Autonomous computing materials for data storage and computing offer an opportunity for next generation of computing devices. Patchy nanoparticle networks, for example, have been suggested as potential candidates for emulating neuronal networks and performing brain-like computing. Here, we use molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to show that stable dimers, trimers, and tetramers can be built from citrate capped gold nanoparticles (cit-AuNPs) linked by poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) chains. We use different lengths of PAHs to build polymer-networked nanoparticle assemblies that can emulate a complex neuronal network linked by axons of varying lengths. We find that the tetramer structure can accommodate up to 11 different states when the AuNP pairs are connected by either of two polymer linkers, PAH200 and PAH300. We find that the heavy AuNPs contribute to the assembly's structure stability. To further illustrate the stability, the AuNP-AuNP distances in dimer, trimer, and tetramer structures are reduced by steering the cit-AuNPs closer to each other. At different distances, these steered structures are all locally stable in a 10 ns MD simulation time scale because of their connection to the AuNPs. We also find that the global potential energy minimum is at short AuNP-AuNP distances where AuNPs collapse because the -NH3 + and -COO- attraction reduces the potential energy. The stability and application of these fundamental structures remain to be further improved through the use of alternative polymer linkers and nanoparticles.


Abstract When analyzing family data, we dream of perfectly informative data, even whole-genome sequences (WGSs) for all family members. Reality intervenes, and we find that next-generation sequencing (NGS) data have errors and are often too expensive or impossible to collect on everyone. The Genetic Analysis Workshop 18 working groups on quality control and dropping WGSs through families using a genome-wide association framework focused on finding, correcting, and using errors within the available sequence and family data, developing methods to infer and analyze missing sequence data among relatives, and testing for linkage and association with simulated blood pressure. We found that single-nucleotide polymorphisms, NGS data, and imputed data are generally concordant but that errors are particularly likely at rare variants, for homozygous genotypes, within regions with repeated sequences or structural variants, and within sequence data imputed from unrelated individuals. Admixture complicated identification of cryptic relatedness, but information from Mendelian transmission improved error detection and provided an estimate of the de novo mutation rate. Computationally, fast rule-based imputation was accurate but could not cover as many loci or subjects as more computationally demanding probability-based methods. Incorporating population-level data into pedigree-based imputation methods improved results. Observed data outperformed imputed data in association testing, but imputed data were also useful. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of existing methods and suggest possible future directions, such as improving communication between data collectors and data analysts, establishing thresholds for and improving imputation quality, and incorporating error into imputation and analytical models.


Ornithine decarboxylase (a), the key regulatory enzyme in mammalian polyamine biosynthesis, is rapidly induced by mitogens and tumor promoters. We used transient expression assays and DNA‐protein binding studies to examine the regulation of ODC promoter activity by phorbol esters and serum growth factors. A fragment of the ODC 5′ flanking region (nt ‐1156 to + 13) was sufficient to confer 12‐O‐tetradecanoylphorbol‐13‐acetate (a) ‐responsive expression to a luciferase reporter gene when transfected into H35 cells. However, induction by TPA was not observed in Rat2 fibroblasts, although refeeding of serum‐starved Rat2 cells with fresh serum‐containing medium rapidly induced a fivefold to sixfold increase in ODC promoter activity, maximal about 8 h after refeeding. Deletion analysis demonstrated that several sequences contributed to basal ODC promoter activity but that nt ‐92 to +13 was sufficient for induction by TPA or by serum. This sequence lacked canonical TPA‐responsive elements, and an activator protein‐1 (AP‐1) consensus oligonucleotide failed to compete effectively for proteins binding to this region. Two of four protein complexes observed by gel‐shift analysis of nt ‐92 to +13 were competitively inhibited by wild‐type but not mutant oligonucleotides encompassing a variant cyclic AMP‐response element (a) (ODC nt ‐50 to ‐42); however, a consensus CRE did not compete. Mutagenesis of this site demonstrated that it contributes to basal expression of the ODC promoter but not to TPA or serum responsiveness. Thus, we conclude that the proximal ODC promoter (nt ‐92 to +13) responds to TPA and serum stimulation in a cell‐type‐specific manner that is not mediated by canonical AP‐1 elements. © 1995 Wiley‐ Liss, Inc.


The purpose of this article is to present a surgical and restorative protocol for the replacement of missing teeth in the esthetic zone. The ABC protocol consists of digitally guided implantation, autogenous bone graft (A), followed by bovine bone xenograft (B) and connective tissue graft (C). Autogenous bone is placed in contact with the implant surface to induce osseointegration; bovine bone xenograft is then applied to augment the ridge dimension and provide long-term stability. Connective tissue is used to provide additional volume. The ABC biomaterial sequence offers favorable hard and soft tissue dimensions and immediate provisional restoration predictably leads to an esthetically pleasing definitive prosthesis.


A placebo means a therapy or medical intervention that is used for its nonspecific psychophysiological effects, but is without actual effects on the condition being treated. The placebo effect denotes effects due to the meaning of an intervention. The placebo effect has the potential to augment the efficacy of all active medical treatments and procedures. The placebo effect and placebo constitute a convergence point for the social, psychological and physiological aspects of illness and health. The use of placebo has long been controversial, and the ethics of placebos have been debated frequently in history. In recent years, accumulating ethical concern has arisen from the common use of placebo in randomised controlled trials, which may render its participants without early and optimal treatment. This review presents an overview of placebo-associated ethical questions and offers considerations that are of relevance to medical and research practise.

Key Concepts:

A placebo means a therapy or medical intervention that is used for its nonspecific psychophysiological effects, but is without actual effects on the condition being treated.

The placebo effect is genuine psychobiological events attributed to the overall therapeutic context.

Ethics is a branch of philosophy that involves systematising, defending and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.

A randomized controlled trial is a study in which people are allocated at random to receive one of several clinical interventions.

Evidence-based medicine is the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients.

Keywords:

placebo;
placebo effect;
ethics;
randomised controlled trial;
evidence-based medicine


The economic production of algal biofuels requires novel strategies, such as microbial consortia and synthetic ecologies, to boost the productivity of open pond systems. These strategies have not been fully explored partly due to the lack of reliable and predictive process models. This study uses genome-based metabolic networks to build a process model of a raceway pond. This process model is used as a discovery tool for novel process strategies. First, an algal monoculture with flue gas sparging is modeled. Then, an oleaginous yeast monoculture is modeled. The yeast monoculture is O2 limited and the presence of algae in the culture would result in better resource utilization. Next, an algal/fungal raceway pond with a feed of cellulosic glucose is explored. Finally, an oleaginous yeast that can consume a glucose/xylose mix, resulting from the hydrolysis of lignocellulosic waste, is modeled. This model predicts biomass and lipids productivities comparable to those reported in the literature. Assuming 50% yield loss due to contamination and invasion, a simple economic analysis shows that an algae/yeast coculture can produce biodiesel at competitive prices, $2.01 per liter for pure glucose and $1.44 per liter for the sugar mix, whereas the algae monoculture can do so only at very short distances from a flue gas source. This modeling framework will enable the use of optimization algorithms in the design of open pond systems in the near future and will allow the exploration of novel strategies in bioprocesses employing microbial communities.


A growing world population, increasing prosperity in emerging countries, and shifts in energy and food demands necessitate a continuous increase in global agricultural production. Simultaneously, risks of extreme weather events and a slowing productivity growth in recent years has caused concerns about meeting the demands in the future. Crop monitoring and timely yield predictions are an important tool to mitigate risk and ensure food security. A common approach is to combine the temporal simulation of dynamic crop models with a geospatial component by assimilating remote sensing data. To ensure reliable assimilation, handling of uncertainties in both models and the assimilated input data is crucial. Here, we present a new approach for data assimilation using particle swarm optimization (PSO) in combination with statistical distance metrics that allow for flexible handling of model and input uncertainties. We explored the potential of the newly proposed method in a case study by assimilating canopy cover (CC) information, obtained from Sentinel-2 data, into the AquaCrop-OS model to improve winter wheat yield estimation on the pixel- and field-level and compared the performance with two other methods (simple updating and extended Kalman filter). Our results indicate that the performance of the new method is superior to simple updating and similar or better than the extended Kalman filter updating. Furthermore, it was particularly successful in reducing bias in yield estimation.


The training of second generation of successor has been an important task for most family-owned businesses. With groping for many years, the family-owned businesses have searched out a particular model of succession. Transferring the leadership from fathers to sons is very common, with the incumbent and the successor also being initiatively. There results in double succession of property right and management right at the same time and concentration in succession time. In this paper the development process and the character of the succession for family-owned businesses have been analyzed and discussed, and this succession model is presented, which has the general character of family-owned businesses in China, with the particular character of Changzhou. The intergenerational succession is analyzed successfully by means of the model, and the result is validated by the family-owned businesses in Changzhou.


According to World Bank Report 2013, 60% population of Pakistan lives under poverty line which cannot earn 2$ a day, and the population which earn 1.25$ a day is 21%. So there are multiple others reasons of poverty in Pakistan also. Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) are not implemented in true spirit. Because the calories base reduction in poverty is not solution to overcome the poverty for development. Government should invest the skill labor force development and techniques of production will improve it can reduce the poverty line.   Good Governance is one of best solution of the problem. Empower the local government system which is very play effective role in poverty reduction.


The human brain has the capacity to rapidly change state, and in epilepsy these state changes can be catastrophic, resulting in loss of consciousness, injury and even death. Theoretical interpretations considering the brain as a dynamical system would suggest that prior to a seizure recorded brain signals may exhibit critical slowing, a warning signal preceding many critical transitions in dynamical systems. Using long-term intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) recordings from fourteen patients with focal epilepsy, we found key signatures of critical slowing prior to seizures. Signals related to a critically slowing process fluctuated over temporally long scales (hours to days), longer than would be detectable in standard clinical evaluation settings. Seizure risk was associated with a combination of these signals together with epileptiform discharges. These results provide strong validation of theoretical models and demonstrate that critical slowing is a reliable indicator that could be used in seizure forecasting algorithms.


Our article advances filter-ing as a vital affordance to understand how and which aspects of social lives dynamically manifest (or are excluded) from online settings. We demonstrate filter-ing's conceptual potency in context-collapse studies, examining contextualization and context-collapse negotiations online. Drawing from Goffman's writings on self, identity, and sociality, we demonstrate filter-ing in the self-presentational practices of young, urban Indians on popular online platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and WhatsApp. Our research illustrates the ongoing, relational, communicative, performative, situational, contingent, and boundary-drawing activities of filter-ing. We highlight the collaborative role enactments of relational friends through team filter-ing. Our discussion and coda discuss the influence of platform design and interface, normative and nonnormative filter-ing, the (in)stability of contextualization, the scope for contextspecific inquiries and creative methods, and the strength of filter-ing in identifying excluded and privatized aspects of social life.


We present the first approach for post-silicon leakage power reduction through input vector control (IVC) that takes into account the impact of the manufacturing variability (MV). Because of the MV, the integrated circuits (ICs) implementing one design require different input vectors to achieve their lowest leakage states. We address two major challenges. The first is the extraction of the gate- level characteristics of an IC by measuring only the overall leakage power for different inputs. The second problem is the rapid generation of input vectors that result in a low leakage for a large number of unique ICs that implement a given design, but are different in the post-manufacturing phase. Experimental results on a large set of benchmark instances demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed methods. For example, the leakage power consumption could be reduced in average by more than 10.4%, when compared to the previously published IVC techniques that did not consider MV.


'The poetic accent. Three literary genres in seventeenth-century Dutch pamphlets' focuses on the way the conviction works, by studying pamphlets containing sonnets, songs and echo-poetry. I distinguish between structural and affective functions of poetry. Within the composition of a pamphlet, poetry was often given an exordial or perorational function. Poetry before the main text was well suited to portray the author in a good way, to deliver the message of the pamphlet as a kind of device and to help the reader with his interpretation. A poem could also function perorational as a summary of the main text, or as an emotional repetition of the message of the main text. Concerning the affective functions, hardly any neutral or reporting poetry can be found. Most poems have a persuasive function. They can be divided into two groups. The first contains occasional poetry that praises deceased people or poetry that sings about certain festivities and usually follows the known patterns from the funeral or panegyric poetry. The second group is more capricious and differ from the first group because more than in the first category of persuasive poetry an appeal is made to the reader. To call poetry in pamphlets polemic, they have to be part of an ongoing polemic discussion, in which several pamphlets present different views on the same subject. It is characterized by an extensive use of accusing and slandering tactics. Polemic poetry often contains intertextuality. It is credible that polemics aimed at more extreme effects and because of that a certain arsenal of rhetoric weapons was used. The diverting function of poetry in pamphlets can either serve the persuasive or polemic function, or it can be a goal in itself. When the diverting function serves the persuasive or polemic function, it can do so in various ways. First, certain literary elements can be prominent and draw attention to themselves. The second manner in which poetry can have a diverting function in pamphlets, is when poetry is used to vary, or interrupt an ongoing argument without an actual argumentative necessity. The third way in which a diverting function is present but still serving the persuasive and polemic function, is when poetry is part of a mixture of literary forms that ideally reflect on different topics. Sonnets, songs and echo-poetry were used in a one-sided manner when it came to pamphlets, while in fact all genres were more versatile. Pamphlets only contain sonnets of the epigrammatic type, they contain mainly historical songs with political-religious aims and the pastoral variant of echo-poetry is not used. Echo-poetry even slowly abandoned its original form until it became a play of words with only vague reminiscences of its literary and mythological past. These developments are undoubtedly connected to the nature of the medium pamphlet, a medium with a persuasive meaning, willing to play a role in the discussion of current affairs. Poetry in such a medium cannot be pastoral or about love, but has to contribute to this persuasive purpose.


We consider the problem of estimating the temperature T of a very cold equilibrium sample. The temperature estimates are drawn from measurements performed on a quantum Brownian probe strongly coupled to it. We model this scenario by resorting to the canonical Caldeira-Leggett Hamiltonian and find analytically the exact stationary state of the probe for arbitrary coupling strength. In general, the probe does not reach thermal equilibrium with the sample, due to their non-perturbative interaction. We argue that this is advantageous for low temperature thermometry, as we show in our model that: (i) The thermometric precision at low T can be signif-icantly enhanced by strengthening the probe-sampling coupling, (ii) the variance of a suitable quadrature of our Brownian thermometer can yield temperature estimates with nearly minimal statistical uncertainty, and (iii) the spectral density of the probe-sample coupling may be engineered to further improve thermometric performance. These observations may find applications in practical nanoscale thermometry at low temperatures—a regime which is particularly relevant to quantum technologies.


Thrombospondins (TSP) are a group of multifunctional secretion proteins that consist of TSP-1 to TSP-5. TSP-1 is the first protein member of this family and a homotrimeric glycoprotein with a multifunctional domain. The aim of this study is to evaluate the level of TSP-1 and its impact on vessels in diabetic patients.

In 2016, 90 diabetic patients were selected from Golestan hospital and Emam Khomeini hospital, they were put into three different groups; 30 patients (FBS over 126 mg/dL) without a diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) (group 1), 30 diabetic patients (FBS over 126 mg/dL) with a DFU (group 2), 30 people without diabetes or DFU (group 3). In all patients, Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), blood sugar, and TSP-1 tests were performed.

Results: The mean amount of TSP-1 in group 1, 2, and 3 was 266.85 ± 88.75 ng/mL, 234.87 ± 129.8 ng/mL, and 1570.42 ± 1047.42 ng/mL, respectively. The average level of HbA1c in group 1 was 8%, in group 2 it was 10%, and in the normal group it was 5%. The results of the statistical tests indicated that there is a significant difference in TSP-1 level between the diabetic group without DFU and the diabetic group with DFU (p value=0.01).

Conclusion: Lack of TSP-1 expression is accompanied by VEGF high expression and reduction of TGF-AE. Lack of TGF-AE can cause immunological diseases, inflammation, growth diseases, wound healing reduction, and an increase in occurrence of tumors. High expression of VEGF leads to excessive proliferation of vessel endothelial cells. The result of the study indicated that TSP-1 has a significant role in inhibition of angiogenesis. As blood sugar and HbA1c levels increase, TSP-1 levels decrease, which causes foot ulcers due to vessel complications? However, these complications can be avoided by controlling diabetes.


Welfare state reform occurs in all advanced capitalist democracies, but it does not occur in identical ways, to the same degree or with similar consequences. In Comparative Welfare State Politics, Kees van Kersbergen and Barbara Vis explain the political opportunities and constraints of welfare state reform by asking 'big' questions. Why did we need a welfare state in the first place? How did we get it? Why did we get different worlds of welfare and do we still have them? What does the welfare state actually do? Why do we need to reform the welfare state? Why is reform so difficult, but why does it nevertheless happen? Can and will the welfare state survive the Great Recession? This book informs the reader comprehensively about the welfare state, while contributing to the ongoing debate on the politics of welfare state reform.


In this article both the inner orientation of emotional and mental experience, as well as the outer orientation of physical experience, are described as a function of our particular position and perspective within the fractal Structure of Reality relative to the particular level of Reality at which each of those different types of experience are created. Additionally, the Relational Structure of Reality is described as the framework that underlies our overall apprehension of mental and physical reality by relating the different levels of Reality to different fundamental aspects of what we apprehend as mental and physical reality. Also described is the relation between what is expressed in quantum physics as the wave function and the underlying Structure of Reality from which that expression is derived, including a description of what occurs within that Relational Structure to produce the event referred to as the collapse of the wave function.


'This paper aims to analyze participation's levels in small farmers addressing this issue through social capital approach. In order to reach this objetive, a set of information was collected from several organizations which are supported by PRODESAL program in Coihueco (Biobio Region). An Ordered Probit model was used to estimate the factors that determine participation's levels. Econometric results point out that higher schooling levels determine higher participation's levels which could be linked with social and negotiation skills. Moreover, it was found that individuals whose family participates in organizations, families that incur in higher monthly expenses and who show fewer tendencies to mobility, have a higher probability to participate within their organizations. Finally, trust in other organization members, in the government management and in the organization's leaders, as well as perception that decisions that are taken in meetings are considered by the authorities, have positive effects in participation's levels.


Intending to reverse Dred Scott and to abolish the southern "Black Codes," Congress ratified the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, guaranteeing automatic citizenship to most people born on U.S. soil. However, the Amendment's framers specifically excluded particular groups, including those considered not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. In 1898, the Supreme Court clarified the meaning of this Citizenship Clause in Wong Kim Ark, and citizenship by birth has been part of American jurisprudence ever since. Currently, many Americans oppose providing birthright citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants. This note examines the basic purpose of the Citizenship Clause and how Americans have made similar attempts in the past to exclude unwanted minority groups. Such attempts have failed over time and should be rejected now because they would recreate the hereditary caste system the Fourteenth Amendment sought to eliminate and are unnecessary considering the existing legal barriers to chain migration.


This paper presents a detailed theoretical analysis of the Langevin Monte Carlo sampling algorithm recently introduced in Durmus et al. (Efficient Bayesian computation by proximal Markov chain Monte Carlo: when Langevin meets Moreau, 2016) when applied to log-concave probability distributions that are restricted to a convex body $\mathsf{K}$. This method relies on a regularisation procedure involving the Moreau-Yosida envelope of the indicator function associated with $\mathsf{K}$. Explicit convergence bounds in total variation norm and in Wasserstein distance of order $1$ are established. In particular, we show that the complexity of this algorithm given a first order oracle is polynomial in the dimension of the state space. Finally, some numerical experiments are presented to compare our method with competing MCMC approaches from the literature.


This research looks at the influence of annealing treatments on twins in magnesium alloy AZ31. Samples containing different twin fractions are created in order to examine the influence of the initial structure on the annealing behavior. It is seen that twins can both expand, taking over an entire grain, or shrink, leaving completely untwinned grains. The grains, containing expanding twins, are found to contain, in general, only one twin variant and limited slip deformation after twin formation. The grains containing shrinking twins, on the contrary, are seen to contain different twin variants and have undergone more slip deformation after twinning.


A thermodynamically consistent formalism is applied to calculate the reversible work needed to form a small layer of a new phase (embryo) around a charged insoluble conducting sphere within a uniform macroscopic mother phase. To treat the embryos of arbitrary size which are not the critical nuclei (i.e., which are not fragments that are in unstable equilibrium with the mother phase), a constraint in the form of an external field is introduced. When a critical nucleus is of primary interest, the specification of this constraint is not required. The results that are obtained for a critical cluster do not depend on which path approaches a critical state. However, the properties of noncritical clusters depend on the external constraining field and this effect is discussed in detail. The obtained new expression for the work of embryo formation differs from the one commonly used in the nucleation literature. The conditions of its extrema yield the correct conditions of equilibrium between the critical nucleus and the mother phase. Expressions are derived that are suitable for practical calculations of the size and composition of a critical nucleus.


Hertz in the 1880's demonstrated electromagnetic wave propagation predicted by Maxwell from his equations in 1864. Heaviside and Kennelly postulated the ionosphere to explain Marconi's historical transatlantic reception of radio waves in 1901. Austin derived the first formula for radio propagation in 1911 from experimental data in the kilometer wavelength range taken in the daytime. Much theoretical effort was expended on the effect of the electrical properties of the ground but the problem was not resolved until a later date. Watson, however, cleared up the problem of diffraction around a perfectly conducting sphere in 1919. Up to the end of World War I, it was generally believed that radio transmission improved with increase in wavelength so the experimental data is concentrated in this region.


Proper water management is a major responsibility of managers of creeping bentgrass grown on putting greens in the hot and humid southern states. The combination of shallow root systems, sand-based root zones, high temperatures, and high evaporative demands frequently results in severe drought stress on bentgrass (Agrostis palustris Huds.) greens. This study was initiated to determine the effects of irrigation frequency on creep- ing bentgrass turgor pressure and on the O 2 and CO 2 concentrations in a sand-based root zone mixture. In total, 81 plots, 1.5 × 1.5 m each, were established on a USGA-type root zone mixture and organized into 9 groups of 9 plots each. Each group could be irrigated individually. One plot in each group was planted to either 'A-4', 'Crenshaw', 'Mariner', 'L-93', or 'Penncross' creeping bentgrass. Irrigation frequency treatments of 1-, 2-, and 4- day replacement of historical PET were imposed on three groups each. After establishment, measurements of the leaf water potential, osmotic potential, soil oxygen concentration, and soil carbon dioxide concentrations were made over a 1- to 2-year period. Bentgrass irrigated every 1 or 2 days had significantly (P = 0.05) greater turgor pressures at 0600 hr as compared to turf irrigated every 4 days in 1997. No differences were seen in 1998 due to drier environmental conditions. Concentrations of O 2 and CO 2 in the soil air remained in the optimal range for all treatments, indicating that lack of O 2 in the root zone as a result of frequent irrigation may not be the primary cause for reduced rooting depth of bentgrass grown on highly permeable sand-based root zone mixtures.


Despite global under-five deaths declining from nearly 12 million in 1990 to 6.9 million in 20111 there continues to be significant progress to be made. The myriad problems of providing healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa are well documented and, among others, include a lack of postqualification specialist training which may influence the choice of physicians to work in large urban hospitals or to leave a country altogether.2 ,3 Postgraduate training builds the capacity of local physicians and reduces the 'push' factors involved in human capital flight which drains resource-poor countries of skilled workers.3 ,4

Paediatric associations are vital for improving child health in all countries. The experience …


In this work, the characterization and application of thin films composite incorporated titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) (0.8)% volume ratio for (Rutile) nanostructure with poly [2- methoxy-5-(2'-ethylhexoxy-p-phenylene vinylene] (MEH-PPV) were deposited by a spin-coating technique. The optical properties for deposited (MEH-PPV/TiO 2 ) nanocomposite thin films have two peaks which are the Q-band in the visible region and B-band in ultraviolet. This study shows that the absorption spectrum of organic polymer mixing with TiO 2 increased with increasing the volume ratios TiO 2 . The I-V characteristic of nanocomposite thin films shows that the current at dark and light condition varies approximately with applied voltage. We observed that the current increases with the mixed ratios of TiO 2 and the operation voltage decrease. The MEH-PPV/TiO 2 nanocomposite material has been worked as (UV-Vis.) light detector with high responsivity and high detectives in the Rutile  TiO 2 at the mixed rate (0.8) mg/ml,  14.32 at 350nm and 16.73at 510nm.


Critical accounts of popular management have tended to caricature the authors of this literary genre and have, furthermore, made broad claims as to the nature and potential of the organizational storytelling which features in these texts. This paper re-examines such claims and proclivities. It argues that any attempt to explore the nature of popular management or to account for the organizing potential of its storytelling must be located within an account of storytelling practice. To this end, the paper offers a critical analysis of the excellence project that is situated within a review of Tom Peters' storyworld. Acknowledging the extent to which popular management deploys organizational storytelling in its endeavours, we offer – uniquely – a longitudinal analysis of Tom Peters' storytelling practices. Noting a tension between organizational sensegiving and organizational sensemaking processes, we argue that the storyworld of the excellence project acts to obscure the frictions, stresses and dislocations associated with the pursuit of business excellence. Highlighting the persistence of local sensemaking processes within and between those forms of public speech fostered by popular management, however, we argue that the tales which constitute the excellence project are, when viewed in context, more diverse and yet less productive than previously imagined.


Abstract : The term Rapid Manufacturing is today very often used as a substitute for Rapid Prototyping, because the manufacturing processes and materials have developed so much that the parts produced with the machines can even be used as functional production parts. For Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) this was enabled by the introduction of the powders for 20 micron layer thickness; steel-based powder in 2001 and bronze-based powder in 2002. Successful rapid manufacturing with DMLS does not only mean the reduction of layer thickness, but it is a sum of many factors that had to be optimized in order to make the process work with the 20 micron layer thickness: the metal powder behavior in very thin layers is not the same as with thicker layers, the demands for the support structures are higher and the possibility of using multiples of the layer thickness gives additional freedom. By optimizing the process parameters the UTS values for the steel-based powder increased up to 600 MPa and for the bronze-based powder up to 400 MPa. At the same time the surface roughness (Ra) values after shot peening were 3 microns and 2 microns, respectively. Although using thinner layers also increases the building time the advantage is gained in drastically reduced finishing times due to increased surface quality and detail resolution. Typical geometries produced by DMLS are difficult-to- manufacture components and components typically produced by P/M or even by die-casting. The paper covers the development aspects in both material and process development and also presents some realized case studies.


Abstract TEXTOR is equipped with two gyrotrons at 110 and 140 GHz, respectively. Both share a single power supply and a confocal quasi-optical transmission line. They cannot be operated simultaneously. The 110-GHz gyrotron with limited power and pulse length (300 kW; 200 ms) has been used in a first series of experiments on electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) and electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) and for collective Thomson scattering (CTS) diagnostics of energetic ions. In the future the 110-GHz gyrotron will be operated exclusively for CTS diagnostics, while for ECRH and ECCD, the newly installed 140-GHz, high-power (800-kW), long-pulse (>3-s) gyrotron is now available. The highlights of first ECRH experiments with the 110-GHz gyrotron are reported. These include observations of internal transport barriers with ECRH on various target plasmas: in the current plateau phase of both ohmic and radiation improved mode (RI-mode) discharges. In addition, sawtooth control by localized ECRH is demonstrated. First results on CTS include the observation of the slowing down of energetic ions and of the redistribution of energetic ions in sawtooth crashes.


The polyaniline (PANI) coated titania (TiO2) has been prepared with ammonium persulfate (APS) as an oxidant in sodium dodecylsulfate(SDS) micellar aqueous solution. These nanosized powders could transfer into the organic phase. With increase in the amount of SDS, the dispersibility into the organic solvent was increased. Consequently, the electrical conductivity of the product was also decreased. The obtained composites showed 14.16 S/cm of conductivity at maximum while the value was almost independent on the polyaniline coating ratio in range of 100~20wt%. The conductivity value of composite with 20wt% polyaniline was 70000 times higher than that of raw titania. Modified titania had properties of polyaniline and titania together. In addition these composite showed the photoconductive response against the UV irradiation, which might show the existence of P-N junction between titania and polyaniline. The detailed structure and property analyses with X-ray, UV-spectroscopy, electron microscopy and so on will be discussed in relation to the synthetic conditions


Two new species of the bamboo-feeding genus Neobelocera Ding & Yang, 1986, N. biprocessa sp. nov. and N. russa sp. nov., are described and illustrated from southwest China (Hainan and Guizhou), giving the genus nine species in total. A key is provided to separate all species.


Rapid, sensitive and simple spectrophotometric method for the determination of oxymetazoline hydrochloride (OXMZ) is developed. The method is based on an oxidative coupling reaction with 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine (2,4-DNPH) in a basic medium (pH 11.2) in the presence of  potassium periodate to produce a green colour, soluble in water , stable product and absorbs at 607 nm. Beer's law was in the linear range 2.5-30 μg/ml of OXMZ, the molar absorptivity , Sandell's sensitivity index and detection limit were 7242 liter. mol-1.cm-1, 0.0409 μg.cm-2 and 0.1877 μg/ml respectively. The RSD value was 1.24- 1.39% depending on the concentration. This method was applied successfully to the determination of oxymetazoline in pharmaceutical preparation nazordin drops with recovery of not less than  99.87 % .


Generating quasi-monochromatic, femtosecond γ-ray pulses via Thomson scattering (TS) demands exceptional electron beam (e-beam) quality, such as percent-scale energy spread and five-dimensional brightness over 1016 A m–2. We show that near-GeV e-beams with these metrics can be accelerated in a cavity of electron density, driven with an incoherent stack of Joule-scale laser pulses through a mm-size, dense plasma (n0 ∼ 1019 cm−3). Changing the time delay, frequency difference, and energy ratio of the stack components controls the e-beam phase space on the femtosecond scale, while the modest energy of the optical driver helps afford kHz-scale repetition rate at manageable average power. Blue-shifting one stack component by a considerable fraction of the carrier frequency makes the stack immune to self-compression. This, in turn, minimizes uncontrolled variation in the cavity shape, suppressing continuous injection of ambient plasma electrons, preserving a single, ultra-bright electron bunch. In addition, weak focusing of the trailing component of the stack induces periodic injection, generating, in a single shot, a train of bunches with controllable energy spacing and femtosecond synchronization. These designer e-beams, inaccessible to conventional acceleration methods, generate, via TS, gigawatt γ-ray pulses (or multi-color pulse trains) with the mean energy in the range of interest for nuclear photonics (4–16 MeV), containing over 106 photons within a microsteradian-scale observation cone.


This paper documents the fundamental role played by factor accumulation in explaining the extraordinary postwar growth of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Participation rates, educational levels, and (excepting Hong Kong) investment rates have risen rapidly in all four economies. In addition, in most cases there has been a large intersectoral transfer of labor into manufacturing, which has helped fuel growth in that sector. Once one accounts for the dramatic rise in factor inputs, one arrives at estimated total factor productivity growth rates that are closely approximated by the historical performance of many of the OECD and Latin American economies. While the growth of output and manufacturing exports in the newly industrializing countries of East Asia is virtually unprecedented, the growth of total factor productivity in these economies is not.


Third-generation wireless systems call for strategies that can improve achievable performance and data rates while providing flexibility and affordability. Software-defined radio technology is promising to provide the required flexibility in radio frequency, intermediate frequency, and baseband signal processing stages. Baseband signal processing techniques such as interference cancellation for direct-sequence code-division multiple access systems have the potential to provide the higher performance requirements of 3G systems. With advances in digital signal processor technology, the gap between the complexity of interference cancellation algorithms and available processing speeds is narrowing. However, 3G system requirements are ever pushing the envelope of signal processing algorithms required, including multi-user detection schemes, that are considered to be attractive and viable candidates. WINLAB has been working on an attractive SDR solution, to provide flexibility and handle the processing speeds required of 3G radio receivers. The approach is based on SDR architectures that partition radio receiver processing into two core technologies (field programmable gate arrays and DSP devices). We present a summary of the SDR work at WINLAB that is based on using this mixed signal processing approach for implementation of nonlinear interference cancellation and linear multi-user detection algorithms.


Conventional wisdom argues that investment, output and welfare are all increasing in productivity. In this article, I show that this argument is not always correct. In particular, I study a simple model of a credit market with cashless, privately informed entrepreneurs who borrow from wealthy investors. Unlike related studies of credit markets with asymmetric information, I allow entrepreneurs to vary the scale of investment and hence, potentially, signal their type. Signalling crucially depends on the marginal productivity of investment of each type. Surprisingly, I show that aggregate investment and welfare might decrease in productivity. In some cases, an increase in productivity boosts investment but dampens welfare, as part of this increase arises from the attempt of high-type entrepreneurs to signal their type.


Caste Based Discrimination: Evidence and Policy Caste-based quotas in hiring have existed in the public sector in India for decades. Recently there has been debate about introducing similar quotas in private sector jobs. This paper uses an audit study to determine the extent of caste-based discrimination in the Indian private sector. On average low-caste applicants need to send 20 percent more resumes than high-caste applicants to get the same callback. Differences in callback which favor high-caste applicants are particularly large when hiring is done by male recruiters or by Hindu recruiters. This finding suggests that the differences in callback between high and low-caste applicants are not entirely due to statistical discrimination. High-caste applicants are also differentially favored by firms with a smaller scale of operations, while low-caste applicants are favored by firms with a larger scale of operations. This finding is consistent with taste-based theories of discrimination and with commitments made by large firms to hire actively from among lowcaste groups. JEL Classification: C93, J71, J78, O15


Background Suboptimal device programming is among the reasons for reduced response to cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). However, whether systematic optimization is beneficial remains unclear, particularly late after CRT implantation. The aim of this single-center cohort study was to assess the effect of systematic atrioventricular delay (AVD) optimization on echocardiographic and device parameters. Methods Patients undergoing CRT optimization at the University Hospital Zurich between March 2011 and January 2013, for whom a follow-up was available, were included. AVD optimization was based on 12-lead electrocardiography (ECG) and echocardiographic left ventricular inflow characteristics. Parameters were assessed at the time of CRT optimization and follow-up, and were compared between patients with AVD optimization (intervention group) and those for whom no AVD optimization was deemed necessary (control group). Results Eighty-one patients with a mean age of 64 ± 11 years were included in the analysis. In 73% of patients, AVD was deemed suboptimal and was changed accordingly. After a median follow-up time of 10.4 (IQR 6.2 to 13.2) months, the proportion of patients with sufficient biventricular pacing (> 97% pacing) was greater in the intervention group (78%) compared to controls (50%). Furthermore, AVD adaptation was associated with an improvement in interventricular mechanical delay (decrease of 6.6 ± 26.2 ms vs. increase of 4.3 ± 17.7 ms, p = 0.034) and intraventricular septal-to-lateral delay (decrease of 0.9 ± 48.1 ms vs. increase of 15.9 ± 15.7 ms, p = 0.038), as assessed by tissue Doppler imaging. Accordingly, a reduction was observed in mitral regurgitation along with a trend towards reduced left ventricular volumes. Conclusions In this "real-world" setting systematic AVD optimization was associated with beneficial effects regarding biventricular pacing and left ventricular remodeling. These data show that AVD optimization may be advantageous in selected CRT patients.


Stable and controllable nitric oxide (NO) release at the physiological level from biomedical materials remains a challenge for NO-based therapy. NO-generating polymers have great potential to achieve this goal because they can catalytically decompose endogenous S-nitrosothiols (RSNOs) into NO. However, the current catalytic surfaces based on such polymers often suffer from loss of catalytic sites, which can influence the stability of NO release in their long-term application. In this work, we proposed a novel strategy to enhance the catalytic stability of NO-catalytic materials by incorporating catalytic sites into the polymer backbone. Selenium-containing polyurethane (PU-Se) was synthesized by using the catalyst 2,2'-diselenodiethanol (SeDO) as the chain extender. A series of PU/PU-Se blend films were prepared to investigate the effect of PU-Se content on the catalytic properties. The blend films exhibited excellent catalytic activity, and also showed outstanding catalytic stability in comparison with PU coated by diselenide/dopamine (PU-PDA-Se). Among these blend films, PU-Se-10 exhibited a stable NO release rate of 5.05 × 10-10 mol cm-2 min-1 after exposure to PBS buffer for 30 days. Moreover, the PU/PU-Se films exhibited decreased platelet activation/adhesion, low hemolysis ratio, excellent biocompatibility, and similar mechanical properties to PU. It is expected that the newly designed PU-Se has great potential in generating stable NO release at the physiological level for the long-term application of blood-contacting medical devices.


Abstract. Although various methods to carry out quantitative landslide risk analyses are available, applications are still rare and mostly dependent on the occurrence of disasters. In Iceland, two catastrophic snow avalanches killed 34 people in 1995. As a consequence the Ministry of the Environment issued a new regulation on hazard zoning due to snow avalanches and landslides in 2000, which aims to prevent people living or working within the areas most at risk until 2010. The regulation requires to carry out landslide and snow avalanche risk analyses, however, a method to calculate landslide risk adopted to Icelandic conditions is still missing. Therefore, the ultimate goal of this study is to develop such a method for landslides, focussing on debris flows and rock falls and to test it in Bildudalur, NW-Iceland. Risk analysis, beside risk evaluation and risk management, is part of the holistic concept of risk assessment. Within this study, risk analysis is considered only, focussing on the risks to life. To calculate landslide risk, the spatial and temporal probability of occurrence of potential damaging events, as well as the distribution of the elements at risk in space and time, considering also changing vulnerabilities, must be determined. Within this study, a new raster-based approach is developed. Thus, all existent vector data are transferred into raster data using a resolution of 1m x 1m. The specific attribute data are attributed to the grid cells, resulting in specific raster data layers for each input parameter. The calculation of the landslide risk follows a function of the input parameters hazard, damage potential of the elements at risk, vulnerability, probability of the spatial impact, probability of the temporal impact and probability of the seasonal occurrence. Finally, results are upscaled to a resolution of 20m x 20m and are presented as individual risk to life and object risk to life for each process. Within the quantitative landslide risk analysis the associated uncertainties are estimated qualitatively. In the study area the highest risks throughout all of the analyses (individual risk to life and object risk to life) are caused by debris flows, followed by rock falls, showing that risk heavily varies depending on the process considered. The resultant maps show areas, in which the individual risk to life exceeds the acceptable risk (defined in the aforementioned regulation), so that for these locations risk reduction measures should be developed and implemented. It can be concluded that the newly developed method works satisfactory and is applicable to further catchments in Iceland, and potentially to further countries with different environmental settings.


Physics and Engineering of Radiation Detection presents an overview of the physics of radiation detection and its applications. It covers the origins and properties of different kinds of ionizing radiation, their detection and measurement, and the procedures used to protect people and the environment from their potentially harmful effects. The second edition is fully revised and provides the latest developments in detector technology and analyses software. Also, more material related to measurements in particle physics and a complete solutions manual have been added. * Discusses the experimental techniques and instrumentation used in different detection systems in a very practical way without sacrificing the physics content* Provides useful formulae and explains methodologies to solve problems related to radiation measurements* Contains many worked-out examples and end-of-chapter problems* Detailed discussions on different detection media, such as gases, liquids, liquefied gases, semiconductors, and scintillators * Chapters on statistics, data analysis techniques, software for data analysis, and data acquisition systems


OF DISSERTATION THE EFFECTS OF FOOD SAFETY STANDARDS ON TRADE AND WELFARE: THE CASE OF EU SHRIMP IMPORTS This research explores the link between a gravity model and welfare frameworks and then applies the quantitative model system to analyze how trade and welfare is affected by the Minimum Required Performance Limits (MRPL) in the shrimp importing market of European Union. The quantitative model system consists of two parts: first, this study uses the "phi-ness" gravity model to investigate the trade effects of MRPL on EU shrimp market. The "phiness" gravity model partitions the standard variables to avoid biased estimation caused by the correlation between time and country fixed effects and policy variables. The Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) method is incorporated into the estimation in order to control for the zero valued observations. Second, based on the theoretic foundation of the gravity model, this research sets up the specific nested Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) model of consumers' utility and further explores the linkage between these two models. The nested CES model incorporates the effects of MRPL on consumers' confidence in domestic food as well as foreign food imported from developed and developing countries. The empirical results confirm a consistent fact with previous empirical studies: stricter MRPL has significant and negative effects on trade integration between EU and trading partners with lower level of food safety standards. The welfare analysis shows that the zero tolerance policy of MRPL standard would dramatically enhance consumers' demand for domestic shrimps and foreign shrimps imported from developed countries but reduce the quantity of shrimp supplied from developing countries. It is also indicated that the increased level of MRPL lead to an increase in welfare of domestic consumers, suppliers in developing countries, and in total international trade, as well as a decrease in the welfare of domestic suppliers and foreign suppliers from developed countries. The empirical results also indicate that the combination of GM and Welfare Approach can also be applied to research on other standards or other industries.


Abstract Topical keratolytic agents such as benzoyl peroxide (BP) and salicylic acid (SA) are one of the common treatments for inflammatory skin diseases. However, the amount of drug delivery through the skin is limited due to the stratum corneum. The purposes of this study were to investigate the ability of fish oil to act as penetration enhancer for topical keratolytic agents and to determine the suitable gelator for formulating stable fish oil oleogels. 2 types of gelling agents, beeswax and sorbitan monostearate (Span 60), were used to formulate oleogels. To investigate the efficacy of fish oil oleogel permeation, commercial hydrogels of benzoyl peroxide (BP) and salicylic acid (SA) were used as control, and comparative analysis was performed using Franz diffusion cell. Stability of oleogels was determined by physical assessments at 20°C and 40°C storage. Benzoyl peroxide (BP) fish oil oleogels containing beeswax were considered as better formulations in terms of drug permeation and cumulative drug release. All the results were found to be statistically significant (p<0.05, ANOVA) and it was concluded that the beeswax-fish oil combination in oleogel can prove to be beneficial in terms of permeation across the skin and stability.


This paper reveals the spatial and temporal patterns of grain and leguminous crops yield dynamics in Dnipropetrovsk region and evaluates the role of agro-environmental and agro-economic factors in their formation. Crop data were obtained from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine. The data of the grain and grain legumes (pulses) yield during 1966–2016 on average per year in the administrative districts of Dnipropetrovsk region was analysed. The obtained data indicate that average yields of cereals and leguminous crops within Dnipropetrovsk region varies from 24.3 to 33.4 CWT/ha. The smallest interannual variability in yield is typical for Vasylkivskyi district (CV = 9.9%), and the largest is typical for Yurivskyi district (CV = 27.7%). As a result of the principal component analysis of the cereals and leguminous crops yields variability, three principal components were extracted which together explain 81.2% of the overall yield variability. Principal component 1 explains 69.4% of the total variability. It indicates the total synchronous yields variation within the area investigated as all examined variables have high loading values on principal component 1. The administrative districts that form a belt located in the direction from the north east to the south west of the region have the most coordinated variance, which is reflected by principal component 1. Principal component 2 explains 6.8% of the yield variability. This principal component is sensitive to opposite yield dynamics of central and south-western districts on the one hand and the eastern and northern districts – on the other. Principal component 3 explains 4.9% of the yield variability. This principal component reveals the opposite dynamics of productivity of the central districts on the one hand and the northern and south-eastern districts on the other. The cluster analysis of administrative districts was conducted based on the dynamics of the yield of grain and leguminous as a result of which four clusters were identified. The clusters are geographically defined administrative districts, together forming spatially connected areas. The similar temporal yield dynamics of grain and leguminous crops as a result of interaction between endogenous and exogenous ecological factors is the main principle for revealling such ecologically homogeneous territories. Spatial distribution of principal components indicates a continual pattern, but their overlapping allows one to extract spatially discrete units, which we identified as agroecological zones. Each zone is characterized by a certain character and dynamics of production capacity and has an invariant pattern of response to varying climatic, environmental, and agroeconomic factors.


This study aims to identify collaboration motive for knowledge fusion in Engineering. Delphi survey on a panel of experts was chosen to be the main methodology for this study, drawing the main factors of collaboration motive for knowledge fusion. From Oct. 10 to Nov. 25, 2013, a three-round Delphi survey was implemented to collect data. The panels of eighteen expert were involved in this survey. For statistical processing, descriptive statistics including frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were carried out along with internal reliability test on the survey instrument. The main findings were as follows. First, requirements for collaboration were found to be sufficient understanding and sharing of the collaboration goal, responsibility for the role, and intent to understand knowledge for collaboration. Second, knowledge management, as one of collaboration processes, included creativity applying previous knowledge, design for combined knowledge management system, and identification and arrangement of common elements. Third, the communication appeared as tolerance for different perspectives, consideration for collaboration, and patience to solve problems during collaborating. Fourth, decision-making as a result of collaboration showed share of vision and goal, rational decision-making using objective data, and mediating different opinions. Detailed information for collaboration for knowledge fusion found in this study would contribute to provide useful data for knowledge fusion studies. Keyword: delphi study, collaboration motive, knowledge fusion, engineering, requirements for collaboration, knowledge management, communication process, decision-making


Background Mobile phone and Internet-based technologies are increasingly used to disseminate health information and facilitate delivery of medical care. While these strategies hold promise for reducing barriers to care for medically-underserved populations, their acceptability among marginalized populations such as people who inject drugs is not well-understood. Objective To understand patterns of mobile phone ownership, Internet use and willingness to receive health information via mobile devices among people who inject drugs. Methods We surveyed current and former drug injectors participating in a longitudinal cohort study in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Respondents completed a 12-item, interviewer-administered questionnaire during a regular semi-annual study visit that assessed their use of mobile technology and preferred modalities of receiving health information. Using data from the parent study, we used logistic regression to evaluate associations among participants' demographic and clinical characteristics and their mobile phone and Internet use. Results The survey was completed by 845 individuals, who had a median age of 51 years. The sample was 89% African-American, 65% male, and 33% HIV-positive. Participants were generally of low education and income levels. Fewer than half of respondents (40%) indicated they had ever used the Internet. Mobile phones were used by 86% of respondents. Among mobile phone owners, 46% had used their phone for text messaging and 25% had accessed the Internet on their phone. A minority of respondents (42%) indicated they would be interested in receiving health information via phone or Internet. Of those receptive to receiving health information, a mobile phone call was the most favored modality (66%) followed by text messaging (58%) and Internet (51%). Conclusions Utilization of information and communication technology among this cohort of people who inject drugs was reported at a lower level than what has been estimated for the general U.S. population. Our findings identify a potential barrier to successful implementation of mobile health and Internet-based interventions for people who inject drugs, particularly those who are older and have lower levels of income and educational attainment. As mobile communication technology continues to expand, future studies should re-examine whether mHealth applications become more accessible and accepted by socioeconomically disadvantaged groups.


Schools are organizations with a formal bureaucratic structure. Hoy and Sweetland applied the work of Gouldner, who viewed organizational structure as ranging from representative to punishment centered, and Adler and Borys, who viewed bureaucracy as ranging from enabling to coercive, to schools. They coined the term "enabling school structures" (ESS), which they defined as "a hierarchy of authority and a system of rules and regulations that help rather than hinder the teaching learning mission of the school." Hoy and Sweetland then developed and validated a reliable instrument to measure this construct. This spawned a considerable body of research on the antecedents and consequents of ESS. A comprehensive literature review from 2000 to 2018 produced 22 articles that utilized ESS as conceptualized and operationalized by Hoy and Sweetland. This review did not include book chapters or unpublished dissertations. Findings from the research suggest that ESS fosters trust relationships and collaboration among teachers. It helps to establish a culture of academic optimism and promotes the development of professional learning communities.
 ESS has been shown to have both a direct and indirect effect on student achievement. ESS is correlated with a host of factors deemed important in schools, such as teacher and principal authenticity, collective teacher efficacy, teacher professionalism, and collective responsibility. It is negatively associated with dependence on superiors, dependence on rules, truth spinning, role conflict, and illegitimate politics. It appears to be higher in smaller schools, particularly schools situated in rural areas. Studies have been conducted in China, Turkey, and South and Central America, which have given credence to the notion that ESS has applicability beyond the United States where the work was originally conceptualized. ESS was not affected by socioeconomic status in schools in the United States, and therefore, it may serve as one way to ameliorate the negative effects of poverty on student success.


The purpose of this study was to explore the participation of physical activity and its related factors in the elderly in the community. Five hundred elderly ( > or = 65 yrs) living in the San-Min district of Kaohsiung city was taken as study subjects. A structured questionnaire was used to gather data including the following items: (1) the participation of physical activity (2) modifying factors: demographic data, biological characteristics, previous experience in exercise and exercise knowledge (3) cognitive-perceptual factors: perceived health status, perceived self-efficacy, perceived benefits and perceived barriers to exercise (4) cues to action. The results showed 19.2% of the elderly never exercised, 15.9% had exercised previously but not now, 20.4% exercised intermittently, 1% exercised only on holidays and 43.8% exercised regularly. Within the elderly who exercised regularly, 89.2% exercised more than three times a week and at least 20 minutes each time, walking was the most popular exercise pattern. The participation of physical activity had significant relationship with modifying factors, cognitive-perceptual factors and cues to action. After logistic stepwise multiple regression, those who totally self-care, without a history of exercise injury during youth, male, higher perceived self-efficacy score, lower perceived barriers score and those with higher cues to action score tended to exercise regularly.


The Coast Guard funded the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to perform electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) tests between an ITU-R M. 825-3 (Characteristics Of a Transponder System Using Digital Selective Calling Techniques for Use with Vessel Traffic Services and Ship-to Ship Identification) based Automatic Identification System (AIS) operating on 12.5 kHz channels and Public Correspondence (PC) Systems operating on 25 kHz channels. The tests were performed between January 17-28, 2000 in and around an AIS base
station communications tower located at Point Ala Hache, La. by NTIA, SETA Corporation, and
Coast Guard personnel.
AIS is a shipborne


Pre-training and fine-tuning have become the de facto paradigm in many natural language processing (NLP) tasks. However, compared to other NLP tasks, neural machine translation (NMT) aims to generate target language sentences through the contextual representation from the source language counterparts. This characteristic means the optimization objective of NMT is far from that of the universal pre-trained models (PTMs), leading to the standard procedure of pre-training and fine-tuning does not work well in NMT. In this paper, we propose a novel framework to deep fuse the pre-trained representation into NMT, fully exploring the potential of PTMs in NMT. Specifically, we directly replace the randomly initialized Transformer encoder with a pre-trained encoder and propose a layer-wise coordination structure to coordinate PTM and NMT decoder learning. Then, we introduce a partitioned multi-task learning method to fine-tune the pre-trained parameter, reducing the gap between PTM and NMT by progressively learning the task-specific representation. Experimental results show that our approach achieves considerable improvements on WMT14 En2De, WMT14 En2Fr, and WMT16 Ro2En translation benchmarks and outperforms previous work in both autoregressive and non-autoregressive NMT models.


Author(s): Kaur, Kawaljit | Advisor(s): JEWETT, ANAHID | Abstract: Osteonecrosis of jaw, is a bone disorder affecting the jaw bone. Bisphosphonate-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (BRONJ) is a condition found in patients who have received intravenous and oral forms of bisphosphonate therapy for various bone-related conditions. Bisphosphonates (BPs) are a class of drugs used to treat osteoporosis and malignant bone metastasis. Osteoclast's are the bone cells capable of resorbing bone, are the potential target of BP therapy. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the role of osteoclasts in ONJ, effect of BP on the differentiation and function of osteoclasts, inflammatory mediators secreted by osteoclasts involved in ONJ iiimodel, interaction of osteoclasts with other immune cells especially NK cells, as well as role of IL-10 in osteoclasts and BP interaction. This study demonstrate that, i.v nitrogen-containingbisphosphonates Zolendronic Acid and oral nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates Alendronate and oral non-nitrogen containing Etidronate modulate the pro-inflammatory functions of osteoclasts. Nitrogen containing Bisphosphonates mediated significant dose dependent release of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6, TNF-α, IL-1b and they inhibited anti-inflammatory IL-10 secretion by osteoclasts. Zolendronic Acid, Alendronate and Etidronate each had a different effect on the secretion of cytokines, with Zolendronic Acid having the highest and Etidronate the lowest ability to up-regulate the cytokine secretion. Zolendronic Acid, Alendronate and Etidronate each had a different effect on cell viability, Zolendronic Acid caused highest reduction in osteoclasts numbers, followed by Alendronate and Etidronate almost cause no cell death. The surface expression of CD14, CD33, CD54, CD44, CD11b, MHC class I and II and B7H1 were significantly increased when osteoclasts were treated with Zolendronic Acid, effect was higher at 500nM conc. and down-modulated at higher concentration of Zolendronic Acid, but still higher than untreated OC. All three bisphosphonates were capable of decreasing pit formation by osteoclasts. Osteoclasts act as key immune effectors capable of modulating the function of Natural Killer (NK) cells. Treatment of osteoclasts with Zolendronic Acid and much less with Alendronate was capable of inhibiting NK cell cytotoxicity whereas it induced significant secretion of cytokines, IFN-γ, IL-6, IL-10 and IL-18 and chemokines in the cultures of NK cells with osteoclasts. Resistance to NK cell cytotoxicity was higher at low concentration of Zolendronic Acid, comparative to higher concentration. NK cells were able to lyse osteoclasts much more than their precursor cell monocytes and this correlated with the decreasedivexpression of MHC class I and CD54 expression on osteoclasts. These results suggest that Zolendronic Acid treated osteoclasts may remain viable in the microenvironment for a prolonged period of time during interaction with NK cells providing continuous secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines in the absence of anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 resulting in the chronicity of inflammation. Zolendronic Acid injections could similarly increase IFN-g and IL-6 secretion and Cytotoxicity against the tumor cells, in the bone marrows but decrease the secretion of IFN-g in gingival, pancreatic and adipose tissues. These observations are of significant value since they may provide potential mechanisms for the pathogenesis seen in Osteonecrosis of the Jaw (ONJ). It is possible that an increase in activation of Bone Marrow derived cells by Zolendronic Acid result in the eventual loss or inhibition of IFN-g secreting cells when they reach to the tissues. Since gingival derived immune cells are of activated phenotype when compared to bone marrow derived immune cells in healthy subjects, prior activation of bone marrow derived cells when mobilized to the gingival tissues and are exposed to additional activation signals from antigens in gingiva may undergo activation induced cell death, or simply become exhausted, and result in the lower secretion of IFN-g by the immune cells as seen in our in vivo model system. These possibilities are under investigation in our laboratory. The phenotype and nature of immune cells, including NK cells, one of the main contributors of IFN-g secretion in bone marrow and tissues are currently being investigated in our laboratory.


The Triplo-lethal locus (Tpl) is unique in its dosage sensitivity; no other locus in Drosophila has been identified that is lethal when present in three doses. Tpl is also haplo-lethal, and its function is still a mystery. Previous workers have found it nearly impossible to mutationally inactive Tpl other than by completely deleting the chromosomal region in which Tpl resides (83DE). We have utilized P-M hybrid dysgenesis in an effort to obtain new mutations of Tpl. We recovered 19 new duplications of Tpl, 15 hypomorphic mutations of Tpl (a previously rare class of mutation), and no null mutations. Surprisingly, 14 of the 15 hypomorphic alleles have no detectable P element sequences at the locus. The difficulty in recovering null mutations in Tpl suggests that it may be a complex locus, perhaps consisting of several genes with redundant functions. The relative ease with which we recovered hypomorphic alleles is in sharp contrast to previous attempts by others to mutagenize Tpl. A higher mutation rate with hybrid dysgenesis than with radiation or chemicals also suggests a peculiar genetic organization for the locus.


Semantic segmentation is the problem of assigning an object label to each pixel. It unifies the image segmentation and object recognition problems. The importance of using contextual information in semantic segmentation frameworks has been widely realized in the field. We propose a contextual framework, called contextual hierarchical model (CHM), which learns contextual information in a hierarchical framework for semantic segmentation. At each level of the hierarchy, a classifier is trained based on downsampled input images and outputs of previous levels. Our model then incorporates the resulting multi-resolution contextual information into a classifier to segment the input image at original resolution. This training strategy allows for optimization of a joint posterior probability at multiple resolutions through the hierarchy. Contextual hierarchical model is purely based on the input image patches and does not make use of any fragments or shape examples. Hence, it is applicable to a variety of problems such as object segmentation and edge detection. We demonstrate that CHM performs at par with state-of-the-art on Stanford background and Weizmann horse datasets. It also outperforms state-of-the-art edge detection methods on NYU depth dataset and achieves state-of-the-art on Berkeley segmentation dataset (BSDS 500).


Multiple communication channels are common in today's consumer and enterprise networks. For example, a high bandwidth but unreliable wireless network might co-exist with a reliable wired link (EWLANs and neighborhood networks). In this paper, we present a system that uses this reliable wired communication channel to boost the bandwidth of the lossy wireless link. Specifically, we propose a new, efficient partial packet recovery (PPR) technique and adaptive feedback mechanism specially designed to correct partial packets on an 802.11 wireless network using a wired backhaul. Our initial experiments demonstrate up to a 3x improvement over standalone 802.11 and upto a 30% improvement over existing PPR techniques.


When normal, healthy cells die by apoptosis, they must be cleared to ensure tissue homeostasis. Failure to clear apoptotic cells (ACs) efficiently enables the release of inflammatory stimuli, such as nucleic acids, leading to tissue injury and, ultimately, autoimmunity. Clearance of ACs is largely performed by tissue-resident macrophages. Despite expressing many innate immune receptors, these cells do not respond to the potentially stimulatory ligands within ACs. Recently, the Barton Lab has identified several populations of AC-engulfing macrophages with many common features. These features include the expression of AC-recognition receptors and reduced TLR responsiveness to nucleic acids. The transcription factors KLF2 and KLF4 appear to contribute to this expression program both in vitro and in vivo in distinct AC-clearing macrophage populations. Macrophages that are removed from their environments lose this program and the program can be adopted by transferring TLR responsive macrophages into environments where endogenous silent residents are maintained. This coordinated silent immune program allows tissue-resident macrophages to maintain homeostasis while efficiently clearing ACs. Citation Format: Kathleen Pestal, Gregory M. Barton. The regulation of silent apoptotic cell-clearance in tissue-resident macrophages [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Fourth CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; Sept 30-Oct 3, 2018; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2019;7(2 Suppl):Abstract nr B179.


Amplification schemes and gain prescriptions for hearing aids have thus far been developed and evaluated based on perceptual criteria such as speech intelligibility, sound comfort, and loudness equalization. Finding amplification strategies that simultaneously optimize all of these perceptual metrics has proven difficult, despite decades of research. Furthermore, novel amplification schemes based on rough conceptual models of the normal and impaired auditory physiology have often proven to be unsuccessful. In this talk, I will describe studies directly employing physiologically accurate computational models to evaluate more rigorously what hearing aids are likely doing to the neural representation of speech. The results of these investigations indicate that (i) a physiologically accurate auditory‐nerve (AN) model can predict optimal linear and nonlinear amplification gains, (ii) optimal gains are dependent on both the spike‐timing and mean‐rate representations of speech in the AN, (iii) the proportion of ...


We propose a novel linearization of a constituent tree, together with a new locally normalized model. For each split point in a sentence, our model computes the normalizer on all spans ending with that split point, and then predicts a tree span from them. Compared with global models, our model is fast and parallelizable. Different from previous local models, our linearization method is tied on the spans directly and considers more local features when performing span prediction, which is more interpretable and effective. Experiments on PTB (95.8 F1) and CTB (92.4 F1) show that our model significantly outperforms existing local models and efficiently achieves competitive results with global models.


A novel rapid prototyping manufacturing technology for glass-alumina functionally gradient materials (G-A FGMs) based on the quick solidification of wax was proposed. The feature of the technology came from its layer-by-layer fabrication of the wax-glass/alumina composite layer carved in accordance with the shape of each layer of the computer designed model and in situ casting of wax into the carved area. Removal of the wax in the G-A FGMs green body was investigated based on differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis. Sintering properties of the G-A FGMs were discussed. Bending strength of the G-A FGMs was measured by a three-point flexural test. Microstructures of the prepared G-A FGMs were observed using environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM) and the compositional distribution was determined according to energy dispersive spectrum (EDS). Samples were preliminarily and respectively held at 200°C and 300°C for a long time based on the DSC analysis. The range of the optimal sintering temperature is determined to be from 710°C to 720°C and the holding time is 30min. With the increasing alumina content, the bending strength increases and the maximum bending strength is 67.5MPa. There is no delamination of the G-A FGMs via ESEM. Homogeneous distribution of the ingredient materials is confirmed through EDS.


Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) was introduced in 2002 but not implemented until September, 2008. COOL required covered commodities to indicate their country of origin. Among other commodities, COOL applied to muscle cuts and ground beef. Canada and Mexico won a WTO complaint against the U.S. forcing USDA to rewrite the COOL regulations. The WTO finding on the re-written COOL regulation is due to become public any day. This paper analyzes the impact of COOL on stocker and feeder cattle price differences between the U.S. and Mexico. Cattle trade with Mexico is a longstanding market relationship. The U.S. imports stocker and feeder cattle from Mexico. Weekly AMS reported prices of Mexican cattle and Texas feeder cattle prices are used to construct a price spread. An econometric model is developed to analyze factors that affect the Mexican-U.S. feeder cattle price spread. A dummy variable is included for COOL implementation. COOL was found to have a statistically significant positive affect on the price spread for 300-400 and 500-600 pound feeder cattle. The results indicate that the Mexican cattle have received a significant discount following COOL implementation.


OBJECTIVES
To determine the number of patients with chemotherapy-induced anemia receiving an erythropoiesis-stimulating agent (ESA) in whom iron studies were completed and iron supplementation was provided and to document the response rate of ESA therapy without parenteral iron at our medical center.

DESIGN
Retrospective chart review.

SETTING
Urban (Chicago) academic medical center between January 2004 and December 2005.

PATIENTS
Ambulatory patients with a nonmyeloid malignancy receiving chemotherapy during a 2-year period in whom hemoglobin (Hb) was less than 11 grams/dL or ESA therapy was documented.

INTERVENTION
Review of medical records.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Number of patients reaching target Hb, time to reach target Hb, number of patients receiving a transfusion, number of patients with iron studies, and number of patients receiving iron supplementation.

RESULTS
A total of 174 medical records were reviewed, and 50 patients met study criteria. Of these, 38 patients were treated with darbepoetin alfa, 11 patients were treated with epoetin alfa, and 1 patient was not treated with either agent. 20 patients achieved the target Hb level of 12 grams/dL within a median of 7 weeks (range 1-24 weeks). Only five patients treated with an ESA received iron supplementation, one responder and four nonresponders. Iron indices were measured in 20 patients (40%); 14 patients were candidates for iron therapy based on transferrin saturation, and 3 of these 14 patients received oral iron supplementation. Six responders and six nonresponders received a transfusion (25%).

CONCLUSION
The overall response rate and time to Hb response were consistent with previous reports. Iron indices were not commonly measured before ESA therapy was started, and only a few patients were provided oral iron supplementation at our medical center.


Clinical Supervision has been identified as a means to support and enhance professional development and is recommended for all mental health nurses. However, it continues to have limited uptake in some mental health services, particularly within inpatient units. There is also confusion about what actually constitutes clinical supervision which is often misguidedly seen as line management supervision. One factor that has been identified as increasing the uptake or implementation of clinical supervision in inpatient units has been strong management support for clinical supervision practice (Lynch, Hancox, Happell, & Parker, 2008). The aims and objectives of the research project were to explore the knowledge, understanding of and attitudes towards clinical supervision of the senior clinical leaders of the inpatient mental health units of a large metropolitan public mental health service, located in Melbourne. Data collected included participants details, the clinical leaders' participation in having their own clinical supervision and their support of staff in taking up clinical supervision. The researcher was interested in the individual's experience of clinical supervision and hence used hermeneutic phenomenology methodology and employed individual interviews as the primary method of capturing the data. The preliminary results from this research will be presented with particular focus on the enablers and barriers to the uptake of clinical supervision practice in mental health inpatient units from a leadership perspective. The results will inform collaboration between senior clinical leaders and the practice development team to increase the uptake of clinical supervision in inpatient units.


Vakfikebir bread (VB), a special kind of bread, is produced in Turkey, especially in Trabzon, Black Sea region. The aim of this research was to introduce VB and compare the properties of traditionally baked VB with those of white bread (WB). It has been reported that sourdough VB had a thick and hard crust, large pores in crumb, longer processing time with high tolerance, rich aroma, good quality, high volume and weight, later staling and longer baking time at low temperature. In this research 2 different loaf weights (500 and 1500 g) for the both bread types were studied. It was observed that bread type had a significant effect on the moisture contents of crumb, under-crust and crust, crumb hydration capacity, and Texture Profile Analyzer (TPA) parameters except for springiness. VB had higher crumb moisture, crumb hydration capacity, firmness, cohesiveness, gumminess, and chewiness values, and the moisture content of under-crust and crust compared to white bread. In addition, 500 g loaves had lower crumb moisture, crumb hydration capacity, springiness, cohesiveness, and chewiness compared to 1500 g loaves. It is concluded that the causes of long life freshness of VB versus WB were the high moisture content and low starch retrogradation speed of its crumb in spite of its firmer and more elastic crumb texture.


We consider the continuum-armed bandits problem, under a novel setting of recommending the best arms within a fixed budget under aggregated feedback. This is motivated by applications where the precise rewards are impossible or expensive to obtain, while an aggregated reward or feedback, such as the average over a subset, is available. We constrain the set of reward functions by assuming that they are from a Gaussian Process and propose the Gaussian Process Optimistic Optimisation (GPOO) algorithm. We adaptively construct a tree with nodes as subsets of the arm space, where the feedback is the aggregated reward of representatives of a node. We propose a new simple regret notion with respect to aggregated feedback on the recommended arms. We provide theoretical analysis for the proposed algorithm, and recover single point feedback as a special case. We illustrate GPOO and compare it with related algorithms on simulated data.


This article examines what difference – if any – the renewed EU Better Regulation Agenda has made for the EU Commission in terms of its own accountability and policy outcomes. Emboldened by the Spitzenkandidaten process – which established for the first time a link between the outcome of the EU elections and the presidency of the EU Commission –, the Juncker Commission emerged as the most political yet. To shrug off the label of technocratic institution – historically insulated from citizens' preferences –, the new Commission asked EU citizens to judge its operation by its ability 'to deliver solutions to the big issues that cannot be addressed by the Member States alone'. By embracing such a panem et circenses approach to EU democracy – as such not too dissimilar from the Santer's and Barroso's previous administrations – the Juncker Commission raised new expectations. This is true not only in terms of output legitimacy – which was meant to become the privileged benchmark against which to measure the Commission's success –, but also in terms of its own democratic and political accountability vis-a-vis EU citizens. Indeed, although unintelligible to the many, the Spitzenkandidaten logic entails that EU citizens contributed for the first time with their vote to shape the political orientation of this Commission and – as a result – could hold it accountable. While the very notion of political accountability is foreign to the EU constitutional setting – as citizens don't have the possibility to replace the Commission if this does not meet their hopes –, the Juncker Commission has strived to frame its mandate as if such an oversight existed. This article concludes that at the very same time the Juncker Commission has been striving to develop its own, autonomous democratic credentials, its choice to embrace a set of well-defined institutional mechanisms that reward expert judgment over political adjudication appears at odds with its newly-acquired political nature.


The present report reviews literature from throughout the world on methods and results of bioaerosol investigations in and around agricultural livestock farming and summarises the most important points. The global trend towards intensification and industrialisation of animal production, with regional concentration of livestock facilities and increasing numbers of animals and greater stock densities, has led to an increase in bioaerosol emissions to the environment in certain areas and to increasing concern about health impairment of the population in the vicinity. The main sources of the bioaerosols are the animals and their faeces, the litter and feed. If the particles become airborne, they can be emitted from the stables into the environment. Hundreds of different viruses, bacteria and moulds have been detected in agricultural livestock farming worldwide. The bacterial group of the Staphylococcaceae appears to be most suitable for animal husbandry as a specific indicator or guiding parameter. Bioaerosols can be measured online with particle spectrometers and offline using classical methods, i.e. sampling on site with subsequent evaluation by means of culture-based or molecular biological methods in the laboratory. The classical detection methods are best suited to the complexity of bioaerosols in agricultural livestock farming. The sampling of bioaerosols should be carried out as far as possible using standardised systems that have high physical and biological collection efficiency, in order to ensure comparability of the data. The selection of a suitable collection system should primarily depend on the issue in question. After the bioaerosols have been collected in a sample, evaluation is usually carried out via cultivation and / or various biochemical and molecular biological methods. Especially the latter, in combination with the classical culture-based methods, enable a detailed insight into the composition of bioaerosols. However, further standardisation of the methods for bioaerosols is necessary here. Endotoxins, on the other hand, are predominantly detected using the LAL test, although this test remains relatively susceptible to disturbances. Most data on bioaerosol measurements in agricultural livestock farming available for this review are from the USA and Germany. Here, the concentrations of bacteria, moulds and endotoxins were measured in the stalls of pigs, cattle and chickens. The highest concentrations of airborne bacteria were found in stalls for chickens, followed by turkeys, ducks, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, horses and rabbits, with the different husbandry and production stages having a significant influence. Emission factors published for airborne microorganisms also differ in part considerably depending on the animal species and the type of keeping, also as a result of different sampling conditions, collection methods and different methods for determination of the concentrations. The concentrations of the airborne bacteria in livestock during the day and night can deviate by a factor of ten. The deviation may further increase by a factor of 1000 if emission factors are calculated on the basis of the specific volumetric flow rates. This must be taken into account in the calculation of annual average values of emission factors. During transportation, i.e. the transport of bioaerosols via the air, the microorganisms are largely exposed to wind and weather. The extent to which they are carried is primarily dependent on two parameters: the tenacity, i.e. the ability to survive the airborne condition, and the size and composition of the bioaerosol particles, i.e. how quickly they sediment. How long microorganisms are viable in the air is dependent on very many factors and, due to the relatively unsuitable test systems used in the past, this aspect has not been studied sufficiently. Regarding particle size, most of the airborne microorganisms found in livestock farming have a significantly larger particle size or mass fraction than would be expected from the size of the individual cells of the organisms. 30% to 70% of the bacteria can be found in mass fractions larger than PM10, whereby the distribution of the different bioaerosol components can vary considerably and is not uniformly correlated with the distribution of the dust fractions. The immission concentrations of bioaerosols exponentially decrease with the distance from the emission source, mainly depending on the particle size and meteorological conditions. Instead of carrying out complex measurements, the spread of bioaerosols can also be simulated with computer models. Up to now, however, these models have often overestimated the emissions, since night reduction, particle size distributions and death rates of the microorganisms are still not taken into account. [...]


This paper presents the results from an experiment with a conversational human-robot interaction system aimed at long-term support for diabetic children. The system offers a set of activities aimed to help a child to improve its capability to manage diabetes. There is a large body of literature on the techniques that artificial agents can use to establish and maintain long-term social-emotional relationships with their users. The novel aspect in the present study is the inclusion of off-activity talk interspersed within talk pertaining the activity at hand and aimed to elicit the child's self-disclosure. The children in our study (N=20, age 11-14) were more interested to have another session with the robot when their interaction included also off-activity talk, even though there was no difference in the perception of the robot by the children between the groups with and without off-activity talk. Furthermore, individual interactions with the robot positively influenced the children's adherence to a therapy-related requirement, namely the filling in of a nutritional diary.


Although workplace social support has been reported to be beneficial against work-related stresses, little is known about its contribution to job satisfaction. The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationship between job satisfaction and different sources of social support, as well as the interaction of job strain and social supports. Participants were 131 healthy female part-time employees in a retail service company. Participants answered to a self-administered questionnaire consisted of job satisfaction, age groups, educational levels, co-morbid disorders, self-rated health, alcohol consumption, smoking habits, health checkups, social supports, job strain, working hours and commuting time. Job satisfaction was evaluated by the Japanese version of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Generic Job Stress Questionnaire, and social support and job strain were assessed by the Brief Job Stress Questionnaire. Multiple linear regression analysis controlling for confounders revealed that social support from supervisor (β=0.210, p=0.012) and coworkers (β=0.200, p=0.012), respectively, had significant independent association with job satisfaction, while no significant interactive effects of social supports x job strain were found. We conclude that both supervisor and co-worker supports are equally important to increase job satisfaction despite different levels of job strain among female part-time employees.


Hardware driver support is perhaps one of the most difficult hurdles to overcome in the march towards world domination. Unfortunately, getting that support for Linux R © is not always a trivial task. This process involves, at a minimum, coordination between Linus Torvald's patch lieutenants and the hardware vendors' engineering and legal departments; on a more practical level, the hardware vendors need to build and maintain good communication channels with the various distributions to gather feedback and to solve problems. We participate in those complex interactions to catalyze the development process, and build open source alternatives when that fails. For this presentation, we offer four examples of this catalytic process, and discuss the task of helping hardware vendors to merge functionality, when possible, from an internal driver release train into mainline. In the first case, we discuss how ongoing maintenance and enhancement work with the longtime mainline resident pcnet32 driver progresses without much hand-holding from AMD R ©, the original hardware vendor; the case details the traditional process of collaborative driver development among many enthusiasts. The second case explores working with Adaptec R © to evaluate, diagnose, and resolve performance issues with the aacraid driver and ongoing work to clean up widespread confusion in comparing versions of the driver. With regards to the third case, we discuss assistance given to Adaptec to address issues blocking the aic94xx Serial Attached SCSI driver from entering mainline. In the final case, we discuss negotiating with Adaptec for hardware behavior specifications, implementing a HostRAID R © plugin for dmraid (presented at OLS 2005), altering device-mapper to make grub work better, and assisting the distributions to support installation and booting off of a dmraid device.


In recent years, elevated antibody levels to measles and rubella viruses have been found in diseases that have no apparent relation to measles or rubella infections. These include chronic active hepatitis, systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, Reiter's syndrome, and infectious mononucleosis. 1-3 No satisfactory explanation of these elevated antibody titers has been offered. In this issue of theArchives(p 33), Luby et al report that 18 of 52 consecutive renal transplant patients had hemagglutination inhibition antibody titers to rubella virus ≥1:128 on at least one determination during the posttransplant period. These 18 patients differed from the other 34 who had lesser or no rises in antibody titer in that nine of the 18 had acute hepatitis (hepatitis B surface antigen negative), and six of these nine continued on to some form of chronic liver disease. In addition, these 18 patients suffered more late graft rejection episodes, with six requiring