In its Summer 1996 issue (no. 77) the editors of October, led by Rosalind Krauss and Hal Foster, published responses to a"Questionnaire on Visual Culture" that was sent to an unspecified "range" of scholars, critics and artists during the previous winter. This issue occasioned two articles by reporter Scott Heller: "Visual Images Replace Text as Focal Point for Many Scholars" in The Chronicle of Higher Education (July 19, 1996) and "What Are They Doing To Art History?" in ARTnews (January 1997). Heller's articles, among other things, emphasized the apprehensions of the October editors, surveyed the diverse opinions of the survey's respondents and displayed the reactions of many "disciplinarians" of art history. The October editors and many of the respondents to the questionnaire appear threatened by a loose grouping of presumably misguided scholars, whom they never explicitly name, that has rejected the tried and true rigors of academic art history for the so-called trendy and gullible field of visual and cultural studies. This disciplinary policing is at times analogous to U.S. conservatives' fixation on the national borders, imagined to be under siege by various "outsiders," and the Christian Coalition's cultural offensive to buttress the malignant traditions that have historically regulated boundaries between cultures, genders and sexualities. October's characterization of the relationship between art history and visual studies resonates with the sound-bytes of cultural and political conservatives - this is quite evident in the severe language that detractors use to discount visual studies' critical commitments. Consider the example of Bruce Cole, Professor of Art History at Indiana University and founding member of the Association for Art History, an organization that was founded in protest of the broadening purview of the national College Art Association (CAA) and as a supposed ideology-free alternative to what some consider to be the increasing politicization of CAA. As Heller quotes Cole: "We don't see art solely as social illustration or ideological fodder. . . There has to be a basis on which one builds, a factual basis that uses evidence and standards. Art historians can do things sociologists can't." Equally akin to the discourse of cultural reactionaries is the following complaint from Krauss, now Professor of Art History at Columbia University. She told Heller that: "Students in art history graduate programs don't know how to read a work of art. . . They're getting visual studies instead - a lot of paranoid scenarios about what happens under patriarchy or under imperialism." In all fairness, the academic media attention paid to the October questionnaire also uncovered opposing voices that were equally reactionary in their dismissal of art history as a legitimate and vital discipline. Heller quotes Anne Higgonet from Wellesley College as saying: "I see a defunct and useless field collapsing, and a much stronger, much more important field emerging." Within the media frame that the October questionnaire generated, nevertheless, the supposed shortcomings of scholarship in visual studies were emphasized, while the institutionally privileged activities of the discipline of art history were posited as irreproachable. Foster, another longtime editor of October, who now teaches in the art history department at Princeton University, is quoted as saying: "Cultural studies doesn't have much philosophically to offer. It sneaks in a loose, anthropological notion of culture, and a loose, psychoanalytic notion of the image . . . Visual culture is a passport that can lead to fairly touristic travel from discipline to discipline." Foster's attacks on visual and cultural studies do not even make gestures toward acknowledging the problematic philosophical, cultural and theoretical frameworks that the discipline of art history "sneaks" into analyses of visual objects. The result of such partisanship is the construction of an unnecessary competition: visual studies vs. …


ABSTRACT Video games and gambling often contain very similar elements with both providing intermittent rewards and elements of randomness. Furthermore, at a psychological and behavioral level, slot machine gambling, video lottery terminal (VLT) gambling and video game playing share many of the same features. Despite the similarities between video game playing and gambling there have been very few studies that have specifically examined video game playing in relation to gambling behavior. This study inquired about the nature of adolescent video game playing, gambling activities, and associated factors. A questionnaire was completed by 996 (549 females, 441 males, 6 unspecified) participants from grades 7–11, who ranged in age from 10–17 years. Overall, the results of the study found a clear relationship between video game playing and gambling in adolescents, with problem gamblers being significantly more likely than non-problem gamblers or non-gamblers to spend excessive amounts of time playing video games. Problem gamblers were also significantly more likely than non-problem gamblers or non-gamblers to rate themselves as very good or excellent video game players. Furthermore, problem gamblers were more likely to report that they found video games, similar to electronic machine gambling, to promote dissociation and to be arousing and/or relaxing.


Design of video storyboards, which enables a user to access any video in a friendly and meaningful way, has emerged as an important area of research in the multimedia community. In this paper, we propose a novel semi-automated method for construction of video storyboards based on Delaunay graphs. A robust edge pruning strategy, where the edge weights are assumed to follow a Gaussian distribution, is applied on an appropriately constructed Delaunay graph. The proposed method also takes into account two advanced user needs, namely the waiting time and the number of frames an user wants to see in the story board Experimental results on some standard videos of different genre clearly indicate the superiority of the proposed method in terms of the F0.5 measure.


The decline in the CD4% and CD4/CD8 ratios have been compared in lymph nodes and blood from SIVMNE/E11S infected rhesus macaques. The results indicate that loss from the LN CD4+ cell pool does not occur until CD4/CD8 ratios of less than 0.5 is reached in blood. These changes also correlate with the ability to isolate virus from the blood and the transition of CD45RAhi to highly activated CD45RAlo CD8+ cells both of which may play a role in eliminating CD4+ cells. In end-stage disease, CD8+ cells also decline in LN and mitogen responsiveness no longer exists in any nodes. Interestingly at this stage, the circulating CD8% increases significantly and represents the only source of functional T cells remaining in the body.


We use payments data for the period 2006-09 to study the impact of the global financial crisis on payment patterns in CHAPS, the United Kingdom's large-value wholesale payments system. CHAPS functioned smoothly throughout the crisis and all CHAPS settlement banks continued to meet their payment obligations. However, the data show that in the two months following the Lehman Brothers failure, banks did, on average, make payments at a slower pace than before the failure. Our analysis suggests this was partly explained by concerns about counterparty default risk as well as system-wide risk. The ratio of payments made to liquidity used was 30% lower in the period from 15 September 2008 to 30 September 2009 than in the period preceding the default of Lehman Brothers. This was due initially to payment delay, but later was due to banks making more payments with their own liquidity, probably because quantitative easing increased the amount of reserves in the system. To assess the economic significance of the observed delays in the value of payments settled, we develop risk indicators, based on Markov models, to quantify the theoretical liquidity impact of delays during an operational outage. We find that payment delays in the months following the failure of Lehman Brothers led to a statistically significant but economically modest increase in these risk measures.


BACKGROUND
We investigated microRNA expression profiles of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) specimens to identify novel microRNA that are potentially involved in the oncogenic transformation of human pleural cells.

METHODS
microRNA microarray transcriptional profiling studies of 25 MPM primary tumors were performed. We used normal pleural tissue from an unmatched patient cohort as normal comparators. To confirm microarray data, we used real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Representative cell lines H513 and H2052 were used in functional analyses of miR-1.

RESULTS
In addition to several novel MPM-associated microRNAs, we observed that the expression level of miR-1 was significantly lower in tumors as compared with normal pleural specimens. Subsequently, pre-miR of miR-1 was introduced into MPM cell lines to overexpress this microRNA. Phenotypic changes of these altered cells were assayed. The cellular proliferation rate was significantly inhibited after overexpression of miR-1. Early and late apoptosis was increased markedly in miR-1-transfected cell lines. Taken together, these data suggested that overexpression of miR-1 induced apoptosis in these MPM cell lines, acting as a tumor suppressor. We confirmed our observations by assessing in the transduced MPM cells cell cycle-related, proapoptotic, and antiapoptotic genes, which all showed coordinated, significant changes characteristic of the apoptotic phenotype.

CONCLUSIONS
Further investigation and validation of our microRNA database of MPM may elucidate previously unrecognized molecular pathways and/or mechanisms by identifying novel microRNAs that are involved in malignant transformation. Our study has now found miR-1 to be one of these MPM-associated microRNAs, with potential pathogenic and therapeutic significance.


Soilless culture systems are currently one of the fastest-growing sectors in horticulture. The plant roots are confined into a specific rootzone and are exposed to environmental changes and cultivation factors. The recent scientific evidence regarding the effects of several environmental and cultivation factors on the morphology, architecture, and performance of the root system of plants grown in SCS are the objectives of this study. The effect of root restriction, nutrient solution, irrigation frequency, rootzone temperature, oxygenation, vapour pressure deficit, lighting, rootzone pH, root exudates, CO2, and beneficiary microorganisms on the functionality and performance of the root system are discussed. Overall, the main results of this review demonstrate that researchers have carried out great efforts in innovation to optimize SCS water and nutrients supply, proper temperature, and oxygen levels at the rootzone and effective plant–beneficiary microorganisms, while contributing to plant yields. Finally, this review analyses the new trends based on emerging technologies and various tools that might be exploited in a smart agriculture approach to improve root management in soilless cropping while procuring a deeper understanding of plant root–shoot communication.


Numerous xenobiotics, including therapeutics agents, are substrates for bioactivation to electrophilic reactive intermediates that may covalently modify biomolecules. Selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) are in clinical use for long-term therapy of postmenopausal syndromes and chemoprevention and provide a potential alternative for hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Raloxifene, in common with many SERMs and other xenobiotics, is a polyaromatic phenol that has been shown to be metabolically bioactivated to electrophilic and redox active quinoids. Nucleic acid and glutathione adduct formation have been reported, but little is known about protein covalent modification. A novel COATag (covert oxidatively activated tag) was synthesized in which raloxifene was linked to biotin. The COATag was reactive toward a model protein, human glutathione-S-transferase P1-1, in the presence but not the absence of monooxygenase. The covalent modification of proteins in rat liver microsomal incubations was NADPH-dependent implicating cytochrome P450 oxidase. The COATag facilitated isolation and identification of covalently modified microsomal proteins: cytosolic glucose regulated protein (GRP78/BiP), three protein disulfide isomerases, and microsomal glutathione S-transferase 1. Oxidative metabolism of raloxifene produces reactive intermediates of sufficient lifetimes to covalently modify proteins in tissue microsomes, behavior anticipated for other polyaromatic phenol xenobiotics that can be tested by the COATag methodology. The combined use of a COATag with a simple biotin-linked electrophile (such as an iodoacetamide tag) is a new technique that allows quantification of protein covalent modification via alkylation vs oxidation in response to xenobiotic reactive intermediates. The identification of modified proteins is important for defining pathways that might lead alternatively to either cytotoxicity or cytoprotection.


This paper by CEPS Research Fellow Piotr Kaczyński explores the possibilities offered to the EU as an actor in international negotiations as a result of the provisions and the 'spirit' of the Treaty of Lisbon and against the background of the complex internal political situation in the EU. Following a review of the previous decision-making system, which many stakeholders would like to see preserved, he examines the relevant provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon. He then looks at how the system can be reformed in order to improve the EU's leverage and effectiveness in international negotiations. The EU's experience in the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen is used for purposes of illustration.


This project has combined 3D modelling, music and sound to create a phenomenological experience. It has used a digital 3D graphical model of Stonehenge to create an acoustic model of its soundfield. Study of this acoustic model, as well as a wider forensic study of the acoustics of the site, has been used to derive musical and sonic content, which has provided the basis of this compositional work. This has included tempo derived from echoes, reverberant field built from a calculated impulse response, and filtering and timbral information extrapolated from resonances. In addition maps of acoustic parameters such as envelopment (LG80) have allowed us to predict positioning of participants. Such information has been combined with what we know from archaeological, ethnographic and other sources, to try and recreate an ecological perspective akin to what might have happened at a ritual at Stonehenge in prehistory. This is experimental multimedia archaeology


Original available here Administrative staff from a Chinese manufacturer of components for Apple products responded to media and denied that it asked workers harmed by exposure to the chemical n-hexane to leave their jobs. "But we have authorized the communication department of Jiangsu provincial industrial park to deal with the news press issue," said one company representative. In the "Apple Supplier Responsibility 2011 Progress Report" on Tuesday, for the first time, Apple acknowledged that 137 workers at the Suzhou facility of Wintek, one of Apple's touch screen suppliers, had suffered adverse health effects following exposure to n-hexane. N-hexane is a chemical cleaning agents used in some manufacturing processes. It is fast acting and some workers were asked to use it to clean the Apple logo. However, it is also volatile and strongly toxic. Since the report was released, Apple has been under pressure. To add to this, the affected workers have been located, and new information is coming to light. In latest news report, Jia Jingchuan, a 27-year-old worker who suffered from exposure to the chemical, told journalists that they were forced to leave the factory in a call last week. "They promised to give me 140,000 yuan, or 21,253 U.S dollars, in compensation for my departure, but only on condition that I sign an exemption agreement, which means the company would not take any responsibility if my health worsened in the future," he said. He also added that as far as he knew at least eight victims had already left. But he himself would go nowhere but to stay as he has no idea how can he pay the expensive medical fee even if he leaves. Jia called for an official written apology for the loss. "A leading global company like Apple should see to the conduct of its suppliers and ensure that supplier workers receive fair and respectful treatment," Jia told China Daily. The public is expecting Apple to reform and cooperate with the victimized workers to protect the labor rights and to cope with Apple's sullied image. The elite worldwide brand is traditionally thought of as having excellent performance in corporate social responsibility. By Li Yancheng, People's Daily Online


The propensity of anthropology to highlight the homogeneity of the groups it studied, related to the "primitivist" and "peasantist" contexts associated with the emergence of the discipline, can be referred to as "culturalism". Such a scientific ideology underestimates the contradictions and diversities deployed within any social group studied by anthropologists, as well as the discrepancy between the rules of the social game and the actors' real practices. Nevertheless, various anthropologists have long expressed an interest in both the internal inconsistencies of social orders and the non-compliant practices. Some examples are given of these considerations for differences, from Malinowski or the Manchester school to legal pluralism or the anthropology of organizations. The European anthropology of development, extended to-day into an anthropology of public actions and public policies, is undoubtedly the sub-discipline that has developed the most an empirically grounded approach of gaps and discrepancies, alongside a dialogue with sociology and political science. It has put the richness of ethnographic investigation and qualitative research to the service of investigating the implementation gaps of public policies and the behavioural gaps of public agents. This opens the way for a reconsideration of Max Weber's ideal-type as a methodological gap.


The low yield of ITO thin film deposition is an important factor in optoelectronic semiconductor production. A recycle fabrication module uses micro electroremoving as a precision machining process with a new design of inner wedge-form tool to remove the defective Indium-tin-oxide (ITO) nanostructure from the optical PET surfaces of digital paper display is presented in current studies. The adopted precision recycle process requires only a short period of time to remove the ITO nanostructure easily and cleanly is based on technical and economical considerations and is highly efficient. In the current experiment, a higher feed rate of the optical PET diaphragm combines with enough electric power to drive fast micro electroremoving. A large slant angle of the cathode and a small arc rounding radius of the anode takes less time for the same amount of ITO removal. High rotational speed of the electrodes can improve the effect of dregs discharge and is advantageous to associate with the fast feed rate of the workpiece (optical PET diaphragm). A small rotational diameter of the anode accompanied by a small width of the cathode corresponds to a higher removal rate for the ITO nanostructure.


Research suggests that a CEO may have more influence in the context of small entrepreneurial firms, but it is still unclear how a company's chief executive facilitates strategic decision-making. Little is known about the ways in which these individuals build strategic capabilities, such as the capacity to adapt to changing environments. This study addresses these issues and develops a model indicating that transformational leadership facilitates behavioral integration and comprehensiveness in the decision process among members of the top management team (TMT), which in turn enhances organizational capacity to adapt to environmental changes. Survey results shed light on the complex way in which CEOs facilitate processes within the TMT and enhance small entrepreneurial firms' capacity to adapt, thereby increasing their viability. This study contributes to the literatures on Upper Echelon Theory, strategic decision-making, and dynamic capabilities by shedding light on the ways in which transformational leaders influence behavioral and decision-making processes.


: The etiology and pathogenesis of the variable glomerular, tubular and interstitial functional and anatomic abnormalities in the kidney in cystinosis are not known. The doctrine that the abnormalities are consequent to accumulation of crystals of cystine must be questioned. Not previously appreciated, the podocyte is notably affected in cystinosis.


OBJECTIVE
To discover the mechanism of hypocalcemia in a patient with the CHARGE (coloboma, heart disease, atresia choanae, retarded growth and development, genital hypoplasia, and ear anomalies) association.

RESEARCH DESIGN
Chemical and metabolic studies of serum, urine, stool, and muscle specimens.

SETTING
A university hospital affiliated with a municipal hospital.

PARTICIPANT
One patient with the CHARGE association and refractory hypocalcemia.

MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS
Serum calcium level was 0.91 mmol/L (reference range, 2.20 to 2.58 mmol/L) and serum magnesium level was 0.34 mmol/L (reference range, 0.80 to 1.20 mmol/L) prior to any therapy. After parenteral calcium and magnesium therapy, hypocalcemia persisted (1.46 mmol/L), while the serum magnesium level was 0.84 mmol/L. A needle biopsy of skeletal muscle tissue for the magnesium content confirmed a total magnesium deficiency despite normomagnesemia (muscle magnesium content, 517 micrograms/g [reference range, 800 to 1100 micrograms/g]). Magnesium deficiency was secondary to secretion of magnesium into the gastrointestinal tract (with a daily magnesium intake of 190 mg, a 24-hour nondiarrheal fecal excretion of magnesium was 2019 mg/kg [reference range, < 1000 mg/kg of stool weight]).

INTERVENTIONS
Hypocalcemia was corrected only after 7 weeks of continual parenteral magnesium supplements to replenish the tissue magnesium deficiency.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with the CHARGE association often have hypocalcemia. Magnesium deficiency (with or without hypomagnesemia) is a cause of the hypocalcemia in at least one patient and may prove of significance in others.


of the couglh. For several months afterwards I made inquiries, and eachi time received the same answer--that she was appa, renitly quite well. I mentioned the case to many of mny medical friends, but only onie of them seemed to have heard or read of anything directly bearing on the subject. He could not give me any references, but said lhe had met somewlhere with the idea I hat patieilts wvho had suffered from rheumatic fever seldoml (lied of plithisis.-I ami, etc., Lonldoni. ALTFRED EDTOWES.


Abstract This article analyses the historical and political background of the Russian law on cultural property displaced to the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War (April 1998, with amendments in 2000). Following the 1990–1991 revelations about the extensive cultural treasures captured by Soviet authorities at the end of the Second World War, there was hope abroad for restitution, with a series of bilateral agreements with the countries of origin, but in spring 1994 the Duma blocked further restitution. We follow the fierce debates, the Constitutional Court ruling (1999), the amended law (July 2000), and its implementation under the Ministry of Culture. We show the wide-scale Russian support of the law, with its concept of "compensatory restitution" that virtually nationalizes the spoils of war, with only scant provisions for restitution to those who fought against the Nazi regime and those victimized by it. What explanation emerges involves the manipulation of historical memory by the Stalinist regime, as the cultural trophies assume symbolic importance in the "myth and memory" of "victory" in the Great Patriotic War. Restitution to legal owners is to be considered only in exchange for equally substantial compensation for wartime loss and suffering of the population at large.


In this paper discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and empirical mode decomposition (EMD) are employed as a preprocessing stage in a multiclassifier and decision fusion system. The proposed method consists of three steps. In the first step, 2D-EMD is performed on each hyperspectral image band in order to obtain useful spatial information. Then, useful spectral information is obtained by applying the 1D-DWT to each signature of 2D-EMD performed bands. A novel feature set is generated using both spectral and spatial information. In the second step, each feature is independently classified by support vector machines (SVM), creating a multiclassifier system. In the last step, classification results are fused using a decision fusion criterion to produce one final classification. The proposed method improves overall classification accuracy over independent classifiers when reduced number of features are employed.


In this study, a magnetohydrodynamic convection flow of an electrically conducting heat generating fluid past a semi-infinite vertical porous plate with variable suction is considered. The fluid flow is unsteady and a variable magnetic field is transversely applied to the plate. Evaluation of velocity gradients, temperature gradients and concentration gradients across the plate is done. Observations and discussions of the effects of various parameters on flow variables is done. The non-dimensional parameters observed and discussed are Hall parameter, M; Magnetic number, M2; Eckert number, Ec; Rotational parameter, Er; Suction parameter, S and Injection parameter, w.The velocity profiles, temperature profiles and concentration profiles are presented graphically for both convectional heating and free convectional cooling of the plate. The skin friction and rate of heat transfer values are obtained and presented in tables.For free convectional heating and cooling of the plate, the Grashof number is taken as constants -5 and 5 respectively. Prandtl number is 0.71 which corresponds to air. The variation of the parameters mentioned above is noted to increase or decrease or had no effect on the skin friction, mass transfer, rate of heat transfer, the velocity profiles, concentration profiles and temperature profiles.


\s=b\Jones' tubes were placed in 40 patients with canalicular obstruction and epiphora. Thirty of 35 patients (85.7%) followed up for two to 86 months had good results. There were five failures due to granulation tissue formation, diplopia, and patient dissatisfaction. (Arch Ophthalmol 1983;101:260-261)


This book is a very timely addition to the growing field of media innovation studies. Thanks to the recent advancements in the information and communication technologies (ICTs) and subsequent growth in various web-based commercial and social media outlets, innovations in production and delivery of media contents has spurred. In the process, the definition of media is being constantly evolved. This is undoubtedly the high time for undertaking of multidisciplinary research on this topic.This book is composed of three sections titled 'concepts', 'structure and management', and 'services and users' respectively. Each of these sections contains several thematically cohesive papers each presented as a separate chapter.As the editors' forewords suggest, the book is all about the contemporary topic of media innovation and contains some of the best papers presented in the 1st International Symposium on media Innovation held in Oslo, Norway in early 2012. As a reader, I found the chapters of this book to be very contemporary and intriguing as they analyze some very important and fast emerging aspects of media innovation. The papers are all relevant, and cohesive to central theme. This 280 page book is a nice, compact document of multidisciplinary studies on this important topic. With thanks to the editors for their great, timely undertaking, I would like to share couple of suggestions for future editions/sequel of the book. First, a slight increase in the font size may provide greater ease of reading. Second, incorporation of a paper or two regarding the impact of recent innovations in Wi-Fi technology on overall media innovation frontiers may further enrich multidisciplinary research prospects of this important and ever expanding subject.


Introduction: Hepatopulmonary fusion (HPF) is a rare anomaly specifically associated with right-sided congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH). Fewer than 50 cases of HPF have been reported, most at the time of surgery or postmortem with an associated high morbidity and mortality rate. Prenatal diagnosis and optimal management of these rare cases have not been established. Case Presentation: We present a case of HPF diagnosed prenatally by fetal ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging allowing postnatal and intraoperative planning leading to successful HPF separation and repair of the CDH. Discussion: The prenatal recognition allowed the use of preoperative computed tomography angiogram and right cardiac catheterization to plan the surgical approach. Intraoperative ultrasound confirmed abnormal vasculature associated with the HPF facilitating a successful complete HPF separation and CDH repair was performed. The patient survived and continues to do well on long-term follow-up. Prenatal recognition may help reduce the high morbidity and mortality associated with HPF.


Author(s): McIntee, Tomas | Advisor(s): Saari, Donald | Abstract: General conclusions relating pairwise tallies with positional (e.g., plurality, antiplurality (``vote-for-two")) election outcomes were previously known only for the Borda Count. While it has been known since the eighteenth century that the Borda and Condorcet winners need not agree, it had not been known, for instance, in which settings the Condorcet and plurality winners can disagree, or must agree. Results of this type are developed here for all three-alternative positional rules. These relationships are based on an easily used method that connects pairwise tallies with admissible positional outcomes; e.g., a special case provides the first necessary and sufficient conditions ensuring that the Condorcet winner is the plurality winner; another case identifies when there must be a profile whereby each candidate is the ``winner'' with some positional rule. Previous work relating the probability of positional and pairwise tallies have used specific selected distributions (primarily the Impartial Culture and Impartial Anonymous Culture assumptions) and specific voting rules (particularly plurality). Techniques are developed here that can be applied to analyzing the probability of conflict between all different positional methods, and between combinations of pairwise tallies with positional results. Results are given for several broad categories of probability distribution, along with a qualitative analysis of the relationship between probability distributions over voter profiles and the likelihood of voting paradoxes. A method of geometrically comparing multiple-stage and single-stage elections is developed, which shows that multiple stage elections are not necessarily more vulnerable to being manipulated, but less vulnerable when all rank-order outcomes matter, and specifically only similar when an election only identifies a first-place winner. In the case where results are defined in terms of a singular winner, a plurality vote is identified as less manipulable in a single stage than in multiple stages, while an antiplurality vote is identified as more vulnerable in a single stage than in multiple stages.


This paper examines household adjustments to Hurricane Katrina by estimating the effects of Katrina-induced damages on changes in household demographics and income distributions in the Orleans Parish between 2000 and 2012. Adjustment patterns are found to be heterogeneous across ethno-racial segments, income classes, and educational attainment. Shares of middle-income and affluent households along with educated individuals decreased in severely damaged areas relative to less damaged ones. Also the share of individuals with lower educational levels and incomes below the poverty line increased in severely damaged block groups. Furthermore, the share of the white population decreased and the share of the black population increased in damaged areas for both home owners and renters. Overall adjustment patterns suggest that resource and financially constrained population adjust by moving into previously damaged areas, while economically capable households adjust by relocating to safer areas within or outside of the parish. Given estimated increases in vulnerable segments of the population in hazardous hotspots, public efforts should focus on either revitalizing poorer neighborhoods, by investing in long-term hazard mitigation measures and improving infrastructure, with segregated housing or assisting gradual population retreat to enhance community resilience and reduce vulnerability and exposure to future catastrophic events.


Automotive EPS controller is easy to be affected by the parameter perturbations, road agitations, sensor noises and the lateral wind disturbance in the process of vehicle operation. These uncertainties affect the accuracy of assist current, the EPS performance and the driving safety. The mathematical model of EPS system was established including the internal uncertainty and external disturbance. The LFT linear fractional transform representing model and M matrix with stripped uncertainty were designed. The robust H∞ controller and weight function were designed according to the H∞ control theory and performance indexes of EPS system. The comparative performance with PD controller was made. The results showed that the H∞ controller had better robustness and robust stability than the PD controller. It also had great anti-disturbance performance to satisfy the performance requirements of EPS system.


The prevalence of domestic abuse against women has been estimated as high as one in four. The risk is particularly high for women who are younger, economically dependent, unemployed and with children. Research about the factors that maintain situations of abuse has generally focused separately on the coping strategies of women, barriers to leaving the relationship and the perpetrators' means of abuse. In this study we used a community psychology perspective to seek a broader understanding of what maintains situations of abuse, in order to suggest interventions in a rural County in the North of England. Twelve women who had experienced domestic abuse and had used voluntary sector services agreed to be interviewed about their experiences and the resources and strategies available to them. Using grounded theory we generated four themes: (1) Commonalities and contradictions in the experience of abuse; (2) living with abuse; (3) the response of systems reinforced or challenged the abuse and (4) dealing with abuse beyond the relationship. These findings illustrate how situations of domestic abuse can be prolonged by limited options available to victims for support and protection, and a lack of active public acknowledgement that domestic abuse is unacceptable. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Nowadays, the technology of clustered and nonclustered indexes in databases is used in practically all relational databases. Indexes tell the Database management system (DBMS) how to store the information in the file system of the computer. Clustered and nonclustered ones are the most widespread, because they can increase the speed of selecting from a table many times.
The article is about applying a new practical method of teaching undergraduate students in the field of effective development the structure of databases. The introduction of a new method of learning the development of the stricter of databases using clustered and nonclustered indexes, that is required for effective development and further usage of databases in production with big amounts of data. That will allow students to understand, which indexes they should use to increase the speed of selecting, inserting and updating the data in tables of a database.
Database design consist of two stages - logical and physical. The logical stage - selection of entities, tables planning, fields, definition of data types for each field, keys, and integrity constrains. The physical stage - planning and index adjustments, file groups, program modules. Indexes are the most basic part of the physical stage. There are many different types of indexes, which used for different purposes. For example, column store index can provide you with a great speed of executing of the aggregation functions. If it is necessary to increase the speed of selection the data from the table, clustered and nonclustered indexes are required. They will be discussed in this article.


An intra-aortic balloon pump catheter may be used for mechanical support of insufficient heart function. A possible complication is rupture of this balloon. In the last few years, a substantial increase of such ruptures has been observed. In the period between 1 January 1989 and 30 September 1990, 14 balloon ruptures in 10 patients were seen in the University Medical Centre of Amsterdam. The total number of patients treated with an intra-aortic balloon in that period was 101. In most cases the balloon rupture was revealed by the appearance of blood in the connecting tube of the balloon catheter. Rupture frequency was twice as high in females as in males. In none of the patients was the rupture followed by clinical signs of gas embolism. Most ruptures occurred in the distal part of the balloon near or in the abdominal aorta. At examination of the balloons it was found that all perforations had occurred in an area that was scraped, probably by a calcium plaque. The fact that balloon ruptures nowadays occur more often than formerly is probably due to the fact that more patients are operated at advanced ages, with a long history of disease and more aortic sclerosis.


One of the major issues in management of the acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is classification of patients with atypical presentation who have low risk of having a coronary episode at presentation. There have been multiple studies on the stratification of high risk patients and medical management of such cases, however, there is a sub-class of patients who do not fit any category. In this paper, we have looked at the current literature on stratification of patients based on the study tools available and the risk of having a coronary episode during the following year. In our overview, we have found that the current methods in place namely, cardiac stress test and stress echocardiogram have a good prognostic factor in terms of mortality in the next one year and can safely stratify the patients at low risk when correlated with clinical presentation and laboratory studies. However, such data are limited for computerized tomography or magnetic resonant imaging and their application might be limited due to accessibility and cost of studies. Current guidelines for classification of high risk patient do an excellent job and we believe that proper application of stress tests together with other imaging modalities together with laboratory, clinical judgment, and proper use of medical management can help with safe discharge of patients from the emergency department (ED) and reduction of burden from healthcare.


Self-control is a central function of the self and an important key to success in life. The exertion of self-control appears to depend on a limited resource. Just as a muscle gets tired from exertion, acts of self-control cause short-term impairments (ego depletion) in subsequent self-control, even on unrelated tasks. Research has supported the strength model in the domains of eating, drinking, spending, sexuality, intelligent thought, making choices, and interpersonal behavior. Motivational or framing factors can temporarily block the deleterious effects of being in a state of ego depletion. Blood glucose is an important component of the energy.


In 2005, Citigroup released a report that echoed a famous quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald: 'Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me'. Penned by a team of global equity strategists, their report – Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances – advanced the thesis that the world was dividing into two main blocs: 1) the plutonomy powered by the conspicuous consumption of the wealthy; and 2) the rest of humanity. The report also argued that income disparities were likely to deepen in the future, making the global rich the key drivers of differential-equity returns. Although this paper explores some of the quantitative dimensions of the plutonomy thesis, its main aim is to draw out some of the qualitative dimensions connected to the differential power and consumption patterns of the global rich in the New Gilded Age. It does so by advancing the idea that money does not just represent a store of value, a medium of exchange and a unit of account, but also the power to claim the labour of others and natural resources in commodity form.


Food safety is a scientific discipline describing handling, preparation and storage of food in ways that prevent food borne illness. It includes a number of routines that should be followed to avoid potentially severe health hazards. There are a number of legislations in Ghana which are formulated to ensure consumer protection and safety in relation to food products. However, recent sanitation and health challenges facing the nation imply that the relevant legislations on the subject are either not being enforced or that people are ignorant of them.This paper outlines and discusses the general legislative framework of food hygiene and food safety in Ghana. It also explains specific legislations which regulate each aspect of the chain of food production and offers some useful suggestions with regard to the implementation and enforcement of the relevant legislations designed to ensure food hygiene, consumer protection and safety in Ghana.


Background: In recent years, social capital, and especially its importance among the elderly has attracted the attention of researchers. Moreover, it was suggested that older adults lack sufficient physical activity that may be due to the lack of motivation. Accordingly, this study was conducted to determine the relationship between social capital and physical activity participation motivation among the elderly living in the west of Tehran City, Iran, in 2020. Methods: This was a descriptive correlational study. The research population consisted of aged individuals present in the public areas of the west of Tehran City, Iran (districts 5, 9, 21, & 22 of Tehran Municipality), such as sidewalks and passages, shopping centers, parks, mosques, and so on. In total, 400 subjects were recruited by the multistage sampling method. The Abbreviated Mental Test (AMT), Participation Motivation Questionnaire for Older Adults (PMQOA), and Onyx and Bullen social capital scale were used to gather the required data. The obtained data were analyzed by Pearson's correlation coefficient, Independent Samples t-test, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) in SPSS at the significance level of P<0.05. Results: The Mean±SD social capital of the study subjects was equal to 86.27±23.3. The fitness and social factors of activity participation motives had the highest (49.72±19.34) and lowest (18.97±15.96) Mean±SD values (based on an index of 0-100). Social capital was significantly associated with physical activity participation motivators (except fitness & medical subscales) (P<0.05). Social capital was also associated with occupational status, the number of children, house size, and the economic status of the research subjects (P<0.05). Conclusion: According to the obtained results, the social capital of the elderly participating in this study was pretty low. Furthermore, there was a significant relationship between social capital and the motivators of physical activity participation (apart from fitness & medical); this result signifies the necessity of attention to the social capital of the elderly.


1. Introduction THE effect of torque is usually neglected in the Bernoulli‐Euler treatment of the flexure of thin rods. In practical cases the torque will rarely have any appreciable influence on static stability but from the dynamical aspect it may be the precursor of exponential instability in the absence of adequate damping forces. This phenomenon was suggested to me by Mr A. C. Hutchinson of Aliens, Bedford. Owing to torque there are cross deflexion coefficients which in particular cases are equal and opposite; and it is this negative reciprocity that gives rise to dynamic instability as we shall see. In the case, say, of a load on an overhung shaft it would appear that this instability is manifest at all speeds becoming more violent with the relative increase of torque. In practice it has frequently been found to be difficult if not impossible safely to run through particular 'whirling' speeds. In this connexion the problem of the stability of rotating shafts has reached a fresh peak of importance in consequence of the rapid development of the gas turbine as the prime mover in aircraft. The fundamental principles underlying the treatment of whirling phenomena are now well established and there is ample practical experience in support of the physical notion of shaft revolution propounded by Jeffcott in the Phil. Mag. for March 1919. Thus if a shaft is perfectly straight, completely balanced, and runs in bearings which are truly aligned; then, provided such masses as may be carried by the shaft have no appreciable moments of inertia, the normal 'static' flexural vibrations of the shaft will be independent of any imposed rotation, that is the path of any point on the neutral axis of the shaft will be uninfluenced by the rotation of the shaft section of which it is the centre. If the shaft is initially deflected by its weight, then the static vibrations will occur about the position of rest of the shaft and the imposed rotation will only apply to the cross‐sections of the shaft about their centres. If, however, the shaft is initially bent then each element may be considered as being 'out of balance' by the amount it is off the position it would occupy if the shaft were true and at rest. If we apply power to a bent shaft such as to maintain it in rotation with constant angular velocity then each element of shaft is regarded as being compelled to rotate with this constant angular velocity about the point on the effective elastic axis of the shaft, that is the axis of the deflected but corresponding unbent shaft. The unbalance will thus give rise to a forced vibration which will compel each element of the shaft to describe a circular path about its appropriate centre on the effective elastic axis; and this forced circular vibration will be independent of the static vibrations which are unforced and in consequence described as 'free'. The radius of the path of any element in the forced circular vibration will depend inter alia on the speed of the imposed rotation, and the strain energy of the shaft so bent by flexure will be drawn or absorbed from the power which drives the shaft.


The spermatozoa of Potamon fluviatile and P. ibericum are virtually indistinguishable and do not support separate subgeneric rank (Potamon and Pontipotamon, respectively). Synapomorphic with the spermatozoa of the South African freshwater crab Potamonautes perlatus sidneyi are the elongation of the two centrioles and disposition of the centrioles almost parallel to each other, unknown elsewhere in the Brachyura, and reduction of the thickened ring (homoplasic with grapsids and gecarcinids). Other, probably synapomorphic, similarities of Potamon and Potamonautes include the wide inner acrosome zone, absence of a definite acrosome ray zone (homoplasic in other families) and the cleistospermial spermatophores. Further similarities, of questionable polarity, are the simple, not multilaminar, nuclear membrane and the tendency of the nuclear arms to wrap around the nucleus. Differences of Potamon from Potamonautes, which possibly support their present generic separation and give weak support to their former separate familial placement in the Potamidae and Potamonautidae respectively, are perforation of the operculum and the weak, rather than strong, development of a periopercular rim. Absence in Potamon and Potamonautes of an accessory opercular ring and a xanthid ring separates them from xanthids. No close affinities with other heterotreme families are seen but their assignment to the Heterotremata is not in doubt. Their spermatozoa lack two of the distinctive features of thoracotreme spermatozoa (apical button on the operculum and concentric lamellation of the outer acrosome zone). No clear correlates of spermatozoon structure with a freshwater existence are recognizable but reduction of the thickened ring possibly relates to peculiarities of the acrosome reaction. However, the production of spermatophores with single spermatozoa (cleistospermia) is possibly a device to prevent polyspermy and wastage of the small number of lecithotrophic eggs produced in potamids.


Although widely ignored by political scientists and scholars of international relations alike, historically unprecedented demographic change is arguably the most powerful force to affect national security and international stability over the coming decades. Fertility, mortality and migration are the one set of variables in the social sciences that can be projected into the more distant future with a reasonable degree of accuracy. As a result, the structural constraints and possibilities of demographic trends provide traction in anticipating future developments. This article examines the evolution of Canada - United States defence and security relations. It turns out that demographic trends among allied countries are bolstering Canada's value as a U.S. ally in both a bilateral and a multilateral context. In fact, demographic trends imply that Ottawa will be able to expand ability to punch above its weight in Washington, thus making Canada and the United States even more co-dependent in asserting their defence and security interests.


Present study is based on the molecular characterization of seven microsporidian isolates primarily extracted from seven different Lepidopteran pests collected from important sericultural zones in and around Bangalore, Karnataka. The seven spore isolates viz., NIK-55Dp, NIK-57Sl, NIK-64So, NIK-60Pd, NIK-61Pp, NIK-63Ec and VIK-52Pr have been studied along with the Nosema type species-NIK-1s_mys. Molecular characterization using PCR based, small subunit ribosomal r RNA (SSU-rRNA) gene analysis was carried out in order to establish the spore identity and to derive phylogenetic relationships among the key isolates. The SSU-rRNA gene sequence homology was analysed using BLAST, which placed, six of our spore isolates in the genus of Nosema except spore isolate: VIK-52 Pr that was clustering along with the genus of Vairimorpha.


Estimation of influenza-like illness (ILI) using search trends activity was intended to supplement traditional surveillance systems, and was a motivation behind the development of Google Flu Trends (GFT). However, several studies have previously reported large errors in GFT estimates of ILI in the US. Following recent release of time-stamped surveillance data, which better reflects real-time operational scenarios, we reanalyzed GFT errors. Using three data sources—GFT: an archive of weekly ILI estimates from Google Flu Trends; ILIf: fully-observed ILI rates from ILINet; and, ILIp: ILI rates available in real-time based on partial reporting—five influenza seasons were analyzed and mean square errors (MSE) of GFT and ILIp as estimates of ILIf were computed. To correct GFT errors, a random forest regression model was built with ILI and GFT rates from the previous three weeks as predictors. An overall reduction in error of 44% was observed and the errors of the corrected GFT are lower than those of ILIp. An 80% reduction in error during 2012/13, when GFT had large errors, shows that extreme failures of GFT could have been avoided. Using autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models, one- to four-week ahead forecasts were generated with two separate data streams: ILIp alone, and with both ILIp and corrected GFT. At all forecast targets and seasons, and for all but two regions, inclusion of GFT lowered MSE. Results from two alternative error measures, mean absolute error and mean absolute proportional error, were largely consistent with results from MSE. Taken together these findings provide an error profile of GFT in the US, establish strong evidence for the adoption of search trends based 'nowcasts' in influenza forecast systems, and encourage reevaluation of the utility of this data source in diverse domains.


In 2017, over two billion Android devices developed by more than a thousand device manufacturers (DMs) around the world are actively in use. Historically, silicon vendors (SVs), DMs, and telecom carriers extended the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) platform source code and used the customized code in final production devices. Forking, on the other hand, makes it hard to accept upstream patches (e.g., security fixes). In order to reduce such software update costs, starting from Android v8.0, the new Vendor Test Suite (VTS) splits hardware-independent framework and hardware-dependent vendor implementation by using versioned, stable APIs (namely, vendor interface). Android v8.0 thus opens the possibility of a fast upgrade of the Android framework as long as the underlying vendor implementation passes VTS. This tutorial teaches how to develop, test, and certify a compatible Android vendor interface implementation running below the framework. We use an Android Virtual Device (AVD) emulating an Android smartphone device to implement a user-space device driver which uses formalized interfaces and RPCs, develop VTS tests for that component, execute the extended tests, and certify the extended vendor implementation.


Professional learning communities (PLCs) have been adopted and implemented in many schools as a strategy for ensuring teacher capacity building, job-embedded professional learning, improved teacher effectiveness, and data-driven decision-making for the selection and use of instructional strategies. The focus of this study was on the latter; decision-making regarding the selection and use of instructional strategies. This qualitative study investigated how teachers who are members of professional learning communities described their ability to utilize their decision-making skills in the selection and use of strategies to improve instruction. The study included individual interviews, observations, and artifact analysis. The site of the study was an elementary school (PreK-5) located in a suburban school district in which professional learning communities are utilized. Data were analyzed and compared to grounded principles from which informed conclusions were drawn. Findings from the several sources were compared to principles that support theories about organizational change and adult-learning. Not only did study participants report having the autonomy to make decisions about instruction, but they perceived PLCs as a great forum for ensuring that they made the best decisions. Every study participant valued the opportunity to meet on a regular basis to discuss their work with colleagues to improve instruction. It is the critical link between adult learning and student learning that professional learning communities capitalize upon. Both teacher learning and student learning must be supported for a school to thrive. Four themes emerged from this study; (a) shared personal practice, (b) the cyclical nature of improving student learning outcomes, (c) collaboration, and (d) teacher autonomy in the selection of instructional strategies. The dissertation underscores the need for leaders to understand concepts related to organizational change and adult learning. INDEX WORDS: Professional learning communities, Teacher decision-making, Educational leadership PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES AND TEACHER DECISION-MAKING


Despite recent therapeutic advances, most patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) experience disease recurrence, with very poor prognosis. Much work still needs to done to improve the treatment efficacy. The optimal management of patients with recurrent GBM is still controversial. This article summarizes the current status of therapeutic strategies in recurrent glioblastoma patients, with an emphasis on more novel approaches and important recent progress. The clinical evidence of current treatment strategies were collected and reviewed. Patients still need comprehensive treatment for recurrent GBM. Surgery may be useful as adjuvant treatment for patients with symptoms due to the effect of the mass or for patients requiring definitive histopathology, but it generally should be combined with another treatment modality; high-precision re-irradiation such as stereotactic radiosurgery or gamma knife is another option. Chemotherapy like fotemustine, or a metronomic schedule of temozolomide regimens and anti-angiogenic agents like bevacizumab could also be considered. Other targeted molecular inhibitors or anti-angiogenic therapies, and immunotherapies are still under investigation and their efficacy needs to be evaluated further in the future.


LESOTHO a b MOZAMBIQUE MOZAMBIQUE Drought is a normal part of southern Africa's climate and one of the most important natural disasters in southern Africa. In fact, it is becoming increasingly unusual for drought not to occur somewhere in southern Africa each year. The dependence of most southern African economies on rainfed agriculture emphasizes the importance of drought early warning products for shortand long-term decision making in various sectors of the national economies of the region. Following the 1991–92 drought, which ravaged more than 80% of southern Africa, many in southern Africa now realize the value of meteorological information in weather-sensitive decisions. Requests for advanced drought information have come to the drought monitoring center from a wide spectrum of users, including farmer groups, donor agencies, finance houses, politicians, economists, the media, and hydrologists. Information has been requested for precipitation predictions for periods ranging from ten days, to seasons (in the case of farmer organizations), to as long as four to five years (in the case of agricultural financing institutions). The creation of a regional drought monitoring center (DMC) in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1989 (the DMC opened in 1991) was long overdue, according to some farmers' representatives, nongovernmental organizations, universities, government departments, and other regional and international organizations. Many of these organizations have called for the enhancement of the DMC, including increases in manpower, more computer hardware and software, and applications-oriented research to enable the center to develop into a regional center of excellence in applied meteorology and to act as a regional climatological data archive and backup facility. Will all this awareness and support that the DMC has enjoyed live through nondrought years? Laing (1994) cautions about the possibility of apathy after a few years of good rains. Wilhite (1992) has also given similar warnings; these warnings need to be taken seriously by all those who have supported drought monitoring institutions in the past.


An outbreak of a novel coronavirus disease-19 (nCoV-19) infection began in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and now involved the whole word. Several health workers have been infected in different countries. We report the case of a young man with documented nCoV-19 infection evaluated with lung ultrasound and discuss potential applications of lung ultrasound in this setting. Lung ultrasound allowed the identification of nCoV-19 infection at bed-side. Moreover, lung ultrasound can have several other advantages, such as reduced health worker exposition to infected patients, repeatability during follow-up, low-costs and easier application in low-resource settings.


Anthropogenic threats to biodiversity in coastal heath ecosystems include direct habitat loss, fragmentation, and alterations to fire, nutrient and hydrological regimes. This study used two iconic taxa, Acacia baueri (vulnerable) and Blandfordia grandiflora (endangered) to investigate the impacts of fire and fragmentation on threatened herb layer species from the subtropical 'wallum' heathlands of southeast Queensland, Australia. A minimum of eight populations of each species were sampled from both fragmented and natural heathland zones to collect demographic, reproductive and fire history data. Genetic analysis was also undertaken using microsatellite markers to determine the population genetic structure of A. baueri. Population demographic, reproductive and genetic data were subsequently analysed for relationships with fire history and population isolation, and to determine any differences between fragmentation zones. To examine the influence of fire frequency, stage structured population viability analysis (PVA) models were constructed for each species to examine the potential outcomes of the following five fire management options; (1) Fire exclusion, (2) Wildfire only, (3) 3-yearly prescribed burn, (4) five-yearly prescribed burn, (5) 7-yearly prescribed burn. Fragmentation was found to have a pronounced effect on the demographic and reproductive characters of both species. For A. baueri, populations in the unfragmented zone were significantly larger (t=2.327, p 0.05) related to any demographic or reproductive characters for either species. Acacia baueri had low population level genetic diversity (A=1.64; %P=40), high levels of inbreeding (F=0.56) and low population differentiation (FST=0.177), with the majority of variation found within populations (FIS=0.470). Although 10 of the 12 private alleles were found in unfragmented zone populations, there were no other significant (p>0.05) differences among diversity and inbreeding measures between populations in either the unfragmented or fragmented zone. However, in accordance with the expectations of conservation genetic theory, significant positive relationships between increasing population size and genetic diversity (He, r=0.481, p<0.05; %P, r=0.479, p<0.05), and negative relationships between population isolation and diversity (Ap, r=-0.587, p<0.05), were apparent. Results of the PVA analysis indicated that both A. baueri and B. grandiflora benefit from a fire return frequency of 3-5 years which is substantially shorter than current management recommendations. PVA also predicted that longer fire intervals, the occurrence of only wildfires and fire exclusion would all lead to localised population extinction at relatively short time scales for both species (fire exclusion≈<20 years; 7-yearly fires≈20-40 years; wildfire only≈40-60 years). In terms of management implications, results from the fragmentation component of the study highlight the importance of conserving populations in protected areas, of maintaining larger populations and the need to maintain habitat connectivity and quality in the inter-remnant landscape. In the probable continued absence of natural fire regimes in the region, prescribed burning involving spatial and temporal variability (patch-mosaic-burning) may be an option to provide an equitable balance for both biodiversity maintenance and the persistence of more specialised threatened species. Overall, while habitat fragmentation appears to have had negative ecological and genetic consequences for the species, inappropriate burning regimes likely constitute the most immediate and prominent threat to the persistence of both A. baueri and B. grandiflora..; Submitted in the fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of the Sunshine Coast, 2012.


From the Introduction: I don't know what this is , which is a strange place from which to begin. This is unsettling, for as an academic I am trained and acculturated to displaying a certainty of manner — a certainty that many of my students and conference colleagues would attest I have down pat. It begins from Bristol. It begins from Alisa Lebow's presentation at the 2016 i–Docs conference about her interactive documentary Filming Revolution . It begins from what I was reading during my thirty hours of travel between Melbourne and Bristol. It begins from the question that gnawed and nagged at me after Alisa's keynote in Bristol. It begins in my body . Not much of an introduction, is it? This writing reintroduces hypertext as a specific and material way of making and performing knowledge and proposes it as a valuable precursor to interactive documentary and what I am describing as computational nonfiction. What I say here about hypertext, Filming Revolution as an interactive documentary, and story, are a prolegomena toward what computational nonfiction might be as a broader field that might encompass computers, technodigital practice, and networks. Oh, it was originally written as hypertext , and translating it into something more linear and sequential sees its looping rhythms, redundancies, and recursiveness become clumsy stutterings and repetitions.


Deep learning methods have resulted in significant performance improvements in several application domains and as such several software frameworks have been developed to facilitate their implementation. This paper presents a comparative study of four deep learning frameworks, namely Caffe, Neon, Theano, and Torch, on three aspects: extensibility, hardware utilization, and speed. The study is performed on several types of deep learning architectures and we evaluate the performance of the above frameworks when employed on a single machine for both (multi-threaded) CPU and GPU (Nvidia Titan X) settings. The speed performance metrics used here include the gradient computation time, which is important during the training phase of deep networks, and the forward time, which is important from the deployment perspective of trained networks. For convolutional networks, we also report how each of these frameworks support various convolutional algorithms and their corresponding performance. From our experiments, we observe that Theano and Torch are the most easily extensible frameworks. We observe that Torch is best suited for any deep architecture on CPU, followed by Theano. It also achieves the best performance on the GPU for large convolutional and fully connected networks, followed closely by Neon. Theano achieves the best performance on GPU for training and deployment of LSTM networks. Finally Caffe is the easiest for evaluating the performance of standard deep architectures.


Article history: Received July 28, 2013 Accepted 14 January 2014 Available online March 3 2014 This paper presents an empirical investigation to study different factors influencing auto parts in different regions of Iran. The study has asked some experts who worked for the biggest auto parts supplier named SaipaYadak to express their insights about important factors influencing demand for auto parts in different region and their insights have grouped into four categories of parts related issues, weather conditions, regional as well as cultural factors. The study has been applied in five different regions of country including central, south, north, west and east. The study has used analytical network process (ANP) to rank different factors and the results indicate that regional factors is the most important item followed by cultural issues, auto parts and weather conditions. © 2014 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.


Background Sjögren's syndrome occurs in isolation (primary Sjögren's syndrome, pSS), but it is also often secondary (sSS) to, and sometimes difficult to delineate from, other rheumatic diseases, in particular from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Consequently there is a need to investigate similarities and differences between SLE patients with (SLE-sSS) and without sSS (SLE-noSS). Objectives To investigate the occurrence of sSS in a large cohort of SLE patients and to explore clinical and laboratory characteristics associated with SLE-sSS as compared to SLE-noSS and controls. Methods We included 504 consecutive SLE patients and 322 population controls, individually matched for age and gender to the first patients. All patients fulfilled the 1982 revised ACR criteria for SLE. SLE-sSS was defined according to the American-European consensus criteria (AECC). Accordingly, subjective and objective quantifications of sicca symptoms were recorded on all subjects. All underwent a thorough clinical investigation. SLE-associated autoantibodies, (ANA screening by BioPlex 2200 system, Bio-Rad) and Rheumatoid factor (RF, Phadia Immunocap 250) were determined with standardized methods for all subjects, Routine laboratory workup and a panel of cytokines (MSD 30-plex cytokine assays, performed on samples from 433 consecutive SLE patients and 319 controls) were measured on fasting blood samples. Results SLE-sSS, as defined by AECC, occurred in 23% of the SLE patients. Compared to SLE-noSS the SLE-sSS group was older, both at inclusion (55 vs 43yrs, p<0.0001) and at disease onset (40 vs. 32 yrs p<0.0001), and with a greater number of females (96 vs. 83%, p=0.0007), higher occurrence of leucopenia (57 vs. 45%, p=0.02) and peripheral neuropathy (15 vs 7%, p=0.01). Nephritis was less common in SLE-sSS (32 vs 43%, p=0.03). Higher levels of total IgG, positivity for anti-SSA/Ro52, anti-SSA/Ro60, anti-SSB antibodies, RF IgM and RF IgA further characterized the SLE-sSS group. 20/30 investigated cytokines were detectable, of these 19/20 were higher in SLE than in controls. 6/20 cytokines (TNF-a, IL-6, MCP-4, MIP-1β, IL12/IL-23p40 and IP-10) were upregulated in SLE-sSS vs. SLE-noSS (see table for figures). Conclusions Through strictly applying the AECC criteria we report that the frequency of SLE-sSS increases with age and affects roughly ¼ of SLE patients. Nephritis was less common while leucopenia and peripheral neuropathy were more common among SLE-sSS patients. In addition to excess of well-known SS-associated autoantibodies we report higher levels of six pro-inflammatory cytokines in SLE-sSS as compared to SLE-noSS. These findings demonstrate that, though often regarded as a milder version of SLE, patients with SLE-sSS are characterized by a state of chronic systemic inflammation. Acknowledgements Susanna Eketjäll at Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases, Innovative Medicines and Early Development Biotech Unit, AstraZeneca, Integrated Cardio Metabolic Centre (ICMC), Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Sweden Disclosure of Interest None declared


There is rapidly growing interest in using Bayesian optimization to tune model and inference hyperparameters for machine learning algorithms that take a long time to run. For example, Spearmint is a popular software package for selecting the optimal number of layers and learning rate in neural networks. But given that there is uncertainty about which hyperparameters give the best predictive performance, and given that fitting a model for each choice of hyperparameters is costly, it is arguably wasteful to "throw away" all but the best result, as per Bayesian optimization. A related issue is the danger of overfitting the validation data when optimizing many hyperparameters. In this paper, we consider an alternative approach that uses more samples from the hyperparameter selection procedure to average over the uncertainty in model hyperparameters. The resulting approach, empirical Bayes for hyperparameter averaging (EB-Hyp) predicts held-out data better than Bayesian optimization in two experiments on latent Dirichlet allocation and deep latent Gaussian models. EB-Hyp suggests a simpler approach to evaluating and deploying machine learning algorithms that does not require a separate validation data set and hyperparameter selection procedure.


In this paper, knotted objects (RS vortices) in the theory of topological phase singularity in electromagnetic field have been investigated in details. By using the φ-mapping topological current theory proposed by Prof. Duan, we rewrite the topological current form of RS vortices and use this topological current we reveal that the Hopf invariant of RS vortices is just the sum of the linking and self-linking numbers of the knotted RS vortices. Furthermore, the conservation of the Hopf invariant in the splitting, the mergence and the intersection processes of knotted RS vortices is also discussed.


Distributed protocols executing in uncertain environments, like the Internet or ambient computing systems, should dynamically adapt to environment changes in order to preserve Quality of Service (QoS). In earlier work, it was shown that QoS adaptation should be dependable, if correctness of protocol properties is to be maintained. More recently, some ideas concerning specific strategies and methodologies for improving QoS adaptation have been proposed. In this article we describe Adaptare, a complete framework for dependable QoS adaptation. We assume that during its lifetime, a system alternates periods where its temporal behavior is well characterized, with transition periods during which a variation of the environment conditions occurs. Our method is based on the following: if the environment is generically characterized in analytical terms, and we can detect the alternation of these stable and transient phases, we can improve the effectiveness and dependability of QoS adaptation. To prove our point we provide detailed evaluation results of the proposed solutions. Our evaluation is based on synthetic data flows generated from probabilistic distributions, as well as on real data traces collected in various Internet-based environments. We compare our solution with other approaches and we show that Adaptare, albeit more complex, is very effective, allowing protocols to adapt to the available resources in a dependable way.


In each area of activity, an employer must face and deal with novelties concerning materials, technologies, equipment, know- how, IT applications and software, which help him/ her complete specific tasks. Also, companies are struggling to diversify their products, to adapt them to the market demands and to cope with competition. For this reason, companies need to invest, develop and update their technology, equipment and to train their employees. In clothing companies, there is a big variety of CAD systems which are used for the same purpose: the elaboration of the technical documentation. Under these circumstances, the employees must learn the new functions and tools specific to the new software in a very short time and solve their usual activities by using the new software, with accuracy and professionalism. This paper presents interactive lessons about how to teach/ learn different software (for clothing industry), suitable for all persons who are working in the design field and who are forced to adapt to new situations in their professional life. As these lessons contain comparative demonstrations, learners can understand how to select and use the commands for designing clothes or apparel products in a proper manner, and which are the correct sequences of commands used for doing the same task in the CAD systems taken into consideration. These e-learning lessons offer learners the possibility of achieving their goals by themselves or in small groups, according to their purpose or needs.


In the second half of the 1990s the enthusiasm for the potential of ICTs, or electronic media, to facilitate, or even to create, economic development in developing countries was buoyant. In a sense, ICTs were expected to create information flows which would no longer be limited by geographical boundaries. As a result, experts on rural development in developing countries claimed that, finally, people in rural areas in developing countries would have access to huge amounts of information. Those same experts also typically envisaged the advent of free flows of information, which would elude conventional restrictions on information flows imposed by nation-states concerned with the impact of such free information flows on government power. Governments, so it seemed, would no longer be capable of denying their citizens access to the large pools of information available through the Internet.

Amidst the enthusiasm for the "liberating potential" of ICTs, I decided to conduct in-depth research on the validity of the widely accepted premise that the influence of the political situation in a nation-state on the free flow of information was rapidly diminishing. The basic assumption of my research was that the value of the "democratic deficit" of a nation-state would be more decisive for the actual role of ICT in rural development than the intrinsic interactivity of ICTs. In order to test the basic assumption, I conducted field research in Indonesia (1998), Peru (1999) and Vietnam (1998). The qualitative research data suggested that the level of interactive use of ICT in rural development efforts appears, to a large extent, to be determined by the state of democracy in a nation-state. Unsurprisingly, the research data indicated that the value of the "democratic deficit" increased from Peru, through Indonesia, to Vietnam. At the same time, the level of interactivity of ICTs in rural development decreased in the opposite direction.

In this paper I will present the main results and conclusions of the research, which indicate that, despite the unique and acknowledged de-centralizing features of the Internet, governments continue to be capable of controlling information flows, either through political or economic restrictions on the use of ICT, or electronic media. Although this may not be a revolutionary finding, it is a conclusion which serves as a reminder that the way technology eventually contributes to rural development by and large is still determined by the nature of the socio-political and economic context of a given nation-state.


Through using the data of import and export trading of China's paper products in 2012, we utilize the method of volume source biomass equation and net primary productivity (NPP) to calculate the carbon reduction effect of papermaking raw materials trade, and utilize the method of IPCC guidelines for inventories to calculate the carbon emission effect of paper and paper products trade. The results show that the distinctive characteristics of China's paper products trade has resulted in the dual effects on the domestic carbon emissions. On the one hand, large imports of paper-making raw materials make China reduce domestic forest felling, with the effect of carbon emission reduction. On the other hand, net exports of paper and paper products increase the domestic carbon emissions, with the effect of carbon emission. The carbon emission reduction effect of China's paper-making raw materials trade is obvious and up to 19.0211 million tons. This is equal to the total volume of 180.5709 million cubic meters forest's annual carbon sequestration. The carbon emission effect of paper and paper products trade is only 0.5136 million tons, which is not significant compared with the former. In general, China's paper product trade causes the significant effect on carbon emission reduction.


Regulation of the radio spectrum is just over 100 years old – in the UK the first act of Parliament in this area was in 1904. For almost all that period, the regulator has managed the spectrum in a very direct "command & control" manner. As market economics have been more widely used across other areas of our economy there has been increasing interest in utilising a market in radio spectrum to deliver greater economic benefits. Actually achieving this has proven to be a slow, contentious and complex process. Various countries have played leading roles at different stages of the process, most recently the UK. This article looks at the reforms introduced in the UK in the last few years in the form of spectrum trading, spectrum usage rights, novel auction formats and the removal of political influences. It then asks whether the spectrum management journey is approaching its end and whether there are lessons that others can learn from the experience of the UK.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE
Regeneration of periodontal tissues by EMD remains a major challenge because a number of modifying factors are as yet unknown. The effects of EMD seem to be mediated, at least in part, by bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2). This in vitro study was performed to examine whether the effects of EMD on BMP-2 activity are modulated by inflammatory and/or biomechanical signals.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
  Periodontal ligament cells were seeded on BioFlex(®) plates and exposed to EMD under normal, inflammatory or biomechanical loading conditions for 1 and 6 d. In order to mimic proinflammatory or biomechanical loading conditions in vitro, cells were stimulated with interleukin-1β (IL-1β), which is increased at inflamed periodontal sites, and cyclic tensile strain of various magnitudes, respectively. The synthesis of BMP-2, its receptors (BMPR-1A, BMPR-1B and BMPR-2) and its inhibitors (follistatin, matrix gla protein and noggin) were analyzed using real-time RT-PCR and ELISA.

RESULTS
In EMD-treated cells, BMP-2 synthesis was increased significantly at 1 d. EMD also induced the expression of all BMP receptors, and of the BMP inhibitors follistatin and noggin. In general, IL-1β and biomechanical loading neither down-regulated BMP-2 nor up-regulated BMP inhibitors in EMD-stimulated cells. However, IL-1β and biomechanical loading, when applied for a longer time period, caused a down-regulation of EMD-induced BMP receptors.

CONCLUSION
EMD induces not only BMP-2, but also its receptors and inhibitors, in PDL cells. IL-1β and biomechanical forces may counteract the beneficial effects of EMD on BMP-2 activity via the down-regulation of BMP receptors.


Capillary-leak syndrome is strongly associated with cytokine activity states. It is an ill-recognized adverse effect of checkpoint inhibitors treatment, which are typically associated with cellular immune response. We describe two patients with capillary leak syndrome following immune checkpoint inhibitors treatment. We present linking mechanisms between checkpoint inhibitors, cellular immunity, cytokine action and endothelial damage. We suggest that capillary-leak syndrome is a unique adverse effect of immunotherapy, resulting from complex interactions between cellular and cytokine activation and that its expression is probably depending on inherent host immune variabilities.


Starving and grown cultures of the heterotrophic, marine isolate FL2 were exposed to a defined flow at a hydrodynamically smooth, sandy sediment-water interface with a partially homogeneous bottom shear stress pattern but localized high advective inflow. Since transport-determining properties like cell size, hydrophobicity, motility and exopolymer production all change during starvation, we compared the distribution of differently nourished cells and microspheres at the surface and in the sediment after 3 d of exposure. We found different sorting processes between particles and bacteria, and between starving and grown cells, calling into question the transfer of laboratory results from exponentially grown cultures to in situ conditions and generally the substitution of bacteria by particles in transport experiments. While microspheres were distributed according to the advective flow and only weakly retained by interactions with sediment particles, grown bacteria showed a spatially homogeneous distribution over the sediment surface. One suggestion is that active movement renders them independent of advective inflow once they have contact with the sediment. Starved cells, however, accumulated at the surface area of highest advective flow. They excreted exopolymers different from those in exponential phase, and, consequently, formed aggregates of up to 7 μm in diameter, which were then retained at the surface due to straining. If this accumulation turns out to be a widespread behaviour of copiotrophic bacteria, possible consequences-both ecological and also regarding pathogenic bacteria in coastal zones-have to be considered.


Power has become a major concern for mobile computing systems such as laptops and handholds, on which a significant fraction of software usage is interactive instead of computation-intensive. An analysis shows that over 90% of system energy and time is spent waiting for user input. Such idle periods provide vast opportunities for dynamic power management (DPM) and voltage scaling (DVS) techniques to reduce system energy. The user interface is in charge of system-user interaction. It often has a priori knowledge about how the user and system interact at a given moment. In this work, we propose to utilize such a priori knowledge and theories from the field of Psychology to predict user delays. We show that such delay predictions can be combined with DPM/DVS for aggressive power optimization. We verify the effectiveness of our methodologies using usage traces collected on a personal digital assistant (PDA) and a system power model based on accurate measurements. Experiments show that using predicted user delays for DPM/DVS achieves an average of 21.9% system energy reduction with little sacrifice in user productivity or satisfaction.


We develop a model in which firms set their salary levels before matching with workers. Wages fall relative to any competitive equilibrium while profits rise almost as much, implying little inefficiency. Furthermore, the best firms gain the most from the system while wages become compressed. We explore the performance of alternative institutions and discuss the recent antitrust case against the National Residency Matching Program in light of our results.


This article explores the effects of religious appeals by politicians on attitudes and behavior. Although politicians frequently make religious appeals, the effectiveness of these appeals and the mechanisms of persuasion are unknown. This article explores the possibility that religious language can affect political attitudes through implicit processes. Because religious attachments are formed early in the lives of many Americans, religious language may influence citizens without their awareness. Implicit and explicit attitudes are related but distinct constructs, and implicit attitudes may have behavioral implications in the political realm. I test these hypotheses experimentally, relying on a widely used implicit measure, the Implicit Association Test. I find that a Christian religious appeal affects implicit attitudes and political behavior among people who currently or previously identify as Christian. Furthermore, an explicit preference for less religion in politics does not moderate implicit effects.


China, Japan and South Korea are three big economies in Northeast Asia that are innegotiations for a trilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA). A concluded FTA among them willcreate world's third largest regional market that consists of of 1.52 billion people and thataccounts for 20% of world's GDP. However the economic cooperation between the threecountries has constantly been interrupted by political issues that root back in the history of thethree countries. In the history the three countries have developed enemy images of oneanother, which have restrained their interaction over the years and influenced their currentrelationship. This thesis uses the enmification theory to explain how these enemy images andenmity feelings have emerged in the history and what impacts they have on political issuesand the economic cooperation between the three. Examples on political issues that are broughtup in this thesis are the recent intensified territorial disputes over Diaoyu/Senkaku islands andDokdo/Takeshima islands.


Among the advantages of the sheets used in the car body, it can mention the high strength, low thickness and suitable ductility. crack and wrinkling of the sheet are the most common types of defects in the drawing process. Therefore, it seems necessary to know the process factors that affect the sheet metal forming behavior. One of the critical tools of simulation and subsequent process optimization is the finite element method. In this research, with the help of AutoForm software, finite element simulation of the process is performed. After designing the appropriate Taguchi experiment, the parameters affecting the outputs, including thickness strain and surface strain on the production part, are investigated, and optimal values are introduced. The known effective parameters on the process output include the forming limit diagram, sheet strength, friction coefficient, die balancers, and used sheet thickness.


HPLC methods for protein and peptide analysis are excellent in terms of resolution, selectivity and recovery. They are, however, complex procedures involving multiple parameters including instrumentation, columns and mobile phases that may lead to inter- or intra-laboratory deviations. The factors that contribute to differences in retention, selectivity and sensitivity are discussed, followed by suggestions for eliminating or compensating for the differences.


Objective To calculate the amount of treatment and associated travel experienced by five groups of patients treated at different centers. (This data is related to outcomes and patient/parent satisfaction in subsequent papers in this series). Design A longitudinal cohort study where results were previously reported at 9 years and follow-up measurements were obtained for 12 and 17 years. Setting Multidisciplinary cleft services in Northern Europe. Subjects 127 consecutively treated individuals with repaired unilateral complete cleft lip and palate. Main Outcome Measures Numbers of surgeries and outpatient visits, number of visits, and treatment duration for early orthopedics and orthodontic treatment, associated travel time and difficulties. Results The mean number of operations per center ranged from 3.5 to 6; length of orthodontic treatment from 3.3 to 8.5 years, and attendance from 49 to 94 visits; and for early orthopedics, 0 to 15 months of treatment, 0 to 17 visits, and 0 to 146 days in hospital. Conclusion Protocols for the management of complete unilateral cleft lip and palate can vary dramatically in the burden of treatment imposed.


"Carin Gerhardsen writes so vividly, like she is painting with words, gripping your heart and soul." (Peter James). Discover one of the best Scandinavian crime series since Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole. It's the call every officer dreads. Stockholm Criminal Investigator Conny Sjoberg finds a mother and her two young children lying peacefully in bed, their throats coldly and efficiently cut and no signs of a struggle. As Conny and his team get to work they draw a blank on both motive and suspect for these cruel, senseless murders. The only lead they have is a mysterious benefactor of the family - who eludes their every search. Distracted and hampered by the mysterious disappearance of one of their officers, Conny's squad struggles on - until an astonishing discovery turns the case upside down and threatens to tear his team apart...Praise for Carin Gerhardsen: "The pages turn themselves, right up to the startling final twist." (John Verdon). "Fast paced and addictive." (Barry Forshaw).


We present a direct-to-digital capacitive sensor readout circuit that converts capacitance changes of a sensor element to changes of the duty cycle of a square-wave oscillator, which, in turn, is converted to a digital output by a counter. The readout circuit resembles a single-slope analog-to-digital converter structure. There are several advantages of this readout scheme. First, due to its simplicity and low number of components, the power consumption of the circuit is expected to be significantly smaller than in similar digital readout designs. Furthermore, linearization of the output may be achieved using an EEPROM lookup table. Another advantage is the possibility of performing adaptive measurements where the sensor resolution and bandwidth may be changed via the readout circuit software. Finally, we present a theory of the adaptive measurement and an analysis of the design tradeoffs. The capacitance-to-duty cycle readout circuit may achieve large bandwidth and high resolution in a modern low-voltage, low-power CMOS implementation. The performance of a prototype readout circuit built from discrete components is 13-bit effective resolution with a 1-kHz bandwidth.


Objectives: Bleeding is an important problem in the surgical treatment of gynecomastia. The most implemented method to decrease the amount of bleeding is adrenaline infiltration, but adrenalin is mostly infiltrated with the fluid in the volume less than 250 cc in the clinic. It is expected that adrenaline will accumulate more in the tissue and thus, exhibit more bleeding-reducing effect by increasing the fluid volume used in the infiltration. In this study, the aim is to reveal the effect of increasing the amount of adrenaline in tissues by infiltrating a higher-volume solution without increasing the adrenaline concentration in patients who have received gynecomastia treatment by an open surgery on the postoperative blood loss and surgical complications in patients.
Materials and Methods: Patients who had undergone open gynecomastia surgery between 2011 and 2017 were retrospectively examined. Patients not subjected to infiltration were described as Group 1 (n:9), patients infiltrated with adrenalin 100 cc were described as Group 2 (n:13), and patients infiltrated with adrenalin 500 cc were described as Group 3 (n:23).
Results: The average decrease in the hemoglobin level (bleeding) after the operation was calculated to be 2.00±0.37 in Group 1, 1.5±0.4 in Group 2, 0.7±0.30 in Group 3 and the differences between groups were statistically significant (p<0.001).
Conclusion: The infiltration of adrenaline in the same concentration with a fluid of a higher volume decreases blood loss after the gynecomastia surgery operation.


Purpose

This paper interrogates the relationships between tacit knowledge (of professionals) and performance measurement regimes (of post-modern organizations). Drawing on Polanyi's (1958, 1968) ideas about tacit knowledge and Lyotard's (1984) theory of performativity with regard to criteria such as profit-performance the applicability and relevance of tacit, working knowledge in the internet age is assessed. The paper examines: the effects of context on knowledge management (KM); tacit knowledge and performativity around the production, validation and assessment of knowledge within organizations; KM and the mercantilization of knowledge and critical questions as to how performativity impacts tacit knowledge and KM in the digital era.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper deconstructs popular and fashionable narratives around tacit knowledge and KM to critically appraise approaches to knowledge construction and transfer in contemporary and commercial contexts. The study draws on various specific critical incidents in commercial practice to assess where (and why) things went wrong with KM practices in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and in more recent attempts at large scale corporate fraud.

Findings

KM should not trade exclusively in instrumentalized, performative knowledge. Tacit knowledge involves a sense of what is going on and this is not easily measured or codified. Experiential understanding of what is required when engaging with clients, colleagues, senior partners, other businesses (and cultures) and the political contexts in which employees work is central to tacit knowledge. So too are performance measures and reward systems and herein lies the "uneasy dynamic". The nature of any transfer of tacit knowledge is problematic, but such employee know-how remains critical to organizational performance and validating the use-value of knowledge for the purposes of KM.

Originality/value

Researchers have used the theories of Polanyi and Lyotard, but rarely combined them to investigate KM practices critically in post-modern organizations. By using the two theories, this paper critically examines the contemporary construction of tacit knowledge from perspectives that include the different discourses and localized practices through which it is produced and consumed.


This paper aims to show that the inefficiencies in the working of the Italian banking system can hinder that reallocation of the property rights as well as those processes of privatization which could allow an increase in the competitiveness of the Italian economic system in the European market characterized by EMU. I begin from an assessment of the strong regulation which was typical of the Italian credit market until ten years ago. I then analyze the consequences of the partial liberalization on the property rights allocation of the Italian banks. This analysis points out that the ownership structure of the Italian banking system and its internal linkages are one of the main reasons for its inefficient working. In the last three sections of the paper, I specify this conclusion by referring to the recent concentration processes between the Italian biggest banks as well as to the changes in the organization and in the financial supply of the regional and local banks.