Teleporting is the ability to redirect a windowing environment to diierent computer displays. This paper describes the implementation of a teleporting system developed at Olivetti Research Laboratory (ORL). We outline two particular features of the system that make it powerful. First, it operates with existing applications, which will run without any modiication. Second, it incorporates sophisticated techniques of personnel and equipment location which make it simple to use. Teleporting may represent a development in attempts to achieve a ubiquitous, personalised computing environment for all.


Photography is fundamentally a time-based medium. The relationships between photography and time are manifold: snapshots are "slices of time," time can be directly represented within the image, time can be photography's theme and philosophical horizon, photographic practices develop and change across time. This book brings together the various aspect of time in photography and of photography in time. Its chapters focus on seminal authors (including Fox Talbot, Victor Burgin, and Robert Morris) and genres (spirit photography, montage photobooks, and tableau photography), with examples ranging from the very first photographic pictures to the most recent uses of photography in and outside art. Given the multifaceted dimensions of the notion of time, the book fosters an interdisciplinary approach, gathering essays by historians of photography as well as by authors with a critical or philosophical background. It shows how some interpretations of photography are indebted to fields that have a great expertise in analyzing time, such as narratology and literature. Written by international specialists for a nonspecialist audience and displaying extraordinary breadth and erudition, this book reshapes our vision of photography, time, culture, and art.


Pre-trained speech representations like wav2vec 2.0 are a powerful tool for automatic speech recognition (ASR). Yet many endangered languages lack sufficient data for pre-training such models, or are predominantly oral vernaculars without a standardised writing system, precluding fine-tuning. Query-by-example spoken term detection (QbE-STD) offers an alternative for iteratively indexing untranscribed speech corpora by locating spoken query terms. Using data from 7 Australian Aboriginal languages and a regional variety of Dutch, all of which are endangered or vulnerable, we show that QbE-STD can be improved by leveraging representations developed for ASR (wav2vec 2.0: the English monolingual model and XLSR53 multilingual model). Surprisingly, the English model outperformed the multilingual model on 4 Australian language datasets, raising questions around how to optimally leverage self-supervised speech representations for QbE-STD. Nevertheless, we find that wav2vec 2.0 representations (either English or XLSR53) offer large improvements (56-86% relative) over state-of-the-art approaches on our endangered language datasets.


In this paper a new approach to polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image region boundary detection is presented. It is based on a new model for polarimetric SAR data and the use of B-Spline active contours for image segmentation. In order to detect the boundary for a region, an initial B-Spline curve is specified and the proposed algorithm uses a deformable contours technique to find the boundary. In doing this, the statistical parameters of the polarimetric G^H model for the data are estimated, in order to find the transition points between the region being segmented and the surrounding area. This algorithm can be regarded as a local one, in the sense that it works on the region to be segmented instead of on the whole image


Introduction: An important aspect of success in a HIV Prevention program is the effectiveness of interventions to reduce HIV transmission between serodiscordant couples. This study aims to explore the understanding and practice of positive prevention including condom use, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), opportunistic infections (OIs) and treatment seeking behavior for STIs and OIs among serodiscordant couples in Karnataka, south India.
Materials and Methods: A cross sectional survey, was conducted among 326 serodiscordant couples in Haveri and Chitradurga Districts located in central part of Karnataka, between January 2014 to May 2015. Participants were selected using a simple random sampling technique and were recruited with the help of peer groups while seeking care and support services. Index people living with HIV (PLHIVs) were interviewed with the help of a pretested structured interview schedule. Data was analysed by calculating mean, standard deviations and proportions. The tests of significance applied were Chi-square test. A P-value of 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant
Results: 99.4% believe that condoms can protect them from STIs whereas only 80.4% (81.7% of men & 74% of women) reported that they use condoms with spouse. PLHIV in the younger age group (21-30 years) reported higher condom use with their spouse when compared to middle (31-40 years) and older (>40 years) age groups. 80.8% (79% of men & 90% of women) of participants had good knowledge on STIs. Those with good knowledge on STI reported higher rates of condom use with spouse (81.7%) and reported lesser STI episodes, while compared to others. 21.4% of PLHIV who have adopted permanent methods of contraception reported not using condoms with spouse. Education of Index PLHIV, spousal education and enrollment with support groups were found to be positively associated with higher condom use with spouse, lower incidence of STIs and OIs.
Conclusions: Gaps exist in translation of knowledge into practice. Low levels of condom use among middle aged couples and those who have adopted permanent methods of contraception, is a cause for concern and calls for further investigation of other structural and social barriers to condom use among these population groups.


Before the end of apartheid, queer lives were almost entirely unrepresented in public literary works in South Africa. Only after the fall of institutionalised apartheid could literature begin to look back at the role of queer people in the history of South Africa, and begin to acknowledge that queer people are a part of the fabric of South African society. A number of celebrated authors emerged who were exploring queer themes; however, most of these authors and the stories they told were from a white perspective, and black queer voices were still largely absent in literature, especially novels. This paper explores the limited number of black queer literary representations following the influential work of K. Sello Duiker. I explore the social dynamics that might have influenced the fact that so few examples of black queer characters currently exist in South African literature. Through an analysis of novels by Fred Khumalo, Zukiswa Wanner, and Chwayita Ngamlana, I show how black, queer characters in post-apartheid novels confront ideas of culture, race, and sexuality as they wrestle with their identities and with questions of belonging and visibility.


: We report the synthesis and liquid crystalline properties of a new type of tribranched compound built up from triazine as the central core and electron-rich triazine rings as peripheral groups. An equimolar mixture of the star-shaped compound based on the 1,3,5-triazine core with 4-dodecyloxybenzoic acid produced an organic salt exhibiting a columnar mesophase with a dendritic growing texture at low temperatures. The liquid crystalline properties of the triazine-based compound and organic salt were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry and polarizing optical microscopy.


What types of moral improvements do people wish to make? Do they hope to become more good, or less bad? Do they wish to be more caring? More honest? More loyal? And why exactly do they want to become more moral? Presumably, most people want to improve their morality because this would benefit others, but is this in fact their primary motivation? Here, we begin to investigate these questions. Across two large, preregistered studies (N = 1,818), participants provided open-ended descriptions of one change they could make in order to become more moral; they then reported their beliefs about and motives for this change. In both studies, people most frequently expressed desires to improve their compassion and more often framed their moral improvement goals in terms of amplifying good behaviors than curbing bad ones. The strongest predictor of moral motivation was the extent to which people believed that making the change would have positive consequences for their own well-being. Together, these studies provide rich descriptive insights into how ordinary people want to be more moral, and show that they are particularly motivated to do so for their own sake.


The recently emerged selective lateral epitaxy of semiconductor planar nanowires (NWs) via the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism has redefined the long-standing symbolic image of VLS NW growth. The in-plane geometry and self-aligned nature make these planar NWs completely compatible with large scale manufacturing of NW-based integrated nanoelectronics. Here, we report on the realization of perfectly site-controlled growth of GaAs planar NW arrays with unity yield using lithographically defined gold (Au) seed dots. The growth rate of the planar NWs is found to decrease with the NW width at fixed spacing, which is consistent with the conventional VLS model based on the Gibbs-Thomson effect. It is found that in general, the planar and out-of-plane NW growth modes are both present. The yield of planar NWs decreases as their lateral dimension shrinks, and 100% yield of planar NWs can be achieved at moderate V/III ratios. Based on a study of the shape of seed particles, it is proposed that the adhesion between the liquid-phase seed particle and the substrate surface is important in determining the choice of growth mode. These studies represent advances in the fundamental understanding of the VLS planar NW growth mechanism and in the precise control of the planar NW site, density, width, and length for practical applications. In addition, high quality planar InAs NWs on GaAs (100) substrates is realized, verifying that the planar VLS growth mode can be extended to heteroepitaxy.


Consider a multicell multiuser MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) system with a very large number of antennas at each base station (BS). The number of users in each cell is assumed to be fixed as the number of BS antennas grows large. Under certain conditions on the powers of the transmitting users, the signal eigenvalue spectrum is asymptotically separated from the interference-plus-noise spectrum as the number of BS antennas grows large. As it was observed in [1], this phenomenon allows to mitigate the pilot contamination problem. We provide the power limits for each user in the cell of interest above which such a separation occurs asymptotically. Unlike the approximative methods used in [1], we obtain these power limits by making use of the exact asymptotic characterizations of the interference-plus-noise spectrum. The results are based on the theory of small rank perturbations of large dimensional random matrices.


Root border cells (BCs) and their associated secretions form a protective structure termed the root extracellular trap (RET) that plays a major role in root interactions with soil borne microorganisms. In this study, we investigated the release and morphology of BCs of Glycine max using light and cryo-scanning electron microscopy (SEM). We also examined the occurrence of cell-wall glycomolecules in BCs and secreted mucilage using immunofluorescence microscopy in conjunction with anti-glycan antibodies. Our data show that root tips released three populations of BCs defined as spherical, intermediate and elongated cells. The mechanism of shedding seemed to be cell morphotype-specific. The data also show that mucilage contained pectin, cellulose, extracellular DNA, histones and two hemicellulosic polysaccharides, xyloglucan and heteromannan. The latter has never been reported previously in any plant root secretions. Both hemicellulosic polysaccharides formed a dense fibrillary network embedding BCs and holding them together within the mucilage. Finally, we investigated the effect of the RET on the interactions of root with the pathogenic oomycete Phytophthora parasitica early during infection. Our findings reveal that the RET prevented zoospores from colonizing root tips by blocking their entry into root tissues and inducing their lysis.


Neutrophils are infiltrated in airways of individuals with more severe and chronic asthma, with uncertain significance. Airway smooth muscle (ASM), apart from its contractile properties, is critically involved in the pathogenesis of asthma by producing inflammatory mediators. In the present study, we investigated the impact of neutrophil-derived elastase (NE) on ASM in terms of TGF-beta1 release, and we explored the underlying mechanisms. Primary ASM cells were serum starved for 24 h before stimulation with NE (0.01-0.5 microg/ml). TGF-beta1 in supernatant was determined by ELISA and mRNA quantified by real-time RT-QPCR. NF-kappaB nuclear translocation and activation was examined by Western blotting and kappaB-2 dEGFP reporter gene assay. Association of IL-1 receptor-associated kinase (IRAK) with MyD88 was studied by co-immunoprecipitation and Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) determined by FACS scan and Western blotting. We demonstrated that NE enhanced TGF-beta1 release in a time-dependent manner. This induction was inhibited by actinomycin D (5 mM), cycloheximide (5 mM), and NF-kappaB inhibitors, including pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (PDTC, 1 mM), aspirin (2.5 mM), and sodium salyicylate (2.5 mM). Stimulation with NE was rapidly followed by association of IRAK with MyD88, phosphorylation of IkappaBalpha, and nuclear translocation of p65 with increased transactivation activity. We also found that TLR4 levels were reduced upon NE treatment. These data suggest that NE upregulates TGF-beta1 gene expression and release via My88/IRAK/NF-kappaB pathway, possibly through activation of TLR4, and shed light on a potential role of neutrophils in the pathogenesis of asthma.


In this paper, we investigate the ergodic capacity for an underlay cognitive relay network over - fading channels. In particular, we assume the channels to be independent non-identically distributed random variables and analyze the system performance subject to a peak interference power constraint. Numerical results are presented to evaluate the effect of fading parameters on the ergodic capacity of the system.


Productivity growth in the construction is lower than that of in the industry sector. Level of innovation in this sector is too low. Many problems of inefficiency in the construction process are a lotof waste of resources that do not produce value. According to  LCI (Lean ConstructionInstitute) waste in the construction industry is about 57% while the activity that adds value is only 10%. The construction industry has a lot to learn from manufacture industry. Some innovations by applying an appropriate and efficient  methods in the field of construction adopted many of the manufacturing, including modular systems/fabrication (precast concrete). Construction materials are mass produced in acontrolled environment and then assembled inthe site. The use of precast on any project shows that there are advantages obtained are: cheaper, faster/more productive and guaranteed quality. The duration of the Rusunawa (Simple Flats for Rent) Structure construction phase in Cilacap for precast method is 168 days while for the implementation of the conventional method is 196 days. The duration of the construction of precast structures is faster 28 days (14%) faster than that of the conventional structures. In high-speed rail project on the border of Belgium and the Netherlands, use Rheda 2000 NL method, which development of Rheda method, can increase productivity and lower overtime costs as 24.6%. In the residential case, quicklyconstructed building criteria can be categorizedinto several aspects, such as dimensions, weight components and connection systems.The suitable selection criteria will accelerate instalment proses of the wall panel.


BACKGROUND/AIMS
This study evaluated the efficacy and safety of transnasal endoscopy (TNE) with flexible spectral imaging color enhancement (FICE) for detection of superficial cancer in the pharyngeal and esophageal regions for high-risk populations.

METHODOLOGY
Patients who previously had head and neck or esophageal squamous cell carcinoma were enrolled. Screening was conducted using TNE with conventional white-light endoscopy (WLE) followed by FICE chromoendoscopy. For observation of the pharyngeal region, the Valsalva maneuver was employed.

RESULTS
99 patients were eligible. Six esophageal cancers were detected in four patients (4.0%). The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for the detection of cancer were 25.0% (95% CI, 3.4- 71.0), 97.8% (95% CI, 92.1-99.8), and 94.9 % (95% CI, 88.4-98.1), respectively for WLE; 100% (95% CI, 45.4%- 100%), 96.8% (95% CI, 90.7%-99.3%), and 96.9% (95% CI, 89.3%-99.1%), respectively for FICE chromoendoscopy. Pain in the nose and nasal hemorrhage were observed in 3 (3.0%) and 2 patients (2.0%), respectively. Following the Valsalva maneuver, endoscopic scores significantly increased from a mean of 1.1 (0.8-1.4) to 2.0 (1.3-2.6) (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
TNE with the Valsalva maneuver is a promising screening method for the pharyngeal and esophageal regions. TNE with FICE chromoendoscopy for detecting pharyngeal and esophageal cancer was more sensitive than WLE.


Pamela Jekel begins her study of Thomas Hardy's heroines with a clear statement of her thesis that "the heroines of the novels become more completely Hardy's voice as he discovers his own art," and a study of these women is particularly valuable because "each of Hardy's heroines help to define that essence of femininity . . . through which Hardy most often sees and judges the world." Jekel claims that this has never been observed by critics because they have failed to see Hardy's heroines "as a collective group of individual contributors to die authorial voice, and none have examined, from novel to novel, the different faces and particular states of self-realization which each heroine experiences, the better to hear Hardy himself." This is what Jekel promises to do in her study. Unfortunately, this is a book that is better in promise than in fulfillment. In each of her chapters, Jekel analyzes Hardy's heroines, struggling to squeeze them into her thesis that it is in the heroine of the novel that we most truly hear "Hardy's voice." It becomes progressively clear diat Jekel offers no radical illumination of the novelist's art but a rather reductive survey of Hardy's central female characters. In fact, the promise of clarification of authorial voice through character becomes, the reader discovers, a confusion of author, character, and text. For example, the assertion that "for the most part, Tess's views are close to Hardy's own" is a slight oversimplification, but the comment that "Tess also comes to know Hardy's sense of sexual guilt, but she fights against it as Sue Bridehead cannot" suggests that the author is himself merely a character in his own fiction. This strange view of the author's relationship to his characters is again reflected in the discussion of Sue Bridehead; as Jekel notes, "Hardy does not always approve of Sue, nor does he always understand her." Jekel seems to regard Hardy's unconscious as more responsible for the text than his conscious narrative strategy. The dangers of this pop psychology are apparent in her analysis of the famous letter under Angel Clare's door in Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Rather than seeing die misplaced letter as a typical irony perpetuated by the "President of the Immortals"—a reading consonant with the novel as a whole and with Hardy's pessimistic philosophy—Jekel concludes that the author's text blurs "the very human behavior he unconsciously understands. ..." According to Jekel, it is not Fate that is to blame but Tess herself as "Hardy, in a marvelous pre-Freudian Freudian slip, causes her in the interests of her sexual and emotional needs to put the letter under the rug. That the mistake is subconscious rather than accidental is stressed by Hardy's admission that she was used to Angel's doorway, having climbed up his ladder to wake him each morning." In her concluding chapter, Jekel asserts that we now understand how "Hardy repeatedly shapes his plots and portrayals of character to reveal his identification


The complexity of production processes increased during the last years, especially due to digitalization, which results in an increasing need of in-company trainings. Hence, companies use trainings to impart action-oriented knowledge in the work process. However, these trainings are often supported by learning materials that do not reflect the current work situation of the employees because they are either outdated or too general. We are addressing this problem using a co-creation process by enabling employees to generate the materials independently during the work process. Within the framework of a theory-driven design science research approach, we derived requirements from theory as well as from a focus group workshop and a work process analysis to develop design elements for this process. We pay particular attention to the cognitive load (CL) of the employees. The theoretical contribution of our research is twofold: On the one hand, we give insights regarding the effects of the physical environment on CL. On the other hand, we give insights about how to design systems that can avoid CL within knowledge generation processes. In this way, we help practitioners to design systems that consider the CL of employees.


Minimum-entropy decoding is a universal decoding algorithm used in decoding block compression of discrete memoryless sources as well as block transmission of information across discrete memoryless channels. Extensions can also be applied for multiterminal decoding problems, such as the Slepian-Wolf source coding problem. The 'method of types' has been used to show that there exist linear codes for which minimum-entropy decoders achieve the same error exponent as maximum-likelihood decoders. Since minimum-entropy decoding is NP-hard in general, minimum-entropy decoders have existed primarily in the theory literature. We introduce practical approximation algorithms for minimum-entropy decoding. Our approach, which relies on ideas from linear programming, exploits two key observations. First, the 'method of types' shows that that the number of distinct types grows polynomially in n. Second, recent results in the optimization literature have illustrated polytope projection algorithms with complexity that is a function of the number of vertices of the projected polytope. Combining these two ideas, we leverage recent results on linear programming relaxations for error correcting codes to construct polynomial complexity algorithms for this setting. In the binary case, we explicitly demonstrate linear code constructions that admit provably good performance.


In metropolitan areas across the country, you can hear the laments over the loss of green space to new subdivisions and strip malls. But some city residents have taken unprecedented measures to protect their open land, and a growing movement seeks not only to preserve these lands but to link them in green corridors. Many land-use and urban planning professionals, along with landscape architects and environmental advocates, have joined in efforts to preserve natural areas. "MetroGreen" answers their call for a deeper exploration of the latest thinking and newest practices in this growing conservation field. In ten case studies of U.S. and Canadian cities paired for comparative analysis - Toronto and Chicago, Calgary and Denver, and Vancouver and Portland among them - Erickson looks closely at the motivations and objectives for connecting open spaces across metropolitan areas. She documents how open-space networks have been successfully created and protected, while also highlighting the critical human and ecological benefits of connectivity. "MetroGreen's" unique focus on several cities rather than a single urban area offers a perspective on the political, economic, cultural, and environmental conditions that affect open-space planning and the outcomes of its implementation.


Abstract:During the early nineteenth century, men of science in the United States investigated the sexual fecundity of mixed-race women in their attempts to establish an empirically based theory of race. Although much has been written about this theory, known as polygenism, as the first "scientific" approach to race, less focus has been given to the role that the bodies and behaviors of mixed-race women played in this new science. Uncovering details of this nineteenth-century science of hybridity will allow scholars in American studies to locate the formation of the American secular biopolitical state within the economic and social institutions of chattel slavery. Specifically, when we recognize that polygenists set aside the authority of Scripture in their desire for an empirical approach to race, we see the beginnings of the biopolitical confidence that human sexual choices are the engineering mechanism of the racial composition of modern nation-states. By the early twentieth century this confidence prompted American elites to argue that nation-states have a duty to utilize scientific knowledge about human sexuality to control, manage, and define their racial outcomes. By centering the lives and experiences of mixed-race women, this essay goes beyond intellectual history in its analysis of the emergence of the biopolitical state in early American history.


In Japan, after the Hyogo-ken Nambu Earthquake in 1995, base-isolated structures spread rapidly. Now, there are about 2,800 base-isolated buildings (apartment complexes account for 45% and hospitals for 12%) and about 4,300 base-isolated houses in Japan. Base-isolation technology was effective in the Tohoku Earthquake 2011, off the Pacific coast. This paper presents the methods behind semi-active control design for base-isolated structures with oil dampers whose damping coefficient can be set in two levels: applying two different damping coefficients based on the proposed control design. The damping coefficients of the oil dampers are different to each other. The control objective is the reduction of both the displacement of a base-isolated layer and absolute acceleration of a base-isolated building, which are trade-offs against each other. The layered neural network with the Genetic Algorithm (GA) is applied to the semi-active control design. Absolute acceleration of the building and displacement of the isolated layer are the input signals of the neural network, and the switching parameter for the damping coefficient is the output signal of the neural network. The GA is used to adjust the neural network parameters that decide the control performance. The target of the control design is specified to permit the displacement of the base-isolated layer to the upper limit and to restrain the increase of building acceleration. We study the control performance of the proposed control method using several kinds of earthquake motions in the computer simulation.


In the literature on verbal human-computer interaction there is general consent that humans' preconceptualisations of the machine's capabilities lead to conceptual and syntactic simplifications of the language used. We present a Wizard of Oz / Confederate study where humans communicate with either a system or an expert in a localization task in a complex building, in a setting which encourages them to give as much information as possible. We analyzed the syntactic complexity of object descriptions. Although we did find differences concerning the complexity of object descriptions on the clausal level, there were no significant structural differences on the subclausal level.


This dissertation is an analysis of how the city of Kabul is being planned. This study addresses a gap in planning scholarship, which rarely focuses on the planning of cities in developing countries. Kabul is uniquely important in the geopolitics of security; and at the same time, Kabul is a mid-sized, rapidly-growing city with limited resources and substantial constraints to effective governing. In these respects, the case of Kabul is representative of the way most of the world's urbanization is being planned--more so than the planning of any city in developed countries. The core argument is that urban planning in the capital of Afghanistan occurs in three modes that operate both in parallel and in tension with each other. The first mode is formal planning, in which Afghan public agencies are developing and implementing strategies for guiding urban development. The second mode is informal planning, in which the urban regime sets both direct and indirect rules that guide urban development. These include denial of recognition, exclusion from the legal sphere, and maintenance of a `vulnerable reserve' of available labor and space for potential investment. The third mode is exceptionalist planning, in which elites--including Afghans, Afghan-expatriates, and non-Afghans--violate rules and expectations with knowing impunity. I argue that in each mode, the management of risk strongly defines the political rationalities that shape policy. Formal planning encourages deeper local investment because it clarifies spaces of reduced potential conflict with the urban regime. Informal planning is a space in which poor households submit to conditions of elevated risk in exchange for long-term opportunities for their families. Exceptionalist planning involves lowering the life-risks of elite individuals, often at the expense of increased risk for non-elites.The three modes of planning identified through this research are explained as a product of both specific conditions in Kabul and underlying tensions within political rationality itself. The context-specific conditions include a century of modernization and thirty years of political violence that have become increasingly geopolitical, resulting in a substantial fragmentation of sovereignty. The underlying political rationalities which shape and are shaped by this context are sovereign political reason and biopolitical reason . These political rationalities operate at the local, national, and transnational scale to constitute a de facto urban regime in Kabul. The tension between these two political rationalities has been resolved into a series of sociopolitical `bargains' over the past two centuries. At the urban level each bargain involves a rearticulation of the relationship between coercive authority and the promotion of health, prosperity, and material conditions. In Kabul the `modernization bargain' was succeeded in turn by the `developmentalist bargain' of the Cold War era, and then the `neoliberal bargain' of market-led growth. Although deregulation continues to be promoted in Kabul, a new bargain of `segmented security' is being negotiated across urban space.


Single particle
characterization can provide information on the evolution of size distribution
and chemical composition of pollution aerosol. The work described the use of
Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) combined with X-ray Dispersive Energy
Spectrometry (EDS) to characterize inorganic atmospheric particles samples
collected on PM10 filters from January 2013 to October 2013 from three zones
within the city of Hermosillo, Sonora. Specimens were initially processed by separating
the collected particles from the filters by means of submersing a 2 cm2 section of each filter into isopropilic alcohol within a test tube for 5
minutes. Then, an aliquot of
the suspension was placed over a sample holder and into the SEM. The different
elements found amongst
individual particles were Al, Ba, Ca, Cl, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, Pb, S, Si,
Ti and U. The predominant elements are Al (17.10 At%), Si (10.17 At%), Ba (5.90
At%), Fe (5.45 At%) and U (2.32 At%). The particles were classified into groups
based on morphology and elemental composition: particles of aluminosilicate,
salts of sodium chloride, sulfates, metal particles, barium and uranium. These
particles morphology and chemical composition, illustrate an abundance of
natural elements within the zone. However, some of the elements presented are
directly related with human activities, and are of much interest from the
public health and environmental perspectives.


Fibrosis of the skin and internal organs is a hallmark of systemic sclerosis (SSc). Although the pathogenesis of SSc is poorly understood, increasing evidence suggests that interleukins (IL)‐4 and − 13 contribute to the pathogenesis of skin fibrosis by promoting collagen production and myofibroblast differentiation. Signal transducers and activators of transcription 6 (STAT6) is one of the most important downstream transcription factors activated by both IL‐4 and IL‐13. However, it is not completely understood whether STAT6 plays a role during the pathogenesis of skin fibrosis in SSc. In this study, we observed increased STAT6 phosphorylation in fibrotic skin samples collected from SSc patients as well as bleomycin‐injected murine mice. Knockout of Stat6 in mice significantly (1) suppressed the expression of fibrotic cytokines including Il13, Il17, Il22, Ccl2, and the alternatively activated macrophage marker Cd206; (2) reduced the production of collagen and fibronectin, and (3) attenuated late‐stage skin fibrosis and inflammation induced by bleomycin. Consistently, mice treated with STAT6 inhibitor AS1517499 also attenuated skin fibrosis on day 28. In addition, a co‐culture experiment demonstrated that skin epithelial cells with STAT6 knockdown had reduced cytokine expression in response to IL‐4/IL‐13, and subsequently attenuated fibrotic protein expression in skin fibroblasts. On the other side, STAT6 depletion in skin fibroblasts attenuated IL‐4/IL‐13‐induced cytokine and fibrotic marker expression, and reduced CXCL2 expression in co‐cultured keratinocytes. In summary, our study highlighted an important yet not fully understood role of STAT6 in skin fibrosis by driving innate inflammation and differentiation of alternatively activated macrophages in response to injury.


Motion sickness is being highlighted as one of the most significant ride comfort issues for autonomous vehicles. Studies have attributed the feeling of motion sickness to the lateral motion of the vehicle. Additional studies have addressed that there is a meaningful correlation between the lateral motion of a passenger's head with their feeling of motion sickness. Using bond graphs, a model of a vehicle with a sitting passenger on board is constructed which allows for computation of the vehicle's lateral and roll motion as well as the lateral and roll motion of the passenger's head. Furthermore, if the passenger's head motion is available, the Motion Sickness Incidence (MSI) can be calculated using available literature. The objective of this research is to estimate motion sickness from the head roll motion for future use in developing a suspension control that will mitigate motion sickness.


Abstract Supplement containing animal tallow protected with formaldehyde-treated soybean meal was introduced into concentrates at 0, 21, and 32% and fed ad libitum to Holstein cows in a changeover design during early lactation. Primary objective was to determine whether feeding protected tallow in concentrates would increase voluntary energy intake, milk yield, and fat test without adversely affecting other milk components or flavor. Intakes of total dry matter and from concentrates were decreased, dry matter from forage increased, and energy intake was unchanged by feeding protected tallow at each percent. Treatments did not affect milk yield significantly but did increase output of 4% fat-corrected milk. Solids-corrected milk yield and gross energetic efficiency were not improved consistently by feeding protected tallow. Supplement increased fat tests by .43 and .76 percentage units over control when fed at 21 and 32% but lowered protein and lactose content of milk. Cholesterol, formaldehyde, and flavor of milk were unaffected by treatment whereas cholesterol and triglycerides in blood plasma rose dramatically during short-term feeding of protected tallow. Blood glucose remained unchanged.


PURPOSE
To evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of laparoscopic wedge resection with handsewn closure in gastroduodenal tumors.

METHODS
Laparoscopic wedge resection was performed in 16 patients with gastroduodenal tumor between May 2000 and December 2002. Every case, except one, was performed via an extragastric approach; a transgastric approach was adopted in a single case. Excision of the lesion was performed manually by means of electrocautery or ultrasonic coagulating shears and closed by manual intracorporeal running suture.

RESULTS
Among the 16 cases, two cases were treated using a laparoscope-assisted method, but there was no case of conversion to open surgery. Mean size of lesions was 27.9 mm in diameter and the mean operation time was 219 minutes. In all cases, a complete tumor excision with negative surgical margins was obtained. The final pathologic diagnoses were ectopic pancreas (4 cases), gastrointestinal stromal tumor (3 cases), leiomyoma (2 cases), adenomyoma (2 cases), tubular adenoma (1 case), Brunner's gland hyperplasia (1 case), carcinoid tumor (1 case), eosinophilic granuloma (1 case), and post-endoscopic mucosectomy state for early gastric cancer (1 case). The average numbers of days to first postoperative oral food intake and hospital stay were 3.1 days and 6.0 days, respectively. There were no postoperative complications.

CONCLUSIONS
Laparoscopic wedge resection with handsewn closure should be considered as a valid treatment option for selected gastroduodenal tumors in terms of feasibility, safety, and cost. A more efficient surgical instrument and technique should be developed in future.


The paper concerns a specific defence of vitalism in Georges Canguilhem's essay "Aspects of Vitalism." Canguilhem suggests that vitalism is not a scientific doctrine, but rather a demand or a claim of irreducibility of the living. Canguilhem even signifies it as an ethics (because the sphere of values is essential here for understanding vital phenomena). On the contrary, mechanicism as a common name for all conceptions hostile to vitalism is in fact a basic method (in terms of a way or an attitude) of scientific work. The relation between these antagonisms takes often a form of a struggle. The first chapter of the article grasps the topic of life and the vitality of vitalism. The second one is a consideration on inspirational and resistant features of vitalism. The last chapter gives an explication of the scientific and the pre-scientific and of valorization of vital phenomena. Although Canguilhemian "vitalism" as a demand cannot be labeled as science, it is still the reverse side of scientific work based primarily on mere naturalistic attitude.


Hjortrup et al . recently published the results of the CLASSIC study (1). In this randomised parallel group multicentre feasibility study, the effects of a protocol restricting resuscitation fluid vs. a standard care protocol were assessed after initial resuscitation in patients with septic shock. Patients in nine ICU's who fulfilled the criteria for sepsis, circulatory impairment and ongoing shock as defined by the requirement for continuous infusion of noradrenaline, and who had received at least 30 mL/kg of crystalloid fluid were randomised to the restrictive or standard protocol. In both intervention groups, the administration of resuscitation fluid was per protocol and a mean arterial pressure (MAP) of at least 65 mmHg was targeted and maintained with noradrenaline infusion. In the fluid restrictive group, patients received fluid boluses of isotonic crystalloid only if there was evidence of severe hypoperfusion defined as either: plasma concentration of lactate of at least 4 mmol/ L, MAP below 50 mmHg in spite of noradrenaline infusion, mottling beyond the edge of the kneecap or oliguria.


The relationship between renal volume and hypertension in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) occurs in childhood. Hypertension is associated not only with increased kidney volume but also with significantly increased left ventricular mass index. Moreover, this increase in left ventricular mass index occurs in children who have ADPKD with borderline hypertension (75th to 95th percentile) and is prevented with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI) monotherapy. Progression from borderline to overt hypertension (> or =95th percentile) occurs during a 5-yr follow-up in approximately 50% of children with ADPKD and borderline hypertension. Renal cyst enlargement in ADPKD in adults is associated with stimulation of both the circulating and intrarenal renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system. In addition to hypertension, the resultant angiotensin in ADPKD is a pivotal factor in cyst proliferation and expansion, increased sympathetic and endothelin activity, oxidant injury, and fibrosis. There is a close correlation between the level of hypertension, left ventricular hypertrophy, deterioration of GFR, and the progressive enlargement of the cystic kidneys in adult ADPKD. Randomized clinical investigation indicates that ACEI and a BP goal of 120/80 mmHg are associated in a 7-yr study to reverse left ventricular hypertrophy. The effect of renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibition with dual blockade, ACEI and angiotensin receptor antagonists, on renal volume and kidney function is under study in the Halt Progression of Polycystic Kidney Disease (HALT PKD) trial.


Tremendous changes have occurred in China–US relations since Donald J. Trump took office in the White House, but the most significant event is the outbreak of the China–US trade war, whose unprecedented scale and impact has drawn wide attention in China and sparked considerable debate. This article aims to review the four main stages of this great debate on the China–US trade war among China's influential intellectuals and prominent thinkers. It covers the three-year period since beginning of the Trump administration. The initial argument among Chinese academics was whether or not there could ever be a trade war, which led to a dividing line between optimists and pessimists. Soon after, when China-US relations took a sharp downturn and a trade war seemed inevitable, Chinese scholars shifted their focus to reasons why the United States should wage a trade war against China. This culminated in three different perspectives embodied respectively in the structural conflict theory, institutional conflict theory, and the theory on exporting domestic problems. After China and the United States began slapping additional tariffs on one another's exported goods, and with the flare-up of the Zhongxing Telecommunication Equipment Corporation (ZTE) and Huawei incidents, the debate on how to respond to a trade war cleaved between the 'whole nation system school' and the 'market reform school'. As to coping with the technology war, Chinese intellectuals were divided between the paths of 'independent innovation' and 'open innovation'. More recently, in view of the many signs that the China–US trade war could continue indefinitely, and an economic decoupling of the two nations is no longer unimaginable, a fierce debate has arisen between those that advocate full preparations for such economic decoupling and those who insist on further links with the US economy. Although the main themes of the four stages of the debate differ somewhat, they share a certain degree of consistency as regards the conceptual pedigree of the debating parties. Their divergence derives, in essence, from different perspectives on such issues as state power versus market force, independence versus interdependence, and zero-sum competition of power versus win-win economic cooperation. This also exemplifies the competing views in Chinese academia on classical political economy.


It is known that moderate levels of very low‐frequency noise (less than 20 Hz) can induce vibration in elements of common residual housing structures. Measurements of low‐frequency noise caused by nearby large industrial facilities were made at several different types of houses. These data are compared to criteria for the perceptibility of noise‐induced vibration. The subjective perception by residents of house vibration, and the independent observations of others, correlate well with the noise criteria. In addition, measurements of house vibration were made at some test locations and are compared to both noise and vibration criteria.


In a general hospital located in the southern Pacific coast of Mexico, an endemic area for Chagas' disease, we performed a survey among people attending the outpatient Cardiology clinic. From 8640 patients we selected 158 who had potential exposure to Triatomine bugs, the vector of Tripanosoma cruzi. Sixty patients had: congestive heart failure or abnormal cardiac rythm or conduction defects. All of them had evidence for anti T. cruzi antibodies. A diagnosis of chronic Chagasic cardiopathy (CCC) was established. A systematic radiological survey disclosed esophageal or colonic dilatation in 17% of those patients suffering CCC. There is evidence of advanced Chagas' disease in this part of Mexico. The parasitic condition evolves to a chronic stage. A multicentric study to measure the magnitude of this health hazard is needed. The general practicioners should be informed about this condition.


This article examines recent European experiences in urban and regional spatial strategies. It focuses specifically on the concepts of space and place deployed within these strategies and the institutional work these concepts are called upon to do. It explores how far such concepts reflect the shift in geographical thought to a dynamic, dis-contiguous, relational conceptualization of spatiality. These issues are explored through an analysis of three recent strategic planning episodes: The Netherlands Fifth National Policy Document on Spatial Planning, the Regional Development Strategy for Northern Ireland, and the Framework Document for Milan. All are innovative in their contexts in one way or another and provide exemplars of new ways of thinking about space and place, and the role of spatial strategies in contemporary governance contexts. All the episodes reflect in some way new relational geographical ideas, but many traditional planning ideas live on. The analysis highlights the political dimensions of developing new spatial vocabularies to guide urban and regional development and the significance of the institutional context in shaping and accepting new spatial planning concepts. Copyright Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004.


Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibodies (ANCA) are in the circulation of most patients with pauci-immune necrotizing vasculitis and pauci-immune crescentic glomerulonephritis. The current study demonstrates an effect of these autoantibodies on neutrophil function in vitro. ANCA cause normal human neutrophils to undergo an oxidative burst and degranulate. Both ANCA phenotypes (i.e., cytoplasmic-pattern ANCA and myeloperoxidase-specific ANCA) induce neutrophil activation. ANCA sera and purified immunoglobulins significantly increase the release of reactive oxygen species when compared with controls. ANCA, in a dose-dependent manner, induce the release of primary granule contents. These effects are markedly enhanced by priming neutrophils with tumor necrosis factor. Flow cytometry studies demonstrate the presence of myeloperoxidase on the surface of neutrophils after cytokine priming, indicating that primed neutrophils have ANCA antigens at their surfaces to interact with ANCA. These observations suggest an in vivo pathogenetic role for ANCA. We propose that, in patients with necrotizing vasculitis, ANCA-induced release of toxic oxygen radicals and noxious granule enzymes from cytokine-primed neutrophils could be mediating vascular inflammation.


We discuss the impact of cultural differences on usability evaluations that are based on the thinking-aloud method (TA). The term 'cultural differences' helps distinguish differences in the perception and thinking of Westerners (people from Western Europe and US citizens with European origins) and Easterners (people from China and the countries heavily influenced by its culture). We illustrate the impact of cultural cognition on four central elements of TA: (1) instructions and tasks, (2) the user's verbalizations, (3) the evaluator's reading of the user, and (4) the overall relationship between user and evaluator. In conclusion, we point to the importance of matching the task presentation to users' cultural background, the different effects of thinking aloud on task performance between Easterners and Westerners, the differences in nonverbal behaviour that affect usability problem detection


This article examines unemployment among married women within the context of evolving government policy rather than from a gender or feminist perspective. It establishes how, during the inter-war years, government policy towards women's unemployment developed in line with the ideas of female-dominated voluntary bodies and was only of fringe interest to the state. In particular, it stresses that a small number of middle-class women shaped official attitudes towards unemployed women through their activities in voluntary bodies, particularly the Central Committee on Women's Training and Employment, as well as their own rise in public service. This group operated within an environment that accepted women to be dispensable as a source of labour and where many female activists felt that women on unemployment benefit should train to be domestic servants, despite the fact that many of those women did not normally want domestic work because it was badly paid, of low status and uninsured. During the inter-war years governments relied heavily upon voluntary bodies to 'fill the gaps' in state welfare provision in their fringe areas of interest such as women's unemployment. In this instance, however, the voluntary bodies failed to assess or tackle the problem effectively.


STUDY DESIGN
Retrospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVES
The primary objective was to evaluate the impact of the upper instrumented level (UIV) being at C2 vs C3 in posterior cervical construct on patient reported outcomes (PROs) up to 24 months after surgery for cervical degenerative myelopathy (DCM). Secondary objectives were to compare operative time, intra-operative blood loss (IOBL), length of stay (LOS), adverse events (AEs) and re-operation.

METHODOLOGY
Patients who underwent a posterior cervical instrumented fusion (3 and + levels) with a C2 or C3 UIV, with 24 months follow-up were analyzed. PROs (NDI, EQ5D, SF-12 PCS/MCS, NRS arm/neck pain) were compared using ANCOVA. Operative duration, IOBL, AEs, and re-operation were compared. Subgroup analysis was performed on patient presenting with pre-operative malalignment (cervical sagittal vertical axis ≥40 mm and/or T1slope- cervical lordosis >15°).

RESULTS
173 patients were included, of which 41 (24%) had a C2 UIV and 132 (76%) a C3 UIV. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups for the changes in PROs up to 24 months. Subgroup analysis of patients with pre-operative malalignment showed a trend towards greater improvement in the NDI at 12 months with a C2 UIV (P = .054). Operative time, IOBL and peri-operative AEs were more in C2 group (P < .05). There was no significant difference in LOS and re-operation (P > .05).

CONCLUSION
In this observational study, up to 24 months after surgery for posterior cervical fusion in DCM greater than 3 levels, PROs appear to evolve similarly.


PURPOSE
To evaluate the knowledge of diabetic patients about ocular changes that could be caused by diabetes mellitus.

METHODS
A hundred diabetic patients were interviewed in the period of three weeks. Those patients had a scheduled appointment at Endocrinology Sector of Guilherme Alvaro Hospital. The patients answered eight questions about ocular changes that could be caused by diabetes mellitus.

RESULTS
Sixty-two female and 38 male, 93% with type II diabetes and mean age of 58.64 years (+/-15.64 years) were evaluated. Forty patients had the diabetes diagnosed for more than 10 years. Seventy per cent of the interviewed patients presented some knowledge about diabetic ocular changes. The questions about treatment demonstrated that 30 patients did not know any kind of treatment and 63 assured that diabetic ocular changes could be treated. Regarding the treatment options, surgery was mentioned by 33% of the patients while, 27% mentioned glasses, 19% laser therapy and 18% mentioned eye drops. The majority (56%) associated their knowledge to doctor's orientation. Some of them understood that they should be examined every 6 months because they learned that ocular changes are likely to occur as the time of diabetes diagnosis increase. Seventy-eight patients denied any ocular treatment and 12 had already performed some treatment.

CONCLUSION
This study demonstrated that 81% of the diabetic patients presents some knowledge about diabetes ocular changes, but they do not have precise informations.


1. Endorheic soda pans are among the aquatic systems that have the highest dissolved organic carbon (DOC) content on the planet with concentrations reaching values close to 1 g L−1. Considering the importance of inland waters in the global carbon cycle, the understanding of the drivers of such outstanding aquatic organic carbon pools is eminent. The soda pans of the Carpathian Basin present a wide variability of biotic and abiotic characteristics that provides an adequate system to assess the determinants of the extreme high DOC concentrations of soda pans. Here we demonstrate through a multisite comparison, a multiyear seasonal monitoring, and a laboratory experiment that the dissolved organic matter content of the highest DOC concentration soda pans is primarily of groundwater and emergent macrophyte origin.
2. More precisely, the multisite comparison of 14 soda pans revealed that the variation of colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) content of the pans is partially explained by the CDOM content (21% of variation) and conductivity (14%) of the local groundwater indicating significant role of allochthonous terrestrial DOC sources. However, 46% of the variation in CDOM content of the studied soda pans could be accounted for the dominant type of emergent macrophyte with Bolboshoenus maritimus dominated macrophyte cover leading to higher CDOM content than Phragmites australis.
3. In line with the results of the multisite comparison, we demonstrated by a decomposition experiment that both B. maritimus and P. australis have the potential to release substantial amount of organic matter into soda pans. However, the organic matter release of B. maritimus is much more intensive than that of P. australis leading to twice as high DOC and 3.5-times higher CDOM concentrations. In general, considering previous organic matter release studies we concluded that P. australis is a relatively low organic matter releaser emergent macrophyte, and therefore the species composition of emergent macrophytes has to be considered in autochthonous plant-derived DOM estimations.
4. Finally, the multi-year seasonal monitoring of two distinctive soda pans showed that the high organic matter concentrations of the pans depends not only on their intrinsic characteristics but also on interannual variability. More precisely, we demonstrated that the highest CDOM and DOC concentrations occurred in a colored (i.e., brown, low TSS) soda pan that had extensive (95%) macrophyte cover dominated by B. maritimus in a period characterized by high pH due to low water levels, which were presumably the consequence of increased evaporation due to decreased precipitation and above average temperature. Considering the trends of climate change in Central-Europe (i.e., increased temperature and modified precipitation regimes), our results indicate that extremely high organic matter concentrations in soda pans might become more frequent in the near future.


In previous studies, internal locus of control (ILC) has been pointed out as a key factor for return to work after vocational rehabilitation. The aim of the current study was to gain a deeper understanding of the concept of ILC in a Swedish vocational rehabilitation context. The study was based on data from 347 long-term sick-listed clients collected at the onset of vocational rehabilitation. A first bi-variate analysis showed that ILC was positively associated with physical functioning and general health, and negatively associated with bodily pain. The analysis also showed that women, more than men, reported high internal locus of control. After a second multivariate analysis, only bodily pain remained associated. It is concluded that there exist a strong and negative association between bodily pain and internal locus of control. Clients with severe pain often also suffer from low internal locus of control. This should be kept in mind when providing vocational rehabilitation.


GaN was implanted with 300 keV Eu ions over a wide fluence range from 1 × 1013 to 1 × 1016 Eu cm−2 at room temperature (RT) or 500 °C. Detailed structural and optical characterizations of the samples were performed using Rutherford backscattering spectrometry and channelling, transmission and scanning electron microscopy, wavelength dispersive x-ray emission and RT cathodoluminescence (CL) spectroscopy. RT implantation results in a sigmoidal-shaped damage build-up curve with four regimes that were correlated with the formation of specific kinds of defects. After annealing at 1000 °C only samples implanted to fluences below 0.8 × 1015 Eu cm−2 showed near complete recovery of the crystal. Implantation at elevated temperature significantly decreases the implantation damage and increases the fraction of Eu incorporated on substitutional Ga-sites. The improved structural properties of samples implanted at elevated temperature are reflected in a higher intensity of Eu-related red light emission after annealing at 1000 °C. The RT CL intensity is correlated with the number of Eu ions on substitutional Ga-sites after annealing. Furthermore, a detailed study of optical activation shows that the optimum annealing temperature depends on the implantation fluence due to the sensitive balance of defects removed and created during high temperature annealing.


: Agricultural pests had and still have a significant role in the recurrence of famine in developing countries. Biological means of controlling pests proved to be a reasonable and safe alternative and/or supportive to chemicals. Bacillus thuringiensis ( Bt ) is found to produce pro-toxins which have shown insecticidal capacity to larvae of different orders including Lepidoptera. Searching in different environments for new Bt strains with insecticidal potentiality increases the current existing strains. Hence, the study was aimed on isolation and identification of Bt isolates from soil samples collected in different agro-ecologies. Sodium acetate heat treatment technique were used for selective isolation of Bt. Cultural, microscopic and selected biochemical tests were used for further characterization of the obtained isolates. Sixty-nine pure isolates were obtained from seventy-four analyzed soil samples from which 29 isolates based on morphological similarities were selected for characterization. Most of the isolates had morphological (colony color, shape, elevation and margin) similarities. Elliptical or spherical endospore shape were observed among the different isolates and most of them (75%) possessed elliptical endospore and the rest 25% have spherical endospore shape. There was a difference among isolates in hydrolyzing esculin indicated that there are strain variations. From the characterized isolates almost all except 09Bt-2 were suspected to be different strains of B. thuringensis and B. sphaericus. The obtained isolates should be screened for larvicidal activity of different insect pest and exploited for their cry gene content using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) since their toxicity is directly related with the content of cry genes.


Electricity is one of the blessings that science has ever given to mankind but its generation through coal based thermal power stations is a matter of great environmental concern due to one of the byproduct of the process known as fly ash. Proper handling of this huge amount of fly ash is really needed. As we know that fly ash is a coal residue, so it is entirely organic in composition. It has various micro and macro nutrients like soil. Present investigation was carried out at Agra College to evaluate the impact of fly ash on the growth parameters of wheat through pot culture experiments. Soil- ash mixture was prepared and used on wheat variety HD-2967 in different conc's (0%, 15%, 30%, 50%, 75% and 100%) and positive responses related to different growth parameters were recorded. The amendment of fly ash with elevated conc. (0%-30%) enhanced the germination of seed in test crop. Highest stimulation was noted at 30%-50% fly ash concentration. Further increase in concentration significantly inhibited the growth parameters.


Harry Bouwman Delft University of Technology, Netherlands firstname.lastname@example.com Abstract eCRM increasingly supports all agents and customers in their mutual contacts. To generate returns on eCRM investments, providers use loyalty as a profit driver. However, little is known about the 'service elements' that can be used to improve customer loyalty. Especially for ICT (Informationand Communication Technology) service providers, loyalty is an important business metric. Moreover, the sector is characterised by specific service challenges (delivery and installation, billing, problem resolution). The main research question of this paper is: which service elements may help improve the loyalty of customers of ICT-providers, as part of a centralized eCRM approach? A survey (n=401) was conducted among Dutch consumers, evaluating 54 service elements. It was found that (1) some service elements which are regularly used (including loyalty points and customer communities) are not viewed by customers as loyalty-enhancing elements, (2) several SERVQUAL-related items are considered to be conditional in nature meeting minimal requirements and (3) the main service elements that help build loyalty are those that are offer recognizable benefits to customers (i.e. proactively recommending a cheaper option, or taking problems completely out of a customer's hands) rather than those that favor providers (i.e. rewards for bringing in other customers). We found that customer preferences vary according to their attitudes towards ICT and churn. The results indicate that consumers can be divided into four loyalty types ('hoppers', 'careful scanners', 'comfort loyalists' and 'risk averse loyalists'), which can be identified using three questions. The use of these loyalty types can help make eCRM interactions and management more effective.


Objective: The purpose of this article is to evaluate the scope of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and 'Social Value Initiatives' (SVIs) among corporations. Nowadays, CSR provides firms with an opportunity to provide community social need through discretionary corporate practices. This article contributes to knowledge on how firms approach social and environmental sustainability while maintaining economic responsibility. Research Design & Methods: This article adopts analysis based on secondary data from UK based companies. Fifty companies' websites and policy documents (30 commercial enterprises and 20 social enterprises) were researched to identify the patterns of practices of SVIs and factors that influence the practices among companies. Findings: The findings suggest that both social and commercial enterprises focus on the adoption of the 'CSR' practices based on the 'Triple Bottom Line' (TBL) as defined in the 'Elkington, 1997 framework' of economic, environmental and social sustainability. The difference is that while the 'SVIs' of commercial enterprises develop as an operational strategy at the later stages of the business, the 'SVIs' of social enterprises are embedded during the enterprise creation stage. Implications & Recommendations: Based on the findings, this article develops a conceptual 'Social Value Initiatives' framework which forms the domain of social value practices. We suggest that future studies should focus on adopting qualitative-oriented primary research to explore CSR approaches, which will capture the views of management, customers, employees and shareholders. Contribution & Value Added: Despite its limitations, this article contributes to the knowledge on CSR and social value practices among social and commercial enterprises.


Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada's health care system has experienced a dramatic shift toward virtual care. Patients with cardiac conditions are at an increased risk of adverse outcomes from COVID-19 infections, and for many, remote monitoring has been viewed as a safer form of health care delivery.
This Policy Insight summarizes key facilitators and barriers to the implementation and expansion of remote monitoring programs for patients with cardiac conditions based on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. These include:

Technology adoption — Health care decision-makers should be aware of barriers to technology adoption, including both patient and clinician hesitation and varying levels of health and digital literacy. Developing an effective education program to train staff and patients can help overcome technological barriers to adoption.
Program adaptation — Transitioning programs to remote monitoring requires the consideration of a programs' operational elements, such as eligibility requirements, onboarding and assessments, appointment logistics, program equipment, roles and responsibilities of clinicians and staff, health human resource planning, and data infrastructure and management.
Regulatory and legislative changes — Policies that support enhanced interprovincial licensure and reimbursement for remote monitoring services are examples of policy changes that would foster a regulatory environment conducive to remote monitoring programs.

While significant government investment has enabled the transition to virtual care (including remote monitoring), continued coordination between governments is needed to enhance the adoption of virtual care within Canadian health systems.
Further research is needed on the cost-effectiveness and clinical appropriateness of remote monitoring across cardiac conditions. This analysis can support health system decision-makers in determining when and how to apply remote monitoring services safely and effectively.


The paper presents the magnetic properties of Fe3O4 nanoparticles used in hybrid biomaterials, showing the difference between the ferrite nanopowder and the bulk one. The samples, measured by the vibrating sample magnetometer VSM-7304 LakeShore include materials composed by ferrite nanoparticles coated with sodium alginate or chitosan biopolymers. The results show the superparamagnetic behaviour of the nanoparticles and allow the computing of the average size of the magnetic nanoparticles.


Introduction A Web-based teledentistry consultation system has been developed for the US Department of Defence dental clinics at various sites in Europe and the United States. This system is being used in over 55 dental clinics in Europe and 18 US Army dental clinics in the US. The system enables referring dentists to send consults, including dental images or radiographs to specialists, via Internet. Specialists review the consults and provide the diagnosis and treatment. This paper focuses on the implementation of this system, and focuses on the various areas in dentistry where this system is being currently utilized. The emphasis of this project has been on development of a scalable and expandable Internet-based teledentistry consultation system. The results of this study will expand the knowledge base of the technologies and clinical practices required changing the needs of modern, military dental care systems. One of the goals of the teledentistry project is to increase patient access to quality dental care. The other goal is to establish a cost effective teledentistry system. Methods A teledentistry workstation consists of a laptop, a digital camera and requires Internet access. The referring dentist logs into a secure Web server, fills in the patient's demographics, chief complaints, provisional diagnosis information, attaches dental radiographs and sends it to the specialist of his choice. The specialist will receive an Email and the data is then sent to a database server. The specialist subsequently logs into the secure Web server and reviews the consult, radiographs and suggests his diagnosis and treatment. Results The data collected on the database server shows an average of 40 consults per month. Currently, referrals to oral surgery have the highest number of consults, followed by prosthodontics and periodontics. An economic analysis has been conducted on the data that has been collected using this system. The results from this analysis show a return on investment within 21.5 months of deployment. Discussion Videoconferencing, Web and Internet based technologies may be used to implement a user-friendly teledentistry solution. There are many advantages in using these technologies for retrieving dental information. Some of these advantages are: Ease of use and development Platform independence to the end user Cost-effectiveness By providing dentists with easy, cost-effective access to specialists, it might be possible to improve the quality of care. This is achieved by facilitating the access to better and timely information to the dentists for better decision making and better communication between them and their patients. In the end, a telemedicine system is a tool for practising medicine: the science and art of healing.


Soil probes are hammered into the soil to sample uniform, undisturbed soil cores, and can also be used to dig uniform holes for permanent installation of devices to monitor soil moisture and soil solution composition. Extracting soil probes becomes increasingly difficult at increasing depths, particularly when the soil is dry, frozen, or has a cohesive consistency. The construction and operation of a device for extracting soil probes is described. The device can be constructed from inexpensive and universally available galvanized pipe and pipe joints, and a 25 mm width x 2 m length nylon strap. The device can be used to extract other soil sampling equipment that requires upward vertical force. A single person can generate over 1000 kg of upward force on the probe without excessive effort. Use of the probe does not strain the back, which is an important consideration as back injuries are a serious concern with manual soil probe extraction.


Background The Health Service Executive (HSE) has embarked on a series of regional system re-designs to radically change the organisation of urgent and emergency care delivery in Ireland, at a time when budgets and staff levels have been substantially reduced and there is growing awareness of problems with quality and safety. The general purpose of this initiative is to "develop integrated services across all stages of the care journey" with the goal of increasing efficiency and improving performance. Major changes initiated so far include the reconfiguration of acute hospital services and the introduction of ambulance bypass protocols. Our aim was to identify and describe the typology of models employed in re-designing urgent and emergency care services, with a specific focus on the use of evidence and resources. Methods Two qualitative methods were employed. A documentary analysis was conducted of current national and regional policy documents. Also, approximately 200 semi-structured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders providing urgent and emergency care, along with health service campaigners and local politicians and media, across eight different regions covering the whole of the country. Information from the documentary analysis and interviews was synthesised using NVivo software. Results Preliminary findings suggest that there are numerous policy initiatives developing in parallel. These are generally well aligned in principle but there is a substantial implementation gap across regions. As a consequence, system re-design to date has taken place in a non-uniform manner across the country with varying levels of implementation and provision of services. Four models have been identified that reflect the re-design of urgent and emergency care services in Ireland, namely: (1) system re-design within existing hospital networks; (2) system re-design to formalise and amalgamate individual hospital networks with current group structures; (3) system re-design to maintain academic relations; and (4) system re-design at planning stage. There are a number of overlaps between these models since this typology represents the continuum of system re-design programmes being implemented across the country, rather than discrete categories. Conclusion Implementing change in urgent and emergency care services is a complex process, guided by local as well as national considerations, resources and motivations. The results of this study will inform national and regional healthcare system planning on urgent and emergency care with the goal of increasing efficiency and improving performance.


In this article, preschool student teachers' thinking of young children's physical activities
is discussed. The study is based on individual "pedagogic creed" texts written by
preschool student teachers at a university college in Bergen, Norway, in their first and
third years of the educational program. Students describe in detail what they associate
with the term physical activity and the formation qualities it possesses. The material is
extensive and this article will focus on some of the findings, such as how students see
children's physical activity in connection to motor, social, and moral development. How
the students' perceive physical activity, as a component in a more holistic thinking of
children and formation, is also part of the analysis, as well as their thinking of the role
and responsibility of the teaching staff. We find that the arguments for physical activity
are different, and students' foci change during the education program, from an I and
child perspective in their first year of the educational program, to a more reflective and
academic perspective focused more on the role of the leader in their third year.


Production of immunodiagnostic preparations based on monoclonal antibodies requires large amounts of such antibodies. Most frequently preparative quantities of monoclonal antibodies are provided by ascitic fluid from hybridoma-carrying mice. Prior to intraperitoneal administration of hybridoma cells mice are subjected to stimulation with pristan, a mineral oil component. The authors showed that the Freund's incomplete adjuvant (FIA) may be as well used for this purpose. The effect of pristan and the FIA on ascites development in mice with hybridomas producing monoclonal antibodies to the Ia-like antigens of man was studied. The stimulants were administered in amounts of 0.5 ml per a mouse. It was shown that irrespective of the stimulant injection time and the number of the administered hybridoma cells the amount of the ascitic fluid formed in female mice BALB/c stimulated with the FIA was 1.5-3 times higher as that in the animals stimulated with Pristane, the antibody titer in the ascitic fluid being unchanged.


This presentation is based on my research into children's emotions, which focused on the emotion of fear. Fear is named by nearly all theorists as a basic or innate emotion. While it motivates us to defend ourselves and avoid dangerous situations (Izard, 1977; Ledoux, 1998), it can also limit memory (Darke, 1988), perception and problem-solving abilities (Izard, 1977, 1991), impair social interactions (Dodge, 1991) and threaten the sense of self (Lazarus, 1991)

Young children are expected to learn to understand and to exhibit fear and other emotions in socially appropriate ways. Forms of "emotional literacy", these skills effect success or failure in learning and in life in general (Goleman, 1995). The concept of multiple intelligences recognises interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences, and early childhood guidelines include emotional and social learning, yet curricula mainly address the cognitive domain.

This presentation examines teachers' understandings of young children's fears and their practices that facilitate understanding and expression of this and other emotions. It challenges practitioners to reflect upon their own awareness and responses to affective situations and to determine how they can best implement an affective curriculum.


This paper discusses the politics of policy making behind the signing of the parliamentary institutional arrangement law (UU MD3 2014) from new institutionalism approach. The policy incites controversy over domination of one coalition over the other and the future of legislative-executive inter-institutional relations. This study argues that in the policy making, the drive for power domination in the parliament and the dynamics of contestation in the presidential election strongly affected its process. The absence of convergence and political transactional cost between coalitions pointed us to the lack of relevance of rational choice institutionalism theories in explaining the politics of UU MD3. Although the data shows tendency towards commitment and loyalty to coalition identities, norms and ideas, the historical dynamics of coalition formation during the 2014 general election process indicates the applicability of historical institutionalism more than sociological institutionalism. This study employed discourse analysis on the deliberation in the parliament and opinion and latest news in the mass media .


&NA; Feeding poultry litter biochar (PLB), a product resulting from litter gasification, could decrease diet cost, maintain broiler growth performance, and decrease land application of manure. Past research observed improved pellet quality and mineral availability with dietary inclusions of 6 to 7% PLB; however, broiler performance was decreased, likely due from toxic‐heavy‐metal content (e.g., 99 ppm arsenic) and increased digesta viscosity of the particular PLB. The objective of the current study was to assess lower dietary inclusions of PLB, with decreased toxic‐heavy‐metal content, on descriptive feed manufacture, broiler performance, digesta viscosity, bone mineralization, and apparent ileal amino acid digestibility (AIAAD). Treatments were arranged as a Diet Formulation x Phytase Addition factorial in a randomized complete block design with 8 replications per treatment. Four dietary formulations were produced: positive control (PC) with 0.45% non phytate phosphorus (nPP), negative control with 0.23% nPP, and 2 or 4% PLB with 0.45% nPP. Phytase was either included at 9,500 ftu/kg or withheld. There were 8 treatments total. Contrasts comparing PC and 2 or 4% PLB also were conducted. Diets were pelleted and crumbled prior to feeding. Positive and negative control formulations and phytase addition affected bird performance as expected. Birds fed 2% PLB had increased FCR and birds fed 4% PLB had decreased LWG when compared to PC (P < 0.05). However, these performance deficiencies were corrected with phytase inclusion. Birds fed diets with PLB had similar tibia measures compared to the PC. No significant main effects, interactions, or contrast comparisons were observed for viscosity data. The incorporation of PLB into formulations without phytase increased diet AIAAD of some amino acids relative to the corresponding PC (P < 0.05). A lower toxic‐heavy‐metal PLB product (e.g., 22 ppm arsenic) provided available minerals and amino acids to diets, but performance similar to PC necessitated the addition of phytase.


Fluoropyrimidines (FPs), mainly 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and its oral prodrug capecitabine (Cap), remain the backbone of the treatment of many different solid tumors. Despite their broad use in clinical routine, 10–40% of patients experience severe, and in rare cases (0.2–0.5%) even lethal, FP-related toxicity in early chemotherapy cycles. Today, there is a plethora of evidence that genetic variants in the gene encoding for the 5-FU catabolising enzyme dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD, encoded by DPYD) are predictive of severe FP-related toxicities, and international clinical practice recommendations for DPYD genotype-guided FP dosing and therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) are available. In spite of this strong evidence and DPYD genotyping becoming standard practice in other countries, it is has not been widely adopted in Switzerland to date. Here, we discuss current guidelines on genotype-guided FP dosing and TDM, and propose recommendations tailored to the situation in Switzerland to facilitate their clinical uptake for the further individualisation of FP chemotherapy. We recommend preemptive testing of four DPYD variants (c.1905+1G>A (rs3918290), c.1679T>G (rs55886062), c.2846A>T (rs67376798) and c.1129-5923C>G (rs75017182, c.1236G>A/HapB3)) in patients with an indication for FP-based chemotherapy, with the costs reimbursed through the compulsory health insurance in Switzerland. Carriers of these variants (6.5% in the Swiss population) have a 40–50% risk of developing severe early-onset toxicity when treated with standard FP doses. In these patients, we therefore recommend the use of a reduced starting dose, based on a dose adjustment scheme provided herein. Furthermore, we recommend the use of infusional 5-FU in patients with a DPYD risk genotype in order to enable TDM-based dose escalation. Only if the use of an infusional 5-FU regimen is not feasible should a slow titration of Cap, starting with the recommended reduced dose and basing further doses on monitoring of toxicity, be considered. Given that several studies have shown that TDM in 5-FU treatment improves not only the therapy's safety, but potentially also its efficacy, we also include detailed TDM-based dosing guidelines and discuss the pre-analytical aspects of 5-FU TDM.


The genetic architecture of traits influencing sexual isolation can give insight into the evolution of reproductive isolation and hence speciation. Here we report a quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis of the difference in mean interpulse interval (IPI), an important component of the male courtship song, between Drosophila simulans and D. sechellia. Using a backcross analysis, we find six QTL that explain a total of 40.7% of the phenotypic variance. Three candidate genes are located in the intervals bounded by two of the QTL and there are no significant QTL on the X chromosome. The values of mean IPI for hybrid individuals imply the presence of dominant alleles or epistasis. Because unisexual hybrid sterility prevents an F2 analysis, we cannot distinguish dominant from additive genetic effects at the scale of QTL. A comparison with a study of QTL for intraspecific variation in D. melanogaster shows that, for these strains, the QTL we have identified for interspecific variation cannot be those that contribute to intraspecific variation. We find that the QTL have bidirectional effects, which indicates that the genetic architecture is compatible with divergence due to genetic drift, although other possibilities are discussed.


Background: There is a decreased interest in nephrology such that the number of trainees likely will not meet the upcoming workforce demands posed by the projected number of patients with kidney disease. We conducted a survey of US internal medicine subspecialty fellows in fields other than nephrology to determine why they did not choose nephrology. Methods: A web-based survey with multiple choice, yes/no, and open-ended questions was sent in summer 2011 to trainees reached through internal medicine subspecialty program directors. Results: 714 fellows responded to the survey (11% response rate). All non-nephrology internal medicine subspecialties were represented, and 90% of respondents were from university-based programs. Of the respondents, 31% indicated that nephrology was the most difficult physiology course taught in medical school, and 26% had considered nephrology as a career choice. Nearly one-fourth of the respondents said they would have considered nephrology if the field had higher income or the subject were taught well during medical school and residency training. The top reasons for not choosing nephrology were the belief that patients with end-stage renal disease were too complicated, the lack of a mentor, and that there were insufficient procedures in nephrology. Conclusions: Most non-nephrology internal medicine subspecialty fellows never considered nephrology as a career choice. A significant proportion were dissuaded by factors such as the challenges of the patient population, lack of role models, lack of procedures, and perceived difficulty of the subject matter. Addressing these factors will require the concerted effort of nephrologists throughout the training community. Am J Kidney Dis. xx(x):xxx. © 2013 by the National Kidney Foundation, Inc.


A hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography-UV method was developed for the determination of melamine in milk powder. Sulfobetaine type zwitterionic hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography stationary phase was used to achieve straightforward separation of melamine in milk powder without any sample derivatization or addition of ion-pair reagent. The sample preparation was simple and fast with the steps of acetonitrile/perchloric acid extraction-centrifugation-filtration. No SPE or other pre-concentration procedure was required. By using large volume sample injection and choosing low UV wavelength (210 nm), the LOD and LOQ were 0.005 and 0.015 microg/mL for melamine standards, and 0.02 and 0.06 microg/mL for the spiked milk extracts. The LOD and LOQ of the latter correspond to 0.95 and 2.2 microg/g melamine in the milk powder. The correlation coefficients for melamine standard, pre-spiked milk extracts and post-spiked milk extracts in the range of 0-0.5 microg/mL were 0.9978, 0.9976 and 0.9995, respectively. This newly developed method is sensitive and cost effective, therefore, suitable for screening of melamine in tainted milk products.


In this report our visiting scholar. Yinong Shao, has produced a fascinating picture of the health services in China in 1988. It is particularly remarkable because even a few years ago the wealth of statistics which it contains could not have been published. First and foremost Shao's Report is an indication of the new enlightened approach by the Chinese in allowing international discussion of their internal affairs. The Chinese situation which the Report describes is impressive by any standards. Spending only half the proportion of national wealth on health care of that in Britain - and less than a third of that in some other Western countries - they appear to have achieved a standard of health which bears comparison to that of these richer countries. Life expectancy in China is close to that of European countries, and the dramatic reduction in infant mortality in recent years suggests that on that measure also they will soon be able to match the standards of the Western World. Much of this appears to have been achieved by a successful concentration on public health and preventive medicine, which may perhaps only be possible within a highly disciplined and closely knit local community. The reduction in the birth rate and the apparently virtual elimination of sexually transmitted diseases suggest that it has been possible to set standards of social behaviour in China which have not been possible particularly in other less developed countries. No doubt this stems from the long cultural traditions of the Chinese people. It must be remembered that China has one of the oldest civilisations in the world, with a very long and distinguished scientific tradition. The other aspect of Chinese health care which the report emphasises is its variability. Many villages still rely on privately financed health care, rather than a collective approach. There are also huge contrasts between the urban and rural levels of provision. And interestingly, even where health insurance is being introduced to extend health care in the rural areas, high levels of co-payment by the patients are still expected. Thus China appears to be putting into practice principles which are often still debated in Western countries. They do not have the uniform and centralised systems of provision for health care which might have been expected of them. They have chosen instead a largely decentralised approach, with a very strong emphasis on individual and community participation, especially with reference to population control. One illustration of community involvement seems to be the low ratio of nurses to doctors. In the West, doctors are substantially outnumbered by nurses. In China the reverse is true. This may be because the families and friends of the patients in China accept more of the responsibility for the care of the sick. Undoubtedly, this Report has important lessons for its Western readers. It is not simply, for example, the co-existence of traditional 4 Chinese medicine and Western methods of treatment, each having their appropriate role. It is more the fact that a 'collectivism country such as China seems to have a surprisingly 'free enterprise' approach to medical care. Hopefully such lessons will broaden the vision of those whose task it is to plan the future of medical care in Europe and the West.


About 60 proteins from human and murine cell lines were isolated by their ability to bind to different preparations of DNA. In the intact cell, the majority of these proteins are to be found in the cell nucleus. The electrophoretic mobilities of the DNA-binding proteins from human, murine and man-mouse hybrid cell lines were compared in two-dimensional acrylamide gels. Few, if any, species-specific differences were found. These observations suggest that the structures of the vast majority of the proteins that interact with DNA are conserved through evolution. A molecular basis is thus provided for the intracellular of hybrid cells derived from different animal species.


A series of nickel pincer complexes with terminal alkoxo ligands [(iPrPCP)Ni-OR] (R = Et, nBu, iPr, CH2CH2OH; iPrPCP is the 2,6-bis(diisopropylphosphinomethyl)phenyl pincer ligand) was synthesized and fully characterized. Together with the previously reported methoxo analogues of Ni and Pd, these complexes constitute a unique series of isostructural late transition-metal alkoxides. Spectroscopic and X-ray diffraction data provide direct indications of the strong polarization of their covalent Ni-OR bonds. One of the most salient features of this class of compounds is their facile hydrolysis with traces of moisture, leading to equilibrium mixtures with the corresponding hydroxides [(iPrPCP)M-OH] (M = Ni or Pd) and alcohols, ROH. To compare the hydrolytic stability of nickel and palladium alkoxides, we performed NMR titrations of both hydroxides with several alcohols and determined the corresponding equilibrium constants. In general, these constants are ca. 1 order of magnitude smaller for M = Ni than Pd, indicating that Ni alkoxide complexes are more readily hydrolyzed than their Pd counterparts. For alkoxide complexes containing heteroatom-free R groups, the tendency to hydrolyze decreases as the parent alcohol ROH becomes more acidic, that is, R = Me > Et > iPr. This intuitive trend is broken for 2-methoxyethanol, the most acidic alcohol investigated. The hydroxo/2-methoxyethanol exchange equilibrium constants are comparable to those of ethanol (M = Ni) or methanol (M = Pd), showing that the corresponding 2-methoxyethoxide complexes are more prone to hydrolysis than anticipated. These experimental observations were rationalized in the light of density functional theory calculations.


In this paper , a dynamic three-dimensional finite element model using linear elastic material properties while including wheel-rail friction was developed and used to investigate embankment deviator stress. The effect of train speeds, axle load, and rail roughness on failure of embankment was investigated during repeated train passage. Results indicate that axle load and rail roughness have important effect on foundation failure. Embankment failure occurs first in engineering fill er layer instead of gravel layer, and there is a rapidly decrease in foundation life which was determined by fill layer failure as annual tonnage is increased. As annual tonnage is increased beyond 400Mt, the foundation life cannot meet a projected design life of 40 years. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.mech.23.2.13911


Functional selection of antigen-specific T lymphocytes can be achieved by culturing thymus-dependent (T) lymphocytes from immunized guinea pigs on "monolayers" of antigen-pulsed adherent peritoneal exudate cells (PEC) from nonimmune syngeneic donors. Several aspects of the in vitro selection of T lymphocyte-rich peritoneal exudate lymphocytes (PEL) were studied. It was shown that irradiated adherent PEC were equivalent to nonirradiated adherent PEC in supporting selection cultures, indicating that the lymphocytes harvested at the end of the selection culture derive from the immune donors of the PEL and not from the nonimmune donor of the adherent PEC.
 The relative importance of specific adherence and specific proliferation for achieving selection was determined by comparing the degree of selection obtained when nonadherent cells were discarded at 24 hr with that noted when the discard step was omitted. It was found that omitting the discard step markedly diminished the degree of selection. On the other hand, blocking proliferation with specific alloantisera after the discard step did not diminish the degree of selection, although it did diminish the cell yield. Thus, specific adherence to antigen-pulsed PEC appeared to be critical in the selection culture procedure.
 An estimate of the degree of enrichment obtained by the selection culture procedure was obtained by culturing selected cells in an excess of nonprimed PEL, so that auxiliary cells would not be limiting. Under these conditions, it appeared that selected cells were enriched from 4-to 10-fold in antigen-responsive cells with respect to the initial cell population.


Arctic sea ice has displayed significant thinning as well as an increase in drift speed in recent years. Taken together this suggests an associated rise in sea ice deformation rate. A winter and spring expedition to the sea ice covered region north of Svalbard–the Norwegian young sea ICE2015 expedition (N-ICE2015)—gave an opportunity to deploy extensive buoy arrays and to monitor the deformation of the first-year and second-year ice now common in the majority of the Arctic Basin. During the 5 month long expedition, the ice cover underwent several strong deformation events, including a powerful storm in early February that damaged the ice cover irreversibly. The values of total deformation measured during N-ICE2015 exceed previously measured values in the Arctic Basin at similar scales: At 100 km scale, N-ICE2015 values averaged above 0.1 d−1, compared to rates of 0.08 d−1 or less for previous buoy arrays. The exponent of the power law between the deformation length scale and total deformation developed over the season from 0.37 to 0.54 with an abrupt increase immediately after the early February storm, indicating a weakened ice cover with more free drift of the sea ice floes. Our results point to a general increase in deformation associated with the younger and thinner Arctic sea ice and to a potentially destructive role of winter storms.


Abstract This short-term, open-label study investigates short- and long-term effects of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) fluvoxamine for the treatment of trichotillomania (TTM). Additionally, this study aimed to test the hypothesis that the presence of hair pulling compulsiveness is predictive of SSRI response. Nineteen subjects meeting the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition Revised, (DSM-III-R) criteria for TTM were treated with fluvoxamine at doses up to 300 mg/day. Random regression analysis of change across time for patients who completed the study (n=14) and those who dropped out (n=5) revealed statistically significant improvements in Physician Rating Scale, hair-pulling episodes, Trichotillomania Impairment Scale, and Trichotillomania Symptom Severity Scale, but not in estimated amount of hair pulled. In addition, the percentage of patients' focused or compulsive hair-pulling symptoms was predictive of treatment response. Unfortunately, all three subjects who entered long-term treatment displayed substantial movement back toward baseline by the end of 6 months. We concluded that fluvoxamine produces moderate reductions in symptoms during the short-term treatment of TTM and that the presence of focused or compulsive hair pulling may be predictive of treatment response. However, responses may be short lived when treatment is extended.