Introduction Chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients are at an extremely high risk of silent myocardial ischemia (SMI). However, there is a dearth of evidence on the worldwide prevalence of this very lethal and yet unrecognizable complication of CKD. The proposed systematic review and meta-analysis aims to estimate the global prevalence of SMI among CKD patients. Methods and analyses This protocol was conceived according to the preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) statement. The systematic review will involve all observational studies and clinical trials published until April 30, 2021, and reporting on the prevalence of SMI in CKD patients. Electronic sources including MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane database of systematic reviews will be perused for potentially eligible studies, restricted to only studies published in English or French. Two investigators will independently select studies and use a pre-pilot tested form to extract data. Further, they will independently perform a qualitative assessment of the risk of bias and overall quality of the selected studies, followed by a quantitative assessment using funnel plots and Egger's tests. The heterogeneity between studies will be assessed with the Cochrane's Q statistic, and the I2 statistic will measure the percentage of variation across studies that is due to their heterogeneity rather than chance; the I2 will decide if a meta-analysis can be conducted. In case it cannot be conducted, a descriptive analysis will be performed. Otherwise, study-specific estimates will be pooled using either a fixed-effects or a random-effects model, depending on the value of the I2 statistic. Subgroup and random effects meta-regression analyses will further investigate the potential sources of heterogeneity. Finally, sensitivity analyses will be performed to measure the impact of low-quality studies on the results of the meta-analysis, and power calculations will determine the probability that we will detect a true effect if it does exist. PROSPERO registration number CRD42020211929 Strengths and limitations of this study The intended systematic review and meta-analysis will fill the knowledge gap on the global prevalence of silent myocardial ischemia (SMI) in CKD patients. The eligible studies will be identified through a methodic literature search followed by a rigorous screening process; we will then use robust meta-analysis tools to pool the data and provide reliable estimates of the global prevalence of SMI in CKD patients. Two major limitations could be: the predominance of clinical trials that might limit the generalizability of the findings, given that some informative patients might have been sidelined by the strict inclusion criteria of these studies; the high probability of type 1 error originating from the important number of subgroup and sensitivity analyses.


The work described in the present article is concerned with the numerical investigation of the dynamic response of reinforced concrete (RC) beams subjected to high rates of transverse loading. Of interest herein is the case of localized impact loading, such as that encountered in the case of contact, impact, and ballistic problems, rather than the case of loads distributed over the entire span of RC structural elements arising particularly from far field explosions. The investigation is based on the use of a commercially available general purpose finite-element (FE) package for nonlinear static and dynamic analysis of three-dimensional FE models. A key feature of our study is the hypothesis that the material properties of concrete and steel reinforcement are independent of the loading rate. Based on this assumption, the effects of the applied loading rate on the exhibited structural response are primarily attributed to the inertia forces that develop within the beam and not to the loading rate sensitivity of the mechanical characteristics of the materials involved. This hypothesis constitutes a major departure from currently accepted design and numerical modeling practices, which adopt exactly the opposite view, thus, providing an alternative explanation as to the causes that affect the complex inelastic response of RC structural elements under high loading rates, as well as the cracking patterns, observed during testing. The results obtained correlate closely with the experimental observation that structural performance, in the form of stiffness, load carrying capacity, and deformability, depart significantly from those recorded under quasi-static loading as certain thresholds of applied loading rates are surpassed, with these changes becoming more pronounced as the rate of loading increases. From the analysis of numerical and experimental predictions, the causes that lead to the above change in behavior are established and a relatively simple design model is proposed, which is able to quantify the observed increase in load-carrying capacity exhibited by RC beams with increasing rates of applied loading as well as the concentration of damage.


Surface-related multiple elimination (SRME) is an algorithm that predicts all surface multiples by a convolutional process applied to seismic field data. Only minimal preprocessing is required. Once predicted, the multiples are removed from the data by adaptive subtraction. Unlike other methods of multiple attenuation, SRME does not rely on assumptions or knowledge about the subsurface, nor does it use event properties to discriminate between multiples and primaries. In exchange for this "freedom from the subsurface," SRME requires knowledge of the acquisition wavelet and a dense spatial distribution of sources and receivers. Although a 2D version of SRME sometimes suffices, most field data sets require 3D SRME for accurate multiple prediction. All implementations of 3D SRME face a serious challenge: The sparse spatial distribution of sources and receivers available in typical seismic field data sets does not conform to the algorithmic requirements. There are several approaches to implementing 3D SRME that address the data sparseness problem. Among those approaches are pre-SRME data interpolation, on-the-fly data interpolation, zero-azimuth SRME, and true-azimuth SRME. Field data examples confirm that (1) multiples predicted using true-azimuth 3D SRME are more accurate than those using zero-azimuth 3D SRME and (2) on-the-fly interpolation produces excellent results.


BACKGROUND
The circumferential thigh lift (CTL) with vertical scar is a more extensive and effective procedure compared to the traditional lift, but the scar is not aequally concealed. Negative pressure treatment (NPT) is considered to have a beneficial effect on the physiological process of wound healing and early scar formation. A comparison study was therefore carried out in order to evaluate the effect of NPT on scar quality.

METHODS
All postobese patients consecutively treated for thigh laxity in the period January 2012 to April 2013 were recruited in a prospective cohort study. All patients underwent CTL. In group A, NPT was applied on the sutured wound in the immediate postoperative phase for a period of one week. In Group B traditional dressings were used. The quality of scars was evaluated by means of the Stony Brook Scar Evaluation Scale (SBSES) at 7, 15, 30 and 365 days postoperatively.

RESULTS
91 patients were included in the period defined, of whom 48 in group A and 43 in group B. In group A, the mean SBSES score was 4.4 at 7 days, 4 at 15 days, 4.6 at 30 days and 4.8 at 365 days. In group B the SBSES score was 3.2 at 7 days, 3 at 15 days, 3 at 30 and 365 days. At all postoperative stages the quality of the scar showed to be significantly improved by the use of NPT (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
NPT is a useful adjunct to the postoperative wound healing after circumferential thigh lift, when compared to a hostile cohort of patients whose wounds are not treated with NPT.

KEY WORDS
Thigh lift, Negative Pressure Therapy.


In this paper we shall propose a chaos dynamic memory model applied to the chaotic autoassociation memory. The present artificial neuron model is properly characterized in terms of a time-dependent sinusoidal activation function to involve a transient chaotic dynamics as well as the energy steepest descent strategy. It is elucidated that the present neural network has a remarkable retrieval ability beyond the conventional models with such a monotonous activation function as sigmoidal one. This advantage is found to result from the property of the analogue periodic mapping accompanied with a chaotic behaviour of the neurons as well as the symmetry of the dynamic equation.


OBJECTIVES
The work ability index is widely used in occupational health care. The aim of this study was to determine the extent to which a low index among young employees is predictive of sickness absence during the following year.

METHODS
Altogether 3725 employees aged 31 years were followed from 1997 to 1999 as part of the northern Finland birth cohort 1966 study. The participants' self-administered questionnaires at baseline and a 1-year follow-up period with comprehensive sickness absence records was obtained from the Social Insurance Institution of Finland. The records contained only medically certified long-term sickness absences (>9 days). A multivariable logistic regression was used to examine how the work ability index and covariates were associated with sickness absence during the following year. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated for the index and its covariates.

RESULTS
In a comparison with an excellent index score (>44 points), a low score (<37 points) was associated with sickness absence for both the men (OR 3.6, 95% CI 1.6-7.9) and the women (OR 6.2, 95% CI 2.9 to 13.5) after adjustment for occupation, control over work, social support at work, marital status, number of children at home, physical activity, body mass index, and alcohol consumption. Of the 518 participants with a low index, 90 had long-term sickness absence, giving a positive predictive value of 17.4% (95% CI 14.1-20.6). The negative predictive value was 93.1% (95% CI 92.3-94.0).

CONCLUSIONS
For young employees, the work ability index is a practical tool for predicting long-term sickness absence, but it does not predict "no sickness absence".


In this work, local oxidation behavior in phosphorous ion-implanted 4H-SiC has been investigated by using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The AFM-local oxidation (LO) has been performed on the implanted samples, with and without activation anneal, using varying applied bias (15/20/25 V). It has been clearly shown that the post-implantation annealing process at 1650 oC has a great impact on the local oxidation rate by electrically activating the dopants and by modulating the surface roughness. In addition, the composition of resulting oxides changes depending on the doping level of SiC surfaces.


Cancer prevalence is scaling up each year. Anthracycline groups are still the best chemotherapeutic agent. The most popular anticancer drug in the group is doxorubicin (DOX). Unfortunately, DOX has potent toxicity on noncancerous tissues, e.g., heart, kidneys, etc. However, it is well documented that the severest toxicity of the drug affects heart tissue. Of course, some reasons have been suggested why and/or how the heart is so vulnerable to toxicity. The primary mechanism responsible for DOX's cardiospecific toxicity remains unidentified so far; however, mitochondrial dysfunction induced by DOX is now considered one of the leading reasons for DOX's toxicities and undesired side effects. Mitochondrial reactive oxygen production in the heart is a significant contributor to developing mitochondrial dysfunction-exposed DOX based on a variety of evidence. The objective of this review chapter is to critically evaluate and highlight the role of mitochondria in the development of DOX-induced cardiotoxicity.


Background: Over the years, industries have lived through a strong and irreversible
shift towards the globalization of software-intensive high-technology businesses. In order to
provide software engineers with large amounts of various data when they need it throughout
different time zones, high speed performance business application systems are needed.
Nowadays, software-heavy organizations rely more and more on quantifying their
information about their applications and processes in order to lower maintenance cost and
gain competitive advantage.
Goal: The goal of this thesis is to develop, deploy, validate and evaluate a
measurement system for monitoring an enterprise application's responsiveness to user
operations, addressing the main research question of " How can, in an industrial context,
'good' Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) be identified and developed?". To develop this
measurement system, an established responsiveness KPI is used and known software
measurement standards are applied in order to ensure its quality and significance for the
collaborating company and further research.
Method: The thesis is conducted by making use of the action research method in
collaboration with a manufacturer in the automotive industry in order to develop, deploy and
assess the measurement system.
Results: Through thoroughly describing and mapping measures based on software
measurement standards, information needs for 'good' KPI's could be identified and actions
could be derived to develop those. A measurement system was developed based on a known
development process and by making use of a known responsiveness KPI and relevant
software measurement standards. After a validation and evaluation in an industrial setting
using an established quality model, it proved to be applicable to the organization's specific
problem and provide valuable information and insight about their performance measurement
actions and possible improvements.
Conclusion: According to the stakeholders perception, using the measurement system
provides the possibility of improving the performance measurement and software
maintenance and therefore decreasing the waste of resources in an industrial setting. By being
based on known software standards and derived models and processes it provides the
possibility to increase the impact of the KPI's in the organization and optimize data
organization. Further, through the theoretical and empirical validation, it increases its
acceptance on scientific ground.


The action of high-energy radiation on prebiotic chiral molecules plays against the preservation of chirality. Chiral molecules incorporated in comets and meteorites are bombarded for billions of years by cosmic rays and by the high-energy radiation due to the decay of naturally occurring radionuclides. The action of cosmic rays on the surface of comets and meteorites causes the complete radiation processing of the surface of these bodies, but at depths of 20 m or so the cosmic rays are completely shielded and the radiation should derive only from the decay of radionuclides. In 4.6×109 yr the radiation dose supplied by the radionuclide decay to the organic molecules present inside the cometary or meteoritic body is equivalent to 14000 kGy. Our studies on the radiolysis of a series of naturally occurring chiral molecules, the terpenes, have shown that although all undergo the radioracemization reaction, the extent of radioracemization is such that a significant fraction of chiral excess and chiral molecules can survive a radiation dose equivalent to 14000 kGy. A unique exception is represented by the terpene β-(−)-pinene which, instead of the expected radioracemization reaction, undergoes a radiation-induced polymerization. The resulting poly-β-pinene, having an highly ordered supramolecular structure, displays an optical activity which is 1.7 times higher than the starting monomer. Thus, in this specific case, the optical activity is not reduced but enhanced by the action of radiation and remains locked into a polymer which displays a considerable radiation resistance and may act as a chiral template and as a chiral surface for prebiotic chemistry.


The structure of the labour force in Malaysia has seen a major shift since the 1970s. Expanding economic opportunities have also increased demand for highly educated and skilled workers. The changing face of the Malaysian labour force has been brought about primarily by increased access to educational opportunities. Greater access to education has produced not only a surge in student enrolment but also dramatic improvements in higher education. Women have been major beneficiaries of these changes. This paper shows that gains in tertiary attainment have led to greater depth of human capital through bringing more people, especially females, into the workforce and prolonging their stay there. The positive effects are tempered by several concerns. The female advantage in terms of tertiary enrolment does not translate directly into their participation in the labour market. Female graduates are also more likely than male graduates to be in lower paying jobs or unemployed. Young persons without tertiary education face the prospect of unemployment and being crowded out of the job market by degree holders, many being female. Lagging educational attainment among males who dominate the workforce may also hinder a successful transition to a knowledge economy.


National educational standards stress the importance of science and mathematics learning for today's students. However, across disciplines, students frequently struggle to meet learning goals about core concepts like energy. Digital learning environments enhanced with artificial intelligence hold the promise to address this issue by providing individualized instruction and support for students at scale. Scaffolding and feedback, for example, are both most effective when tailored to students' needs. Providing individualized instruction requires continuous assessment of students' individual knowledge, abilities, and skills in a way that is meaningful for providing tailored support and planning further instruction. While continuously assessing individual students' science and mathematics learning is challenging, intelligent tutoring systems show that it is feasible in principle. However, the learning environments in intelligent tutoring systems are typically not compatible with the vision of how effective K-12 science and mathematics learning looks like. This leads to the challenge of designing digital learning environments that allow for both – meaningful science and mathematics learning and the reliable and valid assessment of individual students' learning. Today, digital devices such as tablets, laptops, or digital measurement systems increasingly enter science and mathematics classrooms. In consequence, students' learning increasingly produces rich product and process data. Learning Analytics techniques can help to automatically analyze this data in order to obtain insights about individual students' learning, drawing on general theories of learning and relative to established domain specific models of learning, i.e., learning progressions. We call this approach Learning Progression Analytics (LPA). In this manuscript, building of evidence-centered design (ECD), we develop a framework to guide the development of learning environments that provide meaningful learning activities and data for the automated analysis of individual students' learning – the basis for LPA and scaling individualized instruction with artificial intelligence.


Extant data suggest that a Ca2+- and phospholipid-dependent protein kinase C (PKC) exists (as a single enzyme or possibly a family of related enzymes) in rodent β-cells. PKC activators probably induce secretion primarily through phosphorylation of key proteins, thereby sensitizing the exocytotic apparatus to Ca2+. PKC can be activated by several pharmacologic probes and by endogenous diacylglycerol (and possibly arachidonic acid) released by nutrient-activated phospholipases. Several nonspecific pharmacologic agents inhibit both PKC and physiologic insulin release. However, when a more specific inhibitor of PKC, H 7 [1-(5-isoquinolinylsulfonyl)-2-methylpiperazine], was studied, it did not reduce glucose-induced insulin secretion. Moreover, prolonged preexposure of islets to a phorbol ester (believed to induce selective depletion of PKC) also failed to substantially reduce the subsequent secretory response to glucose. Thus, indisputable evidence for an obligatory physiological role of PKC in the islet is still missing, and the enzyme's status as a critical coupling signal should be viewed as putative only.


The ovaries of hemipteran insects contain massive microtubule-based translocation channels known as nutritive tubes, linking nurse cells to the developing oocytes. Translocation, which is in a retrograde direction along the nutritive tube microtubules, has previously been reactivated in vitro. Here, ATPsensitive microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs) have been isolated from the insect ovaries, and beads coated with such proteins applied to salt-treated, detergent-extracted nutritive tube microtubules microdissected from the insect ovaries. These motility substrata are composed of many thousands of parallel microtubules, all with a common known polarity, so that not only are they easily observed, but the direction of any translocation along their length can be readily interpreted. ATP extracts of insect ovarian MAPs, containing both kinesin and dynein, were seen to promote bidirectional movements of beads. Movements in the two directions differed in both rate and form. On fractionation of the ATP extract, those fractions containing kinesin brought about bead movement in an anterograde direction. Fractions containing dynein failed to promote movement of beads, and no single fraction promoted movement of beads in a retrograde direction. Kinesin, while clearly present in the insect ovary, is absent from the nutritive tube translocation channels. The nutritive tubes, however, contain a polypeptide that co-electrophoreses with insect ovarian dynein, making dynein a possible candidate for the motor that drives the retrograde translocation along nutritive tubes.


Researchers have taken a number of different approaches in their exploration of hippocampal function. One approach seeks to describe hippocampal function by probing the memory representations that the hippocampus supports. Another approach focuses on the role of the hippocampus in pattern separation and completion. Each of these approaches to understanding hippocampal function utilizes a distinct set of specialized tasks, and both of these task sets are known to be sensitive to changes in hippocampal function with age and disease status. But the question remains whether the tasks utilized in these two approaches tap into the same aspects of hippocampal function. We explored this question in the context of hippocampal development. Preadolescent children (N = 73) and young adults (N = 41) completed an identical battery of cognitive tasks consisting of a spatial reconstruction relational memory task, the mnemonic similarity task (MST)—an object‐based pattern separation task, and a novel hybrid task—the Object Discrimination and Distribution (ODD) Task—designed to integrate and simultaneously tax pattern separation and spatial relational memory. Children did not demonstrate impairments in lure discrimination relative to young adults on either the object‐based pattern separation task or for aspects of the ODD task that required pattern separation in the absence of relational memory demands but performed more poorly across aspects of tasks that required relational binding.


A system, particularly a decision-making concept, that facilitates highly automated driving on freeways in real traffic is presented. The system is capable of conducting fully automated lane change (LC) maneuvers with no need for driver approval. Due to the application in real traffic, a robust functionality and the general safety of all traffic participants are among the main requirements. Regarding these requirements, the consideration of measurement uncertainties demonstrates a major challenge. For this reason, a fully integrated probabilistic concept is developed. By means of this approach, uncertainties are regarded in the entire process of determining driving maneuvers. While this also includes perception tasks, this contribution puts a focus on the driving strategy and the decision-making process for the execution of driving maneuvers. With this approach, the BMW Group Research and Technology managed to drive 100% automated in real traffic on the freeway A9 from Munich to Ingolstadt, showing a robust, comfortable, and safe driving behavior, even during multiple automated LC maneuvers.


The study's main objective was to analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of a Virtual Reality Program (VRP) in the prevention of risk factors in eating disorders. The nonrandom sample of 30 adolescent girls (M = 13.4 years old, SD = 1.13), were selected from a greater sample of girls (130) who had chosen a thin ideal figure and had dieted in the past six months. The research adjusted to a pretest and posttest design. Once the informed consent was obtained, a baseline was established using a self-report questionnaire (alpha = .90). The results were statistically significant in the expected direction, some of these were: ideal figure t(27) = 4.42, p =.0001; Mpre = 1.99 SD= .60; Mpost = 2.64, SD =.49 body image dissatisfaction t(27) = 4.67, p = .0001, Mpre = 2, 21, SD = 2, 1; Mpost = .50 SD= 1.3; Restrained diet, t(27) = 1.25 p = .001, Mpre = 2.49, SD= .70; Mpost = 1.61; SD = .52. The posttest was estimated a month after the pretest.The clinical significance test showed that a significant percentage of participants (48% - 70%) were in the out of risk category after the intervention. Although these results are preliminary, as it is necessary to evaluate their effects over time, they are encouraging because they showed not only a decrease in the risk factors, but also a congruent relationship between variables related to body image and eating behavior. KeyWords. An intervention program of virtual reality, a prevention program of risk factors, body image variables, disordered eating behavior, adolescent girls.


Background:  The Food Award Barnsley (FAB) is organised for care homes that meet nutritional criteria based on national recommendations. Research (Thompson, 2003) highlighted that meeting FAB criteria is not an assurance that residents are receiving adequate nutrition. This is supported by studies demonstrating multiple individual/organisational factors influencing rates of malnutrition in care establishments (Abbasi & Rudman 1994; Health Advisory Services, 2000). To develop a training intervention to support FAB, an understanding of the role, perceptions and attitudes of care staff in the process of nutritional care was required. The main research aims were to describe staff's experiences of nutritional care of service users, to explore staff's attitudes towards nutritional care of service users and to highlight issues relating to nutritional care which could be considered when developing training programmes or provide the basis for future research.

Methods:  A care home that held the silver FAB, offered nursing and residential care and had more than 20 beds was chosen. Maximum variation sampling was used to select a cross-section of staff in terms of position, level of education and length of service. Twelve semi-structured interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed using the template approach as developed by King (1998). The process from which the conclusions of the study were drawn was made clear through documentation. The audit trail within the final report demonstrates dependability and confirmation and hence the rigour of the study.

Results:  In general staff felt they were effective in identifying and addressing issues of malnutrition. However, from a dietetic perspective there was a fragmented approach to nutritional care. At all levels 'confused role expectations', lack of clear action planning, poor communication and attitudes towards malnutrition represented a significant barrier to good nutritional care within the home. Despite using a nutritional screening tool, staff relied more heavily on their own subjective judgement to identify residents who they thought were malnourished. Care home staff at all grades considered a poor appetite to be a 'normal' part of ageing and some felt that in conditions such as Parkinson's Disease it was expected that residents would lose weight. Portion sizes were reduced regardless of the need for compensation for reduced nutritional intake.

Discussion:  The lack of a coherent approach to nutritional care coupled with poor communication at all levels resulted in the risk that residents were not receiving appropriate nutritional care. Staff relied on their own judgement, not an objective measure; to identify residents they thought were at risk of malnutrition. These problems were compounded by attitudes of staff at all levels to nutrition, weight and ageing which resulted in lack of intervention in residents who were malnourished or at risk of malnutrition.

Conclusion:  This study highlights barriers to changing the process of nutritional care within the home which should be addressed through training, whilst ensuring national nutritional standards for provision of food are met.

References  Abbasi, A. & Rudman, D. (1994) Under nutrition in the nursing home: Prevalence, consequences, cause and prevention. Nutr. Rev. 52, 113–122.

Health Advisory Services. (2000) "Not Because they are Old". An Independent Inquiry into the Care of Older People on Acute Wards in General Hospitals. London: Health Advisory Services.

King, N. (1998) Template analysis. In Qualitative Methods and Analysis in Organisational Research. eds C. Cassell & G. Symons, pp. 118–134. London: Sage.

Thompson, L. (2003) Nutritional Perceptions among Staff Working in a Care Home for Elderly People and the Potential for Nutrition Education. BSc thesis, Leeds Metropolitan University.


The authors investigate the effect of electrode material and charge injection on the breakdownelectric field of poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorofluoroethylene) terpolymer. The results indicate that the breakdown is mainly initiated at electrode-polymer interfaces, the properties of which are controlled by metal materials and deposition conditions. Interfaces with lower leakage currents display higher breakdown fields. Terpolymer films with Al and Cr electrodes have lower leakage current and higher breakdown field compared to those with Au and Ag electrodes. The difference in charge injection and breakdown field is attributed to both the existence of interfacial blocking layers and the difference in Schottky barrier height.


Weger J., Hutla P., Bubeník J. (2016): Yield and fuel characteristics of willows tested for biomass production on agricultural soil. Res. Agr. Eng., 62: 155–161. Short rotation coppice (SRC) plantations of fast growing trees in Czech Republic may be grown on approximately 120,000 ha in future, as indicated in the Czech Action Plan for Biomass. Until now, 2,800 ha of SRC were established using predominantly poplar non-native hybrid clone Max-4. The aim of this experiment and article is evaluation of promising domestic clones of willow species and their natural hybrids, to discover their yield parameters and fuel characteristics in field conditions. The experiment was established in Průhonice in 2005 and it was harvested two times in triennial rotation (2008, 2011). For the test of fuel properties biomass was used from three willow species: common osier (Salix viminalis) S-337, Smith's willow (S.× smithiana) S-218 and white willow (S. alba). Mean hectare yield of biomass in oven dry tonnes (o.d.t) of all the observed clones after first harvest was 3.9 o.d.t/ha/year, and after second harvest 10.4 o.d.t/ha/year. Observed willow clones had comparable or better yields as well as selected fuel properties (content of ash, melting point) in comparison with poplar clones used in the experiment.


Climate engineering (CE), the intentional modification of the climate in order to reduce the effects of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, is sometimes touted as a potential response to climate change. Increasing interest in the topic has led to proposals for empirical tests of hypothesized CE techniques, which raise serious ethical concerns. We propose three ethical guidelines for CE researchers, derived from the ethics literature on research with human and animal subjects, applicable in the event that CE research progresses beyond computer modeling. The Principle of Respect requires that the scientific community secure the global public's consent, voiced through their governmental representatives, before beginning any empirical research. The Principle of Beneficence and Justice requires that researchers strive for a favorable risk–benefit ratio and a fair distribution of risks and anticipated benefits, all while protecting the basic rights of affected individuals. Finally, the Minimization Principle requires that researchers minimize the extent and intensity of each experiment by ensuring that no experiments last longer, cover a greater geographical extent, or have a greater impact on the climate, ecosystem, or human welfare than is necessary to test the specific hypotheses in question. Field experiments that might affect humans or ecosystems in significant ways should not proceed until a full discussion of the ethics of CE research occurs and appropriate institutions for regulating such experiments are established.


Research on bioaerosol is still in its infancy. The dynamics and, therefore, the effects on atmospheric processes and the biosphere are often underestimated, or have not yet been sufficiently investigated. Atmospheric models such as FLEXPART and HYSPLIT enable researchers to simulate the transport of particles in the atmosphere and provide information on where air-parcels originate from. In the following, we present two methods for combining results of these models with spatial information, e.g., about vegetation. The first method shows how spatial CORINE land cover distribution can be analyzed within the boundaries of HYSPLIT trajectories. In a second method, FLEXPART simulations are used in combination with COSMO rain data and tree maps to generate maps that indicate the potential origin of bioaerosol for selected periods of time.


In this study we apply two methods for data collection that are relatively new in the field of atmospheric science. The two developed methods are designed to collect essential geo-localized information to be used as input data for a high resolution emission inventory for residential wood combustion (RWC). The first method is a webcrawler that extracts openly online available real estate data in a systematic way, and thereafter structures them for analysis. The webcrawler reads online Norwegian real estate advertisements and it collects the geo-position of the dwellings. Dwellings are classified according to the type (e.g., apartment, detached house) they belong to and the heating systems they are equipped with. The second method is a model trained for image recognition and classification based on machine learning techniques. The images from the real estate advertisements are collected and processed to identify wood burning installations, which are automatically classified according to the three classes used in official statistics, i.e., open fireplaces, stoves produced before 1998 and stoves produced after 1998. The model recognizes and classifies the wood appliances with a precision of 81%, 85% and 91% for open fireplaces, old stoves and new stoves, respectively. Emission factors are heavily dependent on technology and this information is therefore essential for determining accurate emissions. The collected data are compared with existing information from the statistical register at county and national level in Norway. The comparison shows good agreement for the proportion of residential heating systems between the webcrawled data and the official statistics. The high resolution and level of detail of the extracted data show the value of open data to improve emission inventories. With the increased amount and availability of data, the techniques presented here add significant value to emission accuracy and potential applications should also be considered across all emission sectors.


Recent efforts to reduce international tax evasion focus on information exchange with tax havens. Using bilateral bank data for 1,397 country pairs in a balanced quarterly panel from 2003:I – 2017:IV, we first show that information-on-request treaties with tax havens reduce bank deposits in tax havens by 27.5%. Second, also deposits from tax havens in high tax countries decline after such treaties are signed, giving authorities a second angle to detect tax evasion. Both reactions dissipate overt time and treaties signed after 2010 trigger no further reactions. These results cannot be explained by deposit shifting alone and we find no evidence of transitioning into legality. Third, recent policy initiatives based on the automatic exchange of bank information lead to very similar initial reactions as earlier treaties, consistent with adjustments on the part of tax evaders. This suggests that tax evaders adapt to established information exchange treaties by using new disguises to hide their true income, and react again to new measures. These results cast doubt on the effectiveness of current forms of information exchange to tackle international tax evasion. JEL classification: H 26 (tax evasion and avoidance), F 38 (int'l financial policy)


The research consisted in testing Polish sawn timber dedicated for construction applications made of pines (Pinus sylvestris L.) that grew in the Silesian Forestry Region, taking into account three parts of the log: butt, middle and top. The boards had the same cross section, a nominal thickness of 40 mm and width of 138 mm, typical for Polish structural timber. The mean nominal length of the boards under research amounted to 3500 mm. Each set was composed of 70 boards. Before the tests, boards were dried in an industrial drier until reaching the moisture content of 12%, and they were planed on 4 sides. First of all, the sawn timber was graded into strength classes, and their dynamic modulus of elasticity (MOE_dyn) was tested with a non-destructive method, with the use of a portable MTG device. The next step consisted in a bending test with four points of support, according to the EN 408 standard, and with the use of the TiraTest 2300 machine, in order to determine the global modulus of elasticity (MOE_EN-408) and the static bending strength, also referred to as modulus of rupture (MOR). Finally, the average growth ring width was determined for each board (PN-D-94021), as well as wood density according
to EN-408. The hereby paper presents the test results for all the tested sawn timber boards, taking into account the part of log that each board came from: butt, middle or top. The hereby paper presents the influence of density on the mechanical properties of wood, taking into account the location on the round timber. The analysis does not include the influence of the width of annual growth rings and the proportion of latewood on the wood properties under research.


Health and Air Quality providers and researchers need environmental data to study and understand the geographic, environmental, and meteorological differences in disease. Satellite remote sensing of the environment offers a unique vantage point that can fill in the gaps of environmental, spatial, and temporal data for tracking disease. This presentation will demonstrate the need for collaborations between multi-disciplinary research groups to develop the full potential of utilizing Earth Observations in studying health. Satellite earth observations present a unique vantage point of the earth's environment from space, which offers a wealth of health applications for the imaginative investigator. The presentation is directly related to Earth Observing systems and Global Health Surveillance and will present research results of the remote sensing environmental observations of earth and health applications, which can contribute to the public health and air quality research. As part of NASA approach and methodology they have used Earth Observation Systems and Applications for Public Health and Air Quality Models to provide a method for bridging gaps of environmental, spatial, and temporal data for tracking disease. This presentation will provide an overview of projects dealing with infectious diseases, water borne diseases and air quality and how many environmental variables effect human health. This presentation will provide a venue where the results of both research and practice using satellite earth observations to study weather and it's role in public health research.


Earthquake resistant structural design and strengthening of buildings are important subjects for many countries that is laying most of its land on earthquake zone. System and component based reinforcements can be performed through the process of retrofitting of reinforced concrete buildings. System based retrofitting type can be categorized into two groups. The first one is the traditional type that aims to fix the ductility, stiffness and the strength of the structures. The second one is the more innovative one that is oriented to reduce the effects of the seismic forces on the structures. Traditional strengthening techniques require heavy demolition and construction work. However, innovative methods that reduce the detrimental effects of earthquakes on buildings are generally expensive to implement, which makes them unsuitable for ordinary buildings. Accordingly, some researchers have focused on the methods that combine the advantages as well as eliminating the disadvantages of the both conventional and modern techniques. One of these methods is installing a link by applying an eccentrically braced system in the shape of "Y". In this study, a link is designed and used as a shear element in order to understand the effect of the change at the length of this link on the behavior of system by applying an eccentrically braced system in the shape of "Y" connected vertically to the beam. For this purpose, single story, single span RC frame specimens were produced. The features of the RC frames were chosen according to the conditions of the current reinforced concrete buildings. Lean RC frame specimen were retrofitted with eccentrically braced vertical links. The produced specimens were tested under the reversible loads. Finally; with the help of the results of the tests, analyzed retrofitting technique improved the energy dissipation and lateral load bearing capacities of the lean RC specimen.


China's ever growing importance in world affairs and politics has not gone by unnoticed. However, conventional IR theories fail to explain how the emerging superpower has been expanding its role in regional institutions. The rather novel theory of scholar Kai He of institutional realism will be applied to China's involvement in the formation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). His theory combines traditional neorealism with elements of the neoliberal interdependence theory in an attempt to provide a holistic approach to the PRC's foreign policy decisions.


Because of salinity, many areas with irrigated farmland have suffered from reduced food and fiber production, especially where irrigation water or soil contains large amounts of soluble salts. In those areas, ridge-furrow tillage is a common practice and furrow irrigation is a popular irrigation method. Effects of water content, temperature, and solute concentration on transport phenomena in soil are hard to predict without complex models. The geometry of a ridge-furrow surface contributes to complexities in heat and vapor transport, and hence, in the distribution of water, temperature, and salt in soil. To improve understanding of water, heat, and solute transport in furrow-irrigated and salt-affected soil, we developed a two-dimensional mechanistic model using the Galerkin finite element method (FEM). The model was designed to consider interactive effects of water content, temperature, and solute concentration on water, heat, and solute transport. To simulate field conditions, an energy balance equation was applied to the ridge-furrow surface to provide boundary conditions for water and heat transport. To utilize a single FEM solver, equations governing transport of water, heat, and salt in soil were generalized as a diffusive-convective type equation. Numerical schemes for the model were tested by comparing simulated results with analytical or semianalytical solutions. Good agreements between FEM and analytically calculated soil water content, temperature, and solute concentration were obtained.


Production, reception and the distribution and sale of art have historically influenced the aesthetics and creation of art. This guide will focus on finding and using materials for research in the area of the economic history of art.


The field of Deep Learning (DL) has seen a remarkable series of developments with increasingly accurate and robust algorithms. However, the increase in performance has been accompanied by an increase in the parameters, complexity, and training and inference time of the models, which means that we are rapidly reaching a point where DL may no longer be feasible. On the other hand, some specific applications need to be carefully considered when developing DL models due to hardware limitations or power requirements. In this context, there is a growing interest in efficient DL algorithms, with Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) being one of the most promising paradigms. Due to the inherent asynchrony and sparseness of spike trains, these types of networks have the potential to reduce power consumption while maintaining relatively good performance. This is attractive for efficient DL and if successful, could replace traditional Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) in many applications. However, despite significant progress, the performance of SNNs on benchmark datasets is often lower than that of traditional ANNs. Moreover, due to the non-differentiable nature of their activation functions, it is difficult to train SNNs with direct backpropagation, so appropriate training strategies must be found. Nevertheless, significant efforts have been made to develop competitive models. This survey covers the main ideas behind SNNs and reviews recent trends in learning rules and network architectures, with a particular focus on biologically inspired strategies. It also provides some practical considerations of state-of-the-art SNNs and discusses relevant research opportunities.


Phenomena of synchronization, rhythmogenesis and coherence found in brain networks are believed to be a dynamical substrate for cognitive functions such as learning and memory. However, it is still debated whether the rhythmic activity emerges from network morphology developed in neurogenesis or as a result of neuronal dynamics realized under certain conditions. In this research we found, that in neural networks formed in mature hippocampal cultures with high cellular density the spiking activity self-organized and converged to long, complex and rhythmically repeated superbursts. The superburst lasted tens of seconds and consisted of hundreds of short (50-100 ms) small bursts with a high spiking rate of 139.0 ± 78.6 Hz that can be associated with high-frequency oscillations in the hippocampus. In turn, the interval between peak burst activities in the range of 100-150 ms can be treated as a theta rhythm (11.2 ± 1.5 Hz). Distribution of spikes within the bursts was non-random, representing a set of well-defined space-time base patterns or motifs. We found that the long superburst can be classified into two types. Each type was associated with a unique direction of spike propagation and, hence, can be encoded by a binary sequence with random switching between the two "functional" states. Such precisely structured bidirectional rhythmic activity developed in self-organizing cultured networks were quite similar to what observed in the in vivo experiments.


Adventutres in Physiology, with Excursions into Autopharmacology. A selection from the scientific publications of Sir Henry Hallett Dale, O.M., G.B.E., F.R.S., M.D., F.R.C.P. With an introduction and recent comments by the author. (Pp. 652, with many figures. £6 6s.) London Pergamon Press. 1953. There are thirty papers and lectures in this book, chosen for continuity of interest; th'ey are mainly on humoral transmission and histamine. One might wonder at first, as the author says he did, whether it was worth while reprinting papers which were readily accessible-and, what the author did not say, papers which are already part of contemporary knowledge and regularly consulted by physiologists and pharmacologists the world over. The answer is that we have here, in collected and convenient form, a series of papers that have played a large part in the foundation of modern pharmacology, and indeed have made history. Moreover, the author has now added some valuable comments, or second thoughts, bringing the papers under the light of more recent knowledge. It is these comments which provide the really fascinating part of the book. They show that the author has not only continued to read widely, but has adjusted his earlier views to modern conceptions. Often, in preface and in comments, he refers to instances "in which accident seems to have favoured, or even to have prompted, some scientific enterprise of mine." And indeed, if we are to believe the author, not even the Three Princes of Serendip were more fortunate in their serendipity than he. One can only agree with him up to a point : in the extract above quoted the operative word is " enterprise." The crucial accident was that the author happened to be endowed with the genius and the enterprise to follow up the unexpected events which happen from time to time no doubt, though so often with no further consequences, to all of us. Yet in spite of this good fortune, as he calls it, that eternal spirit of discontent which is part of the equipment of the scientific mind shows through at times. What he seems to regret is not having been endowed with precognition: " Doubtless I ought to have seen that nor-adrenaline might be the main transmitter " (in 1910); and, " Even more curious, however, is the fact that, by this time (1914), both Elliott and I seem to have become shy of any open allusion to the 'chemical transmission' theory, which he had originated ten years earlier." The title of the book is an apt one, for few research workers can look back on their earlier work with the same satisfaction, and with such searching selfanalysis, and see that in retrospect it was more adventurous than appeared at the time. No better book could be studied by the young research worker needing stimulus and encouragement. There is a bibliography of 253 papers and lectures by the author. The work has been well printed, and the illustrations have come out well; the opportunity has been taken for the correction of some misprints in the originals, not, however, without introducing some others-for example, in title No. 11, p. 26, where " retraction " should read " retractor." C. LOVATT EVANS.


Experiments to generate multiple shock waves in an axisymmetric model at hypersonic speeds were conducted in a small reflected shock tunnel. Conical surfaces were used to generate shock waves inside a circular duct chosen to be representative of a scramjet combustor. These shock waves impinged on turbulent boundary layers to produce shock wave/boundary layer interactions (SWBLIs). In the process of observing this phenomenon, the commonly used empirical correlations of Korkegi were tested for accuracy, i.e. the combined pressure ratio across these shocks can be measured and compared to that predicted by these correlations. Korkegi correlates only with Mach number, and is independent of Reynolds number and on how the pressure is applied. A major contribution of this work is to examine how the details of the compression process effect separation. In this study, the history of applying the compression was varied. An analytical method was developed for theoretically estimating the onset of incipient separation using an integrated computation of the momentum flux contained in the boundary layer. By including the summed (negative) contribution of wall shear stress on the integrated momentum flux, the upstream history of the boundary layer was considered. The overall result has a form similar to the Korkegi correlations, plus an additional correction term relating to momentum loss through wall shear stress. The correction term was determined to be a second order effect, which explains why the Reynolds number independent Korkegi correlations work so well over such a large range of conditions. A hypersonic flow test condition conducive to the generation of high Reynolds number flows and turbulent boundary layer production was developed in a small reflected shock tunnel. The experimentally measured flow parameters were matched by numerical simulation using a number of in-house codes at The University of Queensland. This has allowed the unmeasured parameters which are numerically derived to be stated with greater confidence. An internal centre-body with a conical forebody was used to generate conditions of incipient separation. This provided benchmark data for comparison with subsequent experiments with multiple compressions. A semi-vertex angle of 15o was selected based on Large Eddy Simulation (LES) numerical results once the experimental and numerical static wall pressure and heat flux were matched. A two-cone experimental model, which provided for adjustment of the axial separation between the two shock systems, was tested at the same flow conditions as used in the single-cone experiments. A technique of incrementally moving the instrumentation (relative to the centre-body) and repeating the same condition to achieve high resolution in pressure and heat flux distributions with a limited number of transducers was successful. The results verified that it was possible to subject a hypersonic turbulent boundary layer to two quantified compression-expansion systems with an adjustable axial separation between them and capture the first reflected shock in a "shock trap" to remove it's influence from the second SWBLI. The data from this initial two-cone model provided non-separated pressure and heat flux data which was used as a reference to help interpret data from separated flows. The commercially available Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) numerical code, CFD-Fastran, was used to help design an experimental model which produces boundary layer separation. Algebraic and two-equation turbulence models were applied to a modified two-cone model to show greater pressure rises which would produce boundary layer separation. A modified two-cone model was tested and demonstrated boundary layer separation. Three configurations with varying axial separation between SWBLIs were tested which all produced separation. The configuration that produced the largest pressure ratio and largest separation region at the second SWBLI may represent a geometry whereby the distance from the hollow cylinder inlet and the second cone may represent a critical value. The amount of viscous interaction, generated from the leading edge of the shock trap, and the proximity of the two interactions may be coupled to produce higher than expected values. It is postulated that the boundary layer momentum recovery for the configuration where the second SWBLI was furthest downstream (30 mm configuration), prevented severe separation from occurring. An in-house RANS code, elmer3, was used to simulate the flow of the modified two-cone model. An algebraic turbulence model was applied to this model and comparisons of experimentally measured static wall pressure and heat flux have given good agreement. The wall shear stress was investigated to provide further information concerning the position and size of flow reversal regions. The use of the numerical codes utilised in this study has reinforced their effectiveness for model design and comparison of experimental results.


BACKGROUND
Mining of gold, taconite, and talc may involve exposure to elongate mineral particles (EMP). The involved EMPs are typically non-asbestiform, include dimensions that regulatory definitions exclude, and have been less studied.

METHODS
A review of the literature was undertaken for this exposure and occupational epidemiological studies that occur in gold, talc, and taconite mining.

RESULTS
Quantitative EMP exposure information in these industries is incomplete. However, there are consistent findings of pneumoconiosis in each of these types of mining. A recent case-control study suggests a possible association between this exposure and mesothelioma. Lung cancer is inconsistently reported in these industries and is an unlikely outcome of non-asbestiform EMP exposure. There is evidence of cardiovascular mortality excess across all of these types of mining.

CONCLUSIONS
Non-malignant respiratory disease and cardiovascular mortality have been consistently increased in these industries. Further investigation, including additional insights for the role of non-asbestiform EMP, is warranted. Am. J. Ind. Med. 59:1047-1060, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


This study looks to analyse to what extent the neorealism versus neoliberalism debate contributes to understanding the complexity of the European Union's institutionalization, focusing on the impacts of the 2008 financial crisis and the asymmetries between Germany and Greece. How far can Greece be considered guilty for its situation and how far is Germany involved both in the cause and in the resolution of this crisis? To answer these questions, a brief analysis of the European Union's formation and of both countries' macroeconomic indicators and competitiveness is presented. The article also discusses the increasing institutionalization of the International System and the complex interdependence created within the European Union. It argues that increased European cooperation has deep-lying neorealist motivations and that the world financial regime's pandemic dynamics makes evident the asymmetrical interdependence between Germany and Greece. Economic disparities between the two nations are determinant factors in their respective behaviours prior to the 2008 crisis.


Several commentators have argued that the Economics-Made-Fun ("EMF") genre contains very little actual economics. As such, it would seem that criticisms of EMF do not apply economics more broadly. In this paper I take a contrary view, arguing that, in fact, at a deep conceptual level, the engine of EMF analyses is precisely the engine of mainstream economics. Specifically, I argue that both EMF and mainstream economics rest on a conceptual foundation known as the Principal of the Substitution of Similars ("PSS"). Understanding how PSS leads EMF practitioners to make claims well beyond what is warranted by their analysis also offers insight into how PSS leaves mainstream economists in danger of overestimating the power and scope of their analyses. I explore the consequences of such problems through an example of economic analysis of the U.S. housing market in the lead-up to the recent financial crisis. Keywords: Methodology, Popular Economics, William Stanley Jevons, Ontology, Anthropology of Finance JEL Codes: B13, B41, Z13 In a famous scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail, a village wise-man named Bedevere is called upon to adjudicate his fellow villagers' claims that a woman they have brought before him is a witch. After some thought and a bit of assistance from King Arthur, Bedevere devises a test and soon the villagers are gathered before an enormous balancing scale containing the woman and a duck, certain that they are about to receive definitive verification or refutation of their conjecture. For fans of Monty Python's brand of humor, this scene bears the hallmark of what made Monty Python great: the juxtaposition of normalcy and absurdity. It is funny, in part, because the characters are completely committed to the logically sound and patently absurd elements of 1 Presented at the Erasmus Institute for Philosophy and Economics Symposium on the "Economics Made Fun" Genre, December 10, 2010, Rotterdam, Netherlands. DRAFT:
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  PERMISSION 2 the situation in equal measure. This both highlights the absurdity and pokes fun at the human tendency to take our favored norms and beliefs, no matter how strange, as self-evidently right and true. When we laugh at Bedevere and the villagers, we are also laughing at our own all-toohuman nature. Lately, there has been a version of this comedic trope propagating through the popular non-fiction bookshelves in the guise of "Economics-Made-Fun" writing. Like Bedevere, its authors claim to be revealing hidden aspects of the universe by interpreting superficial similarities between apparently unlike objects within the framework of a set of absurd assumptions to produce startling conclusions. For Bedevere and the villagers, the fact of the similar weights of a duck and woman means a witch roams among them. For Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (2005), the fact that some Sumo wrestlers and some teachers sometimes cheat points to some deep underlying connection between the two. EMF analyses, though, are marketed not as absurd comedy but rather as mostly straightfaced social analysis. Its practitioners do sometimes present their work as winking or tongue-incheek, but not in a sense that is meant to undermine the impression that their conclusions represent genuine and profound insights. For the most part, the work is meant to be a version of real economics and is put forth by unquestionably real economists, some of whom occupy prestigious chairs at elite institutions and regularly publish in the discipline's top journals. Like many other critics of the EMF genre, I find the characterization of EMF work as even semi-serious social science to be misleading at best. Unlike other critics, however, I will not be taking issue here with the ways in which EMF work falls short of (or completely outside) the standards of contemporary economics.2 Rather, I will be exploring the possibility that the central analytic principle of EMF work fits quite comfortably within the norms and standards of 2 This point has been made most forcefully and comprehensively by DiNardo (2007). DRAFT:
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  PERMISSION 3 contemporary mainstream economics, and that by recognizing this we can better understand some of the serious methodological problems within mainstream economics that have led to its current state of turmoil. The analytic principle I have in mind is a particularly extreme (and logically flawed) version of metaphorical explanation called "The Principle of the Substitution of Similars", which was first introduced into economics by the late 19th century economist William Stanley Jevons. Put briefly, the PSS holds that if two objects are even superficially similar, they can be presumed to be identical with respect to certain (arbitrarily selected) essential features. I will argue below that the PSS is an important generator of many of the surprising (and unsupported) conclusions of EMF work, but that it is also a widely used generator of results in mainstream economics, with results similar to that which we encounter in EMF analyses. Worryingly, however, the version of PSS utilized in mainstream economics is more sophisticated than that employed in EMF work, and so the faultiness of its procedure is more difficult to detect—not least because the currently accepted standards of model assessment in economics are not built to detect it. The result is that we have a strain of rot at the core of our methodology that has been doing damage for a long time, and continues to do so largely unabated. The solution to this problem must begin with identifying the exact nature of the rot in order to devise a targeted response. Since EMF work employs PSS in an exaggerated manner, it is an ideal laboratory for this exploration. The paper will proceed in three sections. In section I, I will discuss the standard analytic trope of EMF analysis and show how it produces ostensibly legitimate but actually unsupported results. In section II, I will argue that Jevons' Principle of the Substitution of Similars bears a strong resemblance to the standard trope of EMF analysis and can be helpful in understanding the relationship between EMF analysis and ostensibly legitimate economics. In section III, I present the more sophisticated version of the PSS utilized by current mainstream economics and DRAFT:
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  PERMISSION 4 argue—using an example from the literature on the housing market in the lead-up to the financial crisis—how its use can lead to problems similar to those encountered in EMF work. I conclude by suggesting that judicious use of interpretive methods can be used to protect economics against the nefarious influence of the PSS. I. The Standard Trope of the Economics-Made-Fun Genre Although the EMF genre has expanded prodigiously since the publication of Freakonomics, the subtitle of that seminal work—A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything—still captures the genre's ethos quite well. The uncovering of previously hidden truths using economics in an unexpected way is the essence of the genre's self-understanding. I will argue in this section, however, that close inspection of EMF analyses reveals that the conclusions reached are generally not hidden truths uncovered by economic reasoning, but rather rational reconstructions of the phenomena under study that assume a deep structure (a.k.a. hidden order) binding the phenomena together. Put another way, EMF authors are not discovering hidden truths, but rather "discovering" their own assumptions and reporting them as surprising insights. The Freakonomics chapter "What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?" provides a good example. The chapter is ostensibly about cheating. In it, the authors present a very broad picture of cheating—including everything from steroid use by athletes to a third grader copying from another student—and then recount several stories that are intended to be understood as instances of cheating. The story of the cheating teachers centers around the Chicago public school system's experience with "high stakes" testing—i.e. standardized tests on which students must achieve a passing score to advance to the next grade level, and for which teachers are rewarded for good performance in their classrooms. In a study of several years of student test scores (and of a re-test of a smaller sample of classrooms), Levitt and his co-author DRAFT:
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  PERMISSION 5 Brian Jacob found evidence that some teachers had altered students' test responses after the fact to raise their scores (Jacob and Levitt 2003a, 2003b). The story of the Sumo wrestlers centers around some seemingly suspicious trends in match performance. Specifically, Levitt and his coauthor Mark Duggan examined matches in which a win was extremely important for one wrestler but not for the other, and found that the wrestlers in need of a win performed much better in those matches than they did under similar circumstances in non-crucial matches (Duggan and Levitt 2002). Levitt and Dubner suggest that the facts reviewed above are evidence that teachers and Sumo wrestlers have something in common.3 Before examining this claim in detail, we need first to make it more explicit. To dispense with a minimal reading of the title, we can simply note that there is no question that Sumo wrestlers and teachers have something in common. Any two things have something in common.4 But the authors' suggestion is clearly something more specific and contentious than this. As the stated intent of their book is to "explore[ ] the hidden side of everything," it seems appropriate to interpret the title of the chapter as a claim that there is a hidden connection between Sumo wrestlers and teachers that the material covered in the chapter will expose. To understand what would be necessary to make s


OBJECTIVES
To assess the effects of qi therapy on premenstrual symptoms in women with premenstrual syndrome (PMS).

DESIGN
A randomized placebo-controlled trial.

SUBJECTS
Thirty-six (36) college women with symptoms of PMS.

INTERVENTION
After 2 months of screening, subjects with PMS were randomized to receive real qi therapy (18 subjects) or placebo (18 subjects). The subjects were informed that they would receive one of two types of treatment. They did not know which treatment they received. Each intervention was performed eight times during the second and third cycles with subjects completing a PMS diary.

RESULTS
There were significant improvements in the symptoms of negative feeling, pain, water retention, and total PMS symptoms in subjects receiving qi therapy compared to placebo controls.

CONCLUSION
Qi therapy may be an effective complementary therapy for managing the symptoms of PMS.


In this chapter I offer discussion of sexualities and sport.As with many issues related to social divisions in sporting contexts, the debates and controversies are deep and far reaching. It is impossible to cover all aspects of this topic in one short book chapter, therefore I provide a particular overview of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Intersex (LGBTQI) sport participation. I start by critically engaging with sexualities-based terminology.This is important because defining and naming are political processes that serve to produce social and cultural divisions. Then, I move to consider some examples of increasing access and participation, and I end with evidence of ever-present social divisions in society and sports that have a negative impact on sexually diverse individuals and communities.


Because of fossil fuel shortage and its damages on environment, electric vehicles (EV) are going to be more popular in science and car industry as well. So, EV's take an opportunity to spread over the traffic finally. But battery, which is the main energy supplier of the motor, has disadvantages as big volume and weight. Scientists try to enhance energy densities, ranges and quicken charging. All of research results force us to drive EV in a loop, close to charging stations for near future. So EV's should be designed by considering urban road and speed conditions as well. In this survey, we designed a new two pole 7,5 kW induction motor for a certain electric vehicle, which was designed to use urban drive. We considered urban traffic rules and conditions, while designing the motor. We simulated and verified analytical and finite element analysis of the designed induction motor. We also modelled and simulated the EV with the induction motor on MATLAB to observe control performance of field oriented control (FOC) on several urban use scenarios. According to our results, EV with designed motor can be realized and controlled.


The study of 299 chronically ill patients examined the doctor/patient relationship by asking two questions: first, what factors affect the quality of the relationship and secondly, does the doctor/patient relationship affect outcome for the patient? The doctor/patient relationship was measured by indicators of the doctor's awareness of the patient's problems.The following factors were found to be positively associated with the doctor's awareness: a small number of patient problems, a large number of recent visits, and the patient, rather than the doctor, initiating the consultation. The patient's age and education, the completeness of family care, and duration of care were not found to influence awareness. After eliminating the effect of confounding variables, the relationship between the doctor's awareness and the patient's recovery was maintained for some groups of patients. Awareness did not significantly affect the patient's satisfaction. We list some practical recommendations to aid doctors in increasing their knowledge of their patients.


Hemangiomas represent the most common tumor of infancy with the highest incidence in preterm infants (1). They are usually not present at birth but develop in the first few weeks of life and proliferate in the following weeks and months. The etiology is not yet fully understood but vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) may play an important role. Multiple hemangiomas are defined by five or more hemangiomas, are usually smaller in size and more likely to be associated with visceral hemangiomas.


Strongly coupled heat, species mass and momentum transport behaviors in melting processes of a 2D blade like casting of Al-4.5Cu%wt and pseudo-binary gamma(TiAl)-55Al%wt alloys were numerically simulated using a continuum model. The strongly pressure-linked liquid flow problems are successfully solved using the authors' proposed direct-SIMPLE algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate the availability and computational efficiency for computer modeling of the transport phenomena in alloy melting processes


Normal modes are coupled by the presence of perturbations in the Sun, providing a novel and underappreciated helioseismic technique with which to image the solar interior. The process of measuring coupling between normal modes is straightforward, much more so when compared with other prevalent helioseismic techniques. The theoretical framework to interpret these measurements is well developed with the caveat that it applies only in the case where the entire surface of the Sun is observed. In practice, however, the limited visibility of the Sun and line-of-sight-related effects diminish the resolution of the technique. Here, we compute realistic sensitivities of normal-mode coupling measurements to flows in the solar interior and describe how to mitigate the sometimes-overwhelming effect of leakage. The importance of being able to isolate individual spherical harmonics and observe the full Sun, to which future solar observatories may aspire, is thus highlighted in our results. In the latter part of the article, we describe the noise model for the variance of coupling coefficients, a critical component to the process of inference.


A large number of CD4+ human T helper type 1 (Th1) clones specific for purified protein derivative and of Th2 clones specific for the excretory/secretory antigen of Toxocara canis, derived from the same individuals, were analyzed for both cytotoxic capacity and helper function for immunoglobulin (Ig) synthesis. The great majority of Th1, but only a minority of Th2 clones exhibited cytolytic activity. All Th2 (noncytolytic) clones induced IgM, IgG, IgA, and IgE synthesis by autologous B cells in the presence of the specific antigen, and the degree of response was proportional to the number of Th2 cells added to B cells. Under the same experimental conditions, Th1 (cytolytic) clones provided helper function for IgM, IgG, and IgA, but not IgE, synthesis with a peak response at 1:1 T/B cell ratio. At higher T/B cell ratios, a strong decrease of Ig synthesis was observed. All Th1 clones lysed Epstein-Barr virus transformed autologous B cells pulsed with the specific antigen. The decrease of Ig production at high T/B cell ratios correlated with the lytic activity of Th1 clones against autologous antigen-presenting B cell targets. These data suggest that Th1 differ from Th2 human T cell clones not only for their profile of cytokine secretion, but also for cytolytic potential and mode of help for B cell Ig synthesis.


With new product introductions (NPIs), consumers rejoice and marketing generates the buzz, but supply chain executives shudder. In today's ever-changing economy, one thing is constant - the ever increasing pace of new products hitting the retailer's shelves. As companies struggle to grow market share or, at a minimum, maintain existing share, the introduction of the newest products is a proven method of achieving it. For consumers, NPIs are exciting, but for manufacturers and retailers it is all about competing for business, and at what cost? In a recent study by AMR Research, which specializes in supply chain practices, 32% of the participants believed that products reaching the market late is the key reason for new product launch failure. Other reasons include product pricing, quality, and missing customer needs. So how can supply chain executives improve customer satisfaction? In the last few years, a number of innovative techniques have been introduced by leading industry analysts and supply chain solution providers to help manufacturers and retailers improve the process and increase the success of launching new products into the marketplace. THE CHALLENGING PROCESS FOR LAUNCHING A NEW PRODUCT There are many challenges that come with launching a new product into the marketplace. Forecasting for NPIs is just one of the big challenges the supply chain team needs to consider. Before addressing how to improve forecast accuracy for NPIs, it is important to look at the overall process of the launch as a whole. Research shows that the launch of new product lines is the #2 enterprise-level event affecting supply chain management. How can you mitigate a NPIs' effect on the supply chain? It is imperative to have a solid overall process in place to be successful at improving the launch of NPIs. One such process to consider is Design for Six Sigma (DFSS). There are several approaches to DFSS; the most popular is called DMADV, which stands for "Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Validate." (See Figure 1) Phase 1: Define. Define the business case and the opportunity for a new product. Phase 2: Measure. The needs of the key stakeholders, such as sales, finance, and manufacturing are identified, measured, and developed. Phase 3: Analyze. This phase consists of system design, and the generation and selection of the best possible concepts. For example, if you are a manufacturer, you need to decide where to manufacture the product and what would be the required for tooling, sourcing of purchase products, etc. Phase 4: Design. A detailed design for the product is developed and optimized. The robustness of the design ensures minimization of variations in the performance of the product. Phase 5: Validate. The generated designs are verified and validated using simulations and other approaches. While these five phases are crucial to the process, let me add a sixth phase that is equally important - General Availability. This is where the supply chain team can verify and validate the forecasts in Phase 1 against consumer demand. As you will see, this is a critical step in ensuring the success of an NPI. TRADITIONAL APPROACHES TO FORECASTING When launching NPIs, make sure you have the most accurate forecast. Having this will improve manufacturing efficiencies and ultimately delivery to the end customer. Above all, it will help to prevent disruptions in the supply chain. Before reviewing the newest techniques for forecasting NPIs, let's take a walk down memory lane. How have companies traditionally created forecasts for NPIs? Basically, they often turned to one of two approaches. The first approach is what I call "tribal knowledge." This method relies on individuals in the demand planning or supply chain organization to identify a "like" product - that is, a product that has similar characteristics to the new product - and then use its demand history as a basis for a new product forecast. …


Research, to be meaningful to the community, should be able to affect or mold the practice of medicine, favorably. It is in this context that the International Journal of Medical Science Research and Practice (freely available at http://www.ijmsrp.com/) is being launched. And I feel proud to be writing the inaugural editorial. The aim of the journal is to bring together the researcher and the practitioner on the same platform, so as to build up the providers, expertise, and capacity for evidence-informed practice. IJMSRP is a quarterly, open access, peer reviewed journal with wide scope of subjects, i.e. basic medical science subjects (anatomy, physiology, biochemistry), para-clinical subjects (pathology, microbiology, pharmacology, forensic medicine, community medicine); and clinical sciences (medicine, surgery, obstetrics gynecology, orthopedics, pediatrics, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, psychiatry, dermatology, medical ethics, and medical education) etc. Professionals of all levels should benefit from the wide range of high quality, accessible articles published in this journal. What constitutes research and what kind of research deserves to be published is a never-ending debate. To me, every research is pertinent and merits publication as long as it is ethical, relevant (to be able to have an impact on practice of the specialty) and topical (applicable to current needs). The basic idea of a research is to clear doubts. The generalizability of the results would, however, depend upon the robustness of the methodology adopted to answer the research question. As there can be different paths to reach a destination, there can be several methodologies to answer a research question. Mount Everest has been conquered through various routes, and yet a perfect route is yet to be discovered—the 'perfect route' here referring to one where the mountaineer doesn't face death, illness or any other hindrances in achieving the goal. Such a route may, perhaps, never be discovered yet the mighty peak will continue to be the attraction of the climbers, to satisfy their passion of adventure. Same is true for research; all methods have one/another flaw and thus there is no method 'too perfect' to answer a research question. Knowing that fully well, we seek answers, even though they may not be the ultimate unchallengeable truth to the research question, relevant to the practice of medicine. It is a boon in disguise that no research is perfect. Had it been, there would be no new hypotheses, no new postulates, and no new theories to work upon. Another question is "whether every research has to be novel"? Papers are often rejected for the lack of novelty. The editors look for a novelty not only in the research question, but equally so in the methods undertaken to solve this question. This may need some debate. Repetition of older experiments is also essential, not only to validate the earlier findings, but also to find out whether the results would change with change in setting of the study or experiment, or over a period of time. At the same time, a novel twist in the selection of participants, inclusion criteria, tools, case-definitions, outcome measures, study devotion, follow-up and statistical methods can serve to bring a new dimension to research. This needs to be amply highlighted when a paper is being sent for publication, so as to quench the editor's inevitable thirst for novelty. No research question is ever too stale despite it being repeated. There can always be newer settings, different tools, diverse population groups, and novel outcome measures with the same research question. What's more important is the honesty and confidence with which the research is conducted. For me, another desirable function of a research is that it should be able to generate more queries than it is able to answer. This is essential for a cascading and never-ending quest for knowledge. Once Mount Everest was conquered, it was not that the mountaineers stopped scaling the peak; rather, it was pursued with more vigor, it was planned with more knowledge and it revealed more of the mountain than had been known before. Several new questions were generated during each ascent and the focus then shifted to answering these, taking into consideration new parameters for the success of a journey like the shortest route, the safest route, the most feasible route, the least use of technological assistance, a differently-abled person as the traveler, preventing mortality and morbidity related to high altitude climbing, etc. A research question therefore remains alive by leaving in its wake more questions. That is the beauty of research. The natural hierarchical progression of translational research starts with the generation of research question, execution of technical research and its transformation into operational research before being finally absorbed as a policy into the (health) system.  Fellow editors and researchers, the choice is yours. You can hunt for the perfect research, the one that efficiently gives a precise and correct answer, or you can look for the research where you are left newer questions to contend with. As for me, I believe that every research is perfect as long as it provides new dimensions, presents understandable strong evidences and admits limitations.  You can look for the perfect research according to the parameters you set, but odds are, it's right in front of your eyes.


This paper provides a case study for the use of syllogistic reconstructions in the commentaries on Plato by the fifth-century commentator Proclus. The paper discusses Proclus' reconstruction of the argument about the range of the Forms in Plato's Parmenides (130b–e). In his commentary on this dialogue, Proclus reports a syllogistic reconstruction of the argument proposed by some of his predecessors. In this reconstruction, the argument as a whole is interpreted as a straightforward attack on the existence of Forms, while the different premises of the hypothetical syllogism represent the respective positions of Parmenides and Socrates in the discussion. For Proclus, however, the argument about the range of Forms is not meant to be critical of the Forms, but rather provides a positive instruction about their range of application. I argue that while Proclus finds the syllogism a useful tool to reconstruct the different positions in the exegetical history of the argument, he does not accept it as an adequate reconstruction on his own account. The argument can be traced back most likely to the so-called 'logical' interpretations of the Parmenides that Proclus discusses – and dismisses – in the prologue to his commentary.


Hybridization between closely related lineages is a mechanism that might promote substantive changes in phenotypic traits of descendants, resulting in transgressive evolution. Interbreeding between divergent but morphologically similar lineages can produce exceptional phenotypes, but the potential for transgressive variation to facilitate long‐term trait changes in derived hybrid lineages has received little attention. We compare pollinator‐mediated selection on transgressive floral traits in both early‐generation and derived hybrid lineages of the Piriqueta cistoides ssp. caroliniana complex. The bowl‐shaped flowers of morphotypes in this complex have similar gross morphologies and attract a common suite of small insect pollinators. However, they are defined by significant differences in characters that generate pollinator interest and visitation, including floral area and petal separation. In common garden experiments, patterns of pollen deposition in early‐generation recombinant hybrids indicate that Piriqueta's pollinators favour flowers with greater area and reduced petal separation. Changes in floral morphology in derived hybrid lineages are consistent with predictions from selection gradients, but the magnitude of change is limited relative to the range of transgressive variation. These results suggest that hybridization provides variation for evolution of divergent floral traits. However, the potential for extreme transgressive variants to contribute to phenotypic shifts may be limited due to reduced heritability, evolutionary constraints or fitness trade‐offs.


Lack of quality electricity supply in the remote areas is one of the main hindering factors of global development. Many countries around the world are trying to utilize renewable energy sources for remote electrification including developing countries like Bangladesh. After the renowned Solar Home System (SHS) program, Bangladesh is now focusing on solar PV-diesel hybrid minigrid system to reach more people by providing affordable electricity. Following the availability of electricity in the form of minigrid, a development in industries like sawmills, grinding mills, husking mills is predictable. Therefore, daytime loads might have significant contribution in energy consumption, unlike the usual residential scenario. With this, the irrigation demands are there during the dry season. This study analyzes the techno-economic feasibility of the solar PV-diesel hybrid system with different load conditions. A remote area of southern Bangladesh is taken as the case site. Three case studies are formulated based on the time of using irrigation pumps. HOMER Pro Microgrid Analysis Tool has been used to find the most optimized configuration for each case study. The optimized configurations from each case study are then evaluated based on the cost of electricity (COE), greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy fraction. The generation profile of solar PV and diesel generators are analyzed for each case study. From the techno-economic evaluation, it is observed that the optimum time to run the irrigation pumps is during the daytime. In this case, the solar PV has the highest contribution to meet the energy demand with the slightly increased cost of electricity.


If we represent a i-calculus term as a DAG rather than a tree, we can efficiently represent the sharing that arises from a-reduction, thus avoiding combinatorial explosion in space. By adding uplinks from a child to its parents, we can efficiently implement a-reduction in a bottom-up manner, thus avoiding combinatorial explosion in time required to search the term in a top-down fashion. We present an algorithm for performing a-reduction on i-terms represented as uplinked DAGs; describe its proof of correctness; discuss its relation to alternate techniques such as Lamping graphs, explicit-substitution calculi and director strings; and present some timings of an implementation. Besides being both fast and parsimonious of space, the algorithm is particularly suited to applications such as compilers, theorem provers, and type-manipulation systems that may need to examine terms in-between reductions—i.e., the "readback" problem for our representation is trivial. Like Lamping graphs, and unlike director strings or the suspension i calculus, the algorithm functions by side-effecting the term containing the redex; the representation is not a "persistent" one. The algorithm additionally has the charm of being quite simple; a complete implementation of the data structure and algorithm is 180 lines of SML.


To shed light on molecular mechanisms underlying patterning and cell type specification during the ontogeny of the Central Nervous System (CNS), I set up to isolate new genes with restricted patterns of expression in the developing mouse brain through a PCR based differential screening technique [1]. Among other genes found with this approach, I isolated Ebf2. This gene belongs to a new subclass of the HLH transcription factors, including several members ranging from rodents to C. elegans. In the mouse three homologs have been cloned by different groups and named Ebf1, Ebf2 and Ebf3 [2-4]. I studied the expression domain of Ebf2 during development at stages from E10.5 to E14.5 and compared it with the expression of other family members. In the region spanning midbrain to spinal cord, the patterns of expression of the three genes are very similar with few salient differences and correlate with neuronal maturation. In order to analyse the specific function of Ebf2 in neuronal development, we decided to generate a null mutant for this gene. To this end, I have determined the genomic structure at the Ebf2 locus and I finely mapped the position of the first 6 exons in 20Kb of genomic DNA. Based on the map of the locus, I generated a construct containing a 5.2 kb deletion, encompassing the translation initiation site, the first 5 exons and half of the domain encoding the zinc finger. I substituted this region with a LacZ Neo cassette. The construct was electroporated into mouse embryonic stem cells (ES). Out of 1200 clones screened, I found 3 homologous recombinant clones, that we microinjected into C57B1/B6 blastocysts obtaining chimeras and germline transmission. Despite the similarities observed among the three Ebf genes, suggesting possible redundancy in their functions, Ebf2 -/- mice show an evidently abnormal phenotype. The knocks out animals are viable at birth but show lower sizes than their littermates, as well as a mild ataxic phenotype and problems in movements and coordination. Around 50% of these mice die in the first two months of life. The analysis of the Ebf2 -/- mutant CNS, even if preliminary, revealed several alterations in the different regions of postnatal brain. We observed numerous abnormalities in Ebf2-expressing neural structures, namely the cerebellum, the septum and the olfactory bulb; we found that other telencephalic structures seem to be affected, including the hippocampus and putamen. Finally, we observed problems in the spinal cord and an impairment of peripheral nerve myelination.


Self-directed learning (SDL), is an essential concept in problem-based learning (PBL), and, in a broader sense, student-centred learning. Considering the complex nature of SDL, it has been taken for granted and given a shallow meaning, i.e. self-study. In order to develop a deeper understanding and make use of the potential in SDL, this paper discusses and puts forward a more profound meaning. The importance of regarding becoming a self-directed learner as a learning process, and the need for teachers to take part in the learning, is crucial. Two 'thinking models', one concerning the PBL tutorial work and one the relationship between tutorial work and self-study, are introduced. The unifying idea behind the reasoning is to emphasise the essence of providing opportunities for, as well as stimulating, the students' inquiring approach and responsibility.


Iron overload has long been recognised as a complication associated with multiple blood transfusions in the thalassaemic population leading to damage to the myocardium, liver and endocrine system. However, there has been little research looking at the paediatric oncology population, who often also require a large number of supportive blood transfusions secondary to the myelosuppressive effects of chemotherapy and routine monitoring of transfusion volumes and ferritin levels has not been standard practice. In a retrospective pilot study to look at the issue of potential iron overload in oncology patients, we identified twenty-three patients on high-risk treatment protocols all who required frequent blood transfusions during treatment. Five of these had completed treatment several years previously. Demographics, ferritins paired with CRP and the number of blood transfusions received were obtained from our hospital records and local shared care hospitals were contacted to complete the data if needed. Patients with incomplete data or paired CRP >30 were excluded and a total of 11 patients' data were analysed for the 'On treatment' group and 4 for the 'Post Treatment Group'. The results show that many children receive frequent transfusions and have high serum ferritin levels, but are not undergoing regular monitoring. There was a clear correlation between the number of transfusions received and the serum ferritin levels (p < 0.001). The results for the 'Post-Treatment Group' suggest that in some patients ferritin levels remain elevated outside of the normal range for some years after the end of treatment. In conclusion, paediatric oncology patients receive a significant number of transfusions during therapy. While there are few guidelines on treatment and monitoring in this cohort, these patients are at additional risk of organ toxicity secondary to chemotherapy drugs. More information on the degree and duration of exposure to elevated iron levels resulting in organ damage is necessary to determine optimal management.


This paper aims to help understand how relational trust between students and teachers embedded in the teaching-learning process unfolded during the emergency distance and flexible hybrid education in Serbia in 2020. It also identifies niches in student-teacher relationships that hold potential for repairing and building trust. For the student-teacher relationship to be trust-based and thus conducive to students' learning and wellbeing, a consensus about role expectations must be achieved. As the Covid-19 crisis interrupted schooling and education, participants faced uncertainties and ambiguities in role enactment, and the cornerstones of relational trust were disrupted. In an effort to understand 1) the context in which trust was challenged, 2) the ways in which trust was disrupted, and 3) the opportunities for its restoration, we relied on a multi-genre dynamic storytelling approach to data collection and values analysis for data processing. A total of 136 students and 117 teachers from 22 schools wrote 581 narratives in three genres: stories, letters and requests. The analysis yielded 22 codes that allowed further understanding of how changes in structural and institutional conditions affected both students' and teachers' expectations of each other, and how incongruence of these expectations fed into feelings of helplessness for both students and teachers, disengagement from learning for students, and heavy workload and poor performance for teachers. In addition, the narratives account for positive outcomes when these expectations were met, and for opportunities for trust-building if students' and teachers' perspectives are brought to each other's attention and negotiated locally. Finally, recommendations for restoring trust are given.