The role of proprioceptive feedback on motor lateralization remains unclear. We asked whether motor lateralization is dependent on proprioceptive feedback by examining a rare case of proprioceptive deafferentation (GL). Motor lateralization is thought to arise from asymmetries in neural organization, particularly at the cortical level. For example, we have previously provided evidence that the left hemisphere mediates optimal motor control that allows execution of smooth and efficient arm trajectories, while the right hemisphere mediates impedance control that can achieve stable and accurate final arm postures. The role of proprioception in both of these processes has previously been demonstrated empirically, bringing into question whether loss of proprioception will disrupt lateralization of motor performance. In this study, we assessed whether the loss of online sensory information produces deficits in integrating specific control contributions from each hemisphere by using a reaching task to examine upper limb kinematics in GL and five age-matched controls. Behavioral findings revealed differential deficits in the control of the left and right hands in GL, and performance deficits in each of GL's hands compared to controls'. Computational simulations can explain the behavioral results as a disruption in the integration of postural and trajectory control mechanisms when no somatosensory information is available. This rare case of proprioceptive deafferentation provides insights into developing a more accurate understanding of handedness that emphasizes the role of proprioception in both predictive and feedback control mechanisms.


Inertial fusion energy research has enjoyed increased interest and funding. This has allowed expanded programs in target design, target fabrication, fusion chamber research, target injection and tracking, and accelerator research. The target design effort examines ways to minimize the beam power and energy and increase the allowable focal spot size while preserving target gain. Chamber research for heavy ion fusion emphasizes the use of thick liquid walls to serve as the coolant, breed tritium, and protect the structural wall from neutrons, photons, and other target products. Several small facilities are now operating to model fluid chamber dynamics. A facility to study target injection and tracking has been built and a second facility is being designed. Improved economics is an important goal of the accelerator research. The accelerator research is also directed toward the design of an Integrated Research Experiment (IRE). The IRE is being designed to accelerate ions to >100 MeV, enabling experiments in beam dynamics, focusing, and target physics. Activities leading to the IRE include ion source development and a High Current Experiment (HCX) designed to transport and accelerate a single beam of ions with a beam current of approximately 1 A, the initial current required for each beam of a fusion driver. In terms of theory, the program is developing a source-to-target numerical simulation capability. The goal of the entire program is to enable an informed decision about the promise of heavy ion fusion in about a decade.


Objective: This study evaluates the effectiveness of a center-based childcare program, namely, the stimulation, interaction, motivation, and experience (SIME) program for infants and toddlers. Method: Fifty-eight children between 1 and 2 years of age and their parents and childcare workers were recruited from two childcare centers in Hong Kong and participated in the SIME program over a 1-year period. Eighty-seven children from four other childcare centers served as controls. All children were grouped by age (1- vs. 2-year-old class). Results: The SIME program had positive effects on motor, language, cognitive and social development, parenting practices, and the quality of relationships with parents and childcare workers, especially for 1-year-old children and children from the center that served mainly families with a lower socioeconomic status (SES). Conclusion: The outcomes in 1-year-old children and children from the lower SES center confirm the success of this type of center-based infant–toddler program.


The algebraic and geometric classification of k-algbras, of dimension fouror less, was started by Gabriel in "Finite representation type is open" [12].
Several years later Mazzola continued in this direction with his paper "Thealgebraic and geometric classification of associative algebras of dimensionfive" [21]. The problem we attempt in this thesis, is to extend the resultsof Gabriel to the setting of super (or Z2-graded) algebras — our main effortsbeing devoted to the case of superalgebras of dimension four. Wegive an algebraic classification for superalgebras of dimension four withnon-trivial Z2-grading. By combining these results with Gabriel's we obtaina complete algebraic classification of four dimensional superalgebras.
This completes the classification of four dimensional Yetter-Drinfeld modulealgebras over Sweedler's Hopf algebra H4 given by Chen and Zhangin "Four dimensional Yetter-Drinfeld module algebras over H4" [9]. Thegeometric classification problem leads us to define a new variety, Salgn —the variety of n-dimensional superalgebras—and study some of its properties.
The geometry of Salgn is influenced by the geometry of the varietyAlgn yet it is also more complicated, an important difference being thatSalgn is disconnected. While we make significant progress on the geometricclassification of four dimensional superalgebras, it is not complete. Wediscover twenty irreducible components of Salg4 — however there couldbe up to two further irreducible components.


In order to make an accurate prediction of vehicle trajectory in a dynamic environment, a Unidirectional and Bidirectional LSTM (UB-LSTM) vehicle trajectory prediction model combined with behavior recognition is proposed, and then an acceleration trajectory optimization algorithm is proposed. Firstly, the interactive information with the surrounding vehicles is obtained by calculation, then the vehicle behavior recognition model is established by using LSTM, and the vehicle information is input into the behavior recognition model to identify vehicle behavior. Then, the trajectory prediction model is established based on Unidirectional and Bidirectional LSTM, and the identified vehicle behavior and the input information of the behavior recognition model are input into the trajectory prediction model to predict the horizontal and vertical speed and coordinates of the vehicle in the next 3 seconds. Experiments are carried out with NGSIM data sets, and the experimental results show that the mean square error (MSE) between the predicted trajectory and the actual trajectory obtained by this method is 0.124, which is 97.2% lower than that of the method that does not consider vehicle behavior and directly predicts the trajectory. The test loss is 0.000497, which is 95.68% lower than that without considering vehicle behavior. The predicted trajectory is obviously optimized, closer to the actual trajectory, and the performance is more stable.


What is "deconstruction"? Which authors are considered "postmodern novelists"? "The Critical Dictionary of Postmodern Thought" combines a series of 14 in-depth background chapters with a body of A-Z entries to create an authoritative guide to the complex world of postmodernism. Following full-length articles on postmodernism and philosophy, politics, feminism, lifestyles, television, and other postmodern essentials, readers will find a wide range of alphabetically-organized entries on the people, terms and theories connected with postmodernism, including: Peter Ackroyd; Jean Baudrillard; chaos theory; death of the author; desire; fractals; Michel Foucault; Frankfurt School; Generation X; minimalism; poststructuralism; retro; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; and trans-avant-garde. Students interested in any aspect of postmodernist thought should find this book a valuable resource.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the comparative effectiveness of a role-play strategy vs. traditional learning methods in the achievement of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners to gain proficiency in communication skills. This paper reports results of an investigation on the effects of a role-play strategy in enhancing EFL students' English communication skills when learning English as a foreign language. The current study took 2 months and used the English Achievement test and an observation timetable of communication skills with a sample of elementary school students in Saudi Arabia. The sample included 43 male pupils aged 10-13 years, at level five in an elementary government school in Al-Baha City.The results of the study show the existence of significant statistical variances between the pre- and posttest average scores of the EFL students who used role play for learning English skills, as well as those who did not use role play, hence learning English via traditional methods. The results favor the participants who used role play for learning the English language. The findings also show favorable variances for the experimental group while the pretest scores show no statistical variances among the EFL learners in the initial group and the other groups in their English skills achievement.Moreover, on the determination of the effectiveness of the role-play strategy on the improvement of the EFL learners' communication skills, the results note a significant difference between the control and experimental conditions in terms of improving communication skills such as confirmation, repetition, imitation, and responding to other people by giving them examples, which was not available for learners in the control group. On the other hand, the participants in the control group improved their communication skills in areas such as clarification, explanation, and making statements during the application of the role-play strategy compared to their peers in the experimental group.


Background We use our earlier experimental studies of the catalytic mechanism of DNA methyltransferases to prepare in silico a family of novel mechanism-based inhibitors of human Dnmt1. Highly specific inhibitors of DNA methylation can be used for analysis of human epigenome and for the creation of iPS cells. Results We describe a set of adenosyl-1-methyl-pyrimidin-2-one derivatives as novel mechanism-based inhibitors of mammalian DNA methyltransferase Dnmt1. The inhibitors have been designed to bind simultaneously in the active site and the cofactor site and thus act as transition-state analogues. Molecular dynamics studies showed that the lead compound can form between 6 to 9 binding interactions with Dnmt1. QM/MM analysis showed that the upon binding to Dnmt1 the inhibitor can form a covalent adduct with active site Cys1226 and thus act as a mechanism-based suicide-inhibitor. The inhibitor can target DNA-bond and DNA-free form of Dnmt1, however the suicide-inhibition step is more likely to happen when DNA is bound to Dnmt1. The validity of presented analysis is described in detail using 69 modifications in the lead compound structure. In total 18 of the presented 69 modifications can be used to prepare a family of highly specific inhibitors that can differentiate even between closely related enzymes such as Dnmt1 and Dnmt3a DNA methyltransferases. Conclusions Presented results can be used for preparation of some highly specific and potent inhibitors of mammalian DNA methylation with specific pharmacological properties.


This study presents an inventory of sediment source areas updated to 2016 of the Rio Cordon catchment, a small headwater basin located in the Eastern Italian Alps. The aim of the 2016 inventory was to update an old sediment source areas dataset dating back to 2006, built using LiDAR-derived geomorphometric parameters interpretation and field survey, in order to evaluate the geomorphic changes occurred in the last 10 years in the catchment. The new inventory wasrealized by means of an extensive field survey campaign conducted with a mobile GIS mounted on a rugged notebook integrating a GPS receiver. Pictures of individual or collective sediment source areas were also acquired in order to integrate the GIS dataset and to better define their current status of activity. The images were also used for a comparison with the images acquired in 2006 to identify the evolution or stabilization of each sediment source area. The identification and delimitation of large and/or unreachable areas was carried out in the office by interpreting aerial photo images (Bing satellite images and Web Map Services for AGEA 2009-2012 aerial photographs,compared with the old LiDAR-derived high resolution images used for the 2006 sediment source inventory). The comparison with the previous inventory shows that several old sediment sources resulted totally stabilized indicating a general decrease of erosion processes in the catchment. In contrast, some new sediment source areas were identified. They were mainly related to a very recent rock fall that took place in July 2016 in the Lastoni di Formin group and many new shallow landslides were found in the upper part of small Rio Cordon tributary where a small debris flow event occurred in 2012.


he high costs of experimental works on the nanocomposites can be reduced through implementation of analytical and numerical studies. To study the effect of impact energy on the nanocomposites, a nanocomposite composed of polyurethane and clay nanoparticles is selected as a case study. The finite element modeling is carried out using the ANSYS software, and the impact analysis is performed using LSDYNA. Three distinct regions: namely the polymer, the clay particles, and the interface are considered in the modeling. Subsequently, the effects of staggering factor, vertical distance between nanoparticles, aspect ratio, and volume fraction of clay nanoparticles on the reaction of the nanocomposite to the impact forces are investigated. The magnitude of the displacement of the specimen and the maximum force at the contact point are important parameters in impact analysis. In order to study the effect of structural parameters, two different impact velocities are considered, and for each 160 finite element modelings are performed. In each case, the effective parameters together with their limitations are considered. Different graphs are presented and analyzed for the effect of every structural parameter on the impact. The results of this study show that for a nanocomposite of aspect ratio equal 100, staggering factor of 0.5, and exfoliation factor of 0.51, the volume fraction of the clay nanoparticles is the range of 1.5 to 3 percent which can be considered optimum as far as the effect of impact forces are concerned. impact, nanocomposite,


ABSTRACT Cigarette smoke (CS)-induced accumulation of mitochondrial damage has been widely implicated in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) pathogenesis. Mitophagy plays a crucial role in eliminating damaged mitochondria, and is governed by the PINK1 (PTEN induced putative protein kinase 1)-PRKN (parkin RBR E3 ubiquitin protein ligase) pathway. Although both increased PINK1 and reduced PRKN have been implicated in COPD pathogenesis in association with mitophagy, there are conflicting reports for the role of mitophagy in COPD progression. To clarify the involvement of PRKN-regulated mitophagy in COPD pathogenesis, prkn knockout (KO) mouse models were used. To illuminate how PINK1 and PRKN regulate mitophagy in relation to CS-induced mitochondrial damage and cellular senescence, overexpression and knockdown experiments were performed in airway epithelial cells (AEC). In comparison to wild-type mice, prkn KO mice demonstrated enhanced airway wall thickening with emphysematous changes following CS exposure. AEC in CS-exposed prkn KO mice showed accumulation of damaged mitochondria and increased oxidative modifications accompanied by accelerated cellular senescence. In vitro experiments showed PRKN overexpression was sufficient to induce mitophagy during CSE exposure even in the setting of reduced PINK1 protein levels, resulting in attenuation of mitochondrial ROS production and cellular senescence. Conversely PINK1 overexpression failed to recover impaired mitophagy caused by PRKN knockdown, indicating that PRKN protein levels can be the rate-limiting factor in PINK1-PRKN-mediated mitophagy during CSE exposure. These results suggest that PRKN levels may play a pivotal role in COPD pathogenesis by regulating mitophagy, suggesting that PRKN induction could mitigate the progression of COPD. Abbreviations: AD: Alzheimer disease; AEC: airway epithelial cells; BALF: bronchoalveolar lavage fluid; AKT: AKT serine/threonine kinase; CALCOCO2/NDP52: calcium binding and coiled-coil domain 2; CDKN1A: cyclin dependent kinase inhibitor 1A; CDKN2A: cyclin dependent kinase inhibitor 2A; COPD: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; CS: cigarette smoke; CSE: CS extract; CXCL1: C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 1; CXCL8: C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 8; HBEC: human bronchial epithelial cells; 4-HNE: 4-hydroxynonenal; IL: interleukin; KO: knockout; LF: lung fibroblasts; LPS: lipopolysaccharide; MAP1LC3/LC3: microtubule associated protein 1 light chain 3; MTOR: mechanistic target of rapamycin kinase; 8-OHdG: 8-hydroxy-2ʹ-deoxyguanosine; OPTN: optineurin; PRKN: parkin RBR E3 ubiquitin protein ligase; PCD: programmed cell death; PFD: pirfenidone; PIK3C: phosphatidylinositol-4:5-bisphosphate 3-kinase catalytic subunit; PINK1: PTEN induced putative kinase 1; PTEN: phosphatase and tensin homolog; RA: rheumatoid arthritis; ROS: reactive oxygen species; SA-GLB1/β-Gal: senescence-associated-galactosidase, beta 1; SASP: senescence-associated secretory phenotype; SNP: single nucleotide polymorphism; TNF: tumor necrosis factor.


New approaches for organizing, purchasing, and financing health care services are rapidly emerging as viable alternatives to orthodox managed care. One of the more intriguing approaches, Self-Directed Health Plans (SDHPs), empowers consumers as the agents of change and decision making in the continuing quest for health system reform. Combined with a host of newly evolved Internet support utilities, SDHPs represent a highly advanced paradigm for health insurance. Most importantly, SDHPs promise to genuinely harness the power and dynamism of free-market solutions in ways that are financially and socially sustainable, and to pick up the innovation process where health maintenance organizations left off. Thus, with SDHPs surfaces new hope that the problems facing America's health care system are not intractable to private sector creativity.


Author(s): Curtis, Paul D.; Shultz, Jill; Braband, Lynn; Berchielli, Louis; Batcheller, Gordon | Abstract: Wildlife agencies face the complex, often difficult, challenge of managing nuisance wildlife complaints. State agencies are under increasing pressure to provide better training for individuals in the private sector who provide such services. In July 2002, New York State (NYS) passed a law that mandated both training and documented proficiency for all nuisance wildlife control operators (NWCOs) who charge a fee for service. A team of NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) staff was organized to produce a curriculum and certification exams. The goals were to enhance the skills and professionalism of both current NWCOs and new license applicants, while maintaining a diverse array of operators that could provide the many levels of service required by various publics. Additionally, the training manual was designed to be a reference for DEC and CCE staff and others who are interested in nuisance wildlife control. The central philosophy of the manual was integrated wildlife damage management (IWDM), referred to as "best practices" in the manual. A best practice was defined as an effective method for solving a nuisance wildlife problem that minimizes risks to the environment and promotes human safety and well-being. Development of the curriculum (both hard copy and electronic versions) and the associated electronic test bank involved extensive and comprehensive research, reviews, and pilot testing. The curriculum and licensing examinations have been implemented in NYS, and the curriculum has won three different awards from state wildlife, extension, and stakeholder associations. Currently, a NWCO curriculum for the eastern United States is being developed, and it will provide a comprehensive, science-based, peer-reviewed training that satisfies stakeholder-identified needs. This regional curriculum fills an important gap that would otherwise likely be addressed by each state individually. The credibility of the training manual and certification exam will likely prove beneficial to NWCOs as the public becomes aware of this new process. The emphasis on best practices and the responsible treatment of wildlife will also resonate with the public.


To study pathogenesis & morphological changes in various organs with clinicopathological co-relations of maternal death in rural areas of North Maharashtra. To compare maternal deaths of metropolitan cities with rural areas. To evaluate several factors which are responsible for maternal death in rural areas.This was a retrospective study of 122 maternal deaths tissue received for histopathological examination over a span of 5 years (January 2008-December 2012), in government Medical college Dhule. The tissue was received from Jalgaon, Nashik, Nandurbar and Dhule districts. Ten cases were excluded from present study due to improper fixation, partial organs & ill preserved specimens. Hence 112 cases of maternal deaths were studied.Out of 112 cases, 57 cases (50.89%) died due to direct obstetric cause, 58 cases (47.32%) died due to indirect causes and in 2 cases the cause was unknown. Anemia (27.67%), Pre-eclampsia/eclampsia (28%), were the main causes of death. In 10 cases vaso-oclussive crisis due to sickle cell anemia was responsible for death. Anemia is the main cause of death in rural places of North Maharashtra, while Pre eclampsia/eclampsia is the main cause in Metropolitans cities. Thus early marriage, lack of education, ignorance has led to unutilisation of antenatal care services.


Background Dental Practitioners are required to be competent in Basic Life Support and have the requisite knowledge and skills to manage common medical emergencies (GDC 2002) (Balmer and Longman 2012). Studies have shown that utilising simulation in training can have a positive effect on the learner's self-confidence and effectiveness allowing them to practice skills and enact scenarios in a safe, structured and supervised environment (Aggarwal et al, 2010). In September 2013, 16 dental students attended a District General Hospital to undertake a Human Disease elective. It was not always possible to observe medical emergencies in the week allocated to them. In order to meet the objectives specified by the Dental School, the students partcipated in a series of simulated exercises utilising an ALS and 3G (TM) manikins represent to represent the emergencies they may encounter in practice. Methodology The scenarios were based in a mock ward/dental surgery to simulate the environment in which the dentists would work. The following scenarios were undertaken: Retained throat swab/Laryngospasm Communication with a simualted patient unhappy with treatment Cardiac arrest (BLS) Each student "led" a scenario supported by peers. A debrief at the end of each scenario allowed for reflection and analysis - placing the scenario in context to dental practice. A questionnaire allowed for qualitative aspects of feedback and quantitative perception on the effectiveness of the day as expressed by a 5-point Likert scale. Outcomes 16 students participated in the evaluation. 100% felt that the study day had relevance to their work/training and gave them a better understanding of how to deal with medical emergencies. Conclusion The simulated medical emergency training was highly rated as an overall learning experience allowing students to gain an understanding of how to deal with common medical emergencies in a supportive environment conducive to building on prior knowledge. (Davies at al 2009). References Aggarwal R, Mytton OM, MacAulay C, Ziv A, Reznick R. Training for Patient Safety Quality and Safety in Healthcare 2010;19:34–43 Balmer MC, Longman LP. The Management of Medical Emergencies. The Role of the Dental Care Professional. Clinical Handbook of Dental and Hygiene Therapy; 2012. Oxford; Wiley-Blackwell Davies BR, Leung AN. Perceptions of a simulated general dental practice facility-reported experiences from past students at the Maurice Wohl General Dental Practice Centre 2001-2008. British Dental Journal 2009;207:371–376 General Dental Council (2002) The First Five Years: A Framework for Undergraduate Dental Education"


This commentary will consider how I have developed and applied a number of compositional techniques, particularly in the area of rhythm and pulse, which I situate in relationship to postminimalism. In chapter 1 I contextualise my
music by considering some manifestations of postminimalism, give the background to the development of my present aesthetic approach, and look at some definitions of postminimalism in order to clarify my own position in relation to both American and European (primarily Dutch) postminimal composition. In chapter 2 I examine the main aspects of my musical language, focussing on technical considerations in relation to the wider aesthetic context. In chapter 3, I will demonstrate how specific techniques, particularly rhythmic and permutational techniques, are applied in particular compositions, and how these techniques have developed over the last four years. Additionally, I consider how my work is informed by a social/political awareness, and how this has informed my choice of particular compositional
strategies.


The Klang River originates from the northern part of Selangor, drains the Klang Valley, and finally discharges itself into the Straits of Malacca, approximately 120 km away from the upstream point. As the state of Selangor and the city of Kuala Lumpur are going through tremendous development, the river is subjected to pollution from point and non-point sources. The pollution sources may come from urban activities, agricultural activities, industrial and commercial activities, and residential areas. In addition to this, the pollution loading from non-point sources is usually difficult to estimate because it is a function of rainfall/storm water runoff. The purpose of this research is to set-up a digitized model of the Klang Valley river basin to study the effect of development on the river basin by using computer modeling. In this paper, the used of GIS technique in determining the spatial variability in river basin has been explored. Based on the GIS technique, the DEM of the study basin was used to delineate the stream network and extract information of catchments characteristics. The locations of the point and non-point sources were surveyed and digitized spatially along the river basin. These are important as it will serve as a database before the water quality simulation can be performed. The developed model can also be extended to a larger basin. Field survey and further investigations would be helpful in calibrating the critical parameters and thus improving performance of the developed model.


In particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms there is a delicate balance to maintain between exploitation (local search) and exploration (global search). When facing multimodal functions, the standard PSO algorithm often converges to a local minimum quickly, missing better opportunities. Methods such as non-global best neighborhoods increase exploration, but at the expense of slowing the convergence of the whole PSO algorithm. In this paper, we propose a new method to extend PSO, velocity-based reinitialization (VBR). VBR is both simple to implement and effective at enhancing many different PSO algorithms from the literature. In VBR-PSO, the velocities of the particles are monitored throughout the evolution, and when the median velocity of the swarm particles has dropped below a threshold, the whole swarm is reinitialized. Through VBR, the problem of premature convergence is alleviated; VBR-PSO focuses on one minimum at a time. In our experiments, we apply VBR to the global-best, local best, and von Neumann neighborhood PSO algorithms. Results are presented using the standard benchmark functions from the PSO literature. VBR enhanced PSO yields improved results on the multimodal benchmark functions for all PSO algorithms investigated in this study.


Facilitating Educator Evaluation of Online Instructional Materials: Does Conceptual Browsing Impact Cognitive Processing? Kirsten Butcher University of Utah Robert Zheng University of Utah Anne Cook University of Utah Lisa Ferrara University of Utah Sarah Davies University of Utah Ashley Crockett Mazal University of Utah Aaron Dewald University of Utah Abstract: A key challenge for beginning educators is finding high-quality online materials that will support deep learning in their classrooms. Identifying and evaluating effective digital resources requires careful attention to the match between domain learning goals and the conceptual information contained in resources, but preservice teachers often lack strong prior knowledge that would facilitate such processing. Conceptual browsing interfaces may support deeper cognitive processing by providing a visual representation of the conceptual relationships between domain ideas and by providing a direct retrieval mechanism to find specific online resources related to key domain ideas. Using a combined think-aloud and eye-tracking study, we are examining the effects of conceptual browsing vs. keyword searching on the cognitive processes of preservice teachers performing educational tasks. In this poster, we summarize preliminary results and discuss how keyword search vs. conceptual browsing interfaces can impact the depth with which beginning educators process online information.


This study evaluated the potential utility of the Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS; Huebner, 1994) with a sample of 49 students in Grades 6 through 8 identified as seriously emotionally disturbed (SED) and a comparison sample of 49 matched non-SED students. The initial internal consistency reliabilities for the MSLSS domains suggested the need to modify the scale for use with middle school SED students. Following scale modifications, reliability estimates for SED students reached acceptable levels for research purposes on five of the six domains. The results also yielded promising, but tentative, support for the validity of the MSLSS when used with SED students. Subsequent comparisons of the mean ratings on the life satisfaction domains revealed that SED students reported lower levels of satisfaction with peer friendships than did their non-SED counterparts. Also, relationships between domain-specific and global life satisfaction judgments differed for the SED students, suggesting that SED students formulate their overall life satisfaction judgments differently than their non-SED peers. Limitations of the current study and implications for future research are discussed.


Motivation: The rapid growth in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in plants and animals has brought about the need for a central resource that facilitates i) performing GWAS, ii) accessing data and results of other GWAS, and iii) enabling all users regardless of their background to exploit the latest statistical techniques without having to manage complex software and computing resources.
Results: We present easyGWAS, a web platform that provides methods, tools and dynamic visualizations to perform and analyze GWAS. In addition, easyGWAS makes it simple to reproduce results of others, validate findings, and access larger sample sizes through merging of public datasets.
Availability: Detailed method and data descriptions as well as tutorials are available in the supplementary materials. easyGWAS is available at this http URL
Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com


A recent wave of corporate mergers and acquisitions has shaken the sleepy world of academic journal publishing. Despite being notoriously unprofitable as businesses, academic publishers have become profit centers, even attractive takeover targets. The reason for this altered perception is the realization that publishers have the potential to take full control of the published work, limit access to it via favorable copyright laws, and then charge whatever the traffic will bear. Meanwhile, academic libraries in their role as consumers of that work are caught in a squeeze between demand from their own consumers (faculty and students) and their static budgets. In recent years the cost of subscriptions to many academic journals has exploded upward, putting libraries in a bind. The annual Library Journal survey of periodical prices has documented increases ranging from under 10% (in the arts and architecture) to more than 85% (in military science) in the cost of institutional subscriptions from 1997 to 2001. For example, the cost of a "marketbasket" of 266 business and economics journal subscriptions has increased 51% in the same period (Born and Van Orsdel 2001). When prices get too high for individual subscribers, they simply cancel their subscriptions and expect their libraries to carry on. However, under the differential pricing strategy that is traditional in this business, libraries must pay a much higher institutional rate for the same product. For example, an individual would pay $180 for 12 issues of Psychology & Marketing, while the institutional subscription rate is $780. Libraries do not have the same freedom of choice that individual subscribers do. To meet the demands of their customers, libraries are forced to act as if they were price-insensitive; yet their tight funding situation dictates that they be highly price-sensitive. Thus libraries are truly a captive market. This is the temptation that leads journal publishers to abuse their differential pricing strategy and overcharge their institutional customers. Ordinarily, price insensitivity on the part of customers might reflect either a willingness to pay higher prices or a disinclination to take the trouble to find a lower price. Neither is true of college and university libraries today. As the universe of knowledge expands, academic libraries have some tough decisions to make. As more and more new titles appear, scholars and their libraries cannot afford to ignore them and the articles they contain. Yet the library must balance the need to add new journal titles each year with the need to continue old subscriptions. They must determine which format (print, microfilm, electronic) is most cost-effective and offers the most utility to the end user. This annual budget exercise has an impact not only on the library, but on the operation of the entire institution. Yet publishing houses and their corporate owners have made few concessions in pricing, despite the fact that libraries are their major market. At first blush, this might appear to be a shortsighted business strategy. But publishers, like libraries, are responding to pressures, as well as seeking opportunities. Mergers and acquisitions force publishing operations to become profit centers, and change the competitive landscape from day to day. The great cost of the research and development that has brought about the digital revolution must be paid. Searchable online database technology surely rivals the invention of the printing press as an epoch-making change, and no publisher can compete without offering it. Publishers have coupled their subscription pricing strategy with an online access strategy. Most libraries now offer their academic communities convenient access to hundreds of thousands of articles online, even when they don't own all of the journals represented. This is made possible by a vast web of relationships between individual journals, publishers, their corporate parents, and a new breed of firms called "aggregated database providers. …


This article explains the role of coercion in international mediation of violent conflict involving atrocity crimes from the parties' perspectives. It draws on coercion theory and expands the framework of atrocity mediation, examining the successful yet controversial African Union mediation in Kenya. Coercion theory aims to solve what this study reads as the agent-coercion problem in the international system: agents retain choice despite coercion by more powerful actors. The framework argues that conflict parties are rational, legitimate voluntary agents who always have choices. Strategy requires mediators to create ripeness using enticing mediation or settlement proposals. Then coercion's role would be to build consensus on peace offers, persuading reluctant parties that compromise is the better choice than resistance. Coercion infuses a sense of urgency in the parties' contemplation of the cost/benefit implications of their choices, accelerating decision-making. The study contributes to understanding the limits of power mediation in international relations.


GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) data is voluminous and highly interrelated, yet sparsely populated. This fact represents one of the biggest challenges when creating visualizations for such datasets: the data does not align well in a tabular structure typically used to populate displays and reports. GRC Platforms provide reporting capabilities and data visualization techniques to summarize data, yet most common GRC visualizations are restricted to certain inflexible perspectives, e.g., Risk Matrix. This work presents a Visual Analytics system that provides multiple visual perspectives over GRC data. The evaluation of the system involved four GRC specialists. The results show that the multiple perspectives approach supports the summarization of different portions of the GRC data, especially regarding business process and business entity taxonomies, and risk/control relationships. The results provide useful insights for specialists working to explore and summarize GRC data and to integrate Visual Analytics Systems with GRC platforms. In addition, the multiple-perspective approach presented could also be applied in systems sharing the same data structure GRP Platforms use.


The work carried out in this study has involved the preparation, characterisation and subsequent thermal degradation of homopolymers and copolymers with structures based on metal salts of acrylic acid. Four transition metal salt homopolymers of poly(acrylic acid) were prepared and characterised. The polymers were prepared by polymerisation of metal acrylate monomer and neutralisation of poly(acrylic acid) by the appropriate metal salt. The metals used were cobalt, nickel, copper and zinc. Three copolymers of acrylic acid with styrene and their zinc salts were also prepared. These copolymers contained 1.7%, 5.8% and 11.8% acrylic acid units. The second section of the work involved the thermal degradation of these polymers and copolymers. The thermal degradation experiments were carried out either by ramped programmed or isothermal heating in oxygen free environments. The techniques used to study the thermal degradation of the polymers were thermogravimetry (TG), differential thermal analysis (DTA) direct scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermal volatilistaion analysis (TVA), with fractionation of the products of degradation by sub-ambient TVA. Mechanisms of polymer degradation are discussed with respect to the degradation products obtained during TVA. The degradation products were identified by mass spectroscopy, gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy and fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy. The thermal degradation of transition metal salts of poly(acrylic acid) occurred by a free radical decomposition process. The thermal stability of the polyacrylates was affected by the particular metal involved. The metal polyacrylates followed the stability sequence Zn=Co>Ni>Cu. The polymers made by neutralisation of poly(acrylic acid) and those made by polymerisation of metal acrylate monomer exhibited similar thermal stability and degradation characteristics. The thermal degradation of the three copolymers of acrylic acid with styrene and the zinc salts of these copolymers occurred by a free radical mechanism. The thermal stability of the copolymers decreased with increasing acrylic acid content. The zinc salt copolymers showed a slight increase in thermal stability compared to the acid copolymer In isothermal heating experiments the rate of degradation of the acid copolymers was decreased by converting them to their zinc salts.


Dairy is a highly relevant segment of the Brazilian agribusiness economy. However, this segment has changed significantly after deregulation Thus, it is worthwhile to know what the changes are in the spatial integration of the market and in milk price formation at the farm level after deregulation. The methodology is a modification of Gonzalez-Rivera & Helfand (2001), which is compounded in extension of the market, pattern of integration, and degree of integration. The extension of the market is determined through the measure of self-sufficiency index, unit root test, and Johansen test. The last one is focused on the searching for a common trend between the time series. The pattern of interdependence is studied using the Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). Lastly, the degree of integration is measured by the impulse response functions derived from the Bernanke decomposition. As a result, we found that the milk market in Brazil is composed by Goias, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Parana, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and Sao Paulo. We also discovered that these markets have small speed of adjustment to shocks and there is no leader in milk price formation.


Objectives Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major public health problem in southwestern China. Our aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of HCV infection and its correlates in the Yi population of this region. Methods A community-based survey was conducted to investigate sociodemographic characteristics and other associated factors for HCV infection in a rural area of southwestern China. Blood samples were collected and tested for antibodies to HCV. Anti-HCV positive samples were further assessed for HCV RNA. Results A total of 2558 participants aged ≥14 years were included in our analysis. Of them, 2.8% (95% CI 2.2% to 3.5%) were positive for HCV antibody. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that sex (male vs female: adjusted OR (aOR)=3.30, 95% CI 1.80 to 6.07), marital status (unmarried vs married: aOR=0.27, 95% CI 0.09 to 0.80), ever using injection drug (aOR=28.65, 95% CI 15.9 to 51.64) and ever having blood transfusion (aOR=7.64, 95% CI 1.94 to 30.16) were significantly associated with HCV infection (indicated by positive HCV antibody). Stratified analysis by HIV infection found that in HIV-negative individuals, sex (male vs female: aOR=3.84, 95% CI 1.88 to 7.85), ever using injection drug (aOR=22.15, 95% CI 8.45 to 58.04), having multiple sexual partners (aOR=2.57, 95% CI 1.26 to 5.23), and ever having blood transfusion (aOR=16.54, 95% CI 4.44 to 61.58) were significantly associated with HCV infection and in HIV-positive individuals, ever using injection drug (aOR=8.96, 95% CI 3.16 to 25.38) was associated with HCV infection. Conclusion The data suggested a higher risk of HCV infection in this area when compared with the rest of China and some unique associated factors. Rapid scale-up of targeted interventions are needed to prevent further transmission and consequent morbidities.


To study the role of nuclear regulatory proteins in mediating dietary effects, hepatic CCAAT/enhancer binding protein (C/EBP), mRNA and transcription rate were measured for C/EBP-alpha and C/EBP-beta in nutritional states that profoundly alter energy metabolism and growth. Weanling male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed riboflavin-sufficient (R+) or deficient (R-) diets for 4 wk. A diet-restricted, pair-fed (RP) group was maintained concurrently, because riboflavin-deficient rats voluntarily decrease food consumption by approximately 50% compared with controls. Half of each group was deprived of food for 48 h. The 4-wk treatment altered hepatic levels of both proteins (P < 0.05). C/EBP-alpha protein levels were increased -twofold by diet restriction. C/ EBP-beta protein levels were increased nearly threefold by riboflavin deficiency. Starvation had no significant effect on the expression of either protein. We investigated the mechanism responsible for increased protein by measuring steady-state mRNA levels and transcription rates for C/EBP-alpha and C/EBP-beta. In both isoforms, increases in mRNA were parallel to increases in transcription rates. The nutrient-induced changes in protein, mRNA and transcription rates could not be attributed only to alterations in serum glucagon or insulin concentrations. We conclude that 1) C/EBP-alpha and C/EBP-beta expression responds to diet but may involve different dietary signals for diet restriction vs. riboflavin deficiency; 2) the dietary regulation of C/EBP-alpha and C/EBP-beta expression seems to be controlled in part at the level of gene transcription; and 3) C/EBP-alpha and C/EBP-beta nuclear proteins, by virtue of their increased quantities, may participate in regulating altered energy metabolism and growth by influencing hepatic transcription of key metabolic enzymes.


Glucose-induced insulin secretion is enhanced by a preceeding glucose stimulus. The characteristics of this action of glucose were investigated in perfused pancreas and collagenase-isolated islets of Langerhans. A 20- to 30-min pulse of 27.7 mM glucose enhanced both the first and second phase of insulin release in response to a second glucose stimulus by 76-201%. This enhancement was apparent as an augmented maximal insulin release response to glucose. The effect of priming with glucose was seen irrespective of whether the pancreatic tissue was obtained from fed or fasted rats. Separating the two pulses of hexose by a 60-min time interval of exposure to 3.3 mM glucose did not abolish the potentiation of the second pulse. Omission of Ca(++) as well as the inclusion of somatostatin or mannoheptulose during the first pulse abolished insulin secretion during this time period; however, only the inclusion of mannoheptulose deleted the potentiation of the second pulse. d-Glyceraldehyde, but not pyruvate, d-galactose, or 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine, could substitute for glucose in inducing potentiation. In islets labeled with [2-(3)H]adenine, the [(3)H]cyclic AMP response to glucose was increased by 35% when measured after 1 min, but was increased only marginally after 2-10 min of stimulation with a second pulse of glucose. The production of (3)H(2)O from glucose was not affected by glucose priming. It is concluded that (a) the induction of the glucose-induced, time-dependent potentiation described here is dependent on glucose metabolism but not on stimulation of cyclic AMP, calcium fluxes, or insulin release per se; (b) the mechanisms that mediate the pancreatic "memory" for glucose are unknown but do not seem to involve to a major extent an increased activity of the adenylate cyclase-cyclic AMP system of the beta-cell; (c) the evidence presented supports the hypothesis of a dual role of glucose for insulin release.


This paper presents the design, modeling and experimental verification of a novel reconfigurable/tunable dual band/dual mode ferrite composite right/left handed CPW coupled-line coupler. The composite right/left handed configuration has been realized by loading coupled CPW transmission lines with series inter-digital capacitors and shunt segment inductors. The coupler performance has been verified using the equivalent circuit model, electromagnetic full wave simulations and experimental measurements. The coupler operates on dual mode in that it has dual bands of operation with two different propagation mechanisms. The first band has only a reciprocal backward coupling whereas the second band has only nonreciprocal through propagation. The non-reciprocity isolation in the second band is better than average of 15 dB. Compared to conventional single band single mode coupled line coupler of length = 0.25 λg, the proposed novel dual band dual mode coupler length is almost the same (0.265 λg) at 4.5 GHz. Furthermore, the dual mode/dual band coupler can have tunable functionality.


Technology scaling has enabled drastic growth in the computational and storage capacity of integrated circuits (ICs). This constant growth drives an increasing demand for high-bandwidth communication between and within ICs. In this dissertation we focus on low-power solutions that address this demand. We divide communication links into three subcategories depending on the communication distance. Each category has a different set of challenges and requirements and is affected by CMOS technology scaling in a different manner. We start with short-range chip-to-chip links for board-level communication. Next we will discuss board-to-board links, which demand a longer communication range. Finally on-chip links with communication ranges of a few millimeters are discussed. Electrical signaling is a natural choice for chip-to-chip communication due to efficient integration and low cost. IO data rates have increased to the point where electrical signaling is now limited by the channel bandwidth. In order to achieve multi-Gb/s data rates, complex designs that equalize the channel are necessary. In addition, a high level of parallelism is central to sustaining bandwidth growth. Decision feedback equalization (DFE) is one of the most commonly employed techniques to overcome the limited bandwidth problem of the electrical channels. A linear and low-power summer is the central block of a DFE. Conventional approaches employ current-mode techniques to implement the summer, which require high power consumption. In order to achieve low-power operation we propose performing the summation in the charge domain. This approach enables a low-power and compact realization of the DFE as well as crosstalk cancellation. A prototype receiver was fabricated in 45nm SOI CMOS to validate the functionality of the proposed technique and was tested over channels with different levels of loss and coupling. Measurement results show that the receiver can equalize channels with maximum 21dB loss while consuming about 7.5mW from a 1.2V supply. We also introduce a compact, low-power transmitter employing passive equalization. The efficacy of the proposed technique is demonstrated through implementation of a prototype in 65nm CMOS. The design achieves up to 20Gb/s data rate while consuming less than 10mW. An alternative to electrical signaling is to employ optical signaling for chip-to-chip interconnections, which offers low channel loss and cross-talk while providing high communication bandwidth. In this work we demonstrate the possibility of building compact and low-power optical receivers. A novel RC front-end is proposed that combines dynamic offset modulation and double-sampling techniques to eliminate the need for a short time constant at the input of the receiver. Unlike conventional designs, this receiver does not require a high-gain stage that runs at the data rate, making it suitable for low-power implementations. In addition, it allows time-division multiplexing to support very high data rates. A prototype was implemented in 65nm CMOS and achieved up to 24Gb/s with less than 0.4pJ/b power efficiency per channel. As the proposed design mainly employs digital blocks, it benefits greatly from technology scaling in terms of power and area saving. As the technology scales, the number of transistors on the chip grows. This necessitates a corresponding increase in the bandwidth of the on-chip wires. In this dissertation, we take a close look at wire scaling and investigate its effect on wire performance metrics. We explore a novel on-chip communication link based on a double-sampling architecture and dynamic offset modulation technique that enables low power consumption and high data rates while achieving high bandwidth density in 28nm CMOS technology. The functionality of the link is demonstrated using different length minimum-pitch on-chip wires. Measurement results show that the link achieves up to 20Gb/s of data rate (12.5Gb/s/$\mu$m) with better than 136fJ/b of power efficiency.


Automatic evaluation of Machine Translation (MT) quality has been investigated over several decades. Spoken Language Translation (SLT), esp. when simultaneous, needs to consider additional criteria and does not have a standard evaluation procedure and a widely used toolkit. To fill the gap, we develop SLTev, an open-source tool for assessing SLT in a comprehensive way. SLTev reports the quality, latency, and stability of an SLT candidate output based on the time-stamped transcript and reference translation into a target language. For quality, we rely on sacreBLEU which provides MT evaluation measures such as chrF or BLEU. For latency, we propose two new scoring techniques. For stability, we extend the previously defined measures with a normalized Flicker in our work. We also propose a new averaging of older measures. A preliminary version of SLTev was used in the IWSLT 2020 shared task. Moreover, a growing collection of test datasets directly accessible by SLTev are provided for system evaluation comparable across papers.


Graphene based composites and blends are potential candidates for fast and highly dense energy storage devices such as supercapacitors. Here is reported the preparation of highly corrugated graphene (CG) thin films onto plastic sheets of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) through thermal treatment using hydroiodic acid (HI) as the reducing agent. These films can be used as electrode materials for supercapacitors without the need for binders or metal current collectors. The films show a specific gravimetric capacitance of 170 F g−1 at 0.125 A g−1 and retains over 81% of their initial capacitance after 10 000 repeating cycles of charging/discharging. When the CG film is prepared in the presence of polyaniline (PANI), the resultant composite electrode (CG–PANI) presents a high specific gravimetric capacitance of 1041 F g−1, over 6 times greater than CG electrodes. Further, a symmetrical solid-state supercapacitor with CG–PANI electrodes is assembled by using a polyvinyl alcohol/sulfuric acid (PVA/H2SO4) gel electrolyte that shows an impressive volumetric energy density of 3.1 mW h cm−3 while maintaining a volumetric power density of 73.9 mW cm−3. This simple and costless effective preparation method of CG and its polyaniline composite can open up exciting opportunities for supercapacitor applications.


A survey of farm operators in the Northern Plains Region was conducted to gather information about on-farm storage and truck markets. The objective of the study is to provide information about farm truck grain marketing patterns in the Northern Plains. There is no other source for this information. It should be complementary to other farm-to-market information and national commodity flow publications. Farmers may use the results for their own investment and productivity assessments. Local and regional planners and policy makers can use the information in calibrating travel demand and freight flow models for investment and asset management choices.


This paper examines publicly listed Chilean firms' performance during the 2008–09 crisis. In particular, it studies the effects from changes in external financing conditions, aggregate demand, and international trade on firms' investment, sales, and profits, using firm-specific characteristics measured prior to the crisis. The evidence suggests that the crisis had a larger negative impact on firms with greater reliance on external financing, and firms with higher sensitivity to aggregate demand and exports. Firms with more foreign currency debt also had larger declines in sales, although their investment or profits did not differ significantly from other firms.


Orthodontic appliances in the oral cavity may cause problems such as white spot lesions, dental plaque, periodontal disease and root resorption. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between orthodontic treatment and oral health parameters including visible dental plaque, gingival recession and white spot lesions (WSLs). A total of 170 patients (86 females, 84 males) were randomly selected to determine visible dental plaque, gingival recession and white spot lesions by using pre-treatment and post-treatment oral photographs. Except of previously extracted teeth, maxillary and mandibular incisors, canine, 1st and 2nd premolars and 1st molar were evaluated. There was a significant difference between the T0 (before treatment) and T1 (after treatment) groups in visible plaque (P< 0.001). The distribution of gingival recession frequencies according to Miller classification before treatment did not differ from the after treatment (P=.082). A statistically significant increase in the severity of WSL was detected between the two time points (P< 0.001). Males have been shown to have higher WSL incidence after treatment. In conclusion, the present study showed that visible dental plaque and white spot lesions significant increase after orthodontic treatment. Considering the relationship between oral health and orthodontic treatment, clinicians and patients should know the risks and take precautions.


Background: Intra muscular (IM) injection is a painful rout for drug administration. Acupressure or Shiatsu is a method for decreasing pain and anxiety. In this clinical trial study, the effectiveness of acupressure in reduction of IM injection pain was assessed in patients referring to Emergency Center No. 1 in Kashan city. Materials and Methods: It was a single blind cross over clinical trial in which the patients with two injections of the same drug were compared. One injection was followed by application of acupressure and the other without it. The numerical visual analogue scale from 0 to 10 was used for pain measurement. Results: The average pain score was 5 without acupressure and 3 with it (p Conclusion: It seems that acupressure can effectively reduce the pain induced by IM injections.


This paper reviews the WTO beef dispute between Canada and Korea against the background of the stalled bilateral negotiations towards a free trade agreement, the free trade agreement that Korea has signed with the United States, and importantly the resumption of Korean beef imports from the United States and the Korean public reaction thereto. The paper argues that, given the deep integration of North American beef production and the essentially identical nature of the Canadian and US cattle herds, farming practices and regulatory systems, once Korea opened up its beef market to imports from the United States pursuant to the US-Korea FTA (including beef and beef products from Canadian feeder cattle if they are fed in the United States for 100 days prior to slaughter), there were no plausible grounds to maintain the ban on imports directly from Canada. The WTO panel is likely to reach the same conclusion. The same reality of a deeply integrated North American beef production system and the similarity of the Canadian and US products means that the economic impacts of the ban on Korean beef production are relatively muted: by far the closest substitute in the Korean beef market for Canadian beef would be the imports from other countries, most notably the United States. Accordingly, there are not likely to be tangible benefits for Korea either on human health grounds or in terms of protection for its beef sector in maintaining the ban.


ABSTRACT The existence of newspaper becomes one of the elements that can change the society's role in development, especially in agriculture and rural areas. Radar Bogor is a local newspaper that becomes the reference of information sources forthe community of Bogor. The purposes of the study were to analyze the characteristics of the readers, factors of the characteristics of the readers that have a relationship with the readers' perception and influence of the readers' perception on the elements of the development news in Radar Bogor Newspaper toward their behavioral changes. The sample selection method used in the study was Multiple Stage Sampling. The samples included 99 readers. The data analysis was carried out using the descriptive correlational analysis and SEM. The readers' perception on the elements of development news has an influence on the changes of the readers' behavior. Differences of influence on cognitive and affective changes occur because of the way readers obtain the newspaper. Changes in cognitive aspect based on the readers' perception on the elements of the development news in Radar Bogor Newspaper are relatively stronger than their affective changes. Keywords: development news, newspapers, perception, readers' behaviors, the elements of the development news


ionn from empirical evidence, in the form of statistical relationships , can provide explanationss for differences and similarities in national housing systems . Oxley'ss ontological persuasio n is easil y abstracte d from these explicit comments . He maintainss a flat or experiential view of housing reality, which only exists in terms of actual , measurabl ee events. His emphasi s upon hypothesi s testing, observable , measure d event s and thee search for statistical regularity, places his approac h squarel y rest s in the positivist camp. Beyondd this view of observabl e reality, other housing researcher s stres the existence of structuress of housing provision (Ball, 1986,1988, Ball and Harloe, 1992); critique the presenc ee of a dominant constructivist ideology (Kemeny, 1983,1992, Winter, 1994); or searchh for underlying causal mechanisms of difference and change in housing systems (Dickens,, Duncan, Goodwi n and Grey, 1985, Basset and Short , 1980). Positivism,, which seeks universal laws deduced from observable , measurabl e and quantifiabl e events,, can be juxtaposed against the anti-naturalist , subject-orientate d perspectiv e of interpretivism.. This approac h to social science has evolved to provide an alternative definition off not only scientific practice but also social reality. This perspectiv e maintains that reality is definedd by meanings given by its inhabitants , rather than the objective, independen t researcher . . Farr from the deductive, predictabl e and observabl e world defined by positivism, interpretivist ss draw upon the hidden meanings underlying social action, which are defined by thee social actors themselves . Social reality is therefor e multiple and subjective, rather than singularl yy defined by the exper t observer . The behaviour of social actors is influenced by the unobservabl ee meanings they ascribe to their reality. Interpretivist ss try to understan d social reality through the everyday explanations , common sensee and attributions employed by social actors. Unlike the natural realm, it is possibl e for thee social scientist to engage with their subject through spoken language and/or interpret their historicall account s of social life. For the interpretivist social scientist , these communication s mayy reveal explanations for social phenomena . They analyse language and attribution and employy data of a qualitative and unobservabl e quality. Thee difference between these and other approache s stems from their 'world view' or ontology.. This has a profound influence upon the theory of what is real, the logic of the researc hh process , the selected researc h strategy, and ultimatel y the results obtained. 2.2.22 The Problems with Positivist and the Potential of Constructivist Approaches Onee can perceive positivism and interpretivism as lying at opposit e ends of the ontological spectrum.. Like any polarised positions they are liable to critique from the middle field. Thee argument s against the use of positivist-naturalis t doctrine in social science are strong and numerous .. Karl Popper made many of these argument s in the 1960s and 1970s. They have beenn rehearse d many times since the dominance of modernist social science between the 1930ss and 1960s. Popper' s argument s are outlined once agai n below, this time drawing upon Blaikie'ss contemporar y interpretation (1993:17-21) .


Motivation: For primary and metastatic liver cancer patients undergoing liver resection, a laparoscopic approach can reduce recovery times and morbidity while offering equivalent curative results; however, only about 10% of tumours reside in anatomical locations that are currently accessible for laparoscopic resection. Augmenting laparoscopic video with registered vascular anatomical models from pre-procedure imaging could support using laparoscopy in a wider population. Segmentation of liver tissue on laparoscopic video supports the robust registration of anatomical liver models by filtering out false anatomical correspondences between pre-procedure and intra-procedure images. In this paper, we present a convolutional neural network (CNN) approach to liver segmentation in laparoscopic liver procedure videos. Method: We defined a CNN architecture comprising fully-convolutional deep residual networks with multi-resolution loss functions. The CNN was trained in a leave-one-patient-out cross-validation on 2050 video frames from 6 liver resections and 7 laparoscopic staging procedures, and evaluated using the Dice score. Results: The CNN yielded segmentations with Dice scores ≥0.95 for the majority of images; however, the inter-patient variability in median Dice score was substantial. Four failure modes were identified from low scoring segmentations: minimal visible liver tissue, inter-patient variability in liver appearance, automatic exposure correction, and pathological liver tissue that mimics non-liver tissue appearance. Conclusion: CNNs offer a feasible approach for accurately segmenting liver from other anatomy on laparoscopic video, but additional data or computational advances are necessary to address challenges due to the high inter-patient variability in liver appearance.


Effective health promotion among African American women requires knowledge and understanding of cultural influences and practices. This scoping review focused on rest, related concepts, and cultural perspectives and practices. We found a lack of conceptual distinction between fatigue and sleep and limited research on cultural meanings and practices of rest.


Abstract Based on spontaneous descriptions of their primary objects, ten African American mothers whose children had been returned to their care from kinship care, and ten African American mothers whose children remained in kinship care, were rated using the Concept of the Object Scale. That instrument identifies 14 personal variables that are rated on a seven-point scale. Although the findings revealed no significant statistical differences between the two groups of mothers, mothers whose children had been returned to their care had higher and more positive mean scores than mothers whose children had not been returned.


This study examines the cultural and social experiences of international students using data collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews, as part of case studies designed for this purpose. The participants in this study are all full-time international students (n=30), undertaking their educational qualifications at higher education institutions/providers in Sydney, Australia, and coming from Asia, Middle East and Far Eastern countries. As part of the case studies, the individual and personal transitional pathways/journeys of the students are sketched through a four-phase progressive cycle extending from an initial algorithmic/jumbled state, characterised by a crisis situation following the feelings of excitement and high expectations, moving into an experimental phase, characterised by continued culture shock and possibly denial. The student then goes into a transitional phase, characterised by making partial accommodation and adjustments; and, finally, gets into a new algorithmic state, characterised by routinisation, relative stability, acceptance of the new state, settlement and finding of coping mechanisms to handle the new order. Furthermore, the current study considers the way the geographical and social-emotional factors experienced shape the student's individual experiences, self-concept, capacity to cope with life's new challenges and level of satisfaction with the overall experience of studying overseas.


KATZ, ELANA R. Explorations in the Domestic Space: How Hollywood Made a Home in Film Melodrama This thesis utilizes the Hollywood domestic melodramas and sex comedies of the 1950s as a lens to discover the evolution of family and home from Eisenhower's America to modern day. As a mode of expression with roots in nineteenth-century theater, melodrama serves as a primary genre for tracking historical and social shifts in twentieth-century American society. However, as the narrative form has evolved over time, what satisfies melodrama is difficult to define as its boundaries have been redrawn. Historians and film scholars examine melodrama through three overarching schools of thought: melodrama as a genre, a mode, or both. Film melodrama is best illustrated by the 1950s domestic melodramas such as Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Written on the Wind (1956) as well as Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Each of these films focuses on the family and gives the mise en scène, everything that is in front of the camera, tremendous weight, a characteristic indicative of film melodrama. While drama and excess is integral to these domestic melodramas, melodrama as a mode can be created from any narrative genre, including comedy. Such comedies include the Doris Day and Rock Hudson sex comedies of the late 50s and early 60s, most notably Pillow Talk (1959). Pillow Talk illustrates the centrality of the couple and utilizes the will-they-or-wont-they narrative to illustrate separate, gendered, and extravagant homes, similar to the domestic melodramas. A necessary comparison arises between the domestic melodramas and sex comedies that contain plots driven by aesthetically potent surroundings. Thus, the architecture of Explorations in the Domestic Space iii the home is essential, filling in the gaps left by dialog and actors and serving as the foundation for future films about the home. Lastly, the dramas and comedies of the late 50s and early 60s laid the foundation for contemporary filmmakers during the independent period to explore the home. Films such as Ryan Murphy's Running with Scissors (2006), Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale (2005), and Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right (2010) focus on the domestic space and the pivotal role a home plays in the creation of a family. These contemporary films illustrate a challenge to heteronormative suburban dwelling that was indicative of 1950s middle-class life. Ultimately, as indicated by these contemporary films, it is clear that as the American family has evolved, so too have the spaces they occupy. Explorations in the Domestic Space iv


Ontario, Canada's cap and trade program, a provincial tool for carbon regulation, came into effect January 1, 2017. While larger companies are targeted from this policy, both large and small companies have a responsibility to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Craft brewing in Ontario is growing, however industry GHGs have not been comprehensively studied. The purpose of this research is to measure the GHGs of an Ontario craft brewery, investigate the challenges and benefits to calculating GHGs, and evaluate Ontario craft brewers' perceptions of carbon pricing policy. This research found that indirect sources account for the majority of GHGs, particularly from barley agriculture, malted barley transportation, and bottle production. Direct emissions account for the least GHGs. This research found that the main challenges in calculating Ontario brewery GHGs are secondary data availability, technical knowledge, and finances. The main benefits for breweries include sustainability marketing, and preserving the environment.


We have studied the interaction of Pt(533) with varying coverages of water and varying coverages of pre-adsorbed deuterium under ultra high vacuum conditions. We use temperature programmed desorption and reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy techniques to study the properties of these layers. Results show that deuterium's preference to adsorb at step edges nulls the step-induced stabilization of water through an electronic effect. However, deuterium atoms at step edges do not block adsorption sites for water and water still wets the entire (111) terrace. With increasing deuterium coverage on terraces, formation of smaller, less ordered water structures replaces formation of hexamer ring structures. Near deuterium saturation, water preferentially forms 3-dimensional amorphous solid water (ASW) clusters at the steps. The typical phase transition of ASW to crystalline ice is observed in these clusters. Although exchange of Dad with H2O occurs both at steps and terraces and is dependent on both surface coverages, the preference of water molecules to cluster at the step sites on the hydrophobic, deuterium-saturated Pt(533) surface biases exchange toward steps.


In February 2012, the College of Engineering created the Strategic Instructional Initiatives Program (SIIP) to transform and revitalize the core engineering courses at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As SIIP has evolved, we have learned that in order to achieve these goals, we must first focus on creating collaborative teaching cultures. This effort has sparked the rapid spread of Research-Based Instructional Strategies across the college and created a thriving community of faculty invested in improving undergraduate instruction. In this paper, we describe the current policies and procedures that we use to direct SIIP. In particular, we will focus on the structure of the leadership team and how we have fostered deep collaborations among faculty developers, education researchers, and engineering faculty. We conclude by presenting an evaluation of the program.Copyright © 2015 by ASME


This article aims to discuss the Brazilian short film Ashes in the Pantanal (2021), lasting 3 minutes and 21 seconds, in its aesthetic devices, and bets on its constitution as an emancipated filmic work. The work depicts the great fires that occurred in the Pantanal in 2020. The film by filmmaker Mariana Marques and animated by Tiago Franco, produced in stop motion, used scenarios and characters made in origami by artist Elder Alves, requiring more than 350 team working hours. The short film was financed with funds from the Aldir Blanc Law, with the mediation of the Municipal Department of Culture and Tourism (Sectur) and the Municipality of Campo Grande - Mato Grosso do Sul. This work is linked to the research Cine childhood: critical perspectives of cinema – education, UEMS (State University of Mato Grosso do Sul), and the study and research group GECCAE (Group of Critical Studies in Culture, Art and Education). The theoretical contribution of film analysis undertaken here is linked to Critical Theory theorists, especially Adorno (2003), Adorno and Horkheimer (1985), Horkheimer (1939), Benjamin (1994), Fraser and Jaeggi (2020) and cinema, Tarkovski (1998), Vanoye; Goliot-Lété (1994). The choice of the film Cinzas do Pantanal is due to the strong appeal that the production presents to the preservation of this rich Brazilian biome that suffers year after year with fires during the drought period. The film analysis will permeate both the audiovisual techniques used and the socio-environmental and educational issues related to the theme.


In this work we analyze the main batch resolution algorithms. We particularly focus on the tree-based class to underline how their efficiency depends on the batch size. In fact, batch size is a critical parameter when using smart resolution strategies that take advantage this information to improve resolution efficiency. The dissertation will continue with the analysis of noteworthy techniques available in literature for the batch size estimate: in fact, original papers pay attention on the resolution process and leave the estimate problem in the background. Finally we propose and analyze GEGA, an estimate algorithm particularly good in terms of estimate accuracy over time taken by the estimate process.


This paper presents a fluid-structure interaction simulation applicable for evaluating and optimizing hydraulic valve designs. A special emphasis is placed on shim stack valve commonly used in automotive and railway shock absorbers. For simplicity, the problem was effectively reduced to a two-dimensional (2D) problem. This was accomplished by introducing section-lines along which the pressure profile was computed to find and evaluate the global minimum. The global minimum was then treated as the design ranking measure. This ranking function provided a means to choose an optimal design from a set of available design variants. In the presented results, the ranking is problem-specific as it identifies and localizes low pressure zones that are the root causes of both aeration and cavitation effects. The damping force performance was experimentally evaluated for both the baseline and optimized valve design using a shock absorber level test on a servo-hydraulic test rig.


Aim. The saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica L.) is the last hoofed mammal surviving in the Russian steppe which is on the verge of extinction today. The aim of this article is to assess the current state of the saiga in Russia, determine the causes of the reduction in its population and area and to develop recommendations for the conservation of this species. Methods. The material, presented in the paper, is the result of the analysis of the available literature sources on the Saiga, personal observations on the animals in the period of 1959-2015 in nature and various nurseries, including the Center for rare animals of European steppes founded in 2004. Results. The article highlights the issues of population dynamics in Saiga distributions in the last century, the reasons for the reduction in its amount, the measures taken for the protection of this species and its present condition. We consider specific measures for Saiga conservation in the modern world. We also take into account the experience of the Association "Wildlife of the Steppe", where they have developed the biotechnology of breeding Saiga in nurseries, zoos and farms. And for many years this association has been home for self-reproducing groupings of this animal. Main conclusions. Currently, Saiga antelope in Russia is an endangered species, and conservation requires the state and public to take serious urgent measures to protect and restore the population, including breeding in artificial conditions and release into the wild.


Mitochondrial genes are part of the oxidative phosphorylation pathway and important for energy production. Although evidence for positive selection at the mitochondrial level exists, few studies have investigated the link between amino acid changes and phenotype. Here we test the hypothesis that differences in two life-history related traits, migratory distance between spawning and foraging areas and larval phase duration, are associated with divergent selection within the mitochondrial ATP6 gene in anguillid eels. We compare amino acid changes among 18 species with the sequence of the putative ancestral species, believed to have shown short migratory distance and larval phase duration. We find positive correlations between both life-history related traits and (i) the number of amino acid changes and (ii) the strength of the combined physico-chemical and structural changes at positions previously identified as candidates for positive selection. This supports a link between genotype and phenotype driven by positive selection at ATP6.


Importance Venous thromboembolism (VTE), comprising deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE), is a common and potentially fatal disease. Objective To summarize the advances in diagnosis and treatment of VTE of the past 5 years. Evidence Review A systematic search was conducted in EMBASE Classic, EMBASE, Ovid MEDLINE, and other nonindexed citations using broad terms for diagnosis and treatment of VTE to find systematic reviews and meta-analyses, randomized trials, and prospective cohort studies published between January 1, 2013, and July 31, 2018. The 10th edition of the American College of Chest Physicians Antithrombotic Therapy Guidelines was screened to identify additional studies. Screening of titles, abstracts, and, subsequently, full-text articles was performed in duplicate, as well as data extraction and risk-of-bias assessment of the included articles. Findings Thirty-two articles were included in this review. The application of an age-adjusted D-dimer threshold in patients with suspected PE has increased the number of patients in whom imaging can be withheld. The Pulmonary Embolism Rule-Out Criteria safely exclude PE when the pretest probability is low. The introduction of direct oral anticoagulants has allowed for a simplified treatment of VTE with a lower risk of bleeding regardless of etiology or extent of the VTE (except for massive PE) and has made extended secondary prevention more acceptable. Thrombolysis is best reserved for patients with massive PE or those with DVT and threatened limb loss. Insertion of inferior vena cava filters should be avoided unless anticoagulation is absolutely contraindicated in patients with recent acute VTE. Graduated compression stockings are no longer recommended to treat DVT but may be used when acute or chronic symptoms are present. Anticoagulation may no longer be indicated for patients with isolated distal DVT at low risk of recurrence. Conclusions and Relevance Over the past 5 years, substantial progress has been made in VTE management, allowing for diagnostic and therapeutic strategies tailored to individual patient characteristics, preferences, and values.


Domain adaptation aims at generalizing a high-performance learner on a target domain via utilizing the knowledge distilled from a source domain which has a different but related data distribution. One solution to domain adaptation is to learn domain invariant feature representations while the learned representations should also be discriminative in prediction. To learn such representations, domain adaptation frameworks usually include a domain invariant representation learning approach to measure and reduce the domain discrepancy, as well as a discriminator for classification. Inspired by Wasserstein GAN, in this paper we propose a novel approach to learn domain invariant feature representations, namely Wasserstein Distance Guided Representation Learning (WDGRL). WDGRL utilizes a neural network, denoted by the domain critic, to estimate empirical Wasserstein distance between the source and target samples and optimizes the feature extractor network to minimize the estimated Wasserstein distance in an adversarial manner. The theoretical advantages of Wasserstein distance for domain adaptation lie in its gradient property and promising generalization bound. Empirical studies on common sentiment and image classification adaptation datasets demonstrate that our proposed WDGRL outperforms the state-of-the-art domain invariant representation learning approaches.


This paper demonstrates the use of recyclable waste products such as typical empty metal beverage cans available in the market for the protection of civil engineering structures from an explosive load. The sacrificial cladding structure was made of empty recyclable beverage cans and sandwich composite skin plates. To measure the protection efficiency of these structures large-scale air blast experiments have been conducted. To create a perfect plane shock wave the concept of shock tube was used using concrete sewage pipes. The experimental and numerical crushing performance of the empty beverage cans is studied in detail. Finally, this study concludes that the waste empty metal cans can be considered as a potential member to protect civil engineering structures from the air blast load.


Taste and diet preferences are complex and influenced by both environmental and host traits while affecting both food selection and associated health outcomes. The present study genotyped 94 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in previously reported taste and food intake related genes and assessed associations with taste threshold (TT) and preferred intensity (PT) of sweet, sour and bitter, food preferences, habitual diet intake, and caries status in healthy young Swedish men and women (n = 127). Polymorphisms in the GNAT3, SLC2A4, TAS1R1 and TAS1R2 genes were associated with variation in TT and PT for sweet taste as well as sweet food intake. Increasing PT for sweet was associated with increasing preference and intake of sugary foods. Similarly, increasing TT for sour was associated with increasing intake of sour foods, whereas the associations between food preference/intake and TT/PT for bitter was weak in this study group. Finally, allelic variation in the GNAT3, SLC2A2, SLC2A4, TAS1R1 and TAS1R2 genes was associated with caries status, whereas TT, PT and food preferences were not. It was concluded that variations in taste receptor, glucose transporter and gustducin encoding genes are related to taste perception, food preference and intake as well as the sugar-dependent caries disease.


Anders Heldal (1811–1897) has been regarded as the foremost fiddle maker in Western Norway in the 19th century. He had a large production of Hardanger fiddles and has been considered a continuator of the fiddles made by Isak Botnen (1669–1759). In addition, he repaired and rigged fiddles for many of the leading musicians and violinists of the time. In connection with repairs, he often assembled parts from various instruments, used parts from older instruments in his own fiddles or made new parts for older fiddles, without this being stated on the repair note. To try to describe what characterizes Heldal's Hardanger fiddle production, I have reviewed and examined a larger selection of fiddles that were either signed by Heldal or were considered Heldal fiddles in connection with the Hardanger fiddle project in 1990s. I have measured and examined the size and shape of his fiddles, described important aspects of the construction of the fiddles, as well as identified and classified key decorative elements. On this basis, I have tried to find out and describe to which extent his fiddles continued the 18th century Hardanger fiddle types from Western Norway and especially Isak Botnen's fiddles. Finally, I have discussed what place Anders Heldal deserves in the historical development of the Hardanger fiddle in the 19th century.
My conclusion is that Anders Heldal in several areas represents a clear continuation of the Hardanger fiddles made by Isak Botnen. Heldal's fiddles are most similiar to Isak Botnen's fiddles in the decor, especially when it comes to the fiddle head, the lines on the edges, the use of a center rose on the top, and the design of the fingerboard and string holder. If, on the other hand, we look at the size, shape and construction, the fiddles made by Johannes Bårdsen Tveit (1786–1847) have as much in common with Isak Botnen's fiddles as Heldal's instruments.


This study compares the air content of freshly mixed and hardened concretes. At the fresh stage, pressure meters (Types A and B) and a volumetric meter were used to determine the air content. At the hardened staEe, the air content was calculated using the linear traverse method described in ASTM C 457, which is a microscopical procedure. The unit weight and compressive strength of the concretes were also determined. The results show that, at the ranges commonly used in the construction of pavements and brid•es, the air content of fresh concrete measured by pressure meters and that determined by the microscopical method for essentially the same concrete after hardening are, for practical purposes, the same. The air content obtained by a volumetric meter as normally run in the field is generally lower than that obtained for the same hardened concretes by the microscopical method. The unit weight and compressive strength correlate well with the air content. It was also shown that adding water to concrete can significantly increase the air content, as well as the slump. Thus, a higher air content in hardened concretes than that indicated by initial measurements with a pressure meter is likely to be present if water is. added during placement.


We present a new method for calculating CMB anisotropies in a non-flat Friedmann universe, relying on a very stable algorithm for the calculation of hyperspherical Bessel functions, that can be pushed to arbitrary precision levels. We also introduce a new approximation scheme which gradually takes over in the flat space limit and leads to significant reductions of the computation time. Our method is implemented in the Boltzmann code class. It can be used to benchmark the accuracy of the camb code in curved space, which is found to match expectations. For default precision settings, corresponding to 0.1% for scalar temperature spectra and 0.2% for scalar polarisation spectra, our code is two to three times faster, depending on curvature. We also simplify the temperature and polarisation source terms significantly, so the different contributions to the Cℓ 's are easy to identify inside the code.


Investigating the length scales of granules could help understand the dynamics of granules in the photosphere. In this work, we detected and identified granules in an active region near disk center observed at wavelength of TiO (7057 Å) by the 1.6 m Goode Solar Telescope (GST). By a detailed analysis of the size distribution and flatness of granules, we found a critical size that divides the granules in motions into two regimes: convection and turbulence. The length scales of granules with sizes larger than 600 km follow Gauss function and demonstrate "flat" in flatness, which reveal that these granules are dominated by convection. Those with sizes smaller than 600 km follow power-law function and behave power-law tendency in flatness, which indicate that the small granules are dominated by turbulence. Hence, for the granules in active regions, they are originally convective in large length scale, and directly become turbulent once their sizes turn to small, likely below the critical size of 600 km. Comparing with the granules in quiet regions, they evolve with the absence of the mixing motions of convection and turbulence. Such a difference is probably caused by the interaction between fluid motions and strong magnetic fields in active regions. The strong magnetic fields make high magnetic pressure which creates pressure walls and slows down the evolution of convective granules. Such walls cause convective granules extending to smaller sizes on one hand, and cause wide intergranular lanes on the other hand. The small granules isolated in such wide intergranular lanes are continually sheared, rotated by strong downflows in surroundings and hereby become turbulent.


The alkaline hydrolysis of (3S,5R,6R)-methyl benzylpenicilloate, and the corresponding carboxamide and N-ethylamide, is accompanied by an absorbance increase at 285 nm. This is attributed to a competing elimination reaction across C6–C5 to open the thiazolidine ring and reversibly generate an enamine intermediate. Kinetic analysis and hydrolysis in D2O do not indicate a significant build-up of this intermediate during hydrolysis of the methyl ester. However, over the pH range 4–11 the rate of thiazolidine ring opening is competitive with hydrolysis of the ester function. The deuterium solvent kinetic isotope effect on the ring closure reaction is 7.5.


A narrow-band process is conveniently characterized in terms of a complex envelope whose magnitude is the envelope, and whose angle is the phase variation of the actual narrow-band process. When the narrow-band process is normally distributed, the complex envelope has the properties of a complex normally distributed process. This paper investigates the approach to the complex normally distributed form of the complex envelope of the output of a narrow-band filter when the input is wide-band non-Gaussian noise of a certain class, and the bandwidth of the narrow-band filter approaches zero. The non-Gaussian input consists of a train of pulses having identical waveshapes, but random amplitudes and phases. While the derivations assume statistical independence between pulses, it is shown that the results are valid for a certain interesting class of dependent pulses. The Central Limit Theorem is proved in the multidimensional case for the output process.


This study aims to develop a score equating application for computer-based school exams using parallel test kits that have 25% anchor items, the items are arranged according to the HOTS (High Order Thinking Skill) category and use a scientific approach according to the characteristics of physics lessons. So that the questions are made using stimulus, options, logical and systematic. The research method used is Research and Development (R&D), which begins with an analysis of the current needs of schools and takes advantage of technological developments so that it makes it easier for schools to organize, and then continued in the literature study to design a school exam model with its devices. Items as instruments for school exams were analyzed using the RASCH model. The principle of equating used in application development is the linear equating method.


Pond IDE: Machine Level Program Development Environment and Register Transfer Level Simulator for a Massively Parallel Computer Architecture Jesse J. Muszynski Supervising Professor: Dr. Dorin Patru As computing architectures are being implemented in late and post silicon technologies, fault tolerance and concurrent operation are becoming increasingly important. It is already common knowledge that manufacturers are putting two, four or even more cores on a single silicon die to improve computing performance. The proposed architecture far exceeds this number by grouping thousands or even millions of simple reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processors, each of which is capable of a single operation at a time, and to communicate with its eight nearest neighbors. In this architecture, if a single core or cluster of cores have defects at the time of manufacture, or later in the life of the system, it is possible to test and disable them as necessary. A fine-grained architecture of this kind calls for a parallel programming style. One approach to this problem is the use of a parallelizing compiler. Another approach may be to use one of the several application programming interfaces (APIs) available for standard text based programming languages, with some built-in features for parallel programming. This work has generated a solution for creating machine level parallel programs for the massively parallel computer architecture described above using text and graphical means. To support this programming method, an integrated development environment (IDE) and a zero communication latency, register transfer level (RTL) simulator have been developed. Experimental results include the implementation of fundamental data processing algorithms and complex functions.


The development of clinical prediction models requires the selection of suitable predictor variables. Techniques to perform objective Bayesian variable selection in the linear model are well developed and have been extended to the generalized linear model setting as well as to the Cox proportional hazards model. Here, we consider discrete time‐to‐event data with competing risks and propose methodology to develop a clinical prediction model for the daily risk of acquiring a ventilator‐associated pneumonia (VAP) attributed to P. aeruginosa (PA) in intensive care units. The competing events for a PA VAP are extubation, death, and VAP due to other bacteria. Baseline variables are potentially important to predict the outcome at the start of ventilation, but may lose some of their predictive power after a certain time. Therefore, we use a landmark approach for dynamic Bayesian variable selection where the set of relevant predictors depends on the time already spent at risk. We finally determine the direct impact of a variable on each competing event through cause‐specific variable selection.


The time of pupal ecdysis in Manduca sexta can be accurately predicted by the appearance of external markers late in pupal development. Eclosion hormone injections resulted in premature ecdysis of staged pharate pupae. The latency between injection and initiation of ecdysis movements was inversely correlated with dosage and served as the basis for a sensitive, rapid, and quantitative bioassay for the hormone.

Behavioural responsiveness to the hormone arose about 8 h before normal ecdysis at 23 °C. When insects were injected at these early times the larval cuticle was not sufficiently digested to allow its rupture and these animals remained permanently trapped inside the larval cuticle.

Measurement of eclosion hormone in the blood of pharate pupae showed the appearance of biological activity in the blood about 30 min before the onset of ecdysis.

It is concluded that pupal ecdysis is under endocrine control and that the hormone involved is likely to be the eclosion hormone.


In this response I compare Rebecca Tuvel's article, "In Defense of Transracialism," to several other recent examples of philosophical and social justice scholarship in which authors (Eli Clare, Alexandre Baril, Cressida Heyes, Ladelle McWhorter, Judith Butler) draw comparisons between diverse identities and oppressions, and draw ethical and political conclusions about experiences that are not necessarily their own. I ask what methodological or authorial differences can explain the dramatically different reception of these works compared to Tuvel's, and whether these differences in reception were justified. In this response I also challenge the often-heard claim that Tuvel failed to draw on the evidence of experience in her article, as well as the assumption that social justice scholars should always do so. Finally, I consider Tuvel's motivations in writing her article and describe them as intellectually generous, and I call for more intellectual generosity in academia as it is transformed by social media.