The article proposes a methodology for assessing the effectiveness of institutional changes in relation to insurance of agricultural risks. The methodology comprises a set of quantitative and qualitative indicators for each aggregated group of economic entities. We built a formal logical model and calculated the indicators of the effectiveness of institutional changes. This step was followed by their comparison with the indicators of agricultural insurance. The proposed methodological tools are supplemented with the analysis of institutional changes, which shows that changes in quantitative parameters and their positive dynamics are not always a sign of the effectiveness of institutional transformations. The advantage of the proposed methodology is that it enables the researcher to selectively describe both the institutional environment itself and changes in its components as well as the functional structure of individual institutions. A visual representation of the ongoing processes can be used for evidence-based decision-making. Our findings provide a comprehensive picture of the institutional changes in agricultural insurance and their outcomes. The proposed methodology can be used for further research on agricultural insurance and related topics.


Disability of the upper extremity is common after stroke. To be able to evaluate recovery and effects of interventions there is a need for stable and precise outcome measures. In order to design and target efficient rehabilitation interventions it is important to know which factors that affect the ability to perform daily hand activities. At the time when the studies in this thesis were planned there was limited knowledge of the psychometric properties of outcome measures for persons with mild to moderate impairments of the upper extremity after stroke. There was also a lack of knowledge of which daily hand activities these persons perceive difficult to perform and which factors are associated with the performance.The overall aim of this thesis was to evaluate the psychometric properties of outcome measures for upper extremity after stroke, and to describe which daily hand activities persons with mild to moderate impairments in upper extremity after stroke perceive difficult to perform and identify associated factors with their performance.In paper I – IV, between 43 and 45 participants were included. Muscle strength in the upper extremity, somatosensation (active touch), dexterity and self-perceived ability to perform daily hand activities were assessed twice, one to two weeks apart. In paper V, 75 participants were included and the evaluated measures of the upper extremity were used together with other stroke specific outcomes to cover important aspects of functioning and disability according to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). Test-retest analyses for continuous data were made with the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC), the Change in Mean, the Standard Error of Measurement (SEM) and the Smallest Real Difference (SRD) (Paper I, III and IV). For ordinal data the Kappa coefficient and the Elisabeth Svensson rank-invariant method were used (Paper II and III). For analyses of convergent validity the Spearman's correlation coefficient (rho) was calculated (Paper III). The ability to perform daily hand activities and the associations with potential factors were evaluated by univariate and multivariate linear regression models (Study V). The results showed that outcome measures for isometric and isokinetic muscle strength, active touch, dexterity and self-perceived daily hand activities have high test-retest agreements and can be recommended for persons with mild to moderate impairments in the upper extremity after stroke (Paper I to IV). Isometric strength measurements had lower measurement errors than isokinetic measurements and might be preferred (Paper I). The outcomes of dexterity showed learning effects (Paper III) and the ratings of perceived daily hand activities (Paper IV) had relatively high random measurement errors which must be taken into account when recovery and effects of interventions are evaluated. The three evaluated dexterity measures were partly related and can complement each other (Paper IV). Daily hand activities that require bimanual dexterity were perceived most difficult to perform, and dexterity and participation were the strongest contributing factors for performing daily hand activities after stroke (Paper V).In conclusion, this thesis has shown that outcome measures assessing functioning and disability of upper extremity after stroke are reliable and can be used in clinical settings and research. To increase the ability to perform daily hand activities, dexterity and perceived participation, in particular, should be considered in the assessments, goal-settings and rehabilitation after stroke. (Less)


Introduction Borderless work is an increasing phenomenon in modern work-life, where many employees have constant access to e-mail and other means to work from anywhere at any time. In many ways, it creates a freedom of action but also a risk of health. Many companies are now addressing this issue by introducing e-mail policies and such, however many employees are still risking their health by not disconnecting from the job and finding the balance between work-life and personal life. 'Balansguiden' is the outcome of a request from Swedish companies and unions to offer an easy-to-use, cost-free self-assessment tool available to the Swedish workforce. Methods The e-tool is foremost to be used as a means to raise awareness within the individuals themselves. The user can choose from five topics, e.g. 'you can work wherever you like' or 'everyone trusts you'. Each topic starts with a short film clip, describing it with statements and situations. Further reflection is supported by follow-up questions, facts and finally the possibility to create an action plan in order to encourage change. The e-tool also encompasses support for managers to handle risks regarding borderless work on a group level. It is based around the same five topics and offers the possibilities to make group assessments as well as follow up over time presented by graphic visualisations. It also provides a fact-based foundation for group discussion on the topics. Results The e-tool was first available for individual use in 2016 and completed with the group functionality in 2017. The response has been positive from Swedish users, with over 18 000 unique site visits since the first release. Discussion Scientific evaluation of the usefulness and effectiveness of the e-tool would make a valuable contribution and enable further conclusions about the method as such.


Clinical studies of ceftriaxone (CTRX) were performed at a dose of 40 mg/kg once daily to evaluate its pharmacokinetics, and clinical and bacteriological efficacies in pediatric patients with respiratory tract infections. The following results were obtained. 1. Of 45 patients, clinical responses to CTRX were excellent in 34 (75.6%), good in 9 (20.0%) and poor in 2 (4.4%), indicating the overall efficacy rate of 95.6%. 2. Haemophilus influenzae (23 strains), Streptococcus pneumoniae (20 strains) and Moraxella catarrhalis (17 strains) were isolated from the patients as the main causative organisms. MIC90 of CTRX against these detected bacteria was < or = 0.06 microgram/ml with H. influenzae [beta-lactamase (-)/ABPC (S)], 0.25 microgram/ml with H. influenzae (BLNAR), 0.05 microgram/ml with PSSP, 1.0 microgram/ml with PISP/PRSP and 2.0 micrograms/ml with M. catarrhalis, respectively. 3. The eradication rate of causative organisms was 90.0% (27/30). 4. Serum levels of CTRX after administration of a 1-hour intravenous drip infusion of 40 mg/kg were investigated in 12 patients. Mean serum level at 24 hours after the administration was 9.4 +/- 2.8 micrograms/ml, which covered the level of MIC90 throughout the 24 hours. 5. No adverse reactions related to CTRX were observed. As the approved dosage of CTRX in pediatric patients is twice daily, while it is once daily in adults, there have been few reports on the efficacy of once-daily CTRX in pediatrics. According to the results of the study, it is suggested that once-daily CTRX for the pediatric patients with respiratory tract infections is useful. Further studies might be required to establish outpatient parenteral antibiotic therapy (OPAT) in pediatric infections.


The structure and chemical composition are the key parameters influencing the properties of organic thin films deposited on inorganic substrates. Such films often display structures that substantially differ from the bulk, and the substrate has a relevant influence on their polymorphism. In this work, we illuminate the role of the substrate by studying its influence on para-benzoquinone on two different substrates, Ag(111) and graphene. We employ a combination of first-principles calculations and machine learning to identify the energetically most favorable structures on both substrates and study their electronic properties. Our results indicate that for the first layer, similar structures are favorable for both substrates. For the second layer, we find two significantly different structures. Interestingly, graphene favors the one with less, while Ag favors the one with more electronic coupling. We explain this switch in stability as an effect of the different charge transfer on the two substrates.


A search for long-lived particles is performed using a data sample of 4.7 fb − 1 from proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy √ s = 7 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. No excess is observed above the estimated background and lower limits, at 95% confidence level, are set on the mass of the long-lived particles in different scenarios, based on their possible interactions in the inner detector, the calorimeters and the muon spectrometer. Long-lived staus in gauge-mediated SUSY-breaking models are excluded up to a mass of 300 GeV for tan β = 5–20. Directly produced long-lived sleptons are excluded up to a mass of 278 GeV. R -hadrons, composites of gluino (stop, sbottom) and light quarks, are excluded up to a mass of 985 GeV (683 GeV, 612 GeV) when using a generic interaction model. Additionally two sets of limits on R -hadrons are obtained that are less sensitive to the interaction model for R -hadrons. One set of limits is obtained using only the inner detector and calorimeter observables, and a second set of limits is obtained based on the inner detector alone. © 2013 CERN. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in performing complex tasks. Moreover, recent research has shown that incorporating human-annotated rationales (e.g., Chain-of-Thought prompting) during in-context learning can significantly enhance the performance of these models, particularly on tasks that require reasoning capabilities. However, incorporating such rationales poses challenges in terms of scalability as this requires a high degree of human involvement. In this work, we present a novel framework, Amplifying Model Performance by Leveraging In-Context Learning with Post Hoc Explanations (AMPLIFY), which addresses the aforementioned challenges by automating the process of rationale generation. To this end, we leverage post hoc explanation methods which output attribution scores (explanations) capturing the influence of each of the input features on model predictions. More specifically, we construct automated natural language rationales that embed insights from post hoc explanations to provide corrective signals to LLMs. Extensive experimentation with real-world datasets demonstrates that our framework, AMPLIFY, leads to prediction accuracy improvements of about 10-25% over a wide range of tasks, including those where prior approaches which rely on human-annotated rationales such as Chain-of-Thought prompting fall short. Our work makes one of the first attempts at highlighting the potential of post hoc explanations as valuable tools for enhancing the effectiveness of LLMs. Furthermore, we conduct additional empirical analyses and ablation studies to demonstrate the impact of each of the components of AMPLIFY, which, in turn, leads to critical insights for refining in-context learning.


The mammals collected on the Chevert Expedition in 1875 are discussed on the basis of information in William Macleay's journal, Lawrence Hargrave's diary and old newspaper articles. William Petterd's published reports give the collection location of the type specimen of Isoodon macrourus moresbyensis . Other collections are discussed, including kangaroos Dorcopsis luctuosa and Macropus agilis specimens of which reside in the Macleay Museum but cannot be confirmed as collected by the Chevert Expedition. Rodents, including Bramble Cay Melomys, Melomys rubicola , have been added to the list of mammals originally reported by Edward Pierson Ramsay.


Parameterized complexity is a new theoretical framework that considers, in addition to the overall input size, the effects on computational complexity of a secondary measurement, the parameter. This two-dimensional viewpoint allows a fine-grained complexity analysis that takes structural properties of problem instances into account. The central notion is "fixed-parameter tractability" which refers to solvability in polynomial time for each fixed value of the parameter such that the order of the polynomial time bound is independent of the parameter. This chapter presents main concepts and recent results on the parameterized complexity of the satisfiability problem and it outlines fundamental algorithmic ideas that arise in this context. Among the parameters considered are the size of backdoor sets with respect to various tractable base classes and the treewidth of graph representations of satisfiability instances.


The T2K experiment measures muon neutrino disappearance and electron neutrino appearance in accelerator-produced neutrino and antineutrino beams. With an exposure of 14.7(7.6)×10^{20} protons on target in the neutrino (antineutrino) mode, 89 ν_{e} candidates and seven anti-ν_{e} candidates are observed, while 67.5 and 9.0 are expected for δ_{CP}=0 and normal mass ordering. The obtained 2σ confidence interval for the CP-violating phase, δ_{CP}, does not include the CP-conserving cases (δ_{CP}=0, π). The best-fit values of other parameters are sin^{2}θ_{23}=0.526_{-0.036}^{+0.032} and Δm_{32}^{2}=2.463_{-0.070}^{+0.071}×10^{-3}  eV^{2}/c^{4}.


An important question for network simulation is what level of detail is required to obtain a desired level of accuracy. While in some networks, the level of detail is an open research issue (for example, radio propagation models in wireless networks), it has long been assumed that wired networks could be accurately modeled by fairly simple queues with a bandwidth limit and propagation delay. To our knowledge this assumption has not been widely tested. In this paper we evaluate different levels of detail for an Ethernet simulation. We consider two models for Ethernet simulation; a detailed, CSMA/CD protocol based model and a more abstract model using a DropTail, shared queue. Using Web traffic with two different TCP simulation models, we evaluated the accuracy of these Ethernet models as compared to testbed measurements. We observed the DropTail Ethernet model requires significantly less execution time and can accurately model performance using a bandwidth normalization factor.


Although heteroskedasticity has been a main topic of interest in beef cattle during recent decades, the current availability of canalization models provided new insights for animal breeding programs. Within this context, birth BW (BWT) was analyzed in the Bruna dels Pirineus beef cattle breed by implementing canalization models that accounted for heterogeneous residual variances due to systematic, permanent environmental effects and additive genetic effects. Analyses were performed on BWT data from 8,130 calves born in 12 commercial breeding herds contributing to the yield recording scheme of the Bruna dels Pirineus breed. Analytical models accounted for direct additive genetic, permanent environmental, and 4 systematic effects (i.e., age of the dam, sex of the calf, birth type, and herd-year-season), and the same effects were evaluated as potential sources of variation in the residual term. Their relevance was checked by the deviance information criterion (DIC), and only residual additive genetic, permanent environmental, birth type, and herd-year-season remained in the operational model, all of them originating relevant reductions in the DIC parameter. Bruna dels Pirineus calves showed a moderate heritability of 0.30 (95% high posterior density, 0.19 to 0.40) for BWT; additional additive genetic variability was revealed in the residual term, this being positively correlated with the direct additive genetic component (0.44; 95% high posterior density, 0.37 to 0.54). Genetic trends were evaluated on both sources of additive genetic variance, and relevant patterns were identified in several herds. Although this breed did not evidence a homogeneous genetic trend for the whole population, herd-specific positive and negative trends were revealed, suggesting the plausibility of genetic selection for canalization on BWT in beef cattle breeds. These results must be viewed as a contribution to the canalization research field, providing relevant information for the breeding scheme of the Bruna dels Pirineus breed, as well as important insights about the genetic background of BWT for the beef industry worldwide.


In the chiral symmetry breaking phase described by the NJL model at quark level, along with the chiral symmetry restoration the ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density η/s drops down monotonously and reaches the minimum at the critical point, while the ratio of bulk viscosity to entropy density ζ/s behaves oppositely.


Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS) is named after a novel that was written by Lewis Carroll. The condition was first illustrated in 1955 by John Todd, a psychiatrist. Todd named it, for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Perchance, Lewis Carroll suffered from severe migraine and the disorder as well. Alice in Wonderland Syndrome is a disorienting condition that affects one's perception. AIWS is a neurological disorder that disturbs signals that are sent from the eyes to the brain, thereby causing a subsequent distortion in perception. The patients complain of visual, auditory and tactile hallucinations and altered perceptions. Alice in Wonderland Syndrome in childhood is very rare and can be baffling and terrifying for the patient; for he feels he is going mad in a weird world with warped perceptions and hallucinations. The causes for AIWS are still not known exactly. Migraine, temporal lobe epilepsy, brain tumors, depression, toxic and febrile delirium, psychoactive drugs, ischemic stroke and infections with EBV, mycoplasma and malaria are related features of AIWS. Neuroimaging studies reveal brain regions including the temporoparietal junction, the temporal lobe and the visual pathway, the occipital lobe. Abuse was yet not mentioned in this entity.


Conventional sustainable urban development practices are predominantly focused on intervention measures aimed at larger urban stakeholders, providing limited room for citizen engagement. In the emerging context of smart cities, Internet and Communication Technologies (ICT) are becoming technology-enablers of citizen participation towards sustainable urban development targets. This article highlights the opportunity of ICT-enabled citizen-empowerment, based on recent discoveries of behavioral psychology, and raises questions about the accompanying challenges. The aim of such design is to enable citizens to understand their own role in relation to wider sustainability issues, in particular to aid them in decision-making processes. This may result into a transition of increased citizen responsibility that could entail an unprecedented number of daily decisions and ethical trade-offs. To facilitate this transition, the growing stream of ethical considerations in everyday life, "real-time ethics", require a distinct interdisciplinary discussion.


Abstract In this paper, we review and explore the strategic mechanisms that deter entry in banking. The literature relies on externality between banks to generate entry deterrence. Typically, the externality generated is caused by differential adverse selection faced by incumbents and entrants. In this paper it is shown that adverse selection problem between a bank and its borrowers is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for entry deterrence. We show that cost asymmetry between different types of incumbents and private information about costs can generate conditional entry deterrence. This source of externality can cause entry deterrence just as other types of externalities created by differential adverse selection. Forward contracts can act as signaling device for incumbent costs. Incorporating adverse selection problem in the credit market in fact relaxes entry conditions: entry can take place even if the incumbent is of strong type and can signal credibly.


Federal magistrate judges preside over the most secret docket in America. Exact figures are not known, but available data indicates that these judges issued over 30,000 electronic surveillance orders in 2006, more than the entire output of the FISA court over its entire history. These electronic surveillance orders, authorized by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), grant law enforcement access to the electronic lives of our citizens -- who we call, where we go, when we text, what websites we visit, what emails we send. Unlike most court orders, electronic surveillance orders are permanently hidden from public view by various ECPA provisions, including sealed court files, gag orders, and delayed-notice. It's as though these orders were written in invisible ink -- legible to the phone companies and electronic service providers who execute them, yet imperceptible to targeted individuals, the general public, and even other arms of government, including Congress and appellate courts. This regime of secrecy has many unhealthy consequences: Congress lacks accurate empirical data to monitor the effectiveness of the existing statutory scheme and adapt it to new technologies; appellate courts are unable to give effective guidance to magistrate judges on how to interpret ECPA's complex provisions in light of changing technology; and citizens are not informed about the extent of government intrusion into their electronic lives. With Congress on the sidelines, appellate courts not engaged, and the public in the dark, the balance between surveillance and privacy has shifted dramatically towards law enforcement, almost by default. While it is certainly time to update the substantive provisions of ECPA, it is equally important to make structural changes in the law to eliminate unnecessary secrecy. Such reforms should include the elimination of automatic gagging and sealing orders, as well as the adoption of a publicly available warrant cover sheet to capture basic information about every electronic surveillance order.


An algorithm for screening psychiatric patients for physical disease was empirically derived from a comprehensive assessment of 509 patients in California's mental health system. The first 343 patients were used to develop the algorithm, and the remaining 166 were used as a test group. Calculations were made for several versions of the algorithm, and the data were compared with the diagnoses listed in the patients' admission mental health record. The algorithmic procedure was more accurate and more cost-effective than the medical evaluation procedures used by the state mental health system. When applied to the test group, the algorithm detected up to 90 percent of patients who had an active, important physical disease at a cost of $156 per patient. The mental health system had detected 58 percent of test-group patients with a disease at a cost of $230 per patient.


This is a survey paper investigating approaches to static program analysis on executable code. Analysis on executable code is important because in some cases the source code does not describe what happens during execution well enough. In other cases, only the executable may be available. Several difficulties are involved in analysing executables though, including incomplete information about the program flow, missing information about program variables, bit manipulation etc. This article surveys different suggested approaches to overcome some of these problems.


Background Myxomas are rare cardiac tumors which often present with stroke caused by tumorous or thrombotic emboli. Treatment with intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA) and intra-arterial thrombolysis has been described previously but mechanical thrombectomy has not yet been reported, and treatment of myxoma-related ischemic stroke remains a clinical and technical challenge. Methods Two patients with ischemic stroke due to cardiac myxoma in which mechanical thrombectomy was performed are presented. Results Endovascular thrombectomy after intravenous rtPA (bridging therapy) was safely achieved in both cases, although with different clinical outcomes and degrees of recanalization. Conclusions In stroke secondary to cardiac myxoma, mechanical thrombectomy might represent a safe and effective treatment option. The authors suggest the use of histological examination of the clot for diagnosis as its composition may explain the differences in treatment outcome.


Cholera is an acute intestinal disease caused by infection of the Vibrio cholerae bacterium. Often manifested as a constant diarrhoeal disease, cholera is associated with significant mortality as well as economic loss due to the strain on health care. Cholera often affects nations with lower economic status. The recent outbreak of cholera in the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo has affected thousands of people. Here we review the past cholera epidemiology, molecular mechanisms of the bacterium, and the political and environmental aspects that affect the treatment and eradication of this disease.


In recent years there has been mounting curiosity about how architects and engineers work with one another to make buildings. Studies of such collaborations have their present use for furthering technique and efficiency in construction. As a historical exercise, one might view the tendency as part of a broader, revisionist trend – an overdue project for setting the record straight, and releasing architecture from the velvet manacles of art history. Acquaintance with the making of any sizeable building soon teaches that the Vasarian concept of disegno – of a creative process anterior to and set apart from construction – suits only a minority of architecture's modes and moments. As an explanation even of the more imaginative paths that lead from the blank sheet to the occupied building, it is intellectually reductive, humanly ungenerous, and actually untruthful.


Pelagic marine oxygen-depleted zones often exhibit a redox gradient, caused by oxygen depletion due to biological demand exceeding ventilation, and the accumulation of reduced chemical species, such as hydrogen sulfide. These redox gradients harbour a distinct assemblage of epsilonproteobacteria capable of fixing carbon dioxide autotrophically in the dark and potentially of utilizing hydrogen sulfide chemolithotrophically by oxidation with nitrate. Together, these two processes are referred to as chemolithoautotrophic denitrification. The focus of this study was the recently isolated and cultivated representative strain of pelagic epsilonproteobacteria, 'Sulfurimonas gotlandica' strain GD1, specifically dark carbon dioxide fixation and its substrate turnovers during chemolithotrophic denitrification. By connecting these processes stoichiometrically and comparing the results with those obtained for dark carbon dioxide fixation and nutrient concentrations measured in pelagic redox gradients of the Baltic Sea, we were able to estimate the role of chemolithoautotrophic denitrification in the environment. Evidence is provided for a defined zone where chemolithoautotrophic denitrification of these epsilonproteobacteria allows the complete removal of nitrate and hydrogen sulfide from the water column. This water layer is roughly equivalent in thickness to the average overlapping region of the two substrates, but slightly larger. Such a difference may be explained by a variety of reasons, including, e.g. utilization of substrates present at concentrations below the detection limit, alternative usage of other substrates as thiosulfate or nitrous oxide, or comparable activities of other microbes. However, the combined results of in vitro and in situ studies strongly suggest that epsilonproteobacteria are primarily responsible for hydrogen sulfide and nitrate removal from pelagic Baltic Sea redox gradients.


The project "Performance Based Standards for High Capacity Transports in Sweden" (Performance Based Standards for High Capacity Transports in Sweden, 2013-2017) have generated a first version of an open PBS assessment tool, OpenPBS. The tool uses models and computations to calculate Performance Based Standards (PBS) measures for combination vehicles. The tool targets Long Combination Vehicles (LCVs, typically 25-35 m) but it can also calculate PBSes for shorter combinations and solo units. This report describes the tool. The report explains the concepts selected for the tool. Future developments are proposed.


We developed a unique industrial-scale sustainable biomass conversion strategy for the synthesis of multifunctional, three-dimensional (3D) carbon nanofiber (CNF) aerogels with hierarchical porosity. The above aerogels were also highly nitrogen-doped through pyrolysis of bamboo cellulose. The important and critical part of our synthesis strategy was to assemble the nanofibers of cellulose (NFC) from bamboo to make aerogels of controlled porosity with a hierarchical porous structure. The as-prepared CNF aerogels with abundant chemical reaction sites and three-dimensional electron and ion transport pathways were found to be new high-performance anode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). In particular, the N-doped CNF aerogel prepared with 1 D fibers of 50 nm in diameter as building-blocks exhibited a high reversible capacity of 630.7 mA h g−1 at 1 A g−1, excellent rate capability (289 mA h g−1 at 20 A g−1) and excellent cycling performance (651 mA h g−1 at 1 A g−1 after 1000 cycles) in LIBs.


In this paper, a general approach to address modeling of aeroelastic systems, with the final goal to apply μ analysis, is discussed. The chosen test bed is the typical section with unsteady aerodynamic loads, which enables basic modeling features to be captured and so extend the gained knowledge to practical problems treated with modern techniques. The aerodynamic operator has a nonrational dependence on the Laplace variable s, and hence, 2 formulations for the problem are available: frequency domain or state‐space (adopting rational approximations). The study attempts to draw a parallel between the 2 consequent linear fractional transformation modeling processes, emphasizing critical differences and their effect on the predictions obtained with μ analysis. A peculiarity of this twofold formulation is that aerodynamic uncertainties are inherently treated differently and therefore the families of plants originated by the possible linear fractional transformation definitions are investigated. One of the main results of the paper is to propose a unified framework to address the robust modeling task, which enables the advantages of both the approaches to be retained. On the analysis side, the application of μ analysis to the different models is shown, emphasizing its capability to gain insight into the problem.


Central nervous system (CNS) immune activation in an important driver of neuronal injury during several neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory diseases. During HIV infection, CNS immune activation is associated with high rates of neurocognitive impairment, even with sustained long-term suppressive antiretroviral therapy (ART). However, the cellular subsets that drive immune activation and neuronal damage in the CNS during HIV infection and neurological conditions remain unknown, in part because CNS cells are difficult to access in living humans. Using single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood from adults with HIV, we identified a rare (<5% of cells) subset of myeloid cells in CSF presenting a gene expression signature consistent with neurodegenerative disease associated microglia. This highlights the power of scRNA-seq of CSF to identify rare CNS immune cell subsets that may perpetuate neuronal injury during HIV infection and other conditions.


As a new fixed-abrasive machining method, chemo-mechanical grinding (CMG) is developed from chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), with the obvious advantage of geometric accuracy determinacy and no slurry. To improve material removal rate and enhance the popularity of CMG, this paper introduces a combined grinding method, i.e., two dimensional ultrasonic vibration assisted CMG (2D-UACMG). Si wafer is taken as the workpiece and the influence of ultrasonic vibration modes and process parameters on the surface roughness and the material removal is examined. The results show 2D-UACMG can obtain better surface quality with little surface damage at nanometer level compared with the conventional CMG without the ultrasonic vibration.


This study discovered challenging of the anti-smoking campaign from the perspective of healthcare providers in Kuantan. The objectives of this study were to explore the challenges of the anti-smoking campaign from healthcare providers' views, to explore the awareness regarding the existence of Smoking Cessation Clinics and to explore the ways to improve anti-smoking campaigns. This study is important because it may aid Malaysian authorities to develop better strategies in promoting anti-smoking campaigns in the future. Purposive sampling was used in the collection of data and semi-structured interviews were conducted among five healthcare providers from three selected Smoking Cessation Clinics. This study found that healthcare provider felt that smokers who received treatment from the Health Centre had low understanding of the standard of procedure of smoking cessation procedure, low commitment and easily influenced by the public. Healthcare provider also felt that multidisciplinary task limited their focus to the client. Besides, they felt that the existence of smoking Cessation Clinic needs to be widely publicised to the community. Through the findings, the author recommend to improve the current approaches to reduce the number of smokers in Malaysia such as improving publicity to the public, enhancing the law of enforcement and providing incentives.


Abstract Communicative complexity is a key behavioural and ecological indicator in the study of animal cognition. Much attention has been given to measures such as repertoire size and syntactic structure in both bird and mammal vocalizations, as large repertoires and complex call combinations may give an indication of the cognitive abilities both of the sender and receiver. However, many animals communicate using a continuous vocal signal that does not easily lend itself to be described by concepts such as 'repertoire'. For example, dolphin whistles and wolf howls both have complex patterns of frequency modulation, so that no two howls or whistles are quite the same. Is there a sense in which some of these vocalizations may be more 'complex' than others? Can we arrive at a quantitative metric for complexity in a continuously varying signal? Such a metric would allow us to extend familiar analyses of communicative complexity to those species where vocal behaviour is not restricted to sequences of stereotyped syllables. We present four measures of complexity in continuous signals (Wiener Entropy, Autocorrelation, Inflection Point Count, and Parsons Entropy), and examine their relevance using example data from members of the genus Canis. We show that each metric can lead to different conclusions regarding which howls could be considered complex or not. Ultimately, complexity is poorly defined and researchers must compare metrics to ensure that they reflect the properties for which the hypothesis is being tested.


Staircase 40 Ar/ 39 Ar spectra of 2 to 6 μm white micas in ductile carbonate mylonites (Morcles-Doldenhorn nappe, Switzerland) record ages between 32 and 13 Ma. These ages are within independent geochronologic and biostratigraphic time limits for the beginning and ending of deformation of this fold-thrust nappe. We interpret these data to record protracted white mica neocrystallization and growth during low-temperature ductile deformation, such that the differences between the maximum and minimum ages in the 40 Ar/ 39 Ar spectra record the time span over which mica formed and grew. We have modeled the argon concentrations in these micas, taking into account the thermal history of the nappe, mica growth, and diffusional loss of argon. Our results indicate that available experimental data underestimate the activation energy for argon diffusion in muscovite, and that the retentivity of argon in white mica is greater than generally thought.


Lima, the capital and largest city of Peru, is located on the Pacific Coastal Plain on dissected alluvial cones formed by the rapidly flowing Rimac, Chillon and Lurin rivers. The Western Cordillera of the Andes Mountains rises abruptly east of the city and reaches altitudes of 6,100 m (20,000 ft) only 130 km (80 mi) from the Pacific Ocean. The Andes in Central Peru are relatively young mountains with the oldest exposed rock being pyroclastics of the upper Jurassic Puente Piedra Group. These are overlain by lower Cretaceous shales and quartzites of the Morro-Solar Group, followed by 1,000 m of limestone of the Pamplona and Atocongo formations of lower to middle Cretaceous age. In middle and upper Cretaceous time, vulcanism resumed and 1,500 m of andesites and pyroclastics were deposited to form the Casma Group which forms the bedrock at the highest stratigraphic level. The unconformably overlying alluvial cones and beach sediments formed during the rapid rise of the Andes have been dissected by rejuvenated down-cutting to as much as 20 m (62 ft) at Lima. The geology of the Lima region reflects the subduction of the Nazca Plate under the South American Plate and consequent uplift and volcanic activity. The structural geology of the bedrock underlying the Quaternary sediments in the city of Lima is dominated by the northwest-trending Lima anticline and associated synclines and reverse faults. This anticline is asymmetrical with dips of 5 to 20 degrees on the west and 35 degrees on the east. The engineering problems related to the geology of Lima concern earthquake protective design, foundation problems on unstable soils, water supply for a rapidly growing city, solid waste disposal and urban sprawl. Modern engineering practices have been introduced, with seismic design in the new building codes. Water resource planning together with modern infrastructure construction takes into account the geological setting of this large and important city.


An ever-increasing reliance on student performance on tests holds schools and educators accountable both to state accountability systems and also to the accountability requirements of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. While each state has constructed its own definition of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements within the confines of NCLB, substantial differences between the accountability requirements of many state systems and NCLB still have resulted in mixed messages regarding the performance of schools. Several features of NCLB accountability and state accountability systems contribute to the identification of a school as meeting goals according to NCLB but failing to do so according to the state accountability system, or vise versa. These include the multiple hurdles of NCLB, the comparison of performance against a fixed target rather than changes in achievement, and the definition of performance goals. The result of these features is a set of AYP measures that is inconsistent both with existing state accountability systems and also with state NAEP performance. Using existing achievement to set the cut-score measured by AYP and using the highest-performing schools to set the year-to-year improvement standards would improve the NCLB accountability system.


Google's new programming language Go has caused a lot of excitement. As a modern systems programming language, Go offers significant advantages over older languages like C, C++, and Java. This book, "Go Programming" takes an example-based approach to teach the reader how to effectively get started with programming in Go. From basic variable usage, to control structures, to File I/O, to basic network programming, this book has all you need to become confident with the basics of the language, and will prepare you to create basic programs, as well as to perform more research of the language.


Just like animals and human beings, plants also accommodate a countless number of microorganisms as hosts. Microorganisms enjoy this hospitality by developing an interaction with the plants either in a synergistic way benefiting each other or in an antagonistic manner damaging their hosts. Such types of mutualistic and pathogenic interactions also take place among microbial community. Proteins, metabolites and certain molecular mechanisms determine whether the intruder is a symbiotic or pathogenic microorganism. Various bacteria and fungi interact symbiotically and play significant role in plant growth promotion. Certain species of fungi, oomycetes, bacteria and nematodes are also pathogenic in nature and cause impact on soil and plant. Soil serves as a big substrate for microbial community, which are important in a number of ways owing to their role in mineralization, nutrient availability and are sources of industrial products such as enzymes, hormones, antibiotics, vitamins etc. This review will improve our understanding about relationships between plants and their microbial friends and foes. The mechanisms adopted by soil microbes to contribute in the betterment of soil leading towards enhanced plant growth as well as pathogenicity caused by these microbes have also been discussed. Recent advances to recognize the molecular mechanisms involved in such interactions have also been discussed. Recent advances made in this field and the areas needing further research have also been mentioned.


Despite its prominence as a world cultural center and a locus of research on deaf culture, history, education, and language for more than 150 years, Gallaudet University has only infrequently been the focal point of historical study. Eminent historians Brian H. Greenwald and John Vickrey Van Cleve have remedied this scarcity with "A Fair Chance in the Race of Life: The Role of Gallaudet University in Deaf History." In this collection, a remarkable cast of scholars examine the university and its various roles through time, many conducting new research in the Gallaudet University Archives, an unsurpassed repository of primary sources of deaf history. Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson sets the stage in his essay A Fair Chance in the Race of Life, President Abraham Lincoln s statement when he chartered the first college for deaf students. The papers that follow scrutinize Gallaudet s long domination by hearing presidents, its struggle to find a place within higher education, its easy acquiescence to racism, its relationship with the federal government, and its role in creating, shaping, and nurturing the deaf community. These studies do more than simply illuminate the university, however. They also confront broad issues that deal with the struggles of social conformity versus cultural distinctiveness, minority cohesiveness, and gender discrimination. Deaf themes, such as the role of English in deaf education, audism, and the paternalism of hearing educators receive analysis as well."


The influence of stress on the circulating lymphocyte population in rats was studied at different times after stress stimuli and correlated to the concentra· tion of corticosterone in serum. A rapid increase of the corticosterone level, with a duration of about one hour, was seen in both normal and thymectomized animals. Female rats showed higher serum levels than male rats. Depression of thoracic duct lymphocyte cell levels in normal animals seemed to be maximal about 3 hours after exposure to stress and restitution to pretreatment levels was completed within 1- 2 days. The lymph cell population in neonatally thymectomized animals did not show any significant changes after stress. The endogenous corticosterone secretion after stress gave the same changes in the circulating lymphocyte population in normal rats as after injection of a high dose of prednisolone. Because of the absence of effect on thymectomized animals, the effect of endogenous secreted corticosteroids seems to be mainly on T-lymphocytes. The findings suggest the existence of a circulating highly steroid-sensitive thymus-dependent lymphocyte population. This population seems normally to be depressed by stress mechanisms mediated by adrenal corticosteroid secretion. There also seems to be a difference be- tween circulating T- and B-lymphocytes with respect to sensitivity to low doses of naturally secreted cor- tico steroids. Key-Words: Lymphocyte - Thoracic duct - Blood - Stress - Rat - Thymectomy - Corticosterone


Most cryptoassets natively function as bearer instruments. Whoever controls the private keys for a given cryptoasset wallet generally control the assets held by that wallet. In a civil or criminal action or as part of a governmental investigation, parties may be ordered to disclose their private keys or to transfer cryptoassets controlled by those private keys. However, people forget things and lose things, including extremely important things. Parties may lose private keys, rendering their assets unavailable; parties acting in bad faith, or due to ideological motivation, may claim that "lost" or "forgotten" private keys prevent them from complying with disclosure or turnover orders. Determining whether claims of lost or forgotten keys are genuine or are bad faith attempts to protect assets will be a challenge for Courts, which will be forced to confront complex, technology-specific evidence and will be required to determine whether that loss is bona fide or "self-created impossibility." Courts may likewise find that traditional contempt sanctions are insufficient to compel a motivated contemnor to comply with disclosure or turnover orders. To avoid expensive, time consuming evidentiary hearings on contempt, parties and courts should consider ex ante measures, including standing orders and injunctive relief that would require disclosure of and prevent the loss of private keys once financial condition becomes relevant to any claim or defense in litigation. Legislators could create novel contempt sanctions that leverage the unique features of cryptoassets to lien sufficiently identifiable cryptoassets at issue. New laws could create registries listing identifiable cryptoassets subject to turnover orders, similar to state UCC registries, use the infrastructure and legal obligations imposed upon regulated intermediaries by the Bank Secrecy Act and Office of Foreign Asset Controls, or modifying existing state law writs and simplify service of those writs and require state-regulated intermediaries to seize those assets pending further court order. Although these new sanctions would destroy the fungibility of the cryptoassets at issue and reduce their commercial value, they would also create new, efficient incentives. The lien against identifiable cryptoassets would have no impact on parties who actually lose private keys but would facilitate recovery of crypto assets in the case of a hack or theft. Finally, the threat of a lien that would destroy the value of the implicated cryptoassets would reduce the incentive for a bad faith contemnor to defy a turnover order and instead encourage potential contemnors to comply.


It does not seem to me useful to attempt a purely theoretical answer to the question forming the sub-title. Theory does not seem to me to be the major concern. It is a useful servant but a bad master, liable to produce orthodox defenders of every variety of the faith. We ought always to sit light to theory and be on the look-out for ways of improving it in the light of therapeutic practice. It is therapeutic practice that is the real heart of the matter. In the last resort good therapists are born not trained, and they make the best use of training. Maybe the question 'How complete a result can psycho-analytic therapy produce?' raises the question 'How complete a result did our own training analysis produce?' Analysts are advised to be open to post-analytic improvements, so presumably we do not expect 'an analysis' to do a 'total' once for all job. We must know about post-analytic developments if we are to assess the actual results of the primary analysis. We cannot deal with this question purely on the basis of our patients' records. They must be incomplete for the primary analysis and non-existent afterwards. As this question had unexpected and urgent relevance in my case, I was compelled to grapple with it; so I shall risk offering an account of my own analysis with Fairbairn and Winnicott, and its aftereffects: especially as this is the only way I can present a realistic picture of what I take to be the relationship between the respective contributions of these two outstanding analysts, and what I owe to them.


A noteworthy cause of climate change is the amount of CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere. This study ́s objective, therefore, is to examine the relationship between CO2 emissions, economic growth, energy consumption, urbanization, trade and financial development in the case of Canada, one of the largest CO2 emitters both in per capita and in absolute terms, over the period 1960-2014. For this purpose, this study applies both an ADFand ZA-unit root test, an ARDL bounds testing approach to cointegration, a Granger causality test based on a VECM and lastly an innovative accounting approach. The results confirm that the variables are cointegrated and that GDP, GDP, energy consumption, and trade expands CO2 emissions, in the long-run, whereas financial development and urbanization remain insignificant. The evidence, therefore, does not support the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis since both GDP and GDP positively relates to CO2 levels. The causal analysis confirms that in the long-run, bidirectional causality is present between CO2 emissions and energy consumption, CO2 emissions and economic growth, as well as between economic growth and energy consumption. Moreover, the study confirms that urbanization, trade, and financial development all have bidirectional causal links with CO2 emissions. Therefore, to expect economic growth to solve environmental issues, as suggested by the environmental Kuznets curve, is in the case of Canada not correct. Instead, there is an urgency for financial support, targeted policies, and advanced technologies to develop the Canadian economy and its energy sector sustainably.


Biodiversity analyses based on next‐generation sequencing (NGS) platforms have developed by leaps and bounds in recent years. A PCR‐free strategy, which can alleviate taxonomic bias, was considered as a promising approach to delivering reliable species compositions of targeted environments. The major impediment of such a method is the lack of appropriate mitochondrial DNA enrichment ways. Because mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) make up only a small proportion of total DNA, PCR‐free methods will inevitably result in a huge excess of data (>99%). Furthermore, the massive volume of sequence data is highly demanding on computing resources. Here, we present a mitogenome enrichment pipeline via a gene capture chip that was designed by virtue of the mitogenome sequences of the 1000 Insect Transcriptome Evolution project (1KITE, www.1kite.org). A mock sample containing 49 species was used to evaluate the efficiency of the mitogenome capture method. We demonstrate that the proportion of mitochondrial DNA can be increased by approximately 100‐fold (from the original 0.47% to 42.52%). Variation in phylogenetic distances of target taxa to the probe set could in principle result in bias in abundance. However, the frequencies of input taxa were largely maintained after capture (R2 = 0.81). We suggest that our mitogenome capture approach coupled with PCR‐free shotgun sequencing could provide ecological researchers an efficient NGS method to deliver reliable biodiversity assessment.


The analysis of downstream changes in ancient fluvial systems can better inform depositional models for foreland-basin systems. Herein we analyze the basal deposits of the Early Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation of Utah to better understand the variety of fluvial deposits present and to develop a depositional model for the Sevier foreland basin. We also evaluate the long-held interpretation of a braided origin for these deposits and document numerous examples of point-bar deposition in highly sinuous meandering rivers by analysis of large (20 to 60 km2) plan-view exposures. These plan-view exposures allow comparisons between planform and cross-sectional geometries.
 The study utilizes outcrop data, virtual outcrop models, and satellite imagery to develop a facies model and analyze the architecture of channel bodies in the Buckhorn Conglomerate and Poison Strip Sandstone of the Cedar Mountain Formation. We document downstream (west to east) decreases in lateral channel migration, sinuosity, channel amalgamation, grain size, and percent of fluvial channel facies (conglomerate and sandstone). Fluvial channel deposits occur arranged into larger stratal bodies: multistory–multilateral channel bodies that are dominantly composed of clast-supported conglomerate in the west to a mix of multistory, multilateral, and isolated channel bodies composed of matrix-supported conglomerate in the east. The median width of highly sinuous point bars is similar across the field area (344 m to 477 m), but the inclusion of narrower (median = 174 m), low-sinuosity bar elements in the east indicates an overall reduction in lateral channel migration and sinuosity downstream. Net-to-gross values range from 100% in much of the western outcrops to as low as 38% in the east. Paleocurrent analysis reveals a transverse (west to east) paleoflow for the study interval that merges with axial (south–north) paleoflow near the Utah–Colorado state line. We estimate 104 m3/s-scale discharge and 106 kilometer-scale drainage area for axial rivers based on paleohydraulic analysis which represents a significant part of the Early Cretaceous continental-scale drainage.
 The observed downstream trends in lateral channel migration, sinuosity, channel amalgamation, grain size, and net-to-gross for the basal Cedar Mountain Formation are consistent with expected trends for sinuous single-thread distributive fluvial systems and are similar to observed trends in the Jurassic Morrison Formation. Medial (Buckhorn Conglomerate) to distal (Poison Strip Sandstone) zones are preserved and span the forebulge to backbulge depozones of a foreland-basin system. Postulated deposits of the proximal distributive fluvial system have been removed during erosion of the foredeep depozone. The easternmost Poison Strip Sandstone and coeval Burro Canyon Formation represent deposits of an axial system at which western-sourced distributive fluvial systems end. Distributive fluvial systems dominate modern foreland basins, and this study suggests that they may constitute a significant proportion of ancient successions.


During the last 15 years corporate governance has become increasingly prominent in the public sector. The Audit Commission's 1993 report on probity in local government recommended the establishment of audit committees. However, progress on this was slow, as demonstrated by a survey of Scottish local authorities by the authors in 1998. Recent major changes in government in Scotland at both a local and national level have prompted councils to improve the accountability, openness and integrity of their operations. One major aspect of this exercise was the formation of scrutiny committees to provide objective scrutiny of the process and audit committees were the most common vehicle for this. This article explores recent developments in Scottish local government and their impact on audit committees. The article also reports the results of a 2005 survey of Scottish local authorities and compares these with the 1998 survey. This indicates a significant growth in the number of audit committees in Scottish councils and although the level of their perceived effectiveness is patchy, they are a more important feature of local government than they were in 1998.


Focus Areas: Integrative Approaches to Care, Alleviating Pain Current management practices for low back pain have led to rising costs without evidence of improvement in the quality of care. Low back pain remains a diagnostic and management challenge for practitioners of many types and is now thought to be a leading global cause of disability. Beyond many published clinical practice guidelines, there are emerging evidence-based care-pathways including stratification according to the patient's prognosis, classification-based management, diagnosis-based clinical decision guides, and biopsychosocial models of care. A proposed solution for successfully addressing low back pain is to employ a novel, integrative, biopsychosocial, stratified, and diagnosis-based care pathway, currently in use at a complementary, integrative healthcare university's clinic. The rationale for the development and implementation is described, including a comparison to related models currently in place at other locations. Benefits of this approach include improved patient outcomes, a more effective and efficient medical delivery system, and creation of a sustainable business model for practitioners. Two case studies are incorporated in the session to illustrate the principles of the integrative model.


In this article the author reflects on her experiences as a visiting dance teacher for preparatory class pupils at a public school in Finland. Preparatory classes are intended for children who have arrived in Finland recently from another country, and who do not yet know Finnish language. As part of a broad research initiative, Art as public service: Strategic steps towards equality , the author entered the school with an intention to approach language learning through movement and dance, an approach aligned with the notion of embodied learning.  As a broader aim, she wanted to understand how movement and dance can support intersubjective understanding, social interaction and communication especially in groups where the members come from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and do not have a common spoken language. The reality of the school context, and the pupils' life situations, however, posited unforeseen challenges to these aims. The author approaches this inquiry into the complex social reality through autoethnographical, performative writing. She unravels her observations, reflections and embodied experiences. Through revealing her experiences and vulnerable moments she attempts to illuminate others' vulnerabilities, and incite discussion on embodied sensibilities that may help us understand the challenges of "migrating" pedagogies; a notion that is connected to critical, dialogical pedagogy, ecojustice education, and socio-material approaches to education. She concludes that embodied interaction, when creatively and carefully nurtured, may at least temporarily generate a space where words are not needed for intersubjective understanding and dialogue, and where something new may emerge. For her, these moments give hope and trust in the possibility of migration towards a place called dance.


Industrial exposure to neutron irradiation is tightly controlled such that the carcinogenic risk to individuals and populations is very low. Patients undergoing high-energy (>10 MeV) radiation therapy, however, represent a population group for whom whole-body neutron exposure cannot be controlled. Such patients are thus at risk for second radiation-induced malignancies. This is true in particular for cured pediatric cancer patients whose life expectancy exceeds the latency period for radiation-induced tumor formation. The Neutron-Induced Carcinogenic Effects (NICE) research program (depdocs.com/jkildea/NICE.html) is designed to study the biophysics underlying the energy-dependent variation in the carcinogenic potential of neutrons such that the second cancer risk to radiation therapy patients may be better understood and accounted for. The program calls for macroscopic and microscopic Monte Carlo modelling of real-world polyenergetic and non-isotropic neutron sources under experimental irradiation conditions coupled with radiobiological experiments and DNA-damage assays. The five-year research program is a collaboration between McGill University, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and Detec Inc.


To the Editor.— In 1947 Ota et al 1 defined a rare combination of cutaneous hemangioma and pigmentary nevus as phacomatosis pigmentovascularis. The disorder was first subdivided into two types: type I, consisting of nevus flammeus and nevus pigmentosus et verrucosus, and type II, representing the association of nevus flammeus and aberrant mongolian spots. In 1966, Toda 2 described the coexistence of nevus flammeus and nevus spilus as the third type. Finally, type IV was defined in 1979 by Hasegawa and Yasuhara 3 as nevus flammeus, aberrant mongolian spots, nevus spilus, and nevus anemicus. The case presented herein is designated as type IIIb according to the modified classification of phacomatosis pigmentovascularis published by Hasegawa and Yasuhara 4 in which each type is subdivided into the following: (1) localized, and (2) systemic. Report of a Case.— A 9-year-old girl was referred to the Department of Dermatology, Zurich (Switzerland) University Hospital, because


In two experiments in which 31 calves were used, a bovine herpesvirus 1 subunit vaccine previously shown to elicit a strong immunological response in adult cattle failed to do so in younger animals and failed to protect against pneumonia caused by sequential exposure to virulent bovine herpesvirus 1 and Pasteurella haemolytica aerosols. One of the experimental groups had been previously inoculated with a live commercial vaccine but even this failed to elicit a strong immunological response. These results indicate that the calves were in a refractory state when immunized and may explain why similar vaccine failures occur in the field.


Increased demand for wood adhesives, environmental concerns, and the uncertainty of continuing availability of petrochemicals have led to recent attention on protein-based adhesives. This study was conducted to investigate the physico-chemical interaction of palm kernel meal (PKM) with melamine urea formaldehyde (MUF) resins in adhesive formulation by using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy. The effect of hot press on PKM extender has been investigated by FTIR and blue shift is observed due to the hot press indicating that the functional groups (such as C=O, -OH and NH) are become more free in the samples. In the case of PKM-MUF blend bonding interactions observed where, PKM played the role as an extender. Red shift of C=O and N-H groups stretching in PKM-MUF-Wood blend is observed which suggests the interaction of these functional groups through hydrogen bonding. The results suggest that PKM extender-based MUF adhesive resins have potential application for the production of exterior plywood.


The paper deals with the problem of the moral status of human embryos in vitro obtained via somatic cell nuclear transfer, in vitro fertilization and similar biotechnologies. The purpose of research is to investigate whether it is possible to ascribe the position of full moral status to the embryo in vitro relying on its intrinsic properties. In particular, the property of totipotency of a human zygote was taken as presupposition in carrying out further moral assessments. To achieve these goals I have examined the applicability of the potentiality argument for evaluating moral status of the embryo within the frameworks of modal logic. The potential of the human embryo to become a person with full-fledged number of moral rights was interpreted using real, dispositional and counterfactual predicates. It was found that the role of potentiality argument is reduced to a precautionary principle and it failed to provide full moral status to the embryo in vitro. The potential of the embryo proper has a strong relational component that assigns it certain instrumental value. The latter implies that biomedical experimentation with the embryos in vitro cannot be considered as morally unacceptable.


Information Systems is a practice-based discipline. It experiences periodic debates about the rigour and relevance of its research. The tensions between pretensions to be a 'real' science (rigour) and the need to contribute to practice (relevance) are intensified at a time of low student enrolment, lack of a clear identity, and uncertainties about the viability of our discipline. This essay argues that decomposing phenomena into narrow topics of research to achieve rigour is damaging to our discipline if we fail to then 'recompose' or integrate these back into understanding, lessons and guidelines for application to real-world practices. This argument is illustrated through recent work on the motors that drive changes in technology appropriation. It highlights the importance of plurality of theories and methods in understanding complex real-world phenomena in order to achieve both rigour and relevance.


"Constructor theory of eigenbehavior" is the most appropriate short way to describe what this paper is about. To those who have encountered the idea of eigenbehavior for the first time through this text, let's say that it is related to recursions within and emergence of consciousness and information in general. In a back and forth manner between constructor theory of possible tasks and eigenbehavior as a viable (since it passes the test of existence) phenomenon, we shall try to tell something about the fabric of reality. This author uses in an already published paper the metaphor of systems as footprints and wonders what kind of "animal" (constructor) might leave them behind. This text goes further in combining and criticizing constructor theory with the concept of eigenbehavior. Interpretations of quantum mechanics and physical principles are also elaborated.


A new orientation for a multidisciplinary industrial engineering program course on digital electronics is proposed. Students are trained to describe complete systems in very high speed integrated circuit hardware description language (VHDL). These systems have been previously modeled with Matlab/Simulink, including both continuous and discrete components. Digital controllers based on concurrent hardware are designed for these systems in the same framework. After developing and simulating the behavioral model of the system or plant, the controller is redescribed under the synthesis constraints and implemented in a field-programmable gate array evaluation board for verification, along with the system under control. In this way, the course is not only intended for digital electronics specialists but also for students with diverse engineering backgrounds.


Irrigation with potato processing waste water
was studied for 3 years at five locations in southern
Idaho. Three of the potato processors surface irrigated
and two sprinkled land planted to perennial
grasses. The processing season began in October
and continued into the following summer. Samples
of 24-hour composited waste water and soil water,
extracted from depths of 15 to 150 cm, were obtained
monthly throughout the year. Analyses were
made on all water samples of sufficient volume for
chemical oxygen demand (COD), NO3 , total N, total
P, ortho P, hydrolyzable P, K, Na, Ca, Mg, Cl,
HCO3 , SO4 , electrical conductivity, and pH. Water
applications ranged from 160 to 490 cm per year,
total N from 1,000 to 2,200 kg, P from 150 to 630 kg,
and K from 2,250 to 6,700 kg K/hectare year. COD
decreased 95 to 100 percent after passage of the
water through 150 cm of soil because of biological
activity and filtration. Nitrates were low in one
field with a shallow water table because of denitrification
that resulted from low redox potentials.
Phosphorus concentrations increased 50 to 100
parts per million in the surface 30 cm of soil but not
measurably below that depth. K, Na, Ca, and Mg
changed in proportion to the amounts applied in the
waste water. Irrigation with potato processing
waste water provides a means of utilizing part of
the nutrients that. would otherwise be wasted and
solves a difficult environmental pollution problem.


Prognosis varies among persons with West Nile virus (WNV) infection, but the most important factors associated with persistent symptoms are not clear. In this cross-sectional study, 265 persons with symptomatic WNV infection during 2006-2008 completed a survey a mean of 7.7 months after diagnosis. We determined the association of demographic and clinical characteristics to the most common symptoms. Of 214 persons infected ≥ 6 months, 53% reported one or more persistent symptoms, including fatigue, muscle aches, decreased activity, difficulty with memory, and difficulty concentrating. Persons with neuroinvasive disease, hypertension, or diabetes were significantly more likely to report persistent symptoms, whereas age, sex, and time since infection were not associated with persistent symptoms. In conclusion, persistent symptoms persisted in most persons for more than six months after symptomatic WNV infection. Improved strategies for prevention and treatment are needed.


Transition towards low carbon development (LCD) is an urgent challenge for the global community. As increased economic activities usually result in more carbon emissions, this challenge is particularly crucial for rapidly growing emerging countries. For these countries, reducing carbon emissions means taking one or more of the following actions: (1) reducing energy intensity; (2) increasing the use of renewable energy; and (3) introducing systemic change. The above actions call for a strong role of policy and government intervention, as observed in the existing literature based on experiences in developed countries. Emerging countries also need to follow the example of advanced countries with regard to LCD; however, the conditions and pathways for emerging countries may differ greatly. This paper reviews the literature that deals with sustainable transition from a systemic perspective to understand existing frameworks and to identify challenges in using them for observing the transition process in developing countries. It looks at the case of Chinese solar PV technology to link theoretical discussion with practice in order to substantiate the arguments.


Computed tomography (CT) has gained multiplanar capability and submillimeter spatial resolution due to the development of spiral acquisition mode and multidetector row technology. Multidetector spiral CT arthrography of the knee is a valuable imaging modality for the assessment of lesions of the meniscus, anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), and articular cartilage. This article presents the value of spiral CT arthrography in the assessment of the postoperative knee with emphasis on the postoperative meniscus, articular cartilage, and ACL graft. This technique may be proposed as an alternative to magnetic resonance arthrography.


ABSTRACT Endoglin is part of the TGF-β receptor complex and has a crucial role in fibrogenesis and angiogenesis. It is also an important protein for tumor growth, survival, and cancer cell metastasis. In a previous study, we have shown that hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection induces epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) state and cancer stem-like cell (CSC) properties in human hepatocytes. Our array data suggested that endoglin (CD105) mRNA is significantly upregulated in HCV-associated CSCs. In this study, we have observed increased endoglin expression on the cell surface of an HCV core-expressing hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2) cell line or immortalized human hepatocytes (IHH) and activation of its downstream signaling molecules. The status of phospho-SMAD1/5 and the expression of inhibitor of DNA binding protein 1 (ID1) were upregulated in HCV-infected cells or viral core gene-transfected cells. Additionally, we observed upregulation of endoglin/ID1 mRNA expression in chronic HCV patient liver biopsy samples. CSC generation by HCV core protein was dependent on the endoglin signaling pathway using activin receptor-like kinase 1 (ALK1) Fc blocking peptide and endoglin small interfering RNA (siRNA). Further, follow-up from in vitro analysis suggested that the antiapoptosis Bcl2 protein, proliferation-related cyclin D1 protein, and CSC-associated Hes1, Notch1, Nanog, and Sox2 proteins are enhanced during infection or ectopic expression of HCV core protein. IMPORTANCE Endoglin plays a crucial role in fibrogenesis and angiogenesis and is an important protein for tumor growth, survival, and cancer cell metastasis. Endoglin enhances ALK1-SMAD1/5 signaling in different cell types, leading to increased proliferation and migration responses. We have observed endoglin expression on the HCV core-expressing cell surface of human hepatocyte origin and activation of phospho-SMAD1/5 and ID1 downstream signaling molecules. ID1 protein plays a role in CSC properties, and we found that this pathway is important for antiapoptotic and cell proliferation signaling. Blocking of endoglin-ALK1-SMAD1/5 might be a good candidate for therapy for liver cancer stem cells together with liver cirrhosis.


BACKGROUND
Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a highly prevalent, chronic relapsing condition in childhood with significant financial burden and impact on the quality of life of patients and caregivers. Proactive maintenance treatment with moisturizing agents is the mainstay AD therapy.

OBJECTIVES
The aim of this study was to assess the cost-effectiveness of a non-steroidal barrier cream (Atopiclair), compared to regular emollient in pediatric patients with mild-to-moderate AD.

METHODS
A Markov decision model was developed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of Atopiclair versus regular emollient in 12 Asia-Pacific countries, grouped by income categories based on gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. Data was obtained from structured literature review, expert opinion, fee schedules, and findings from a 2012 survey of 12 Asia-Pacific countries. Analysis was performed a societal perspective.

RESULTS
In the base case analysis, Atopiclair was cost-effective against regular emollient, with USD786, USD499, and USD289 in cost savings per year for high, middle, and low-income countries, respectively. Sensitivity analyses showed that Atopiclair remained cost-effective versus regular emollient.

CONCLUSIONS
Modelling analysis showed that Atopiclair is a cost-effective treatment compared to regular emollient for mild-to-moderate pediatric AD in the countries included in the study.


Not all software tools are created equal and not all software tools are created to perform the same tasks. Therefore, different software tools are used to perform different tasks. However, being able to share the information between the different software tools, without having to manually re-enter (duplicate) any of the information, can save a lot of time and improve the quality of the product. The control software interface presented in this paper, allows system engineers to exchange data between software tools in an efficient manner which maximizes each tools capabilities and ultimately reduces development time and improves the quality of the product.


RNase H is a prototypical example for two metal ion catalysis in enzymes. An RNase H activity is present in the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase but also in many other nucleases such as Homo sapiens (Hs) or Escherichia coli (Ec) RNase H. The mechanism of the reaction has already been extensively studied based on the Bacillus halodurans (Bh) RNase H crystal structures, most recently using time-resolved X-Ray crystallography. However, kinetic and mutation experiments with HIV-1, Hs and Ec RNase H implicate a catalytic histidine in the reaction that is not present in Bh RNase H, and the protonation of the leaving group also remains poorly understood. We use quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) calculations combining Hamiltonian replica exchange with a finite-temperature string method to study the cleavage of the ribonucleic acid (RNA) backbone of a DNA/RNA hybrid catalyzed by the HIV-1 RNase H with a focus on the proton transfer pathway and the role of the histidine. The reported pathway is consistent with kinetic data obtained with mutant HIV-1, Hs and Ec RNase H, the calculated pKa values of the DEDD residues and crystallographic studies. The overall reaction barrier of ∼18 kcal mol-1, encountered in the first step, matches the slow experimental rate of ∼1-100 min-1. Using Molecular dynamics (MD) calculations we are able to sample the recently identified binding site for a third transient divalent metal ion in the vicinity of the scissile phosphate in the product complex. Our results account for the experimental observation of a third metal ion facilitating product release in an Aquifex aeolicus RNase III crystal structure and the Bh RNase H in crystallo reaction. Based on our data we are able to show that the third ion and the histidine are key to product release as had been hypothesized.


INTRODUCTION
The Dutch perinatal registry required a new architecture due to the large variability of the submitted data from midwives and hospitals. The purpose of this article is to describe the healthcare information architecture for the Dutch perinatal registry.

METHODS
requirements analysis, design, development and testing.

RESULTS
The architecture is depicted for its components and preliminary test results.

CONCLUSION
The data entry and storage work well, the Data Marts are under preparation.


Woody plant encroachment has been documented for savannahs and grasslands in nearly all continents. Yet the drivers of this process remain unclear, with a range of local and global factors postulated. The traditional ecological narrative dictates that shrub encroachment is a localised phenomenon, resulting from poor land management regimes. The most frequently proposed mechanisms are overgrazing and suppression of fire, both of which are common management techniques in sub-Saharan Africa. More recently, increased focus has been directed at the role of global factors in woody cover dynamics. As savannah woody cover is constrained by both total and wet season rainfall, changes in precipitation regime have been proposed as drivers of shrub encroachment. This theory has been supported by small-scale field experiments showing shrubs disproportionally benefiting from increases in rainfall frequency, amount, and variability. A further potential global factor is the ongoing rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations since the industrial revolution. A theoretical understanding of water limitations to woody cover in savannahs makes it reasonable to assume that CO2-driven increases would be concentrated in water-limited environments. This has been observed across South Africa using aerial photography and globally using satellite-derived Rain Use Efficiency (RUE). Here, we combine satellite-derived fractional woody cover maps with a suite of potentially explanatory variables, to elucidate on the potential drivers and mechanisms of woody cover change, in South African savannahs. The study area consists of the Limpopo and North West Provinces in northern South Africa. These municipalities cover a plurality of the savannah biome within South Africa (193,200 km2, 49% of the total savannah area), in addition to containing 33,830 km2 of grassland. More specifically, we test the three, abovementioned, competing hypotheses on the drivers of woody encroachment for South African savannahs. Our modelling framework was developed using Generalised Additive Models (GAM). We collated a series of 11 variables that have a hypothetical basis for explaining woody cover changes. These variables can be grouped into three categories: rainfall-derived, human, and natural factors. Fractional woody cover changes were mapped using Landsat-derived % woody cover layers, based on the methodology developed in Higginbottom et al. (2018, ISPRS Journal Ph&RS, 139, 88-102). In summary, two five-year epochs (1984-1988 and 2008-2012) of Landsat imagery were used to generate pixel-level seasonal spectral variability metrics, at 120 m resolution. Reducing the pixel resolutions improves the classification accuracies, and is more suited for observing overall trends. High-resolution imagery were classified into woody/non woody masks, and used as training data for a Random Forest regression for the fractional cover of each 120m-pixel. The Random Forest model was applied to the Landsat metric stacks to generate the two epochal maps. We then calculated both the absolute percentage change, and the relative percentage change in woody cover between the two maps. The fitted models had R2 values of 0.39 for absolute change and 0.41 for relative change. The results show that the modelled variables most closely matched the a-priori responses of the carbon fertilisation hypothesis. In recent years, this explanation has been postulated by studies using a variety of methods to account for the observed woody encroachment. Further work in this arena is still necessary, particularly where the data sources are sub-optimal. Land-use history and rainfall dynamics are especially difficult to quantify and would require further investigation. Furthermore, additional factors, such as reactive nitrogen deposition and mega-fauna extinctions, are likely to be relevant but where not included in our models. If carbon fertilisation is the key driver of shrub encroachment in savannahs, it would raise concerns for future environmental change: as CO2 levels continue to rise more savannahs and grassland are likely to experience an increase in woody cover levels, which has been linked to savannah land degradation.


The crystal structure of the urease gamma subunit (UreA) from Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Rv1848, has been determined at 1.8 A resolution. The asymmetric unit contains three copies of Rv1848 arranged into a homotrimer that is similar to the UreA trimer in the structure of urease from Klebsiella aerogenes. Small-angle X-ray scattering experiments indicate that the Rv1848 protein also forms trimers in solution. The observed homotrimer and the organization of urease genes within the M. tuberculosis genome suggest that M. tuberculosis urease has the (alphabetagamma)(3) composition observed for other bacterial ureases. The gamma subunit may be of primary importance for the formation of the urease quaternary structure.


Experts have called for cosmetic laser treatment to be regulated, warning that its misuse can result in skin burns, blistering, scarring, and permanent blindness.

Laser and intense pulse light cosmetic treatments are becoming increasingly popular for the removal of hair, tattoos, and birthmarks as well as for skin "rejuvenation" or "resurfacing." These treatments are offered at an estimated 10 000 beauty salons and clinics in England and there is no requirement that the practitioner is trained or registered.

Experts from the Society for Radiological Protection expressed their concerns at a press conference in London on 9 May ahead of the International Radiation Protection Association Congress in Glasgow later this month.

"Lasers, by their nature, are dangerous pieces of equipment," warned Harry Moseley, consultant clinical scientist and head of a dermatological laser clinic at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, which treats both NHS and private patients. He said he knew of many cases where patients had been …


PURPOSE
The present study assessed damage to the inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) following nerve lateralization and implant placement surgery through optical and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
IAN lateralization was performed in 16 adult female rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus). During the nerve lateralization procedure, one implant was placed through the mandibular canal, and the IAN was replaced in direct contact with the implant. The implant was placed in the right mandible, and the left side was used as a control (no surgical procedure). After 8 weeks, the animals were sacrificed and samples were prepared for optical and TEM analysis of IAN structural damage. Histomorphometric analysis was performed to determine the number and cross-sectional dimensions of nerve fascicles and myelin sheath thickness between experimental and control groups. The different parameters were compared by one-way analysis of variance at the 95% significance level.

RESULTS
Alterations in the perineural and endoneural regions of the IAN, with higher degrees of vascularization, were observed in the experimental group. TEM showed that the majority of the myelinated nerve fibers were not affected in the experimental samples. No significant variation in the number of fascicles was observed, significantly larger fascicle height and width were observed in the control group, and significantly thicker myelin sheaths were observed in the experimental samples.

CONCLUSION
IAN lateralization resulted in substantial degrees of tissue disorganization at the microstructural level because of the presence of edema. However, at the ultrastructural level, small amounts of fiber degeneration were observed.


New Graduate Nurses: Evaluating an Innovative Mixed Method Orientation Program by Mary Josette Armendariz-Batiste MS, Walden University, 2009 BS, University of Texas Medical Branch, 2004 Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Nursing Practice Walden University May 2016 Abstract Institutions are recruiting new graduate nurses to fill their vacancies. The aim of this project was to create a new graduate nurse orientation program that consists of the Essentials of Critical Care Orientation (ECCO) program created by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (2014), scenarios, and simulation that will result in an increase in nurses' sense of their ability to provide safe patient care, communicate effectively, perform skills, and increase their sense of institutional support. The theoretical framework for this mixed methods project was Benner's "From Novice to Expert." The convenience sample participants consisted of 17 baccalaureateprepared new graduate nurses. The Casey-Fink Graduate Nurse Experience Survey was administered prior to the orientation program and again at the completion. Content analysis was used for Section I of the survey, which pertains to the top 3 skills nurses are uncomfortable performing. In the presurvey, chest tube care, ECK/EKG/telemetry, and tracheostomy were listed. However, they were not listed on the post survey. The findings resulted in a correlation between skills that were taught during simulation and scenarios. Fisher's exact test was used for Sections II, III, and IV of the survey. There was no statistically significant difference in the pre and post survey as it pertained to questions regarding safe patient care, communication, and sense of institutional support. Results of this study are inconclusive and do not fully support the orientation program. Nurse leaders have a social mandate to ensure new graduate nurses are supported and have the resources needed to provide safe patient care. The program that was created and implemented was an attempt to assist new graduate nurses with their transition into practice.Institutions are recruiting new graduate nurses to fill their vacancies. The aim of this project was to create a new graduate nurse orientation program that consists of the Essentials of Critical Care Orientation (ECCO) program created by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (2014), scenarios, and simulation that will result in an increase in nurses' sense of their ability to provide safe patient care, communicate effectively, perform skills, and increase their sense of institutional support. The theoretical framework for this mixed methods project was Benner's "From Novice to Expert." The convenience sample participants consisted of 17 baccalaureateprepared new graduate nurses. The Casey-Fink Graduate Nurse Experience Survey was administered prior to the orientation program and again at the completion. Content analysis was used for Section I of the survey, which pertains to the top 3 skills nurses are uncomfortable performing. In the presurvey, chest tube care, ECK/EKG/telemetry, and tracheostomy were listed. However, they were not listed on the post survey. The findings resulted in a correlation between skills that were taught during simulation and scenarios. Fisher's exact test was used for Sections II, III, and IV of the survey. There was no statistically significant difference in the pre and post survey as it pertained to questions regarding safe patient care, communication, and sense of institutional support. Results of this study are inconclusive and do not fully support the orientation program. Nurse leaders have a social mandate to ensure new graduate nurses are supported and have the resources needed to provide safe patient care. The program that was created and implemented was an attempt to assist new graduate nurses with their transition into practice. New Graduate Nurses: Evaluating an Innovative Mixed Method Orientation Program by Mary Josette Armendariz-Batiste MS, Walden University, 2009 BS, University of Texas Medical Branch, 2004 Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Nursing Practice Walden University May 2016


The thesis which follows is composed of two parts. The first component is a critical reflection of just over 20,000 words that details the process through which I wrote the poems in the collection it precedes. The research aims to demonstrate, using the liminal space of stone circles as an oblique influence, how poems shape and create liminal space, how an experience of that space is ordered by the structures that enclose it, and how those structures facilitate connection with the poem through phenomenological response. My theories draw support from Henri Lefebvre, Mircea Eliade, Lyn Hejinian, James Joyce, Wendell Berry, among others. I also employ poems by Michael Donaghy, John Burnside, Paul Farley, and Tracy K. Smith to further support my claims. The critical essay also reflects on the nature of creative practice itself through a discussion of the divergences my own poems took in the course of their composition. Due to gaps inherent in language, the creative process is itself an area of liminality that asks for a certain flexibility and adaptability in a writer. The second, and more important, component is a collection of forty poems that embody and view liminal space from various angles, perspectives, and structures. While the scholarly research explains the process through which the poems were written, it is the poems which provide the final answers and which demonstrate that practice, more than anything else, is the true research a writer undertakes. They demonstrate my negotiation with liminality, poetic structure, and the limits of authorial intention while telling a story of distances, heartaches, missed connections, longing, and, ultimately, hope.


Objectives: To determine the effects of long-term nocturnal intermittent positive-pressure ventilation (NIPPV) on symptoms, pulmonary function test results, sleep, and respiratory muscle performance in patients with ventilatory insufficiency due to severe kyphoscoliosis. Design: A prospective study in which 16 severe kyphoscoliotic patients were treated with NIPPV delivered by volume-cycled and pressure-cycled ventilators, over a period of 36 months. Interventions and measurements: At baseline, pulmonary function tests, blood gas measurements, polysomnography, and respiratory muscle strength (measured by noninvasive indexes) were obtained. Symptoms and the number of hospitalizations in the previous 6 months also were recorded. Patients then began using a ventilator for > 1 to 2 days, in order to select the type of ventilator and the appropriate interface. Patients returned for evaluation (in outpatient setting) every 6 months for a follow-up period of 3 years. At 6 months, polysomnography was repeated, and by the third year clinical and functional parameters had been reassessed. Results: All symptoms improved significantly with NIPPV therapy, when compared with the baseline values. The mean ( SD) PaO2 and FVC values increased at 36 months compared with baseline values (62.6 7.1 vs 67.8 8.8 mm Hg, respectively; and 37.9 7.2% vs 47.5 11.9%, respectively; p < 0.05 for both). There were significant improvements in mean maximal inspiratory pressure (55.8 17.4 to 78.5 17.5 cm H2O), maximal expiratory pressure (53.8 17.7 to 72.3 11.0 cm H2O), mouth pressure (0.28 0.08 to 0.22 0.02 cmH2O), and pressure-time index (0.18 0.05 to 0.11 0.02; p < 0.05 for all comparisons). There were no significant differences in breathing pattern and ventilatory drive. After 6 months, nocturnal oxyhemoglobin saturation improved, however, there was no significant change in sleep architecture. All patients subjectively perceived a better quality of life after beginning ventilation, which persisted over the course of the study. Conclusions: Long-term NIPPV therapy improves daytime blood gas levels, respiratory muscle performance, and hypoventilation-based symptoms in patients with severe kyphoscoliosis. (CHEST 2003; 124:857–862)


GaN/InGaN superlattice barriers are used in InGaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The electrostatic field in the quantum wells, electron hole wavefunction overlap, carrier concentration, spontaneous emission spectrum, light-current performance curve, and internal quantum efficiency are numerically investigated using the APSYS simulation software. It is found that the structure with GaN/InGaN superlattice barriers shows improved light output power, and lower current leakage and efficiency droop. According to our numerical simulation and analysis, these improvements in the electrical and optical characteristics are mainly attributed to the alleviation of the electrostatic field in the active region.


This chapter offers an introduction to mindful design and its potential to promote responsible behaviour change. While it is recognised that design changes users' behaviour, design often has inadvertent consequences which are not considered at the point of designing, and which can cause significant social, environmental or other issues later. In this chapter, it is argued that mindfulness – as an attitude of awareness and attentiveness – can be embedded in design and as such can help users to make more responsible decisions through the use of mindful design. The argument proceeds through the analysis of the concepts of mindfulness and mindful design, and is supported by a number of examples to explain the role and position of mindful design as a useful approach to designing for behaviour change.


This paper presents a probabilistic approach to evaluate the small-signal stability of power systems in the presence of communication delays. An exact method is first proposed to determine the relationship between delay margin and system parameters such as the system load. The delay margin is then modeled as a random variable and the probability density function (PDF) of the delay margin is determined based on the PDF of the load using a Monte Carlo simulation approach. The communication delays are assumed to be uniformly distributed in a practical range and the probability of system being small-signal stable for a given time delay is determined using the estimated PDF of the delay margin. The proposed method is applied to a single-machine-infinite bus (SMIB) power system with an exciter.


An attempt is made in this paper to outline the growth and changes that have talcen place in the
marina fisheries of India over the past 4 decades The trends in marine fish landings, the progressive
changes that have taken place In the craft and gear employed to catch the fish, the progress made by the
fish-processing and marinating industry, including the phenomenal growth of the export of marine products,
are reviewed.
The rapid progress achieved in important areas of marine fisheries research in ihe post-Independence
era and the areas in which more research is needed in the coming years are discussed. Education and
training programmes aimed at providing the trained manpower to in^plement the various developmental
programmes connected with the growth of the marine fishing industry are also outlined and the need for
strengthening these programmes Is pointed out.
The growth in the fishermen population, the mechanisation of the indigenous craft, the introduction
of the mechanised fishing vessels such as trawlers, purse seiners and gill natters into the marine fishery,
the advent of large trawlers on the northeast coast of India and the effect of all these developments on the
traditional fishermen are discussed. The attempts at promoting joint ventures and chartering of foreign
Vessels are analysed with respect to advantages and disadvantages of such endeavours. The growth
in the financial outlay during the successive five-year plans at the Central and Stete levels and its impact
on the development of the marine fishing sector are briefly elucidated.