Imwalle, LE, Myer, GD, Ford, KR, and Hewett, TE, Relationship between hip and knee kinematics in athletic women during cutting maneuvers: a possible link to noncontact anterior cruciate ligament injury and prevention. J Strength Cond Res 23(8): 2223-2230, 2009-The purposes of this study were to compare lower-extremity kinematics during a 45° and 90° cutting maneuver and to examine the relationships between lower-extremity rotations during these maneuvers. The hypotheses tested were that greater internal hip and knee rotation angles would be observed during the cutting maneuver at a 90° angle (90° cut) compared with the maneuver performed at a 45° angle (45° cut) and that the increased internal hip and knee rotation would be related to increased knee abduction measures. Nineteen athletes from women's soccer teams (17.6 ± 2.1 yr, 165.6 ± 8.2 cm, 60.2 ± 5.6 kg) were instructed to jump across a line and cut at the appropriate angle (either 45° or 90° side-step cut) and in the appropriate direction. Lower-extremity kinematic measures were taken at peak force during the stance phase. Hip internal rotation and knee internal rotation (p = 0.008) were increased during the 90° cut compared with the 45° cut. Mean hip flexion (p < 0.001) was also greater in the 90° cut. The only significant predictor of knee abduction during both tasks was hip adduction (R = 0.49). The findings indicate that the mechanisms underlying increased knee abduction measures in athletic women during cutting tasks were primarily coronal plane motions at the hip. Trunk and hip focused strength neuromuscular training may improve the ability of athletic women to increase control of lower-extremity alignment. Therefore, these women may decrease dangerous knee loads that result from increased hip adduction during dynamic tasks, thus decreasing anterior cruciate ligament injury risk.


Aims The increasing prevalence of mental health problems is a well-recognised phenomenon in the paediatric population. While there are reviews of presentations to accident and emergency and to in-patient psychiatric hospitals, there are few studies of child mental health admissions to a general paediatric ward. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of mental health conditions on a general medical paediatric ward and care pathways once admitted. Method A retrospective case note study was performed of all cases admitted to a general paediatric ward between March 2011 and March 2014 in a district general hospital that required psychiatric review. Time of presentation, reason for presentation and admission, waiting time for psychiatric review, outcome of review and length of stay were all recorded, as well as the mental health background of those who presented. Results 201 cases were identified, the youngest was 9 years old the median age was 15 years. Mental health admissions have increased from 38 between March 2011 and February 2012 to 93 from March 2013 to February 2014. The most common reason for presentation (58%) was overdose, followed by suicidal ideation (15%) and self-harm (11%), (Figure 1). Sixty percent of these admissions occur out of hours. 76% of children who present are already known to the Child And Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMH). Of children admitted to the ward 49% required CAMH review only. Of these reviews, 16% occurred the same day as admission, 51% the following day and 6% waited more than a day for review. The most common outcome of review was discharge with CAMH follow up as an outpatient (73%) Abstract G503(P) Figure 1 Conclusion Mental health admissions to the general paediatric ward increased in our population, reflecting the national trend. Most of these admissions occurred out of hours when there is no specialist child mental health cover. As a consequence of this most children did not see a physician with expertise in mental health on the day of admission. Most admissions were discharged with ongoing mental health follow up adding to the burden placed on CAMH.


This paper presents an overview of the literature studies on the sources of ultrafine particles (UFPs), nanomaterials (NMs), and nanoparticles (NPs) occurring in indoor (occupational and residential) and outdoor environments. Information on the relevant emission factors, particle concentrations, size, and compositions is provided, and health relevance of UFPs and NPs is discussed. Particular attention is focused on the fraction of particles that upon inhalation deposit on the olfactory bulb, because these particles can possibly translocate to brain and their possible role in neurodegenerative diseases is an important issue emerging in the recent literature.


The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate governance practices and capital structure of public-listed companies in Malaysia. Using the annual reports of 273 Malaysian public-listed firms on the Bursa Malaysia between 2008 and 2012, hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted. Corporate governance was measured by variables including board size, CEO duality, ownership structure, and board meeting. Capital structure was measured through four variables: debt-to-equity ratio, long-term debts, short-term debts, and debt ratio. The findings indicated that corporate governance practices have a positive influence on the debt-equity ratio, long-term debt, short-term debt and a debt ratio of capital structure. However, corporate governance practices' influence on the debt ratio is found statistically insignificant. The findings also indicate that firm size moderates the relationship between corporate governance variables and capital structure. Empirically, these findings are useful for measuring and understanding financing decisions taken by the Malaysian public listed firms. It also offers insights to policymakers interested in enhancing the role of corporate governance in formulating management strategies.


An important criterion in the development of modern aeroengines is the identification of the dominant noise sources under typical aircraft take-off and approach conditions, and also in ground-based tests in which the engine is stationary. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model for unsteady distortion noise, which results from the interaction of ingested atmospheric turbulence with the rotating fan, with a view to providing a better understanding of the important physical mechanisms in this particular aspect of sound generation. The theory, developed in the frequency domain, is applicable for any arbitrary spectral form of atmospheric turbulence upstream of the fan, and as a simple model we take the von Kármán spectra for isotropic turbulence. The key fluid dynamical process in unsteady distortion is the deformation of turbulent eddies into long, narrow filaments as they enter the engine, due to the strong streamtube contraction experienced by the steady, non-uniform mean flow generated by the fan. Simple models of the steady flow fields are provided for both open and ducted rotor geometries. The distorted turbulent field at the fan face can be obtained using rapid distortion theory, and considerable simplification is made here by noting that the number of blades in typical aeroengine fans is large, allowing the application of asymptotic analysis and the derivation of closed-form expressions for those parts of the turbulence spectrum at the fan face which dominate the radiation. The unsteady forces exerted on the rotating fan blades are then calculated via a strip-theory approach. The resulting sound scattered to the far field is then evaluated using asymptotic theory for open and ducted rotors. Results are presented in the form of frequency spectra for the turbulent field at the fan face, the blade forces and the radiated sound for typical testing and aircraft operating conditions. High tonal noise levels are obtained under static conditions, whereas the sound is generally broadband in flight. The dependence on turbulence parameters such as the integral lengthscale is highlighted.


Despite increasing improvements in performance enhancements to employees, companies have continued to experience high costs in recruiting new employees. This has raised a lot of concern among employers, and organizations. No business can enjoy and sustain success until it has dealt with high employee turnover. Therefore, this study set out to examine the determinants of employee turnover in the Uganda Telecom industry. The study employed a self-administered questionnaire to collect data from a sample of 89 employees from the Uganda Telecom service providers in Kampala District. Using Pearson correlation coefficient, it was established that salary paid, career development, supervision support, work environment, reward/recognition, and job satisfaction had a positive significant relationship with employee retention. Applying the logistic regression analysis, salary paid, career development, supervision support, work environment, and employee job satisfaction were found to be significant determinants of employee retention in Uganda Telecom industry. From the above results, the study recommends that there should be a clear and automatic salary scale in an organization indicating how employee's salary progresses overtime.  An organization should have adequate working materials, provide workers with benefits like transport stipend, extra-time pay, and other facilitations as the fundamental measure to establish a good work-environment to enable workers perform effectively. And finally, workers should be given space to work under minimum supervision as this will increase their trust and commitment to the organization.


A novel application using adaptive autoregressive time series forecasting with exogenous inputs (i.e. ARX) has been developed in order to provide reliable short-term
forecasts of the internal temperatures in dwellings during hot summer conditions (i.e. heatwaves). The study shows that with proper selection of the predictors, based on the
Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), the forecasts provide acceptable accuracy for periods up to 72 hours. The hourly results for the analysed dwellings showed a Mean
Absolute Error (MAE) below 0.63°C and 0.49°C for the two case study dwellings across the 3-day forecasting period, during the 2015 heatwave. These findings point to the potential for using time series forecasting as part of an overheating warning system in buildings, especially those housing vulnerable occupants.


The issue of xenophobic attacks on foreign Africans in South Africa has generated debate and discuss among media experts, scholars and policy analysts across the globe. The danger and socio-cultural implications of this issue have triggered an increase of reports and commentaries on national and international news television outlets in the international community. This study examines television news coverage of xenophobic attacks in South Africa, using Youtube videos as examples. The method adopted was content analysis and 9 news videos of 3 selected television stations were analyzed; British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and ENCA. Also, four research questions were raised and adequately answered in this study. From the findings of the study, four predominant themes were identified and discussed as it affects current realities. It was recommended that sufficient attention should be given to matters of xenophobic attacks on foreign Africans by the South African press. Furthermore, the television news media should adequately utilize its developmental theory/function for the positive change and development in South Africa.


The present work explores the utility and value of geographical offender profiling methodologies within a novel context, considering both theoretical and practical issues relating to their application. The effectiveness of a well-known geographical profiling system, Dragnet, was tested across 101 New Zealand sex offence series, and findings compared with those derived for an equivalent sample from the UK. Average search costs (the amount of the total offence area that needed to be searched, starting from predicted offender home location, before the offender's actual home was reached) were far greater for the New Zealand sample than their UK offending counterparts. It is argued that this is because the spatial behaviour of New Zealand offenders violates many of the assumptions that Dragnet and other similar geographical profiling systems make in predicting offenders' home locations. Calibration of the system to the specific home-crime distance patterns of the New Zealand offenders did not enhance the efficacy of predictions made to a significant extent. It is consequently argued that, in their current form, geographical profiling systems are limited in their ability to account for samples displaying very different spatial characteristics to those that they were developed from and for. The implications of these findings for the general utility of geographical profiling are discussed, and ways in which systems might be developed in order to broaden their scope and applicability are suggested.


The present paper reviews the computed tomography imaging spectrometer (CTIS) measurement systems at home and abroad from the aspects of technological characterizations and research focuses. The developments of computed tomography imaging spectrometers are described, involving the adding new abilities by improving systematic structure and by incorporating other elements or systems, the study and applications of novel grating elements, detectors or apparatus, the optimizations and improvements of the system calibration methods and reconstruction algorithms. In addition, based on the classification of application scope, the extension status of probing spectral bands and application fields towards computed tomography imaging spectrometers and related systems are summarized. The principles of non-scanning computed tomography imaging spectrometer and high-throughput computed tomography imaging spectrometer are introduced. Moreover, the trends of computed tomography imaging spectrometers are discussed too.


The focus of this mini-review is to assemble an instructive sample of  natural products possessing structural features present in phenolic  constituents of Cashew Nut Shell Liquid (CNSL) and, thus, inspire  researchers to undertake semisyntheses of these natural products using the relatively abundant phenolic components of CNSL as raw materials. In this review, the author attempts to identify (or point out to) a 3-alk(en)yl-substituted phenolic sub-structure embedded in a particular natural product and reveal the CNSL phenolic component that has the corresponding  structural motif. In addition, the author prompts the reader into a thinking process that should eventually lead him/her to developing a  comprehensive retrosynthesis of a particular natural product culminating to that CNSL phenolic component as the starting material. Thus, in some way this paper is a tutorial review to the newcomers in the field of natural product synthesis utilizing natural resources. The seasoned synthetic chemists will also benefit from this collection as they guide and inspire their research trainees to take up natural product synthesis. In this article, a brief introduction to the composition and applications of CNSL is presented. This is followed by a compilation from the literature of reported natural products possessing the 3-alk(en)yl-substituted phenolic moiety. Alongside this compilation, a diagnostic discussion is presented aiming at pinpointing CNSL phenols as prospective precursors for the semisyntheses of some selected natural products as illustrative examples. Key words : Semisynthesis, CNSL phenols, 3-alk(en)yl-substituted phenolic sub-structure, natural products synthesis, natural resources


Time-spectral
solution of ordinary and partial differential equations is often regarded as an
inefficient approach. The associated extension of the time domain, as compared
to finite difference methods, is believed to result in uncomfortably many
numerical operations and high memory requirements. It is shown in this work
that performance is substantially enhanced by the introduction of algorithms
for temporal and spatial subdomains in combination with sparse matrix methods.
The accuracy and efficiency of the recently developed time spectral,
generalized weighted residual method (GWRM) are compared to that of the explicit Lax-Wendroff and implicit Crank-Nicolson
methods. Three initial-value PDEs are employed as model problems; the 1D Burger
equation, a forced 1D wave equation and a coupled system of 14 linearized ideal
magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations. It is found that the GWRM is more
efficient than the time-stepping methods at high accuracies. The advantageous
scalings Nt1.0Ns1.43 and Nt0.0Ns1.08 were obtained for CPU time and memory requirements,
respectively, with Nt and Ns denoting the number of temporal and spatial subdomains. For time-averaged
solution of the two-time-scales forced wave equation, GWRM performance exceeds
that of the finite difference methods by an
order of magnitude both in terms of CPU time and memory requirement. Favorable
subdomain scaling is demonstrated for the MHD equations, indicating a
potential for efficient solution of advanced initial-value problems in, for
example, fluid mechanics and MHD.


In 2021, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) awarded the Pacific Ocean Energy Trust a grant to act as the coordinator of a foundational research network, ultimately named the University Marine Energy Research Community (UMERC). The community aims to facilitate connection between U.S. university researchers, industry, and government research laboratories to close common gaps in foundational research that are prohibiting the pathway to commercialization. To achieve this goal, UMERC held a series of workshops to create a Research Landscape (Landscape), which identified current challenges, gaps, research capabilities as well as uncovering additional questions about where the sector is headed. A human-centered design (HCD) approach was used throughout the three-workshop series.
HCD is a problem-solving and design technique that uses human perspective and emotion to develop solutions.  The stages of human centered design include inspiration, ideation, implementation and validation, or testing, in an iterative, or cyclical process that results in ongoing refinement.  HCD is carried out with the acknowledgement that values vary from context to context and are subject to change as people and technologies interact over time (Zachry and Spyridakis).
It is through this approach that we are able to identify the current gaps and challenges and through the HCD approach, we will continue to refine the Landscape as current challenges and gaps are retired and new challenges and gaps arise. This will help account for the fast pace of innovation in the marine energy sector, where human-technology interactions are changing as the technology develops, and there are new entrants into the market.  With the current state of fluidity in technology design and application, what works at one location may not work at another location.  Using HCD methods and sensibilities, workshop participants, including individuals from universities, private sector companies and the national laboratories, we able to bring in their individual perspectives to develop the Landscape.
Through the HCD process, the workshops revealed a set of values, tools, research interests and gaps and challenges. These were synthesized into what is now the current Landscape that can be found on the UMERC website.  The values are themes that should be considered when designing marine energy projects. These include community, innovation and new technologies or applications, education, sustainability, equity, blue economy, and collaboration.  The main challenges were condensed into four categories that include creating markets and a trained workforce, management and logistics, understanding and protecting the environment, and marine energy engineering, research and development. The tools are actions that can be carried out to overcome the main challenges.  Finally, a list of common research areas was identified under each main challenge area.
Following our HCD methodology, our cycle of iteration will soon start again. While the current Landscape serves as a benchmark, the next steps include a series of industry-academic brainstorming sessions, with the aim of creating collaborative projects to address challenges, as well as come up with a list of common technology agnostic challenges, in hopes to push future research funding.


The convergence rate of stochastic gradient search is analyzed in this paper. Using arguments based on differential geometry and Lojasiewicz inequalities, tight bounds on the convergence rate of general stochastic gradient algorithms are derived. As opposed to the existing results, the results presented in this paper allow the objective function to have multiple, non-isolated minima, impose no restriction on the values of the Hessian (of the objective function) and do not require the algorithm estimates to have a single limit point. Applying these new results, the convergence rate of recursive prediction error identification algorithms is studied. The convergence rate of supervised and temporal-difference learning algorithms is also analyzed using the results derived in the paper.


Disturbances such as burning or grazing maintain the herbaceous nature of eastern tallgrass prairie. These disturbances are also known to affect the relative abundance of warm‐season (C4) and cool‐season (C3) grasses in native prairie. Although burning is a commonly used tool, the utility of livestock grazing to manage restored prairie is less understood. We established five monocultures and one mixture of C4 grass species of the eastern tallgrass prairie in southern Wisconsin. To examine their persistence under high‐intensity, short‐duration summer grazing, we estimated cover of several functional groups and C4 species over a 6‐year period (2000 through 2006) in a randomized complete block design. After a 2‐year establishment phase (1998–1999), bison were rotated through paddocks two or three times annually during late June, July, or early August. All C4 grasses declined over time but at different rates depending on the species. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) decreased at the lowest rate, whereas Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) cover declined faster than Big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans), and Sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula), whose rates of decline were not significantly different from each other. Succession followed a predictable trajectory with annual grasses initially colonizing interstitial space among C4 grasses, followed by legumes, which ultimately gave way to exotic C3 forage grasses. The focal C4 grasses remained the dominant functional group 8 years postseeding, but recolonization by non‐native C3 grasses increased over the study period.


In this paper, a revised GMDH (Group Method of Data Handling) of multiinput-singleoutput type algorithm is developed by using principal component-regression analysis.In previous GMDH algorithms, the optimal partial polynomials, which are generated by using the second degree polynomial of the two variables in each selection layer, are accumulated in multilayerd structure to construct the complete polynomial. But, in a high order selection layer, many combinations of two variables generate multicolinearity in partial polynomials and this presents a severe problem in estimation accuracy of model parameters. The nonlinear models which contain multicolinearity in the partial polynomials lack in stability and can not be used in prediction problems.The revised GMDH in this paper generates some optimal partial polynomials which are identified by using principal component-regression analysis in each selection layer, and the complete description of the system is constructed by combining these optimal partial polynomials in multilayerd structure. The principal components which construct the partial polynomials are perendicular each other and so the partial polynomials generate no multicolinearity.The revised GMDH algorithm is applied to a simple illustrative example and compared with the result obtained by the previous GMDH algorithm.


Understanding the flow process of cemented tailings backfill (CTB) is important for successful pumping into underground stopes. This study examines the effects of solid content (SC), cement/tailings (c/t) ratio, and curing time (CT) on rheological and mechanical properties of CTB mixes. The slurry concentration of the mixes was 65, 67, and 69 wt. %, with c/t ratios ranging from 1:4 to 1:20. Unconfined compressive strength (UCS) tests were performed on hardened CTB mixes after curing 3, 7, and 28 days. The rheological properties of CTB slurries are mainly related to SC. The yield stress and viscosity of fresh mixes increase with increasing SC, but the pipeline resistance loss (PRL) also increases with increasing SC. According to the analysis of variance, the SC and flow rate are the most significant parameters which greatly affect the PRL performance. The c/t and CT parameters are the most significant parameters for affecting the shrinkage rate. The findings offer a reference for theoretical optimization for mine filling systems of similar type.


The present study is to compare the anti-inflammatory effect of Nicardipine with diclofenac sodium in rats and mice. The study was conducted using carrageenan-induced rat and mice paw inflammation models. Albino mice and wistar rats of either sex were divided in to four groups of six each. One of the groups was chosen as control, while the remaining three groups were drug treated groups. The control group received only normal saline intraperitoneally. While the other three groups received Diclofenac sodium (25mg/kg), Nicardipine (10mg/kg) and low dose Nicardipine (5mg/kg) intraperitoneally. After 30 minutes all the animals were injected with 0.1ml and 0.05 ml 1 % carrageenan respectively in to the animal hind paws. Paw volume measured by dipping in to the mercury plethysmograph. After carrageenan injection the time for number of licks were noted. Nicardipine in the dose of 10mg/kg was found to be equally effective with diclofenac sodium (25 mg/kg) in reducing edema in rats. In mice Nicardipine in the dose of (25 mg/kg) was found to be more effective than diclofenac sodium (25 mg/kg) in reducing pain and edema.


Intermittent touch of a pseudophakos to the corneal endothelium is heralded by three signs: ciliary flush, (local) corneal dystrophy, and cystoid macular edema. This syndrome is often missed, and should be ruled out whenever any one of these three signs is detected. Once diagnosed, elimination of the touch should be accomplished promptly. If discovered early, the syndrome may be reversed.


When the full moon shines, a paralysing fear descends on the isolated Maine town of Tarker Mills. No one knows who will be attacked next, but snarls that sound like human words can be heard and all around are the footprints of a monster whose hunger cannot be sated.


IFN-γ plays a critical role in tumor immunosurveillance by affecting either immune cells or tumor cells; however, IFN-mediated effects on tumor elimination are largely unknown. In this study, we showed that IFN regulatory factors (IRF) modulated by IFNs up- and downregulated Noxa expression, a prodeath BH3 protein, in various cancer cells. Inhibition of Noxa expression using short hairpin RNA in tumor cells leads to resistance against lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced tumor elimination, in which IFN-γ is known as a critical effecter in mice. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis in both CT26 cells and SP2/0 cells, sensitive and resistant to LPS-induced tumor elimination, respectively, revealed that the responsiveness of IRF1, 3, 4, and 7 in the Noxa promoter region in response to IFN-γ might be crucial in LPS-induced tumor elimination. IRF1, 3, and 7 were upregulated by IFN-γ and activated Noxa expression, leading to the death of Noxa wild-type baby mouse kidney (BMK) cells but not of Noxa-deficient BMK cells. In contrast, IRF4 acts as a repressor for Noxa expression and inhibits cell death induced by IRF1, 3, or 7. Therefore, although IFN-γ alone are not able to induce cell death in tumor cells in vitro, Noxa induction by IFN-γ, which is regulated by the balance between its activators (IRF1, 3, and 7) and its repressor (IRF4), is crucial to increasing the susceptibility of tumor cells to immune cell-mediated cytotoxicity. Mol Cancer Res; 9(10); 1356–65. ©2011 AACR.


Context: Zanthoxylum armatum (Rutaceae) fruit, bark and leaves are used for various conditions of ailments in traditional systems of medicine since ancient times. Aims: This study is designed to lay down the various pharmacognostic and phytochemical standards which will be helpful to ensure the purity, safety, and efficacy of this medicinal plant. Materials and Methods: Various methods including macroscopic, microscopic, physicochemical, and phytochemical methods were applied to determine the diagnostic features for the identification and standardization of intact and powdered drug of Z. armatum leaf, fruit, and bark. Results: The shape, size, color, odor, surface characteristics were determined for the intact drug and powdered materials of leaf, bark and fruit of Z. armatum. Light and electron microscope images of cross-section of leaf and powdered microscopy revealed useful diagnostic features. Histochemical, phytochemical, physicochemical including fluorescence analysis of powdered drug proved useful to differentiate the powdered drug material. High performance liquid chromatography analysis showed the presence of important phytoconstituents such as gallic acid and rutin. Conclusion: The data generated from this study would be of help in the authentication of various parts of Z. armatum, an important constituent of various herbal drug formulations. The qualitative and quantitative microscopic features would prove useful for laying down pharmacopoeial standards. Morphology as well as various pharmacognostic aspects of different parts of the plant were studied and have been described here along with phytochemical, physicochemical studies, which will help in authentication and quality control.


Abstract
 The vegetation of Martha's Meadow (Berry College, Floyd County, GA) is distinct from that of surrounding flatwood areas and appears to be floristically similar to a limestone glade community. Limestone (cedar) glades of the southeastern United States are characterized by high species richness and diversity, calcareous soil, and up to 26 endemic or near-endemic indicator species. To describe the vegetation of Martha's Meadow and to determine its affinity to other limestone-based communities, a comprehensive species survey was augmented by quantitative surveys in May, July, and October of 2006. A total of 203 species in 56 families were identified, including nine limestoneassociated species designated as rare in the state of Georgia. Juniperus virginiana, a key species associated with glade communities, was important in both the overstory and the understory. Other important overstory species included Pinus taeda, Quercus shumardii, Q. muehlenbergii, and Ostrya virginiana. The perennial grass Danthonia spicata, the southeastern sedge Carex cherokeensis, and the herb Verbesina virginica, which is commonly associated with alkaline soils, were among the most important understory species, but no well-recognized limestone glade endemics were found. Two invasive grasses (Festuca subverticillata and Microstegium vimineum) were also among the most important understory species. Several ordination and clustering methods were used to compare the community structure of Martha's Meadow with data sets derived from other open calcareous and non-calcareous habitats throughout the southeastern and mid-western United States. Regardless of method, Martha's Meadow appeared to be most similar to several well-recognized Georgia limestone glades. While Martha's Meadow has some characteristics of edaphically determined limestone glades, it also lacks some characteristic traits (e.g., key limestone endemic species), making definitive classification tenuous. Evidence of on-going succession involving woody species suggests that the site might be best classified as a xeric limestone prairie (barrens) that requires disturbance or active management to maintain canopy openness and understory diversity.


The construction of artificial structures, such as seawalls, is increasing globally, resulting in loss of habitat complexity and native species biodiversity. There is increasing interest in mitigating this biodiversity loss by adding topographic habitat to these structures, and/or seeding them with habitat-forming species. Settlement tile experiments, comparing colonisation of species to more and less complex habitats, have been used to inform eco-engineering interventions prior to their large-scale implementation. Most studies have focused on applying one type of intervention (either adding habitat structure or seeding with native organisms), so it is unclear whether there are greater benefits to biodiversity when multiple interventions are combined. Using a fully orthogonal experiment, we assessed the independent and interactive effects of habitat structure (flat vs. crevice/ridges) and seeding with native oysters (unseeded vs. seeded) on the biodiversity of four different functional groups (sessile and mobile taxa, cryptobenthic and pelagic fishes). Concrete tiles (flat unseeded, flat seeded, complex unseeded and complex seeded) were deployed at two sites in Sydney Harbour and monitored over 12 months, for the survival and colonisation of oysters and the species density and abundances of the four functional groups. The survival of seeded oysters was greater on the complex than flat tiles, at one of the two sites, due to the protective role of crevices. Despite this, after 12 months, the species density of sessile invertebrates and the percentage cover of seeded and colonising oysters did not differ between complex and seeded tiles each of which supported more of these variables than the flat unseeded tiles. In contrast, the species density of mobile invertebrates and cryptobenthic fishes and the MaxN of pelagic fishes, at 1 month, were only positively influenced by seeding with oysters, which provided food as well as habitat. Within the complex seeded and unseeded tiles, there was a greater species density of sessile taxa, survival and percentage cover of oysters in the crevices, which were more humid and darker at month 12, had lower high temperature extremes at months 1 and 12, than on the ridges or flat tiles. Our results suggest that eco-engineering projects which seek to maximise the biodiversity of multiple functional groups on seawalls, should apply a variety of different microhabitats and habitat-forming species, to alter the environmental conditions available to organisms.


The influence of the low-intensity gamma-irradiation on the process of lipid peroxidation and the activities of the antioxidant glutathione-dependent system (catalase, glutathione-transferase) has been investigated in a number of Cladosporium cladosporioides (Fres.) de Vries strains. The dark-pigmented strains isolated from the habitats with different degree of radionuclide contamination, and the nonpigmented alb-mutant of the same species have been used in our work. The studied properties have been analyzed with the respect of the radiotropism property and of the presence of melanin pigment in the cell wall of these strains. The lipid perioxidation level under the effect of the low-intensity gamma-irradiation was greatly increased in Cladosporium cladosporioides 396 strain only. This strain was isolated from the radiation-pure soil. Catalase activity in a number of the studies strains correlated neither with their pigmentation, nor with the property of positive radiotropism. The correlation between the strain pigmentation and activity of glutathione transferase has been found.


ABSTRACT
 The nature of the interaction between the black pecan aphid, Melanocallis caryaefoliae (Davis) (Hemiptera: Aphididae), and the chlorosis it causes to foliage of its pecan [Carya illinoinensis (Wangenh.) K. Koch) ] host is poorly understood. Laboratory experiments were conducted on the settling behavior of the black pecan aphid, when provided chlorotic pecan leaf discs resulting from previous black pecan aphid feeding and nonchlorotic leaf discs, under a normal photoperiod and constant dark. Additionally, aphid development from the first instar to the adult stage was examined when nymphs were either allowed to feed on the same leaf disc or moved daily to a new, nondamaged, same age leaf disc. After 24 h, a significantly higher percentage of black pecan aphids settled on chlorotic than on nonchlorotic leaf discs, regardless of photoperiod. When starting from the first instar, nymphs that were prevented from inducing leaf chlorosis by moving daily to new, same-age leaf discs took ∼5 d longer to complete development, had a shorter body length, and had higher mortality than when aphids remained on the same leaf disc. These results show that black pecan aphid-induced leaf chlorosis plays an important role in the interaction of the black pecan aphid with its pecan host.


Australian universities have in recent times been undergoing a substantial transformation in the way in which they are managed. They have moved away from the (British-based) traditional collegiate model to one in which professional managers play a centre-stage role. This paper investigates an important element of the managerialism at Australian universities, the market for what we call 'academic executives' (AEs). We analyse the remuneration of the top AEs at Australian universities over the past six years and show that institutional size is a dominant driving factor of remuneration, as has been found with compensation of CEOs in the private sector. We also find the pay-size elasticity to be about 0.25 and is the same for both the university and private sectors; and remarkably, this value has also been found in previous studies on executive remuneration for the US and the UK. The remuneration schedule for the university sector is about half as steep as that for the private sector, suggesting that it is a much harder climb to the top of the corporate ladder. We analyse the structure of remuneration among AEs and the Group of Eight universities are found to have a pay parity structure that is closest to (hat for the private sector.


This paper characterizes Ramsey-optimal monetary policy in a medium-scale macroeconomic model that has been estimated to fit well postwar US business cycles. We find that mild deflation is Ramsey optimal in the long run. However, the optimal inflation rate appears to be highly sensitive to the assumed degree of price stickiness. Within the window of available estimates of price stickiness (between 2 and 5 quarters) the optimal rate of inflation ranges from -4.2 percent per year (close to the Friedman rule) to -0.4 percent per year (close to price stability). This sensitivity disappears when one assumes that lump-sum taxes are unavailable and fiscal instruments take the form of distortionary income taxes. In this case, mild deflation emerges as a robust Ramsey prediction. In light of the finding that the Ramsey optimal inflation rate is negative, it is puzzling that most inflation-targeting countries pursue positive inflation goals. We show that the zero bound on the nominal interest rate, which is often cited as a rationale for setting positive inflation targets, is of no quantitative relevance in the present model. Finally, the paper characterizes operational interest-rate feedback rules that best implement Ramsey-optimal stabilization policy. We find that the optimal interest-rate rule is active in price and wage inflation, mute in output growth, and moderately inertial.


Evolutionary responses to selection for bipedalism and childbirth have shaped the human pelvis, a structure that differs substantially from that in apes. Morphology related to these factors is present by birth, yet the developmental-genetic mechanisms governing pelvic shape remain largely unknown. Here, we pinpoint and characterize a key gestational window when human-specific pelvic morphology becomes recognizable, as the ilium and the entire pelvis acquire traits essential for human walking and birth. We next use functional genomics to molecularly characterize chondrocytes from different pelvic subelements during this window to reveal their developmental-genetic architectures. We then find notable evidence of ancient selection and genetic constraint on regulatory sequences involved in ilium expansion and growth, findings complemented by our phenotypic analyses showing that variation in iliac traits is reduced in humans compared to African apes. Our datasets provide important resources for musculoskeletal biology and begin to elucidate developmental mechanisms that shape human-specific morphology.


Concepts in roll-interconnected hydro-pneumatic suspensions with hydraulic and pneumatic couplings are developed and analysed for enhancement of anti-roll properties of heavy vehicles. The mathematical models of the roll-coupled suspensions are formulated considering the fluid properties and variable damping valves. The roll properties of fluidically connected suspensions are compared with those of unconnected suspensions with and without anti-roll bar, and dynamic responses of a heavy vehicle with different suspensions are investigated under excitations arising from road roughness and directional manoeuvres. The results indicate that both interconnected suspensions could considerably improve roll stiffness without affecting vertical ride, while hydraulic interconnections could further enhance the roll mode damping properties.


The careers of Massachusetts Congregationalist pastors John Wise (1652-1725), Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766), Andrew Eliot (1718-1778) and Charles Chauncy (1705-1787) extended over a crucial period of religious and socio-political change between 1680, just 47 years after the first settlement of Massachusetts, and 1787, only four years after American independence. Detailed study of the four New England ministers thus provides a unique opportunity for consideration of important historical issues, including: 1), causal connections between religious thought and activity and the origins of the American Revolution; 2), 18 century meanings and understandings of the key concept of liberty; and 3), the extent to which allegedly more liberal theological thinkers directly influenced revolutionary ideology in 18 century New England. This dissertation is the first work to compare and contrast the lives and ideas of all four influential Massachusetts ministers in ways that facilitate direct contributions to these important areas of academic debate. Beginning with an account of Wise, which serves as an historical benchmark for those of the three later figures, it does so primarily through individual case studies of them and through substantial reinterpretations of their intellectual legacies. The major new conclusions to emerge from this study are that Wise, Mayhew, Eliot and Chauncy were more conservative figures than scholars have often portrayed and that a traditionalist, dissenting, Protestant worldview was more significant in shaping their religious and political thought than contemporary philosophical influences. Their understandings of liberty, which were foundationally spiritual in origin and definition, were central to this Weltanschauung. They thus provide clear evidence of the extent to which the four ministers' "revolutionary" ideas and inclinations, such as they were, were arguably consistent with those of many similar intellectual leaders in 18th century New England, in that they were stimulated and informed more by religious than by strictly political motivations and concerns.


The current study was aimed to evaluate the antibacterial activity of different concentrations of aqueous and non-aqueous extracts of Carica papaya seeds. Dried and grinded papaya seeds (5g), respectively mixed with 95ml of extraction solvent (water, methanol, acetone and ether) for 24 hours were used for this study. Extraction was done by maceration and Soxhlet method. The extract was then decanted and filtered through a Whatman filter paper. Antimicrobial activities of the each extract were determined using agar well diffusion method using fresh clinical isolates of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus and their MIC and zone of inhibition were determined. The results were evaluated statistically using paired sample t-test. Aqueous extract of Carica papaya exhibits greater antimicrobial activities against the clinical isolates of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus as compared to the non-aqueous plant extracts. MIC of aqueous extract against Escherichia coli was 10-3mg/mL, whereas methanolic extracts shows 10-4mg/mL MIC. Similarly MIC of aqueous extract against Staphylococcus aureus was 10-4mg/mL as compared to MIC of methanolic extract 10-6mg/mL. There was statistically significant difference between the zone of inhibition of aqueous extracts of the plant material against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli (P < 0.001). Preliminary phytochemical analyses reveal that the extracts contain alkaloids, tannins, saponins and phenols. Carica papaya may be used for the treatment of infection caused by Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus.


Microbial mixed cultures present a broad metabolic flexibility and allow considering complex organic biomass as potential resources for biomolecules and hydrogen production in dark fermentation processes. A wide number of microbial species are able to ferment carbohydrates, but a high microbial diversity is often detrimental to bioprocess operation since it leads to process instability. To date, only few controllers, essentially physicochemical, are available to control finely the multiplicity of bacterial metabolisms in mixed cultures. And no strong or very specific selection pressure could be applied to enrich in efficient and robust microbial communities. One possibility would be to engineer ecologically these communities to better control the metabolic networking. For that, we investigated the use of keystone species as biotic triggers of the fermentative metabolism in mixed cultures. First some keystone species, often low in abundance but having a major role on metabolic networks, were identified from several natural ecosystems. Different strategies of biotic control of the fermentative microbial communities were then investigated, confirming the important role of these species and the possibility of using them as biotic controllers of the overall community. Artificial co-cultures were also carried out, and a specific type of interaction was characterized. Beyond this study, it is expected that these findings lead to new biotechnological or environmental applications through the use of biotic control of microbial metabolisms.


This paper provides a survey on the literature using dynamic games to analyse the decision-making processes of common pool resources (CPRs) users. The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on the application of dynamic games in laboratory experiments. In this way, we focus on articles presenting both a theoretical model with laboratory experiments, by making a distinction between discrete time and continuous time. Therefore, we put a particular attention to subjects' classification according to their observed behavior, the different channels by which cooperation can occur and the econometric tools used to analyse experimental data.


Formation of austenite strongly influences the microstructures and mechanical properties of dual phase steels. In present work, austenization process during intercritical annealing was studied in a Fe-C-Mn steel using Gleeble-1500 thermal simulator and quantitative microscopy. The experimental results show that austenite formation is separated into three different stages: (i) growth of high carbon austenite into pearlite rapidly until pearlite dissolution is completed; (ii) slower growth of austenite into ferrite; (iii) very slow equilibration between ferrite and austenite. The thermodynamic and kinetic analyses show that growth of austenite into ferrite is controlled by carbon diffusion in austenite in the primary stage and manganese diffusion in ferrite in the subsequent stage because diffusion coefficient of Mn in ferrite is several orders of magnitude smaller than that of C in austenite. The slow final equilibration between ferrite and austenite is obtained by manganese diffusion through the austenite. Based on the analysis, one dimensional diffusion model of intercritical austenization was developed and solved using finite volume method on the assumption that solute flux was local balance at interface, and the kinetics calculated was compared with experimental results. Simulated results indicate that growth of austenite reaches paraequilibrium in about one second, but remains thousands of seconds to reach final equilibrium. Simulated concentration profiles show that manganese atoms transferred from ferrite congregate in austenite near phase interface, which is consistent with the experimental phenomenon.


Abstract. Parametric excitation of edge waves with a frequency 2 times less than the frequency of surface waves propagating perpendicular to the inclined bottom is investigated in laboratory experiments. The domain of instability on the plane of surface wave parameters (amplitude–frequency) is found. The subcritical instability is observed in the system of parametrically excited edge waves. It is shown that breaking of surface waves initiates turbulent effects and can suppress the parametric generation of edge waves.


In vitro comparative studies of effects of amiridin (9-amino-2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8-hexahydro-1H-cyclopentane (b) choline monohydrate hydrochloride) and tacrine physostigmine and piracetam on monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) and B (MAO-B) activity in the rat brain were carried out. Piracetam (1 x 10(-4)-1 x 10(-3) M) dose-dependently increased MAO-A and MAO-B activity. At all concentrations used (1 x 10(-7)-5 x 10(-4) M) physostigmine had no effect on MAO-A and MAO-B activity. Amiridin was found to inhibit MAO-B activity at 5 x 10(-4) M concentration only. Tacrine inhibited MAO-A activity at 5 x 10(-4) M concentration. The therapeutical effects of amiridin and tacrine in treatment of Alzheimer disease were not related to their action on MAO-A and -B activity.


Book synopsis: Leonora Carrington is perhaps the most enchanting of the women Surrealists. The daughter of Anglo-Irish privilege, she broke free of her manor-house upbringing and fled, first to art school, and then to the Continent. Though she is best known as a painter of the gothic fantastic, with a cult following and one-woman shows at museums around the world, her writing is no less striking. Down Below describes the events of 1940, when, after her longtime lover, artist Max Ernst, was sent to a concentration camp, Carrington was "led across the border of Knowledge" and imprisoned in a sanatorium for the insane. This powerful testament, reminiscent of Carrington's great novel The Hearing Trumpet, ranks with the work of Sylvia Plath and Janet Frame in its raw evocation of madness.


Abstract Palmer amaranth is a highly invasive weed species causing huge economic losses in agricultural cropping systems under a broad range of environmental conditions. Sensitivity of this species to ozone (O3) air pollution and to soil water deficit, relative to native species or competing crops, may affect its competitiveness and invasive potential. In recent years, both high tropospheric O3 and soil water deficiency have become common in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Responses to these environmental parameters may help predict the invasiveness of this species and have implications for landscape hydrology. We assessed the impact of O3 and soil water deficit on Palmer amaranth. Five- to seven-leaf–stage potted plants were placed in continuous stirred tank reactor chambers and maintained for 30 to 35 d under 12-h mean daylight O3 exposures (0700–1900 hours) of 4, 59, or 114 ppb O3. Within the chambers the plants were either well-watered (WW) or exposed to regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) and grown for about 7 wk. Dry weights of the leaves, stems, roots, and leaf area were determined. Day- and nighttime stomatal conductances (gs) were measured at 1.5-h intervals. Nocturnal gs was about 16 to 29% of daytime gs; this suggests that the species could have substantial nighttime water loss, uncoupled from carbon gain in the weed, and could affect water availability for crops and reduce irrigation efficiency. Nocturnal gs was lower in the RDI than in the WW, but daytime gs was not affected by O3 or irrigation regime. Neither O3 nor irrigation regime affected root or shoot parameters. As O3 and drought are two key stressors in the San Joaquin Valley, to which potential competing species have been found to be sensitive, Palmer amaranth may proliferate and become more invasive in the future, potentially altering landscape hydrology and reducing irrigation efficiency. Nomenclature: Palmer amaranth, Amaranthus palmeri S. Wats.


Recent technological innovations in open source software and cloud computing have driven the cost of launching a software startup down to a fraction of what it was only few years ago. But as software products increasingly live in the cloud and rely on ongoing customer relationships to be profitable, understanding what drives long-term user engagement is paramount. The objective of this thesis is to shed light on this topic by answering the research question "How can user engagement be increased in SaaS and Social products?" Through a multidisciplinary literature review and an exploratory thematic analysis of seven software startups with SaaS and Social products (e.g. social media, communities, social games), an integrated model for increasing user engagement in such products is developed. Although there are differences observed between SaaS and Social products, they are limited to a few areas such as network effects and the importance of a reliable service, rendering any effort to develop two separate models unavailing. It is demonstrated that various measures aimed at increasing ability, motivation, and triggers are central in increasing engagement, but also that they vary throughout a user's relationship with a product. Some recurring and important measures identified include an effective onboarding process, timing of triggers, storing value, integrating with key industry players to reduce lock-in, and using data in unique ways. From these findings a three stage model, consisting of activation, manual retention, and automatic retention is proposed. More research and experimentation is needed to empirically verifying the proposed model – and yet it is not unlikely that the findings are relevant to other online and digital services requiring ongoing usage. Finally, practitioners attempting to implement the findings should do so in a responsible manner, without exploiting their users.


Abstract. Long-term climatic records are scarce in the northeast Asia for understanding the behavior of the East Asian Winter Monsoon. Here we describe a 250-year February–April temperature reconstruction (TCBM) based on tree-ring widths of Korean Pines from the Changbai Mountain area, Northeast China. The reconstruction can account for 45.7% of the temperature variance in the instrumental period (1953 to 2001). Four cold periods including 1784–1815, 1827–1851, 1878–1889 and 1911–1945, and two warm periods of 1750–1783 and 1855–1877 were identified before the instrumental period. Four shifts were also detected at 1781, 1857, 1878 and 1989. Good agreements between TCBM and other temperature records of East Asia suggest that the reconstruction is of good reliability and captures the regional cold/warm periods of East Asia. Moreover, TCBM shows negative correlations with the instrumental or proxy-based EAWM intensity records. The known weakening of the EAWM in the late 1980s is in agreement with the shift at 1989 in TCBM. These comparisons suggest that the February–April temperature reconstruction may be a good indicator of the EAWM intensity.


Nalbuphine (0.3 mgkg−1) and buprenorphine (2.5 μgkg−1) were compared as part of a total intravenous anaesthesia regimen using a propofol infusion in 60 patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy in a randomised double‐blind study. Changes in haemodynamic variables greater than 20% from the baseline were noted. No difference was observed in blood pressure but the heart rate was significantly lower in the buprenorphine group. Intra‐operative bradycardia (heart rate < 60 beatmin−1) occurred more often in the buprenorphine group. Recovery was fast and comparable with both drugs and no patient reported awareness. Quality of analgesia was similar in both groups. Both drugs provide suitable analgesic supplementation to total intravenous anaesthesia.


Person Re-identification (ReID) is an important yet challenging task in computer vision. Due to the diverse background clutters, variations on viewpoints and body poses, it is far from solved. How to extract discriminative and robust features invariant to background clutters is the core problem. In this paper, we first introduce the binary segmentation masks to construct synthetic RGB-Mask pairs as inputs, then we design a mask-guided contrastive attention model (MGCAM) to learn features separately from the body and background regions. Moreover, we propose a novel region-level triplet loss to restrain the features learnt from different regions, i.e., pulling the features from the full image and body region close, whereas pushing the features from backgrounds away. We may be the first one to successfully introduce the binary mask into person ReID task and the first one to propose region-level contrastive learning. We evaluate the proposed method on three public datasets, including MARS, Market-1501 and CUHK03. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed method is effective and achieves the state-of-the-art results. Mask and code will be released upon request.


Objectives This study aims to investigate the presence of Demodex species in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, to identify the risk factors for developing Demodex infestation, and to determine the effect of immunosuppressant drugs on Demodex mite infestations. Patients and methods The study included 93 RA patients (16 males, 77 females; mean age 53.3±11.3 years; range, 27 to 83 years) and 76 healthy controls (19 males, 57 females; mean age 50.3±13.9 years; range, 19 to 86 years). Specimens were collected from face skin by using standardized sur- face skin biopsy. Demodex infestation was considered for ≥5 living parasites/cm2 of skin while Demodex mite presence was defined as any Demodex larvae, adults, or eggs found in the specimen. Results The frequencies of Demodex mite presence were 44% for the RA patients and 15.7% for the healthy controls (p<0.001). The rates of Demodex infestation were similar between the two groups (18.3% versus 7.9%, p=0.054). There were no statistically significant differences between the groups regarding skin type, skin care, epilation, body washing, use of a moisturizer, personal towel use, the number of residents at home, or whether there were pets at home or in proximity. Itching in eyes was higher in RA patients, but the frequency of other skin symptoms was not differ- ent from healthy controls. Logistic regression analysis indicated that the diagnosis of RA was an independent risk factor for Demodex mite presence in this study population. Disease activity and duration, use of corticosteroids, conventional disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and biological DMARDs were not effective factors on Demodex mite presence in RA patients. Conclusion Although Demodex mite presence was 3.5-fold higher in RA patients, the rate of Demodex infestation was similar to that of healthy controls.


Roughness is the main feature of the pavement surface that defines user comfort. Pavement roughness is generally defined as irregularities in the pavement surface that adversely affect ride quality, specifically user perception of the road condition. This paper highlights the limitations associated with the evaluation and implementation of the international roughness index (IRI) on urban roads. The paper focuses on (a) roughness evaluation with full-scale profilers and (b) conditions particular to urban roads—namely, traffic, intersections, and operating speeds. Given that the speed of urban networks is typically less than the 80 km/h used in the IRI quarter-car model, the implementation of the IRI model on urban roads was evaluated. Even though a given pavement surface reported a unique IRI value, user experience of the profile depended on the travel speed. This result was evidence that user perceptions of road condition are highly influenced by travel speed. The results suggested the need to develop a roughness index that captures the unique characteristics of urban roads and can estimate the road condition as perceived by users. For that reason, this research study focused on establishing thresholds for IRI on the basis of the weighted vertical acceleration parameter as an aid to assessing user perception. The proposed method allows the maximum allowable IRI value for a given road to be established on the basis of the road's operational speed. The results indicated that IRI thresholds agreed with international and local Colombian standards.


Heat dissipation in transportation of nuclear materials is strongly dependant of radiation exchanges from the external faces of the protective caisson, surrounding nuclear material packaging. However, the thermo-optical properties of the external paint, total hemispheric emissivity and solar absorbance factor, are degraded during transportations. This degradation is due to the dirtying, and does not permit to fully use high emissive and low absorbent paint.Commercial "easy-to-clean" coating has been tested on epoxy-based paint. This transparent varnish is hydrophobic and release dirt out of the treated surface.Laboratory dirtying tests with "carbon black" solution simulate penalizing dirt exposure. And different measurements (colour lightness, total hemispheric emissivity and solar absorbance factor), made before and after dirtying and cleaning steps, permit to quantify the "easy-to-clean" property of this coating.The commercial coating tested in this study does not modify the initial thermo-optical properties of the paint, and is very efficient to maintain them after dirtying and simple cleaning steps. So, the addition of this coating could be an easy way to improve the heat release during nuclear material transportations.Dirt exposure test on real caisson are in progress to confirm the conclusions of this laboratory study.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


Breast cancer is the second major cause of death and accounts for 16% of all cancer deaths worldwide. Most of the methods of detecting breast cancer are very expensive and difficult to interpret such as mammography. There are also limitations such as cumulative radiation exposure, over-diagnosis, false positives and negatives in women with a dense breast which pose certain uncertainties in high-risk population. The objective of this study is Detecting Breast Cancer Through Blood Analysis Data Using Classification Algorithms. This will serve as a complement to these expensive methods. High ranking features were extracted from the dataset. The KNN, SVM and J48 algorithms were used as the training platform to classify 116 instances. Furthermore, 10-fold cross validation and holdout procedures were used coupled with changing of random seed. The result showed that KNN algorithm has the highest and best accuracy of 89.99% and 85.21% for cross validation and holdout procedure respectively. This is followed by the J48 with 84.65% and 75.65% for the two procedures respectively. SVM had 77.58% and 68.69% respectively. Although it was also discovered that Blood Glucose level is a major determinant in detecting breast cancer, it has to be combined with other attributes to make decision as a result of other health issues like diabetes. With the result obtained, women are advised to do regular check-ups including blood analysis in order to know which of the blood components need to be worked on to prevent breast cancer based on the model generated in this study.


The Chinese first reported the Crab Nebula supernova on 1054 July 5. Ecclesiastical documents from the near east reported it in April and May of 1054. More than 33 petroglyphs made by Native Americans in the US and Mexico are consistent with sightings both before and after conjunction with the Sun on 1054 May 27. We found a petroglyph showing the new star close to Venus and the Moon, which occurred on 1054 April 12 and April 13, respectively. Collins et al., using the four historical dates, derived a light curve that is like that of a Type Ia supernova. The only remaining problem with this identification is that this supernova was near maximum light for 85 d, which is unlike the behavior of any known supernova.


This research is intended to evaluate the development of mobile multimedia based stop drug tutorial.  This tutorial as a campaign to stop drugs, that should encourage people's ability to integrate all information on mobile application. The tutorial focuses on how people understand about drugs and what to do if someone is drugs addicted.  Stopping drug tutorial is created using ADDIE instructional development method, and during the developing stage, it is done using Multimedia Development Life Cycle according to Luther. Subjects of the research are experts in education, visual communication and information technology in the preliminary testing. Evaluation was conducted using the analytic descriptive method on mobile multimedia evaluation method, and interpreted in a narrative way based on the research findings. The evaluation of mobile multimedia application uses combination of multimedia evaluation that is used by educationalist with ISO 9126 that was used by software developer. The research findings show that mobile multimedia stop drugs application can be used with minor revision.


— Rapid advances in information technologies have led to the generation of massive data sets, especially in life science and biomedical informatics. These data sets are valuable assets and in great needs to be analyzed. However, there is a shortage of workforce for big data analysis. Education innovations are required to empower students with the skills and technologies for large dataset analysis. Over the last few years, there is a high demand for new programs in data science and analytics (DSA). We has performed a systematic study of the existing DSA programs in the US by checking the detailed information about the degree programs, the program competencies, the curriculum designs, the expected learning outcomes, program sizes, professional careers, and other related information. There are more than 70 DSA programs offered in the US. This study provides guidance on DSA related program development and curriculum design. It also provides the potential trainees in DSA with the current market needs and the required knowledge for their future career.


The report provides a literature review on the topic of estimation of demand and supply elasticities. To this end, it starts the discussion by summarizing the main facets of production theory and consumer theory to introduce the concept of elasticities, with examples of different types of elasticities most utilized in the literature. Next, it discusses the identification problem in estimating elasticities, i.e. the issue of having to solve for unique values of the parameters of the structural model from the values of the parameters of the reduced form of the model. It summarizes various methodologies employed in the literature to solve this problem and gives practical examples. These solutions include, but are not limited to, using instrumental variables, adopting a recursive structure, holding demand constant, and imposing inequality constraints in order to restrict the domain of estimates.


ABSTRACT Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency is the most common enzyme deficiency worldwide including Malaysia. Screening of cord blood for partial G6PD deficiency is important as they are also prone to develop acute haemolysis. In this study, we determined the prevalence of partial G6PD deficient in paediatric population aged 1 month-12 years and normal term female neonates using OSMMR-D kit with haemoglobin (Hb) normalization and compare it with florescence spot test (FST). A total of 236 children, aged between between 1 month-12 years and 614 normal term female neonates were recruited for this study. Determination of normal means for G6PD activity and; cut-off points for partial and severe deficiency were determined according to WHO Working Group (1989). Determination of prevalence for partial deficiency for both groups (female patient) was done using this enzyme assay kit and findings were compared with FST. In this study, 15.7% (18/115) female children were classified as partial G6PD deficient by quantitative enzyme method (G6PD activity: 4.23-5.26U/gHb). However, FST only detected 0.9% (1/115) with minimal G6PD activity. The prevalence of partial G6PD deficiency in female neonate group was 3.42% (21/614) by enzyme assay versus 0.49% (3/614) by FST. This study concluded that our routine screening method using FST was unable to diagnose female heterozygotes. We recommend using this quantitative enzyme assay method by OSMMR-D kit since it was more sensitive in detecting G6PD deficiency in female neonates compared to FST.


A simple approach to the realisation of a differential Colpitts oscillator is to connect the grounded capacitor in the feedback network of two single-ended Colpitts oscillators together in series. As the output signals are expected to be differential, it is proved in this Letter that, this is not always the case. In certain circumstances, this topology exhibits a common-mode output signal, or even worse, a combination between differential-mode and common-mode waveforms. Design criteria for avoiding these undesirable oscillating behaviours are derived by considering the start-up characteristic of the oscillator.


In this study, fly ash was obtained from Matla power station and the physicochemical properties investigated. The fly ash was characterized by x-ray fluorescence, x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Surface area, particle size, ash and carbon contents, pH, and point of zero charge were also measured. The results showed that the fly ash is alkaline and consists mainly of mullite (Al6Si2O13) and quartz (SiO2). Highly toxic metals As, Sb, Cd, Cr, and Pb as well as metals that are essential to health in trace amounts were also present. The storage and disposal of coal fly ash can thus lead to the release of leached metals into soils, surface and ground waters, find way into the ecological systems and then cause harmful effect to man and its environments.


The presence of a flaw or crack near a bolt-loaded hole can significantly reduce the strength of a mechanical joint. Stress intensity factors of mixed-mode cracks emanating from a bolt-loaded hole in a loaded finite composite are evaluated here using the finite element method. Both a horizontal crack adjacent to the bolt and a vertical crack beneath the bolt of a mechanical joint are studied. Linear elastic fracture mechanics is used, and the bolt is assumed to be rigid. The contact stresses are evaluated rather than assumed. Effects of friction, both clearance, geometric nonlinearity between the bolt and the composite, variations in geometry (end distance, crack length, and edge distance), and material properties are accommodated. The magnitudes of the stress intensity factors are found to be highly influenced by variations in the material properties, crack length, and in-plane geometry.


Aim: Burnout amongst doctors negatively effects recruitment and retention, effectiveness and efficiency of health systems, and ultimately, patient-care. The aim of this study is to fill the gap in published data concerning burnout among primary care district hospital doctors practicing in one rural area in South Africa.

 Methods: A validated questionnaire (Maslach Burnout Inventory) was sent to 42 doctors in 7 district hospitals in early 2013.

 Results: Response rate was 85.7%. Clinically significant burnout was found in 81% of respondents. Family physicians had significantly lower burnout levels than non-specialist colleagues (p=0.01).

 Conclusion: This study demonstrates high burnout rates, most importantly threatening the quality of patient care. Recommendations are made.


As interactive application software such as apps, installations, and multimedia presentations have become pervasive in everyday life, more and more computer scientists, engineers, and technology experts acknowledge the influence that exists beyond visual explanations.Computational Solutions for Knowledge, Art, and Entertainment: Information Exchange Beyond Text focuses on the methods of depicting knowledge-based concepts in order to assert power beyond a visual explanation of scientific and computational notions. This book combines formal descriptions with graphical presentations and encourages readers to interact by creating visual solutions for science-related concepts and presenting data. This reference is essential for researchers, computer scientists, and academics focusing on the integration of science, technology, computing, art, and mathematics for visual problem solving.


Guidance Regarding Methods for De-identification of Protected Health Information in Accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule This page provides guidance about methods and approaches to achieve de-identification in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Rule. The guidance explains and answers questions regarding the two methods that can be used to satisfy the Privacy Rule's de-identification standard: Expert Determination and Safe Harbor . This guidance is intended to assist covered entities to understand what is de-identification, the general process by which de-identified information is created, and the options available for performing de-identification.


We apply the previously proposed continuous distance transform neural network (CDTNN) to effectively represent the 3-D endocardial (inner) and epicardial (outer) contours and track the motion of the left ventricle (principal pumping chamber) of the heart from ultrasound images. This CDTNN has many good properties as the conventional distance transforms which are suitable for 3-D object representation and deformation estimation. In addition, this continuous and differentiable representation is parametric so that very low memory storage is needed. We have successfully represented the 3-D epicardial and endocardial walls of the left ventricle of the heart using CDTNNs based on 7.5% to 25% of manually traced training data. The absolute error measured compares favorably with the human interobserver variability reported for analyzing distances.


We investigate a joint user association and interference management problem in two-tier downlink heterogeneous networks where pico base stations (BSs) are densely deployed in areas of high traffic demand. We employ macro almost blanking subframes (ABSs) to mitigate cross-tier interference. To manage co-tier interference among picocells, we introduce pico operation mode (POM): During each POM, a distinct subset of picocells serve users simultaneously; different POMs operate at different times at different durations. We formulate the problem as maximizing the network utility under proportional fairness with the optimization over user association and resource partitioning (RP) (including the macro ABS and the amount of time allocated to each POM). As an exhaustive search over all possible POMs in the optimization may become computationally infeasible, we propose a method of preselecting favorable POMs to reduce the dimension of the optimization. With the selected POMs, we explicitly examine the structure of the optimal solutions and show that 1) the optimal user association is load-aware and can be determined by rate bias values of each BS, and 2) all the POMs and the macro BSs have balanced load in the sense that the ratios of the number of associated users to the allocated time are the same. Based on the analysis, an alternating algorithm is developed to obtain the RP and the biases. We demonstrate through numerical examples that 1) the proposed POM selection method does not incur significant performance loss, compared with the case where all possible POMs are considered; 2) the alternating algorithm provides near-optimal cell association and RP solutions; 3) by applying the proposed framework, significant network performance improvement can be achieved with dense pico deployments, compared with baselines without co-tier interference management and baselines with sparse pico deployments.


— Pain is an unpleasant feeling, which causes discomfort and can range from mild to chronic. It can be due to physical and emotional experience. About 80 % of adults experience low back pain (LBP) at some point in their lifetimes. The purpose of this study is to record the sEMG signals of the human back to enlighten the correct posture to be maintained to reduce pain due to the different occupations, especially in the low back region. The spine especially lumbar vertebrae are considered as major elements to diagnose the lower back problems. These lower back disorders are mainly caused due to the various dynamic stresses developed by the compression of the lumbar vertebrae. Surface electrodes were used to record EMG of lower back, in the forward and backward direction from Y-axis, placed at different positions of vertebrae of the lumber region to have a view on the stress level of muscles involved in the movement. In this paper few features of EMG signals are analyzed using MATLAB. The present work is a study on the knowledge of force/EMG relationship which is an experimental method to analyze force/stress on the lower back. The present research utilizes sEMG signals obtained from the lumbar region to establish the force/EMG relationship. In research, force/EMG relationship in different sitting postures from the sagittal plane has been studied to adopt the proper posture to avoid stress. However, it is not possible to control or overcome all the factors to reduce low back pain but one can control the occupational low back pain by maintaining proper posture and by providing adequate support to the back. This research presents a technique for general quantitative analysis of musculoskeletal impact using sEMG through the evaluation of different sitting postures from the sagittal plane to assess the lower back muscles. Experimentally, EMG activity has been measured on L3 and L5 is statistically (significantly) different at different sitting posture with and without backrest and used to determine the minimum stress levels to move in the direction of pain reduction for better efficiency.


One-hertz wind time series recorded at different levels (from 1.5–25.5 m) in an urban area are investigated by using the Fisher–Shannon (FS) analysis. FS analysis is a well-known method to gain insight into the complex behavior of nonlinear systems, by quantifying the order/disorder properties of time series. Our findings reveal that the FS complexity, defined as the product between the Fisher information measure and the Shannon entropy power, decreases with the height of the anemometer from the ground, suggesting a height-dependent variability in the order/disorder features of the high-frequency wind speed measured in urban layouts. Furthermore, the correlation between the FS complexity of wind speed and the daily variance of the ambient temperature shows a similar decrease with the height of the wind sensor. Such correlation is larger for the lower anemometers, indicating that ambient temperature is an important forcing of the wind speed variability in the vicinity of the ground.


This paper draws parallels between the emergence and development of place marketing research with the emergence of service marketing as a distinct subject area within marketing. However, the topic area itself remains confused, terms used to describe its various associated phenomena have not been clearly defined, there is little consensus what type of marketing or branding applies to places, and the literature has not resolved the differences in marketing / branding individual places and whole nations, thus leading to confusion for academics and practitioners alike. A thematic review of the literature is presented in order to reflect on the way various aspects of the literature have developed, and how this has impacted on the current debate. The confusion over the use of terms originates from the way the literature developed over time in different subject areas, but also appears to be linked to the way authors successfully target articles for publication, using terms that better align with a journal's focus rather than necessarily using the most appropriate term for the specific construct under investigation.


type="main"> This essay addresses a relatively neglected practical aspect of critical policy studies: the pressure to produce many research outputs. That pressure emanates in part from the fast-paced policy world studied by the researcher, and in part (perhaps even more significantly) from the university environment of the researcher herself. The essay highlights how the tendency towards output-driven or fast research operates and what analytical traps it engenders. My goal is to spell out, more explicitly than is commonly done, why the push toward fast research is problematic on analytical grounds and why it ought to be resisted on these same grounds. I call for slow research to underscore that context-sensitive critical investigation of a social field, such as policy, is a necessarily slow process.


Combining the conventional mechanism method with the newly developed intelligent algorithm, a hybrid model was developed for predicting the molten steel temperature in LF. The mechanism method is used to build the thermal model by analyzing the energy going into and out of the molten steel during the LF refining production process. It is hard to calculate the coefficients in the thermal model by mechanism method, so they are estimated by experience traditionally. In this paper, a new ensemble ELM algorithm using the modified AdaBoost.RT is proposed to calculate these coefficients. The new hybrid model overcomes the difficulty of obtaining the coefficients in thermal model, and solves the problem of limited prediction precision using "black box" model. The experiment demonstrates that the new hybrid model can improve generalization performance and the prediction accuracy.


During its last term, the Supreme Court reaffirmed its approval of mandatory arbitration in Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams and Green Tree Financial Corp.-Alabama v. Randolph. The 5-4 votes in these decisions show, however, that this public policy remains controversial. Many firms now require employees to waive their right to sue on employment claims, and submit to the employer's exclusively selected arbitration procedures. Some of these agreements also require employees to pay large sums for arbitrator fees and other forum costs. Having no recourse to sue, these workers are denied access to any dispute resolution forum because they cannot afford arbitration. Courts have begun to scrutinize these barriers only recently. Our Article presents the first empirical research on court enforcement of mandatory arbitration agreements that shift some or all forum and representation costs to employees. Analyzing 62 of these federal court decisionsA¢â'¬â€œ most of which were decided since 1999A¢â'¬â€œ we find that district courts ordered arbitration in 77 percent of cases in which employees objected that arbitration was too costly to be an accessible forum. Only 50 percent of appellate decisions ordered arbitration. These results suggest that even though there is a strong federal policy favoring arbitration of employment disputes, courts do not automatically preclude lawsuits. In particular, if a mandatory arbitration agreement creates a cost barrier to a private dispute resolution process, some courts void the entire agreement or rescind the cost-shifting provision. We observe some preliminary empirical patterns among circuit courts. Counting appellate and district decisions equally in each circuit, the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and D.C. Circuits favored arbitration over litigation when cost was asserted as an argument against enforcement of these agreements. In contrast, the First, Sixth, and Tenth Circuits often denied arbitration in cost-challenge cases, thereby clearing the way for employment discrimination lawsuits. The Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits had a more split pattern of ordering arbitration. These conflicting trends reflect emerging doctrinal differences. The forum substitution theory holds that employees cannot be compelled to pay more than court filing feesA¢â'¬â€œ a nominal sum. In sharp contrast, there is the comparative cost doctrine. By this view, employees can be required to pay thousands of dollars in arbitration costs. Judges who endorse this theory compare these expenditures to fully litigated disputes, which average about $50,000 in total costs. Precedents are in place to institutionalize these competing doctrines. A January 15, 2002 decision [E.E.O.C. v. Waffle House, Inc.] created a narrow exception to the pro-arbitration rulings in Circuit City and Green Tree, but failed to resolve the developing conflict among the circuits concerning cost-shifting. Thus, a future Supreme Court may need to clarify these fundamental differences in ADR perspectives. And judging from the bitter and frustrated tone in Justice Stevens' Circuit City dissent, we believe that four Justices await the opportunity to right some of the wrongs they perceive in mandatory employment arbitration. Our Article also provides important insights to practitioners who draft, implement, or resolve workplace disputes under mandatory arbitration agreements.


Failure to consider interactions in the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus can lead to unintended outcomes. In Pakistan, research has suggested that agricultural residues are a viable alternative renewable energy source to address the persistent energy shortfalls and reliance on imported diesel and heavy fuel oil. However, these studies assess the viability from a broad scale and do not adequately account for nexus interactions. For example, a quarter of irrigated land in Pakistan is salt-affected, adversely impacting crop (and residue) yields. Failure to consider climate change impacts on water availability and agricultural productivity also increases uncertainty. Finally, the effects of socioeconomic feedbacks and water management policies are not understood.  To address these challenges, this research applies a coupled physically-based (SAYSMOD), and group (stakeholder) built system dynamics model (P-GBSDM) of the agricultural system in the lower Rechna Doab, Pakistan, to assess the sub-regional viability of residue-based energy production in salt-affected and non-salt-affected lands. The modelled area (750 km2) is within a district found highly suitable for residue-based energy. The P-GBSDM, developed by Inam et al. (2017), captures the socioeconomic and spatially-distributed environmental feedbacks related to agricultural productivity, hydrological parameters and farmer's livelihood indicators. The P-GBSDM is amended for this research to estimate crop residue yield and potential energy production and feedbacks related to farmer income (from selling residues) and crop residue removal. The model is simulated for the years 2000-2030 under different climate change scenarios and stakeholder-suggested salinity management practices. Crop (and residue) yield, equivalent collection radius, farmer income, and soil salinity are used to evaluate the residue-based energy production in this area. Results are compared to literature values. Preliminary results suggest that estimates that do not consider the WEF nexus overestimate residue-based energy generation's potential.


We are interested in creating opportunities for students to practice applying their knowledge of science in a way which encourages them to solve the kinds of problems faced by experimental scientists. We accept Bodner's distinction between an 'exercise' (which can be solved by a familiar approach) and a 'problem' (which involves "doing something when you don't know what to do"). Our goal is to create situations which are sufficiently clearly defined for solutions to be obtained, but which can be approached in different ways and which may even have different solutions. Much of our work is suitable for biochemists, and some of it has been specifically developed for biochemists; in this paper we will concentrate on the latter. Not all our work is ITbased. For example, we are enthusiastic about the value of original scientific papers in providing a context for discussions of the design and interpretation of scientific investigations. One of the papers we have used successfully deals explicitly with a study of enzyme catalysis5. Other exercises designed to exercise the skills of thinking are collected in a recent book. However, in this paper, we will confine ourselves to the description and discussion of computer based exercises. Our computer based materials suitable for biochemists are listed in Table 1. They were developed as part of the eLABorate project9.


Xylanase was immobilized with physical adsorption method by using kaolin. Immobilization is conducted in order to increase efficiency of enzyme utilization so that it can be used repeatedly. The objective of this research is to determine agitation time and optimum xilanase concentration. This research consisted two treatments which agitation time of (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) hours and enzyme concentrations of (0.157 0.209, 0.261, 0.314, 0.366) mg/mL. Free xylanase was 0.366 mg/mL with activity 8.449 unit. The result showed that the optimum condition of immobilized xylanase on kaolin was obtained at 3 hours agitation with total adsorbed xylanase 4,74 mg/g resalting in xylanase actitity of 10.074 unit. Whereas the optimum xylanase concentration was 0.261 ppm yielding in xylanase activity of 14.336 unit.


This study analyzes the impact of farm size on productivity for rice producers in Bangladesh with a particular focus on a threshold effect of farm size. Using rich survey data for 960 rice farm households spread over 64 villages collected in 2008, total factor productivity measures for both Aman and Boro seasons are estimated using Data Envelopment Analysis. The estimates of productivity scores are further regressed on farm specific variables using Hansen's (1996, 1999) threshold estimation procedures. The estimation results of a linear threshold technical efficiency equation confirm that 1) there are two thresholds that pertain the 960 Boro farm households into three possible categories and one threshold for the 465 Aman farm households, 2) farm size and productivity are positively related, with the exception of farms that hold more than 1 ha for the Boro season, and 3) factors that affect the rice productivity vary across farm size categories. Among the small farms (below 0.33~0.35 ha), the larger their farm size, the higher their productivity. Land fragmentation has an adverse effect on improving productivity, except for the large farms (above 1 ha). Policy adjustments related to land reform, aiming at small farms, would have the potential to increase rice production, as well as to fulfill their needs to sustain livelihood in Bangladesh.


In order to reduce the influence of environmental temperature changes, the drive part mixed control strategy of PI and based on output feedback is presented in this paper. Firstly, the mathematic model of thermal drive-parts was established by experiments and conservation law of energy. Then the controller based on output feedback was designed .At last the PI controller using predicting model to reduce the influence of controller was designed. AAAAA show that 136 nm control precision was obtained by PI control and 20 nm control precision was obtained by the combination method of PI and control with environmental temperature change of 6°C AAAAAAA .


BACKGROUND: Percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP) is a common surgical method for the treatment of thoracolumbar compression fractures. Currently, no biomechanical analysis has been performed examining the effects of cement distribution and positioning on the overall thoracolumbar range of motion (ROM) and the stress applied to adjacent endplates.METHODS: A model of PVP following vertebral compression fracture was established based on computed tomography data. Cement was injected into the T12 vertebral body. Depending on the location of the injection site, the model was divided into a median cement model, a left cement model, an upper-left cement model, and a lower-left cement model. The postoperative thoracolumbar ROM and biomechanical changes to the adjacent endplates were analyzed.RESULTS: After cement injection, the overall ROM for the thoracolumbar region increased compared with that before cement injection. The maximum ROM of flexion was 9.28° for the left model; the maximum ROM of extension was 10.90° for the upper-left model; the maximum left and right rotations were 8.47° and 8.52°, respectively, for the left model; the maximum left bending was 13.10° for the left model; and the maximum right bending was 13.43° for the left model. The stress applied to the adjacent vertebral endplate in the median cement model increased compared with the intact model, and the von Mises stress (VMS) value changed with different cement positions.CONCLUSION: After cement injection, the overall stress value of the endplate adjacent to the vertebral body increased, and when the position of the cement shifts, the maximum VMS increased further for some positions, and the stress value for the endplate adjacent to the vertebral body increased, which may cause fractures in the relative position.


Background Retinol Binding Protein 4 (RBP4) is an exciting new biomarker for the determination of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. It is known that circulating RBP4 resides in multiple variants which may provide enhanced clinical utility, but conventional immunoassay methods are blind to such differences. A Mass Spectrometric immunoassay (MSIA) technology that can quantitate total RBP4 as well as individual isoforms may provide an enhanced analysis for this biomarker. Methods RBP4 was isolated and detected from 0.5 uL of human plasma using MSIA technology, for the simultaneous quantification and differentiation of endogenous human RBP4 and its variants. Results The linear range of the assay was 7.81–500 ug/mL, and the limit of detection and limit of quantification were 3.36 ug/mL and 6.52 ug/mL, respectively. The intra-assay CVs were determined to be 5.1% and the inter-assay CVs were 9.6%. The percent recovery of the RBP4-MSIA ranged from 95 – 105%. Method comparison of the RBP4 MSIA vs the Immun Diagnostik ELISA yielded a Passing & Bablok fit of MSIA  = 1.05× ELISA – 3.09, while the Cusum linearity p-value was >0.1 and the mean bias determined by the Altman Bland test was 1.2%. Conclusion The novel RBP4 MSIA provided a fast, accurate and precise quantitative protein measurement as compared to the standard commercially available ELISA. Moreover, this method also allowed for the detection of RBP4 variants that are present in each sample, which may in the future provide a new dimension in the clinical utility of this biomarker.


Purpose of the study: This study aims to investigate the opportunistic behavior of local government heads in Indonesia using discretionary spending (grant spending, social assistance, and financial assistance) to win an election.
Methodology: The study uses logistic regression on 133 samples of district/municipal governments in Indonesia prior to the election period.
Main findings: The study finds no evidence that the average proportion and growth of discretionary expenditure affects the electability of incumbents in Indonesia's local government head elections. That is, the use of discretionary spending is not sufficiently effective to attract sympathy from voters.
Applications of the study: The results of the study provide inputs, especially for incumbents, to help focus more on performance, as it is proven that it leads to a higher probability of being re-elected, rather than the use of discretionary spending as an election-winning strategy. Government and NGOs should inform voters to be more cautious about the opportunistic behavior of their leaders.
Novelty/originality of the study: Although some previous studies have examined the use of discretionary spending by incumbents, there has been little research, which provides evidence that such spending for political purposes can in fact help to win elections.