We analyze the agricultural industrial competitiveness in China's 30 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions), to provide a reference for the relevant state departments to develop the agricultural industry policy. Using factor analysis and expert consulting method, we determine the weight of each indicator, and establish the comprehensive evaluation model suitable for the assessment of agricultural industrial competitiveness. Using the comprehensive evaluation model, we assess the agricultural competitiveness of China's 30 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions). China's 30 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) can be divided into three groups (high competitiveness, middle competitiveness and low competitiveness). The results show that although there are subtle changes in the sequencing within high competitiveness group, the members of high competitiveness group are basically unchanged; compared with high competitiveness group, the agricultural industry in middle competitiveness group and low competitiveness group shows the characteristic of significant geographical concentration, and the competitive agricultural industrial belt is outstanding. We put forward the following recommendations: extending agricultural industry chain and increasing agricultural value added; utilizing regional resources and developing characteristic agriculture; taking the road of large-scale management to promote sustainable and healthy agricultural development in China.


In this paper, the effect of the secondary flow induced by the electrohydrodynamic actuator is numerically investigated in the vorticity flux, as a criterion for the secondary flow strength, and the electrohydrodynamic vortices through a smooth channel. In this study, the influence of effectiveness parameters of the electrohydrodynamic as the Reynolds number, applied voltage and the arrangement of the emitting electrode on the vorticity flux, and also relationship between flow and heat transfer characteristics with the vorticity flux are evaluated. The results indicated that in presence of electric field, by increasing the Reynolds number, dimension of the upstream electrohydrodynamic-induced vortices and the vorticity flux are decreased. Also, it is obvious that by increasing the applied voltage, the dimension of the electrohydrodynamic-induced vortices and the vorticity flux are increased. According to numerical results, the heat transfer enhancement is completely depending on the vorticity flux. Also, by changing of the emitter arrangements, the non-dimension average vorticity flux and the average heat transfer enhancement are changed. It is shown that with decrease of the distance between emitter electrode and inlet of channel, the non-dimension average vorticity flux and the average heat transfer enhancement are increased 27.9% and 17.9%, respectively.


Crowdsourcing Construction of Information Retrieval Test Collections for Conversational Speech Haofeng Zhou, MSINfoStds The University of Texas at Austin, 2015 Supervisor: Matthew Lease Building a test collection for an ad hoc information retrieval system on conversational speech raises new challenges for researchers. Traditional methods for building test collections are costly, and thus they are not feasible to apply to large scale conversational speech data. Constructing a large test collection on conversational speech with high quality at low cost is challenging. Crowdsourcing may represent a promising approach. Crowd workers tend to be less expensive than professional assessors, and crowd workers can work simultaneously to perform jobs on a large scale. However, despite the benefits of scale and cost, the quality of the results delivered by crowd workers may suffer. This thesis focuses on relevance judging, one of the key components of a test collection. We adopt two crowdsourcing platforms: oDesk and MTurk, use audio clips and various versions of transcripts, conduct multiple experiments under diverse settings, and analyze the results qualitatively and quantitatively. We delve into what factors influence the quality of relevance judgments on conversational speech. We also investigate differences between relevance judgements from experts and crowd workers. This thesis also describes best practices for the design of crowdsourcing tasks to improve crowd workers' performance. Ultimately, these may assist


Like other Allied powers in Asia, the Netherlands Indies government embarked on the trial of Japanese military personnel accused of war crimes during the occupation of the Indonesian archipelago. Although calls for clemency towards convicted war criminals were heard as early as 1947, the Dutch authorities resisted the suggestion that prisoners be released or repatriated. Many Dutch residents of the former colony remained bitter about Japanese crimes during the occupation. They also blamed Japanese policies for the insurgent Republic of Indonesia, which at times after its independence declaration in August 1945 controlled large parts of the archipelago. Whereas the rise of communist insurgency in other parts of Southeast Asia, and the broader context of the Cold War, rapidly diminished in those regions the importance of keeping war criminals imprisoned, the Dutch saw their war against the Republic as a continuation of the war against Japan and saw the continued detention of war criminals as essential. When military, diplomatic and political weakness forced the Dutch to recognize Indonesian independence in December 1949, one of their last acts was to arrange the transfer of the remaining imprisoned war criminals to Sugamo Prison in Japan.


Background: This study explores the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) individuals living with the chronic condition of multiple sclerosis (MS) whose effects are both specific and profound. Long-term conditions have been under-explored in LGBT communities outside of the context of HIV, especially via a multi-methodological qualitative approach.

Methods: The research employs an innovative integrative conceptual framework, in order to investigate this topic. It is posited within a critical health psychology epistemological paradigm, theoretically informed by phenomenological psychology and visual ethnography. The integrated data have been collected via interviews and participant-authored photographs which have been analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Twenty-eight participants, including participants from several European countries, have taken part.

Findings: The analysis of the data has produced several themes. For the purposes of this paper we specifically discuss the theme of 'Living with MS: Visual and verbal accounts of adjusting to disability and ableism in the LGBT communities'. MS is a transformative condition which alters the core self of individuals and fundamentally alters their perceived, and felt relations with other members of the LGBT communities. Their life is infused by heteronormativity assumptions, and influenced by heterosexist and ableist experiences, creating a new lifeworld.

Discussion: We discuss insights from the study, applications for intervention and aware-raising and consider additional opportunities for applied and impactful opportunities which the participant-authored photos have provide us with. We illustrate this with our reflections on a recent dissemination and engagement event which took the form of a public photographic exhibition.


Previous studies showed that cultural dimensions (individualism and collectivism) are related to audience behavior in responding to political speeches. However, this study suggests that speech context is an important issue to be considered in understanding speaker-audience interaction in political speeches. Forms of response, audience behavior, and response rates were analyzed in three speech contexts: acceptance speeches to nomination as political parties' candidates for presidential election, presidential election campaign speeches, and presidential inauguration speeches in the Korean presidential election of 2012. We found that audience response forms and behavior were distinctive according to the three speech contexts: in-group partisan leadership, competitive, and formal contexts. However, there was no relationship between the affiliative response rate and electoral success in the election. The function of the audience response is popularity and support of a speaker in acceptance and election campaign speeches, while it is conformity to social norms in inauguration speeches.


The study of Indian Banking sector occupies an important place in development of economy in India, and is related to close and critical study of various measures observed in the operation of business and management organization. Present study described four types of analytical aspects of performance of India banking sector i.e. Productivity, Profitability, various Financial Efficiency (Ratio) and comparative study with Common Size Statements. Although as a conceptual point of view performance appraisal is purely developmental tool for a study unit. Banking sector reforms in India, strive to increase profitability, productivity and efficiency of the banking institutions. The existing banking institutions has to face the global competition. As a consequence, there has not only been rapid expansion in the number of banking institutions in the country, but the banking horizon of the country has also changed significantly with the entry of new private sector and foreign banks. Nowadays, the country has (i) Public Sector Banks (ii) Old Private Sector Banks (iii) New Private Sector Banks and (iv) Foreign Banks operating side – by – side and giving cut – throat competitions to each other. This study emphases on the critical evolution of Indian banking sector specially with reference to public sector banks and new private sector banks.


ABSTRACT Zheng, S.; Wang, A.; Mehmood, F., and Mohmand, Y.T., 2018. An improved path optimum algorithm for container relocation problems in port terminals worldwide. The container relocation problem (CRP) for ports worldwide has been a highly significant research topic because of its contribution to the improvement of yard-running efficiency. It can be defined as a sequence that allows each container to be extracted with the least number of relocations when identical containers in a cluster have been stacked in a block. This study differs from previous research mainly in five aspects: (1) a two-level goal programming model for CRP is presented that can help in understanding of this problem and provide a solid theoretical ground for this research; (2) because of the NP time hardness of the CRP, heuristic rules are proposed to reduce hunting space by the way of dividing solution space; (3) an improved path optimum algorithm (I-POA) is proposed to reduce unfeasible solutions and find a high-quality solution for any three-dimensional case in a shorter running time; (4) the numerical experiments show that the algorithm proposed in this research achieves better performance than similar algorithms because of its higher levels of efficiency and more robust property; and (5) a general expression for the utilization level of the storage area and the number of relocations is proposed to check the reliability of the result by conducting a sensitivity analysis. Based on this research, the following conclusion can be obtained: I-POA possesses significant practical value in the improvement of intelligent resource scheduling standards of coastal container ports worldwide.


Background: Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that affects up to 4% of the world population, but the mechanism underlying its pathogenesis remains to be unrevealed. Herein we examined the effects of Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) on an immortal human keratinocyte line HaCaT, thereby revealing the important role of CGRP in the pathogenesis of psoriasis.
Material and Methods: Upon CGRP stimulation the chemotactic capacity of HaCaT cells was evaluated in the presence of CGRP receptor antagonist and a specific p38-MAPK pathway inhibitor, respectively. Quantitative real-time PCR and ELISA were also conducted to examine the secretion of chemotactic cytokines ligand 27 (CCL27) by HaCaT cells. Furthermore, the phosphorylation status of p38 and ERK1/2, and IκBα level were detected by immunoblotting to assess the activity of MAPK and NF-κB pathways.
Results: CGRP increased CCL27 production and promoted HaCaT cell chemotactic ability in vitro, whereas pre-treatment with SB203580 or CGRP8-37 was able to reduce CGRP-enhanced chemotaxis of HaCaT cells and CCL27 production, with inactivation of p38-MAPK and NF-κB pathways.
Conclusion: CGRP can promote the bioactivities of HaCaT cells via a p38-dependent and NF-κBdependent pathway, whose blockage may contribute to further clinical psoriatic treatment.


Light injury to the human eye has been correlated exclusively with wellknown thermal effects (e.g., solar maculopathy; photocoagulation). One may speculate whether clinical conditions exist in which the light impact from strong conventional light sources--otherwise innocuous--may become harmful to the retina. A case history is presented of a patient suffering from acute posterior multifocal placoid pigment epitheliopathy in which a possible relationship is discussed between the appearance of the fundus changes and the damage due to direct viewing of a halogen head light.


This paper deals with the so called describing functions method description as a simplified method
of describing certain types of nonlinear systems, using the complex function of frequency response. The first
part showed its using as an example of some so-called hard nonlinear systems (e.g. the mechanical chain of
robots). In the actual last part, the formalization of the limit cycle prediction process is performed based on the
representation of the non-linear element by describing function. The basic approach for this prediction is based
on the application of an extended version of the well-known Nyquist criterion from linear control theory to a
description of the systems with describing function utilization


The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that could influence the increase usage of intermodal for container transport in Malaysia. This study uses in-depth interviews with experts in Management Review: An International Journal, 14(1), pp. 30-50 (June 30, 2019). 31 container transport for data collection. The interviews were conducted with the road haulage operators, rail operator, inland terminal operators, port operators and freight forwarding operators. The most common challenges that could influence the increase usage of intermodal in Malaysia were efficiency, management issues and cost factor. Some improvements on these factors could make the rail-road intermodal container transport as attractive as the conventional road haulage services. Malaysia needs to emphasise more on promoting the high reliability, low cost and environment factors for a successful intermodal service. This study is limited to the container movement from ports to the important industrial areas in Malaysia and vice versa. The factors that influence the usage of intermodal can contribute to a better understanding on the best way to increase the current usage of the service. to develop possible strategies for improving the intermodal hinterland container transport system logistics in Malaysia. The study benefited the actors involve to improve rail-road intermodal container transport services.


Selection can have a significant effect on sequence evolution and this will be reflected in the information contained within the phylogenetic relationships between species. Selection will reduce the frequency of any deleterious nucleotides, and this can be used to test for the presence of selection. The frequencies of different nucleotides can be predicted theoretically and compared to observed values. If a sample of sequences has an usually low frequency of a particular nucleotide then selection might be inferred to have acted upon these sequences. This conclusion can be true only if the sequences are not too closely related and if sufficient mutations have occurred during their evolution. Otherwise, the unusual pattern of nucleotides in the sequences may be caused by recent common ancestry. An algorithm is presented to obtain maximum‐likelihood estimates of selection coefficients using the phylogenetic information contained within sequence data. A k‐allele model is developed that uses the phylogeny to measure relative mutation rates and degrees of relatedness and to evaluate the likelihood in the presence of selection. The method is illustrated with examples from the NS2 genes of influenza viruses and the MHC genes of mice. It is shown that the maximum‐likelihood estimate for mutation rates are very large for. influenza viruses and that statistically significant selection acts to maintain a specific coding sequence. Overall, the MHC genes also have significant selection to preserve the coding sequence, but at the antigen recognition site, this selection is reversed to promote genetic variation. Maximum‐likelihood estimates of these selection coefficients are provided.


Author(s): Chou, Beverly | Advisor(s): Shea, Kenneth J | Abstract: The interactions between synthetic affinity agents and biomacromolecules are reported to be due to the various intermolecular interactions that occur between them during binding. Among them, hydrophobic interactions play a large role. Changes in hydrophobicity, either due to changes in incorporation or in hydrophobicity of the monomers used, can often change more than just biomacromolecular affinity. By changing the chemical composition, the physical properties and structure of the abiotic affinity agents can also be affected. It is therefore important to study how changes in hydrophobicity can affect the polymer affinity reagents and their biomacromolecular targets. This information can then be used to enhance and optimize binding to biomacromolecules. In Chapter 1, I discuss the effect of hydrophobicity on the structure and affinity of synthetic affinity agents, and how the structure and function of the biomacromolecules that interact with them are affected.In Chapter 2, we describe how NiPAm based copolymer nanoparticles (NPs) containing C4 – C8 hydrophobic groups were used to optimize affinity to molecules with lipid-like domains. Using NMR spectroscopy, we found that optimizing interactions between NPs and lipopolysaccharides require maximizing hydrophobicity while avoiding side chain aggregation. In Chapter 3, we describe how these NPs can be engineered as autonomous polymer heat shock proteins that prevent denaturation of biomacromolecules. By studying the effect of different hydrophobic monomers, we found that hydrophobic interactions can affect not only affinity, but activity of the synthetic affinity agents against biomacromolecules.In Chapter 4, we discuss a novel end-cap for self immolative polymers that is active against cysteine. We tested this novel end-cap as a protective group on a monomer and oligomer, in solution and as a film, and found that it was selective for cysteine, and could remain stable in atmospheric conditions.


In this paper, a deformation test method to reproduce, on a laboratory scale, the microstructure evolution of aluminium alloys occurring during industrial forming processes with a limited number of tests is presented. A hot inverse extrusion setup was designed in order to generate, inside one single specimen, a wide range of strains at a given temperature and ram speed. Two commercial aluminium alloys (AA6060 and AA6082) were investigated at different processing conditions (temperatures and forming rates). Detailed optical microstructures were examined and grain sizes were determined at different spots of each specimen. Thermo-mechanical coupled simulations of the deformation tests were performed using the DEFORM 3D FEM code. On the basis of recrystallization equations, the distributions of strains, strain rates and temperatures were correlated to the grain sizes measured through linear regression. Finally, FEM simulations were run again with the established recrystallization model, and the results were compared with the experimental data.


This case study aimed to examine the spatial and temporal transferability of safety performance functions (SPFs), which were developed for the Iowa interstate system in the form of negative binomial regression models. Four years of crash data were integrated with geometric and traffic information over a four-year period for the entire interstate system. The segments were randomly split into two groups and these groups were also split into a pair of two-year time periods. This allowed for an assessment of model transferability across space, time and both dimensions. Separate models were estimated for each of the four datasets and these models were used in cross-validation exercises. The predicted values were directly compared to actual observed values to assess predictive accuracy. In this setting, less spatial variability was shown as compared to temporal variability, which was largely reflective of significant reductions in crashes that occurred over the course of the study period. In all settings, temporal transferability was relatively poor. The results improved when calibration exercises were conducted. Ultimately, the results support prior research, which suggests state-specific SPFs are recommended in order to obtain better predictive capabilities. Full models, which considered numerous predictor variables, performed better than simple models considering only annual average daily traffic. Additional research is suggested in this area in order to better understand how spatial and temporal transferability compares across different empirical settings.


The task of this paper is to provide information and analysis on the legal framework of privatisation and corporate governance in Poland and on secondary privatisation processes in Polish privatised enterprises, i.e. changes in ownership structure which are taking place after privatisation. The role of regulatory framework in secondary privatisation processes is also shown (besides a number of economic, social, gnoseological, and other factors).


In the corporate bond market, investor propensity to reach for yield creates an opportunity for factor-based investors to "reach for safety" following an economic intuition that parallels low-risk factor investing in equities. Given this insight, the authors develop a measure of credit safety based on the Merton [1974] distance-to-default variable, which they use to define quality and value factors. They demonstrate that both factors help explain the cross-section of corporate bond returns in an uncorrelated and complementary manner. Since these factors have performed particularly well in their bottom quintiles, the authors demonstrate how they can be used as screens within long-only portfolios. In addition, they show how incorporating their quality and value insights in a long-only optimization setup can generate significant outperformance net of estimated transaction costs versus traditional value-weighted market portfolios.


Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Kenya have not performed creditably well and hence have not played the expected vital and vibrant role in the economic growth and development of Kenyan economy. This situation has been of great concern to the government, citizenry, operators, practitioners and the organized private sector groups especially because many of the SMEs owners are faced with unpredictable operating environment which presents many entrepreneurs with a challenge of both growing and managing their SMEs consequently affecting SMEs performance. The study aimed at establishing operating environment effects on performance of small and micro enterprises in urban townships in West Pokot County.  The specific objectives of the study included determining the influence of skills and competence, technology, legislations and competition on the performance of small and micro enterprises in urban townships in West Pokot County. The study was anchored on the theory of multi-dimensional performance, goal setting theory and Human capital theory. The target population was drawn from small and micro enterprises owners and managers in the two major townships in West Pokot County that is Kapenguria, and Chepareria Townships. The study was based on descriptive research design where the researcher used stratified random sampling techniques to sample its respondents; Questionnaires were used for the data collection. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were undertaken. Inferential statistics was used to test the extent and nature of the relationship between dependent and independent variables. The correlation results of the study found that SMEs owners/managers skills and competence, technology and competition are positively related to SMEs performance. Results further showed that legislations are negatively related to SMEs performance.SMEs owners/managers skills and competence, legislation, technology and competition were found to be significant variables in explaining SMEs performance which is illustrated by coefficient of determination(R square) of 79.4%.Based on the research findings the study concluded that SMEs owners/managers skills and competence, legislation, technology and competition has a significant relationship with SMEs performance. The study recommends that the financial institutions, NGOs, and Government agencies should work in collaboration in improving SMEs owner's skills and competence, also technological changes awareness should be provided to the SMEs owners and managers. The Government agencies should come up with friendly policies and regulations to eliminate unhealthy competition towards the SMEs.


Making spelling errors is one of the common issues faced by learners in any language as Second Language (SL) at the early stage of learning. This study investigated the spelling errors in the writings of undergraduate B.A. English students, University of Bisha, Al-Namas, Saudi Arabia. The study explored the spelling errors' phenomenon with relation to the phonological syllable structure of words where the spelling errors were classified into three categories of words, (1) mono-syllabic, (2) di-syllabic, and (3) tri-syllabic and complex syllabic words. The researcher analyzed the spelling errors with relation to the sounds/phonemes positions in each syllable, (a) onset position, (b) nucleus position, and (c) coda position spelling errors. The results showed that Arabic-speaking learners made more spelling errors in tri-syllabic and complex syllabic words compared to the spelling errors in mono-syllabic words. The results explored that learners made more spelling errors in the nucleus position with 54.85% and fewer errors in the coda position 36.40%. Interestingly learners made a small number of errors than the other groups with 8.75% in the onset position. This suggested that English vowels, being in the nucleus position, are a more problematic position for Arab learners than consonants. The omission and the substitution spelling errors were more frequent and high compared to other categories. The study explored that the spelling errors are attributed to the different orthographical and morpho-phonological systems of L1 and L2 including the letter-to-sound correspondence and sound-to-letter correspondence, homophones, silent letters. The study concluded with some solutions to help learners avoid the spelling errors such as the importance of the phonological awareness of ESL.


This paper studies the participation of vessels in the canal morphogenesis. The proximal chondroepiphysis of the left tibia of 44 five-day-old rats was exposed and the vessels of the intercondylar fossae, near the attachment of cruciate ligaments, were cauterized. In addition to the vascular lesion this assay induced a perichondral lesion. However, the canal appeared and joined to the secondary ossification center. 36 tibiae of 4-day-old rats were removed under sterile conditions and cultured in a serum-free chemically defined medium. The cultures were carried out for as long as 15 days. A canal lumen structure was found on the first days of culture, and grew in depth to the central region of the chondroepiphysis during the culture. The secondary ossification center was not found. The vessels and mesenchymal cells observed in the control canal were not found in the culture. We suggest that the presence of vessels, perivascular cells or perichondrium does not appear to be necessary in canal morphogenesis.


Fire hazard monitoring and evacuation for building environments is a novel application area for the deployment of wireless sensor networks. In this context, adaptive routing is essential in order to ensure safe and timely data delivery in building evacuation and fire fighting resource applications. Existing routing mechanisms for wireless sensor networks are not well suited for building fires, especially as they do not consider critical and dynamic network scenarios. In this paper, an emergency-adaptive, real-time and robust routing protocol is presented for emergency situations such as building fire hazard applications. The protocol adapts to handle dynamic emergency scenarios and works well with the routing hole problem. Theoretical analysis and simulation results indicate that our protocol provides a real-time routing mechanism that is well suited for dynamic emergency scenarios in building fires when compared with other related work.


Although research on team motivation has been one of the fastest growing research domains in organizational science, progress in this domain has been hampered by a lack of integrative reviews. Thus, we develop a theoretical framework in this article to summarize and discuss different conceptual approaches to team motivation for the following six content areas: team design, team needs, team goals, team self-regulation, team efficacy, and team affect. Our framework organizes previous research according to two dimensions. First, we assess the degree of interdependence between team members' motivational states, differentiating between models that conceptualize team motivation as functionally equivalent to individual level motivation and models that conceptualize team motivation as a truly collective phenomenon. Second, we assess the extent to which research conceptualizes team motivation as a dynamic phenomenon that evolves over time, with static models of team motivation and dynamic models of team motivation demarcating the opposite ends of this continuum. With this framework, we show that previous research on team motivation has overemphasized conceptual similarities between motivation constructs at the individual and team levels of analysis. We address this shortcoming by developing a theory of interdependent regulatory dynamics. This theory emphasizes the interdependent and dynamic nature of team motivation. It depicts the processes in which team members decide how to allocate their efforts and resources between individual goals and team goals, and it identifies the multiple pathways through which teams coordinate and regulate their collective efforts over time.


This research considers the motivating factors behind energy use in the residential sector, which in 2011 accounted for more than 26% of overall energy use in the UK. The study took a mixed method approach and considered case studies in both the UK and Australia, two countries with very different energy regimes. UK case studies were analysed using predictive energy modelling, quantitative assessment of actual energy use and thermal comfort, and qualitative interview and focus group assessment of individual motivation around energy use. The Australian case studies were assessed qualitatively and their attitudes compared to the UK core group. Additional perspectives were gained through interviews with UK landlords, a large environmental group, a senior politician, and two senior policymakers from a large energy company. The investigation assesses the implied importance of the key strands developed from previous research in instigating changes in behaviour amongst occupants. These include psychological, social, financial, educational and regulatory factors. In particular, it looks at the ineffectiveness of the Green Deal on energy behaviour in the residential sector. The research offers a reasoned explanation as to why it is important to record predictive, actual, and intended behaviour with regard to energy use. The study concludes that a variety of incentives are necessary to encourage behaviour change, and that the complexity of occupant behaviour makes it difficult to develop a single policy to encourage more sustainable energy use. There is sometimes a disconnect between intention and behaviour. However, there seems to be a certain commonality among the occupants, in that their behaviour around energy is often other than predicted by conventional economics and more likely to incorporate predictions from behavioural economics. This is recognised by the case study participants in both the UK and Australia, and they largely agree on the beneficial role of government in regulating them and "nudging" them in the right direction with regard to influencing their motivations around energy use. Financial incentives are also a key driver in motivating residents to use energy more sustainably, but they need to be carefully aligned to suit a wide range of individuals. Another issue that became clear in the research is that policy focusing purely on energy efficiency can be ineffective, if the policy goal is to mitigate the effects of climate change. The rebound effect is likely to result in a lower demand for residential energy transferring to increased demand for energy elsewhere in the economy. The study recommends that policy should focus on sustainable energy use, using financial and other mechanisms to discourage the use of fossil fuels.


At small lattice spacing, or when using overlap fermions, lattice QCD simulations tend to become stuck in a single topological sector. Physical observables, e.g. hadron masses, then differ from their full QCD counterparts by 1/V corrections, where V is the spacetime volume. These corrections can be calculated order by order using the saddle point method. We calculate all corrections proportional to 1/V 2 and 1/V 3 and test the resulting equations for several models: a quantum mechanical particle on a circle, the Schwinger model and SU(2) Yang-Mills theory.


Hypertension is a major determinant of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality and is highly prevalent in the general population. While the relationship between sleep apnea and increased blood pressure has been well documented, less recognized is emerging evidence linking sleep-related movement disorders such as restless legs syndrome/periodic limb movements of sleep and sleep-related bruxism with blood pressure (BP) dysregulation and hypertension. There is also recent literature linking narcolepsy-cataplexy with elevated BP and altered pressor responses, and there are data suggesting abnormal BP control in rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder. It is thought that neural circulatory mechanisms, sympathetic activation in particular, comprise the predominant mediator underlying elevated BP in these neurological sleep disorders. There is very limited evidence that treating these sleep disorders may be beneficial in lowering BP primarily because this question has received very little attention. In this review, we discuss the potential pathophysiologic mechanisms underlying elevated BP in restless legs syndrome/periodic limb movements of sleep, sleep-related bruxism, narcolepsy-cataplexy, and rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder. We also examine the relationship between these sleep disorders and elevated BP and the impact of treatment of these conditions on BP control. Last, we discuss gaps in the literature evaluating the associations between these sleep disorders and elevated BP and identify areas for further research.


Despite its ubiquity and religious importance, individual prayer in times of personal distress has not received much research attention. The current study presents a conceptual analysis and typology of individual prayer behavior in times of distress, and examines the influence of denomination, religiosity, and perceptions of God on these types of prayer. College student participants (N = 596) completed measures of religiosity (belief in God, church attendance, and intrinsic religiosity), perceptions of God (lovingness and controllingness), and denomination, along with the Individual Prayer about Problems Inventory (IPPI), which was developed for this study. Results indicate that some types of individual prayer about problems are more widely utilized (e.g., asking for coping assistance, disclosing about the problem) than are others (asking for enlightenment, bargaining) and that denomination, religiosity, and the perceived lovingness of God influence how people approach God in times of personal difficulty.


This paper presents evidence of trends of fractal properties and long memory in three-month variations of radon in soil, in Lesvos Island, Greece. The methodology employed consists of sliding-window (a) detrended fluctuation analysis, (b) fractal analysis, (c) rescaled range analysis and (d) fractal dimension analysis with the methods of Higuchi, Katz and Sevcik. During measurements two mild earthquakes occurred in the vicinity. The results of the detrended fluctuation analysis revealed four peaks with slopes between 1.2 and 1.5. The fractal analysis method resulted in three peaks with persistent power-law exponent values in the range 2.2 and 3.0. The rescaled-range analysis indicated persistent Hurst exponents between 0.7-0.9 and in some segments, between 0.9-1. The fractal dimension analysis showed four peaks with fractal dimensions in the range 1.3-2.0 (Higuchi and Katz methods) and 1.0-1.5 (Sevcik method). The results were compared in terms of conversion to Hurst exponents. Several persistent segments were addressed, along with persistency-anti-persistency switching instances. Potential geological sources are discussed and analyzed.


BACKGROUND
Alcohol use has been previously associated with neurocognitive impairments, especially in decision-making cognition. However, some studies have shown little to no decision-making deficits in relation to different characteristics of people with drinking problems. Relapsing to driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol is an important issue with legal and psychosocial aspects. We evaluated decision-making performance in second-time DUI offenders by using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT).

METHOD
Thirty-four male second-time DUI offenders who had been selected for an official psychoeducational rehabilitation program and 31 healthy controls that were matched for age, education, and alcohol use were included. Along with psychiatric assessment, we applied conventional neuropsychological testing comprising cognitive set-shifting, response inhibition, attention, and visuospatial abilities. Also, we used the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) to assess personality patterns. A computerized version of IGT was used.

RESULTS
No significant differences were found between the groups in regard to sociodemographics and conventional neuropsychological testing. DUI participants had significantly higher scores only in "self-transcendence" subdomain of TCI. On the fifth block of the IGT, DUI participants had significantly lower net scores than controls (U = 380.0, p < 0.05). Also, DUI participants chose significantly more risky decks compared to controls.

CONCLUSIONS
Our results suggest that there may be subtle decision-making deficits in DUI participants, which goes undetected on conventional neuropsychological testing and which is not correlated with TCI subdomains related with impulsivity patterns.


In recent years numerous attempts to understand the human brain were undertaken from a network point of view. A network framework takes into account the relationships between the different parts of the system and enables to examine how global and complex functions might emerge from network topology. Previous work revealed that the human brain features 'small world' characteristics and that cortical hubs tend to interconnect among themselves. However, in order to fully understand the topological structure of hubs, and how their profile reflect the brain's global functional organization, one needs to go beyond the properties of a specific hub and examine the various structural layers that make up the network. To address this topic further, we applied an analysis known in statistical physics and network theory as k-shell decomposition analysis. The analysis was applied on a human cortical network, derived from MRI\DSI data of six participants. Such analysis enables us to portray a detailed account of cortical connectivity focusing on different neighborhoods of inter-connected layers across the cortex. Our findings reveal that the human cortex is highly connected and efficient, and unlike the internet network contains no isolated nodes. The cortical network is comprised of a nucleus alongside shells of increasing connectivity that formed one connected giant component, revealing the human brain's global functional organization. All these components were further categorized into three hierarchies in accordance with their connectivity profile, with each hierarchy reflecting different functional roles. Such a model may explain an efficient flow of information from the lowest hierarchy to the highest one, with each step enabling increased data integration. At the top, the highest hierarchy (the nucleus) serves as a global interconnected collective and demonstrates high correlation with consciousness related regions, suggesting that the nucleus might serve as a platform for consciousness to emerge.


The study considers the mechanical properties and temperature resistance of partially pyrolysed composites reinforced with various fibres. The composites were prepared by pyrolysis at 650 °C, where only partial conversion of the polymer to the inorganic SiOC structure takes place in the matrix. Such a hybrid matrix bears resemblance to polymeric materials in a density and Young's modulus, but oxidation resistance and creep behaviour are closer to silicate glasses. Pyrolysis also ensures that the whole composite material is non-flammable with very low potential for releasing toxic gases during a fire. Three types of glass fibres (E-glass, R-glass, E-CR-glass fibres), two types of basalt fibres, and two types of high-strength (HS) carbon fibres were used as reinforcements. The mechanical properties – Young's and shear moduli, flexural strength, and fracture toughness – were measured at room temperature. Thermogravimetric measurements and creep tests of these composites allowed estimation of their temperature resistance and fire resistance. The results obtained suggest that the materials under investigation can be applied as panels or shells in the building industry and in transportation facilities.


There have been two Raphidophyceae blooms, as well as a number of other blooms recorded in Dapeng Bay in the early part of this year. A Heterosigma akashiwo bloom occurred in the inner bayments of Dapeng Bay. In April 2001, a mixed bloom of Chattonella ovata and Chattonella globosa was recorded in the same area. The first Raphidophyceae bloom, Heterosigma sp., was recorded in South China waters in the late 1980s. No other Raphidophyceae bloom was recorded until 1993, when a Chattonella marina bloom occurred in Dapeng Bay. Since then, more and more Raphidophyceae species, e.g. Chattonella antiqua, C. globosa, and C. ovata have been found in these waters. South China waters are one of the locations with the most frequent HAB occurrences in the world. In recent years, more and more new harmful species have been recorded in these waters. An historical bloom, which caused major fish kills in the South China waters affected by the bloom, was due to a newly identified species, More Raphidophyte Blooms in South China Waters


Abstract
Purpose: Many Internet users search for health information but they struggle with assessing the quality of the information they find. By drawing on a multi-modal approach to data collection, this study aims to understand further the nuanced cognitive processes that people utilize as they acquire and evaluate online health information.

Design: We used a mixed-methods approach that includes surveys, interviews, and observations of 76 diverse adults of all ages in the Chicago area completing various health information-seeking tasks.

Findings: Most participants begin their information-seeking process on search engines. We identified the most popular credibility-assessment strategies used on the search engine results' pages (SERP) as well as on websites. We also explored how the process of executing such strategies reveals greater and lesser savvy among users.

Research Limitations: While the sample size and methods limit its generalizability, this study included a larger and more diverse group of participants than most observational work, which results in data about a wider range of behaviors than is typical of such research.

Social Implications: Our findings showed that most of our participants could use additional education regarding credibility assessment of online health information. Additionally, since a great deal of credibility assessment occurs on SERP, search companies bear a particular responsibility for ensuring the quality of the information their results highlight.


Objectives To determine disparities in rates, length of stay (LOS) and hospital costs of potentially preventable hospitalisations (PPH) for selected chronic conditions among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal South Australians (SA), then examine associations with area-level socioeconomic disadvantage and remoteness. Setting Period prevalence study using linked, administrative public hospital records. Participants Participants included all SA residents in 2005–2006 to 2010–2011. Analysis focused on those individuals experiencing chronic PPH as defined by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Primary outcome measures Number and rates (unadjusted, then adjusted for sex and age) of chronic PPH, total LOS and direct hospital costs by Aboriginality. Results Aboriginal SAs experienced higher risk of index chronic PPH compared with non-Aboriginals (11.5 and 6.2 per 1000 persons per year, respectively) and at younger ages (median age 48 vs 70 years). Once hospitalised, Aboriginal people experienced more chronic PPH events, longer total LOS with higher costs than non-Aboriginal people (2.6 vs 1.9 PPH per person; 11.7 vs 9.0 days LOS; at $A17 928 vs $A11 515, respectively). Compared with population average LOS, the standardised rate ratio of LOS among Aboriginal people increased by 0.03 (95% CI 0.00 to 0.07) as disadvantage rank increased and 1.04 (95% CI 0.63 to 1.44) as remoteness increased. Non-Aboriginal LOS also increased as disadvantage increased but at a lower rate (0.01 (95% CI 0.01 to 0.01)). Costs of Aboriginal chronic PPH increased by 0.02 (95% CI 0.00 to 0.06) for each increase in disadvantage and 1.18 (95% CI 0.80 to 1.55) for increased remoteness. Non-Aboriginal costs also increased as disadvantage increased but at lower rates (0.01 (95% CI 0.01 to 0.01)). Conclusion Aboriginal people's heightened risk of chronic PPH resulted in more time in hospital and greater cost. Systematic disparities in chronic PPH by Aboriginality, area disadvantage and remoteness highlight the need for improved uptake of effective primary care. Routine, regional reporting will help monitor progress in meeting these population needs.


Many patients admitted to emergency departments (EDs) require therapy delivered by cannula. Mid-Western Regional Hospital, Tipperary, used to run a system in which many patients had to endure two invasive procedures: on arrival their blood was taken by nurses and later they were cannulated by doctors. To reduce the number of procedures, ED nurses initiated a project to extend their skills to include cannulation. The new system of nurse cannulation at triage has also helped reduce waiting times.


— As biomedical ontologies grow in size and complexity it is crucial to develop methods for detecting inconsistencies within ontologies. The Foundational Model of Anatomy (FMA) ontology represents knowledge of human anatomy, with structural organization provided by class and part relationships. Using a manual audit, I identify types of inconsistencies arising from class and regional part relationships for regions of the body and the parts of organs. Inconsistencies arise from both explicitly declared relationships and relationships that are implied by the lexical constructs of class names. The purpose of this work is to propose methods of structural organization and lexical consistency that will make the FMA more compatible with computational auditing and increase its usability.


EndA is a membrane-attached surface-exposed DNA-entry nuclease previously known to be required for genetic transformation of Streptococcus pneumoniae. More recent studies have shown that the enzyme also plays an important role during the establishment of invasive infections by degrading extracellular chromatin in the form of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), enabling streptococci to overcome the innate immune system in mammals. As a virulence factor, EndA has become an interesting target for future drug design. Here we present the first mutational and biochemical analysis of recombinant forms of EndA produced either in a cell-free expression system or in Escherichia coli. We identify His160 and Asn191 to be essential for catalysis and Asn182 to be required for stability of EndA. The role of His160 as the putative general base in the catalytic mechanism is supported by chemical rescue of the H160A variant of EndA with imidazole added in excess. Our study paves the way for the identification and development of protein or low-molecular-weight inhibitors for EndA in future high-throughput screening assays.


Background: The translation of evidence on dementia risk factors into clinical advice requires careful evaluation of the methodology and scope of data from which risk estimates are obtained. Objective: To evaluate the quantity, quality, and representativeness of evidence, we conducted a review of reviews of risk factors for Alzheimer's disease (AD), Vascular dementia (VaD), and Any Dementia. Methods: PubMed, Cochrane library, and the Global Index Medicus were searched to identify meta-analyses of observational studies of risk factors for AD, VaD, and Any Dementia. PROSPERO CRD42017053920. Results: Meta-analysis data were available for 34 risk factors for AD, 26 risk factors for Any Dementia and eight for VaD. Quality of evidence varied greatly in terms of the number of contributing studies, whether data on midlife exposure was available, and consistency of measures. The most evidence was available for cardiovascular risk factors. The most geographically representative evidence (five of six global regions) was available for alcohol, physical activity, diabetes, high midlife BMI, antihypertensives, and motor function. Evidence from Australia/Oceana or Africa was limited. With the exception of diabetes, meta-analysis data were unavailable from Latin America/Caribbean. Midlife specific data were only available for cholesterol and arthritis. Conclusion: There is a lack of midlife specific data, limited data on VaD, and a lack of geographical representation for many risk factors for dementia. The quality, quantity, and representativeness of evidence needs to be considered before recommendations are made about the relevance of risk factors in mid- or late-life or for dementia subtypes.


This paper reports the experience of a psychologist in her doctorate research, and it aims to contribute with the Primary Health Care, mainly in the action with families in homes. It was developed in a basic health unit of a small city of Minas Gerais. Based on the theoretical grounding of Primary Health Care, family and health, it was observed that the major problem to the involvement of patients in the Family Health Strategy was family problems, mainly from a psychological viewpoint. Thus, this paper shows an interdisciplinary way to the psychologist work in basic health units, approaching health professionals to the functional and cultural reality of the families. This is a qualitative research, conducted in households, with semistructured interviews. 14 families were interviewed, and this work intends to understand the history and the dynamics of the family, in order to contribute to the redirection of new interventions made by the health team. From the content analysis, it was highlighted that violence and alcoholism are the factors that more affect the family quality of life and the relationship family-health team. We make some suggestions to redirect the actions of the family-health team.


Iraq formally began the process of implementing decentralisation in 2015, with the dual aims of improving service delivery at the local level, and curtailing the centralised bureaucracy. It is widely accepted that this process has not achieved what it set out to do, despite decentralised governing arrangements being broadly accepted in principle by both federal and local authorities. Based on a series of interviews across three provinces with federal and local officials that have direct experiences of the process, this paper examines the flaws in implementation of decentralisation and the resulting outcomes to service delivery. It seeks to understand why this process has yielded overwhelmingly negative results and considers how the recent political turbulence in the country has impacted federal arrangements. The paper offers a number of recommendations aimed at strengthening the implementation process including greater clarity in roles and responsibilities across federal and local authorities, the adoption of an incremental approach to rollout, and greater consideration for local context and political actors.


Background A paucity of resuscitation studies have examined sex differences in patient-reported outcomes upon hospital discharge. It remains unclear whether male and female patients differ in health outcomes in their immediate responses to trauma and treatment after resuscitation. Objectives The aim of this study was to examine sex differences in patient-reported outcomes in the immediate recovery period after resuscitation. Methods In a national cross-sectional survey, patient-reported outcomes were measured by 5 instruments: symptoms of anxiety and depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), illness perception (Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire [B-IPQ]), symptom burden (Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale [ESAS]), quality of life (Heart Quality of Life Questionnaire), and perceived health status (12-Item Short Form Survey). Results Of 491 eligible survivors of cardiac arrest, 176 (80% male) participated. Compared with male, resuscitated female reported worse symptoms of anxiety (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale–Anxiety score ≥8) (43% vs 23%; P = .04), emotional responses (B-IPQ) (mean [SD], 4.9 [3.12] vs 3.7 [2.99]; P = .05), identity (B-IPQ) (mean [SD], 4.3 [3.10] vs 4.0 [2.85]; P = .04), fatigue (ESAS) (mean [SD], 5.26 [2.48] vs 3.92 [2.93]; P = .01), and depressive symptoms (ESAS) (mean [SD], 2.60 [2.68] vs 1.67 [2.19]; P = .05). Conclusions Between sexes, female survivors of cardiac arrest reported worse psychological distress and illness perception and higher symptom burden in the immediate recovery period after resuscitation. Attention should focus on early symptom screening at hospital discharge to identify those in need of targeted psychological support and rehabilitation.


Man has been and remains mobile, conquering and impacting every space he occupies. Man's impact on space has been more accentuated since the 20th century than erstwhile in history, owing to demographic explosion and more advanced technological innovations. Urban space and adjoining lands are impacted most compared to the rural milieu. This study examines the ramifications of rapid and disordered urbanisation on peripheral villages to the city of Bamenda. This is crucial in understanding the threats and consequences of the phenomenon of unending urbanisation on contiguous agricultural land. The trend of urbanisation and resultant impacts were ascertained by analysing data drawn from national census figures, LANDSAT satellite images and suitable field surveys. Analyses revealed that a growth of 14.6% of the population between 1973 and 2018 produced a corresponding sprawl of 97.54% of the spatial extent of Bamenda metropolis, which presently covers 40.96 times the spatial area it occupied in 1973. This has grave repercussions for contiguous agricultural land and urban food security. The paper posits that a scrupulous compliance with existing urban master plans and implementation of carefully designed policies to protect agricultural land are inevitable in checking urban growth and its induced effects; and guaranteeing urban food security.


A soft rock is generally prohibited to be used as filling material for highway subgrade. A novel method for improving the performance of subgrade is proposed. Aiming at the large amount of highly weathered soft rock along Shiyan-Tianshui superhighway, the physical and mechanical properties of the natural soft rock is analyzed. Then the cement is mixed into the soft rock as filling material to better the subgrade performance.The field and indoor experiments showed that the maximum dry density and optimum water content increases when the cement content increases. By mixing the cement, the subgrade performance can be significantly improved.


The search for integrated design solutions has been the designer's dream throughout the different stages of history. Designers have tried to observe natural phenomena and study biological structure behaviour when exploring creation within nature. This can happen through trying to follow an integrated approach for an objects' behaviour in biological nature systems. Donald E. Ingber, a scientist, confirmed this by his interpretation of the power that affects cell behaviour. This interpretation was proved through physical models called "the Principle of Tensegrity". It is an interpreting principle for connectivity within a cell that represents the preferred structural system in biological nature. "Tensegrity" ensures the structural stability arrangement for its components in order to reduce energy economically and get a lower mass to its minimum limit by local continuous tension and compression. The aim of this research is to monitor "Tensegrity" systems in biological nature with a methodology for use and formulation in new innovative design solutions. This research highlighted the way of thinking about the principle of "Tensegrity" in nature and its adaptation in creating lightweight metal structural systems. Such systems have many functions, characterized by lightweight and precise structural elements and components. Moreover, a methodology design has been proposed on how to benefit from Tensegrity systems in biological nature in the design of lightweight metal structures with creative application in Egypt.


In the theological works of the Christian of Church father Augustine (354-430) many references to motherhood can be found, as had been remarked often in passing. This study systematically explores these references in his texts and analyses the significance of these mother images from the perspective of spirituality studies, church history, and gender studies. This study also reconstructs the relationship between Augustine and his mother Monnica, and highlights the motherhood of Augustine's mistress, who gave birth to his son Adeodatus. Both divine motherhood and spiritual motherhood appear to be key concepts in the works of Augustine in context of mystagogy, the process by which human beings become initiated into the mystery of God. Augustine ascribes aspects of spiritual motherhood to persons such as Monnica, Jesus' mother Maria, and the apostle Paul, and to impersonal instances such as the Church and the Scriptures. Aspects of divine motherhood become visible in Augustine's works with regard to divine personifications such as Wisdom, Christ, and the celestial Jerusalem. Following these textual findings and their theological patterns this research shows that two notions of salvation, both referring to motherly figures, are at work simultaneously in Augustine's texts: one belonging to an early Christian wisdom tradition that centre stages Mother Wisdom and sees Jesus as her envoy, and the other to the more mainstream Christian tradition in which Mary's performance is emphasized in her role of giving birth to God's Son. In both cases salvation consists of being guided by the Church and finding fulfilment in the heavenly Jerusalem. Augustine interwove these two 'paths' of salvation, but they are recognisable as separate ways in the motherly symbolism of 'feeding' and 'carrying and giving birth' which he uses frequently in his works. Both refer to the involvement of the Spirit in the church community. With these symbolic constructs he affirmed and reworked the image of the Church as mother and underlined the Church mystagogical functions in faith formation (nurturing, carrying, giving rebirth and feeding with grace). The mystagogical functions expressed by Augustine in the symbolism of motherhood pointed to a specific and continuity in spiritual experience throughout the whole process of Christian initiation. This process starts with one's introduction tot the Christian faith, and is completed with the ultimate initiation into God's presence in eternal bliss. This research shows that the Christian concept and practice of initiation should not only be described and understood in terms of maieutics. In Augustine's interpretation of Christian initiation, the spiritual mother and the disciple (myste) are both subjects in the mystagogical process. In this notion of Christian initiation the Holy Spirit is the director of this process, acting in the interest of both persons, while in maieutics it is the midwife who direct the mystagogical process as she accompanies the parturient (myste). By discovering and discussing this conceptual difference, this study gives an innovative impetus to the contemporary fields of mystagogic research and praxis.


Objective We aim to examine the mechanisms of head-injured children presenting to participating centres in the Pan Asian Trauma Outcomes Study (PATOS) and to evaluate the association between mechanism of injury and severe outcomes. Design and setting We performed a retrospective review of medical records among emergency departments (EDs) of eight PATOS centres, from September 2014 – August 2015. Participants We included children <16 years old who presented within 24 hours of head injury and were admitted for observation or required a computed tomography (CT) of the brain from the ED. We excluded children with known coagulopathies, neurological co-morbidities or prior neurosurgery. We reviewed the mechanism, intent, location and object involved in each injury, and the patients' physical findings on presentation. Outcomes Primary outcomes were death, endotracheal intubation or neurosurgical intervention. Secondary outcomes included hospital and ED length of stay. Results 1438 children were analysed. 953 children (66.3%) were male and the median age was 5.0 years (IQR 1.0–10.0). Falls predominated especially among children younger than 2 years (82.9%), while road traffic injuries were more likely to occur among children 2 years and above compared with younger children (25.8% vs 11.1%). Centres from upper and lower middle-income countries were more likely to receive head injured children from road traffic collisions compared with those from high-income countries (51.4% and 40.9%, vs 10.9%, p<0.0001) and attended to a greater proportion of children with severe outcomes (58.2% and 28.4%, vs 3.6%, p<0.0001). After adjusting for age, gender, intent of injury and gross national income, traffic injuries (adjusted OR 2.183, 95% CI 1.448 to 3.293) were associated with severe outcomes, as compared with falls. Conclusions Among children with head injuries, traffic injuries are independently associated with death, endotracheal intubation and neurosurgery. This collaboration among Asian centres holds potential for future prospective childhood injury surveillance.


We propose an image restoration algorithm that can control the perceptual quality and/or the mean square error (MSE) of any pre-trained model, trading one over the other at test time. Our algorithm is few-shot: Given about a dozen images restored by the model, it can significantly improve the perceptual quality and/or the MSE of the model for newly restored images without further training. Our approach is motivated by a recent theoretical result that links between the minimum MSE (MMSE) predictor and the predictor that minimizes the MSE under a perfect perceptual quality constraint. Specifically, it has been shown that the latter can be obtained by optimally transporting the output of the former, such that its distribution matches the source data. Thus, to improve the perceptual quality of a predictor that was originally trained to minimize MSE, we approximate the optimal transport by a linear transformation in the latent space of a variational auto-encoder, which we compute in closed-form using empirical means and covariances. Going beyond the theory, we find that applying the same procedure on models that were initially trained to achieve high perceptual quality, typically improves their perceptual quality even further. And by interpolating the results with the original output of the model, we can improve their MSE on the expense of perceptual quality. We illustrate our method on a variety of degradations applied to general content images of arbitrary dimensions.


Purpose of review Bipolar disorder is a complex psychiatric condition that has been shown to carry a great degree of genetic loading. This review addresses current research in the genetics of treatment response in bipolar disorder, with a focus on findings that have shaped our understanding of the changing direction of this field in light of recent technological advancements. Recent findings The recent publications in bipolar disorder treatment response have helped consolidate or improve upon knowledge of susceptibility loci and genes in the field. There seems to be an increasing trend toward functionally assessing the role played by putative candidate genes and molecular factors modulating expression in bipolar disorder, as well as a movement toward more global, pathway and genome-wide-oriented research. Summary Genetic and molecular research to date in bipolar disorder treatment response has not completely answered all the lingering questions in the field, but has contributed to the development of a more patient-based understanding of treatment. In order to apply these findings at a clinical level, more comprehensive treatment response studies are imperative, combining recent advances in high-throughput genomics with functional molecular research.


The Swiss Rules of International Arbitration were drafted to govern arbitrations that are international within the meaning of Chapter 12 of the Statute on Private International Law. Victim of their own success, the Swiss Rules have become increasingly popular for disputes that are technically speaking domestic and therefore governed by the Intercantonal Arbitration Convention (Concordat). Nevertheless, the traditional position of the Swiss Chambers was to refer domestic parties to the domestic arbitration rules of the Chamber that administered the case notwithstanding an explicit choice of Swiss Rules. This paper argues that the Swiss Chambers should agree to administer domestic cases under the Swiss Rules. Recent evidence from the author's practice suggests that change may be under way.


Non-consumptive effects that predators have on prey are important to ecosystems. The perceived risk of predation can alter feeding behavior. Giving-up density (GUD) experiments have been a foundational method to evaluate perceived predation risk, but rely on the assumption that food preferences are absolute. However, nutritional preferences are context dependent and can change with risk. In my first chapter, I used spiders and grasshoppers to test the hypothesis that covariance in nutritional preferences and risk may confound the interpretation of GUD experiments. My results demonstrate that predation risk and nutritional preferences covary and can confound interpretation of GUD experiments. In my second chapter, I use a behavioral observation experiment to further explore non-consumptive effects, as well as the movement of prey in response to predation risk.


Numerical studies were conducted with the objective of gaining a better understanding of the consequences of potential explosion that could be associated with release of hydrogen in a confined and unconfined environment. This paper describes the work done by us in modelling explosion of accidental releases of hydrogen, using our Fire Explosion Release Dispersion (FRED) software. CAM and SCOPE models in FRED is used for validation of congested/uncongested unconfined and congested/uncongested confined vapour cloud explosion respectively. In the first step, CAM is validated against experiments of varying gas cloud size, blockage ratio, equivalence ratio of the mixture and blockage configuration. The model predictions of explosion overpressure are in good agreement with experiments. The results obtained from FRED, i.e. overpressure as a function of distance, match well in comparison to the experiments. In the second step, SCOPE is validated against vented explosion experiments available in open literature. In general, SCOPE reproduces the maximum overpressure within the factor of 2. Moreover, it well predicts the trends of increase in overpressure with change in type of the fuel, increase in number of obstacles, blockage ratio and decrease in the vent size.


The modified tests are put on by selecting gypsum from different habitats, using doping technology and calcination technology. The tests results can be summarized as follows. Different kinds of gypsums have different effects on the strength of fly ash autoclaved products, and so do the gypsums collected from different habitats. Low-purity gypsums helps to improve the strength of autoclaved products. Low-purity scatter of gypsum can be achieved by means of natural doping and artificial doping, and natural doping is better. Calcined gypsum could increase the strength of fly ash products within a certain range, and the best calcining temperature is about 650°C.


A statically-scheduled time-triggered (TT) software architecture demonstrates very predictable patterns of temporal behaviour and is – therefore – widely considered to be an appropriate platform for many high integrity and safety-critical embedded applications. However, there remains an important class of highly dynamic control systems for which it is considered that TT architectures are not a good match and for which the use of ―event triggered‖ (ET) designs is usually preferred. These applications include the control systems for internal combustion engines, brushless DC motors and synchronous AC motors. The aim of the research project presented in this thesis was to explore ways in which a static TT architecture could be adapted in order to better meet the requirements of such highly-dynamic control systems. The project had three main outcomes. The first project outcome was that a novel ―flexible TT architecture‖ was developed. This architecture differs significantly from conventional TT designs in that – during the system operation – only the timing of the next system interrupt is known in advance (that is, the timing of subsequent interrupts is unknown). This allows for considerable flexibility in the task scheduling while retaining most of the features that make static TT approaches attractive. The second project outcome was that two novel schedulers were designed and implemented, in order to demonstrate (by means of an ―existence proof‖) that it was possible to construct a practical implementation of the flexible TT architecture. The third outcome from this project was that a comprehensive evaluation of the flexible TT architecture and the associated scheduler implementations was carried by means of two representative case studies. The case studies involved engine synchronisation and control of a brushless DC motor (BLDCM). In the engine synchronisation case study, the flexible TT architecture was shown to be a viable alternative to ET in conditions where a static TT was unable to cope with the system demands. In the BLDCM case study, while both static TT and flexible TT were viable alternatives, the flexible TT was able to provide similar levels of performance to the static TT solution at a fraction of the resource usage.


Although higher red cell distribution width (RDW) has recently been reported to be associated with increased mortality independent of anemia in patients with heart failure and those with coronary artery disease (CAD), the mechanism underlying this association is unknown. We hypothesized that higher RDW may reflect neurohumoral activation and a chronic inflammatory state that each contribute to adverse clinical outcomes in these populations. We measured RDW and plasma levels of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) in 226 consecutive patients undergoing cardiac catheterization for CAD (age, 67 +/- 8 years; males, 77%; RDW, 45.8 +/- 3.3 fL; hemoglobin, 13.2 +/- 1.4 g/dL; BNP, median [interquartile range], 26.0 [9.0-58.4] pg/mL; hs-CRP, 679 [345-1920] ng/mL). Plasma BNP (r = 0.21, P < 0.01) but not hs-CRP (r = 0.04, P > 0.1) levels correlated with RDW. After adjustment for potential confounders including age, gender, body mass index, glomerular filtration rate, hemoglobin, and known hemodynamic determinants of BNP, including elevated left ventricular end-diastolic pressure and volume and slow left ventricular relaxation, RDW was independently predicted by BNP (r(2) = 0.058, P < 0.001). In conclusion, elevated BNP levels are independently associated with higher RDW in patients with CAD. Neurohumoral activation may be a mechanistic link between increased RDW and adverse clinical outcomes in this population.


I ENTITLED THIS PAPER "With an End in Sight" because I hope to highlight the rhetorical or illocutionary purposes behind the decision to represent Sami people as a "vanishing" culture. In particular, I hope to explore what ends Karl Nickul and Andreas Alariesto had in mind when portraying the Sami communities they knew or remembered as lost pieces of the past, a decision which renders their works--one an ethnographic photo-documentary, the other a collection of folk paintings--documents of a lost world, glimpses of a vanished Camelot. I argue that these sympathetic portrayals of communities that, according to Nickul and Alariesto, were essentially extinct at the time their works were completed must be seen in conjunction with a submerged but assumed ethnographic image of Sami operating within Finnish scholarship at the time. Nickul's and Alariesto's works, in other words, answer viewpoints that they assume Finnish scholarly or popular audiences hold. As we shall see, the elegiac, heroic quality of their works goes far to balance cold, Social Darwinistic assumptions operating in twentieth-century Finnish understandings of Sami culture. At the same time, the victimized image of Sami and the rhetorical assertion that it is already too late to save them have profoundly negative implications for Sami policies or Sami identity today. In order to use such works effectively in courses and research at the beginning of the twenty-first century--as Troy Storfjell has outlined in his paper in this collection--we must examine their assumed audiences and the overt or covert agendas brought to the topic of Sami culture by their creators. In this case, the assumed audience of each of these works was the same: Finns living in the middle of the twentieth century possessing a mix of romantic and (more prevalent) Social Darwinistic understandings of their country's indigenous minority. I have chosen to write about Nickul and Alariesto because their works occupy important bridging positions in the emergent international field of Sami studies. Nickul's introduction to Sami culture The Lappish Nation: Citizens of Four Countries from 1977 (the original appeared in Finnish in 1970 under the title Saamelaiset kansana ja kansalaisina) has served as a key foundational study for English-speaking ethnographers interested in Sami people. Nickul's interdisciplinary work surveys Sami history, policies, Sami-language publications, and (then-contemporary) cultural and political movements, all from a perspective grounded in the ethnographic description of traditional Sami livelihoods, which forms the work's first chapter. And in this formative chapter, Nickul's own ethnographic work with Skolt Sami of the Suenjel siida during the 1930s, first published in 1948, provides a foundational image of an asserted pre-contact Sami life. Both the 1948 and 1977 publications will be examined here. Andreas Alariesto (1900-89) rose to prominence in Finnish art and in Finnish understandings of Sami people during this same period. Born and raised as a Sami in Sompio, Lapland, Alariesto became famous for his colorful paintings that set out to chronicle, in Alariesto's own terms, a world that had already passed, one that would fade into oblivion with his death. His paintings, often with accompanying wry explanations of their contents, became widely acclaimed in Finnish art circles and have been featured in galleries, art books, and even Arabia ceramics. (1) It is clear in examining these men's works that we need to regard ethnographers--i.e. describers of culture--as authors. The ethnographer's attitudes, understandings, and personal agendas inevitably play decisive roles in the selection and presentation of materials from a given culture. The nature of this authorial role, sometimes artfully concealed under assertions of authority or objectivity, has been explored provocatively by James Clifford and others in the so-called "Writing Culture" movement of American anthropology (e. …


Several antigen‐specific T cell lines were found to secrete a lymphokine upon activation by antigen or lectin that was provisionally termed T cell growth factor III (TCGF III) because it induced the proliferation of a CD4+ T cell clone independently from IL2 and IL4. Amino acid sequence analysis (and the functional properties of TCGF III) revealed that TCGF III was identical with a recently identified lymphokine termed P40. TCGF III/P40 was not only produced by long‐term cultured T cell lines but also upon stimulation of freshly isolated Mlsa‐reactive T cells. In addition, naive CD4+ T cells secreted TCGF III/P40 upon activation by lectin or allo‐major histocompatibility complex structures. However, in spite of its growth‐promoting activity for a CD4+ T cell clone this lymphokine does not appear to function as a general growth factor for T cells.


The aim of this study was to investigate the association of CD36, a class B scavenger receptor, rs6969989 polymorphism with the serum lipid profiles in Korean women, together with their modulation by oily fish consumption. Subjects were participants from the Korean Genome Epidemiology Study (KoGES), which was initiated in 2001 as a large-scale. A total of 4,210 women aged 39 to 70 were included in this study. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires, anthropometric measurements, and blood chemical analysis. Dietary intake was analyzed using a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire. The minor allele frequency for rs6969989 was found in 12% of this population. Homozygotes minor G allele at the rs6868989 exhibited significantly higher high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) concentrations (P-trend=0.043) and lower fasting glucose (P-trend=0.013) than major allele A carriers. The risk of low HDL-C was significantly lower in homozygotes for the G allele than the A allele carriers (P-trend=0.032). Gene-diet interaction effects between rs6969989 and oily fish intake were significantly associated with the risk of dyslipidemia (P-interaction= 0.004). Subjects with homozygotes minor G allele and high oily fish intake generally had a lower risk of dyslipidemia than did those with major allele homozygotes and low oily fish intake. These findings supported that oily fish consumption may modulate the contributions of CD36 rs6969989 on genetic predisposition to the risk of dyslipidemia.


This is the era of Mobile communications being deployed for many applications. One such is in the area of health science. This paper presents a unique application developed, called mHealth, that would help the patients, the doctors, the nurses and also the friends of the patients. It is unique in the sense that it alerts patients periodically for intake of medicines by the patients as advocated by the doctors and if the patient fails to do so, a real-time alert will be sent to the doctor. The sequence of operations taken is also entered into a database ported on a mHealth Server for future records. Which patient should take which medicine and at what periodicity can be entered by the doctor into the mHealth Sever.


Abstract The static and high frequency dielectric tensors, Born effective charges, vibrational spectrum at the Γ point, TO-LO splitting and IR intensities of calcite CaCO3 have been calculated with the periodic ab initio CRYSTAL program, with five different basis sets of increasing size and four different Hamiltonians (HF, LDA, PBE, B3LYP). B3LYP is shown to perform better than the other options, in particular of LDA and PBE that are often used for the calculation of the vibrational spectrum of crystalline solids. When comparing B3LYP and experimental frequencies, the mean absolute difference is as small as 8.5 cm-1; this number reduces to 4.8 cm-1 if the two lowest experimental frequencies, that we suspect to be affected by a relatively large error, are excluded from statistics. Static and high frequency dielectric tensors, as well as IR intensities computed with the same hybrid scheme (B3LYP) compare quite favourably with experiment. The full set of modes is characterized by various tools including isotopic substitution, "freezing" one of the two subunits (Ca2+ or CO32-) and graphical representations. A general tool has been implemented, that permits the automatic generation of the animation of the full set of modes starting from the CRYSTAL output (available at www.crystal.unito.it/vibs/calcite).


Improved water safety management, as addressed by the Sustainable Development Goals, can be aided by Water Safety Planning, a risk-assessment and risk-management approach introduced by the World Health Organization and implemented to date in 93 countries around the globe. Yet, this approach still encounters some challenges in practice, including that of securing collaboration among the broad range of stakeholders involved. This paper presents a role-playing game designed to foster stakeholder collaboration in Water Safety Plans (WSP). In this role-play, participants take on different stakeholders' roles during a collective (team-based) decision-making process to improve water supply safety in a fictive town. The game is the result of a transdisciplinary initiative aimed at integrating knowledge across technical and governance aspects of WSPs into an active learning experience for water sector actors from diverse backgrounds. It exposes participants to the four phases of Kolb's experiential learning cycle: concrete experience, reflective observation, conceptualization and active experimentation. This paper discusses potential impacts of the WSP role-play, including skills and knowledge development among participants, which can support cross-sectoral integration and dealing with complexity in decision-making. These are capacity assets strongly needed to address water safety management challenges in a sustainable way.


The WTO TBT Agreement obliges governments to use international standards as a basis for regulation, yet leaves a degree of flexibility with respect to the choice of standard, and the manner of its use. This interplay between obligation and flexibility has given rise to tension in various fora of the WTO, including in committee work, negotiations and dispute settlement. This paper brings together these three distinct strands of WTO work to illustrate core aspects of the international standards debate at the WTO. In our analysis we first briefly outline the nature of the discipline in the TBT Agreement itself; next, we describe where and how the discussion arises in the WTO; and, finally, explore some implications of governance of international standard setting. We propose that greater regulatory alignment could be achieved through a renewed focus on the procedures of setting international standards (the how), and greater emphasis on robust technical/scientific underpinnings of such standards (the what).


Reducing Emissions coming from deforestation and forest degradation is internationally recognized as an important mechanism for mitigating climate change. DR Congo is one of the target countries of this mechanism. The study we propose has two objectives: - the relationship between immediate and underlying causes and deforestation rates; - identification of the socio-economic characteristics of the actors (multinationals and rural households). The study also identifies the different types of timber harvested by determining their corresponding quantities and the impact of exploitation on biodiversity. Methodological approach: participatory surveys and empirical survey combined with geo-forestry analysis using GPS throughout the different axes of the eastern province. Among the techniques used are: Focus group; interview; Case study and GPS coordinate collection. Present and future effects are also the subject of this study with reference to the methods applied in deforestation.


The increase in persistent conversations in the form of chat and instant messaging (IM) has presented new opportunities for researchers. This paper describes a method for evaluating and visualizing persistent conversations by creating a speech act profile for conversation participants using speech act theory and concepts from fuzzy logic. This method can be used either to score a participant based on possible intentions or to create a visual map of those intentions. Transcripts from the Switchboard corpus, which have been marked up with speech act labels according to a SWBD-DAMSL tag set of 42 tags, are used to train language models and a modified hidden Markov model (HMM) to obtain probabilities for each speech act type for a given sentence. Rather than choosing the speech act with the maximum probability and assigning it to the sentence, the probabilities are aggregated for each conversation participant creating a set of speech act profiles, which can be visualized as a radar graphs. Several example profiles are shown along with possible interpretations. The profiles can be used as an overall picture of a conversation, and may be useful in various analyses of persistent conversations including information retrieval, deception detection, and online technical support monitoring.


The helminth fauna of insectivorous mammals inhabiting meliorative canal banks has been examined in western part of Belorussian Polesie during 2005-2010. 33 species of helminthes were found in 4 species of small mammals, and total infection was 94.2%. The results of monitoring were compared with the observations carried out in the same territory in 1996-1999. Common shrew was found to be the dominant species among insectivorous mammals. The helminth complex in the insectivorous mammals inhabiting meliorativ canal banks is formed mainly from the helminths of this host species.


Design of computerized process simulation models are often an attempt to mimic workings of an existing manufacturing process with as much precision as feasible so that analysis is optimally useful. This modeling may also be applied to processes that are new and do not have a pre-existing physical example. A methodology from Axiomatic Design called Manufacturing System Design Decomposition (MSDD) is employed to define the functional requirements and the design parameters for the processes which are then employed in the design of the process simulation model. By its very nature, the resultant design is lean since the focus is on the specific functions to be performed necessary to the manufacture of the product at the lowest possible cost. Acclaro DFSS software from Axiomatic Design Solutions, Inc. provides the environment for developing the Axiomatic Design model and Witness software from Lanner Inc. is employed for the simulation environment.


Notions of masculinity have played a central role in social and cultural research on men's drinking events. Within this context, masculinity is regularly called on to explain the problematic disparities that mark men's alcohol consumption, including men's disproportionate involvement in drinking and a range of alcohol-related harms. More recently, however, researchers have begun to emphasize men's drinking events as sites of care and support, leading some to suggest that men's drinking masculinities are evolving in affirmative and health promoting ways. While unsettling the tendency of scholars to problematize men's drinking masculinities, foregrounding the possibilities of men's care potentially obscures its complexities and constraints. In this paper, we are concerned to critically re-examine the relationship between masculinity, care, and events of men's alcohol consumption. Where some authors have positioned men's care as an innate or uncomplicated good, we draw on a feminist ethics of care approach to explore its complexities, constraints, and exclusions. Through focus group discussions with 101 men, our analysis describes how ideals of masculine autonomy emerged through men's accounts of drinking events, fundamentally shaping the constitution, practice, and possibilities of care. For the men in our study, the valorization of autonomy fostered ambivalence and tension around care, hindering their capacity as care givers and receivers. In turn, opportunities and accountability for care were overlooked, avoided, or displaced onto women. By highlighting the complexity of men's care, our account complicates existing scholarship on men's drinking while also gesturing toward new avenues for public health practice. We conclude by outlining how a more concerted focus on care may be integrated into public health policy, research, and programming and, in the process, contribute to the promotion of more health affirming and ethical modes of masculinity.


E-Health is becoming a vital industry and human activity recognition (HAR) is one of the most popular research areas of its scope. Although there are various studies on HAR, most of them come up with complex models that are not compatible with portable and wearable devices due to their limited computing capabilities. In this study, a new approach to data representation is presented with convolutional neural network architectures for high accuracy and lightweight activity detection. An anomaly detection framework is presented, which uses ECG data for the prediction of cardiac stress activities. The novel approach to data representation and the proposed deep learning model are tested on the MHEALTH dataset with two different validation techniques for accuracy and three different complexity metrics. The experimental results show that the proposed approaches can achieve up to 96.92% and 97.06% accuracy for the HAR and cardiac stress level, respectively. In addition, the models proposed for inertial data and ECG-based prediction are lighter than the existing approaches in the literature with sizes of 0.89 MB and 1.97 MB and complexities of 0.06 and 1.04 Giga FLOPS, respectively.


Globalization enables P/M part makers to choose powders from different sources. Raw materials produced by a given process and having equal chemical composition are supposed to be equivalent. The differences in sintering behavior, in industrial equipment, have been investigated on P/M steels obtained from four diffusion-bonded powders (Fe + Ni + Cu + Mo) on atomized iron base, at the same alloy contents. Two levels of carbon and two sintering conditions have been investigated. Dimensional changes, C content, hardness, microhardness pattern, universal hardness, fractal analysis, pore features, microstructure features, and rupture strength have been compared, to characterize different raw materials. An index of homogeneity of microstructures, based on a specific statistical approach, does not agree completely with observed microstructures and pore feature. The results show that the claimed equivalence is not confirmed by experimental data. Analyses of microhardness and microstructure distributions seem powerful tools to rate the real equivalence of so claimed powders. P/M part makers may use the proposed approach to assess detectable differences on performances among powders that are declared as "true" substitute, so confirming or contradicting any even not negligible cost difference. The comparison methods here described and applied can also help powder producers to improve the suitability of their products to sintering processes.


Background and Purpose— Established risk factors do not fully identify patients at risk for recurrent stroke. The SPARCL trial (Stroke Prevention by Aggressive Reduction in Cholesterol Levels) evaluated the effect of atorvastatin on stroke risk in patients with a recent stroke or transient ischemic attack and no known coronary heart disease. This analysis explored the relationships between 13 plasma biomarkers assessed at trial enrollment and the occurrence of outcome strokes. Methods— We conducted a case–cohort study of 2176 participants; 562 had outcome strokes and 1614 were selected randomly from those without outcome strokes. Time to stroke was evaluated by Cox proportional hazards models. Results— There was no association between time to stroke and lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, resistin, matrix metalloproteinase-9, N-terminal fragment of pro-B-type natriuretic peptide, soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule-1, soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1, or soluble CD40 ligand. In adjusted analyses, osteopontin (hazard ratio per SD change, 1.362; P<0.0001), neopterin (hazard ratio, 1.137; P=0.0107), myeloperoxidase (hazard ratio, 1.177; P=0.0022), and adiponectin (hazard ratio, 1.207; P=0.0013) were independently associated with outcome strokes. After adjustment for the Stroke Prognostic Instrument-II and treatment, osteopontin, neopterin, and myeloperoxidase remained independently associated with outcome strokes. The addition of these 3 biomarkers to Stroke Prognostic Instrument-II increased the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve by 0.023 (P=0.015) and yielded a continuous net reclassification improvement (29.1%; P<0.0001) and an integrated discrimination improvement (42.3%; P<0.0001). Conclusions— Osteopontin, neopterin, and myeloperoxidase were independently associated with the risk of recurrent stroke and improved risk classification when added to a clinical risk algorithm. Clinical Trial Registration— URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique Identifier: NCT00147602.


BACKGROUND
Data comparing returned travelers and immigrants/refugees managed in a hospital setting is lacking.

METHODS
We prospectively collected data on 1,106 patients with an illness likely acquired overseas who presented to two hospital-based Australian infectious diseases units over a 6-year period.

RESULTS
Eighty-three percent of patients were travelers and 17% immigrants/refugees. In travelers, malaria (19%), gastroenteritis/diarrhea (15%), and upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) (7%) were the most common diagnoses. When compared with immigrants/refugees, travelers were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with gastroenteritis/diarrhea [odds ratio (OR) 8], malaria (OR 7), pneumonia (OR 6), URTI (OR 3), skin infection, dengue fever, typhoid/paratyphoid fever, influenza, and rickettsial disease. They were significantly less likely to be diagnosed with leprosy (OR 0.03), chronic hepatitis (OR 0.04), tuberculosis (OR 0.05), schistosomiasis (OR 0.3), and helminthic infection (OR 0.3). In addition, travelers were more likely to present within 1 month of entry into Australia (OR 96), and have fever (OR 8), skin (OR 6), gastrointestinal (OR 5), or neurological symptoms (OR 5) but were less likely to be asymptomatic (OR 0.1) or have anaemia (OR 0.4) or eosinophilia (OR 0.3). Diseases in travelers were more likely to have been acquired via a vector (OR 13) or food and water (OR 4), and less likely to have been acquired via the respiratory (OR 0.2) or skin (OR 0.6) routes. We also found that travel destination and classification of traveler can significantly influence the likelihood of a specific diagnosis in travelers. Six percent of travelers developed a potentially vaccine-preventable disease, with failure to vaccinate occurring in 31% of these cases in the pretravel medical consultation.

CONCLUSIONS
There are important differences in the spectrum of illness, clinical features, and mode of disease transmission between returned travelers and immigrants/refugees presenting to hospital-based Australian infectious diseases units with an illness acquired overseas.