The concept of validity developed considerably during the last half of the twentieth century, from essentially meaning that "a test measures what it says it measures", through multiple types of validity – content, criterion, and construct – to a multifaceted but essentially unitary concept of construct validity. The publishers of high stakes tests in the United States have, for the most part, embraced the modern concept of validity, whilst those responsible for general qualifications in England, such as the GCSE and GCE, appear not to have ventured far beyond evaluating content validity and reliability in ensuring the quality of these tests. These differences may be attributable to differences between the two cultures in the forms of tests and the personnel traditionally responsible for their construction. Nonetheless, the unitary concept of validity demands forms of evidence to counter threats to validity that content validity and reliability do not and, as such, the quality of English general qualifications could benefit from explicit evaluation of validity, especially during specification (syllabus) development. The validity literature contains examples of the types of evidence required to satisfy validity concerns and guidance on how to gather it, on which awarding bodies may draw. The involvement of the regulatory authorities in specification development means, however, that responsibility for validity cannot lie exclusively with the awarding bodies, and a coordinated approach to validation would be required.


Background Homicide-suicides are rare events in which an individual commits a homicide and then takes his or her own life. Despite extensive media coverage and a recent increase in research in this field, our understanding of these events is limited as most studies are descriptive. There is little reliable evidence regarding mental illness in individuals who commit homicide-suicide. Aims The central aim of this study was to examine the role of mental illness in cases of homicide-suicide. The objectives were to: (1) determine the prevalence of mental illness; (2) describe the characteristics of perpetrators and victims, and the circumstances of the offence; (3) examine the psychopathology of perpetrators prior to the offence.MethodThe research design was a mixed methods study of homicide-suicide. Quantitative and qualitative techniques were used to examine a national consecutive case series, in England and Wales, between 1st January 2006 and 31st December 2008. The sample contained 60 cases. Descriptive statistical analysis and a thematic framework analysis were undertaken on documents obtained from coroners, the police, GP medical records, records of mental health services contact and newspaper articles. The social, behavioural, offence and clinical characteristics of these incidents were reported.Results Most of these offences were committed by men (53, 88%). The average age of perpetrators was 44 years (range 18-85). The overwhelming majority of these incidents involved close family members, mainly current or former intimate partners and/or the children of the perpetrator. Over half of the perpetrators had previously been diagnosed with mental health problems by a GP, most commonly depression. The incident was, in most cases, preceded by an actual separation from an intimate partner, or the perpetrator perceived separation to be imminent. The emotional responses to the loss of the relationship included: anger; frustration; humiliation; jealousy; desire for revenge; hopelessness, guilt and remorse. Poor coping strategies were observed, with many having a history of previous self-harm or suicide attempts, and difficulty controlling their aggression. Despite the high proportion of lifetime mental illness, few had been in recent contact with their GP for psychological problems prior to the incident. In the majority of cases, incidents involving mentally ill perpetrators were reported responsibly in newspapers. However, there were instances in which journalists sensationalised the incidents and provided stereotypical portrayals of the perpetrator.Conclusion The findings from this study add valuable empirical qualitative data to the literature. These incidents occur in the context of existing and challenging common social issues, such as intimate partner violence, child custody disputes, an ageing population, and mental disorder. The evidence from this study shows that these perpetrators had an extreme reaction to an interpersonal crisis resulting in severe emotional distress. Perpetrators from vulnerable groups had complex needs and exhibited previous poor coping strategies that may put them at increased risk. However, prevention is difficult as these are rare events and though under distress, these individuals were less likely to seek help from services. More research is required to identify risk factors in targeted sub-groups of homicide-suicide, such as intimate partner, filicide-suicide and elderly homicide-suicide, in the context of social, economic and clinical problems.


BACKGROUND: Silicone implants are used in several regions of the body. In women, sagging of the triceps muscle is a major concern. Meanwhile, men consider biceps and triceps hypertrophy to be a symbol of masculinity and beauty. Here, we describe a relatively simple and reproducible procedure used for esthetic purposes to increase arm circumference or correct mild to moderately sagging skin using gel silicone implants and elastomer. METHODS: Thirty-two patients were selected and operated on. Two to four implants per arm were introduced. RESULTS: The esthetics of the arms improved significantly in the studied patients, with a satisfaction rate exceeding 90%. The procedure improved static evaluation and arm movement, which were the major complaints of majority of the female patients. CONCLUSIONS: The surgical technique presented for augmentation brachioplasty is safe and reproducible, and should be considered by plastic surgeons in an attempt to achieve better results with smaller incisions.


BACKGROUND
Advances in interventional techniques have been dramatic in the last 10 years. The goal of this study was to evaluate the age-adjusted in-hospital mortality rate in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) using a large database.

METHODS
The Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database was utilized to calculate the age-adjusted mortality rate for PCI from 1988 to 2004 in patients over the age of 40 retrospectively. Specific ICD-9- CM codes for PCI were used for this study. Demographic data were also analyzed and adjusted for age.

RESULTS
The mean age for these patients was 71.56 +/- 10.59 years (53.55% male). From 1988 to 1995, the age-adjusted mortality rate was stable. However, after 1995 the age-adjusted mortality rate showed persistent decline to the lowest level in 2004. (In 1988, age-adjusted mortality rate was 75.43 per 100,000 [95% CI = -7.88-158.76], in 1995, 66.83 per 100,000 [95% CI = 24.62-109.050] and in 2004, 38.38 per 100,000 [95% CI 19.53- 57.22]; p < 0.01). Total death also declined from 1.8% to 1.2%. This trend was similar across gender and ethnicities except for Asians. Furthermore, minorities and women had persistently higher mortality in comparison to males and Caucasians.

CONCLUSION
The age-adjusted in-hospital mortality rate from PCI was steady until 1995 and declined to its lowest level in 2004. Despite this decline, racial and gender disparity in regard to mortality persisted over the study years.


Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) was extracted from three segments of Solanummelongenas andMusa sapientumfruits and partially purified. The specific activity of PPO was measured at each purification step to ascertain level of enzyme purity. In all cases, PPO conformed to Michaelis- Menten kinetics, showing different values of kinetics parameters.Michaelis- Menten constant for PPO (PPOKm) of S. melongenas mid-section and anterior segments showed no significant difference (p 0.05).Maximum PPO activity (PPOVmax) was highest in the posterior segment: PPOVmax= 0.602±0.09 U. Mid-section of M. sapientum exhibited the highest Km value (PPOKm = 5.8±0.69 mM) compared with the anterior (PPOKm = 3.9±0.69 mM) (p> 0.05) and posterior PPOKm = 4.9±0.11mM segments (p Posterior > Anterior, whereas that of M. sapientum wasMid-section >Anterior > Posterior. PPOVmax/Kmbetween the two fruits showed strong positive correlation (r = 0.862339). Catechol was a better substrate for PPOS. melongenas than PPOM. sapientum.The experimentally observed kinetic parameters of S. melongenas and M. sapientum signified the presence of PPO isoenzymes and non-uniform distribution of PPO in the two fruits.


During Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 159, Sites 959 and 960 were drilled on the northern slope and near the top of the Côte d'Ivoire-Ghana Marginal Ridge, at the intersection of the divergent Ivorian Basin and a transform margin. On seismic lines, this ridge appears as an acoustic basement tilted northward. It comprises Albian siliciclastic synrift sediments, uncon formably overlain by Turonian to Santonian carbonate debris flows (postrift but syntransform sediments). These sediments ar overlapped along the northern ridge slope by Upper Cretaceous–Paleocene claystones and Paleocene–Eocene porcellanite. The Formation MicroScanner (FMS) logging tool has recorded images of the borehole wall between 546 meters below sea floor (mbsf) (porcellanite) and 924 mbsf (claystones) in Hole 959D, and between 331 and 351 mbsf (grainstones) in Hole 960C. From these images, strata and fault attitudes have been systematically measured (1771 beds and 694 faults measure Hole 959D, and 257 beds and 13 faults in Hole 960C) to study the progressive tilting of the ridge and coeval deformation. In Hole 959D, the average dip of the bedding increases with depth, from 7° at 550 mbsf to 16° at 920 mbsf. The mean azi muth remains constant, around 320°N. These changes indicate a progressive northwestward tilt of the marginal ridge from th Upper Cretaceous to the Eocene. However, both dip and azimuth measurements exhibit important variations that cannot b ascribed to measurement resolution. In Hole 960C, the attitudes of bedding exhibit the same variations, with an average az muth around 20°. Changes in dip and azimuth values can be correlated at a decimeter-to-meter scale and indicate progressive rotations abo horizontal axes. At both Sites 959 and 960, direct observations on cores and strong correlation between rotation axis and fau strikes indicate that many rotations are related to tilting along low-dipping and gravity-driven normal faults. Sedimentary str uctures such as cross lamination or progradation can also explain rotations of successive beddings, especially at Site 960 whe grainflows were observed. Averaging the dip and azimuth over a large interval (20 m) emphasizes the occurrence of severa wavelengths in the depth domain for the progressive tilts. Finally, the northern slope of the Marginal Ridge results from a combination of tilting around several horizontal rotation axes. The rotations are mainly controlled by the contemporaneous thermal subsidence of the transform and divergent margin Moreover, some faults and rotation axis directions can be associated with paleo-stresses, especially in the syntransform lim stones of Hole 960C.


The disc in a rotary crusher of glass and metal in a mercury recycling system encounters fracture failure due to unknown reason. Possible causes are identified and investigated both numerically by finite element analysis and experimentally including modal analysis and materials, acoustic signature and destructive load characterisation. Knowledge is developed on the conditions needed for failure. It is concluded that the observed fracture during operation occur due to a large force rather than fatigue, and a hypothesis on how this may be realized is put forward.


We examine an analytical model of selection against the deleterious effects of transposable element (TE) insertions in Drosophila, focusing attention on the asymptotic and dynamic characteristics. With strong selection the only asymptotically stable equilibrium point corresponds to extinction of the TEs. With very weak selection a stable and realistic equilibrium point can be obtained. The dynamics of the system is fast for strong selection and slow, on the human time scale, for weak selelction. Hence weak selection acts as a force that contributes to the stabilization of mean TE copy number. The consequence is that under weak selection, and 'out-of-equilibrium' situation can be maintained for a long time in populations, with mean TE copy number appearing stabilized.


Purposes: To investigate the immediate effect of Laryngeal Manual Therapy (LMT) in musculoskeletal pain, in voice and sensations referred to individuals with behavioral dysphonia and individuals without it. Methods: 30 individuals ranging from 18 to 45 years old were selected and sorted into two groups: the dysphonic group (DG) - 15 individuals with functional or organofunctional dysphonia, and the control group (CG) - 15 individuals without vocal complaints and with non-impaired voices. The individuals answered a pain questionnaire and their voices were subsequently registered. The initial evaluation was repeated after the LMT. The LMT was applied for 20 minutes. After the LMT, the individuals were self-evaluated in terms of sensations in their voices, larynxes, articulations and respiration. Results: After the application of LMT, the DG reported significant improvement of pain in the following areas: temporal, larynx, posterior neck, wrists/hands/fingers, upper and lower back, hip/thigh, which did not occur in CG. The perceptual analysis of the vowel /a/ revealed no significant difference in any parameter in both groups after the LMT. The analysis of the speech showed that there was an increase of the roughness parameter after the application of LMT just in the DG. The DG individuals reported better sensations in the larynx and articulations after the submission to LMT, which did not occur in CG. Conclusion: this study clarified that TML immediately reduces the intensity of corporal pain in dysphonic individuals, which did not occur in individuals without any vocal impairments. Although the perceptual analysis reveals an increase of the roughness in the quality of the voice, positive sensation in the larynx and articulation were reported by dysphonic individuals after the application of TML.


As students of one of the two antipodes of the lifecycle, gerontopsychiatrists have recently tended to be overshadowed by their colleagues in child psychiatry. Nonetheless, the problems of mental disorder of old age are as complex and as important as those in the early phases of development. This book illustrates convincingly some of the issues needing to be explored. Its 12 chapters, all written by recognized authorities, take in a variegated group of topics the senescent process, clinical and diagnostic problems, the academic and administrative implications which highlight both the practical and theoretical aspects of psychogeriatrics. Their relevance to the ageing populations of most industrialized societies is apparent.


High-throughput technologies offer unrecognized insights into the genesis of human disease, propelling innovation across a spectrum of biomedical specialties.1 The evolution of molecular diagnostics continues to shape deployment of modern therapies, including identification of markers of disease prognosis, predictors of therapeutic response, and determinants of optimal clinical management, all recognized cornerstones of modern medical practice.2 In the postgenomic era, proteomic paradigms have demonstrated particular utility in advancing the practice of personalized disease prediction, diagnosis, and therapy,3 with systems-based approaches facilitating functional deconvolution of proteomes despite their inherent biological complexity.4 The ever-expanding proteomics toolkit encompasses an array of sophisticated technologies with the flexibility to interrogate a totality of putative protein targets, thereby enabling systematic resolution of proteome structures and functions. Indeed, mapping and decoding of proteome landscapes in health and disease provide the foundation to iteratively collate, integrate, and prioritize large-scale raw data.5 Thus, high-throughput proteomics offers a robust, adaptable technological foundation from which to systematically comprehend the underpinnings of (patho)physiological processes.

Article see p 106

Innovative proteomic methods are designed to separate and identify proteins with high fidelity and to assess protein abundance, structure, posttranslational modifications, and interactions, enabling charting of the global proteome (ie, the protein complement of a genome; Figure). Progress in proteomic research has benefitted from the application of stringent criteria in assigning peptide and protein identities for comprehensive proteome cartography, such that perturbed or modified subproteomes within reconstituted protein networks can now be extracted at unprecedented rates for interpretation of their biological relevance. Expansion of proteomic studies has also been propelled by the concomitant development of high-resolution, high-mass-accuracy instrumentation, together with next-generation bioinformatics platforms for data analysis and systems interpretation. Existing approaches, however, may fall short of offering adequate experimental solutions arising from particular protein physicochemical constraints, limiting the otherwise far-reaching …


Leaders have the task of developing future strategy while being consciously engaged in executing current strategy and mapping landmarks, pathways and obstacles which they meet asthey endeavor to traverse challenging, rapidly evolving terrain. In an era in which there is a global leadership credibility crisis, business as usual is no longer an option in the pursuit of the longer-term survival of any organization. The leadership approach to complexity outlined here is based on learning to achieve results through experimentation, learning, and reflection. A case study is presented that illustrates the application of this approach. In this paper, the reader is first introduced to a brief overview of some key definitions and debates, shifting leadership boundaries, and emerging accountabilities and opportunities. This is followed by a summary of some of the key topics and issues that face current and future leaders.


OBJECTIVE To study the human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DQB1 genetic background in the Chinese population in Taiwan and its association with the low incidence of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) in this population. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Forty-eight IDDM patients and 59 nondiabetic unrelated control subjects were recruited from the population in Taiwan. HLA-DQB1 exon 2 was enzymatically amplified by polymerase chain reaction. HLA-DQBl alleles were diagnosed by dot blotting and hybridization with 16 sequence-specific oligonucleotide probes. RESULTS DQB1*0201 and DQB1*0302 alleles were more frequent and DQB1*0301 and DQB1*0601 were less frequent in Chinese with IDDM than in control subjects. Genotypes for homozygous non-aspartic acid residue (NA/NA) at position 57 were positively associated with IDDM at a relative risk of 4.34 (P < 0.001), and those for homozygous aspartic acid (A/A) were negatively associatedwith IDDM at a relative risk of 0.14 (P < 0.001). Among the NA/A heterozygotes, only DQB1*0201/ DQB1*0303 was significantly increased in IDDM subjects. CONCLUSIONS The amino acid residue at position 57 of HLA-DQ β3-chain is significantly associated with the development or prevention of IDDM in Chinese subjects living in Taiwan. Other genetic and environmental factors may also play important roles in pathogenesis of IDDM.


Microfinance has long been recognized as having significant potential to create jobs and reduce poverty. But to meet the twin challenges of growth and sustainability, managers of microfinance institutions (MFIs) must not only understand essential management functions: they must also be armed with innovative ideas and strategies to succeed in today's increasingly competitive environment. This training manual provides a valuable overview of the key management principles necessary to optimize the services of MFIs and brings together useful lessons from numerous MFIs worldwide to help managers strengthen the performance of their unit, branch or institution.

Either used alone, or as part of a management training course, Making Microfinance Work: Managing for improved performance offers an arsenal of tools and advice. The book examines the markets and marketing of MFIs and captures the different ways in which managers can communicate the value of their products and services. It introduces effective methods for enhancing efficiency and productivity which minimize the trade-offs MFIs invariably face as they try to provide services over the long term.

The topic of managing risks is also covered. This manual offers strategies to prevent risk from occurring and, if it does occur, explains how to rectify the situation. Practical techniques for allocating costs and determining prices are also highlighted, as well as the importance of plans, budgets and reports.

In a clear, easy to follow presentation, the book includes illustrations and case studies to assist managers in applying the concepts outlined in the text. An extensive list of additional reading and useful Internet resources is also provided.


This paper examines the Luo custom of caring for a 'widow' and for the home of a deceased husband, its rationale and some of its contemporary challenges. The paper maintains that this custom is still the best alternative available to the Luo widow and for the care of the home of one's deceased brother, especially in the context of Luo culture. However, it recommends a number of adjustments to the practice to discourage some of the abuses that are becoming prevalent in it, with a view to making it more amenable to some of the challenges of our time. Key Words Levirate, Wife Inheritance, Luo, Lwo, Kenya


Thank you for downloading essentials of emergency medicine. Maybe you have knowledge that, people have look hundreds times for their chosen books like this essentials of emergency medicine, but end up in infectious downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they cope with some infectious virus inside their computer. essentials of emergency medicine is available in our book collection an online access to it is set as public so you can download it instantly. Our books collection spans in multiple locations, allowing you to get the most less latency time to download any of our books like this one. Kindly say, the essentials of emergency medicine is universally compatible with any devices to read.


In this paper we construct two classes of LDPC codes with girth 16 and 20, respectively, based on graphical models. These codes are well-structured, regular, and with column weight j = 2, which greatly simplifies their implementation. The codes with girth g = 16 have code rate r = 1/2. And the codes with girth g = 20 have code rate r = 1/3. Simulation results compare their bit-error-rate (BER) decoding performance in AWGN channels with randomly constructed LDPC codes.


Customer experience research is widely considered to be cutting edge. Despite this very
little research has been conducted on the optimal online customer experience.
Whilst some research has been conducted on the Business to Consumer Sector (B2C)
there appears to be very little on Business to Business (B2B).
Work conducted on behalf of the Henley Centre for Customer Management explored the
perceptions of both B2B and B2C customers with online experience in both Europe and
the United States.
132 people were interviewed in depth using a qualitative version of Repertory Grid. Over
100 hours of interview were analyzed. The research also adopted a cross industry
approach as an aid to generalizability.
We found 13 themes and 109 factors for the optimum B2C experience. Themes include;
interactivity, security, informative, trustworthy, personal, community, emotional
engagement, aesthetics, usability, quality of content, commercialization customer
orientation, fulfilment.
We found 13 themes and 97 factors for the optimum B2B experience. Themes; usability,
aesthetics, subject relevance, hedonic experience, information processing, trustworthy,
relational, learning, contemporary, customer oriented, community, commercialization,
fulfilment.
The report also contains a checklist of factors members should consider when crafting
the optimum experience for their online customers.


The equations governing the dynamics of rigid body systems with velocity constraints are singular at degenerate configurations in the constraint distribution. In this report, we describe the causes of singularities in the constraint distribution of interconnected rigid body systems with smooth configuration manifolds. A convention of defining primary velocity constraints in terms of orthogonal complements of one-dimensional subspaces is introduced. Using this convention, linear maps are defined and used to describe the space of allowable velocities of a rigid body. Through the definition of these maps, we present a condition for non-degeneracy of velocity constraints in terms of the one dimensional subspaces defining the primary velocity constraints. A method for defining the constraint subspace and distribution in terms of linear maps is presented. Using these maps, the constraint distribution is shown to be singular at configuration where there is an increase in its dimension. ii J. Briggs


ABSTRACT:
 Rare species recovery presents several challenges for conservation managers, particularly when listed species interact with one another. We present a case study involving two such species: golden paintbrush (Castilleja levisecta) and Taylor's checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha taylori), both of which occur in lowland prairies in the Puget Sound region and are federally protected (threatened and endangered, respectively). These two species occupy some of the same sites, and golden paintbrush likely historically served as a larval food plant for Taylor's checkerspot. Managers working to recover these species have encountered a number of challenges and opportunities—recovery efforts for one species may have no effect, positive effects, or negative effects on the other. Furthermore, sometimes rapid recovery actions are necessary on shorter time scales than those at which research typically occurs, and must proceed in spite of significant knowledge gaps. Here we share how our growing understanding of the complex ecology of these species has given rise to large-scale management questions and conflicts, and outline the strategies we are using to navigate these challenges. Our approach has included convening periodic workshops with experts on both species; designing and implementing research studies to fill knowledge gaps about the two species' relationship; and identifying "no regrets" actions that can be taken to benefit one or both species with minimal risk in the face of uncertainty. While the details of this case study are highly specific, the lessons can be applied to other systems with interacting listed species.


Microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) is an experimental radiosurgical technique under investigation as a treatment for presently incurable brain lesions such as gliomas. The treatment involves the irradiation of a macroscopic target volume by delivering a very high dose to many microscopic wide sub-volumes. A very high dose rate and very low beam divergence are prerequisites for MRT, which at present necessitates the use of synchrotron radiation. The complex structure of the radiation field combined with the very high dose rate pose a challenge for conventional dosimetry. To address the dosimetric inadequacies, a complete and standalone dosimetry system was developed for MRT as part of this work. It includes the silicon microstrip detector: a high spatial resolution single strip detector, data acquisition hardware capable of remotely biasing and reading out the detector, and data acquisition software to interface with the hardware and perform analysis on received data. The system is collectively known as X-tream. This thesis provides an introduction to MRT, the production of synchrotron X-rays and a literature review of methods of dosimetry for MRT as reported in literature. The development of the X-tream system is discussed along with an overview of its operation and initial characterisation. Charge-collection characterisation of the microstrip detector was performed in numerous ways. Alpha spectroscopy reveals that the application of the guard ring greatly reduces the effective sensitive volume of the detector when compared to the floating configuration, but reveals no spatial information. Spatially-resolved ion beam induced charge collection (IBICC) is performed using the ANSTO Heavy Ion Microprobe to obtain spatial information about the charge collection distribution under various electrical configurations. The application of the guard ring is seen to greatly confine charge collection to the immediate vicinity of the central strip, however significant charge collection is seen near the pad region, a phenomenon not observed during MRT measurements. As the detector was not pre-irradiated prior to the investigation, it is hypothesised the combination of the metallic pad, oxide layer and silicon acts as a MOS capacitor and induces an electric field bubble in the region surrounding the pad. Subsequent exposure to radiation is then hypothesised to result in a reduction of the carrier lifetime and decrease the sensitivity of the detector. Synchrotron X-ray beam induced charge collection studies are performed on the ESRF ID17 beamline, and agree with the tight charge confinement of the guarded detector as observed for IBICC. Charge collection is not seen in the pad region, but the notable difference is that the detector has been pre-irradiated. Energy dependence studies are performed through characterisation with a clinical orthovoltage X-ray unit and compared to Monte Carlo simulation. Both experimental and simulated results show an over-response of the detector to low energy X-rays when compared to dose to water. A more rigorous treatment is applied experimentally with monochromatic synchrotron X-rays over the range of 40 to 80 keV, which too reveal an over-response at low energy, a finding backed by Monte Carlo simulation. Hypothetical detector designs are simulated to attempt to reduce energy dependence, which include a reduced epitaxial layer thickness, a mesa structure and the use of CVD diamond. The reduced epitaxial thickness makes a minor difference, whereas the mesa structure and use of CVD diamond more dramatically reduce the low energy over-response. The system is characterised in a synchrotron X-ray MRT field where it is found the detector requires pre-irradiation of the order of 20 kGy prior to use. Connecting the guard ring is found to greatly decrease detector sensitivity due to much better confinement of the charge collection volume. The system is found to have excellent linearity with prescribed dose, however depth dose measurements deviate from ionisation chamber measurements and Monte Carlo simulation of both dose to detector and dose to water. This is attributable to the energy dependence of the detector to low energy photons. With the detector oriented such that the smallest sensitive volume dimension is in the dose gradient direction, the substrate is found to result in asymmetric microbeam dose profiles. This is due to the dose enhancement of the silicon substrate relative to the phantom material on the opposite side. The capabilities of the X-stream system are demonstrated in synchrotron X-ray MRT fields. The over response dependence of the microstrip detector to low energy photons however necessitates improvements to its energy dependence relative to water. A move to mesa-based structures and use of materials such as CVD diamond are suggested. The modularity of the X-tream system ensures that such changes of design require only minor modification to the rest of the system.


Times of emergency often serve as triggers for the creation of new policy. Such policies may involve restriction of human rights, and various mechanisms can be used to mitigate the severity of such restrictions. One such mechanism is the temporary measure. A series of three experiments examined the potential of temporary measures for increasing the likelihood of approval of rights-restricting policy and the role of time – both prospectively and retrospectively – in the willingness to restrict human rights. We find that behavioural examination confirms the concerns expressed in the literature regarding temporary legislation. Participants asked to approve a rights-restricting policy were more willing to approve a temporary measure when it was presented as a compromise, and they were more willing to extend a rights-restricting policy when it had previously been implemented. These findings indicate a possible slippery slope effect in temporary legislation: policymakers might be persuaded to approve measures they would not otherwise approve when those measures are temporary or when they have been previously approved by others.


While not tied to a specific degree program or course of study, this guide provides resources relevant to the studies of continents and specific regions of the world.


Thelema is a universal philosophy or way of life. The religion of Thelema proposes the idea that physical existence begins with the interaction of two metaphysical principles. In the most prominent Thelemic Holy Book, The Book of The Law, these ideas are given form by association with the ancient Egyptian deities known as Nuit, the goddess of the night sky who represents unlimited possibility, and her lover Hadit, who represents the individual experience and is characterized as a Winged Serpent. The union of these two deities produces a phenomenon, which is identified with the Hawk Headed god: Ra-Hoor-Khuit, who represents the karmic law which dominates life.


Background: Sleep disturbance, including insomnia disorder, is common among
patients with chronic health conditions, and is associated with psychological
difficulties and impaired health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Less is known about
whether a similar relationship exists in individuals with chronic health conditions
who do not have a clinical diagnosis of sleep disturbance (NCSD). Recent evidence
suggests that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) in the form of self-help (SH) is
an effective treatment for individuals with chronic health conditions and has the
advantage of low cost and ease of access. Any form of sleep disturbance may be
perceived as problematic for individuals with chronic health conditions. This study
aims to: a) examine whether the NCSD population with chronic health conditions at
baseline have poor sleep quality, insomnia symptoms, high levels of psychological
distress (anxiety, depression and stress), sleep-related dysfunctional beliefs and
impaired HRQoL, and b) assess the effectiveness of the CBT-SH booklet.
Method: Participants were recruited from outpatient clinics and received a 6-week
CBT-SH booklet for sleep-related problems. Outcome measures included evaluations
of subjective sleep quality and the severity of insomnia symptoms, psychological
distress (anxiety, depression and stress) sleep-related dysfunctional beliefs and
HRQoL. Measures were completed before and after the intervention.
Results: Forty-nine participants (44 females) completed the study. Prior to the
intervention, 46 participants reported poor sleep quality and 47 participants reported
clinical or subthreshold insomnia. Mean scores for the measures of psychological
distress indicated moderate levels of anxiety, depression and stress and sleep-related
dysfunctional beliefs respectively. HRQoL was also impaired. Following the CBT
intervention, participants showed significant improvements in sleep outcomes, sleeprelated
dysfunctional and stress levels. No significant differences were found in
HRQoL depression and anxiety outcomes.
Conclusion: A brief CBT-SH booklet for sleep-related problems is effective for
patients with chronic health conditions and NCSD in clinical settings.


This study aimed to evaluate the kinetics of dry matter degradation and neutral detergent fiber of banana peel treated with limestone. The banana peel has been acquired from a candy manufacturer that after washing with chlorinated water to 1% and pulp removal was discarded. The banana peel in nature was treated with 1, 2, 3 and 4% of limestone in the natural matter, homogenized and pre-dried in the sun for 120 hours. The experiment was conducted in a completely randomized experimental design, with five treatments (0 (control), 1, 2, 3 and 4% inclusion of limestone) with 3 repetitions. The dry matter potential degradability, showed no difference (P>0.05) in the levels compared to the control with an average of 67.58%. The insoluble degradation fraction rate of dry matter and the fiber fraction did not differ (P> 0.05) between levels and control. In relation to effective degradability of neutral detergent fiber, there was an increase of 3.47% for each percentage unit increased limestone. In relation to the ruminal degradation parameters of dry matter and neutral detergent fiber is not recommended the utilization of limestone as an additive in the treatment of banana peel.


The authors of the comment (referred to below as Stewart, 2021) provide a detailed discussion of the value of tritium analyses to constrain the travel time of streamflow, in response to a previously published paper in HESS (referred to below as Rodriguez, 2021). The comment (Stewart, 2021) specifically discusses the apparent "truncation" of travel time distributions (TTDs) derived from stable isotopes when compared to TTDs derived from tritium. This "truncation" is discussed by Rodriguez, 2021, as one of the incentives for the original study, to include both stable isotopes (i.e. H) and tritium, within the ageranked storage selection framework (SAS). By doing that, the original paper (Rodriguez, 2021) is a very valuable contribution to the scientific literature.


Flood recession farming (locally known as molapo farming) is a farming system which is based on natural irrigation and fertilization of the floodplain where crops are cultivated on the remaining soil moisture of the receding flood. Maize (Zea mays) is the most commonly grown crop in molapo farms and yet the contribution of the moisture regime in meeting the crop's water requirements is poorly understood. In particular the link between residual moisture and moisture supplied by rainfall and its effect on maize growth has not been investigated. This study investigated this aspect at three sites (Tubu, Xobe and Shorobe) located in the Okavango Delta, Botswana where molapo farming is mainly practiced by small-holder farmers. These small-holder farmers are faced with challenges such as high or low floods and fields vulnerable to livestock grazing leading to early harvesting. The study established that main implications for the farming community were that planting too close to the channels may be too wet or waterlogged while moving away from the channel can become too dry leading to poor plant emergence and low yields.


An increasing amount of recent research has focused on the multisensory and neural bases of the bodily self. This pre‐reflective form of self is considered as multifaceted, incorporating phenomenal components, such as self location, body ownership, first‐person perspective, agency, and the perceptual body image. Direct electrical brain stimulation (EBS) during presurgical evaluation of epilepsy and brain tumor resection is a unique method to causally relate specific brain areas to the various phenomenal components of the bodily self. We conducted a systematic review of the literature describing altered phenomenal experience of the bodily self evoked by EBS. We included 42 articles and analyzed self reports from 221 patients. Three‐dimensional density maps of EBS revealed that stimulation in the middle cingulum, inferior parietal lobule, supplementary motor area, posterior insula, hippocampal complex/amygdala, and precuneus most consistently altered one or several components of the bodily self. In addition, we found that only EBS in the parietal cortex induced disturbances of all five components of the bodily self considered in this review article. These findings inform current neuroscientific models of the bodily self.


In this paper we present the AMSABEL system, a natural language based information retrieval system. AMSABEL provides access to data stored in a relational database using unrestricted natural language. Queries can be expressed in either, English or Spanish, thereby providing direct access to the database for non-expert users. The system relies on machine learning techniques to translate the original query from natural language into a structured query language and, therefore, does not depend on the contents of the database, as long as training data is available.


Previous studies demonstrated that there were two pathways, the messenger transport organizer (METRO) or early and the Vg1 or late, which function during stages 1 to 3 of oogenesis for the localization of RNAs at the vegetal cortex of Xenopus oocytes. In the present study we analyzed the properties of the METRO pathway, which localizes Xlsirt, Xcat2, and Xwnt11 RNAs to a specific region of the vegetal cortex during stage 1 of oogenesis. A combination of methodologies involving both fixed material and living oocytes was used to analyze RNA localization. We show that in early diplotene pre-stage 1 oocytes (25-50 microm in diameter) both endogenous and injected exogenous METRO RNAs translocated to multiple mitochondrial aggregates (pre-mitochondrial clouds) that surround the germinal vesicle (GV). However, by early stage 1 (diplotene oocytes, 50-200 microm), all three of the RNAs discriminated between the different clouds and translocated exclusively within the METRO of a single mitochondrial cloud. Therefore, in stage 1 diplotene oocytes there is a unique mechanism causing a change in the intrinsic property of the mitochondrial clouds which designates one of them as the RNA transport vehicle. During translocation through the cytoplasm Xlsirt and Xcat2 RNAs were detected associated with cytoplasmic particles of different morphologies. Additionally, we also found that the translocation of RNAs through the early or METRO pathway, unlike that of the late pathway, occurred in the absence of intact microtubule and actin microfilament cytoskeletal elements. This supports a cytoskeletal-independent model for localization of RNAs through the METRO pathway.


In most Commonwealth member countries, services account for at least half of total economic activity in terms of gross domestic product. Levels are particularly high in high-income countries but also in some small island states, where activities like tourism and finance – both services – are important in the overall economy. This paper analyses services exports of Commonwealth countries and develops a conceptual framework about the impacts of COVID-19 on services exports. It presents a set of case studies from Commonwealth countries to identify the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic for services trade, and the responses by governments and private sector actors, including the possibilities for cross-modal substitution in services supply due to digital technologies. The case studies cover a wide range of sectors, namely education, information technology, health, tourism and finance. The available evidence, which is scarce, suggests that country experiences have varied depending on the pre-existing pattern of sectoral specialisation, as well as the level of online connectivity.


While interactive learning and inter-organisational relations are fundamental building blocks in RIS theory, the framework is rarely related to investigations of regional knowledge network structures, because in RIS literature relational structures and interaction networks are discussed in a rather fuzzy and generic manner with the 'network term' often being used rather metaphorically. This paper contributes to the literature by discussing theoretical arguments about interactions and knowledge exchange relations in the RIS literature from the perspective of social network analysis. More precise, it links network theoretical concepts and insights to the well-known classification of RIS types by Cooke (2004). We thereby exemplarily show how the RIS literature and the literature on regional knowledge networks can benefit from considering insights of the respective other.


Abstract.
 In Dixie Valley, Nevada, an isolated population of toads has been the subject of proactive conservation measures by the Nevada Department of Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since 2008 due to concerns about potential habitat degradation resulting from exploitation of nearby geothermal energy resources. These toads appear to belong within the Anaxyrus boreas species group but are commonly referred to as Dixie Valley toads (DVTs). The DVT is currently confined to an extremely narrow habitat range (370 ha) that is geographically isolated from any other A. boreas population. In this study, genetic variations in mitochondrial genes and 11 microsatellite loci were used to assess the affinities of DVTs in relation to members of the A. boreas species group. We compared results from DVTs with previously published data spanning much of the range of A. boreas in the United States and new data from a nearby toad population within Dixie Valley. Data from both mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites placed DVTs inside the A. boreas species group. In particular, DVTs fell into a cluster of A. boreas from Washington and California, along with other species from the A. boreas species group, namely A. nelsoni, A. canorus, and A. exsul. Genetic differentiation of DVTs was lowest between A. boreas populations in Washington and California. However, allele frequencies were significantly different between DVTs and all other populations, including a nearby locality within Dixie Valley. This genetic differentiation, along with the DVT's geographical isolation and restricted habitat, warrants recognition of the DVT as a distinct management unit.


Stochastic models for hardware-software systems are developed and used to study their performance as a function of hardware-software failure and maintenance rates. Expressions are derived for the distribution of time to a specified number of software errors, system occupancy probabilities, system reliability, availability, and average availability. The behavior of these measures is investigated via numerical examples.


The present study determined total mercury (T-Hg) in crustacean Portunus pelagicus (blue crab) and mollusc Tapes sulcarius (Furrowed Venus: Cockle) following suspected rise in beach plastic wastes and their effect on marine organisms. Live samples were collected from beaches representing six Kuwait Governorate areas and exposed to toxicity (96hr) and bio accumulation tests for 180 d with inclusion of plastic wastes and environmental conditions simulated in laboratory. Results revealed high T-Hg concentrations in T sulcarius (1.44ng l(-1)) compared to P. pelagicus (1.03ng l(-1)) during winter than summer, with bio accumulation factor (BAF) > 1 labelled these species as hyper-accumulators. Significantly, combination of T-Hg concentrations from plastic wastes and in seawater validated the possibilities of detrimental effects of other marine lives besides deteriorating the aesthetic values of scenic beaches and likelihood of invasive species in such coastal areas.


A series of five consecutive clinical trials were performed in which the neuropeptide desglycinamide‐(Arg8)‐vasopressin (DGAVP) was administered to human subjects suffering from cognitive and memory complaints. The patients selected for the study were carefully screened with the aid of neuropsychological assessment procedures. The trials were conducted according to a structured design in which the variables 'dose', 'route of administration', 'treatment schedule', 'diagnostic group', and 'severity of deficit' were varied from trial to trial in order to find optimal conditions for the possible expression of a peptide effect. The results indicate a statistically significant effect of DGAVP on word list learning in patients with mild brain trauma, suggesting that learning performance and memory retrieval are improved after peptide treatment in these patients. Patients with more severe brain trauma did not respond to peptide treatment. Some DGAVP effects, e.g. increased speed of memory search, were observed in patients with age‐associated memory deficits.


Like many other elite athletes, National Football League ("NFL") players typically have a short playing career, often leaving the league due to injury or lack of interest from teams before they have been able to prepare sufficiently for life after the league. This qualitative study examines the experiences of NFL players related to preparing for the transition out of professional sports. We completed interviews with a total of 25 players including both current and former players, as well as 27 family members of former and current players. Factors that affected their career preparation included features of the NFL work environment which necessitated an emphasis on football over other interests, identity foreclosure that made it difficult to consider other career options, limited exposure to other professions, and challenges with financial planning. Social contacts had both positive and negative effects on players' preparation but family, particularly wives, provided important support. Our findings point to policies that might guide players in their preparation for life as former players including instituting mandatory training and counseling concerning these issues, beginning in a player's rookie year, and continuing throughout players' tenures in the league.


There has been a hot debate on the typological status of Mandarin Chinese in Talmyan framework of Verb-framed languages (V-languages) and Satellite-framed Languages(S-languages). However, most previous studies focus on motion events, while other macro-events (Talmy, 2000) receive little attention. The present study aims to investigate event of realization in Mandarin Chinese with experimental method. The analysis of elicited data shows that: (1) predicates of Mandarin realization events are mostly bipolar resultative verb compounds, which have the semantic feature of [+agent], [+instrument], and [+state change]. This proves that "result" is a semantic prime in Chinese verb semantics. (2) Lexicalization patterns of realization events in Mandarin represent more of S-language, but Mandarin also shows the characteristics of V-language. The difference between S-language patterns and V-language patterns is significant, and the general tendency is: S-language>Vlanguage. Overall, the results indicate that the lexicalization typology of Mandarin realization events falls into a complementary typological framework.


This paper proposes a decentralized framework for the orchestration of Cloud Services using heterogeneous resources residing in the homes of private individuals or small-scale clusters. The framework makes use of Ethereum Smart Contracts to provide a decentralized mechanism for discovering the different interfaces exposed by Cloud Components. The paper introduces a novel concept of Component Administration Networks, which are peer-to-peer networks that monitor and ensure the availability of the software components. The concept applied for the Orchestration process to ensure that the deployment of an Application continues in the presence of Orchestrator component failure. Checkpoints are used to address the continuity of the Management components, in general, and of the Orchestrator, in particular. In our proposal, checkpoint metadata is stored in a Smart Contract to assess the execution time of a Service to reimburse the participants that ensure its execution.


In order to reduce computational complexity and memory requirements using conventional boundary element method (CBEM) for large scale acoustical analysis, a fast solving algorithm called the Fast Multipole BEM (FMBEM) based on the fast multipole algorithm and GMRES iterative solver is developed without composing the dense influence coefficient matrices. The multipole level structure is introduced to accelerate the solution of large-scale acoustical problems, by employing a concept of cells clustering boundary elements and hierarchical cell structure. To further improve the efficiency of the FMBEM with iterative solvers, a block diagonal matrix method is used in the system of equations as the left pre-conditioner. Numerical examples are presented to further demonstrate the efficiency, accuracy and potentials of the fast multipole BEM for solving large-scale acoustical problems.


SUMMARY The present study focuses on orthodontically provoked, excessive root resorption. The purpose was to identify in these cases common morphological features in radiographic diagnostic material taken before treatment. The material was submitted by 35 Danish orthodontists. The goal was to improve the future orthodontic diagnostics of the dentition in order to prevent severe root resorption during treatment.

The study indicates that: (1) there is a strong connection between various dental morphological characteristics, such as invagination, length of root, and root shapes, especially taurodontism, and the tendency to root resorption during orthodontic treatment; (2) there is a connection between anomalies in the dentition, particularly ectopia and agenesis, and the tendency to root resorption during orthodontic treatment; (3) there seems to be a connection between the pattern of resorption in the primary dentition and the tendency to root resorption in the permanent dentition following orthodontic treatment; (4) girls are more susceptible to root resorption during orthodontic treatment than boys; (5) one ought to be on the lookout for connections between condylar changes, root resorptions, and anterior open bites in connection with orthodontic treatment.

The observation regarding root resorption in dentitions in which invaginations and taurodontic root shapes occur has not previously been reported. Also, the findings of deviant resorption patterns in both the primary and permanent dentitions in a considerable number of patients are new observations, which ought to be incorporated into orthodontic treatment planning.


In the previous paper, a readout approach for the Hamiltonian path problem (HPP) in DNA computing based on the real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was proposed. Based on this approach, real-time amplification was performed with the TaqMan probes and the TaqMan detection mechanism was exploited for the design and development of the readout approach. The readout approach consists of two steps: real-time amplification in vitro using TaqMan-based real-time PCR, followed by information processing in silico to assess the results of real-time amplification, which in turn, enables extraction of the Hamiltonian path. However, the previous method used manual classification of two different output reactions of real-time PCR. In this paper, alternative fuzzy c-means (AFCM) clustering algorithm is used to identify automatically two different reactions in realtime PCR. We show that AFCM clustering technique can be implemented for clustering output results of DNA computing readout method based on DNA Engine Opticon 2 system.


Enterprises of the protected ground or greenhouse horticulture centres must have facilities for the necessary supply of heat, water, electric power, natural and artificial optical radiation. The long-term practice of plant cultivation has shown that in autumn, winter and spring, the basic limiting factor in transparent greenhouses is light. The radiating mode of the greenhouses is one of the major and power-intensive factors of a microclimate. Therefore, in case of artificial irradiation, it is necessary to pay special attention to the minimization of power consumption, which is associated with the selection of a source, type of irradiation device, reflector configuration and location of the lighting fixtures. The specific consumption (Sharupich et al., 2005) of power resources in the most common greenhouses in the world, which have one fructifying plant layer in the greenhouse volume, constitutes 40-55 mega-calories per 1kg of the product, which is by 40-45% higher than in the case of the technology of intensive cultivation of the culture, using the method of drop watering. The more productive and more power saving technology, i.e. the so-called Dutch technology is not advantageous in the environmental conditions of Estonia. The latest research works of scientists have revealed that for the protected ground in the second heat-affected zone, including Estonia, multi-tier narrow-bench hydroponics is a more preferable technology. It allows to make more effective use of the greenhouse volume to ensure a simultaneous fructification of 5 layers, to increase the production yield per area unit by 3.0-4.0 times in comparison with the traditional technology, and to reduce the specific power expenses by approximately 70%. However, the lighting maintenance of the cutting-edge technology which has a specific arrangement of the plant layers on inclined planes has not been sufficiently elaborated as yet. In particular, there are no technical decisions on the special lighting fixtures ensuring the increase of power efficiency of additional artificial irradiation. Therefore, it is essential to enhance the efficiency of one of the high energy consumption processes of artificial irradiation of the plants considering the spatial specificity of the promising multi-tier narrow-bench hydroponics technology.


LAURA PALMER WAS BOB'S MASCULINE DAUGTER: REVERSAL OF GENDER ROLES IN TWIN PEAKS AND FIRE WALK WITH ME AbstractIn my paper I shall analyse the cult TV series Twin Peaks through a gender perspective. I shall argue that Laura Palmer could actually be seen as BOB's daughter because she impersonates male predatory sexuality and attitudes. I shall also argue that the behaviour of BOB could be seen as very similar to that of all of his victims through the same masculine attitudes they exhibit. In my reading, the series and the film will be considered as an unfolding narrative resulting from the comprehensive work of both its creators David Lynch and Mark Frost and the team of its writers and directors. THE CONTROVERSIAL and much-debated TV series Twin Peaks by David Lynch and Mark Frost was divided in two seasons which were aired between 1990 and 1991; it...


The purpose of this paper is, first and foremost, to accurately describe how biopower enters IR. It does this because so far IR theorists have inaccurately deployed the concept. Due to the tripartite nature of biopower – sovereign, disciplinary, biopolitical – and idiosyncratic conceptualizations of sovereignty by predominant theorists, a number of disparate conceptualizations of biopower populate the literature, none of which satisfactorily extend Foucauldian analysis into international relations. This paper attempts to remedy this conceptual ambiguity to produce the sorts of insights Foucault was concerned with. Central to my argument is thus a discussion of sovereignty. Notwithstanding Foucault's warnings about slavish devotion to his work, I nonetheless maintain that an accurate exposition of biopower in IR necessitates a conceptualization of sovereignty that adheres to Foucault's methodological principles. Following a deconstruction of sovereignty that identifies a 'history of practices,' I maintain that state sovereignty continues to play a central biopolitical role. From this position, I then argue biopower must enter into international relations in a specific manner. I argue that global, or more accurately, international biopower should be identified according to a genealogical method stemming from the biopolitics of states first elucidated by Foucault. I proceed by investigating how 'domestic' mechanisms of security are becoming transnational. My ultimate argument focuses on identifying how processes of biopolitical normalization resonate with international processes, and successfully translates Foucauldian scholarship into IR by extending our understanding of how modern liberal societies are governed by norms. By showing how biopolitical normalization is becoming a transnational phenomenon, I reconceptualize 'global biopower' as international biopolitical normalization.


Abstract
It has become accepted that new cardiomyocytes can be derived from stem cells. Although the potential for therapeutic application is evident, the reported efficiency of differentiation varies greatly from 0.02 to 54%. To obtain clinically relevant numbers of newly differentiated cardiac cells, stem cell differentiation should be as efficient as possible. A plausible way to increase the efficiency of differentiation of stem cells into cardiomyocytes is through the introduction of cardiac specific regulatory genes in the stem cells. This review summarises the role of several key transcription factors in cardiogenesis.


A setup to be used in a home theater or sound reproduction system for handling low frequency sound signals with a signal source providing several full bandwidth digital sound channels and at least one digital low frequency subwoofer channel includes a delay-and level control unit at least for each full bandwidth signal channel, which is equipped for a speaker not capable of reproducing low frequency sounds. A first summing stage creates the sum channel by summing the delay-and level controlled signal channels. A second summing stage adds a low frequency subwoofer channel to the sum channel in order to create a digital bass channel. A DA-conversion, amplifying, lowpass-filtering and volume control unit processes the digital bass channel in order to create an analog bass channel.


Abstract For over a century, a link between left prefrontal cortex and language processing has been accepted, yet the precise characterization of this link remains elusive. Recent advances in both the study of sentence processing and the neuroscientific study of frontal lobe function suggest an intriguing possibility: The demands to resolve competition between incompatible characterizations of a linguistic stimulus may recruit top–down cognitive control processes mediated by prefrontal cortex. We use functional magnetic resonance imaging to test the hypothesis that individuals use shared prefrontal neural circuitry during two very different tasks—color identification under Stroop conflict and sentence comprehension under conditions of syntactic ambiguity—both of which putatively rely on cognitive control processes. We report the first demonstration of within-subject overlap in neural responses to syntactic and nonsyntactic conflict. These findings serve to clarify the role of Broca's area in, and the neural and psychological organization of, the language processing system. Abstract & For over a century, a link between left prefrontal cortex and language processing has been accepted, yet the precise characterization of this link remains elusive. Recent advances in both the study of sentence processing and the neuroscientific study of frontal lobe function suggest an intriguing possibility: The demands to resolve competition between incompatible characterizations ofa linguisticstimulusmayrecruit top–down cognitive control processes mediated by prefrontal cortex. We use functional magnetic resonance imaging to test the hypothesis that individuals use shared prefrontal neural circuitry during two very different tasks—color identification under Stroop conflict and sentence comprehension under conditions of syntactic ambiguity—both of which putatively rely on cognitive control processes. We report the first demonstration of within-subject overlap in neural responses to syntactic and nonsyntactic conflict. These findings serve to clarify the role of Broca's area in, and the neural and psychological organization of, the language processing system. &


Metacognitive therapy is a relatively novel and growing psychotherapeutic approach. Within the last 20 years, several metacognitive-oriented therapy methods have been developed. They are metacognitive therapy which was developed by Wells, metacognitive training which was produced by Moritz et al. especially for patients with psychotic disorder, and metacognitive reflection and insight therapy for psychotic patients. Among them, the most structured one seems the metacognitive therapy. The main notion of metacognitive therapy is to alter the dysfunctional metacognitive interpretations and strategies underlying psychopathology. However, it should be emphasized that it has some fundamental differences from cognitive behavioral therapy because metacognitive therapy is a relatively new school of cognitive therapy, its effectiveness in the treatment of many psychiatric disorders continues to be evaluated intensively. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is one of these disorders. As obsessive-compulsive disorder is a lifelong disorder that causes significant loss of workforce and pharmacotherapy is sometimes insufficient, psychotherapeutic approaches are of great importance. In this context, exposure and response prevention still seems to be an important treatment option in terms of psychotherapeutic approaches. However, it is clear that a new approach is required in psychiatry practice in cases where exposure and response prevention and classical cognitive behavioral therapy are not sufficient and remain with residual symptoms. In this respect, metacognitive therapy can be an important alternative to fill this gap. However, more evidence needs to be created with studies with much larger samples.


In this paper, we explore the challenging problem of performing a generative task in a target language when labeled data is only available in English, using summarization as a case study. We assume a strict setting with no access to parallel data or machine translation and find that common transfer learning approaches struggle in this setting, as a generative multilingual model fine-tuned purely on English catastrophically forgets how to generate non-English. Given the recent rise of parameter-efficient adaptation techniques, we conduct the first investigation into how one such method, prompt tuning (Lester et al., 2021), can overcome catastrophic forgetting to enable zero-shot cross-lingual generation. Our experiments show that parameter-efficient prompt tuning provides gains over standard fine-tuning when transferring between less-related languages, e.g., from English to Thai. However, a significant gap still remains between these methods and fully-supervised baselines. To improve cross-lingual transfer further, we explore several approaches, including: (1) mixing in unlabeled multilingual data, and (2) explicitly factoring prompts into recombinable language and task components. Our approaches can provide further quality gains, suggesting that robust zero-shot cross-lingual generation is within reach.


Diffusers as used in gas transport systems have an optimal pressure recovery but are unstable due to marginal flow separation. Coupling of diffuser flow oscillation with acoustic modes in a pipe has been demonstrated in a recent work by Kwong and Dowling [J. Fluids Eng. 116, 842 (1994)] to drive flow unsteadiness. Considered here in addition to the diffuser at a pipe termination is the aeroacoustic response of a diffuser in a long pipe. In both cases reflection coefficient measurements show that at moderate and low amplitudes of the acoustical particle velocity compared to the main flow velocity, diffusers are aeroacoustic sources similar to the whistler nozzle and the horn. This confirms the observations of Kwong and Dowling. At higher acoustical velocity amplitudes diffusers become strong absorbers, which can be explained in terms of a quasistationary flow model. Finally, an indication is provided for possible remedial measures when a stable flow is needed.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address a gap in the comparative research literature on vocational education and training (VET) and skill formation systems. It examines the impact of international technical standardisation and regulation on the design, organisation and delivery of apprenticeships in the aeronautical and aerospace sectors in England and Germany.

Design/methodology/approach
The research design was informed by insights from economics, workplace and work-based learning and comparative education. Academic experts in the fields of aerospace and aeronautical standardisation and regulation, VET, human resource development and business organisation were consulted. The generic occupation of "aircraft mechanic" was selected as being the closest match for comparison. Interviews and non-participant observation in workplaces and training centres were carried out involving three companies in England and four in Germany.

Findings
Findings show that there is considerable convergence across the pedagogical approaches to apprenticeships in England and Germany related to fostering the capacity to take responsibility for the quality of one's work, to work in and lead teams, and to respond to and work with customers. Increasing international regulation and technical standardisation underpins a shared language about learning through practice in technologically advanced workplaces.

Originality/value
This paper is original because it turns the lens of inquiry to workplace processes to reveal the level of convergence in training philosophies and practices in an internationally highly regulated sector. It shows how international technical standardisation and regulation is leading to pedagogical innovation. The findings have implications for VET and apprenticeship policy at the national and international level.


Fungi play important roles across the range of current and future biofuel production processes. From crop/feedstock health to plant biomass saccharification, enzyme production to bioprocesses for producing ethanol, higher alcohols, or future hydrocarbon biofuels, fungi are involved. Research and development are underway to understand the underlying biological processes and improve them to make bioenergy production efficient on an industrial scale. Genomics is the foundation of the systems biology approach that is being used to accelerate the research and development efforts across the spectrum of topic areas that impact biofuels production. In this review, we discuss past, current, and future advances made possible by genomic analyses of the fungi that impact plant/feedstock health, degradation of lignocellulosic biomass, and fermentation of sugars to ethanol, hydrocarbon biofuels, and renewable chemicals.


The remarkable contribution of vaccination programs to public health cannot be contested. The success of Jonas Salk's polio vaccine in mass human trials, the fiftieth anniversary of which was celebrated on April 12, 2005, was one of the most important feats in the history of medicine. As a result of this prevention strategy, the devastating epidemics that plagued the country in the twentieth century have not since occurred, and the World Health Organization declared the US polio-free in 1994. With this announcement, polio was added to the list of diseases that have been stamped out through successful, widespread vaccination programs: the global elimination of smallpox was declared in 1979, and in 2000, measles was pronounced no longer endemic in the US.

Rubella (also known as German measles) followed suit on March 21, 2005, when the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) declared it eliminated in the US. The rubella virus was once a grave health threat to infants and a major cause of serious birth defects and miscarriages. The CDC embarked on a rubella elimination program in 1989, and in the following decade, only 117 cases were reported. In 2001, for the first time, fewer than 100 US cases were reported, and in 2004, fewer than 10 cases surfaced, all of which were likely acquired in other countries and imported into the US.

Despite extraordinary progress in relegating vaccine-preventable diseases, such diseases endure, predominantly in developing countries. Vaccinations against rubella will continue vigilantly in the US because international travel to areas without steadfast vaccine programs makes it possible for surreptitious cases to enter the country and transmit the disease to vulnerable individuals. The Pan-American Health Organization has set a goal to eliminate rubella from all of North and South America by 2010.


Development of bioactive ingredients from natural sources has long been the research project of our laboratory. In this study, the extract from Corylus hallaisanensis Nakai branches was investigated and their anti-inflammatory constituents were identified. The prepared ethanol extract was successively partitioned into n-hexane, ethyl acetate, n-butanol and aqueous layers. Upon anti-inflammatory screenings, ethyl acetate fraction exhibited good nitric oxide production inhibitory activity in lipopolysaccharide-induced RAW 264.7 cells. Further phytochemical studies for the ethyl acetate fractions led to isolation of four constituents such as β-sitosterol (1), 3,3',4'-tri-O-methylellagic acid (2), carpinontriol A (3) and carpinontriol B (4). All of the compounds were isolated for the first time from this plant. The isolates 2, 3 and 4 showed considerable inhibition on the production of nitric oxide in the RAW 264.7 cell without causing cell toxicities. And compounds 3 and 4 reduced the production of interleukin-6, an inflammatory cytokine, in dose-dependent manner in RAW 264.7 cells. Based on these results, C. hallaisanensis extracts could be potentially applicable as anti-inflammatory agents in pharmaceutical or cosmetic industries.


This report summarizes strategies San Francisco employers used to implement the nation's first law requiring paid sick days for all employees, based on interviews with a sample of businesses. Although employers faced three new policies that affected staff wages and benefits, they were able to implement the paid sick leave requirement with minimal impacts to their business. The report details employer responses to the law in their operations, staffing, employee benefit packages, and reporting requirements. By assessing employers' perspectives on the operational challenges of the law, the study provides lessons to inform future research and policymaking.


High-dose methotrexate (MTX) has been extensively used for treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). To determine the optimal dose of MTX in childhood relapsed ALL, the ALL Relapse Berlin-Frankfurt-Münster (ALL-REZ BFM) Study Group performed this prospective randomized study. A total of 269 children with a first early/late isolated (n = 156) or combined (n = 68) bone marrow or any isolated extramedullary relapse (n = 45) of precursor B-cell (PBC) ALL (excluding very early marrow relapse within 18 months after initial diagnosis) were registered at the ALL-REZ BFM90 trial and randomized to receive methotrexate infusions at either 1 g/m(2) over 36 hours (intermediate dose, ID) or 5 g/m(2) over 24 hours (high dose, HD) during 6 (or 4) intensive polychemotherapy courses. Intensive induction/consolidation therapy was followed by cranial irradiation, and by conventional-dose maintenance therapy. Fifty-five children received stem-cell transplants. At a median follow-up of 14.1 years, the 10-year event-free survival probability was .36 (+/- .04) for the ID group (n = 141), and .38 (+/- .04) for the HD group (n = 128, P = .919). The 2 groups did not differ in terms of prognostic factors and other therapeutic parameters. In conclusion, methotrexate infusions at 5 g/m(2) per 24 hours, compared with 1 g/m(2) per 36 hours, are not associated with increased disease control in relapsed childhood PBC acute lymphoblastic leukemia.


This paper explores the links between school, family and area background influences during adolescence and later adult economic outcomes. The empirical analysis is based on data covering the period 1979 to 1996, drawn from the 1979 US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. For a sample of individuals aged 14 to 19 in 1979, estimates are produced of the impact of family, school and local area when growing up, on earnings capacity and poverty risk once they reach adulthood.


Objective Ligustrazine, also named as tetramethylpyrazine, is a compound purified from Ligusticum chuanxiong hort and has ever been testified to be a calcium antagonist. The present investigation was to determine the antinociceptive effect of ligustrazine and, if any, the peripheral ionic mechanism involved. Methods Paw withdrawal Latency (PWL) to noxious heating was measured in vivo and whole-cell patch recording was performed on small dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. Results Intraplantar injection of ligustrazine (0.5 mg in 25 mu l) significantly prolonged the withdrawal latency of ipsilateral hindpaw to noxious heating in the rat. Ligustrazine not only reversibly inhibited high-voltage gated calcium current of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neuron in dose-dependent manner with IC(50) of 1.89 mmol/L, but also decreased tetrodotoxin (TTX) -resistant sodium current in relatively selective and dose-dependent manner with IC(50) of 2.49 mmol/L. Conclusion The results suggested that ligustrazine could elevate the threshold of thermal nociception through inhibiting the high-voltage gated calcium current and TTX-resistant sodium current of DRG neuron in the rat.


Using data from electronic health records this thesis aims to model and analyse health care services provided to adult patients with chronic conditions. Two aspects of health care services, with unique aims, have been examined. The first aspect is related to the aim of investigating factors affecting the patients' self experienced quality of the health care encounters with regards to satisfaction, personalized help and general information received. Significant factors were determined by odds ratios resulting from either logistic or multinomial regression, combined with generalized boosted regression. The main findings included: Better self perceived health, increased age, the absence of long lasting illness and not having experienced debasing, accounted positively for the odds of being satisfied. Factors implying a sicker patient increased the odds of receiving help and information; though higher age reduced the odds. Specifically regarding receiving personal help, higher level of education showed an increase in the odds. There were also indications that satisfaction could be negatively correlated with the amount of help and information received. The second task has been to construct discrete-time patient trajectories, consisting of unique states or events that describe health service usage. Using such patient trajectories this aspect's aim is to model and describe changes and stability in health service usage, and predict future health care events using discrete-time Markov chain and hidden Markov models. Estimation was performed by maximum likelihood and trained by the Baum-Welch algorithm. Both Markov models were justified to describe certain perspectives of health care utilization. Prediction of future health events was only theoretically adequate using hidden Markov models, but its accuracy was unsatisfactory. Also the hidden states of the hidden Markov model, with unknown physical interpretation in a patient trajectory setting, can be induced to represent complex health levels or indices for patients.


Using statistic parameters of solids holdup signals, a moment consistency data processing method (MCDPM) was proposed. Experiments were carried out using FCC particles of 76 μm under different operating conditions, and MCDPM was used to successfully obtain solids holdups of the dense and dilute phases and the phase fractions over five fluidization regimes, bubbling (BFB), turbulent (TFB), circulating turbulent (CTFB), high-density circulating (HDCFB), and circulating (CFB) fluidized bed systems. In BFB, TFB, and CTFB regimes, only dense phase fraction decreased with increasing air velocity, while the transition from HDCFB to CFB experienced appreciable change in the solids holdup of the dense phase. From the low-velocity to the high-velocity regimes, both the solids holdup and the fraction of the dense phase experienced a drastic decrease, suggesting that this transition corresponded to a profound change in flow structure and further suggesting that CTFB is in reality still a TFB. © 2012 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 59: 1479–1490, 2013


The outcome of machine learning is influenced by the features used to describe the data, and various metrics are used to measure model performance. In this study we use five different feature sets to describe the same 4000 gold nanoparticles, and 14 different machine learning methods to compare a total of 70 high scoring models. We then use classification and regression to show which meta-features of data sets or machine learning algorithms are important when making a selection. We find that number of features, and those that are strongly correlated, determine the class of model that should be used, but overall quality is almost entirely determined by the cross-validation score, regardless of the sophistication of the algorithm.


This study examines the benefits and challenges of creating partnerships between schools and their local maker community. Makerspaces are dedicated facilities for individuals to create products with specialised tools that vary greatly in different spaces. This paper focuses on makerspaces with technologies that facilitate fabrication. Based on interviews, we describe the benefits and challenges of makerspace-high school partnerships and the potential partnership between makerspaces and technical schools. In high schools, makerspaces provide students with equipment to discover problems, explore ideas and gain self-confidence. In the community, makerspaces provide patrons with opportunities to develop making skills, collaborate, generate new economic activity, and build community. Despite having similar objectives, the needs of high school makerspaces and public makerspaces are vastly different. Hence, school-makerspace partnership attempts in Victoria, Australia have often been difficult to implement and more importantly, sustain.


BACKGROUND
Many Veterans Affairs (VA) primary care (PC) patients prefer telephone-delivered care to other health care delivery modalities.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate PC patients' telephone experiences and outcomes before and after a national telephone transformation quality improvement (QI) collaborative.

METHODS
Cross-sectional surveys were conducted pre- and post-collaborative. We used bivariate analyses to assess differences in pre/post outcomes and multivariate regression to identify variables associated with patients' perceptions of poor quality care.

RESULTS
Patients from 13 VA facilities participated (n = 730; pre-intervention = 314, post-intervention = 416); most of them were males (90%) with a mean age of 62 years. After the collaborative (versus pre-collaborative), few experienced transfers (52% versus 62%, P = 0.0006) and most reported timely call answer (88% versus 80%, P = 0.003). Improvements in staff understanding why patients were calling and providing needed medical information were also found. There were measurable improvements in patient satisfaction (87% versus 82% very/mostly satisfied, P = 0.04) and perceived quality of telephone care (85% versus 78% excellent/good quality, P = 0.01) post- collaborative. The proportion of veterans who reported delayed care due to telephone access issues decreased from 41% to 15% after the collaborative, P < 0.0001. Perceptions of poor quality care were higher when calls were for urgent care needs did not result in receipt of needed information and included a transfer or untimely answer.

CONCLUSIONS
The QI collaborative led to improvements in timeliness of answering calls, patient satisfaction and perceptions of high-quality telephone care and fewer reports of health care delays. Barriers to optimal telephone care 'quality' include untimely answer, transfers, non-receipt of needed information and urgent care needs.


ABSTRACT Wetland vegetation assessment is a critical component of evaluating wetland protective policies and providing useful information for global climate change research. In this study, four types of wetland are chosen to evaluate their long-term changes and potential linkage to anthropogenic (e. g., agricultural activities) and natural influences (e. g., hydrometeorological effects). These wetland types include the Yancheng wetland (coastal wetland), the Chongming wetland (river wetland), the Hongze Lake wetland (lake wetland) and the Everglades wetland (marsh wetland) in the contrasting environments of China and USA. The vegetation coverages of these wetlands were evaluated from 2000 to 2011 by using over 2,200 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 250 m resolution images. Four vegetation indices (VIs) were compared to evaluate their effectiveness in assessing relative changes: the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), the Floating Algae Index (FAI), the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), and the Visible Atmospherically Resistance Index (VARI). FAI performance was relatively insensitive in terms of both the statistical error and the aerosol effects compared with other VIs and was thus chosen to study the long-term vegetation changes. The results showed that 1) agricultural influence appeared to be relatively minimal compared with hydrometeorological effects in the Everglades wetland and in the core partitions of the Yancheng, Chongming, and Hongze Lake wetlands over the 12-year period, and 2) the entire partitions of the Yancheng, Chongming and Hongze Lake wetlands showed noticeable influences from agricultural activities in addition to natural variability. The cost-effective method that we demonstrate in this study may be extended to other wetlands near the same geographical location and to other satellite platforms.


Solving optimization problems is the key to decision making in many real-life analytics applications. However, the coefficients of the optimization problems are often uncertain and dependent on external factors, such as future demand or energy or stock prices. Machine learning (ML) models, especially neural networks, are increasingly being used to estimate these coefficients in a data-driven way. Hence, end-to-end predict-and-optimize approaches, which consider how effective the predicted values are to solve the optimization problem, have received increasing attention. In case of integer linear programming problems, a popular approach to overcome their non-differentiabilty is to add a quadratic penalty term to the continuous relaxation, such that results from differentiating over quadratic programs can be used. Instead we investigate the use of the more principled logarithmic barrier term, as widely used in interior point solvers for linear programming. Specifically, instead of differentiating the KKT conditions, we consider the homogeneous self-dual formulation of the LP and we show the relation between the interior point step direction and corresponding gradients needed for learning. Finally our empirical experiments demonstrate our approach performs as good as if not better than the state-of-the-art QPTL (Quadratic Programming task loss) formulation of Wilder et al. and SPO approach of Elmachtoub and Grigas.


Pervasive computing aims to unobtrusively embed computer systems into everyday life environments to enrich the user experience without demanding the user's explicit attention. For pervasive computing to be minimally invasive, computer systems must be conscious of and ultimately, be able to act according to the context of the user and her intelligent environment. However, such context is often heterogeneous as it is derived from myriads of independent systems and sensors, can be incomplete, and may even be erroneous. For independent systems to manage, share, correlate, and reason over context, contextual information must be modelled in a homogenous fashion. This paper proposes a hybrid approach to modelling contextual information that incorporates the management and communication benefits of traditional object-oriented context models, while also taking advantage of the semantic and inference benefits of ontology-based context models. Unlike other approaches, our hybrid model has been designed to support a specific large-scale pervasive domain, namely the transportation domain, and promotes exploiting primary context as the key to accessing and correlating distributed knowledge. The Primary-Context Model and the Primary-Context Ontology are part of a pervasive middleware architecture for integrating independent Intelligent Transport Systems and pervasive transportation services and has been applied to a prototypical realisation of such system and service integration.


Dialogic reading is an evidence-based practice for preschool children who are typically developing or at-risk; yet there is limited research to evaluate if it has similar positive effects on the language and preliteracy skills of children with disabilities. This quasi-experimental study examined the effects of dialogic reading, with the incorporation of pause time, on the language and preliteracy skills of 42 preschool children with disabilities. Following random assignment of students at the classroom level, participants were equally distributed into an intervention (n = 21) and a comparison group (n = 21). Children received either dialogic reading or typical storybook reading for 10 to 15 min per day, 3 days per week, for 6 weeks. Children in the intervention group scored significantly higher on receptive and expressive near-transfer vocabulary assessments. This occurred both for words that were specifically targeted during dialogic reading, and for additional vocabulary words in the storybook.


The need for robust and easily extensible systems for word sense disambiguation coupled with successes in training systems for a variety of tasks using large on-line corpora has led to extensive research into corpus-based statistical approaches to this problem. Promising results have been achieved by vector space representations of context, clustering combined with a semantic knowledge base, and decision lists based on collocational relations. We evaluate these techniques with respect to three important criteria: how their definition of context affects their ability to incorporate different types of disambiguating information, how they define similarity among senses, and how easily they can generalize to new senses. The strengths and weaknesses of these systems provide guidance for future systems which must capture and model a variety of disambiguating information, both syntactic and semantic.


Proton-translocating ATPases are central to biological energy conversion. Although eukaryotes contain specialized F-ATPases for ATP synthesis and V-ATPases for proton pumping, eubacteria and archaea typically contain only one enzyme for both tasks. Although many eubacteria contain ATPases of the F-type, some eubacteria and all known archaea contain ATPases of the A-type. A-ATPases are closely related to V-ATPases but simpler in design. Although the nucleotide-binding and transmembrane rotor subunits share sequence homology between A-, V-, and F-ATPases, the peripheral stalk is strikingly different in sequence, composition, and stoichiometry. We have analyzed the peripheral stalk of Thermus thermophilus A-ATPase by using phage display-derived single-domain antibody fragments in combination with electron microscopy and tandem mass spectrometry. Our data provide the first direct evidence for the existence of two peripheral stalks in the A-ATPase, each one composed of heterodimers of subunits E and G arranged symmetrically around the soluble A1 domain. To our knowledge, this is the first description of phage display-derived antibody selection against a multi-subunit membrane protein used for purification and single particle analysis by electron microscopy. It is also the first instance of the derivation of subunit stoichiometry by tandem mass spectrometry to an intact membrane protein complex. Both approaches could be applicable to the structural analysis of other membrane protein complexes.


Used to design applications involving step by step the customer, agile methods are increasingly adopted by development teams. It is within this theoretical framework that has been designed and piloted the project purpose of this contribution. The said project is motivated by the fact that in recent years the trainers belonging to the Office of Vocational Training and Work Promotion (Morocco) daily have recourse to a paper educational workbook to organize educational activities related to training, evaluation and student's presence. Being on paper, it requires considerable time and, thus, affects negatively the learning progress. It was, therefore, necessary to think about simplifying its use. So we, in collaboration with a team of practitioners and the actual customer, have designed and tested a digital version of this educational tool. The final product has impacted positively classroom management.


Crit Care Med 2016 • Volume 44 • Number 12 (Suppl.) 24 hours of starting therapeutic enoxaparin, the patient demonstrated increased altered mental status. Head computerized tomography revealed a subarachnoid hemorrhage. Protamine sulfate 50 mg intravenous infusion was ordered for partial reversal of enoxaparin. Approximately halfway through the protamine infusion, the patient became acutely hypoxic and bradycardic and shortly thereafter went into pulseless electrical activity (PEA) arrest. Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) was employed and intravenous methylprednisolone 125 mg was administered with subsequent return of spontaneous circulation that was not sustained, leading to patient expiration. Postmortem evaluation of the patient's medical history revealed a prior vasectomy. Results: In this scenario, it was theorized that the patient experienced an IgE-mediated anaphylactic reaction to protamine that resulted in PEA arrest. The patient likely had antibodies to protamine developed from the prior vasectomy, potentially resulting in an antibody-mediated reaction. Other causes of PEA arrest include worsening of pneumonia or sepsis, as well as potentially-increased clot burden from the reversal of enoxaparin with protamine.


Massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) enables ultra-high throughput and low latency for tile-based adaptive virtual reality (VR) 360° video transmission in wireless network. In this paper, we consider a massive MIMO system where multiple users in a single-cell theater watch an identical VR 360° video. Based on tile prediction, base station (BS) deliveries the tiles in predicted field of view (FoV) to users. By introducing practical supplementary transmission for missing tiles and unacceptable VR sickness, we propose the first stable transmission scheme for VR video. we formulate an integer non-linear programming (INLP) problem to maximize users' average quality of experience (QoE) score. Moreover, we derive the achievable spectral efficiency (SE) expression of predictive tile groups and the approximately achievable SE expression of missing tile groups, respectively. Analytically, the overall throughput is related to the number of tile groups and the length of pilot sequences. By exploiting the relationship between the structure of viewport tiles and SE expression, we propose a multi-lattice multi-stream grouping method aimed at improving the overall throughput for VR video transmission. Moreover, we analyze the relationship between QoE objective and number of predictive tile. We transform the original INLP problem into an integer linear programming problem by setting the predictive tiles groups as some constants. With variable relaxation and recovery, we obtain the optimal average QoE. Extensive simulation results validate that the proposed algorithm effectively improves QoE.


The municipal government of Shenzhen, China, does not sponsor a huaju (modern spoken drama) troupe.1 At the same time, the Ministry of Propaganda still controls cultural production. Consequently, Shenzhen thespians must creatively manipulate the state apparatus in order to secure approval (pizhun) for dramatic productions. But, as the playwright's introduction to Xiwang (Hope, 1997) indicates, the lack of institutional support for huaju has also produced a unique opportunity not only to redefine the relationship between artistic production and the Chinese state but also to push the envelope of acceptable plots, style, and form. A journalist by profession, Yang Qian came to the attention of the huaju public when the National Experimental Theatre of China staged his play Guyi Shanghai (Intentional Injury, 1994). In 1997, he registered Ling Ri Yue (Zero Sun Moon)—the first experimental theatre troupe in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone—as a social club, a gesture that finessed and restructured the administrative organization of huaju in Shenzhen.