Luas is a state of the art light rail system operating in Dublin Ireland. Being electrically powered, energy is a major operating cost for Luas. One component of rolling stock identified by this research that consumes a disproportional amount of energy is that of the heating and ventilation systems. The heating and ventilation systems fitted to Luas vehicles consume as much as 60% of total vehicle power, and under certain conditions can consume more than that of the traction motors. This paper explores solutions to reducing the energy consumption of Luas heating and ventilation systems. The identified software modifications and hardware installations proposed by this research have been estimated to save over 1,400,000 kWh, 7% of total Luas energy consumption. Based on the current average industry price of €0.12 per kWh, this saving equates to almost €170,000 per year. Transport systems are not immune to the economic downturn seen throughout the Europe Union. With decreasing passenger numbers, operators are faced with reduced revenue streams, which could lead to reduced services or possible job losses. To avoid such action, operators must reduce their operating costs adequately. Heating and ventilation systems provide passengers with a controlled, fresh, temperature-regulated air supply to ensure maximum comfort. Light rail systems are arguably one of the most difficult transport modes in which to regulate air temperature and quality, due to their short trip distances with a high number of stops. Each Luas vehicle has three heating and ventilation units. The total rated power of the three systems is 60 kW, power is supplied by way of 750 V DC direct from the overhead catenary supply. Each unit is controlled by a self-contained control unit where in all eventualities, the system endeavours to achieve a variable interior set point between 14 °C and 20 °C. The system is set up to automatically start once the vehicle is prepared (switched on) and will remain on (temperature depending) until the vehicle is de-prepped (switched off). Testing of the system, recorded a maximum consumption of 60 kWh at an operating temperature of 2 °C. Contrastingly a test conducted at 19 °C the consumption was 3 kWh. Detailed analysis of Luas operations indicates that on average 30% of the time Luas trams are in operation, is not actual passenger service. However the heating and ventilation systems are operational during these periods. Automatically disabling the systems during these non-passenger periods would reduce energy consumption significantly, while not adversely affecting passenger comfort. To achieve this objective, three modifications have been identified. The first two will automatically disable the heating and ventilation system while operating in periods of nonpassenger service when the vehicle is in traction and while the vehicle is stable in the shunt (end of line). The third modification will reduce the set point profile, the system endeavours to reach. The paper describes in detail the software modifications and hardware installations required to roll out these modifications across the Luas fleet. Sweeney, Brunton: Modification of Luas Heating and Ventilation System 5-6th September, Trinity College Dublin Proceedings of the ITRN2013


Since 2012, the poor literacy levels of intermediate phase (IP) learners have been a concern for officials in the Western Cape Education Department (WCED). Responding to the literacy crisis, the WCED has implemented the South African Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS), along with various other literacy interventions, but in the West Coast District, IP learners' writing skills remain poor. Focusing on the West Coast District, this thesis sheds light on the implementation of the writing-instruction practices prescribed by CAPS: specifically, the implementation of "shared writing" as a scaffolding method for teaching writing to learners. The thesis maps the theoretical and conceptual framework of the writing process, with an emphasis on shared writing. In particular, it discusses Vygotsky's and Piaget's ideas on social-cognitive development and scaffolding. The gradual release of responsibility (GRR) and balanced language approach (BLA) instruction models propose that a competent adult should interactively model the writing process to learners before group writing (practice) and independent writing (assessment) are attempted. While these stages of instruction are included in CAPS, this study investigated the extent of their implementation. Current literature in the field of writing instruction foregrounds the concepts of "thinking aloud" and "shared pen", according to which the teacher and the learner co-compose a text, allowing learners to become competent writers. In this study, quantitative and qualitative research methods were used to describe and understand West Coast District IP Afrikaans Home Language (HL) teachers' perceptions of their use of shared writing to teach the writing process. Data collection consisted of quantitative and qualitative questionnaires, as well as interviews, with results converted into percentages. Subsequent data analysis disclosed the patterns, strengths, and weaknesses experienced by IP Afrikaans HL teachers in the West Coast District. Current IP writing-instruction practices can provide the South African Department of Basic Education (DBE) with valuable insights into the implementation of shared writing, and of CAPS as a whole.


This article presents the accounts of China's Total Material Requirement (TMR) during 1995–2008, which were compiled under the guidelines of Eurostat (2009) and with the Hidden Flow (HF) coefficients developed by the Wuppertal Institute. Subsequently, comparisons with previous studies are conducted. Using decomposition, we finally examine the influential factors that have changed the TMR of China. The main findings are the following: (1) During 1995–2008 China's TMR increased from 32.7 Gt to 57.0 Gt. Domestic extraction dominated China's TMR, but a continuous decrease of its shares can be observed. In terms of material types, excavation constituted the biggest component of China's TMR, and a shift from biomass to metallic minerals is apparent; (2) Compared with two previous studies on China's TMR, the amounts of TMR in this study are similar to the others, whereas the amounts of the used part of TMR (Direct Material Input, DMI) are quite different as a result of following different guidelines; (3) Compared with developed countries, China's TMR per capita was much lower, but a continuous increase of this indicator can be observed; (4) Factors of Affluence (A) and Material Intensity (T), respectively, contributed the most to the increase and decrease of TMR, but the overall decrease effect is limited.


The sooner disruptive emergent behaviors are detected, the sooner preventive measures can be taken to ensure the resilience of business processes execution. Therefore, organizations need to prepare for emergent behaviors by embedding corrective control mechanisms, which help coordinate organization-wide behavior (and goals) with the behavior of local autonomous entities. Ongoing technological advances, brought by the Industry 4.0 and cyber-physical systems of systems paradigms, can support integration within complex enterprises, such as supply chains. In this paper, we propose a reference enterprise architecture for the detection and monitoring of emergent behaviors in enterprises. We focus on addressing the need for an adequate reaction to disruptions. Based on a systematic review of the literature on the topic of current architectural designs for understanding emergent behaviors, we distill architectural requirements. Our architecture is a hybrid as it combines distributed autonomous business logic (expressed in terms of simple business rules) and some central control mechanisms. We exemplify the instantiation and use of this architecture by means of a proof-of-concept implementation, using a multimodal logistics case study. The obtained results provide a basis for achieving supply chain resilience "by design", i.e., through the design of coordination mechanisms that are well equipped to absorb and compensate for the effects of emergent disruptive behaviors.


This paper describes the Training, Research, Isotope, General Atomics (TRIGA) spent nuclear fuel (SNF) examination performed by technical personnel from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) at the Bandung and Yogyakarta research reactor facilities in Indonesia. The examination was required before the SNF would be accepted for transportation to and storage at the INEEL. This paper delineates the Initial Preparations prior to the Indonesian foreign research reactor (FRR) fuel examination. The technical basis for the examination, the TRIGA SNF Acceptance Criteria, and the physical condition required for transportation, receipt and storage of the TRIGA SNF at the INEEL is explained. In addition to the initial preparations, preparation descriptions of the Work Plan For TRIGA Fuel Examination, the Underwater Examination Equipment used, and personnel Examination Team Training are included. Finally, the Fuel Examination and Results of the aluminum and stainless steel clad TRIGA fuel examination have been summarized. Lessons learned from all the activities completed to date is provided in an addendum. The initial preparations included: (1) coordination between the INEEL, FRR or Badan Tenaga Atom Nasional (BATAN), DOE-HQ, and the US State Department and Embassy; (2) incorporating Savannah River Site (SRS) FRR experience and lessons learned; (3) collectingmore » both FRR facility and spent fuel data, and issuing a radionuclide report (Radionuclide Mass Inventory, Activity, Decay Heat, and Dose Rate Parametric Data for TRIGA Spent Nuclear Fuels) needed for transportation and fuel acceptance at the INEEL; and (4) preexamination work at the research reactor for the fuel examination.« less


BACKGROUND
Depressive disorders are common in young people and are associated with significant negative impacts. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are often used, however, evidence of their effectiveness in children and adolescents is not clear. Furthermore, there have been warnings against their use in this population due to concerns about increased risk of suicidal ideation and behaviour.

OBJECTIVES
To determine the efficacy and adverse outcomes, including definitive suicidal behaviour and suicidal ideation, of SSRIs compared to placebo in the treatment of depressive disorders in children and adolescents.

SEARCH STRATEGY
We searched the CCDAN Trials Register, MEDLINE, PSYCHINFO and CENTRAL. Reference lists were checked, letters were sent to key researchers and internet databases searched.

SELECTION CRITERIA
We included published and unpublished randomised controlled trials.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two or three review authors selected the trials, assessed the quality and extracted trial and outcome data. We used a fixed-effect meta-analysis. The relative risk was used to summarise dichotomous outcomes and the mean difference to summarise continuous measures.

MAIN RESULTS
Twelve trials were eligible for inclusion, with ten providing usable data. At 8-12 weeks, there was evidence that children and adolescents 'responded' to treatment with SSRIs (RR 1.28, 95% CI 1.17 to 1.41). There was also evidence of an increased risk of suicidal ideation and behaviour for those prescribed SSRIs (RR 1.80, 95% CI 1.19 to 2.72). Fluoxetine was the only SSRI where there was consistent evidence from three trials that it was effective in reducing depression symptoms in both children and adolescents (CDRS-R treatment effect -5.63, 95% CI -7.38 to -3.88), and 'response' to treatment (RR 1.86, 95% CI 1.49 to 2.32). Where rates of adverse events were reported, this was higher for those prescribed SSRIs.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Caution is required to interpret the results. First, there were methodological issues, including high attrition, issues regarding measurement instruments and clinical usefulness of outcomes, often variously defined across trials. Second, patients seen in clinical practice are likely to be more unwell, and at greater risk of suicide, compared to those in the trials, and it is unclear how this group would respond to SSRIs. This needs to be considered, along with the evidence of an increased risk of suicide related outcomes in those treated with SSRIs. It is unclear what the effect of SSRIs is on suicide completion. While untreated depression is associated with the risk of completed suicide and impacts on functioning, it is unclear whether SSRIs would modify this risk in a clinically meaningful way.


This paper provides a reflective account of difficulties and differences that may cause Aboriginal Canadian students to struggle with Standard English. Special considerations for Aboriginal students and strategies for intervention are described. These clinical reflections are based on twenty years of cultural and working experience as an Aboriginal Speech-Language Pathologist in Central Vancouver Island, B.C., as well as personal observations and interactions with Aboriginal people from across Canada.


Abstract Magmatic differentiation and/or assimilation and related segregation of immiscible sulfide liquid are generally believed to be critical processes in the formation of the majority of orthomagmatic Ni sulfide deposits. In recent years, a new class of Ni sulfide deposits formed by metasomatic and/or hydrothermal modification of peridotites has been recognized. The serpentinite-hosted Avebury Ni sulfide deposit (Tasmania, Australia), the largest known non-magmatic sulfide deposit, provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand sources of metals and fluids responsible for this style of economic mineralization. Our study shows that serpentinization of the Ni-bearing olivine in the Cambrian peridotites of the McIvor Hill complex was followed by metasomatic transformation assisted by heat and fluids supplied by the nearby Late Devonian granite intrusion. The role of the above in the formation of an economic concentration of Ni sulfides is supported by (1) abundant Ni-Fe alloys and sulfides associated with serpentinization of peridotitic olivine, (2) metasomatic olivine containing inclusions of serpentine and metalliferous brines, and (3) the Late Devonian age of the Ni sulfide deposit. The Avebury meta-somatic olivine is Ni-depleted and enriched in Mn relative to olivine of similar Fo content in nearby unmineralized peridotites, and to olivine in subduction-related mafic magmas generally. The unusual minor element chemistry of olivine is matched by a unique set of olivine-hosted multiphase inclusions composed of fibrous Mg-silicates and various Na-, K-, Fe-, Ca-, Mn-, and Ba-bearing chlorides/ hydrochlorides, sulfides, arsenides magnetite, REE minerals, and Fe-Ni alloys. Peridotite whole-rock Sr-Nd-Pb isotope data and U-Pb dating of metasomatic titanite support earlier suggestions that Ni mineralization is temporally and genetically related with the intrusion of the nearby 360 Ma Heemskirk Granite. It appears that the multiphase inclusions in metasomatic olivine demonstrate chemical signatures of both in situ serpentinites (entrapped alloys, sulfides, arsenides, and magnetite) and distal fluids (enrichment in Pb, Bi, Sn, Sb, Sr, Ba, Rb, Cs, and Ce). We propose that magmatic olivine in large ultramafic bodies provides almost infinite Ni to replacive serpentinites and constitutes a major reservoir of disseminated Ni mineralization. In the case of Ave-bury Ni was locally redistributed from olivine in the Cambrian peridotites to mainly Fe-Ni alloys and sulfides during serpentinization in the early Paleozoic. In the Devonian reheating and interaction with a granitic fluid in the contact aureole of the Heemskirk Granite led to de-serpentinization and formation of metasomatic high-Mn, low-Ni olivine with inclusions of serpentine and entrapped alloys, sulfides, arsenides, and magnetite, and metalliferous brines rich in "granitic" elements. Nickel released from serpentinite in this process was re-deposited near the margins of the peridotite to form the Avebury Ni orebody. Our model of serpentinization-related release of Ni from magmatic olivine, in situ precipitation of metallic, sulfide, and arsenide Ni-minerals, and their redistribution and recrystallization in hydrothermal conditions represents an alternative to Ni remobilization from magmatic sulfides.


Fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are recognized for their high tensile strength, strength-toweight ratio, corrosion resistance, easy installation, and versatility. A large number of studies conducted to date (e.g. [1-3]) have shown the significant increases in the load capacities of concrete members through FRP strengthening. However, due to high interfacial shear and normal stresses at the FRP-toconcrete interface, debonding failure modes such as plate end debonding, concrete cover separation, and intermediate crack-induced debonding were frequently reported in previous studies [1-5]. Such debonding failure results in the premature failure of the FRP plate strengthening system before it develops its full strength. The use of anchorage has emerged as one of the most promising techniques for delaying or preventing interfacial debonding failure in concrete members retrofitted with externally bonded FRP laminates [6]. It was shown in previous studies that the use of FRP spike anchors results in increases in both the bond strength at the FRP-concrete interface and axial strain in the FRP plate, allowing a more efficient use of the FRP material [5]. A review of the literature has shown that the effect of anchor configuration on the behavior of FRP plates with multiple anchors has not been sufficiently studied. This study was aimed at addressing this gap.


Background: Regionalization of care to primary stroke centers (PSC) may improve outcomes for stroke patients. We evaluated the current access of Medicare stroke patients to PSC, and its potential impact on mortality.

Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study of a 100% sample of Medicare fee-for-service claims data for patients admitted with stroke in 2008-2009, with one-year follow-up through 2010. Population weighted centroids were created, helicopter pad locations were identified, and driving distances were calculated based on real road network data. Driving and flying speeds, dispatch, scene, and pre-hospital times were estimated using validated models, adjusted for population density. The association of 30-day mortality with travel times, and treatment at a PSC was investigated using multivariable regression models.

Results: During the study period, 510,822 patients (mean age 79.6 years, 59.7% females) had a stroke. There was significant regional variation in our cohort, (Figure) with 8.6% of stroke patients having ground access to a PSC within 30 minutes, 14.9% from 30 to 45 minutes, 11.1% from 45 to 60 minutes, 43.9% from 1 to 4.5 hours, and 21.5% over 4.5 hours. The latter group could be limited to 0.1% of stroke patients, if existing helicopter services were used optimally. 164,485 (32.2%) patients received treatment in a PSC, and had modestly decreased mortality (OR, 0.97; 95% CI, 0.95-0.99). For this group, actual travel time to the PSC was not associated with mortality for patients within one hour of the PSC. On the contrary, travel times from 1 to 4.5 hours (OR, 1.15; 95% CI, 1.08-1.22), and over 4.5 hours (OR, 1.41; 95% CI, 1.29-1.54) were associated with increased mortality.

Conclusions: There is significant regional variation in access to PSC for elderly stroke patients, with a potential impact on outcomes. Optimal use of helicopter services may address these disparities.

Funding: NIH (P01-AG19783, and U01-AG046830-01).

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A famous configuration of 27 lines on a non-singular cubic surface in

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 P

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E-mail: email@example.com Apple iPhone 6s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, Samsung S6 Edge, Note 5 unlocked GSM cellphone 128GB Brand new in factory sealed boxes - Buy 2 and get 1 free - Unlocked - Rose Gold, Silver, Black & Grey Colours Available E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Skype: xxxtech222


Computer security and user privacy are critical issues and concerns in the digital era due to both increasing users and threats to their data. Separate issues arise between generic cybersecurity guidance (i.e., protect all user data from malicious threats) and the individualistic approach of privacy (i.e., specific to users and dependent on user needs and risk perceptions). Research has shown that several security- and privacy-focused vulnerabilities are technological (e.g., software bugs (Streiff, Kenny, Das, Leeth, & Camp, 2018), insecure authentication (Das, Wang, Tingle, & Camp, 2019)), or behavioral (e.g., sharing passwords (Das, Dingman, & Camp, 2018); and compliance (Das, Dev, & Srinivasan, 2018) (Dev, Das, Rashidi, & Camp, 2019)). This panel proposal addresses a third category of sociotechnical vulnerabilities that can and sometimes do arise from non-inclusive design of security and privacy. In this panel, we will address users' needs and desires for privacy. The panel will engage in in-depth discussions about value-sensitive design while focusing on potentially vulnerable populations, such as older adults, teens, persons with disabilities, and others who are not typically emphasized in general security and privacy concerns. Human factors have a stake in and ability to facilitate improvements in these areas.


The present study was carried out to evaluate the anti-inflammatory activities of polyphenols isolated from the leaves of mistletoe (Loranthus micranthus Linn.) parasitic on Hevea brasiliensis. The anti-inflammatory properties of the isolated compounds were evaluated on the basis of their ability to inhibit the production of nitric oxide (NO) and tumuor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in lipopolysaccharide (LPS) activated RAW 264.7 mouse macrophages. Semipreparative HPLC separation of the ethyl acetate (EtOAc) and butanol (n-BuOH) fractions of the leaves of mistletoe (Loranthus micranthus Linn) parasitic on Hevea brasiliensis led to the isolation of four polyphenols: 3-O-(3,4,5-trimethoxybenzoyl)-(-)-epicatechin (TMECG) (1); (-)-epicatechin-3-O-(3′′-O-methyl)-gallate (ECG3′′Me) (2); rutin (3) and peltatoside (4). Compounds 1-4 were isolated for the first time from this plant while 1 was isolated for the first time in nature. These compounds (1-4) were readily identified by comparison of their spectroscopic data with those reported in the literature. The polyphenols proved to have antiinflammatory activity as evidenced by the suppression of inducible nitric oxide (iNO) and cytokine (TNF-α) levels in the culture supernatant of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW 264.7 murine macrophages. However, the study showed that the quercetin diglycosides showed stronger inhibition of proinflammatory mediators than the epicatechin derivates. These data provide evidence that polyphenolic compounds isolated from the mistletoe parasitic on Hevea brasiliensis may contribute to its anti-inflammatory properties by inhibiting the expression of inducible nitric oxide and proinflammatory cytokines such as tumour necrosis factor-α.


The development objective of the Regional Disease Surveillance System Enhancement Project for Africa is to strengthen national and regional cross-sectoral capacity for collaborative disease surveillance and epidemic preparedness in West Africa. Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: (1) in urban areas, unregulated practices by both public, private hospitals and private waste collectors has resulted in dumping of medical waste (infectious and sharps) at municipal dump sites; (2) variations in the composition of waste raises serious issues at the local level which require different approaches with respect to necessary medical waste management procedures to be applied in order to achieve sustainability; (3) the disposal practise for sharps and used medical supplies are incinerated, disposed in pits or in the open, collected by specialized firms, mixed with general waste with the risk of infections at community level, exposure of garbage workers to infection; (4) responsibilities for waste management are not well defined in most Health Care Facilities (HCFs) except in tertiary and secondary HCFs; (6) general public, including children playing with hazardous items that they find in the waste outside the HCF when it is made accessible through improper Health Care Waste Management (HCWM); (7) the dumping of HCW in uncontrolled areas can have a direct environmental effect by contaminating soils and underground waters; and (8) improper burning or incineration of HCW, air can also be polluted causing illnesses to the nearby populations.


The study of pathology in pseudotuberculosis has showed that clinical and morphological nature of the disease is related to granulomatous inflammation in organs and tissues. The authors have established that a relapsing course of this infection may be due to pronounced specific sensitization of the body when granulomas appear in large numbers. Morphogenesis of acute granulomatous inflammation in pseudotuberculosis reflects a consecutive involvement of cellular reactions of the immediate and delayed hypersensitivity. In the authors' opinion pseudotuberculosis granulomas may be assigned to immune hypersensitive granulomas of mixed type according to the classification suggested by A. I. Strukov and O. Ya. Kaufman. The data obtained allow a hypothesis that granulomas tending to cause a purulent liquefaction and necrosis, like pseudo-tuberculous granulomas, could be considered as a morphological sign of granulocytic-macrophagal immune deficiency.


In competitive telecommunication environment, it is imperative to maintain an effective customer retention strategy even while mobile service operators attracting new customers. Not only acquiring new customers costly process, but successful customer retention helps build brand loyalty and good business reputation. Motivated by real mobile service operator data set, we designed and proposed a solution to employ survival analysis technique that estimates customers' survivals and hazards. We aim to examine the impact of: campaign, tariff, tenure, age, auto-payment on survival times and hazards. After hazard ratios and survival experiences determined for each predictor, results enable mobile service operator to target the right customers to incentivize so that they can stay with their current operator. Proactive actions triggered by the results of the survival model is key to customer retention.


Aimed at the problem of huge energy consumption of traditional office air conditioning units, this paper has put forward a new energy-saving and high-efficient office air-conditioning system for centralized work place which is independent in air supplying and can supply cooling or heat on demand and has adopted intelligent control. The paper introduced the structure and working principles of the new air conditioning system, for example, the innovative distributed air supplying system, the frequency-converting air conditioning technology and intelligent control system. The paper also analyzed the advantages of performance, and the new air conditioning system is more energy-saving and comfortable compared with the traditional air conditioning system.


This work addresses cell instance segmentation in digital cytology slides. Automated segmentation of cells is an essential step toward automated cell analysis and pathology diagnosis, however cell instance segmentation remains a challenging task, especially for touching or overlapping cells. This work first introduces a new large dataset of overlapping urothelial cell Z-stacks, allowing the comparison and validation of modern algorithms for cell instance segmentation, improving previously proposed methods by a large margin. In addition, a modified backbone architecture is proposed to directly use Z-stacks as inputs, relieving from the necessity of using Extended Depth of Field projections of the volumes. Such backbone allows to reduce the total prediction time per sample by a factor up to 8, with no drop in segmentation performances. Dataset and code are available at gitlab.com/vitadx/articles/zstacks_cell_instance_segmentation.


Abstract : Building video representations typically involves four steps: feature extraction quantization, encoding, and pooling. While there have been large advances in feature extraction and encoding, the questions of how to quantize video features and what kinds of regions to pool them over have been relatively unexplored. To tackle the challenges present in video data, it is necessary to develop robust quantization and pooling methods. The first contribution of this thesis, Source Constrained Clustering, quantizes features into a codebook that generalizes better across actions. The main insight is to incorporate readily available labels of the sources generating the data. Sources can be the people who performed each cooking recipe, the directors who made each movie, or the YouTube users who shared their videos. In the pooling step, it is common to pool feature vectors over local regions. The regions of choice include the entire video, coarse spatio-temporal pyramids or cuboids of pre-determined fixed size. A consequence of using indiscriminately chosen cuboids is that widely dissimilar features may be pooled together if they are in nearby locations. It is natural to consider pooling video features over supervoxels for example, obtained from a video segmentation. However, since videos can have a different number of supervoxels, this produces a video representation of variable size. The second contribution of this thesis is a new, fixed size video representation Motion Words, where we pool features over video segments. The ultimate goal of video segmentation is to recover object boundaries, often grouping pixels from regions of very different motion. However, in the context of Motion Words, it is important that regions preserve motion boundaries. The third contribution of this thesis is a supervoxel segmentation, Globally Consistent Supervoxels which respects motion boundaries and provides better spatio-temporal support for Motion Words.


OBJECTIVE
To understand the experience of Haida people living with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM), in order to provide a basis for a culturally sensitive community-based approach to managing NIDDM.

DESIGN
Qualitative study using grounded theory.

SETTING
The villages of Skidegate and Old Massett in Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands), British Columbia.

PARTICIPANTS
Nine focus groups met at the beginning and six at the end of the project. The focus groups had 8 to 12 members each and roughly the same number of men and women overall. The groups included people with diabetes, family members of people with diabetes, community leaders and elders.

FINDINGS
Conceptual findings related to the participants' views on the impact of NIDDM on their lives, their views on what life was like before the effects of NIDDM were felt and their beliefs about the prevention and treatment of NIDDM. Six themes recurred in the discussions: fear; grief and loss; the loss of and desire to regain control; food and eating; physical and personal strength; and traditional ways.

CONCLUSIONS
Insights into the illness experience of different cultural groups can inform program development and the creation of culturally sensitive health care interventions.


Cardiovascular disorders often (~50% of the cases) manifest themselves suddenly in the form of ventricular arrhythmias leading to sudden cardiac death. The autonomic nervous system plays an important role in the induction of these arrhythmias, but the exact mechanisms contributing at the level of the individual cell remain incompletely understood. In this thesis, a systems-biology approach was used in which computer models were developed to investigate the effect of sympathetic stimulation ("stress") on the electrophysiology of the cardiac ventricular myocyte. Using these models, the consequences of mutations in cardiac ion channels and/or pharmacological interventions were investigated and the ionic mechanisms were determined. Together with experimental research, this has provided novel insights into the cellular mechanisms contributing to "stress"-induced arrhythmias. These computational models provide a state-of-the-art framework to investigate cardiac electrophysiology and could in the future form the basis of novel approaches for personalized medicine by integrating available patient-specific information.


BACKGROUND: In patients with cervical immobilization, jaw thrust can cause cervical spine movement. Concurrent use of a laryngoscope may facilitate lightwand intubation, allowing midline placement and free movement of the lightwand in the oral cavity without jaw thrust. We compared the effects of laryngoscope-assisted lightwand intubation (LALI) versus conventional lightwand intubation (CLI) on cervical spine motion during intubation in patients with simulated cervical immobilization. METHODS: In this randomized crossover study, the cervical spine angle was measured before and during intubation at the occiput-C1, C1-C2, and C2-C5 segments in 20 patients with simulated cervical immobilization who underwent intubation using both the LALI and CLI techniques. Cervical spine motion was defined as the change from baseline in angle measured at each cervical segment during intubation. RESULTS: Cervical spine motion at the occiput-C1 segment was 5.6° (4.3) and 9.3° (4.5) when we used the LALI and CLI techniques, respectively (mean difference [98.33% CI]; −3.8° [−7.2 to −0.3]; P = .007). At other cervical segments, it was not significantly different between the 2 techniques (−0.1° [−2.6 to 2.5]; P = .911 in the C1-C2 segment and −0.2° [−2.8 to 2.5]; P = .795 in the C2-C5 segment). CONCLUSIONS: The LALI technique produces less upper cervical spine motion during intubation than the CLI technique in patients with simulated cervical immobilization.


Recent research on the news coverage of war and conflict has argued that journalists maintain more professional independence and are more critical of the government and military than in the past. At the same time, critiques that during wartime journalists rally around the flag and serve as mouthpieces for nationalist propaganda persist. Given these opposing views, we examine the ways in which three Israeli online newspapers covered the 2014 Gaza War and compare this coverage to posts on the Israel Defense Forces' official social media pages. Through close discursive analysis of legitimation and referential strategies, the use of reported speech, transitivity, voice, and modality, we demonstrate both the great ideological similarities between news discourse and military public relations, and the ways in which journalists transform the authoritative, formal voice characteristic of official texts into the more personalized, emotional voice of media discourse. We discuss our findings as reflective of the complementary influence of journalists' ideological presuppositions, professional rituals, and commercial constraints.


The gas turbine blade was studied on the condition that the mainstream velocity was 10m/s and the Renolds number based on the chord length of the blade was 160000.The Hot-film anemometer was used to measure the two-dimension speed distribution along the downstream of the film cooling holes on the suction side and the pressure side. The conclusions are as follows: When the blowing ratio of the suction side and the pressure side increasing, the the mainstream and the jet injection mixing center raising. Entrainment flow occurs at the position where the blade surface with great curvature gradient, simultaneously the mixing flow has a wicked adhere to the wall. The velocity gradient of the u direction that on the suction side increase obviously, also the level of the wall adherence is better than the pressure side. With the x/d increasing, the velocity u that on the pressure side gradually become irregularly, also the secondary flow emerged near the wall region where the curvature is great. The blowing ratio on the suction side has a little influence on velocity v than that on the pressure side.


Opportunistic yeast pathogens evolved multiple times in the Saccharomycetes class, including the recently emerged, multidrug-resistant Candida auris. We show that homologs of a known yeast adhesin family in Candida albicans, the Hyr/Iff-like (Hil) family, are enriched in distinct clades of Candida species as a result of multiple, independent expansions. Following gene duplication, the tandem repeat-rich region in these proteins diverged extremely rapidly and generated large variations in length and β-aggregation potential, both of which were known to directly affect adhesion. The conserved N-terminal effector domain was predicted to adopt a β-helical fold followed by an α-crystallin domain, making it structurally similar to a group of unrelated bacterial adhesins. Nonsynonymous-to-synonymous substitution rate analysis of the effector domain in C. auris revealed relaxed selective constraint and signatures of positive selection, suggesting functional diversification after gene duplication. Lastly, we found the Hil family genes to be enriched at chromosomal ends, which likely contributed to their expansion via ectopic recombination and break-induced replication. We hypothesize that the expansion and diversification of adhesin families are a key step toward the emergence of fungal pathogens and also generate variation in adhesion and virulence within and between species.


During insect metamorphosis many larval neurons persist but are modified to serve new behavioral roles at later stages of life. For example, certain larval mechanosensory neurons expand their central arborizations during pupal development and evoke a different behavioral response, the gin trap reflex. The role of the insect steroid hormone, 20-hydroxyecdysone (20-HE) in this developmental change was investigated by removing the normal source of the hormone, followed by topical application of 20-HE to the peripheral somata of the sensory neurons. In prepupal animals that were ligated between the abdomen and thorax to remove the source of ecdysteroids the sensory neurons retained a larval arborization pattern. Topical application of 20-HE to the peripheral sensory neuron somata caused the treated neurons to undergo terminal arbor expansion within the CNS. The treated sensory neurons were not able to evoke the normal pupal behavioral response, but instead caused a larval-like reflex response. In a previous study, sensory neurons that were treated peripherally with a juvenile hormone analog during the commitment peak of ecdysteroids were shown to retain a larval arborization pattern at pupation and to not evoke the gin trap reflex (Levine et al., 1986). Within 4 d of pupation, however, these neurons belatedly developed expanded terminal arbors and evoked the pupal reflex. In the present study, similarly treated animals were ligated at pupation to block the surge in ecdysteroids that normally occurs at this time. This treatment prevented both the delayed expansion and the reflex, whereas topical 20-HE application induced growth and allowed the treated sensory neurons to evoke the gin trap reflex. It is concluded that both 20-HE and juvenile hormone act directly on the cell bodies of the sensory neurons to regulate the growth of their central processes. This growth is necessary but not sufficient for the development of the gin trap reflex, suggesting that other steroid-dependent changes must also occur within the CNS. Thus, as in the vertebrates, steroid hormones direct important developmental events within the insect nervous system.


Sir . —Achromobacter xylosoxidans is a gram-negative bacteria, found in the vertebrate intestinal tract and isolated from aqueous environments. The majority of infections caused by A xylosoxidans are either nosocomially acquired or involve immunocompromised hosts, but sporadic communityacquired infections in presumed normal patients have been described. 1 Osteomyelitis of the foot following puncture wounds through sneakers is most often associated with Pseudomonas aeruginosa or other Pseudomonas species. 2-4 We describe a child with community-acquired A xylosoxidans osteomyelitis of the foot that resulted from a puncture wound. Patient Report .—A previously healthy 11-year-old boy stepped on two nails 2.5 weeks before seeking care. The nails penetrated his tennis shoe to a presumed depth of about 2 inches. Immediately after the injury, the foot was soaked in hydrogen peroxide and alcohol. The wounds initially appeared to be healing well without evidence of drainage, pain, or swelling. In the week before admission the child


Authigenic illites have been found in pores of many sandstones which are known to be hydrocarbon reservoirs. Typical samples are from the Norphlet Formation in southern Mississippi, the Wilcox Formation in south Texas, and the Lance Formation in Wyoming. Illites in these sandstones are mainly in the form of laths with perfectly developed morphologies. Laths have widths of 0.1 to 0.3µ and lengths ranging up to 30µ. Scanning electron (SEM) images show that these "hair like" illites fill many of the pores of these sandstones, and cause a serious reduction in permeability. Elemental analysis of the laths with EDAX energy dispersive X-ray analyzer shows that Si, Al, and K are the major constituents and Mg is the minor constituent in the chemical composition of the la hs. Transmission electron images show that illite laths have grown from an amorphous core which is rather similar to an irregular smectite aggregate. X-ray diffraction patterns display the coexistence of discrete illite (9.9A) with an illite/smectite mixed layer with a distinct reflection varying from 10.5 to 11.0A. In the sample from the Wilcox Formation the laths form regular arrangements which lead to the development of platelets. End_of_Article - Last_Page 460------------


Identifying the temporal segments in a video that contain content relevant to a category or task is a difficult but interesting problem. This has applications in fine-grained video indexing and retrieval. Part of the difficulty in this problem comes from the lack of supervision since large-scale annotation of localized segments containing the content of interest is very expensive. In this paper, we propose to use the category assigned to an entire video as weak supervision to our model. Using such weak supervision, our model learns to do joint video level categorization and localization of content relevant to the category of the video. This can be thought of as providing both a classification label and an explanation in the form of the relevant regions of the video. Extensive experiments on a large scale data set show our model can achieve good localization performance without any direct supervision and can combine signals from multiple modalities like speech and vision.


Knowledge of taxonomy and biodiversity of parasites is fundamental to better understand ecosystem dynamics. The objective of this study was to describe the helminth fauna of two species of marsupials in five fragments of the Atlantic rainforest in the western region of Paraná State, Brazil. In a total of 4050 trap-nights, the animals were captured using Sherman, Tomahawk, and Pitfall traps, euthanized, necropsied, and their organs inspected for helminths. After identification of the parasites, descriptors of infection, such as prevalence, mean abundance, mean intensity, and range of intensity, were calculated. Collectively, six helminth species were observed in 18 animals. The following five species were observed in Marmosa paraguayana: Viannaia hamata (58.8%), Gracilioxyuris agilisis (52.9%), Travassostrongylus sextus (17.6%), Oncicola luehei (5.9%), and Pritchardia boliviensis (5.9%). Whereas the following two species were observed in Monodelphis dimidiata: Trichohelix tuberculata (100%) and Travassostrongylus sextus (100%). This study represents a new locality record for all helminths described herein, and a new host for four helminth species. This is the first report on the helminth fauna of Monodelphis dimidiata, expanding knowledge about marsupials in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.


This opinion article posits that the current lack of understanding of the dynamic interactions among the different components of risk (e.g., hazard, exposure, vulnerability, or resilience) is one of the main obstacles for the implementation of effective risk prevention measures. In state‐of‐the‐art methods for risk assessment, natural and social systems are typically treated separately by using different approaches. In flood risk studies, for instance, hydrological scientists typically focus on flood hazard, whereas socioeconomic scientists mainly examine the exposure, vulnerability, or resilience to flood events. However, we argue that these different components are deeply interconnected: for example, changes in flood hazard often trigger changes in vulnerability, and vice versa. These interconnections between the different components of risk remain largely unexplored and poorly understood. This lack of knowledge is of serious concern as it limits our ability to plan appropriate risk prevention measures. To design flood protection structures, for example, current methods can indeed provide quantitative assessments of the corresponding risk reduction associated to the reduced flood hazard. Nevertheless, traditional methods cannot estimate how, and to what extent, the reduced frequency or magnitude of floods might trigger increases of exposure or vulnerability to flooding (e.g., 'levee effect'). Thus, while many progresses have been made in the static assessment of flood risk, the dynamics of risk are still poorly investigated. We think that this is a major issue in a rapidly changing world, and we therefore propose a transdisciplinary research agenda as a possible way out.


Oil spill disaster is unexpected accident occurs through failures in operations, transportations, ship accidents, human errors or due to other disasters such as flood and earthquake. Most of oil spills happen in coastal and sea environment that make the emergency response for the accident much difficult and complicate. Intricate operations involve through complexity of sea and coastal conditions, especially in bad weather where the access to the accident site is difficult. Management of such event needs an organized contribution, covering all procedures of disaster operation from monitoring and detection to mitigation and relief. This paper presents methods of SAR image and GIS technology applications for oil spill management in coastal area. The developed framework is based on automatic detecting and mapping of oil spills in SAR image and provision of oil spill location and extent map which includes information about the spill thicknesses and geographic references such as major towns and features along the coastal area. The output from SAR image processing then transferred into oil spill trajectory simulation model to simulate the next destinations of oil spill. Oil spill trajectory predicts the movement, spreading, and coastal impact of oil spill in the marine environment. The output vectors from trajectory simulation used as input data for creating other disaster products including oil spill risk map, affected area map and emergency response map. Each product demonstrates the results from various analyses aspects, include situational analysis, risk analysis, damage analysis, and emergency response analysis using satellite SAR image in GIS and image analysis software. All the models and applications are described and depicted.


In robotics the risk of collisions is present both in industrial applications and in remote handling. If a collision occurs, the impact may damage both the robot and external equipment, which may result in successive imprecise robot tasks or line stops, reducing robot efficiency. As a result, appropriate collision avoidance algorithms should be used or, if it is not possible, the robot must be able to react to impacts reducing the contact forces. For this purpose, this paper focuses on the development of a special end-effector that can withstand impacts and is able to protect the robot from impulsive forces. The novel end-effector is based on a bi-stable mechanism that decouples the dynamics of the end-effector from the dynamics of the robot. The intrinsically non-linear behavior of the end-effector is investigated with the aid of numerical simulations. The effect of design parameters and the operating conditions are analyzed and the interaction between the functioning of the bi-stable mechanism and the control system is studied. In particular, the effect of the mechanism in different scenarios characterized by different robot velocities is shown. Results of numerical simulations assess the validity of the proposed end-effector, which can lead to large reductions in impact forces.


In Escherichia coli, the isoleucine codon AUA occurs at a frequency of about 0.4% and is the fifth rarest codon in E. coli mRNA. Since there is a correlation between the frequency of codon usage and the level of its cognate tRNA, translational problems might be expected when the mRNA contains high levels of AUA codons. When a hemagglutinin from the influenza virus, a 304-amino-acid protein with 12 (3.9%) AUA codons and 1 tandem codon, and a mupirocin-resistant isoleucyl tRNA synthetase, a 1,024-amino-acid protein, with 33 (3.2%) AUA codons and 2 tandem codons, were expressed in E. coli, product accumulation was highly variable and dependent to some degree on the growth medium. In rich medium, the flu antigen represented about 16% of total cell protein, whereas in minimal medium, it was only 2 to 3% of total cell protein. In the presence of the cloned ileX, which encodes the cognate tRNA for AUA, however, the antigen was 25 to 30% of total cell protein in cells grown in minimal medium. Alternatively, the isoleucyl tRNA synthetase did not accumulate to detectable levels in cells grown in Luria broth unless the ileX tRNA was coexpressed when it accounted for 7 to 9% of total cell protein. These results indicate that the rare isoleucine AUA codon, like the rare arginine codons AGG and AGA, can interfere with the efficient expression of cloned proteins.


The chemical composition of the volatile concentrate obtained by supercritical CO2 extraction of aerial parts of Crithmum maritimum L. growing spontaneously in one area of Mediterranean coast (Buggerru, Sardinia Island, Italy) and in two areas of the Atlantic coast (Figueira da Foz and S. Pedro de Moel, Portugal) was investigated by GC and GC-MS. The major oil components identified were p-cymene, β-phellandrene, γ-terpinene, thymol methyl ether and dillapiole. The results showed the presence of two chemotypes of C. maritimum with different dillapiole contents, ranging from 0.2 to 64.2% in Portuguese and Italian plants, respectively. The minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) and the minimal lethal concentration (MLC) were used to evaluate the antifungal activity of the oils against yeasts and dermatophyte strains. All the oils exhibited significant antifungal activity against dermatophyte strains. The oil with the higher amount of dillapiole (64.2%) was the most active with MIC values ranging from 0.08–0.32 µL mL−1.


CONTEXT
Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the SHBG gene are associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus. SHBG has also been proposed as a candidate gene for the polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

OBJECTIVE
The study aims were 1) to determine whether any of four SHBG SNPs (rs1779941, rs6297, rs6259, and rs727428) are associated with PCOS and 2) to determine whether SNP genotype influences SHBG levels in PCOS women.

DESIGN
Using the transmission disequilibrium test, evidence of associations between SHBG SNPs and PCOS were analyzed. Additionally, correlations between SHBG levels and SNP genotype, body mass index, non-SHBG-bound testosterone, and insulin resistance estimated by the homeostasis model were determined.

SETTING
The study was conducted at academic medical centers.

PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS
A total of 430 families having a proband with PCOS were included in the family-based study. Associations between SNP genotypes, SHBG, and metabolic parameters were determined in 758 women with PCOS including probands from the family cohort.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Primary outcome measures included transmission frequency of SNP alleles and correlation coefficients between SHBG and allele frequency/metabolic parameters.

RESULTS
No evidence of association between SNPs of interest and PCOS was found. However, in multivariate analyses, SHBG levels varied significantly with rs1799941 and rs727428 genotype after controlling for body mass index, non-SHBG-bound testosterone, and homeostasis model for insulin resistance.

CONCLUSIONS
Although SHBG SNPs associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus do not appear to be associated with PCOS status, rs1799941 and rs727428 genotypes are associated with SHBG levels independent of the effects of insulin resistance and obesity.


Short sleep duration has been reported to be associated with various health problems. This study examined the influence of sleep duration on the odds of being obese in relation to the consumption of dietary antioxidant vitamins among 3941 Korean men between 40 and 69 years of age. After adjusting for age, education, household income, marital status, insomnia, smoking and drinking status, participants with short sleep duration (<6 h) had significantly higher body mass index (p = 0.005), body fat mass (p = 0.010), body fat percentage (p = 0.021), waist circumference (p = 0.029), as well as the odds ratio (OR) of risk of obesity [OR (95% CI) = 1.467 (1.282–1.678)], compared to participants with optimal sleep duration (≥7 h). Short sleepers with a low consumption of dietary antioxidant vitamins had a higher risk of obesity than those with a high consumption of dietary antioxidant vitamins; however, this relationship did not hold among those with optimal sleep duration. Although a causal relationship among sleep-related variables could not be definitively demonstrated because of this study's cross-sectional design, our results suggested that the increased risk of obesity associated with short sleep duration may be modified by the consumption of dietary antioxidant vitamins.


An examination of all the extant, provenanced depictions of composite beings, Mischwesen, in Neo-Babylonian iconography sheds important new light on the worldview of the last great Mesopotamian civilization. The types of hybrids that are portrayed include such disparate forms as the apkallu and the genius in human form, as well as creatures based on bulls, lions, canines, winged quadrupeds, fish, birds, scorpions, and snakes. Each composite being is analyzed in terms of its physical components, its context within scenes, its historical development, and its interpretation in NB texts. Within the hierarchical cosmic community, some lower deities and sub-divine beings appear in composite form. These play a key role in the cosmos by interacting with gods, with each other, with humans, and with natural animals. Their behavior parallels dynamics found in natural life, such as in competition, conflict, predation, protection, and in the service of others who are more powerful. In hybrids the capabilities of natural animals and humans are heightened by the selective addition of features derived from other species. There is no consistent correlation, however, between the strength of a natural creature and the relative power of the superhuman being that it symbolizes, or between its physical complexity and its placement in the cosmic hierarchy. In fact, the transcendence of high gods is often emphasized by their simple representation through attribute animals in natural form.Portrayals of composite beings often express the need for protection from malevolent powers by beneficent beings, some of whom can be accessed only through human mediators, such as ritual functionaries. Special relationships between supernatural beings and elite humans, especially the king, make such humans indispensable and therefore support their roles in the existing social order. It appears that the choice of a particular being portrayed on a given object could be influenced by factors such as its owner's profession, religious and/or political affiliations, and especially by the apotropaic function(s) of specific composite beings.


Negative F2-layer storms related to geomagnetic activity and quiet-time disturbances (Q-disturbances) belong to different classes of events and exhibit different morphology. Mid-latitude daytime Q-disturbances, unlike the usual negative F2-layer storms, demonstrate NmF2 andhmF2 inphase variations. An analysis of Millstone Hill ISR observations for usual and Q-disturbances has shown the difference in the controlling aeronomic parameter variations for the two classes of events. The decrease in atomic oxygen concentration provides the main contribution to the hmF2 decrease below the monthly median level during Q-disturbance events. Unlike the usual negative storms, the negative effect takes place in the whole topside ionosphere under Qdisturbance conditions. The difference is due to different effective plasma scale heights in the two cases. Clustering of the usual negative F2-layer disturbances around equinoxes and Q-disturbances around winter solstice, as well as different latitudinal variations for the occurrence of the two types of disturbances is due to their different formation mechanisms.


This paper explains how the eight lens elements of a 600 mm, f/2.0 ballistic camera are mounted and retained in almost perfect alignment. The total weight of the glass in this lens is 107 kg, the largest element weighing 21.1 kg. The lens is aligned to less than 3 μ of tangential distortion and the elements are supported in the mount in such a way that they are completely free of any strains. The near perfect alignment of the lens is maintained by soldering the lens elements into the supporting cells.


Documentation and conservation of underwater cultural heritage (UCH) are crucial to preserving humankind's history and traditions, safeguarding tangible testimonies of past human life while ensuring its accessibility to future generations. The TECTONIC (Technological Consortium TO develop sustainability of underwater Cultural Heritage) project is promoting an intersectoral collaboration between academic and non-academic professionals (i.e., archaeologists, conservators, geologists, engineers, etc.) working on different topics related to UCHs, to find solutions to the issues still existing in the field. The overall aim is the exchange of skills for the improvement and assessment of innovative materials and techniques to develop solutions and marketable products for the conservation and management of the UCH, sustainably. To achieve its overall aim, TECTONIC is undertaking activities driven by the following objectives: (a) the study, documentation, and mapping of selected UCHs; (b) the creation of decision-support tools for UCH risk assessment in a changing environment; (c) the initiation of conservation studies and protocols for conservation activities; (d) the development of open and low-cost robotic solutions for the inspection of UCH; and (e) the raising of public awareness and knowledge about UCH. All the objectives are devoted to stimulating new sustainable ideas that would bring the growth of cultural tourism and the development of new marketable products by capitalizing on the research results.


This paper presents a new high performance neural network architecture, shift-tolerant K-subspaces, for phoneme recognition. The architecture combines the time-delay design for phoneme recognition and the technique of MLP autoassociators. For each phoneme category, K time-delay linear autoassociators are constructed and trained with a proposed K-subspace clustering procedure, similar to the K-means algorithm, using speech data belonging to the phoneme category. This architecture with its non-classification training procedure provides an effective method for phoneme recognition. It avoids the drawback encountered in most conventional neural network based speech recognition systems that network output values do not represent candidate likelihoods. The architecture has obtained 87.37% recognition accuracy which is only slightly lower than 88.44% obtained with a TDNN and 88.30% with a shift-tolerant LVQ trained by classification learning procedures using the same data set.


BACKGROUND
Because of the rising expectation of prolonged life in the general population and the recent recognition of undertreated aortic valve disease in the elderly, updating the available results of aortic valve surgery is imperative, especially considering the rapid evolution of the transcatheter valve implantation procedure.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Between 1997 and 2010, 308 patients aged 70 years or older underwent aortic valve replacement (AVR) for aortic stenosis (AS). Short- and long-term results were analyzed and risk factors for long-term mortality were determined. Mean age was 78.5 years and 124 patients were aged 80 or older. Concomitant coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) was performed in 46% of the cases. Mean left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) was 52%. Overall observed and expected operative mortality using the Society of Thoracic Surgeons-Predicted Risk of Mortality score was 3.9% and 4.8%, respectively. Overall survival rates at 1, 5, and 10 years were 88.6%, 71.6%, and 31.8%, respectively. Predictors of long-term mortality included diabetes; preoperative shock; LVEF ≤ 40%; New York Heart Association functional class III or IV; and age.

CONCLUSIONS
Short- and long-term results of conventional AVR in the elderly prove it to be durable and, especially in relatively low-risk patients and patients who require concomitant CABG, operative mortality is reasonably low. Conventional AVR ± CABG remains the gold standard for elderly patients with AS.


The problem with which this study is concerned is that of determining income concepts employed by members of the agricultural sector to determine change in equity of the owner of an entity. A secondary purpose was an investigation of the factors which influenced the decision model selected to determine income. Major findings of the study indicated that financial data is used differently by members of the sector and the accountant. Respondents did not agree among themselves about the information that should be used in income measurement, nor were they consistent in use of a given concept. Finally, evidence was presented which indicated that changes in terms used to ask for change in equity leads to different responses.


Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) including axitinib have been introduced in the treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) because of their anti-angiogenic properties. However, no evidence are presently available on a direct cytotoxic anti-tumor activity of axitinib in RCC. Herein we reported by western blot analysis that axitinib treatment induces a DNA damage response (DDR) initially characterized by γ-H2AX phosphorylation and Chk1 kinase activation and at later time points by p21 overexpression in A-498 and Caki-2 RCC cells although with a different potency. Analysis by immunocytochemistry for the presence of 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2′-deoxyguanosine in cellular DNA and flow cytometry using the redox-sensitive fluorescent dye DCFDA, demonstrated that DDR response is accompanied by the presence of oxidative DNA damage and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. This response leads to G2/M cell cycle arrest and induces a senescent-like phenotype accompanied by enlargement of cells and increased senescence-associated β-galactosidase activity, which are abrogated by N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) pre-treatment. In addition, axitinib-treated cells undergo to cell death through mitotic catastrophe characterized by micronucleation and abnormal microtubule assembly as assessed by fluorescence microscopy. On the other hand, axitinib, through the DDR induction, is also able to increase the surface NKG2D ligand expression. Accordingly, drug treatment promotes NK cell recognition and degranulation in A-498 RCC cells in a ROS-dependent manner. Collectively, our results indicate that both cytotoxic and immunomodulatory effects on RCC cells can contribute to axitinib anti-tumor activity.


This review offers a perspective on the role landscape and gardening play in urban settings from a socio-cultural, and ecological dimension. The practice of cultivating in gardens, parks and vacant lots, creates community spaces, and are increasingly becoming important to peoples' experience of social and cultural wellbeing. In recent times, this has become a major focus of research in ecology, agriculture, urban design, landscape architecture, human geography, and sociology. Community gardening is one of the avenues toward revitalizing urban environments, and it provides a way of addressing multi-faceted urban problems ranging from limited food access to safety and community cohesion. That being said, it is necessary to continually evaluate the roles which society, ecology, and culture play in cities and landscape planning due to the dynamic nature of culture. This article aims to bring to the fore, the various factors of landscape and gardening practices in cities and the dynamics of cultural and ecological effects they have in building communities, reclaiming communities or engendering a personal place to thrive. A narrative review of the literature on peer-reviewed articles within the scope of the study was adopted as the research method.


Insights into the natural history of dengue virus infection guide vaccine development Dengue virus (DENV) is a member of the viral genus Flavivirus, which also includes yellow fever virus (YFV) and Zika virus (ZIKV). DENV infection is a major and growing global health threat: There are ∼400 million cases of infection, ∼500,000 hospitalizations, and ∼12,500 deaths now estimated to occur each year (1). Dengue represents the most common mosquito-borne disease in humans (1). A remarkable 50% of the world's population now lives in regions where DENV transmission is manifest. Dengue is associated with a wide spectrum of clinical outcomes, ranging from mild febrile illnesses to dengue hemorrhagic fever to the most severe clinical presentation of dengue shock syndrome, which is characterized by profound systemic cytokine activation, vascular leakage, and shock—this carries a high risk of death. On page 929 of this issue, Katzelnick et al. (2) analyzed DENV infection outcome data gleaned from the long-term followup of a cohort of Nicaraguan children (2). They found that the risk of severe dengue disease upon subsequent DENV infection correlated with baseline DENV antibody concentrations (titers), which has implications for DENV vaccination approaches.


Background and Objective: Pharmacist prescribing has been implemented successfully in several countries around the world, with evidence of effectiveness, safety and acceptability. The Qatar Health Strategy provides the opportunity to advance further the clinical and prescribing role of the pharmacist. As part of considering this development, there was a need to gather the views and perceptions of key individuals in positions of strategic importance. The aim of this project is to explore the views and perceptions of stakeholders on the development and implementation of pharmacist prescribing in Qatar. Setting and Method: Qualitative, face-to-face interviews with indviduals in key strategic positions with policy influence (medical/pharmacy/nursing directors, hospital administrators, health academics, experts in patient safety as well as regulators and decision makers). Participants were recruited through purposive and snowballing sampling from different settings of: Ministry of Public Health, primary/secondary/tertiary health settings, community pharmacies and academic health institutions in Qatar. An interview schedule was drawn from an extensive search of the available literature, a systematic review being conducted by the investigators and the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). The schedule was reviewed for credibility prior to piloting; interviews continued to the point of data saturation. Interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically by two independent researchers using CFIR as a coding framework. Ethical approval was obtained prior to conducting fieldwork. Main outcome measures: Awareness, experiences and views of: non-medical prescribing; clinical roles and prescribing by pharmacists; facilitators, barriers and solutions to pharmacist prescribing development and implementation. Results: Data saturation and representation of stakeholder groups was achieved following 36 interviews. Emerging CFIR themes were: intervention characteristics (evidence of pharmacist prescribing models internationally, advantages of pharmacist prescribing in Qatar, adaptability of international models to Qatar); outer setting (better meeting patient needs, degree of networking with external organisations); inner setting (quality of communication processes within an organisation, engagement of key leaders in development and implementation); ideal characteristics of pharmacist prescribers in Qatar; and process of designing, implementing and evaluating the intervention. Conclusion: Stakeholders held positive views around the potential for pharmacist prescribing in Qatar. CFIR themes will facilitate the development of frameworks for pharmacist prescribing in Qatar.


Alpha neurofeedback training has been put forward for use in the optimal performance field as a way to enhance cognitive abilities and musical performance amongst others. The literature to date, however, has been characterised by methodological limitations and disagreement on procedural and analytic matters which makes drawing conclusions and comparing results problematic. To provide clarity to the field, and to enable effective investigation of the usefulness of alpha neurofeedback training in the realm of optimal performance, it would be useful if a standardised way of conducting alpha neurofeedback was established. It is unclear, for instance, what influence the current variations have on participants' ability to train their alpha and to the outcome (e.g. on cognition) of their performance. This thesis therefore sets out to investigate whether there is an optimum methodology for alpha neurofeedback training. The first experiment was designed to establish an index of learning to use in the successive experiments; that is, to establish how alpha should be measured and how participants' performance should be analysed. Fifty-two participants were given 10 sessions of once weekly alpha (8-12Hz) enhancement and alpha suppression training at Pz. From the results of this first experiment it was decided that amplitude and per cent time would be the measures used to investigate participants' performance and that analyses of participants' performance both within and across sessions would be examined. Further, it was decided that baseline measures needed to be incorporated in to the analyses in order to establish a clearer picture of participants' ability to learn. Experiment 2 involved training 33 participants to both enhance and suppress their alpha (8-12Hz) at Pz. Over the course of 10 once weekly sessions, 17 participants trained with their eyes open and 16 were trained with their eyes closed. The results suggested that eyes open alpha neurofeedback training is a more optimal training paradigm than eyes closed. The third experiment therefore set out to examine whether the type of eyes open training has an influence on participants' performance. Specifically, 15 participants were given audio feedback, 15 were given audio-visual feedback, and 17 were given visual feedback over the course of 10 once weekly alpha (8-12Hz) enhancement and alpha suppression sessions. The results showed that of the 3 types of feedback, audio feedback produced the more optimal results. Although there are further aspects of methodology and analysis to be investigated, the results from this thesis suggest that these fundamental design decisions do make a difference to the participants' ability to exert a conscious control over their own EEG alpha activity suggesting that there is, in fact, an optimum methodology for alpha (8-12Hz) neurofeedback training.


In the presidential election year 1 984, the American liberal left, with gaping mouth, found itself having already experienced four years of a Reagan presidency, and about to face four more. How had America arrived at such a point, when only twenty years before, Goldwater's defeat had marked Reagan as a "staunch proponent of seemingly outdated ideas" (Dallek 30)? Where was that liberal activism when Reagan was elected in 1980, "with only 28 percent of the eligible vote" (60)? What kind of political environment would allow a former movie and television actor to assume the powerful role of president of the United States? In Vineland, Pynchon looks at America during that election year and elaborates, in the form of the genealogy of heroine Frenesi Gates, its political malaise through a narrative representation of the twentieth-century American left's history and cooptation. Although many factors contributed to eclipsing the left's influence, Pynchon focuses on the cultural apparatus that simultaneously excuses and lays blame on the victim/participant-the apparatus of radio, film and television, whereby viewers are interpellated, according to the Althusserian definition, and come to desire their own commodification. Finally, Pynchon encourages us to read Vineland through the lens of traditional family values, thus establishing a reading code which provides a framework and closure for the novel, suggesting to some readers "the possibility of redemption," "a yearning for transcendence" (Porush 98, 104), or a recuperated salvation (Hayles 77–91). Instead, however, this code functions as what Fredric Jameson describes as "a preparation for the principal narrative … [as] a means to a more unexpected end" (163). In the unconscious of this principal narrative, the reader discovers both a shady political presence looming like Vineland's absent monster that left its footprint where the Chipco lab used to be, and an indictment of the transcendent and the history that results from our turning toward it.


The alignment between a firm's business and information technology (IT) strategies continues to be important for research and practice. Prior research investigating the performance consequences of strategic IT alignment (SITA) has produced inconsistent results. This paper distinguishes between two roles of SITA: (1) as a state of congruence between business and IT, which is the primary focus of empirical studies, and (2) as reflecting a capability that may enable or inhibit the leveraging of IT investments, as has been discussed theoretically but not examined empirically. Based on the resource-based view (RBV), IT investment (ITI) is explicitly included as the resource that SITA as a capability can inherently help leverage. Also based on RBV, we argue that environmental uncertainty, which is examined in terms of dynamism, complexity, and munificence, moderates the effect of SITA on the relationship between ITI and firm performance. The research model is tested through panel-data analyses of data from 1999–2008, including 758 firm-year observations from 242 firms. This study is the first to find that SITA as a state directly improves firm performance even when considering ITI and its interaction with SITA. Moreover, the effect of the interaction between SITA and ITI on firm performance increases with an increase in environmental dynamism or complexity and with a decrease in environmental munificence. We also find that the effect of the interaction between SITA and ITI can be negative under some environments. Specifically, the results suggest that (1) in dynamic, complex, and hostile environments, SITA does reflect a capability that enhances the positive effect of ITI on firm performance, but (2) in stable, simple, and munificent environments, SITA reflects a rigidity that reduces the positive effect of ITI on firm performance. The results are robust under a variety of statistical specifications and estimations.


In any distance-education situation students and tutors are at a distance from each other at least in the sense that they are not in the same room while learning and teaching. This means that distance education relies on media. It has two constituent elements, on the one hand the presentation of learning matter, which can be described as one-way traffic, on the other hand interaction between students and tutors, which represents two-way traffic. Both are brought about by media. This was so a hundred years ago, when print, the written word and, occasionally, phonograph recordings exhausted the media repertoire, and does so now that a wealth of more and less sophisticated media are available. What, equipped with media of various kinds, distance education is capable of is the theme of this essay.


This chapter proposes that alternative dissertation formats be considered; namely a more creative, flexible model while still maintaining high intellectual standards for the academy. We specifically identify several options in this chapter: a three-paper dissertation with distinct yet cohesive manuscripts suitable for publication in scholarly journals, a lengthy one-paper manuscript, a novel, and a portfolio. The format must be suitable for both the discipline and the future faculty or administrative role.


As a continuing medical education provider accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), Primary Care Education Consortium (PCEC) requires any individual in a position to influence educational content to disclose any financial interest or other personal relationship with any commercial interest. This includes any entity producing, marketing, re-selling or distributing health care goods or services consumed by, or used on, patients. Mechanisms are in place to identify and resolve any potential conflict of interest prior to the start of the activity. In addition, any discussion of off-label, experimental, or investigational use of drugs or devices will be disclosed by the faculty.


Public-private partnerships (PPPs) can impose important future cost on the government, which in turn create obligations similar to public debt obligations for financing infrastructure investment. Apart from that, government guarantees, typical in PPP contracts, constitute explicit contingent liabilities. The risk that arises from such guarantees must be transparently valued to assess a country's fiscal profile. In this study, we aim to show that the notion of a PPP as a (set of) contingent claim(s) can also be used to value the PPP public risk. Valuing contingent claims in this manner is important, as it allows us to compare more carefully different set-ups of a PPP. We introduce and analyse the different scenarios that were at the Chilean government's disposal for executing a transport infrastructure project. Our findings reveal that, for the first years of a PPP programme, the burden on the surplus or deficit will be less in the case of the PPP compared to typical public investment. Secondly, the net contingent PPP flows constitute the real effect on the deficit and correspondingly on the public debt and weaken the government's fiscal stance. Finally, we attribute a specific price to the PPP public risk introducing CDS valuation with and without counterparty (government) default.


A diverse topography along with deforestation, changing climatic conditions, long-term human settlement, overuse of agricultural lands without sustainable planning, cultural difficulties in accepting conservative land management practices, and wrong political decisions have increased the vulnerability of many soils to degradation and resulted in a serious decline in their functional capacity. A progressive reduction in the capacity of soils to support plant productivity is not only a threat in the African continent and its large desert zone, but also in several parts of Central and Southeastern Europe (CASEE). The loss of soil functions throughout CASEE is mainly related to the human activities that have profound influence on soil dynamic characteristics. Improper management of soils has made them more vulnerable to degradation through water and wind erosion, organic matter depletion, salinity, acidification, crusting and sealing, and compaction. Unmitigated degradation has substantial implications for long term sustainability of the soils' capability to support human communities and resist desertification. If sustainable agricultural and land management practices are not identified, well understood and implemented, the decline in soil quality will continue and probably accelerate. The lack of uniform criteria for the assessment and evaluation of soil quality in CASEE countries prevents scientific assessments to determine if existing management practices are leading to soil quality improvement, or if not, what management practices should be recommended to mitigate and reverse the loss of soil health.


Extending his distinctive analysis of Homeric epic to the Iliad, Bruce Louden, author of The "Odyssey": Structure, Narration, and Meaning, again presents new approaches to understanding the themes and story of the poem. In this thought-provoking study, he demonstrates how repeated narrative motifs argue for an expanded understanding of the structure of epic poetry. First identifying the "subgenres" of myth within the poem, he then reads these against related mythologies of the Near East, developing a context in which the poem can be more accurately interpreted. Louden begins by focusing on the ways in which the Iliad's three movements correspond with and comment on each other. He offers original interpretations of many episodes, notably in books 3 and 7, and makes new arguments about some well-known controversies (e.g., the duals in book 9), the Iliad's use of parody, the function of theomachy, and the prefiguring of Hektor as a sacrificial victim in books 3 and 6. The second part of the book compares fourteen subgenres of myth in the Iliad to contemporaneous Near Eastern traditions such as those of the Old Testament and of Ugaritic mythology. Louden concludes with an extended comparison of the Homeric Athena and Anat, a West Semitic goddess worshipped by the Phoenicians and Egyptians. Louden's innovative method yields striking new insights into the formation and early literary contexts of Greek epic poetry.


A model of crack nucleation in a circular disk, based on consideration of cracking process zone is suggested. It is assumed that the cracking process zone is a finitelength layer containing a material with partially disturbed bonds between separate structural elements. Existence of bonds between the pre-fracture zone faces (the area of weakened interparticle bonds of the material) is simulated by application of cohesive forces caused by the existence of bonds to pre-fracture area surfaces. Analysis of limit equilibrium of the pre-fracture zone in a circular disk with mixed conditions on the boundary are fulfilled on the basis of ultimate stretching of material's bonds and includes: 1) setting up the dependence of cohesive forces on opening of pre-fracture area faces, 2) estimation of stress state near the pre-fracture zone with regard to external loads and cohesive forces, 3) determination of dependence of critical external loads on geometrical parameters of the disk, under which the crack appears.


Abstract Klanting is a cassava products that one of special food from Banyumas residence besides Gethuk goreng and Mendoan. Problem from produced of klanting is in drying process of raw material. IKM in Banyumas residence still has been using a conventional method. It use sunshine to dry the product, so it make capacities of klanting production became decrease in rainy season. Aims of the research were: (1) to design the rack dryer equipment for klanting with heat source from electric-stove, (2) to study performance of the equipment. This research used three steps, the steps were: (1) design of dryer equipment, include: functional and structural design, (2) dryer equipment manufacturing, and (3) performance test of dryer equipment include: functional test, reliability test, test without burden and test with burden. Design and manufacture of the equipment was processed in Agricultural Mechanization laboratory, Agricultural Faculty, Jendral Soedirman University. Furthermore, it was tested in UKM Sari Murni, Tamansari village, District Of Karanglewas, Banyumas residence. Result of the research showed that as a functional and structural design it is can operate with dimensions are, length 144 cm, wide 80 cm, and high 100 cm. At performances test without burden showed that the lowest draining in 370C, highest 470C, air stream at inlet equal 6.24x10-2m3/s, air stream exhaust 0.36x10- 2m3/s, while amount energy the required is 0.945 kW. The result of performances test with burden showed that total dryer capacities are 15.00 kg with mean capacities equal to 1.501 kg, lowest temperature in 310C, while highest temperature in 380C, air stream at inlet equal is 6.24x10-2 m3/s, air stream exhaust is 0.224x10-2 m3/s, while amount of energy required to dry klanting is 2.52 kW. Whereas water content of klanting dried by appliance is 28.21%bb or 39.52% bk from water content initial 56.15%bb. Keywords: klanting, rack dryer, electric stove Diterima: 9 November 2009; Disetujui: 16 Maret 2010


The unique description of the dependences of the specific consumption coefficients on the process state known from the literature is an important prerequisite to the further increase of the intensity and efficiency of the process for the industrial protein synthesis. Suitable measuring quantities for it are entropy production, an important quantity of thermodynamics of irreversible processes, and differential heat flow which can be measured by microcalorimetry.

The description of the dependences of consumption coeffients by thermodynamics of irreversible processes allows an ingenious statement of calorimetric measurements of the fermentation process the confirm and to make precise the knowledge from thermodynamics.

Thermodynamical considerations and calorimetric measurements are used to describe the dependences of consumption coefficients on substrate concentration, nature of limitation, and periodical perturbations of the process.


BACKGROUND
Although the influenza vaccine is recommended for patients with end-stage renal disease, little is known about its effectiveness. Observational studies of vaccine effectiveness (VE) are challenging because vaccinated subjects may be healthier than unvaccinated subjects.

METHODS
Using US Renal Data System data, we estimated VE for influenza-like illness, influenza/pneumonia hospitalization, and mortality in adult patients undergoing hemodialysis by using a natural experiment created by the year-to-year variation in the match of the influenza vaccine to the circulating virus. We compared vaccinated patients in matched years (1998, 1999, and 2001) with a mismatched year (1997) using Cox proportional hazards models. Ratios of hazard ratios compared vaccinated patients between 2 years and unvaccinated patients between 2 years. We calculated VE as 1 - effect measure.

RESULTS
Vaccination rates were less than 50% each year. Conventional analysis comparing vaccinated with unvaccinated patients produced average VE estimates of 13%, 16%, and 30% for influenza-like illness, influenza/pneumonia hospitalization, and mortality, respectively. When restricted to the preinfluenza period, results were even stronger, indicating bias. The pooled ratio of hazard ratios comparing matched seasons with a placebo season resulted in a VE of 0% (95% CI, -3% to 2%) for influenza-like illness, 2% (-2% to 5%) for hospitalization, and 0% (-3% to 3%) for death.

CONCLUSIONS
Relative to a mismatched year, we found little evidence of increased VE in subsequent well-matched years, suggesting that the current influenza vaccine strategy may have a smaller effect on morbidity and mortality in the end-stage renal disease population than previously thought. Alternate strategies (eg, high-dose vaccine, adjuvanted vaccine, and multiple doses) should be investigated.


In case of persistent atrial fibrillation (AF), atrial substrate assumes a dominant role in sustaining the arrhythmia. Recent studies prove that low voltage areas (LVA, Voltage Amplitude < 0,5 mV) represent an additional target for ablation of AF patients. Purpose. The purpose of this study is to analyse whether structural atrial conduction abnormalities (i.e., pivot sites and slow conduction corridors) may occur outside low voltage areas.

 The study is based on the retrospective analysis of 31 consecutive maps of patients undergoing AF ablation (16 paroxysmal and 15 persistent cases). The clinical procedures have been performed with the support of a mapping system. Sinus rhythm activation maps and bipolar maps used for this analysis have been created with a multipolar mapping catheter. Map points were only acquired when the electrode was in contact with the endocardial tissue to avoid misleading voltage amplitude information. Slow conduction corridors and pivot sites have been analysed. At these sites, EGMs characterization included voltage amplitude (mV), signal duration (ms) and fractionation.

 The average value of EGMs amplitude reported at pivot sites and slow conduction zones, respectively, amounted to 2,08 ± 0,63 mV and 2,1 ± 0,66 mV in paroxysmal cases. In persistent cases, there were slight decreased values to 1,95 ± 0,93 mV and 1,89 ± 0,89 mV. Characterization at pivot sites documented a mean duration value of 45,4 ± 4,64 ms and 49,93 ± 5,51 ms in paroxysmal and persistent patients, respectively, while in slow conduction zones 41,53 ± 7,94 ms and 49,04 ± 6,41 ms have been reported. As for fractionation, more than five deflections per signal have been identified in all abnormal conduction areas.

 Our study proves that functional electrophysiological phenomena can occur outside low voltage areas, even in persistent cases. According to this analysis, not all LVA represent the correct target for catheter ablation, encouraging the development of further methods for investigation of atrial substrate.


Background: Various factors are associated with access to care among patients with severe mental disorders (SMD). The aim of this study was to identify the predictors of access to care among patients with SMD in rural south India. Methods: The study was conducted in Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu, India. After screening and confirmation of SMD by community level workers and trained mental health workers, participants were classified as those who have at some time sought treatment and those who have never accessed mental health care services. Results: Among 422 participants with SMD, 74% had at some point in time accessed mental health care services. Logistic regression showed education asthe predictor of access to mental health care services among patients with severe mental disorders. Conclusion: Improving education and awareness on the mental illness and its treatment options will help the patients with mental illness to seek care early leading to favorable outcomes.


Objective: As the second common malignant tumor in females, cervical cancer severely affects public health. Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) occurs in tumor cells and is a key factor for tumor infiltration and metastasis. MicroRNA (miRNA) can inhibit mRNA translation and thus may be associated with tumor EMT. This study treated cervical cancer Hela cell line with neo-gambogic acid, to investigate its regulation on mRNA, aiming to elucidate its effects on EMT occurrence and drug resistance.
Materials and Methods: Human cervical carcinoma Hela cells were transfected with miRNA106b and miRNA93 vectors, and treated with different concentrations of neo-gambogic acid (0.5 μg/ml, 1.0 μg/ml, 1.5 μg/ml and 2.0 μg/ml) for different time points (24 h, 48 h and 72 h), followed by cisplatin treatment. Real-time PCR was used to detect the expression of miRNA. Cell invasion and migration were detected by Transwell assay, while Western blot was used to quantify the EMT-related protein expression.
Results: With higher concentration and/or longer treatment time of neo-gambogic acid, expressions of miRNA106b and miRNA93 were decreased (p<0.05) in Hela cells, which also had reduced cell invasion and migration ability (p<0.05). The higher concentration of neo-gambogic acid decreased the protein expressions of N-cadherin, Snail and Vimentin, while increased E-cadherin expression (p<0.05). After treatment with cisplatin, the expression of miRNA was further decreased after treatment of higher concentration of neo-gambogic acid.
Conclusion: Neo-gambogic acid can decrease miRNA106b and miRNA93 levels in Hela cells, increase cell sensitivity to cisplatin, increase E-cadherin expression, decrease N-cadherin, Snail and Vimentin expression, as well as inhibit Hela cell invasion and migration.


The relationship between appreciation of the exchange rate and employment is investigated in the period 1980-2008 for the United States. Previous literature has found a negative relationship, studying as channels of transmission the role of exports, substitution of factors of production, terms of trade, openness, and productivity. This study endeavors to shed some light on the role of government debt on determining the level of employment through the exchange rate. The mechanism of transmission is defined. The model is derived from a standard Cobb Douglas production function having government debt affecting the growth of productivity. Exchange rate appreciations and increasing public debt were found to be detrimental to employment.


AIM While gender differences in substance use/problems have been found to be smaller in more gender-equal countries such as Sweden, gender-specific norms still prevail, and women's (mis)use continues to be more condemned than men's. This article analyses and discusses similarities and differences between the sexes in alcohol and drug treatment in terms of men's and women's treatment experiences, consumption/problems, social situation, and life-domain problems. METHOD 1865 respondents were interviewed (structured interview) at the beginning of a new treatment episode in 2000–2002 in Stockholm County (sample representative of those starting a new treatment episode for alcohol or drug problems in Stockholm County). Responses are cross-tabulated by sex and multivariate logistic regression is used to predict whether men or women have more severe problems in various life domains of the Addiction Severity Index (ASI composite scores). Results Bivariate analyses showed that women and men differ significantly in their treatment experiences. Women are more likely to have contact with mental health services, whereas men tend to deal more with the criminal justice system. The sexes do not differ in alcohol and drug problem severity, but women are more likely to have problems with pharmaceuticals. In contrast to the hypothesis, it turned out that men, not women, are more marginalised as concerns housing, income, family situation, lack of friends. Women report more problems related to family, social life and mental/physical health, while men report higher criminality and financial problems. Conclusions There are no gender differences among the clients in the treatment system when it comes to substance problem severity but differences occur concerning the clients' social situation and different life-domain problems. As men are more socially exposed a focus on women may obscure problems among men.


The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of learning various types of words in biology on students' reading comprehension, vocabulary performance, and science content knowledge. The study involved 315 ninth grade biology students who were placed in one of four groups and spent two weeks for ten minutes per day working on independent vocabulary packets in which they practiced a set of 15 words. Group one's list was a combination of domain-specific and general academic words, group two's list was a set of general academic words, and group three's list was a set of domain-specific words. The fourth group, the control group, did no formal vocabulary work but instead completed lessons involving the ecology content. In this quasi-experiment, the independent variable was the instructional group assignment, and the dependent variables were the students' performances on the reading comprehension, vocabulary (broken into various categories), and content assessments.
Descriptive statistics for the majority of the vocabulary items and for the comprehension and content post-test measures revealed that the third group had the highest overall achievement. Throughout the two weeks of treatment, the third group worked only with domain-specific words related to ecology. A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) found the differences to be statistically significant. The individual dependent variables were analyzed and found two question types on the vocabulary test, the domain-specific and general academic, to be significant in the test of between-subjects effects. Further, instructional group assignment did not have an effect on reading comprehension and content
knowledge. Though its advantage was small, this study suggests that the domain-specific approach to disciplinary vocabulary instruction is best.