OBJECTIVE
Latinas who immigrate to the United States and leave their children in their homelands may experience psychological consequences of this separation. This study examined whether immigrant Latinas who were separated from their children differed in rates of probable major depression from those who lived with their children and from those who did not have any children.

METHODS
Data were obtained between March 1997 and May 2002 from women in Women, Infants, and Children programs that target low-income pregnant and postpartum women and their children (up to five years of age), women in county-run Title X family planning clinics, women in pediatric clinics for low-income families, and women who were living in a subsidized-housing project or attending programs for county welfare recipients. Latinas in this study were all immigrants to the United States. The women were screened for major depressive disorders with the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders.

RESULTS
A total of 5,122 Latina immigrants were screened. Overall, 11.7 percent of the sample screened positive for major depression. The rates of depression were 11.4 percent for women who lived with their children, 10.9 percent for those who did not have children, and 18.1 for those who were not living with their children. When the analyses controlled for demographic differences, the odds of depression for immigrant Latinas who were separated from their children were 1.52 times as great as the odds for those whose children were currently living with them (p=.02). Odds of depression were similar among women who lived with their children and those who did not have children.

CONCLUSIONS
Separation from children during immigration may lead to increased risk of depression for immigrant Latinas. Health care clinicians who treat young immigrant women should pay close attention to signs of depression among women who have left children with relatives in their homelands.


This master thesis project focuses on the realization of an advanced in-vitro model of Blood-Brain-Barrier (BBB). The model innovation is the possibility to test drugs and nanovectors permeability, understanding which therapies could be effective in brain cancer treatment, and in particularly for glioblastoma multiforme. The aim of this model is to overcome all the limitations related to ineffective 2D and animal models, the latter usually related also to ethical concerns. The polymeric porous and biocompatible membranes were fabricated, via vapour induced phase separation (VIPS). These supports were mechanically and surface characterized, and their morphological images were taken by FEGSEM microscope. These chemical and physical procedures were performed at the Materials Engineering Department of Loughborough University (UK). In the laboratories of Smart Bio-Interfaces, at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), in Pontedera (PI, Italy), the membranes were assembled on stiff PET supports, in order to obtain the final structure in which seed endothelial cells (hCMEC/D3) and human astrocytes to achieve an in-vitro barrier model, very similar to the biological human BBB. In final models were performed tests of integrity (by Transendothelial electrical resistance), permeability and confocal imaging. The thesis consists of abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion, conclusions. Introduction In the first chapter are summarised the biological information of the BBB and glioblastoma multiforme and the state of art of the current brain cancer treatments. The second chapter describes previous approaches of BBB in-vitro models realization, the concepts of tissue engineering and organ-on-a-chip and conventional fabrication techniques. There is also a description of the vapour induced phase separation (VIPS) and the definitions of the process parameters. Materials & Methods The third chapter is more technical and gives details about the experimental chemical procedures used to produce the membranes, describing the materials and the methods adopted. The inadequate results are also described, in order not to take them into consideration in further projects. The fourth chapter explains the biological procedures of the project, focusing on the assembly of the membranes on stiffer supports and the seeding of endothelial cells and human astrocytes on the final structure. All the protocols adopted in the laboratory for the work with the cells are described. In the fifth chapter are described, in detail, all the adopted instruments and protocols for the different physical and mechanical characterizations of the membranes and the final assembled BBB models. Results & Discussion The sixth chapter contains all the results and their explanations, obtained through the mechanical, surface and microstructural characterizations, trans endothelial electrical resistance (TEER), permeability and diffusion tests, degradation and vitality analysis performed in-vitro, both in absence and presence of cells. Conclusions The conclusions discuss about all the obtained results and the future perspectives of the fabricated BBB in-vitro model.


OBJECTIVES
To examine the specific factors that the general public believes have an effect on the image of community pharmacists and also to identify community pharmacists' services that truly fulfill people's needs.

METHODS
A convenient sample of 401 community pharmacy customers completed the questionnaire.

RESULTS
When asked about the factors that help establish a positive image for a community pharmacist, 98.3% of the respondents reported accurate dispensing as the most important factor, followed by cordial attitude (95.5%), and wearing clothes showing pharmacist's license with a photo (94.6%). Among the services provided by community pharmacies, most people think that the most needed service is a consultation explaining drug-drug interactions (93.8%). Furthermore, 312 (77.8%) respondents indicated that there is a need for comprehensive pharmaceutical services. As for the amount that the respondents were willing to pay for such service, many (42.9%) chose 100 NT dollars (≈ 3USD).

CONCLUSION
The results of this study showed that correct dispensing is the most important factor that helps establish a positive image of community pharmacists and that the most needed services were those that required pharmacists' professional competence. Moreover, nearly 80% of the respondents reported that they needed comprehensive pharmaceutical services and were willing to pay for it.


The present study reports the pervaporative separation capability of the pristine and polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS) loaded hybrid polyether block amide membranes for n-butanol recovery from the dilute n-butanol–water mixtures. It is the first study to produce POSS-loaded PEBA membranes for n-butanol recovery. The morphology and crosslinking structure of the pristine and hybrid membrane were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The thermal stability and crystallization behaviors of the pristine and hybrid membranes were investigated using thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry methods. Swelling experiments were also done to determine the affinity of the membranes to the n-butanol–water mixture. The effect of increasing amount of POSS on pervaporation performance was investigated in terms of flux and the n-butanol separation factor at 40 °C and a given n-butanol. All the hybrid membranes exhibited high flux and n-butanol separation factor than that of the pristine PEBA membrane. The best n-butanol separation factor of 27.2 was obtained accompanied with 1.33 kg/m2 h of flux, when the POSS amount was 4 wt %. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017, 134, 45211.


Abstract. An aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometer (ATOFMS) was employed to provide real-time single particle mixing state and thereby source information for aerosols impacting the western Mediterranean basin during the ChArMEx-ADRIMED and SAF-MED campaigns in summer 2013. The ATOFMS measurements were made at a ground-based remote site on the northern tip of Corsica. Twenty-seven distinct ATOFMS particle classes were identified and subsequently grouped into eight general categories: EC-rich (elemental carbon), K-rich, Na-rich, amines, OC-rich (organic carbon), V-rich, Fe-rich and Ca-rich particles. Mass concentrations were reconstructed for the ATOFMS particle classes and found to be in good agreement with other co-located quantitative measurements (PM1, black carbon (BC), organic carbon, sulfate mass and ammonium mass). Total ATOFMS reconstructed mass (PM2. 5) accounted for 70–90 % of measured PM10 mass and was comprised of regionally transported fossil fuel (EC-rich) and biomass burning (K-rich) particles. The accumulation of these transported particles was favoured by repeated and extended periods of air mass stagnation over the western Mediterranean during the sampling campaigns. The single particle mass spectra proved to be valuable source markers, allowing the identification of fossil fuel and biomass burning combustion sources, and was therefore highly complementary to quantitative measurements made by Particle into Liquid Sampler ion chromatography (PILS-IC) and an aerosol chemical speciation monitor (ACSM), which have demonstrated that PM1 and PM10 were comprised predominantly of sulfate, ammonium and OC. Good temporal agreement was observed between ATOFMS EC-rich and K-rich particle mass concentrations and combined mass concentrations of BC, sulfate, ammonium and low volatility oxygenated organic aerosol (LV-OOA). This combined information suggests that combustion of fossil fuels and biomass produced primary EC- and OC-containing particles, which then accumulated ammonium, sulfate and alkylamines during regional transport. Three other sources were also identified: local biomass burning, marine and shipping. Local combustion particles (emitted in Corsica) contributed little to PM2. 5 particle number and mass concentrations but were easily distinguished from regional combustion particles. Marine emissions comprised fresh and aged sea salt: the former was detected mostly during a 5-day event during which it accounted for 50–80 % of sea salt aerosol mass, while the latter was detected throughout the sampling period. Dust was not efficiently detected by the ATOFMS, and support measurements showed that it was mainly in the PM2. 5–10 fraction. Shipping particles, identified using markers for heavy fuel oil combustion, were associated with regional emissions and represented only a small fraction of PM2. 5 particle number and mass concentration at the site.


In summary, if an organization is thinking of putting together a PSO they should do a thorough due diligence with a focus on their physician interest and competencies. The feasibility needs to be realistic. Some physician organizations we've talked with aren't even considering a PSO. They have too many other fish to fry. Not only that, there is a natural reluctance to dive into a pool without a bottom. Medicare can be counted on to keep changing the rules. Without a set of rules you can count on, why should you engage in the game? It's facinating to watch HCFA staff engaged in their intramural, camp-fire deliberations. They sit around in a circle and ask "what if?" If we reward providers for taking care of sick people, will they simply recruit more sick people? Think about that question for a minute. Isn't there something twisted in this? To be sure, a PSO is not for the naive or faint of heart. To be realistic, budget a minimum of 3 years to break even. If you decide to go ahead with a PSO, the tuition you pay today for the learning curve should benefit you in the years to come. Plan for the best. Prepare for the worst. With opportunity comes risk. Find a visionary to lead this new venture. Only those who see the invisible, can do the impossible.


This work aims to investigate the influence of hot deformation on dynamic recrystallization(DRX) behavior of 7050 aluminum alloy by means of physical simulation method. The hot compression tests were carried out on Gleeble 1500 machine in temperature range of 250-450°C and strain rate range of 0.01–10 s-1. Transmission electronic microscopy (TEM) was employed to observe and analyze the microstructure and DRX behavior in different deformation conditions. The results show that the effects of deformation temperature and strain rate on microstructural evolution of the alloy are remarkable. When temperature is lower than 350°C, only the dynamical recovery( DRV) occurs and typical sub-grains appear. In the range of 350-400°C, the incomplete DRX occurs and the recrystallized grain size increases with increasing temperature. The complete DRX occurs at 450°C and the fine equiaxied grains with high-angle boundaries develop resultantly. The DRX grain size increases as strain rate decreases. The desirable microstructure and properties can be obtained by optimizing the forging process parameters.


In this thesis, the author investigates the growth of gas bubbles in a supersaturated solution and the freezing of water drops when placed on a cold plate. Supersaturated solutions are common in nature and industry; perhaps the best know examples are carbonated drinks, such as beer or soda. These are bottled under pressure, and contain an amount of dissolved gas, which is in a saturated state. When opened, the pressure in the container decreases to the same level as atmospheric pressure. At that moment the solution is supersaturated, which means it contains more gas that what it would thermodynamically "want to". Hence, the gas needs to escape from the liquid, and given the right conditions bubbles will form in this process, as we usually see them on the walls of our glass or bottle when having a drink. Besides this example, bubbles can grow for similar reasons in the blood of scuba divers with decompression sickens, volcanic magma, molten polymers and metals, and oil wells. Hence, understanding the basic physics of how bubbles grow can contribute to better understand (and perhaps control) some of these phenomena. The experimental study presented here focuses on bubbles that grow under a supersaturation ten times smaller than a normal carbonated drink, which is especially interesting for oil extraction processes.

The freezing drop problem holds an analogy to the bubble growth in that both phenomena are driven by mass diffusion and heat conduction, respectively, which are physically analogous. Understanding the physics of solidification processes is crucial for 3D printing and other deposition processes. It is also a very important aspect in the preparation of ice before curling matches. In this case, the investigation focussed on the formation of the pointy tip that appears at the end of the freezing process. In this work it is experimentally and theoretically shown that for a wide temperature range the shape of this tip does not depend on the freezing dynamics.


A 7-year-old boy presented with acute-onset headache, vomiting, and confusion during summer. Two months previously, he developed right thigh pain, causing intermittent limping. Three days before admission, he developed headache; 1 day later, he experienced fatigue, nausea, and vomiting. On the day of presentation, symptoms included behavioral change (showered 15 times), unsteadiness, and new palmoplantar rash. He presented with confusion and lethargy and was transferred to our facility. His father had a recent gastrointestinal illness, but there were no other sick contacts. There were no recent weight changes, fever, tick/animal exposure, or travel. Past medical history included prior herpes simplex virus (HSV)–positive facial lesion (at 5 years old). The patient took no medications, had no known allergies, was developmentally normal, and was appropriately vaccinated. On general examination, he was somnolent and irritable, and had a palpable right thigh mass and palmar/solar petechiae. Neurologically, he was arousable to light touch, followed only simple midline commands, answered yes/no to orientation questions and responded to all naming questions with "I don't know." Cranial nerves were intact. He had normal muscle bulk/tone and at least 3/5 strength throughout, but encephalopathy limited assessment. He had normal sensation to light touch and muscle stretch reflexes, neutral plantar responses, and no dysmetria. The patient sat in bed independently but refused to stand or walk.


In a recent publication, Brain and colleagues showed that participants to the UK Lung Cancer Screening (UKLS) pilot trial significantly increased smoking cessation in two years compared to non-participants. In fact, 15% of smokers in the screening arm and 10% in the control arm successfully quitted at two years from the first screening. The effect of the trial arm on quitting smoking was significant, with cessation rates of 15% and 10% at 2 years in intervention and control arms, respectively (1).


Theoretical calculations of a model for tyrosine oxidation in photosystem II are presented. In this model system, an electron is transferred to ruthenium from tyrosine, which is concurrently deprotonated. This investigation is motivated by experimental measurements of the dependence of the rates on pH and temperature (Sjödin et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2000, 122, 3932). The mechanism is proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) at pH < 10 when the tyrosine is initially protonated and is single electron transfer (ET) for pH > 10 when the tyrosine is initially deprotonated. The PCET rate increases monotonically with pH, whereas the single ET rate is independent of pH and is 2 orders of magnitude faster than the PCET rate. The calculations reproduce these experimentally observed trends. The pH dependence for the PCET reaction arises from the decrease in the reaction free energies with pH. The calculations indicate that the larger rate for single ET arises from a combination of factors, including the smaller solvent reorganization energy for ET and the averaging of the coupling for PCET over the reactant and product hydrogen vibrational wave functions (i.e., a vibrational overlap factor in the PCET rate expression). The temperature dependence of the rates, the solvent reorganization energies, and the deuterium kinetic isotope effects determined from the calculations are also consistent with the experimental results.


This paper challenges the idea that farmers revert to subsistence farming when confronted with violence from civil war. While there is an emerging macroeconomic consensus that wars are detrimental to development, we find contrasting microeconomic evidence. Using several rounds of (panel) data at the farm and community level, we find that farmers in Burundi who are confronted with civil war violence in their home communities increase export and cash crop growing activities, invest more in public goods and reveal higher levels subjective welfare evaluations. We interpret this in the light of similar recent micro-level evidence that points to post-traumatic growth effects after (civil) warfare. Our results are confirmed across specifications as well as in robustness analyses.


This paper proposes a new metaphor for constructing systems of systems: Autonomous Agents in Organized Localities (AAOL). An agent-based approach is used for modeling structure and behavior of complex systems that consist of (semi-)autonomous systems, where goals, resources, capabilities are described locally while a need for superordinated "global" regulation exists. The notion of organized localities is used to describe spatially or logically constrained spheres of influence of regulation bodies. Agents inhabit — and can move across — localities; regulation rules are modeled via computational norms and enforced by electronic institutions. A key objective of our work is to explore and advance applicability of AAOL to constructing mechatronic systems with (at least soft) real-time constraints. We describe requirements for modeling systems of systems, and outline the key pillars of AAOL: a conceptual architecture and a metamodel providing the basic constructs for describing AAOL-type systems. A case study of a decentrally organized airport transportation infrastructure illustrates the concepts and the feasibility of AAOL-based systems of systems design.


Almost 35 years since their suggestion as a good solution to the strong CP-problem, axions remain one of the few viable candidates for the Dark Matter, although still eluding detection. Most of the methods for their detection are based on their coupling to photons, one of the most sensitive ones being the helioscope technique. We report on the current status of the CERN Axion Solar Telescope and the future International Axion Observatory (IAXO). Recent results from the second part of CAST phase II, where the magnet bores were filled with 3He gas at variable pressure achieving sensibilities on the axion mass up to 1.2 eV, are presented. Currently, CAST is expecting to improve its sensitivity to solar axions with rest mass below 0.02 eV/c^2 after the upgrade of the X-ray detectors and with the implementation of a second X-ray optic. At the same time, it is exploring other possibilities at the low energy physics frontier. On the other hand IAXO, the fourth generation axion helioscope, aims to improve CAST's performance in terms of axion-photon coupling by 1-1.5 orders of magnitude. The details of the project building a dedicated magnet, optics and X-ray detectors are given.


This article is a response to a recent book review by Professor Dan Subotnik ("Professor Subotnik"). I will show in this piece why I disagree with his position on standardized testing in general, and his critique of Professor Guinier in particular.My friend Dan Subotnik, a former professor of mine at Touro Law School, recently published an article in the Touro Law Review, Tyranny of the Meritocracy? A Disputation Over Testing With Professor Lani Guinier, 31 Touro L. Rev. 343 (2015). His article is a review of a book recently published by Harvard Law Professor Lani Guinier, titled THE TYRANNY OF THE MERITOCRACY: DEMOCRATIZING HIGHER EDUCATION IN AMERICA.In a nutshell, Professor Subotnik's piece shows that he wholly disagrees with the premises of Professor Guinier's piece, which are that standardized testing is both unfair and unreliable, and that students that come from non-traditional backgrounds can form successful study groups and ultimately do well in college, graduate school, and law school.I became part of this debate when Professor Subotnik kindly invited me to respond to an earlier piece he had written called Does Testing = Race Discrimination? Ricci, the Bar Exam, the LSAT, and the Challenge to Learning, 8 U. Mass L. Rev. 332 (2013). After reading that piece, I realized that I was in a unique position to add to the debate. Why? Prior to my graduating from law school and becoming a college professor myself, I was a high school dropout. If one were to look at my high school transcript today not knowing my story, one would be stunned that the owner of that transcript is the same person writing this abstract, albeit thirty-five years later. During that horrendous, hopeless time, I just could not see the relevance of the SAT to life in general, or to my own academic future. As I went through college, graduate school, and law school, I realized that exams like the SAT, GMAT, and LSAT were overrated at best, and most likely useless.This was especially the case when I proved that my overall academic prowess was much more than a subpar score on some one-time aptitude test, plus the fact that I was something of a late bloomer academically. This was the focus of my first response to Professor Subotnik, called Standardized Testing and Race: A Reply to Professor Subotnik, 13 Seattle J. Soc. Just. 1, 23 (2014). In my piece, I cited several instances where students did well in law school and went on to successful careers despite having less than stellar LSAT scores. Professor Guinier cites similar examples of people who came from non-traditional backgrounds to overcome the culture shock of going to college to do well and eventually earn graduate degrees also.In the face of these success stories, Professor Subotnik claims that collaborative study efforts necessarily compels the better students to carry the weaker students. I fail to see how this is the case when people study together with their friends on a regular basis. In addition, studying together can be the very vehicle that unlocks the gate, so to speak, and allows the group to solve the difficulty and ultimately master the subject matter.Next, Professor Subotnik continues to argue that any legitimate concern about the fairness and reliability of standardized testing is automatically a misguided, de-facto attack on grades. My article shows precisely why the two are mutually exclusive; suffice to say that grades are the culmination of a student's semester work product while a one-time "aptitude" test…well…isn't.Professor Subotnik's next argument is that asking multiple choice questions prevents students from giving answers from out of left field. Admittedly, that is true to a point assuming the student has no idea how to answer the question. However, I argue that if a student has neither the academic experience nor any other personal frame of reference regarding a particular subject area, the form of a test question is irrelevant…precisely because the student is being compelled to answer a test question about a subject he knows nothing about. I discuss in this piece as well as my earlier article precisely how standardized testing was historically calibrated to be biased in favor of white Europeans to the detriment of all other test takers. I don't need to ask how fair this setup has been.Professor Subotnik's final argument is that Professor Guinier is absolutely the wrong person to be critical of standardized testing because she is now a career academic far removed from the day to day competition of professional life (his exact words are "flame of competition. ") I noted in my article that this is an interesting and ironic commentary considering that he is a decades-long tenured law professor, and himself probably far removed from his self-described flame of competition.In concluding, I do not know if Professor Subotnik is a testocrat; I will not go so far to definitively say that he is. However, the fact that he has defended standardized testing as vigorously as he has could lead one to reasonably believe that he is. Whether he is a testocrat or not, I say just as zealously that my own journey from high school dropout to law school graduate to college professor is THE absolute truth that no testocratic argument can ever overcome.


This study explores changes to the internal culture of a sample of Australian outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs). We analysed data from 39 in-depth interviews with former OMCG members in Queensland to discern changes in recruitment practices, hierarchies and governance processes, as well as values, norms and relationships experienced and observed while members of an OMCG. Structurally, clubs changed little, although participants described how members were increasingly using the structures and systems of clubs for their own benefit. Changes were noted in recruitment practices, which were seen as increasingly geared towards enlisting violent, criminally-inclined men. There was also a perceived erosion of loyalty and camaraderie within OMCGs, with a shift towards younger, newer members who were seen as self-interested and financially motivated. These changes were contributing factors in decisions of many former members to disengage from OMCGs.


The real time implementation of guided filter highlights the implementation of Guided filter for image and video using VLSI hardware incorporated with real time application. The filter implementation is done with the use of guided image as reference image. A 30 frames/second video is given as input to this architecture and is separated into frames. These frames undergo preprocessing, noise analysis, smoothing of noisy pixels, and enhancement of edge level pixels by using MATLAB. Both color images as well as gray images are simulated by reformation of parameters in the guided filter formulae. Here the double integral image hardware architecture for the guided filter is proposed using FPGA controller by making use of Xilinx Platform Studio and Visual Basic. The guided filter simulation done using MATLAB is extended to build an architecture using Xilinx Platform Studio and FPGA Controller. With the help of the hardware implementation using FPGA there will be additional benefits like better performance at edges and suppression of color noise while preserving edges. This structure can support full HD 30 frames/second at a reduced gate count and chip memory. Guided filter is the ideal option since it performs better at the edges and suppresses color noise while preserving structures and as a result it is widely adopted in the field of computer vision and computational photography.


Introduction The safety of using adult-sized thrombectomy devices in the smaller pediatric vasculature is a concern among stroke interventionalists. Here we measure vessel diameters in the cervical and cranial circulation in children to characterize when adult-approved devices might be compatible in children. Methods For 54 children without vasculopathy (age: mean=9.5 ± 4.9 years, range=0.02–17.8 years; sex: 20F/34M) undergoing catheter angiography, the diameters of the large vessels in the cervical and cranial circulation (10 locations, 611 total measurements) were assessed by 3 radiologists. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated. Mean±SD diameter was calculated for these age groups: 0–6 months; 1 year; and 2, 3, 4, 5–9, 10–14, and 15–18 years. To compare to adult sizes, each vessel measurement was normalized to the respective region mean diameter in children 15–18. Normalized measurements were plotted against age and fitted to a segmented regression, with breakpoint=5 years. Post-hoc, for each segment, age was also controlled for body mass index (BMI) using multivariate linear regression. Results ICC ranged from 0.88 to 0.99. Vessel diameters increased rapidly between 0 to 5 years of age (slope=0.069/year) but changed minimally beyond that (slope=0.005/year) (Figure 1, R-square=0.2). The regression model predicted that, at 5 years of age, vessels would be 94% the diameter of the older age group (compared to 59% at birth). BMI was not significantly associated with vessel size in either age range. While smaller, vessels in children under 5 were hypothetically large enough to be compatible with adult devices in several cases (Table 1). Conclusions From a size perspective, neurointerventionalists should consider patients 5 years and over as having vessels comparable to adults. Beyond 5 years, age alone should not be a contraindication to thrombectomy. Under 5 years, devices might still be compatible. BMI may not be as reliable as age when predicting vessel sizes in children. Disclosures T. Ladner: None. L. He: None. S. Pruthi: None. M. Day: None. A. Desai: None. L. Jordan: None. M. Froehler: None.


In this paper, we consider a novel variant of the multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem, MAB with cost subsidy, which models many real-life applications where the learning agent has to pay to select an arm and is concerned about optimizing cumulative costs and rewards. We present two applications, intelligent SMS routing problem and ad audience optimization problem faced by a number of businesses (especially online platforms) and show how our problem uniquely captures key features of these applications. We show that naive generalizations of existing MAB algorithms like Upper Confidence Bound and Thompson Sampling do not perform well for this problem. We then establish fundamental lower bound of $\Omega(K^{1/3} T^{2/3})$ on the performance of any online learning algorithm for this problem, highlighting the hardness of our problem in comparison to the classical MAB problem (where $T$ is the time horizon and $K$ is the number of arms). We also present a simple variant of explore-then-commit and establish near-optimal regret bounds for this algorithm. Lastly, we perform extensive numerical simulations to understand the behavior of a suite of algorithms for various instances and recommend a practical guide to employ different algorithms.


The authors have invented the unique ocean wave power station, which is composed of the floating type platform with a pair of floats lining up at the interval of one wave pitch and the counter-rotating type wave power unit boarding on the middle position of the platform. Such profiles may make the flow velocity at the runner twice faster than that of the traditional fixed type (OWC). The counter-rotating type wave power unit is composed of the tandem runners submerged in the seawater and the peculiar generator with double rotational armatures. The tandem runners counter-rotate in keeping each rotational direction constant, even at the oscillating flow, where the relative rotational speed is also twice faster than that in the single runner/armature type. It can be expected to make the runner size larger, namely the output higher because the torques are counter balanced in the unit and never act on the platform.At preliminary research, the single stage Wells type runner was boarded on the above platform, while the behavior of the platform and the performance of the power unit were investigated experimentally. The runner works fruitfully in response to the oscillating platform.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


BACKGROUND
Metacognition and working memory (WM) have been found associated with success in reading comprehension, but no studies have examined their combined effect on the training of reading comprehension. Another open question concerns the role of listening comprehension: In particular, it is not clear whether training to improve reading comprehension must necessarily be based on processing written material or whether, as suggested in a recent study by Clarke et al. (2010, Psychol. Sci., 21, 1106), a programme based on verbal language could also be effective.

AIMS
The study examined the feasibility of improving text comprehension in school children by comparing the efficacy of two training programmes, both involving metacognition and WM, but one based on listening comprehension, the other on reading comprehension.

PARTICIPANTS
The study involved a sample of 159 pupils attending eight classes in the fourth and fifth grades (age range 9-11 years).

METHOD
The listening and reading programmes focused on the same abilities/processes strictly related to text comprehension, and particularly metacognitive knowledge and control, WM (per se and in terms of integrating information in a text). The training programmes were implemented by school teachers as part of the class's normal school activities, under the supervision of experts. Their efficacy was compared with the results obtained in an active control group that completed standard text comprehension activities.

RESULTS
Our results showed that both the training programmes focusing on specific text comprehension skills were effective in improving the children's achievement, but training in reading comprehension generated greater gains than the listening comprehension programme.

CONCLUSIONS
Our study suggests that activities focusing specifically on metacognition and WM could foster text comprehension, but the potential benefit is influenced by the training modality, that is, the Reading group obtained greater and longer-lasting improvements than the Active control or Listening groups.


The emergence of the next generation Internet (NGI) is mainly oriented toward a series of serious challenges that cannot be solved through limited improvement under the current network architecture. Therefore NGI means a series of revolutionary changes including the architecture. The fundamental concept of NGI is illustrated and the current situation of the development of NGI is comprehensively discussed in the thesis. And viewpoints on the network architecture, network management and security strategy of NGI are put forward.


Abstract Essential hypertension is one of the most common diseases that exacerbate the risk of cardiovascular or cerebrovascular attacks. Although the etiology of essential hypertension remains unclear, recent investigations have revealed that an enhancement of Na+-proton (Na+-H+) exchange activity is a frequently observed ion transport abnormality in hypertensive patients and animal models. To test the hypothesis that increased Na+-H+ exchange causes hypertension, we produced transgenic mice overexpressing Na+-H+ exchanger and analyzed their Na+ metabolism and blood pressure. Urinary excretion of water and Na+ was significantly decreased in transgenic mice, and systolic blood pressure was elevated after salt loading. The impaired urinary excretion of Na+ suggested that the Na+-H+ exchanger overexpressed in the renal tubules increased reabsorption of Na+, which caused a blood pressure elevation by Na+ retention after excessive salt intake. Our results demonstrate that overexpression of Na+-H+ exchanger ca...


Stated choice (SC) surveys are a key tool for studying travel behaviour and are used to inform policy decisions in many countries. Recently, the best-worst (BW) variant of SC has rapidly increased in popularity in fields as diverse as transport, marketing and health research. A key argument for its implementation has been that it is perceived to be easier for respondents to identify the best and the worst alternative in a choice set compared to identifying the second- or even third best. For elicitation formats asking respondents to consecutively identify the first, second and third best (etc.) alternative, labelled here as repeated best stages, it is well known that utility and scale parameters are generally not stable across the stages. Joint analysis of the responses to each stage may increase the efficiency of the utility and willingness-to-pay parameters (i.e. smaller standard errors), but incorrect inferences may be made if these parameters are not stable across the stages. This paper tests the stability of utility parameters for the repeated BW and one-off BW format. Using data from three different studies, we show that, regardless of the dataset and elicitation format used, the obtained utility parameters and willingness to pay estimates are not stable across stages. The results thereby question the use of BW data in applied work aimed at forecasting and understanding first (best) choices. Our findings thereby contradict recent discussions about potentially beneficial framing effects in BW surveys. The unique presence of corresponding data from a repeated best and repeated BW exercise in one survey highlights the observed rank-orders are highly consistent across the two elicitation formats and that any differences in marginal willingness to pay estimates can be attributed to the imposed econometric model rather than to differences in the behaviour of respondents.


Valuable insights into future sensitivity of the Antarctic cryosphere to atmospheric and oceanic warming can be gained from the geologic record of past climatic warm intervals. Continental to deep ocean sediments provide records of contemporaneous changes in ice sheet extent and oceanographic conditions that extend back in time, including periods with atmospheric CO2 levels and temperatures similar to those likely to be reached in the next 100 years.

The Circum-Antarctic region is under-sampled respect to scientific ocean drilling. However, recovery from glacially-influenced, continental shelf and rise sediments (expeditions ODP178, 188 and IODP 318), provided excellent records of Cenozoic climate and ice sheet evolution. The ANtarctic DRILLing program achieved >98% recovery on the Ross Sea shelf with a stable platform on fast ice with riser drilling technology. Newer technologies, such as the MeBo shallow drilling rig will further improve Antarctic margin drilling.

Drilling around Antarctica in the past decades revealed cooling and regional ice growth during the Cenozoic, coupled with paleogeographic, CO2 atmosphere concentration and global temperature changes. Substantial progress has been made in dating sediments and in the interpretation of paleoclimate/paleoenvironmental proxies in Antarctic margin sediments (e.g. orbital scale variations in Antarctica's cryosphere during the Miocene and Pliocene). Holocene ultra-high resolution shelf sections recently recovered can be correlated to the ice core record, to detect local mechanisms versus inter-hemispheric connections.

While the potential for reconstructing past ice sheet history has been demonstrated through a careful integration of geological and geophysical data with numerical ice sheet modelling, uncertainties remain high due to the sparse geographic distribution of the records and the regional variability in the ice sheet's response. Projects developed using a multi-leg, multi-platform approach (e.g. latitudinal and/or depth transects involving a combination of land/ice shelf, seabed, riser, and riserless drilling platforms) will likely make the most significant scientific advances. Fundamental hypothesis can be tested and accomplished by drilling depth transects from ice-proximal to ice-distal locations, that will enable researchers to link past perturbations in the ice sheet with Southern Ocean and global climate dynamics.

The variable response of the ice sheet to ongoing climatic change mandates broad geographic drilling coverage, particularly in climatically sensitive regions, like those with large upstream drainage basins, whose marine terminus is presently melting, due to ocean, warming water impinging the continental shelf. Key transects were identified at community workshops (http://www.scar-ace.org) in the frame of the SCAR/ACE (Antarctic Climate Evolution) and PAIS (Past Antarctic Ice Sheet dynamics) programs. New proposals were then submitted to IODP in addition to the existing ones, including a large European component and MSP pre-proposals, in the frame of a scientific concerted strategy.

Main questions underpinning future scientific drilling tied IODP Science themes:
1) How did and will the Antarctic Ice Sheets respond to elevated temperatures and atmospheric pCO2? What is the contribution of Antarctic ice to past and future sea level changes?
2) What was the timing of rifting and subsidence controlling the opening of ocean gateways and the initiation of the circumpolar current system and the onset of glaciations?


The continuity hypothesis of dreams suggests that the content of dreams is continuous with the dreamer's waking experiences. Given the unprecedented nature of the experiences during COVID-19, we studied the continuity hypothesis in the context of the pandemic. We implemented a deep-learning algorithm that can extract mentions of medical conditions from text and applied it to two datasets collected during the pandemic: 2888 dream reports (dreaming life experiences), and 57 milion tweets (waking life experiences) mentioning the pandemic. The health expressions common to both sets were typical COVID-19 symptoms (e.g. cough, fever and anxiety), suggesting that dreams reflected people's real-world experiences. The health expressions that distinguished the two sets reflected differences in thought processes: expressions in waking life reflected a linear and logical thought process and, as such, described realistic symptoms or related disorders (e.g. nasal pain, SARS, H1N1); those in dreaming life reflected a thought process closer to the visual and emotional spheres and, as such, described either conditions unrelated to the virus (e.g. maggots, deformities, snake bites), or conditions of surreal nature (e.g. teeth falling out, body crumbling into sand). Our results confirm that dream reports represent an understudied yet valuable source of people's health experiences in the real world.


Cardiovascular disease is a major complication and the leading cause of early death among people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). People with T2DM often have abnormal cholesterol level, high blood pressure, obesity and lack of physical activity that contributes to risk for developing cardiovascular disease. Diabetic cardiovascular disease can damage the structure and function of the heart and it can lead to heart failure. Therefore, research on diabetic cardiovascular disease is very important to achieve decreased mortality for T2DM patients and prolong their life. In this study, the thermostable fractionation method was used to remove highly abundant proteins in plasma of diabetic cardiovascular patients. The thermostable proteins were then separated by using 2DE. The 2DE gel images were analyzed by using PDQuest v7.1 software. The differentially expressed protein spots between disease and control samples were identified by nanoLC-MS/MS. Among the identified proteins, thirteen were up/down-regulated in disease samples. In which, five proteins (Fibrinogen alpha chain, Fibrinogen gama chain, Haptoglobin beta chain, Haptoglobin alpha 1 chain, Zinc alpha 2 glycoprotein) were up-regulated and six proteins (Alpha 1 antitrypsin, Angiotensinogen, Antithrombin III, Apolipoprotein A-I, Apolipoprotein E, Transthyretin) were down-regulated in plasma of diabetic cardiovascular patients. Meanwhile haptoglobin alpha 2 chain and apolipoprotein A-IV showed quite different expression from case to case. Our results suggest that these proteins might be related to the generation and progression of diabetes and heart disease.


Understanding the pathology of acute coronary syndromes has led to significant improvements in patient outcome. Platelet adhesion to the arterial wall, especially under high shear forces, such as are present in stenotic arteries, is facilitated through multiple high-affinity interactions between platelet membrane receptors and ligands within the exposed subendothelium, most notably collagen and von Willebrand factor. Platelet activation, initiated by the collagen exposed by plaque disruption and locally-generated soluble platelet agonists (primarily thrombin, ADP, and thromboxane A2), results in release of growth factors and adhesion molecules and most importantly the activation of the coagulation pathway. Activation of adjacent platelets occurs, with conformational changes in the platelet GP IIb IIIa receptor. Platelet aggregation, mediated primarily by interaction between the activated platelet GP IIb IIIa receptor and its ligands, fibrinogen and vWF, results in the formation of the platelet-rich thrombus. It is the formation of this platelet-rich clot and its extent at sites of coronary stenosis, plaque erosion, or a recent plaque rupture that determine the clinical consequences in acute coronary syndromes by altering vessel patency.

Antiplatelet therapy has therefore become central to the management of non-ST elevation MI, although the complex nature of the clot and the presence of multiple constituents suggest potential additional benefit from direct antithrombins such as bivalirudin1 and low molecular weight heparin,2 but interestingly, and despite the presence of "red thrombus", not from thrombolytic therapy. The impact of any treatment on outcome will also be influenced by other factors such as the amount of myocardial territory at risk, amount of myocardium already jeopardised, the balance between presenting ischaemia versus previous infarction, heterogeneity amongst the population in terms of risk factors (diabetes, age), as well as the confounder of having three antiplatelet agents with different, specific and potentially interactive efficacies being used against a background of …


When people combine concepts these are often characterised as "hybrid", "impossible", or "humorous". However, when simply considering them in terms of extensional logic, the novel concepts understood as a conjunctive concept will often lack meaning having an empty extension (consider "a tooth that is a chair", "a pet flower", etc.). Still, people use different strategies to produce new non-empty concepts: additive or integrative combination of features, alignment of features, instantiation, etc. All these strategies involve the ability to deal with conflicting attributes and the creation of new (combinations of) properties. We here consider in particular the case where a Head concept has superior 'asymmetric' control over steering the resulting concept combination (or hybridisation) with a Modifier concept. Specifically, we propose a dialogical approach to concept combination and discuss an implementation based on axiom weakening, which models the cognitive and logical mechanics of this asymmetric form of hybridisation.


The scarcity of paleoceanographic data from the Pacific Southern Ocean has hampered the understanding of signal propagation across the Southern Ocean and its connection with other ocean basins, the physical and biological impact on the global carbon cycle and atmospheric CO2 variability, and the effect of West Antarctic Ice Sheet history on Southern Ocean and global ocean circulation. A set of new sediment cores recovered during R/V Polarstern expeditions now allows for comprehensive studies of the Subantarctic and Antarctic Pacific (180◦W -110◦W) surface ocean physical parameters development since the last glacial. This includes quantitative estimates of sea surface temperature (SST) and sea ice concentration (SIC) derived from diatom-based transfer functions. Resulting data display a distinct last glacial east-west gradient in summer SST and winter SIC, with strongest surface water cooling and enhanced sea ice extent in the sector north of the Ross Sea. In this sector the last glacial permanent winter sea ice field was extended by ca. 5◦ in latitude compared to present and its distribution mimics bottom topography. A similar expansion of last glacial winter sea ice was found in the Atlantic sector [1]. Gradual warming starts as early as 25-20 ka BP, which is in accordance with the first retreat of Antarctic ice sheets [2,3]. As recorded in the Atlantic sector [4] and in Antarctic ice cores [5] a distinct warming and sea ice retreat occurs around 18-17 ka and culminates around 15 ka BP. The concomitant enhanced biogenic opal sedimentation is in concert with the post-glacial atmospheric CO2 increase. The following cooling (ACR) is not well pronounced, especially in the eastern sector, whereas the Antarctic Holocene Optimum is represented in all studied cores, thus represents an overall southern-high latitude warming event. After 3 ka BP we observe a re-establishment of colder surface waters together with an expansion of the winter sea ice field, possibly related to an enhancement of the Ross cold-water gyre. Interestingly, the Holocene records indicate winter sea ice expansion beyond the satellite derived modern sea ice edge.


Importance The optimal temporal approach for reducing nicotine to minimally or nonaddictive levels in all cigarettes sold in the United States has not been determined. Objectives To determine the effects of immediate vs gradual reduction in nicotine content to very low levels and as compared with usual nicotine level cigarettes on biomarkers of toxicant exposure. Design, Setting, and Participants A double-blind, randomized, parallel-design study with 2 weeks of baseline smoking and 20 weeks of intervention was conducted at 10 US sites. A volunteer sample of daily smokers with no intention to quit within 30 days was recruited between July 2014 and September 2016, with the last follow-up completed in March 2017. Interventions (1) Immediate reduction to 0.4 mg of nicotine per gram of tobacco cigarettes; (2) gradual reduction from 15.5 mg to 0.4 mg of nicotine per gram of tobacco cigarettes with 5 monthly dose changes; or (3) maintenance on 15.5 mg of nicotine per gram of tobacco cigarettes. Main Outcomes and Measures Between-group differences in 3 co-primary biomarkers of smoke toxicant exposure: breath carbon monoxide (CO), urine 3-hydroxypropylmercapturic acid (3-HPMA, metabolite of acrolein), and urine phenanthrene tetraol (PheT, indicator of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) calculated as area under the concentration-time curve over the 20 weeks of intervention. Results Among 1250 randomized participants (mean age, 45 years; 549 women [44%]; 958 [77%] completed the trial), significantly lower levels of exposure were observed in the immediate vs gradual reduction group for CO (mean difference, −4.06 parts per million [ppm] [95% CI, −4.89 to −3.23]; P < .0055), 3-HPMA (ratio of geometric means, 0.83 [95% CI, 0.77 to 0.88]; P < .0055), and PheT (ratio of geometric means, 0.88 [95% CI, 0.83 to 0.93]; P < .0055). Significantly lower levels of exposure were observed in the immediate reduction vs control group for CO (mean difference, −3.38 [95% CI, −4.40 to −2.36]; P < .0055), 3-HPMA (ratio of geometric means, 0.81 [95% CI, 0.75 to 0.88]; P < .0055), and PheT (ratio of geometric means, 0.86 [95% CI, 0.81 to 0.92]; P < .0055). No significant differences were observed between the gradual reduction vs control groups for CO (mean difference, 0.68 [95% CI, −0.31 to 1.67]; P = .18), 3-HPMA (ratio of geometric means, 0.98 [95% CI, 0.91 to 1.06]; P = .64), and PheT (ratio of geometric means, 0.98 [95% CI, 0.92 to 1.04]; P = .52). Conclusions and Relevance Among smokers, immediate reduction of nicotine in cigarettes led to significantly greater decreases in biomarkers of smoke exposure across time compared with gradual reduction or a control group, with no significant differences between gradual reduction and control. Trial Registration clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT02139930


Melbourne's tram system is one of the largest in the world yet access is difficult for many passengers, particularly those using wheelchairs and scooters, and with prams, luggage and shopping. The Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1992 and Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport (DSAPT) 2002 have imposed access requirements with mandatory timeframes to 2022 for infrastructure and 2030 for conveyances, adding legal pressure to develop a more accessible tram network. Progress upgrading stops to platforms has been slow and variable and this research seeks ways to improve infrastructure design outcomes for full accessibility. It identifies key access issues and standards, and evaluates the range of platform stop designs established in Melbourne. It investigates solutions elsewhere as the recent expansion of new light rail systems in Europe with similar disability legislation provides scope to analyse emerging trends. It confirms that level access from a platform tram stop to a low floor tram remains the prevailing solution universally and derive design principles for infrastructure. The research identifies consistent space standards for the Melbourne stop design types and develops standard footprints. It identifies fixed design constraints limiting the application of each type and variable constraints determining design outcomes where several options fit spatially. It highlights that planning for a fully accessible system is more complex than matching stop types to existing road widths and may warrant a new approach to the design of tram streets. The research also identifies that improving accessibility delivers additional benefits to passenger service, access to public transport and liveability of the city. The key research findings and tools are summarised in a Design Guideline. The challenge of improving access to Melbourne's tram system may be assisted by applying the design solutions, trends and tools identified in the research.


Aldosterone stimulates sodium transport in the inner medullary collecting duct (IMCD) via the classic genomic pathway, but it is not known whether it also acts via a rapid, non-conventional pathway in this part of the nephron. The IMCD regulates the final sodium content of urine and expresses vasopressin receptors coupled to adenylate cyclase. The recently reported rapid, non-genomic actions of aldosterone have been associated mainly with an increase in intracellular Ca(2+); however, it has also been shown to stimulate camp generation. Thus the aim of this study was to determine whether aldosterone stimulates rapid generation of cAMP in isolated IMCD segments. IMCD segments were microdissected from Sprague-Dawley rat kidneys and incubated at 37 degrees C for 4 min with aldosterone (10(-12) to 10(-6) M), vasopressin (10(-12) to 10(-6) M), or a combination of hormones in the presence of a phosphodiesterase inhibitor. cAMP was measured by radioimmunoassay. While corticosterone and dexamethasone were ineffective, aldosterone stimulated a dose-dependent increase in cAMP within 4 min (P<0.05). This action of aldosterone was not inhibited by the MR antagonist spironolactone. Co-incubation of aldosterone with vasopressin resulted in a further increase in cAMP generation above that induced by the neurohypophysial hormone alone. Aldosterone-mediated cAMP generation was not inhibited by a vasopressin V(1) or V(2) receptor antagonist. These data support a novel and rapid, non-genomic effect of aldosterone in IMCD. Aldosterone does not apparently interact with the vasopressin receptor to stimulate cAMP generation.


A farm to fork approach was used to establish the prevalence and risk of microorganisms in a carbonated soft drinks factory in south eastern Nigeria. Raw materials, intermediate and finished products were collected from 19 microbiological control points in a processing environment and analysed using membrane filtration over a 12 month period. Yeasts and other heterotrophic bacteria increased during the rainy season but there was no significant difference (p>0.05) in the proliferation of organisms among the analysed months.  Although, organisms were not detected in finished products, there was 100% prevalence for yeasts and bacteria in the processing areas with high sugar activity. No mould, Pseudomonas aeruginosa or Escherichia coli were isolated. Overall, a 5 by 5 risk matrix showed that heterotrophic bacteria, yeasts or mould had low risk of reaching undesirable numbers.  In addition to the prevalence investigation carried out in the processing environment, 864 properly stored bottles of the same brand of carbonated soft drink in trade were purchased from different commercial locations over 12 months and screened. No yeasts mould or coliform bacteria were isolated from the sampling carried out. In conclusion, heterotrophic bacteria and yeasts thrive more on equipment than intermediate or finished products in the process environment studied and the risks of product spoilage or people getting ill was generally low and may  remain so, if good manufacturing and proper after sales handling of the products are observed. Study highlights the need to focus on areas of high sugar activity, to control undesirable organisms and further work is required to establish how microorganisms survive and form biofilms on bottling equipment after sanitation.

 Key words: Heterotrophic, yeasts, bacteria, prevalence, carbonated soft drinks, risk, biofilms, bottling equipment.


The aim of this paper is to contribute to an innovative agenda in the field of Environmental Economics. The paper focusses on a conceptual and political perspective on the interactions between nature and economy. Section 1 states that Environmental Economics has to consider three fields: nature, justice and the role of time. To operationalize this claim, we introduce fundamental concepts such as entropy, joint production, ignorance, evolution, absolute scarcity, responsibility and homo politicus and explain them in Section 2. These concepts are applied in Section 3 using a historical example, namely the soda-chlorine industry, extending over a period of about three centuries. The lessons taken from this economic, environmental and political evolution are outlined in Section 4. In Section 5, we apply the concept of responsibility to address political aspects dealt with when examining the interplay between nature and economy. In our outlook in Section 6, we argue that these concepts and further concepts do not form a hierarchically structured system. Instead they are conceived as a network of interdependent concepts that reference each other but also remain categorically distinct from one another.


INTRODUCTION
Human perceptions and behavioural responses to the risk of epidemics have always been crucial factors in studying and containing disease spread. This study aims to assess and understand the risk perception and the behavioural response of a sample of the population in the Kurdistan Region toward COVID-19.

METHODOLOGY
A self-administered online survey (designed on Google Forms) was designed to get a rapid appraisal of the risk perception and behavioural response of people living in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region about COVID-19 from 17-25 November 2020.

RESULTS
A total of 390 individuals responded to the survey. Many respondents (65.6%) recognized COVID-19 as a high or very high threat level. The most frequently applied protective behaviours included avoiding spitting on the ground (76.2%), avoiding contacting ill persons (75.9%) and wearing face masks (75.6%). The main source of information about COVID-19 was Internet news (46.2%), followed by social media (44.9%). Significantly higher perceptions of the threat of COVID-19 were found among females (p = 0.004) and those having family members with chronic diseases (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
Understanding the general public's risk perception toward the COVID-19 infection is essential for determining effective protective measures and can be used to guide proper preventive behaviour.


The connection of cables from offshore wind parks to interconnection lines is receiving growing attention in Europe as a way to minimise the costs of laying down future offshore transmission grids in a wind-heavy system. Although important technical breakthroughs are enabling transmission system operators to engage in such hybrid forms of architecture, substantial regulatory challenges and uncertainties over the legal definition of the new architecture are preventing progress.
Anchored in current European legal frameworks and targets, this paper critically reviews the national framework conditions that treat the development of transmission grids as regulated assets, focusing on the distribution of connection costs, the access grid tariff and the investment incentives faced by transmission system operators (TSOs) in recovering costs. The paper develops an ideal regulatory framework and compares it to the current regulations in countries around the Baltic Sea in order to assess their suitability for supporting Meshed Offshore Grids (MOGs).
The results of this paper highlight the heterogeneity of national regulatory frameworks and the deviations from our recommendations. It is found that Germany lives up to the recommendations best, followed by Denmark, which suggests they have the regulatory potential to pioneer a MOG project in the Baltic Sea region. This is followed by consideration of two clusters of countries defined by their proximity to the ideal framework, assuming a three-step development of MOGs, and following ever more progressive regulatory adjustments. The results of the paper will provide policy-makers with indications for how to take action in order to facilitate offshore hybrid grid investments and improve the inclusion of the regulatory challenges in technical-economic assessments.


We consider the numerical evaluation of the Evans function, a Wronskian-like determinant that arises in the study of the stability of travel- ling waves. Constructing the Evans function involves matching the solutions of a linear ordinary differential equation depending on the spectral parameter. The problem becomes stiff as the spectral parameter grows. Consequently, the Gauss-Legendre method has previously been used for such problems; however more recently, methods based on the Magnus expansion have been proposed. Here we extensively examine the stiff regime for a general scalar Schrodinger operator. We show that although the fourth-order Magnus method suffers from order reduction, a fortunate cancellation when computing the Evans matching function means that fourth-order convergence in the end result is preserved. The Gauss-Legendre method does not suffer from order reduction, but it does not experience the cancellation either, and thus it has the same order of conver- gence in the end result. Finally we discuss the relative merits of both methods as spectral tools.


In-situ sampling was performed in the Andra Meuse/Haute Marne (France) Underground Research Laboratory (URL) allowing the study of two cement based materials/claystone interfaces that have undergone 4 to 5 years of interaction. The first interface concerned a shotcrete that was sprayed on the wall of an access drift at the laboratory level and the second one, a class G cement paste that was injected in a borehole filled from the surface and was intercepted during the excavation of a new gallery. In the first case, the hydrodynamic conditions were controlled by the ventilation of the drift; while in the second, the cement paste and claystone materials were considered saturated and far from any mechanical perturbation. A multi scale investigation was carried out to identify any evidence of alkaline perturbation in the cement based materials and the claystone. Chemical, mineralogical, and textural measurements were thus performed on the different materials in contact at the nanometer to a centimeter scale. Results showed that all the perturbations resulting from the geochemical contrast between the cement materials and the claystone were limited to a μm scale on each side of the interfaces. Carbonation was observed in the cement materials leading to an opening or a clogging of the porosity according to the hydrodynamic conditions and the formulation of the cement material. The distribution of the cation exchange population was also modified in the claystone in contact with the cement paste where a potassium saturation of the exchangeable fraction was identified. The originality of the present work is that realistic field controlled samples from the Andra URL were studied, hereby allowing the evaluation of the impact of natural heterogeneities of the in-situ experimental conditions (that is, hydrodynamic conditions, engineered damage zone, mineralogical variations) on the perturbations at the cement paste/claystone interfaces. An important result is that the clogging of porosity was not homogenous along the interfaces.


From the point of view of molecule design, pH/temperature responsive hydrogels were prepared based on the acrylic acid with the excellent pH sensitivity and N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPA) with the excellent temperature sensitivity by the traditional radical polymerization. Study focus on the swelling of the hydrogels, measurement of the swelling and deswelling under different ionic strength with various temperatures of the hydrogels were performed in our work. The results show that the ionic strength, the pH value and temperature are three key factors that affect the LCST of the hydrogel. In the same pH buffer solution, the swelling ratio decreases with temperature rises, and the ionic strength greatly affects the swelling of the pH temperature responsive hydrogel, the higher the ion concentration is, the lower the swelling ratio and the LCST are.


Abstract Conclusions: Hemorrhage within the ethmoid and/or sphenoid sinus and an interval between the time of injury and the time of operation exceeding 3 days are the risk factors for the visual prognosis of traumatic blindness. Objectives: To investigate the therapeutic efficacy of endoscopic optic nerve decompression in the treatment of traumatic blindness and to evaluate the relevant prognostic factors. Methods: Eighty-five cases of traumatic blindness were analyzed retrospectively. Univariate analysis and multiple logistic regression were performed to evaluate potential prognostic factors. Results: The overall rate of vision acuity improvement was 44.7% (38 of 85). Univariate analysis indicated that hemorrhage within the ethmoid and/or sphenoid sinus was significantly associated with unrecovered visual acuity. However, multiple logistic regression analysis identified that an interval between the time of injury and the time of operation exceeding 3 days, and hemorrhage within the ethmoid and/or sphenoid sinus were significantly correlated with the efficacy of treatment of traumatic blindness.


Self-tuning algorithms that adapt the learning process online encourage more effective and robust learning. Among all the methods available, meta-gradients have emerged as a promising approach. They leverage the differentiability of the learning rule with respect to some hyper-parameters to adapt them in an online fashion. Although meta-gradients can be accumulated over multiple learning steps to avoid myopic updates, this is rarely used in practice. In this work, we demonstrate that whilst multi-step meta-gradients do provide a better learning signal in expectation, this comes at the cost of a significant increase in variance, hindering performance. In the light of this analysis, we introduce a novel method mixing multiple inner steps that enjoys a more accurate and robust meta-gradient signal, essentially trading off bias and variance in meta-gradient estimation. When applied to the Snake game, the mixing meta-gradient algorithm can cut the variance by a factor of 3 while achieving similar or higher performance.


The use of mycophenolate mofetil (MMF), in combination with cyclosporine (CsA) or tacrolimus (FK) and corticosteroids, has been shown to improve clinical outcomes through significant reduction in the incidence of acute rejection in solid organ transplant patients. A fixed oral dosing regimen of 1 or 1.5 g MMF twice daily received Food and Drug Administration approval in 1995 with no recommendations for concentration monitoring at that time. Subsequent evidence has generated substantial debate on the need of clinical monitoring for MMF. This article summarizes the rationale, evidence, and approaches of clinical monitoring for MMF. Mycophenolic acid (MPA), the active moiety of MMF, noncompetitively inhibits the enzyme inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH), which is the target enzyme for MPA. Pharmacokinetic monitoring, by use of MPA predose or MPA area under the concentration-time curve (AUC) values, and pharmacodynamic monitoring by analysis of inhibition of IMPDH have been evaluated in organ transplant patients. The possibility of drug interactions between other immunosuppressive agents has also received attention recently. The clinical implications of drug interactions are discussed in this article.


Chest pain is a common complaint in children. It doesn't usually
indicate a cardiac problem but it is considered as heartache by the
patients and their families. In this article, the patients with chest
pain in pediatric cardiology clinic for the last 18 months have been
evaluated and the etiology of chest pain has been discussed. The
study includes 441 patients with chest pain, who were admitted to
the Department of pediatrics, Division of pediatric cardiology, Faculty
of Medicine, Selcuk University between May 2011 and November
2012. The data of the patients has been reviewed retrospectively.
Medical history and family history of the patients, cardiac physical
examination, electrocardiography, echocardiography, 24-hour rhythm
holter monitoring, exercise testing and laboratory tests have been
evaluated. In our study the mean age of the patients was 11 (5-18
year-old). 217 (49.2%) of the patients were male and 224 (50.8%)
of the patients were female. Medical history, physical examination,
electrocardiography and echocardiography of all the patients have
been evaluated. Cardiac pathology has been recognized in 10 (2.3%)
of the patients. The reasons that cause chest pain are idiopathic in
378 (85.7%) patients, psychological in 22 (5%) patients, lung diseases
in 20 (4.5%) patients, gastrointestinal disorders in 6 (1.4%) patients,
musculoskeletal system diseases in 3 (0.7%) patients, Familial
Mediterranean Fever in 1 (0.2%) patient and pectus excavatum in
1 (0.2%) patient. According to this study, the etiology of chest pain
in children is extra cardiac factors in majority. Differential diagnosis
should be made carefully due to possibility of life threatening
consequences of cardiac disorders. If there is no cardiac pathology
as a result of medical history, physical examination and laboratory
tests the patient and the family should be informed about this.


In this article, we investigate an algorithm for the fast O(N) and approximate simulation of long memory (LM) processes of length N using the discrete wavelet transform. The algorithm generates stationary processes and is based on the notion that we can improve standard wavelet-based simulation schemes by noting that the decorrelation property of wavelet transforms is not perfect for certain LM process. The method involves the simulation of circular autoregressive process of order one. We demonstrate some of the statistical properties of the processes generated, with some focus on four commonly used LM processes. We compare this simulation method with the white noise wavelet simulation scheme of Percival and Walden [Percival, D. and Walden, A., 2000, Wavelet Methods for Time Series Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).].


Purpose: This study was done to investigate the cognition and needs for hospice care among parents of children with cancer. Methods: The participants were 73 parents of children with cancer. Data were collected through self-report questionnaires and analyzed using the SPSS/WIN Program. Results: Less than half of parents (49.3%) told the child about the disease. If the child could not be treated medically, 39.5% of the parents answered that they would have the child treated in a hospital until his/her last days, while 62.8% of the parents replied that it would be appropriate for the child to get hospice care when all medical treatments for the child failed, or when the end of the child's life was near. Needs for hospice care for the parents were high, and the physical care of the child ranked as the most important. Conclusion: The above findings indicate that the parents were not cognitive enough about hospice care, but needed hospice care, especially as it is related to the physical care of the children. Therefore hospice care, based on cognition and needs of parents, should be provided for children and their families.


We investigate limits of performance in reference-tracking and path-following and highlight an essential difference between them. For a class of nonlinear systems, we show that in reference-tracking, the smallest achievable L2 norm of the tracking error is equal to the least amount of control energy needed to stabilize the zero-dynamics of the error system. We then show that this fundamental performance limitation does not exist when the control objective is to force the output to follow a geometric path without a timing law assigned to it. This is true even when an additional desired speed assignment is required to be satisfied asymptotically or in finite time.


To Go or to Stay: Age Differences in Cognitive Foraging Jessie Chin University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Wai-Tat Fu University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Elizabeth Stine-Morrow University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Abstract: Cognitive foraging used the metaphor of animal foraging over patches of food to study how people allocate time to multiple resources for obtaining information. We used the word search puzzle paradigm to examine age differences in cognitive foraging behavior, especially when younger and older adults switch between patches (i.e., word puzzles). Results showed that older adults were able to adjust their departure time and switch frequencies depending on patch densities and switch time costs, and found as many words as younger adults in the puzzles despite their age-related change in processing capacities. Although older adults needed more time to find a new word in the puzzle, they adaptively persisted longer and switched fewer times between puzzles than younger adults to improve their performance. The connections between age differences in information uptake rates and the time to switch to different patches were also discussed.


Objectives & Background To compare oral prednisolone with oral indomethacin in patients presenting to emergency departments (ED) with acute gout firstly for analgesic effectiveness, and secondly for safety. Methods Pragmatic, multi-centre, double-blind, randomized, equivalence trial. Each patient received either oral indomethacin plus placebo or prednisolone plus placebo for 5 days. Data were analysed in the first two hours in the ED, and from days 1 to 14. Results 416 patients were recruited (208 patients in each arm), and 376 patients completed the study. Clinically significant reductions in mean pain score were observed within two hours of treatment with both indomethacin and prednisolone both at rest and with activity, and also over the subsequent 14 days. The margin of equivalence set a priori at 13% between the two arms was not breached. There were no major adverse events during the ED or later phases of the study. In the first two hours, there were minor adverse events affecting 34 (18%) patients in the indomethacin group and 10 (5.3%) patients in the prednisolone group (P<0.001). From day 1 to day 14, 75 (39%) patients in the indomethacin group and 75 (40%) patients in the prednisolone group suffered from mild side effects (P=0.50). Conclusion Prednisolone and Indomethacin are equally effective first line treatments for acute gout in ED patients. There were no serious adverse event rates during a follow-up period of 14 days.


Background and Aims: Identifying factors that affect the students' evaluation of teachers' performance, allows for proper planning and provides for earning real results of the faculty performance. This study was undertaken aimed at determining the relationship between teachers' evaluation scores and the students' academic performance in Ilam University of Medical Sciences. Methods and Material: This descriptive-analytical study was undertaken throughout the school year of 2009-2010 in the Ilam University of Medical Sciences. All the faculty members (110 teachers) and all the medical and basic sciences students (1250 people) studying in this university during the mentioned time span were considered using the census method. Collection of the faculty evaluation data was carried out using a valid and reliable questionnaire including 14 questions, where as the data on academic performance of the students was gathered via the Educational Management System (Sama). Normalization of the variables was executed using the Kolmorogrove-Smirnove test and data analysis was performed based on Pearson correlation coefficient test and linear regression. Findings: The teachers' performance evaluation mean score during the first and second semester was 4.28 and 4.17 respectively, and the students' grade point average during the first and second semester was 15.11 and 15.48 respectively. The Pearson con-elation coefficient showed that there is a negative relationship between the number of units (number of credit hours per each course) a professor should teach and the mean score of the class performance, which was statistically significant (r=0.28, P=0.031). Also, the linear regression equation showed that by increasing the number of the units each professor should teach only by one unit, the mean score of the grade point average (GPA) of the class will decrease by 22. However, there were no significant relationship between the class performance mean (the class average GPA) scores and teachers' evaluations scores mean (p=0.94). Conclusion: Considering the insignificance of the relationship between the classroom performance (mean GPA score) and the teachers' evaluation mean score -having been confirmed by similar studies- this variable should not be considered as a biased factor in evaluation of the professors, given the fact that No significant relationship was observed between the class average exam marks and the classroom evaluation mean scores (P=0.54, r=0.057). The findings of the current study have shed some light on the subject matter by providing insights from a non-western background and would help to fill up the lack of studies in this context.


The effect of rigid blood pressure control on renal function is an unsettled issue. This study describes a retrospective analysis on the relationships between blood pressure control, hematocrit levels, and renal function in 97 treated hypertensive patients. Data analysis was done on systolic and diastolic blood pressure, hematocrit levels, renal function assessed by serum urea nitrogen (SUN), serum creatinine (Scr), and hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) dose at entry and at four anniversary dates thereafter. The patients were divided into two groups: group I and group II on the basis of HCTZ dose. Group I received an average of 100 mg HCTZ daily, whereas group II received an average of 50 mg HCTZ daily. In group I, the decrement in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure over time was highly significant (P < .0001); however, no change in renal function was noted. In group II, systolic blood pressure decreased significantly (P < .01) from entry to year 1, then leveled off. In year 4, systolic blood pressure was not different from that of entry. Conversely, the difference between entry and year 4 diastolic blood pressure was highly significant (P < .0001). In group II, significant decreases were noted between entry and year 4, SUN (16.5 ± 5.7 versus 14.9 ± 4.1 mg/dL; P < .0012) and Scr (1.29 ± .23 versus 1.24 ± .19 mg/dL; P < .0192). Hematocrit showed diverse responses; in group I, hematocrit significantly increased from entry to year 4 (44.8 ± 2.5 versus 47.2 ± 3.9%; P < .01); whereas, in group II, hematocrit significantly decreased (47.7 ± 3.8 versus 44.9 ± 3.4%; P < .001). A separate analysis between blacks and whites showed that black patients did better with high‐dose (very high dose according to current concept) of HCTZ in both blood pressure and renal function controls, whereas white subjects tend to do better with low‐dose (high dose according to current concepts) of HCTZ. This study concludes that high‐dose (or very high dose) HCTZ is beneficial for black hypertensives, however, low‐dose (or high‐dose) HCTZ appears to be universally beneficial.


Abstract More than 100 years ago, Herbert A. Simon wrote the book "The sciences of the artificial" (1916) where he presented Economics as an artificial science. Even though back then the mainstream economics promoted the idea of , Simon's perspective of man was as one of an artificial system, characterized by a bounded rationality whose behavior depends on his inner and outer environment. Later, in the 70's Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky investigated more on the limitation of human rationality and built, based on empirical studies, the maps of bounded rationality. Later, Richard H. Thaler introduced the concept of nudge, as a way to improve people's choices by using the knowledge about their limited rationality and using it to direct their behavior in the direction in which they would have behaved if they were rational. This articles treats human behavior through the lens of ergonomics, a scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance. We adopt the perspective of the man as an interface between his inner and outer environment and describe how behavioral economics developed a different perspective about human choice in contrast with the one promoted by standard economics.


Discussions on climate change and potential mechanisms to support conservation efforts have fixed the attention on incentives to conserve and protect forests. However, incentives alone will not do the job for forest conservation; what might? We use the case of Kutai National Park to examine the potential for incentives to boost conservation and the urgent need to simultaneously apply disincentives against conversion of the park. Kutai National Park is an extreme case: conservation values have to compete with the value of vast deposits of high-grade coal. The park management unit has tried to calculate the conservation benefits derived from the park ecosystem, but these values are miniscule compared to the alternatives of mining and logging. Incentives for encroachment and the conversion of the park are the easily accessible timber and enormous known coal deposits. These resources provide immediate tangible benefits for the settlers in the park and the local government to exploit the park, and affect local possibilities for conserving it. If we are to be serious about conserving important ecosystems, incentives alone are insufficient. Action is needed to ensure that all stakeholders support the national government's commitment to preserve representative examples of biodiversity and ecosystems; each stakeholder will have to make some sacrifices.


Permian Basin reserves exceed the reserves of the largest conventional field in the world, Ghawar, Saudi Arabia [1].
 To develop this field many companies use 'factory drilling' or 'geometrical approach'. This approach decreases the cost of drilling and make sense for source rocks because these are hydrocarbons saturated rocks or the rocks where hydrocarbons have been cooked. Geometrical approach would be ideal for homogeneous formations, but as it will be shown below shale place are very inhomogeneous vertically and laterally. While a drilling cost for a single well is reduced, this approach significantly increases the overall development costs and environmental impact because of drilling a big number of low producing wells.
 We found the way to solve this problem developing a technology that uses standard open-hole log data to calculate Production Profile that shows predicted production along the entire well.


OBJECTIVE
Failure to use contraceptives contributes to an unacceptably high rate of undesired pregnancy in Sub-Saharan adolescents with associated maternal and neonatal mortality/morbidity. Evidence-based research is needed to understand contraceptive usage in Sub-Saharan adolescents and to enable appropriate allocation of donor resources.

DESIGN
Nationally-representative USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) Demographic and Health Surveys from 18 least developed Sub-Saharan African nations.

POPULATION
212,819 Sub-Saharan African women (45,054 were 15-19 years old).

METHODS
The percentages of adolescents using contraception, as well as their preferred contraceptive methods and desired family size, were reported.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Contraceptive Use, Neonatal Mortality, Undesired Pregnancy, Pregnancy Terminations.

RESULTS
Most adolescents (92.4%) surveyed reported no contraceptive use, although 21.6% reported recent sexual activity. A current pregnancy was reported in 6.6% (n = 2,951) of adolescents with 29.9% of these pregnancies being unwanted. Many surveyed adolescents (18.8%) had at least one prior birth. A death of the previous child was reported in 6.6% (n = 560) with half of these deaths (n = 276) occurring within the first month of life. Many adolescents planned to delay childbearing for at least two years (37.1%) or were unsure about future timing (33.3%), and 2.2% reported a history of at least one pregnancy termination. Most adolescents (73.1%) felt it would be a problem if they became pregnant. Adolescents indicated injectable medications and contraceptive pills were the preferred future contraceptives at 39.9% and 31.4% respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
Sub-Saharan African adolescents report a mismatch between desire for contraception and use; preferred methods are oral and injectable contraceptives.


Abstract Stromatomorpha californica Smith is a massive, calcified, tropical to subtropical organism of the Late Triassic that produced small biostromes and contributed in building some reefs. It comes from the displaced terranes of Cordilleran North America (Eastern Klamath terrane, Alexander terrane, and Wrangellia). This shallow-water organism formed small laminar masses and sometimes patch reefs. It was first referred to the order Spongiomorphidae but was considered to be a coral. Other affinities that have been proposed include hydrozoan, stomatoporoid, sclerosponge, and chambered sponge. Part of the problem was diagenesis that resulted in dissolution of the siliceous spicules and/or replaced them with calcite. Well-preserved dendroclone spicules found during study of newly discovered specimens necessitate an assignment of Stromatomorpha californica to the demosponge order Orchocladina Rauff. Restudy of examples from the Northern Calcareous Alps extends the distribution of this species to the Tethys, where it was an important secondary framework builder in Upper Triassic (Norian-Rhaetian) reef complexes. Revisions of Stromatomorpha californica produce much wider pantropical distribution, mirroring paleogeographic patterns revealed for other tropical Triassic taxa. Review of Liassic material from the Jurassic of Morocco, previously assigned to Stromatomorpha californica Smith var. columnaris Le Maitre, cannot be sustained. Species previously included in Stromatomorpha are: S. stylifera Frech (type species, Rhaetian), S. actinostromoides Boiko (Norian), S. californica Smith (Norian), S. concescui Balters (Ladinian-Carnian), S. pamirica Boiko (Norian), S. rhaetica Kühn (Rhaetian), S. stromatoporoides Frech, and S. tenuiramosa Boiko (Norian). Stromatomorpha rhaetica Kühn described from the Rhaetian of Vorarlberg, Austria shows no major difference from S. californica. An example described as S. oncescui Balters from the Ladinian-Carnian of the Rarau Mountains, Romania, is very similar to S. californica in exhibiting similar spicule types. However, because of the greater distance between individual pillars, horizontal layers, and the older age, S. oncescui is retained as a separate species. The net-like and regular skeleton of Spongiomorpha sanpozanensis Yabe and Sugiyama, from the Upper Triassic of Sambosan (Tosa, Japan), suggests a closer alliance with Stromatomorpha, and this taxon possibly could be the same as S. californica.


Although the historical national accounts of Sweden are among the most detailed in the world, there is scope for improvement. This study revises previous historical estimates of Swedish GDP. Agricultural output is upgraded for the nineteenth century following recent research by Swedish agrarian historians on the underestimation of official statistics. Estimates of annual fluctuations before 1861 are significantly improved by using new sources on yield ratios of harvests. For manufacturing, home industries are added, in accordance with modern international guidelines (2008 SNA). The study concludes that early nineteenth-century Sweden was not as poor relative to other West European countries as previously thought.


The effect of flow rate and perfused load on insulin absorption was studied in isolated proximal rabbit tubules. In one series of experiments tubules were perfused for 30 min with 125I-[A14]insulin at 3.6 ng/ml and at flow rates varying between 2.2 and 43.3 nl/min, thus varying both flow rate and the perfused load. In a second series of experiments the tubules were exposed to increasing loads of insulin at a fixed flow rate of 15 nl/min. In a third series of experiments two groups of tubules were exposed to identical perfused loads at two different flow rates. The results showed that absorption is linearly correlated with the perfused load in the ranges of flow rates and concentrations examined. The perfused load determined the magnitude by which the insulin was reabsorbed, whereas the flow rate determined the efficiency (fractional absorption) by which the protein was reabsorbed. At flow rates less than 5 nl/min the fractional absorption was greater than 65%, and at flow rates greater than 30 nl/min fractional absorption was less than 40%. Thus, there is an inverse relationship between flow rate and fractional absorption. The described effects of changes in flow rate and perfused load are suggested to be caused by concomitant changes in the mean luminal concentration.


The madurastatins are pentapeptide siderophores originally described as containing an unusual salicylate-capped N-terminal aziridine ring. Isolation of madurastatin C1 (1) (also designated MBJ-0034), from Actinomadura sp. DEM31376 (itself isolated from a deep sea sediment), prompted structural reevaluation of the madurastatin siderophores, in line with the recent work of Thorson and Shaaban. NMR spectroscopy in combination with partial synthesis allowed confirmation of the structure of madurastatin C1 (1) as containing an N-terminal 2-(2-hydroxyphenyl)oxazoline in place of the originally postulated aziridine, while absolute stereochemistry was determined via Harada's advanced Marfey's method. Therefore, this work further supports Thorson and Shaaban's proposed structural revision of the madurastatin class of siderophores (madurastatins A1 (2), B1 (3), C1 (1), and MBJ-0036 (4)) as N-terminal 2-(2-hydroxyphenyl)oxazolines.


Introduction A number of devices including metal teaspoons, calibrated spoons and oral syringes are available to administer medications. The aims of this study were to determine which measuring devices were preferred by caregivers and which were the most accurate. Methods We compared caregivers' accuracy when measuring paracetamol suspension using different devices and the variance of doses achieved using each device. Participants completed a questionnaire detailing demographics, regularity of administering children's medication, preference and perceived accuracy of paediatric medication devices. Caregivers measured 5.0 ml of 120 mg/5 ml paracetamol suspension using a 5.0 ml metal teaspoon, 5.0 ml calibrated spoon and 5.0 ml oral syringe. Samples were weighed then converted into mls (conversion rate=1.09 g/ml, Orbis Pharmaceuticals). Results We recruited 277 caregivers aged 17–68 years attending outpatient clinics. Most (98%) were parents with children less than 18 years of age at home. Most would choose an oral syringe (59%) or calibrated spoon (52%) to dispense medication. The majority (84%) considered the syringe most accurate and easiest to use (70%). Medication was mainly administered by mothers (94%). Accuracy did not vary with caregivers' age, gender, instrument preference, number and age of children. The mean volumes measured with the metal, calibrated spoon and oral syringe were 3.99, 5.00 and 5.13 ml respectively. Volumes administered ranged from 2.49 to 6.52 ml. There were significant differences from the specified 5 ml volume using the metal spoon (single sample t test, t=22.46, p<0.0001), oral syringe (single sample t test, t=0.0087, p<0.0001) and when comparing the volumes measured with each device. The variance of the volumes measured with an oral syringe was significantly smaller than that measured using a calibrated spoon (Pitman's test; ρRho=-0.797, p<0.0001) or metal spoon (Pitman's test; ρ=-0.709, p<0.0001). Conclusions There were significant differences in the volumes of medication measured using commonly available devices. Oral syringes were the most consistently accurate, having the smallest variance. The increased variability with calibrated or metal spoons may result in under or overdosing especially when administering drugs with a narrow therapeutic window. We recommend the oral syringe for measuring children's medication. Accuracy in volume measurements can be further improved by parental education.


For any finite Coxeter group W, we introduce two new objects: its cutting poset and its biHecke monoid. The cutting poset, constructed using a generalization of the notion of blocks in permutation matrices, almost forms a lattice on W. The construction of the biHecke monoid relies on the usual combinatorial model for the 0-Hecke algebra H0(W), that is, for the symmetric group, the algebra (or monoid) generated by the elementary bubble sort opera- tors. The authors previously introduced the Hecke group algebra, constructed as the algebra generated simultaneously by the bubble sort and antisort op- erators, and described its representation theory. In this paper, we consider instead the monoid generated by these operators. We prove that it admits |W| simple and projective modules. In order to construct the simple modules, we introduce for each w 2 W a combinatorial module Tw whose support is the interval (1,w)R in right weak order. This module yields an algebra, whose representation theory generalizes that of the Hecke group algebra, with the combinatorics of descents replaced by that of blocks and of the cutting poset.