One of the major challenges for a ship sailing in Arctic waters is ice aggregation. Atmospheric water or sea spray that comes into contact with the cold railing, equipment and superstructure deposits ice on the exposed surfaces. This ice can build up over time to such an extend, that the weight of the ice can severely impair the ships stability, even lead to capsizing. To prevent such accidents, the IMO Polar Code for ships operating in Arctic areas requires countermeasures against icing. Ulmatec Pyro has developed a "double pipe system" that makes use of waste heat, recovered from the ships propulsion and energy system.
 The main objective of this research project has been to investigate the behavior of anti-icing and de-icing for pipe structures to provide design rules and operational guidelines for such systems.
 Pipe systems have been studied using both numerical and experimental methods. First a simple 1D pipe system, simulating the steady heat transfer with a finite difference method, was implemented. The purpose of this model is was to be able to quickly study design variations. Next, a more advanced 3D axis-symmetric heat flow model was simulated, using a commercial transient finite element solver. The results of the advanced model was used to evaluate the simple model. Subsequently these simulation tools were used to support the design decisions for the experimental setup. To get the IMO approval for the double pipe system, the experiments were conducted at the site of the classification society. The experimental setup was used to validate the simulation model, and furthermore as a design verification lab for Ulmatec Pyro.
 A comparison of the results between both numerical simulation models and experiments show a good correlation. In addition, the experiments provide a valuable insight into the icing- and anti-icing processes. Specifically, a better understanding of the complex ice melting process.


(IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months. Internet-Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is not appropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as a "working draft" or "work in progress". To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the 1id-abstracts.txt listing contained in the Internet-Drafts Shadow Directories on ds.internic.net (US East Coast), nic.nordu.net (Europe), ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast), or munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim). 1. Abstract STD 11, RFC 822, defines a message representation protocol specifying considerable detail about US-ASCII message headers, and leaves the message content, or message body, as flat US-ASCII text. This set of documents, collectively called the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, or MIME, redefines the format of messages to allow for (1) textual message bodies in character sets other than US-ASCII, (2) non-textual message bodies, (3) multi-part message bodies, and (4) textual header information in character sets other than US-ASCII. These documents are based on earlier work documented in RFC 934, STD 11, and RFC 1049, but extends and revises them. Because RFC 822 said so little about message bodies, these documents are largely orthogonal to (rather than a revision of) RFC 822. In particular, these documents are designed to provide facilities to include multiple parts in a single message, to represent body and header text in character sets other than US-ASCII, to represent formatted multi-font text messages, to represent non-textual material such as images and audio clips, and generally to facilitate later extensions defining new types of Internet mail for use by cooperating mail agents. The initial document in this set, RFC MIME-IMB, specifies the various headers used to describe the structure of MIME messages. The second document defines the general structure of the MIME media typing system and defines an initial set of media types. The third document, RFC MIME-HEADERS, describes extensions to RFC 822 to allow non-US-ASCII text data in Internet mail header fields. The fourth document, RFC MIME-REG, specifies various IANA registration procedures for MIME-related facilities. This fifth and final document describes MIME conformance criteria as well as providing some illustrative examples of MIME message formats, acknowledgements, and the bibliography. The first and second documents in this set defined MIME header field and the initial set …


Objectives: Study aimed at evaluating the impacts of HAART on retinal blood flow of a symptomatic HAART - experienced HIV-infected underfive children. Method: Ethical approval and patient consents were obtained before commencement of the study in the selected hospitals. Thirty asymptomatic HAARTexperienced HIV-infected children and three seronegative children aged 0-5 year-old fulfilled conditions for ocular ultrasonography among 60 convenience sampled under-fives. Ocular ultrasonography was done on the patients in supine position with eyes closed as instructed by the radiologist. Maximum velocity (Vmax), pulsatility index (PI), resistive index (RI), optic nerve diameter, lens thickness and axial diameter were measured. Results of HAART-experienced children were not compared with the control children because of unequal size. Data were analysed by using ANOVA and level of significance was considered at p<0.05.  Results: Vmax of blood flow in central retinal artery (CRA) of asymptomatic HAART - experienced HIV infected children was 12.2cm/s while that of seronegative children was 13.4 cm/s. The PI and RI of blood flow in CRA of asymptomatic HAARTexperienced HIV-infected children were 0.8 and 0.5 respectively while those of the seronegative children were 0.6 and 0.4 respectively. Reduced Vmax of blood flow of CRA was significantly associated with both increased PI and RI of asymptomatic HAARTexperienced HIV-infected underfive children. Discussion: Vmax of CRA of asymptomatic HAART-experienced HIV-infected children was reduced because of their increased PI and RI suggesting an increased resistance to blood flow in asymptomatic HAART experienced HIVinfected children. Conclusion: Reduced Vmax of blood flow to CRA was significantly associated with increased PI and RI of asymptomatic HAARTexperienced HIV-infected children. Keywords: Ophthalmic artery, Central retina artery, maximum velocity, Seropositive children, HAART


Limited liability has been known in Europe since at least the twelfth century, and appeared later in England and throughout the remainder of the developed world. Limited liability can be achieved by private contractual arrangements, by the use of limited liability forms of enterprise, by other statutory limits on liability, and by bankruptcy. The principal advantage of limited liability is in encouraging investment by passive investors in risky enterprises, particularly where these investors are poor monitors of managers. Joint and several liability is a particular deterrent to investment by wealthy investors, who are likely to bear all of the costs of judgment. Pro rata liability shifts collection costs from wealthy investors who must seek contribution from other investors to judgment creditors, who must collect from all investors if they are to recover the entire judgment.


In this article, I examine the quandaries of knowledge reproduction and preservation raised by the Henry C. Toll Collection of sketches, curated at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, depicting the religious ceremonies of 18 Pueblo tribes. The collection provides unique insight into the interrelationships between power and image making, intellectual property and secrecy, and museum practices in an age of ethical engagement with descendant communities. I explore these themes in the context of the Pueblos' historical struggle to control images, the Toll Collection's formation, and ethnographic interviews with Acoma, Hopi, Laguna, and Zuni cultural leaders.


AbstractMalignant ascites (MA) is most commonly observed in patients scheduled for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) surgery and is supposed as a major risk factor promoting perioperative hemodynamic deterioration. We aimed to assess the hemodynamic consequences of MA on systemic circulation in patients undergoing cytoreductive EOC surgery.This study is a predefined post-hoc analysis of a randomized controlled pilot trial comparing intravenous solutions within a goal-directed algorithm to optimize hemodynamic therapy in patients undergoing cytoreductive EOC surgery. Ascites was used to stratify the EOC patients prior to randomization in the main study. We analyzed 2 groups according to the amount of ascites (NLAS: none or low ascites [<500 mL] vs HAS: high ascites group [>500 mL]). Differences in hemodynamic variables with respect to time were analyzed using nonparametric analysis for longitudinal data and multivariate generalized estimating equation adjusting the analysis for the randomized study groups of the main study.A total of 31 patients in the NLAS and 16 patients in the HAS group were analyzed. Although cardiac output was not different between groups suggesting a similar circulatory blood flow, the HAS group revealed higher heart rates and lower stroke volumes during surgery. There were no differences in pressure-based hemodynamic variables. In the HAS group, fluid demands, reflected by the time to reindication of a fluid challenge after preload optimization, increased steadily, whereas stroke volume could not be maintained at baseline resulting in hemodynamic instability after 1.5 h of surgery. In contrast, in the NLAS group fluid demands were stable and stroke volume could be maintained during surgery. Clinically relevant associations of the type of fluid replacement with hemodynamic consequences were particularly observed in the HAS group, in which transfusion of fresh frozen plasma (FFP) was associated to an improved circulatory flow and reduced vasopressor and fluid demands, whereas the administration of artificial infusion solutions was related to opposite effects.Malignant ascites >500 mL implies increased fluid demands and substantial alterations in circulatory blood flow during cancer surgery. Fresh frozen plasma transfusion promotes recovering hemodynamic stability in patients with malignant ascites >500 mL, in whom artificial infusion solutions could not prevent from hemodynamic deterioration.


Non-attendance at paediatric outpatient appointments results in delayed diagnosis and treatment, putting children at risk of avoidable ill health, and incurring considerable health service costs. Links between missed appointments and clinical, socio-demographic, and access-related factors have been indicated, but parental cognitions associated with non-attendance have yet to be investigated. The aims of this project were to evaluate the effectiveness and theoretical bases of existing interventions designed to reduce non-attendance; to consider the ways in which missed appointments are managed by healthcare providers; to explore parents' beliefs and experiences of attending and missing appointments; and to investigate the factors underlying these beliefs. A systematic literature review focusing on non-attendance interventions was conducted Within a mixed methods framework, interviews were conducted with healthcare professionals, subsequent interviews were conducted with parents who had attended or missed a General Paediatric outpatient appointment, and a cross-sectional questionnaire study of parents' beliefs was implemented. The systematic review revealed that text message appointment reminders are effective at reducing non-attendance rates, but that no interventions have thus far been developed using theories of behaviour. Healthcare professionals recognised both barriers and parents' beliefs as influences on attendance, but also believed there were 'types' of families who miss appointments. Healthcare professionals disagreed somewhat about how non-attendance should best be managed. The parent interview study found six themes. The findings reflect parents' perceptions about the importance of attending and of their ability to attend. The results of the questionnaire study corroborate this structure of beliefs as the analysis produced two factors, the perceived 'worth' of attending and anticipated 'worry' when attending. This thesis demonstrates an original approach to investigating non-attendance at children's outpatient appointments, using mixed methods and adopting a psychological rather than service-use perspective. The findings contribute to Health Psychology theory and offer recommendations for healthcare providers.


A quiet revolution has been taking place in the geophysical community. Assisted by better measurements and faster processing, seismic data have become an essential tool for reservoir management. Using seismic to monitor the behavior of reservoirs in production is not a new concept, but it has taken some time to evolve from a theoretical principle to a practical necessity. By developing the ability to perform highly accurate time-lapse seismic surveys, production geophysicists have been able to observe and quantify changes in the seismic data that can only be the result of fluid movement within the reservoir. This provides a heretofore unavailable macro-image of the reservoir's behavior over time that can be used to calibrate sophisticated numerical simulators, long used by reservoir engineers to predict performance.


There is no quarrel that prevention is preferable for fighting cancer compared to treating the disease in a late stage. Prevention studies, however, can be difficult and challenging to design and to conduct due to the low incidence rate, long process of cancer development, large sample size, extended study duration, cost, and the requirement of well tolerated or little toxicity of the chemopreventive agents. In the past 30 years, much effort has been devoted to chemoprevention in breast, colon, head/neck, lung, skin, and prostate cancers, etc. An overview of the successes and failures of the chemoprevention trials will be given. In order to do better, we must make improvements in the following areas: (1) Identify high risk individuals. Individual cancer risk models are available in breast and lung cancers for example but need to be refined. (2) Focus on subjects with premalignant lesions or intra-epithelial neoplasm as they are ideal candidates for prevention trials. (3) Identify subjects with molecular targets. For targeted agent trials, selecting subjects most likely to respond based on the agent's mechanism of action can dramatically increase the study efficiency. (4) Identify and validate the intermediate or surrogate endpoints for cancer development. (5) Apply efficient and flexible designs such that correct answers can be reached with a smaller number of patients in a shorter period of time. Adaptive randomization can also allow more subjects to be treated with better treatments in the trial based on cumulative information. (6) Balance the risk benefit ratio. It is evident that all treatments come with certain side effects. Seeking favorable efficacy and toxicity tradeoff is critically important for developing successful prevention strategies. More effective chemoprevention studies can be designed and implemented through the lessons learned. Citation Format: J. Jack Lee. Report card for chemoprevention trials: The good, the bad and the ugly: How can we do better? [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; 2012 Oct 16-19; Anaheim, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Prev Res 2012;5(11 Suppl):Abstract nr ED01-01.


Objective
'Burnout' among emergency healthcare workers needs focus as they make crucial life changing decisions every day and thus, their state of physical and mental wellbeing is an absolute necessity. We aimed to find the level and factors contributing to burnout among the healthcare workers in the busiest Emergency Department of Northeast India. This is the first study done in this department to assess burnout.

Method
This cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study assessed burnout of the doctors, nurses, and paramedics working in an emergency department of a busy tertiary care teaching institute. Association of demographic variables and factors influencing burnout was explored. Results were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics.

Results
Low level in emotional exhaustion, moderate level in depersonalization, and moderate level in the lack of personal accomplishment was reported by participants. Children and partner were found to be protective factors. Working hours, duration and status (permanent/contractual) of service influenced burnout.

Conclusion
Knowing the level of burnout and their determinants can help in formulating measures of improving the work environment. A healthy workforce ensures high quality of healthcare and patient satisfaction.


The impact of spot defects on the susceptibility for electrical failure of a net is analyzed. Based on this analysis, a general routing cost function is presented, in which the manufacturability of a net is taken into account in conjunction with traditional routing objectives. The new cost function, relating the process spot defects to the routing procedure has been implemented. Failure probabilities are analyzed for the benchmark layouts obtained by our routing tool using both the original cost function and the new cost function. The results show that the failure probability of a layout is significantly decreased if the spot defect mechanism is taken into account in the routing procedure, while the area of the layout is kept constant. >


Using a newly constructed dataset on German hospitals, which includes 24 process and outcome indicators of clinical quality, we test whether quality has increased in various clinical areas since the introduction of mandatory quality reports and the online publication of part of the collected quality measures. Our results suggest that process indicators of clinical quality have increased significantly in 2008 compared to 2006. In addition, the hospitals underperforming in 2006 appear to have increased their clinical quality relatively more than the other hospitals. When instead quality is measured by outcome indicators, average clinical quality is estimated to have increased for underperforming hospitals and decreased for the best performing hospitals in 2006, so that on average across all hospitals the changes in outcome indicators are insignificant for just more than half of the outcome quality measures. We further show that the best performing hospitals in 2006 in terms of outcome quality measures experienced an increase in their share of patients in 2008, thus providing indirect evidence that patients react to disclosed quality. Interestingly, the best performing hospitals in 2006 in terms of process quality measures did not experience a significant change in their share of patients in 2008, thus suggesting that patients react more to output than to process measures of quality. Finally, for the subset of hospitals who offer services in obstetrics, we find that higher competitive pressure, measured as the number of competitors in a given radius, is associated with a higher increase in quality following quality disclosure. We argue that the latter effect is unlikely to be due to selection of patients by hospitals.


Discrete track media offers many potential recording advantages over conventional continuous media in hard disk drives. In this study, we present a novel fabrication process for discrete track perpendicular magnetic media via electron beam lithography, ion milling, and the use of a protective Al sacrificial layer. Physical characterization of the media confirms the process is able to produce patterned tracks with no damage to the media. Spin stand analysis verifies the disks are flyable and capable of recording sharp transitions without any degradation in the magnetic signal


We report a case of an immunocompetent infant, with no evidence of neurological disorders, which developed clinical manifestation of recurrent crisis of choking, dysphagia, laryngeal stridor and sub costal retractions since the first day of life. Direct laryngoscopy was unremarkable. Upper gastrointestinal series showed a dilated tortuous esophagus with severe peristalsis impairment and reflux episodes till the proximal third of the esophagus. An upper gastrointestinal endoscopy showed a moderately dilated esophagus with erosive lesions in the distal esophagus. Esophageal biopsy specimens revealed CMV inclusion bodies associated to moderate inflammation and immunohistochemistry was positive for CMV early antigen. Prolonged 24 h esophageal pH metry was within normal limits . Antiviral therapy with intravenous ganciclovir was introduced and was associated with rapid improvement of the symptoms. Child gradually increased oral intake and weight gain, and there were no side effects related to therapy. Thus, the respiratory symptoms could have been a supra esophageal manifestation of a non-acid reflux disease related to the CMV esophagitis. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4021/ijcp78w


Standard skills indicators leave an information gap on workforce skill characteristics, job skill requirements, and quality of worker-job matches that prevents policymakers from making informed and timely decisions on training and education for current and future employees. Thus, there is growing interest on measures of cognitive, socio-emotional (non-cognitive), and technical skills to analyze determinants of skills formation, economic decisions and labor market outcomes. Recent work from Kenya in 2017 highlighted some of the challenges of collecting reliable and valid data for a set of commonly used skills measures. This study evaluates how well the Big 5 (B5) personality traits, commonly used to proxy for non-cognitive (or more properly socio-emotional) skills are measured in the Skills Towards Employability and Productivity (STEP) surveys using self-reported questionnaires so far applied in fifteen developing countries.


The Orchard Street Wing was originally a four-storey block, but was reduced to two storeys during the 1860s. A small outbuilding was added during the late nineteenth century, wrapping around the south-west corner. The block was further reduced to a single storey in the 1960s, and a modern steel roof fitted. The southern wall of the building was also rebuilt, and a loading bay door inserted. Most recently, between 2005 and 2009, the boiler house was demolished and its site used as a car park.
Following consultation with the Greater Manchester Archaeological Advisory Service (GMAAS), which provides planning advice for Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, it was recommended that an archaeological building investigation commensurate with and English Heritage Level 2/3-type survey would form an appropriate scheme of mitigation. In September 2011, Oxford Archaeology North
(OA North) was commissioned by Seddon Construction Ltd to carry out the required scheme of works.
Very little of the original building survived, although elements of the west and east elevations, and the party wall with the adjacent mill to the north, represented historic
fabric. The roof, floor and all internal features, however, had been removed or replaced since the 1960s, with little evidence for its former use for textile manufacturing or its associated power systems.


In this paper, a portable subcircuit for BJT is developed that incorporates self heating as well as thermal coupling effects. Our approach is to use built-in controlled sources in the simulator to model inter dependent thermal as well as electrical behavior. The great advantage of this model is the portability to a large number of general purpose electronic circuit simulators. It also eliminate need for separate thermal simulator and/or need to modify any model equation. Thermal parameters are modeled using thermal-electrical analogy. Finite difference approach is used to model the thermal grid network. This facilitates simultaneous and accurate thermal as well as electrical simulation. BJT Current mirror circuit is simulated to show the significance of the model. For discrete BJT current mirror, standard circuit simulation produces error up to 84% versus 3.8% for our model when compared to experimental results. The results obtained for integrated circuit current mirror shows the utility of electrothermal model for simulation of BJT integrated circuits where thermal coupling effect plays important role.


The subject of Climate Change is here to stay for at least the rest of the 21st century. The extent to which climate change can be expected; the importance in its determination of anthropogenic factors, relative to natural causes; its impact on world agriculture, migration patterns and economic growth; the costs involved and the best practices to mitigate the consequences, are all still subject to great controversy and remain in the realm of the speculative, in spite of specific matters where a relative consensus has been reached, and despite media efforts to show only the more alarmist view. It is this controversy that gives the name to this essay, which advertently paraphrases former United States Vice-President Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth.


iProspect is a global digital marketing agency and work primarily with search marketing. They were the first search engine marketing agency in the world when the company started up 1996 in Boston, Massachusetts, and the first in Sweden to offer services in search marketing after establishing themselves on the Swedish market the following year. iProspect can be found in the sodermalm office in south central Stockholm. They are a comprehensive agency within search and offer everything from search engine optimization and sponsored links to advertising on social media. They're goal is to lead developments in search marketing and to keep ahead of competition. To do this they must constantly challenge themselves. The market is constantly evolving and new services are offered regularly. This report describes the development of a design document for a mobile application for increased knowledge and for sharing knowledge about a new service from iProspect . The service in question, attribution, is already sold today by iProspect in markets abroad and the ambition is to do so also in Sweden as soon as there are resources in the form of "know-how". The draft design document should evolve to include their employees with increased knowledge of how attribution can be applied as a service.During the execution of this work, interviews, usability tests with prototypes and observations were made and conducted. Based on the methodology and the work process, the results have been analyzed and discussed. Hopefully the application will be of use prior the implementation process of the new service.


Significant advances have been achieved in mobile robot localization and mapping in dynamic environments, however these are mostly incapable of dealing with the physical properties of automotive radar sensors. In this paper we present an accurate and robust solution to this problem, by introducing a memory efficient cluster map representation. Our approach is validated by experiments that took place on a public parking space with pedestrians, moving cars, as well as different parking configurations to provide a challenging dynamic environment. The results prove its ability to reproducibly localize our vehicle within an error margin of below 1% with respect to ground truth using only point based radar targets. A decay process enables our map representation to support local updates.


A suitable model for analyzing rainfall data needs to take into account variation in both space and time. The method of kriging is a popular approach in spatial statistics which makes predictions for spatial data. Kalman filtering using dynamic models is often used to analyze temporal data. These approaches have been combined in a classical framework termed kriged Kalman filter (KKF) model. In the combined model, the kriging predictions dictate the optimal regression surface for incorporating spatial structure and the dynamic linear model framework is used to learn about temporal factors such as trends, autoregressive components and cyclical variations. In this article we consider a full Bayesian KKF (BKKF) model for rainfall data and its MCMC implementation. The MCMC techniques provide unified estimation of spatio-temporal effects and allow optimal predictions in time and space. The methods are illustrated with two real data examples. Using many well known validation methods we highlight the advantages of the BKKF model.


A novel acidophilic member of the phylum Actinobacteria was isolated from an acidic, metal-contaminated stream draining from an abandoned underground coal mine (Trongol mine), situated close to Curanilahue, Biobío Region, Chile. The isolate (USS-CCA1T) was demonstrated to be a heterotroph that catalysed under aerobic conditions the oxidation of ferrous iron and the reduction of ferric iron under anaerobic conditions, but not the oxidation of sulfur nor hydrogen. USS-CCA1T is a Gram-positive, motile, short rod-shaped, mesophilic bacterium with a temperature growth optimum at 30 °C (range 20-39 °C). It was categorized as an extreme acidophile growing between 1.7 and 4.5 and optimally at pH 3.0. The G+C content of the chromosomal DNA of the isolate was 74.1 mol%, which is highly related to Aciditerrimonas ferrireducens IC-180T , (the most closely related genus; 94.4 % 16S rRNA gene identity), and higher than other acidophilic actinobacteria. The isolate (USS-CCA1T) was shown to form a distinct 16S rRNA clade from characterized acidophilic actinobacteria, well separated from the genera Acidimicrobium, Ferrimicrobium, Ferrithrix, 'Acidithrix' and Aciditerrimonas. Genomic indexes (ANIb, DDH, AAI, POCP) derived from the USS-CCA1T draft genome sequence (deposited at DDBJ/ENA/GenBank under the accession WJHE00000000) support assignment of the isolate to a new species and a new genus within the Acidimicrobiaceae family. Isolate USS-CCA1T is the designated type strain of the novel species Acidiferrimicrobium australe (=DSM 106828T,=RGM 2506T).


This paper proposes a new approach to estimate the damage pattern of a notched cross-ply laminate using an embedded Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensor. The damage pattern near the notch was investigated by finite element analysis with cohesive elements for the onset and the extension of various cracks. Then, the reflection spectrum of the FBG sensor was analyzed from the strain distribution obtained in the damage analysis. Based on the above analysis, the damage pattern is optimized as an inverse problem in the damage analysis, while the spectrum shape is adopted as the objective function. In the estimation scheme, the strain distribution of the FBG sensor is calculated by the damage analysis using the damage pattern expressed by the residual strength distribution of the cohesive elements. We estimated the damage patterns of the notched cross-ply laminate from the reflection spectra obtained in the analysis and those measured in the experiment. The estimated damage patterns agreed well with those corresponding to the input spectra.


In this paper, we study an analytical approach to selecting expansion locations for retailers selling add-on products whose demand is derived from the demand of another base product. Demand for the add-on product is realized only as a supplement to the demand of the base product. In our context, either of the two products could be subject to spatial autocorrelation where demand at a given location is impacted by demand at other locations. Using data from an industrial partner selling add-on products, we build predictive models for understanding the derived demand of the add-on product and establish an optimization framework for automating expansion decisions to maximize expected sales. Interestingly, spatial autocorrelation and the complexity of the predictive model impact the complexity and the structure of the prescriptive optimization model. Our results indicate that the models formulated are highly effective in predicting add-on product sales, and that using the optimization framework built on the predictive model can result in substantial increases in expected sales over baseline policies.


The article aims to examine the cases of political impact of Italian regions in the EU in the post-Brexit period. Steps of the new "yellow-green" government, which came to power in June 2018, towards political impact on the regions balancing between right- and left-wing populist economic and social reforms are assessed. The hypothesis of the article is that despite huge differences in political, economic, and social conditions, all cases illustrate that regions of Italy will focus mostly on paradiplomatic activities rather than mutating towards protodiplomacy. Special attention will be given to the northern regions of Italy, where paradiplomacy has been developed since the beginning of the 1990s.


In order to be competitive enterprises continuously implement ICT strategies
 & architectures to improve manufacture, research, products quality, sales,
 services and costs control. All large enterprises have a local area network,
 a virtual private network, an Intranet and Internet, servers and workstations
 for operations, administration and management working together for the same
 objective: profits. The virtual enterprise and the virtual team's concepts
 are discussed in this article. This work analyzes the network architecture
 for geographically dispersed enterprises (seen as virtual enterprises) as
 support for virtual project development by virtual teams work. In addition,
 the paper presents an enterprise networks monitoring solution using open
 source software (OSS).


In the 21st century, computing and other necessary skills have become imperative for today's learners. Memorizing a book or one-way communication is incapable of fully developing all the skills required. Along with changes in the new curriculum structure in the computational science courses which are aimed to improve computational thinking skills. In Thailand, students do not have enough experience in calculation methods. Teachers must therefore provide instruction in a format that promotes computational thinking and the skills necessary for the 21st century. The sample was 400 students from public and private schools in the same amount to develop the model, which was calculated based on the population of high school students throughout Bangkok, Thailand. It was found that the current learning model was unable to develop computational thinking concepts and 21st century skills. Therefore, the researchers have the concept of developing a teaching model that focuses on problem-solving along with the use of a design thinking approach in a virtual learning environment. To enable students with no experience with computational thinking skills to develop computational thinking skills to a competent standard. The objective is to also develop other skills, which are essential skills in the 21st century at the same time.


Introduction: Unintentional paediatric poisoning remains a major public health issue worldwide. Practice of cord care varies in various places; in Nigeria methylated spirit is commonly used but no report from poisoning following its use. There is no available poisoning data from Gusau, North Western Nigeria, we report a day old neonate accidentally given methylated spirit assumed to be medication whom was managed in our hospital. Case report: Baby I.J is a-day-old male term neonate who presented with 3 hours history of ingestion of methylated spirit and 2 hours history of difficulty in breathing. He was accidentally given a bottle cap full of methylated spirit by a care giver thought to be medication in a hospital. He was managed with oxygen and antibiotics. Conclusion: Accidental ingestion of methylated spirit is uncommon, even though methylated spirit is a common household agent used for cord care and cleaning minor wounds. Caution should be taken when taking care of newborns, high index of suspicion is required when considering neonatal poisoning. Medications should not be given to newborns by any care giver unless assigned by the mother or given by health personnel.


In this paper, a spatial and time scheduling strategy, called the space-time scheduling (STS) strategy, that achieves high image resolutions in real-time systems is proposed. The proposed spatial scheduling strategy includes the ability to choose the distributed arithmetic (DA)-precision bit length, a hardware sharing architecture that reduces the hardware cost, and the proposed time scheduling strategy arranges different dimensional computations in that it can calculate first-dimensional and second-dimensional transformations simultaneously in single 1-D discrete cosine transform (DCT) core to reach a hardware utilization of 100%. The DA-precision bit length is chosen as 9 bits instead of the traditional 12 bits based on test image simulations. In addition, the proposed hardware sharing architecture employs a binary signed-digit DA architecture that enables the arithmetic resources to be shared during the four time slots. For this reason, the proposed 2-D DCT core achieves high accuracy with a small area and a high throughput rate and is verified using a TSMC 0.18-μm 1P6M CMOS process chip implementation. Measurement results show that the core has a latency of 84 clock cycles with a 52 dB peak-signal-to-noise-ratio and is operated at 167 MHz with 15.8 K gate counts.


Cardiovascular (CV) diseases continue to be the leading cause of death in Westernized nations. Considering the marked increase in the obesity epidemic that is currently underway, it is predicted that we may soon witness an abrupt end, or even a reversal, of the steady rise in life expectancy that has been occurring in the United States.1,2 This explosion in obesity and metabolic syndrome in our society will likely lead to an even further increase in the already large volume of CV disease present in the emergency department (ED).

Perhaps the most common and the most anxiety-provoking complaint in the ED is the symptom of chest pain (CP). Recognizing the potential seriousness of this symptom from a medical standpoint, including such diagnoses as acute myocardial infarction (MI), pulmonary embolism (PE), and aortic dissection (AD),3–5 as well as the potential for medical-legal consequences for both missed and even delayed diagnoses, this has necessitated the development of CP Units within EDs. This has improved and will continue to improve the efficiency of dealing with this potentially deadly, but often non-life threatening, medical symptom. Electronic technological advances have allowed specialists to quickly review echocardiogram tracings from remote locations. This along with rapid technological advances, including rapid and sensitive troponin assays, stress testing in areas adjacent to the ED or within the ED itself,6,7 short day stay units, as well as imaging technologies (e.g., the multi-slice computed tomography (CT) scan angiogram that can provide the "triple rule out" for MI, PE, and AD), all have provided very rapid and efficient care for the patient with CP in the ED. Most of these technological advances, however, come with a "cost," including the cost of providing the care as well as dealing with the consequences of testing. For example, a patient may come to the ED for a non-CV cause of CP, but eventually could get a multi-slice CT angiogram as part of the "triple rule out." In this situation, there is no evidence of PE or AD, but, as in many adult patients in this society with a very high prevalence of atherosclerosis, often one or multiple coronary stenoses may be present. Therefore, a patient who came to the ED for gastroesophageal reflux or muscular CP, for example, may end up having a stress test or a catheterization with or without a revascularization procedure for potentially non-cardiac CP. Additionally, this initial dye load can produce temporary or persistent renal insufficiency, that could be worsened further by additional dye loads (e.g., catheterization and percutaneous revascularization procedures). Obviously, considerable work is still needed to optimize these potentially life-saving (and lawsuit-saving) procedures in a safe and cost-effective manner.

Although CP and MI are probably the leading CV concerns in the ED, similar emphasis is being placed on the epidemics of heart failure (HF)1,2,8,9 and atrial fibrillation (AF).2,10,11 With proper testing and triage, many such patients can be safely discharged within hours or certainly within 24 hours of initial ED entry. Prognostic markers, such as brain natriuretic peptide measurements, help expedite the care of patients with HF, whereas patients with acute AF can often be cardioverted quickly when symptoms are less than 24–48 hours in duration or after atrial thrombus has been excluded with transesophageal echocardiography.12 In other patients, anticoagulation and rate control can also often be accomplished in 24 hours or less.

Although all of these management strategies are already in place in many EDs in the US, the next several years will likely see an explosion in such advances and further expedite the care of many patients with acute and chronic CV diseases seen in the ED.


The television tie-in forms an area of literature that is often overlooked and, despite the frequency with which the term is used, it is rarely defined in reference sources. Books of this type have yet to receive widespread critical acceptance, yet the popularity of television tie-ins among young readers has been shown to be considerable. For many commentators, such literature remains synonymous with commercially-driven program merchandise, even though the educational value of the material in encouraging reading is well established. It remains difficult to identify precisely what the tie-in term embraces and, in the case of cross-over novels that incorporate elements from different programs, questions of authenticity and faithfulness to the original television series arise. When the notion of television tie-ins was discussed in interviews with librarians, considerable variations in their opinions emerged. The authors have, however, been able to draw on both these ideas and insights from source material in order to create a framework designed to help readers understand the territory covered by the television tie-in category of literature. With regard to promoting these books in libraries, it is wise to avoid employing the tie-in term with users, unless they are given specific indications of what is intended.


Patients with airways obstruction and bronchiectasis were investigated for features of allergic disease and for reversibility of airways obstruction in respinse to inhaled and intravenous salbutamol. There was a 26% increase in PEFR and a 16% increase in FEV1 after inhaled salbutamol, and the response to the intravenous drug was not significantly better than that to the inhaled. Those patients who responded to bronchodilators could not be identified by clinical or immunological features.


Amik Plain has high geographical potential of Turkey in terms of agricultural activity. However depend on intense agricultural activity and mis land use several problems have been occurred. The main one is salinization problem. This study focuses on soil salinization problem in Reyhanli district by measurement and analyses methods. Firstly the location points of measurement have been determined based on soil types. Then the field study and measurements have been taken.  Electrical conductivity of soil has been measured on 214 locations by using a hand-held sensor device after rainy days. These measured values have been inputted in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and by using Kriging interpolation method the salinity classes of area were identified. Accordingly, in study area 10 km 2 area was determined having more than 4 mmos value. Finally the reasons of salinization have been investigated and the recommendations have been presented. Keywords: Salinization, soil, agricultural geography, GIS.


The total uptake of [3H]thymidine by the mouse parotid gland, kidney, and duodenum exhibits a circadian rhythm. A single injection of isoproterenol changes the phasing and amplitude of these rhythms. Depending on the organ, there are certain points in the circadian time structure when isoproterenol stimulates or inhibits the uptake of thymidine; at other time points there is no difference between the responses to isoproterenol and to saline.


Despite of the decreasing suicide rates, the number of suicide attempts--peculiarly in the adolescent population--shows a growing tendency. Due to the small amount of study results the problem remains hard to assess. Child and Adolescent Self harm in Europe (CASE) study, allows us to explore self-reported suicidal behavior among adolescents more exactly. This European multicentre study has a special focus on adolescent suicidal behavior (suicidal thoughts, ideation, deliberate self harm, suicide attempt) and other self destructive behavior (drug, alcohol) as well as psychopathological symptoms (anxiety, depression, impulsivity, aggression) and it also investigates coping strategies, life events and family background. In the representative school-based community study an anonymous, self-reported questionnaire were conducted with 4408 (males: 2388, females: 2020) 15 and 16 year-old pupils. Out of the 4408 pupils 7.8% (males: 4.6%, females: 11.6%) of the adolescents reported former suicide attempt, 1.6% of the boys and 3.6% of the girls reported about more than one suicide attempts. According to the statistical analysis the suicidal group greatly differs from the non-suicidal one. Suicidal adolescents were more likely to use alcohol, drugs or nicotine than their non-suicidal peers. Drug abuse was four times more common among suicidal boys, and five times more common among suicidal girls than in the non-suicidal group. 30% of the boys and 13% of the girls used more than one kind of drug. The use of ecstasy and sedatohypnotic drugs showed the most spectacular difference between suicidal and non-suicidal teenagers in both genders. Suicide attempters usually had higher scores in scales measuring anxiety, depression, impulsivity, while their self-esteem was significantly lower. The comparative analysis has revealed that suicide attempters compose a subgroup with more severe psychopathology (anxiety, depression, and impulsivity), lower self-esteem and ineffective coping strategies. Suicidal behavior frequently appeared with addictive problems. The results of our study may help in recognizing the role of risk factors coexisting with suicidal behavior and thus making it easier for schools to have adequate and effective prevention programs.


Few studies have investigated the real-life outcomes of interdisciplinary multimodal pain rehabilitation programs (IMMRP) for chronic pain. This study has four aims: investigate effect sizes (ES); analyse correlation patterns of outcome changes; define a multivariate outcome measure; and investigate whether the clinical self-reported presentation pre-IMMRP predicts the multivariate outcome. To this end, this study analysed chronic pain patients in specialist care included in the Swedish Quality Registry for Pain Rehabilitation for 22 outcomes (pain, psychological distress, participation, and health) on three occasions: pre-IMMRP, post-IMMRP, and 12-month follow-up. Moderate stable ES were demonstrated for pain intensity, interference in daily life, vitality, and health; most other outcomes showed small ES. Using a Multivariate Improvement Score (MIS), we identified three clusters. Cluster 1 had marked positive MIS and was associated with the overall worst situation pre-IMMRP. However, the pre-IMMRP situation could only predict 8% of the variation in MIS. Specialist care IMPRPs showed moderate ES for pain, interference, vitality, and health. Outcomes were best for patients with the worst clinical presentation pre-IMMRP. It was not possible to predict who would clinically benefit most from IMMRP.


Background: Avulsion of the proximal hamstring origin is well documented, and surgical treatment is advocated for complete avulsions. Purpose: To compare the return to preinjury level of sport and the complexity of surgery in athletes undergoing surgical intervention for complete proximal hamstring avulsions within 6 weeks, 6 months, and after 6 months of injury. Study Design: Case series; Level of evidence, 4. Methods: This was the largest case series from a tertiary referral center reported in the literature. A total of 112 athletes were included, with complete proximal avulsion injuries confirmed on MRI scans; 63 patients (56.3%) were high-level athletes. Patients were divided into subgroups depending on the timing of surgical intervention: "early" was defined within 6 weeks, "delayed" within 6 weeks to 6 months, and "late" after 6 months. All patients were surgically explored and repaired with the aim of comparing the timing between each group and the return to preinjury sport. All patients underwent an individualized rehabilitation protocol. There was no loss to follow-up. The primary outcome measure was the return to preinjury level sports activity. Results: A total of 108 patients (96.4%) returned to sport. In the early intervention group, the average time of return to play was 16 weeks, 9 weeks faster than the delayed group and 13 weeks faster than the late group. There were 2 partial reruptures in those with delayed intervention—both athletes retired from competitive sport but were recreationally active. Two other athletes recovered well but retired from playing at all levels. Twelve athletes (2 in the early intervention group, 5 in the delayed, 5 in the late) were delayed by local nerve symptoms. Only 2 cases required further exploration. Conclusion: Early surgical intervention was associated with good clinical outcomes and a quicker return to sport; however, delaying the diagnosis can lead to prolonged morbidity and an increased likelihood of complications.


Gut microbes make T cells keep the peace Our guts harbor trillions of microbial inhabitants, some of which regulate the types of immune cells that are present in the gut. For instance, Clostridium species of bacteria induce a type of T cell that promotes tolerance between the host and its microbial contents. Ohnmacht et al. and Sefik et al. characterized a population of gut regulatory T cells in mice, which required gut microbiota to survive. Multiple bacterial species of the microbiota could induce transcription factor–expressing regulatory T cells that helped maintain immune homeostasis. Mice engineered to lack these transcription factors exhibited enhanced susceptibility to colonic inflammation and had elevated amounts of proinflammatory molecules associated with allergies (see the Perspective by Hegazy and Powrie). Science, this issue pp. 989 and 993 Microbes resident in the gut induce an immunoregulatory population of T cells that promote immune homeostasis. [Also see Perspective by Hegazy and Powrie] T regulatory cells that express the transcription factor Foxp3 (Foxp3+ Tregs) promote tissue homeostasis in several settings. We now report that symbiotic members of the human gut microbiota induce a distinct Treg population in the mouse colon, which constrains immuno-inflammatory responses. This induction—which we find to map to a broad, but specific, array of individual bacterial species—requires the transcription factor Rorγ, paradoxically, in that Rorγ is thought to antagonize FoxP3 and to promote T helper 17 (TH17) cell differentiation. Rorγ's transcriptional footprint differs in colonic Tregs and TH17 cells and controls important effector molecules. Rorγ, and the Tregs that express it, contribute substantially to regulating colonic TH1/TH17 inflammation. Thus, the marked context-specificity of Rorγ results in very different outcomes even in closely related cell types.


Background: Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is a common endocrine disease with a variable clinical presentation. PHPT is usually symptomatic at presentation in majority of the patients, especially in developing countries. As the accessibility to investigations, advanced imaging methods and surgical procedures are improving, the clinical profile of the patients with PHPT has undergone a palpable change compared to the earlier description. Hence we decided to look for a change in clinical, imaging and surgical outcomes of PHPT patients from South India. Methods: We collected the data on clinical presentation, biochemistry, radiological features and operative findings of patients with PHPT treated in our hospital from 2011-2015. Cases of PHPT were identified from the laboratory values using the biochemical criteria, after the exclusion of secondary and tertiary hyperparathyroidism cases. Results: Our study identified 54 patients (19 males and 35 females) with age ranging from 16 to 71 years. A Significant proportion(38.9%) of the patients were asymptomatic. Musculoskeletal symptoms (40.7%), renal manifestations (27.7%) and gastrointestinal system involvement (27.7%) constituted the other common modes of presentation. CNS involvement was seen in 3 patients. A palpable nodule in the neck was detected in 4 patients. Interestingly 4 patients were managed for parathyroid crisis at presentation. Biochemical features included hypercalcaemia (100%) and hypophosphatemia (59%) with a mean intact PTH level of 602.0±721.3 pg/ml. Sensitivity of Ultrasonography and Tc99M Sestamibi was 72% and 70.6% respectively for detecting a parathyroid adenoma. Sensitivity of C11 methionine PET-CT was 71.4% in those patients who were negative for other imaging modalities. Forty three patients (79.6%) underwent minimally invasive parathyroidectomy. Conclusion: In South India we have a notable change in the clinical presentation of PHPT from a symptomatic to an asymptomatic state. C11 Methionine PET - CT is an emerging modality for preoperative localisation especially when other imaging modalities are negative and when a minimally invasive parathyroidectomy is desired.


The benefits of a unique washable and reusable absorbent bed pad (Kylie) present significant advantages over drawsheets. In a crossover study on incontinent geriatric patients, those on the new bed pads required less than half the bed changes needed by patients who were lying on drawsheets. The patients benefited by having longer periods when their skin was dry, so that the incidence of erythema was reduced. The new bed pads also demonstrated other advantages, such as less wrinkling and creasing and a reduction in the level of odour, which resulted in patients being more restful. The subsequent need for less linen meant a reduced workload for nurses and cost savings to hospitals and laundries. This bed pad represents a significant advance in the management of incontinent patients.


: Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory, this study tries to uncover and reveal the cross-level mechanisms of servant leadership's effects on thriving at work for individuals and teams, the boundary conditions and the reciprocal effects between servant leadership and subordinates. This study adopts a longitudinal design and reciprocal design and includes research methods such as literature analysis and longitudinal survey study. This study therefore aims to deepen the understandings of the mechanism of servant leadership, contribute to the understandings of the dynamic nature of leadership, expand the study of the antecedents of thriving at work, and provide guidance for various organizations to improve leadership styles, contribute to leadership effectiveness and boost employees' thriving at work. We also expect that due to this study, talents selection and training in all kinds of organizations and the overall development of people can be benefited, the positive relationship between leaders and subordinates can be established, and organizational culture and the long-term development of the organizations can be improved.


Summary form only given. The authors report on strained InGaAs-QW impurity-induced disordering (IID) lasers having self-aligned structure with very low threshold current and moderate blue-shift of the lasing wavelength. The strained InGaAs-QW material employed was grown by MOCVD. The fabrication process is described. The authors believe that IID by Si diffusion is a very attractive approach for the fabrication of strained InGaAs-QW lasers. >


Wedemonstrated TRH-inducedrelease of 7B2 (a neuroendocrine polypeptide) in vivo and in vitro (somatotroph adenoma cells) in a patient with acromegaly. The mean basal plasma 7B2 and growth hormone (GH) levels before operation were 142.8 ± 3.2 ng/1 and 52.4 ± 1.6 //g/1 (mean± SEM), respectively and these levels significantly rose after an i.v. administration of 500 fjtg of thyrotropin releasing hormone (TRH). After the transsphenoidal adenomectomy, the basal level of plasma GH was restored to the normal level and that of plasma 7B2 was slightly decreased. In addition, TRH-induced response of plasma 7B2 and GH disappeared post-operatively. In a primary culture of somatotroph adenoma cells obtained at surgery, TRHsignificantly induced secretions of both 7B2 and GH. Immunohistochemical studies showed the positive 7B2 and GH immunoreactivities in somatotroph adenomacells. These findings strongly suggest that the somatotroph adenoma cells in this case produced and released 7B2 concomitant with GH.


ABSTRACT Chemical weathering of fluorine-bearing minerals is widely accepted as the main mechanism for the release of fluorine (F) to groundwater. Here, we propose a potential mechanism of F release via microbial dissolution of fluorapatite (Ca5(PO4)3F), which has been neglected previously. Batch culture experiments were conducted at 30°C with a phosphate-solubilizing bacteria strain, Pseudomonas fluorescens P35, and rock phosphates as the sole source of phosphate for microbial growth in parallel with abiotic controls. Rock phosphates consisted of 55–91% of fluorapatite and 5–10% of dolomite before microbial dissolution as indicated by X-ray diffraction (XRD). Mineral composition and morphology changed after microbial dissolution characterized by the disappearance of dolomite and the development of etched cavities on rock phosphate surfaces. The pH of media used was approximately 7.4 at the beginning and increased gradually to 7.7 in abiotic controls; with the inoculum, the pH decreased to acidic values of 3.7–3.8 after 27 h. Phosphate, calcium, and fluoride were released from the rock phosphate to the acidified medium. At 42 h, the concentration of F reached 8.1–10.3 mg L−1. The elevated F concentration was two times higher than the F levels in groundwater in regions diagnosed with fluorosis, and was toxic to the bacteria, as demonstrated by a precipitous decrease in live cells. Geochemical modeling demonstrated that the oxidation of glucose (the carbon source for microbial growth in the medium) to gluconic acid could decrease the pH to 3.7–3.8 and result in the dissolution of fluorapatite and dolomite. Dolomite and fluorapatite remained unsaturated, while concentrations of dissolved phosphorus (P), calcium (Ca), and F increased throughout the time course Fluorite reached saturation [saturation index (SI) 0.22–0.42] after 42 h in rock phosphate–amended biotic systems. However, fluorite was not detected in XRD patterns of the final residue from microcosms. Given that phosphate-solubilizing bacteria are ubiquitous in soil and groundwater ecosystems, they could play an important role in fluorapatite dissolution and the release of F to groundwater.


This report is the final outcome of various knowledge products and training material, usually labelled as "printed eAtlas†, which have been developed and shared with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) under the Voice for Change Partnership (V4CP) programme.


Using twin pairs from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States, we estimate that 35 percent of the variance in regular smoking is due to additive genetic influences. When we disaggregate the sample by birth cohort we witness strong genetic influences on smoking for those born in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1950s, but negligible influences for those born in the 1940s and 1960s. We show that the timing of the first Surgeon General's Report coincides with an increase in the genetic influences on regular smoking, but subsequent legislation prohibiting smoking in public places has significantly reduced these influences. These results are in line with existing gene-environment interaction theory, and we argue that variation in genetic influences across cohorts makes it difficult and potentially misleading to estimate genetic effects on health behaviors from data obtained from a single point in time.


Theorists in all three major branches of deliberative theory have traditionally excluded from the concept of deliberation simple convergence to an outcome as well as any form of negotiation. In a major reformulation of the deliberative ideal, this paper argues that not only convergence but also incompletely theorized agreements, integrative negotiations, and fully cooperative distributive negotiations are valid forms of democratic deliberation. The analysis takes the absence of coercive power as the central feature of the "regulative ideal†of deliberation (a regulative ideal being a standard, admittedly impossible to achieve fully, toward which to strive). In their ideal forms, these four methods of achieving agreement do not involve coercive power. In the ideal, therefore, they are fully deliberative forms of negotiation. Democracies also need non-deliberative forms of negotiation and decision, which should be judged on other criteria, including the degree to which the parties involve exercise equal power.


Abstract. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework for modelling clustered natural hazards that makes use of historical event data as a starting point. We review a methodology for modelling clustered natural hazard processes called Poisson mixtures. This methodology is suited to the application we have in mind as it naturally models processes that yield cross-event correlation (unlike homogeneous Poisson models), has a high degree of tunability to the problem at hand and is analytically tractable. Using European windstorm data as an example, we provide evidence that the historical data show strong evidence of clustering. We then develop Poisson and Clustered simulation models for the data, demonstrating clearly the superiority of the Clustered model which we have implemented using the Poisson mixture approach. We then discuss the implications of including clustering in models of prices of catXL contracts, one of the most commonly used mechanisms for transferring risk between primary insurers and reinsurers. This paper provides a number of unique insights into the impact clustering has on modelled catXL contract prices. The simple modelling example in this paper provides a clear and insightful starting point for practitioners tackling more complex natural hazard risk problems.


This paper is the third in range presented at WCTE conferences. During the WCTE 2012 in Auckland the paper "sandwich structures with wood-based faces" [1] dealt with the behaviour of traditional sandwich panels. During the WCTE 2014 in Quebec, the paper focussed on these panels with openings for e.g. skylights [2]. In this third paper the modelling of a sandwich panel with stiffeners is analysed. This particular type of sandwich panel promises a considerably higher load bearing capacity, along with other advantages such as less brittle properties, socalled strong points in the structure itself, which allow for connections, and of course the lack of cold bridging as known from other stressed skin and stiffened panels. The paper presented here can be seen as a report on the research efforts carried out at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), in cooperation with Industry, to provide scientific and experimental background to a building component which is widely used for mainly roof structures. For this, sandwich panels with stiffeners, applied as infill panels and roof panels are analysed analytically, numerically and experimentally.


Ultrasound examination has become an important tool in the diagnosis of giant cell arteritis, revealing the suggestive hypoechoic arterial wall thickening (halo sign). Vertebral artery involvement is not unusual in giant cell arteritis, but bilateral vertebral artery occlusion secondary to this affection is a rare condition and only a few cases have been reported so far. We report a case of an 84-year-old male patient with anterior ischaemic optic neuropathy secondary to giant cell arteritis, with bilateral occlusion of the vertebral arteries manifested with nonspecific neurological signs, detected during the ultrasound scan of the cervical arteries. The rarity of this case lies in the reasonably good outcome at the three-month and six-month follow-up and the absence of temporal artery involvement, despite the severe vertebral artery affection with bilateral occlusion.


The ideal firm has been studied over several centuries, yet little is known about what makes one successful and another fail. This pioneering book brings together leading researchers investigating the concept of the firm from a neuroscientific perspective.


Plasma proteins tagged in vivo by feeding D-L-lysine-ε-C14 to donor dogs have been administered to pregnant dogs by both oral and intravenous routes. A relatively small percentage of the C14 activity originally incorporated in these proteins is found to pass from mother to fetus after intravenous injection. The amount transferred tends to increase with the length of gestation period and total number of fetuses. Plasma protein labeled with I131 does not cross the placenta in the dog, but does in the rabbit. Evans blue dye does not cross the placenta of the dog. After oral administration of labeled plasma protein or lysine, C14 is transferred promptly and in considerable quantity to the fetus. Labeled plasma proteins disappear more rapidly from the circulation of pregnant than of normal dogs. This increased metabolic turnover occurs without excretion of any excess waste metabolites. The chorionic epithelium, gram for gram, is probably 2 to 3 times as active as the hepatic epithelium in protein metabolism. These findings indicate an important placental function related to maternal and fetal protein metabolism. While the placenta utilizes maternal plasma proteins and amino acids, in a quantitative sense the latter appear to supply the major nitrogen needs of the growing fetus.


A fundamental study has been performed to examine the disintegration of oil films emerging from radial holes in a rotating hollow cylinder. The configuration investigated is an ion of one of the droplet generation sources in an aeroengine bearing compartment; similar configurations may also occur inside gearboxes. The paper aims to contribute to both the determination of directly applicable droplet characteristics and the establishment of a database that can be used for the development of droplet generation models. Similar to a prior paper on droplet generation processes at the rim of a rotating disk (Glahn, A. et al., 2000, Droplet Generation by Disintegration of Oil Films at the Rim of a Rotating Disk, ASME Paper No. 2000-GT-0279.) the near-term objectives of the study are (i) to determine droplet sizes under relevant aeroengine bearing compartment operating conditions, and (ii) to measure individual droplet diameter/velocity relationships. The long-term objective is to incorporate this information into advanced CFD-based design tools. Therefore, special emphasis has been directed towards a correlation of test results that enables determination of boundary conditions for a two-phase (oil droplets/air) simulation of lubrication system components. Based on the results of the present paper, droplet flow boundary conditions in terms of mean diameter, standard deviation of the diameter distribution, starting velocity, and flow angle are available for oil droplets generated by disintegration of oil films emerging from rotating radial holes and rotating disks.


The expression of major cytoskeletal protein mRNAs was studied in adult rat dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons after crushing either their central or peripheral branch axons. mRNA levels in DRG neurons were examined by quantitative in situ hybridization with radiolabeled cDNA probes specific for the low-molecular-weight neurofilament protein (NF- L) and beta-tubulin. The large-sized (greater than 1000 microns 2) neurons which give rise to myelinated axons in lumbar ganglia (L4 and L5) were studied 1 d through 8 weeks after either dorsal root or sciatic nerve crush. NF-L and beta-tubulin mRNA levels in axotomized DRG neurons were compared to those in contralateral control DRG neurons, as well as to those in normal (completely untreated) DRG cells. In the case of NF-L mRNA, changes were observed after central as well as peripheral branch axotomy and the time course and magnitude of changes were similar after both types of axotomy. NF-L mRNA levels initially decreased (first 2 weeks after crush) and then began to return towards control levels at longer survival times. Similar, but less pronounced, changes in NF-L mRNA levels also occurred in contralateral DRG neurons (which were uninjured); the changes in contralateral neurons were not simply a result of surgical stress since no changes in NF-L mRNA levels were observed in sham-operated DRG neurons. In the case of tubulin mRNA, changes were observed after central as well as peripheral branch axotomy by in situ hybridization, but the time course and magnitude of changes were different after each type of axotomy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Wireless communication systems have been a part of everyday life for many decades but implemented in an industrial control system they are yet to make their big breakthrough. This is despite of the fact that wireless control systems show great promise in reducing installation costs and down time. The biggest reason why they have not already revolutionised the industry is reliability, as they are much more susceptible to delays and communication breakdowns compared to their wired counterpart.The foundation for this thesis is the following scenario. In an industry a control loop uses a wireless link between the control computer and the actuator. A forklift moving heavy equipment happens to park in a position where it is blocking the communications. This thesis suggests a solution to this problem through the implementation of two separate measures. First a Collection Tree routing Protocol (CTP) is responsible for detecting broken links and nding a disturbance free path for the packet through the network. Secondly a Kalman lter based Predictive Outage Compensator (POC) estimates the missing data when the real control signal is delayed or missing.In the implementation the Moteiv Tmote Sky was used for the network nodes and the double tank process as test bed for the POC. The results show that the CTP network is capable of routing the data through multiple hops without too much delay and that between 1 and 8 packets are lost during route changes. The POC performs on average 8% better than the more common and naive solution to simply hold the most recently received value in case of outage.


The alkyl phosphate prepared by phosphorus oxychloride and fatty alcohol contained a large amount of hydrochloric acid but no chloride. So the content of phosphate mono- and diester couldn't be determined by conventional method. In this paper the content of hydrochloric acid was determined by potentiometric titration at first, and then the conventional method can be used to detect the content of mono- and diester and phosphoric acid. In this way each component of the alkyl phosphate can be ascertained accurately. The method was verified simply and conveniently by verification test that could avoid extraction, recrystalli- zation and other cockamamie operation. It also had stronger application and good reproducibility.


Background: understanding the epidemiological characteristics of imported malaria help the workers in the field of international health as well as the decision makers to establish a comprehensive strategies for the prevention and control of imported as well as local malaria. Aim and Objectives: the study aim to describe epidemiological pattern of malaria cases in terms of seasonal variation, commonest causative parasite as well as identifying both external and internal original source of infection in Jeddah Governorate at western region of Kingdom Saudi Arabia. Methods: through a retrospective study design, all records of confirmed cases of malaria between 1998 and 2006 were obtained from the Health Directorship of the Ministry of Health and vector control department in Jeddah Province (n= 2210). Data were collected through a constructed checklist; coded and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science version 20.0 (SPSS program). Result: The epidemiological curve showed sharp decline in the number of confirmed cases starting in 1998 and continued till 2000 where the curve showed sloppier trend till 2004 then plateau at low level till 2006, the curve pointed to salient bimodal seasonal elevations on February and October. Most of the internationally imported cases in the period from 1998 to 2002 were from Sudan, in contrast with the period from 2003 to 2006 where most of the cases were imported from Yemen. Locally, most cases were imported from Gizan in the south western region of the Kingdom. Conclusion: The study illustrates that malaria prevalence in Jeddah has shown a remarkable decrease in recent years, probably due to active malaria control program. Most of internationally imported cases come from Sudan (51.6%), but starting from year 2003, cases from Yemen become more, that might be attributed to the increased number of Yemeni workers than Sudanese in the western region due to the shared borders and


Carbon sequestration in the ocean is of great concern with respect to the mitigation of global warming. How to hold the fixed organic carbon in the presence of tremendous numbers of heterotrophic microorganisms in marine environments is the central issue. We previously hypothesized that excessive nutrients would ultimately decrease the storage of organic carbon in marine environments. To test this, a series of in situ nutrient enrichment incubation experiments were conducted at a site (17.59° N, 127.00° E) within the western Pacific oligotrophic gyre. Five treatments were employed: glucose (Glu), algal exudation organic material (EOM), nitrate (N) and phosphate (P), N and P in combination with glucose and a control with no added nutrients. The results showed that the dissolved organic carbon consumption rates and bacterial community specific growth rates were enhanced by inorganic nutrient enrichment treatments during the initial 48 h incubation. At the end of 14 days of incubation, about one-third (average 3.3 μmol C kg −1 ) more organic carbon was respired in the glucose-enriched incubation with the addition of inorganic nutrients compared to that without. In contrast, when nutrients were limiting, glucose could not be efficiently used by the bacteria and thus it remained in the environment. These results suggest that repletion of inorganic nutrients could facilitate microbial consumption of organic carbon and thus has a significant impact on carbon cycling in the environment.


Among developing nations, Mozambique has set an ambitious target to achieve universal energy access by 2030 and thus meet the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 7 to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. By the end of 2024 the government expects to double domestic electricity access to 64 per cent of the population. Yet the quantitative evaluation of electricity access rates belies challenges of energy service affordability, household budgeting, and fuel and technology availability and choice. With growing concern over issues of energy poverty and energy justice for vulnerable low-income communities, this study provides an in-depth qualitative evaluation of the lived experience of energy access and energy poverty in urban Mozambique, through household interviews in the four biggest cities in the country. There are three main findings. First, we find qualitative indicators of energy wellbeing in urban households, however this energy wellbeing is divided politically – with energy service benefits felt most strongly in municipalities governed by the dominant party: Frelimo. Second, sustainable energy transitions in urban households are limited by the low uptake of renewable energy sources. Third, despite the majority having grid-connected electricity access, many urban households continue to use non-renewable fuels (gas and charcoal) for cooking and view renewable sources, such as solar panels, as a short-term energy fix. We argue therefore that greater policy emphasis upon small-scale renewable energy investment, uptake and implementation in urban localities is needed to spur action on sustainable energy poverty alleviation.


The investigation aimed at establishing the relationship between miraa business as an occupation among women and the academic performance of the primary school pupils based on: nature of miraa business, time spent in miraa business, years of participation in miraa business and the women's attitudes towards miraa business. Focus was on the responses of the women participating in miraa business in the four main miraa trading centers namely Ena, Kawanjara, Gikuuri and Runyenjes as well as the head teachers' in primary schools where the children of the respondents studied and the standard eight examination results. The findings revealed that miraa business among women impacted negatively on the academic performance of the primary school pupils in Runyenjes division. The academic performance of pupils was significantly influenced by the three independent variables: the nature of miraa business, time spent in miraa business and the number of years their mothers had participated in miraa business. The fourth independent variable (attitude of their mothers towards miraa business) had small influence on the academic performance of the pupils.


This research focused on the perception of the French front rounded vowel sounds by Brazilian Portuguese native speakers. The work proposal was geared towards teaching foreign languages sounds that are not present in the learner's native language. The hypothesis of this research was that a phonetic-oriented intervention to the production of specific sounds of a foreign language may help to develop learners' perception of them. This study aimed to test the effectiveness of such intervention. We undertook two sound perception tests, on which the participants pointed out whether or not they were listening to a specific sound present in the Brazilian Portuguese sound repertoire. As a stimulus, the task uses a continuum of isolated vowel sounds throughout nine stages between [i-y], [e-ø], [?-?]. The experimental informant group was then submitted to a didactic-phonetic intervention in the interval between tests. The results seemed to confirm the hypothesis considering that in the post-test data the majority of the participants show impressive perceptual changes. The possible contribution of this study to the foreign language teaching relies on the demonstration of the impact of a didactic oriented intervention to teach pronunciation, making use of activities that shall promote sounds production.


The evolution of planktic foraminifera in the Paleocene–Eocene time interval is characterized by a high rate of diversification after the major extinction event observed at the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary. An accelerated speciation rate resulted in the appearance of several new genera. Phylogenetic relationships among many of genera are still poorly understood. This study investigates the origin and phylogeny of the genus Igorina , which is characterized by a thick, nonspinose and incrusted wall. Igorina appears in Subzone P3a (early late Paleocene) and disappears in Zone P11 (middle Eocene). To date, nine species have been assigned to the genus Igorina ( I. pusilla , I. trichotrocha , I. tadjikistanensis , I. convexa , I. albeari , I. laevigata, I. lodoensis , I. broedermanni , and I. anapetes ) based on both wall texture and morphologic similarities. However, the taxonomic identification at species level is affected by several problems, mainly those resulting from poor descriptions and illustrations of the primary type specimens of several species. This study reconstructs the phylogeny and evolution of the igorinids through cladistic analysis by applying the method of parsimony.

Phylogenetic relationships of the species assigned to Igorina are determined through stratocladistic analysis by using a data matrix of 23 taxa (including key species of Acarinina ), 31 morphological characters (unordered), and a stratigraphic character (ordered) mapping the first occurrence of the taxa under investigation. The matrix (Appendix 1) was processed with PAUP* 4.0b10 software by using the heuristic search option to discover the most parsimonious trees. Results suggest that I. pusilla is the first representative of the Igorina lineage, and it is followed by I. laevigata , I. convexa , and I. albeari . Morphotypes of uncertain taxonomic identification have been coded and analyzed separately as morphotypes A–F to determine their ancestor-descendant relationships and to evaluate their validity as discrete species. As the result of our analysis, two new species are formally described as I. praecarinata (= morphotype A) and I. paraspiralis (= morphotypes C, E, and F). Finally, our analysis provides evidence that I. lodoensis , I. broedermanni , and I. anapetes are more closely related to Acarinina than to Igorina and clearly belong to a different lineage.


Most database systems research assumes that the database schema is determined by a database administrator. With the recent increase in interest in knowledge discovery from databases and the predicted increase in the volume of data expected to be stored it is appropriate to reexamine this assumption and investigate how derived or induced, rather than database administrator supplied, structure can be accommodated and used by database systems. The paper investigates some of the characteristics of inductive learning and knowledge discovery as they pertain to database systems and the constraints that would be imposed on appropriate inductive learning algorithms is discussed. A formal method of defining induced dependencies (both static and temporal) is proposed as the inductive analogue to functional dependencies. The Boswell database system exemplifying some of these characteristics is also briefly discussed.


Managers of US National Forests must decide what policy to apply for dealing with lightning-caused wildfires. Conflicts among stakeholders (e.g., timber companies, home owners, and wildlife biologists) have often led to spirited political debates and even violent eco-terrorism. One way to transform these conflicts into multi-stakeholder negotiations is to provide a high-fidelity simulation environment in which stakeholders can explore the space of alternative policies and understand the tradeoffs therein. Such an environment needs to support fast optimization of MDP policies so that users can adjust reward functions and analyze the resulting optimal policies. This paper assesses the suitability of SMAC---a black-box empirical function optimization algorithm---for rapid optimization of MDP policies. The paper describes five reward function components and four stakeholder constituencies. It then introduces a parameterized class of policies that can be easily understood by the stakeholders. SMAC is applied to find the optimal policy in this class for the reward functions of each of the stakeholder constituencies. The results confirm that SMAC is able to rapidly find good policies that make sense from the domain perspective. Because the full-fidelity forest fire simulator is far too expensive to support interactive optimization, SMAC is applied to a surrogate model constructed from a modest number of runs of the full-fidelity simulator. To check the quality of the SMAC-optimized policies, the policies are evaluated on the full-fidelity simulator. The results confirm that the surrogate values estimates are valid. This is the first successful optimization of wildfire management policies using a full-fidelity simulation. The same methodology should be applicable to other contentious natural resource management problems where high-fidelity simulation is extremely expensive.


Congress has been increasingly criticized as a broken, gridlocked, polarized, ineffective institution. In this paper we seek to explore the consequences of polarization and whether legislators take steps to alleviate them. We hypothesize that participation in the voluntary, bipartisan, caucus system provides opportunities for legislators to build cross-partisan relationships and profit from shared information, which can alleviate some of the negative effects of polarization. We operationalize polarization using dyadic covoting and show that legislators are more likely to covote if they share more caucus connections, controlling for a variety of factors that predict voting. The data in this analysis spans 9 congresses (1993-2010) and includes multiple connections between legislators.


Onsala Space Observatory (OSO) is a fundamental geodetic station with co-located geodetic equipment. OSO takes part in the International VLBI Service (IVS) and the International GNSS Service (IGS) by a radome enclosed 20 meter radio telescope and a GNSS-monument and corresponding receiver, respectively. Additionally, a GNSS antenna was mounted on top of the 20 meter radio telescope in late 90's to determine the Invariant Point (IVP) of the telescope. The International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF) is maintained by using measurements of several space geodetic techniques, VLBI, GNSS, Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) and Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS). The global network of geodetic fundamental stations forms the backbone of the ITRF. To maintain the ITRF it is therefore very important to know the relative position of the geodetic equipments at these stations very precisely.
In order to measure the local-tie between the 20 meter radio telescope and the GNSS station at OSO several local-tie survey campaigns were performed since the 90's. But, except the most recent one performed in 2008, these survey campaigns did not provide the complete covariance information of the local-tie. In the 2002 and 2008 local-tie surveys, a hybrid technique was followed to determine the IVP of the 20 meter radio telescope. The problem with this approach is that it is very time consuming and needs various advanced equipment (i.e. laser tracker, reflector, markers, ground pillars).
This master's thesis project was therefore to implement a more convenient technique to determine the IVP of the radio telescope at OSO. The indirect approach proposed by Finnish researchers to obtain the reference point of an azimuth-elevation type telescope was modeled and simulated in order to determine the IVP of the radio telescope. High-rate GNSS data observed with the antenna on top of the radio telescope were analyzed with a scientific GNSS processing software package. Both, GNSS-observations acquired during dedicated observing sessions and during standard telescope operation were analyzed with a kinematic approach. The corresponding results for the position of the GNSS-antenna were used to derive the IVP of the radio telescope.


Thyroid glands affected by Graves' disease (GD) show striking leukocytic infiltration, mainly by T-cells. The mechanisms by which the various leukocytes are maintained in the thyroid are unknown. Growth-regulated oncogene(GRO) in interaction with its receptor CXCR2 is a chemoattractant for both T-cells and neutrophils and may be one of the chemokines involved in the cell maintenance. GROand CD18 mRNA as a marker of leukocytic infiltration were quantified in thyroid tissue using competitive RT-PCR. We found very high GROmRNA levels in all thyroid tissues. In GD patients (n=16), the GROmRNA did not correlate with the CD18 mRNA level or thyroid peroxidase and TSH-receptor antibodies in patients' sera. In thyroid autonomy (n=10), the GROmRNA levels were significantly lower in autonomous single adenomas compared with the corresponding normal tissue. In order to define the cellular source of GROmRNA and protein, we examined various thyroidderived cells. Thyrocytes, thyroid-derived leukocytes and fibroblasts showed basal GROmRNA and protein expression, which was remarkably upregulated by different stimuli in vitro. The expression of GROby thyroid carcinoma cell lines confirms that thyrocytes may actually produce GRO. As shown by flow cytometry and immunohistology, CD68 monocytes/macrophages are the only cell population strongly expressing CXCR2 in the thyroid. Journal of Endocrinology (2001) 170, 513–520


This is the story of a handful of people who changed British Education. These people, mostly young women, were members of a society which tried to put into practice the educational philosophy and principles of Friedrich Froebel. Following his ideas, they believed that a child's intellectual, spiritual and physical development came about through the child's own endeavours, that play was an integral part of the learning process and that every child, regardless of ability, was important. Through heir founding of the Kindergarten movement in Great Britain, and through constant lobbying of successive ministers of education, these women and their society, The National Froebel Society, were able without doubt to fundamentally influence the evolution of education in this country.


This article presents the possibilities for investigation unveiled by the sociology of statistics. Of particular importance in the area of demand is the power to provide the fundamentals used in government technologies in nation states (political domain). In terms of the use of statistics, the role in forming the categories of perceptions of reality (cognitive domain) is highlighted. Within the scope of production (institutional domain), it is important to emphasize the organization of the activity into different temporal categories. The tensions between the technical/normative advances recommended by scientific associations and the pragmatic requirements of public administration are also examined. This article seeks to provide a brief reflection on the morphology of statistical institutions and their scientific culture.


Cold model experiments have been conducted to make clear the effect of orifices on bubble behavior based on the comparison of 1-hole and 4-hole configurations. It is found that this effect is closely related to the gas flow rate and the orifice configuration. For 1-hole orifices, bubble behavior is influenced by the hole diameter at low gas flow rate. Nevertheless, in the region of high gas flow rate, this effect becomes less obvious. However, bubble behavior is strongly affected even at high gas flow rate when 4-hole orifices are used. It is also shown there exists an optimal distance between holes for 4-hole orifices. Below this value, the hole distance is too small to adequately avoid bubble coalescence in the radial direction. Above this value, little further contribution to avoidance of bubble coalescence can be made, but weight and cost of the orifices will increase.


This Panel/Workshop focuses on International Lessons on Health Justice Partnerships. Speakers including Dr Curran were asked to respond in an interactive session to the following headings:
i. Development of HJPs in Australia/USA
ii. Benefits of the model
iii. Evaluation of HJPs funded in Victoria
iv. Commonalities across projects
v. Key messages and lessons from evaluation
The session was held for UKAcademy which has been developed by the UK Collaborative Plan for Pro Bono, with planning support from the Association of Pro Bono Counsel. UKAcademy now comprises ten sessions focused on practical topics of relevance to those managing or developing pro bono in a law firm setting. Information-sharing is a cornerstone of the UK Collaborative Plan for Pro Bono. Members of the Plan have agreed to share data on pro bono activities, they share information on new pro bono opportunities, and they share practical knowledge to help expand their respective pro bono practices. The audience for this event was lawyers and managers employed by law firms who coordinate law firm pro bono programmes. The majority of audience members have a UK base, although joined by some colleagues from the USA.
The event was coordinated by Allen Overy's Pro Bono Manager Hayley Jones.


Open access publishing provides unlimited free access to peer-reviewed articles published in open access journals. It is a way of sharing scientific knowledge and provides equal access to researchers from all over the world, especially for those unable to afford paid subscriptions. The success of this scholarly communication media depends a great deal on its acceptance by researchers. Several studies have previously investigated open access from the perspective of researchers in developed countries. However, because of diverse cultural, educational, economic and technological factors in the world, there is no ―one-size-fits-all‖ solution. It is well known that developing countries lag behind in open access practices. As a developing country, Iran has not been the subject of much research and the opinions of Iranian researchers regarding open access have not been investigated well. The aim of this study was to determine the current status of open access among Iranian medical researchers, and the factors influencing acceptance of open access publishing among them. This study used a survey design and a questionnaire as data collection instrument. The theoretical framework for the study was based on dimensions of the UTAUT model. The sample comprised 367 clinical/basic science academic staff of medical schools at public medical universities in Iran, selected using proportionate stratified sampling. The findings of study indicate that there is low familiarity with terms, initiatives and services of open access. Researchers use six open access services (open access journals, Iranian open access journals, DOAJ, BMC, PLoS and PubMed Central) more as readers than as authors. About half (47.7%) of the researchers had not submitted any manuscripts to open access journals. The researchers had low self-archiving experience (pre-print 4.4%, post-print 16.7%), but a majority of them (71%) were keen to archive if their universities were to set up an institutional repository. Based on mean scores, seven factors -- facilitating conditions, effort expectancy, performance expectancy, attitudes, concerns with author-pay, social influence, and anxiety -- influenced acceptance of open access publishing. Results of hierarchical multiple regression indicate that out of the 14 predictors of intention to use open access journals, only experience, attitude, facilitating conditions and type of university were significant. Also, results of regression show that out of 14 predictors of the use of open access journals, only intention, social influence, attitude, academic ranking, facilitating conditions, type of university and familiarity were significant key predictors. The results also suggest that researchers in top universities used open access journals more than researchers in lower ranked universities, but those from lower ranked universities had greater intentions to use these journals in future. The influence of concerns with author-pays on intention to use open access journals among researchers in Type One universities was higher than researchers in Type Two and Three universities. Also the influence of concerns with author-pays on use of open access journals among female researchers was higher than male ones. Eight constructs and six demographic factors together explain 22.3% of the variance in the use of open access journals. Seven constructs and seven demographic factors together explain 24.1% of the variance in intention to use open access journals. This study is significant in that, it provided a description of the current status of open access among Iranian medical researchers. It also investigated the acceptance of open access among researchers based on a theoretical framework derived from the UTAUT model, as well as inclusion of attitudes and anxiety as dimensions influencing acceptance.