Because the average ocean depth is four kilometers, seafloor investigations are mostly remote sensing operations. The primary means to determine the morphology, the structure, and the texture of the seafloor are acoustic. This paper considers the current seafloor remote sensing approaches involving acoustic backscattering. The physical constraints imposed by the ocean as a propagation medium, by the seafloor as a backscattering boundary, and by the measuring instruments are briefly reviewed. The sonar systems currently used by the oceanographic community for deep seafloor acoustic backscattering measurements deal with these constraints differently, depending on their specific application and on whether they are towed behind a ship or mounted on her hull. Towed sidescan systems such as Gloria II (U.K.), the Sea Mapping and Remote Characterization (Sea MARC) I and II, the Deep Tow system of the Marine Physical Laboratory (MPL), and hull-mounted systems, such as Swathmap all give a qualitative measure of backscattering by converting echo amplitudes to gray levels to produce a sidescan image of the seafloor. A new approach is presented which uses a Sea Beam multibeam echo-sounder to produce similar acoustic images. Quantitative measurements of backscattering have been attempted in recent experiments using the Deep Tow system and Sea Beam. Such measurements provide some insight into the geological processes responsible for the acoustic backscatter, with useful applications for geologists as well as designers and operators of bottom-interacting sonars.


The study was aimed at evaluating a new diagnostic interview, arbitrarily named Structured Interview about male accessory gland infections (SI‐MAGI), administered to three different groups of patients with MAGI according to ultrasound evaluation [prostatitis (P) or prostato‐vesciculitis (PV) or prostato‐vesciculo‐epididymitis (PVE)]. We evaluated 110 consecutively selected infertile patients, with diagnosis of MAGI and underwent to transrectal and scrotal ultrasound (US) examination. After ultrasound evaluation, they were divided into three well‐characterised, aged‐matched groups: prostatitis (P; n = 45), prostato‐vesciculitis (PV; n = 30) and prostato‐vesciculo‐epididymitis (PVE; n = 35). Then, all patients were submitted to active clinical history oriented by SI‐MAGI questionnaire elucidated by the operator. The SI‐MAGI was structured in four domains (urinary symptoms, ejaculatory pain or discomfort, sexual dysfunction and quality‐of‐life impact) for a total of 30 questions with four possible answers. Infertile patients of PVE and PV groups showed scores significantly higher than P group in all domains (anovaP < 0.005). PVE showed scores significantly higher than PV group in domain 2 and 3. Our study demonstrates the MAGI's symptoms worsen with major extension of inflammation and ultrasound can evaluate the true extent of MAGI and symptoms can help to suggest the severity of MAGI.


This outlook paper reviews the research of van der Laan's group on Targeted Learning, a subfield of statistics that is concerned with the construction of data adaptive estimators of user-supplied target parameters of the probability distribution of the data and corresponding confidence intervals, aiming at only relying on realistic statistical assumptions. Targeted Learning fully utilizes the state of the art in machine learning tools, while still preserving the important identity of statistics as a field that is concerned with both accurate estimation of the true target parameter value and assessment of uncertainty in order to make sound statistical conclusions. We also provide a philosophical historical perspective on Targeted Learning, also relating it to the new developments in Big Data. We conclude with some remarks explaining the immediate relevance of Targeted Learning to the current Big Data movement.


Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency is an x-linked recessive disorder expressed mostly in males. Patients with G6PD deficiency may present clinically with evidence of hemolytic anemia in the neonatal period or later in life, or may remain asymptomatic. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of G6PD deficiency in Saudi infants screened at birth. All Saudi infants born at Saad Specialist Hospital in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia between January 2005 and January 2006 were screened for G6PD at birth. Umbilical cord blood samples were taken and analyzed using ultraviolet quantitative kinetic method. Results showed that out of 1366 infants screened at birth G6PD deficiency was confirmed in 173 infants (incidence 126 per1000 live birth). One third of the G6PD-deficient infants were females. More than half of G6PD-deficient infants had severe enzyme deficiency while 37 (21.3%) developed neonatal jaundice requiring phototherapy. In conclusion the incidence of G6PD deficiency was high in the screened infants.


Objectives: To study associations between long term and short term exposure to different work environmental conditions and the incidence of neck or shoulder pain. The results were obtained as part of the MUSIC-Norrtälje study, which is a population based case-control study conducted in Sweden in 1993–7. Methods: The cases were people from the study base who sought medical care or treatment for neck or shoulder pain. Information on physical and psychosocial conditions in the work environment, currently and 5 years ago, and lifestyle factors, was obtained by self administered questionnaires from 310 cases and 1277 randomly selected referents. Results: Associations between both physical and psychosocial exposures in the work environment and seeking care for neck or shoulder pain were found. The risk patterns differed for the sexes, and risk ratios exceeding 1.5 were more often found among women than among men. Generally, subjects who had experienced a recent increase of exposure were more likely (relative risk (RR) 2.1–3.7) to seek care than those who had been exposed long term (RR 1.5–1.8). Among women, an increased amount of visual display terminal (VDT) work, work above shoulder level, and reduced opportunities to acquire new knowledge, and among men, an increased amount of seated work were associated with neck or shoulder pain. This might indicate short induction periods for neck or shoulder pain for these exposures. However, for repetitive work with the hands and hindrance at work among women, and possibly also local vibrations among men, the induction periods seem to be longer. Interactive effects between factors, both at work and in the family, were found, but only among women. Conclusions: Associations between some exposures in the work environment and seeking care for neck or shoulder pain were found. The high RRs for short term exposure might indicate that for many factors the induction period for neck or shoulder pain is short.


Cells cultured from explants of tobacco leaf require exogenous cell-division factors such as the cytokinin kinetin for sustained proliferation. When cytokinin-requiring (C-) cells are cultured on medium containing 1/100 the optimum cytokinin concen tration they rapidly give rise to cytokinin-autotrophic (C+) variants. Some of these variants result from a meiotically transmitted change at the Habituated leaf-2 locus. We measured the rate of phenotypic variation by a simple, quantitative method and found that cultured tobacco cells alternate between the C- and C+ states at extremely high rates of approx. 10–2 per cell generation, which is 102- to 103-fold more rapid than most somatic mutations in tobacco. These changes are so rapid that the cla ssical distinction between random and induced events is blurred. Selection of alternate phenotypes arising by rapid, reversible cellular variation results in changes that appear to be directed at the tissue level. This phenomenon, called pseudodirected variation, is of particular interest because it suggests novel stochastic mechanisms of cytokinin action and a plausible explanation for the directed, but plastic nature of development in plants.


For a sparsely populated region on the edge of Europe, Scandinavia has attracted an unusual degree of interest during the twentieth century. The successes and failures of the famous 'Scandinavian' or 'Nordic' model in politics and policy continue to generate debate. "The Nordic Model" advocates a government-funded welfare state, an egalitarian tax system and strict job regulation. In this book respected historian of Scandinavia Mary Hilson provides a welcome addition to the literature on the Nordic model by examining in detail its main historical influences, and the ways in which it has changed over time. Covering all five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, the book includes chapters on economic development, politics and government, foreign policy and the welfare state, as well as a more general account of the cultural meanings that have accrued to Scandinavia in the twentieth century. The implications of recent developments for the continued coherence of the region are assessed, in particular the European dimension, and the re-emergence of the Baltic Sea as a potential regional focus. This book will appeal to students of the region as well as to general readers with an interest in Scandinavia.


Anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere results in climate change and perturbations of the oceanic carbonate system. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased from pre-industrial times from land use changes, fossil fuel combustion and increasing cement production. The ocean is currently a major sink for this anthropogenic CO2, increasing pCO2 and dissolved inorganic carbon concentrations and decreasing pH and carbonate ion concentrations. This has potential biogeochemical and ecosystem consequences. To monitor the ocean's uptake of CO2, identify regions of enhanced carbonate system changes, and observe the effectiveness of CO2 emission mitigation strategies, high quality pCO2 and pH measurements with good temporal and spatial coverage are required. This thesis presents the characterisation of novel pH and pCO2 sensing spots which use fluorescent detection techniques, and evaluates their potential for in situ seawater deployments. The optode sensing spots were illuminated with low intensity light (0.2 mA, 0.72 mWatt), and the time-domain dual lifetime referencing analysis technique was applied to maximise the lifetime of the spot and reduce overall power consumption of the measurement (1.8 Watt). The same hardware was used for both the pH and pCO2 spot interrogation, thereby demonstrating the versatility of the optode. After initial calibrations over typical seawater ranges for pH and pCO2, (pH range 7.6 – 8.2 and pCO2 range 280-1000 ?atm) the temperature and salinity dependence of the spots was evaluated. The pH displayed both a temperature (- 0.046 pH / °C from 5-25 °C) and salinity dependency (-0.01 pH /psu over 5-35), while the pCO2 sensor showed only a temperature dependence (-39 ?atm °C-1). Precision of the repeated measurement of certified reference material was 0.0074 pH and 0.8 ?atm for the pH and pCO2 optodes, respectively. The optodes were deployed as shipboard autonomous underway systems in the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean, both important CO2 sink regions. The successful pCO2 data deployment produced good quality data that has been used to quantify the spatial controls on carbonate chemistry and air-sea CO2 fluxes in the North Atlantic, and evaluate the effect of sampling rate and interpolation method on the determined flux. This thesis demonstrates the potential of these small sensors, with the ultimate aim to deploy them on ARGO floats and gliders.


It is 1931 and Lily Waldthausen is from an affluent German family who sets out with her husband and children on a cruise that will take them along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea towards the Middle East. Lily has a professional camera to indulge her fascination for capturing images of ancient sites and landscapes. But instead of just taking snapshots, Lily manages to produce an amazing array of images depicting sites from the Parthenon in Athens to the Sphinx of Egypt, with a unique picture of the dirigible Graf Zeppelin taken from on board the steamship S.S. Sierra Córdoba as it sailed into Corfu. Lily is an unknown amateur photographer but her pictures communicate that she had a full professional understanding of the notion of pictorialism; her love of architecture and landscapes radiates out from her pictures and they allow us to travel with her through time. As Shimon Gibson points out in this book: "Her photographs are of a high standard, and an intelligent creativity emanates through her work. There is romanticism there, but never sentimentality. Her pictures are well framed, and there is a concern with focus and perspective for pictorial advantage. She was also quite selective in her picture-taking endeavor and each frame had to be successful. … The pictures show her determination to capture each chosen moment of her trip efficiently and creatively, while leaving a little bit to serendipity."


Rice is the staple food of Indonesia. However, dosmetic rice production can not be relied upon to meet the amount of national food needs. The demands of the nation's consumption of rice per capita forcing Indonesia to import rice. In long term, it is feared Indonesian addicted to another country so that national food self-sufficiency can not be realized. Therefore, efforts should be made to increase domestic rice production. The application of technology tools and agricultural machinery is needed to develop agriculture in Indonesia. ARIT (Automatic Rice Transplanter) comes to be the answer. ARIT is a tool or a rice-planting machine designed with innovative technology. Agricultural productivity in Indonesia is less well with the majority of farmers who had been elderly and the limited number of rice planter labor, do not be a significant constraint again with this technology. ARIT making farmers work become more effective and efficient with higher productivity. Currently, the initial target is ARIT invention can help solve three fundamental problems being faced by our client, Kelompok Tani Makmur Cokrobedog which is in Godean, Yogyakarta. The majority of Godean farmers who had been elderly, the number of rice planter labor in Godean which is increasingly rare, and low rate of farmer regeneration can be solved through the application of ARIT in the client regions. Keywords: Rice, national food needs, agricultural productivity, rice transplanter


Cibacron Blue F3GA was covalently coupled with poly(ethylene glycoldimethacrylate-2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate) [poly(EGDMA-HEMA)] microbeads via the nucleophilic substitution reaction between the chloride of its triazine ring and the hydroxyl groups of the HEMA molecules under alkaline conditions. The affinity sorbent carrying 16.5 μmol Cibacron Blue F3GA/g polymer was then used for bovine serum albumin (BSA) adsorption from aqueous protein solutions and from human plasma in a packed-bed column. The BSA adsorption capacity of the microbeads decreased with an increase in the recirculation rate. High adsorption rates were observed at the beginning, then equilibrium was gradually achieved in about 60 min. The BSA concentration in the mobile phase was also effective on adsorption. BSA adsorption was first increased with BSA concentration, then reached a plateau that was about 57.3 mg BSA/g. Higher BSA adsorption was observed at lower ionic strength. The maximum adsorption was observed at pH 5.0, which is the isoelectric pH of BSA. Higher human serum albumin adsorption was achieved from human plasma (109.6 mg HSA/g). High desorption ratios (over 94% of the adsorbed albumin) were achieved by using 1.0M NaSCN (pH 8.0) in 30 min. It was observed that albumin could be repeatedly adsorbed and desorbed without a significant loss in adsorption capacity.


This paper is an attempt to study the United Nations through the lens of organizational theory, and in particular, the theoretical framework as outlined by Allison and Zelikow in Essence of Decision, in order to understand the implementation patterns of the UN in regards to the Brahimi Report as reported and analyzed by the Henry L. Stimson Center. The findings of this report conclude that the UN is capable of change as demonstrated by its ability to comply with certain Brahimi Report recommendations, but is resistant to change, due to the structure of the organization. This does not mean, however, that it is fundamentally unable to do so. Attempts at reform must be able to circumvent these obstacles through targeted, direct action, for the Brahimi Report recommendations which received the highest implementation ratings were those incremental organizational reforms that targeted specific aspects of peacekeeping operations. Resistance to change within the UN, be it on behalf of individuals, departments, or Member States, is a huge obstacle to change, further compounding the obstacles to reform that the UN faces simply as an organization. Future reforms must thus be framed in a way that specifically grasps the attention of the groups/members involved in the reform, making the issue as pertinent and sensitive to them as it is for the success of UN peace operations in general.


Sodium-ion batteries offer a potential alternative or complementary system to lithium-ion batteries, which are widely used in many applications. For this purpose, layered O3-type NaCrO2 for use as a cathode material in sodium-ion batteries was synthesized via an emulsion-drying method. The produced NaCrO2 was modified using pitch as a carbon source and the products were tested in half and full cells using a NaPF6-based non-aqueous electrolyte solution. The carbon-coated NaCrO2 cathode material exhibits excellent capacity retention with superior rate capability up to a rate of 150 C (99 mA h (g oxide)−1), which corresponds to full discharge during 27 s. The surface conducting carbon layer plays a critically important role in the excellent performance of this cathode material. We confirmed the reaction process with sodium using X-ray diffraction and X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Thermal analysis using time-resolved X-ray diffraction also demonstrated the structural stability of carbon-coated Na0.5CrO2. Due to the excellent performance of the cathode material described herein, this study has the potential to promote the accelerated development of sodium-ion batteries for a large number of applications.


We investigate the problem of computing electromagnetic guided waves in a closed, inhomogeneous, pillared three-dimensional waveguide at a given frequency. The problem is formulated as a generalized eigenvalue problem. By modifying the sesquilinear form associated with the eigenvalue problem, we provide a new convergence analysis for the finite element approximations. Numerical results are reported to illustrate the performance of the method.


The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that oral administration of a low dose of practolol in man produces selective beta-1 receptor blockade, whereas oral administration of a high dose blocks both beta-1 and beta-2 receptors. Normal men were studied 2-4 h after a single oral dose of practolol (1.5 or 12 mg/kg) and after placebo. Effects on beta-1 receptors were studied by measuring heart rate responses to exercise. Effects on beta-2 receptors were tested by measuring forearm vascular responses to brachial arterial infusions of isoproterenol. Neither dose of practolol altered base-line heart rate, forearm vascular resistance, and arterial pressure, Both low and high doses significantly attenuated heart rate responses to exercise. Forearm vasodilator responses to isoproterenol were attenuated by the high dose, but not the low dose, of practolol. Serum concentrations of practolol 2 h after administration of the drug and at the time of the studies of forearm vascular responses averaged 0.5+/-0.1 (SE) and 5.9+/-1.0 mug/ml for low and high doses of practolol, respectively. The results indicate that the phenomenon of selective beta-1 receptor blockade in man is related to the dose and serum concentration of practolol selectively block beta-1 receptors; a high dose and serum concentrations block both beta-1 and beta-2 receptors.


Joel Osteen's 90 days of motivational thoughts, inspirational messages, and helpful Scripture verses will strengthen our faith - in God, in others, and in ourselves. By applying these truths, we will be able to rise above our obstacles and live in health, abundance, and victory.


Universal Internet access has become critical to modern life, leading to many explorations of approaches to increase its availability. In this paper we report on a study of one such approach, PAWS, that seeks to understand the technical and social constraints of providing Internet access, free at the point of use, by sharing existing broadband subscribers' connections. We elaborate the technical and social context of our deployment, a deprived neighbourhood in a medium-sized British city, and discuss the constraints on and resulting architecture of this system, including the authentication and security mechanisms necessary for a service of this kind. We then report on the use of our deployment over a period of seven months from July 2013 to February 2014, including analyses of the performance and usage of the network. Our data show that PAWS is socially and technically feasible and has the potential to provide Internet access economically to many who are currently digitally disenfranchised. However, doing so requires overcoming numerous challenges, both technical and social.


This paper treats taxation in kind (IKT) as an example of price regulation, emphasizing IKT-avoidance behavior, and its interactions with the other costs of price controls. This emphasis fundamentally changes efficiency conclusions, and adds new ones. IKTs do not in fact randomly sample suppliers. Large-scale IKTs, and not small-scale ones, may have especially large average efficiency costs. Ransoms or "commutation fees" are an IKT policy option, but are only efficiency enhancing in specific situations: more heterogeneity among suppliers, and avoidance technologies that result in avoidance behaviors that are poor signals of a supplier's opportunity cost. Avoidance behaviors are one reason why the social costs of wars and other public projects involving IKTs may have been underestimated.


P-Cache to provide prioritized caching service for storage server which is used to serve multiple concurrently accessing applications with diverse access patterns and unequal importance. Given the replacement algorithm and the application access patterns, the end performance of each individual application in a shared cache is actually determined by its allocated cache resource. So, P-Cache adopts a dynamic partitioning approach to explicitly divide cache resource among applications and utilizes a global cache allocation policy to make adaptive cache allocations to guarantee the preset relative caching priority among competing applications. We have implemented P-Cache in Linux kernel 2.6.18 as a pseudo device driver and measured its performance using synthetic benchmark and real-life workloads. The experiment results show that the prioritized caching service provided by P-Cache can not only be used to support application priority but can also be utilized to improve the overall storage system performance. Its runtime overhead is also smaller compared with Linux page cache.


From Summary: "Charts giving the compressive-buckling stress coefficients for sheet panels of a shape occurring in swept-wing plan forms are presented. The panels are assumed to be a part of a continuous flat sheet divided by nondeflecting supports into parallelogram-shaped areas. The stability analysis was performed by the energy method and the results show that, over a wide range of panel aspect ratio, such panels are decidedly more stable than equivalent rectangular panels of the same area."


. Both virtual device and machine development for QEMU are difficult. To simplify the work of a developer we had analyzed both QEMU architecture and the development workflow. In this paper we suggest the new development approach which uses a declarative description for both machine and devices. The approach is implemented as an integrated software tool that returns a set of files containing a C code which could be compiled. Resulting code of machine is ready to use except for CPU configuration and CLI input. In case of a device, a developer has to implement the behavior of the device. Both device draft generation settings and machine content description are given to the tool in Python. A machine visual representation by a GUI is also implemented. A developer could use either GUI or a text editor (or both) to specify the settings. This way, the first stage of the development is automated. The tool was evaluated on Q35-based PC and Cisco 2621XM. The amount of device generation settings lines is 11-26 times smaller than the amount of the result code lines. This difference is achieved by generation of device model auxiliary code part which has a significant size because of QEMU API, while it could be generated using relatively small amount of settings. Generated code part is ¼ - ¾ of final machine code. The source code of the tool is available at https://github.com/ispras/qdt.


The environments in which carbonate diagenesis proceeds have been documented in previous studies of Holocene and late Pleistocene sediments and limestones on Barbados, West Indies. Variations in the carbon and oxygen isotopic composition of limestones, produced during early freshwater diagenesis, have been observed in this study to occur in specific patterns. Six potentially useful patterns emerge when one views stable isotope data within a stratigraphic framework: (1) the subaerial exposure surface is characterized by strongly 12C-enriched limestones. δ13C compositions of underlying limestones grow progressively heavier with increasing depth; (2) the subaerial exposure surface may also be marked by slight 18O-enrichment; (3) an abrupt shift in δ18O values may differentiate sediments above the exposure surface from those below; (4) sediments altered in the marine-meteoric mixing zone may be characterized by positive covariance between their δ18O and δ13C compositions; (5) the vadose-phreatic boundary may be marked by a sharp increase in δ13C values in the seaward portions of a fresh groundwater system; and (6) samples contemporaneously altered in a single fresh groundwater system within an areally restricted region should display a narrow range of δ18O and a wide range of δ13C compositions.

Analysis of samples from five Palaeozoic and Mesozoic formations, which contained petrographic evidence of early freshwater diagenesis, showed that isotope patterns similar to those observed in Barbados limestones have been preserved in rocks as old as Mississippian.

These isotope patterns could prove to be useful for identifying diagenetically induced porosity trends in carbonate rocks. They might be used to identify limestones diagenetically altered in meteoric environments, to identify mixing zone cements and dolomites, and to trace the regional and vertical distributions of early meteoric groundwater systems in ancient carbonate formations.


Experimental studies which focus on flow visualization and the velocity field of a supersonic laminar/turbulent flow over a compression ramp were carried out in a Mach 3.0 wind tunnel. Fine flow structures and velocity field structures were obtained via NPLS(nanoparticle-tracer planar laser scattering) and PIV(particle image velocimetry) techniques, timeaveraged flow structures were researched, and spatiotemporal evolutions of transient flow structures were analyzed. The flow visualization results indicated that when the ramp angles were 25°, a typical separation occurred in the laminar flow,some typical flow structures such as shock induced by the boundary layer, separation shock, reversed flow and reattachment shock were visible clearly. While a certain extent separation occurred in turbulent flow, the separation region was much smaller. When the ramp angles were 28°, laminar flow separated further, and the separation region expanded evidently,flow structures in the separation region were complex. While a typical separation occurred in turbulent flow, reversed flow structures were significant, flow structures in the separation region were relatively simple. The experimental results of velocity field were corresponding to flow visualization, and the velocity field structures of both compression ramp flows agreed with the flow structures well. There were three layered structures in the U component velocity, and the V component velocity appeared like an oblique "v". Some differences between these two compression ramp flows can be observed in the velocity profiles of the shear layer and the shearing intensity.


During the late Pleistocene, emergent groundwater supported persistent and long-lived desert wetlands in many broad valleys and basins in the American Southwest. When active, these systems provided important food and water sources for local fauna, supported hydrophilic and phreatophytic vegetation, and acted as catchments for eolian and alluvial sediments. Desert wetlands are represented in the geologic record by groundwater discharge deposits, which are also called spring or wetland deposits. Groundwater discharge deposits contain information on the timing and magnitude of past changes in water-table levels and, thus, are a source of paleohydrologic and paleoclimatic information. Here, we present the results of an investigation of extensive groundwater discharge deposits in the central Mojave Desert at Valley Wells, California. We used geologic mapping and stratigraphic relations to identify two distinct wetland sequences at Valley Wells, which we dated using radiocarbon, luminescence, and uranium-series techniques. We also analyzed the sediments and microfauna (ostracodes and gastropods) to reconstruct the specifi c environments in which they formed. Our results suggest that the earliest episode of high water-table conditions at Valley Wells began ca. 60 ka (thousands of calendar yr B.P.), and culminated in peak discharge between ca. 40 and 35 ka. During this time, cold (4‐12 °C) emergent groundwater supported extensive wetlands that likely were composed of a wet, sedge-rush-tussock meadow mixed with mesic riparian forest. After ca. 35 ka, the water table dropped below the ground surface but was still shallow enough to support dense stands of phreatophytes through the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The water table dropped further after the LGM, and xeric conditions prevailed until modest wetlands returned briefl y during the Younger Dryas cold event (13.0‐11.6 ka). We did not observe any evidence of wet conditions during the Holocene at Valley Wells. The timing of these fl uctuations is consistent with changes in other paleowetland systems in the Mojave Desert, the nearby Great Basin Desert, and in southeastern Arizona, near the border of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts. The similarities in hydrologic conditions between these disparate locations suggest that changes in groundwater levels during the late Pleistocene in desert wetlands scattered throughout the American Southwest were likely driven by synopticscale climate processes.


Abstract. Understanding the variations in global land carbon uptake, and their driving mechanisms, is essential if we are to predict future carbon-cycle feedbacks on global environmental changes. Satellite observations of vegetation greenness have shown consistent greening across the globe over the past three decades. Such greening has driven the increasing land carbon sink, especially over the growing season in northern latitudes. On the other hand, interannual variations in land carbon uptake are strongly influenced by El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate variations. Marked reductions in land uptake and strong positive anomalies in the atmospheric CO2 growth rates occur during El Nino events. Here we use the year 2015 as a natural experiment to examine the possible response of land ecosystems to a combination of vegetation greening and an El Nino event. The year 2015 was the greenest year since 2000 according to satellite observations, but a record atmospheric CO2 growth rate also occurred due to a weaker than usual land carbon sink. Two atmospheric inversions indicate that the year 2015 had a higher than usual northern land carbon uptake in boreal spring and summer, consistent with the positive greening anomaly and strong warming. This strong uptake was, however, followed by a larger source of CO2 in the autumn. For the year 2015, enhanced autumn carbon release clearly offset the extra uptake associated with greening during the summer. This finding leads us to speculate that a long-term greening trend may foster more uptakes during the growing season, but no large increase in annual carbon sequestration. For the tropics and Southern Hemisphere, a strong transition towards a large carbon source for the last 3 months of 2015 is discovered, concomitant with El Nino development. This transition of terrestrial tropical CO2 fluxes between two consecutive seasons is the largest ever found in the inversion records. The strong transition to a carbon source in the tropics with the peak of El Nino is consistent with historical observations, but the detailed mechanisms underlying such an extreme transition remain to be elucidated.


A beam-steering antenna based on a parasitic layer operating at around 5.6 GHz is presented. It is capable of steering its beam into three directions (θ m = -30°, 0°, 30°). The structure consists of a driven microstrip-fed patch element and a parasitic layer located on top of the driven patch. The upper surface of the parasitic layer has a grid of 5 × 5 electrically-small rectangular-shaped metallic pixels, which can be connected/disconnected by means of switching, thus the parasitic pixel surface geometry is changed. The electromagnetic mutual coupling between the driven patch and the parasitic pixel surface is responsible for achieving the desired beam-steering. Prototypes of the designed antennas have been fabricated showing ~8 dB realised-gain in all steered beam directions.


The elderly are persons over age 65, now comprising 12% of our population. The normal elderly function normally both in their self care, and also in their social activities of daily living, which we tabulate. The current terms for the normally functioning elderly who show only mild psychological deficits are age-associated memory impairment and age-related cognitive decline, which we define, criticize and tabulate. The psychological deficits of the elderly consist of mild generalized slowing and inaccuracies compared to normal young persons. These deficits are measured by objective psychological tests which mimic real daily living situations--the name-face test, fire alarm test, two delayed recall tests, misplaced objects test, shopping list test, and digit symbol test, which we describe. A longer early formal education is preventive of mental dulling during normal aging. Treating using overlearning, by cognitive training, is significantly beneficial.


Hydrogen diffusivity (D) and permeability (q) in Pd50-xTi50(Cr, Fe)x alloys were measured at temperature range between 570 and 770 K. During a heating measurement of Pd47Ti50Cr3 alloy, both D and q abruptly increased by factors of 5 and 2, respectively, at 712 K, with a phase transformation from B19 to B2 structures. However, q was far smaller than those in pure bcc metals (eg. V, Nb and Ta), where the hydrogen atoms occupy the tetrahedral interstitial sites. A first-principles calculation revealed that hydrogen atoms occupy the octahedral interstitial sites in Pd50Ti50 with B2 structure. It is concluded that the small hydrogen diffusivity in B2 Pd50-xTi50(Cr, Fe)x alloys is due to the long distance hydrogen jump and the resultant high activation energy for the diffusion.


ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to explore the hyperelastic effect on the energy release rate of a crack extension at the nanoscale. A molecular statics computation has been carried out to characterise the atomistic nature of fracturing. The concept of the J-integral is employed to measure the energy release rate for Ni and Si single crystals having a hyperelastic nature. The obtained J-integral is compared to the energy release rates predicted using the two-specimen method and the finite-element method. The results show that the effect of the highly-localized nonlinear zone in front of the crack tip potentially induces a breakdown of the linear elastic fracture mechanics model.


We study a class of minisuperspace models consisting of a homogenous isotropic universe with a minimally coupled homogenous scalar field with a potential alpha cosh(2-phi) + beta sinh(2-phi), where alpha and beta are arbitrary parameters. This includes the case of a pure exponential potential exp(2-phi), which arises in the dimensional reduction to four dimensions of five-dimensional Kaluza-Klein theory. We study the classical Lorentzian solutions for the model and find that they exhibit exponential or power-law inflation. We show that the Wheeler-DeWitt equation for this model is exactly soluble. Concentrating on the two particular cases of potentials cosh(2-phi) and exp(2-phi), we consider the Euclidean minisuperspace path integral for a propagation amplitude between fixed scale factors and scalar-field configurations. In the gauge N = 0 (where N is the rescaled lapse function), the path integral reduces, after some essentially trivial functional integrations, to a single nontrivial ordinary integral over N. Because the Euclidean action is unbounded from below, N must be integrated along a complex contour for convergence. We find all possible complex contours which lead to solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation or Green's functions of the Wheeler-DeWitt operator, and we give an approximate evaluation of the integral along these contours, using the method of steepest descents. The steepest-descent contours may be dominated by saddle points corresponding to exact solutions to the full Einstein-scalar equations which may be real Euclidean, real Lorentzian, or complex. We elucidate the conditions under which each of these different types of solution arise. For the exp(2-phi) potential, we evaluate the path integral exactly. Although we cannot evaluate the path integral in closed form for the cosh(2-phi) potential, we show that for particular N contours the amplitude may be written as a given superposition of exact solutions to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. By choosing certain initial data for the path-integral amplitude we obtain the amplitude specified by the "no-boundary" proposal of Hartle and Hawking. We discuss the nature of the geometries corresponding to the saddle points of the no-boundary amplitude. We identify the set of classical solutions this proposal picks out in the classical limit.


How can you measure the strategic value of learning, and why are traditional evaluation methods no longer enough? How do key stakeholders expect learning to add value? What factors affect how it's valued? And how do you ensure that investment in learning is linked to strategic priorities? As learning is now a strategic issue for organisations, a new approach to assessing and demonstrating its contribution is required. Based on research undertaken by the University of Portsmouth on behalf of the CIPD, this report explores how 12 organisations are measuring and reporting on the contribution of learning to strategic value. It draws on interviews with senior learning, training and development professionals and operational managers. Additional insights are gained from a discussion thread and the results of two online polls. The report recognises that all organisations are different and offers a model to help you develop an approach to match your particular circumstances. It highlights the need for both qualitative and hard metrics, and the shift from measures of return on investment to return on expectation. Benefits for you: - Access to a new model of value and evaluation of learning - Insights into the different perspectives of operational and learning professionals - Illustrations of the experiences of case study organisations - Examples of the types of measure that can be used


Objective To explore the expression and clinical significance of YKL-40 in endometrial carcinoma.Methods Using Immunohistochemical method,the expression of YKL-40 was examined in 47 endometrial carcinoma samples and 20 normal endometrium samples(control group).Results The positive expression rates of YKL-40 in the endometrial carcinomas and the control group were 59.57% and 15.00%,and the difference between the two groups was significant(P0.05).The expression of YKL-40 was significantly correlated with cell differentiation,but not with clinical stages,histilogical type,lymphnode metastasis,ages and myometrial invasion of endometrial carcinoma.Conclusion The expression of YKL-40 closely related to the carcinogenesis and development of the endometrial carcinomal tumorigenesis.Detection of YKL-40 may be helpful to evaluate malignant degree and prognosis of endometrial carcinoma.


This is an exploratory, descriptive study with a quantitative approach, which aimed at describing the use of central venous catheters for a short period in an intensive care unit regarding their insertion, maintenance, and removal, and at identifying the profile of patients who received the catheter in the period from June to December 2012, in a private hospital in Fortaleza, CE, Brazil. Data were collected through a questionnaire filled in with information contained in the medical records of the patients and their observation. The types of catheter used were double lumen catheter (76%), single lumen catheter (24%) and the puncture site accesses were in the subclavian vein (64%) and in the jugular vein (36%). Among the reasons for the catheter removal, these were observed: hospital discharge (44%), time of use of catheter (32%). For the maintenance of the catheter the permanent education of the health professional is important, a strategy which qualifies


This paper is the third in a series on burnout. It is partly taken from notes collected from facilitating workshops on burnout
in doctors. It is written as a polemic to challenge the received wisdom on this complex subject. The author posits that
burnout is akin to Carl Jung's "dark night of the soul" when the caregiver's disillusion threatens his or her trust in mankind
itself. It manifests itself in ways that are unique to each caregiver and these are often secretly held within. There is no
specific "treatment" of the condition in the medical sense but it involves a reappraisal of one's own aspirations, ambitions,
expectations and capabilities and also those of one's immediate society. It involves a journey into knowing oneself.


Code phase GNSS positioning performance is often described by the Geometric or Position Dilution of Precision, GDOP or PDOP, functions of the number of satellites employed in the solution and their geometry. This paper develops lower bounds to both metrics solely as functions of the number of satellites, effectively removing the added complexity caused by their locations in the sky, so as to allow users to assess how well their receivers are performing with respect to the best possible. Such bounds will be useful as receivers sub-select from the plethora of satellites available with multiple GNSS constellations. The bounds are initially developed for one constellation assuming that the satellites are at or above the horizon. Satellite constellations that essentially achieve the bounds are discussed, again with value toward the problem of satellite selection. The bounds are then extended to a non-zero mask angle and to multiple constellations.


To better solve the problems of local buckling and stability of thin-walled concrete-filled steel tubular short columns and improve the ability of specimens' overall deformation, long or short binding rebars were set up and anchored on the inner surfaces of the steel tubes; meanwhile the static load test was performed. The results show that the main factors affecting the bearing capacity are steel pipe wall thickness, concrete strength, binding rebars in turn and the ductility is concrete strength, binding rebars, wall thickness. Long or short rebars also significantly improve the deformation properties of specimens. Taking the common specimens' average ductility factor of 2.30 as a benchmark, the average factor of specimens configured with short rebars is 2.85, increased by 24% and configured with the long is 3.34, increased by 45%. Deformation properties of the specimens substantially increase and security of the structure enhances after setting up rebars.


Firstly a mathematical model for departure sequencing is established in this paper according to the radar separation (wake turbulence separation and non-wake turbulence separation) provided by ICAO. Then by integrating constrained position shifting algorithm and regarding the influence of route flow control, we design the improved backtracking algorithm. At last, taking Chongqing Jiangbei Airport as an example, we perform a simulation. The results show that using backtracking algorithm to solve departure sequencing problem is efficient and feasible.


This article is at once about historical dialogues and itself a dialogue: In an effort to discuss historical dialogues in the intersection between the academic field of memory studies and the practical field of peace-building, the article offers a semi-structured conversation between an academic and two practitioners. It is on the one hand an exploratory dialogue aimed at identifying and observing potential entry points for analysis and practice in conflict transformations, whilst on the other a discussion of how historical dialogues themselves are framed as open and exploratory or principled and tied to preconditions. The first conversation is between an academic and a practitioner engaged directly in historical dialogues through a storytelling project in Northern Ireland. They bring together theoretical, practical, and methodological considerations of moving between levels of memory as well as understanding historical dialogues at once as processes and products. The second conversation is with a practitioner who works with peacebuilding and dialogue, but not yet from an explicit entry point of historical dialogue. This conversation explores the role of religion and religious practice as powerful institutions and instruments in bridging individual and collective memory, as well as challenging community cohesion. As such, the article deals with historical dialogues that bring the past into the present, i.e. storytelling projects (the first conversation), or upon which memory work may be brought to bear, i.e. reading preventive dialogues also as historical dialogues (second conversation). The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of how memory work can become part of peacebuilding practices.


ABSTRACT Liu, H., 2018. Numerical simulation of marine internal wave dynamics based on functional analysis. In: Liu, Z.L. and Mi, C. (eds.), Advances in Sustainable Port and Ocean Engineering. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 83, pp. 12–16. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. For the low utilization rate of marine resources and little understanding of the dynamics of some marine resources, it is necessary to study the dynamic numerical simulation of ocean waves. The current method has a problem of low utilization rate. In this paper, a numerical simulation of marine internal wave power based on functional analysis is presented. The method firstly combines the solving method of N-S equation to establish the theoretical problem of water wave power numerical tank and the interaction between water particles is expressed through the nucleon function. The concept of particle density is introduced to realize the incompressibility of the fluid and the numerical simulation analysis of the wave power in the ocean is carried out by using functional analysis.The experimental results show that this method can be used effectively in marine resources.


The main purpose of the paper is to estimate the efficiency of a big public university in Italy using individual student-level data, modeling exogenous variables in human capital formation through a heteroscedastic stochastic frontier approach. Specifically, a production function for tertiary education has been estimated with emphasis on inefficiency and its determinants, taking explicitly into account the role played by students' socio-economic and educational background. The empirical evidence, based on 48,338 freshmen, leads towards the use of individual-level data in order to control for the portion of the student academic achievement affected by the personal characteristics and effort, and the portion ascribable to the resources or organization of the institutional activities. Within the limit of external validity allowed by operating within only one university, efficiency scores derived from using both individual-level and aggregate level data do offer an important instrument to the university and governance structures.


The modern teaching methods, and their importance in achieving the desired learning goals for the individual and the society, have been addressed, as it is necessary to develop the methods, ways and strategies used in the process of teaching the intermediate stages in the various fields in general and the field of physical education in particular, the importance of research is the effect of using the strategy of similarities in teaching some basic skills of basketball for students of the second intermediate. As for the problem of research, the researcher mentioned the lack of use of teachers' strategy method similarities in the educational units because of its importance, and after study and analysis the researcher found it necessary to improve teaching methods to reach students to a better level of learning in general and learn some basic skills of basketball in particular, and for the purpose of knowing the impact of using the strategy of similarities in learning some basic skills in basketball. The researcher used the experimental method for its suitability and the nature of the research, and the sample consisted of 15 intermediate stage school students of Hittin in Baghdad. Some conclusions related to learning some of the basic skills of the basketball were reached according to the strategy of similarities and taking into account their importance in the output of the lesson as an important educational strategy, and recommended to disseminate this idea to schools alike, because of its effective impact in delivering the educational material faster to students.


Generative modeling of set-structured data, such as point clouds, requires reasoning over local and global structures at various scales. However, adopting multi-scale frameworks for ordinary sequential data to a set-structured data is nontrivial as it should be invariant to the permutation of its elements. In this paper, we propose SetVAE, a hierarchical variational autoencoder for sets. Motivated by recent progress in set encoding, we build SetVAE upon attentive modules that first partition the set and project the partition back to the original cardinality. Exploiting this module, our hierarchical VAE learns latent variables at multiple scales, capturing coarse-to-fine dependency of the set elements while achieving permutation invariance. We evaluate our model on point cloud generation task and achieve competitive performance to the prior arts with substantially smaller model capacity. We qualitatively demonstrate that our model generalizes to unseen set sizes and learns interesting subset relations without supervision. Our implementation is available at https://github.com/jw9730/setvae.


This article analyzes some of the existing digital anonymity technologies, as well as their impact on the process and facilitation of the money laundering process. It presents the concept of superficial Internet and clarifies the difference between the Deep Web and the Dark Web, exposing how it works one of its most important operating structures, the TOR protocol. It also details the operation of BitCoin, one of the most important crypto-coins today, and draws a parallel on how these technologies can impact the practice of money laundering, as well as discusses the capacity of the mechanisms currently in place to curb and punish it. The anonymity guaranteed by the use of BitCoin is so much that in the first half of May 2017, hackers infected thousands of computers in dozens of countries, including Brazil, the United Kingdom, the United States, China, Russia, Spain and Italy, encrypting computer files and requiring redemption payment for the coded data.


The depolarization caused by thermally induced birefringence in YAG lasers is intrinsically reduced without any compensation by use of a (HO)-cut crystal. The depolarization can be made smaller by more than one order than that in a (lll)-cut crystal. This reduction is realized in both the side pumping of a uniformly doped disk/rod combined with an aperture or of a composite material in which the doped YAG is surrounded by the undoped YAG, and the end pumping with a focused beam.


Nocardia asteroides GUH-2 was administered either intranasally or by intravenous inoculation into (i) conventionally grown, (ii) germfree, and (iii) lipopolysaccharide-treated germfree NIH:S mice. The number of bacteria within the lungs, brain, kidneys, adrenals, liver, spleen, and blood was quantitated at 3, 24, 72, and 168 h after infection. Further, the histological changes that occurred in each of these organs after infection were studied. The data demonstrated that germfree mice were significantly more susceptible to the acute phase of infection caused by N. asteroides than the conventionally grown animals. The brains and lungs of these mice were affected most dramatically. Pretreatment of the germfree mice with lipopolysaccharide completely reversed this enhanced susceptibility and rendered the animals more resistant to infection than the conventionally grown mice. These observations establish further the role of macrophage activation and the development of cell-mediated immunity in host resistance to nocardia. In addition, the presence of a resident microflora within the host appears to be important in the development of resistance to systemic nocardial infections.


In cutting applications hard thin films of coated tools are expected to be wear and oxidation resistants, and with strong adhesion to the substrate. Due to the high loads involved in the contacts, the main efforts must be supported by the substrate and it is supposed that the coatings follow their elasto-plastic deformation, with a subsequent delay of the crack propagation. The commercial thin films used for these applications are generally monolithic and homogeneous or heterogenous(chemical compositional gradient up-down). Even the nanostructured coatings will perform under these loads as monolithic coatings, and the crack generation and propagation will be ruled by the same mechanisms as in the monolithic coatings. Hence, the hard coatings for cutting tools must be able to deflect surface cracks and exhibit the highest adhesion to the substrate. In order to achieve these characterisitics, the common Ti-Al-N was selected as hard coating, and thin ductile metal interlayers (few tenths of nanometres) were introduced inside Ti-Al-N thin film as long period multilayer coatings – nanolaminate coatings. The presence of interlayers revealed efficiency in dissipation of the energy generated during the application, decreasing the propagation cracks across the coating and ensuring the best adhesion. The mechanical behavior observed is homotethic of macrolaminate composite bulk materials. The failure of the coating is layer-by-layer, always exposing the ductile layer, which function is also to be a fuse that protect the remaining coating. The material of the interlayer and the period (interlayer/coating) selected resulted from the balance between the maximum performance of coating to avoid service failure and the minimum decrease of relevant mechanical properties of the monolitic hard coating as hardness.


We present a new method for the calculation of fragment size correlations in a discrete finite system in which correlations explicitly due to the finite extent of the system are suppressed. To this end, we introduce a combinatorial model, which describes the fragmentation of a finite system as a sequence of independent random emissions of fragments. The sequence is accepted when the sum of the sizes is equal to the total size. The parameters of the model, which may be used to calculate all partition probabilities, are the intrinsic probabilities associated with the fragments. Any fragment size correlation function can be built by calculating the ratio between the partition probabilities in the data sample (resulting from an experiment or from a Monte Carlo simulation) and the 'independent emission' model partition probabilities. This technique is applied to charge correlations introduced by Moretto and collaborators. It is shown that the percolation and the nuclear statistical multifragmentaion model ({\sc smm}) are almost independent emission models whereas the nuclear spinodal decomposition model ({\sc bob}) shows strong correlations corresponding to the break-up of the hot dilute nucleus into nearly equal size fragments.


The action of lysophosphatidyl choline, LPC, on myelinated fibres in the dorsal white matter of the spinal cord of the adult mouse has been studied electron microscopically, and compared with the recently described activity of LPC in the peripheral nerve fibre. Control injections of sterile isotonic saline and injections of LPC both produced oedematous zones in the white matter; within these zones, many fibres exhibited the characteristic changes of Wallerian degeneration. After injection of LPC, however, an area of demyelination was observed, extending within and beyond the Wallerian degeneration. Ultrastructurally, demyelination involved progressive disruption of the previously-compact sheath, observed initially as a splitting of the intraperiod line within 30 min. Subsequent breakdown was-indicated by the appearance of strands of 4-6 nm repeat lamellar material, itself further degraded through quintuple- and triple-layered lamellar units to disorganized membranous networks around undamaged axons. The significance of the demyelinating activity of LPC is discussed in terms of its known action in in vitro systems of isolated central nervous tissue, and its action in vivo in the peripheral nervous system.


Dicistroviruses are small, monopartite, positive-strand RNA viruses that infect arthropods. Unlike other members of the order Picornavirales, viruses in the Dicistroviridae family possess two open reading frames (ORFs), each preceded by a distinct internal ribosome entry site (IRES). Availability of an infectious clone of Rhopalosiphum padi virus (RhPV) provides a useful molecular tool for the investigation of dicistrovirus translation and replication. Cross-kingdom analysis of translation and replication of this insect virus in a plant cellular environment could elucidate key factors involved in these processes and prove vital in efforts to apply dicistroviruses in transgenically expressed biopesticide management strategies. Intergenic region (IGR) IRES-mediated translation was tested in wheat germ extract (WGE) and oat protoplasts. IGR IRES translation was observed in WGE, but translation in oat protoplasts was insufficient to show IGR IRES function. Replication of RhPV infectious transcripts was assayed in oat protoplasts using strand-specific RT-PCR and northern blot hybridization. Negativestrand replication products were detected 48 hours post-electroporation of protoplasts with strand-specific RT-PCR, but were undetected via northern blot analysis. Though translation was not shown in this study, other preliminary experiments suggest that, with slight protocol modifications, IGR IRES-mediated translation may be detectable in oat protoplasts. Low levels of RhPV replication in planta may be beneficial in a transgenically-expressed biopesticide strategy by supporting virion packaging fidelity while avoiding RNAi silencing.


Climate change impacts especially on major cities of the world are expected to cause inter-sectoral interactions concerning environmental, socio-economic, cultural, and technological developments and their implementations. This paper presents a methodology to predict future monthly rainfall amounts and surface runoff volumes on decadal basis from 2000–2050 and accordingly interpretation of monthly dry and wet periods, which are the most important gradients for the management of future water supply problems in major cities. It also presents significant articles for combating the climate change impacts on major cities through Istanbul Water Consensus Local and Regional Authorities Declaration on the occasion of the Fifth World Water Forum in Istanbul, which expressed the awareness and responsibility of local and regional leaders concerning climate change impacts on major cities.


1. To analyze the information represented about individual odor stimuli in the responses of single olfactory neurons in the primate orbitofrontal area, neuronal responses were measured to a set of seven to nine odorants in macaques performing an olfactory discrimination task. The population of neurons analyzed had responses that were significantly differential to the odorants. 2. Information theoretic analyses were applied to the responses of the neurons, and information measures were calculated from the firing rate of the responses and from the principal components of the responses. The information reflected by the firing rate of the response accounted for the majority of the information present (86%) when compared with the information derived from the first three principal components of the spike train. This indicated that temporal encoding had a very minor role in the encoding of olfactory information by single orbitofrontal olfactory cells. 3. The average information about which odorant was presented, averaged across the 38 neurons, was 0.09 bits, a figure that is low when compared with the information values previously published for the responses of temporal lobe face-selective neurons. 4. Application of information theoretic analyses to the responses of these neurons showed how much information about which stimulus was delivered was present in the responses of individual neurons. It was found that for the majority of the neurons significant amounts of information were reflected about one or two of the odorants presented. 5. For each neuron, the information reflected in the responses of that neuron about the reinforcement value and the information about the identity of the odorants were calculated. It is shown that many neurons carry information about which of the odorants was presented; in addition, some neurons reflect information only about the taste association of the stimuli and not about odorant identity. 6. Measurements of the sparseness of the representation indicated that a broadly distributed representation of the identity of odorants was present in this population of neurons.


Cellular phone is one of the most developing technological artifacts today. The evolution occurs through random innovation. Our effort is trying to view the evolution of this artifact from memetics. By constructing a phylomemetic tree based on cellular phone memes to infer or estimate the evolutionary history and relationship among cellular phone. We adopt several methods, which are commonly used in constructing phylogenetic tree, they are UPGMA algorithm and Parsimony Maximum algorithm to construct cellphone phylomemetic tree. Therefore we compare with the innovation tree, which is based on serial number and their appearance time. From phylomemetic tree, we then analyze the process of a cellular phone innovation through looking out on the cellular phone type lies in the same cluster. The comparison of the simulation tree result shows a generally different branching pattern, giving a presumption that innovation in cellular phone is not really relating with their serial number, but occurs merely because of random mutation of allomeme design and competes with its technological development.


Background The Centralized Therapy Review study (CenTRe study), a prospective observational study carried out in the pharmacy dpt. from University Hospitals Leuven in 2011[1], showed that for almost 1 in 4 prescriptions potential interventions containing treatment corrections or pharmacotherapeutic advice could be made by the dispensing pharmacist. Based on these findings, the development and validation of a standardised screening tool to retrieve potential interventions during drug dispensing is the obligatory second step in the implementation of Centralized Therapy Review in routine daily practise. Purpose To develop and validate the CenTRe 2 list, a standardised screening tool, used at the level of drug distribution, to review prescriptions and retrieve potential interventions in a standardised way. Materials and Methods The CenTRe 2 list was developed by consensus by a team of ten clinical pharmacists, the CenTRe group. It is mainly based upon findings from the CenTRe study, supplemented with evidence from the literature [2–22]. Content was validated using the content validity index method [23–25] by a panel of experts (4 clinicians specialising in pharmacology, intensive care and geriatrics and 8 pharmacists who were not member of the CenTRe group). Inter-rater reliability was calculated using Cohen's kappa statistic [26]. A case format was used: all potential interventions retrieved by 12 pharmacists, which screened 20 treatment regimens using the CenTRe2 list, were compared with a gold standard. Results The CenTRe 2 list retained 8 topics as valid (I-CVI κ*³0.75 and S-CVI/ave = 0.95) and passing the inter-rater reliability test (κaverage = 0.92 and 0.73; κmedian = 0.93 and 0.72). Conclusions The CenTRe 2 tool is a valid and reliable tool for screening treatment regimens for potential interventions in a standardised way. A prospective observational study, using the CenTRe 2 tool, has been conducted to establish its utility in optimising patient treatment. No conflict of interest.


In the era of evidence based medicine where we should base our clinical practice on the available
evidence of growing medical literatures, large number of available published literatures do not have
enough sample size to detect their desirable primary or secondary outcome. It is surprised that even
in journal with high impact factors the sample size calculation is still inadequate, often erroneous
and based on assumption which are inaccurate. Sample size calculation is always a difficult issue,
which should be address diligently before commencement of the study. The objective of the current
narrative review is to illustrate the methodology of sample size calculation for comparative and
descriptive research, which will be most useful for the beginners.


Analysis of electrophoretic mobility of histone H1 subfractions from liver, brain and erythrocytes of 41 bird species was carried out. Subfractions of erythrocyte H1 histones from each species were compared with those of thrush Turdus musicus. The majority of species proved to possess a set of electrophoretically similar subfractions. Interspecific differences in histone H1 were mainly due to the differences in the ratio of those subfractions. The identity of the electrophoretic mobility and similar contribution to H1 histone from the respective tissues in different species permits to consider certain subfractions as homologous ones. The conservation of electrophoretic mobility for homologous subfractions of the birds of different orders shows a high evolutionary conservatism of the corresponding genes. It seems that in the course of evolution only a change in the expression of some of those genes occurs.


Background and purpose There is on-going debate about a possible link between manipulation and stroke in patients, and a growing interest in other treatment reactions such as increased pain. Evidence about manipulation is contradictory. There is little published information about outcomes in osteopathy. We aimed to address this gap. Methods and results A survey was sent to all UK practising osteopaths. Another survey was sent to patients recruited by osteopaths. Patients were surveyed before treatment, one day and two days after treatment and at six weeks. 1,082 (27.8%) osteopaths completed the practitioner survey. 2,057 patients, recruited from 212 osteopaths, completed questionnaires before, and directly after their treatment. 1,387 patients provided data six weeks after treatment. Between 10% and 20% of patients experienced increased symptoms/pain related to their main complaint in the days directly following treatment. This was highest for new patients. At 6 weeks, 4% of patients reported temporary disability, which they attributed to osteopathic treatment. 10% of patients reported seeking further consultation for worsening symptoms associated with osteopathic care. The comparison between those that received manipulation and those that did not suggests that manipulation was not linked to worsening outcomes. In the preceding year, 4% of osteopaths reported that they had patients who experienced a range of serious events. The most common event described was the occurrence of peripheral neurological symptoms. There were also 7 reports of stroke-like symptoms. Conclusion Serious adverse events are rare. Transient increase in intensity of pain/symptoms is common. Conflict of interest: S Vogel, T Mars and R Froud are osteopaths. S Vogel, and T Pincus have received payment for keynote presentations by the General Osteopathic Council. M Underwood has received payment for the delivery of a keynote presentation by the British Osteopathic Association. Sources of funding: The majority of funding was provided by the General Osteopathic Council. Some additional funding was provided by the British School of Osteopathy.


Competition among health insurers is widely considered to be a means of enhancing efficiency and containing costs in the health care system. In this paper, it is argued that this could be unsuccessful since health care providers hold a strong position on the market for health care services. Physicians exert a type of monopolistic power which can be described by Chamberlin's model of monopolistic competition. If many health insurers compete with one another, they cannot counterbalance the strong bargaining position of the physicians. Thus, health care expenditure is higher, financing either extra profits for physicians or a higher number of them. In addition, health insurers do not have an incentive to contract selectively with health care providers as long as there are no price differences between physicians. A monopolistic health insurer is able to counterbalance the strong position of physicians and to achieve lower costs.


As the use of complex grid middleware becomes widespread and more facilities are offered by these pieces of software, distributed Grid applications are becoming more and more popular. But as Grid middleware grow in size and offer more advanced features, they become more complex and heavy, as well as harder to tune. As the performance of a distributed Grid application can be strongly influenced by the operation of the underlying grid middleware, it becomes of extreme importance to study and analyse their behaviour and performance. In this paper we present the eDragon Monitoring Framework (eDMF), a set of tools that can be used for the instrumentation and analysis of grid middleware, and which provides a unique environment to study the performance of Grid applications. The eDMF is composed of a set of specialised monitoring tools as well as by a flexible and powerful performance analysis platform. Additionally we also provide a practical application of the eDMF to the Globus Toolkit 4 (GT4), one of the most extended and popular Grid middleware, showing how it helped us in the detection and resolution of several job management problems observed in the GT4 middleware.


Dynamics of current-induced magnetic switching of a single magnetic molecule attached to two ferromagnetic contacts with collinear magnetic moments is investigated theoretically. The main emphasis is put on physical processes which can influence the molecule switching, particularly on the intrinsic spin relaxation in the molecule. It is shown that despite spin relaxation, spin-polarized current can switch the magnetic moment of the molecule-although the switching time may be significantly increased.


Summary In order to enhance the contribution of fig to the national econo my and to raise farmers' income level, it is necessary to encourage further cultivation of fig and direct farmers to fig production instead of al ternative products. Most of the areas suitable for chestnut production are forestlands. There are orchards arranged with oak and chestnut trees with oak being predominant. Chestnut population in these areas should be increased. Cultivation area of this product that has many fields of use needs to be extended. Directing farmers to products that are storable in medium term with a broad market and high income is important both for the national economy and the farmers. The purpose of the present study is to remind producers the significance of two important products: fig and chestnut in the Kosk district of the Aydin province, Turkey, and to determine the areas suitable for growing these products within the study area. For this purpose the questioning and analysis features of GIS was employed. In this study, rainfall, temperature, soil texture, slope, elevation, wind direction, were taken into account to identify appropriate fields. As a result, approximately area of 13886 hectare of fig production and 3430.7 hectare of chestnut production were found as suitable area.


Smoking and alcohol are important modifiable risk factors for human cancers. However, few epidemiological studies have investigated their association with the risk of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Here, we investigated the association of smoking and alcohol consumption and the risk of MDS in a large‐scale population‐based cohort study in Japan. We included 95 510 Japanese subjects (45 451 men and 50 059 women; age 40–69 years at baseline) and identified 70 MDS cases (50 men and 20 women) during 18·3 years of follow‐up. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were estimated using a Cox regression model adjusted for potential confounders. Smoking was marginally associated with an increased risk of MDS among men, with a HR for current smokers relative to never smokers of 2·11 (95% CI: 0·91–4·89). In contrast, alcohol consumption was associated with a dose‐dependent decrease in the risk of MDS among men (nondrinkers: reference, occasional drinkers: HR = 0·48, 0·16–1·41; 0–299 g/week: HR = 0·37, 0·19–0·73; ≥300 g/week: HR = 0·49, 0·22–1·08, P for trend = 0·010). This study showed that alcohol has a significant protective effect on the risk of MDS. In addition, this study might indicate that smoking increases the risk of MDS among Japanese population, as it does in Western populations.


In the past 20 years, divorce has increased in Indonesia. Indonesian statistics show that divorces initiated by women exceed those by men. One issue that is often neglected is how socioeconomic differences also play a role in this matter. Drawing on our collaborative research on Muslim divorces in Indonesia, this paper focuses on the interplay between divorce strategies and socioeconomic differences among Muslim couples. Our in-depth interviews with 93 Muslim men and women and 19 judges from Islamic courts show that class differences shape distinctive dynamics of divorce among Muslim Indonesians. Couples from less educated, lower-income backgrounds accept marriage dissolution more easily, with women becoming much less tolerant of men's behaviors such as infliction of domestic violence, infidelity, and failure to provide financial support. Educated, middle-class urban couples divorce for similar reasons but tend to experience a lengthier process accompanied by complex layers of conflict. Many educated women's narratives emphasize their ability to support themselves through working, and a desire to be free of a bad marriage at any cost. Class and education thus contribute to significant differences in the experience and trajectories of divorce in Indonesia.


This paper performs controlled experiments to analyze the performance of home networks. We show that the home network has a significant impact on end-to-end performance. For example, watching TV can double the time to download a file; and deploying a wireless network significantly increases round-trip times. Despite its impact on end-to-end performance, most existing diagnosis tools ignore the home network when identifying the cause of performance problems. To make matters worse, our results show that simple techniques that directly probe the home gateway cannot reliably identify that the home network is the cause of performance degradation. We are currently designing a technique based on packet bursts to identify performance problems caused by the home network. Our results for Ethernet based home networks are encouraging.


In this work a novel family of decentralised caching policies for wireless networks is introduced, referred to as spatial multi-LRU. These improve cache-hit probability by exploiting multi-coverage. Two variations are proposed, the multi-LRU-One and -All, which differ in the number of replicas inserted in the covering edge-caches. The evaluation is done under spatial traffic that exhibits temporal locality, with varying content catalogue and dependent demands. The performance metric is hit probability and the policies are compared to (1) the single-LRU and (2) an upper bound for all centralised policies with periodic popularity updates. Numerical results show the multi-LRU policies outperform both comparison policies. The reason is their passive adaptability to popularity changes. Between the -One and -All variation, which one is preferable strongly depends on the available storage space and on traffic characteristics. The performance also depends on the popularity shape.


OBJECTIVE: This study evaluated the prevalence of obesity and associated factors among older adults. METHODS: This was a household-based cross-sectional study involving 282 individuals aged ≥ 60 years recruited in the city of Veranópolis, Brazil, using random probabilistic sampling. Participants underwent a clinical oral examination and completed a structured questionnaire. Obesity was determined based on body mass index (BMI). Individuals were divided into two groups based on the presence (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2) or absence of obesity (BMI < 30 kg/m2). Uni- and multivariate analyses were performed using Poisson regression with robust variance. RESULTS: The prevalence of obesity was 34% (n = 96). Each 1-year increase in age resulted in a 3.09% decrease in the likelihood of being classified as having obesity (prevalence ratio [PR] = 0.969; 95% confidence interval [95%CI] 0.949 – 0.989). Older adults that reported walking < 5 or ≥ 5 times per week were 39.65 and 37.20% less likely to be classified as obese. The PRs of obesity in former and non-smokers were 4.40 and 5 times higher, respectively, than in current smokers (p < 0.05). Older adults with no access to dental care were 51.72% (p = 0.013) more likely to present with obesity. CONCLUSIONS: There was a high prevalence of obesity among older adults. Obesity was associated with lower age, smoking status, no access to dental care, and a lack of physical activity.


We use market-level scanner data collected from U.S. convenience stores in 2011 and 2012 to examine who bears the economic burden of cigarette taxes. We find cigarette taxes are fully passed through to consumer prices, suggesting consumers pay all the excess burden of these taxes. Tax incidence differs by class of cigarette; pass-through rates for premium packs and cartons are higher than those for discount packs and cartons, indicating possibilities of substitution in consumptions across tiers and brands.


This paper presents a techno-economic assessment of hydrokinetic energy of Cozumel Island, where ocean currents have been detected, but tourist activities are paramount. The main objective of this research is to identify devices that have been used to harvest hydrokinetic power elsewhere and perform an economic analysis as to their implementation in the Mexican Caribbean. First, the energy potential of the area was evaluated using simulated data available through the HYCOM consortium. Then, for four pre-commercial and commercial turbines, technical and economic analyses of their deployments were performed. Socio-environmental constraints were reviewed and discussed. Three optimal sites were identified, with an average annual hydrokinetic energy density of 3–6 MWh/m2-year. These sites meet the socio-environmental requirements for marine kinetic energy harvesting. Of the turbines considered in the analysis, the best energy price/cost ratio is that of SeaGen device, with a maximum theoretical energy extraction of 1319 MWh/year with a Capacity Factor of 12.5% and a Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) of 1148 USD/MWh. Using this device, but assuming a site-specific design that achieves at least 25% of Capacity Factor, 20-year useful life, and a discount rate of 0.125, the LCOE would be 685.6 USD/MWh. The approach presented here can be applied for techno-economic analyses of marine turbines in other regions.


Background: The prevalence of obesity is increasing in Indian youth and obesity is associated with complications like systemic hypertension. Often, due to the non-availability of appropriate sized cuffs, standard cuff bladders are used to measure blood pressure in the forearms of obese young adults. Aim: To compare the upper arm arterial blood pressure measured using an appropriate cuff with the forearm arterial blood pressure measured using a standard cuff and conventional sphygmomanometry in obese otherwise healthy first year medical students. Materials and Methods: Blood pressure was measured in 27 obese otherwise healthy first year medical students after five minutes of rest using a mercury sphygmomanometer with the subjects se ated and the arm and forearm at heart level, using an appropriate sized cuff for the upper arm according to American Heart Association standards and a standard cuff for the fore arm. Results: A statistically significant difference in both systolic (t-test (paired) = -6.921; df = 26; sig = .000 (2 - tailed)) and diastolic blood pressure (t -test (paired) = - 8.508; df = 26; sig = .000 (2- tailed)) was found, with the blood pressure readings being higher in the forearm. The correlations between upper arm and forearm systolic and diastolic blood pressure were 0.785 (p = .000) and 0.870 (p = .000). Conclusion: Both systolic and diastolic blood pressure measurements were significantly higher in the forearm. Further studies with larger sample size should be conducted to confirm that forearm blood pressure measurements using standard cuff bladders cannot be considered equal to upper arm measurements made using an appropriate sized cuff in all young obese individuals


Aqueous lithium ion batteries (ALIBs) receive increasing attention due to their intrinsic non-flammable nature. Their practical application, however, has been prevented by the poor electrochemical stability of aqueous electrolytes, which severely restricts the choice of anode and cathode materials for such batteries and leads to low energy densities. It has been demonstrated that "water-in-salt" electrolytes can provide an expanded voltage window of ∼3.0 V, which can accommodate electrode materials that were otherwise forbidden in conventional aqueous electrolytes. In this study, we showed that the presence of an additive could further stabilize the aqueous electrolyte at a high voltage cathode surface. By forming a cathode electrolyte interphase (CEI) through electrochemical oxidation of tris(trimethylsilyl) borate (TMSB), we successfully stabilized LiCoO2 in water-in-salt electrolyte at a high cut-off voltage that corresponds to 0.7e electron charge transfer. To the best of our knowledge, this is also the first electrolyte additive known to form an interphase in aqueous electrolytes. The formed CEI significantly suppressed electrolyte oxidation as well as cobalt dissolution from LiCoO2 into electrolytes, allowing LiCoO2 to be stably charged/discharged at a higher cut-off voltage with a high capacity utilization of 170 mA h g−1. When paired with an Mo6S8 anode, the 2.5 V aqueous full cell delivered a high energy density of 120 W h kg−1 for 1000 cycles with an extremely low capacity decay rate of 0.013% per cycle.


This position paper will present the aims and goals for the CITIZYS Research Group at Mid Sweden University. The research in the group is aimed to contribute to produce pro-ductive, democratic and sustainable information systems for the public sector, with a fo-cus on the citizens' perspective. To prove our point, we will discuss these objectives through a practical example, the on-going ECHOES-project.


s 15th World Congress on Disaster and Emergency Medicine sl7 test showed that the entire participation-based group significantly improved in the evaluations of the three indicators. Further comparisons will be presented. Conclusions: A participation-based educational approach is more effective in the development of a position before the education.


In this paper, the FEELING-G system for extracting and building semantic representations of emotions, feelings and psychological states expressed in texts is presented, as well as the linguistic knowledge used by the system. Semantic representations are described by means of a set of feature structures. Letters to the Editor is taken as a domain for the evaluation of this work.


Demographic senescence, the decay in fertility and increase in the risk of mortality with age, is one of the most striking phenomena in ecology and evolution. Comparative studies of senescence patterns of plants are scarce, and consequently, little is known about senescence and its determinants in the plant kingdom. Senescence patterns of mortality can be classified by distinguishing between two metrics: pace and shape. The pace of mortality captures the speed at which life proceeds and can be measured by life expectancy, while the shape of mortality captures whether mortality increases ('senescence'), decreases ('negative senescence') or remains constant over age ('negligible senescence'). We extract mortality trajectories from ComPADRe III, a data base that contains demographic information for several hundred plant species. We apply age‐from‐stage matrix decomposition methods to obtain age‐specific trajectories from 290 angiosperm species of various growth forms distributed globally. From these trajectories, we survey pace and shape values and investigate how growth form and ecoregion influence these two aspects of mortality using a Bayesian regression analysis that accounts for phylogenetic relationships using a resolved supertree. In contrast to the animal kingdom, most angiosperms (93%) show no senescence. Senescence is observed among phanerophytes (i.e. trees), but not among any other growth form (e.g. epiphytes, chamaephytes or cryptopyhtes). Yet, most phanerophytes (81%) do not senesce. We find that growth form relates to differences in pace, that is, life span, as woody plants are typically longer lived than nonwoody plants, while differences in shape, that is, whether or not angiosperms senesce, are related to ancestral history. Synthesis: The age trajectory of mortality captures a fundamental life‐history pattern for a species that is crucial to ecological understanding. We contribute to ecological knowledge by surveying these patterns across angiosperms. The novelty and strength of our study lies in the comprehensiveness of the data set, the use of a novel Bayesian analysis that accounts for phylogenetic history and in the distinction between metrics of pace and shape as two separate aspects of mortality. We believe that our approach could prove useful in future comparative studies of mortality patterns.


Full scan design allows every combinationally irredundant fault in a synchronous sequential circuit to be tested. In this paper, we derive a similar result applicable to design-for-testability techniques that use reset instead of scan. We show that if reset states can be selected arbitrarily, a test sequence can be generated for every irredundant fault, i.e., for every fault which is not sequentially or combinationally redundant. Thus, increasing the circuit controllability is sufficient for detecting every irredundant fault, and improving its observability is not necessary for this purpose. We also show that of all the states of the circuit, it is sufficient to consider as possible reset states only the states extracted from a complete combinational test set. We describe two procedures to select the reset states and perform test generation for a given synchronous sequential circuit. Experimental results are given for ISCAS-89 benchmark circuits.


This paper presents the findings of two surveys conducted on behalf of BREAZE, a Renewable Energy and Zero Emissions community group in the Ballarat region. The research presented in this study was designed to identify the group's effectiveness in supporting its members to achieve zero emissions. Another objective of the research was to identify the knowledge and information needs of the broader Ballarat community in relation to climate change and sustainable behaviours. Survey findings indicate that both BREAZE and wider Ballarat community members are looking for means to reduce their barriers to adoption of pro-environmental choices. Key results also indicate that the Ballarat community has some desire and intention to change their behaviour. There was considerable interest and demand for high quality, clear, in-depth information and working examples on which individuals can base their choices and purchase decisions. The paper concludes with a discussion on future actions to engage the wider community towards more sustainable behaviour.


The aims of this study were to predict the potential distribution of two introduced Mustelidae, Mustela nivalis and M. putorius in the Azores archipelago (Portugal), and evaluate the relative contribution of environmental factors from native and introduced ranges to predict species distribution ranges in oceanic islands. We developed two sets of Species Distribution Models using MaxEnt and distribution data from the native and introduced ranges of the species to project their potential distribution in the archipelago. We found differences in the predicted distributions for the models based on introduced and on native occurrences for both species, with different most important variables being selected. Climatic variables were most important for the introduced range models, while other groups of variables (i.e., human-disturbance) were included in the native-based models. Most of the islands of the Azorean archipelago were predicted to have suitable habitat for both species, even when not yet occupied. Our results showed that predicting the invaded range based on introduced range environmental conditions predicted a narrower range. These results highlight the difficulty to transfer models from native to introduced ranges across taxonomically related species, making it difficult to predict future invasions and range expansion.


With the continuous increase in environmental requirements and regulations for wastewater treatment a lot of wastewater treatment plants in Austria had to be extended. Extension of the plant requires in general an additional area, which is not always available. This study shows the extension of the WWTP Hard Hofsteig and doubling its capacity by using the Hybrid concept, which is a special two stage activated sludge process for extensive nutrient removal. The plant was extended from 170,000 PE to 270,000 PE without changing the footprint of the plant and the extension costs could be kept very low. Operational data shows that by operating the plant in the two stage Hybrid mode the energy balance of the plant can be improved.


We analyze the transmission of shocks through international bank lending, as is suggested in Kaminsky and Reinhart [6], by examining the bank's international lending behavior. We develop a portfolio selection model, which explicitly includes the economic condition of the bank's home county. This model is estimated using data from the banks of the six largest international creditor countries over the 1989-99 period. Our results clarify the interrelationship between the condition of banks' home country and international bank lending. This finding demonstrates two types of transmission of shocks through international bank lending: [i] transmission from a creditor country to debtor countries and [ii] transmission from a debtor country to other debtor countries via a creditor.


One of the earliest successes of classical quantum dynamics in a field where ordinary methods had proved inadequate was the solution, by Schwarzschild and Epstein, of the problem of the hydrogen atom in an electric field. It was shown by them that under the influence of the electric field each of the energy levels in which the unperturbed atom can exist on Bohr's original theory breaks up into a number of equidistant levels whose separation is proportional to the strength of the field. Consequently, each of the Balmer lines splits into a number of components with separations which are integral multiples of the smallest separation. The substitution of the dynamics of special relativity for classical dynamics in the problem of the unperturbed hydrogen atom led Sommerfeld to his well-known theory of the fine-structure of the levels; thus, in the absence of external fields, the state n = 1 ( n = 2 in the old notation) is found to consist of two levels very close together, and n = 2 of three, so that the line Hα of the Balmer series, which arises from a transition between these states, has six fine-structure components, of which three, however, are found to have zero intensity. The theory of the Stark effect given by Schwarzschild and Epstein is adequate provided that the electric separation is so much larger than the fine-structure separation of the unperturbed levels that the latter may be regarded as single; but in weak fields, when this is no longer so, a supplementary investigation becomes necessary. This was carried out by Kramers, who showed, on the basis of Sommerfeld's original fine-structure theory, that the first effect of a weak electric field is to split each fine-structure level into several, the separation being in all cases proportional to the square of the field so long as this is small. When the field is so large that the fine-structure is negligible in comparison with the electric separation, the latter becomes proportional to the first power of the field, in agreement with Schwarzschild and Epstein. The behaviour of a line arising from a transition between two quantum states will be similar; each of the fine-structure components will first be split into several, with a separation proportional to the square of the field; as the field increases the separations increase, and the components begin to perturb each other in a way which leads ultimately to the ordinary Stark effect.


A B S T R A C T Bacterial biofilms are communities of microorganisms residing within a polysaccharide matrix. Dental plaque, slimy coating in tanks, and algal mats on bodies of water are examples of biofilms. It is well accepted that biofilms play important role in bacterial persistence and antibiotic resistance in chronic infections. It is acknowledged that the majority of microbial cells on earth are living in distinct communities as biofilms. In fact, it is now known that 99% of all bacteria exist in biofilms, with only 1% living in the planktonic state. It has been estimated that 65% of microbial infections are associated with biofilms which constitute a microbial multicellular lifestyle and are defined as organized communities of bacteria. The structural nature of biofilms can protect the cells against antimicrobial agents and the host's defense. The microbial community inside a biofilm can also be protected against adverse conditions such as desiccation, osmotic shock, UV radiation, or exposure to toxic compounds, or predators. Due to the heterogeneous nature of biofilms, it is likely that multiple mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance can occur.


Planning of compact and green urban areas has become an emerging issue. Thus, there is a need to examine strategies for implementing green infrastructures in compact urban areas. The aim of this paper is to examine how green infrastructure is developed in a compact urban structure in a case study of the city of Malmo. Six examples of urban greening were selected. The selection was made to obtain a variety of types of green spaces that were not public parks and that were developed (or were intended to be developed) in compact urban structures. The findings suggest that there are reasons for analysing and discussing urban greening strategies in new categories, like building attached , grey and brown green infrastructure. The supply and distribution of cultural ecosystem services that these strategies offer were assessed by how they offer access for viewing, staying or interacting with the places. In this assessment the green infrastructure was divided in public , private and private-personal structures. The limitations and possibilities of different strategies need to be further explored with respect to the kinds of services supplied as well as how benefits are distributed. Cultural ecosystem services, such as recreation and social cohesion, cannot be taken for granted based on quantitative measures of green space alone. The spaces must be assessed in terms of types of access offered and who has access.