Vermifiltration systems are wastewater treatment systems that rely upon earthworms (worms herein) to produce a self-sustaining vermicompost filter from wastewater solids. The vermicompost filter produced by the worms removes wastewater solids, oxygenates the wastewater, adsorbs many wastewater constituents and improves the quality of the wastewater. Vermifiltration systems have low energy requirements and appropriately performing systems can provide high levels of wastewater treatment with no odour.

The toxicity and risk of household wastewater to vermifiltration systems is a critical area of research because the application of vermifiltration systems is expanding. However, there were no studies found in the literature on how to assess and manage the risk of household wastewater to vermifiltration systems. The assessment and management of wastewater toxicity and risk to vermifiltration systems is important because without an adequate understanding of the risk from household wastewater, the toxicity caused by different household wastewater constituents to the vermifiltration systems, and in particular the worms in the systems, may lead to system failure. Moreover, by understanding the risk that wastewater constituents pose to vermifiltration systems, the risk can be managed through appropriate procedures.

This research was conducted to assess the toxicity and risk of household wastewater to the vermifiltration process and provide suitable management options which reduce the risk of household wastewater toxicity. The study contained four major research phases. In sequential order they were:

1. A household product survey that identified common toxic household product ingredients for toxicity testing;
2. A series of toxicity tests on the toxicity and risk of common toxic ingredients that may accumulate in the vermifiltration process;
3. A series of toxicity tests on the toxicity and risk of common toxic ingredients in the influent of household wastewater to the vermifiltration process; and
4. A series of toxicity tests using the most toxic household products (and ingredients) in full scale systems.

The study concluded by providing management procedures to reduce the risk from toxic household products to vermifiltration systems.

The household product survey was the first phase of the research upon which the other phases relied: The survey firstly identified the ingredients that had the highest occurrence and mass in household products and then identified the most toxic household product ingredients by comparing the toxicity, octanol water partitioning constant and biodegradation rate of the ingredients with a high occurrence and mass. The ingredients identified as the common toxic household ingredients were sodium, hypochlorite, ammonia, sodium hydroxide, linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), and benzalkonium chloride (BAC).

The accumulation toxicity tests examined the toxicity and risk of the common toxic household ingredients from accumulation in a vermifiltration system. The research found that all the ingredients, except BAC, pose a low risk to a vermifiltration system. The research found that the presence of worms enhanced biodegradation of all the surfactants, especially BAC.

The influent toxicity tests examined the toxicity and risk of the common toxic household product ingredients at predicted influent wastewater concentrations. The research found that most of the ingredients and household products would be toxic and would exhibit a high risk at the predicted influent concentrations. However, it was noted in the risk assessment that the volume of wastewater with which the household products would be discharged would change between products, with most being discharged with a low volume of wastewater e.g. 1-5L. Therefore, it was concluded that some products may not actually pose a high risk in a full sized system because the low volume of water with which they would be discharged may cause them to have a low residence in the system, causing a low exposure time. The full scale experiments on household products were conducted to clarify this assumption.

The full scale toxicity tests were conducted to compare the data from the accumulation and influent toxicity risk assessments. The full scale toxicity tests showed similar findings to the influent toxicity experiments for adult worm mortality. The full scale toxicity tests did however find that the worms would move away from the areas most affected by toxic household products and recolonise those areas after the ingredients in the products had moved through the· system. The migration of the worms reduced the risks of reproduction toxicity, as the movement of worms away from sub lethal toxicity stress would enhance the reproductive potential of the worms. Due to this, it was proposed that the system under study, which discharged the influent unevenly in the top bed of the vermifiltration system, would be best assessed using adult mortality as the main endpoint. However, it was also proposed that systems with an even discharge of influent should still be assessed using reproduction, as the worms in these systems would be unable to migrate away from the ingredients.

The risk assessments and full scale toxicity tests led to the development of management procedures for the most common household products. It was proposed that household products used at the recommended dose would pose a low risk to vermifiltration systems, as identified in the full scale research. It was also proposed that where a product is used above the recommended dose a site specific (system specific) risk assessment is undertaken.


Human hypertension is a multifactorial disorder affecting up to 20% of the population of developed countries. The hypertensive phenotype varies between individuals and both environmental and genetic factors may be important in determining an individuals blood pressure. Although the majority of cases of hypertension are labelled as primary (or essential) implying that the aetiology of the hypertension is unknown, a genetically inherited form of hypertension, glucocorticoid-suppressible hyperaldosteronism (GSH), has been characterised and studied in detail in this thesis. GSH is an inherited form of hypertension characterised by elevated plasma aldosterone concentrations with suppression of plasma renin activity, hypertension, hypokalaemia, and an autosomal dominant mode of inheritance. A chimeric 11beta-hydroxylase/aldosterone synthase gene has been described in patients with GSH. This gene, presumably a result of unequal crossing-over at meiosis, has ACTH- inducible aldosterone synthase activity demonstrable in vivo which explains the observed clinical and biochemical phenotype of GSH. A technique for detection of individuals with GSH was devised based on the detection of the chimeric gene by probing of a Southern blot of BamHI digested genomic DNA. Normal individuals possess two hybridising species, a 8.4 kb band (11beta-hydroxylase, CYP11B1) and a 4.4 kb band (aldosterone synthase, CYP11B2) when probed with a 32P-labelled CYP11B1 exon 2-5 probe. Affected individuals possess the two normal bands and a third 6.3 kb band corresponding to the chimeric gene. This method was used to screen five kindreds affected by GSH and to detect 19 affected individuals. Treatment of affected individuals with the oral glucocorticoid dexamethasone 0.5 mg q.d.s. resulted in a fall in blood pressure and plasma aldosterone concentrations, and a normalisation of plasma renin concentration and statistically significant rise in plasma potassium concentration. Further evaluation of kindreds with GSH revealed a wide variation in the clinical phenotype of GSH, particularly in terms of blood pressure. A novel observation on the role of parental origin of the disease gene was made. Patients inheriting the chimeric gene from their mother had higher blood pressures and higher plasma aldosterone concentrations than those inheriting the condition from their father. The exact nucleotide sequence of the chimeric genes in the 5 kindreds was determined by the dideoxy-chain termination method. Three kindreds possessed chimeric genes indistinguishable by sequencing, whilst the other two kindreds had unique crossovers. All crossover events occurred within the exon 3-intron 4 region of the chimeric genes, in keeping with previously published observations. The structure of the chimeric gene, i.e. the position of the crossover site, has no effect on the clinical phenotype. In addition to determining the site of the crossover region in the kindreds, a diallelic polymorphism in the promoter region of the aldosterone synthase gene was identified. The C/T single nucleotide polymorphism lies within the Steroidogencic Factor-1 binding region of the promoter at position -340. One allele of this polymorphism was shown to be in linkage disequilibrium with GSH suggesting a degree of allelic bias in the origin of the chimeric genes causing GSH. Individuals with GSH show impaired basal and ACTH-stimulated 11beta-hydroxylation ability compared with normal controls. Basal molar plasma ratios of DOC:B and S:F are raised in patients with GSH, but ACTH-stimulation results in differential effects on the 17-hydroxy- and 17-deoxy- pathways. In the 17-hydroxy- pathway (cortisol synthesis) the impaired 11beta-hydroxylation is exacerbated by ACTH, whereas in the 17-deoxy- pathway (aldosterone synthesis) ACTH stimulation acts to rectify the abnormality. Basal molar plasma B:ALDO ratio (an index of aldosterone synthase activity) was lower in patients with GSH than controls. ACTH stimulation resulted in a rise in B:ALDO ratio in patients with GSH and a fall in normal controls. The reasons for the observed differences are unclear but may arise as a result of pseudosubstrate inhibition of 11beta-hydroxylation by compounds such as 18-hydroxycortisol, or as a result of altered gene expression in the adrenal cortex in GSH. Finally, a study of the effect of lifelong hyperaldosteronism on echocardiographically determined left ventricular mass index was performed. The study revealed that GSH did not predispose to premature or excessive left ventricular hypertrophy despite evidence that aldosterone can produce myocardial fibrosis. However, a significant positive correlation between left ventricular mass and plasma aldosterone concentration in patients with GSH was noted. The study of GSH provides a framework for assessing the possible factors involved in the development of human essential hypertension. The observations contained in this thesis shed light on how a single gene disorder may cause hypertension and how other factors such as intrauterine influences may modulate the genetic component of hypertension. Further studies of GSH may reveal the mechanisms underlying altered corticosteroidogenesis in essential hypertension.


Deep Q Network (DQN) firstly kicked the door of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) via combining deep learning (DL) with reinforcement learning (RL), which has noticed that the distribution of the acquired data would change during the training process. DQN found this property might cause instability for training, so it proposed effective methods to handle the downside of the property. Instead of focusing on the unfavorable aspects, we find it critical for RL to ease the gap between the estimated data distribution and the ground truth data distribution while supervised learning (SL) fails to do so. From this new perspective, we extend the basic paradigm of RL called the Generalized Policy Iteration (GPI) into a more generalized version, which is called the Generalized Data Distribution Iteration (GDI). We see massive RL algorithms and techniques can be unified into the GDI paradigm, which can be considered as one of the special cases of GDI. We provide theoretical proof of why GDI is better than GPI and how it works. Several practical algorithms based on GDI have been proposed to verify its effectiveness and extensiveness. Empirical experiments prove our state-ofthe-art (SOTA) performance on Arcade Learning Environment (ALE), wherein our algorithm has achieved 9620.98% mean human normalized score (HNS), 1146.39% median HNS and 22 human world record breakthroughs (HWRB) using only 200M training frames. Our work aims to lead the RL research to step into the journey of conquering the human world records and seek real superhuman agents on both performance and efficiency.


In this article, we seek to examine the potential for cross-fertilisation of legal regimes relating to trade union representation of members in collective bargaining. The United Kingdom has moved from an entirely voluntarist model in the 1980s to a statutory regime which facilitates recognition of a trade union following majority support from workers (usually by a ballot). By way of contrast, New Zealand has shifted from a highly regulated award-based model in the 1980s to an "agency" model whereby an employer is required to bargain in good faith with any union representing two or more of the employer's employees, but with some balloting also contemplated for coverage of non-unionised workers. It is uncontroversial that the United Kingdom legislation has been severely limited in its effects in a context of ongoing decline in collective bargaining, while the New Zealand model offers only faint remediation of the dismembering of the collective bargaining system by the Employment Contracts Act 1991. In both legal systems, a Labour Party is now proposing implementation of forms of sectoral bargaining. We explore the reasons for these political and legal developments, exploring democratic and human rights rationales for their adoption, as well as more pragmatic approaches. In so doing we examine the scope for democratic trade union representation via consent or ballot, the role of individual human rights and regulatory rationales. We conclude by considering how representative and regulatory approaches may be mutually reinforcing and address different understandings of "constitutionalisation". In so doing, we reaffirm the emphasis placed in Gordon Anderson's writings on substance over form.


Chapter 2 will introduce a number of observations and theories on the link between national boundaries and information/communication systems from various disciplines. The literature review covers the role of language and media technologies and thus paves the way for a theoretical framework to be developed which accounts for the ways in which elements of cultural-political boundaries have been reintroduced into the design and processes of information and communication spaces. The aim is also to review various research approaches so as to develop a feasible research design and methods to identify the factors and workings of such reintroduction of cultural-political boundaries to the Web. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which the research bias of relying too much on a national framework and/or unit of analysis, or "methodological nationalism"(Wimmer & Schiller, 2002), can be alleviated. This general research concern is especially important for this specific research on Chinese boundaries online because of the ambiguous yet complicated cultural-political boundaries among Chinese-speaking regions such as mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.2.1 National boundaries and communicative spaces 292.2 Chinese national boundaries and media technologies 382.3 Boundaries of media-language systems 512.4 Summary and implications 63


Local authorities play a key role in European Union (EU) governance. They are no longer simply 'passive receivers' of EU policy, but proactively engage at the European level. This active engagement includes participation in local government transnational networking (LGTN), an activity which sees local authorities form links with their counterparts in other countries. The contemporary prevalence of LGTN presents an interesting empirical puzzle. Local authorities lack the formal competence to engage beyond their territories. Furthermore, since the financial crisis councils' budgets have been restricted. Why, then, are local authorities participating in LGTN when they lack both the formal competence and the financial resources? This thesis tackles this puzzle. In particular it explores three broad questions relating to LGTN:

- What is the extent of LGTN?
- Why do local authorities participate?
- What determines effective participation?

By focusing on the local authorities within transnational networks, this thesis makes an empirical contribution to knowledge and informs a body of literature which has until now overlooked the perceptions of local actors in EU governance. It further informs conceptual debates surrounding multi-level governance and local level Europeanization. This focus is achieved through a cross-national analysis of 14 local authorities in south-east England and northern France, and adopting a qualitative empirical approach which draws data from semi-structured interviews, document analysis and participant observation.
The findings show that LGTN continues to be a prevalent phenomenon and is therefore an important feature of the EU's multi-level system of governance. However, engagement is not uniform. While all local authorities are involved, variation is present in the number of links councils engage in, the type of networks they target and their motivations for participation. In all cases, however, engagement in LGTN is driven by a rationalist logic, as councils seek to achieve individual pre-determined strategic aims and improve their relative positions. A number of local and external factors are shown to impact how effectively councils engage in LGTN and, ultimately, explains why the process of local level Europeanization is marked by differentiation rather than convergence.


Introduction Current training in trauma and orthopaedics is facing challenges due to limited operating time, a rising trend in medical lawsuits and fierce promotion of patient safety. Objectives To observe the perception of simulation in orthopaedic trauma training and whether there is a change in perception related to level of exposure to the VR simulator. Methods 64 medical students were randomised to three groups: Group1 (control; n = 26) performed one attempt, Group 2 (attempt-dependent training; n = 26) performed five attempts whilst Group 3 (time-dependent training; n = 12) were allowed up to 45 min of practice (time-dependent). Participants completed a six-item questionnaire using a seven-point Likert scale. The pooled mean score and percentage change between first and last attempt were calculated. Results "Simulators are widely used in surgical/medical training": pooled data had a 4.4% improvement in perception (4.4 to 4.6). "Simulators should be compulsory in surgical training": pooled data had no change in perception (5.8 to 5.8). "I would feel safer having an operation by a surgeon who has trained with simulators": pooled data had a 4.5% (5.8 to 6.0) perception improvement. "Surgeons trained on simulators are better surgeons": pooled data improved perception by 8.2% (4.7 to 5.1). "I would want my operation to be performed by a surgeon who has trained with simulators": pooled data had a positive perception change by 4.1% (5.4 to 5.6). "I think surgeons who play video games can develop their hand-eye coordination and improve their surgical skills": pooled data had a negative perception change of 3.3% (5.1 to 4.9). Conclusions There is an overall positive impact on perception of the role of simulation after using the VR haptic DHS simulator. Users had a high perception for the use of VR DHS simulation within formal orthopaedic training. References Blyth P, Anderson IA, Stott NS. Virtual reality simulators in orthopedic surgery: what do the surgeons think? J Surg Res 2006;131(1):133–9; discussion 140–2 Froelich JM, Milbrandt JC, Novicoff WM, et al. Surgical simulators and hip fractures: a role in residency training? J Surg Educ 2011;68(4):298–302


The nano-composite electroless coating was introduced into bio-limited forming technology for the first time, and the feasibility of the nano-composite electroless coating on microorganism was verified. The composite coated microorganism was analyzed by using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). The results showed that stirring method would make significant effect on the content of nano-particles in the composite coating. And compared with mechanical stirring, the magnetical stirring makes the content of Fe in the composite coating increase almost twice. The co-deposition mechanism of the composite coating was also discussed.


IL-13 is a pleiotropic cytokine mainly secreted by Th2 cells. It reacts with many different types of cells involved in allergy, inflammation, and fibrosis, e.g., mastocytes, B cells, and fibroblasts. The role of IL-13 in conditions involving one or several of these phenotypes has therefore been extensively investigated. The inhibition of this cytokine in animal models for various pathologies yielded highly promising results. However, most human trials relying on anti (cid:1) IL-13 conventional mAbs have failed to achieve a significant improvement of the envisaged disorders. Where some studies might have suffered from several weaknesses, the strategies themselves, such as targeting only IL-13 using conventional mAbs or employing a systemic administration, could be questioned. Nanobodies are recombinant Ag-binding fragments derived from the variable part of H chain (cid:1) only Abs occurring in Camelidae. Thanks to their single-domain structure, small size ( (cid:2) 15 kDa), good stability, and solubility, they can be engineered into multispecific constructs for combined therapies or for use in new strategies such as formulations for local administration, e.g., pulmonary administration. In this study, we describe the generation of 38 nanobodies that can be subdivided into five CDR3 families. Nine nanobodies were found to have a good affinity profile (K D 5 1 (cid:1) 200 nM), but none were able to strongly inhibit IL-13 biological activity in vitro (IC 50 > 50 m M: HEK-Blue IL-13/IL-4 cells). Multimeric constructs were therefore designed from these inhibitors and resulted in an up to 36-fold improvement in affinity and up to 300-fold enhancement of the biological activity while conserving a high specificity toward IL-13. The Journal


PART 1 INTRODUCTION1. THE SUBJECT MATTER OF ECONOMICS2. THE MARKET1. Isolated Bargaining2. Competitive Bargaining3. Perfect Competition4. Price Setting5. The Types of Competition among Price Makers6. Bilateral Monopoly7. Trade on Prescribed TermsPART 2 THE PRICE TAKER'S BEHAVOUR AND PERFECT COMPETITION3. THE CONSUMER1. The Indifference Map2. The Income-Consumption Curve3. The Price-Consumption Curve4. Complementary and Substitutability5. The Importance of Time and Habit4. THE CONSUMERS' MARKET AND THE NOTION OF ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY1. The Efficiency of Distribution2. Equity and EfficiencyNOTE TO CHAPTER 4: Productivity Efficiency and the Size of the National Product5. THE WORKER AND THE EFFICIENCY OF THE LABOUR MARKET1. The Worker's Choice between Work and Leisure1a. The Income-Offer Curve1b. The Price-Offer Curve2. Allocation of Work within One Occupation3. The Worker's Choice of Occupation4. The Specialization among Workers5. An Alternative Approach6. The Distribution of Income Paid for Personal Services6. THE FIRM1. The Production Function7. THE FIRM (Continued): THE MARKET BEHAVOUR OF THE FIRM1. The Combination of Productive Factors2. The Determination of the Firm's Output3. The Combination of Products4. The Firm's Offer of Products5. Technical Complementarity and Substitutability6. The Firm's Demand for FactorsNOTE TO CHAPTER 7: The Entrepreneur8. THE EFFICIENCY OF PRODUCTION1. The Technological Efficiency of the Firm2. The Technological Efficiency of the Industry2a. The Efficient Allocation within the Industry2b. The Average Technological Efficiency of the Industry's Members3. The Economic Efficiency of the Firm3a. The Efficient Combination of Products3b. The Efficient Combination of Factors3c. The Efficient Rate of Production3d. The General Case4. The Economic Efficiency of the Industry5. The Economic Efficiency of Allocation between Industries6. The General Efficiency of the Perfectly Competitive EconomyNOTE TO CHAPTER 8: The Distinction between Social and Private Marginal Value and Product9. CAPITAL1. Entrepreneurship as a Factor Limiting the Size of the Firm2. Capital as a Factor of Production2a. The Willingness to Borrow2b. The Willingness to Lend3. Capital as a Factor of Production4. The Investment Policy of the Firm5. The Allocation of Capital6. The Scarcity of Capital and Its Remuneration10. THE STABILITY OF PERFECT COMPETITION1. The Subject Matter of Dynamic Economics2. Stability and Dynamic Efficiency3. SpeculationPART 3 THE PRICE MAKER'S BEHAIVOUR AND FREE COMPETITION11. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE PRICE MAKER'S BEHAIVOUR1. The Seller2. The Buyer12. THE STABILITY OF THE PRICE MAKER'S BEHAVIOUR1. The Stabilizing Factors2. The Cost of Change2a. Adaptation to a Permanently Changed Situation2b. Adaptation to Transitory Changes3. The Indivisibility of Productive Resources3a. Adaptation to a Permanently Change Situation3b. Adaptation to Transitory Changes4. The Turnover Leg4a. Adaptation to a Permanently Change Situation4b. Adaptation to Transitory Changes5. The Planning Period13. THE PROFIT MARGIN1. The Price Elasticity of the Market2. The Problem of Estimation3. The Other Aspect of the Price Maker's Market Offer14. THE COST OF PRODUCTION1. The Cost of Elements2. The Cost Basis of the Producer's Market Offer3. The Cost Basis of the Producer's Expansion Policy15. THE CONDITIONS OF FREE COMPETITION1. Factors Favourable to Competition1a The Competitive Spirit1b Large Numbers, Similarity of Size & Changing Membership1c Limits to the Size of the Firm: Capital1d Limits to the Size of the Firm: Entrepr


Background and aims: Background and Aims: MSDs are very common in public vehicle drivers. As regards, drivers spend long time to this occupation; these disorders will be chronic and results to MSDs. According to the past researches, one of the main reasons for accidents is MSDs and low back pain. In this research, we survey the relation between anthropometric indices and Musculoskeletal Disorders in public vehicle drivers. Methods: for this descriptive and analytic study 95 bus drivers were selected. Instruments for this project were contains: body discomfort chart (BDC), digital scale, stadiometer, anthropometric calipers and chair. Drivers questioned about age, work and their past occupations. Then measuring of weight, length, hand-arm length, popliteal length and height, knee length and height were done. Then the data were analyzed by spearman test on Spss software program. Results: The statistic tests result show that: there is a relationship between drivers MSDs and its length, weight and age. That means with increasing of drivers weight and age or shortness in length, MSDs probability will be raised. Conclusion: It seems strain and stretch that driver bears for reaching to vehicle role, age rising and its effects on the person physical condition are their MSDs reasons. Consequently, our recommendation is: on examination for selecting drivers they should be selected among long, thin and proportional (without over weight) volunteers. This measure can be an effective step toward preventing drivers MSDs, driving crashes and accidents.


Despite, on the one hand, a healthy if circumscribed tradition of Bartok music studies and, on the other, a continuing analytical concern with notions of complementation and contrast, I argue that these two domains have not been brought together to full effect, and that doing so can significantly enhance a reading of Bartok's Third Quartet of 1927. In this setting, complementation applies not only to sets and pitches, but also to modes and, more broadly interpreted, to parameters such as texture, rhythm and form. Complementation across several parameters, or at different levels of significance, may operate as a multi-faceted complex which serves to heighten, or on occasion diffuse, tensions in the music.


Matrix metalloproteinases and their natural inhibitors (TIMPs) are important elements in a wide range of oncology settings. Elevated levels of tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) have often been associated with increased tumorigenesis. This has been demonstrated in a number of clinical and experimental models which include breast, gastric, colorectal and non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). Our earlier studies have identified increased angiogenic activity and aggressive tumor kinetics in TIMP-1 overexpressing H2009 lung adenocarcinoma cells. TIMP-1 overexpression has also been implicated in antiapoptotic responses, inducing a significant upregulation of Bcl-2. These TIMP-1 functions have been shown to be MMP-independent and provide insight into its pleiotropic activities. The current study examines microRNA (miRNA) interactions with this molecule. We have sought to define the relationship between TIMP-1 and miRNA by knocking down TIMP-1 in high TIMP-1 expressing lung adenocarcinoma cell lines. TIMP-1 knockdown resulted in increased expression of miR-125a-5p with a concomitant increase in apoptosis and attenuation of the tumorigenic features of these cells. We have identified TIMP-1 as a bona fide target of miR-125a-5p, and their interaction resulted in an increase in p53 expression. We further corroborated our in vitro data with patient samples, which exhibited an inverse correlation between TIMP-1 and miR-125a-5p expression. Our study lends support to the notion that elevated TIMP-1 levels, which are frequently associated with poor prognosis, cause aberrant modulation of miRNAs.


Over the last 3 decades, there has been a profusion in the number of cardiac surgery risk score systems available (approximately 20 in current adult cardiac surgery literature).1 One common factor in these scoring systems is that they have all been proposed from either North America or Europe.1 The field of cardiac surgery is continuously evolving with changes in surgical indications, spectrum of diseases, surgical expertise, perioperative management and extensiveness of surgical audit. Consequently, newer scoring systems have been regularly published with the common objective of predicting surgical mortality and more recently,  surgical morbidity. Search of literature reveals no scoring system from large population subgroups like Japan, South-east Asia or Africa.

Several reports from these populations have employed the commonly used 'western' risk scoring systems like the European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation (Euroscore) I, Euroscore II, Parsonnet or the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) systems to their population. There are numerous studies which compare the performance of two or more different scoring systems on some subset of cardiac surgery patients (eg, low risk vs high risk coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), single/multivalve surgery, CABG+ valve surgery, aortic surgery and so on2 3). The conclusions commonly drawn indicate that Euroscore II and STS scores are most widely used; however, even these two scores give different predictions in different groups. Thus, these 'western' scores are seen to be relatively 'off-the-mark' in correctly predicting the operative mortality in eastern population, thus essentially being inaccurate to a variable extent4. The common 'inaccuracies' reported include variations between the subgroups of elective/semiurgent/emergency surgical procedures and low-risk/ high-risk surgical groups.

These 'discrepancies' raise the following questions:

1. What is the utility of scoring systems? Should all cardiac surgeries at …


Image compression has many applications. For example, it is an important step for distributed and network based pattern recognition. For real time object recognition or reconstruction, image compression can greatly reduce the image size, and hence increase the processing speed and enhance performance. Fractal image compression is a relatively recent image compression method. Its basic idea is to represent images as a fixed point of a contractive iterated function system (IFS). Spiral architecture (SA) is a novel image structure on which images are displayed as a collection of hexagonal pixels. The efficiency and accuracy of image processing on SA have been demonstrated in many recently published papers. We have shown the existence of contractive IFS's through the construction of a complete metric space on SA. The selection of range and domain blocks for fractal image compression is highly related to the uniform image separation specific to SA. In this paper, we review the current research work on fractal image compression based on SA. We compare the results obtained on SA and the traditional square structure in terms of compression ratio and PSNR


From learning the basic definition of a law to understanding how a case reaches the Supreme Court, this essential reference tool provides over 500 questions and accessible answers on the complex subject of the U.S. court system. Whether used by a citizen inquiring about jury duty or a student needing to grasp the intricacies of types of laws, "CQ's Desk Reference on American Courts" provides the answers on such topics as: explanations of the judicial process and procedures; state and federal court institutions; definitions, concepts, and terms; and, discussions of important cases and interesting firsts.


The growing field of biomimicry promises to supplant modern industry's energy-intensive models of engineering with a mode of production more sensitively attuned to nonhuman life and matter. This article considers the revolutionary potentials created by biomimicry's more-than-human collectives and their limitations. Although biomimicry gestures toward a radical reontologization of and repoliticization of production, we argue that it remains subject to entrenched onto-political habits of social relations still dominated by capitalism and made part of a "terra economica" in which all is potentially put to profitable use and otherwise left to waste. With reference to Marx's notions of general industriousness and the general intellect, we find that this universalizing tendency renders myriad biological capacities and ways of knowing invisible. Drawing a comparison with the reworkings of life and knowledge explored in Shiebinger's work on nineteenth-century abortifacients, we show how biomimicry's more recent ontological remakings reproduce some forms of knowledge—and life—at the expense of others. Reflecting on biomimicry's inadvertent erasure of nonindustrial ways of knowing, we advance the notion of a pluripotent intellect as a framework that seeks to take responsibility for the cocuration of forms of life and forms of knowledge. We turn to Jackson's Land Institute as a grounded alternative for constructing more-than-human techno-social collaboratives.


ABSTRACT Bringing together terrorism studies, subcultural theory, and narrative criminology, we here test the thesis that neutralization theory might be (further) developed to provide a framework for understanding stories of ideologically informed subcultural violence. Beginning with Gresham Sykes's and David Matza's original five neutralizations, we illustrate how actors engage them in three modes: the encultured, the subcultural, and (tentatively) the postnarrative mode. We test the first two modes in particular against narratives and narrative fragments from interviews with men convicted of right-wing violence in Germany. Our findings provide a preliminary illustration of what neutralization theory might bring to research into political violence.


The objective of this study was to determine the performance and emission of diesel engine using Yang (Dipterocarpus alatus) oil compared with conventional diesel fuel. This test was conducted on a single-cylinder diesel engine at 800, 1200, 1600, 2000, and 2400 rpm, then measured and recorded the values. The experimental results showed that torque, brake power and brake thermal efficiency of the engine using Yang oil showed average increased by 5.22%, 5.38% and 4.27%, respectively and brake specific fuel consumption of the engine using Yang oil showed an average decreased by 6.27% compared with those from diesel. The exhaust gas emission of engine using Yang oil were higher than diesel; CO, CO2 and NOx emissions increased slightly by 0.3% Vol., 2.02% Vol. and 18.80 ppm, respectively.


In this paper, I analyze the production of the image of a singular economic geography for Iraq. I explore the discursive projects of erasure that both preceded and coexists with the U.S.-led military intervention of 2003. My hope is to trouble both the presumed stability of the narrative that posits the authority of a singular economic legibility over a heterogeneous field of economic and social activity. First, I highlight the process of making the national economy of Iraq legible in a particular way that privileges oil's role at the global scale. Turning on the temporal hinge of the invasion itself, the second part of the paper looks at the process of legally organizing and classifying economic actors in the spaces of warfare. By turning attention towards landscapes often described as central to geopolitical statecraft and structures of power, I show that instability and "non-existence" are integral to the structures of this economic vision. As a conclusion, the final part of the paper looks at the ways in which security measures and foreign reconstruction efforts are attempting to project the image of a neoliberal economic singularity into the future, further entrenching this economic vision as an irrevocable truth beyond which there is no alternative. At its most broad, this paper is a "reading for absences" in the landscape of warfare. As such, I look for ways in which monocultural discourse is mobilized to both conceal its own instabilities and the existence of credible alternative economic spaces.


With digitization of our life the vast opportunities the virtual world offers are increasingly employed in teaching and learning. Consequently, there are a growing number of researchers who investigate the most efficient ways of engaging learners and gaining successful results from their learning online. While Western universities already take online learning for granted, Russian universities have just started introducing it for different subjects. This article is focused on the experience of one of the ten largest Russian universities (Ural Federal University) in implementing a blended learning pilot course based on the "Touchstone" coursebook by Cambridge University Press and a corresponding LMS (Learning Management System). The results were far from satisfactory and this article discusses both external and internal factors that could have affected them. The study used the following research methods: statistical analysis of the students' learning results from the LMS (progress reports and scores), student surveys after the course, informal interviews with pilot course participants. The results of the study reveal that despite the general perception both on the part of the students and teachers that we cannot go on without virtual reality as part of education, few of them are ready to accept that personally and start implementing it in their own lives. Another conclusion is that teachers should seek opportunities to adapt the content of online courses to the Russian university context. And last but not least, not all Russian universities are ready to provide the necessary working conditions for the teachers to work with online content, so they have to monitor students from home, which extends working hours and decreases their motivation.


A novel amphiphilic dipyridinium peroxophosphotungstate ion pair was developed as a selective and recyclable catalyst for the triphasic epoxidation of fatty acids and esters with hydrogen peroxide. The synthesis of the catalyst was studied extensively by solid and liquid phase 31P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The oxidation of vegetable oils is of prime importance for the production of lubricants, plasticizers, polymer stabilizers and other olefinic compounds. Based on the oxidizing activity of peroxophosphotungstates, we designed a lipophilic phase transfer agent that renders the active complex insoluble in the reaction media, without having to support it on a matrix. This affords a catalyst combining the activity of homogeneous catalysts and the recyclability of heterogeneous systems. We show that this catalyst is able to fully epoxidize methyl oleate with excellent selectivity, with a turnover frequency of 149 at 60 °C, and can be easily recycled, to reach a record turn over number of 1868. A larger scale experiment on 13 grams and a scope including linoleic and ricinoleic acids were also demonstrated. The catalyst also shows excellent activity and selectivity for the oxidative cleavage of methyl oleate and the oxidation of small olefins.


The effects of interrupting the axons of principal neurones in the superior cervical ganglion of adult guinea‐pigs were studied by means of intracellular recording, and light and electron microscopy. 1. Within 72 hr of axon interruption, the amplitude of exitatory postsynaptic potentials potentials (e.p.s.p.s) recorded in principal neurons in response to maximal preganglionic stimulation declined. E.p.s.p.s were maximally reduced (by more than 70% on average) 4‐7 days following interruption, and failed to bring many cells to threshold. E.p.s.p.s. recorded in nearby neurones whose axons remained intact were unaffected. 2. In ganglia in which axon interruption was achieved by means of nerve crush (thus allowing prompt regeneration), mean e.p.s.p. amplitudes began to increase again after about 1‐2 weeks. One month after the initial injury many neurones had e.p.s.p.s of normal amplitude, and by 2 months affected neurones were indistinguishable from control cells. Functional peripheral connexions were re‐established during the period of synaptic recovery. 3. The mean number of synapses identified electron microscopically in ganglia in which all the major efferent branches had been crushed decreased by 65‐70% in parallel with synaptic depression measured by intracellular recording. However synapse counts did not return to normal levels even after 3 months. 4. During the period of maximum synaptic depression, numerous abnormal profiles which contained accumulations of vesicular and tubular organelles, vesicles, and mitochondria were observed in electron microscopic sections. Injection of horseradish peroxidase into affected neurones demonstrated dendritic swelling which probably correspond to these profiles. 5. Little or no difference was found in the electrical properties of normal neurones and neurones whose axons had been interrupted 4‐7 days previously. However, the mean amplitude of spontaneously occurring synaptic potentials was reduced, and the amplitude distribution was shifted. This abnormality of the synapses which remain on affected neurones also contributes to synaptic depression. 6. Counts of neurones in normal and experimental ganglia showed that approximately half the principal cells died 1‐5 weeks after crushing the major efferent brances. This finding presumably explains the failure of synapse counts to return to control levels after recovery. 7. If axons were prevented from growing back to their target organ by chronic ligation, surviving neurones whose axons were enclosed by the ligature did not generally recover normal synaptic function. Following ligation, most affected cells died within a month. 8. Thus the integrity of a principal cell's axon is necessary for the maintenance of preganglionic synaptic contacts, and ultimately for neuronal survival. The basis of neuronal recovery from the effects of axon interruption appears to be some aspect of regeneration to the peripheral target.


Humorous images can be seen in many social media websites. However, newcomers to these websites often have trouble fitting in because the community subculture is usually implicit. Among all the types of humorous images, Internet memes are relatively hard for newcomers to understand. In this work, we develop a system that leverages crowdsourcing techniques to generate explanations for memes. We claim that people who are not familiar with Internet meme subculture can still quickly pick up the gist of the memes by reading the explanations. Our template-based explanations illustrate the incongruity between normal situations and the punchlines in jokes. The explanations can be produced by completing the two proposed human task processes. Experimental results suggest that the explanations produced by our system greatly help newcomers to understand unfamiliar memes. For further research, it is possible to employ our explanation generation system to improve computational humanities.


AIM
To investigate concerns about dying for newly admitted nursing students from California, Norway, and Sweden.

METHOD
A total of 389 undergraduate nursing students who had just started their nursing programme participated. Data was collected with a questionnaire that included two instruments-the Concerns about Dying instrument and the Sense of Coherence instrument-and background questions. The data was analysed using statistical and content analysis.

RESULTS
There were statistically significant differences between the three groups of students in terms of their age, their experience in health care, whether they had previously attended a dying patient, the age at which they first encountered the death of a loved one, and their concerns about dying. Two main categories emerged from the analysis of the open questions: 'attending to dying and grieving persons' and 'thinking about one's own death'.

CONCLUSION
The study provides important insights into the concerns that newly admitted students bring to the nursing programme.


Many complex networks in real world can be formulated as hypergraphs where community detection has been widely used. However, the fundamental question of whether communities exist or not in an observed hypergraph still remains unresolved. The aim of the present paper is to tackle this important problem. Specifically, we study when a hypergraph with community structure can be successfully distinguished from its Erdos-Renyi counterpart, and propose concrete test statistics based on hypergraph cycles when the models are distinguishable. Our contributions are summarized as follows. For uniform hypergraphs, we show that successful testing is always impossible when average degree tends to zero, might be possible when average degree is bounded, and is possible when average degree is growing. We obtain asymptotic distributions of the proposed test statistics and analyze their power. Our results for growing degree case are further extended to nonuniform hypergraphs in which a new test involving both edge and hyperedge information is proposed. The novel aspect of our new test is that it is provably more powerful than the classic test involving only edge information. Simulation and real data analysis support our theoretical findings. The proofs rely on Janson's contiguity theory (\cite{J95}) and a high-moments driven asymptotic normality result by Gao and Wormald (\cite{GWALD}).


Modern aircraft, operating in nonlinear flight regimes at high angle of attack often exhibit a limit cycle oscillation in the roll angle known as the ''wing rock phenomenon.'' When the wing rock appears, the roll angle trajectory undergoes oscillations of growing amplitude and asymptotically converges to the stable limit cycle. The wing rock dynamics are represented by essentially nonlinear model, which parameters are varying in the wide range depending on the flight conditions (altitude, Mach number, mass of the payload, etc.) and the angle of attack. The promising approach of wing rock suppression and roll angle control under parametric uncertainty condition is an application of adaptation methods. In the paper, the simple adaptive control with the so-called ''Implicit Reference Model'' is applied for ensuring the smooth tracking the roll angle of the reference (desired) trajectory with wing rock suppression. The simulations are made for various angle of attack, showing the efficiency of the proposed method.


Diet therapy is an important factor in overall care of most GI patients. Historically, diets have been used unscientifically in many of these patients without positive results. Nutritional care and diet therapy are critical for two reasons. First, malnutrition is an expected sequelae to most, if not all, GI diseases or disorders. Failure to eat, digest, or assimilate nutrients can provoke malnutrition in just a few weeks, although careful assessment of anthropometric, clinical, biochemical, and nutritional history by a trained professional can protect against this. Diet therapy through the elimination of offending foods such as wheat gluten or lactose, or inclusion of specialized products such as medium chain triglycerides or elemental formulas, can sustain nutritional status. Dietary components such as insoluble fiber appear to have physiologic effects, while soluble fibers may have metabolic effects important to diabetes and cardiovascular disease. There is a high potential for malnutrition in Crohn's disease during active and remittent phases. Elemental enteral formulas or TPN are used during the active phase to ensure optimal nutritional status and bowel rest. Hyperalimentation using the GI tract during remittent stage maintains this. Avoiding offending foods by Crohn's patients is an acceptable practice as long as entire categories of foods are not deleted. Avoiding all foods containing gluten from wheat, rye, barley, and oats, however, is a crucial prerequisite to recovery from celiac disease. Gluten is commonly used as a stabilizer, emulsifier, and extender in the food industry and is not always shown on food labels. Careful consultation with a registered dietitian can identify hidden sources of gluten in the diet.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


The compression tests were carried out to investigate the compression behavior of steel fiber reinforced ultra high strength concrete(SFRUHSC). Cubic and axial compression specimens were tested at room tempreture, in terms of load control. The result shouwed that the compression strength of 150×150×150mm3and 100×100×100mm3 cubic specimens is 108.4MPa and 94.7MPa, while the 100×100×300mm3 axial specimens' is 73.4MPa. The above data demonstrated that the different size effect from that of strength of steel fiber reinforced concrete(SFRC), namely the strength of 100×100×100mm is larger than that of 150×150×150mm3. Two kinds of compression specimens showed various fracture mode: ductile tension fracture of cubic specimens and the brittle shearing fracture of axial ones. But the steel fibers inside the specimens had been pulled out from the matrix.


A study was carried out to determine the influence of dietary phospholipids biochemical factors parameters of beluga sturgeon (Huso huso) juveniles. Juveniles were fed formulated diet with four varying dietary levels of PL, that is, 0 (D1), 2 (D2), 4 (D3) and 6% (D4). At the end of the experimental period (56 days), there were no significant differences (P > 0.05) found for hepatic enzymes among treatments. The enzyme alanine aminotransferase (ALT) was highest in fish fed diet D2, while the lowest was found in fish fed diet D1 with values of 46.07 and 24.70 (IU/L), respectively. The enzyme aspartate aminotransferase (AST) was found highest in fish fed diet D3 and lowest was found in fish fed diet D2 with values 16.43 and 12.47 (IU/L), respectively. The enzyme lipase was found to be highest in fish fed diet D4, while the lowest was shown in fish fed diet D3 with values of 32.47 and 29.03 (IU/L), respectively. Among the biochemical factors, there was a significant difference (P < 0.05) observed in blood sugar, in which case, the highest reading was found in fish fed diet D3 with amount of 83 mg/dl and the lowest amount was found in fish fed diet D2 with a value of 46 mg/dl. However, the other biochemical parameters such as cholesterol and triglyceride did not showed significant differences (P > 0.05) among treatments. The triglyceride values ranged from the highest and lowest values were found in fish fed diets D4 and D2 with values of 349.33 and 263.00 (mg/dl), respectively. The cholesterol values which ranged from the highest to lowest were found in fish fed diets D4 and D2 with values of 121.67and 104.67 (mg/dl), respectively.


The Irish health care system offers a tax financed, universal entitlement to public care at a nominal user fee, nonetheless 50% of the Irish population purchase private health insurance. This paper empirically models the propensity to insure as a function of individual and household characteristics using panel data analysis and compares three alternate approaches; a static, chamberlain-mundlak and dynamic specification. Using panel data from 1994 to 2000, we consider whether propensity to insure is in fact a function of heterogeneity or of state dependence. A range of individual and household characteristics is shown to influence propensity to insure. Overall the positive effect of education and income and the negative effect of poor health status remain robust across three specifications. In moving toward a dynamic specification, we show that persistence is a highly significant determinant of demand for private health insurance and also that it reduces the size of the coefficients on the regressors. The latter point highlights that while education, income and, to a lesser extent, health status have very large effects on probability of insuring, these effects are overestimated where no attempt is made to control for unobserved heterogeneity or state dependence.


Context: Pancreatic hydatid disease is rare, occurring in less than 2% of all patients with hydatid disease. Multiple hydatid cysts of the pancreas have not been reported before.
Case report: A 63 year old lady presented with chronic epigastric pain without weight loss, vomiting or jaundice. CT scan revealed multiple small cystic pancreatic lesions. There was no extra-pancreatic disease. Endoscopic ultrasound showed 10 cysts distributed throughout the pancreas with the largest being 1.3 cm. The aspirated fluid was mucin free, low in amylase and CEA. FNAC showed refractile structures and membranous remnants consistent with a hydatid cyst. The cyst distribution would have warranted a total pancreatectomy for complete extirpation. As the cysts were uncomplicated and relatively asymptomatic, a conservative non-operative approach was chosen. She has shown symptomatic improvement and has stable disease after 6 months with Albendazole treatment.
Conclusion: Endoscopic ultrasound is useful in the diagnosis of pancreatic hydatid disease. In selected cases, non-operative management is an option that needs to be considered.


Automatic categorization of video shots is very useful in applications of video content analysis and retrieval, such as structure parsing and semantic event recognition. In order to consider the relationships between different video features and provide more accurate similarity measure for video shot classification, in this paper, information-theoretic co-clustering is utilized to group the video shots and features simultaneously. In addition, a Bayesian information criterion is employed to automatically estimate the number of clusters for both the video shots and features. Evaluation on 1374 shots extracted from around 4-hour sports videos shows very encouraging results.


The basis of this research is the development of structures in bank financing bjb sharia fluctuate so that it can affect the profitability of banks, namely ROA. The purpose of this study was to analyze the structure of financing and the impact on profitability at bjb sharia bank. The method used in this research is descriptive and verification methods. The population in this reseach is bjb Bank Syariah. The sample in this study is the annual financial statements of Bank BJB Syariah using purposive sampling technique. The data used is secondary data. The method of analysis used in the study is a simple linear regression analysis. Based on the research results show that the financing structure effect on profitability. Conclusions on the hypothesis done by observing the coefficient of determination by considering the test results significantly by t-test significance level, which beforehand had been performed classical assumption as Normality Test, and Test Heteroskidastity. All statistical calculations in this study were performed using SPSS version 23.0


The effect of monoclonal anti-(DNA polymerase alpha) immunoglobulin G (IgG) and F(ab) fragments on DNA replication in lysolecithin-permeabilized human cells and on DNA polymerase alpha activity was determined. DNA polymerase alpha activity in vitro was inhibited equally by the same concentrations of monoclonal IgGs and F(ab) fragments. However, the IgGs and F(ab) fragments were not equally potent in inhibiting DNA replication in permeable cells. In general, the F(ab) fragments were approximately equal to 10-fold more potent than IgGs in inhibiting DNA replication, suggesting the F(ab) fragments cross the nuclear membrane more readily than IgGs. Immunocytochemical studies demonstrated that at least a fraction of anti-(DNA polymerase alpha) IgGs entered the nucleus of permeable cells. For most antibodies tested, the IgG or F(ab) concentration needed to inhibit replication was several orders of magnitude higher than that needed to neutralize polymerase alpha activity extracted from the same number of cells. Anti-(DNA polymerase alpha) F(ab) fragments were shown to inhibit the discontinuous synthesis of Okazaki DNA, as well as the maturation of Okazaki DNA to larger DNA, thereby implicating DNA polymerase alpha in both of these processes.


During a period of 36 years, the rate of hysterectomy was 0.054% of all obstetric patients in our hospital, 0.0446% of cesarean section cases, and 0.005% of vaginal deliveries respectively. From 50 s to 80 s, the cesarean section rate greatly increased while the hysterectomy rate in parturition decreased. The indications for cesarean hysterectomy change from ruptured uterus, abruptio placenta and intrapartum infection to uterine atony highly increased placenta or myoma of the uterus. Cesarean hysterectomy rate due to splitting of uterine wound after cesarean section highly increased in 80 s. Bleeding for more than 1,000 ml during operation accounted for 62.7% of them. However, operative complication rate reached to 11.8%. To reduce cesarean hysterectomy rate, we suggest emphasizing maternal health care, use of uterine packing to lessen bleeding and careful management of operation as important means for reducing uterine incision wound splitting after cesarean section.


This project was carried out in the field of biomaterials, in the section regenerative therapies and precisely aimed at tissue engineering.
Bone restoration and regeneration are a major importance in the tissue engineering field. Basically, an implant such as scaffolds for bone regeneration has to stimulate osteogenesis and angiogenesis, apart from being bioresorbable as well. Nevertheless, biomaterials for osteogenesis and angiogenesis should be considered not only as a template for cell growth, but also as a delivery agent. Indeed, previous and current studies aimed in this direction, promotes the key role of calcium in blood vessel formation.
The interesting achievement is to obtain nanostructured materials by electrospinning with embedded calcium and phosphate compounds, which shall deliver at an appropriate rate. In our case, the study was directed to bioactive glass nanoparticles, whose purpose is to be incorporated in polymeric fibers. In order to reach desired compositions, the particles were synthesized by the sol-gel process. A first glass synthesis was performed to acquire the "G5", whose composition is known to be as: 44.5% P2O5, 44.5% CaO, Na2O 6% 5% TiO2. However, the main task of this project was to produce new bioactive glass nanoparticles using different precursors: especially calcium propionate and phytic acid to obtain ternary glass particles with a desired composition of 47.5% P2O5, 47.5% CaO, 5% TiO2. Indeed, the challenging nature of the study was to use precursors whose byproducts appear to be biocompatible and biodegradable. The current precursors used, for the fabrication of the regular "G5" particles, contain whether ethanol or 2-methoxyethanol, known to be cytotoxic once released in the body. New precursors whose byproducts after release can be eliminated by the body would an important progress.
The difficulty in the control of sol-gel parameters according to the difference of precursors have shown quite broad range of composition which have been compared to the defined G5 glass. Further studies have to be completed in order to define an effective protocol capable of producing these nanoparticles with better control in terms of compositions and morphology, because it is precisely the first features which affect the additional properties of our material, such as pH, calcium release and of course cell proliferation.


At the Tenth International Medical Congress a paper was read before the Laryngological Section, which at once attracted attention, first, because it sought to introduce a novelty into our therapeusis; secondly, because it had for its scope and promise the cure of a class of diseases which have been regarded as nearly or altogether incurable. I refer to Dr. Brown's paper on Vibratory Massage of the Nose, etc. In order to refresh the memory of the reader I will take the liberty of presenting an extract translation of the above mentioned contribution. The two massage movements employed are known according to Dr. Kellgrew (London) as effleurage and vibration. By effleurage is meant a stroking movement superficial or deep, the force of which varies from a scarcely perceptible touch to distinct pressure. By vibration is meant a light, rapid trembling movement, having its origin in the elbow joint and which is


To obtain a suitable refining process for Pinus massoniana cellulose fibers (PMCF) and China fir cellulose fibers (CFCF), the effects of the beating gap and the pulp consistency on the physical properties and the morphology of the two cellulose fibers were investigated. The results showed that the physical properties of the PMCF and the CFCF were well affected by the beating gap and the pulp consistency. The CFCF showed a smaller weight-average length and width than that of the PMCF. The CFCF exhibited smaller weight-average length, width, and kink index than the PMCF. It is easy to get the high beating degree, indicating it is more easily to be refined. Additionally, the tensile index and burst index of PMCFP and CFCFP increased with increasing beating degree, while the tear index decreased. Compared to the CFCF, the paper made from PMCF had superior strength properties. Consequently, the PMCF was suitable for refining with a high pulp consistency and a medium beating gap, whereas the CFCF had a medium pulp consistency and a big beating gap.


Recently, the agricultural education profession has advocated its relationship with STEM education. Agricultural education has been identified as an effective context to support the components of STEM through analysis of data from student and teacher attitudes and results of experiments and quasi-experiments. However little attention has been paid to the attitudes and behaviors of agricultural education faculty. Therefore, the purpose of this research study was to describe the attitudes and self-identified STEM supportive behaviors of agricultural education faculty (n = 112). Generally, agricultural education faculty held positive attitudes toward STEM in agricultural education programs. However, differences existed between land-grant and nonland-grant faculty as well as faculty holding STEM appointments and those without. Agricultural education faculty engaged in teaching and programming behaviors which support STEM in agricultural education but, differences between STEM-appointed faculty and non-STEM appointed faculty were found. Recommendations were made to encourage teacher educators to facilitate partnerships with faculty at other institutions to maximize the impact of the profession on student learning in STEM and agricultural education. Future research should be conducted to identify promising practices which engage non-STEM appointed faculty in STEM supportive behaviors and research.


ABSTRACT This research report aims to give detailed information on the pottery from the 1999 and 2013-16 excavation campaigns taking place at the Tell Sufan site in Nablus, Palestine. These were conducted by the Department of Antiquities at An-Najah National University (ANU) in Nablus. It is of note that this ancient pottery has never previously been the subject of research nor has any literature been published on it. Our methodology consists in: analysing the pottery by identifying it, typifying it, and giving it a function; providing chronological information on the site; comparison of the pottery with that from other sites in Palestine, using archaeological information from the site; and contextualising our findings with other historical and archaeological studies. Examination of the functional use of the pottery allows us to demonstrate human activity at the Tell Sufan site, giving information on the most prosperous phases of occupation in regard to economic aspects, through the late Bronze Age, Iron Age and Byzantine-Early Islamic periods.


In this work we observe the role of public and human capital through an extended version of the Solow model,and we test its main implication that in the long run growth is only drived by technological progress which is exogenous.We estimate a panel data with fixed effects and we obtain several interesting results.First, we obtain favourable conclusions about the predictive capacity of the Solow model for the Spanish regions and that the main restriction of the model holds.However,we find evidence against the other basic prediction of the Solow model that the long run growth rate is only determined by technological progress that is exogenous.The prin- cipal reason is the observed strong correlation between the growth rates of the labour force and production per worker.We also obtain a relevant role of human capital. Second,we elaborate a measure of the rate of growth of the Total Factor Productivity (TFP)using the Divisia-Tornqvist index and we find that it is independent of the investment in private capital and the growth rate of labour force.Its only appear weakly significant the investment in human and public capital variables.This result could be consistent with the prediction of the Solow model.


As a country with 11 properties included on the World Heritage List and approximately 12,000 important cultural properties, Korea has been continuously carrying out the inventory and documentation of cultural properties to conserve and manage them since the 1960s. The inventory of cultural properties had been carried out by making and managing a register which recorded basic information mainly on state-designated cultural properties such as their size, quantity, and location. The documentation of cultural properties was also carried out by making measured drawings. However, the inventory and documentation done under the previous analog method had a limit to the information it could provide for the effective conservation and management of cultural properties. Moreover, in recent times important cultural properties have frequently been damaged by man-made and natural disasters such as arson, forest fires, and floods, so an alternative was required. Accordingly, Korea actively introduced digital techniques led by the government for the inventory and documentation of important cultural properties. In this process, the government established the concept of a digital set, built a more efficie nt integrated data management system, and created standardized guidelines to maximize the effectiveness of data acquisition, management, and utilization that greatly increased the level of digital inventory, documentation, and archiving.


The study proposes to investigate the antecedents of social entrepreneurship intention (SEI) among the students of private universities of Pakistan. A conceptual model is developed from the literature, and the hypotheses are formulated for testing. This is a quantitative study of the nature. We collected the cross-sectional data from private university students by employing quota sampling. In total, 400 questionnaires were distributed. In return, 244 usable samples were received back and valid 61% of response rate. By employing the structural equation modeling, the outcomes of a study show a positive and significant influence of emotional intelligent (EI) creativity and moral obligation (MO) on SEI among the private universities' students of Pakistan. The conclusion of an investigation would help in knowing the role of creativity, EI and MO in developing the SEI. The university authorities and policymakers may develop their ideas to divert the mind of the students towards SEI in order to reduce the burden of unemployment. Finally, it would contribute to the literature of entrepreneurship and psychology, particularly for developing contexts.


A program of annual health examinations was expanded to include counseling based on a computerized appraisal of individual patients' specific health hazard factors. Data obtained from a specially designed questionnaire, laboratory tests and a physical examination yielded a printout showing a number of weighted risk factors and their relation to ten leading causes of death as determined for that patient. From all of this information, a risk ("apparent") age was developed for the patient. The results were reviewed with each patient, and methods of correcting health hazards were stressed. A total of 488 persons were appraised, and 107 were randomly reappraised in less than a year, with the finding that the net risk age was reduced by 1.4 years. Such a reduction in risk age is significant; it indicates that appraisal-based counseling is


For several decades, project management (PM) was carried out in a traditional way, mostly without the aid of software tools. This scenario changed so that several PM information systems have been developed to assist project managers in many fields, including software projects. Similar to other systems, such tools started operating in mobile devices, given increasing adoption and use. Therefore, a study on how mobile applications have been used to manage software projects becomes important. In this paper, we report on a survey research carried out with 75 software project managers to identify the most used mobile applications and where they are mostly applied in PM. A quantitative analysis shows that 57% of the participants do not use mobile PM applications. However, mobile applications such as Trello, Jira and Redmine are mostly used by software project managers. A qualitative analysis was carried out to understand the reasons that lead software project managers to avoid those tools, such as: lack of effectiveness, lack of resources, lack of stimulation, diversity of tools, project complexity, and lack of qualified practitioners. This study brings some improvement suggestions on the existing tools as well as demands for new ones towards a more effective project management support.


In this paper, we show that Multilingual BERT (M-BERT), released by Devlin et al. (2018) as a single language model pre-trained from monolingual corpora in 104 languages, is surprisingly good at zero-shot cross-lingual model transfer, in which task-specific annotations in one language are used to fine-tune the model for evaluation in another language. To understand why, we present a large number of probing experiments, showing that transfer is possible even to languages in different scripts, that transfer works best between typologically similar languages, that monolingual corpora can train models for code-switching, and that the model can find translation pairs. From these results, we can conclude that M-BERT does create multilingual representations, but that these representations exhibit systematic deficiencies affecting certain language pairs.


Summary: This study explored the effect of health and safety policies relating to children in residential establishments and their impact on the opportunities of young people to enjoy activities like visits to the beach or hillwalking. Data were gathered by analysing one health and safety policy, interviews and questionnaires with managers and basic grade staff in five authorities across Scotland, and focus group discussions with 24 young people in care. Findings: The policy which was analysed for this study had been adapted from a wider health and safety policy used in schools. Its application to residential units restricted activities for children in care. Unit managers were concerned about the restrictive impact of the policies and procedures. Young people described a limited range of activities and questioned their relevance and scope. Basic grade staff were the only group to report that health and safety guidance was positive. However, reasons for this appeared to be related to staff prioritizing safety over the potential benefits of activities which may carry a small degree of risk. Applications: It is argued that health and safety guidance must be specific to the circumstances of small,'homely' residential care settings. Attitudes to risk must be informed by the developmental needs of children, and guidance should be reviewed to reflect this.


Investing in venture capital has been an unsatisfactory experience for many long-term institutional investors, as it has not performed in-line with their expectations for more than a decade. Consequently, many investors have been scaling back their venture commitments and, instead, have been focusing on alternative asset classes that offer the benefits associated with economies of scale. In this paper, however, we argue that venture capital still offers attractive opportunities for intrepid institutional investors. Indeed, we outline a mechanism by which institutional investors can bring venture-backed, capital-intensive companies to commercial scale and, in turn, assist in their success over the long term. Specifically, we identify an opportunity whereby institutional investors can leverage their experience in direct private equity and direct infrastructure so as to realize direct venture investing in creative ways. Rather than being held hostage to the 'valley of death' when investing in capital-intensive VC-backed companies, we explain why there may be a 'valley of opportunity'.


The impact of acute exposure of Clarias gariepinus juveniles to commonly used herbicides, glyphosate and paraquat was evaluated through changes in fish mortality and biochemical indeces. Juveniles of the African catfish were exposed to varying acute concentration of glyphosate and paraquat. After 96 h of exposure, the 96 h LC50 for paraquat was found to be 0.07 mg/l while that of glyphosate was found to be 0.530 mg/l. After the exposure period, some enzymes were assayed for in fish liver using a combination of conventional methods and commercially available kits. Comparing with the control, ANOVA analysis revealed that there were significant (p < 0.05) increases in the activities of all enzymes assayed for alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP). There were also significant (p < 0.05) increases in the activities of the antioxidant enzymes: catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and in lipid peroxidation, which was measured by thiobarbituric acid substances (TBARS). The result revealed that glyphosate and paraquat have the ability to modulate certain fish biochemical parameters and can therefore serve as reliable indicators of toxicity in environmental impact assessment programmes.


Economic globalization, free trade world, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), marine highway program, changes in consumer behavior, causing important for PT.PELINDO IV to examine best strategy practice in facing such a situation in order to be competitive and sustainable. The results showed that : based on the SWOT diagram mapping, PT Pelindo IV is in first quadrant. This position indicates a strong company and potentially, recommendations strategy that given is progressive, which mean the company in good condition and steady so it is possible to continue to expand, enlarge growth and achieve maximum growth Keywords: Strategy, SWOT, PT. Pelindo IV Limited


The research was conducted at UD X, this company made one type of pallet, four way entry pallet (local pallet). The average order in a month is 2000 units, which 60% of order completed by the company and the other 40% by subcontracts. In this pallet assembly process, joining each components is doing manually by the operator without tools. While the assembly process needed high accuracy and much time to do. Therefore, tools are needed by operators to carry out the assembly process. So using tools can reduce the process time and the company does not need to subcontracts. To solve that problem, a tool was designed use Verein Deutsche Inginieuer 2222 method (VDI 2222). The result of the design was a pallet assembly aid with allumunium alloy as the base material. The design implementation process which requires a cost of Rp. 6,013,055.26 will be reach the break even point when 7618 units produced. If the design is implemented, the company does not need to subcontract, because with this tool it can save the assembly time by 61.66% from the initial time.


Abstract: Attribution refers to explanations and reasons that people provide for progress, achievement, and even failure towards something they have experienced, particularly in their language learning. This study aimed to investigate the attributions that students had for their English-speaking enhancement. The participants of the study were eighteen students at Sekolah Tinggi Pariwisata Ambarukmo Yogyakarta (STIPRAM). Open-ended questionnaire and interview were used as the instruments to collect the data. On the questionnaire, the participants were specifically asked to provide written responses to three statements, while in the interview process, the researcher involved three participants to provide further clarification toward their written responses on the questionnaire. The data analysis revealed that a clear purpose of doing particular English speaking activities, strategy, and the positive motivation/encouragement from friends as well as from the teacher became the major students' attributions on their English-speaking enhancement. Besides, this study would seem to indicate that a teacher took an essential role in the enhancement of the students' English speaking skill. Eventually, this study proposed some pedagogical implications for the development of teaching and learning in English speaking classes specifically in Indonesian context.


Using temporal abstraction, various forms of sampled multivariate temporal data can be transformed into a uniform representation of symbolic time intervals, from which Time Intervals Related Patterns (TIRPs) can be then discovered. Hence, mining TIRPs from symbolic time intervals offers a comprehensive framework for heterogeneous multivariate temporal data analysis. While the field of time intervals mining has gained a growing interest in recent decades, frequent closed TIRPs mining was not investigated in its full complexity. Mining frequent closed TIRPs is highly effective due to the discovery of a compact set of frequent TIRPs, which contains the complete information of all the frequent TIRPs. However, as we demonstrate in this paper, the recent advancements made in closed TIRPs discovery are incomplete, due to the discovery of only the first instances of the TIRPs within each STIs series in the database. In this paper we introduce the TIRPClo algorithm – for complete and efficient mining of frequent closed TIRPs. The algorithm utilizes a memory-efficient index and a novel method for data projection, due to which it is the first algorithm to guarantee a complete discovery of frequent closed TIRPs. In addition, a rigorous runtime comparison of TIRPClo to state-of-the-art methods is performed, demonstrating a significant speed-up on various real-world datasets.


The need to have a secure lifestyle at home is in demand more than ever. Today's home is more than just four walls and a roof. Technology at home is on the rise and the place for smart home solutions is growing. One of the major concerns for smart home systems is the capability of adapting to the user. Personalizing the behavior of the home may provide improved comfort, control, and safety. One of the challenges of this goal is tackling anomalous events or actions. This work proposes using machine learning techniques to address this issue of detecting anomalous events or actions in smart environment datasets. The approaches are validated using real-world sensor data captured from a smart home testbed.


The involvement of ethylene in root architectural responses to phosphorus availability was investigated in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) plants grown with sufficient and deficient phosphorus. Although phosphorus deficiency reduced root mass and lateral root number, main root length was unchanged by phosphorus treatment. This resulted in decreased lateral root density in phosphorusdeficient plants. The possible involvement of ethylene in growth responses to phosphorus deficiency was investigated by inhibiting endogenous ethylene production with aminoethoxyvinylglycine (AVG) and aerating the root system with various concentrations of ethylene. Phosphorus deficiency doubled the root-to-shoot ratio, an effect which was suppressed by AVG and partially restored by exogenous ethylene. AVG increased lateral root density in phosphorusdeficient plants but reduced it in phosphorus-sufficient plants. These responses could be reversed by exogenous ethylene, suggesting ethylene involvement in the regulation of main root extension and lateral root spacing. Phosphorus-deficient roots produced twice as much ethylene per g dry matter as phosphorus-sufficient roots. Enhanced ethylene production and altered ethylene sensitivity in phosphorus-deficient plants may be responsible for root responses to phosphorus deficiency.


The prelisting variables essential for creating an accurate heart transplant allocation score based on survival are unknown. To identify these we studied mortality of adults on the active heart transplant waiting list in the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients database from January 1, 2004 to August 31, 2015. There were 33 069 candidates awaiting heart transplantation: 7681 UNOS Status 1A, 13 027 Status 1B, and 12 361 Status 2. During a median waitlist follow‐up of 4.3 months, 5514 candidates died. Variables of importance for waitlist mortality were identified by machine learning using Random Survival Forests. Strong correlates predicting survival were estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), serum albumin, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, ventricular assist device, mechanical ventilation, peak oxygen capacity, hemodynamics, inotrope support, and type of heart disease with less predictive variables including antiarrhythmic agents, history of stroke, vascular disease, prior malignancy, and prior tobacco use. Complex interactions were identified such as an additive risk in mortality based on renal function and serum albumin, and sex‐differences in mortality when eGFR >40 mL/min/1.73 m. Most predictive variables for waitlist mortality are in the current tiered allocation system except for eGFR and serum albumin which have an additive risk and complex interactions.


CONTEXT
Sporadic, solitary parathyroid adenoma is the most common cause of primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT). Apart from germline variants in certain cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor genes and occasionally in MEN1, CASR, or CDC73, little is known about possible genetic variants in the population that may confer increased risk for development of typical sporadic adenoma. Transcriptionally activating germline variants, especially within in the C-terminal conserved inhibitory domain (CCID) of glial cells missing 2 (GCM2), encoding a transcription factor required for parathyroid gland development, have recently been reported in association with familial and sporadic PHPT.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the potential role of specific GCM2 activating variants in sporadic parathyroid adenoma.

DESIGN AND PATIENTS
Regions encoding hyperparathyroidism-associated, activating GCM2 variants were PCR amplified and sequenced in genomic DNA from 396, otherwise unselected, cases of sporadic parathyroid adenoma.

RESULTS
Activating GCM2 CCID variants (p.V382M and p.Y394S) were identified in six of 396 adenomas (1.52%), and a hyperparathyroidism-associated GCM2 non-CCID activating variant (p.Y282D) was found in 20 adenomas (5.05%). The overall frequency of tested activating GCM2 variants in this study was 6.57%, approximately threefold greater than their frequency in the general population.

CONCLUSIONS
The examined, rare CCID variants in GCM2 were enriched in our cohort of patients and appear to confer a moderately increased risk of developing sporadic solitary parathyroid adenoma compared with the general population. However, penetrance of these variants is low, suggesting that the large majority of individuals with such variants will not develop a sporadic parathyroid adenoma.


Biofilm formation is one of several significant virulence factors associated with life threatening pulmonary infections in immunocompromised individuals caused by Aspergillus fumigatus. Previous studies have demonstrated phase dependant antifungal activity against A. fumigatus biofilms. Antifungal resistance associated with fungal biofilms is a complex multifactorial phenomenon, and it remains unclear specifically how this manifests itself in A. fumigatus. This study therefore aimed to investigate adaptive resistance mechanisms in A. fumigatus biofilms.
Different phases of A. fumigatus biofilms were grown for 8, 12, 24 and 48h in polystyrene plates in RPMI media. Functional efflux pump activity was subsequently assessed using an Ala-Nap fluorescent uptake assay. Extracellular material was extracted from each phase and the level of extracellular DNA (eDNA) was quantifiedusing a microplate fluorescence assay. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of different classes of antifungals were assessed in the presence and absence of different inhibitors using a checkerboard assay, or with a fixed concentration, by the broth microdilution method to assess synergism, antagonism, or otherwise. The presence of eDNA and phenotypic changes in biofilm caused by antifungal agents and inhibitors were assessed by confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. The resultant biofilm biomass for different experiments was evaluated using a crystal violet assay. SYBR green qRT-PCR was used to assess the expression of different genes implicated in biofilm resistance (AfuMDR 1-4, ChiA-E, HSP90 and Fks1) over the period of multicellular development, using a diffusion chamber in a murine model and a Galleria mellonella infection model.
The results from this study demonstrated phase dependant expression of efflux pumps in A. fumigatus biofilm populations, which actively contributes to azole resistance. Moreover, voriconazole treatment induced efflux pump expression in both in vitro and in vivo models.These data suggest that A. fumigatus efflux pump proteins, which evolved to become integral to their natural physiological function, have inadvertently induced resistance to azole drugs, albeit in the early phases of biofilm development.
Assessment of A. fumigatus biofilm extracellular matrix (ECM), associated with maturing biofilms, showed that eDNA is an important architectural component of the biofilm, helping to maintain its stability. The antifungal sensitivity of different phases of A. fumigatus growth decreased significantly in the presence of DNase, indicating that decreased susceptibility to antifungals in the A. fumigatus is mediated in part by eDNA.Its release was shown to correlate withchitinase activity, a marker of autolysis, suggestive that autolysis was associated with eDNA release. It was hypothesised that heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) was involved in this autolytic pathway. Therefore, when HSP90 was pharmacologically inhibited this led to a decrease in matrix eDNA level, providing a compelling mechanism through which HSP90 might regulate biofilm antifungal resistance. To test whether these mechanisms of adaptive resistance had any bearing clinically, a G. mellonella model was developed. It was shown that each of the key genes were expressed during infection, both in control and antifungal treated larvae. This validates the potential use of this insect model for resistance and virulence studies.
Overall, this study establishes several novel adaptive resistance mechanisms regulating biofilm drug resistance in A. fumigatus biofilms. Moreover, it highlights the potential to target these mechanisms as a therapeutic strategy for managing and improving clinical outcomes in these hard-to-treat infections.


The comprehensive objective of SEISMED (a S ecure E nvironment for I nformation S ystems in MED icine) was to elaborate a consistent, harmonized framework for medical data protection throughout Europe. The specific technical proposals of SEISMED are thus accompanied by a high level security policy which presents the underlying principles. This approach is consistent with the forthcoming European ITSEC activity. SEISMED proposes a suite of cryptographic mechanisms in order to provide sufficient flexibility to meet the characteristic challenges of health care data processing: • A long tradition of decentralized processing of health care data with multilateral and legitimate interests. • Ultra high sensitivity of personal medical data whose disclosure might not be repairable by, e.g. smart-money. • Long periods of time (up to 30 years) over which health care data must be archived in its original state. A 20 man-month workpackage evaluated the pertinent cryptographic literature, other relevant EC-projects (RACE Integrity Primitives Evaluation project RIPE), and renowned The result is a cryptographic guideline which is presented by separate documents to three different target audiences. Odds and ends of cryptography: The use for health care IT-systems IT-system end-users Guideline for Cryptographic Mechanisms —IT-system end-users— Odds and ends of cryptography: The benefits for IT-system end-users IT and security personnel Technical Recommendations for Cryptographic Mechanisms —IT and security personnel— Suite of proposed cryptographic mechanisms Health Care Management This part addresses the management of a health care environment. While a rapidly evolving information technology often leaves the management confused, the management is responsible for keeping its health care environment working efficiently. To this end, integrated IT systems appear to be the ideal solution. This report identifies their specific risks which should be considered when deciding about new systems or upgrades of existing ones. This is even more important since indeed the management decides about IT-system installation, but in many cases the medical end-users like physicians are accountable for breaches of security of these systems. Hence, a management will only succeed in installing integrated IT-systems if it succeeds in inspiring the confidence of the end-users into these systems. Severe limitations of conventional security measures like passwords are identified and it is shown how these limitation can be overcome by applying cryptographic mechanisms. General aspects of integrating cryptography into existing applications are discussed. IT-system end-users This part addresses IT-system end-users, like physicians, medical staff, etc. who deal with sensitive medical data. Normally, these end-users are …


Static drawings of biological pathways are still an important research tool for biologists. Gerhard Michal created his seminal drawings of metabolic networks in the 1960s and thus defined canonical representations of some key pathways. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) provides the most popular static drawings of biological networks of different types, used in a huge number of publications. These drawings are so widely known that they are immediately recognizable to most biologists. This enables collaborative work and simplifies the communication of analysis results. Automatic layout of these pathway maps is complicated by the fact that the information available from KEGG does not contain the entire layout information of the reference maps. Here we present a fully automated algorithm for interactive KEGG layout construction. The algorithm conserves the original KEGG layout to the extent possible while improving readability by removing unnecessary elements (in organism-specific maps). Multiple pathway maps can be laid out simultaneously to facilitate the navigation of larger networks. The algorithm supports the hierarchical layout of sub networks and thus supports interactive exploration of large datasets.


We present data on occupational mobility in the Republic of Ireland in greater detail than has been available previously. The primary datum is a 14x 14 mobility table. The categories are subclassifications of the nine categories used in analyses of other European societies by Erikson, Goldthorpe, and others. The refined categories show details of mobility in Ireland that are important for understanding the complete structure of association between class origins and destinations. Gross rates of mobility in Ireland are lower than the rates observed in countries for which comparable data are available. Furthermore, the mobility that occurs is very often mobility between categories that differ little in market position or socioeconomic status. We find that the relative low mobility rate in Ireland is due to the combined effects of an occupational composition that favours immobility and a pattern of strong association between class origins and destinations. 'Countermobility,' i.e., instances of downward mobility to first jobs (often in unpaid work on a farm or in a shop) followed by upward career mobility that returns the worker to his class of origin is also an important component of Irish occupational mobility. The association between origins and destinations has a very strong vertical component which we measure using prestige and educational credentials. Market position affects immobility as informal labour markets increase immobility while bureaucratic


This paper argues that an important part of ensuring the jurisdictional basis of the crime of aggression is to secure a partnership between the UN Security Council and the ICC. Such a partnership should be conducive towards the reality of holding to account individuals that undertake an illegal use of force. This Paper puts forward guiding principles for a model that would benefit a constructive institutional relationship between the Council and the Court. It is through the application of these five guiding principles that the inclusion of the crime of aggression in the Rome Statute can translate into a constructive relationship between the International Criminal Court and the Security Council for the betterment of international peace and security as well as international justice. I maintain that it would be damaging to both the legitimacy and operational effectiveness of the Security Council and the ICC and detrimental to the overall institutional relationship if the final outcome proves unfavourable to international action against the crime of aggression and nothing more than dead letter law. Essentially the key to a viable cooperation regime between the Court and the Council will hinge on shared objectives regarding the crime of aggression rather than opposing views, namely combating impunity by holding individuals accountable for the illegal use of force.


A reduction in population size due to land clearing and habitat fragmentation may have negative effects on plant fitness. A relationship between population size and progeny performance for four small (n 100 plants) populations of Banksia ilicifolia, a widespread but naturally fragmented species in south-western Australia, was assessed. Seeds collected from the field were germinated and a comparative growth study conducted in a greenhouse. After six months, the survival rate of seedlings from larger populations was double (36%) that of smaller populations, while germination rates and other measures of growth performance were independent of population size. The conservation and management implications of reduced fitness associated with small population size in B. ilicifolia are discussed.


Treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute leukemia (Ph+ ALL) has been revolutionized with the advent of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). Most patients with CML achieve long-term survival similar to individuals without CML due to treatment with TKIs not only in frontline but also in further lines of therapy. The third-generation TKI ponatinib has demonstrated efficacy in patients with refractory CML and Ph+ ALL. Ponatinib is currently the most potent TKI in this setting demonstrating activity against T315I mutant clones. However, ponatinib's safety data revealed a dose-dependent, increased risk of serious cardiovascular (CV) events. Guidance is needed to evaluate the benefit–risk profile of TKIs, such as ponatinib, and safety measures to prevent treatment-associated CV events. An expert panel of German hematologists and cardiologists summarize current evidence regarding ponatinib's efficacy and CV safety profile. We propose CV management strategies for patients who are candidates for ponatinib.