We developed a time dependent block fault modeling program and applied it to the GNSS data in Japan. The results based on the data before the 2011 Tohoku earthquake shows afterslips of the 2003 Tokachi-oki earthquake, weakening and restoration of coupling off Miyagi area afther the 2005 Miyagi-oki earthquake, weakening of coupling off Ibaraki and Fukushima after the 2008 off Ibaraki and Fukushima earthquakes, which continued just before the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. The analysis of the GNSS data after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake shows Bungo slow slips, east coast Kyushu slow slips, Kii channel slow slips. Introduction It is very important to estimate interplate coupling in subduction zones to assess the source region and magnitudes of the expected subduction earthquakes in Japan. In particular, the probabilities of the anticipated Tokai and Nankai earthquakes are estimated to be high within 30 years period. Under this circumstance, many studies to estimate interplate coupling were conducted. However, those studies did not take into consideration temporal changes. In this study, we developed a time dependent block fault modeling program and applied it to the nationwide GNSS data. Analytical Method Hashimoto et al. (2000) conducted a block fault modeling of Japan based on GNSS data. We used the geometry of the block fault model of Japan adopted by Hashimoto et al. (2000). In inland area, we modeled boundaries of the microplates of Japan by rectangular faults and used parametric spline surfaces in subduction zones along the Japan trench, Sagami trough, and Suruga and Nankai troughs. Base on the adopted block fault model of Japan, we estimated interplate coupling on the plate interface by employing the time dependent inversion program which was developed by this study. We used east-west, north-south, and up-down position time series of GNSS data at approximately 1200 GNSS sites in Japan for the periods between 1997-2011 before the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and between 2013-2015 after the Tohoku earthquake. Results and discussion The result shows afterslip of the 2003 Tokachi-oki earthquake (Mw8.0) on the plate interface between the Pacific plate and the continental plate. The afterslip was observed in source regions of the 2003 Tokachi-oki earthquake and the afterslip area moved to northeast over time. The weakening and restoration of interplate coupling after the 2005 Miyagi earthquake (Mw6.8) was observed for the period between 2005 and 2007. Weakening of the coupling off Ibaraki and Fukushima was observed after the 2008 Fukushima (Mw7.0) and Ibaraki earthquakes (Mw6.9). This weakening continued just before the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. With regard to the Philippine Sea plate, our result shows Bungo slow slip in 1997, 2003, and 2010 in the Bungo channel area between Shikoku and Kyushu Islands. In addition, interplate coupling was weakened in 2002 and 2005 in the Pacific coastal area of Kyushu Island, indicating slow slips in this region. For the data set after the Tohoku earthquake, we detected the Bungo slow slip in 2013 and 2016, and the Pacific coastal area slow slips of Kyushu Island, and Kii channel slow slip. These result were derived without detrending of position time series, suggesting the effectiveness of SSS10-P11 JpGU-AGU Joint Meeting 2017 ©2017. Japan Geoscience Union. All Right Reserved. SSS10-P11


ABSTRACT
ObjectivesSharing of health data, including linkage of research with administrative and health records, is crucial in order to reduce waste and inefficiency as well as to maximise the scientific potential of data. However, there is a well-recognised need to protect the privacy and confidentiality of participant's and their data. Consequently calls for increasing the openness of health data have been accompanied by new norms and techniques to evaluate and control disclosure risk. We review some of the central concepts deployed in debates about disclosure control—privacy, anonymity, identification—and highlight ethical and social scientific issues around their history, their significance, and the complex and changing contexts in which they are deployed.
ApproachReview of the literature about the history and state-of-the-art of disclosure control. We focus on the framing of key problems and solutions, as well as arguments about how concepts are defined and why they are valuable.
ResultsWe identify central concepts deployed in the literature about disclosure control. Concepts include: the construction of risk in terms of the internal statistical properties of data, and in terms of the external context, or 'data environments' (Elliot et al, 2010), which data inhabit and move through; notions of balance regarding security and release of microdata and its juxtaposition with data protection and/or risks of confidentiality violations; protection versus information loss; and the construction of methods for constraining disclosure.
ConclusionDespite the clear relevance of the concepts and context of disclosure control to ethicists, Science & Technology Studies and other scholars, there has been little engagement with the field of Statistical Disclosure Control. We outline a series of key issues for the social study of disclosure control.


Among Katharine Newman's virtues was that she took anthologies seriously, one of the earliest critics to do so. (1) Anyone who understands how educational institutions really function--like Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, they of Understanding Poetry, Understanding Fiction, and with R.W.B. Lewis, American Literature--The Makers and the Making, among many other significant textbooks--knows well how powerful such books are. But the usual academic judgment, one I shared for many years, was that expressed by e.e. cummings' poetic joke at the expense of Louis Untermeyer: mr u will not be missed who as an anthologist sold the many on the few not excluding mr u (1 X 1, #XI) The usual rap against anthologies was that they were superficial, offering a hop, skip, and jump through literary history instead of providing in-depth views of truly great works. There were too many authors, it was said, even in the most limited texts, those included were too uneven in quality, and the multitude of options distracted students from focusing on the true aesthetic value of literary texts. It was, therefore, the argument ran, best to teach whole works of value rather than offering the kind of smorgasbord of brief texts characteristic of even the best anthologies. What Katharine Newman recognized, and what many of us have come to see, is that this argument was, in practice, a first line of defense against letting most ethnic writers in the classroom door. It was a self-reinforcing argument: that they were not in the standard anthologies argued that they were not valuable; because they were not valued, they were not in the anthologies and thus not taught. Anthologies could, she saw, enable the work of opening the canon and our students' understanding of writing, publishing, and culture more generally. That has indeed been the case, as one can quickly see by comparing tables of contents of American literature anthologies even unto the 1990s with those dominating the market today. In this chapter I want to discuss two aspects of taking anthologies seriously: some of the ways in which they are uniquely useful, and some of the ways in which, like all books and people, they become hard to change. If in teaching literature one emphasizes primarily literary monuments, the putatively great books of the "great"--that is, canonical writers, context and history, much less biography or analysis of movements and cultural formations, become less significant than internal and intertextual linguistic and aesthetic concerns. But what if one wishes, rather, to help students come to see literature as one form, however special, of textual production in any historical moment? What if one wishes to emphasize the differences and similarities among texts in any particular period? Or to observe the processes of change that help to answer the question "why this thing in this way at this time"? To observe change, to account for difference and similarity, to comprehend the historical conditions of textual production--all, it seems to me, lead us toward the comprehensive anthology, rather than to separate books by individual authors. To see why, it is useful to turn to my first subject, teaching with anthologies. I want to emphasize a number of considerations: * The importance of literary and cultural history, that is, viewing texts and authors in relationship with one another, in time and over time. * The usefulness of seeing texts within the historical and social contexts in which they were first produced, distributed, and consumed. * The desirability of examining the conditions of textual production at different moments, including our own. * The need for widening the lens to include a richer selection of genres. These are overlapping categories, but I want to try sorting them out because they suggest somewhat differing features of what teaching with anthologies today can provide. …


Abstract The in-line rheometer concept based on the combination of the ultrasonic velocity profiling (UVP) technique and pressure difference (PD) measurements was utilized for investigating the influence of particle concentration and size distribution on the rheology of particulate suspensions in pipe flow under realistic industrial process conditions. Well defined model suspensions were used, consisting of 11 mm and 90 mm diameter polyamide particles suspended in rapeseed oil at concentrations ranging from 1 to 25 % by volume. The variation of concentration and particle size distribution had the expected effects on the shear viscositiy of the investigated unimodal and bimodal suspensions. The in-line results showed that the investigated suspensions exhibit Sisko flow behavior and demonstrated that the UVP+PD method can be used to determine the flow behavior of complex fluids and suspensions, even at high solid concentrations, under industrial conditions in-line. The obtained inline results were in good agreement with measurement data obtained using a conventional rotational controlled- stress rheometer. Limitations of commercially available transducer technology were identified and other possible sources of inaccuracy of the UVP+PD method were investigated. Several improvements of the UVP+PD measurement method were proposed.


A quantitative theory of the dielectric properties of crystalline solids consisting of dipolar long-chain molecules is developed (one dipole per molecule). In these solids the dipoles are concentrated in dipolar planes. In the ground state the dipolar planes have a permanent polarization, but usually the polarizations of successive planes have opposite directions. The static dielectric constant rises with increasing temperature up to a critical temperature T0 and then decreases. At T0 the substance has a phase transition of the second kind. Comparison with experiments by Muller on a solid ketone lead to good agreement. For chains with an even number of C-atoms metastable states with a permanent polarization are predicted, and a method to reach these states is discussed. The interaction between dipoles plays a predominant role at temperatures below T0. It is shown that Lorentz's or Onsager's methods are invalid in this temperature range.


ABSTRACT The influence of inhibitors of P-glycoprotein (verapamil [VE], cyclosporine [CY], and GF120918 [GF]) on the cell handling of macrolides (erythromycin [ERY], clarithromycin [CLR], roxithromycin [ROX], azithromycin [AZM], and telithromycin [TEL]) was examined in J774 murine macrophages. The net influx rates of AZM and TEL were increased from 2- to 3.5-fold in the presence of these inhibitors, but their efflux was slowed only marginally. At 3 h, the inhibitors increased the levels of AZM, ERY, and TEL accumulation approximately three- to fourfold (the effect of VE, however, was lower) but did not influence CLR accumulation (the inhibitors had an intermediate behavior on ROX accumulation). The effect was concentration dependent (half-maximal increases in the level of accumulation of AZM were obtained with GF, CY, and VE at 0.5, 5, and 10μ M, respectively). ATP depletion also caused an approximately threefold increase in the level of accumulation of AZM. Two inhibitors of MRP (probenecid [2.5 mM] and gemfibrozil [0.25 mM]) had no effect. Monensin (a proton ionophore) completely suppressed the accumulation of AZM in control cells as well as in cells incubated in the presence of VE, demonstrating that transmembrane proton gradients are the driving force causing the accumulation of AZM in both cases. Yet, VE did not alter the pH of the lysosomes (approximately 5) or of the cytosol (approximately 7.1). P-glycoprotein was detected by immunostaining at the cell surface as well as in intracellular vacuoles (endosomes and lysosomes). The data suggest that the influx of AZM, ERY, TEL, and ROX is adversely influenced by the activity of P-glycoprotein in J774 macrophages, resulting in suboptimal drug accumulation.


PURPOSE
This in vitro study evaluated and compared the vertical marginal gap of cast and milled full coverage gold copings using two margin designs (chamfer and chamfer bevel) before and after fitting adjustments.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Ten impressions were made of two metal master dies (one chamfer margin, one chamfer-bevel margin) and poured twice in Type IV stone. The 20 subsequent casts with 40 dies were split into four groups (n = 10); cast gold bevel, cast gold chamfer, milled gold bevel, and milled gold chamfer groups. The cast specimens received approximately 40 μm die relief no closer than 1 mm from the finish line. Cast copings were hand waxed, cast in a high noble gold alloy, chemically divested, and the sprues were removed. For milled gold copings, casts were scanned and copings designed using 3shape D900 scanner and software. Parameters were set to approximate analog fabrication (cement gap = 0.01 mm; extra cement gap = 0.04 mm, drill radius = 0.65 mm). Copings were milled from the same high noble alloy. All copings were seated on their respective master die in a custom scanning jig and measured using a measuring microscope at 90× (60 measurements per specimen, 15 per surface). Following initial measurements, all copings were adjusted on stone dies. The number of adjustment cycles was recorded and post-adjustment measurements were made using the same method. Data were analyzed using independent and paired t-tests.

RESULTS
Milled gold copings with a beveled margin (11.7 ± 20.4 μm) had a significantly (p < 0.05) smaller marginal gap than cast gold copings with a beveled margin (43.6 ± 46.8 μm) after adjustment. Cast gold copings with a chamfer margin (22.7 ± 24.7 μm) had a significantly (p < 0.05) smaller marginal gap than milled gold copings with a chamfer margin (27.9 ± 31.6 μm) following adjustments. Adjustments significantly decreased marginal gap for both cast groups (p < 0.05) and the milled chamfer bevel group (p < 0.05) but had no significant effect on the milled chamfer group.

CONCLUSIONS
Within the limitations of this study, results indicate that gold restorations milled with the tested parameters provide a vertical marginal gap that is an acceptable alternative to traditional gold crown casting techniques.


Psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Revised Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 with athletes. The aim of this work was to develop a Spanish adaptation of the Revised Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2. The scale was translated and its psychometric properties were analyzed with data from a sample of 149 athletes. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed which supported a 16-item CSAI-2R assessing the three hypothesised dimensions of anxiety: Somatic anxiety, Cognitive anxiety, and Self-confidence. Overall fit of the model was good with a value of .97 for Comparative and Non-Normed Fit Indexes, and .045 for Root Mean Square Error of Approximation. Cronbach alpha coefficients for the factors ranged from .79 to .83. It is concluded that this version shows adequate properties, in terms of its dimensionality and internal consistency. Guidelines are also provided for future research on its validity as a measure of state anxiety in competitive situations.


A theory of spin wave resonance in ferromagnetic thin films is discussed in a manner that permits a computation of the real and imaginary parts of the circularly polarized RF fields as well as the power absorption spectrum. The case of the dc field intensity applied normal to the surface of the film is considered, and the saturation magnetization is taken as constant throughout the body of the film. Variations in dc fields near the surfaces are treated in the boundary conditions for the RF magnetization by considering the unsymmetrical nature of the exchange interaction at the surfaces. The boundary conditions are characterized by a constant for each surface that controls the degree of surface pinning in the RF magnetization. Damping is included in the formulation by means of a phenomenological constant in the spin wave equation and by simulaneous solution of this equation with Maxwell's equations for a conductor. The results of a computer program are presented showing the roles of the various parameters in determining the power absorption spectrum and RF fields. A comparison with experimental spectra is made, and an anomalous resonance at field intensities higher than that for the principal resonance is predicted.


Background: Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) involves pathological new bone formation in the cortical zone of vertebrae and excessive loss of trabecular bone in the center of the vertebral body causing osteoporosis (OP). OP expressed as reduced bone mineral density (BMD) is a common complication in AS. Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) causes induction of Dickkopf-1 and sclerostin, which downregulates bone formation by inhibiting wingless proteins and bone morphogenic proteins. Materials and Methods: Fifty AS patients were compared with an equal number of age- and sex-matched controls. Various biochemical and radiological parameters of disease activity were calculated. BMD was measured at antero-posterior (AP) lumbar spine, neck of femur, and lateral lumbar spine using the dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Serum sclerostin, TNF-α, interleukin-17A (IL-17A), and IL-22 levels were measured using commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kits. Results: Mean BMD at various sites was significantly lower in patients. Patients with OP and low BMD at AP and lateral spine were 38% and 72%, respectively; at neck of femur, 20% and 68% of patients had OP and low BMD, respectively. Neck of femur BMD had significant positive correlation with Bath's ankylosing spondylitis disease activity index. Serum sclerostin levels were significantly higher in patients and had significant negative correlation with modified Stoke's ankylosing spondylitis spinal score. Conclusion: Low BMD is a significant complication in AS, and more prevalent in spine as compared to femur. Neck of femur BMD varies significantly with disease activity. Low sclerostin plays a significant role in the formation of syndesmophytes.


Low-income youth and adults have less access to and lower rates of completion in higher education in the US than do others. What are states and local community college systems doing to deal with these problems?
In this paper, we review a wide range of efforts by community colleges and the states, with funding from private foundation as well as the federal government, to improve enrollments and completion rates among disadvantaged students. We review the extent to which such efforts are proven (based on rigorous evaluation evidence) or promising (with impressive outcomes that require strong evaluation). We then consider policies by states and the federal government that can advance
opportunities for the disadvantaged in this area.


—In this research, the live weight after shearing, the greasy fleece yield, and the clean fleece percentage of Zom ewes a variety of Akkaraman breed in different maintaining conditions were investigated. Animal material consisted of a total of 300 head of Zom ewes in different flocks raised in the villages of Avdalı (n= 60), Gözenek (n= 60), Alatosun (n= 60), Tezhırap (n= 60), and Ziyaret (n= 60) in Diyarbakır city. Effect of shearing age on greasy wool yield was not significant in Avdalı, Alatosun, Tezhırap, and Ziyaret, but it was significant (p<0.05) in Gözenek. Effect of body weight after shearing on greasy wool yield was significant at (p<0.01) level in Gözenek, (p<0.05) level in Alatosun and Ziyaret, but it was not significant in Avdalı and Tezhırap villages. When all the farms were generally evaluated, the effect of shearing age and the farm on greasy wool yield was found significant (p<0.05), the effect of live weight after shearing was statistically significant (p<0.01). Least-squares means for greasy wool yield of ewes raised at Avdalı, Gözenek, Alatosun, Tezhırap, and Ziyaret were 1.33±0.04, 1.48±0.05, 1.30±0.03, 1.35±0.03, and 1.39±0.04 kg, respectively. When all the farms were generally evaluated, least-squares mean for greasy wool yield of ewes was 1.37±0.02 kg. Effect of age on live weight after shearing in Tezhırap and Ziyaret was significant (p<0.01) but not significant in other farms. Average live weight after shearing in all the villages was found as 56.14±0.32 kg. General mean for clean fleece percentage was found as 64.59±1.76% in all the farms.


Every effort has been made to cover all the aspects of psychiatry. Separate chapters have been devoted to subjects like anorexia nervosa, homosexuality, suicide, speech disorders and prognosis in mental illness. But some topics like Alfred Adler's indio vidual psychology, Karl Jaspers' phenomenology, frigidity, house-bound syndrome, pyromania and mental symptoms due to starvation, which are popular in the Diploma in Psychological Medicine examinations, appear to have been left out inadvertently. ,.


When developing secure, high-performance cryptographic software, the programmer is presented with a wide range of problems. Not only must they be conversant with pertinent scientific results, they must efficiently translate said results into a practical context. Unlike when writing normal programs, they are given little help from either the language or compiler: both are typically too general purpose to offer domain specific optimisation or analysis that would save the programmer time and reduce the potential for error. As a step toward solving this problem we present CAO, a cryptography-aware domain-specific language and associated compiler system. Rather than being a panacea, we pitch CAO as a mechanism for transferring and automating the expert knowledge of cryptographers into a form which is accessible to anyone writing security conscious software.


Inherited thrombocytopenias (ITs) are rare, clinically and genetically heterogeneous diseases caused by mutations in more than 30 genes. Considering that they account for approximately 50% of the cases, many other genetic unknown factors are likely to be involved. The IT genes encode for proteins playing numerous functions, participating in the different steps of megakaryopoiesis, such as differentiation and production of mature megakaryocytes, and platelet release in the blood stream. Mutations impairing any of these processes lead to reduction of platelet count. While in some ITs, thrombocytopenia is the only feature, in others, it is associated with other haematological defects and/or clinical manifestations. Not always the pathogenic mechanisms are known, mainly because our knowledge on protein function is limited. However, the number of the IT genes is increasing rapidly, and combining genetic and functional studies will allow us to unravel the complex network of interactions controlling platelet biogenesis.

Key Concepts

Inherited thrombocytopenias (ITs) are characterised by clinical and genetic heterogeneity.
Reduction in platelet count can be due to defects in any phase of megakaryocyte and platelet production.
Mutations in more than 30 different genes cause ITs.
The IT gene products play many different, sometimes unknown roles in the processes of platelet production.
Mutations in the known genes explain the disease in only 50% of families with IT.
Application of next-generation sequencing strategies in large case series of affected individuals will allow us to characterise novel ITs and understand the molecular basis of these diseases more extensively.

Keywords:

inherited thrombocytopenia;
bleeding;
megakaryocytopoiesis;
platelet biogenesis;
disease-causing gene


INTESTINAL obstruction from inspissation of abnormal intestinal contents may occur after the neonatal period in patients with cystic fibrosis. Since these fecal masses are thick and putty-like, resembling the meconium of the neonate, the term "meconium ileus equivalent" has been proposed for this condition in the older infant and child. 1 Thirty-five cases of meconium ileus equivalent have been reported in 34 patients (Table 1). The present report describes an additional seven episodes which occurred in six of 250 children with cystic fibrosis treated at the University of California Medical Center, San Francisco. Materials and Methods The records of all children with proved cystic fibrosis admitted to the hospital from January 1942 to March 1964 were studied. Six patients had episodes of intestinal obstruction, suspected clinically and proved by operation or roentgenographic examination. They ranged in age from 16 months to 18 years. Three of the patients were boys and three were girls. Six additional patients in whom


In this article immobilization equipment and safety measures used during radiographic imaging in childhood are presented. Pediatric radiologists and radiographers should work together to provide a child friendly environment during imaging, to minimize the stress for the patient and parents, and to facilitate the child's cooperation. The maximum information possible must be gained from the radiographic procedure. Considerable skill and experience are required to obtain the best possible image in the shortest possible time. It is the responsibility of the radiology department to use proper imaging protocols and parameters for the size of the child. Equipment in a child friendly imaging department needs to be user friendly. The visual appearance of the equipment is also important to make it less frightening for children. It is important to choose the proper ancillary equipment for immobilization during radiographic procedure and explain to parents the importance of using it. The main goal of the immobilization equipment is to prevent unwanted movement, thereby shortening the time of the procedure, avoiding unnecessary repetitions of radiographic procedures and thus enlargement of the dose. At the same time, immobilization and protection equipment helps to avoid unnecessary exposure of parents taking part in radiographic procedure to ionizing radiation. Conclusion:  Proper use of children's immobilization and radiation protection equipment, together with an adjusted imaging technique, results in a quicker radiation procedure and lower radiation dose.


With processors and system-on-chips using nano-meter technologies, several design and test efforts have been recently developed to eliminate and test for many emerging DSM (deep sub-micron) noise effects. In this paper, we show the emergence of multi-source noise effects, where multiple DSM noise sources combine to produce functional and timing errors even when each separate noise source itself does not. We show the dynamic nature of multi-source noise, and the need for on-line testing to detect such noise errors. We propose a double-sampling data checking based low-cost on-line error detection circuit to test for such noise effects in on-chip buses. Based on the proposed circuit, an effective and efficient testing methodology has been developed to facilitate online testing for generic on-chip buses. The applicability of this methodology is demonstrated through embedding the on-line detection circuit in a bus design. The validated design shows the effectiveness of the proposed testing methodology for multi-source noise-induced errors in global interconnects and buses.


Conventional disk schedulers use the same algorithm to schedule synchronous and asynchronous requests. To reap more performance, they should be scheduled differently. Asynchronous requests can be queued and delayed in the buffer cache and scheduled at times that improve disk utilization. In future systems, with larger memories and, thus, larger buffer caches in which more requests can be queued and delayed, further performance improvements can be attained. However, since main memory is volatile, small delays are acceptable but maximum queue latency must be bounded, i.e., request starvation or prolonged delays must be avoided. Accordingly, using the performance criteria of disk utilization and maximum queue latency, this paper analyzes the performance of six well-known disk schedulers using detailed I/O traces of the behavior of realistic benchmarks that issue asynchronous I/O requests. Then it proposes a new disk scheduler, for asynchronous I/O, that enforces latency requirements while improving disk utilization. Five of the schedulers (including the proposed one) were implemented in the Linux 2.6 kernel; two are already included. Our performance analysis, which provides insights into the behavior of each scheduler that cannot be gleaned from the algorithms themselves, indicates that the proposed rate-controlled deadline-based CLOOK (RDCLOOK) scheduler is best for servicing asynchronous I/O requests


Labour resources used express and applicable in the production size of the workforce. An indicator of the labor force is the number of people working in the natural or full-time workers per 100 ha of arable land. However, the amount of work, it is actually spent working, recently expressed in annual work units ( AWU ) per 100 ha of arable land. Resources and effort are varied in individual farms and corporate farms. As the area of farms declining resources and labor for 100 ha of arable land, while increasing productivity. It is a paradox that the holdings in area larger gain maximum productivity and minimum labor involved, and in the smallest farms vice versa. In addition, labor resources are differentiated in terms of working age, work experience in agriculture, education, gender, and the nature of work (work index, extra, family, employee). In 2010, the amount of work in the AWU per 100 ha of agricultural land in individual farms amounted to 14.5, including 13.3 on farms than 1 ha and 79.9 to 1 hectare, compared to 3.2 AWU in corporate farms.


This thesis demonstrates how machine learning techniques can be made more interpretable using several methods that enhance the transparency of these techniques. First, different aspects of interpretability are outlined and various measures that allow for a comparison across methods are presented. After that, different explanation methods are applied in an empirical study on loan default prediction. It is illustrated that global interpretation can be attained by constructing variable importance measures or partial dependence plots, which give insight into the relationship between the explanatory variables and the outcome. On a local level insights into the model can be achieved by constructing feature contributions or a local linear approximation of the model, giving a detailed explanation on the prediction outcome of single instances. Some global understanding into how the model reaches its classification results can be given by inspecting the variable interactions that the classifier exploits. At last, single tree approximation can be performed, providing an approximating graphical representation of the model, allowing for understanding on a both global and local scale how decisions in the model are reached.


The present study investigated the following issues: (1) whether differences are evident in the eye movement measures of successful and unsuccessful problem-solvers; (2) what is the relationship between perceived difficulty and eye movement measures; and (3) whether eye movements in various AOIs differ when solving problems. Sixty-three 11th grade students solved five geometry problems about the properties of similar triangles. A digital drawing tablet and sensitive pressure pen were used to record the responses. The results indicated that unsuccessful solvers tended to have more fixation counts, run counts, and longer dwell time on the problem area, whereas successful solvers focused more on the calculation area. In addition, fixation counts, dwell time, and run counts in the diagram area were positively correlated with the perceived difficulty, suggesting that understanding similar triangles may require translation or mental rotation. We argue that three eye movement measures (i.e., fixation counts, dwell time, and run counts) are appropriate for use in examining problem solving given that they differentiate successful from unsuccessful solvers and correlate with perceived difficulty. Furthermore, the eye-tracking technique provides objective measures of students' cognitive load for instructional designers.


Application of coating fragmentation test for determination of coating properties is considered. A probabilistic model of coating fragmentation under uniaxial tensile loading is applied for coating and interface property identification of thin brittle coating/polymer substrate system. A finite element model is developed to simulate the process of buckle formation in coating strips during fragmentation test. The measured buckle geometry parameters and buckle density evolution as a function of the applied strain is used to estimate the interface toughness.


We present a comprehensive nucleosynthesis study of the neutrino-driven wind in the aftermath of a binary neutron star merger. Our focus is the initial remnant phase when a massive central neutron star is present. Using tracers from a recent hydrodynamical simulation, we determine total masses and integrated abundances to characterize the composition of unbound matter. We find that the nucleosynthetic yields depend sensitively on both the life time of the massive neutron star and the polar angle. Matter in excess of up to 9 × 10−3 M⊙ becomes unbound until ∼200 ms. Due to electron fractions of Ye ≈ 0.2–0.4, mainly nuclei with mass numbers A < 130 are synthesized, complementing the yields from the earlier dynamic ejecta. Mixing scenarios with these two types of ejecta can explain the abundance pattern in r-process enriched metal-poor stars. Additionally, we calculate heating rates for the decay of the freshly produced radioactive isotopes. The resulting light curve peaks in the blue band after about 4 hr. Furthermore, high opacities due to heavy r-process nuclei in the dynamic ejecta lead to a second peak in the infrared after 3–4 days.


Rumination — repetitively thinking about one ' s emotional state, its causes and consequences — exacerbates negative mood and plays an important role in the aetiology and maintenance of depression. Yet, it is unclear whether increased vulnerability to depression is associated with simply how much a person ruminates, or the short-term impact rumination has on a person ' s negative mood. In the current study, we distinguish between the level versus the impact of rumination, and we examine how each uniquely predicts changes in depressive symptoms over time in an undergraduate sample. Using experience sampling, we assessed students ' ( N = 101) subjective experiences of positive and negative affect and their use of rumination and distraction in daily life for seven days. Participants also reported their depressive symptoms before and after the experience sampling. Increases in depressive symptoms over the week were predicted by how much people ruminated, but not by its impact on negative mood.


Trillions of dollars are invested through index funds, exchange-traded funds, and other index derivatives. The benefits of index-linked investing are well-known, but the possible broader economic consequences are unstudied. I review research which suggests that index-linked investing is distorting stock prices and risk-return tradeoffs, which in turn may be distorting corporate investment and financing decisions, investor portfolio allocation decisions, fund manager skill assessments, and other choices and measures. These effects may intensify as index-linked investing continues to grow in popularity.


It has frequently been reported in the medical literature that the EEG of Alzheimer disease (AD) patients is less synchronous than in healthy subjects. In this paper, it is explored whether loss in EEG synchrony can be used to diagnose AD at an early stage. Multiple synchrony measures are applied to two different EEG data sets: (1) EEG of pre-dementia patients and control subjects; (2) EEG of mild AD patients and control subjects; the two data sets are from different patients, different hospitals, and obtained through different recording systems. It is observed that both Granger causality and stochastic event synchrony indicate statistically significant loss of EEG synchrony, for the two data sets; those two synchrony measures are then combined as features in linear and quadratic discriminant analysis (with crossvalidation), yielding classification rates of 83% and 88% for the pre-dementia data set and mild AD data set respectively. These results suggest that loss in EEG synchrony is indicative for early AD.


This article presents new data on the direct and deliberate killings of civilians, called one-sided violence, in intrastate armed conflicts, 1989—2004. These data contribute to the present state of quantitative research on violence against civilians in three important respects: the data provide actual estimates of civilians killed, the data are collected annually and the data are provided for both governments and rebel groups. Using these data, general trends and patterns are presented, showing that the post-Cold War era is characterized by periods of fairly low-scale violence punctuated by occasional sharp increases in violence against civilians. Furthermore, rebels tend to be more violent on the whole, while governments commit relatively little violence except in those few years which see mass killings. The article then examines some factors that have been found to predict genocide and evaluates how they correlate with one-sided violence as conceptualized here. A U-shaped correlation between regime type and one-sided violence is identified: while autocratic governments undertake higher levels of one-sided violence than other regime types, rebels are more violent in democratic countries.


In recent years there has been a concerted effort to address many of the safety issues associated with physical human-robot interaction (pHRI). However, a number of challenges remain. For personal robots, and those intended to operate in unstructured environments, the problem of safety is compounded. We believe that the safety issue is a primary factor in wide scale adoption of personal robots, and until these issues are addressed, commercial enterprises will be unlikely to invest heavily in their development.

In this thesis we argue that traditional system design techniques fail to capture the complexities associated with dynamic environments. This is based on a careful analysis of current design processes, which looks at how effectively they identify hazards that may arise in typical environments that a personal robot may be required to operate in. Based on this investigation, we show how the adoption of a hazard check list that highlights particular hazardous areas, can be used to improve current hazard analysis techniques.

A novel safety-driven control system architecture is presented, which attempts to address many of the weaknesses identified with the present designs found in the literature. The new architecture design centres around safety, and the concept of a `safety policy' is introduced. These safety policies are shown to be an effective way of describing safety systems as a set of rules that dictate how the system should behave in potentially hazardous situations.

A safety analysis methodology is introduced, which integrates both our hazard analysis technique and the implementation of the safety layer of our control system. This methodology builds on traditional functional hazard analysis, with the addition of processes aimed to improve the safety of personal robots. This is achieved with the use of a safety system, developed during the hazard analysis stage. This safety system, called the safety protection system, is initially used to verify that safety constraints, identified during hazard analysis, have been implemented appropriately. Subsequently it serves as a high-level safety enforcer, by governing the actions of the robot and preventing the control layer from performing unsafe operations.

To demonstrate the effectiveness of the design, a series of experiments have been conducted using both simulation environments and physical hardware. These experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the safety-driven control system for performing tasks safely, while maintaining a high level of availability.


Epidemiologists usually study the interaction between a host population and one parasitic infection. However, different parasite species effectively compete, in an ecological sense, for the same finite group of susceptible hosts, so there may be an indirect effect on the population dynamics of one disease due to epidemics of another. In human populations, recovery from any serious infection is normally preceded by a period of convalescence, during which infected individuals stay at home and are effectively shielded from exposure to other infectious diseases. We present a model for the dynamics of two infectious diseases, incorporating a temporary removal of susceptibles. We use this model to explore population–level consequences of a temporary insusceptibility in childhood diseases, the dynamics of which are partly driven by differences in contact rates in and out of school terms. Significant population dynamic interference is predicted and cannot be dismissed in the limited case–study data available for measles and whooping cough in England before the vaccination era.


Abstract Purpose: The objective of this analysis was to assess the efficacy of nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI)-containing, protease inhibitor (PI)-sparing, three-drug highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in HIV- 1-infected, treatment-naive patients with high and low baseline viral loads. Method: A composite analysis was performed of clinical studies including the NNRTI nevirapine that were presented at international conferences between 1998 and October 2000. In all of the studies, nevirapine was administered in combination with two nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs). For a study to be included in the analysis, more than 25% of participants must have had baseline viral loads >100,000 copies/mL, and more than 25% of participants must have had viral loads <100,000 copies/mL. Results: After 6 months, 139 of 156 (89%) and 82 of 99 (83% ) patients in the low and high baseline viral load groups, respectively, had on-treatment viral loads <200 to 500 copies/mL (depending on assay used). After 12 months, 95 of 124 patients (77%) with lower baseline viral loads and 63 of 76 patients (83%) with high baseline viral loads had on-treatment viral loads below the limit of quantification. Conclusion: Baseline viral load does not affect virologic outcome in HIV-1-infected, antiretroviral-naive participants treated with nevirapine-containing, PI-sparing HAART.


ABSTRACT Purpose: Despite the fact that some studies examine the role of cultural attributes as determinants of successful alliance relationships, there has been lack of studies that explored how a firm's orientation toward alliances, as a culture, might provide competitive advantages in the form of alliance relationship, which influences the firm's performance. The current study therefore proposes a research model, in which alliance orientation as an intangible resource enhances the alliance relationship advantage, which eventually improves alliance performance, with national culture as a moderator. Design/methodology/approach: To test the hypotheses, responses were obtained from 145 South Korean and 123 Chinese firm samples. The proposed model was estimated using structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression analysis. Findings: The empirical study confirms that alliance orientation directly influences alliance relationship advantage, en route to alliance performance. When uncertainty avoidance is greater, the relationship between alliance relationship advantage and alliance performance grows weaker, whereas when masculinity and long-term orientation are greater, this relationship becomes enhanced. Research implications: Leveraging source–positional advantage–performance structures (Day and Wensley 1988), this study clarifies how alliance orientation influences a firm's alliance relationship advantage as a positional advantage, which eventually enhances its alliance performance. Moderating effects of cultural factors arise between alliance orientation and alliance relationship advantage, thereby revealing the important, contingent role of cultural factors in managing the link between alliance orientations and competitive advantage. Practical implications: This study provides managerial guidelines for how firms operating in different countries such as Korea and China can manage their alliance orientation and alliance-related activities to enhance their competitive advantages and firm performance, by noting and accommodating different cultural characteristics. Originality/value/contribution: The proposed contingency model relies on the moderating role of national culture, reflected by uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and long-term orientation, to explain the relationships between alliance competitive advantages and alliance performance.


Weinberg et al. (2001, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 268, 1001-1005) have recently reported a major increase in mutation rate in the children of Chernobyl liquidators as a result of their fathers' exposure to ionizing radiation. If correct, this would provide dramatic evidence for radiation-induced mutation in humans, and would raise major concerns over the genetic effects of radiation. However, mutants were mainly detected using random amplified polymorphic DNA-PCR, an unreliable technology. These mutants were not validated and had no obvious molecular basis. They may, instead, have arisen as PCR artefacts or through non-paternity or sample mix-up. Unless these mutants can be validated, we recommend that Weinberg et al. withdraw their remarkable claims.


Follicular growth was studied in 16 ewes of different breeds (Romanov, mean ovulation rate 3.0, and Ile-de-France, mean ovulation rate 1.6), stage of cycle (Day 0 or 7) and season (December and June). The follicular growth rates, determined by measuring the mitotic index before and 2 h after colchicine treatment, varied greatly between animals studied and did not vary significantly between breeds, time of cycle or season. From 3 layers of granulosa cells until antrum formation the mitotic index increased slowly but then the follicles grew rapidly reaching maximum growth rate at a follicular diameter of 0.85 mm; thereafter the mitotic index decreased almost to zero in preovulatory follicles. The mean time for a follicle to pass from 3 layers of granulosa cells (200 cells) to preovulatory size (3 x 10(6) cells) was estimated to be about 6 months. The total number of normal follicles with > 3 layers of granulosa cells in Ile-de-France ewes was similar in the anoestrous (3 ovaries studied) and breeding (3 ovaries) seasons, but there were more antral follicles in the latter. Highly significant correlations existed in each ewe between the number of follicles and the mean mitotic index per class, suggesting the existence of an intraovarian mechanism regulating folliculogenesis.


Over the past decades, the number of epilepsy surgeries in children has increased and indications for surgery have broadened. We studied the changes in patient characteristics between 1990 and 2011 in a nationwide cohort and related these to seizure outcome and postoperative medication status. Second, we tried to identify predictors for seizure outcome after pediatric epilepsy surgery.


Abstract Introduction: Complications such as severe infection may occur during the chemotherapy of malignant lymphoma. Phlegmonous gastritis (PG) is a rare acute bacterial infection associated with high mortality, requiring early diagnosis, and prompt management. In addition, Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS) occasionally requires early treatment and intensive care management due to the occurrence of severe neuropathy and respiratory failure. Patient concerns: A 70-year-old male was diagnosed with primary gastric diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) after the detection of several polypoid tumors with ulcers. The patient underwent chemotherapy for DLBCL and exhibited adverse effects (i.e., fever, vomiting, epigastric pain, and neutropenia). Computed tomography indicated widespread thickening in the gastric wall. Furthermore, approximately 2 weeks later, the patient presented with gradual symmetric lower extremity weakness and respiratory failure due to paralysis of the respiratory muscle. Diagnoses: DLBCL was diagnosed through a gastric tumor biopsy. On the basis of the computed tomography findings, a culture of gastric juice, nerve conduction studies, and clinical symptoms, this case of gastric lymphoma was complicated with PG and GBS. Interventions: The patient was treated with antimicrobial therapy and administration of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor for PG, and with intravenous immunoglobulin and intensive care management for GBS. Outcomes: Despite the aggressive progress of the condition, the patient improved without relapse of DLBCL. Conclusion: PG was regarded as a precedent infection of GBS. In this article, we present the first reported case of gastric lymphoma complicated with PG and GBS.


ObjectiveTo assess the likely impact on HIV incidence of increased condom use, a reduction in casual sexual partners, treatment programmes for other sexually transmitted diseases (STD), and combinations of these in rural Uganda. MethodsA simulation model for the transmission dynamics of HIV infection, and STD was employed, drawing on data from a rural population cohort in South-West Uganda with an HIV prevalence of 9% among adults in 1990. ResultsFor the scenario most consistent with data from the study population, 39% of all adult HIV infections were averted, in the 10 years from 1990, when condoms were used consistently, and effectively by 50% of men in their contacts with one-off sexual partners (such as bar girls, and commercial sex workers). Reducing by 50% the frequency of men's sexual contacts with one-off partners averted 68% of infections. Reducing by 50% the duration of all STD episodes averted 43% of infections. Combining these three interventions averted 82% of all adult infections in the 10 years from 1990. ConclusionA substantial proportion of HIV infections may be averted in general populations through interventions targeted only on less regular sexual partnerships.


This small volume is edited by two distinguished liver surgeons, Professors Bengmark and Blumgart, and as would be expected the book is very well produced. The first chapter on surgical anatomy of the liver by Bismuth is particularly valuable. It sets the stage with a description of the segmental anatomy that has become popular on the Continent, with a rationale for its use, although variations of intrahepatic anatomy are so great that in practice lobar anatomy is still most used in operative surgery. Laboratory tests and imaging of the liver are covered in short succinct chapters and then the book continues with management of tumours by chemotherapy, arterialisation and embolisation. Liver resection for tumour is then discussed with an interesting chapter on intrahepatic stones and an excellent consideration of liver injuries by Walt and Bismuth. The book ends with discussion of the diagnosis and pathology of tumours, haemostasis during liver surgery and preand post-operative nutrition in patients with liver disease. From this brief resume of the contents, it is clear that the authors have picked out certain aspects of surgical liver disease that they consider important and where advances have been made. There is no chapter on liver transplantation, which is perhaps the area where there has been most advance but then there are a number of texts dealing with this subject. Bearing in mind that this is a small book and there are a number of authors for the different chapters it can be recommended as a collection of short authoritative and upto-date monographs on selected topics.


We examined whether change in added sugar intake is associated with change in δ13C, a novel sugar biomarker, in thirty-nine children aged 5–10 years selected from a Colorado (USA) prospective cohort of children at increased risk for type 1 diabetes. Reported added sugar intake via FFQ and δ13C in erythrocytes were measured at two time points a median of 2 years apart. Change in added sugar intake was associated with change in the δ13C biomarker, where for every 1-g increase in added sugar intake between the two time points, there was an increase in δ13C of 0⋅0082 (P = 0⋅0053), independent of change in HbA1c and δ15N. The δ13C biomarker may be used as a measure of compliance in an intervention study of children under the age of 10 years who are at increased risk for type 1 diabetes, in which the goal was to reduce dietary sugar intake.


Model-driven engineering has prominently gained consideration as effective substitute of error-prone code-centric development approaches especially for its capability of abstracting the problem through models and then manipulating them to automatically generate target code. Nowadays, thanks to powerful modelling languages, a system can be designed by means of well-specified models that capture both structural as well as behavioural aspects. From them, target implementation is meant to be automatically generated. An example of well-established general purpose modelling language is the UML, recently enhanced with the introduction of an action language denominated ALF, both proposed by the OMG. In this work we focus on enabling the execution of models defined in UML-ALF and more specifically on the translational execution of ALF towards non-UML target platforms.


Object detection in unconstrained images is an important image understanding problem with many potential applications. There has been little success in creating a single algorithm that can detect arbitrary objects in unconstrained images; instead, algorithms typically must be customized for each specific object. Consequently, it typically requires a large number of exemplars (for rigid objects) or a large amount of human intuition (for nonrigid objects) to develop a robust algorithm. We present a robust algorithm designed to detect a class of compound color objects given a single model image. A compound color object is defined as having a set of multiple, particular colors arranged spatially in a particular way, including flags, logos, cartoon characters, people in uniforms, etc. Our approach is based on a particular type of spatial-color joint probability function called the color edge co-occurrence histogram. In addition, our algorithm employs perceptual color naming to handle color variation, and prescreening to limit the search scope (i.e., size and location) for the object. Experimental results demonstrated that the proposed algorithm is insensitive to object rotation, scaling, partial occlusion, and folding, outperforming a closely related algorithm based on color co-occurrence histograms by a decisive margin.


but that there is no discrepancy of doctrine. The crucial point is Empedocles' treatment of the soul. M. Souilhe maintains that the Kadappoi presupposes no other kind of soul than the iva-ixd, i.e., except as ' a principle of consciousness in the vaguest sense ', no soul at all. Obstinate passages he explains away on the principle that Empedocles was, in any case, more a poet than a scientist, and that figurative language is only to be expected from him. Consistently with this, he denies that in the Ka6apfioi Empedocles teaches a doctrine of survival: ' Le " j e " dont il se sert pour raconter les vicissitudes de sa vie ante"rieure n'a pas un sens metaphysique. . . . Mais une conscience sourde, comme endormie, de tout le pass6 reste inherente aux elements kernels dont les £tres ne sont que des combinaisons. . . . chez certains elres privile'gies la conscience se reVeille et voit se derouler devant elle le passe.' M. Souilhe" argues ingeniously ; nevertheless, the mere notion of' purifications' implies belief in a survival which is strictly personal; and it may be doubted whether it would occur to anyone to deny this for Empedocles' Kadappoi, except in support of a thesis.


Simple Summary Current methods to control the reproductive cycle in the bitch are associated with problematic side effects. Melatonin plays a role in the regulation of reproduction in several species. It has been used to control the reproductive cycle in species with seasonal reproduction. The ancestor of the dog, the grey wolf, has strict seasonal reproduction with breeding in early spring. In contrast to the wolf, the domestic dog is a non-seasonal breeder. It is still not known whether melatonin is involved in control of cyclicity in either the wolf or the domestic dog. The aim of this study was, therefore, to evaluate whether a long-acting melatonin implant would be a safe alternative for short-term postponement of heat in the bitch. Five beagle bitches were treated with melatonin implants while another four bitches were untreated controls. There was no effect of treatment with melatonin implants on the cyclicity in this study. Implants with 18 mg are, therefore, not likely to be a useful method to control cyclicity in the bitch, in contrast to some other species. It is still not known whether melatonin is involved in regulation of the oestrus cycle in the domestic dog. Abstract In short-day breeders such as the sheep, melatonin stimulates oestrus activity; in contrast, a high serum concentration of melatonin inhibits oestrus in long-day breeders such as the cat. Therefore, implants with melatonin have been used to suppress or induce oestrus depending on the species. The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate if melatonin could be an alternative to control the reproductive cycle in the bitch. Nine beagle bitches were observed for three oestrus cycles. Five beagle bitches were treated with 18 mg melatonin implants on average 27 days before the next expected oestrus based on the previous interoestrus interval. Four bitches served as untreated controls. Blood samples for evaluation of serum melatonin were collected at the time of assignment to treatment or control group and 1–4 weeks thereafter. Clinical signs and vaginal smears were used to follow the cycle. Melatonin varied significantly with bitch (p < 0.05) but not with treatment. Treatment did not affect the interoestrus interval (p > 0.05). In conclusion, treatment with 18 mg melatonin implants approximately one month before expected oestrus is not likely to be a useful method to control cyclicity in the bitch. It is still not known if melatonin is involved in regulation of the oestrus cycle in the domestic dog.


Does democracy improve the quality of life for its citizens? Scholars have long assumed that it does, but recent research has called this orthodoxy into question. This article reviews this body of work, develops a series of causal pathways through which democracy might improve social welfare, and tests two hypotheses: (a) that a country's level of democracy in a given year affects its level of human development and (b) that its stock of democracy over the past century affects its level of human development. Using infant mortality rates as a core measure of human development, we conduct a series of time-series—cross-national statistical tests of these two hypotheses. We find only slight evidence for the first proposition, but substantial support for the second. Thus, we argue that the best way to think about the relationship between democracy and development is as a time-dependent, historical phenomenon.


Background Drug dispensing errors are a common reason for medicines errors in hospitals, although they don't usually reach the patient. Different situations contribute to their appearance, such as the availability of drugs from the same supplier, similarity in names, physical closeness, etc. Purpose To analyse the drugs most commonly involved in medicines errors during the dispensing process in a tertiary hospital. To study the possible causes thereof. Materials and methods Since 2011, medicines errors detected during the drug dispensing process after prescription-transcription in hospitalised patients have been recorded using an internal pharmacy database. Data collected: drug involved, pharmaceutical form, prescription frequency, person notifying, whether the report was correct and possible reason. We extracted errors reported from 571 hospital beds over 2 years (July/2011–June/2013) from the database and analysed each one. Results 1049 dispensing errors were detected and included in the database, all notified by staff nurses. 81.7% were confirmed to be errors. In 14 cases, the medicines box was empty (because of movements in patient census). In 4 cases, different drugs were involved. Pharmaceutical forms detected were oral (79.24%), injectable (14.71%), inhalational (4.3%) and topical (1.66%). 11.86% of the reported errors corresponded to High-Alert Medicines from the ISMP (Institute For Safe Medication Practices) list. The most frequent were heparins (7.11%), which accounted for 4.12% of the total of prescriptions. Insulin and anticoagulant drugs only had 4 and 6 errors, respectively. Other common drugs involved and the frequency of their prescription compared to the total of prescriptions were: furosemide (5.93%-3.14%), omeprazole (4.86%-4.65%), amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (2.97%-2%), ipratropium (2.25%-0.82%), piperacillin/tazobactam (1.78%-1.76%), methylprednisolone (1.78%-1.11%), carvedilol (1.66%-1.01), amlodipine (1.42%-0.76%), atorvastatin (1.42%-0.53%) and levothyroxine (1.42%-0.33%). For 9 of these drugs, there were similar presentations with different doses and/or physical proximity. Conclusion The main drugs involved in dispensing errors are drugs for which there are various doses and frequent prescriptions (such as heparins) or those most frequently prescribed (such as omeprazole and furosemide), specially oral drugs. The number of errors with High-Alert Medicines was low. It's important to know the distribution/availability of similar drugs to establish corrective measures for procurement and distribution and to minimise errors. No conflict of interest.


Placenta accreta is one of the emergency conditions and has resulted in increased mortality and morbidity of pregnant women due to the massive obstetric hemorrhage. Placenta accreta can lead to secondary complications including coagulopathy, multisystem organ failure, acute respiratory distress syndrome, need for repeat surgery, and death. Assessment by anesthesia should be carried out as early as possible before surgery to reduce or even eliminate morbidity and mortality. In this report, we present the case of a patient with total placenta previa and high-risk MAP score with a transverse lie fetal position. The various anesthetic treatments and transfusion strategies are discussed with a multidisciplinary approach to delivery.


The next big step in the evolution of the automotive industry is the introduction of electric vehicles (EV), however has associated limitations of autonomy and in conjunction with this limitation, extended charging times, very few points of charging and smart electricity grids very embryonic. In this context, is requires a very rigorous planning of daily use of the EV. Thus, this work presents an information system that aims to help the driver in the daily use of the EV in order to deal with the charging problem, minimizing the problem of anxiety to archive the objectives through the continuous monitoring of the autonomy of the vehicle and the timely submission of relevant information related to charging process, also allowing the storage the energy transactions for later analysis and further improvements. Similarly, given the limitations of the electrical distribution network and taking into account N simultaneous charging process a management system is proposed to deal with this problem, in order to limit the total power consumed in each moment.


ABSTRACT This paper uses empirical data collected from 117 female sex workers living in informal settlements in Nairobi and 15 healthcare providers to highlight specific effects of COVID-19 and related restrictions on healthcare access for the sex workers. We highlight the existing gender and health inequalities that have now been reinforced by the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we focus on the most concerning healthcare needs for the sex workers including HIV prevention, care and treatment and sexual and reproductive healthcare. Our study findings reveal that the various restrictions imposed by the government to help curb the spread of COVID-19 to a large extent made it difficult for the sex workers to access their healthcare needs. The paper discusses the challenges of healthcare service delivery reflecting on some innovative and pioneering responses from health care providers to address the emergency situation.


Using social contract theory as a foundation I examined the ways in which four multinational corporations use disclosures of corporate social responsibility to present themselves as good corporate citizens. Several factors influence a corporation's use of CSR: size of the corporation, public visibility, personal commitment of high ranking executives, location of manufacturing operations, and types of stakeholders. There is a significant difference in the responsibilities and obligations Proctor & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, and Colgate-Palmolive ascribe to themselves as corporate citizens compared to those of SC Johnson. I attribute this difference to one of stakeholder accountability, specifically public shareholders. The three publicly held corporations adhere to a social contract model of corporate citizenship wherein they accept a certain level of social responsibility as accruing to their powerful global economic position, whereas privately held SC Johnson, inhabiting a similarly powerful position, assumes no additional responsibility beyond that of increasing sales and maximizing profits.


The construction of aromatic rings has become a key objective for organic chemists. While several strategies have been developed for the functionalization of pre-formed aromatic rings, the direct construction of an aromatic core starting from polyunsaturated systems is yet a less explored field. The potential of such reactions in the formation of aromatics increased at a regular pace in the last few years. Nowadays, there are reliable and well-established procedures to prepare polyenic derivatives, such as dienynes, enediynes, enyne-allenes and hetero-analogues. This has stimulated their use in the development of innovative cycloaromatizations. Different examples have recently emerged, suggesting large potential of this strategy in the preparation of (hetero)aromatics. Accordingly, this review highlights the recent advancements in this field and describes the different conditions exploited to trigger the process, including thermal and photochemical activation, as well as the use of transition metal catalysis and the addition of electrophiles/nucleophiles or radical species.


The effects of heat treatment on the physicochemical properties and mineral composition of sun-dried salt were investigated. The salts parched at high temperature were appeared the higher alkalinity and the lower oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) than the samples without heat treatment. The commercial salts (bamboo salt and yellow loess salt) and the sun-dried salt parched at high temperature had relatively higher sodium ion content (418-450 ppm) compared to that (418.0 ppm) of refined salt. The increase of calcium ion occurred in the salts parched at high temperature compared to the sun-dried salt without heat treatment, but the magnesium ion was vice versa. The commercial salt, yellow loess salt had highest turbidity (0.973) whereas sun-dried salt showed lowest level (0.097) among the tested samples. Turbidity of heat treatment samples decreased as solubility increased. The maximum concentration of dialyzed salt was reached after 4 hr regardless of various processed salts, but those had no difference significantly among the tested samples. The X-ray diffraction patterns of the parched sun-dried salts showed different peak intensity with common salts, and they were similar to the patterns of oxide salts, especially MgO. The maximum value (2.56%) of MgO appeared in the sun-dried salt parched at 1,400℃.


but their significance had escaped the operator concerned, who had merely repeated the test with satisfactory results and reported the autoclave as air-tight. Entry of air into a sterilizer after the prevacuum but before sufficient steam has entered the chamber to create a positive pressure is a known cause of inadequate steam penetration of the load, even with a satisfactory prevacuum,' so that the existence of this gross intermittent fault and the absence of any means of detecting its occurrence during a sterilizing run caused considerable concern. After discussions with the engineers and with the manufacturers of the equipment a hand-operated valve was installed to stop the entry of steam for a period when the autoclave turns from "prevacuum " to " sterilizing," at which point the vacuum pump is automatically disconnected from the chamber. A high-vacuum gauge (calibrated in mm. Hg) of a type which is not damaged by steam under pressure was also installed and connected to the chamber. These modifications allow a leak test to be carried out during every cycle, and this is done by holding the autoclave in an evacuated state for a period of one minute when the automatic controller turns from " prevacuum" to " sterilizing." If the vacuum is held satisfactorily steam is then admitted to the chamber and the cycle proceeds, but if a leak occurs the chamber is filled with air and the cycle restarted. After the institution of this test one autoclave failed four times in 26 runs and the other once in 40 runs. I


Chemotaxis plays an important role in cancer cell metastasis. In this study, we showed that epidermal growth factor (EGF) was a more potent chemoattractant than chemokine SDF-1alpha/CXCL12 for human breast cancer cell MDA-MB-231. Different inhibitors were used to evaluate the involvement of 12 protein kinase C (PKC) isotypes in the chemotactic signaling pathway. Chelerythrine chloride, an inhibitor of all PKC isotypes, blocked chemotaxis, whereas inhibitors of classic and novel PKC, such as Gö6976, Gö6850, or calphostin C, only impaired EGF-induced chemotaxis to a minor extent by not greater-than32% inhibition. These data suggested that atypical PKC were involved. The ligand-induced actin polymerization and cell adhesion were also similarly dependent on atypical PKC. Immunofluorescent staining showed an EGF-induced, LY294002-sensitive translocation of PKCzeta from the cytosol to the plasma membrane, indicating that EGF was capable of activating PKCzeta, probably via phosphoinositide 3 kinases. A myristoylated PKCzeta pseudosubstrate blocked the chemotaxis with an IC(50) of 20 mumol/L. To expand our investigation, we further showed that in MCF-7 and T47D, two additional human breast cancer cell lines, EGF-activated PKCzeta and the PKCzeta pseudosubstrate, inhibited chemotaxis. Taken together, our data suggest that PKCzeta is an essential component of the EGF-stimulated chemotactic signaling pathway in human breast cancer cells.


Engaging primary aged children in academic tasks beyond the school gates is an age-old problem for many teachers and ubiquitous across many school settings. While the process can be felt as intrusive in the home environment (Edwards and Warin 1999) the benefits have been associated with more than subject specific academic achievement. Homework can develop fundamental learning behaviours (Bempechat 2004) which include the encouragement of independent learning, intrinsic engagement and life-long learning skills which can improve academic achievement in secondary school and beyond. However, around a third of children were found to regularly not complete homework tasks at primary school (Cooper et al 1998) which may disadvantage these pupils and harm their life choices when they are older. Homework is an integral part of the UK primary curriculum but its completion involves a complex list of motivational factors which can be influenced by rewards and punishments in the classroom. This project explored the efficacy of some common rewards systems, using homework completion rates as the measuring instrument. The project focuses on the impact of ClassDojo, a popular internet-based program, as a classroom behaviour management tool that incorporates homework completion as an important requirement of the pupils' practice. The system's efficacy is compared in two ways. The study was done over two school terms and involved twin classes (a Comparison and a focus class). In term one both classes were treated the same, following the school policy of using a Zone Board for behaviour management and house points to reward classwork and homework completion. In term two the Focus class used ClassDojo to reward all of these while the Comparison class continued as in term one. The findings suggest that when a classroom behaviour management system incorporates homework, school work and classroom behaviour within the same reward structure, while consistently supporting the motivational factors important for intrinsic engagement and pupil self-worth, homework turn-in rates can be improved within a few weeks. ClassDojo in itself was not found to be the motivationally pertinent factor but the way it was used to address and support all pupil learning and behaviour that influenced the children's homework completion rates and classroom academic engagement. Alternative behaviour management systems could be equally effective if they address the needs identified in the motivational model and support intrinsic motivational engagement.


Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) aims at structuring traffic in order to reduce congestion in airspace. Congestion being linked to aircraft located at the same position at the same time, ATFM organizes traffic in the spatial dimension (e.g. route network) and in the time dimension (e.g. sequencing and merging of aircraft flows taking off or landing at airports).
The objective of this paper is to develop a methodology that allows the traffic to self-organize in the time and space dimensions when demand is high. This structure disappears when the demand diminishes. In order to reach this goal, a multi-agent system has been developed, in which aircraft cooperate to structure traffic. Multi-agent systems have several advantages, including a good resilience when confronted with disruptive events.
In this system, three algorithms have been implemented, aiming at reducing traffic complexity in three different ways. The first algorithm allows aircraft agents flying on a route network to regulate speed in order to reduce the number of conflicts, a conflict occurring when two aircraft do not respect separation norms. The second algorithm allows aircraft to solve conflicts when the traffic is not structured by a route network. The third algorithm creates temporary local route networks allowing to structure traffic.
The three algorithms implemented in this multi-agent system allow to decrease overall traffic complexity, which becomes easier to manage by air traffic controllers. This algorithm was applied on realistic examples and was able to structure traffic in a resilient way.


Abstract The aim of this study was to determine the fatty acid (FA) composition of breast milk, and its association with mothers' FA intake. Milk samples were obtained from 238 healthy lactating women who volunteered to participate in the Human Milk Micronutrients Analysis Research. Dietary intake during lactation was assessed using a 3-d food record, and fat content and FA composition of the breast milk samples were analysed by IR spectrometry using MilkoScan FT2 and GC flame ionisation detector, respectively. The fat content was 3·31 (sd 1·41) g/100 ml breast milk. The concentrations of arachidonic acid (20 : 4 n-6), EPA (20 : 5 n-3) and DHA (22 : 6 n-3) in breast milk were 0·48 (sd 0·13), 0·15 (sd 0·12) and 0·67 (sd 0·47) % of total FA, respectively. Fat content and FA composition of breast milk were associated with maternal age, BMI, supplement use and infant age. Dietary intakes of EPA, DHA, n-3 FA, n-6 FA, SFA and PUFA were positively correlated with the corresponding FA in the milk samples. FA levels in breast milk and maternal diet are highly correlated. Further studies are warranted to explore factors that may be associated with changes in FA composition in human milk.


The loop-current state discovered in under-doped cuprates is characterized by a vector ${\bf \Omega}$ which has four possible orientations which correspond to different domains of order in a perfect sample. Since translational symmetry remains unchanged in the pure limit, no gap occurs at the chemical potential. On the other hand Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) has revealed that the magnitude of the pseudo-gap in under-doped cuprates varies spatially and is correlated with disorder. For disorder coupling also to the direction of ${\bf \Omega}$, there can only be a finite temperature dependent static correlation length for the loop-current state below the ordering temperature of the pure problem. It is shown that, in this situation, singular forward scattering of fermions for large correlation lengths induces an angle dependent pseudo-gap in the single-particle spectral function near the chemical potential. The peaks in the spectral function at the fermi-vectors are away from the chemical potential proportionally to the square of the average loop order parameter measurable by polarized neutron scattering. This result is tested. Due to the finite correlation length there always exist low frequency excitations at long wavelength at all temperatures in the "ordered" phase. Such fluctuations motionally average over the shifts in frequencies of local probes such as NMR and muon resonance expected for a truly static order.


The galaxy M49 (NGC 4472) is the brightest early-type galaxy in the Virgo Cluster. It is located in Subcluster B and has an unusually blue, metal-poor outer halo. Planetary nebulae (PNe) are excellent tracers of diffuse galaxy and intragroup light. We present a photometric survey of PNe in the galaxy's extended halo to characterise its PN population, as well as the surrounding intragroup light (IGL) of the Subcluster B. PNe were identified based on their bright [OIII]5007 \AA\ emission and absence of a broad-band continuum. We identify 738 PNe out to a radius of 155 kpc from M49's centre from which we define a complete sample of 624 PNe within a limiting magnitude of m_5007=28.8. Comparing the PN number density to the broad-band stellar surface brightness profile, we find a variation of the PN-specific frequency (alpha-parameter) with radius. The outer halo beyond 60 kpc has a 3.2 times higher alpha-parameter compared to the main galaxy halo, which is likely due to contribution from the surrounding blue IGL. We use the Planetary Nebulae Luminosity Function (PNLF) as an indicator of distance and stellar population. Its slope, which correlates empirically with galaxy type, varies within the inner halo. In the eastern quadrant of M49, the PNLF slope is shallower, indicating an additional localised, bright PN population following an accretion event, likely that of the dwarf irregular galaxy VCC1249. We also determined a distance modulus of mu = 31.29+/-0.08 for M49, corresponding to a physical distance of 18.1+/-0.6 Mpc, which agrees with a recent surface-brightness fluctuations distance. The PN populations in the outer halo of M49 are consistent with the presence of a main Sersic galaxy halo with a slight (B-V) colour gradient of 10${}^{-4}$ mag/arcsec surrounded by intragroup light with a very blue colour of (B-V)=0.25 and a constant surface brightness mu_V=28.0 mag/arcsec${}^2$.


Millions of people are exposed to arsenic in drinking water. An ancient poison, arsenic occurs naturally in groundwater and geothermal springs. Removing arsenic from drinking water costs about $200 million every year in the United States alone. The brunt of this is borne by California and other western states, where groundwater is needed more for drinking water. Arsenic in drinking water causes cardiovascular death, cognitive deficits in children, reproductive problems, and cancer. Surprisingly, many studies have shown that the human lung is especially susceptible to ingested arsenic. After being consumed in drinking water, arsenic accumulates in the lungs. Lung cancer is now believed to be the most common cause of death from this widespread contaminant. Most lung carcinogens, including tobacco smoke, asbestos, and silica, also cause non-malignant respiratory effects. Evidence suggests that arsenic in drinking water follows this pattern, but nearly all data involve adults with recent exposures. The impacts of early-life arsenic exposures on nonmalignant lung disease are largely unknown. In northern Chile, the city of Antofagasta (population 390,000 in 2014) had high concentrations of arsenic in drinking water (>800 µg/L) from 1958 until 1970, when a new treatment plant was installed. This scenario, with its large population, distinct period of high exposure, and accurate data on past exposure, is virtually unprecedented in environmental epidemiology. Chapter 2 of this dissertation describes a pilot study on early-life arsenic exposure and long-term lung function. We recruited a convenience sample consisting primarily of nursing school employees in Antofagasta and Arica (population 160,000) a city with low drinking water arsenic. Lung function and respiratory symptoms in 32 adults exposed to >800 µg/L arsenic before age 10 were compared to 65 adults without high early-life exposure. Early-life arsenic exposure was associated with 11.5% lower forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) (p = 0.04), 12.2% lower forced vital capacity (FVC) (p = 0.04), and increased breathlessness (prevalence odds ratio = 5.94, 95% confidence interval 1.36–26.02). Exposure-response relationships between early-life arsenic concentration and adult FEV1 and FVC were also identified (p trend = 0.03). These results suggest that early-life exposure to arsenic in drinking water may have irreversible respiratory effects of a magnitude similar to smoking throughout adulthood. Given the small study size and non-random recruitment methods, further research is needed to confirm these findings.The arsenic concentrations >800 µg/L in Chile can reveal previously unknown health outcomes, but they do not shed much light on what the drinking water standard should be. Arsenic is known to cause lung cancer at concentrations above about 200 µg/L. The effects of lower exposures are unknown. This uncertainty has created controversy over the 10 µg/L World Health Organization guideline and U.S. regulatory limit for public water supplies because arsenic is widespread in groundwater naturally and expensive to remove. In Chapter 3, I present the first lung cancer study in the largest U.S. populations with exposures between 50 and 100 µg/L. This was also the first U.S. lung cancer study with individual data on past drinking water arsenic concentrations. We enrolled 196 lung cancer cases and 359 controls, matched on age and sex, from western Nevada and Kings County, California in 2002–2005. After adjusting for age, sex, education, smoking and occupational exposures, odds ratios for arsenic concentrations ≥85 μg/L (median = 110 μg/L, mean = 173 μg/L, maximum = 1,460 μg/L) more than 40 years before enrollment were 1.39 (95% CI = 0.55–3.53) in all subjects and 1.61 (95% CI = 0.59–4.38) in smokers. Although odds ratios were greater than 1.0, these increases may have been due to chance given the small number of subjects exposed more than 40 years before enrollment. The findings suggest that concentrations near 100 μg/L are not associated with markedly high relative risks.The California Nevada lung cancer case-control study, designed before research in Chile suggested arsenic-related cancer latencies of 40 years or more, illustrates the difficulties of identifying arsenic-related health effects in low-exposure countries with mobile populations like the U.S. Making matters worse, many wells used by participants 20–60 years ago could not be measured because they could not be located or had fallen into disrepair. A major problem for health studies of arsenic and other drinking water contaminants is a lack of measurements for unregulated water sources such as private wells, which are much more likely to have high arsenic than public supplies. For Chapter 4, I developed models to estimate arsenic in unmeasured wells in the western Nevada study area. In cross-validations with five partitions of 3138 residential wells, inverse distance weighted (IDW) averaging was the best categorizer of arsenic, averaging 71% correct assignment to the high, medium and low categories used in the lung cancer study. The next best categorizers were the random forest model (70% correct) and the median of measurements within 408 m (69%). These models categorized wells better than kriging (67%), consistent with findings in other areas. Nearest neighbors averaged 66% correct assignment. For exact arsenic concentrations, the best models were the random forest model (Arsenic = 0.95*RFM, R2 = 0.34) and kriging (Arsenic = 1.00*OK, R2 = 0.30). The RFM might be considered the best model overall, since it categorized measurements almost as well as IDW, had a higher R2 (0.34 versus 0.28), and a linear slope closer to 1 (0.95 versus 0.80). In terms of detecting high arsenic wells, RFM was also just behind IDW. These models can be substantially improved, but IDW and RFM already nearly doubled the number of unmeasured wells correctly categorized around Fallon, compared to the alternative of treating them as zeroes in effect estimates based on participants' highest known concentrations. Given that the direction of the bias is the same whether unmeasured wells are estimated or excluded, the smaller bias using estimates is preferable.Chapter 5 presents meta-analyses of low exposure lung cancer studies, and assesses differences in relative risks between men and women. Pooled results of six independent studies suggest that increased lung cancer risks reported for concentrations between 10 and 100 µg/L are not likely due to chance (pooled relative risk = 1.09, 95% CI = 1.02-1.20), but there was substantial heterogeneity between studies (p<0.001). The higher relative risk of 4.1 (95% CI = 1.8-9.6) in the case-control study by Ferreccio et al. (2000) might be explained by effects in ecological studies being diluted by in-migration or uncontrolled confounding. Relative risks were higher in men in Chile, in women in Taiwan, and similar for all countries combined. The gender differences in Chile and Taiwan were not likely due to chance, and may be explained by differences in study participation, case ascertainment, smoking, occupational, or household smoke exposures. Chapter 6 concludes with a summary of recent research and ideas for future studies. New findings of health effects below 100 µg/L, including lung cancer in people with early life exposures (Steinmaus et al. 2014), need to be confirmed. However, increasing evidence supports the 2001 decision to tighten the U.S. regulatory from 50 to 10 µg/L. Detecting the increases in health risk expected below 50 µg/L (e.g., odds ratios below 1.5) will likely require very large sample sizes, but may be possible in studies with accurate data on early life exposures, inter-individual differences in arsenic metabolism, and related susceptibility factors (e.g., age, genetics, gender, diet, health status, smoking, and occupational exposures). On the environmental side, high arsenic concentrations have been predicted in many regions that lack available measurements, including much of the Amazon Basin (Amini et al. 2008), contrary to the expectations of some geologists (Ravenscroft et al. 2009). Measurements in these areas can test and improve models of arsenic in groundwater, improve exposure assessment, and help ensure the safety of millions of people.


Realising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will require transformative changes at micro, meso and macro levels and across diverse geographies. Collaborative, transdisciplinary research has a role to play in documenting, understanding and contributing to such transformations. Previous work has investigated the role of this research in Europe and North America, however the dynamics of transdisciplinary research on 'transformations to sustainability' in other parts of the world are less well-understood. This paper reports on an international project that involved transdisciplinary research in six different hubs across the globe and was strategically designed to enable mutual learning and exchange. It draws on surveys, reports and research outputs to analyse the processes of transdisciplinary collaboration for sustainability that took place between 2015–2019. The paper illustrates how the project was structured in order to enable learning across disciplines, cultures and contexts and describes how it also provided for the negotiation of epistemological frameworks and different normative commitments between members across the network. To this end, it discusses lessons regarding the use of theoretical and methodological anchors, multi-loop learning and evaluating emergent change (including the difficulties encountered). It offers insights for the design and implementation of future international transdisciplinary collaborations that address locally-specific sustainability challenges within the universal framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.


Techniques are described for counting and differentiating the rumen microbial population. The rumen liquor is fixed and preserved in formol saline, and counts are made in two counting chambers, whose dimensions depend on the size of the organism to be counted; stained smears of the bacteria are also examined. Counts made on small samples of rumen liquor obtained through a fistula have been compared with counts on samples of the entire rumen contents; the ratio of these counts seemed to depend on the particular organism counted, the ration and the time after feeding. The importance of differential as opposed to total counts is emphasized.


Abstract. The water resources status and availability of any river basin is of primary importance for overall and sustainable development of any river basin. This study has been done in Beas river basin which is located in North Western Himalaya for assessing the status of water resources in present and future climate change scenarios. In this study hydrological modelling approach has been used for quantifying the water balance components of Beas river basin upto Pandoh. The variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model has been used in energy balance mode for Beas river basin at 1km grid scale. The VIC model has been run with snow elevation zones files to simulate the snow module of VIC. The model was run with National Centre for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) forcing data (Tmax, Tmin, Rainfall and wind speed at 0.5degree resolution) from 1 Jan. 1999 to 31 Dec 2006 for calibration purpose. The additional component of glacier melt was added into overall river runoff using semi-empirical approach utilizing air temperature and glacier type and extent data. The ground water component is computed from overall recharge of ground water by water balance approach. The overall water balance approach is validated with river discharge data provided by Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) from 1994-2014. VIC routing module was used to assess pixel wise flow availability at daily, monthly and annual time scales. The mean monthly flow at Pandoh during study period varied from 19 - 1581 m3/s from VIC and 50 to 1556 m3/sec from observation data, with minimum water flow occurring in month of January and maximum flow in month of August with annual R2 of 0.68. The future climate change data is taken from CORDEX database. The climate model of NOAA-GFDL-ESM2M for IPCC RCP scenario 4.5 and 8.5 were used for South Asia at 0.44 deg. grid from year 2006 to 2100. The climate forcing data for VIC model was prepared using daily maximum and minimum near surface air temperature, daily precipitation and daily surface wind speed. The GFDL model also gives validation phase scenarios from 2006 to 2015, which are used to test the overall model performance with current data. The current assessment made by hydrological water balance based approach has given reasonable good results in Beas river basin. The main limitation of this study is lack of full representation of glacier melt flow using fully energy balance model. This component will be addressed in coming time and it will be integrated with tradition hydrological and snowmelt runoff models. The other limitation of current study is dependence on NCEP or other reanalysis of climate forcing data for hydrological modelling, this leads to mismatch between actual and simulated water balance components. This problem can be addressed if more ground based and fine resolution grid based hydro meteorological data are used as input forcing data for hydrological modelling.


With global estimates showing an increasing trend in flooding and its adverse effects on communities and population health, resilience is presented as a concept with potential to help integrate disaster risk management, sustainable development, and climate change adaptation concerns. Resilience research and practice have conceptual and empirical challenges of how to understand, characterize and measure resilience, particularly at community level. Using a multidimensional framework, this paper takes a systems approach to understanding, characterizing, and measuring community flood resilience. Through cluster analysis, bivariate methods and multivariable‐adjusted binary logistic regression modeling, we developed a context and hazard specific construct of community flood resilience and investigated its predictor variables. The factors defining the community flood resilience construct captured the community needs to withstand disasters through purpose‐built infrastructure, early warning systems for preparedness and utilization of local human capacity for adaptation. These results strengthen the previous arguments for utilizing a comprehensive multidimensional framework for resilience analysis. Access to services for improved health and psychosocial well‐being was significantly associated with the three‐item measure of being more flood resilient. Additionally, a strong sense of place and resistance to relocation were presented as key elements of resilience, maintaining community system function, and preserving livelihoods. The study further found that these key factors would not be adequate to guarantee community flood resilience outside the transformative capacity of a well‐resourced village civil protection committee that can prepare and mobilize stakeholders in response to flood emergencies. Our results suggest that, in the context where policymakers seek to strengthen resilience of communities without relocating them, a focus on public health and on strengthening and utilizing local capacities as adaptation, are key in disaster risk management policymaking and implementation. For the international research community, this study demonstrated the importance of utilizing context and hazard specific measures for defining, characterizing, and measuring resilience to inform policy.