Problem-based learning (PBL) provides the theoretical framework for a learner-centered active instructional experience that relies on collaboration, critical thinking, and hands-on interaction with resources. When used in a one-shot session, PBL challenges the instruction librarian to strengthen and renew their pedagogical skills. Sessions are lively and provide the opportunity for students and faculty to experience library instruction in a new and dynamic way. PBL and information literacy are ideal partners with limitless possibilities for enhanced library instruction.


ABSTRACT This paper discusses retirement as a learning process, where learning, be it formal or informal, enables retirees to adjust to the transition from work to retirement. Such discussion is important given the fact that the world population is aging and that more people are retiring in the next few decades. Moreover, people are experiencing an increased length of retirement due to longer lifespan. Promoting the retirement experience as a productive learning process will bring huge social benefits to impact all involved, including the individual retirees themselves. Much early retirement research considered retirement as a monolithic event, which affects all retirees in similar ways, thereby justifying a cross-sectional approach to take a snapshot of the adjustment process. Such approach falls short of capturing the dynamic process that is characteristic of the retirement transition; and masks individual differences as retirees conceptualize, experience, and negotiate their own ways through the process of adaptation as it unfolds during the transition from work to retirement. This paper argues that in order to obtain in-depth understanding of the individual experiences in the retirement transition and to gain insight into the role of learning in the process, we need to use a qualitative, longitudinal approach to track and reflect the different patterns of change for retirees at different points in time. By examining the process of change and the retirement experiences of retirees using a longitudinal qualitative approach, we should be able to illustrate, how an individual learn to experience and adapt to retirement, so as to support the claim that the retirement process is unique and that learning is an integral part of that process.


Intron-containing and intronless genes have different biological properties and statistical characteristics. Here we propose a new computational method to distinguish between intron-containing and intronless gene sequences. Seven feature parameters , , , , , , and based on detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) are fully used, and thus we can compute a 7-dimensional feature vector for any given gene sequence to be discriminated. Furthermore, support vector machine (SVM) classifier with Gaussian radial basis kernel function is performed on this feature space to classify the genes into intron-containing and intronless. We investigate the performance of the proposed method in comparison with other state-of-the-art algorithms on biological datasets. The experimental results show that our new method significantly improves the accuracy over those existing techniques.


SIR, -Before we become too evangelically disposed to march behind this attractive banner perhaps we should remember the past. Mrs Sally Mapp amassed her vast Epsom clientele because there was little help available elsewhere for those crippled by rheumatism. John St John Long packed his Harley Street surgery with those suffering from tuberculosis because of the profession's inability to help very much. Dr James Graham gained the support of fashionable London society because he offered an alternative to bleeding or purgation for those suffering from sterility or sexual dysfunction. Patients turn to quacks in most cases because orthodox medicine either rejects them or refuses to educate them. I came to this conclusion nearly 30 years ago when I was writing The Natural History of Quackery,' shyly under a pseudonym lest the GMC label me an (advertising) quack, and see no reason to revise this view. Quite a lot of "quacking" today emanates from unexpected sources, which include medical journalism and our royal colleges. Perhaps a kindly motto would be: "Never bust a quack unless you have something better to offer the patient."


We formulate the problem of perception in the framework of information theory, and prove that categorical perception is equivalent to the existence of an observable that has the maximum possible information on the target of perception. We call such an observable maximally informative. Regardless whether categorical perception is real, maximally informative observables can form the basis of a theory of perception. We conclude with the implications of such a theory for the problem of speech perception.


ABSTRACT Introduction: Osteoarticular fungal infections (OAFIs) complicate the clinical course of high-risk patients, including immunosuppressed individuals. Their management, however, despite being intricate, is governed by evidence arising from sub-optimal quality research, such as case series. Guidelines are scarce and when present result in recommendations based on low quality evidence. Furthermore, the differences between the management of immunocompromised and immunocompetent patients are not distinct. This is a narrative review after a literature search in PubMed, up to November 2019. Areas covered: The major fungal groups causing osteomyelitis and/or arthritis are Candida spp., Aspergillus spp., non-Aspergillus filamentous fungi, non-Candida yeasts and endemic dimorphic fungi. Their epidemiology is briefly analyzed with emphasis on immunodeficiency and other risk factors. Management of OAFIs includes appropriate antifungal drug therapy (liposomal amphotericin B, triazoles or echinocandins), local surgery and immunotherapy for primary immunodeficiencies. Cessation of immunosuppressive drugs is also mandated. Expert opinion: Management of OAFIs includes affordable and available options and approaches. However, research on therapeutic practices is urgently required to be further improved, due to the rarity of affected patients. Evolution is expected to translate into novel antifungal drugs, less invasive and precise surgical approaches and targeted enhancement of immunoregulatory pathways in defense of challenging fungal pathogens.


Variability in soluble solids concentration (SSC, °Brix) in liquid endosperm (LE) among individual pecan [Carya illinoinensis (Wangenh.) K. Koch] fruits and among fruits from different trees and cultivars using a sugar refractometer was determined at College Station, Texas, in 1997. Repeatability of readings from LE from the same fruit was excellent. Fruits from the same tree did not vary for SSC, but significant differences among clones were common. Soluble solids concentration appears to decrease as the fruit matures. The SSC values for two full-sib clones (one susceptible to water split and one resistant to water split) were similar. This information discounts the possibility that high osmotic water potential gradients alone induce the water split phenomenon. A wide range of SSC percents was recorded. A low of 0.5% was recorded for LE from a 'Houma' fruit, while 6.1% was recorded for LE from a fruit from a drought-stressed 'Burkett' tree.


Aim To investigate how two different strategies to form larger neonatal intensive care units (NICU) impact neonatal mortality rates. Methods Cross-sectional study modeling admission volumes and mortality rates of 177,086 VLBW infants aggregated into 862 NICUs. Cumulative 3-year data was abstracted from Vermont Oxford Network. The model simulated a reduction in number of NICUs by stepwise exclusion using either admission volume (VOL) or quality (QUAL) cut-offs. After randomly redirecting infants of excluded to remaining NICUs resulting system mortality rates were calculated with and without adjusting for effects of experience levels (EL) using published data to reflect effects of different team-to-patient exposure. Results The quality-based strategy is more effective in reducing mortality; while VOL alone was not able to reduce system mortality, QUAL already achieved a 5% improvement after reducing 8% of NICUs and redirecting 6% of infants. Including "EL", a 5% improvement of mortality was achieved by reducing 77% (VOL) vs. 7% (QUAL) of NICUs and redirecting 54% (VOL) vs. 5% (QUAL) of VLBW infants, respectively. Conclusion While a critical number of admissions is needed to maintain skills this study emphasizes the importance of including quality parameters to restructure neonatal care. The findings can be generalized to other medical fields.


Recent advances in pharmacologic, radiologic, and endoscopic management of gastrointestinal bleeding has improved the ability to achieve hemostasis and prevent re-bleeding. However, this improvement in hemostatic capability has failed to significantly improve the overall mortality in patients with gastrointestinal bleeding. Today gastroenterologists are facing this stiff challenge. The management of patients with variceal bleeding has evolved from surgery to balloon tamponade, vasoactive drugs, and interventional radiologic and endoscopic techniques that have improved the hemostatic as well as mortality rates in patients with variceal bleeding. However, patients with variceal bleeding refractory to pharmacotherapy and endoscopic hemostatic therapy pose a difficult challenge, as these patients have a high mortality rate. Thus, a number of alternative hemostatic measures have been studied in these patients, with varying results. Management of patients with bleeding peptic ulcer has also radically changed over time, from antacids and surgery to aggressive antisecretory therapy, and various endoscopic injection, thermal, and mechanical hemostatic methods that reduce the need for emergency surgery; and we are now swirling back again to antisecretory therapy. Recently it has also been shown that an aggressive antisecretory therapy pre-endoscopy reduces the need for endoscopic therapy. Five topics that reflect the state of the art approach to gastrointestinal bleeding and which have been published in the past year are reviewed here.


Background: Modeling the growth curve of height has a significant role in understanding the growth trajectories over time and generated mathematical functions that depict the expected height of children at a particular age. However, modeling the mathematical growth functions for physical height is not well studied in low- and middle-income countries. Modeling and identifying nonlinear growth curves that adequately describe the growth trajectories in low- and middle-income countries were the aims of this study. Methods: The data were obtained from the Young Lives study. Longitudinal measures of height from infancy to middle-adolescence were collected from low- and middle-income countries. A number of nonlinear growth trajectories were studied through the family of three-parameter nonlinear mixed-effects models. Results: This study examined the performances of different growth curves for the height growth trajectories. The Logistic curve was chosen among the three-parameter nonlinear growth curves for modeling the growth trajectories from infancy to middle-adolescence. Gender and country have significant effects on the three parameters of growth curves. Males had higher asymptotic height and a lower rate of growth than females. Females reached asymptotic height earlier and shorter at asymptotic height than males. Children with low asymptotic height grow faster than those with higher asymptotic height. Compared to Ethiopian children, Indian and Peruvian children had lower asymptotic height, but Vietnamese children had higher asymptotic height. Ethiopian children approached adult height earlier than Indian children, but later than Peruvian children. However, there was no significant difference in the rate of growth between Ethiopian and Vietnamese children. Conclusions: This study concludes that the Logistic growth curve was found to be the best growth curve to describe the height growth trajectories. Children in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam showed different growth parameters. Further enhancements may be attained with the incorporation of other plausible covariates.


Migration poses a unique food challenge that has led to immigrant households failing to maintain their traditional food diets. Despite the growing number of Sub-Saharan immigrants living in South Africa, information regarding their dietary challenges and habits upon settlement in South Africa is limited. A descriptive study involving immigrant households (n=34) was primarily used to pre-test a questionnaire that was undertaken by immigrants to assess the challenges they face with regard to their ability to continue with and maintain their traditional diets. Data relating to socio-demographic characteristics, such as continuity with ethnic food culture and the problems faced by Sub-Saharan immigrants with regard to them retaining their traditional food culture was collected. All the respondents indicated that they treasured and maintained their traditional food culture, albeit to varying degrees. Overall, high prices (64,6%), limited variety (64,5%), the quality of food (71%), the unavailability of traditional foods (58,7%) and a lack of shops selling traditional food (76,5%) were identified as major barriers to them retaining their traditional food culture. This is the first study to assess the challenges faced by immigrants living in South Africa with regard to them accessing their traditional foods and maintaining their traditional diets. The findings of the study suggest that Sub-Saharan immigrants living in South Africa find it difficult to access their traditional foods and that this lack of access could predispose them to adopt poor eating habits, however, there is still a need for a larger study with more respondents to test these findings. The findings of the study also revealed that there were lot of similarities between the eating patterns of South Africans and those of immigrants from Southern African countries.


The project for the urban redevelopment of Paolo Orsi Square (ex slaughterhouse) in Rosarno (Reggio Calabria, Italy) represented an important opportunity to investigate the archaeological area and experiment new technologies in a very important sacred area of the ancient polis of Medma. The Greek colony is located under modern Rosarno and in particular, in the eastern part, under Paolo Orsi Square, there was a sacred area. An OhmMapper (Geometrics-US) archaeological resistivity survey was carried out in the area occupied by the ex-municipal slaughterhouse, where a small part of the structures of a sanctuary (6th-2nd cent. B.C.) was brought to light. Data acquired through the resistivity survey were used to create 2D and 3D models of the subsurface; in these models it is possible to identify with a good level of precision the geometry and depth of archaeological features. These results helped us to reconstruct the direction of the walls and the location of the main structures related to the sanctuary, without invasive procedures. Thanks to the results of the geophysical survey, some areas of considerable archaeological potential were preserved during the project of urban redevelopment, conducted thanks to POR (Programmi Operativi Regionali) funds.


The research tackles the computer linguistic terminology used wrongly or vaguely by Arab computer users in academic institutions and by English-Arabic translators. To serve the purpose of this research, we inserted and/or contextualized a number of computer linguistic terms in texts or contexts. The terms were heavily used in word processors or statistical packages. Five translators were requested to translate those texts. Simultaneously, we reviewed the computer books taught in two Arab countries, Jordan and the UAE, as these countries have witnessed good educational developments. After filtering out the translators' products from English into Arabic and after investigating the computer terminologies, we found that many computer terms are problematic. We classified the types of problematic vocabulary items and then tabulated them under four categories: the vague, inaccurate, unchangeable and statistical ones. We also found that those problematic words were difficult to translate because of the Arabic culture or the inefficiency of English Arabic Bilingual dictionaries. The research ends up with a number of research and practical recommendations.


Abstract A high magnitude of overpressure is a characteristic of the deep, sub-Chalk reservoirs of the Central North Sea. The Upper Cretaceous chalk there comprises both reservoir and non-reservoir intervals, the former volumetrically minor but most commonly identified near the top of the Tor Formation. The majority of non-reservoir chalk has been extensively cemented with average fractional gross porosity of 0.08, and permeability in the nano- to microDarcy range (10 −18 –10 −21 m 2 ), and sealing properties comparable to shale. Hence deeply buried chalk is comparable to shale in preventing dewatering and allowing overpressure to develop. Direct pressure measurements in the Chalk are restricted to the reservoir intervals, plus in rare fractured chalk, but reveal that Chalk pressures lie on a pressure gradient which links to the Lower Cenozoic reservoir above the Chalk and the Jurassic/Triassic reservoir pressures below. Hence a pore pressure profile of constantly increasing overpressure with increasing depth is indicated. Mud weight profiles through the Chalk, by contrast, show many borehole pressures lower than those indicated by these direct measurements, implying wells are routinely drilled underbalanced. The Chalk is therefore considered the main pressure transition zone to high pressures in sub-Chalk reservoirs. In addition to its role as a regional seal for overpressure, the Base Chalk can be shown to be highly significant to trap integrity. Analysis of dry holes and hydrocarbon discoveries relative to their aquifer seal capacity (the difference between water pressure and minimum stress) shows that the best empirical relationship exists at Base Chalk, rather than Base Seal/Top Reservoir, where the relationship is traditionally examined. Using a database of 65 wells from the HP/HT area of the Central North Sea, and extending the known aquifer gradients from the Fulmar reservoirs via Base Cretaceous to Base Chalk, leads to a risking threshold at 5.2 MPa (750 psi) aquifer seal capacity. Discoveries constitute 88% of the wells above the threshold and 36% below, with 100% dry holes where the aquifer seal capacity is zero (i.e. predicted breached trap). This relationship at Base Chalk can be used to identify leak points which control vertical hydrocarbon migration as well as assessing the risk associated with drilling high-pressure prospects in the Central North Sea.


The objective of the present work is to improve the output waveform of three level inverters used in high-power applications, where the switching frequency is very low. This is achieved by maintaining the synchronization, half-wave symmetry, quarter-wave symmetry, and three-phase symmetry in the pulsewidth modulation (PWM) waveforms. The principles of achieving synchronization and symmetries in terms of space vectors for three level inverters are presented. A novel synchronized space vector pulsewidth modulation (SVPWM) algorithms is proposed and verified experimentally. The experimental waveforms of the inverter output voltage and motor no load current for different operating conditions of the drive are presented. The performance measure in terms of the weighted total harmonic distortion (THD) of the line voltage is computed for the linear modulation region of the drive for the proposed algorithm and compared with that of synchronized SVPWM and synchronized sine-triangle pulsewidth modulation (SPWM) technique. The comparative results show that consideration of synchronization and symmetry results in improved THD. Another significant feature of the proposed algorithm is that the symmetry and synchronization leads to self-balancing of the direct current (dc) bus capacitor voltages over every one third cycle of the fundamental


CMP (Chip Multiprocessor) based architectures have offered a promising solution in tomorrow's high performance computing demands. Topology and routing policy are playing key roles in designing such architectures to develop a NoC (Network-on-Chip). Major influencing design metrics include scalability, modularity, transport latency, parallelism, and, efficient load-balancing (to avoid generation of hot spots). Efficiency of topology as well as good routing policy is again counted in terms of its ability of fault tolerance and its deadlock prevention scheme. In this work, our primary objective was to design an efficient scalable NoC architecture with efficient fault tolerant routing policies to improve performance of a NoC from all these aspects. This not only reduces the network latency considerably but also tries to balance the load of the network as well as ensures that the packet will always reach the destination through the possible shortest deadlock free path.


MR. TERENCE MILLIN'S method of extravesical prostatectomy has proved its merit clinically in the past three years. The retropubic approach is fundamentally not a new procedure, but Mr. Millin has developed it as a simple and successful method. We will discuss briefly the technic, 1 will recount our experience with retropubic prostatectomy 2 and will report the application of the retropubic approach in the treatment of obstructions of the vesical neck in infants and children. The retropubic prostatectomy employs extravesical approach to the prostate gland, which is, though seemingly infrequently appreciated, an extravesical structure. In other words, by this approach one does not go through the bladder to attack a pathologic condition that lies outside the bladder, as is commonly practiced in the popular Freyer, or suprapubic, method. The prostate is exposed through either a longitudinal or a transverse suprapubic incision which includes both skin and fascia of the rectus


OBJECTIVES
Health Resources and Services Administration-funded health centres (HCs) are an important source of dental services for low-income and vulnerable patients in the United States. About 82% of HCs in 2018 had dental workforce, but it is unclear whether this workforce meets the oral health needs of HC patients. Thus, we first examined (a) whether dental workforce was associated with any dental visits vs none and (b) whether HC patients with any visits were more likely to have a visit at the HC vs elsewhere. We then examined (c) if need for oral health care and long-term continuity at the HC were associated with dental visits and visits at the HC.

METHODS
This study used the 2014 Health Center Patient Survey, a nationally representative study of US HC patients, and the 2013 Uniform Data System, an administrative dataset of HC characteristics. We also used the 2013 Area Health Resource File to measure the contribution of local supply of dentists. We included working-age adult patients (n = 5006) and used multilevel structural equation models with Poisson specification.

RESULTS
Larger dental workforce at the HC was significantly associated with 1% higher likelihood (relative risk [RR]: 1.01, 1.00-1.02) of any visits and 10% higher likelihood of a visit at the HC among those with a visit (RR: 1.10, 1.06-1.14). Patient self-reported oral health need was positively associated with 157% higher likelihood of dental visits (RR: 2.57, 2.29-2.88), and 42% higher likelihood of dental visit at the HC vs elsewhere (RR: 1.42, 1.19-1.69). Long-term continuity with the HC was not significantly associated with likelihood of dental visits, but was associated with 26% higher likelihood of visits at the HC among those who had any visits (RR: 1.26, 1.02-1.56).

DISCUSSION
The findings highlight the potential impact of increasing dental workforce at HCs to promote access; the high level of need for oral health care at HCs; and the increased effort required to promote access among newer patients who may be less familiar with the availability of oral health care at HCs. Together, these findings reinforce the importance of addressing barriers of use of oral health services among low-income and uninsured patients.


Although in vitro data with mixed ruminal fluid demonstrated positive effects of posbiotic diet (POS) from lactobacilli on measures of fermentation and microbial profiles, there is a paucity of in vivo data with lactating ruminants. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of incorporating POS into diets of lactating goats on energy (E) partitioning, carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) balance, and performance. Ten late-lactation Murciano-Granadina goats were used in a cross-over design with 26-d periods. Goats in the control diet (CON) were fed daily at the rate of 1 kg alfalfa hay and 1.5 kg concentrate, and the treatment group (POS) was fed CON with the addition of 3.75 g/d of Probisan Ruminants TM (PENTABIOL S.L., Navarra, Spain). No differences in DMI were detected. However, ruminal fluid propionate and apparent total tract digestibilities of NDF and ADF were greater (18, 4.7 and 5.2%, respectively; P < 0.05) in POS compared with the CON diet. Daily partitioning of E to milk and efficiency of ME intake for milk production greater (11 and 3.0%, respectively; P < 0.05) in POS compared with CON. The non-protein RQ was greater in POS compared with CON due to greater (P < 0.05) oxidation of carbohydrate (213 vs. 115 kJ/kg of BW 0.75 per day) compared with fat (362 vs. 486 kJ/kg of BW 0.75 per day). Although no differences were found in C balance, goats in POS had lower (P < 0.05) amounts of C in CH4 (1.1 vs. 1.3 g/kg BW 0.75 per day) compared with CON. There were no differences in N intake or N in feces or urine, but N in milk was greater (P < 0.05) in POS compared with the CON diet (0.8 vs. 0.7 g/kg BW 0.75 per day). Yield of fat corrected milk (FCM) (3.20 vs. 2.72 kg/d; P < 0.05) and concentration of true protein (3.4 vs. 3.3 kg/d; P < 0.05) and lactose (4.7 vs. 4.5 kg/d; P < 0.05) were greater in POS compared with CON. These responses were accompanied by lower (P < 0.05) urea (12.3 vs. 16.6 mM/L) and ammonia-N (6.6 vs. 8.8 mg/L) without changes in fat concentration (6.1 vs. 6.0%; P > 0.05) in POS compared with the CON diet. Daily amount of CH4 emission did not differ P > 0.05 between diets. However, when expressed relative to unit of edible product, feeding POS reduced (P < 0.05) the amount of CH4 by 46 g/kg of milk fat, 97 g/kg of milk protein and 3 g/kg of milk compared with CON. Overall, data indicated that feeding a postbiotic in late-lactation increased energy efficiency for milk production partly by reducing CH4 emission.


This paper presents a comparative study between two proposed size optimization methods based on two battery's models. Simple and complex battery models are utilized to optimally size a standalone photovoltaic system. Hourly meteorological data are used in this research for a specific site. Results show that by using the complex model of the battery, the cost of the system is reduced by 31%. In addition, by using the complex battery model, the sizes of the PV array and the battery are reduced by 5.6% and 30%, respectively, as compared to the case which is based on the simple battery model. This shows the importance of utilizing accurate battery models in sizing standalone photovoltaic systems.


The University of Mississippi Libraries have been a U.S. Federal Depository Library since 1883. This guide is a gateway to the U.S. Federal Documents collection held by UM Libraries and related resources.


There is a large body of research showing that lithium is better than placebo and a variety of comparison drugs at preventing manic episodes in people with bipolar disorder. It has been less clear whether lithium is as effective in preventing depressions in bipolar patients. In a 2014 meta-analysis in the International Journal of Bipolar Disorders, Emanuel Severus and colleagues confirmed that lithium was more effective than placebo at preventing mood episodes overall and manic episodes. In a fixed effect statistical analysis, lithium was also better at preventing depressive episodes. The portion of the meta-analysis comparing lithium to placebo included seven randomized controlled trials that included a total of 1,580 patients. Lithium was more likely than placebo to lead to patients dropping out of a study for reasons other than a mood episode (for example, side effects), but patients who received lithium were more likely to complete their clinical trials. Another part of the meta-analysis compared lithium to anticonvulsant drugs. Seven trials were included totaling 1,305 patients. Lithium was better than anticonvulsants at preventing manic episodes, but equally effective at preventing mood episodes overall and depressive episodes specifically. There was also no difference in patients dropping out of the trials or completing the trials. Severus and colleagues concluded that lithium remains the most valuable treatment option for bipolar disorder, because no other drug has such consistent efficacy in preventing manias and depressions and mood episodes in general.


In this paper, an approach to reduce the computation steps required by fast neural networks for the searching process is presented. The principle of divide and conquer strategy is applied through image decomposition. Each image is divided into small in size sub-images and then each one is tested separately using a fast neural network. The operation of fast neural networks based on applying cross correlation in the frequency domain between the input image and the weights of the hidden neurons. Compared to conventional and fast neural networks, experimental results show that a speed up ratio is achieved when applying this technique to locate human faces automatically in cluttered scenes. Furthermore, faster face detection is obtained by using parallel processing techniques to test the resulting sub-images at the same time using the same number of fast neural networks. In contrast to using only fast neural networks, the speed up ratio is increased with the size of the input image when using fast neural networks and image decomposition. This is our new achievement over our previous publications 1,2,7,9. Moreover, simulation results are increased more than those presented in our previous publications.


Variations exist among information system (IS) users' abilities to effectively utilize an IS. Some users are able to maximize IS potential, while others are not. This research proposes to understand the attributes of individuals who are most capable of exploiting IS to its fullest potential as well as the management and organizational factors that facilitate the development of highly competent users. The Repertory Grid Technique was utilized to identify user attributes contributing to IS proficiency in Phase One of this research and will be utilized to identify management and organizational factors in Phase Two. The results will provide a comprehensive framework of cross-level factors contributing to IS user competency. Also, the results will highlight attributes that can be fostered in other IS users through training interventions or potential hiring criteria as well as management/organizational factors that can be implemented to improve individual performance with IS use.


Scientific data from family medicine are relevant for the majority of the population. They are therefore essential from an ethical and public health perspective. We need to promote quality research in family medicine despite methodological, financial and logistic barriers. To highlight the strengths and weaknesses of research in family medicine in the French-speaking part of Switzerland we asked practitioners from this region to share their experience, critics and needs in relation to research. This article summarizes their contribution in light of the international literature.


Paris—Earlier this month, France's Ministry of Culture awarded archaeologist Jean Clottes a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: He was chosen to direct research at the Grotte Chauvet in southern France, recently discovered site of the world's oldest known cave paintings. This is not surprising perhaps, as Clottes is the culture ministry's own scientific adviser on prehistoric art and one of the world's leading authorities in the field. But Clottes was not handed the job on a plate: He had to compete for the right to study the cave against another French team and had to endure legal wrangles over rights to photographs taken of the cave paintings and compensation for the owners of the land the cave was found on.


A 62-year-old man was diagnosed as primary myelofibrosis (PMF) with Janus kinase 2 V617F mutation. He also had progressive microcytic anemia which was diagnosed as acquired β-thalassemia associated with PMF. Microcytosis is reported to be complicated with approximately a quarter of the patients with PMF; however, the etiology has not been elucidated yet. To our knowledge, this is the first report of acquired β-thalassemia developed in a patient with PMF which has a clinical significance in the diagnosis and management of anemia in a subset of the patients with PMF. J Hematol. 2015;4(1):148-150 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14740/jh190w


This article describes the dual objectives of bankruptcy: the financial rehabilitation of debtors and the satisfaction, to the greatest extent possible, of creditors' claims. The first objective promotes the "fresh start" notion, by holding some of debtors' assets outside the reach of creditors, thereby preventing the bankrupt from becoming a ward of the state. Leaving the debtor with no post-bankruptcy assets would make the promise of a fresh start merely illusory. In contrast, the second objective implies that, in satisfying their claims, creditors should have the benefit of everything the debtor owns upon entering bankruptcy. A recent debate focuses on the juxtaposition of these dual bankruptcy objectives and the policy encompassed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). ERISA plans and similar pension plans encourage and protect accumulated savings for retirement years. Whether such pension assets are subject to creditors' attachment in bankruptcy is the topic of continued legal debate. This article focuses on the pension fund as a spendthrift trust issue, tracing the history of the bankruptcy and pension policies involved in this conflict in Section I. Section II provides a brief introduction on the types of relief available to debtors through bankruptcy. Sections III and IV trace the evolution of the bankruptcy laws' treatment of property excluded or exempt from the estate, with a focus on early cases that dealt with employment-related property and pension plans. Section V explains section 541(c)(2) of the Bankruptcy Code, which carves out the spendthrift trust "safe harbor," one of the Code's possible protections for pension assets in bankruptcy. Section VI highlights various pension plan options, and Section VII presents a survey of bankruptcy cases based primarily in Florida that focus on the issue of pension plans as spendthrift trusts. The article closes by suggesting a statutory solution in the nature of a spendthrift trust rollover statute with a caveat about ERISA preemption.


BACKGROUND
Prosthesis-patient mismatch (PPM) after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) remains an important issue. The aim of this study was to assess the value of a new discongruence index, to predict PPM after TAVR.Methods and Results: A total of 185 patients with severe aortic stenosis who underwent TAVR with the Edwards Sapien prosthesis or CoreValve Revalving system were included (Edwards valve, n=119; Core Valve Revalving system, n=66). Discongruence index was calculated pre-procedurally as the ratio of selected transcatheter valve size (mm) to body surface area (cm2). PPM was defined as effective orifice area (EOA) ≤0.85 cm2/m2 on transthoracic echocardiography before hospital discharge. Mean age was 82±5 years and 72 patients (38.9%) were men. The overall incidence of post-TAVR PPM was 35.1% (n=65). Discongruence index correlated with post-TAVR indexed EOA (y=0.18+0.057x; P<0.001). On multivariate logistic regression analysis, discongruence index was the only independent predictor of post-TAVR PPM (OR, 0.15; 95% CI: 0.03-0.66; P=0.012), and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.62 (95% CI: 0.54-0.70, P=0.003), with an optimal cut-off point of 15.02 (sensitivity, 86.2%; specificity, 72.5%; positive predictive value, 74.3%; negative predictive value, 83.4%).

CONCLUSIONS
The new discongruence index may be useful tool to predict PPM after TAVR.


In the present study, a model of the lower-trophic pelagic food web of the Black Sea is considered in order to provide a quantitative understanding of the marked changes in the food web structure in response to changing top-down and bottom-up control mechanisms due to eutrophication, overfishing, and climatic changes. The simulations consider three particular parameters controlling the changes in the ecosystem structure due to these stressors; (i) the magnitude of the nitrate flux into the euphotic layer from the chemocline layer (enrichment due to eutrophication), (ii) the magnitude of predation control introduced by the planktivorous fish on mesozooplankton (fishery), (iii) the magnitude of the Q10 parameter controlling temperature dependence of the Mnemiopsis growth (changing climatic conditions). A simulation assessing the level of enrichment on the ecosystem indicates a shift of the major trophic energy flow towards Noctiluca and Aurelia and thus showing how the ecosystem would degrade when a critical level of enrichment is passed. Increasing predation pressure of the planktivorous fish during the enrichment phase is shown to reduce the mesozooplankton biomass that in turn declines its predation pressure on Noctiluca population and thus allows Noctiluca biomass to increase, considering that mesozooplanton is assumed to feed on Noctiluca (at a level of 15% food preference) in the current model.. Noctiluca then acts as a major consumer and a critical element of the degraded food web structure. The overfishing of planktivorous fish stocks allows Mnemiopsis biomass to increase considerably under changing (warmer) climatic conditions at the end of 1980s, following a decade-long intense cooling phase. Thus, our results suggest that overfishing would not alone be able to promote a Mnemiopsis population outburst in the absence of warming.


Engineered nanoparticles are the fastest growing nanotechnology product, and of increasing environmental concern. Examples include antimicrobial silver nanoparticles, iron oxide particles used in bulk scale for environmental remediation, and micro- and nano-plastics. The latter are added to a broad range of cosmetic products. Larger plastic pieces pollute the environment by breaking down naturally to form smaller particles. These particles may attract and concentrate hydrophobic persistent organic pollutants on their surface, which might later be released once inside a biological matrix, as has been shown indirectly in e.g. birds [1]. All these particles are found in nature and humans are exposed to them daily (e.g. in beer [2]). People who regularly consume cultured bivalves may ingest up to 11.000 micro plastic particles per year by this route alone, even ignoring particles smaller than 5 µm [3]. Classically, nanoparticle uptake studies have been performed by acid digestion and chemical analysis [4]. But how do these particles interact with organisms and their tissue? Are they taken up in the tissue [5], or are they passively passing through the digestion system? Such questions are interesting in particular with regard to cytotoxic particles, such as silver, or very small particles that might enter the nucleus and interfere with DNA replication. Particles with the capability to carry toxic compounds, such as plastic, also have the potential for causing disruption of normal cellular function. In order to further our understanding of how such particles interact with tissue at the cellular level, nanoscale analysis is required, either to verify the nature of the particle (STEM EDX point analysis of single particles, Figure 1 a-c) or to trace substances released from their surface (NanoSIMS). However, before such analysis, a first challenge is to locate the particles in the affected cells. This has proven a major obstacle because of the relatively large size of the organism investigated. Indeed, screening a large volume of the organism under investigation to locate nanoparticles before EDX and NanoSIMS analysis is thus often a large part of the work. We work with model organisms such as microalgae, daphnia and earthworms that are likely to come into contact with, and accumulate nanoparticles. During the past few years we have employed various methods to localize different particles inside the organisms, e.g. serial block-face imaging, FIB-SEM imaging, freeze-dried cryo-sections and serial sections (Figure 1 d). Correlation between screening- and analysis techniques is key to locate, and be able to investigate the effects of nanoparticles in a biological matrix. At the moment we are exploring methods to screen large amounts of serial sections made by a custom-made knife, and methods for transferring interesting sections to carriers compatible with either STEM EDX or NanoSIMS. References [1] K. Tanaka et al., Marine Poll Bull 69 (1-2) (2013) 219. [2] G. Liebezeit and E. Liebezeit, Food Addit. Contam. Part a Chem. Anal. Control Exposure Risk Assess (2014). [3] L. van Cauwenberghe, and C. R. Janssen. Environ Pollut 193 (2014) 65. [4] L. M. Skjolding et al., Ecotoxicology 23 (2014) 1172. [5] P. Rosenkrantz et al., Environ Toxicol Chem 28 (2009) 2142. [6] We would like to thank Irina Kolotueva for invaluable technical advice. This research was supported by The Society of Electron Microscope Technology, and the European Research Council (Grant no. 281579). FIG. 1. (a-c) HAADF STEM images of D. magna gut epithelia exposed to 10 nm gold nanoparticles (Au NP) (0.4 mg Au/L) for 24h. Corresponding EDX spectra are superimposed. For clarity the C-peaks are capped and only up to 2.5 keV is depicted. (a) Au NP at microvilli, scale bar = 100 nm, (b) Au NP at base of microvilli, scale bar = 100 nm, (c) Os-rich particles in gut cell lipid droplet, scale bar = 50 nm, (d) Serial sections of L. variegatus exposed to iron particles on Si-wafer.


Mind cure, or mental healing, was a late 19th-century American healing movement that extolled a metaphysical mind-over-matter approach to the treatment of illness. Emerging in New England in the mid-19th century out of a mix of mesmerism and metaphysical philosophies, due to its effectiveness, by the 1880s it achieved national recognition. Three individuals are credited with creating and popularizing mental (or metaphysical) healing: Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, Warren Felt Evans, and Mary Baker Eddy. Mind cure was appealing because it helped treat ailments for which the medicines of the day were ineffective, especially problems with the "nerves." Mental healers employed non-invasive mental and spiritual methods to treat ailing people, called mental therapeutics. As a practice and therapeutic philosophy, mind cure is historically noteworthy because it shaped the earliest forms of psychotherapy in the United States, advanced therapeutic work within the realm of mind-body medicine, birthed the influential New Thought movement, and helped set the stage for the beginnings of religious pluralism and the positive reception of Asian meditation teachers in the West.


Farmers are well known to be risk-averse. Although a considerable literature has focused on the role water markets play to allocate water more efficiently, none has explicitly studied the risk management role water markets play in irrigators' decision making. We used a two-step empirical procedure to estimate the impacts of variability in profit and downside risk in profit on the volume of water allocation purchased and sold using an unbalanced panel data sample of 1,449 farm observations across four industries in the southern Murray-Darling Basin in Australia from 2006-07 to 2009-10. We show that farmers experiencing higher variability in profit and facing more downside risk purchase greater volumes of water allocations, and this is supported across all irrigated industry sectors (namely, dairy, broadacre, horticulture, and viticulture). There was only weak evidence found for the broadacre industry to suggest that higher variance in profit and greater downside risk drive greater volume of water allocations sold. The different findings between buying and selling water allocations are reflective of the fact that water allocation sellers represent a more heterogeneous group of farmers than water allocation buyers, and that sellers of water allocations may be more strategic in general with their farm management overall.


Nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences from artificial hybrids and backcrosses between Armeria villosa ssp. longiaristata and A. colorata were studied to assess the possible effects of concerted evolution in natural hybrids. F1 artificial hybrids show the expected pattern of additive polymorphisms for five of the six variable sites as estimated from direct sequences. However, homogenization of polymorphism is already observed in the F2, and is biased towards A. colorata except for one site. In backcrosses, an expected tendency towards homogenization of polymorphic sites in the direction of the recurrent parent is observed for five sites, although this does not necessarily imply concerted evolution. Conversely, the sixth site appears to elude such a mechanism and thus provides additional support for the occurrence of biased concerted evolution. Our findings are relevant to interpreting phylogeographic patterns involving gene flow and are also consistent with the hypothesis of a hybrid origin of A. villosa ssp. carratracensis.


Contamination of cotton lint by insect honeydew can interfere with carding, roving, and spinning processes at the mill, and thus presents a major concern for the textile industry. Several methods exist for the detection of insect honeydew on cotton lint, but there are currently no methods available for the remediation of insect honeydew contamination. The objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a heatactivated catalyst in decreasing the honeydew level of a contaminated cotton sample. Cotton lint heavily contaminated with whitefly honeydew was treated with citric acid and subsequently subjected to elevated temperatures for varying periods of time. Sugar concentrations on the cotton lint were analyzed as a function of temperature and heat duration using high-performance anion-exchange chromatography. Levels of honeydew sugars decreased for catalyst-treated cotton compared with untreated cotton when heated at a temperature of 160 o C. Chemical treatment of contaminated cotton in conjunction with elevated temperatures may be the basis of a potential method for the mitigation of stickiness on cotton prior to processing at the mill.


Herbal medicine still plays a significant role in the 21 century specifically in the areas of prevention and treatment of many illnesses. This practice goes beyond the maintenance of good health of the populace as it also protects people from the menace of an evil spirit, boost mental capacity and other human activities. This study survey's the perception and use of herbal medicines among students of tertiary institutions in Northern Nigeria. Purposeful structured questionnaire was used for data gathering. Three hundred and six (306) students were randomly selected and interviewed orally during the study. The results revealed (78.40%) students use herbal medicines and (56.90%) students would still use herbal medicines in the future based on their experience. The findings identified some problems associated with the use of herbal medicines such as; poor hygiene practices, no national herbal medicine safety profiles and standardized dosage regimens, imprecise knowledge on the use of herbal medicines among students. Also, (77.10%) students showed fear about the un-hygienic conditions in herbal medicine preparation and storage processes while (49.0%) students indicated concern on the safety of herbal medicines and (19.00%). The views, opinions, and recommendations on herbal medicines utilizations revealed (43.80%) students recommended national intervention program towards educating herbal practitioners on basic hygienic practices, dosage formulations, and regimens, standardization and safety procedures while (17.60%) students suggested herbal medicine should be banned in Nigeria. This study concluded that students among tertiary institutions in Northern Nigeria have previous knowledge about herbal medicine utilization and its practice.


The increased reliance of universities on a pool of highly skilled but poorly paid casualised academic labour for teaching and research has emerged as a defining feature of higher education provision under neoliberal New Public Management. Based on seventeen visual timeline interviews with academics in the North East of England, this article augments and extends existing studies of precarity through a framing of dehumanisation and humanisation. Specifically, we suggest that casualisation is dehumanising in four ways: it renders individuals invisible; it leaves them vulnerable to exploitation; it denies them academic freedom; and it hampers them in constructing a life narrative projecting into the future. We conclude that casualisation is not simply the product of a reprehensible political economy, but that it is an afront to the very meaning and dignity of being human.


Observations of the oceanic thermal skin made during SUDOFEX have demonstrated the effectiveness of operationally using new shipborne radiometers to show the correspondence between in situ radiometric skin sea surface temperature (skin SST) and the present AVHRR sea surface temperature (pseudo bulk SST) products. A recommendation is made that algorithms should be derived that produce skin SST by regression against in situ skin SST rather than subsurface thermometer data. This will eliminate SST errors arising from both the oceanic thermal skin effect and the diurnal thermocline.


A new technique for a multiple-nested grid of the tsunami model is applied. This model contains linear and nonlinear 2D shallow water equations in each sub-region and consists of a fine grid model nested 5:1 within a coarse grid large area model. Although the size of the grid varies in each sub-region, physical variables in all sub-regions are solved simultaneously. The model allows for any ratio of grid sizes between two adjacent sub-regions in a nonlinear component of 2D shallow water model. This model adopts staggered explicit infinite difference scheme to solve 2D shallow water equations. A nested grid system dynamically coupled up to some region with different grid resolution. A new algorithm is suggested to allow more efficient and flexible for the grid. In a twoway nested grid model, information (velocity components and free surface elevation) from the coarse mesh scheme could enter and affect to the fine mesh scheme in each time step of the solution process and the information feedback from the fine mesh to the coarse one. Fine grids and coarse grid models are used to verify the relationship between temporal and spatial resolution and model accuracy. To verify the nested multi-grid model, several of the numerical examples are introduced to check the efficiency of the nested multi grid model. The results demonstrate the applicability and benefits of nesting.


This thesis highlights two significant flaws in birth certification and legal parentage regimes in Aotearoa New Zealand that negatively impact children conceived and raised in an array of diverse family structures. First, birth certificates currently reflect a child's legal parentage, excluding any reference to a child's genetic or gestational origins. This thesis draws on social constructionist conceptions of the self and narrative identity theory, alongside Māori understandings of aspects of whakapapa, to demonstrate that birth certificates should incorporate more information about a child's origins, and that a failure to do so can have negative consequences for a child's identity development. To rectify these informational deficits, this thesis argues for the reform of birth certification in Aotearoa New Zealand. It demonstrates the nature and potential of these reforms through the creation of a prototype birth certificate for all children that incorporates their genetic, gestational, and legal parentage.  Second, this thesis claims that the current model of legal parentage, which permits a child to have a maximum of two legally recognised parents at any given time, does not reflect the lives of children who are intentionally brought into the world and raised by more than two individuals. Rather, it embodies historic understandings of legal parentage that privilege traditional heterosexual western forms of reproduction, and fails to account for the realities of assisted human reproduction and modern-day family formation. Expanding the operation of legal parentage to incorporate all of a child's parental figures (and including them on the child's birth certificate from the outset) would provide greater legal protection for children born into multi-parent families, in line with that currently enjoyed by children with one or two legal parents. Therefore, this thesis develops an intentional model of legal parentage accommodating more than two legal parents where a child is conceived by assisted human reproduction in specified circumstances.  Reimagining birth certificates and legal parentage as proposed in this thesis would better reflect the social and narrative realities of identity formation, especially for children, whereby who they become is greatly shaped by the individuals in their lives and their experiences in the world. It would also better meet our obligations under the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, as well as possibly affording greater respect to Māori conceptions of identity, which is of fundamental importance given the classification of whakapapa as a taonga guaranteed protection under Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The expansion of legal parentage beyond the two-parent paradigm would also provide greater legal protection to children in Aotearoa New Zealand, arguably making this area of family law consistent with a legal framework that is otherwise well attuned to recognising the diversity and complexity of family relationships.


About one third of the prison population in early nineteenth century Ireland was made up of persons imprisoned by their creditors for debt. These prisoners had been arrested for defaulting on debts owing to shopkeepers. The growing size of the prison debtor population was, by the second decade of the century, threatening to cause a humanitarian crisis. The Government responded to this by, first (1821), establishing a specialist Insolvent Debtors Relief Court, second (1848), by abolishing the creditor's power of imprisonment for debts under ten pounds, and, finally (1872), by abolishing the power to imprison genuinely insolvent debtors Each of these reforms was opposed by small business interests. This interest group -- particularly small retailers -- viewed abolition as threatening an essential and effective means of debt recovery. Abolitionists, and the Government, on the other hand, argued that the process of arrest did not work. This paper offers an account (i) of the process of imprisonment for debt in nineteenth century Ireland, (ii) of conditions in Irish marshalseas, and (iii) of the profile of those creditors who used imprisonment. It concludes with an assessment of the abolitionist claim that the remedy was ineffective.


Abstract Purpose: To describe the characteristics and effectiveness of pediatric telerehabilitation interventions offered to children 0–12 years old or to their families. Methods: A systematic review was conducted on randomized control trials published between 2007 and 2018 involving at least one rehabilitation professional who provided services remotely. Information was extracted about key study, participants and intervention characteristics. The percentage of outcomes that improved were computed per study, and per intervention characteristic. Results: Out of 4472 screened articles, 23 were included. Most studies were published after 2016 and evaluated outcomes related to the child's behavior (n = 12, 52.2%) or to the parent (n = 10, 43.5%), such as parental skills or stress. Overall, 56.1% (SD: 38.5%) of evaluated outcomes improved following telerehabilitation. A great diversity of population and teleintervention characteristics was observed. Effective interventions tended to target parents, centered around an exercise program, used a coaching approach, focused on improving children's behavioral functioning, lasted >8 weeks and were offered at least once a week. Conclusions: Intervention characteristics that appear to yield better outcomes should inform the development of future telerehabilitation studies, especially in populations for whom telerehabilitation is currently understudied (e.g., children's with physical functioning difficulties). Future trials should compare telerehabilitation interventions to well-described evidence-based face-to-face interventions, and document their cost-effectiveness. Implications for Rehabilitation Despite a great variety in practices, telerehabilitation might be as effective as face-to-face interventions, across disciplines, for a variety of clinical outcomes. Telerehabilitation might be more effective when coaching approaches are used, especially to achieve outcomes related to children's behavior or parental skills. Further research is required to better understand the characteristics of effective telerehabilitation interventions, and to determine how these characteristics may differ for specific populations and outcomes.


Violence on college campuses has attracted considerable media attention in recent years as a result of several high-profile shootings, including those at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois Universities. These shootings, however, are only the most visible form of student violence. Although college students are less likely to be victims of violent crime than their non-college counterparts,1 studies suggest that student-perpetrated violence—especially intimate partner violence—is a public health problem. College men have reported 3-month and 1-year incidence rates of rape perpetration of 4% and 5%2 3; 10% of college men and 25% of college women have reported committing physical aggression in their most recent relationship4; and 46% of college men and 18% of college women have reported committing physical aggression toward strangers in the last year.5 Just over 4% of college students (8% of men and 1% of women) have acknowledged having firearms at college.6

Student violence prompted a national response in 1989 when Congress passed The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act ("Clery Act").7 Named after Lehigh University student Jeanne Clery, who was raped and murdered by another student in 1986, the Clery Act requires colleges to publish information about campus crime, allowing parents and applicants to compare safety across schools. It does not specify preventive interventions, however.

One intervention that a growing number of undergraduate institutions are adopting, according to newspaper reports, is to screen applicants on the basis of their criminal histories.8–12 Schools are examining criminal histories by (1) asking applicants to self-report specific information about their histories and/or (2) running independent criminal background checks on applicants. Schools differ on which crimes warrant denial of admission, and some schools impose lesser sanctions for more minor crimes—for example, students may be admitted but required …


Optimized exercise therapy induces vessel normalization, boosts antitumor effector cell infiltration and function, and delays tumor growth in a CXCR3 pathway/CD8+ T cell–dependent manner. This results in sensitization of refractory breast cancer to immune checkpoint blockade. The mechanisms behind the antitumor effects of exercise training (ExTr) are not fully understood. Using mouse models of established breast cancer, we examined here the causal role of CD8+ T cells in the benefit acquired from ExTr in tumor control, as well as the ability of ExTr to improve immunotherapy responses. We implanted E0771, EMT6, MMTV-PyMT, and MCa-M3C breast cancer cells orthotopically in wild-type or Cxcr3−/− female mice and initiated intensity-controlled ExTr sessions when tumors reached approximately 100 mm3. We characterized the tumor microenvironment (TME) using flow cytometry, transcriptome analysis, proteome array, ELISA, and immunohistochemistry. We used antibodies against CD8+ T cells for cell depletion. Treatment with immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) consisted of anti–PD-1 alone or in combination with anti–CTLA-4. ExTr delayed tumor growth and induced vessel normalization, demonstrated by increased pericyte coverage and perfusion and by decreased hypoxia. ExTr boosted CD8+ T-cell infiltration, with enhanced effector function. CD8+ T-cell depletion prevented the antitumor effect of ExTr. The recruitment of CD8+ T cells and the antitumor effects of ExTr were abrogated in Cxcr3−/− mice, supporting the causal role of the CXCL9/CXCL11–CXCR3 pathway. ExTr also sensitized ICB-refractory breast cancers to treatment. Our results indicate that ExTr can normalize the tumor vasculature, reprogram the immune TME, and enhance the antitumor activity mediated by CD8+ T cells via CXCR3, boosting ICB responses. Our findings and mechanistic insights provide a rationale for the clinical translation of ExTr to improve immunotherapy of breast cancer.


Electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection is essential for reliability and high yield. ESD design rule checking, however, is beyond the scope of commercial DRC tools. We have presented previously an ESD design rule checker for individual I/O cells. Full chip ESD design rules come in a myriad number of ways and are heavily process dependent. To check them one by one requires rewriting the design rule checker program for each process generation. This paper presents a framework for full chip ESD design rule checking adaptive to how full chip ESD design rules are derived.


The collapse in trade and contraction of output that occurred during 2008-09 was comparable to, and in many countries more severe than, the Great Depression of 1930, but did not give rise to the rampant protectionism that followed the Great Crash. Theory suggests several hypotheses for why it was not in the interest of many firms to lobby for protection, including much greater macroeconomic"policy space"today, the rise of intra-industry trade (specialization in specific varieties), and the fragmentation of production across global value chains ("vertical"specialization and the associated growth of trade in intermediates). Institutions may also have played a role in limiting the extent of protectionist responses. World Trade Organization disciplines raise the cost of using trade policies for member countries and have proved to be a stable foundation for the open multilateral trading system that has been built over the last fifty years. This paper empirically examines the power of these and other theories to explain the observed pattern of trade policy responses to the 2008 crisis, using trade and protection data for seven large emerging market countries that have a history of active use of trade policy. Vertical specialization (global fragmentation) is found to be the most powerful economic factor determining trade policy responses.


The human being grows in relationship with others of its fellows, and it is by virtue of this relationship that it receives a particular cultural heritage and acquires its own identity, differentiating itself, finding its own space of freedom and autonomy allowing it to interact and extend its own network of relations. In such a dynamic of reciprocity, the man realizes himself as such as a conscious member of a "social body", i.e. of a radical society in an organic human context, which has become nowadays a clearly planetary one, by virtue of the unpublished migration flows and obvious interdependence of the Planet. The education is a line of human civility and it causes that grounds of anonymity, fears, consumerism, prejudice, haste, indifference, abuse, insecurity, solitude, become grounds of hospitality, trust, sharing, security, friendship, and brotherhood. The patterns of political education having prevailed so far are: the academic model with its explanation and dissent in the abstract of a great deal of knowledge, and that of the laboratory, which tilts and leans over, even by moments of simulation, toward vital worlds of operational policy. It is now manifested a widespread social demand about the necessity to provide to everybody, but especially in the range of basic youth socio-political information, an equipment of historical and values' nature, and by providing comparative elements on the different socio-political matrices and traditions, raising the incentive at a renewing and increasingly conscious commitment in the face of growing difficulties, inherent to the political perspectives disputed so far in the world. It is necessary to refocus and reestablish a political culture uniting the breath of the ideal with the reality of administrative experience, supporting this political culture with the contribution of a dynamic and open reflection, capable of understanding the reality.


The article presents results of experimental study concerning acute inhalation toxicity of nanodispersed manganese oxide widely used in novelty goods production. During the technology process, nano-dimensional manganese oxide aerosol could appear in workplace air--that causes danger of the workers' inhalation exposure. Findings are that the studied substance is a nanomaterial with prevalent fihiform particles measuring 15-29 nm. The substance is acutely toxic when inhaled as an aerosol. Cl₅₀ for 4-hour exposure for Wistar rats equals 120 mg/m³ (1 jeopardy class). Clinical manifestations of acute intoxication are mostly irritative and neurotoxic effects supported by morphologic studies. Histopathologic changes in brain tissue are cerebellar ischemia with dilated perecellular spaces, faveolate appearance.


Thyroid cancer constitutes about 1% of all malignant tumours and the incidence is increasing in Sweden. It is rare in children before the age of 10. During puberty the female to male ratio increases to be two to three times more common in females. The ratio remains constant until menopause and thereafter declines. The etiology of this gender-dependent incidence difference is unclear. Ionizing radiation is the only well-established risk factor for the disease, while the impact of other etiological factors is not clear.A retrospective study based upon medical records of 218 females and 91 males with papillary, mixed or follicular types of thyroid cancer was conducted. Prognostic factors were compared by multivariate analysis using Cox's semiparametric hazard model. Differences in prognosis between women and men were found. There was a higher relapse rate and mortality risk among men. Distant metastasis, age >50 years, regional lymph node metastasis, low or moderate differentiation, and tumour related symptoms at diagnosis were also independent factors related to increased tumour mortality risk.A population-based case-control study including 180 cases and 360 controls was carried out to identify risk factors for thyroid cancer. Information on exposure was obtained by mailed questionnaires. The first part of the study investigated connections between medical ionizing radiation and thyroid cancer. The results showed that diagnostic X rays were a significant risk factor for papillary thyroid cancer in women between 20 and 50 years at diagnosis. Exposure to iodine-131 caused no increased risk for thyroid cancer. The result supports that external radiotherapy is a risk factor for thyroid cancer in women.The second part of the case-control study dealt with occupation and different exposures. Work with diagnostic X-ray investigations and work as a lineman was associated with thyroid cancer. Exposure to impregnating agents increased the risk.The third part of this study showed that one pregnancy increased the risk for papillary thyroid cancer. A medical history of asthma or allergy decreased the risk.Another case-control study using medical records as the source for assessment of exposure gave a non significantly increased risk for thyroid cancer in patients who had been treated with external radiotherapy including the thyroid gland.


This paper considers the capability of collaboration and interaction between agents in a new architecture of multi-agent systems (MAS) basing on the thought of network behavior and co-evolution. Actually, current development of MAS nearly synchronously accompanies with the development of communication networks ever increasingly because the approaches of information exchange are mainly depended on the modes of data transmission and the spectacular of advanced communication technologies. The real detailed complexity inside the media transmission platform is masked in the proposed architecture of MAS so that the complex processes of data dissemination can be coped with reasonably and simply by way of decentralized intelligent agents. According to the simulation result and the comparison with other typical models of MAS, the presented architecture of MAS and its running mechanism exhibit better advantages such as flexibility, robustness and expansibility suited to the collaboration and interaction among decentralized agents in MAS. Toward the future research, some related optimal algorithms and running mechanisms concerning the integrated performance and the complexity of the MAS's architecture will be investigated and developed.


Nevada's highly individualistic political culture has produced a conservative political philosophy in an open society. Economic developments resulting from mining and gambling reinforced and heightened the individualistic ethic that many early settlers brought to the frontier state. This ethic is also evident in the opposition of most Nevadans to big government, big labor, and big business. Belief in limited government partially explains the apparent anomaly of the electorate's backing a pro-choice position on abortion while opposing the Equal Rights Amendment. The book discusses the important roles played by Nevada's present U.S. senators in two of the state's ongoing controversies with the federal government: the longstanding water rights dispute between Native Americans, backed by the federal government, and Nevada's ranchers; and the decade-long fight against the establishment of the nation's first permanent nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain. Don W. Driggs is Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is the author of "The Constitution of the State of Nevada: A Commentary". Leonard E. Goodall is a professor of management and public administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is the author of numerous works, including "State Politics and Higher Education.


Machine Learning (ML) is increasingly applied in industrial manufacturing, but often performance is limited due to insufficient training data. While ML models can benefit from collaboration, due to privacy concerns, individual manufacturers cannot share data directly. Federated Learning (FL) enables collaborative training of ML models without revealing raw data. However, current FL approaches fail to take the characteristics and requirements of industrial clients into account. In this work, we propose a FL system consisting of a process description and a software architecture to provide \acrfull{flaas} to industrial clients deployed to edge devices. Our approach deals with skewed data by organizing clients into cohorts with similar data distributions. We evaluated the system on two industrial datasets. We show how the FLaaS approach provides FL to client processes by considering their requests submitted to the Industrial Federated Learning (IFL) Services API. Experiments on both industrial datasets and different FL algorithms show that the proposed cohort building can increase the ML model performance notably.


Clauses headed by if and when are very often considered syntactically and semantically equivalent.  Nevertheless, in this paper we show that the type of predicate has an impact both on the grammaticality and the interpretation of the subordinate clause in Spanish. Theses clauses provide evidence for the proposal that stage-level predicates involve an extra-argument that individual-level predicates lack. Following Kratzer (1995), we assume that this is extra-argument is a spatio-temporal argument. While stage-level predicates in the subordinate clause are perfectly grammatical, individual-level predicates yield to ungrammatical sentences, unless an indefinite or a kind-referring NP is involved.  Kratzer´s Prohibition against vacuous quantification provides a sound account for the asymmetry between the two types of predicates.  In addition, a stative verb in the when clause is grammatical, but it forces an epistemic reading. When both predicates are individual-level predicates in the subordinate and the main clause, the if clause may can take a factual reading while the when clause is ungrammatical unless there is some kind of operator involved through a generic, a kind-referring NP or an indefinite pronoun.


Ontario's Class Proceedings Act is 30 years old. In the past three decades, it has inspired similar legislation across Canada and around the world, and its capacity for bringing about social change has been widely acknowledged. But, like all things that mature, some cracks are beginning to show. The certification test under section 5 of the CPA has been made more restrictive by recent legislative amendments. In addition, class action practitioners are starting to recognize that the CPA can be a blunt instrument and that some mass claims are better litigated outside of that context. While smaller claims may find safety in numbers in a class action, larger claims that require more individualized treatment may get lost in the crowd. Outside of the CPA, however, there is minimal guidance in this area, and this can lead to uncertainty and delay. This article proposes a set of informal guidelines for the litigation of mass claims in Ontario, informed by multidistrict litigation in the US and group litigation in England & Wales, as well as the theory and history of mass claims typology. This guidance will reduce uncertainty and delay by facilitating agreement between parties on procedural steps, and provide much-needed direction for a growing phenomenon.


Research Findings: Hong Kong launched the new mechanism of the Quality Assurance Inspection (QAI) in 2000 to enforce accountability and school improvement in the sector of early childhood education. The QAI comprises 3 stages: school self-evaluation, external inspection, and release of the QAI report to the public. To understand the roles of self-evaluation and external inspection and their interactions, we analyzed all 80 QAI reports released by the government from 2004 to 2007 and interviewed the principals and teachers of 3 kindergartens that had been ranked excellent, good, and satisfactory on Learning and Teaching performance in the QAI. The results indicated that (a) school performance on self-evaluation was significantly and positively correlated with Learning and Teaching performance but negatively correlated with the number of problems found in the QAI, (b) all kindergartens reported 4 types of challenges brought about by the external inspection (i.e., uncertainty, personnel, workload, and psychological burdens), and (c) the QAI was a facilitative and productive process for school self-evaluation and quality improvement. Practice or Policy: These findings suggest that an effective quality assurance mechanism should maintain a balance between external and internal evaluations and should work toward school empowerment and improvement.


: Measurements were made of serum and urine myoglobin in 48 patients with leptospiral jaundice (LJ) and 56 patients with various acute infections. At the height of LJ blood myoglobin level reached 28.96 +/- 4.3 micrograms/l (normal concentration 0.315 +/- 0.002 microgram/l). Compared to acute pneumonia, acute viral hepatitis, tonsillitis, erysipelas, diphtheria, health values, the ratio of serum myoglobin to urine myoglobin in leptospirosis made up 45.25 against 5.4, 4.8, 6.8, 3.7, 1.8 and 1.3, respectively. A relationship was found between concentrations of myoglobin, bilirubin, creatinine in the blood and leptospirosis severity. Elevation of serum myoglobin as a manifestation of specific myositis is pathognomic for leptospirosis and contributes to the onset of acute renal failure and disturbance of bilirubin metabolism. Quantitation of blood myoglobin may be helpful as an additional test for leptospirosis severity.


ABSTRACT Objective: Switching medications is common in the treatment of schizophrenia. This study examines the effectiveness of olanzapine therapy following a clinically warranted switch from risperidone during treatment of patients with schizophrenia. Research design and methods: This post-hoc analysis used data from the risperidone arm of a randomized, open-label, 1-year study of patients with schizophrenia. Study protocol permitted antipsychotic switching when clinically warranted, and outcomes were assessed with standard psychiatric measures. Statistical analyses assessed changes from pre- to post-medication switch and endpoint comparisons between patients switched from risperidone to olanzapine and patients continued on risperidone. Results: Most patients who switched from risperidone switched to olanzapine (43/60; 71.7%). Average duration of risperidone treatment prior to switching was 86 days (mean modal dose 4.0 mg/day). Most switchers (86%) completed the 1-year study on olanzapine (average duration 241 days; mean modal dose 12.0 mg/day). Following switch to olanzapine, patients experienced significant improvements on clinical (Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale) and social (Quality of Life Inventory) parameters, with similar proportions of patients achieving remission status at endpoint compared with risperidone patients not requiring medication switch (41.9 vs. 35.5%). Mean weight gain for switchers was approximately 0.4 kg while on risperidone (average treatment duration < 3 months) and 2.4 kg on olanzapine (average treatment duration approximately 8 months). Conclusions: This study suggests that olanzapine is an effective treatment option for schizophrenia patients requiring a switch from risperidone. Given the small sample size and lack of a comparative group, one cannot determine if other medication options would have been as effective as the switch to olanzapine. Thus, further research is warranted.


Impaired speech intelligibility in motor speech disorders arising due to neurological diseases negatively affects the communication ability and quality of life of patients. Reliable and cost-effective measures to automatically assess speech intelligibility are necessary for the management of such disorders. In this paper, we propose to automatically assess the intelligibility of pathological speech based on short-time objective intelligibility measures typically used in speech enhancement, which however require a reference signal that is time-aligned to the test signal. We propose a method to create an utterance-dependent reference signal of intelligible speech from multiple healthy speakers. In order to assess intelligibility, the pathological speech signal is aligned to the created reference signal using dynamic time warping and the divergence between the two signals is quantified using either the short-time or the spectral correlation. Experiments on databases of English and French patients suffering from Cerebral Palsy and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis show that the proposed intelligibility measures can obtain a high correlation with subjective intelligibility ratings, outperforming several state-of-the-art pathological speech intelligibility measures.


Abstract Normal adult tissues contain a small subset of tissue-specific stem cells. These stem cells are capable of self-renewing as well as generating daughter cells that are destined to completely differentiate and thereby support tissue remodeling and repair. The human uterus is an example of how such cell populations support the function of an organ. The uterus primarily consists of endometrium and myometrium, and these tissues rapidly enlarge to support the developing fetus during pregnancy. Uterine enlargement and remodeling can occur more than a dozen times during a woman's reproductive life. The expansion of the gravid uterus is achieved mainly through myometrial hyperplasia and hypertrophy, and these processes suggest an important role for stem/progenitor cell systems. Recently, stem/progenitor cells in the myometrium have been identified and their properties characterized. Here, we discuss some of the properties of myometrial stem/progenitor cells. We also suggest a new model of myometrial physiology and how stem cell systems might contribute to pregnancy-associated uterine remodeling.


In this paper we present an extension of the recently proposed Stationary Subspace Analysis (SSA). This novel method solves the problem how to group signals from different conditions and/or subjects to find stationary subspaces. The original SSA approach does not offer a natural way to group data and therefore better define the non-stationarities of interest. This drawback is solved with group-wise SSA (gwSSA) and demonstrated with a simple but illustrative example: the classification of BCI data. If not treated correctly the BCI tasks are considered as non-stationarities in SSA, which complicates its use for classification purposes. We show how, by correctly defining groups, non-stationarities of interest can be extracted. In this paper, the application is in multi-class signals, where the groups are properly defined to even improve classification performance.


The purpose of this study was to quantify the deficit rates for transfer component skills in a Veteran cohort and explore the relationship between deficit rates and subject characteristics. Seventy-four men and 18 women performed up to four transfers independently from their wheelchair to a mat table while a therapist evaluated their transfer techniques using the Transfer Assessment Instrument. The highest deficit rates concerned the improper use of handgrips (63%). Other common problems included not setting the wheelchair up at the proper angle (50%) and not removing the armrest (58%). Veterans over 60 yr old and Veterans with moderate shoulder pain were more likely to set up their wheelchairs inappropriately than younger Veterans (p = 0.003) and Veterans with mild shoulder pain (p = 0.004). Women were less likely to remove their armrests than men (p = 0.03). Subjects with disabilities other than spinal cord injury were less inclined to set themselves up for a safe and easy transfer than the subjects with spinal cord injury (p ≤ 0.001). The results provide insight into the disparities present in transfer skills among Veterans and will inform the development of future transfer training programs both within and outside of the Department of Veterans Affairs.


Summary form only given. Without any doubt, design-for-manufacturability (DFM) has been the hottest buzzword for the last couple of years. This is quite justifiable by the enormous challenges in nanometer technology nodes and ever increasing design-process interactions. As a result, virtually all EDA companies have focused on providing "DFM solutions". Since the concept of DFM covers an extremely broad spectrum of tasks, from the system level all the way to the manufacturing process, many of these DFM solutions are just design verification tasks re-labeled. We provide a more thorough classification of various DFM activities with emphasis on the design tasks. We also discuss the necessary condition to enable true DFM, i.e., the comprehensive characterization of the design-process interactions. We present a complete process characterization methodology that is capable of extracting all the salient process variations for a full set of product design attributes. We illustrate our talk by showing the yield loss Pareto for the leading technology nodes that cover all the dominant yield loss phenomena, including random, systematic and parametric mechanisms. We also demonstrate examples of design flows that take advantage of such a comprehensive characterization together with silicon results demonstrating the advantages of true DFM.


Broad area (Al,In)GaN laser diodes (LDs) are suitable for high optical output power in the near UV to blue spectral range. But for ridge widths larger than a few micrometers, the occurrence of filamentation is well known. We present experimental evidence that the single filaments tend to be phase-locked with defined phase offset and build up a so called supermode. Depending on driving current a coherent or incoherent superposition of different supermodes can be observed, which has a significant impact on the corresponding lateral far-field pattern. By a simulated reconstruction of the lateral mode profile of the laser mode propagating in free space we retrieve the field and phase distribution of the laser mode in the waveguide. In this context the coupling mechanism is discussed and the mode behavior is compared to supermodes in GaAs laser diode arrays.


The present paper explores the relevance that brain data have in constructing theories about the human mind. In the Cognitive Science era it was assumed that knowledge of the mind and the brain correspond to different levels of analysis. This independence among levels led to the epistemic argument that knowledge of the biological basis of cognition would not be relevant at a psychological level of explanation. Nowadays, however, modern neuroimaging technologies offer a powerful means to explore the cognitive functioning of the human brain. The authors argue that this technological revolution is associated with a new way of building theories of human cognition in which mind and brain are no longer independent nor autonomous. In contrast, the Cognitive Neuroscience era is marked by a continuous and bi-directional exchange of information between biology and cognition.


Call centres have received increased attention during the past decades. The growth of this sector in the economy has led to research on its work conditions. Call centres are often described as "sweatshops" with inferior psychosocial work conditions in this research. There are different kinds of call centres, however. This study focuses on the psychosocial work conditions in Swedish in-house call centres compared with the same conditions in Nordic (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish) organisations in general. The QPS Nordic questionnaire is used for the comparison. It is found that Swedish in-house call centre employees perceive work to be more controlled than employees in Nordic organisations in general do. At the same time the work load in in-house call centres is not perceived to be very high. The call centre leadership style appears to be different from leadership in general in Nordic organisations. Superiors are perceived to be quite supportive, people-oriented and empowering. Co-workers are also perceived to be supportive. In addition, work is not perceived to be as central in life by call centre employees as it is perceived by employees in Nordic organisations in general.


Összefoglaló. A HUNgarian COronaVirus disease-19 Epidemiological
 Research (H-UNCOVER) vizsgálat egy országos szintű reprezentatív felmérés volt,
 melyet az Innovációs és Technológiai Minisztérium (ITM) támogatásával végzett el
 a négy orvostudományi képzést folytató magyar egyetem a Központi Statisztikai
 Hivatallal (KSH) együttműködve. A vizsgálat célja az volt, hogy egy
 reprezentatív mintán keresztül felmérje a magyar lakosság SARS-CoV-2
 átfertőzöttségét, és támaszul szolgáljon a koronavírus első hulláma kapcsán
 meghozott restriktív intézkedések utáni lazításra. A világszinten is jelentős
 méretű vizsgálat alacsony átfertőzöttségi arányt mutatott, így nemcsak a
 restriktív intézkedések hatékonyságát mutatta meg, de egy biztos járványügyi
 támaszt jelentett a gazdaság újranyitásának tervezéséhez.
 Summary. Close to the end of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic
 in Europe, many countries started to consider the possibility of reopening their
 economy, and lifting some of the containment measures introduced in the previous
 weeks. Such a decision is utterly complicated, as reopening might easily lead to
 an increase in active SARS-CoV-2 cases, but a delay puts an almost unbearable
 burden on the country's economy. The objective of the HUNgarian COronaVirus
 disease-19 Epidemiological Research (H-UNCOVER) study was to conduct a
 cross-sectional survey among the Hungarian population to estimate the total
 number of infectious cases and the prevalence of prior SARS-CoV-2 exposure, and
 by using these data help to plan an exit strategy. The H-UNCOVER study was
 performed by the 4 medical universities in Hungary (Semmelweis University,
 University of Pécs, University of Debrecen and University of Szeged) with the
 help of the Central Statistical Office, Hungarian National Ambulance Service,
 Governmental offices and General Practitioners.
 The study was initiated 50 days after the Hungarian restrictions and performed
 between 1-16 May. With the help of the Central Statistical Office, 17,787 people
 were selected to represent the Hungarian population of 14 years or older living
 in private households (n=8,283,810). SARS-CoV-2 PCR and blood tests were
 performed to assess the prevalence of active infection and seropositivity. These
 tests were accompanied by a questionnaire about symptoms, comorbidities, and
 COVID-19 contacts. More specifically, questions included topics about home
 office, going abroad after the 1st of March, or possible contacts with COVID-19
 positive, or quarantined individuals, as well as symptoms which might be due to
 COVID-19 infection.
 Altogether 67.7% of the selected individuals participated in some form in the
 study, which is an exceptionally high number compared to such studies. 10,502
 individuals had SARS-CoV-2 PCR testing and 10,501 people had a blood test to
 assess SARS-CoV-2 IgG levels. Of the tested individuals, three had positive PCR
 and 69 had positive serological tests. Population estimates of the number of
 SARS-CoV-2 infections and seropositivity were 2,421 and 56,439, respectively,
 thus the active infection rate (2.9/10,000, 95% confidence interval:
 0-6.7/10,000) and the prevalence of prior SARS-CoV-2 exposure (68/10,000, 95%
 confidence interval: 50-86/10,000) were low. A total of 10,474 individuals
 completed the questionnaire. Self-reported loss of smell or taste and body aches
 were significantly more frequent among those with SARS-CoV-2.
 Our study suggested that the early containment measures initiated by the
 Government of Hungary were effective in preventing the escalation of the first
 wave of COVID-19 in Hungary. We also found that the highest prevalence of the
 disease was in Budapest, and those who attended their workplace on a regular
 basis, travelled abroad after the 1st of March, or contacted with a COVID-19
 positive or quarantined individual had a higher tendency to become infected. In
 conclusion, the H-UNCOVER study supported the exit strategy after the first wave
 of COVID-19 in Hungary.


We propose a statistical methodology to quantify the financial implications of tropical cyclone-related physical risks implied by climate change. To address the sensitivity of disaster intensity to climate change, we provide a Monte Carlo methodology to generate synthetic cyclones consistent with climate scenarios of the Couple Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). Sovereign exposure and vulnerability assessments in principal tropical cyclone basins are based on projections of population densities in shared socioeconomic pathways coupled with downscaled physical asset values constructed using mixed data along with locally calibrated damage functions. Finally, we compute the direct climate impact on emerging countries' bond spreads using the spread sensitivity to the debt to GDP ratio, assuming that damage costs are financed by issuing new government debt. We find that the 'business as usual' RCP8.5 concentration scenario coupled with the 'middle road' shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP2) leads to global average annual damages 142% larger than in the concentration scenario RCP2.6 allowing to remain under 2°C warming. In terms of emerging market impact, we estimate that in 2070-2100, the impact of extreme cyclones on the bond spread of most vulnerable countries will up to 200 bps higher in the RCP8.5 pathway than in the 2°C baseline. In every step of our assessment, we quantify the impact of model uncertainty on our results using 7 different climate models from the CMIP5 database.


Abstract Scholarship in international political economy (IPE) has noted the rise of resource nationalism in since the early 2000s. Despite the increased presence of state regulation in the resource sector, resource nationalism has not been incompatible with foreign investment. This article contributes to better understand resource nationalist policies that emerged in recent years and offers new theoretical insights to explain state-IOC relations by integrating obsolescing bargaining theories and constructivist approaches. Drawing on the case of Venezuela, this article explains how the Chávez regime pursued a hybrid model of control and welcoming of investments in the oil sector. The article argues that both bargaining insights and ideational considerations are important in explaining this model. In the context of high oil prices and sunk investments, it is unsurprising that a leftist government would seek to renegotiate contracts to seek better deals from extractive companies. Yet, focusing exclusively on those incentives misses important ideational drivers for the government to keep investors in the country. For Chávez's government, effecting changes in the oil policy was possible after waging an intense battle with its NOC, PDVSA, over control. Association with foreign investment became crucial to build its socialist model and to control its own company.


The objective of this paper is to test whether the monthly prices of Coffee C futures and their corresponding spot prices provide evidence of an efficient market for Coffee C in the context of New York market. To achieve the objectives, we first test whether the series contain unit root, thereafter we apply co-integration tests and confirm the results thereof with Johansen procedures. Lastly, we apply the GARCH modelling. The study has important policy implications for governments, which are concerned with forecasting of the revenues from primary commodity exports. It will also enable them to decide if they can rely on futures market together with alternative strategies for stabilisation of exports. The study provides evidence that efficient market does exist for coffee C futures.


We have developed optically pumped passively mode-locked vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting lasers. We achieved as much as 950 mW of mode-locked average power in chirped 15-ps pulses, or 530 mW in 3.9-ps pulses with moderate chirp. Both lasers operate at a repetition rate of 6 GHz and have a diffraction-limited output beam near 950 nm. In continuous-wave operation, we demonstrate an average output power as high as 2.2 W. Device designs with a low thermal impedance and a smooth gain spectrum are the key to such performance. We discuss design and fabrication of the gain structures and, particularly, their thermal properties


In this article we introduce CONNECT, an infrastructure running on small wireless devices (e.g., PDA phones) and servers that aids people with disabilities in leading their everyday lives. We refer to the target (client) devices as personal portable devices (PPDs). The architecture of the CONNECT system is described, with emphasis on the accessibility services provided to its clients. As an example, the reminder service of CONNECT is profiled where care providers and community organizers (or general users who have appropriate rights) can send timely reminders to the PPD owners, giving them a chance to respond to these messages. In conjunction with the connect project, 600 PPDs are deployed to people with disabilities for evaluation purposes.


Abstract Summary Predicting orthologs, genes in different species having shared ancestry, is an important task in bioinformatics. Orthology prediction tools are required to make accurate and fast predictions, in order to analyze large amounts of data within a feasible time frame. InParanoid is a well-known algorithm for orthology analysis, shown to perform well in benchmarks, but having the major limitation of long runtimes on large datasets. Here, we present an update to the InParanoid algorithm that can use the faster tool DIAMOND instead of BLAST for the homolog search step. We show that it reduces the runtime by 94%, while still obtaining similar performance in the Quest for Orthologs benchmark. Availability and implementation The source code is available at (https://bitbucket.org/sonnhammergroup/inparanoid). Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.