This paper presents an experimental and analytical assessment of the performance of steel beam-column assemblies with two types of moment-resisting connections under vertical displacement of a center column, simulating a column removal scenario. The connections considered include (1) a welded, unreinforced flange, bolted web connection and (2) a reduced beam section connection. The test configuration in both cases consisted of two beam spans and three columns. The two exterior column bases were anchored to the strong floor of the testing laboratory, and two diagonal braces were rigidly attached to the top of each exterior column. A downward vertical displacement of this column was imposed using a hydraulic ram, to simulate a column removal scenario. Load was applied under displacement control until connection failure occurred. The study provides insight into the behavior and failure modes of the connections, including their ability to carry tensile forces that develop in the beams. Both detailed and reduced finite element models of the connections are developed that capture the primary response characteristics and failure modes. The detailed models are capable of resolving the nonlinear behavior and failure in great detail, while analyses with the reduced models can be executed much more rapidly, facilitating implementation in models of entire structural systems. Good agreement is observed between the experimental and computational results, providing validation for the detailed and reduced models.


is possible that the current pertussis outbreak will continue into 1994, all young children who have not received four doses of pertussis vaccine should have a catch-up program as soon as possible. This could help contain the outbreak. Currently the NHMRC recommends the use of pertussis vaccine in children up to the age of four years;'5 this upper age limit is presently under review. In the United States the vaccine is recommended up to the age of seven years;" in the United Kingdom there is no upper age Iimi!.'·


The architectural and urban interpretation-explanation of sites and ruins that could pertain to centuries or even millennia preceding the Christian era raises the problem of the transition and difficult distinction between housing and village, family and community, even between architecture and urbanism. A proposal of an interdisciplinary (archeo-architectural) approach is included in this paper as an important tool for the description, exploration, prediction, simulation, restoring or reconstruction of the archeological habitat inheritance, in this case of the Atacama region of Chile, in its urban and architectural expressions.


Choosing a theme in PBL for photography criticism course was a problem, because lecturers had never thought photography criticism, students had a little prior knowledge about photo criticism, social issues and photo history, and also PBL had never been used in in Visual Communication Design, Tarumanagara University. The objective of the research was to design and developed problem-based learning for Tarumanagara student who were learning to interpret photographs. Structured observations, written questionnaires, and oral questionnaires, interviewed were used to gather in depth data of students 'learning on how to interpret various photo's themes. The action research conducted in 50 students from visual communication design, fifth semester, Tarumanagara University, Jakarta.

The designs of problem based learning models in the first cycle was created as follows (1) prepared the learning materials and gave urban theme as a problem, prepare Barrett's model criticism for delivery and assignments (2) delivered materials and assestments, presented problems and brainstrorming (3) described individual and group assignments (4) fasilitated student to interpret photographs (5) supervised student to combine data and discussed sub theme (6) provided feedback and summative evaluation. The second cycle used only the fifth and the sixth steps.
Choosing the themes for PBL became important because the photo themes were interpreted to be the learning outcomes. PBL method made students became more active in discussion about photo interpretations and students learned new ways of learning. From all the results, choosing themes could affect PBL process, if the photo themes were all abstract pictures, student could not have feeling responds to photos. Therefore, the PBL would be not successful. I recommended to select the photo theme follow the history of photography. Themes which were developed by modernist photographers such as still life, landscape and portrait should be given in basic photographic course, and postmodernist themes should be given in the advanced course.


The drilling of wells and production of hydrocarbons lead to changes in the stresses acting on the reservoir and surrounding rocks, and these changes in stress may lead to problems such as wellbore instability, sanding, loss of permeability, reservoir compaction, casing deformation, surface subsidence, etc. Elastic-wave velocities in sandstones are sensitive to changes in stress due to the presence of grain boundaries and microcracks within the rock. This paper shows how changes in elastic-wave velocities can be used to monitor the changes in stress that occur, and a method for predicting the velocity changes due to a given change in stress is illustrated using the example of a borehole drilled into a sandstone reservoir.


High-dimensional expanders generalize the notion of expander graphs to higher-dimensional simplicial complexes. In contrast to expander graphs, only a handful of high-dimensional expander constructions have been proposed, and no elementary combinatorial construction with near-optimal expansion is known. In this paper, we introduce an improved combinatorial high-dimensional expander construction, by modifying a previous construction of Liu, Mohanty, and Yang (ITCS 2020), which is based on a high-dimensional variant of a tensor product. Our construction achieves a spectral gap of $\Omega(\frac{1}{k^2})$ for random walks on the $k$-dimensional faces, which is only quadratically worse than the optimal bound of $\Theta(\frac{1}{k})$. Previous combinatorial constructions, including that of Liu, Mohanty, and Yang, only achieved a spectral gap that is exponentially small in $k$. We also present reasoning that suggests our construction is optimal among similar product-based constructions.


Computer-based tools for communication are a recent technological
development. They promise to provide new routes by which to communicate
with others and to transform some communications that have hitherto been
dependent on media such as paper. One example is the possibility of
supporting scholarly communication by the use of electronic systems, which
also promises a method by which the information explosion might be handled.
The research is an examinat4on of whether or not the support of scholarly
communication in this way is feasible. To investigate communication
systems requires a large scale study over a long period. Accordingly the
research rests on a study programme on 'electronic journals', BLEND, which
ran from 1980 to 1984, funded by the British Library Research and
Development Department. The feasibility of ielectronic journals is
investigated by exploring the usability, utility, likeability and
cost-effectiveness of the communications system.
An analysis of the frequency and distribution of the use of the
computer-based communications system showed that many things seemed to get
in the way of accessing it. Several techniques were used to examine this:
transaction recording, interviews, telephone surveys, questionnaires and
analysis of requests for help. Once the system was accessed, a comparison
of users' aims with actual use shows that different forms of the journal
should be explored in the future. Two reasons for the access rate and type
of use made of the system was the degree to which researchers were able to
accommodate the use of a new communications system into existing patterns
of work and the level of usability of the system. One area in usability
that is explored in detail is the way that text can be read easily on a
screen. The cost-effectiveness of the system is examined by projecting
from actual costs and patterns of use. The final chapters bring together
the studies in a 'Barrier' framework for understanding the use of a
communications system and look forward to the future of electronic
journals.


The two latest IPCC assessment reports have concluded that knowledge is not sufficient for inducing action on climate change. This study problematizes the issue of going beyond business-as-usual through a study of the forestry sector in Sweden, which is a large economic sector and could be expected to be an early adapter, given that newly planted forest may stand some 70–90 years into the future. Therefore resources, economic motivation in the longer term and environmental foundations for early adaptation action could be expected to exist. This study draws upon the Foucauldian conceptualization of governmentality to explain the particular institutional logics that nevertheless lead to business-as-usual arguments dominating discussion on adaptation in the case of Swedish forestry. The study emphasizes that adaptation must be seen as steered and limited by existing institutional, social system logics, rather than by externally defined "rational"motivations. Efforts on adaptation to climate change must thus be considered in relation to, and seek to change, existing institutionally based motivational and incentive structures, and must thus be conceived through social rather than environmental logics. In fact, social logics may even define the types of actions that may be regarded as adaptations.


The U.S. mortgage finance system is a critical part of our nation's financial system, representing 70 percent of U.S. household liabilities. It is also highly complex, with many finance channels, participants, and regulators. The data produced by this system reflect that complexity; unfortunately, no single identifier exists to link the major loan‐level mortgage datasets. The establishment of a single, cradle‐to‐grave, universal mortgage identifier that cannot be linked to individuals using publicly‐available data would significantly benefit regulators and researchers by enabling better integration of the fragmented data produced by the U.S. mortgage finance system. Such an identifier could additionally serve as the foundation of a system that could benefit private market participants, as long as such a system protected individual privacy.


The atmosphere and oceans have been monitored by a EUMETSAT Meteosat Second Generation Geostationary Satellite in the Eastern Atlantic and Western Indian Oceans and adjacent Seas since 2004. This satellite provides daily atmospheric weather conditions and is a valuable climate research tool. We demonstrate that it is also useful for monitoring ocean surface temperatures and oceanic patterns associated with currents, eddies and upwelling. Meteo-France provides an hourly, cloud cleared, validated sea surface temperature product at intervals of 5 km with an accuracy of about 0.5° C relative to in-situ values. Image composites are used to reduce cloud cover at daily and seasonal time scales. Several examples of surface ocean patterns and temperature profiles are used to illustrate the advantages and limitations of the composites and include: Atlantic Tropical Instability Waves, cold core eddies in the lee of the Canary Islands, meanders of the Agulhas Current off South Africa, coastal upwelling along southwestern Spain and temperatures between Gotland Island and the shallow Curonian Lagoon on the coast of Lithuania.


"One of theatre's subtlest, most sophisticated minds" (The Times) One spring morning a quiet, shy man in his sixties sets out from Land's End to walk the length of his native land. He has never walked more than a dozen miles in his life before, his health is uncertain, his boots are new, and he is too diffident to talk to anyone he meets along the way. His slow, solitary progress up the spine of Britain is watched by an unseen audience - his family and friends at home. How far will he get before he is forced to give up? Is he being heroic or merely selfish? As the days of his absence go by the old alliances and quarrels inside the family shift and alter. What emerges is a story about the arbitrariness of human endeavour and about the tenacious complexity of human relationships; about one man's glimpse of the country he lives in; about courage and about love.First and Last was directed by Alan Dossor in a production for BBC television, with Joss Ackland as the walker.


Experiments were conducted to determine the impact of synfuel deposits on film cooling effectiveness and heat transfer. Scaled up models were made of synfuel deposits formed on film-cooled turbine blade coupons exposed to accelerated deposition. Three distinct deposition patterns were modeled: a large deposition pattern (maximum deposit peak≅2 hole diameters) located exclusively upstream of the holes, a large deposition pattern (maximum deposit peak≅1.25 hole diameters) extending downstream between the cooling holes, and a small deposition pattern (maximum deposit peak≅0.75 hole diameter) also extending downstream between the cooling holes. The models featured cylindrical holes inclined at 30 deg to the surface and aligned with the primary flow direction. The spacing of the holes were 3, 3.35, and 4.5 hole diameters, respectively. Flat models with the same film cooling hole geometry and spacing were used for comparison. The models were tested using blowing ratios of 0.5–2 with a turbulent approach boundary layer and 0.5% freestream turbulence. The density ratio was approximately 1.1 and the primary flow Reynolds number at the film cooling row location was 300,000. An infrared camera was used to obtain the film cooling effectiveness from steady state tests and surface convective heat transfer coefficients using transient tests. The model with upstream deposition caused the primary flow to lift off the surface over the roughness peaks and allowed the coolant to stay attached to the model. Increasing the blowing ratio from 0.5 to 2 only expanded the region that the coolant could reach and improved the cooling effectiveness. Though the heat transfer coefficient also increased at high blowing ratios, the net heat flux ratio was still less than unity, indicating film cooling benefit. For the two models with deposition between the cooling holes, the freestream air was forced into the valleys in line with the coolant holes and degraded area-averaged coolant performance at lower blowing ratios. It is concluded that the film cooling effectiveness is highest when deposition is limited to upstream of the cooling holes. When accounting for the insulating effect of the deposits between the film holes, even the panels with deposits downstream of the film holes can yield a net decrease in heat flux for some cases.


A one-parameter family of time-symmetric initial data for the radial infall of a particle into a Schwarzschild black hole is constructed within the framework of black-hole perturbation theory. The parameter measures the amount of gravitational radiation present on the initial spacelike surface. These initial data sets are then evolved by integrating the Zerilli-Moncrief wave equation in the presence of the particle. Numerical results for the gravitational waveforms and their power spectra are presented; we show that the choice of initial data strongly influences the waveforms, both in their shapes and their frequency content. We also calculate the total energy radiated by the particle-black-hole system, as a function of the initial separation between the particle and the black hole, and as a function of the choice of initial data. Our results confirm that for large initial separations, a conformally-flat initial three-geometry minimizes the initial gravitational-wave content, so that the total energy radiated is also minimized. For small initial separations, however, we show that the conformally-flat solution no longer minimizes the energy radiated.


As the technology and popularity of distributed hypermedia tools continues to grow, more educators are turning to the World Wide Web to present course materials. While such web-sites have grown dramatically, the duality and presentation of information found on many web pages can often be lacking. A methodology for web-based learning in engineering has been developed and offers a format for educators to produce hypermedia information in a controlled and structured way.


While dehydration has negative effects on memory and attention, few studies have investigated whether drinking water can enhance cognitive performance, and none have addressed this in a real-world setting. In this study we explored the potential benefits of the availability of water for undergraduates. The exam performance of students who brought drinks in to exams was compared with those that did not for three cohorts of undergraduates (N = 447). We employed earlier coursework marks as a measure of underlying ability. Students who brought water to the exam achieved better grades than students who did not. When coursework marks were covaried, this effect remained statistically significant, suggesting that this finding was not simply due to more able students being more likely to bring in water. This implies that water consumption may facilitate performance in real-world settings, and, therefore, have specific implications for the assessment of undergraduate learners under examination conditions, but further research is required to evaluate this hypothesis.


This study was conducted to evaluate the fermentability and nutrient digestibility of concentrate feed containing Indigofera zollingeriana using in vitro technique. Randomized complete block design was used on 3 types of concentrate feed and 4 groups (replicates) of goat's rumen liquid. The concentrate feeds were R1, R2 and R3 containing I. zollingeriana at 0 (control), 20 and 40%, respectively. Variables observed were total gas production, in vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD), organic matter (IVDOM), and crude protein (IVDCP), volatile fatty acid (VFA) profiles and NH3 concentration. Data were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results showed that there was no significant effect of R3 on IVDMD, IVDOM and IVDCP as compared to R1 and R2. However, there was significant difference (P<0.05) of the parameters between R1 and R2 (P<0.05). There was no significant effect (P<0.05) of different Indigofera levels on total gas production. The partial VFA of each concentrate feeds was not significantly different, but the percentage of acetic acids of concentrates containing I. zollingeriana were higher than those of control (P<0.05). The concentration of rumen NH 3 of R2 was lower than R1 and R3 (P<0.05) even though the IVCPD of R2 was higher than R1. It could be concluded that the inclusion of I. zollingeriana as concentrate feed ingredient at 20% maximum level .


The overwhelming use of nanoparticles in contemporary applications have brought huge potential risks to the workers and consumers due to their release during their use. This release is usually in the form of polydispersed aerosols, from nano to micronic size range. Towards the safety concern of this release, in-vivo tests and analyses are being carried out (Kohler 2008, Wohlleben 2011). Various exposure models have also been devised (Duuren-Stuurman 2011, Schneider 2011) but surprisingly very limited studies have been done concentrating on how and why they are being released. The present work deals with such an aspect towards the release of the aerosol particles. This release is a direct result of the wear or fretting of surfaces when solicitated mechanically. This wear solely depends on the parental contact conditions exhibiting various regimes of different stress states. These contact conditions have been studied (Greenwood and Williamson 1966, Kapoor et al. 1994, Jiang et al. 1998, Eriten et al. 2011 etc.) to explain different surface phenomena but no concern was given towards them getting airborne. So, there arises a need to bridge these wear or contact conditions studies with the present ongoing aerosol research. This bridge can prove a crucial step towards the control and minimization of their release. Facilitating this approach, here an attempt has been made to explain these release mechanisms and principles conceived up to date, methods being adopted towards their release, state of the art instrumentation available for their characterization and the process and mathematical modeling techniques available for use.


From heat balance measurements in the ablation area of West Greenland (EGIG-profile, 1,013 m a.s.l., 69°409N, 49°389W) the positive-degree-days-factor is interpreted by the heat balance characteristics. The positive-degree-days-factor depends on the heat transfer coefficient and is a function of the share of the sensible heat flux density to the heat of melt. Using simple approximations the calculated positive-degree-days-factor is in good agreement with the measured value.


ABSTRACT Background and Objective: Both health care providers and payers recognize the need to improve chronic disease care. Chronic disease management relies on high-quality health information for people with, and at risk of developing, chronic diseases. This article focuses on the health insurance sector and investigates ways that payment claims data and other data sources can provide useful information to support chronic disease management interventions. Methods and Results: In this mixed methods study, we first examine methods of selecting target populations from insurance claims data for common chronic conditions—diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and mental health disorders. The analysis of claims data reveals data quality issues and indicates that other data sources should be considered to provide additional information. We undertake a qualitative review of factors influencing the development of information systems for chronic disease management that use multiple data sources. Conclusions: Claims data should be supplemented with other data to inform chronic disease management. The article proposes a conceptual framework with four domains that need to be considered when developing chronic disease information systems using multiple data sources—information requirements, data sources, data collection, and information systems integration. There are policy and organizational factors that influence framework implementation.


Percutaneous treatments of valvular heart disease have evolved over the past two decades. These "minimally invasive" procedures are attractive alternatives to surgery for a growing high-risk population with multiple comorbidities. In 2002, Cribier et al. (1) performed the first transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) in a patient with aortic stenosis. Currently, TAVI has become a common procedure for high or prohibitive surgical risk patient and is moving rapidly into intermediate risk patients, with over 250,000 devices implanted worldwide.


Arrayed micro actuators are increasingly used with various kinds of driving methods, especially to realize planar conveyance tasks. Using this concept, the flexible micro electromagnetic conveyor system presented in this paper has been developed. The presented system consists of arrayed elementary cells which can move a mobile pallet placed on its top side. To ensure long range motion flexibility, each cell must be individually controlled to manage the movement of the pallet by selecting the corresponding cells. A control strategy is then needed while avoiding a huge number of wires and power supplies required by each cell. This paper presents a control circuit using a row/column addressing scheme designed to control the presented device. Experimental tests have been done to validate the proposed control circuit design. The results show that the functioning of the device remains the same with the activation of the selected cells only thanks to the developed control circuit.


The problem of fingerprint liveness detection has received an increasing attention in the last decade, as attested by the organisation of three editions of an international competition, named LivDet, dedicated to this challenge. LivDet editions and other works in the literature showed that the performance of current fingerprint liveness detection algorithms is not good enough to allow empowering a fingerprint verification system with a module aimed to distinguish alive from fake fingerprint images. However, recent developments have shown that texture-based features can provide promising solutions to this problem. In this study, a novel fingerprint liveness descriptor named binarised statistical image features (BSIFs) is adopted. Similarly to local binary pattern and local phase quantisation-based representations, BSIF encodes the local fingerprint texture into a feature vector by using a set of filters that, unlike other methods, are learnt from natural images. Extensive experiments with over 40,000 live and fake fingerprint images show that the authors' proposed method outperforms most of the state-of-the-art algorithms, allowing a step ahead to the real integration of fingerprint liveness detectors into verification systems.


Childhood and adolescence are life periods neglected by sociologists. However, time of primary socialization and the first stages of secondary socialization are constitutive times of primary mental and behavioral dispositions which are going to influence individuals durably. A research based on a long series of case studies shows that it is a time of multiple socialization when conjoined, and sometimes contradictory, influences of family, friends and school makes it felt. Thinking sociologically children and teenagers suppose to catch their place into the different contexts –family, group of friends, school– instead of defining them exclusively by a so-called « youth culture ». In its conclusion, the article concludes emphasizing the risks of research objects parcelling: dividing excessively the problems he is studying –school, family, leisure, culture, media, sociability, etc.–, sociologist has no chance of understanding the specificity of juvenile situations.


In a time when a racist comment becomes viral in seconds, John Schnatter (founder and former CEO of Papa John's) created a crisis for his brand that changed the outlook of Papa John's forever. In 2017, Papa John's stock price decreased by roughly 34% as a direct result of two comments made by Schnatter: (1) a racist comment via a conference call with a marketing agency and (2) a comment during the company's earnings conference call blaming the NFL for decreased pizza sales on their handling of their players' National Anthem protests. John Schnatter's lack of discernment and rash speech demonstrates that one moment can erode the foundations of a nationwide brand in minutes. As Papa John's fights the backlash from their representative's comments, we need empirical evidence for the extent of the damage. Beyond spending $19.5 million on legal and professional fees, we attempt to quantify loss of company value based on investor reactions to three events to help quantify the extent of financial repercussions. We examined a five-day change in market capitalization when John Schnatter blamed poor sales on NFL, his stepdown as CEO, and his viral comment from 2017. Our research provides evidence that a single lapse of judgement not only tarnished the reputations of executives but also damaged the overall market value of the company represented.


Most embryos and regenerating tissues grow by the action of stem zones. Two epithelial stem zones drive axial elongation in amniotes: the mature organizer generates mesoderm, the neuralised ectoderm around it extends the neuraxis. Bipotential progenitors were also shown to exist. How are these stem cell populations organised and what controls the cell fate of bipotential progenitors? We use direct, in vivo imaging of these stem cells in the chick. We find that progenitors of single and dual fates are mingled in a small region between the specialised stem zones. Divergent tissue movements surround this region. When transplanted downstream of these flows, cells from the region of mixed fates adopt the molecular identity and behaviour of the target stem zone, irrespective of their normal fate. Thus, multipotent cells serve to separate the specialized stem zones, instead of a classical boundary. We propose their fate is determined extrinsically by morphogenetic shearing.


We applied a non-degenerate four wave mixing (FWM) technique to investigate carrier generation, diffusion and recombination processes in PVT-grown semi-insulating wafers of 6H-SiC at 300 K. The resistivity of samples, cut from different places of a boule as well as from different boules, varied in range from a few ⋅cm up to 1010 ⋅cm. Interband excitation (at 355 nm) and below bandgap excitation (at 532 nm) allowed to study dynamics of the bipolar plasma and the contribution of deep levels to carrier generation and recombination. The nonequilibrium carrier lifetime was shorter in the samples of higher resistivity, in accordance with the increasing density of deep levels. The bipolar plasma diffusion in high-resistivity samples (~109 ⋅cm) provided the value of the diffusion coefficient D = 4.4 cm2/s and hole mobility μh = (88 ± 6) cm2/Vs.


It is clear that sub-clinical inflammation is a key factor that triggers type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and is directly influenced by weight gain. Current studies highlight that obesity, particularly central obesity, heightens the pathogenesis of T2DM. Additionally, factors produced by adipose tissue (AT), referred to as adipocytokines, can influence the degree of insulin resistance as well as inflammation, due to their duality of function. A recently implicated adipocytokine, visfatin, has been identified as a potential insulin mimetic, an enzyme associated with mitochondrial biogenesis and an inflammatory factor. However, current studies lack a clear understanding as to the role and influence of visfatin in human AT and insulin resistant states.
Therefore, this thesis examined visfatin expression within specific human AT depots and the influence of adiposity - with specific consideration given to insulin resistant states including T2DM, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Further, serum studies addressed how different insulin resistant states influenced circulating visfatin levels, whilst mechanistic studies explored how the role of visfatin was altered by insulin, an insulin sensitiser, inflammation and/or disease. This current thesis identified that visfatin was abundant in both abdominal depots, with highest expression in the omental (Om) AT, and isolated adipocytes, with an apparent relationship with insulin resistance.
Subsequent in vivo and in vitro analysis further identified that, whilst insulin appeared to increase visfatin protein expression in isolated abdominal subcutaneous (Abd Sc) adipocytes, the use of an insulin sensitiser - either used in cultured Abd Sc adipocytes or as part of an oral therapeutic treatment in subjects with T2DM - decreased circulating visfatin levels. In addition, intracellular signalling studies highlighted that visfatin regulation within AT appeared to be dependent upon both nuclear factor (NF)-B and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) activation, influencing interleukin (IL)-6 as part of a visfatin regulatory feedback mechanism.
Following the potential influence of visfatin in T2DM, this thesis explored its' potential role in disease associated with other insulin resistant phenotypes, such as liver disease and HIV. From serum assessment of visfatin in subjects with NAFLD, it was identified that progression of liver disease was accompanied by a reduction in circulating visfatin levels – a finding that occurred independently of diabetic status. However, circulating visfatin still remained significantly higher in NAFLD with T2DM than those without. Finally, this thesis examined a potentially severe insulin resistant phenotype noted in HIV patients, due to an apparent lipodystrophy - a condition which alters fat oxidation and mitochondrial activation or regulation. In such a condition, circulating visfatin levels and visfatin mRNA AT expression remained unaltered by HIV status or drug therapy.
Due to the capacity of visfatin to act as an enzyme involved in nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) biosynthesis, essential for mitochondrial function and oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), its role in AT remained unchanged by disease status, whilst other mitochondrial and fat metabolism factors were altered by both disease state and drug treatment.
Taken together, these current data suggest a duality of function of which visfatin appears to be regulated by insulin, in addition to inflammation, in different disease states and therefore expands our current understanding of this multi-functional adipocytokine.


BACKGROUND
Acrylamide, a probable human carcinogen, was recently detected in various heat-treated carbohydrate-rich foods. Epidemiologic studies on the relation with cancer have been few and largely negative.

OBJECTIVE
We aimed to prospectively examine the association between dietary acrylamide intake and renal cell, bladder, and prostate cancers.

DESIGN
The Netherlands Cohort Study on diet and cancer includes 120,852 men and women aged 55-69 y. At baseline (1986), a random subcohort of 5000 participants was selected for a case-cohort analysis approach using Cox proportional hazards analysis. Acrylamide intake was assessed with a food-frequency questionnaire at baseline and was based on chemical analysis of all relevant Dutch foods.

RESULTS
After 13.3 y of follow-up, 339, 1210, and 2246 cases of renal cell, bladder, and prostate cancer, respectively, were available for analysis. Compared with the lowest quintile of acrylamide intake (mean intake: 9.5 microg/d), multivariable-adjusted hazard rates for renal cell, bladder, and prostate cancer in the highest quintile (mean intake: 40.8 microg/d) were 1.59 (95% CI: 1.09, 2.30; P for trend = 0.04), 0.91 (95% CI: 0.73, 1.15; P for trend = 0.60), and 1.06 (95% CI: 0.87, 1.30; P for trend = 0.69), respectively. There was an inverse nonsignificant trend for advanced prostate cancer in never smokers.

CONCLUSIONS
We found some indications for a positive association between dietary acrylamide and renal cell cancer risk. There were no positive associations with bladder and prostate cancer risk.


The University of Wolverhampton is involved in a number of European projects which focus on ICT for Language Learning and these will be referenced in the paper.

These include a KA2 project, ISPY, which developed an online learning platform for general and vocational language skills; a Transfer of Innovation project, Going Places with Languages in Europe, which developed an interactive DVD game to learn vocational business based language for employability and a current KA2 project, Languages in the Media, which focuses on the development of media based online resources for language learning by migrant groups.

These projects have involved Europe wide consortiums including partners from the UK, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain and The Netherlands.

Each project has involved a research and contextualization phase which has included a focus on ICT and language learning in the relevant partner countries and piloting and testing of the ICT based resources.

The paper and presentation will present the key findings from the research and contextualization; drawing on findings from the UK and partner countries and examining commonalities and differences.

It will also present relevant findings from the piloting and testing of the resources which has been undertaken by teachers, learners, language professionals and other stakeholders. Piloting and testing aimed to gain feedback from end users, and other stakeholders, in relation to elements such as content, ease of use, functionality, effect on attainment and enjoyment levels, potential for use, design, storyline and technical issues.

Potential new ICT based learning projects will also be presented and discussed.


Cholinergic stimulation of the lateral hypothalamic neurons with intrahypothalamic microinjections of acetylcholine or carbachol caused a marked increase in the content of the active form of glycogen (starch) synthase in the liver. Total activity of the enzyme (active plus inactive forms) was not increased significantly. The lowest effective dose of acetylcholine was 5 X 10(-10) mole, and the optimum dose was 5 X 10(-9) mole. Similar applications of other neurotransmitters, such as norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, and gamma-aminobutyric acid, did not affect the enzyme's activity.


The 2005 Mw 8.6 Nias-Simeulue earthquake was caused by rupture of a portion of the Sunda megathrust offshore northern Sumatra. This event occurred within an array of continuous Global Positioning System (GPS) stations and produced measurable vertical displacement of the fringing coral reefs above the fault rupture. Thus, this earthquake provides a unique opportunity to assess the source character- istics of a megathrust event from the joint analysis of seismic data and near-field static co-seismic displacements. Based on the excitation of the normal mode data and geodetic data we put relatively tight constraints on the seismic moment and the fault dip, where the dip is determined to be 8� to 10� with corresponding moments of 1.24 10 22 to 1.00 10 22 N m, respectively. The geodetic constraints on slip distribution help to eliminate the trade-off between rupture velocity and slip kine- matics. Source models obtained from the inversion of various combinations of the teleseismic body waves and geodetic data are evaluated by comparing predicted and observed long-period seismic waveforms (100-500 sec). Our results indicate a rela- tively slow average rupture velocity of 1.5 to 2.5 km/sec and long average rise time of up to 20 sec. The earthquake nucleated between two separate slip patches, one beneath Nias and the other beneath Simeulue Island. The gap between the two patches and the hypocentral location appears to be coincident with a local geological disrup- tion of the forearc. Coseismic slip clearly tapers to zero before it reaches the trench probably because the rupture propagation was inhibited when it reached the accre- tionary prism. Using the models from joint inversions, we estimate the peak ground velocity on Nias Island to be about 30 cm/sec, an order of magnitude slower than for thrust events in continental areas. This study emphasizes the importance of util- izing multiple datasets in imaging seismic ruptures.


"Still Acting Gay" is a revision and expansion of Clum's celebrated book, "Acting Gay." The book focuses on the relationship between American and British dramas written by and about gay men and the changing gay culture those plays reflect, from the carefully enforced closet to liberation politics to AIDS to the qualified security of the present. "Still Acting Gay" chronicles the transition of the gay man as subject for sensational melodrama to creator of many of the most powerful and celebrated plays of the late 20th century.


Transplant-associated thrombotic microangiopathy (TA-TMA) refers to inflammatory and thrombotic diseases of the microvasculature characterized by hemolytic anemia, thrombocytopenia, and evidence of organ damage, particularly acute renal failure. This syndrome occurs in 10% to 20% of patients with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplants (HSCTs). It is much less frequent in the autologous setting. TA-TMAs present diagnostic challenges because they may not clearly fall into one of the categories of the 2 major TMAs: atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS) and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP). In addition, complications of the transplant itself, including infection, graft-versus-host disease, and disseminated intravascular coagulation, as well as the side effects of immunosuppressive drugs, can mimic a TMA. Because the pathophysiology of TA-TMA is poorly understood, current treatment options are suboptimal, and the condition carries a very high mortality rate. In 3 recent case summaries, the median acute response rate to plasma exchange was as high as 55%, but this therapy failed to alter underlying disease pathology and had little impact on overall mortality, which was approximately 80%. Indeed, the vast majority of TA-TMA patients lack suppression of ADAMTS13 (a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with a thrombospondin type 1 motif, member 13) activity to less than 5% to 10% of normal and do not have a complete response to plasma exchange, characteristics indicating that a TTP-like disorder is not involved. Recent advances in the treatment of aHUS may offer a therapeutic option in the aHUS-like TMAs associated with HSCTs. These issues are discussed in the context of a patient recently evaluated and treated at our institution; the case serves to illustrate the difficulties associated with the diagnosis and treatment of TA-TMA.


ABSTRACT A new rifampin resistance gene, arr-2, has been found in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The ARR-2 protein shows 54% amino acid identity to the rifampin ADP-ribosylating transferase encoded by the arr gene from Mycobacterium smegmatis. This arr-2 gene is located on a gene cassette within a class I integron.


INTRODUCTION The Delphi method, more and more known by mid- to long-term strategy development specialists, aims to collect via an open survey the justified opinions from a panel of experts in different spheres of activities. The procedure based on retroaction avoids confrontations between experts and preserves their anonymity. The results of a first questionnaire are communicated to each expert (including a summary of the general tendencies and particularities, opinions and justifications, etc.) that is then invited to react and answer to a second questionnaire developed in function of the first opinions collected, and so on until the strongest possible convergence of answers be obtained. The Delphi method distinguishes itself from usual group communication techniques on the following axes: (1) it helps to get experts opinions in a sector; (2) it allows to collect information at a distance, via the Web, fax, or mail, while the respondents have not to meet; (3) it facilitates the task of identifying and selecting experts since the number of experts participating in the study is limited to 7 to 18 (Paliwoda, 1983; quoted in Okoli & Pawlowski, 2004, p. 4); (4) it is flexible in its conception and its survey administration: this allows rich data collection leading to an appropriate understanding and a consensus on knowledge management (KM) capabilities; (5) it allows quasi-certainly to get a consensus via the issuance of consecutive questionnaires; (6) it allows a controlled feedback consisting of a series of steps from which a summary of the previous step is provided to the participants; so, if they want, they can review their previous judgements; (7) it has an advantage over other methods of group decision making given the analysis of anonymous experts opinions which are identified before the study (for example the nominal group and the analysis by social judgement) (Rohrbaugh, 1979; quoted in Okoli & Pawlowski, 2004, p. 4); and (8) it can be used as successfully in management, economic, or technological sectors as it can in social sciences. On the other hand, several constraints are limiting the use of the Delphi method: it is lengthy, costly, fastidious and intuitive rather than rational, among others. In addition, the procedure constraints (multiple rounds of surveying) are questionable since only the experts that stray from this norm have to justify their position. However, we can also consider that strayed opinions, in prospective terms, are more interesting than those close to the norm. Finally, the interactions between the different hypotheses proposed are not taken into account and they are even avoided, leading the promoters of the Delphi method to develop probabilistic cross impact methods. Furthermore, it is obvious that a Delphi study does not base itself on a statistically representative sample of a population. It is rather a mechanism for group decision making that requires the participation of qualified experts having a clear understanding of the phenomenon being studied. It is for this reason that one of the most critical factors of this approach is to find qualified experts. The objective of the present research is not to conduct a study aiming the improvement of the Delphi method or to perform a comparative study between the Delphi method and the other methods or techniques of group communication, but rather to try to understand the phenomenon of KM capabilities by identifying the key concepts and the characteristics of each concept in order to reach a consensus from experts. Thus, the use of the Delphi investigation shed the light on the ideas of KM experts and helped to find a consensus from experts on the theoretical concepts of the KM capabilities. The paper is structured as follows: first, a brief history and some applications of the Delphi method in management, information systems (IS)/information technologies (IT), and KM are presented; second, the steps of the Delphi investigation related to this study are described; and the paper ends by providing some examples of general comments from the experts participating in the study and their profile. …


Next year the School of Education at Edith Cowan University will pilot a Teacher Residency Program for graduate teacher education students, as an innovative means to recruit, prepare and retain quality teachers. The program pairs university coursework with extended periods of school placement. It will allow participating schools and teachers to work alongside university staff in determining what aspiring teachers need to know and experience, and is designed to create a more authentic setting for pre-service education and provide a greater integration of theory and practice. The initiative will help to develop a generation of teachers who are school-ready from day one and have the capacity to enhance the academic and social abilities of all students they teach.


This paper presents software simulation and experimental verification of the dynamic behaviour of small autonomous power systems with alternative power sources, such as Wind Turbines, small Hydroelectrics and Photovoltaics. The combination of the Hydroelectric power plants and the Diesel generators is of great interest since they have very different rates of power change. For the effective integration of the Photovoltaic (PV) devices into the utility grid, a method for controlling the Inverter's operation is proposed. According to this method the Power demand from the network is monitored and control signals adjust the angle and the magnitude of the Inverter's voltage. It is shown that this method improves power quality and stability of the interconnected system.


Pushing the reach of NNLO QCD predictions to $2\to3$ production processes is one of the pillars of precision phenomenology program at the LHC. In this talk we will overview recent results and developments in the calculation of two-loop five-point amplitudes contributing towards achieving this goal. We will discuss challenges encountered in advancing the state-of-the-art beyond the class of massless five-point scattering. We will then present a basis set of transcendental functions sufficient to express any planar two-loop five-particle scattering amplitude with one external massive leg. This basis greatly facilitates derivation of compact analytic form of scattering amplitudes, and opens a possibility of their fast and reliable numerical evaluation. Applications for phenomenology of electroweak boson production can be reasonably anticipated in the near future.


Background.Randomized clinical trials indicate a benefit from combining medications with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) relative to medication alone for panic disorder. Using an as-treated analysis, we evaluated whether the addition of CBT enhanced outcomes for panic disorder relative to medications alone in the primary-care setting. Method.Primary-care patients with panic disorder reported on their receipt of CBT and medications over the 3 months following baseline assessment. The degree to which outcomes for those who used anti-panic medications were enhanced by the receipt of at least one component of CBT was analyzed using a propensity score model that took into account observable baseline patient characteristics influencing both treatment selection and outcomes. Results.The addition of CBT resulted in statistically and clinically significant improvements at 3 months on anxiety sensitivity, social avoidance, and disability. Also, patients receiving CBT in the first 3 months of the study were more improved at 12 months than patients who took medications only during the first 3 months of the study. Conclusions.The clinical utility of the findings are discussed in terms of the importance of primary-care physicians encouraging their panic disorder patients to receive CBT as well as medications.


This course aims to educate Audit Compliance Principals (ACPs) and Responsible Individuals (RIs) in developing a strong compliance function and preventing some of the recurring issues identified on audit monitoring visits.


Rice is a staple food for 80% of the population in Southeast Asia. Thus, the quality control and classification of rice grain are crucial for more productive and sustainable production. This paper examines the contrastive analysis of rice grain classification performance between multi-class support vector machine (SVM) and artificial neural network (ANN). The analysis has been tested on three types of rice grain images which are Ponni, Basmati, and Brown rice. A digital image transformation analysis based on shape and color features was developed to classify the three types of rice grain. The performance of the proposed study is evaluated to 90 testing images of each rice variation. The ANN is observed to return higher classification accuracy at 93.34% using Level Sweep image transformation technique. Based on the results, it signifies that the ANN performs better classification than the multiclass SVM.


: A mouse hybridoma cell line which produced an anti-human salivary alpha-amylase monoclonal antibody was obtained by fusion between mouse spleen cells immunized with human salivary alpha-amylase and mouse myeloma cells, followed by screening the hybridoma cells by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The hybridoma cell line (27-4-1) secreted IgG. The monoclonal antibody produced by the hybridoma showed no inhibitory effect on the activity of human salivary alpha-amylase. The specificity and reactivity of this monoclonal antibody were examined by determining the activities of human salivary and pancreatic alpha-amylases bound to the monoclonal antibody immobilized on polystyrene balls or by enzyme immunoassay with the monoclonal antibody conjugated with beta-D-galactosidase. The results revealed that the monoclonal antibody produced by the hybridoma cell line was specific for salivary alpha-amylase and absolutely unreactive to pancreatic alpha-amylase.


Goal . In this paper, with the help of charts, histograms accumulation volume bubble chart describes the changes of gross yield, yield and acreage of vegetables in the regions of the Urals Federal District for the past 5 years. It has been studied the location of each entity of the Urals Federal District in the development of culture as the data over time and in relation to other subjects of the Urals Federal District. Factor analysis of the effect of yield and acreage to changes in gross collection. Built equation for forecasting the gross harvest of vegetables. Methods . We used the methods of descriptive statistics, visualization, factor analysis, correlation and regression analysis. Results . To identify differences between the federal districts were summarized figures for gross harvest, yield and acreage of vegetables in the regions of the Urals Federal District for the past 5 years. It is possible to trace the trend of changes in these parameters for all subjects of the Urals Federal District (as well as the relative position of the subjects), not only for one year, but for the last 5 years at the same time with the help of histograms and graphs accumulation. Bubble charts clearly demonstrated the interdependence of all three indicators that statistical calculations has been confirmed in the future. Factor analysis showed the importance of the influence of yield and acreage on the gross harvest of vegetables in the regions of the Urals Federal District. Conclusion . Using the methods of descriptive statistics, visualization, factor analysis, correlation and regression analysis demonstrated their great potential for the evaluation and analysis of the dynamics of efficiency of vegetable production. Based on the methods of descriptive statistics, and visualization was investigated the location of each entity in the development of culture as the data over time and in relation to other subjects of the Urals Federal District. We have been made appropriate recommendations on the priorities for each subject of the Urals Federal District. Correlation analysis confirms the conclusions about relationships between yield, crop areas, the gross collection made on the basis of bubble charts. On the basis of factor analysis, it was concluded that the yield of vegetables in the regions of the Urals Federal District is given a lot of attention, which is not fully to the increase in acreage. The calculated multiple regression equation allows you to make forecasts of gross collection and suggests that the effect size of the acreage is more important for the gross yield than the yield. The resulting factor analysis results allow management entities of the Urals Federal District to take concrete measures to increase the gross harvest of vegetables.


We identify the negatively charged dicarbon antisite defect (C2 core at silicon site) in electron irradiated n-type 4H-SiC by means of combined electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) studies and first principles calculations. The pair of HEI5 and HEI6 EPR centers (S = 1/2, C1h symmetry) are associated with the cubic and hexagonal dicarbon antisite defects, respectively. This assignment is based on the comparison of the measured and calculated hyperfine tensors of 13C and 29Si atoms. We investigated the creation and annihilation of this defect as a function of electron-dose and annealing temperature.


We have investigated the transduction pathways mediating the contractile effect of two glucagon-containing peptides, glicentin (GLIC) and oxyntomodulin (OXM), on smooth muscle cells isolated from rabbit antrum. Low concentrations of GLIC induced a biphasic and rapid (first phase at 5-8 sec) Ins(1,4,5)P3 production. By comparison, higher concentrations of OXM or OXM(19-37) were required to obtain biphasic time-courses of Ins(1,4,5)P3 production. In a Ca2+ free medium, the first phase of Ins(1,4,5)P3 production induced by GLIC or OXM was maintained, while the second phase disappeared. In saponin-permeabilized cells, all three peptides induced cell contraction with similar efficacies and potencies. Exogenous Ins(1,4,5)P3 mimicked the contractile effect of the peptides and heparin, which inhibits the Ins(1,4,5)P3 binding to its receptor, prevented contraction stimulated by each effector. We conclude that a Ca2+ mobilization from the intracellular stores is essential in the contractile effects of GLIC and OXM. Using the fluo-3 probe, a [Ca2+]i increase was observed in the presence of GLIC, OXM, or OXM(19-37). The three peptides reduced by 30-40% the cAMP content of cells stimulated by forskolin. This effect was pertussis toxin sensitive as demonstrated with OXM(19-37). Our data constitute important clues for the existence in smooth muscle cells of receptor(s) specific for the GLIC/OXM hormones, coupled via G protein(s) to both Ca2+ and cAMP pathways.


The epithelium of the human fallopian tube (oviduct) and cervix were studied by histological, immunohistological, and ultrastructural methods with a view to establishing the nature of the so called "basal" and "reserve" cells. The results indicated that the "basal" cells of the oviductal epithelia were T lymphocytes, with a predominance of T cytotoxic and suppressor cells. A more heterogeneous inflammatory cell population was present in cervical epithelium, although once again T cytotoxic and suppressor cells were the most numerous subtype. The intraepithelial inflammatory cells were quite distinct from the cells commonly referred to as "reserve" cells (reserve cell hyperplasia), which have epithelial characteristics. The origin of the "reserve" cells is unclear, but they seem to arise within the epithelium. They probably represent an early sign of squamous metaplasia. The lymphoid tissue of fallopian tube and endocervix shows similarities with that of the endometrium and mucosal associated lymphoid tissue in general.


Background and Objectives: Poor sleep quality can cause a variety of problems, including reduced lung function and increased obesity. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between sleep quality and respiratory index and BMI (Body Math Index) in active and inactive male students of Mohaghegh Ardabili University in 2017. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study, from male students of Mohaghegh Ardabili University 40 healthy men after getting informed consent participated in the two active (n = 20) and inactive (n = 20) groups. Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaire was used to evaluate sleep quality. Respiratory parameters were measured by Micro Lab Spirometery. To calculate the BMI, bodyweight in kilograms was divided by height in meters squared. Data were analyzed using independent samples ttest and Pearson correlation coefficient. Results: The results indicated that the mean score of sleep quality in the active group was significantly lower than the inactive group (p =0.001). The parameters of forced vital capacity (p=0.013), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (p =0.006), maximum voluntary ventilation (p=0.012) , and strong expiratory flow at 25-75% (p=0 .025) were significantly higher in the active group compared to the inactive group. Moreover, the relationship between variables showeda significant correlation between thescore of sleep quality and body mass index (p=0.001, r=0.627) and body fat percentage (p=0.001, r=0.681) in the inactive group. Conclusion: According to the results, it seems that physical activity can be regarded as an effective factor in enhancing the quality of sleep and respiratory function in inactive men.


Background: Diving as an occupation has its specific health problems. Respiratory system is one of the systems that can be affected by environmental changes associated with diving as increased hydrostatic pressure, increased breathing gas density, and increased partial pressure of gases e.g. oxygen and carbon dioxide. Aim: To determine the effects of diving on pulmonary function and the extent of this problem among Iraqi divers. Subjects & Methods: One hundred and twenty divers with 240 non-divers military personnel were interviewed according to special questionnaire and spirometry was performed for each of them. Results: The values of all studied pulmonary function tests were found to be lower in divers as compared with non-divers (FEV1, FVC, FEV1%, F50, F25, MVV, and MEF) with highly significant differences, except FET which was significantly higher in divers than in non-divers. These changes gave the features of obstructive airway disease. Conclusions: Divers are at risk of some pulmonary function changes. The pattern of these changes is consistent with small airways obstruction and they could be related mostly to their diving activities. Other factors cannot be excluded. Further studies on such occupational group are recommended.


Agrobacterium radiobacter K84 is an effective, commercially applied, biological control agent for the plant disease crown gall, yet little is known about the survival and dissemination of K84. To trace K84 in the environment, spontaneous antibiotic-resistant mutants were used. Growth rates and phenotypes of streptomycin- or rifampin-resistant K84 were similar to those of the parental K84, except the rifampin-resistant mutant produced less agrocin 84 as determined by bioassay. K84 and a strain of Agrobacterium tumefaciens established populations averaging 10(5) CFU/g in the rhizosphere of cherry and persisted on roots for 2 years. K84 established rhizosphere populations between 10(4) and 10(6) CFU/g on cherry, ryegrass, and 11 other herbaceous plants. Populations of K84 declined substantially in fallow soil or water over a 16-week period. K84 was detected in the rhizosphere of ryegrass located up to 40 cm from an inoculum source, indicating lateral dissemination of K84 in soil. In gall tissue on cherry, K84 established populations of 10(5) CFU/g, about 10- to 100-fold less than that of the pathogen. These data demonstrate that K84 persists for up to 2 years in a field environment as a rhizosphere inhabitant or in association with crown gall tissue.


: Focusing on labour productivity and working conditions, we investigate the benefits of industrial zones for private manufacturing enterprises in Myanmar. We find that being located in an industrial zone associates with higher labour productivity. Value added gains, however, are not transferred to employees. The results are robust to different measures of productivity and model specifications, as well as to controlling for the natural level of industrial agglomeration in a particular location. The findings in general indicate additional benefits of planned industrial activities as opposed to naturally driven industrial clustering.


One of the primary objectives of physiologically based pharmacokinetics (PBPK) is the prediction of a drug's pharmacokinetics just from knowledge of its physicochemical structure. Unfortunately, at present, the accuracy of this prediction is limited for most drugs because of uncertainty about the drug's organ/blood partition coefficient (K). However, there are two classes of solutes which are exceptions to this: 1) the highly lipid soluble (HLS) solutes, and 2) the extracellular (ECS) solutes. Since the HLS drugs (eg, volatile anesthetics, propofol, cannabinol) have lipid/water partition coefficients (PL/W) of 100 or greater, their K is dominated by the tissue fat fraction and one can accurately predict K just from in vitro measurements of PL/W along with prior anatomic measurements of the fat fraction of the organs in the PBPK model. Since the ECS drugs, such as most antibiotics, cannot penetrate cells, they are not subject to the intracellular binding that complicates the prediction of K for the weak bases and acids. The ECS K is determined primarily by plasma and interstitial albumin binding and can be predicted from in vitro measurements of plasma albumin binding along with prior measurements of interstitial tissue volume and albumin concentrations. This review provides an in depth discussion of the PBPK modeling of these two drug classes along with many specific clinical examples illustrating the good PBPK predictions possible with just zero (volatile anesthetics) or 1 (the clearance) adjustable parameter. The PBPK analysis uses PKQuest, a freely distributed, general purpose pharmacokinetic program. PKQuest is designed so that application to the HLS and ECS solute classes is especially easy. The user only needs to enter the specific parameters that are required to characterize the drug (eg, PL/W for HLS or plasma albumin binding for ECS) with all the other PBPK parameters (organ blood flow, fat fraction, extracellular volumes, etc.) are set by default.


With the increasing demand of bandwidth and data rate, there is a dire need to implement antenna systems in mobile phones which are able to fulfill user requirements. A monopole antenna system with multi-antennas configurations is proposed considering the feasibility and user demand. The multi-antenna structure is referred to as multi-input multi-output (MIMO) antenna system. The multi-antenna system comprises of 4 antennas operating below 6 GHz frequency bands for 4G/LTE and 4 antenna for 5G applications at 28 GHz and the dimension of board is 120 × 70 × 0.8mm. The suggested designs is feasible with a structure of low-profile planar-antenna and is adaptable to smart cell phones and handheld devices. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first design compared to the literature by having integrated antenna system for two standards, i.e., 4G and 5G. All MIMO antenna systems are simulated on commercially available software, which is high frequency structures simulator (HFSS). Keywords—High frequency structures simulator (HFSS), mutli-input multi-output (MIMO), monopole antenna, slot antenna.


Although the Kraepelinian classification paradigm is
widely used, observations of overlapping boundaries among the symptoms
associated with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are beginning to challenge
this dichotomy. The objective of this
research was to explore the symptoms of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and with bipolar mood disorder in order
to determine the frequency of symptom
overlap. One hundred patients of a psychiatry ward were divided into two
main groups based on their diagnosis—schizophrenia or bipolar mood disorder.
Chi-square analyses were used to determine
whether the symptoms measured in this study differed between individuals
diagnosed with schizophrenia and those diagnosed with bipolar mood disorder.
The results suggest that both positive/manic
symptoms and negative/depressive symptoms are present in individuals
diagnosed with schizophrenia and with bipolar mood disorder and, consequently, they
do not present a reliable means of differentiating between these two groups.
These findings have many implications for
the ways in which mental illness is
conceptualized and classified. Treatment efforts and interventions may
be enhanced if a more dimensional approach to diagnosing mental illness is utilized.


Polycrystalline diamond (PCD) exhibits a thermal conductivity similar to that of the electrically conductive chemical vapor deposition diamond (EC-CVD diamond) found to function as zero-wear electrodes at short pulse duration. In this study, PCD was used as electrodes applied to EDM on tungsten carbide. Two kinds of PCD (CTB-010 and CTH-025) with a flat surface were used. The wear of the PCD electrodes was about 1.5% for very short pulse duration such as te=1μs, but it was zero wear at te=30μs, though the wear of a Cu-W electrode was 10% even on the machine recommended conditions for the low wear. EDM experiment using a V-shaped PCD electrode with an included angle of 45° was also carried out and the performance was compared with the case using a V-shaped Cu-W electrode. Under the conditions of a no load voltage of 60V, a set peak current of 2A, and a medium pulse duration of te=15μs, there was no wear on PCD electrodes when observed under the SEM, whereas a 50μm-deep wear on the Cu-W electrodes even under the machine recommended condition for the low wear was observed.


Increasingly, researchers are turning their attention to the issue of aggression and violence perpetrated by girls and women. This reflects mounting evidence from several related fields of research including: criminal justice, corrections, forensic psychology and psychiatry, domestic violence, child and elder abuse, and delinquency and juvenile justice. Together, this research supports several broad conclusions: (i) the assumption of female nonviolence is untenable; (ii) rates of female-perpetrated aggression are escalating; (iii) aggression by females often has serious negative implications for victims; and (iv) there is insufficient research of risk and protective factors, developmental trajectories, and clinical programs to prevent and reduce female aggression. In this paper, we report the prevalence and incidence of aggression among females; document sex differences and similarities in aggressive and violent behavior; and examine sex-specific versus common risk factors. We conclude with clinical implications for prevention and intervention and reflect on gaps in knowledge and directions for future research.

Keywords:

female;
gender;
women;
girls;
violence;
aggression


The Office of Minority Health (OMH) notes an increase in health disparities in the minority population (OMH, 2008). This study examines the factors that determine access to Pap test utilization among recent immigrant women who hold legal permanent status using the first wave of data from the New Immigrant Survey. Using the behavioral model of health services for vulnerable populations, we work to determine the variables that contribute to immigrant women's health service utilization or the Pap test. In order to close health disparities among immigrant women, efforts should be made to target women who do not have regular contact with medical providers, are uninsured and single.


Background Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is the most common rheumatic disease in pediatric population and is characterized by a heterogeneous group of diseases that include chronic arthritis of unknown origin, which begins before 16 years of age (1). Patients with JIA commonly experience acute and chronic pain, decreased mobility, and joint stiffness leading to restrictions on functional ability and isolation from their peers (2). Objectives The aim of this study was to assess relationship between clinical features and functional ability and determine the factors affecting functional abilities in patients with JIA. Methods 172 (aged 5–18 years) with JIA were included in this study. Socio-demographic data, clinical features (duration of disease, subtype of JIA, and number of involved joint) and functional ability were assessed with Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire (CHAQ). Pain and overall well-being were measured using a Visual Analog Scale (VAS). Relations between the factors affecting functional abilities in JIA were assessed by multiple linear regression analysis Results The mean age was 10.71±3.47 and the mean disease duration was 5.41±3.53 years. Score of CHAQ was affected by number of involved joint (β=0.18, p<0.05), subtypes of JIA (β=- 2.75, p<0.01) and pain (β=0.15, p<0.05), but were not affected by age (β=-0.03, p>0.05), gender (β=-0.03, p>0.05) and disease duration (β=0.03, p>0.05). In addition to, significant difference was found between all CHAQ subscores (except of "walking") of polyarticular and oligoarticular JIA (p<0.001). Functional abilities of patients with polyarticular JIA were lower than functional abilities of patients with oligoarticular JIA. Conclusions In the literature, it reported that functional activities were adversely affected in patients with JIA, when they compared with healthy subjects. In our study, we found that functional abilities were affected by subtypes of JIA, number of involved joint, and pain. But, these were not affected by age, gender, and disease duration in JIA. We suggest that subtypes of JIA, number of involved joint, and pain should be considered, when patients with JIA are directed to physical therapy program to encourage functional abilities. References Prakken B, Albani S, Martini A (2011) Juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Lancet 377:2138–2149. Tarakci, E., Yeldan, I., Mutlu, E. K., Baydogan, S. N., & Kasapcopur, O. (2011). The relationship between physical activity level, anxiety, depression, and functional ability in children and adolescents with juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Clinical rheumatology, 30(11), 1415. Disclosure of Interest None declared


This study was undertaken to examine the immediate effect of continuous passive motion (CPM) on anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction stability. Ca daver knees were tested with a knee arthrometer with the anterior cruciate intact and then with the anterior cruciate sectioned. One of three anterior cruciate re constructions was then performed and stability was restored to the knee and it was again tested with the knee arthrometer. Stability was defined as being within 2 mm of the intact measurement. The three operations selected were the Marshall-Maclntosh "over-the-top," (OTT) a patellar bone-patellar tendon-tubercle bone (BTB) graft, and a semitendinosis reconstruction. The specimens were placed on a CPM device in a cooler at 38°F and put through a range of motion of 20 to 70° at 10 cycles per minute for 3 days. A success was less than a 2 mm increase in the post-CPM measurement compared to pre-CPM. All three bone-tendon-bone op erations failed. The semitendinosis operation was suc cessful in only three out of eight specimens. The OTT operation was successful in eight out of nine speci mens. The possible reasons for success and failure are discussed. Because of the potential problems with failure of an ACL with CPM it is suggested that the particular tech nique being used for an anterior cruciate reconstruction be tested prior to it being used with CPM clinically.


Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), are a leading candidate for the dark matter that is observed to constitute ~25% of the total mass-energy density of the Universe. The direct detection of relic WIMPs (those produced during the early moments of the Universe's expansion) is at the forefront of active research areas in particle astrophysics with a numerous international experimental collaborations pursuing this goal. This paper presents an overview of the theoretical and practical considerations common to the design and operation of direct detection experiments, as well as their unique features and capabilities.


: A study has been made of changes in internodal lengths in rat tibial nerves and human sural nerves with age. Myelinated fibre counts on these nerves showed that maximum numbers were reached at an early stage of development. The slope of regression lines relating internodal length to fibre diameter was relatively flat at this stage, but became steeper with increasing age. Maximum internodal length in rat tibial nerve was closely related to growth of the limb bones. Whilst this study confirms that the largest fibres are subjected to hind limb growth for the greatest period, and therefore have the longest internodes, it does not support the generally accepted view that short internodes are the consequence of the later myelination of small fibres, and hence shorter period of extension due to growth.


An approach is outlined for synthesising current understanding of nitrogen dynamics in natural grasslands and extensively managed grassland systems. The increasing complexity of models is illustrated from recent literature, first conceptualising and eventually process-simulating the dynamics of nitrogen, especially in the soil sub-systems of grasslands. Some comparisons are made between New Zealand and North American grasslands in the magnitude of some N pools and fluxes and some of the principal features of soil biological studies are noted. Natural environmental variations in N balances are reviewed, especially with regard to climatic influences on organic N pools, mineral N pools and nitrification. The role of nitrogen fixation is related to ecological succession and is presented as sometimes a facultative response of natural systems to natural and some cultural perturbations. Attention is redirected at symbiotic nitrogen fixers in New Zealand tussock grasslands. The effects of management factors on N balances are reviewed. The special susceptibility of New Zealand tall tussock grasslands to large N losses from fire is indicated. Grazing is especially examined for its influence on mineral N pools and losses as well as for its N redistribution effects. A summary assessment of the understanding of nitrogen regimes of New Zealand tussock grasslands is made in terms of higher plant uptake and transfers, litter accumulation and decomposition, and soil biology and biochemistry. Special attention is directed to the possible effects of pastorally-induced changes in these regimes. The review ends with an indication of the likely significance of model-guided, co-ordinated research into the dynamics of nitrogen and other biogeochemical transformations, as of phosphorus and sulphur, in both natural grasslands and the culturally developed grasslands and forests which may now replace many of them.


Summary
The nature of the relationship between water limitation and facilitation has been one of the most contentious debates surrounding the stress-gradient hypothesis (SGH), which states that plant-plant interactions shift from competition to facilitation with increasing environmental stress.
We take a closer look at the potential role of soil moisture in mediating plant-plant interaction outcomes by assessing effects of climate and soil texture on plant modulation of soil moisture.
Using an empirically-parameterized soil moisture model, we simulated soil moisture dynamics beneath shrubs and in un-vegetated coarse and fine soils for 1000 sites in the Western United States with <700 mm mean annual precipitation. This threshold reflects the transition from dryland (<600 mm precipitation) to mesic ecosystems.
Positive effects of shrubs on shallow soil moisture (i.e. the difference between shrub and interspace soil moisture) decreased along the aridity gradient when long-term average conditions were considered, contrary to expectations based on the SGH. Negative effects of shrubs on deeper soil moisture also increased with aridity.
However, when extreme years were considered, positive effects of shrub on soil moisture were greatest at intermediate points along the spatial aridity gradient, consistent with a hump-backed model of plant-plant interactions.
When viewed through time within a site, shrub effects on shallow soil moisture were positively related to precipitation, with more complex relationships exhibited in deeper soils
Taken together, the results of this simulation study suggest that plant effects on soil moisture are predictable based on relatively general relationships between precipitation inputs and differential evaporation and transpiration rates between plant and interspace microsites that are largely driven by temperature. In particular, this study highlights the importance of differentiating between temporal and spatial variation in weather and climate, respectively, in determining plant effects on available soil moisture. Rather than focusing on the somewhat coarse-scale predictions of the SGH, it may be more beneficial to explicitly incorporate plant effects on soil moisture into predictive models of plant-plant interaction outcomes in drylands.


Motion is one of the most important cues to separate foreground objects from the background in a video. Using a stationary camera, it is usually assumed that the background is static, while the foreground objects are moving most of the time. However, in practice, the foreground objects may show infrequent motions, such as abandoned objects and sleeping persons. Meanwhile, the background may contain frequent local motions, such as waving trees and/or grass. Such complexities may prevent the existing background subtraction algorithms from correctly identifying the foreground objects. In this paper, we propose a new approach that can detect the foreground objects with frequent and/or infrequent motions. Specifically, we use a visual-attention mechanism to infer a complete background from a subset of frames and then propagate it to the other frames for accurate background subtraction. Furthermore, we develop a feature-matching-based local motion stabilization algorithm to identify frequent local motions in the background for reducing false positives in the detected foreground. The proposed approach is fully unsupervised, without using any supervised learning for object detection and tracking. Extensive experiments on a large number of videos have demonstrated that the proposed approach outperforms the state-of-the-art motion detection and background subtraction methods in comparison.


This thesis aims to understand the mechanisms involved in pollen transport and deposition in cave environments and the influence of different factors on the composition of the pollen assemblage, with special reference to the problem of the Neanderthal 'Flower burial' at Shanidar Cave, Kurdish Iraq. Limited systematic taphonomic work has been done in cave environments, with most of the studies on an ad hoc basis. However, the number of interconnected factors acting on pollen transport, deposition and accumulation in this kind of environments implies that models used for open-air sites are inadequate and demonstrates the need for further taphonomic studies. Surface samples from six caves located in the Zagros Mountains of Kurdish Iraq were collected along front-back transects and outside for comparison in order to evaluate the distribution of anemophilous and entomophilous taxa in relation to the sample location. Additional surface samples were collected from Shanidar Cave along a side to side and perimeter transects to better evaluate the pollen distribution. Water, airfall and animal dung samples were also collected to investigate the influence of those factors in pollen transport. Finally, stratigraphic samples collected during the excavation at the site were analysed for pollen and for particle size distribution. Results show that simple sac-like caves with little or no influence of factors such as water, humans and animals are characterised by broadly predictable patterns of pollen distribution with a positive correlation between anemophilous pollen and vicinity to the cave entrance and entomophilous pollen and distance from the cave entrance. Caves with active biotic vectors and/or more complex geomorphology show instead more irregular patterns. Cave SLS203 presents an inverse anemophilous/entomophilous distribution that is likely to be related to its geomorphological complexity (a second entrance at the back of the cave influencing the air circulation) and to the presence of animals. Shanidar Cave presents a very irregular distribution which is likely to reflect a combination of factors such as the mixing of surface sediments caused by the tourists visiting the site, the pollen transported by animals and that moved by the wind. Other factors, such as water input and cave entrance flora, seem not to play an important role in ii Kurdish Iraq, while they appear to strongly influence pollen distribution in caves elsewhere (e.g. Coles, 1988; Simpson, 2006). The stratigraphic samples were sterile or contained few pollen grains, probably because the aeolian nature of the sediments, deposited during stadials, with low pollen deposition and high sediment influx. Finally, clumps of pollen of both anemophilous and entomophilous taxa have been found for different taxa in all the caves. Leroi-Gourhan (1975) had suggested that similar clumps found in the vicinity of Shanidar IV remains were evidence for burial with flowers but their presence on the surface demonstrates that they can occur naturally and that other explanations should be considered. Moreover, the high amount of Lactuceae and the presence of older pollen grains in her samples suggest a strong taphonomic imprint not necessarily resulting from anthropogenic activity.


Evidence suggests that eosinophils play a significant role in promoting several gastrointestinal diseases, and animal models are the significant tools to understand the pathogenesis of eosinophil-associatd inflammatory disorders. The focus of this review is on the significance of mouse models that mimic the characteristics of human eosinophilic gastrointestinal diseases. Eosinophils are the important leukocytes with diverse functions in the gastrointestinal tract, such as excretion of intestinal parasites and promoting the pathogenesis of a numerous allergic gastrointestinal disorders like food allergy, parasitic infection, allergic gastroenteritis, allergic colitis, and eosinophilic esophagitis. Among these gastrointestinal diseases, the eosinophilic esophagitis is the most recently recognized disease and the mouse models are proven to be an effective tool to understand the pathophysiology of disease and to test novel treatment strategies. Based on patients allergic conditions and the gene overexpressed in human EGID, a number of gene overexpressed and allergen-challenged mouse models of gastrointestinal disorders were developed. These models were utilized to explore the mechanism(s) that promotes the eosinophil-mediated gastrointestinal diseases including the role of the eosinophil responsive cytokines and chemokines. Herein, we have provided a detailed overviews of the mouse models of gastrointestinal disorders that mimic the human eosinophilic gastrointestinal diseases and can be utilized as a tool for understanding the diseases pathogenesis and developing novel therapeutic targets.


In this paper, a loitering detection model for multiple camera environments in which multiple cameras are of location-synchronized is proposed. This model transforms the location of a human in each two-dimensional video into the integrated three-dimensional (3D) coordinates of the multiple camera environments and extracts the trajectory summarizing features of the person within the integrated 3D coordinates. Then, using 3 machine learning algorithms with the trajectory summarizing features as the training data, loitering event detection model which can distinguish loitering event from normal walking in multiple camera environments is created. From the results came out from the experiments with the selftaken test video data, we confirmed that the proposed detection model is able to detect loitering events accurately that were not recognizable with a single camera.


Objective. To determine the seroprevalence of syphilis in pregnant women. Methods. A seroepidemiologic survey was conducted in 1 857 women giving birth at a general hospital in the city of San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Results. Five women (0.27 %) were diagnosed with syphilis at the time of delivery. Maternal factors associated with a greater likelihood of syphilis included older age, a higher number of pregnancies and living out of wedlock. Conclusions. The number of new borns exposed to syphilis during pregnancy in San Luis Potosi is underestimated. The results of this study support the need to identify syphilis in infected mothers at the time of delivery.


The accentuated degradation of agricultural lands as a result of deep erosion processes is the main problem identified in abandoned agricultural lands under the rainfall intensities, increasing number of hot days, indirectly under the impact processes derived from them (soil erosion, vegetation drying, etc.), as well as inadequate or poor management policies implemented by local authorities. The present study aims to develop and present a methodology based on GIS spatial analysis to choose the best hydro-amelioration solution for the arrangement of a complex ravine that negatively affects the entire agroecological area in its immediate vicinity. The proposed model is developed on spatial databases obtained based on UAV flights, the simulation of flow rate values and the establishment of three hydraulic analysis models through the HEC-RAS software with the main purpose of evaluating the results and databases, in order to identify the best implementing model for the stabilization and reduction in erosion within the analysed area. The comparative analysis of the three analysed scenarios highlighted the fact that a dam-type structure with overflow represents the best hydro-ameliorative solution to be implemented in the present study. The accuracy of the obtained results highlights the usefulness of developing GIS models of transdisciplinary spatial analysis to identify optimal solutions that can be implemented in territories with similar characteristics.


The interdisciplinary PhD research "Potentials and Constraints to the Link of Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture and
Ecological Sanitation" carried out at University of Technology Hamburg-Harburg, TUHH assesses the safe reuse of faeces
and urine and the social acceptability of re-circulation of human-derived nutrients. Thus facilitating the interaction of
ecosan and agriculture. The research complements already conducted and on-going work. Vital part of the studies is the
continuous monitoring of temperature and humidity and the repeated analyses of bio-solids for pH and microbiological
parameters over a period of twelve months. Furthermore a study on the survival of Ascaris suum eggs in the faecal matter
is carried out while the assessment of the socio-cultural acceptance of human derived nutrients is conducted by interviews.
Preliminary results from interviews and observations are presented.


Waste management is one of the most dangerous industries to work for where its workers are continuously exposed to various health and safety risks ranging from musculoskeletal to dermal, to psychological. While the occupational risks that the solid waste workers are exposed to goes unnoticed by the managers and decision makers within the industry as well as the public and governmental agencies, there is not much safety measures out in place due to the lack of recommendations based on scientific studies. The State of Florida is amongst the states that have the highest injury rates among solid waste workers. In this study, we propose to assess the occupational health and safety risks for the solid waste workers in four populous Floridian counties, namely Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Duval Counties utilizing a Bayesian estimation method. The necessary data for the assessment including the worker's compensation, total population of workers, and injury rates were obtained as permit requests from several governmental sources along with their public websites. Investigation of injuries in addressed counties has shown that musculoskeletal and dermal injuries are the major hazards for solid waste (SW) workers. The results of the conducted Bayesian analysis has shown that musculoskeletal and dermal injuries are the most common ailments affecting solid waste workers in the counties studied. Furthermore, the probability distribution of the injury's means highlight the need to conduct new occupational safety initiatives in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach to reduce the preponderance of these types of injuries in those counties.


ABSTRACT Reference benchmarks are needed to assess the contemporary status of rivers and to establish restoration targets. We developed predictive models to estimate site-specific reference values for a macroinvertebrate community index (MCI), which is used to indicate a range of human impacts on wadeable streams. We compared three statistical modelling approaches – general linear, boosted regression tree (BRT) and random forest (RF) – and tested the effect of spatial scale on predictive accuracy by developing national and regional BRT models. Using fitted flexible models (BRT, RF) and resetting predictors to reflect natural state provided the most accurate predictions of reference condition. Variation in reference MCI predictions from national and regional models was within the range observed from methodological and temporal variability. The proportion of native vegetation in upstream catchments was the primary predictor of MCI scores in all models, while secondary predictors varied regionally.


This paper discusses on the required level of simplicity for suitable modelling of structural concrete. Traditional equilibrium- based approaches (as strut-and-tie models) are too coarse in some cases, as they account for the cracking state of concrete in a sometimes excessively simplified manner. The alternative of complex nonlinear numerical modelling is also not always satisfactory for design as the number of parameters required, their definition and the sensitivity of the structural response to them is complex and requires a high level of experience. Contrary to these approaches, this paper introduces the elastic plastic stress field method. This method is grounded on the theory of plasticity but allows considering deformation compatibility. The results are consistent both in terms of the strength and deformation field of the member. It also has the advantage of requiring only two physical material properties (modulus of elasticity and plastic strength) which can be easily determined by designers.


IRWIN, MARC; ENGLE, PATRICIA L.; YARBROUGH, CHARLES; KLEIN, ROBERT E.; and TOWNSEND, JOHN. The Relationship of Prior Ability and Family Characteristics to School Attendance and School Achievement in Rural Guatemala. CImL DEVELOPMENT, 1978, 49, 415-427. Data from a longitudinal study in progress were used to investigate the relationships between intellectual ability prior to schooling opportunities and characteristics of family and home environment, and elementary school attendance and performance in 3 rural Guatemalan communities. Pre-schooling mental test performances, family SES level, and indices of parental values concerning education were all associated with attending or not attending school. Length of school attendance was predicted by pre-schooling mental test scores for girls and by family SES level and parental values for boys. Age at first enrollment was predicted by both pre-schooling mental test scores and family SES level for both sexes. School grades were predicted by pre-schooling mental test scores and intellectual stimulation provided in the home but not by family SES level. It is argued that schooled and nonschooled peers in most semiliterate communities are unlikely to be originally comparable, and that conclusions based on previous studies of the effects of formal schooling on intellectual development must be reconsidered.


The performance of district companies has long been explained by the agglomeration economies. But the competitive context is changing and individual factors are becoming increasingly important, such as the implementation of individual company strategies. In this paper, we attempt to verify, using an econometric model, how such strategies influence growth performance, using a large database consisting of company data in 41 districts. The profile of a "winner" is a company that has intensively adopted strategies based on technological and design innovation, allowing it to introduce new products, at times in cooperation with outside parties. Supporting innovation with adequate marketing policies also proves to be fundamental. Such companies also have deep ICT investments, making a wide range of solutions available to them and so allowing them to "lubricate" operating mechanisms from within as well as in interaction with the market. The internationalisation of production also seem to have a positive influence on growth, especially if accompanied by investment in the new technologies. An in-depth analysis of the different strategic profiles shows that business competitiveness does not depend on only one of the factors mentioned, but on a mix that is consistent with the dynamics of the industry involved. The research shows, then, the emergence of a new district company model.


This case study addressed the authors' efforts to design an 8-week small-group independent study (IS) experience that facilitated undergraduate speech-language pathology students' (n=19) higher-level thinking and overall metacognitive awareness. We hoped to encourage both in order to improve students' overall cognitive growth while enhancing their reflection about and knowledge of professional perspectives regarding the assessment and treatment of laryngeal cancer. To take on this challenge, we combined case-based learning (CBL) and perspective-taking (PT) pedagogies across the IS. Students completed the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) pre- and post-IS, and written reflections after each of eight weekly discussion meetings. The MAI was quantitatively analyzed, while reflections were qualitatively coded using Bloom's taxonomy. Findings indicated that metacognitive awareness significantly improved and that higher-level cognitive processing was increasingly evidenced across students' IS experience. Results indicate the potential to maximize metacognition and cognitive processing by combining CBL and PT by the methods used here. Applications of combined CBL and PT to other disciplines and teaching and learning situations will be discussed along with the implications of our findings.


This article focuses on privacy protection in United States. To examine the arguments that were used to formulate the legal doctrines that support privacy in American law, the author analyzes three stages of development: pre-1890 (utilizing principles derived from property rights to protect privacy); 1890 to 1965 (generally considered the era during which a right to privacy was developed, largely as a part of tort law) and post-1965 (a major expansion of the right to privacy on constitutional basis). Protection of the right of privacy has developed slowly and uncertainly, but firmly, partly through legislation and partly through expansion of the common law. Analysis of privacy cases revealed that they fell into such categories: intrusion upon person's solitude, public disclosure of embarrassing private facts, publicity that places a person in a false light in the public eyes. American case law emphasizes the absolute primacy of the freedom of expression of opinion. The individual must show both that the asserted facts are untrue and that the defendant acted with actual malice. Only in relation to private persons, who generally have means of defence against press, does the Supreme Court allow First Amendment rights and liability for negligently made false assertions that are proven as such to coexist.