtaining samples.


Abstract Two outstanding papers on restoration and succession are briefly discussed as model papers for the type of research papers Appl. Veg. Sci. should publish. The paper on restoration concentrates on the introduction of hay to a site in order to speed up the introduction of target species. The paper on succession discusses the importance of plant colonization 'windows' opened by extreme weather events for succession and for offering optimum periods for intervention in restoration practice. Some remarks are also made on the electronic availability of ecology papers.


This article reports an innovative technique in the treatment of a central incisor with a wide open apex and parallel dentinal walls. Root canal treatment was initiated, and calcium hydroxide intracanal medicament was placed in the canal for a month. The intracanal medicament was removed by instrumentation and irrigation with 3% sodium hypochlorite and 17% ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid. A light body impression of the root canal space was made and replicated the three-dimensional root canal space in a putty impression. Mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) was condensed into the impression and allowed to set for 24 h in the presence of moisture to obtain a BioRoot inlay. This BioRoot inlay was cemented into the canal. Follow-up of every 6 months for 4 years revealed clinically asymptomatic and satisfactory healing of periapical lesion.


ABSTRACT This study segments social media publics and analyzes their informational behaviors during organizational crises. With a public-centric perspective, our study highlights how social media publics interact with each other (i.e., interdependence) and share different information through crisis stages (i.e., dynamics). Following the situational approach to segmentation, we identify different types of social media publics (i.e., influentials, broadcasters, and followers) based on their informational behaviors and their positions in an information sharing network. Crisis managers are recommended to pay more attention to publics with higher influence, namely key influentials and broadcasters. In addition, we try to understand social media publics' changing concerns by analyzing whether and how publics share messages of different themes and forms in different stages of a crisis. Crisis managers are recommended to customize crisis communication content to fit publics' needs, prioritize organizational resources, and maximize positive communication effect. With big data from Chipotle's E. coli crisis, we analyzed the Twitter activities surrounding this crisis over a 6-month period. Our segmentation receives initial support from the network analysis and content analysis on the Twitter data, which lays the foundation for effective social media crisis management.


Keywords: Educational Book, Film Children, Semiotic Analysis

The film nowadays has become everyday modern life people in the world. With advances in science and technology today, watch the movie becomes very easy to get. Every day, even every hour, we can watch movies, be it through television, cinemas, VCDs, DVDs, up to the internet that spread everywhere. Even now present Indovision some television stations as the film presents only programs every day. Therefore the movie seems impossible at this time separated from human life, including children.
But making the film as a medium of education for the children of course should be able to customize how messages are conveyed to the education received by the audience feels patronizing and without any education messages that are suitable for segmentation of the children. This has been done by an Iranian director Majid Majidi named. He made the children's story titled film Children Of Heaven a full charge of education messages to children and not oriented to excellence, magic and wonders of his characters.
There are at least three reasons why the researchers chose children film was used as the object of research, namely first, the film Children Of Heaven is a film of children having Islamic topics, which are simple but full delivery of the message and moral education without artificial. Second, Children Of Heaven too nuanced critique of economic, social and political to the government in power in the State of Iran was presented with what it is that by seeing this film we can know the culture and the realities of Iranian society really is. And third, this film is a film director who has many talented Iranian to receive the prestigious award.
In order to simplify the research process, researchers focused on the formulation of the problem is the scene where there are educational messages in the film Children Of Heaven? What is the meaning of education message of the scene-scene in the film? The goals to be achieved from this research are Want to know the scene that includes educational signs in the film Children Of Heaven and know the meaning of educational messages and semiotic approach ..
Researchers using qualitative interpretative type using Roland Barthes's semiotic model. Here interpreted as a sign denotation and connotation without neglecting the myths that exist, to get a picture or understanding of a general nature and relatively comprehensive and covers the problem under study.
With the above technical data analysis, researchers can find educational messages in the film Children Of Heaven such as responsibility and courtesy, filial to parents, obedience to parents, appreciate the work of children, practicing honesty, solidarity and compassion, and willing to sacrifice for brother.
From the above analysis the researchers concluded that children's education is best started from within the family, here is a uswatun hasanah parents (role models) for their children. All of it as stock as children living outside the family community atmosphere. Advice writer practically, can be input for filmmakers to produce quality films. So the movie can be a representation of social reality and culture media for the message or the transformation of cultural values in society.


Development and growth are products of the interplay and interaction among heterogeneous actors operating in specific institutional settings. There is a much alluded-to, but under-investigated, link between economic growth, innovation systems, and institutions. There is widespread agreement among most economists on the positive reinforcing link between innovation and growth. However, the importance of institutions as catalysts in this link has not been adequately examined. The concept of innovation systems has the potential to fill this gap. But these studies have not conducted in-depth institutional analyses or focussed on institutional transformation processes, thereby failing to link growth theory to the substantive institutional tradition in economics. In this paper we draw attention to the main shortcomings of orthodox and heterodox growth theories, some of which have been addressed by the more descriptive literature on innovation systems. Critical overviews of the literatures on growth and innovation systems are used as a foundation to propose a new perspective on the role of institutions and a framework for conducting institutional analysis using a multi-dimensional typology of institutions. The framework is then applied to cases of Taiwan and South Korea to highlight the instrumental role played by institutions in facilitating and curtailing economic development and growth.


Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is the second most important food crop in Kenya after maize, both in terms of production and consumption. However, the crop value chain is known to be imperfect and complex, resulting to low income gained by farmers. To streamline the value chain for the benfit of farmers, the Government of Kenya established a legal notice no. 44 of 2005, which preceeded legal notice no. 113 of 2008 (ware potato packaging size and weight regulations). This study was carried out to monitor the implementation, enforcement and economic impact of this 2008 legal notice using formal questionnaires administered to traders and farmers in selected seven markets and regions, use of focussed group discussion as well as stakeholder participation in a workshop. The study was conducted between December 2009 and February 2010. The findings show that both traders and farmers are aware of the regulations but none are implementing them except very few traders. Farmers had higher (97 %) knowledge of regulations compared with traders (92 %). Farmers were unable to implement the regulations due to cartels (broker/trader), lack of storage facilities as well as lack of information about the potato production costs and the prevailing market prices at any given time. The study shows that the contribution of potatoes to the Kenyan economy is 300 % higher than what is recorded in government reports. Lack of transpansperency in the value chain has reduced the benefit of potato production to farmers. The amount lost to brokers is valued at USD 13.9 million while corruption on the way to the market is estimated at USD 6.5 million. This study outlines several policy recommendations to ensure enforcement of the regulations and streamline the potato value chain in Kenya.


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Background: Socioeconomic status has been associated with increased mortality from ischemic heart disease as well as decreased access to interventions such as coronary angiography, even in countries with universal health care. We undertook a study to determine whether a similar association between socioeconomic status and mortality exists in the setting of stroke. Methods: We linked hospital discharge abstracts and vital-status data for all patients with acute stroke who were admitted to hospitals in Ontario between April 1994 and March 1997. Socioeconomic status for each patient was imputed based on their median neighborhood income as documented in Canada's 1996 census. We determined the risk of death at thirty days and one year based on neighborhood income. Secondary analyses compared use of medications and carotid endarterectomy by income level. We used multivariate analyses to adjust for age, sex, stroke type, comorbid conditions and hospital and physician characteristics. Results: Overall, 39,545 patients were admitted with stroke during the study time frame. The crude 30-day and 1-year mortality rates were 19% and 33%, respectively. Thirty-day mortality was higher in those in the lowest income quintile than in the highest quintile (20% vs. 17%, P=0.002), with an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.1. One-year mortality was also higher in the lowest compared to the highest income quintile (34% vs. 31%, P=0.001), with an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.1. Each $10,000 increase in median neighborhood income was associated with a 9% reduction in the risk of death at 30 days (adjusted hazard ratio 0.91) and a 5% reduction in the risk of death at one year (adjusted hazard ratio 0.95). There were no differences in the use of medications (aspirin, ticlopidine, warfarin) or carotid endarterectomy based on socioeconomic status. However, waiting times for carotid surgery were significantly longer in the lowest income quintile compared to the highest (90 days vs. 60 days, P=0.001). Conclusion: Socioeconomic status affects mortality following stroke, even in a province with universal health care. The exact reasons for this effect on survival remain topics for future research.


The paper researched the screening model in enterprise competitive intelligence activity based on game theory. It studied the service provider's decision in competitive intelligence(CI) project and proved it could be satisfied with Bayesian Nash equilibrium. It also revealed the heterogeneity between the service providers through a signaling game model in which signal set was the combine of CI quality standard term. The result shows that a quality standard about CI should be designed in contract which provides a signal for service provider to self-certify its own true type and is in favor of screening for enterprise.


OBJECTIVE: To determine prevalence of overweight and abdominal fat in adult population in the urban area of Teresina-PI. METHODS: Cross-sectional study with probabilistic sample by conglomerates. The study evaluated 464 adults, 20 to 59 years of age living in the urban area of Teresina-PI. Nutritional status was classified by the body mass index (BMI) and abdominal fat accumulation was estimated according to waist circumference. The significance level was set at 5% (p<0.05). RESULTS: Prevalence of overweight and obesity according to nutritional status based on BMI was, respectively, 30.0% and 7.7%. There was an increase in the proportion of overweight and obesity among men with progressively higher family income. Highest rates of obesity were found among individuals 50 to 59 years of age with stable marriages and nonsmokers. No association was found between individual or family income and presence of abdominal fat in the population. CONCLUSION: Prevalence of overweight in the study population follows the Brazilian trend. Proportions of overweight and obesity were higher among men and increased with age. Women and married persons showed a greater tendency for abdominal obesity.


Climate change has direct influence on environment and human existence. Climate change has been a monster posing threat to the hydrological cycle, hence the flow discharge of rivers. Therefore, it is necessary to study its effects on the flow of rivers thereby producing measures to alleviating its effects. In this study, the effects of land cover and weather conditions between 1967 and 2017 on the flow discharge of River Ona were investigated by making use of the climatic data (rainfall and temperature). The statistical variations in temperature and rainfall data were assessed using Statistical Program for Social Science (SPSS) in order to depict the linear variation, regression and correlation of the prevailing climate of the area The results showed that year 1998 and 1999 have the lowest and highest rainfall values respectively. The land-use maps show there is gradual increment in area of lands that are built-up but gradual reduction in the vegetal area. The runoff of River Ona would increase because of wetter climate caused by high rainfall in 1999. In addition, over the years, runoff severity tends to increase because of land development, giving rise to the replacement of vegetal areas by built up areas, which have low retention capacity in the area. The findings from this study can be used to predict the discharge of river given other weather and environmental factors.


This paper examines the effects of migration and entry into garment work on marriage for young women in Bangladesh. The data comes from a study of female garment workers and their non-working peers conducted in 1996-97 in Bangladesh. In a country where women traditionally do not work in formal employment and enter arranged marriages soon after puberty the rapidly expanding garment industry offers scope for social change. The industry employs mainly young women migrating from rural areas. Previous research in Bangladesh and other countries suggests that female migrants maintain financial ties with their families in rural areas for reasons of economic and emotional security. This paper shows that many workers contribute financially to their natal families in order to maintain social networks and maximize security in marriage. Concerns regarding security lead workers to express traditional aspirations for marriage. Concerns regarding security lead workers to express traditional aspirations for marriage. However weak social networks and changes in living arrangements and household structure associated with migration often dictate that migrants adopt non-traditional and less secure marriage arrangements. (authors)


We retrospectively reviewed the clinical characteristics of twenty patients with IgA and/or IgG subclass deficiency attending a tertiary centre. The median age at diagnosis was 1.21 years and the median duration of follow up was 3.83 years. The most common presenting symptom was recurrent sinopulmonary infections (45%). This was followed by refractory asthma (30%), autoimmunity (15%), and other atopic manifestations (10%). Only one out of twenty patients presented with chronic gastrointestinal disease, which contrasted with the majority of previous literature. Three patients had significant pulmonary complications including bronchiolitis obliterans, bronchiectasis and pulmonary fibrosis. The prevalence of IgA deficiency in Hong Kong Chinese population is yet to be established, though it appears not as prevalent as that in western population.


Brain damage by the impact force was evaluated by the numerical analysis with a three dimensional Finite Element (FE) model. The FE model was constructed from the MRI data of a subject, and visco-elastic behavior for constitutive equation was applied to the brain tissue. From the FE simulation, brain damage and deformation of the frontal head impacted by a steel impactor were analyzed. The variations of head acceleration and Intra-Cranial Pressure (ICP) during the impact were analyzed in order to evaluate Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). In addition, relative displacement between the skull and the brain due to head impact was investigated. And, pathological severity was evaluated according to Head Injury Criterion (HIC) from the FE simulation. The analytic results of brain damage showed a good agreement with those of the cadaver test performed by Nahum et al. (1977) and other medical reports. And then, the variation of the HIC value was evaluated according to various impact conditions. This study would provide useful data and methodology in the field of biomechanics for analyzing the brain damage by head impact.


OBJECTIVE: The behavior of the renal cells carcinoma stage PT1 is not completely clarified. We studied the presence of factors after prognostics and tumoral size in the recurrence of survival of the sporadic kidney carcinoma after surgical treatment. METHODS: 120 patients followed after nephrectomy had been revised retrospectively 93 PT1, 9 PT2, 11 PT3, 7 PT4, It was analyzed survival and recurrence of the disease inside of three groups of tumors: Group 1: 7cm, and the prognostics factors above-mentioned evaluated were nuclear degree, microvascular invasion, presence of committed ganglia and sarcomatous degeneration. RESULTS: The frequency of adverse prognostics factors increase as the tumor size increase. In the group 1, we had only four tumors of high degree and only one shown microvascular invasion that does not committed ganglia or sarcomatous degeneration. In group 2 there was 16 tumors of high degree, 4 sarcomatoses, two with positive microvascular invasion and two with positive ganglia. In group 3, was found 18 tumors of high degree, 15 with microvascular invasion and 7 with positive ganglia and 5 sarcomatoses. There was statistical significance in the specific cancer survival (p=0.002) and free of illness (p=0.0002) between the three groups. CONCLUSION: The evolution of tumors PT1 is distinct for lesser tumors of 4 cm and 4-7 cm fitting the subdivision of these two groups in T1a and T1b.


Abstract Anxiety disorders in young children are highly prevalent and increase the risk of social, school, and familial problems, and also of psychiatric disorders in adolescence and adulthood. Nevertheless, effective interventions for this age group are lacking. One of the few available interventions is the Fun FRIENDS program. We examined whether young children with anxiety disorders showed less anxiety after participating in Fun FRIENDS. Twenty-eight clinically anxious children (4–8 years old) participated in the cognitive behavioural Fun FRIENDS program. The program consists of 12 weekly 1.5-hour sessions and was provided in groups of 3 to 5 children. At preintervention and direct postintervention, parents completed the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children and Child Behavior Checklist. Clinically and statistically significant decreases were found in number of anxiety disorders, symptom interference, emotional and behavioural problems, internalising problems, and anxiety problems. The decrease in anxious/depressed problems and externalising problems was not significant. Furthermore, higher preintervention anxiety levels predicted more treatment progress, whereas sex and age did not. The Dutch version of Fun FRIENDS is promising in treating anxiety disorders in young children. Randomised controlled trials are needed to draw definite conclusions on the effectiveness of Fun FRIENDS in a clinical setting.


The formation of defects and imperfections in the soldering process can have many causes, which primarily include a poorly setup technological process, inappropriate or inappropriately used materials and their combinations, the effect of the surroundings and design errors. This chapter lists some examples of errors that can occur in soldering, while review is devoted to selected defects: non-wettability of the solder pads, dewetting, wrong solder mask design, warpage, head-in-pillow, cracks in the joints, pad cratering, black pad, solder beading, tombstoning, dendrites, voids, flux spattering from the solder paste, popcorning and whiskers.


When pure iron is exposed to diatomic nitrogen, the equilibrium concentration of nitrogen in iron can be determined from Sieverts' Law. However, during many fusion welding processes, a plasma, consisting of various excited species, atoms, ions, and electrons, is present near the weld pool and affects the dissolution process. Sieverts' Law, therefore, cannot be applied to understand the dissolution of nitrogen during welding of steels. The work reported here is aimed at understanding the basic laws governing the partition of nitrogen between the weld metal and its plasma environment. To avoid temperature gradients on the weld pool surface and spatially variable properties of the plasma in the gas phase, small high-purity iron samples, maintained at a constant temperature, were exposed to a number of low-pressure nitrogen plasmas and analyzed for the resulting nitrogen contents. Throughout the range of experimental conditions, the concentration of nitrogen in each iron sample was significantly higher than the Sieverts' Law predictions. Nitrogen-containing plasmas were characterized using optical emission spectroscopy to examine the species present and determine electron temperature. Thermodynamic calculations show that a trace amount of monatomic nitrogen in the plasma causes a many-fold increase in the nitrogen solubility above that predicted by Sieverts' Law. The experimental results are explained on the basis of a model involving the dissociation of diatomic nitrogen in the plasma and subsequent dissolution of atomic nitrogen in iron. The applicability of the results of the physical modeling experiments to GTA welding of iron is demonstrated.


We study the cosmological dynamics of D-BIonic and DBI scalar field, which is coupled to matter fluid. For the exponential potential and the exponential couplings, we find a new analytic scaling solution yielding the accelerated expansion of the Universe. Since it is shown to be an attractor for some range of the coupling parameters, the density parameter of matter fluid can be the observed value, as in the coupled quintessence with a canonical scalar field. Contrary to the usual coupled quintessence, where the value of matter couple giving observed density parameter is too large to satisfy observational constraint from CMB, we show that the D-BIonic theory can give similar solution with much smaller value of matter coupling. As a result, together with the fact that the D-BIonic theory has a screening mechanism, the D-BIonic theory can solve the so-called coincidence problem as well as the dark energy problem.


Mast cell activators are a novel class of mucosal vaccine adjuvants. The polymeric compound, Compound 48/80 (C48/80), and cationic peptide, Mastoparan 7 (M7) are mast cell activators that provide adjuvant activity when administered by the nasal route. However, small molecule mast cell activators may be a more cost-efficient adjuvant alternative that is easily synthesized with high purity compared to M7 or C48/80. To identify novel mast cell activating compounds that could be evaluated for mucosal vaccine adjuvant activity, we employed high-throughput screening to assess over 55,000 small molecules for mast cell degranulation activity. Fifteen mast cell activating compounds were down-selected to five compounds based on in vitro immune activation activities including cytokine production and cellular cytotoxicity, synthesis feasibility, and selection for functional diversity. These small molecule mast cell activators were evaluated for in vivo adjuvant activity and induction of protective immunity against West Nile Virus infection in BALB/c mice when combined with West Nile Virus envelope domain III (EDIII) protein in a nasal vaccine. We found that three of the five mast cell activators, ST101036, ST048871, and R529877, evoked high levels of EDIII-specific antibody and conferred comparable levels of protection against WNV challenge. The level of protection provided by these small molecule mast cell activators was comparable to the protection evoked by M7 (67%) but markedly higher than the levels seen with mice immunized with EDIII alone (no adjuvant 33%). Thus, novel small molecule mast cell activators identified by high throughput screening are as efficacious as previously described mast cell activators when used as nasal vaccine adjuvants and represent next-generation mast cell activators for evaluation in mucosal vaccine studies.


The low-voltage (LV) distribution network has been largely excluded from detailed analytical consideration and as a consequence it is now the least understood and most unpredictable element of the electricity grid. Many advanced network control and optimisation methods require feeder parameters to be known in advance, and thus accurate low-voltage power network models are an important prerequisite. Smart meters, being the only reliable source of information in such networks, improve the affordability of low voltage automation infrastructure and allow for accurate measurements at almost every node. We propose a fully smart meter data driven method for line impedance calculations by iteratively solving a non-convex problem for each line. The performance of our algorithms is demonstrated for different measurement accuracy scenarios through simulations.


The grasslands on the semi-arid Loess Plateau of China are expected to be particularly responsive to the size and frequency changes of extreme precipitation events because their ecological processes are largely driven by distinct soil moisture pulses. However, the plant growth and competitiveness of co-dominant species in response to the changes in the amount and timing of soil water are still unclear. Thus, two co-dominant species, Bothriochloa ischaemum and Lespedeza davurica, were grown in seven mixture ratios under three watering regimes [80 ± 5% pot soil capacity (FC) (high watering), 60 ± 5% FC (moderate watering), and 40 ± 5% FC (low watering)] in a pot experiment. The soil water contents were rapidly improved from low to moderate water and from moderate to high water, respectively, at the heading, flowering, and maturity stages of B. ischaemum, and were maintained until the end of the growing season of each species. The biomass production of both species increased significantly with the increased soil water contents, particularly at the heading and flowering periods, with a more pronounced increase in B. ischaemum in the mixtures. The root/shoot ratio of both species was decreased when the soil water availability increased at the heading or flowering periods. The total biomass production, water use efficiency (WUE), and relative yield total (RYT) increased gradually with the increase of B. ischaemum in the mixtures. The relative competition intensity was below zero in B. ischaemum, and above zero in L. davurica. The competitive balance index calculated for B. ischaemum was increased with the increase of the soil water contents. Bothriochloa ischaemum responded more positively to the periodical increase in soil water availability than L. davurica, indicating that the abundance of B. ischaemum could increase in relatively wet seasons or plenty-rainfall periods. In addition, the mixture ratio of 10:2 (B. ischaemum to L. davurica) was the most compatible combination for the improved biomass production, WUE, and RYTs across all soil water treatments.


The demand of lithium-ion battery (LIB) has been increased for high power application in transportation system. Thus, the current use of graphite as anode material needs to be replaced, due to formation of unwanted solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer consuming intercalated Li+ that reduces the LIB performance and may cause ignition of the battery in high load usage. One of the candidates for anode material to replace graphite is lithium titanate (LTO), since the LTO does not form SEI and exhibits high-power with outstanding safety properties. This LTO compound was synthesized by mixing the TiO2 xerogel of anatase phase and lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) as a source of lithium-ion followed by sintering at temperatures of 750°C to obtain the LTO with spinel crystalline phase. However, the LTO has the low theoretical capacity, i.e: 175 mAh/g, with real specific capacity obtained is at 114 mAh/g. To increase the LTO specific capacity, the addition of 10, 20 and 30 wt.% silicon microparticle which has theoretical capacity of 4200 mAh/g was conducted during preparation of the slurry anode mixture to minimize the formation of SiO2. Anode sheet was made with Si/LTO and assembled into half-cell coin battery with lithium metal sheet as the counter electrode. Electro-impedance spectroscopy (EIS), Cyclic voltammetry (CV), and charge discharge (CD) testing were conducted to examine the battery performance. From EIS testing, the lowest impedance was obtained for the sample of 20 wt.% Si, while the highest impedance value obtained in 30 wt.% Si. The CV testing shows that the highest capacity at 141.1 mAh/g is achieved at the composition of 10 wt.% Si. Finally, from the CD testing, this Si/LTO anode could withstand the charge-discharge until 12 C and shows good stability until 100 cycles. From EIS and CV testing known that the optimum composition having the best performance is ranging from 10 wt.% to 20 wt.% Si. It is predicted that at higher composition, the pulverization of Si particle is occurred declining the performance of Si/LTO anode.


During the past decade, Taiwan, a reliable source of quality 12-inch wafer manufacturing, grew to become the largest supplier of TFT-LCD panels in the world. The financial crisis in 2008 and increasing competition from other Asian manufacturers shortly after, led to the current scenario, which is characterized by global oversupply, demand fluctuations, and price volatility. As a result, in 2012 several firms attempted to form alliance strategies in support of Taiwan's TFT-LCD industry. This paper proposes the Grand Alliance in Taiwan's TFT-LCD and describes three methods to analyze the current strengths, limitations, and future potential of the Grand Alliance: an Industry Value Chain (Porter 1985), a Dynamic Five Forces framework (Porter 1980), and a Business Ecosystem (Moore 1993). The results suggest that developing a business ecosystem lifecycle could obtain an appropriate technology roadmap for Taiwan's TFT-LCD industry. The study provides useful observations and directions for management and business coalitions involved in drafting and executing globally competitive strategies.


Social and mobile technologies offer users unprecedented opportunities for communicating, interacting, sharing, meaning-making, content and context generation. And, these affordances are in constant flux driven by a powerful interplay between technological innovation and emerging cultural practices. Significantly, also, they are starting to transcend the everyday lifeworlds of users and permeate the workplace and its practices. However, given the emergent nature of this area, the literature on the use of social and mobile technologies in workplace practices is still small. Indeed, social media are increasingly being accessed via mobile devices. Our main focus, therefore, here is on the question of what, if any, potential there is for the use of social media in informal, professional, work-based learning. The paper provides a critical overview of key issues from the literature on work-based learning, face-to-face and technology-supported, as well as social (mobile) networking services, with particular attention being paid to people tagging. It then introduces an initial typology of informal workplace learning in order to provide a frame for understanding social (mobile) network(ing) services in work-based learning. Finally, a JOUR study (taken from the literature) of People Tagging tool use in digital social networks in the European Commission-funded MATURE project is used to illustrate aspects of our typology. Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic The importance of social networks and associated technologies in everyday life and commerce., Some conceptualisations of learning through and at work exist, but they tend to be based on the empirical study of professionals and graduate employees., The concept of tagging in relation to digital resources is well established., What this paper adds A consideration of the use of social networks in learning in informal and work-based context., An exploration of some of the affordances of social media for work-located learning., A widening of the concept of tagging to the classification of knowledge embodied in users and their social networks., A typology of factors in social network(ing) services and work-based learning., An analysis of a JOUR study of people tagging in relation to the typology of factors., Implications for practice A conceptualisation of aspects of technology-enhanced and enabled learning through and at work., An understanding of the potential of social media for work-located learning., A realisation of some of the potential of the use of social media in informal, professional work-based learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]


The 12th century minaret of Djam is one of Afghanistan's most celebrated treasures, a magnificent symbol of the powerful Ghorid Empire that once stretched from Iran to India. The second tallest brick minaret in the world, Djam lies in the heart of central Afghanistan's wild Ghor Province. Surrounded by 2,000 metre-high mountains and by the remains of what many believe to have been the lost city of Turquoise Mountain - one of the greatest cities of the Middle Ages - Djam is, even today, one of the most inaccessible and remote places in Afghanistan. When Freya Stark travelled there, few people in the world had ever laid eyes on it or managed to reach the desolate valley in which it lies. Her journey from Kabul to Kandahar and Herat was difficult and often dangerous but her account shines with humour and is adorned with beautiful descriptions of the land she journeyed through and the people she encountered. A celebrated portrait of Afghanistan and its history, "The Minaret of Djam" is a poignant reminder that this was once far more than just a country ravaged by war and the political games of the world's superpowers.


TiC−Fe system cermets and TiC−SUS310L (TiC−SS) system cermets with fully relative density have been produced from elemental powders via self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) reaction combined with pseudo-hot isostatic pressing. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis showed that the SHS products consist of TiC and the binder phase of Fe or SS. Metallographic analysis revealed TiC particles of several micrometer size were homogeneously dispersed in the binder phase. Regardless of differences in the binders, both cermets have similar tendencies: their relative densities increased and their hardness and compressive strengths decreased with increases in the volume fraction of either Fe or SS. In addition, the cermets used stainless steel as the binder had twice superior corrosion resistance to those used iron and also their hardness and compressive strength showed excellent values.


The ability to coherently rearrange structures at the atomic scale is among the grand challenges of physical science. Some of the primary obstacles are non-adiabatic increases in energy, such as intramolecular vibrational relaxation (IVR) and electronic excitations. Motivated by recent advances in strong terahertz (THz) pulse generation, we investigate the potential of THz to circumvent these obstacles. Employing TDDFT-Ehrenfest simulations, we discover that strong THz pulses can drive isomerization of the LiNC molecule over barriers greater than 0.2 eV with very low ionization rates and, in the best case, less than 3 meV of residual excess energy. This work points to new potential to predictively manipulate chemical bonds in molecules and materials.


The study aimed to identify the Methods of the external auditors for detecting financial fraud in the financial statement for Jordanian public shareholding companies from the perspective of company's managers, financial managers, external auditor and accountant, working in these companies. To achieve this goal questionnaire was distributed to a random sample of the study population consisting of company's managers, financial managers, external auditor and accountant, working in these companies. The study finds that there is reasonable realization among the external auditors in Jordan about their responsibility for discovering financial corruption and fraud. The study showed that the obstacles affect the external auditor's ability to perform their professional responsibility, and it also find that external auditor's apply and follow the methods and procedures such as International Accounting Standard, Jordanian laws and regulations, to discover fraud and corruption cases.


The graph bandwidth minimization problem is an interesting problem that has become relevant in a wide range of domains. Networks communication, VLSI layout designs, parallel algorithms simulations, matrix decomposition, are some of which areas where the reduction of the bandwidth is very significant. The problem consists of embedding a graph G into a line with the aim of minimizing the maximum distance between adjacent vertices. In this paper, we are focused on the 2D bandwidth minimization variant, which considers embedding the graph in a two-dimensional grid instead of in a line. Specifically, we study the problem deeply analyzing its complexity and considering a survey of different approximate algorithms for graphs. The review concludes outlining the conceptual basis of the heuristic technique that we plan to apply to this graph problem.


The open source code software, OpenFOAM, was applied for simulating flow past NACA0015 airfoil. Three economical turbulence models for aerospace applications were selected comprising Spalart-Allmaras model, Wilcox model and Menter SST model, respectively. The non-dimension y+ was used to analyze the near-wall flow. The C-type domain for airfoil simulation was considered for an appropriate dimension to protect the effect of boundary conditions. The zero pressure gradient problem of the pressure-velocity coupling was used an effective algorithm, SIMPLE, for solving. The central differencing, upwind differencing, and linear upwind differencing (LUD) scheme were used to solve the convection-diffusion equation of the flow past airfoil. The simulation results included lift coefficient (CL) and drag coefficient (CD) were obtained from this computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. The turbulence models had been validated to the physical experiment. The wind tunnel was set up to test the flow past NACA0015 airfoil. The Reynolds number (Re) at 160,000 and 360,000 were controlled in order that the NACA0015 airfoil with the large range angle of attack from 0 to 20 degrees was immersed in the low wind speeds and turbulent flow. The suitable turbulence model was the Menter SST model which employed SIMPLE algorithm and LUD scheme for solving. These CFD results lower the stall angle of attack had the average errors of CL and CD with were less than 13.15% and 22.36%, respectively.


Abstract We examine the degradation of the natural capital and ecosystem services of an important tropical lake, Kenya's Lake Naivasha, in the context of human activities and exploitation since the mid-20th century. These factors have culminated in the recent emergence of innovative governance arrangements with potential contributions to the future sustainability of the lake ecosystem. Lake Naivasha maintains high ecological interest and biodiversity value despite its food web being controlled, at three trophic levels, by alien species for the past 40 years. The lake now has very high economic value, being the centre of Kenya's floricultural industry, itself the top foreign exchange earner for the country. It became internationally-renowned in 1999 as one of the first wetland sites worldwide to be nominated by the government for Ramsar status as a result of local action, guided by the Lake Naivasha Riparian Association (LNRA). This led, in 2004, to gazettement by the Kenyan Government for the management of the lake by a Committee under LNRA guidance. By 2010, however, progress towards sustainable management was limited, not least because the lake water had continued to be over-exploited for irrigation, geothermal power exploration and domestic supplies outside the catchment. A prolonged drought in Kenya in 2009–10, in conjunction with this ongoing over-exploitation, caused the lake level to recede to the lowest since the late 1940s and brought the ecological degradation to global attention. Arguably, this new prominence catalysed the political interventions which now offer new hope of progress towards a sustainable lake basin. We examine the ecological changes over the past 40 years and the reasons why new management regimes instituted over the past 10 years have to date been unable to halt ecological degradation of the lake and its environs. We outline a future trajectory that links new governance initiatives with a wider network of stakeholders which, together with external interventions that have been initiated in 2011, may well help to restore the ecosystem's health.


Abstract The Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) is a vertical pressure tube–type, heavy water–moderated, and boiling light water–cooled natural-circulation–based reactor. The fuel bundle of AHWR contains 54 fuel rods arranged in three concentric rings of 12, 18, and 24 fuel rods. This fuel bundle is divided into a number of imaginary interacting flow passages called subchannels. Transition from a single-phase to a two-phase flow condition occurs in the reactor rod bundle with an increase in power. Predicting the thermal margin of the reactor has necessitated determining the diversion cross flow of coolant among these subchannels under two-phase flow. Thus, it is vital to evaluate cross flow between subchannels of the AHWR rod bundle. In this paper, experiments were carried out to investigate the diversion cross-flow phenomena for single- and two-phase flow in the simulated subchannels of the reactor. The size of the rod and the pitch in the test were the same as that of the actual rod bundle in the prototype. The cross-flow tests were carried out at atmospheric condition without adding heat. In addition, the capability of the existing correlation is also checked to predict the cross-flow resistance coefficient, and it is found that none of these models accurately predict the measured cross-flow resistance coefficient for the AHWR rod bundle. In view of this, a new model applicable to AHWR has been presented that predicts the cross-flow resistance coefficient quite accurately.


Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a fatal and incurable muscle degenerative disorder. We identify a function of the protease urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) in mdx mice, a mouse model of DMD. The expression of uPA is induced in mdx dystrophic muscle, and the genetic loss of uPA in mdx mice exacerbated muscle dystrophy and reduced muscular function. Bone marrow (BM) transplantation experiments revealed a critical function for BM-derived uPA in mdx muscle repair via three mechanisms: (1) by promoting the infiltration of BM-derived inflammatory cells; (2) by preventing the excessive deposition of fibrin; and (3) by promoting myoblast migration. Interestingly, genetic loss of the uPA receptor in mdx mice did not exacerbate muscular dystrophy in mdx mice, suggesting that uPA exerts its effects independently of its receptor. These findings underscore the importance of uPA in muscular dystrophy.


Nowadays practical solutions of engineering problems involve model-integrated computing. Due to their flexibility, robustness, and easy interpretability, the application of fuzzy models, may have an exceptional role. Despite of their advantages, the usage is still limited by their exponentially increasing computational complexity. Although, combining fuzzy and anytime techniques it becomes possible to cope with the available, usually imperfect or even missing information, the dynamically changing, possibly insufficient amount of resources and reaction time. In this paper, possibilities offered by (Higher Order) Singular Value Decomposition ((HO)SVD) based anytime fuzzy models are analyzed. A modeling methodology is suggested, which offers a way for both complexity reduction and improvement of the accuracy without complexity explosion thus coping with the temporarily available amount of information and (finite) time/resources and finding the balance between accuracy and complexity.


Although bank small business loan portfolios continue to shrink, there are hints of possible stabilization. Among smaller banks, small business lending that is not backed by commercial real estate looks slightly healthier than small business lending that is secured by commercial property. Meanwhile, small commercial and industrial loans at larger banks are showing clear signs of a turnaround. Evidence from the 2001 recession as well as loan performance data suggest that small commercial and industrial loans at smaller banks may not be far behind.


Multiple Myeloma is a blood cancer type B characterized by clonal proliferation of malignant plasma cells, the median age at diagnosis is 70 years, cases among younger patients are rare, and less than 0, 3 % patients are younger than 30 years in most series.
We report a case of a 25-year- old women; she was suffering of a sacred pain radiating towards the left lower limb and fatigue for three months, a magnetic resonance imaging for dorso-lumbar spine showed an expansive process and multiple osteolytic lesions in 2nd, 3rd and 4th sacred vertebras. She underwent a laparotomy that revealed a heavy mass invading the sacrum and the rectum. The histological examination with immunocytochemistry analysis revealed a plasmocytoma and the diagnosis of symptomatic multiple myeloma stage III was established then she received 2 courses of chemotherapy.
Despite the rarity of multiple myeloma among young patients, this diagnosis should be evoked when clinical, biological and radiological signs are in favor. It appears that there is no difference between younger and elderly patients on the presentation of the disease, although a longer survival has been reported among young patients.


: A method for creation of an experimental model of the operative wound suppuration is presented. The expediency to use the antiseptic preparations for prevention of suppuration of the deliberately infected operative wound has been proved. The best results were noted in using the antiseptics effective towards the given microflora. This confirms the necessity of individual choice of an antiseptic preparation.


Due to the explosion in the size of the training datasets, distributed learning has received growing interest in recent years. One of the major bottlenecks is the large communication cost between the central server and the local workers. While error feedback compression has been proven to be successful in reducing communication costs with stochastic gradient descent (SGD), there are much fewer attempts in building communication-efficient adaptive gradient methods with provable guarantees, which are widely used in training large-scale machine learning models. In this paper, we propose a new communication-compressed AMSGrad for distributed nonconvex optimization problem, which is provably efficient. Our proposed distributed learning framework features an effective gradient compression strategy and a worker-side model update design. We prove that the proposed communication-efficient distributed adaptive gradient method converges to the first-order stationary point with the same iteration complexity as uncompressed vanilla AMSGrad in the stochastic nonconvex optimization setting. Experiments on various benchmarks back up our theory.


Objective: This study sought to understand the patients' perspective of what contributes to an absence of discussions of sexual orientation (SO), gender identity (GI), and sexual health in cancer care. Methods: Patients were recruited from oncology, gynecology, and a gender transition clinic to participate in semistructured interviews, which were analyzed with qualitative methods. Results: A total of 25 patients were interviewed, shedding light on 2 themes. The first was that these conversations are important but infrequent. One patient explained, "…. we know people who have had sex changes…[they] would have appreciated that question." In response to whether sexual health was ever brought up, one patient responded, "No doctor ever has." Patients described unaddressed issues: "There have been times, you know, we've wondered if it was okay to make love." The second theme consisted of 4 pragmatic, patient-provided points to facilitate discussions: (1) implementation of a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being comfortable) to first gauge patients' comfort in talking about SO, GI, and sexual health; (2) having the health-care provider explore the topic again over-time; (3) making sure the health-care provider is comfortable, as such comfort appears to enhance the patient's comfort ("I have a doctor here, a female doctor, who just matter of fact will ask if I get erections and so on because of the medication she's giving me);" and (4) eliminating euphemisms (one patient stated, "I don't know what you mean by 'sexual health'."). Conclusion: Oncology health-care providers have a unique opportunity and responsibility to address SO, GI, and sexual health.


Echocardiography has become an essential clinical tool in cardiology practice because it is routinely used to diagnose a multitude of disease processes. The forces driving the evolution of echocardiography over five decades are worldwide research efforts resulting in exponential advances in ultrasound, electronics and computer technology. The fruit of these efforts is three-dimensional echocardiography (3DE), which was initially based on tedious and time-consuming offline reconstructions from ECG and respiratory-gated acquisition, but since the last decade effortlessly achieved in real time using matrix array transducer technology.1 The article by Hare and colleagues published in the April issue of Heart 2 focused on the impact that information on left ventricular (LV) volumes and ejection fraction (EF) obtained from 3DE images might have on clinical decision-making. The results of this interesting study highlight once again the clinical benefits of this exciting new technology to both individual patients and the healthcare system as a whole.

Gated acquisition using either non-sequential or sequential methods had numerous limitations and its use was mostly restricted to research centres. To overcome these shortcomings, in the early 1990s, real-time volumetric scanners, using a sparse array transducer with parallel processing, provided the first three-dimensional ultrasound images of the heart.3 Despite the relatively low spatial and temporal resolution, this technology allowed fast acquisition of pyramidal datasets, which were displayed as C-scans and two-dimensional orthogonal scan planes in a single breath-hold. This methodology was used to investigate mitral valve disease, LV function and mass and used during stress testing, and provided the basis for further development of smaller transthoracic, fully sampled, matrix array transducers with larger numbers of elements.

With the recent technological advances, these transthoracic matrix transducers were not only capable of two-dimensional and colour Doppler imaging but also provided simultaneous biplane imaging, together with higher spatial and temporal …


A series of rod–coil miktoarm star copolymers consisting of poly[2,7-(9,9-dihexylfluorene)] (PF) and polylactide (PLA) arms as the rod and coil segments, respectively, were synthesized by combining the chain-growth Suzuki–Miyaura coupling polymerization and living ring-opening polymerization (ROP). First, PFs having a hydroxyl group at the α-chain end (PF–BnOH) were prepared by the polymerization of 2-(7-bromo-9,9-dihexyl-9H-fluorene-2-yl)4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-1,2,3-dioxaborolane using the initiating system of 4-(tetrahydropyran-2′-yloxymethyl)-iodobenzene/Pd2(dba)3/t-Bu3P. After a couple of chain end modifications, PFs having one, two, and three hydroxyl groups at the α-chain end (PF–OH, PF–(OH)2, and PF–(OH)3, respectively) were obtained with dispersity (Đ) values of less than 1.29. The obtained PF–OH, PF–(OH)2, and PF–(OH)3 were used as the initiators for the organic base-catalyzed ROP of rac-lactide to produce the AB type linear diblock (PF-b-PLA) and AB2 and AB3 type miktoarm star copolymers (PF-b-(PLA)2 and PF-b-(PLA)3, respectively). The self-assembled nanostructures in the thermally-annealed PF-b-(PLA)xs (x = 1, 2, and 3) were evaluated in the bulk by synchrotron small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The PF-b-PLA, PF-b-(PLA)2, and PF-b-(PLA)3 with the PF weight fractions of 0.52–0.56 were found to form poorly ordered PLA cylindrical structures in the PF matrix due to a strong rod–rod interaction of the PF segment. On the other hand, these BCPs with the PF weight fractions of 0.22–0.23 exhibited the hexagonally close-packed cylinder (Hex) morphologies, in which the cylindrical PF phase was embedded in the PLA matrix. More interestingly, the domain-spacing (d) values for the Hex morphologies decreased with the increasing PLA arm number despite each BCP having a comparable molecular weight and PF weight fraction: d = 26.4 nm for PF-b-PLA, d = 21.7 nm for PF-b-(PLA)2, and d = 18.6 nm for PF-b-(PLA)3.


This paper builds on earlier studies of central bank independence (CBI);, making a comparison of the rankings of central banks for 15 countries through three different indices. The analysis reveals that there is no shared concept of CBI and that the indices are a measure of the inflation bias. The Brazilian case is used as an example, with the objective of examining the impact on inflation of an increase in independence over time, as measured by Cukierman's index. The findings indicate that CBI is a consequence of the conduct of monetary policy and that it is not an adequate framework for developing credibility.


The widespread acceptance of differential privacy has led to the publication of many sophisticated algorithms for protecting privacy. However, due to the subtle nature of this privacy definition, many such algorithms have bugs that make them violate their claimed privacy. In this paper, we consider the problem of producing counterexamples for such incorrect algorithms. The counterexamples are designed to be short and human-understandable so that the counterexample generator can be used in the development process – a developer could quickly explore variations of an algorithm and investigate where they break down. Our approach is statistical in nature. It runs a candidate algorithmmany times and uses statistical tests to try to detect violations of differential privacy. An evaluation on a variety of incorrect published algorithms validates the usefulness of our approach: it correctly rejects incorrect algorithms and provides counterexamples for them within a few seconds.


In everyday conversations, we frequently give an example. Yet this is seldom accompanied by any reflection on what is going on when we do so. This report tries to contribute such a reflection. It shows how examples may be marked and used in a particular discourse: oral discourse on others. The empirical material is a transcribed focus group interview with a group of Swedish students, engaged in discussing a recent trip to Warsaw. Examples may be looked upon as relatively specific. They are sometimes marked in explicit ways (for example, for instance), sometimes in implicit ways (like this ...; look at ..., take ...). Their functions are numerous. They may specify or objectify an argument, as well as mobilise associations, display attitudes, or indicate types of persons or items. Some examples are virtual; they exemplify what could happen, or what never happened. Typically, examples confirm, challenge or in other ways elaborate an argument. In this context, the speakers' national identities are under debate, but also - because of the delicacy of the discourse - their moral identities. As arguments aimed at saving ones face or shifting anothers perspective, examples are crucial. In our data, this is noticeable in speakers requests for examples as well as protests against them; others' examples can easily be considered as misleading, badly chosen or too few. (Less)


Nonlinear methods of fractal analysis and recurrence quantification analysis are becoming more commonplace in the cognitive and behavioral sciences. These methods are illustrated here in a tutorial style using self-paced reading data. Self-paced reading was performed in which each spacebar press revealed a story word-by-word or else sentence-by-sentence. Participant readers were either Ph.D. candidates in English literature or undergraduates from an introductory psychology course and the same story was read by all, either one time only or reread another time on another occasion. The nonlinear analyses revealed crucial differences between the word unit and sentence unit conditions. Performance in the word unit condition was dominated by a task specific strategy, yielding data patterns more like those observed in tapping tasks. Nonlinear analyses of the sentence unit condition, however, discriminated between graduate and undergraduate readers, and first readings of the story from re-reading. From these analyses, the repeated reading of the same story reveals a kind of uber-fluency, in a manner of speaking, of the Ph.D. candidates in English literature, whose performance stayed at or closer to a performance ceiling in both readings.


The reviews deals with the award winning film A Fantastic Woman (dir. Sebastian Lelio, 2017) in which the transgender woman Marina, the main character of this film, finds the ultimate sublimation of her lost love and her suffering in her music. I consider the notion of speech and a psychoanalytical session being a kind of 'translation' of one's desire. In this film Marian' sublimation can also be interpreted as Grace, a state of mind which transcends the every day suffering.  This review combines in one space different ideas about the sublime and ask some questions about its connections to the body.


Results of an experimental study of the influence of strain rate, temperature, and humidity on the mechanical behavior of a graphite/epoxy fiber composite are presented. Three principal strengths (longitudinal, transverse, and shear) and four basic moduli (longitudinal, transverse, axial shear, and major Poisson's ratio) of a unidirectional graphite/epoxy (T300/5208) composite were studied as functions of strain rate, temperature, and humidity. Each test was performed at a constant tensile strain rate in an environmental chamber providing simultaneous temperature and humidity control. Before being tested, specimens were given a moisture preconditioning treatment at 60°C. Values for the matrix-dominated moduli and strength were significantly influenced by both environmental and rate parameters, whereas the fiber-dominated moduli were not. However, the longitudinal strength was significantly influenced by temperature and moisture content. A qualitative explanation for these observations is presented.


To understand the interaction between wave-breaking induced turbulent coherent structures and suspended sediment transport, we report a Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) study of wave breaking processes over a near-prototype scale barred beach. The numerical model is implemented using the open-source CFD toolbox, OpenFOAM®, in which the incompressible three-dimensional filtered Navier-Stokes equations for the water and air phases are solved with a finite volume scheme. A Volume of Fluid (VOF) method is used to capture the evolution of the water-air interface. The numerical model is validated with measured free surface elevation, turbulence averaged flow velocity, turbulent intensity, and for the first time, the intermittency of breaking wave turbulence. Simulation results confirm that as the obliquely descending eddies (ODEs) approach the bottom, significant bottom shear stress is generated. Remarkably, the collapse of ODEs onto the bed can also cause drastic spatial and temporal changes of dynamic pressure on the bottom. By allowing sediment to be suspended from the bar crest, intermittently high sediment suspension events and their correlation with high turbulence and/or high bottom shear stress events are investigated. The simulated intermittency of sediment suspension is similar to previous field and large wave flume observations. Coherent suspension events account for only 10% of the record but account for about 50% of the sediment load. Model results suggest that about 60∼70% of coherent bottom stress events are associated with surface-generated turbulence. Nearly all the coherent sand suspension events are associated with coherent turbulence events due to wave-breaking turbulence approaching the bed. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


Using a nationally representative panel dataset, this study investigates the extent and impact of systematic misconceptions of the currently unemployed concerning their statistical reemployment probability, affecting their labor market behavior in a sub-optimal way. Specifically, people with unemployment experience of 3 to 5 years significantly underestimate their objective re-employment probabilities as determined by the econometrician's all-seeing 'Eye of Providence'. Simply having information concerning the individuals' previous unemployment experience is sufficient to make more accurate predictions than the individuals themselves. People who underestimate their re-employment probability are less likely to search actively for a job and indeed more likely to exit the labor force. If re-employed, they are more likely to accept lower wages, work fewer hours, work part-time and experience lower levels of job satisfaction. This information can be used by employment agency case workers to counsel clients better and prevent client adverse behavior and outcomes.


In multi-criteria sorting methods, it is often difficult for decision makers to precisely define their preferences. It is even harder to express them into parameters values. The idea of this work is to automatically find the parameters of a sorting model using classification examples in the contexts of traditional sorting and interval sorting. Interval sorting, i.e., the possible assignment of alternatives into several successive categories, is defined in this paper. The sorting method we are working with is FlowSort, which is based on the PROMETHEE methodology. Starting with an evaluation table and known allocations, we propose a heuristic based on a genetic algorithm (GA) to identify the weights, indifference and preference thresholds but also profiles characterising the categories. We illustrate both the performances of the algorithm and the quality of the solutions on three standard datasets in both cases.


A response surface methodology with 2k full factorial design was applied to obtain optimum conditions for bioethanol production using coffee mucilage (CM) as the substrate and Saccharomyces cerevisiae NRRL Y-2034 as the inoculum. CM is an agro-industrial residue mainly composed of simple sugars; the product yield and productivity process were analyzed with respect to the fermentation, pH, temperature, and the initial sugar concentration. Employing the following predicted optimum operational conditions attained the highest bioethanol production: pH 5.1, temperature 32 °C, and initial sugar concentration 61.8 g/L. The estimated bioethanol production was 15.02 g/L, and the experimental production was 16.29 g/L ± 0.39 g/L, with a bioethanol yield of 0.27 g/L and a productivity process of 0.34 g/Lh. Glycerol was the predominant byproduct of the fermentative metabolism of S. cerevisiae. The response surface methodology was successfully employed to optimize CM fermentation. In the fermentative processes with yeast, optimizing the conditions of the culture medium is needed to fully exploit the potential of the strains and maximize the production of bioethanol.


BACKGROUND: Paediatric cervical fusion surgery is challenging. Traditional techniques such as external stabilisation, onlay fusions and wiring techniques resulted in unsatisfactory outcomes due to inferior biomechanical stability.
METHODS: A retrospective review was performed of paediatric patients who underwent instrumented cervical fusion surgery under 16 years of age. Fusion rates, blood loss, levels fused, theatre time, technique and complications were assessed.
RESULTS: An average of 2.5 levels was fused, with an estimated blood loss of 428 ml and surgical duration of 159 min. Anterior procedures had an average of one level fused with blood loss of 117 ml and surgical duration of 98 min. Posterior procedures had an average number of 1.9 levels fused, blood loss of 306 ml and surgical time of 131 min. Combined procedures had an average of 5.5 levels fused, blood loss 810 ml and surgical duration of 241 min. Four surgery-related complications were encountered. These consisted of dural leaks and wound sepsis which were all treated effectively. All patients achieved radiological fusion.
CONCLUSION: The use of modern segmental spinal instrumentation in the paediatric cervical spine is a viable option. Although the study sample was small we are able to demonstrate that no major surgical complications were encountered due to the use of adult cervical spinal instrumentation techniques in the paediatric group.


The post-Lehman phase of the financial crisis has exposed a number of weaknesses in the banking sectors of the European Union's New Member States (NMSs). One of these is the prevalence of lending in foreign currency. While banks themselves in these countries have not taken on sizeable currency risk directly, they passed it on to households and the corporate sector. With large depreciations taking place or looming in the region, the currency risk at households and corporates without a natural hedge is now being transformed into credit risk for the banking sector. This is creating a serious problem in maintaining financial stability and cripples monetary policy in countries where it operates primarily through the exchange rate channel. The patterns of foreign currency lending to households in NMSs vary widely both across countries and time periods. For example, FX lending to households is virtually non-existent in the Czech Republic while in some Baltic countries its share is close to 100 per cent of total household lending. The main goal of the paper is (1) to present the stylised facts of pre-crisis FX lending in NMSs systematically and (2) to try to explain these differing patterns in an econometric model. In order to do so, a panel database of household FX borrowing is compiled, covering 10 NMSs in the period 1999-2008. Our estimation results suggest that the degree of household FX borrowing depends on the interest rate differential, the institutional features of mortgage financing and the monetary regime. Household FX borrowing tends to be less prevalent if the interest rate differential is small, fixed interest rate mortgage financing is available and the monetary authority's "fear of floating" is low.


Background: Hypothyroidism is a common medical condition in the general population. Usually hypothyroidism has both central and peripheral nerve involvement. The neurologic manifestations occur in conjunction with the systemic features of the disease and may be noted only incidentally. The peripheral neuropathy can be assessed using the sensory motor nerve conduction studies, which is a non-invasive method. Visual Evoked Potentials (VEPs) are electrical potential differences recorded from the scalp in response to visual stimuli. Aim: To study the motor and sensory nerve conduction in the Median nerve and Visual Evoked Potential in the newly diagnosed hypothyroid females. Materials and methods: The sample size is 30. The study design is a cross sectional study. Sensorimotor nerve conduction of the Median nerve and the VEP was done using NEUROSTIM NS2 machine, in the department of Physiology, Meenakshi Medical College, Hospital and Research Institute. The statistical analysis was done by Student unpaired t' test using SPSS software 17 version. Result: There was a significant in the nerve conduction of both motor and sensory components of the cases when compared to the controls. There was statistically significant prolongation of latency P 100 wave of VEP in the study group compared to the control group. Conclusion: Both peripheral and central nervous system are affected in hypothyroidism. To conclude, electrophysiological studies can be useful in the diagnosis of asymptomatic poly neuropathy in hypothyroid patients.


Dwelling in Tourism highlights how marginalised Bushmen people are in the middle of a struggle between traditional en modern forces. Tourism, as an important element of conservation strategies, is a phenomenon built on both, and therefore reveals those struggles and shows how the marginalised status of Bushmen is interwoven with relations of power and myths. Seen from the dwelling perspective as the main theoretical starting point, many tourism environments in four case studies are described, three in Namibia and one in South Africa. All too often Bushmen are considered natural ecologists in need of protection, while in reality they are participants of modernisation with their own agency.


Objective:Physicians and surrogate decision-makers for seriously ill patients often have different views of patients' prognoses. We sought to understand what sources of knowledge surrogates rely on when estimating a patient's prognosis. Design:Prospective, mixed-methods study using face-to-face, semistructured interviews with surrogate decision-makers. Setting:Four intensive care units at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center in 2006 to 2007. Participants:Participants were 179 surrogate decision-makers for 142 incapacitated, critically ill patients at high risk for death. Main Results:Less than 2% (3 of 179) of surrogates reported that their beliefs about the patients' prognoses hinged exclusively on prognostic information provided to them by physicians. The majority cited other factors in addition to physicians' predictions that also contributed to their beliefs about the patients' prognoses, including perceptions of the patient's individual strength of character and will to live; the patient's unique history of illness and survival; the surrogate's own observations of the patient's physical appearance; the surrogate's belief that their presence at the bedside may improve the prognosis; and the surrogate's optimism, intuition, and faith. For some surrogates, these other sources of knowledge superseded the importance of the physician's prognostication. However, most surrogates endeavored to balance their own knowledge of the patient with physicians' biomedical knowledge. Conclusions:Surrogates use diverse types of knowledge when estimating their loved ones' prognoses, including individualized attributes of the patient, such as their strength of character and life history, of which physicians may be unaware. Attention to these considerations may help clinicians identify and overcome disagreements about prognosis.


Abstract Anti-money laundering policy has become a major issue in the Western world, especially in the United States after 9-11. Basically, all countries in the world are more or less forced to cooperate in the global fight against money laundering. In this paper, the criminalization of money laundering is modelled, assuming rational behavior of criminals, following the law and economics strand of the literature described as the economics of crime. The theoretical model shows that a) the probability of being caught for money laundering, b) the sentence for money laundering, c) the probability of being convicted for the predicate crime, and d) the transaction costs of money laundering are negatively related to the amount of crime. Under the assumption that these factors are all positively influenced by a stricter anti-money laundering policy, the hypothesis empirically tested in this paper is that anti-money laundering policy deters potential criminals from illegal behavior and therefore lowers the crime rate. Since the data on anti-money laundering policy used in the literature thus far is not all-embracing, a unique indicator is constructed using information from the mutual evaluation reports on money laundering of the FATF, IMF and World Bank. This unique dataset is used in an empirical estimation based on a Mundlak specification to test the effect of anti-money laundering policy on the crime rate. Among the four policy areas measured – the role of law, the institutional framework, the duties of the private sector in law enforcement, and international cooperation – the latter turned out to be the policy area that is associated with a lower crime rate. This result should be an extra incentive for countries and international organizations to continue their efforts to promote and develop international cooperation in the fight against money laundering.


Purpose
The recent economic and political focus on rising income inequality and the extent of government intervention into pay policies has renewed the interest in executive compensation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of changing regulatory landscapes on executive pay and its components.

Design/methodology/approach
This study examines a recent 23-year period divided into three distinct intervals separated by two major regulatory changes, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) and the Dodd–Frank Act. Bonus, long-term and total compensation are separately modeled as a function of each regulatory change while controlling for firm size, performance and year. The model is estimated using panel data with firm fixed effects. An industry analysis is also conducted to examine sector variations.

Findings
Total compensation increased 29 percent following SOX and 21 percent following Dodd–Frank, above what can be explained by size, firm performance and time. Total compensation increased following both SOX and Dodd–Frank in all industries except for the financial services industry where total compensation was unchanged. Results are robust to using smaller windows around each regulation.

Research limitations/implications
This study does not seek to determine whether executive compensation is at an optimal level at any point in time. Instead, this study focuses only on the change in executive compensation after two specific regulations.

Originality/value
The debate over the extent to which the government should intervene with executive compensation has become a frequent part of political and non-political discourse. This paper provides evidence that over the long-term, regulation does not curtail executive compensation. An important exception is that total compensation was restrained for financial services firms following the Dodd–Frank Act.


Maximum likelihood supervised classification and post-classification change detection techniques were applied to Landsat MSS/TM images acquired in 1976, 1986, 1995, 2000, and 2005 to map land cover changes in the Small Sanjiang Plain in northeast China. A hotspots study identified land use changes in two National Nature Reserves. These were the Honghe National Nature Reserve (HNNR) and the Sanjiang National Nature Reserve (SNNR). Landscape metrics were used in both reserves to identify marsh landscape pattern dynamics. The results showed that the Small Sanjiang plain had been subject to much change. This resulted from direct and indirect impacts of human activities. Direct impacts, resulting in marsh loss, were associated with widespread reclamation for agriculture. Indirect impacts (mainly in HNNR) resulted from alterations to the marsh hydrology and this degraded the marsh ecosystem. Marsh landscape patterns changed significantly due to direct impacts in SNNR between 1976 and 1986 and again between 2000 and 2005, and, in HNNR between 1976 and 1986. Indirect impacts in HNNR after 1986 appeared to cause little change. It was concluded that effective wetland protection measures are needed, informed by the change analysis.


The quality of a product in manufacturing is appraised by dimensional accuracy and surface finish. Among many factors that influence these two aspects cutting fluids stimulate the quality of machined surfaces by improving machining performance. Before they are applied to machining, it is essential to assess the viability of the cutting fluids. This is done by evaluating their basic properties. This paper is an attempt to evaluate thermophysical properties of vegetable oil–based nanocutting fluids in view of ecofriendly machining with a focus on enhanced machining performance. In view of this aspect, carbon nanotubes (CnT) and nanoboric acid (nBA) nanoparticles with variation in percentage of nanoparticle inclusions (NPI) are dispersed in coconut oil. The nanocutting fluids thus formulated are tested for density, dynamic viscosity, and thermal conductivity. Specific heat and heat transfer coefficient are evaluated using empirical relations. It is observed that density, thermal conductivity, and dynamic viscosity increased with increase in NPI for CnT- and nBA-dispersed nanocutting fluids. Viscosity is found to decreasze with increase in temperature for both the types of nanocutting fluids. Specific heat increased slightly with increase in NPI from 0 % to 1.25 % for CnT-dispersed fluids, whereas a slight decrease was observed for nBA-dispersed fluids. Heat transfer coefficient has increased with increase in NPI for CnT-based fluids. Fluids dispersed with nBA exhibited an increase followed by a decrease in heat transfer coefficient with increase in NPI. On the whole, it is discerned that for CnT-dispersed coconut oil–based cutting fluids, basic properties are much better than those of their nBA counterparts.


Pudendal nerve and external urethral sphincter (EUS) injury during vaginal delivery are risk factors for stress urinary incontinence (SUI). Although most patients with short‐term postpartum SUI regain continence within 1 year, they have a higher predisposition to develop recurrent SUI years later, suggesting a possible mechanistic relationship. In contrast, animal models generally recover spontaneously and have not been studied much in the long term. The aim of this study was to investigate the long‐term effects of simulated childbirth injury in rats.


This paper sets out a logical and inclusive approach to measuring purpose. We advocate a three-stage process, the first of which anchors the purpose, mission and vision of the organisation in its governance. The second stage identifies the business metrics that derive from purpose in relation to inputs, outputs, outcomes and impacts. In the final stage, these reporting metrics are converted into monetary values through enterprise cost-based accounting and societal valuation. This three-step approach provides a coherent reporting framework against which critical decisions can be made. These decisions may be internal – enabling management to allocate scarce resources appropriately – or external, allowing investors and other critical stakeholders to assess the performance of a company against its stated purpose. We conclude by categorising existing measurement initiatives in relation to the three stages.