Summary This paper aims to understand the patterns and processes of contemporary technology fusion. It attempts to argue that the mechanisms of technology fusion in upstream research activities typically begin as the researcher with a cognitive map as technology interacts with another researcher holding different cognitive maps. Their interaction evolves into a collective learning that causes the generation of a new knowledge. The collective knowledge also creates a new technology after it integrates into or absorbs a codified and tacit knowledge created by a third researcher with other knowledge. The creation of collective knowledge requires purposive effort as Martin Bell argued. Under active social interaction of many researchers, the diversity of applications for a given technology is quite large so that the possibility of technology fusion to create new functions and products becomes available. In the case investigation of intelligent robots, technology fusion appears to be quite distinctive wherein core technologies such as digital data treatment, control or adjustment, and manipulation lead the integration of various technologies to produce such. The literature analysis using abstracts of 624 papers on intelligent robots provided such key words as humanoid, control, service robots, sensors, systems, vision, manipulators, learning, micro/mobile, teleoperation, software, etc. It was found that vast areas of knowledge including humanities have been integrated into research on intelligent robots. It also implies that diverse knowledge is fused or integrated in the process of basic research before the commercial development of intelligent robots.


Ensuring compliance of organizations to federal regulations is a growing concern. This paper presents a framework and methods to verify whether an implemented low-level security policy is compliant to a high-level security policy. Our compliance checking framework is based on organizational and security metadata to support refinement of high-level concepts to implementation specific instances. Our work uses the results of refinement calculus to express valid refinement patterns and their properties. Intuitively, a low-level security policy is compliant to a high-level security policy if there is a valid refinement path from the high-level security policy to the low-level security policy. Our model is capable of detecting violations of security policies, failures to meet obligations, and capability and modal conflicts.


This is the first volume to appear in the 'Origins of the Modern State in Europe' series, which arises from an important international research programme sponsored by the European Sciences Foundation.The aim of the series, which comprises seven volumes, is to bring together specialists from different countries, who reinterpret from a comparative European perspective, different aspects of the formation of the state over the long period from the beginning of the thirteenth to the end of the eighteenth century. One of the main achievements of the research programme has been to overcome the long-established historiographical tendency to regard states mainly form the viewpoint of their twentieth-century borders. Economic Systems and State Finance offers a new approach to the development of the state finance and fiscal systems in Europe. It covers a broad chronological span, beginning with a reassessment of the feudal system and beginnings of state finance, and counting with developments within a comparative European framework as far as 1815 when Britain emerged as the only state to have achieved economic hegemony. The conclusions are presented in four thematic chapters on expenditure, revenues, public credit, and the fiscal burden. The text is underpinned by the comprehensive apparatus of 97 figures, drawn from an important research database established during the research programme. Economic Systems and State Finance is a significant work of scholarship, which will make a permanent contribution to historical debate.


Automatic seal imprint identification system is highly demanded in oriental countries. Even though several seal identification techniques have been proposed, it is seldom to find the papers on the recovery of lost seal imprint strokes caused by superimposition. In this paper, a new seal verification for Chinese color seal is proposed. This approach segments the seal imprint from the input image in terms of the adaptive thresholds. The lost seal imprint strokes are recovered based on the text stroke width that can be detected automatically. In addition, the moment-based seal verification is to compare the reference seal imprint and the recovered one. Experimental results show that the proposed method is able to correctly and efficiently verify the genuine and forgery seal imprint.


A comprehensive teaching guide for the Japanese for Busy People video course A- Step-by step lesson plans to give guidance through the course A- A clear summary of the overall language syllabus, together with the language and vocabulary items for each episode A- Full English translations of the 60-part drama series and all animations A- Tips on using the videos with other components in the Japanese for Busy People series Japanese for Busy People is a concise course for "busy" students who want to learn natural, spoken Japanese as effectively as possible in a limited amount of time. This fully integrated three-level course is comprised of three main texts that can be used in conjunction with related workbooks, tapes, CDs, teacher's manuals, and videos. A comprehensive and detailed guide to using all three videos in the series, Japanese for Busy People: The Video Guide has been specially prepared by experienced Japanese teaching professionals who understand the constraints under which both native and non-native instructors actually work. Starting with the rationale and methodology of the Japanese for Busy People series, The Video Guide provides interesting ideas for using the videos alongside other components in the series and some novel suggestions for planning an intensive curriculum around the videos. The easy-to-follow lesson plans contain activities and teaching tips designed to practice and consolidate new language patterns and vocabulary. The complete video script with full English translation is included, so teachers can now plan lessons without actually watching the video tapes. There is also a list of all the language patterns and vocabulary covered in each episode, useful cultural information, and details of materials needed to bring the class to life. More than simply a collection of teaching tips and activities, The Video Guide provides a comprehensive overview of the Japanese for Busy People series with special emphasis on the videos. For the first time in any language, AJALT explains how all the components of this best-selling series can be combined to form a comprehensive course in basic Japanese, or fitted into any existing curriculum. With straightforward grammatical explanations and cultural notes throughout, The Video Guide will also prove indispensable to self-study students learning Japanese with the videos.


ABSTRACT Research indicates that mathematical understanding before formal schooling influences later attainment. This study investigated the mathematical activities of preschool-aged children in Japan, a neglected topic despite the high mathematical attainment of Japanese children. Preschool activities were investigated using surveys, observations, and staff interviews; activities at home and use of non-preschool educational providers were investigated using surveys of parents. The results showed that preschools overwhelmingly followed the government curricula, seeking to develop children's interest in and sense of number, quantity, and shape through activities embedded in play and daily life; more directed teaching using workbooks was rare. Many children frequently engaged in informal mathematics-related activities at home. An unexpectedly high proportion of children engaged with learning materials from non-preschool educational providers. Results were broadly consistent across the two locations studied, despite the contrasting attainment of children in these areas in national mathematics tests. The results demonstrate that preschools in different parts of Japan avoid directed mathematical teaching. Further research is needed into the development of the mathematical understanding of preschool-aged children in Japan, especially in relation to non-preschool educational providers.


Background: To evaluate the association of apolipoprotein B (apoB), apolipoprotein A (apoA), and apoB/apoA ratio with the body fat indicators in patients with stable angina pectoris (SA). Materials and Methods: One hundred and twenty two participants aged 40-60 years old, with a mean age of 52.1 ± 7.2 years and SA, were recruited for the present study. Body weight, height, and waist circumference (WC) were measured, and waist to height ratio (WHtR) was calculated. After 12 hours of fasting, a blood sample was obtained and serum levels of apoB and apoA were measured and the apoB/apoA ratio was calculated. These patients underwent an abdominal computerized tomography scan (CTS) to assess visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue (VAT, SAT). Linear regressions were computed to assess the relation of apoB, apoA, and their ratio with various measurements of adiposity (VAT, SAT, WC, and WHtR), with adjustment for age, sex, and BMI ≥ 25, WC ≥ 80 in women and WC ≥ 90 in men and WHtR ≥ 0.59. Results: From totally 123 patients with SA with a mean age of 52.1 ± 7.2 years, 44.7% male and 55.3% women were entered. Significant positive associations were found between visceral fat area and the apoB/apoA ratio (P = 0.02, β = 0.2), and significant negative correlations were observed between visceral fat area and apoA concentrations (P = 0.04, β = −0.2). Conclusion: As abdominal fat accumulation is associated with other risk factors such as apolipoproteins in ischemic patients, then we most focus on control of these factors.


Engineering tissues in bioreactors is often hampered by disproportionate tissue formation at the surface of scaffolds. This hinders nutrient flow and retards cell proliferation and tissue formation inside the scaffold. The objective of this study was to optimize scaffold morphology to prevent this from happening and to determine the optimal scaffold geometric values for connective tissue engineering. After comparing lyophilized crosslinked collagen, compression molded/salt leached PEGT/PBT copolymer and collagen-PEGT/PBT hybrid scaffolds, the PEGT/PBT scaffold was selected for optimization. Geometric parameters were determined using SEM, microcomputed tomography, and flow permeability measurements. Fibroblast were seeded and cultured under dynamic flow conditions for 2 weeks. Cell numbers were determined using CyQuant DNA assay, and tissue distribution was visualized in H&E- and Sirius Red-stained sections. Scaffolds 0.5 and 1.5 mm thick showed bridged connected tissue from top-to-bottom, whereas 4-mm-thick scaffolds only revealed tissue ingrowth until a maximum depth of 0.6-0.8 mm. Rapid prototyped scaffold were used to assess the maximal void space (pore size) that still could be filled with tissue. Tissue bridging between fibers was only found at fiber distances < or =401 +/- 60 microm, whereas filling of void spaces in 3D-deposited scaffolds only occurred at distances < or =273 +/- 55 microm. PEGT/PBT scaffolds having similar optimal porosities, but different average interconnected pore sizes of 142 +/- 50, 160 +/- 56 to 191 +/- 69 microm showed comparable seeding efficiencies at day 1, but after 2 weeks the total cell numbers were significantly higher in the scaffolds with intermediate and high interconnectivity. However, only scaffolds with an intermediate interconnectivity revealed homogenous tissue formation throughout the scaffold with complete filling of all pores. In conclusion, significant amount of connective tissue was formed within 14 days using a dynamic culture process that filled all void spaces of a PEGT/PBT scaffolds with the following geometric parameters: thickness 1.5-1.6 mm, pore size range 90-360 microm, and average interconnecting pore size of 160 +/- 56 microm.


By reviewing and improving previous empirical works on this topic, the present paper investigates the dynamic externalities of agglomeration in China. Taking China's top three municipalities (i.e., Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin) as sample regions, it assesses empirically and compares how three types of dynamic externalities—namely MAR (Marshall–Arrow–Romer), Jacobs, and Porter externalities—affect manufacturing productivity. The main findings of this paper are threefold. First, all three types of dynamic externalities measured in labor productivity can be found in the three sample regions, but large differences in the degrees and directions of the effects exist among them. Second, the degree and sign of the effects of each type of externality vary with changes in time lags. Third, the positive effects of these externalities seem to be substitutable for one another. Specifically, if MAR externalities contribute more to productivity growth in one city, Jacobs or Porter externalities do so to a lesser degree and vice versa.


BACKGROUND
Therapeutic ultrasound may be offered to people experiencing mild to moderate symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). The effectiveness and duration of benefit of this non-surgical intervention remain unclear.

OBJECTIVES
To review the effects of therapeutic ultrasound compared with no treatment, placebo or another non-surgical intervention in people with CTS.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched the Cochrane Neuromuscular Disease Group Specialized Register (22 February 2011), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (The Cochrane Library, 2011, Issue 1), MEDLINE (January 1966 to February 2011), EMBASE (January 1980 to February 2011), CINAHL Plus (January 1937 to February 2011), and AMED (January 1985 to February 2011).

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing any regimen of therapeutic ultrasound with no treatment, a placebo or another non-surgical intervention in people with CTS.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two review authors independently selected trials for inclusion, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias in the included studies. We calculated risk ratio (RR) and mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for primary and secondary outcomes. We pooled results of clinically homogenous trials in a meta-analysis using a random-effects model, where possible, to provide estimates of the effect.

MAIN RESULTS
We included 11 studies randomising 443 patients in the review. Two trials compared therapeutic ultrasound with placebo, two compared one ultrasound regimen with another, two compared ultrasound with another non-surgical intervention, and six compared ultrasound as part of a multi-component intervention with another non-surgical intervention (for example, exercises and splint). The risk of bias was low in some studies and unclear or high in other studies, with only three reporting that the allocation sequence was concealed and six reporting that participants were blinded. Overall, there is insufficient evidence that one therapeutic ultrasound regimen is more efficacious than another. Only two studies reported the primary outcome of interest, short-term overall improvement (any measure in which patients indicate the intensity of their complaints compared with baseline, for example, global rating of improvement, satisfaction with treatment, within three months post-treatment). One low quality trial with 68 participants found that when compared with placebo, therapeutic ultrasound may increase the chance of experiencing short-term overall improvement at the end of seven weeks treatment (RR 2.36; 95% CI 1.40 to 3.98), although losses to follow-up in this study suggest that these data should be interpreted with caution. Another low quality trial with 60 participants found that at three months, post-treatment therapeutic ultrasound plus splint increased the chance of short-term overall improvement (patient satisfaction) when compared with splint alone (RR 3.02; 95% CI 1.36 to 6.72), but decreased the chance of short-term overall improvement when compared with low-level laser therapy plus splint (RR 0.87; 95% CI 0.57 to 1.33), though participants were not blinded to treatment and it was unclear if the random allocation sequence was adequately concealed. Differences between groups receiving different frequencies and intensities of ultrasound, and between ultrasound as part of a multi-component intervention versus other non-surgical interventions, were generally small and not statistically significant for symptoms, function, and neurophysiologic parameters. Only four studies measured adverse effects, none of which identified adverse effects due to therapeutic ultrasound. However, more data on this outcome are required before any firm conclusions on the safety of this intervention can be made.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
There is only poor quality evidence from very limited data to suggest that therapeutic ultrasound may be more effective than placebo for either short- or long-term symptom improvement in people with CTS. There is insufficient evidence to support the greater benefit of one type of therapeutic ultrasound regimen over another or to support the use of therapeutic ultrasound as a treatment with greater efficacy compared to other non-surgical interventions for CTS, such as splinting, exercises, and oral drugs. More methodologically rigorous studies are needed to determine the effectiveness and safety of this intervention for CTS.


Hesperidin (Hsp) is an abundant flavonoid in citrus fruits, and the oral administration of Hsp has been recently reported to suppress collagen-induced arthritis in mice. Therefore, we sought to determine whether alpha-glucosylhesperidin (Hsp-G), which is an Hsp derivative with enhanced water-solubility, is effective on treating arthritis in both mice and humans. Hsp-G was orally administered to mice with collagen-induced arthritis, and its effects were evaluated clinically and histologically. Oral administration of Hsp-G improved collagen-induced arthritis when administered before the onset of arthritis as well as when administered after its onset. A decrease in tumor necrosis factor-alpha production was found to cause this improvement. In the human study, 19 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were enrolled in a 12-week double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Patients were administered beverages containing 3 g Hsp-G (n = 9) or placebo (n = 10) every morning for the duration of the 3-month trial. Additionally, patients received standard therapy from a physician every 4 weeks. As a result, 3 of 9 patients in the Hsp-G group improved, while only 1 of 10 patients in the placebo group improved; this was in accordance with the American College of Rheumatology criteria. The present study revealed that the food material Hsp-G was effective when administered with standard anti-rheumatoid therapy in ameliorating RA in mice and humans without any adverse effects and may improve the quality of life for patients with RA as a complementary/alternative medicine.


In this study, a local path planning method was proposed for both static and dynamic environments. In obstacle-free cases, the mobile robot was forced to basic motion-togoal movement. In case where direct movement towards the global target is not possible, the algorithm searches for possible gaps which satisfy certain clearance criteria. The gaps were detected by taking the gradient of one dimensional distance vector acquired from the SICK LMS100 Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) sensor. The detected gaps were filtered by various methods which finally led to the optimal gap. Points on the line passing through the optimal gap were evaluated through a cost function and the point having the minimum cost was assumed to be the current local target. The points which were close to the two opposite corners of the gap less than a certain threshold were discarded to avoid collision. The threshold was determined based on the robot size and the kinematic model. Proportional and integral (PI) speed controller for left and right steered wheels was adapted to the proposed method. A graphical user interface (GUI) was developed to visualize the outputs of the method. On the GUI, offline LMS100 vectors and location data were visualized considering differential drive kinematic constraints for the mobile robot. The algorithm was developed at MATLAB environment.


This chapter gives a concise account of what can and should be understood by multinational enterprises (MNEs). Nearly all countries want to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) by MNEs, but on their own terms. Yet, while some countries are the home of many MNEs and attract much FDI, other countries are neither home nor host to MNEs in a significant way. Moreover, although the number of MNEs has constantly grown, not all firms in the world become multinationals. And while some industries are dominated by MNCs, others are not. The study of MNEs involves explaining these differences between firms, industries and nations, and the policy choices they make regarding MNEs. For this purpose, this chapter gives a historical account of theories, practices and policies on MNEs. The authors also shed light on the effects of MNE activity on home and host countries, in particular their impact on the development of the latter. Do MNEs only bring benefits, or also costs? What is the influence on the home countries of MNEs? And what about the impact on host countries? These issues have been dealt with in different ways under changing conditions. This chapter sketches the contours of these major issues and conditions in order to explore their nature and role as well as accounting for their evolution.


We would like to commend the timely review by Dr Odgers and colleagues,1 highlighting the lack of child/caregiver involvement and the need for greater clarity in methodology in studies, eliciting stakeholder priorities for paediatric chronic disease research. As the period of study ended in October 2016, we would like to provide an update on our own work in this area published since this date and briefly mentioned in the discussion.2 3 We involved a relatively large number of young people (n=63, age range 10–24 years, 43 females, 20 males) with a range of chronic rheumatic musculoskeletal disease across all four nations of the UK …


A theoretical study of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) photonic wires was conducted. These nanoscale optical waveguides can have transverse dimensions substantially smaller than the wavelength of the infrared light they carry. This extreme confinement provides very strong dispersion, which can be greatly controlled by specifying the waveguide geometry. The confinement also enhances silicon's already considerable Kerr nonlinearity (whereby refractive index increases with optical intensity), allowing for nonlinear optical phenomena with record-breakingly small powers. The most notable of these phenomena (and the prime subject of this report) is the soliton, which is a self-sustaining localised pulse held together by a balance between dispersion and nonlinearity. A variety of other phenomena are also considered, including continuum generation, in which the spectral width of a pulse is greatly increased, and modulational instability, in which deviations from an optical waveform are reinforced by nonlinearity. Light propagation through a single wire is modelled numerically, and the results compared to third-party experimental data. The analysis reveals that the experimental results are consistent with soliton evolution, thus strengthening the base of evidence for the existence of solitons in silicon wires. Light propagation through arrays of multiple waveguides is also modelled. It is shown that interwire diffraction is intimately linked to dispersion, and that by exploiting this it is possible to realise both solitons and modulational instability in arrays of wires that individually would not be able to support these phenomena. It is also shown that silicon nanowires are an excellent medium for realising "optical bullets" in which a pulse of light is self-localised both in and transverse to the direction of propagation. A distinctive pattern of radiation emitted by these bullets is predicted. Solitons supported by the Raman effect (rather than the Kerr effect) are also considered. A novel class of soliton solutions are derived, which have the novel property of existing even when the frequency components comprising the soliton are not phase matched.


There is increasing evidence that our criminal system often convicts the innocent. Criminal informants, or "snitches," play a prominent role in this wrongful conviction phenomenon. The criminal system, however, is heavily dependent on snitches, particularly in connection with the investigation and prosecution of drug offenses, and police and prosecutors are often not well-positioned to know when their informants are lying. This Comment, which was prepared in connection with the ACLU of Northern California's conference on wrongful convictions, describes the institutional relationships between snitches, police, and prosecutors that makes snitch falsehoods so pervasive and difficult to discern with the traditional tools of the adversarial process. It offers a litigation suggestion for providing a judicial check on the use of unreliable informant witnesses, namely, a Daubert-style pre-trial reliability hearing. The Appendix provides a sample motion requesting and justifying such a hearing.


Recent declines in many songbird populations have been attributed to forest fragmentation (Robinson et al. 1995), particularly to elevated rates of nest predation at forest edges. Numerous studies have found an increase in predation rates at forest edges (Paton 1994). However, few studies have tested the processes involved; specifically the habitat use and searching behaviour of individual nest predators. I examined factors influencing the nest searching success of red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), a common predator of songbird nests in North American forests. I tested the hypotheses that (1) red squirrels select forest edge habitat, (2) squirrels initially depredate nests opportunistically, (3) with experience, squirrels search actively for nests, and (4) squirrels use an area-restricted search or use nest microhabitat as a search cue to find nests. I monitored the behaviour and habitat use of individual red squirrels over two summers at a forest-pipeline edge in the south-western Yukon Territory. I tested the influence of nest location, squirrel habitat use and amount of prior nest-finding experience on the survival of 2 artificial nests on each of 40 red squirrel territories. Artificial nests contained Japanese quail and plasticine eggs, and were placed at the base of willow shrubs. I used sandfilled trackboards to record small-scale changes in microhabitat use by squirrels after nests were depredated. Such changes could indicate the use of area-restricted searching or microhabitat-based search cues. Red squirrels selected forest-pipeline edges in late spring and early summer. Selection of edges by squirrels was highly correlated with a greater abundance of white spruce buds at edges. Although squirrels preferred edges for foraging, I found no difference in the survival of artificial nests between forest edge and interior locations. Smaller scale patterns of habitat use by individuals were also not related to nest survival. However, squirrels found second nests on their territory in one-fifth the time required to find the first nest. Further, survival of the first nest was most closely related to whether a squirrel had depredated a nest the previous year. Squirrels returned to willow nest sites after nests had been found, but did not change their use of similar microhabitats at larger spatial scales. Therefore, neither area-restricted search nor microhabitat-based search cues explain how squirrels efficiently located second nests on their territory. My results support the hypotheses that red squirrels select forest edge habitat and search actively for nests. Although nest survival was not related to the location of squirrel activity, I cannot reject the hypothesis that predation by squirrels is initially opportunistic. Squirrels may locate nests by chance during random searches when the abundance of traditional foods is low and caching activities are infrequent. I found that squirrels learned to search for nests, thus squirrels could show a functional response to increasing nest densities. Densities of both squirrels and songbirds can change in fragmented landscapes and I discuss how such changes may influence rates of nest predation. Additional tests are required to determine how squirrels learn to search for natural nests. Olfactory cues may be important for this and other mammalian predators. Future studies should continue to focus on individual predators and relate the survival of natural nests to visual and olfactory cues, and to nest density.


Functionality, wearability, and user acceptance are critical issues for the development and eventual commercialization of the smart products. The use of smart clothing for medical reasons requires an understanding of the users' perspective and the willingness to use the products. In this study, a smart clothing system has been developed for respiratory monitoring. Besides the functionality, the wearability from users' perspective has been considered though the design phases. Wearability and user acceptance have been examined by two questionnaires. Results shown the smart clothing system improves comfort and wearability compared with the ordinary respiratory monitoring device and most of the participants believe that using a smart clothing system will improve both health condition and quality of life.


Forward-facing cavity mounted on the blunt nose of hypersonic vehicle is a good choice to reduce the stagnation heating. Presently, the study on hypersonic vehicles nose tip with forward-facing cavity mainly focus on its thermology characteristic, and little work can be found investigating the effect of cavity on aerodynamic force for a holistic vehicle. The CFD method is developed to investigate the effect of cavity geometry on aerodynamic performance of hypersonic vehicle with a forward-facing cavity on the nose-tip. Drag coefficient, lift coefficient and pitching moment coefficient of the vehicle for different attack angle are calculated. It is found that the cavity length to diameter (L/D) can not be a characteristic parameter in aerodynamic research, though it was used as a main characteristic parameter in investigation on the thermal protection. The length of the cavity L has little effect on aerodynamic characteristic of the vehicle, and the cavity diameter D has a crucial influence on the aerodynamic performance and the aerodynamic performance decrease with the D increasing. With the attack angle increasing, the drag coefficient, lift coefficient, pitching moment coefficient and lift-drag ratio of the hypersonic vehicle all increase.


Abstract. Plant canopies affect the canopy micrometeorology, and thereby alter canopy exchange processes. For the simulation of these exchange processes on a regional or global scale, large-scale vegetation models often assume homogeneous environmental conditions within the canopy. In this study, we address the importance of vertical variations in light, temperature, CO2 concentration and humidity within the canopy for fluxes of photosynthesis and transpiration of a boreal coniferous forest in central Sweden. A leaf-level photosynthesis-stomatal conductance model was used for aggregating these processes to canopy level while applying the within-canopy distributions of these driving variables. The simulation model showed good agreement with eddy covariance-derived gross primary production (GPP) estimates on daily and annual timescales, and showed a reasonable agreement between transpiration and observed H2O fluxes, where discrepancies are largely attributable to a lack of forest floor evaporation in the model. Simulations in which vertical heterogeneity was artificially suppressed revealed that the vertical distribution of light is the driver of vertical heterogeneity. Despite large differences between above-canopy and within-canopy humidity, and despite large gradients in CO2 concentration during early morning hours after nights with stable conditions, neither humidity nor CO2 played an important role for vertical heterogeneity of photosynthesis and transpiration.


As the aseptic loosening induced by polyethylene wear debris is the main cause of long-term failure of total joint replacements, increasing the wear resistance of ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) will be very important to obtain long-life artificial joint. In this paper the UHMWPE was implanted with 450 keV N+ ions to three doses of 5×1014/cm2, 2.5×1015/cm2 and 1.25×1016/cm2. The friction and wear behaviors of UHMWPE were studied under lubrication of distilled water and blood plasma using a ball-on-disk tribometer with a ZrO2 ceramic ball as a counterface. Experimental results showed that the friction coefficient of ions implanted UHMWPE are higher than un-implanted UHMWPE. Under blood plasma lubrication condition, the wear rate of implanted UHMWPE was lower than un-implanted UHMWPE, and the wear rate decreased with increasing implantation dose. The plow, plastic deformation and fatigue were wearing mechanism for un-implanted UHMWPE and the abrasive wear for implanted UHMWPE.


Knowledge of the expected long-term performance of building envelopes subjected to simultaneous heat and moisture transport is critical during the design stage. In the past thirty years researchers have concentrated their efforts in extensive laboratory experiments. These experiments have been expensive as well as time consuming to conduct due to the slow moisture transport phenomena. This paper critically investigates a set of experimental results generated from laboratory controlled measurements on a wood frame wall construction, by employing a state of the art hygrothermal model. The analysis was carried out using the LATENITE model, a three-dimensional heat and moisture transport program tailored specifically for building envelope investigations. For the present simulations this model was adapted for two-dimensional conditions and hourly hygrothermal performances were predicted for a laboratory instrumented wood frame wall section. The investigation showed three main advantages of combining measurements and simulations. By carrying out simulations early in the design stage of laboratory experiments the experimental design will probably yield better quantification of data, placement and types of sensors, and assessment of workmanship influences, etc. Measurements can calibrate, adapt, or check calculated results. Finally, simulations can be performed to explain and interpret experimental results. Marrying experi ments and modeling allows researchers to generate effective hygrothermal perfor mance guidelines.


In this Ph.D. thesis, I investigate the communication abilities of non-inertial observers and the precision to which they can measure parametrized states.
I introduce relativistic quantum field theory with field quantisation, and the definition and transformations of mode functions in Minkowski, Schwarzschild and Rindler spaces.
I introduce information theory by discussing the nature of information, defining the entropic information measures, and highlighting the differences between classical and quantum information.
I review the field of relativistic quantum information.
We investigate the communication abilities of an inertial observer to a relativistic observer hovering above a Schwarzschild black hole, using the Rindler approximation.
We compare both classical communication and quantum entanglement generation of the state merging protocol, for both the single and dual rail encodings.
We find that while classical communication remains finite right up to the horizon, the quantum entanglement generation tends to zero.
We investigate the observers' abilities to precisely measure the parameter of a state that is communicated between Alice and Rob.
This parameter was encoded to either the amplitudes of a single excitation state or the phase of a NOON state.
With NOON states the dual rail encoding provided greater precision, which is different to the results for the other situations.
The precision was maximum for a particular number of excitations in the NOON state.
We calculated the bipartite communication for Alice-Rob and Alice-AntiRob beyond the single mode approximation.
Rob and AntiRob are causally disconnected counter-accelerating observers.
We found that Alice must choose in advance with whom, Rob or AntiRob she wants to create entanglement using a particular setup.
She could communicate classically to both.


The actions of serotonin and substance P have been examined with use of an isolated, vascularly perfused rabbit ileal preparation. The vascular perfusate was composed of a modified Krebs' buffer solution that contained washed human red blood cells (hematocrit, 15% to 20%) and 3% albumin, with no added hormones or peptides. Ileal blood flow was held constant at 49.3 +/- 3.1 ml/min per 100 gm wet weight of intestine. Net intestinal water and electrolyte fluxes were calculated by means of an isosmotic buffer that contained carbon-14 polyethylene glycol as a nonabsorbable volume marker. Viability of this isolated perfused ileal preparation was confirmed on the basis of light microscopy, oxygen consumption, and transmucosal potential difference measurements. Control experiments, without exogenous hormone infusion, resulted in a stable preparation with a basal secretory state. Intra-arterial serotonin at 2.5 micrograms/min (n = 10) significantly stimulated secretion of H2O, Na+, and Cl- (p less than 0.01). Intra-arterial substance P at 2.5 x 10(-1) micrograms/min (n = 7) significantly increased the secretion of H2O, Na+, and Cl- (p less than 0.02). The dose of serotonin was designed to yield serotonin levels that resembled those found circulating in patients with carcinoid syndrome. These data indicate that serotonin and substance P are potent secretagogues in a mammalian system, independent of their effect on mesenteric blood flow and in the absence of extra-intestinal hormonal and neural influences.


Through testing the amount of the free lime and the Loss ignition, the clinker formation rate, the reaction-rate constant (K) and the activation energy (Ea) were calculated according to the Gentling equation and Arrhenius equation. The effects of CaF2 on the formation kinetics of Portland cement clinker were investigated by analyzing the K and Ea. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron Microscope (SEM) were used to characterize the phase composition and the morphology of the resulting samples. The results show that the silicate minerals formation is promoted when a proper amount of CaF2 is doped into the raw meal. The K increased from 0.7450 ×10-5s-1 to 7.1588 ×10-5s-1 and the Ea decreased from 386 kJ/mol to 122 kJ/mol when the amount of CaF2 increased from 0.0% to 2.0% in mass. However, the results were reversed at the amount of CaF2 exceeding 2%.


Anthropogenic activities negatively affect the ecosystems by introducing high amounts of metals in the environment. The study assessed the contamination and ecological risk caused by As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb and Zn in urban soils situated near a metallurgical complex, based on geochemical load (Igeo), contamination factor (Cfi), degree of contamination (Cd), potential ecological risk factor (Eri) and potential ecological risk index (Ri). The results showed concentrations above the geochemical background in more than 80 % of samples for As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn and 25% for Cr, respectively. The alert level for sensitive soil use was exceeded in 80 % and 5% of samples for Pb and Cd, respectively, while in 15% of samples the Pb concentrations exceeded the intervention level. The Cfi indicated considerable contamination with Pb, moderate contamination with Cd, Cu, Zn, As and low contamination with Cr. The Igeo indicated moderate to strong pollution with Pb, moderate pollution with Cd, Cu, Zn, As and no pollution with Cr in the majority of the soils. The Cd showed low and moderate degree of contamination of soils with the studied metals. The Eri revealed moderate potential ecological risk for Cd and low potential risk for Pb, Cr, Cu, Zn and As, while the Ri indicated a low risk for all studied soil samples.


Services are playing an increasingly important role in the global economy. Over the last few decades, the sector's contribution to output, employment, and value-added trade has grown quite dramatically. The rise of services and apparent decline of manufacturing employment have raised concerns about the future of growth given the lower labor productivity of the former. But more recent studies have argued against this for several reasons. Among others, current measures of productivity do not properly account for the indirect contribution of services to other sectors. For example, the additional value generated by services in the production of manufactured goods can be substantial, but it is not properly accounted for because of the indivisible and intangible nature of services. Moreover, the rise of the digital economy has created new ways for services to contribute to production. This paper aims to tackle some of these issues by focusing on the servicification of manufacturing in Asia. Our contribution to the emerging literature is twofold. First, we propose a conceptual framework of servicification. And second, we offer some preliminary evidence of this phenomenon for Asia and measurement proposals to disentangle the contribution of services to labor productivity.


When the so-called 5 Day War between Russia and Georgia occurred in the summer of 2008, the Estonian public reaction was especially passionate. Two major explanations stem from the strong identification of Estonians with the situation of Georgia (post-Soviet state, small country, Russian citizens/speakers on Georgian territory) and the question of existential insecurity (will the EU and NATO guarantee our security in case of necessity?). Using a mixed methods research design, in this study we investigate how the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia affected public confidence in international organisations in Estonia. Data for this study derives from three different sources. Firstly, the European Values Studies (EVS) conducted in 2008 offers a unique value for this research because fieldwork for the survey in Estonia coincided with the military confrontation between the Russia and Georgia on 8-14 August. EVS, among other domestic and international institutions, inquired about the level of confidence in the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which serve as the dependent variables of the current study. Using propensity-score matching technique, respondents who were interviewed in a time interval before the war are designated as the control group, whereas those respondents who were interviewed after the war started, can be designated as the treatment group. Secondly, the information from this dataset is further supplemented by observations and in-depth interviews conducted in Estonia both in the period around the Russo-Georgian conflict, and after it. This will enable us to go deeper into the embedded meanings of trust that Estonians exhibit towards international organisations, or the West more generally. Thirdly, we will offer a brief review of how the 2008 conflict was framed in Estonian media at the time, and how this may have shaped the perception of the Estonian public.


In recent years wireless multi-hop networks have attracted significant attention due to their wide range of potential civil and military applications. Broadcasting is a funda- mental data dissemination scheme for these networks. The transmission power control is an important issue in wireless ad hoc networks and still has no satisfactory solution methods. The wireless networking environment presents formidable challenges to the study of broadcasting problems. In particular, the properties of the wireless medium and the presence of battery-powered devices require novel modeling and algorithmic approaches concentrating on judicious use of limited energy resources in wireless net- works. In addition, networks are often required to provide certain quality of service (QoS) guarantees in terms of the end-to-end delay along the individual paths from the source to each of the destination nodes. Moreover, the received signal at each receiv- ing node must be strong enough to be successfully decoded. In this study we address the minimum-energy broadcast problem in multi-hop wireless networks with respect to two different constraints: (i) each node must receive broadcast message within a given delay bound Δ, and (ii) signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) of the received signal must be above a given threshold [y] so that the received signal can be successfully decoded at the receiving node. We propose two distinct algorithms Distributed Tree Expansion (DTE) and SINR-BIP which aim to generate minimum power broadcast tree with respect to constraint (i) and (ii), respectively and exclusively. DTE is based on an implementation of a distributed minimum spanning tree algorithm in which the tree grows at each iteration by adding a node that can cover the maximum number of currently uncovered nodes in the network with minimum incremental transmission power and without violating the delay constraint. In SINR-BIP, we apply the similar idea of well-known Broadcast Incremental Power (BIP) algorithm while considering the SINR values of received powers. In addition, we use an embedded pruning procedure in SINR-BIP, so that the myopic effect of the algorithm is mitigated. Both the algo- rithms DTE and SINR-BIP are constructive in nature since the broadcast tree grows at each iteration. We observed that the DTE outperforms the existing algorithms and the total energy consumptions of the generated broadcast trees by DTE is within 20% percent of the solutions obtained by Integer Programming.


This study by the Psychosocial Research Unit at the University of Central Lancashire investigated a series of inventive Who Cares? projects across six museums, in order to discover how access to museum activities might affect health and wellbeing. The participating museums were part of the Renaissance in the Regions programme funded by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. A key conclusion is that the programme has revealed great potential. It has shown that collections can be made available to disadvantaged groups in ways that can improve wellbeing.
The research took place over a period of two years (2009-2011) and followed the development and implementation of specific projects targeted at disadvantaged groups in each museum. A further key component was working with the Renaissance North West research manager and staff at participating museums on evaluation planning and feedback days at each museum. The purpose of this was to help develop the museums" self-evaluation capacity and to generate further data to feed into the research process. The research team analysed data collected by the museums as part of their evaluation. The thoughtful and self-reflective engagement of museum staff was vital in facilitating the research, and in seeing the individual projects through to their conclusion.


We introduce RLDS (Reinforcement Learning Datasets), an ecosystem for recording, replaying, manipulating, annotating and sharing data in the context of Sequential Decision Making (SDM) including Reinforcement Learning (RL), Learning from Demonstrations, Offline RL or Imitation Learning. RLDS enables not only reproducibility of existing research and easy generation of new datasets, but also accelerates novel research. By providing a standard and lossless format of datasets it enables to quickly test new algorithms on a wider range of tasks. The RLDS ecosystem makes it easy to share datasets without any loss of information and to be agnostic to the underlying original format when applying various data processing pipelines to large collections of datasets. Besides, RLDS provides tools for collecting data generated by either synthetic agents or humans, as well as for inspecting and manipulating the collected data. Ultimately, integration with TFDS facilitates the sharing of RL datasets with the research community.


In this paper, we describe the performance of the B.A.T.M.A.N advanced (Batman-adv) protocol on an indoor Mesh Potato (MP) test bed. The MPs are small devices used for voice communications over the wireless medium but also supports data. The Batman-adv protocol is designed for ad hocwireless networks. We measure delay, packet loss in order to understand the MPs network performance. The experiments used packets of varying sizes over multiple hops. We analyze the data to see if the network latency for up to four hops is within the recommended boundaries set by ITU Recommendation G. 114. We also observe the how thenetwork's performance is affected by the varying packet sizes. Finally the experiments also reveal the common issues found on the wireless medium and also indoor testbeds.


Clutch take-up judder is a torsional vibration phenomenon induced by stick-slip oscillations at the friction lining interfaces between the clutch friction disc and the flywheel and pressure plate surfaces during the process of clutch engagement. This is short-lived transient phenomenon affected by the clutch lining material's friction characteristics, topography of the mating-sliding surfaces and operational conditions during engagement such as contact pressure , interfacial slip speed and contact temperature. The phenomenon leads to driver discomfort as well as gradual wear of contacting surfaces, even if short-lived. Its frequency is is usually reported to be in the range 5-20Hz depending on the vehicle type. The friction characteristics alter in a transient manner during engagement and it should be measured under controlled conditions.
In this paper the measured interfacial friction characteristics together with clamp load variation (contact pressure) under different surface temperatures are included in a multi-degree of freedom dynamic analysis to obtain torsional vibrations of the system, pertaining to take up judder conditions. Such an in-depth investigation has not hitherto been reported in literature. The paper shows that take up stick-slip judder is omnipresent under all clutch engagement conditions, but its poignancy is most evident at cold surface temperatures. It is also shown that the transient judder response has a broader spectral content that is generally understood.


Background: Hospitalizations of nursing home residents are associated with various health risks. Previous research indicates that, to some extent, hospitalizations of this vulnerable population may be inappropriate and even avoidable. This study aimed to develop a consensus list of hospital discharge diagnoses considered to be nursing home-sensitive, i.e., avoidable. Methods: The study combined analyses of routine data from six statutory health insurance companies in Germany and a two-stage Delphi panel, enhanced by expert workshop discussions, to identify and corroborate relevant diagnoses. Experts from four different disciplines estimated the proportion of hospitalizations that could potentially have been prevented under optimal conditions. Results: We analyzed frequencies and costs of data for hospital admissions from 242,236 nursing home residents provided by statutory health insurance companies. We identified 117 hospital discharge diagnoses, which had a frequency of at least 0.1%. We recruited experts (primary care physicians, hospital specialists, nursing home professionals and researchers) to estimate the proportion of potentially avoidable hospitalizations for the 117 diagnoses deemed avoidable in two Delphi rounds (n=107 in Delphi Round 1 and n=96 in Delphi Round 2, effective response rate=91%). A total of 35 diagnoses with high and consistent estimates of the proportion of potentially avoidable hospitalizations were identified as nursing home-sensitive. In an expert workshop (n=16), a further 25 diagnoses were discussed that had not reached the criteria, of which another 23 were consented to be nursing home-sensitive conditions. Extrapolating the frequency and mean costs of these 58 diagnoses to the national German context yielded total potentially avoidable care costs of €768,304,547, associated with 219,955 nursing home-sensitive hospital admissions. Conclusion: A total of 58 nursing home-relevant diagnoses (ICD-10-GM three-digit level) were classified as nursing home-sensitive using an adapted Delphi procedure. Interventions should be developed to avoid hospital admission from nursing homes for these diagnoses.


This paper presents scalar and vector analyses of sawtooth gratings with a period of 2.0 µm in terms of Fourier transformation and rigorous coupled wave analysis (RCWA) and its fabrication on a slanted silicon substrate by a newly proposed fast atom beam (FAB) etching method. First, the optical and geometrical properties of sawtooth gratings were investigated and optimized under the phase-matching requirement, and the 1st diffraction efficiency for TM polarization and the scalar approximation, 73.0% and 100%, were estimated, respectively. Second, sawtooth gratings optimized by two diffraction analysis methods were successfully fabricated by the FAB etching method. Last, by a hot-embossing process suitable for mass production, 100 µm thick poly-methyl methacrylate (PMMA) material was replicated from a sawtooth-patterned silicon substrate, and its 1st diffraction efficiency for TM polarization, 63.0%, was measured from optical testing.


Environmental exposures like parental lifestyle and diet, smoking, obesity and exposure to toxin can modulate disease risk. Epigenetic DNA methylation changes can be part of the underlying molecular mechanisms. Early life exposures can alter DNA methylation patterns, and thereby predispose the child to develop respiratory allergy (RA) later in life. Longitudinal birth cohorts are instrumental to study disease development, but DNA biomarker research is hampered because blood sampling is kept to a minimum for practical and ethical reasons. Saliva is a non-invasive and convenient source of DNA that can be used for biomarker research. In this study, we aimed at discovery and confirmation of differential methylation regions (DMR) in saliva of children with RA when comparing to controls. Saliva samples collected in two independent longitudinal birth cohorts in Belgium were analyzed using Illumina Methylation 450K BeadChips.A statistical analysis pipeline was developed in R to identify genome-wide differential methylation. The Illumina Methylation 450K BeadChips revealed 13 DMR in saliva from 11y old allergic children (N=26) vs. controls (N=20). 5 DMR were located in genes involved in IL4 signalling and Th2-response, showing a link with wheezing and other RA phenotypes. The 13 DMR were selected for further biological and technical validation by iPLEX MassArray analysis in the same birth cohort as well as in a second cohort (N=78). This project is providing novel insights in the molecular mechanisms that may predispose children to RA development. We are among the first to show the utility of saliva to identify DNA methylation marks in children that are relevant for RA.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the effectiveness of 3 antioxidants in preventing Heinz body anemia in cats.

DESIGN
Prospective study.

ANIMALS
44 specific-pathogen-free healthy cats.

PROCEDURE
Cats were housed individually, divided randomly into 4 groups, and given the following orally every 12 hours: empty gelcaps (control cats), N-acetylcysteine (NAC, 100 mg/kg of body weight), vitamin E (d,l-alpha-tocopherol; 400 IU), or ascorbate (250 mg). After 2 weeks, Heinz bodies were induced by dietary onion powder (OP; 1% or 3% of dry matter) or propylene glycol (PG, 8% wt/vol in drinking water) for an additional 3 weeks. Intake of treated water or food was recorded daily. Body weight, PCV, Heinz body and reticulocyte percentages, reduced glutathione concentration, and total antioxidant status were measured twice weekly in all cats.

RESULTS
Heinz body percentage and degree of anemia did not differ significantly among cats receiving antioxidants and control cats except in cats that ingested water containing PG, in which antioxidant supplementation was associated with a decrease in water intake. Of cats that were fed a diet that contained OP, cats that received NAC had significantly higher reduced glutathione concentrations, compared with other cats in the experiment. Total antioxidant status did not consistently correlate with antioxidant supplementation or type of oxidant administered (ie, OP or PG).

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Although the effect of antioxidant supplementation on Heinz body anemia in cats was minimal, antioxidants may have subclinical biochemical effects such as GSH sparing that may be important against milder forms of oxidative stress.


Objective: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) accounts for approximately 85% of all cases of liver cancer. In China, chronic hepatitis B virus-related HCC (HBV-related HCC) is the most common type of HCC. However, the majority of HBV-related HCC patients are asymptomatic, and the best opportunities for treating these patients are missed. The precise diagnosis of HBV-related HCC is crucial. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of murine double minute-2 (MDM2) promoter methylation in HBV-related HCC patients. Methods: The methylation status of the MDM2 promoter was detected by methylation-specific PCR. The MDM2 expression levels were validated by quantitative real-time PCR. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to determine the levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor-necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in plasma. Results: The methylation frequency of the MDM2 promoter was decreased in HBV-related HCC patients. The MDM2 mRNA levels of patients with HBV-related HCC were higher than those of patients with liver cirrhosis and chronic hepatitis B. The plasma levels of IL-6 and TNF-α were significantly higher in HBV-related HCC patients than that in liver cirrhosis and chronic hepatitis B patients. The TNF-α levels were higher in the unmethylated MDM2 promoter group than in the methylated MDM2 promoter group in HBV-related HCC patients. Moreover, the combination of MDM2 promoter methylation and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) improved the diagnosis of HBV-related HCC. Conclusions: Our study indicates, for the first time, that MDM2 promoter hypomethylation is present in HBV-related HCC patients. The combination of MDM2 promoter methylation and AFP can greatly improve diagnostic efficiency in HBV-related HCC, which might provide a new method for HBV-related HCC diagnosis.


We show that networks of superconducting topological nanowires can realize the physics of exactly solvable Kitaev spin models on trivalent lattices. This connection arises from the low-energy theory of both systems being described by a tight-binding model of Majorana modes. In Kitaev spin models the Majorana description provides a convenient representation to solve the model, whereas in an array of Josephson junctions of topological nanowires it arises from localized physical Majorana modes tunneling between the wire ends. We explicitly show that an array of junctions of three wires—a setup relevant to topological quantum computing with nanowires—can realize the Yao-Kivelson model, a variant of Kitaev spin models on a decorated honeycomb lattice. Employing properties of the latter, we show that the network can be constructed to give rise to two-dimensional collective topological states characterized by Chern numbers ν = 0 , ± 1, and ± 2, and that defects in the array can be associated with vortex-like quasiparticle excitations. In addition we show that the collective states are stable in the presence of disorder and superconducting phase fluctuations. When the network is operated as a quantum information processor, the connection to Kitaev spin models implies that decoherence mechanisms can in general be understood in terms of proliferation of the vortex-like quasiparticles.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the validity of embedded measures of performance validity, the effort index (EI) and effort scale (ES) of the repeatable battery for the assessment of neuropsychological status (RBANS), in Veterans with seizures; to compare the frequency of failure on the test of memory malingering (TOMM) in patients with epileptic versus psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES).

METHODS
Seizure diagnosis was established for 309 participants in epilepsy monitoring units using conventional diagnostic criteria who completed both the TOMM and RBANS. The criterion for performance invalidity was failure on any trial of the TOMM. We examined multiple EI and ES cutoffs to establish optimal sensitivity and specificity.

RESULTS
An RBANS EI cutoff score of greater than three was optimal with specificity of .98, sensitivity of.19, and positive Likelihood Ratio of 10 but was not useful when below this cutoff. Confidence intervals indicate the need for confirmation of a failed EI with another performance validity test (PVT). No ES cutoff had sufficient specificity for clinical use. Invalid TOMM performance but not invalid RBANS performance was significantly more common in persons with PNES than in persons with epileptic seizures.

CONCLUSIONS
In Veterans undergoing seizure monitoring, the RBANS EI was useful as a screen when positive that requires confirmation with another PVT. The RBANS ES was not useful. Invalid performance on the TOMM was more common in persons with PNES than in persons with epileptic seizures.


Abstract We examined selection of grit-ingestion sites by Black Brant (Branta bernicla nigricans) on South Humboldt Bay, California in relation to particle size and calcium content. We hypothesized that Brant site selection was dependent primarily upon calcium content and secondarily upon distribution of substrate particle size. We (1) mapped grit-ingestion sites, (2) ranked their importance by Brant abundance and individual movement probabilities between sites, (3) characterized Brant gizzard grit and compared it with grit available at ingestion sites, and (4) compared calcium content and particle-size distribution between ingestion sites and unused sites, and between primary and secondary ingestion sites. Brant repeatedly congregated at specific, discrete sites during the 2 years of observation. The distribution of gizzard-grit particle size was right-skewed toward larger particles (>0.5 mm) relative to the proportional availability of particle sizes in the substrate. We found no significant differences in calcium content or particle size between sites where grit was ingested and unused sites. Within used sites, the calcium content of substrates at the primary ingestion site was significantly higher than at the secondary ingestion sites, as ranked by Brant abundance and between-site movement probabilities. Our findings from the field corroborate previous laboratory results, and confirm that calcium is a significant ecological factor for this species.


Despite increasing academic focus on intimate relationships as positive influences on desistance, research has yet to examine the experience and impact of support provision for women who are intimate partners of desisters. This exploratory study draws on six in-depth interviews with partners of desisters to elucidate their experiences of support provision and the impact of desistance. This paper finds that women provide resources to their desisting partners, and that identities and agency can be strained through this provision. The desistance process entails an investment of emotional work and capital from intimate partners which is conceptualised in this paper as Desistance Emotional Work (DEW). Desistance research has not yet acknowledged the support needs of women who invest in their partner's desistance, and so DEW should be considered further both theoretically and in policy and practice.


Long memory, asymmetry, volatility spillover aspects of the realized volatilities (RVs) of the log returns of the Korean KOSPI, the Korean won/US dollar exchange rate, Korean treasury bond futures, and the US S&P 500 index are investigated in this paper. For all RVs, significant long memories and asymmetries are identified, which can improve forecasts if suitably used. A new long memory asymmetric threshold HAR-RV (heteroskedastic autoregressive realized volatility) model is proposed. The new model shows explicit differences between the coefficients of daily, weekly, and monthly RVs for days of positive returns and those for days of negative returns. By analyzing the RVs, we find that pseudo out-of-sample forecast performance of the proposed model is better than a widely used existing asymmetric long memory model in about half of cases considered. The new model as well as another existing asymmetric model show that forecast improvements due to implied volatilities for the S&P 500 index decrease when asymmetries in RVs are accounted for. The two asymmetric models find significant decompositions of the spillover effects from the influential market S&P 500 index to the influenced market KOSPI (or from the KOSPI to the Korean won/US dollar exchange rate) into three oscillating components: substantial positive short-term daily spillovers, moderate negative weekly spillovers, and somewhat positive long-term monthly spillovers.


This appendix contains a short overview of the concept of vectors and linear transformations (dyadics) of vectors, and how these are represented in terms of their components. Transformations between different rotated coordinate systems are also reviewed as well as the corresponding transformation of the components of a dyadic. The appendix ends with a short overview of quaternions and their use to represent rotations.


Abstract Distributed ledgers and blockchain technology are widely expected to promote more direct shareholder involvement in corporate governance by reducing costs of voting and trade clearance. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence may shrink the decision-making terrain where corporations rely on human management. This article analyses these technologies and concludes that, while such outcomes are plausible, their potential corporate governance impacts are likely more complex and contingent. Despite the implicit libertarianism that characterises much of the discourse, we in fact have choices to make about how such technologies are developed and deployed – and these policy decisions will have to be grounded in a normative conception of corporate purpose external to the technology itself.


In this letter, we propose a sequential training scheme for multikernel support vector regression (SVR). Unlike the multistage backfitting technique; our method re-tunes, at every stage, all previously trained weights using a semiparametric algorithm in the presence of one more kernel function. In this way, local minima are avoided and any combination of arbitrary kernel functions is acceptable. By experimenting on some synthetic and real data sets, we demonstrate that our method yields a better trade-off between sparsity and accuracy in comparison with the conventional single-kernel SVR and the multikernel backfitting SVR.


OBJECTIVE
It has been suggested that macrovascular disease is more common in patients with scleroderma (SSc). We investigated the prevalence of coronary artery disease (CAD) in SSc using coronary angiography.

METHODS
Coronary angiography was performed in 172 patients with SSc and suspected CAD to examine the prevalence of significant CAD. The prevalence of CAD was estimated in the whole group and also according to age, gender and type of symptoms (typical angina, atypical angina and non-anginal pain or breathlessness). Standardized prevalence ratios (SPRs) were calculated in each symptomatic group in order to compare CAD rates amongst our observed population with those predicted using the Diamond and Forrester (D & F) probability analysis. This analysis provides an estimate of the probability of CAD based on gender, age and symptoms in subjects aged between 30-69 yrs.

RESULTS
The observed prevalence of CAD in the whole population was 22% (38/172); 17% (6/36) in males and 23% (32/136) in females. A total of 41 patients were excluded because they were outside the age range for D & F analysis. Compared with the reference population, the SPRs for CAD in the three SSc groups were: 47% (95% CI 21.7-89.9) in the typical angina group (22 patients), 50% (95% CI 13.6-128) in the atypical angina group (22 patients) and 93% (95% CI 49.4-158.8) in the non-anginal pain or breathlessness group (87 patients).

CONCLUSION
The prevalence of CAD in patients with SSc is similar and not greater to that expected in individuals without SSc.


Control of the rheological properties of the nanoparticle suspensions is challenging. In this study influence of the solids content and the fructose addition on the viscosity of nano alumina suspensions have been investigated by low temperature differential scanning calorimetry (LT-DSC), rheometry, and zeta potential measurements. Analysis of the water melting events in LT-DSC revealed useful information for explaining the rheological behavior of the nanoparticle suspensions. It was shown that the bound water layer has a negligible effect on the viscosity of micrometer-size particle suspension while it increases the effective solid content of alumina nanoparticle suspensions significantly leading to high viscosities. The presence of fructose modifies the bound water layer, decreases the effective solids content, hence resulting in viscosity reduction. Fructose addition lowers the pH of the suspension, but has a negligible effect on the zeta potential. The origin of the bound water, and electrostatic and steric effects of the fructose addition on the viscosity are discussed.


MATLAB is a powerful tool for data processing. This paper focused on how to enhance the efficiency of scientific computation in seismic data processing by improving the traditional MATLAB programming code. Some examples were presented to demonstrate the advantage of vector addressing over the traditional scalar addressing. Vector addressing programming can simplify the code significantly, and can it also improve the compiling efficiency and executing efficiency of the code. The other examples were given to illustrate the use of the colon and some special values that can improve the MATLAB programming efficiency. Some issues in this paper can also serve as guidelines for professionals in other disciplines.


We present a new concept of the thermoelectric structure that generates microwave and terahertz signals when illuminated by femtosecond optical pulses. The structure consists of a series array of capacitively coupled thermocouples. The array acts as a hybrid type microwave transmission line with anomalous dispersion and phase velocity higher than the velocity of light. This allows for adding up the responces from all the thermocouples in phase. The array is easily integrable with microstrip transmission lines. Dispersion curves obtained from both the lumped network scheme and numerical simulations are presented. The connection of the thermocouples is a composite right/left-handed transmission line, which can receive terahertz radiation from the transmission line ports. The radiation of the photon to the surface of the thermocouple structure causes a voltage difference with the bandwidth of terahertz. We examined a lossy composite right/left-handed transmission line to extract the circuit elements. The calculated properties of the design are extracted by employing commercial software package CST STUDIO SUITE.


This paper describes an internal finishing process for thick non-ferromagnetic tube (10~20 mm in thickness) by the application of a magnetic field-assisted machining process using a magnetic machining jig (permanent magnet tool). In this study, a new automatic inner surface finishing system was developed, and to achieve smooth surface roughness and high form accuracy, a multiple-stage machining which contains of rough machining and precision finishing was carried out. Especially, in order to improve the form accuracy the rough processing time was made longer compared with the research in the past. The experiments were performed for a thick SUS304 stainless steel tube 10 mm in thickness. The results showed that surface-roughness and form accuracy were able to be improved greatly, the initial surface roughness of 4.9μm Ra can be improved to 0.01 μm Ra and the roundness of inside tube can be improved from 206 μm to13μm.


A little-known, but ecologically important non-geniculate coralline, LitIhothamnion prolifer, is recorded from a number of tropical Indo-Pacific sites, including Fiji, Australia, Kiribati and Indonesia. The species occurs primarily on vertical walls of caves and overhangs in Fiji and Australia, but was also found as rhodoliths in Kiribati. LitIhothamnion prolifer is characterized by the combination of characters which follow. The thallus is extremely glossy, smooth, and rosy coloured. Thalli usually produce complanate protuberances, but protuberances become terete when growing on well lit, horizontal substrata, when unattached, or when growing on loose substrata. Conceptacles occur mainly on the tips of protuberances, and tetra/bisporangial conceptacles are large (to 1300 µm external diameter, with chambers up to 1100 µm diameter). The tetra/bisporangial conceptacles are flush or only slightly raised, and often extensive and irregularly shaped (resembling small son). They lack a raised rim, and have flattened pore plates. The rosette cells surrounding the tetra/bisporang ial pore appear somewhat sunken below the surrounding roof cells in SEM, and the cells of filaments lining the pore canals of let tetra/bisporangial conceptacles do not differ from the cells of filaments making up the rest of the roof. Old conceptacles persist and become buried in the thallus, and are then usually completely filled in by irregularly arranged calcified cells.


Coccinella quinquepunctata (the five-spot ladybird), was considered extinct in the UK until 1987. Since this time the species is abundant, however, only in very specific habitat in Wales and Scotland. As a result, it is classified as (RDB3) Rare, mainly as a result of its preferred habitat; exposed riverine sediment. This habitat is in a constant state of alteration by natural and anthropogenic means with the quality of the habitat being degraded to the point that specialised invertebrate species, such as C. quinquepunctata, are at risk. In recent years, the rapid spread of the invasive alien Harmonia axyridis (harlequin ladybird) has been linked to a decline in native coccinellid numbers. There is concern that the narrow habitat requirements of C. quinquepunctata, together with the continuing spread of H. axyridis, will result in a decline in the abundance of C. quinquepunctata. Two habitat types (exposed riverine sediment and grassland adjacent to the ERS) along 12 Welsh rivers were surveyed for C. quinquepunctata, H. axyridis, and other coccinellids. When an individual coccinellid was recorded, so too was its elevation from the substrate. Plant species that C. quinquepunctata were observed on and vegetation density on the shingle were assessed in broad categories. Of all recorded coccinellids, 76% were C. quinquepunctata while 7% were H. axyridis. A third of the sites had no records of H. axyridis, while C. quinquepunctata was recorded at all sites. A significantly greater number of C. quinquepunctata were observed within 0.5 m of the exposed riverine sediment rather than higher up on the vegetation. Presence of the invasive plant Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) may have a negative effect on C. quinquepunctata, as it directly affects the vegetation growth on expose riverine sediment. These findings indicate that intraguild predation is unlikely to occur given the low abundance of H. axyridis in C. quinquepunctata habitat. However, the unstable nature of exposed riverine sediment, and a combination of threats from invasive alien species indicates that this species is still at risk of sudden decline and requires further monitoring and conservation efforts.


This paper shows an encoding of linear types in OCaml and its applications. The encoding enables to write correct OCaml programs based on safe resource access guided by linear types. Linear types ensure that every variable is used exactly once, and, thus, they can be used to check the behavioural aspects of programs such as resource access and communication protocols in a static way. However, linear types require significant effort to be integrated into existing programming languages. Our encoding allows the vanilla OCaml typechecker to enforce linearity by using lenses and a parameterised monad. Parameterised monads are monads with a preand a post-condition, and we use them to track the creation and consumption of resources at the type level. Lenses, which point at parts of a data type, are used to refer to a resource in preand post-conditions. To handle comfortably structured data such as linearly typed lists, we further propose an extension to pattern matching based on the syntax-extension mechanism of OCaml. We show an application to static checking of communication protocols in OCaml.


England's health secretary, Matt Hancock, has pledged to invest more in primary and community care services and in tackling the social determinants of health as part of a major policy focus on prevention.

Hancock has made prevention one of his early priorities for the NHS.1 In a speech2 to the International Association of National Public Health Institutes on 5 November, he announced a forthcoming government green paper to take forward plans to place greater emphasis on early intervention and self management to improve the nation's health.

As well as diverting more investment …


Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH) pear germplasm in the ex situ field collection at the University of Banja Luka was characterised with simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers in order to reveal redundancies, determine genetic diversity and confirm uniqueness. European pear (Pyrus communis L.) 67 accessions of the BIH collection and 7 reference cultivars of the ex situ collection at SLU in Balsgård, Sweden were analysed using a set of 10 SSR markers. All markers resulted in good amplification and easy scoring of marker alleles One-third of accessions appeared to be triploid. A total of 112 alleles were amplified in unique diploid genotypes with on average 11.2 alleles per marker. Mean observed heterozygosity (Ho) was 0.72, mean expected heterozygosity (He) – 0.80 and mean Shannon index (I) – 1.96. Inbreeding coefficient (FIT) for diploid accessions ranged from −0.06 to 0.28 (mean 0.02) and Wright's inbreeding coefficient (FIS) – from −0.27 to 0.17 (mean −0.03). In the BIH pear collection, mean value of genetic differentiation (FST) between the reference cultivars and pear accessions was 0.05. Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) divided the 74 pear accessions into three groups. The first group consisted of diploid, reference and possible triploid pear accessions, while the second and third groups contained only BIH possible triploid accessions. Overall, the results revealed high levels of polymorphism and uniqueness, indicating that BIH pear germplasm represents very diverse and valuable material for future breeding programmes.


Abstract The conservation of threatened species requires information on how management activities influence habitat quality. The Critically Endangered black rhinoceros Diceros bicornis is restricted to savannahs representing c. 5% of its historical range. Fire is used extensively in savannahs but little is known about how rhinos respond to burning. Our aim was to understand rhino responses to fire by studying habitat selection and foraging at multiple scales. We used resource selection functions and locations of 31 rhinos during 2014–2016 to study rhino habitat use in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. Rhino selectivity was quantified by comparing forage consumption to plant species availability in randomly sampled vegetation plots; rhino diets were subsequently verified through DNA metabarcoding analysis of faecal samples. Rhino habitat use was a unimodal function of fire history, with highly occupied sites having fire frequencies of < 0.6 fires/year and maximum occupancy occurring at a fire frequency of 0.1 fires/year. Foraging stations had characteristic plant communities, with 17 species associated with rhino foraging. Rhinos were associated with, and disproportionately consumed, woody plants, forbs and legumes, all of which decreased in abundance with increasing fire frequency. In contrast to common management practices, multiple lines of evidence suggest that the current fire regime in the Serengeti negatively influences rhino habitat use and foraging and that frequent fire limits access of rhinos to preferred forage. We outline a conceptual model to guide managers and conservationists in the use of fire under variable habitat conditions.


A facile microfocusing optical design is presented which is optimized for less slope error against the traditional tapered mirror. The essential idea of the innovation is based on the characteristics of the slope-error curve for the prototype. The relationship between the mirror shape of the improved model and the driving moments is established. Analytical results have been compared with the results of the prototype. The design demonstrates theoretically that smaller slope error is obtained with longer active length.


ABSTRACT Yu, H. and Xing, L., 2021. Analysis of the spatiotemporal differences in the quality of marine economic growth in China. Journal of Coastal Research, 37(3), 589–600. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Scientifically measuring the quality of marine economic growth and fully understanding the actual state of and trends in the evolution of marine economic growth in China are necessary tasks for ensuring the high-quality development of the marine economy. Guided by five development concepts, an evaluation index system is constructed in this article, and the comprehensive entropy weight method is used to measure the spatial and temporal characteristics of the evolution of the quality of marine economic growth in China. The results were as follows. First, the quality of China's marine economic growth was increasing from 2004–2016, and the growth quality index rose significantly from 0.2066 to 0.7753. The central coastal areas from Shandong to Guangdong developed rapidly, with growth range of Guangdong, Shandong, and Shanghai of 0.5644, 0.5329, and 0.5820, respectively, ranking these areas as the top three. However, there are significant differences in provincial-level development, such as the very large gap between Guangdong Province (0.8622) and Guangxi Province (0.6810) in 2016. Second, the quality of China's marine economic growth was high in middle coastal regions and low in the southern and northern coastal regions, with improvements gradually spreading from the middle to the northern and southern regions. Third, the contribution of each of the five concepts—innovation, greenness, coordination, sharing, and openness—is ranked, and each exhibited an upward trend over the sample period. Therefore, measures that implement the five development concepts take advantage of spatial spillover effects and improve the comparative advantage of provinces with high-quality development must be undertaken to cooperatively advance the high-quality development of the marine economy.


High liquidity and continued economic weakness in advanced economies have led to a surge in capital flows to emerging markets with strong fundamentals and open financial accounts such as Brazil. While capital inflows have undeniable benefits to emerging economies, they are also potentially destabilising. Past experience has shown that high levels of capital inflows can lead to exchange rate volatility and credit or asset price bubbles. In the context of Brazil's inflation-targeting regime for monetary policy, macroprudential measures have proved to be a useful complement to traditional macroeconomic policies. However, today's imbalanced global economy presents an especially difficult challenge for policymakers. The international financial community needs to work together on two fronts: improving our macroprudential toolkit and building a stronger framework for multilateral macroeconomic cooperation.


Incorrect beliefs about memory have wide-ranging implications. We recently reported the results of a survey showing that a substantial proportion of the United States public held beliefs about memory that conflicted with those of memory experts. For that survey, respondents answered recorded questions using their telephone keypad. Although such robotic polling produces reliable results that accurately predicts the results of elections, it suffers from four major drawbacks: (1) telephone polling is costly, (2) typically, less than 10 percent of calls result in a completed survey, (3) calls do not reach households without a landline, and (4) calls oversample the elderly and undersample the young. Here we replicated our telephone survey using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to explore the similarities and differences in the sampled demographics as well as the pattern of results. Overall, neither survey closely approximated the demographics of the United States population, but they differed in how they deviated from the 2010 census figures. After weighting the results of each survey to conform to census demographics, though, the two approaches produced remarkably similar results: In both surveys, people averaged over 50% agreement with statements that scientific consensus shows to be false. The results of this study replicate our finding of substantial discrepancies between popular beliefs and those of experts and shows that surveys conducted on MTurk can produce a representative sample of the United States population that generates results in line with more expensive survey techniques.


Introduction: Preoperative radiotherapy, followed by surgery, is a commonly used approach for locally advanced rectal and colorectal cancer. The external genitalia receive a certain dose of radiation, which may be attributed to long-term sexual dysfunction in these patients. The aim of this study is to find out the dose received by external genital organs in rectal cancer patients receiving preoperative radiotherapy. Materials and Methods: Retrospectively 25 computed tomography (CT) sets of consecutive rectal cancer patients who received preoperative radiotherapy were included. External genital organ contouring was done as per the proposed guidelines given by Brooks et al. Standard radiotherapy plans with three-field wedged portal were run in all the CT sets using 6 MV photons in eclipse treatment planning system (TPS). The total dose prescribed was 50.4 Gy in 28 daily fractions. Dose received by external genitalia were recorded. Results: Various dose-volume histogram (DVH) parameters relating to the dose received by the genitalia were recorded. In the case of male patients, there was no statistically significant difference of values in between supine and prone position except for V40 (%), P = 0.027. In the case of female patients, various DVH values are almost the same in both supine and prone positions (P > 0.05). Conclusion: External genital organs receive a significant radiation dose when treated with standard three-field wedged technique. Therefore, we suggest that the young, sexually active patients may be treated with better conformal techniques to reduce the radiation dose received by the external genitals as low as possible.


This paper presents a robust fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) strategy for centrifugal chillers. The strategy consists of a model-based chiller FDD scheme and a sensor fault detection, diagnosis, and estimation (FDD&E) scheme, which handle chiller faults and sensor faults, respectively. The sensor FDD&E scheme uses a PCA-based method (principal component analysis) to capture the correlations among the major measured variables in centrifugal chillers, as it performs well even in the presence of typical chiller faults. The chiller FDD scheme has been developed based on six physical performance indices, which are capable of describing the health condition of centrifugal chillers and, thus, indicating chiller faults. Only after all the sensors whose measurements are crucial to the chiller FDD are validated by the sensor FDD&E scheme is the chiller FDD scheme used to conduct the chiller system FDD. The strategy was validated using laboratory data from ASHRAE RP-1043 and field data from a centrifugal chiller in a real building.


As "the threshold gears are peculiar to all processes which are flowing past in the world", the problem of looking up of quantitative criterion determining transition of a biological system from one condition to another, is one of the main problems of natural sciences. For analysis of the given problem we investigated some stages of forwardness of marine aster Asterias rubens (mean and late blastula, early and late gastrula, early larva), dis- tinguishing among themselves by morphological characters. Change of structure of cell populations at each stage of development A. rubens analyzed with the help of method of quantitative assessment of functional condition of cells genome. The method is based on cytophotometryc analysis of cell populations coloured by Feulgen (quantifying of DNA in cell) and Naftol yellow S (quantifying of histones in a cell). As the criterion of estimation of functional condition of the cell was used the parameter CFAGEN, coefficient of functional activity of cell genome deduced from histone/DNA ratio after estimation of the absorbency of the nucleus coloured by two chromophores. The data obtained showed that at the moment of organism transition from one stage of development (late blastula) to another (early gastrula) the difference in CFAGEN values between these stages was statistically authentic. Thus comparison of cell distribution histograms has show that cell population conforming to the early gastrula contains 33 % cells with the level of genome functional activity that differs from this one in the cell population conforming to the late blastula. Just in the same moment, the transition of an organism from the stage of late gastrula to the stage of larva is accompanied by statistically authentic distinction in CFAGEN between these stages and availability of more than 1/3 cells (34 %) of the population at the larva stage showing genome functional activity different from that at the late gastrula stage. Thus, it is established, that the biological system passes to qualitatively new condition, if quantity of members of this system changes (increaser or decreases comparatively to a standard point of reference: the norm, previous system status and etc.) not less than on 1/3.


Nanotechnology has great potential, as it can enhance the quality of life through its applications in various fields like agriculture and the food system. Around the world it has become the future of any nation. But we must be very careful with any new technology to be introduced regarding its possible unforeseen related risks that may come through its positive potential. However, it is also critical for the future of a nation to produce a trained future workforce in nanotechnology. In this process, to inform the public at large about its advantages is the first step; it will result in a tremendous increase in interest and new applications in all the domains will be discovered. With this idea, the present review has been written. There is great potential in nanoscience and technology in the provision of state-of-the-art solutions for various challenges faced by agriculture and society today and in the future. Climate change, urbanization, sustainable use of natural resources and environmental issues like runoff and accumulation of pesticides and fertilizers are the hot issues for today's agriculture. This paper reviews some of the potential applications of nanotechnology in the field of agriculture and recommends many strategies for the advancement of scientific and technological knowledge currently being examined.


The lack of elementary student's knowledge and interest about Indonesia's traditional song can affect the existence of traditional songs. Elementary students prefer to listen to modern songs from the device that they have in their daily life. In the music learning process, the student feels bored because of the monotone learning method, even though music art learning process is an important process to promote student knowledge about Indonesia's traditional songs. Innovation is needed because of this condition. For example, is the use of technological devices like mobile device in music artlearning.Thisstudyaimstodesignanddevelopanandroidrole-playinggame(RPG) for music learning, especially Indonesia's traditional songs. This study also analyses the worthiness of android RPG game based on expert judgment validation's score. Basedonexpertjudgmentvalidation'sscore,themusicartlearningmediacalled"Lagu Nusantara" is worthy of supporting the student to learn about basic of music learning and Indonesia's traditional songs. The average score is 3.6 for media representation, 4 for the material which presented in this game, and 3.3 for the use of language. The worthinessofthismediaisabove90%(precisely90.83%).Inconclusion,thisRPGgame can use by teachers or students to promote music art learning process, especially about Indonesia's traditional songs.


The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB Act) of 1999 sought to provide new rules for financial privacy. Only a few years after the GLB Act's enactment, however, it appears to have failed as far as privacy protection is concerned. The Act has pleased neither privacy advocates nor the financial industry. It may, in fact, be a rare legislative feat to have a single statute create so many diverse critics so quickly. This Article examines the GLB Act and its shortcomings through reference to and refinement of theoretical work regarding the law of incomplete contracts. The key scholarship concerns information sharing and "defaults," or background rules, for filling gaps in agreements. We explore three possible kinds of defaults: majoritarian, information forcing, and norm enforcing. This Article finds that the GLB Act's privacy safeguards are highly problematic as examples of either a majoritarian or information forcing default. The GLB Act also raises difficulties if evaluated as a background rule that seeks to enforce norms. In our judgment, information privacy should be conceptualized as a norm constitutive of a democratic society. The access to personal information and limits on it help form the nature of the society in which we live and shape our individual identities. For example, the structure of access to personal information can have a decisive impact on the extent to which certain actions or expressions of identity are encouraged or discouraged. Our concept of "constitutive privacy" suggests that information privacy is a kind of commons that requires some degree of social control to construct and preserve. Default rules, when viewed from this normative perspective, should have a limited role in norm enforcement because of the current poor functioning of the privacy market between consumers and financial institutions. In particular, the presence of bounded rationality along with coordination problems makes default rules a risky choice in this context of information privacy. Under such conditions, the law should generally seek to minimize harms that flow from reliance on bargaining among consumers and data processors. In this Article's final section, we explore ways in which to make the GLB Act's mandatory rules more flexible, and we propose possible revisions to the existing "notice and opt-out" default in the GLB Act. Finally, we revisit the GLB Act's opt-out requirement. We propose to improve upon this requirement by using social science research concerning the power of "frames." We also discuss the possible merits of a shift to an opt-in requirement.


BACKGROUND
Underutilization of breast and cervical cancer screening has been observed in many ethnic groups and underserved populations. Effective community-based interventions are needed to eliminate disparities in screening rates and thus to improve prospects for survival.

METHODS
The Breast and Cervical Cancer Intervention Study was a controlled trial of three interventions in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1993 to 1996: (1) community-based lay health worker outreach; (2) clinic-based provider training and reminder system; and (3) patient navigator for follow-up of abnormal screening results. Study design and a description of the interventions are reported along with baseline results of a household survey conducted in four languages among 1599 women, aged 40-75.

RESULTS
Seventy-six percent of women ages 40 and over had had at least one mammogram, and most had had a clinical breast examination (88%) and Pap smear (89%). Rates were significantly lower for non-English-speaking Latinas and Chinese women (56 and 32%, respectively, for mammography), and maintenance screening (three mammograms in the past 5 years) varied from 7% (non-English-speaking Chinese) to 53% (Blacks). Pap smear screening in the past 3 years was low among non-English-speaking Latinas (72%) and markedly lower among non-English-speaking Chinese women (24%). The strongest predictors of screening behavior were having private health insurance and frequent use of medical services. Having a regular clinic and speaking English were also important. Race/ethnicity, education, household income, and employment status were, overall, not significant predictors of screening behavior.

CONCLUSIONS
These baseline results support the importance of cancer screening interventions targeted to persons of foreign origin, particularly those less acculturated.