In this article, we argue that societies' unpreparedness and inadequate responses to the Covid-19 pandemic expose weaknesses in the foundations of the dominant economic paradigm We document how economics came to disembed itself from broader societal analysis and how this has influenced public policy in problematic ways, leading to privileging of efficiency over resilience We then go a step further to consider the role of economic evidence in public policy more generally Furthermore, we demonstrate how heterodox economics can enrich our understandings of our economies' weaknesses and of how to build a more resilient and just economy We conclude that we need an explanation of the crisis that is capable of seeing the economy as more than just markets and as embedded in society;one that is capable of linking the causes and consequences of the pandemic to our systems of production and distribution


This study examined whether a typology of perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV) could be replicated in a Dutch sample (N = 154) of self-referred IPV perpetrators using a structured risk assessment tool for relational violence (Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk [B-SAFER]). Our findings support the previous IPV perpetrator subtypes: low-level antisocial (LLA), family only (FO), psychopathology (PP), and generally violent/antisocial (GVA). The subtypes differed on the descriptive dimensions general criminality, substance use, and mental health problems. The prevalence rates for each subtype were roughly comparable with those in previous studies. Contrary to expectation, the prevalence of the GVA subtype was relatively high in our self-referred sample compared with court-referred samples. Our findings suggest that structured risk assessment should be an integral part of the intake procedure for IPV perpetrators entering treatment, to assess their level of risk and to arrive at a tailored risk management strategy, regardless of setting or referral source.


The focus of the project was to generate a titanic prime number by using high performance computing resources. What makes prime numbers significant is their use in modern computers for the encryption of data. The generation of primes are particularly computing intensive the larger the prime. This makes titanic primes (thousand digit prime numbers) a perfect candidate for distribution through grid infrastructure. In order for the demands of the project to be met, a prime number generator had to be created. Multiple computer languages such as Javascript, Java, and C++ were tested for use in an attempt to develop a generator. Functionality was verified first through the terminal and then by job submission to Elizabeth City State University's VikeGrid (a Condor based computer cluster). Overall, the results indicated the successes of the project and the improvements needed for


ABSTRACT Objective: The expansion of technology enables closer examination of human biological functioning which has exponentially increased knowledge about how the human organism interacts with surrounding environs to produce certain behaviors. The contemporary biosocial model pushes crime theorists and researchers alike to consider the many biological factors that may be implicated in violent behavior and how those factors are ameliorated or exacerbated by environmental influences (and vice versa). This paper describes the human microbiome and discusses why and how the human microbiome should be incorporated into biosocial investigations of violent behavior. Method: To date, a fairly significant knowledge-base has accumulated regarding the evolutionary, genetic, and sociological bases of violent behavior but has not yet carefully considered other factors related to biochemistry: namely, the microbiome. We review the emerging literature on the role of the microbiome on phenotypes––particularly antisocial behavior––and synthesize the contribution of this literature to the study of antisocial behavior. Results: The microbiome is likely an important contributor to animal and human behavior. Recent studies show that the microbiome holds promise in explaining antisocial behavior among a wide range of species including humans. Conclusion: Criminological theory and public policy can incorporate knowledge about the microbiome in the explanation of violent behavior, and prevention and intervention efforts.


A finite data set is consistent with infinitely many alternative theories. Scientific realists
recommend that we prefer the simplest one. Anti-realists ask how a fixed simplicity bias
could track the truth when the truth might be complex. It is no solution to impose a prior
probability distribution biased toward simplicity, for such a distribution merely embodies
the bias at issue without explaining its efficacy. In this note, I argue, on the basis of
computational learning theory, that a fixed simplicity bias is necessary if inquiry is to
converge to the right answer efficiently, whatever the right answer might be. Efficiency is
understood in the sense of minimizing the least fixed bound on retractions or errors prior
to convergence.


The advantage of IIR filters over FIR ones is that the former require a much lower order to obtain the desired response specifications. However, the existing deterministic techniques for IIR filter bank design based on heuristic usually lead to too high order IIR filters and thus cannot be practically used. In this paper, we propose new method to solve the low-order IIR filter bank design, which is based on linear matrix inequalities (LMI) optimization. Our focus is the QMF bank design, although other IIR filter related problems can be treated and solved in similar way.


Syntactic change research regularly appeals to the child innovator to explain upward reanalysis (V > v > infl; e.g., Roberts & Roussou, 2003; van Gelderen, 2004). In child language, the most pervasive type of syntactic input-divergence, or "error", is the omission of functional morphemes (e.g., Brown, 1973; Snyder, 2007). Following Pannemann (2007), I argue that children learn language specific syntactic structures by assuming a Maximal Category First approach. Under this analysis, omission-laden child strings represent conservative interim structural analyses (rather than input-consistent analyses with unpronounced elements). When the child fails to revise her interim analysis to the input target, the resultant analysis will be upwards in nature (min>max), as predicted by the child innovator approach. This paper uses a corpus study of modal verbs (Cournane, 2015) to show that child functional omissions provide evidence for reanalyses up the verbal projection.


OBJECTIVE
Adolescents who self-injure often engage in bingeing/purging (BP). Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) has potential to offer insight into the relationship between self-injury and BP. The aims of this study were to examine the frequency and context of BP using EMA in a sample of nonsuicidal self-injurious (NSSI) adolescents.

METHOD
Thirty adolescents with a history of NSSI responded to questions regarding self-destructive thoughts/behaviors using a palm-pilot device. Descriptive analyses compared thought/behavior contexts during reports of BP and NSSI thoughts/behaviors (occurring together vs. individually).

RESULTS
BP thoughts were present in 22 (73%) participants, occurring on 32% of the person-days recorded; 59% of these participants actually engaged in BP behavior. Seventy-nine percent of BP thoughts co-occurred with other self-destructive thoughts. Adolescents were more often with friends/peers than alone or with family when having BP thoughts. Worry and pressure precipitated both BP and NSSI thoughts, but perceived criticism and feelings of rejection/hurt were associated more often with BP thoughts than with NSSI thoughts.

DISCUSSION
BP thoughts and behaviors were common in this sample, often occurring with other self-destructive thoughts. Future EMA research is needed to address the function of BP symptoms, the contextual variables that increase risk for BP thoughts, and the factors that predict the transition of thoughts into behaviors in adolescents with and without self-injury.


SUMMARY Current Awareness Services such as Table of Contents (TOC) or Selected Dissemination of Information (SDI) have been a mainstay in science and engineering libraries for many years. With the proliferation of Web-based full-text journals and the availability of e-resource registries and sophisticated integrated library systems, the pro cess of providing current awareness services with access to full-text have been re-emphasized and re-shaped. This paper will describe current awareness services implemented in the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. These services include: e-mail notices of current journal Table of Contents with links to available full-text; access to a Web-based currently received journal list with links to TOC of issues and full-text; custom e-mail notices of newly received books. University of Illinois College of Engineering faculty have greatly benefited from these TOC services in their research and teaching. Their input has helped librarians to develop more efficient services that best meet their needs.


The substantive focus of this chapter-crime control technologies - can be stated simply enough, but this simplicity is deceptive for several reasons. Firstly, technology - which we define as the application of scientific knowledge, materials, techniques, systems, methods of organisation and the use of electronic and mechanical devices - is ubiquitous in contemporary criminal justice, as it is in many other spheres of human activity. Therefore the range of types of technical devices that we might write about is extremely wide. Secondly, as Marx suggests, throughout history crime control has been a motor for technological innovation in many apparently unrelated areas; therefore the boundaries of the field are fuzzy. Thirdly, the range of technological applications in the criminological field is incredibly wide and includes the management and communication of information, physical defence against crime, surveillance, public order maintenance, crime prevention and detection, criminal justice administration, and punishment. We have, it seems, carved out an impossibly wide brief and can do little more here than to provide a descriptive overview of the technological applications studied by criminologists, to describe the legal framework within which crime control technologies are developing, to raise some questions about the ways in which technology is changing the criminal justice system as a system and make some suggestions for inter-disciplinary research.


Angry protests against racial discrimination were a prominent part of American public life during the 1960's. The decade opened with the sit-ins and freedom rides, continued through Birmingham, Selma, and the March on Washington, and closed with protests in hundreds of American cities, often punctuated by rioting and violence. During this troubled decade the rhetoric of protest became increasingly demanding, blanket charges of pervasive white racism and hostility were more common, and some blacks began to actively discourage whites from participating either in protest demonstrations or civil rights organizations. Nothing better symbolized the changing mood and style of black protest in America than recent changes in the movement's dominant symbols. Demonstrators who once shouted "freedom" as their rallying cry now were shouting "black power"—a much more provocative, challenging slogan. The larger and more diverse a political movement's constituency, the more vague and imprecise its unifying symbols and rallying cries are likely to be. A slogan like black power has no sharply defined meaning; it may excite many different emotions and may motivate individuals to express their loyalty or take action for almost contradictory reasons. As soon as Adam Clayton Powell and Stokely Carmichael began to use the phrase in 1966 it set off an acrimonious debate among black leaders over its true meaning. Initially it was a blunt and threatening battle cry meant to symbolize a break with the past tactics of the civil rights movement.


Personalized recommendation systems are web-based systems that aim at predicting a user's interest on available products and services by relying on previously rated items and dealing with the problem of information and product overload. Collaborative filtering algorithm is one of the most successful technologies for building personalized recommendation system. But traditional collaborative filtering algorithm does not consider the problem of drifting users interests and the nearest neighbor user set in different time periods, leading to the fact that neighbors may not be the nearest set. In view of this problem, a collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm based on time weight is presented. In the algorithm each rating is assigned a weight gradually decreasing along with time and the weighted rating is used to produce recommendation. The collaborative filtering approach based on time weight not only reduced the data sparsity, but also narrowed the area of the nearest neighbor.


In this study we looked at what useful information cytokeratin fragment detected by antibodies BM 19-21 and KS 19-1 (CYFRA 21.1), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), neurone-specific enolase (NSE), tissue polypeptide specific antigen (TPS), and tissue polypeptide antigen (TPA) gave when measured prospectively. All patients who were suspected of having lung cancer and who underwent diagnostic bronchoscopy in this hospital between July 1994 and May 1995 were included in the study. Of 184 patients, 87 were subsequently found to have intrathoracic malignancy, 93 were found to have benign lung disease and four were lost to follow-up. CYFRA 21.1 was the most efficient marker in differentiating benign from malignant disease, with a sensitivity of 54% and a positive predictive value of 96%. Thirty seven patients who had a negative bronchoscopy subsequently turned out to have malignant disease. Either CYFRA 21.1 or CEA was elevated in 26 (70%) of such patients. Multivariate analysis showed that only CYFRA 21.1 and CEA contributed significantly to the discriminatory power of the data. We conclude that measurement of cytokeratin fragment detected by antibodies BM 19-21 and KS 19-1 and carcinoembryonic antigen at the time of bronchoscopy significantly increased the diagnostic yield in this population and was especially useful in those patients in whom tumour biopsy was not possible at bronchoscopy.


ABSTRACT The experimental literature has found a positive relationship between patience and performance in cognitive tests that are not incentivized by money. It has also been shown that unincentivized cognitive tests capture not only cognitive ability (CA), but also intrinsic motivation related to the test takers' personality traits. In order to determine whether the relationship between patience and test scores is driven by intrinsic motivation or CA, we run an experiment in which subjects take either incentivized or unincentivized cognitive tests. We find that while incentivized test scores positively correlate with patience, the unincentivized scores are not related to the time preferences of our subjects. The observed correlation between patience and cognitive test scores therefore seems to be driven by CA rather than by intrinsic motivation related to personality traits.


Many areas of the northern United States and southern Canada, and particularly the 4 million ha of unirrigated cropland of the Northwestern Wheat and Range Region in the United States, experience severe water erosion under thawing soil conditions. Modeling soil erosion in these areas is hampered by a lack of knowledge of the relation of soil properties and moisture conditions to hydraulic resistance of thawing soils. This study was conducted to determine hydraulic and erodibility parameters of frozen and thawed soil under controlled moisture tension. A tilting flume was designed and constructed to allow near-natural freezing and thawing of a soil mass and to apply shear stress from flowing water. Flow tests were conducted for 90 min under soil moisture tensions of 50, 150, and 450 mm. A linear relationship was found between detachment and applied shear stress at a given time and moisture tension. Critical shear stress values showed little change with time. Rill erodibility decreased with increased soil moisture tension but changed more rapidly during tests at 50- and 150-mm tension. At 50-mm tension, the time-average erodibility, 689 g N -1 min -1 , was about the same, and the critical shear value, 1.53 N m -2 , about 60% of that found in tests of a similar Palouse silt loam soil tested under 50-mm tension without freezing. This study adds to the body of knowledge that indicates that the transient nature of rill erodibility during soil freezing and thawing should be considered to improve the accuracy of continuous simulation erosion models for winter conditions.


John King has made challenging contributions to our thinking in many areas. This paper focuses on two of these: the case for pluralism and the case against requiring macroeconomic theory to be expressed in terms of its microfoundations. The purpose of this paper is to explore further the relationship between the two, requiring discussion of the relationship between the different levels of philosophy, methodology, theory and reality. A particular focus is put on the role of the concept of consistency in these two papers. This concept is explored further here at different levels and according to different methodological approaches. The contrast is drawn between its meaning in classical logic and in human logic.


The corrosivity of chloride-based electrolytes is a major shortcoming in the practical realization of rechargeable aluminum batteries. Herein, the effect of Cl- on Al speciation and electrochemistry in tetrahydrofuran was measured by employing theoretical and experimental approaches for three systems: Al(OTF)3/THF, Al(OTF)3 plus LiCl in THF, and AlCl3/THF. The high consistency between measured and computed spectroscopic aspects associated with Al(OTF)3/THF electrolyte provided both a rationale for understanding Al complex-ion formation in a Cl- free environment and an approach for examining the effect of Cl- on Al speciation. Room-temperature Al plating was achieved from dilute solutions ([Al] = 0.1M) at potentials ≥ 0V (vs. Al⁄Al3+). Cl- is found to enable facile Al plating and SEM reveals that Al is electrochemically deposited as nanocrystalline grains.


The gathering of people in everyday life is intertwined with travelling to negotiated locations. As a result, mobile phones are often used to rearrange meetings when one or more participants are late or cannot make it on time. Our research is based on the hypothesis that the provision of location data can enhance the experience of people who are meeting each other in different locations. This paper presents work-in-progress on a novel approach to share one's location data in real-time which is visualised on a web-based map in a privacy conscious way. Disposable Maps allows users to select contacts from their phone's address book who then receive up-to-date location data. The utilisation of peer-to-peer notifications and the application of unique URLs for location storage and presentation enable location sharing whilst ensuring users' location privacy. In contrast to other location sharing services like Google Latitude, Disposable Maps enables ad hoc location sharing to actively selected location receivers for a fixed period of time in a specific given situation. We present first insights from an initial application user test and show future work on the approach of disposable information allocation.


This volume brings together a selection of contributions presented at the 15th European Symposium on Languages for Special Purposes, held at the University of Bergamo (Italy) from 29 August to 2 September 2005. The conference title, « New Trends in Specialized Discourse, reflects the emphasis given to recent orientations in research, coming from established as well as new authors in the field. As suggested by the title of this volume, the analysis of specialized discourse calls for a specialized discourse analysis. When applied linguists deal with vocational discourses, they are faced with a double challenge: on the one hand, an understanding of textualisations often alien to the general language; on the other hand, the use of analytical tools designed specifically for their investigation. The studies presented in this volume position themselves somewhere along this continuum, focusing alternatively on converging/diverging features of texts and discourses.


Myxoma is most frequent tumor of the heart, and usually appears isolated. This case involves a 64-year-old female with left atrial myxoma and associated ischemic heart disease. The patient was surgically treated with excision of the myxoma and coronary artery bypass grafting with internal mammary artery to left anterior descending artery. There were no perioperative complications, and the patient is asymptomatic at present. In conclusion, when there exists evidence of associated pathology to a cardiac myxoma, the case must be integrally evaluated in order to effect a complete treatment.


Fishes are the cheapest source of animal protein and it plays an important role in the diet of many people in both developed and developing countries. It is an important ingredient in the Nigerian traditional cuisine, cat fish being one of the most valued and very diverse groups of bony fish. The catfishes are a monophyletic group, belonging to the super-order called the Ostariophysi. Freshly caught fish spoil easily and therefore requires adequate preservation and storage. Of all flesh foods, fish is the most susceptible to tissue decomposition, development of rancidity, and microbial spoilage. Fish begin to deteriorate as soon as they leave the water. The preservation of fish is therefore considered to be a major hindrance to its production and utilisation especially in the tropical countries in Africa. The four most popular methods of fish preservation are freezing, canning, smoking and pickling, the major preservation method being pickling or salting, which has been used for centuries. In this present study, the effect of extracts from three indigenous spices; Piper guinensis (uziza), Xylopia aethiopicum (okada) and Myrustica monodora (ehuru) on the preservation of smoked-dried catfish stored for six weeks were evaluated using brine solution as control. Samples treated with uziza showed the lowest moisture content of 6.5% and lowest mean FFA formation of 0.55%, which was significantly different (p<0.5) from the other spices. The mean peroxide value range of 5.8-15.1 meq/kg was observed throughout the storage period for all the spices used. Thiobarbituric acid values ranged from 0.6mg/kg-1.4mg/kg with the lowest mean value of 0.37 mg/kg recorded in fish samples treated with uziza while the highest mean TBA value of 1.14mg was obtained in ehuru treated samples. This new research reveals that the three indigenous spices used, including Piper guinensis, Myristica monodora and Xylophia aethiopicum had chemical preservative and antioxidant properties. Among the three spices, Piper guinensis (uziza) was found to have the most effective preservation potential of smoked-dried fish during storage. This new result is anticipated to provide a simple, cheaper, healthier and safer method of fish preservation in developing countries.


Erythema induratum of Bazin is uncommon in children. We report the case of a 12 year-old girl from China, referred by her pediatrician with long lasting lesions of erythema nodosum and a positive tuberculin skin test (20 mm). She had no other symptoms. Physical examination showed purple nodular lesions located on both legs, mostly on the pretibial areas but also on her calves. A chest X-ray was normal. A skin biopsy was obtained, showing granulomata and septolobular panniculitis. Attempts to identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis by culture and PCR were negative. M. tuberculosis was isolated in one of three gastric aspirate samples. She was treated with isoniazid, rifampin, pyrazinamide and ethambutol. There was complete remission of the lesions. This case highlights the importance of considering erythema induratum in atypical cases of erythema nodosum and the need to perform a thorough investigation in search of active tuberculosis.


This paper proposes some expanded rough set models with maximal compatible classes as primitive granules, introduces two new granules for extending rough set model, and designs algorithms to solve maximal compatible classes, to find the lower and upper approximations according to the newly granules, to compute reducts and minimal reducts with attribute significance. It also verifies the validity of algorithms by examples. These provide an important and implemental theoretical base for rough set theory to deal with problems in incomplete information systems.


As a means of characterising the diffusion parameters of fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites within a relatively short time frame, the potential use of short term tests on epoxy films to predict the long-term behaviour is investigated. Reference is made to the literature to assess the effectiveness of Fickian and anomalous diffusion models to describe solution uptake in epoxies. The influence of differing exposure conditions on the diffusion in epoxies, in particular the effect of solution type and temperature, are explored. Experimental results, where the solution uptake in desiccated (D) or undesiccated (U) thin films of a commercially available epoxy matrix subjected to water (W), salt water (SW), or alkali concrete pore solution (CPS) at either 20 or 60 °C, are also presented. It was found that the type of solution did not significantly influence the diffusion behaviour at 20°C and that the mass uptake profile was anomalous. Exposure to 60°C accelerated the initial diffusion behaviour and appeared to raise the level of saturation. In spite of the accelerated approach, conclusive values of uptake at saturation remained elusive even at an exposure period of 5 years. This finding questions the viability of using short-term thin film results to predict the long-term mechanical performance of FRP materials.


Images play an important role in visualization. As users are more willing to adopt a product if it evokes pleasurable feelings the aesthetic appeal of interfaces becomes more important. Thus, there is a growing need to generate also images which appear aesthetically to the user. Starting with the modularities of the human visual system, we derive six dimensions of visual aesthetics. For each dimension we explore, inspired by principles of the visual arts and insights of cognitive neuroscience, which pecularities of the dimensions are particularly adequate for an aesthetic impression. Accompanied by a fair number of image examples, these considerations result in an easy to understand guideline for computer scientists and interface designers how to deal with images in terms of aesthetics.


Ankylosing Spondylosis denotes seronegative arthritis that causes inflammation and eventual fusion of the spine and the spinal joints. Involvement of peripheral joints and extraarticular manifestations. it includes-Ankylosing spondylitis (AS); (DISH); End-stage spondylosis multiform (EASM); Ossified posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL). The prevalence ranges from 0.1 to 1 percent of the population, M>F, between1540 years; 95% share the genetic marker HLA-B27. Numerous bony changes to spine include-Intraosseous bone loss; erosion; sclerosis; fractures; extra osseous squaring; syndesmo and enthesophytes . Incidence of ASVF is 3.5 times more than in general people, 75% in the cervical spine followed by thoracic and lumbar spine. There is 11 times more chance of Spinal cord injury than in general. Mean age of fracture is 63.4 years. Treatment is challenging due to kyphosis, osteoporosis, associated comorbities and J Spine Res Surg 2021; 3 (3): 081-090 DOI: 10.26502/fjsrs0032 Journal of Spine Research and Surgery 82 cardiopulmonary restrictions. Treatment goals are to reduce or preventinflammation, ankylosis, abnormal posture. The principle is to treat the fracture as long bone osteoporotic diaphyseal fracture. Apart from 360* fracture fixation with long construct, MIS surgery, other fracture managements in AS are deformity correction, laminectomy, laminoplasty, rhizotomy, neuromodulation. Complication rates are high,wound infections up to16%,pulmonary complications up to 63%, 23% mechanical complications among various reports. A standard guideline should exist for ASVF workup, management and complications appraisal.


INTRODUCTION
Since the influenza A/H1N1 pandemic of 2009 to 2010, numerous studies have described the clinical course and outcome of the different subtypes of influenza (A/H1N1, A/H3N2, and B). A recent systematic literature review concluded that there were no appreciable differences in either clinical presentation or disease severity among these subtypes, but study parameters limit the applicability of these results to military populations. We sought to evaluate differences in disease severity among influenza subtypes in a cohort of healthy, primarily outpatient adult U.S. Department of Defense beneficiaries.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
From 2009 to 2014, we enrolled otherwise healthy adults age 18 to 65 years with influenza-like illness in an observational cohort study based in 5 U.S. military medical centers. Serial nasopharyngeal swabs were collected for determination of etiology and viral shedding by polymerase chain reaction. The presence and severity of symptoms was assessed by interview and patient diary.

RESULTS
Over a 5-year period, a total of 157 adults with laboratory-confirmed influenza and influenza subtype were enrolled. Of these, 69 (44%) were positive for influenza A(H1N1), 69 (44%) for influenza A(H3N2), and 19 (12%) for influenza B. About 61% were male, 64% were active duty military personnel, and 72% had received influenza vaccine in the past 8 months. Almost 10% were hospitalized with influenza. Seasonal influenza virus distribution among enrollees mirrored that of nationwide trends each year of study. Individuals with A/H1N1 had upper respiratory composite scores that were lower than those with A/H3N2. Multivariate models indicated that individuals with A(H1N1) and B had increased lower respiratory symptom scores when compared to influenza A(H3N2) (A[H1N1]: 1.51 [95% CI 0.47, 2.55]; B: 1.46 [95% CI 0.09, 2.83]), whereas no other differences in symptom severity scores among influenza A(H1N1), influenza A(H3N2), and influenza B infection were observed. Overall, influenza season (maximum in 2012-2013 season) and female sex of the participant were found to be associated with increased influenza symptom severity.

CONCLUSIONS
Our study of influenza in a cohort of otherwise healthy, outpatient adult Department of Defense beneficiaries over 5 influenza seasons revealed few differences between influenza A(H1N1), influenza A(H3N2), and influenza B infection with respect to self-reported disease severity or clinical outcomes. This study highlights the importance of routine, active, and laboratory-based surveillance to monitor ongoing trends and severity of influenza in various populations to inform prevention measures.


Pharmaceuticals are environmental pollutants that are a major threat to aquatic ecosystems and very little is known about their ecological consequences. In this study growth, survival and behaviour (sociability, activity and boldness) of perch fry (Perca fluviatilis) were examined in order to study the possible effects of exposure to a benzodiazepine anxiolytic drug, Oxazepam, during embryonic development. The study tested following hypotheses: (1) perch growth is affected positively by exposure during embryonic development; (2) early perch survival is affected positively by exposure during embryonic development; and (3) boldness and activity increases while sociability decreases in perch fry exposed during embryonic development. Embryos of naturally spawned perch were exposed to water with two different concentrations of Oxazepam. The embryos were exposed during different parts (24-hour periods) of the embryonic development, because embryos may be more vulnerable at certain times during embryonic development and/or because the exposure at different times can produce different effects. Embryos were also chronically exposed, which is essential for aquatic systems because the influx of pharmaceuticals is more or less continuous. In line with hypothesis 1 treatment with Oxazepam affected growth positively. Similarly, survival increased with Oxazepam exposure as predicted by hypothesis 2. Perch fry exposed to the high concentration and fry exposed late during embryonic development survived better. In addition, as hypothesized in hypothesis 3, perch fry exposed to both concentrations exhibited increased activity and reduced sociability although boldness did not increase. Further studies are required to demonstrate the ecological consequences of Oxazepam in aquatic systems.


35 cases of lumbar disc herniation were examined by clinical diagnosis and CT scanning. The results showed that there were 36 disc herniation (1 case of dual disc herniation). The radius vector of disc was 6.3 mm and the transverse diameter was 18.6 mm. There were 30 cases with sac of dura mater of spinal cord or nerve roots pressed and adhesive, yellow ligaments pachismus, lateral recessus filling and narrow bony lumbar vertebral canal. All patients were treated by means of manipulation. The clinical results showed that 29 cases (82.8%) had superior effects and 33 cases were effective. The clinical effective rate was 94.2%. CT re-scanning showed that disc reposition completely returned was 6 cases, and partially returned was 24 cases. The successful rate of the reposition by manipulation was 83.3%. The clinical analysis and CT showed that herniation of lumbar disc could be repositioned by means of manipulation. The reposition of herniation of disc was a key factor in clinical results but was by no means the only one. With regard to long duration of illness, repeated invasion, combined narrow bony lumbar vertebral canal, and non-improved central type herniation after a long period of treatment, the herniation of disc should be treated by operation.


Mediumto long-term changes in unemployment appear to be closely correlated with mediumto long-term changes in private investment. This becomes a puzzle once we abandon the Keynesian framework as an explanation for medium-term movements in unemployment and replace it with the natural-rate framework of Friedman and Phelps. It also opens up the possibility that factors affecting private saving and investment may impinge directly on the natural rate of unemployment. One such factor is the age structure of the population. We explore these possibilities and find a surprisingly robust mediumto long-run relationship between investment and unemployment both over time and across countries. JEL classification: J1, E2


The central nervous system links the body's metabolic demands with the neuromuscular act of breathing. Automatic and voluntary control systems function together to adjust ventilation in response to chemical and somatic signals. Excitatory or inhibitory outputs from higher brain centers descend the spinal cord and influence the motoneurons to the respiratory muscles. Lesions at any level can disrupt the normal respiratory pattern and may or may not produce alveolar hypoventilation. Several neurologic diseases of importance in veterinary practice may affect the respiratory system. Ventilatory insufficiency tends to occur late in the progression of these disease. Prompt localization of the lesion and correction of the underlying dysfunction is often critical to patient survival.


Abstract. A low-complex, low bit rate, energy-efficient image compression algorithm explicitly designed for resource-constrained visual sensor networks applied for surveillance, battle field, habitat monitoring, etc. is presented, where voluminous amount of image data has to be communicated over a bandwidth-limited wireless medium. The proposed method overcomes the energy limitation of individual nodes and is investigated in terms of image quality, entropy, processing time, overall energy consumption, and system lifetime. This algorithm is highly energy efficient and extremely fast since it applies energy-aware zonal binary discrete cosine transform (DCT) that computes only the few required significant coefficients and codes them using enhanced complementary Golomb Rice code without using any floating point operations. Experiments are performed using the Atmel Atmega128 and MSP430 processors to measure the resultant energy savings. Simulation results show that the proposed energy-aware fast zonal transform consumes only 0.3% of energy needed by conventional DCT. This algorithm consumes only 6% of energy needed by Independent JPEG Group (fast) version, and it suits for embedded systems requiring low power consumption. The proposed scheme is unique since it significantly enhances the lifetime of the camera sensor node and the network without any need for distributed processing as was traditionally required in existing algorithms.


This paper explores Jonathan Wilson's A Palestine Affair (2003), reflecting on the parallels between its underlying logic on one hand and the illogic of liberal Zionism and the state of Israel on the other hand. The paper revolves around the rationalizing, detective apparatus deployed in the novel both thematically and formally. More specifically, it dwells on the ways in which the form of the novel buttresses its ideological underpinnings, or rather its content. I argue that the form selected by the writer; that is, the detective novel, mirrors the Zionist quest for colonizing Palestine, especially in the context of Jerusalem. I further suggest that by means of detection, Jerusalem is familiarized in the text so much so that readers might think of it as a new London, with the "here" of Britain expanded and its cultural incorporation into the Zionist imaginary facilitated. That familiarity obfuscates and negates the presence of Palestinians in Jerusalem and Palestine at large, who are mostly portrayed as marginal, inconsequential, and criminal characters. At the same time, the novel gives rise to an alternative creative, detective vision that does not necessarily entail the use of typical methods of detection, a vision that mirrors the Zionist conquest, especially in its so-called liberal form. Employing what I call counter-detection, I aim to excavate the problematic aspects of both detection and creative detection (detection through indirection) and show their complicity with the conquest of Palestine through paying close attention to the writer's Zionization of the artist on whose life the protagonist is modelled.


The present work tries to clarify by the experimental results, some phenomenological aspects concerning the use of water mist jet of different temperature for the liquid fuel suppression. The role of some significant parameters of the mist jet have been observed in a fire extinguish evolution. In order to study the effectiveness of the suppression of an ethanol pool fire with one water mist nozzle, a series of experiments were conducted under different conditions in a closed space. The fire source is a square shaped pan of 30 by 40 cm of ethanol. The water temperature generating water mist ranged from 15 °C to 30 and 40 °C. The temperatures graphics in three points situated above the flame at different heights, throughout all the 15 fire suppression tests, allowed the authors to present findings concerning different effects and limitation of suppression, for each temperature (15, 30 and 40 °C). An important conclusion issued from this paper is very promising in terms of potential of mist jet in fire control and suppression. However, it should be noted that the results are limited to the experimental conditions because it is still difficult to get the functional relationships of pool fire extinction mechanisms with water mist. The water mist fire suppression system represents a preferred alternative to other related fire protection systems. Due of its behaviour, the mist water systems, as clean ones, are now used in many areas, including the electrical zones of the industrial plants and civil buildings.


Our concern is the problem of determining the data complexity of answering an ontology-mediated query (OMQ) formulated in linear temporal logic LTL over (Z,<) and deciding whether it is rewritable to an FO(<)-query, possibly with some extra predicates. First, we observe that, in line with the circuit complexity and FO-definability of regular languages, OMQ answering in AC0, ACC0 and NC1 coincides with FO(<,≡)-rewritability using unary predicates x ≡ 0 (mod n), FO(<,MOD)-rewritability, and FO(RPR)-rewritability using relational primitive recursion, respectively. We prove that, similarly to known PSᴘᴀᴄᴇ-completeness of recognising FO(<)-definability of regular languages, deciding FO(<,≡)- and FO(<,MOD)-definability is also PSᴘᴀᴄᴇ-complete (unless ACC0 = NC1). We then use this result to show that deciding FO(<)-, FO(<,≡)- and FO(<,MOD)-rewritability of LTL OMQs is ExᴘSᴘᴀᴄᴇ-complete, and that these problems become PSᴘᴀᴄᴇ-complete for OMQs with a linear Horn ontology and an atomic query, and also a positive query in the cases of FO(<)- and FO(<,≡)-rewritability. Further, we consider FO(<)-rewritability of OMQs with a binary-clause ontology and identify OMQ classes, for which deciding it is PSᴘᴀᴄᴇ-, Π2p- and coNP-complete.


Currently, ten genotypes (G1-G10) of Echinococcus Sensu Lato have been explicitly identified on the basis of taxonomic criteria. These include morphometric keys, host specificity, geographical distribution, phylogenetic analysis and genome mapping. However, a few emergent species of genus Echinococcus have been indigenously confirmed in some autonomous regions of Tibet plateau and Africa where there is little known about their biological aspects and potential pathogenicity in intermediate and definitive hosts. This chapter is focused on the parasite history, life cycle, phenotypic aspects, epidemiology, zoonotic potential and phylogeny relationship of two enigmatic parasites namely: Echinococcus shiquicus and Echinococcus felidis. This aims to provide a better understanding of their taxonomic status, public health problems and biological features in the mentioned regions.


Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of drug-coated balloons (DCB) for de novo large coronary vessels. Methods: One hundred and two patients were retrospectively enrolled in this study, there were 104 lesions with the reference lumen diameter of target vessel more than 2.8 mm and patients were treated with DCB in de novo lesions during May 2015 and July 2017 in our center. Coronary artery angiography and quantitative coronary angiography were performed in 82 (80.4%) patients at follow up period ((8.1±1.7) months post procedure). The endpoints were late lumen loss (LLL) at follow up,and major adverse cardiac events (MACE) including cardiac death, myocardial infarction (MI), target lesion revascularization (TLR) and stent or target lesion thrombosis at 12 months post procedure. Results: Ninety-eight lesions were treated with DCB only, 6 (5.9%) bailout drug-eluting stent (DES) were used because of severe coronary dissection, 2 patients (2.0%) received revascularization driven by acute ischemic events during hospitalization. Cutting balloons and NSE balloons were used in 65.4% (68/104) and 26.0% (27/104) lesions. The lesion length was (12.57±3.58) mm and the DCB length was (19.87±4.55) mm. The late lumen loss was (0.01±0.52) mm during angiographic follow up. The TLR rate and overall MACE rate was 3.9% (4/102) and 3.9% (4/102) and there was no death,MI and target lesion thrombosis at 12 months follow up. Conclusion: DCB treatment for de novo large coronary vessels is effective and safe.


The study examined the effect of cutting lablab forage at different stages of growth (6, 12, 18 and 24 weeks) on the proximate composition, growth performance, nutrient digestibility and carcass characteristics of weaned rabbits. Lablab forage cut at different stages of growth were analyzed for dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), crude fibre (CF), ether extract (EE), ash and nitrogen free extract (FE). Thirty (30) weaned rabbits with an initial weight of 541.67g were randomly allotted to five dietary treatments of six (6) rabbits per treatment in a completely randomized design. Diet I was the control (without lablab forage). Diet 2, 3, 4, and 5 contained lablab forage cut at 6, 12, 18 and 24 weeks, post germination, respectively. The diets were formulated to be isonitrogenous (18% CP). Measurements taken included live weight, feed intake, hematological parameters, carcass and organ characteristics. Weight gain, feed coversion ratio, cost per gain and nutrient digesbility coefficient were calculated. There were significant (P<0.05) differences in all the proximate parameters measured. The dry matter and crude fibre values showed steady increase as the forage plant advanced in age while the crude protein values decreased significantly (P<0.05) as the plant aged. Rabbits fed lablab forage cut at 12 weeks of age post germination performed significantly (P<0.05) better than those on other dietary treatments. Except for nitrogen free extract, apparent nutrient digestibilities were significantly (P<0.05) different across the dietary treatments. The haematological indices measured were within the normal range established for healthy rabbits. There were significant (P<0.05) differences in all the carcass parameter measured except for intestinal length, weight of the stomach and head. It was concluded that lablab purpureus forage should be harvested at 12 weeks of age post germination for optimum performance and nutrient utilization in weaned rabbits. Keywords: Lablab, forage, performance, growth, rabbits.


The farnesyltransferase inhibitor SCH66336 exhibits antitumor activity in vitro and in vivo; however, its mechanism of action is still unresolved. We found that SCH66336 suppressed growth and induced apoptosis of human head and neck squamous carcinoma cells (HNSCC). SCH66336 suppressed protein kinase B/Akt activity as well as the phosphorylation of the Akt substrates glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3 beta, forkhead transcription factor, and BAD. Infection of SqCC/Y1 cells with an adenovirus that contained a constitutively active form of Akt rescued cells from SCH66336-induced apoptosis. These results suggest that SCH66336 is a potent apoptosis inducer in HNSCC cells and that it may act by suppressing the Akt pathway.


The Gram-positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis has a complete set of enzymes for the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle and can grow aerobically using most of the TCA cycle intermediates (malate, fumarate, succinate and citrate) as a sole carbon source. The B. subtilis genome sequence contains three paralogous two-component regulatory systems, CitST, DctSR and YufLM. CitST and DctSR activate the expression of a transporter of the Mg(2+)-citrate complex (CitM) and a fumarate and succinate transporter (DctP), respectively. These findings prompted an investigation of whether the YufL sensor and its cognate regulator, YufM, play a role in malate uptake. This paper reports that the YufM regulator shows in vitro binding to the promoter region of two malate transporter genes, maeN and yflS, and is responsible for inducing their expression in vivo. It was also found that inactivation of the yufM or maeN genes resulted in bacteria that could not grow in a minimal salts medium containing malate as a sole carbon source, indicating that the induction of the MaeN transporter by the YufM regulator is essential for the utilization of malate as a carbon source. Inactivation of the yufL gene resulted in the constitutive expression of MaeN. This expression was suppressed by reintroduction of the kinase domain of YufL, indicating that the YufL sensor is required for proper signal detection and signalling specificity. The authors propose that a phosphatase activity of YufL plays an important role in the YufLM two-component regulatory system. The studies reported here have revealed that members of a set of paralogous two-component regulatory systems in B. subtilis, CitST, DctSR and YufLM, are involved in a related function--uptake (and metabolism) of the TCA cycle intermediates--but with distinct substrate specificities.


In this paper,the artificial intelligence control technology is used in sewage treatment plants, we use fuzzy control method in the sewage treatment process, we use the dynamic fuzzy control in the water quality of the sewage treatment process parameters , on this basis, we completed the automatic control system software design, the upper control software we use the WinCC configuration ,the next bit control softwarewe use the STEP7 5.1. We use the object-oriented programming idea to improve the efficiency of automatic control software. We developed the application communication protocol between the upper and lower computer layer, the next crew and the host computer can run independently when they are not connected,when the communication connects again, you can pass the parameters of the system from each other to avoid the loss of valid data. The central control system monitors the plant process and equipment operation all the time, the remote control substitutes for the original analog console, it is important simulation parameters to trend display, allowing the operator to better control water quality.


The child that is slow to walk causes concern. When cerebral palsy, mental retardation and muscular dystrophy have been excluded, what remains? Thirty five children (19 boys and 16 girls) with hypermobile joints, blue sclera and bat ears (the 'lax ligament syndrome') were referred by general practitioners to a general paediatric outpatient clinic over two years. Three were referred in the first three months of life because of clicking hips; 14 children aged one to two years, had delayed milestones of motor development and exhibited bottom shuffling; 10 children aged four to five years presented with 'growing pains' or 'funny gait' and eight older children had multiple minor complaints. The lax ligament syndrome is a comparatively common mild collagenopathy. It may well come to light on routine surveillance in general practice. It is dominantly inherited and improves with time; management is therefore expectant and symptomatic. A firm and reassuring diagnosis can be given which saves both anxiety and investigations.


Summery This paper proposes an optimized version of the Hamming code. The paper begins with identifying a seed that can be used as basis to generate Hamming codes. It then shows that starting with a message that is only two bits long, along with three parity bits; one can add extra message bits incrementally. This approach results in significant reduction in the circuitry and provides flexibility to designers. Only the H(7,4) was sufficient to show an improvement of 33 percent in the hardware circuitry. Similar gains for larger sizes are also argued for both hardware and software implementations.


Background and Aim

A long-term trend in early ripening of winegrapes in southern Australia has been attributed to an increasing growing season temperature, soil drying linked to global warming and crop management. However, the 5 × 5-km cell size used used in the continental-scale model to derive soil properties was too coarse for the study vineyards of 0.2–16 ha. This paper aims to test the modelling conclusions using long records of annual rainfall for sites as close as possible to the experimental vineyards.

Methods and Results

If prolonged soil drying has occurred, it should be correlated with a decrease in annual rainfall, given that actual evapotranspiration should change little as the effect of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration compensates for the effect of temperature increase on evaporation. Analysis of the longest, most complete Bureau of Meteorology records showed a highly significant decrease in rainfall (27 mm/decade) at Margaret River, but paradoxically no significant early ripening. Conversely, significant earlier ripening on the Mornington Peninsula was associated with a significant increase in rainfall (8.5 mm/decade).

Conclusion

Although growing season temperature and crop management to reduce yields may have contributed to earlier ripening, the case for an effect of prolonged soil drying was not supported.

Significance of the Study

The output of simulation models describing complex biological systems needs to be tested wherever possible against experimental data and observations. Also, the scale of modelling should be appropriate to the system being studied, especially for soil, which has marked spatial variability.


A novel highly tunable polarization rotator (PR) based on channel waveguide on silicon is introduced and analyzed. The proposed SiO2/Si channel is infiltrated with nematic liquid crystal (NLC) material of type E7. The design parameters of the NLC channel PR have been studied to obtain an efficient polarization conversion with an ultrashort device length. Additionally, a tolerance analysis of the structure geometrical parameters, temperature, and operating wavelength is reported in detail. The modal analysis of the NLC PR is carried out using full-vectorial finite-difference method (FVFDM). Further, the propagation characteristics through the suggested design are obtained using full-vectorial finite-difference beam propagation method (FVFD-BPM). The numerical results reveal that the reported PR of compact device length of 4.02 μm can achieve nearly 100% polarization conversion ratio with insertion loss of 2.19 dB and good crosstalk of –21.73 dB at a wavelength of 1.55 μm. Further, the crosstalk would be better than –20 dB within the wavelength range of 1.55 ± 0.04 μm. Moreover, the polarization conversion ratio can be controlled by applying an external electric field. To the best of the authors' knowledge, it is the first time to introduce ultracompact highly tunable PR based on a channel on silicon platform with simple design and broadband operation.


Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation(HSCT), has been accepted as a feasible treatment option that prolongs survival in hematological malignancies. Stem cell choice during hematopoietic stem cell transplantation can differ according to the experience of physicians, mostly treated hematological diseases in the centers or ongoing clinical trials. In this chapter we will discuss the advantages and disadvan‐ tages of three stem cell sources peripheral blood, bone marrow and umbilical cord


Roots, cotyledons, leaves, stems, pods, and seeds of three soy cultivars were analyzed for their content of isoflavones, flavonols, coumarins, and phenolic acid derivatives with three samplings during a three-month period. The extracts were analyzed by HPLC/DAD and HPLC/MS, allowing us to confirm the presence of daidzein and genistein derivatives as the major isoflavones and to characterize coumarins, most flavonols and phenolic acid derivatives. Seeds exhibited the highest content of isoflavones: 12.61 g/kg of dry weight (DW) in cv. Emiliana; 8.97 g/kg of DW in cv. Elvir; 4.49 g/kg of DW in cv. Kure, and roots are the only part with coumarins, ranging from 4.08 g/kg of DW (cv. Emiliana) to 1.29 g/kg of DW (cv. Elvir) for the longest sampling period. Leaves, pods, and stems have flavonols, and in particular leaves showed: 7.28 g/kg of DW in cv. Emiliana; 6.57 g/kg of DW in cv. Elvir; 7.08 g/kg of DW in cv. Kure. The high content of isoflavones found in the seeds could be ascribed to the natural conditions under which the soy plants were grown.


Patterns have been successfully used in software design to reuse proven solutions. But the complex interconnections and the number of pattern collections is becoming a barrier for identifying relevant patterns and pattern combinations for a given design context. More formal representations of patterns are needed that allow machine processing and the creation of systematic pattern languages that guide composition of patterns into coherent design solutions. In this paper, we present a technique based on Description Logic and Semantic Web technologies to address these problems. A metamodel is presented for developing pattern languages using this technology. Usability patterns are used to demonstrate how this metamodel can be instantiated to form a pattern language for that domain. Our technique provides a computational basis for building intelligent tools that utilize patterns, known best solutions to recurring problems, to support software development activities.


El Nino events cause a reduction in rainfall in most parts of Indonesia. The precipitation reduction varies depending on the intensity of El Nino and geographic location areas concerned. Reduction of rainfall in Indonesia could potentially disrupt the operational of irrigation in some areas in Indonesia. As a result of El Nino events, there has been a decrease in the average food production in Indonesia during the years 1968 to 2000. This study aims to analyze the influence of El Nino on rainfall characteristics in Sekampung Irrigation Area and Rawa Sragi Irrigation Area in Lampung Province. Sekampung Irrigation Area and Rawa Sragi Irrigation Area are inland irrigation area and swamp irrigation area, respectively. Rainfall data from Pringsewu Rainfall Station (for Sekampung Irrigation Area) and Palas Rainfall Station (for Rawa Sragi Irrigation Area) have been used to investigate the impact of El Nino on the potential reduction in the irrigation water availability in both irrigation areas. The results show that due to the influence of El Nino, there has been decline on rainfall in the dry season in the area observed. The month of August, September, and October are the most sensitive months to the effects of El Nino. The results also showed that there is no fact indicates whether inland irrigation areas are more sensitive to El Nino impact rather than swamp irrigation areas and vice versain Lampung Province. Based on the classification of climate patterns in Indonesia, the whole area in Lampung province is included in areas where rainfall is strongly influenced by the monsoon circulation. Based on this fact, we can conclude that there is no different impact of El Nino on Way Sekampung and Rawa Sragi irrigation area.


Heart failure is one of the most important cardiovascular problems in the United States with 5.7 million adults afflicted in 2015 (1). Left ventricular assist devices (LAVD) implantation in patients with congestive heart failure has excellent outcomes when compared to medical therapy (2,3) and has become an important option for the treatment of patients with advanced heart failure (4-6). Currently, approximately 5,000 to 6,000 patients are treated annually with LVADs (7). Nowadays, the number of LVAD implantations exceeds the number of annual heart transplantations worldwide (6). LVADs are used as a bridge to recovery, a bridge to transplant (BTT), a bridge to decision, and as destination therapy (DT) (6). This rapid increase in the use of LVAD, and modalities of use, raised ethical questions about its use, patient's autonomy as in most of the time the patient and surrogates are overwhelmed with the critical condition the patient is presenting with, and the details about this new technology. How do we ensure the patient's beneficence? Is the new condition acceptable by the patient or not? Is the goal the quantity or the quality of life (8)? What is the psychologic status of the patient? Will he or she accept having this metallic pump inside his or her body ticking all the time? Will he or she be able to handle care of the LVAD (as changing batteries, taking care of LVAD drive to avoid infection, anticoagulation with its complications and regular blood tests and regular follow-up with the LVAD medical team?


Objective: To explore differences in the background knowledge of Endometrial Cancer (EC), its risk factors, symptoms and prognosis of Endometrial Cancer (EC) between British White (BW) and British South Asian (BSA) women who had undergone treatment for stage I endometrial cancer within the past 3-years. Study design: Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews exploring knowledge; diagnosis; treatment; follow-up; and survivorship were undertaken and analysed using Thematic Analysis. Results: Twenty-one women were interviewed (13 BW and 8 BSA). BW and BSA women reported similar views, experiences and concerns with regards to EC. Knowledge appeared to differ amongst the two groups with BSA women reporting being more aware that unscheduled vaginal bleeding could be associated with a malignancy but having lower levels of knowledge of the risk factors that can lead to EC, compared to BW women. There was a lack of understanding of the difference between cervical cancer and EC and as a result, many women reported taking reassurance from negative cervical cytology as excluding EC. There was also the misconception amongst some of the women that there was a link between sexual behaviour and EC. Women from both groups used the lay healthcare system to discuss their situation/ symptoms, however BSA women reported to have specifically sought out women within their social network who had previously undergone treatment for EC. Conclusions: Greater effort is needed to raise awareness in both the BW/BSA communities of the symptoms associated with EC that should prompt medical review. Educational efforts are required to overcome the reported perception that EC is synonymous with cervical cancer and cannot be detected by cervical screening. © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


BACKGROUND
Capitation rates for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) funded under Title XXI of the Social Security Act were based on assumptions about the health care needs of children enrolled in this program. It has been suggested that parents are selective in enrolling children who are, in their opinion, most likely to need care, and that families who do not view their children as needing such care are more likely to ignore opportunities to seek or to maintain enrollment in SCHIP insurance. Thus, there have been concerns that enrollees might have more health conditions than a general population of children.

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that children in Title XXI have more ongoing health conditions than expected by comparing health status data from enrollees in 1 state SCHIP program to a nationally representative sample of children in the United States.

METHODS
This study used statewide data obtained in a survey of Florida SCHIP program enrollees and national data obtained on a subset of the children who were assessed in the 1994 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). We examined health and demographic data collected by means of a structured telephone survey from parents for a random sample of 2432 children 2 to 18 years old who participated in the Florida Healthy Kids Program during the time period of October 1, 1997 through September 30, 1998. We compared these data to information on a national sample of all 26 845 children in the same age range whose health was assessed by the 1994 NHIS, and to a subset of the 6460 children in the NHIS sample whose family income met the eligibility criteria for SCHIP. To do this, we eliminated those children who were receiving Medicaid and those children whose household income levels were known to be above the eligibility level for SCHIP. We also excluded children whose household income was not reported. Thus, effectively this subsample contained non-Medicaid children, whose family incomes were below 185% of the federal poverty level. In Florida, a parent interview conducted by telephone included the Questionnaire for Identifying Children With Chronic Conditions (QuICCC), and their responses were used to determine if the child had any chronic health conditions. The QuICCC is a validated questionnaire containing 39-item sequences that ask about consequences of health conditions in children. It not only provides an overall classification of whether the child has a chronic condition, but also yields information about the consequences affecting the child within 3 condition-related domains: 1) functional limitations; 2) dependency on compensatory mechanisms or assistance; and 3) service need or use above and beyond routine care for age. The 1994 NHIS Core Interview and Disability Supplement contained a series of questions about children's functioning and service use that simulated the QuICCC, and we applied a previously published algorithm for determining the presence of a chronic condition using these items. Both data sets included comparable information on parental ratings of children's health status (excellent, very good, good, fair, poor), and on school absences, bed days, and restricted activity days in the previous 2 weeks.

RESULTS
Children in the Florida SCHIP program were more than twice as likely to have chronic health conditions than similarly aged children in the general population or children in the income restricted national subsample (31% vs 15.9% and 14.6%, respectively) and there also were more SCHIP children with school absences (29% vs 18% and 16.7%, respectively). In contrast, the rating of overall health of SCHIP children was not poorer according to their parents, and they did not have more activity restrictions. Children in Florida SCHIP who had conditions were more likely to experience related consequences within each of 3 domains, and they were nearly 3 times as likely to have all 3 types of consequences (7% in Florida SCHIP sample vs 2.8% and 1.7% in the full national sample and in the income-matched subsamome-matched subsample). However, the Florida SCHIP enrollees differed from the age and income-matched national sample in terms of the proportion of Hispanics. Thus, to verify these findings, we weighted the SCHIP sample to match the racial and ethnic proportions found in the national sample and repeated the analyses. The findings were robust, and there was no change in the percentage of children with special health care needs after such weighting.

CONCLUSIONS
Overall, the results of these analyses support the notion of adverse selection and retention in the SCHIP program. This is unlikely to be the result of aggressive marketing in enrollment sites that serve children with more medical problems, as Florida health care providers rank third as a source of information about the Title XXI program after family and friends and the schools. In addition, Florida has active outreach and single-page application process for Medicaid and an aggressive program to move children to Title V, which also should minimize the numbers of children with special health care needs enrolled in SCHIP. Nevertheless, these findings suggest that the children being enrolled in Florida's SCHIP program are not the largely healthy population that was envisioned. If replicated in other SCHIP programs, these findings raise questions about the basic underlying assumptions concerning the health of potential enrollees and could have implications for the long-term fiscal viability of the program.


ABSTRACT This study aimed to understand the association between leader–member exchange (LMX) and employee job insecurity. We proposed that LMX quality may foster a sense of organizational insider status, which could reduce the perception of job insecurity. Moreover, the extent to which employees identify their supervisor with the organization (i.e. the extent of supervisor organizational embodiment, SOE) and the variation in LMX quality within the work group (i.e. LMX differentiation) were theorized to be moderators of the effect of LMX quality on perceived organizational insider status. Time-lagged data were collected from a sample of 186 Chinese employees working in 31 work groups. The results indicated that perceived organizational insider status mediated the relationship between LMX quality and job insecurity and that SOE moderated the effect of LMX quality on perceived organizational insider status such that the effect was stronger when SOE was high (vs. low). However, we did not find support for the moderating effect of LMX differentiation. This study provides new insights into the underlying mechanism and boundary conditions of the association between LMX quality and job insecurity, a typical stressor for many present-day workers.


Around the world borders are militarized, states are stepping up repressive anti-immigrant controls, and native publics are turning immigrants into scapegoats for the spiraling crisis of global capitalism. The massive displacement and primitive accumulation unleashed by free trade agreements and neo-liberal policies, as well as state and "private" violence has resulted in a virtually inexhaustible immigrant labor reserve for the global economy. State controls over immigration and immigrant labor have several functions for the system: 1) state repression and criminalization of undocumented immigration make immigrants vulnerable and deportable and therefore subject to conditions of super-exploitation, super-control and hyper-surveillance; 2) antiimmigrant repressive apparatuses are themselves ever more important sources of accumulation, ranging from private for-profit immigrant detention centers, to the militarization of borders, and the purchase by states of military hardware and systems of surveillance. Immigrant labor is extremely profitable for the transnational corporate economy; 3) the anti-immigrant policies associated with repressive state apparatuses help turn attention away from the crisis of global capitalism among more privileged sectors of the working class and convert immigrant workers into scapegoats for the crisis, thus deflecting attention from the root causes of the crisis and undermining working class unity. This article focuses on structural and historical underpinnings of the phenomenon of immigrant labor in the new global capitalist system and on how the rise of a globally integrated production and financial system, a transnational capitalist class, and transnational state apparatuses, have led to a reorganization of the world market in labor, including deeper reliance on a rapidly expanding reserve army of immigrant labor and a vicious new anti-immigrant politics. It looks at the United States as an illustration of the larger worldwide situation with regard to immigration and immigrant justice. Finally, it explores the rise of an immigrant justice movement around the world, observes the leading role that immigrant workers often play in worker's struggles and that a mass immigrant rights movement is at the cutting edge of the struggle against transnational corporate exploitation. We call for replacing the whole concept of national citizenship with that of global citizenship as the only rallying cry that can assure justice and equality for all.


: A Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBFNN) is a general approximator. In this paper a granular activation function is proposed to improve its learning under the noisy conditions. The granular activation function is also named the interval activation function and it is typicaly the Gaussian function which benefits from having a fixed mean and an uncertain standard deviation. The hidden layer of the proposed network has a total of three parameters to train that it consists the means, the lower bounds of the standard deviations and the higher bounds of the standard deviations of the Gaussian functions. The output layer parameters for training are the means of the interval weights and the intervals of the weights. "K-Means clustering algorithm" method is used to train these parameters. The purpose of the above learning method is regarded as one of the granular method presenting the bottom-up granulation which causes the input vectors clustered in the larger granules in the hidden layer. Gradient descend method is also used to train these parameters to compare with this novel method. The structure is tested with or without noisy data to identify a nonlinear dynamic system with multiple time delays and to predict a chaotic model, Mackey-Glass. It has been shown that the sensibility related to input alterations reduces because of using the granular activation function in RBF Neural Network structure and the response of Granular RBF Neural Network with noisy data is better than RBF Neural Network.


Objectives: Debate about the cause of IQ score gaps between Black and white populations has persisted within genetics, anthropology, and psychology. Recently, authors claimed polygenic scores provide evidence that a significant portion of differences in cognitive performance between Black and white populations are caused by genetic differences due to natural selection, the "hereditarian hypothesis". This study aims to show conceptual and methodological flaws of past studies supporting the hereditarian hypothesis.Materials and Methods: Polygenic scores for educational attainment were constructed for African and European samples of the 1000 Genomes Project. Evidence for selection was evaluated using an excess variance test. Education associated variants were further evaluated for signals of selection by testing for excess genetic differentiation (Fst). Expected mean difference in IQ for populations was calculated under a neutral evolutionary scenario and contrasted to hereditarian claims.Results: Tests for selection using polygenic scores failed to find evidence of natural selection when the less biased within-family GWAS effect sizes were used. Tests for selection using Fst values did not find evidence of natural selection. Expected mean difference in IQ was substantially smaller than postulated by hereditarians, even under unrealistic assumptions that overestimate genetic contribution.Conclusion: Given these results, hereditarian claims are not supported in the least. Cognitive performance does not appear to have been under diversifying selection in Europeans and Africans. In the absense of diversifying selection, the best case estimate for genetic contributions to group differences in cognitive performance is substantially smaller than hereditarians claim and is consistent with genetic differences contributing little to the Black-white gap.


The purpose of this thesis is to enhance the ability of marketing information systems users to collect and to select relevant information in the process of producing and selling.
Marketing has been becoming one of the key business functions. The Internet and globalization have accelerated the interaction of firms and their competitors that offer similar product with significantly lower prices, all over the globe.
As a response to the new market challenges, the firms are moving their focus from product portfolio management to customer portfolio management. Consequently, the importance of dedicated marketing information systems that allow monitoring of customer and competitor behavior has grown significantly. Furthermore, they enable the processing of internal databases containing the data on firm's offer, sales channels, prices etc.
The thesis describes the main market strategy characteristics, marketing information systems and marketing planning. It defines the specifics of telecommunication business–to–business market and current trends in the field. One of the most significant characteristic of the telecommunication equipment is that it belongs to the domain of high technology products. For the environment in which these products are being marketed, a high level of uncertainty, unpredictability and business risk is more evident than on other markets.
The thesis answers the question why the collection and selection of the relevant information may be of the crucial importance when gaining competitive advantage. There are several described ways of possible business plan making.
The case study presents an actual marketing plan following the SOSTAC system that contains all the relevant decision–making information. The SOSTAC system stands for: situation analysis, objectives, strategy, tactics, actions and control.
Marketing plan quality may be significantly improved by raising the quality of information, needed for marketing plan preparation. Higher quality of information is assured by the appropriate information selection. A firm should be able to perform the selection between relevant information. As an additional information quality assurance, the firm's marketing information systems play a crucial role.
The thesis also presents recommended marketing information system for the telecommunication firm. The proposed information system includes market data about trends, customers, competitors, market potential, current products and enables analytical methods. Marketing information system therefore eases the decisions about new products, key customers identification, establishing and controlling marketing plans and many other marketing activities for management and firm's marketers.


Proponents of marine renewable energy worldwide highlight that regulatory and consenting procedures are a signi fi cant barrier to the upscaling of infrastructure required to transform the energy generation sector. Uncertainties about the cumulative e ff ects of marine renewable energy developments cause substantial delays during the consenting process, which are exacerbated by the lack of clarity about how to assess cumulative e ff ects. These obstacles have contributed to perceptions that this essential emerging industry receives disproportionate scrutiny relative to established maritime activities. However, alongside legislated targets to reduce carbon emissions, there are legal obligations to protect, maintain and improve the condition of the marine environment. As the imperative to halt the decline in the condition of the environment increases, so expectations of cumulative impact assessments grow and the risk of consenting delays persists. To investigate how robust current cumulative impact assessment practise is, a novel evaluation framework was developed and applied to Environmental Statements of the world's largest o ff shore wind farms, currently in United Kingdom waters. The framework was designed to evaluate cumulative impact assessments relative to the information needs of decision-makers tasked with managing cumulative e ff ects. We found that current practise does not meet those needs, that there is dissonance between science and practise, and problematic variability between assessments was observed. Straightforward recommendations for improved practise are provided, which if implemented may ease the perceived regulatory burden by clarifying practise. We also highlight additional steps that could enable project-led cumulative impact assessments to better support regional marine management. The results and recommendations will be of interest to countries worldwide where marine renewable energy is emerging alongside ecosystem-approach and marine spatial planning aspirations.


Semantic similarity measures play an important role in the extraction of semantic relations. Semantic similarity measures are widely used in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Information Retrieval (IR). The work proposed here uses web based metrics to compute the semantic similarity between words or terms and also compares with the state-of-the-art. For a computer to decide the semantic similarity, it should understand the semantics of the words. Computer being a syntactic machine, it cannot understand the semantics. So always an attempt is made to represent the semantics as syntax. There are various methods proposed to find the semantic similarity between words. Some of these methods have used the precompiled databases like WordNet, and Brown Corpus. Some are based on Web Search Engine. The approach presented here is altogether different from these methods. It makes use of snippets returned by the Wikipedia or any encyclopedia such as Britannica Encyclopedia. The snippets are preprocessed for stop word removal and stemming. For suffix removal an algorithm by M. F. Porter is referred. Luhn's Idea is used for extraction of significant words from the preprocessed snippets. Similarity measures proposed here are based on the five different association measures in Information retrieval, namely simple matching, Dice, Jaccard, Overlap, Cosine coefficient. Performance of these methods is evaluated using Miller and Charle's benchmark dataset. It gives higher correlation value of 0.80 than some of the existing methods.


BACKGROUND
Deprescribing may benefit older frail patients experiencing polypharmacy. We investigated the scope for deprescribing in acutely hospitalised patients and the long-term implications of continuation of medications that could potentially be deprescribed.

METHODS
Acutely hospitalised patients (n = 170) discharged to Residential Aged Care Facilities, ≥75 years and receiving ≥5 regular medications were assessed during admission to determine eligibility for deprescribing of key drug classes, along with the actual incidence of deprescribing. The impact of continuation of nominated drug classes (anticoagulants, antidiabetics, antiplatelets, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), statins) on a combined endpoint (death/readmission) was determined.

RESULTS
Hyperpolypharmacy (>10 regular medications) was common (49.4%) at admission. Varying rates of deprescribing occurred during hospitalisation for the nominated drug classes (8-53%), with considerable potential for further deprescribing (34-90%). PPI use was prevalent (56%) and 89.5% of these had no clear indication. Of the drug classes studied, only continued PPI use at discharge was associated with increased mortality/readmission at 1 year (hazard ratio 1.54, 95% confidence interval (1.06-2.26), P = 0.025), driven largely by readmission.

CONCLUSION
There is considerable scope for acute hospitalisation to act as a triage point for deprescribing in older patients. PPIs in particular appeared overprescribed in this susceptible patient group, and this was associated with earlier readmission. Polypharmacy in older hospitalised patients should be targeted for possible deprescribing during hospitalisation, especially PPIs.


Herpesvirus of turkeys (HVT), used originally as a vaccine against Marek's disease (MD), has recently been shown to be a highly effective viral vector for generation of recombinant vaccines that deliver protective antigens of other avian pathogens. Until the recent launch of commercial HVT-vectored dual insert vaccines, most of the HVT-vectored vaccines in the market carry a single foreign gene and are usually developed with slow and less efficient conventional recombination methods. There is immense value in developing multivalent HVT-vectored vaccines capable of inducing simultaneous protection against multiple avian pathogens, particularly to overcome the interference between individual recombinant HVT vaccines. Here we demonstrate the use of a previously developed CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing protocol for the insertion of ILTV gD-gI and the H9N2 AIV hemagglutinin expression cassettes into the distinct locations of the recombinant HVT-IBDV VP2 viral genome, to generate the triple insert HVT-VP2-gDgI-HA recombinant vaccine. The insertion, protein expression, and stability of each insert were then evaluated by PCR, immunostaining and Western blot analyses. The successful generation of the first triple insert recombinant HVT vaccine with the potential for the simultaneous protection against three major avian viral diseases in addition to MD is a major innovation in vaccination-based control of major poultry diseases.


This PhD study starts with a single question: 'how do songwriters collaborate to write effective songs?' I will test several hypotheses, including 'amateur and professional songwriters demonstrate different behaviours', 'songwriting represents the collision of existing ideas', 'song form is market-driven', 'songwriters learn by hearing extant songs' and 'process and product are interrelated and it is possible to change the latter by consciously manipulating the former'. In testing the hypotheses, I will discuss the titular 'Four Cs' – Constraint, Creativity, Copyright and Collaboration. The last is explained easily in the central question; the first is necessitated by the inescapable fact that popular song exhibits statistically probable norms relating to characteristics such as harmony, form, lyric theme and rhyme. The second (Creativity) obviously requires originality, which in music manifests itself as the third – Copyright. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the constraints of song, and to consider songwriters' ability to cross the lower originality threshold of creativity defined by copyright.
The research is itself constrained to a study of the work of 'professional' songwriters, defined as individuals whose work has generated income through royalties. I take the philosophical position that songs can only exist when there is an additional listener to hear them. Historically and culturally I define 'songwriting' as British and American popular songwriting as practised between 1952 and 2012 (the first 60 years of the 'singles chart' in the UK), although in some cases it will be necessary to make reference to slightly earlier sources.
Three evidence bases are used: real-time recordings of songwriting sessions, immediate retrospective reports by songwriters, and later retrospective interviews. The first of these is auto-ethnographic; I have documented my own collaborative processes across a variety of real-world composition and songwriting projects. The research draws on existing academic literature, particularly in the fields of popular musicology and cognitive psychology, but also making reference to tertiary fields such as law, sociology, literature and philosophy.
This thesis does not posit a 'template method' for songwriting – even a cursory examination of the evidence suggests that no such thing exists. Rather, the intention is to identify and analyse the way songwriting teams negotiate the creative and problem-solving challenges of writing effective songs.


In this paper, an automatic segmentation system was developed for MRI brain tumor. Local region-based active contour models were suitable for heterogeneous features of brain MRI image. But the models are sensitive to initial contour, which generally requires manual setting. An automatic MRI brain tumor segmentation system were developed based on localized contour models, which can identify tumor-dominant slice, set initial contour automatically and segment tumor's contours from all MRI slices autonomously. K-means clustering and grayscale analysis were combined to identify tumor-dominant slice. Multi-threshold algorithm with the aid of erosion and dilation operators was adopted to obtain an initial contour for the tumor-dominant slice. The segmentation contour from the local active contour models was applied as initial contours of two-side neighboring slices. MRI brain tumor data were applied to validate the automatic segmentation system.


Our study investigates the negative impact of nitrogen (N) deposition on species richness in acidic grasslands, based on a temporal comparison of vegetation data spanning a period of almost 70 years. We compiled a large data base of plots assigned to the Violion caninae grassland type, composed of managed, but unfertilized semi‐natural grasslands on nutrient‐poor, acidic soils. In total 1114 plots, mainly from Great Britain, the Netherlands and Germany, were compiled, dating back to 1939. Environmental site information included geographical and soil (mean Ellenberg values) variables as well as estimates of cumulative N and sulphur (S) deposition since 1939. Statistical analyses were carried out separately for the data subsets from the three regions. In all regions, the vegetation differentiation was mainly related to soil acidity and nutrient availability, as well as to the year of sampling and the cumulative amounts of N and S deposition. Plot‐species richness of vascular plants and bryophytes (analysed for Great Britain only) decreased with time and analyses suggest these are affected by various factors, notably soil pH, but also latitude and cumulative N deposition. The latter explained more of the variation in species number than the year of sampling and cumulative S deposition, which supports the interpretation that the decline in species richness is mainly caused by increasing N availability and less by altered management and soil acidification. For Great Britain and Germany, cumulative N deposition showed a strong negative relationship with several biodiversity measures, especially the proportion of dicots, whereas it was positively related to the proportion of grass species. In general, our results give temporal evidence for the negative effect of N deposition on species richness in semi‐natural vegetation.


Advances in sensing and positioning technology, fueled by wide deployment of wireless networks, have made many devices location-aware. These emerging technologies have enabled a new class of applications, known as Location-Based Services (LBS), offering both new business opportunities and a wide array of new quality of life enhancing services. There are two important challenges for location-based service provisioning. How do we scale LBSs in the presence of client mobility and location dependent constraints for the multitude of new, upcoming location-based applications under a common framework? How do we provide anonymous location-based services with acceptable performance and quantifiable privacy protection in the next generation of mobile networks, systems and applications?
First, we introduce spatial alarms as the basic primitive to represent a class of location-based services that require location-based trigger capability. We develop a generalized framework and a suite of optimization techniques for server-centric scalable processing of spatial alarms. Our architecture and algorithm development provide significant performance enhancement in terms of system scalability compared to naive spatial alarm processing techniques, while maintaining high accuracy for spatial alarm processing on the server side and reduced communication costs and energy consumption on the client side. Concretely, we develop safe period optimizations for alarm processing and introduce spatial alarm grouping techniques to further reduce the unnecessary safe period computation costs. In addition, we introduce a distributed alarm processing architecture that advocates the partitioning of the alarm processing load among the server and the relevant mobile clients to reduce the server load and minimize the client-to-server communication cost through intelligent distribution and parallelization. We also explore a variety of optimization opportunities such as incorporating non-spatial constraints into the location-based information monitoring problem and utilizing efficient indexing methods such as bitmap indexing to further enhance the performance and scalability of spatial alarm processing in the presence of mobility hotspots and skewed spatial alarm distributions.
Second, we develop the PrivacyGrid framework for privacy-enhanced location service provisioning, focusing on providing customizable and personalized location privacy solutions while scaling the mobile systems and services to a large number of mobile users and a large number of service requests. The PrivacyGrid approach has three unique characteristics. First, we develop a three-tier architecture for scaling anonymous information delivery in a mobile environment while preserving customizable location privacy. Second, we develop a suite of fast, dynamic location cloaking algorithms. It is known that incorporation of privacy protection measures may lead to an inherent conflict between the level of privacy and the quality of services (QoS) provided by the location-based services. Our location cloaking algorithms can scale to higher levels of location anonymity while achieving a good balance between location privacy and QoS. Last but not the least; we develop two types of location anonymization models under the PrivacyGrid architecture, one provides the random way point mobility model based location cloaking solution, and the other provides a road network-based location privacy model powered by both location k-anonymity and segment s-anonymity. A set of graph-based location cloaking algorithms are developed, under the MobiCloak approach, to provide desired levels of privacy protection for users traveling on a road network through scalable processing of anonymous location services.
This dissertation, to the best of our knowledge, is the first one that presents a systematic approach to the design and development of the spatial alarm processing framework and various optimization techniques. The concept of spatial alarms and the scaling techniques developed in this dissertation can serve as building blocks for many existing and emerging location-based and presence based information and computing services and applications. The second unique contribution made in this dissertation is its development of the PrivacyGrid architecture for scaling anonymous location based services under the random waypoint mobility model and its extension of the PrivacyGrid architecture through introducing the MobiCloak road-network based location cloaking algorithms with reciprocity support for spatially constrained network mobility model. Another unique feature of the PrivacyGrid and MobiCloak development is its ability to protect location privacy of mobile users while maintaining the end-to-end QoS for location-based service provisioning in the presence of dynamic and personalized privacy constraints. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)


AIMS
The aim of this study was to assess the effect of posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) resection on flexion-extension gaps, mediolateral soft-tissue laxity, fixed flexion deformity (FFD), and limb alignment during posterior-stabilized (PS) total knee arthroplasty (TKA).

PATIENTS AND METHODS
This prospective study included 110 patients with symptomatic osteoarthritis of the knee undergoing primary robot-assisted PS TKA. All operations were performed by a single surgeon using a standard medial parapatellar approach. Optical motion capture technology with fixed femoral and tibial registration pins was used to assess gaps before and after PCL resection in extension and 90° knee flexion. Measurements were made after excision of the anterior cruciate ligament and prior to bone resection. There were 54 men (49.1%) and 56 women (50.9%) with a mean age of 68 years (sd 6.2) at the time of surgery. The mean preoperative hip-knee-ankle deformity was 4.1° varus (sd 3.4).

RESULTS
PCL resection increased the mean flexion gap significantly more than the extension gap in the medial (2.4 mm (sd 1.5) vs 1.3 mm (sd 1.0); p < 0.001) and lateral (3.3 mm (sd 1.6) vs 1.2 mm (sd 0.9); p < 0.01) compartments. The mean gap differences after PCL resection created significant mediolateral laxity in flexion (gap difference: 1.1 mm (sd 2.5); p < 0.001) but not in extension (gap difference: 0.1 mm (sd 2.1); p = 0.51). PCL resection significantly improved the mean FFD (6.3° (sd 4.4) preoperatively vs 3.1° (sd 1.5) postoperatively; p < 0.001). There was a strong positive correlation between the preoperative FFD and change in FFD following PCL resection (Pearson's correlation coefficient = 0.81; p < 0.001). PCL resection did not significantly affect limb alignment (mean change in alignment: 0.2° valgus (sd 1.2); p = 0.60).

CONCLUSION
PCL resection creates flexion-extension mismatch by increasing the flexion gap more than the extension gap. The increase in the lateral flexion gap is greater than the increase in the medial flexion gap, which creates mediolateral laxity in flexion. Improvements in FFD following PCL resection are dependent on the degree of deformity before PCL resection. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2019;101-B:1230-1237.


Several molecular models of angiotensin II (AII) were constructed using information derived primarily from conformationally constrained AII analogues. In order to refine the original models, AII was compared using computer-aided molecular graphics with several of the recently reported non-peptide AII antagonists. As a first approximation, the imidazole, phenyl ring and acidic moiety (i.e., carboxyl, tetrazole) of the non-peptide AII antagonists were overlapped with the corresponding features of the peptide. AII and Dup 753 were overlapped using Multifit (SYBYL) and then both were optimized individually and refit; this procedure was repeated three times to generate a working model of AII. The less-potent non-peptide AII antagonists S 8308 and Exp 6155 could also be overlaid with the model of AII, albeit not as well as DuP 753. The working model of AII, which has a twisted U-shape, places the imidazole of His6 and the terminal carboxylate approximately 8.7 A apart.


Linked survey and Twitter data present an unprecedented opportunity for social scientific analysis, but the ethical implications for such work are complex—requiring a deeper understanding of the nature and composition of Twitter data to fully appreciate the risks of disclosure and harm to participants. In this article, we draw on our experience of three recent linked data studies, briefly discussing the background research on data linkage and the complications around ensuring informed consent. Particular attention is paid to the vast array of data available from Twitter and in what manner it might be disclosive. In light of this, the issues of maintaining security, minimizing risk, archiving, and reuse are applied to linked Twitter and survey data. In conclusion, we reflect on how our ability to collect and work with Twitter data has outpaced our technical understandings of how the data are constituted and observe that understanding one's data is an essential prerequisite for ensuring best ethical practice.


We propose a new pumping technique for 2-dimensional vector addition systems with states (2-VASS) building on natural geometric properties of runs. We illustrate its applicability by reproving an exponential bound on the length of the shortest accepting run, and by proving a new pumping lemma for languages of 2-VASS. The technique is expected to be useful for settling questions concerning languages of 2-VASS, e.g., for establishing decidability status of the regular separability problem.