Background Concern for the development of extrapyramidal side effects (EPSEs) represents a barrier to the routine use of long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotic medication in patients with first-episode schizophrenia (FES). Flupenthixol decanoate is a first-generation antipsychotic, which is readily available in the public healthcare system in South Africa. Aim The aim of this study was to describe the nature, occurrence and severity of EPSEs and their impact on patients with FES over 12 months of treatment with flupenthixol decanoate (fluanxol depot). Setting The study was based in Cape Town, South Africa, and patients with FES were recruited from inpatient services at Stikland and Tygerberg Hospitals and surrounding psychiatric clinics. This was a sub-study of a larger study, which examined several outcomes in patients with FES treated with the lowest effective dose of flupenthixol decanoate. Methods The Extrapyramidal Symptom Rating Scale (ESRS) was used to assess both subjective experience and objective measures of EPSEs in a cohort of patients with FES (N = 130). The relationship between demographic and clinical risk factors for individual subsets of EPSEs was also determined. Results In the context of an overall good 12-month tolerability, EPSEs peaked at month 3. Patients with akathisia were more likely to have greater symptoms of depression, and Parkinsonism was predicted by higher Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale scores (independent of medication dosage). Black and white patients showed higher total ESRS and higher subjective ESRS scores, compared with patients of mixed ancestry, and white patients scored higher on Parkinsonism ratings. Conclusion Flupenthixol decanoate is well tolerated in patients with FES. Certain clinical features of schizophrenia may be related to EPSEs. Ethnicity is a socio-cultural construct, and hence the differential risk of EPSEs should be interpreted according to ethnicity. Variations in the environment, diet, substance use and genetics may all affect the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of psychotropic drugs and warrant further investigation.


Throughout the European Union (EU), high concentrations of nitrates and pesticides are among the major polluting components of drinking water and have potential long-term impacts on the environment and human health. Many research projects co-funded by the European Commission have been carried out, but the results often do not influence policy making and implementation to the extent that is duly justified. This paper assesses several issues and barriers that weaken the role of science in EU policy making and EU policy implementation in the case of agricultural impacts on drinking water quality. It then proposes improvements and solutions to strengthen the role of science in this process. The analysis is conceptual but supported empirically by a desk study, a workshop, and complementary individual interviews, mostly with representatives of organizations working at the EU level. The results indicate that perceived barriers are mostly observed on the national or regional level and are connected with a lack of political will, scarce instruction on the legislation implementation process, and a lack of funding opportunities for science to be included in policy making and further EU policy implementation. In response to that, we suggest translating scientific knowledge on technological, practical or environmental changes and using dissemination techniques for specific audiences and in local languages. Further, the relationship between data, information and decision making needs to change by implementing monitoring in real-time, which will allow for the quick adaptation of strategies. In addition, we suggest project clustering (science, policy, stakeholders, and citizens) to make science and research more connected to current policy challenges and stakeholder needs along with citizen involvement with an aim of establishing sustainable long-term relationships and communication flows.


Today, under the background the ecological civilization construction, many scholars are focusing on the issue of how to keep the balance of the economical, social, political and cultural development and try to make all of them in a sustainable development way. In this paper, we put forward the concept of ecological accountable government. On the analysis of the responsibility system of an ecological accountable government, we try to construct the ecological accountable government in the contract way. Then, we consider that the ecological accountable government's contract system was composed of three contract levels, which including the moral contract, the political contract and the executive contract. All these three levels of contract have different functions and definitions, but their goals are the same, which is to try to make the government fulfill its ecological responsibility. Finally, we talk about the constructional thoughts which including six different dimensions, such as the administrative value's construction, the theory basis of the political ethics and some relevant background system settings, the subject of responsibility, the responsible receptors, the content of responsibility, and the responsible mechanisms.


During the War of Resistance against Japan (1937–1945), children were a major subject of propaganda images. Children had become significant figures in China when May Fourth intellectuals, influenced by evolutionary thinking, deemed "the child" as a central figure for the modernization of the country. Consequently, during the war, cartoonists employed already-established representations of children for propagandistic purposes. By analyzing images published by members of the Cartoon Propaganda Corps in the wartime magazine Resistance Cartoons, this article shows how portrayals of children fulfilled symbolic as well as normative functions. These images provide us with information about the symbolic power of representations of children, and about authorities' expectations of China's youngest citizens. However, cartoonists also created images undermining the heroic rhetoric often attached to representations of children, especially after the dismissal of the Cartoon Propaganda Corps in 1940. This was the case with cartoonist Zhang Leping's (1910–1992) sketches of "Zhuji after the Devastation," which revealed the discrepancies between propagandistic representations and children's everyday life in wartime China.


Background
Epistaxis is the commonest ear, nose and throat emergency. It's mostly self-limited but it may be severe such that medical attention is sought and in such cases it may be life threatening. There is paucity of data on the prevalence and management options for epistaxis in Tanzania and at Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) and Muhimbili Orthopedic Institute (MOI), no any published study has unveiled it despite being the commonly encountered emergency in our department. The aim of this study was thus to determine the prevalence, aetiology and treatment modalities of epistaxis among patients receiving otorhinolaryngology services at MNH and MOI.
Materials and Methods
A cross-sectional, hospital based study was done to 427 patients at Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) and Muhimbili Orthopedic Institute (MOI). Data was collected using structured questionnaires from June to December 2015 and it was then analyzed using SPSS program.
Results
A total of 427 patients aged 1-82 years were recruited with majority of the patients being females (54.6%). The mean age at diagnosis was found to be 27±23 years.The prevalence of epistaxis was found to be lower among patients below 20 years (12.5%) of age and higher among patients over the age of 40years (34.9%). Prevalence of epistaxis was found to be higher among males (29.9%) compared to females (18 %).  Majority of patients had anterior epistaxis (73%) whereas the remaining percentage was constituted by those with posterior epistaxis.Posterior epistaxis was more common among patients aged 21-40 years (40.7%) compared to patients aged 0-20 years (20%).  75% of the patients had epistaxis due to local etiologies while 25% was due systemic causes. Majority of patients with epistaxis had history of trauma (25%). Other reported aetiologies were malignancy of nasal and post-nasal space (22%) and hypertension (15%). Anterior nasal packing was the most commonly used method in management of patients with epistaxis compared to conventional posterior nasal packs. Fewer number of patients required surgery as the treatment modality where 3% of the patients undergone electro cauterization and only 1% required external carotid artery ligation.
Conclusion
Epistaxis is quite prevalent at MNH and MOI with males being more affected than females. Trauma resulting from road traffic crashes remain the common etiological factor for epistaxis in our setting is the leading cause of epistaxis among the patients studied. Efforts directed at reduction in the incidence of road traffic crashes will reduce the prevalence of epistaxis in our hospital settings.


A proven program to help busy executives get Fit to Lead. Are you a leader at work, at the expense of your health? Did you give up exercise after college, and stop watching your diet when you made it to senior partner? Are too little sleep, fast food, and a hectic, catch-up lifestyle all you allow yourself? This proven, simple program is based on the sound principles that have helped thousands of top executives, including President George W. Bush, get - and stay - in shape. The results are not just looking and feeling better, but performing better on the job, becoming a more effective leader, and inspiring others to follow your lead.


Combining insights from research on systems innovation and sustainable transitions with multi-level governance perspectives, this paper examines the 'Arbed' domestic housing retrofit programmes in Wales. In so doing, the paper demonstrates the critical role of sub-national government in the emergence of a distinctive sustainability-oriented pathway for domestic end-use energy demand reduction in Wales, and highlights the multi-level governance challenges involved. The governance processes contributing to this purposive transformation (e.g., policies and institutions; a 'shared' normative vision; network building; competencies, resource mobilisation, etc.) are illuminated and how they simultaneously cut across multiple spatial scales is discussed. Rather than simply viewing such transition arenas as simple sites of experimentation, the paper argues that sub-national sustainable energy transitions and pathways are shaped by pressures and opportunities that are mediated by unique place and context-specific conditions that exert influence on the mobilisation of resources, governance capabilities and actor-networks.


Our objective in this study was to promote the growth of bone cells on biomedical titanium (Ti) implant surfaces via surface modification involving sandblasting, alkaline etching, and type I collagen immobilization using the natural cross-linker genipin. The resulting surface was characterized in terms topography, roughness, wettability, and functional groups, respectively using field emission scanning electron microscopy, 3D profilometry, and attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. We then evaluated the adhesion, proliferation, initial differentiation, and mineralization of human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). Results show that sandblasting treatment greatly enhanced surface roughness to promote cell adhesion and proliferation and that the immobilization of type I collagen using genipin enhanced initial cell differentiation as well as mineralization in the extracellular matrix of hMSCs. Interestingly, the nano/submicro-scale pore network and/or hydrophilic features on sandblasted rough Ti surfaces were insufficient to promote cell growth. However, the combination of all proposed surface treatments produced ideal surface characteristics suited to Ti implant applications.


The increasing need for bridging in the complex and interactive world in which we live is particularly compelling in the case of fields such as ageing and disabilities where contextualization and intersectoral collaboration are paramount. Such bridging involves both conceptual (ethical and scientific) formulations and the engagement of real people and groups. An emerging approach that may be promising at both of these levels is person-centred health care. The goal and focus of care in this approach is the person in context. This involves health care of the person (of the totality of the person's health, including its ill and positive aspects), health care for the person (aimed not only to the amelioration of symptoms and dysfunctions but also to the fulfilment of the person's life project), health care by the person (with health professionals extending themselves as full human beings, with high ethical aspirations), and health care with the person (in respectful and empowering collaboration with the person presenting for help). The implementation of such an approach requires the development of relevant clinical procedures such as person-centred integrative diagnosis as well as the design of policies facilitating the prominent participation of persons in all aspects of health care.


A short pulse generator based on a commercially available bulk material electroabsorption modulator was experimentally demonstrated. By optimizing the length of the dispersion compensation fibre, nearly transform limited pulse was generated. There are a 2-ps-pulsed train with a timing jitter of 650 fs and a repetition rate of 10 GHz obtained with two-stage nonlinear compression. The quality of the pulse was further verified by 4×10 Gbit/s optical time-division-multiplexed (OTDM) communication system experiment in which a low demultiplexing power penalty of 0.3 dB was achieved.


This paper investigates the impact that shame can have on people's sense of identity and how this can be a major factor in exacerbating feelings of loss. Whilst acknowledging the considerable contemporary theoretical interest in the affect of shame, attention is drawn to the methodological
difficulties inherent in studying shame. It is argued that shame is an important
aspect of human experience but is one that provides a challenge not only to
quantitative methods, but also to conventional qualitative methods of enquiry.
A methodology based on psychodynamically-informed interviews and analysis is therefore utilised. Extracts of interviews with families (drawn from a larger study of the impact of serious mental illness on families) are used to argue that the shame
of having a family member suffer from mental illness can very directly threaten
people's sense of identity. Shame, it will be argued, helps us understand the well-recognised phenomenon of 'chronic grieving' amongst relatives of people
with severe mental health problems. Shame keeps people out of the dialogue with others through which new narratives of self might be developed. Theoretical links between this construct of shame and chronic grieving can be made with observations of the associations between shame and depression.


Responses of the yeast genes encoding 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase, HMG1 and HMG2, to in vivo changes in heme concentrations were investigated. Expression of the genes was determined by direct measurement of the mRNA transcribed from each gene, by direct assay of the enzyme activity encoded by each gene, and by measurement of the expression of lacZ fusions to the control regions of each gene. These studies indicated that expression of HMG1 was stimulated by heme, whereas expression of HMG2 was repressed by heme. The effect of heme on HMG1 expression was mediated by the HAP1 transcriptional regulator and was independent of HAP2. Thus, the genes encoding the 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase isozymes join a growing list of gene pairs that are regulated by heme in opposite ways.


In the present study seasonal changes of chlorophyll content and storage substances related to the metabolic response of the widespread, evergreen plant oleander (Nerium oleander) to air pollution were investigated. Mature leaves of oleander shrubs, grown at five sites of differing levels of air pollution in the center and the suburbs of the Athens Metropolitan area, were examined during the course of a year. Soluble sugars, starch and total lipid content of the leaves showed a peak at the end of the cold season, while a decline was detected during the main growth period. Leaf chlorophyll content was increased during spring. It seems likely that the level of air pollution in Athens did not affect the concentration and the seasonal pattern of storage substances at the leaf level. Elevated chlorophyll content was estimated in the polluted with oxides of nitrogen sites. In contrast, leaf chlorophyll content declined in sites with ozone pollution.


Is it beneficial to combine lean, simulation and optimization? And if so, how can they be combined for decision-making support in system design and improvement? This research proposes a framework that sets the basis for achieving beneficial interactions between the lean philosophy, methods and tools, and simulation-based optimization. A framework that gives the users the possibility to get better system understanding, conduct a deeper system analysis, and attain an optimal system design and improvement, and thereby, get better foundation for sustainable long time improvement. The framework has been tested in several real-world case studies. Moreover, surveys have been conducted to evaluate the perception of subject matter experts about its usefulness, as well as its usability and perceived quality by end users and decision makers, all of them reporting very positive results.


Objectives—The study's objective was to examine incidence of fractures and associated activity restriction among children aged 0–12 years. Design—Injuries were prospectively recorded over the four year period from 1992–95 in a cohort of children aged 0–12 years, representing 193 540 children years. Information about length and extent of activity restriction was collected from parents by a mailed questionnaire for a subsample of 192 children with a fracture. Results—A total of 2477 fractures occurred in the study population (128 per 10 000 children annually). The incidence increased linearly with age, by 14 cases per 10 000 children year for each year of age. Boys and girls showed similar patterns of fracture occurrence. There was a significant difference in length of activity restrictions for different types of fractures. The mean and 95% confidence interval (CI) of activity restricted days for leg fractures were 26 (95% CI 7 to 45) days, for arm fractures, 14 (95% CI 8 to 20) days, and for other fractures, 5 (95% CI 1 to 8) days. Arm fractures represented 66% of the cases and 62% of the activity restricted days; leg fractures 19% of cases and 33% of all activity restricted days; and other fractures 16% of the cases but only 5% of the activity restricted days in this population. Conclusion—The incidence of fractures increases in childhood. Different types of fractures among children cause different amounts of activity restriction.


In neuroscience, as in many other scientific domains, the primary form of knowledge dissemination is through published articles in peer-reviewed journals. One challenge for modern neuroinformatics is to design methods to make the knowledge from the tremendous backlog of publications accessible for search, analysis and its integration into computational models. In this thesis, we introduce novel natural language processing (NLP) models and systems to mine the neuroscientific literature. In addition to in vivo, in vitro or in silico experiments, we coin the NLP methods developed in this thesis as in litero experiments, aiming at analyzing and making accessible the extended body of neuroscientific literature. In particular, we focus on two important neuroscientific entities: brain regions and neural cells. An integrated NLP model is designed to automatically extract brain region connectivity statements from very large corpora. This system is applied to a large corpus of 25M PubMed abstracts and 600K full-text articles. Central to this system is the creation of a searchable database of brain region connectivity statements, allowing neuroscientists to gain an overview of all brain regions connected to a given region of interest. More importantly, the database enables researcher to provide feedback on connectivity results and links back to the original article sentence to provide the relevant context. The database is evaluated by neuroanatomists on real connectomics tasks (targets of Nucleus Accumbens) and results in significant effort reduction in comparison to previous manual methods (from 1 week to 2h). Subsequently, we introduce neuroNER to identify, normalize and compare instances of identify neuronsneurons in the scientific literature. Our method relies on identifying and analyzing each of the domain features used to annotate a specific neuron mention, like the morphological term 'basket' or brain region 'hippocampus'. We apply our method to the same corpus of 25M PubMed abstracts and 600K full-text articles and find over 500K unique neuron type mentions. To demonstrate the utility of our approach, we also apply our method towards cross-comparing the NeuroLex and Human Brain Project (HBP) cell type ontologies. By decoupling a neuron mention's identity into its specific compositional features, our method can successfully identify specific neuron types even if they are not explicitly listed within a predefined neuron type lexicon, thus greatly facilitating cross-laboratory studies. In order to build such large databases, several tools and infrastructureslarge-scale NLP were developed: a robust pipeline to preprocess full-text PDF articles, as well as bluima, an NLP processing pipeline specialized on neuroscience to perform text-mining at PubMed scale. During the development of those two NLP systems, we acknowledged the need for novel NLP approaches to rapidly develop custom text mining solutions. This led to the formalization of the agile text miningagile text-mining methodology to improve the communication and collaboration between subject matter experts and text miners. Agile text mining is characterized by short development cycles, frequent tasks redefinition and continuous performance monitoring through integration tests. To support our approach, we developed Sherlok, an NLP framework designed for the development of agile text mining applications.


ABSTRACT The effect of initial sediment concentration on settling velocity distributions measured by the modified bottom withdrawal tube (MBWT) method is presented for a well-aggregated clay soil (a vertisol). Sediment concentrations in the experiments range from 10 to 100 kg m-3 of suspension. Particle Reynolds numbers in the polydisperse suspensions range from less than 0.1 up to 100. Settling velocities of all size classes in the sediment are reduced by an increase in sediment concentration. The empirical equations of Richardson and Zaki appear useful for predicting ratios of settling velocity at different polydisperse concentrations, but absolute velocities predicted are lower than measured. The discrepancy is attributed to the empirical equations being derived for ratios of particle Reynolds numbers much lower than are present in this natural sediment. Hydrodynamic wake capture occurs during this sedimentation, a process not considered in the empirical equations. Settling velocities of all size classes in the sediment are also reduced by a decrease in MBWT diameter, and an incorrect relation between settling velocity and sediment concentration is measured using the "small" tube originally recommended for this technique. A minimum tube diameter of 45 mm is recommended to avoid such errors.


This research proposed Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) system to effectively and efficiently balance machine loading for color filter fabrication plants in Thin Film Transistor - Liquid Crystal Display industry. APS uses six modules to estimate future equipment loading and calculate order due dates according to capacity limits by taking into account the due date and size of orders, as well as the capacity, loading, and yield of fabrication plants. These six modules include: Order Priority Module, WIP-Pulling Module, Order Release Module, Material Management Module, Workload Accumulation Module, and Workload Balance Module. A lot's start processing time at each production step is selected leading to the best workload balance. Simulation and experimental design are used to evaluate the performance of APS. Production manager can use APS to improve color filter fabrication plants' productivity and competitiveness.


Facing unprecedented urban growth in the 1950s and 1960s, public authorities were able to quickly build new areas of multi-family housing on a large scale in a very centralized manner. The end of the 1950s was marked by the creation of areas targeted for priority urbanisation (ZUP). While the last ZUP was launched in 1969, in 1973 the Guichard report limited "multi-family houssine" construction" to 2,000 dwellings. The first collective housing neighborhoods did not include any commercial developments. In 1961, the Sudreau-Fontanet report imposed a minimum allowed coverage for commercial areas, in the form of a grid arrangement of small shopping centres. This paper analyses these first commercial urban planning developments in France, and uses two case studies on consumer behaviour from 1965 and 1970 to explore their low attractiveness. It investigates, from early efforts in urban planning, how urban policies contributed to the early decline of new urbanized zones for commercial activities.


This work is part of a project which addresses a detection of the most suitable Webservice for the needs of a particular end user within service oriented architecture (SOA).As of today a research group located at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences,Germany, and Linnaeus University, Sweden developed a framework which obtainsknowledge about quality of services. Thereby this framework offers the possibility toregister several Web services and guarantees the routing of the communication betweenthem through an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) implementation developed by this group.The project raises several issues that have to be solved in order to reach the aim ofproviding a framework which selects the most suitable services based on non-functionalcriteria like response time or reliability.Web services call each other to provide their own functionality.The first aim of this work is to redirect released requests (sub-requests) which areinitiated by previous requests (sub-requests), or to manipulate specific data,respectively. A sub-request should then call a specified service which had prior to thisbeen selected by the framework.The next and main part of this work deals with providing data which keepinformation about the relation between requests and those requests released by a Webservice as a reaction of these initial calls. This data is the basis input for later calculatingof call graphs. This issue leads to further questions: The information about Web servicecalls is not reported by the standard log output of the host server. The approach for asolution has to define a way to record the Web service requests and their dependenciesamong each other.For verifying the concept an implementation will demonstrate the successful result.


As Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have demonstrated superhuman performance in a variety of fields, there is an increasing interest in understanding the complex internal mechanisms of DNNs. In this paper, we propose Relative Attributing Propagation (RAP), which decomposes the output predictions of DNNs with a new perspective of separating the relevant (positive) and irrelevant (negative) attributions according to the relative influence between the layers. The relevance of each neuron is identified with respect to its degree of contribution, separated into positive and negative, while preserving the conservation rule. Considering the relevance assigned to neurons in terms of relative priority, RAP allows each neuron to be assigned with a bi-polar importance score concerning the output: from highly relevant to highly irrelevant. Therefore, our method makes it possible to interpret DNNs with much clearer and attentive visualizations of the separated attributions than the conventional explaining methods. To verify that the attributions propagated by RAP correctly account for each meaning, we utilize the evaluation metrics: (i) Outside-inside relevance ratio, (ii) Segmentation mIOU and (iii) Region perturbation. In all experiments and metrics, we present a sizable gap in comparison to the existing literature.


The circular economy (CE) is essential for decoupling economic growth from resource consumption and environmental impacts. However, effective implementation requires a systemic change across supply chains, involving both technological and nontechnological innovations. Frameworks are beginning to emerge to foster CE thinking in organizations. However, literature review carried out as part of this research has revealed gaps in their ability to fulfil CE requirements. Furthermore, few frameworks provide support on how CE requirements may be implemented. To address these issues, this article presents a new framework, BECE (backcasting and eco‐design for the circular economy), to ensure that businesses can implement CE requirements more readily. BECE empowers organizations to tackle the CE holistically by embedding the concept into corporate decision making and by bringing operational and systems thinking together, thus increasing the likelihood of successful implementation. The potential of the BECE framework was tested through a pilot workshop focusing on the development of a CE business model through redesign of products and supply chains. Using vacuum cleaners as an illustrative case study, several product design and supply‐chain alternatives were identified, including the development of scenarios and action plans for their implementation at the business level. Although the case study focuses on a particular product, the BECE framework is generic and applicable across different products and business sectors.


Using code examples in professional software development is like teenage sex. Those who say they do it all the time are probably lying. Although it is natural, those who do it feel guilty. Finally, once they start doing it, they are often not too concerned with safety, they discover that it is going to take a while to get really good at it, and they realize they will have to come up with a bunch of new ways of doing it before they really figure it all out.


Synthesizing reversible circuits is still an important issue in the area of low power consumption circuit design. Several algorithms have been proposed in the field in order to synthesize reversible circuits with minimum cost in terms of line number and quantum cost with sacrificing the objective of reducing the synthesis time. However, for large scale circuits to be synthesized, long synthesis time is required since some algorithms perform iterative synthesis during the optimization process. Binary Decision Diagram (BDD) is considered a step forward in this field due to the minimization of cost achieved. In this work, we are moving from the BDD node-based to subtree-based mapping in the process of reversible circuit synthesis. We propose considering a complete BDD subtree to be converted in one step into a cascade of reversible gates instead of single node mapping in order to minimize the synthesis time. All possible subtrees are saved in a two column lookup table of subtrees and their corresponding reversible gates. Theoretically, our proposed algorithm can be more than 2X faster the transitional single node-to-gate synthesis.


Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour granted clemency to Jamie and Gladys Scott on December 29, 2010. This decision indefinitely suspended their double life sentences and freed them after 16 years in prison for armed robbery. The price of their liberty: Gladys' kidney.The story of the Scott Sisters' release and the condition imposed upon Gladys Scott reflexively elicits an intense negative response on the part of the listener who likely is focusing on the "yuck factor" – a strong sentiment that what they just heard is unfair, unseemly, or just plain wrong. What happens, then if the Scott Sisters' story is replicated – if it is multiplied across prison populations? Were programs put into place that allowed prison inmates to trade their kidneys (or portions of their lungs, livers or pancreases) for liberty, it follows that the "yuck factor" would be multiplied exponentially. However, it must be noted that in confecting his peculiar clemency condition, Governor Barbour chose a course of action that was, ironically, unobjectionable to the civil rights community (including the state's Black activist community) that was clamoring for the release of the Scott Sisters. If one were to cast the civil rights community as guardians of (or at least stakeholders regarding) the interests of poor and minority communities, the Scott Sister's clemency case is particularly intriguing in that they cheered, rather than crying, "Yuck!" and objecting to the terms of release imposed by the Governor. The outcry from some bioethicists notwithstanding, this scenario begs the question of why we should not allow other prisoners – those to whom serendipity has not provided an ailing sister – to do the same and whether it is in fact possible to do so while avoiding, or at least mitigating repugnance. This article contemplates whether the National Organ Transplant Act's ("NOTA") prohibition against the trading of organs for "valuable consideration" should include an exception that would allow state and federal prison inmates to donate organs in exchange for release or credit toward release. Such a stance surely raises questions regarding whether the state would be coercing the forfeiture of body parts as punishment or in exchange for freedom. Moreover, critics may question the potential effects on the criminal justice system of allowing those facing incarceration to bargain their bodies, and conceivably, their long-term health, in exchange for reduced prison terms. Therefore, such an inmate organ donation program is only feasible if a system is confected to remove the "yuck factor" ostensibly by removing coercion from the equation and by addressing the other concerns that mirror those addressed in the living donor sales debate. Such a program would need to reframe the legal context in which the Scott Sisters' clemency condition was crafted into one in which a great measure of power and choice resides instead in the hands of the inmate participants.


Producers have a wide variety of risk management instruments available, making their choice(s) complex. The way producers deal with this complexity can vary and may influence the impact that the determinants, such as risk aversion, have on their choices. A recently developed choice bracketing framework recognizes that producers are unable to evaluate all alternatives simultaneously and that to manage a complex task, they often group or bracket individual alternatives and their consequences together in choice sets. Data on 1,105 U.S. producers show that producers do not use all available combinations of risk management tools and that the influence of the determinants of producer's risk management decisions are not necessarily the same across risk management strategies within and across bracketing levels. The findings may help resolve puzzling results on the role that well-known determinants of risk management behavior have on producers' choices, extending knowledge on producers' risk management behavior. Further, the findings have managerial implications for policy makers and agribusiness companies that provide risk management services. lEconLit citations: M000, G1000, Q130r © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.


In determining rockfall trajectories in the field, it is essential to calibrate and validate rockfall simulation software. This contribution presents an in situ device and a complementary Local Positioning System (LPS) that allow the determination of parts of the trajectory. An assembly of sensors (herein called rockfall sensor) is installed in the falling block recording the 3D accelerations and rotational velocities. The LPS automatically calculates the position of the block along the slope over time based on Wi-Fi signals emitted from the rockfall sensor. The velocity of the block over time is determined through post-processing. The setup of the rockfall sensor is presented followed by proposed calibration and validation procedures. The performance of the LPS is evaluated by means of different experiments. The results allow for a quality analysis of both the obtained field data and the usability of the rockfall sensor for future/further applications in the field.


Design cost modelling is a fundamental cost management support tool used by construction economists/quantity surveyers. The accuracy of design cost modelling is vital to the success of building developments and the viability of clients, consultants and contractors. This paper reports upon design cost modelling research currentlu being undertaken at the department of Building and Construction Economics at RMIT. The paper positions the research by presenting an overview of design cost modelling techniques, their accuracy, deficiencies and usage. Conclusions are drawn that traditional methods of building procurement stifle attempts to advance the accuracy of current design cost modelling techniques used by consultant quantity surveyors. However, recent shifts in procurement trends provide fresh opportunities to re-invigorate design cost modelling research.


Mineral assets constitute the foundation of the standard consumption and life quality in today's society. Brazil, with 8,5 million km2, is a recognized geoscience vocational country, being one of the major mineral assets global producer, particularly for niobium, iron ore, bauxite and manganese.
As the result of collaborative effort of a large number of specialists and based on technical meetings, thematic workshops and coordinating studies, the brazilian Ministry of Mining and Energy – MME, have developed four minerals plans from 1965 to 2011:
. First "Ten-Year Master Plan for Evaluation of Mineral Resources", (1965-1974)
. Second "Ten-Year Mining Plan", (1981-1990)
. "Multi-Year Plan for Development of the Mineral Industry", (1994)
. The actual "2030 National Mining Plan", (2011)
In Brazil, the mineral sector, encompassing the geological, mining and mineral transformation (metallurgy) stages, represents around 4.2% of the GDP, 20% of total exports and 8% of all industrial jobs. However, the per capita consumption of mineral-based products is still low, placed within 15 to 30% of those countries with higher levels of development. Highlighting the adding value and distribution of benefits in all stages of the mineral productive chains, a future scenario, named "On the Path to Sustainability", will be presented. Consistent in its vision ahead, the following three guidelines will be thus developed:
. Effective public governance, to promote "nationally extracted mineral for national interests";
. Added value & consolidated knowledge, in all steps of mineral productive chain;
. Sustainability, in all stages of the mineral industry
These reference tools, aiming to plan the Brazilian mineral industry based in an integrated manner for the next 15 years, i.e, using the environmental and industrial policies, has essentially the final goal to promote the sustainable development of the country.


Organizations that implement strategic energy management programs undertake a set of activities that, if carried out properly, have the potential to deliver sustained energy savings. One key management opportunity is determining an appropriate level of energy performance for a plant through comparison with similar plants in its industry. Performance-based indicators are one way to enable companies to set energy efficiency targets for manufacturing facilities. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), through its ENERGY STAR ® program, is developing plant energy performance indicators to encourage a variety of U.S. industries to use energy more efficiently. This paper reports on work with the automobile manufacturing industry to provide a plant-level indicator of energy efficiency. Consideration is given to the role that performance-based indicators play in motivating change, the steps necessary for indicator development, from interacting with an industry to securing adequate data for the indicator, and actual application and use of an indicator when complete. How indicators are employed in EPA's efforts to encourage industries to voluntarily improve their use of energy is discussed as well.


Similar to CNG and HCN channels, EAG and ERG channels contain a cyclic nucleotide binding domain (CNBD) in their C terminus. While cyclic nucleotides have been shown to facilitate opening of CNG and HCN channels, their effect on EAG and ERG channels is less clear. Here we explored cyclic nucleotide binding and modulation of mEAG1 and hERG1 channels with fluorescence and electrophysiology. Binding of cyclic nucleotides to the isolated CNBD of mEAG1 and hERG1 channels was examined with two independent fluorescence-based methods: changes in tryptophan fluorescence and fluorescence of an analog of cAMP, 8-NBD-cAMP. As a positive control for cyclic nucleotide binding we used changes in the fluorescence of the isolated CNBD of mHCN2 channels. Our results indicated that cyclic nucleotides do not bind to the isolated CNBD domain of mEAG1 channels and bind with low affinity (Kd ≥ 51 μm) to the isolated CNBD of hERG1 channels. Consistent with the results on the isolated CNBD, application of cyclic nucleotides to inside-out patches did not affect currents recorded from mEAG1 channels. Surprisingly, despite its low affinity binding to the isolated CNBD, cAMP also had no effect on currents from hERG1 channels even at high concentrations. Our results indicate that cyclic nucleotides do not directly modulate mEAG1 and hERG1 channels. Further studies are necessary to determine if the CNBD in the EAG family of K+ channels might harbor a binding site for a ligand yet to be uncovered.


Molecular assays have been routinely applied to improve diagnosis for the last 25 years. Assays that guide therapy have a similar history; however, their evolution has lacked the focus on analytic integrity that is required for the molecularly targeted therapies of today. New molecularly targeted agents require assays of greater precision/quantitation to predict the likelihood of response, i.e., to identify patients whose tumors will respond, while at the same time excluding and protecting those patients whose tumors will not respond or in whom treatment will cause unacceptable toxicity. The handling of tissue has followed a fit-for-purpose approach focused on appropriateness for diagnostic needs, which is less rigorous than the demands of new molecular assays that interrogate DNA, RNA, and proteins in a quantitative, multiplex manner. There is a new appreciation of the importance and fragility of tissue specimens as the source of analytes to direct therapy. By applying a total test paradigm and defining and measuring sources of variability in specimens, we can develop a set of specifications that can be incorporated into the clinical-care environment to ensure that a specimen is appropriate for analysis and will return a true result. Clin Cancer Res; 18(6); 1524–30. ©2012 AACR.


As pressure on available water resources increases, the need to exploit technology in order to produce more food with less water becomes crucial. The technological hardware requisite for precise water delivery methods, such as variable rate irrigation, is commercially available. Despite that, techniques to formulate a timely, accurate prescription for those systems are inadequate. Spectral vegetation indices are often used to gauge crop vigor and related parameters (e.g., leaf nitrogen [N] content). However, research heretofore rarely addresses the influence of soil moisture on the indices. The objectives of this study were to determine (1) if vegetation indices derived from multispectral satellite imagery could assist in quantifying soil moisture variability in irrigated maize (Zea mays L.) production, and (2) the period of time that a single image is representative of soil moisture. A variable rate irrigation pivot was used to form six water treatment zones. Each was equipped with tensiometers installed in the center of the plots at 20, 45, and 75 cm depths to individually monitor conditions in the water treatment zones. Water was applied for each treatment as a percentage of the estimated evapotranspiration (ET) requirement: 40%, 60%, 80%, 100%, 120%, and 140%. Data collected from tensiometers was paired with the image pixels corresponding to its ground location. Statistical analysis was performed separately to assess whether vegetation indices are representative of soil moisture at several crop growth stages. Findings from this study indicate that Red Edge Normalized Difference Vegetation Index could quantify soil moisture tension variability at V6 (six leaf; r2 = 0.850, p = 0.009) and V9 (nine leaf; r2 = 0.913, p = 0.003) crop growth stages. Results suggest that satellite-derived vegetation indices may be useful for creating time-sensitive characterizations of soil moisture variability. Further study is necessary to investigate additional crop growth stages, more crops, and other sources of multispectral imagery.


[N-Allyl-Dmt1]-endomorphin-1 and -2 ([N-allyl-Dmt1]-EM-1 and -2) are new selective μ-opioid receptor antagonists obtained by N-alkylation with an allyl group on the amino terminus of 2′,6′-dimethyl-l-tyrosine (Dmt) derivatives. To further characterize properties of these compounds, their intrinsic activities were assessed by functional guanosine 5′-O-(3-[35S]thiotriphosphate) binding assays and forskolin-stimulated cyclic AMP accumulation in cell membranes obtained from vehicle, morphine, and ethanol-treated SK-N-SH cells and brain membranes isolated from naive and morphine-dependent mice; their mode of action was compared with naloxone or naltrexone, which both are standard nonspecific opioid-receptor antagonists. [N-Allyl-Dmt1]-EM-1 and -2 were neutral antagonists under all of the experimental conditions examined, in contrast to naloxone and naltrexone, which behave as neutral antagonists only in membranes from vehicle-treated cells and mice but act as inverse agonists in membranes from morphine- and ethanol-treated cells as well as morphine-treated mice. Both endomorphin analogs inhibited the naloxone- and naltrexone-elicited withdrawal syndromes from acute morphine dependence in mice. This suggests their potential therapeutic application in the treatment of drug addiction and alcohol abuse without the adverse effects observed with inverse agonist alkaloid-derived compounds that produce severe withdrawal symptoms.


EQUINE SERUM ANTIBODY RESPONSES TO STREPTOCOCCUS EQUI AND STREPTOCOCCUS ZOOEPIDEMICUS Streptococcus zooepidemicus (Sz) and Streptococcus equi (Se) share 98% DNA sequence homology, but display different pathogenic properties. Infection by one organism does not cross-protect against the other. To better understand pathogenic differences between these organisms and gain information about which proteins are expressed in horses with respiratory or intrauterine Sz infection or with Se infection we compared antibody specificities of convalescent sera using ELISA. These comparisons were based on sets of 8 and 14 immunoreactive recombinant proteins of Se strain CF32 and Sz strain NC78, respectively. Sera from donkeys that were previously naturally affected with strangles and later developed Sz pneumonia secondary to an experimental influenza challenge were also included. Serum antibody responses were quantitatively and qualitatively much greater following recovery from strangles than following respiratory Sz infection. Increased reactions to Se proteins IdeE2, Se75.3, Se46.8, Se18.9 and Se42.0 were observed for the majority of strangles sera but not for sera from respiratory Sz infection cases. Reactions of sera from Sz respiratory disease to Sz proteins varied greatly and were mostly to HylC and ScpC. Interestingly, sera of donkey recovered from Sz bronchopneumonia did not show increased antibody reaction to any of the proteins although these donkeys had recovered from clinical strangles 6 months previously. Only 1/5 mares with Sz placentitis showed increased serum antibody responses to MAP. In conclusion, adaptive immune responses to Se of horses with strangles are stronger and involve a greater number of proteins than adaptive immune responses to Sz infection of the lower respiratory tract. In an effort to develop an improved vaccine against Se, the modified live strain of EHV-1, RacH was constructed to express three recombinant antigens of Se SeM, IdeE and Se18.9. Two groups of 10 and 2 ponies were vaccinated intramuscularly or intranasally, respectively. Another group (n=6) vaccinated with empty RacH served as controls. Sera from 2/3 ponies from each vaccination groups and 1/2 serum from IN vaccinated ponies showed increased serum neutralizing antibodies to EHV-1. ELISA detected no significant increase in antibodies to proteins. Only one IM and IN vaccinated pony showed serum bactericidal activity post vaccination.


Can we understand the interspike interval (ISI) statistics of spontaneous neural activity? What is the relation between input and output statistics of a neuron? --> Important for understanding population activity. Most theoretical studies assume that neurons are driven by Poisson spike trains ("white noise" processes, i.e. uncorrelated in time) However, realistic synaptic inputs have temporal structure ("colored noise"), e.g. due to refractoriness, bursting, structured "signals", short-term synaptic plasticity, oscillatory activity, adaptation.


In the last IPCC report the black carbon (BC) impact of the Arctic was recognized as an independent and recognizable contribution to global climate change. The overall objective of the project behind the work presented here is to determine whether the black carbon content in snow and glacier ice surfaces can be retrieved from satellite data. Preliminary analysis of satellite measurements shows that high concentrations of BC (from local sources) are clearly detectable in the satellite signal, both over snow and glacier ice surfaces. Chemical BC analysis of snow and ice samples taken in the field show values consistent with the satellite data. Even if the general low BC level in the snow due to long-transported aerosols might be hard to measure in the cold, dry season, we have seen a significant increase in the signal during the melting which may make BC retrieval possible during the summer months.


In recent feminist theorizing, the notions of vulnerability and precariousness have emerged as key concepts for thinking about power and agency, violence and openness, injury and transformability, ontology and epistemology, ethics and politics (e.g. Butler 2004, 2009; Brown 2005, 2006; Berlant 1997, 2011; Cavarero 2007; Braidotti 2006). While highly divergent in their historical and philosophical legacies, the different approaches to vulnerability and precariousness share an interest in vulnerability as the ontological or historical condition or quality of human body. In the fields of feminist visual theory and media studies, these conceptualizations of politics and ethics of embodiment have resulted in reconceptualizations of spectatorship as a state of vulnerability. On the hand, viewing is theorized as embodied engagement, as haptic or tactile practice or in terms of synaesthesia and multisensory experience. On the other hand, the interrelationship of viewers and images (sound-images) is being interrogated as a dialogue or interaction. These powerful ideas are most visible in the important writings by Vivian Sobchack (The Address of the Eye: The Phenomenology of Film Experience, 1992; Carnal Thoughts. Embodiment and the Moving Image Culture, 2004) and Laura U. Marks (The Skin of the Film. Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment and the Senses, 2000; Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media, 2002) and, more recently, by Jennifer M. Barker (The Tactile Eye. Touch and the Cinematic Experience, 2009).


To study the clinical diagnostic value of treating gastric cancer (GC) with combined tests for tumor markers (CEA, CA199, CA242 and CA724), fifty healthy subjects, 50 patients with GC at different stages and 50 patients with benign GC were randomly selected from our hospital. These subjects were divided into a normal group A, an experimental group B and a control group C. Venous blood was drawn and tested for four serum tumor markers. The SPSS 18.0 analytic system was then used to analyze the data. Tumor markers for GC at different stages, different pathological patterns and tumor incidence are discussed. The difference in expression levels of tumor markers between group C and group A was not statistically significant (P>0.05). The differences in expression levels between group B in stage I and stage II and those of groups A and C was statistically significant (P less than 0.05). At the same time, the differences in expression levels of group B in stage III and stage IV and those of groups A and C were also statistically significant (P less than 0.01). For different sizes of tumors, taking 5 cm as a maximum, normal expression and abnormal expression of the four tumor markers was different (P less than 0.05). The tumor incidence of the combined test for the four tumor markers was conspicuously higher than that of single tests. Moreover, the difference between the tumor incidence of the combined test in stages I, II and III and that of single tests in the same stages was of statistical significance (P less than 0.05); however, the difference was not statistically significant in stage IV (P>0.05). The combined testing for tumor markers is useful for clinical diagnosis of GC.


This chapter explores the relationship between culturally responsive school leadership and school culture in schools for the deaf. The author demonstrates how Deaf culture, identity, and culturally responsive school leadership intertwine and influence each other. This chapter reports on observations of and interviews with leaders in six schools for the deaf in the United States. Many current school leaders serving Deaf children lack knowledge and understanding of Deaf culture and Deaf identity. Culturally responsive leaders in the schools for the deaf that were studied were almost all part of Deaf culture. If school leaders are to better meet the needs deaf students' education and identity development, they must recognize the students' cultures and identities. The author makes a plea for better equipping potential principals and other leaders of schools for the deaf.


I show that where a child grows up has a causal effect on their adult income, but that place matters most in the teenage years. I use variation in the age at which Australian children move to identify this pattern of place exposure effects. I explore two potential explanations. First, this pattern is partly explained by the fact that spending more years in a place in adolescence lifts the probability of entering the associated local labour market and earning any corresponding wage premium. Second, I identify long-lasting peer effects using cross-cohort variation in peer parental income among permanent postcode residents.


Stachyose is among the raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFOs) one of the major water-soluble carbohydrates next to sucrose in seeds of a number of plant species. Especially in leguminous seeds, e.g. chickpea, stachyose is reported as the major component. In contrast to their ambiguous potential as essential source of carbon for germination, RFOs are indigestible for humans and can contribute to diverse abdominal disorders. In the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana, six putative raffinose synthase genes are reported, whereas little is known about these putative raffinose synthases and their biochemical characteristics or their contribution to the RFO physiology in A. thaliana. In this paper, we report on the molecular cloning, functional expression in Escherichia coli and purification of recombinant AtRS4 from A. thaliana and the biochemical characterisation of the putative stachyose synthase (AtSTS, At4g01970) as a raffinose and high affinity stachyose synthase (Km for raffinose 259.2 ± 21.15 μM) as well as stachyose and galactinol specific galactosylhydrolase. A T-DNA insertional mutant in the AtRS4 gene was isolated. Only semi-quantitative PCR from WT siliques showed a specific transcriptional AtRS4 PCR product. Metabolite measurements in seeds of ΔAtRS4 mutant plants revealed a total loss of stachyose in ΔAtRS4 mutant seeds. We conclude that AtRS4 is the only stachyose synthase in the genome of A. thaliana that AtRS4 represents a key regulation mechanism in the RFO physiology of A. thaliana due to its multifunctional enzyme activity and that AtRS4 is possibly the second seed specific raffinose synthase beside AtRS5, which is responsible for Raf accumulation under abiotic stress.


A copper catalyzed direct α-oxyacylation of ketones with carboxylic acids has been developed. Various acids including aromatic and aliphatic acids are well tolerated, and the scope of ketones is also investigated. This protocol provides a convenient and benign method for the synthesis of α-acyloxycarbonyl compounds by using oxygen as the oxidant. In addition, we have investigated the role of copper and trapped the key intermediate to confirm the mechanism.


As more attention is paid to security in the context of control systems and as attacks occur to real control systems throughout the world, it has become clear that some of the most nefarious attacks are those that evade detection. The term stealthy has come to encompass a variety of techniques that attackers can employ to avoid detection. Here we show how the states of the system (in particular, the reachable set corresponding to the attack) can be manipulated under two important types of stealthy attacks. We employ the chi-squared fault detection method and demonstrate how this imposes a constraint on the attack sequence either to generate no alarms (zero-alarm attack) or to generate alarms at a rate indistinguishable from normal operation (hidden attack).


This guide provides information about services and materials especially for students who are enrolled in online courses at Cayuga Community College.


Smart Meters (SMs) offer remote switching functionalities to the Distribution System Operators (DSOs). The DSO can switch the breaker of the SM of any customer remotely whenever needed. The DSOs are currently applying this technique for customers typically one by one when customers are changing their addresses or when contracts are terminated. The breaker functionalities of the SMs could be used for multiple customers, thereby opening up new possibilities to balance electricity consumption and production. How the technology has been functioning in practice has, however, not been fully investigated with regard to multiple SM switching. In this paper, the experience from real tests on simultaneous multiple SM switching is presented. The tests have been conducted to observe the effect of SM switching on power quality (PQ). Power Quality Meters (PQMs) had been used both at the substation as well as the customer level to measure the PQ during SM switching. This paper presents the results by showing current measurements during switching ON and OFF of multiple SMs belonging to each substation.


Examination of the spatial organization of some historic city centres appears to show a more integrated relationship between the ideological dimensions of city life and the physicality of city fabric. When city planning and design development separates ideological and physical dimensions there is evidence to suggest that this can lead to detrimental impacts on the well-being and the physicality of the city fabric. This paper explores an analytical method that helps to understand urban spatial morphology and its relation to the ideologies of city life. Therefore, it analyses how the ideological model, as a collective of religious, political and cultural values lying beneath the physicality of the city, develop through three phases into aesthetical conventions. In this regard, the paper documents the agreements and disputes between people as an advanced step towards the refinement of these conventions. In this context, the authors explain the aspects of the conventions: the valuable, the tactical and the aesthetical aspects. In addition, they discuss how the tactical aspect, together with aesthetical aspect, plays the key role in maintaining social sustainability and characterize urban spatial morphology within this social sustainability. As a result, this approach contributes the planning education process by providing essential knowledge and the analytical base for the site analyses, design process of urban spaces and the conservation of urban fabrics in contexts that have multi layers of historic development. This exploration, ongoing at the time of writing, contributes to PhD research that will ultimately develop and describe a fuller anatomical approach for the analysis and design of such urban settings.


mRNA vaccination of individuals with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection provides superior protection against breakthrough infections with variants of concern compared with vaccination in the absence of prior infection. However, the immune mechanisms by which this hybrid immunity is generated and maintained are unknown. Whereas genetic variation in spike glycoprotein effectively subverts neutralizing Abs, spike-specific T cells are generally maintained against SARS-CoV-2 variants. Thus, we comprehensively profiled human T cell responses against the S1 and S2 domains of spike glycoprotein in a cohort of SARS-CoV-2-naive (n = 13) or -convalescent (n = 17) individuals who received two-dose mRNA vaccine series and were matched by age, sex, and vaccine type. Using flow cytometry, we observed that the overall functional breadth of CD4 T cells and polyfunctional Th1 responses was similar between the two groups. However, polyfunctional cytotoxic CD4 T cell responses against both S1 and S2 domains trended higher among convalescent subjects. Multimodal single-cell RNA sequencing revealed diverse functional programs in spike-specific CD4 and CD8 T cells in both groups. However, convalescent individuals displayed enhanced cytotoxic and antiviral CD8 T cell responses to both S1 and S2 in the absence of cytokine production. Taken together, our data suggest that cytotoxic CD4 and CD8 T cells targeting spike glycoprotein may partially account for hybrid immunity and protection against breakthrough infections with SARS-CoV-2.


Aminomethylation of trifunctional 2.5-dihydroxyacetophenone (2.5-DHA) and 2.4-dihydroxyacetophenone (2.4-DHA) by free primary and secondary amines in the presence of formaldehyde has been conducted for the first time. It has been established that 2.5-DHA is aminomethylated with secondary heterocyclic amines piperidine and morpholine and with aqueous formaldehyde solution in alcohol medium at 50 0 C. The reaction proceeds simultaneously via all three functions forming stable C,Osubstitution products − β-amino-2-aminomethoxy-4-aminomethyl-5-hydroxypropiophenones. The aminomethylation reaction of 2.4-DHA proceeds by phenolic function only under the action of methylene bis-amines piperidine and morpholine in absolute alcohol at 20 0 C with the formation of 2.4-dihydroxy3-aminomethylacetophenones. Aminomethylation of 2.4-DHA with primary aromatic amines n-toluidine and n-anisidine proceeds in absolute alcohol under the action of formaldehyde in the form of paraform in the presence of catalytic amounts of KOH at 50 0 C. The reaction products are 3.4-dihydro2H-1.3-benzoxazines. 2.5-DHA does not react with primary aromatic amines and formaldehyde. The composition and structure of compounds synthesized have been established according to the data of elemental and spectral methods of analysis.


Background: Chronic exposure to inorganic arsenic from drinking water has been associated with a host of cancer and noncancer diseases. The application of metabolomics in epidemiologic studies may allow researchers to identify biomarkers associated with arsenic exposure and its health effects. Objective: Our goal was to evaluate the long-term reproducibility of urinary metabolites and associations between reproducible metabolites and arsenic exposure. Methods: We studied samples and data from 112 nonsmoking participants (58 men and 54 women) who were free of any major chronic diseases and who were enrolled in the Health Effects of Arsenic Longitudinal Study (HEALS), a large prospective cohort study in Bangladesh. Using a global gas chromatography–mass spectrometry platform, we measured metabolites in their urine samples, which were collected at baseline and again 2 y apart, and estimated intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). Linear regression was used to assess the association between arsenic exposure at baseline and metabolite levels in baseline urine samples. Results: We identified 2,519 molecular features that were present in all 224 urine samples from the 112 participants, of which 301 had an ICC of ≥0.60. Of the 301 molecular features, water arsenic was significantly related to 31 molecular features and urinary arsenic was significantly related to 74 molecular features after adjusting for multiple comparisons. Six metabolites with a confirmed identity were identified from the 82 molecular features that were significantly associated with either water arsenic or urinary arsenic after adjustment for multiple comparisons. Conclusions: Our study identified urinary metabolites with long-term reproducibility that were associated with arsenic exposure. The data established the feasibility of using metabolomics in future larger studies. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP1992


We examine the status of Trinidad and Tobago's trade policy regime based mainly on the WTO's Trade Policy Review 2005 and to a lesser extent the Review of 1998. The paper highlights the areas identified by the WTO that the country needs to address to ensure compliance with the rules, disciplines and commitments made under the Multilateral Trade Agreements and the existence of a trade regime characterised by little or no distortions. It undertakes this discussion against the background of Trinidad and Tobago's role as a founding member of CARICOM and the increasing influence of this body in determining its trade policies in particular and economic policies in general. The study highlights the progress made by Trinidad and Tobago in establishing an outward-oriented trade regime since embracing reforms in the mid-1980s. However, the need for much deeper reforms is stressed if the country is to realise its ambitious objective of becoming the manufacturing base and the commercial, trans-shipment and financial hub of the western hemisphere. Further, it points to the inextricable link between the country's economic fortunes and international petroleum prices, and increasing over-reliance on the hydrocarbons sector. Consequently, it stresses the need for getting its diversification strategy 'right' if it is to minimise the fallout effects associated with the bust that inevitably follows a petroleum boom. Copyright 2007 The Author Journal compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd .


Movement imitation requires a complex set of mechanisms that map an observed movement of a teacher onto one's own movement apparatus. Relevant problems include movement recognition, pose estimation, pose tracking, body correspondence, coordinate transformation from external to egocentric space, matching of observed against previously learned movement, resolution of redundant degrees-of-freedom that are unconstrained by the observation, suitable movement representations for imitation, modularization of motor control, etc. All of these topics by themselves are active research problems in computational and neurobiological sciences, such that their combination into a complete imitation system remains a daunting undertaking-indeed, one could argue that we need to understand the complete perception-action loop. As a strategy to untangle the complexity of imitation, this paper will examine imitation purely from a computational point of view, i.e. we will review statistical and mathematical approaches that have been suggested for tackling parts of the imitation problem, and discuss their merits, disadvantages and underlying principles. Given the focus on action recognition of other contributions in this special issue, this paper will primarily emphasize the motor side of imitation, assuming that a perceptual system has already identified important features of a demonstrated movement and created their corresponding spatial information. Based on the formalization of motor control in terms of control policies and their associated performance criteria, useful taxonomies of imitation learning can be generated that clarify different approaches and future research directions.


1. Injection of CO2-saturated saline in a distal direction into either a vertebral artery or an internal maxillary artery in pentobarbitone-anaesthetized cats produced abrupt changes in respiration. Vertebral-artery injections produced a transient inhibition of respiration, followed by a stimulation of it. Internal-maxillary-artery injections produced only the inhibition. 2. Injections during inspiration usually shortened that inspiration, reduced its volume and prolonged the following expiration. In the first 30% of an expiration they prolonged that expiration, but given in the next 50% they shortened it. In the last 20% of expiration internal-maxillary-artery injections again slightly prolonged the expiration. 3. Phenyl diguanide injected into either a vertebral or an internal maxillary artery also produced abrupt effects on respiration. 4. The effects of CO2-saturated saline were abolished by intravenous acetazolamide, suggesting that nociceptors may be affected by a change in local pH. 5. The effects may arise from the excitation of vascular nociceptors, and our observations may suggest a way of studying in animals the receptors responsible for headache.


Disturbances play a great role in ecosystem functioning and, with the increasing anthropogenic activities, they have more and more influence on ecosystems. They have been studied for several decades but recovery, the ecological phenomenon following a disturbance, has seldom been the focus of research. In this thesis, I studied the impact of disturbances on the structure of soil and litter fauna communities and their ensuing recovery in varying environmental conditions, combined with the effect of productivity, life-history traits and community structure. I combined all the results to draw some conclusions on the main factors involved in recovery, how to improve recovery of ecosystems and how to make better predictions on recovery. In the second chapter of this thesis, I studied how the structure of soil and litter fauna communities from two climatically contrasting biomes was affected by a similar disturbance and how these communities recovered. I sampled litter macrofauna in a temperate and a boreal forest and, to be able to determine whether the communities had recovered, I created a "recovery index" that took into account the pre- and post-disturbance conditions of the disturbed and the control communities, taking into account natural variations. I hypothesised that the temperate communities would recover more rapidly due to the warmer temperatures and to higher species richness and abundance. Recovery was as fast in both biomes, which also had similar species richness. Contrary to my assumption, higher pre-disturbance species abundance did not favour the resistance of communities to the disturbance; on the contrary, high-abundance communities suffered a proportionally greater loss than other communities. Analyses based on life-history traits revealed that dispersal capabilities were the most relevant traits for species facing a disturbance and also for re-establishing. An unexpected factor that influenced the outcome of the disturbance was the litter layer, which, thick in the temperate forest and almost inexistent in the boreal one, protected the fauna of this former biome. The aim of my third chapter was to consider the main two theories of species assembly, the niche and neutral theory, in the context of a recovery. I considered these two theories not as mutually exclusive but as if they were at opposite ends of a stochasticity gradient. The neutral theory predicts recovered communities in a similar environment to be dissimilar from one another and the niche theory predicts the opposite, because, in this case, species assembly is driven by deterministic factors inherent to communities and to the environment. I used the same experiments as in the previous chapters and hypothesised that the more constraining environmental conditions of the boreal forest would lead to a species assembly rather driven by deterministic factors, with recovered communities more similar to each other than the temperate ones. These latter ones, from a less constraining environment, would be more dissimilar to each other. I found that the structure of each community before and one year after the disturbance was indeed more similar in the boreal forest. This would mean that, in low-productivity environments, the response of communities being less variable, it could be more easily predictable. In Chapter 4, I studied the structure of communities from a different perspective, using the density – body mass (DBM) relationship to detect changes in the structure of communities after a disturbance. I hypothesised that the slope of the relationship would be less steep if smaller organisms were mainly impacted or that it would be steeper if larger organisms were mainly impacted. By collecting the soil and litter fauna before, just after and again one and two months after a disturbance, I could establish that the DBM relationship reflected the changes of the structure of communities responding to modifications of the environment. In disturbed conditions, the slope of the DBM relationship of a community was less steep, because mainly the small organisms were impacted by the disturbance. I also showed that, at the very early stage of the recovery, the slope was even less steep, because of the large body mass of the first colonisers. This study confirmed the necessity to sample a broad spectrum of body masses and it was the first time that the DBM relationship was shown to be able to reflect changes of the structure of communities. I concluded by suggesting that it could be used for environmental biomonitoring. After the satisfying results of Chapter 4, I decided to test the ability of the DBM relationship to reflect different structures of communities living in environments varying by their productivity and subjected or not to a disturbance. I hypothesised that communities from low-productivity areas would have a less steep slope than high-productivity area communities and that disturbed communities would also have a less steep slope. To test this, soil and litter fauna were collected from a salt marsh at four elevation levels (hence subjected to varying sea inundation frequencies, from daily to annually), half of which were subjected to cattle grazing (i.e., the disturbance). I assumed that the least inundated sites were more productive and used the quantity of plant litter to confirm this. The only significant result was between the daily and annually inundated ungrazed areas, confirming that communities from high-productivity areas have a steeper DBM relationship slope. High productivity does not seem to equally affect all the trophic levels, certainly due to inefficient transfers of energy from one level to the other. In the synthesis, I suggested that recovery should first be properly defined to establish when a community has reached that stage and I advise to use pre- and post-disturbance states of control communities for that purpose. Besides, several environmental factors have to be taken into account instead of only focusing on one species or one ecosystem service, as I have showed that the species richness and abundance of communities, and the productivity and heterogeneity of the environment can influence the resistance and recovery of ecosystems. I also propose, in a first time, to study species assembly in constraining environments, where stochastic factors are limited, in order to obtain a better mechanistic understanding of the processes involved. As there is yet not such understanding, I suggest that managers in charge of environmental conservation rather use a phenomenological approach to quickly estimate outcomes of recovery.


Superior mesenteric artery syndrome (SMAS) is an uncommon cause of duodenal obstruction due to the extrinsic compression of the third part of the duodenum by the superior mesenteric artery (SMA) as it passes anterior to it. We present a case of a 70-year old lady with abdominal pain, postprandial vomiting and decreased oral intake following laparoscopic low anterior resection with endoscopic and radiological findings suggesting SMAS. The cause was the traction on the transverse mesocolon and the middle colic artery to place the transverse colon in the deep pelvis. This, in turn, has lead to traction and flattening of the SMA against the aorta causing SMAS. The patient was successfully managed conservatively with enteral feeding and surgery was avoided.


Vibration-based structural health monitoring is based on detecting changes in the dynamic characteristics of the structure. It is well known that environmental or operational variations can also have an influence on the vibration properties. If these effects are not taken into account, they can result in false indications of damage. If the environmental or operational variations cause nonlinear effects, they can be compensated using a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) without the measurement of the underlying variables. The number of Gaussian components can also be estimated. For the local linear components, minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimation is applied to eliminate the environmental or operational influences. Damage is detected from the residuals after applying principal component analysis (PCA). Control charts are used for novelty detection. The proposed approach is validated using simulated data and the identified lowest natural frequencies of the Z24 Bridge under temperature variation. Nonlinear models are most effective if the data dimensionality is low. On the other hand, linear models often outperform nonlinear models for high-dimensional data.


The objective of this paper is to predict Indonesia's inflation rate in 2009 by employing BOX-JENKINS (ARIMA) model. The prediction of inflation rate is very important since the inflation affects us in economy aspect. Moreover, by knowing the approximate inflation in the future will help companies to plan the operational cost better. It also will help the government to anticipate the predicted inflation by making good policies, thus the prosperity of Indonesia people will be achieved. AR (2) is the best ARIMA model that we obtain. By employing AR (2), we predict the inflation rate in 2009 is 10.48%. This number is not surprising since inflation rate in Indonesia is mainly affected by exchange rate. As we know that the global crisis will start recovering in early 2010 (Yearly Bank Indonesia Report, 2008). The impact is that exchange rate pressure will be still high in 2009, it is due to non-optimal export and limited foreign fund's inflow.


Recent advances in retrieval models based on learned sparse representations generated by transformers have led us to, once again, consider score-at-a-time query evaluation techniques for the top-k retrieval problem. Previous studies comparing document-at-a-time and score-at-a-time approaches have consistently found that the former approach yields lower mean query latency, although the latter approach has more predictable query latency. In our experiments with four different retrieval models that exploit representational learning with bags of words, we find that transformers generate"wacky weights"that appear to greatly reduce the opportunities for skipping and early exiting optimizations that lie at the core of standard document-at-a-time techniques. As a result, score-at-a-time approaches appear to be more competitive in terms of query evaluation latency than in previous studies. We find that, if an effectiveness loss of up to three percent can be tolerated, a score-at-a-time approach can yield substantial gains in mean query latency while at the same time dramatically reducing tail latency.


We investigated the experience of ten patients who received video-based physiotherapy at home for two months after a shoulder joint replacement. Videoconferencing took place via the patient's home broadband connection at a bandwidth of 256–768 kbit/s. Qualitative interviews were carried out, transcribed and analysed. Through qualitative content analysis six categories were identified: (1) a different reinforced communication; (2) pain-free exercising as an effective routine; (3) from a dependent patient to a strengthened person at home; (4) closeness at a distance; (5) facilitated daily living; and (6) continuous physiotherapy chain. The access to bodily knowledge, continuity, collaboration and being at home were all aspects that contributed to the patients' recovery. The patients described experiences of safety, and strengthening during their daily exercise routine at home. The frequent interplay with the patient during telerehabilitation made it possible for the physiotherapist to make an individual judgement about each patient; this could be one reason for the positive findings. Home video-based physiotherapy may be useful in other kinds of physiotherapy.


Abstract: Throughout the 1990s, resisting international pressures to democratize was one of the dominant features of Indonesia's foreign policy. Together with Singapore, Malaysia, and China, Indonesia strongly resisted the democracy-promotion agenda present in the foreign policies of Western countries, arguing that democracy was unsuitable for Asian societies. That position came to an end with the collapse of authoritarian rule in 1998. As the dust of domestic turmoil resulting from transition began to settle, Indonesia began to incorporate its democratic identity into foreign policy. Indonesia's desire to establish its credential as a regional proponent of democracy in Southeast Asia, however, is still sought within the limits imposed by the precarious nature of Indonesia's own democracy and the reality of regional politics. It also still registers a gap between its progressive outlook at regional level and conservative attitude in the international arena. Consequently, democracy can hardly function beyond an instrument to construct a new international identity for post-authoritarian Indonesia. In that context, the inclusion of democracy agenda in Indonesia's foreign policy is still best described as an exercise in democracy-projection rather than democracy-promotion.


Many tools have been developed to visualize phylogenetic trees, which is a traditional technique for evolutionary tree analysis. However, due to the unique characteristics of antibody lineage trees, the phylogenetic method cannot adequately construct proper tree structures for antibody lineages, and many other tools have been developed to address this problem. However, there still lacks of an adequate tool to visualize the resulted antibody lineage structures that are more complicated than phylogenetic trees. In addition, high-throughput sequencing-based antibody repertoire profiling enables the counting of the number of transcripts associated with individual antibody sequences, thus more dimensions need to be encoded in the tree structure visualization. Further, users may wish to manually adjust the tree structure for a special context. When doing so, they may wish to maintain some biological constraints that are applicable in antibody lineage tree structure, such as isotype switching constraints or different sampling constraints. Here, we report an interactive visualization tool (COLT-Viz) designed to display the number of RNA copies, number of somatic hypermutations, and sample collection time associated with each antibody sequence as well as the distance to neighboring sequences for each antibody sequence in the lineage. COLT-Viz also allows users to interactively visualize and edit antibody lineage structures while giving users the option to automatically check biological constraints on the edited structures to ensure accuracy. COLT-Viz takes JSON text format as input files and can easily be used to visualize networks with or without the biological constraints. We believe the amount of information that can be displayed for complex antibody lineages, the interactive interface, and the option of checking for biological constraints make COLT-Viz a versatile tool for antibody lineage tree visualization that will guide further biological discoveries.


The reflection of colors and surfaces of common targets lead to errors in the measurement of visibility by the image method. This study aims to investigate the problem of inaccurate visibility detection. Through analysis of the error of visibility measurement caused by the reflection of the blackboard surface of an artificial target, the design method of improving the structure of the target board is proposed, so as to improve the accuracy of atmospheric visibility measurement by the image method. The experimental results show that the new target board designed by this method can greatly improve the measurement accuracy of the intrinsic apparent brightness ratio, which can increase 18.4% in the fairing environment and closer to −1 in the side light environment. Therefore, when the side light is selected for the image method visibility measurement, more accurate visibility results can be obtained.


Understanding the evolution of sociality in humans and other species requires understanding how selection on social behaviour varies with group size. However, the effects of group size are frequently obscured in the theoretical literature, which often makes assumptions that are at odds with empirical findings. In particular, mechanisms are suggested as supporting large‐scale cooperation when they would in fact rapidly become ineffective with increasing group size. Here we review the literature on the evolution of helping behaviours (cooperation and altruism), and frame it using a simple synthetic model that allows us to delineate how the three main components of the selection pressure on helping must vary with increasing group size. The first component is the marginal benefit of helping to group members, which determines both direct fitness benefits to the actor and indirect fitness benefits to recipients. While this is often assumed to be independent of group size, marginal benefits are in practice likely to be maximal at intermediate group sizes for many types of collective action problems, and will eventually become very small in large groups due to the law of decreasing marginal returns. The second component is the response of social partners on the past play of an actor, which underlies conditional behaviour under repeated social interactions. We argue that under realistic conditions on the transmission of information in a population, this response on past play decreases rapidly with increasing group size so that reciprocity alone (whether direct, indirect, or generalised) cannot sustain cooperation in very large groups. The final component is the relatedness between actor and recipient, which, according to the rules of inheritance, again decreases rapidly with increasing group size. These results explain why helping behaviours in very large social groups are limited to cases where the number of reproducing individuals is small, as in social insects, or where there are social institutions that can promote (possibly through sanctioning) large‐scale cooperation, as in human societies. Finally, we discuss how individually devised institutions can foster the transition from small‐scale to large‐scale cooperative groups in human evolution.


Abstract This research note examines the determinants of British Catholics' social attitudes using a nationally representative survey undertaken in 2010. It examines attitudes towards abortion and homosexuality, issues where the Church has clear moral teachings and has recently intervened in national debates, but where significant proportions of Catholics currently hold dissenting views. Noteworthy findings are the consistent role played by sex, age, and religious commitment in underpinning attitudes towards social issues, while party political support only affects attitudes towards homosexuality. Men, older people, and those who attend religious services more frequently represent the sections of the Catholic community which are particularly likely to hold traditionalist views that accord with official Church teaching.


Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) represents one of the major challenges of the modern oncology. Its very aggressive behavior with rapid growth, early metastasis and rapid development of resistances to treatments, despite an early response, shorten the life expectances of patients affected by the extensive stage disease to approximately 10–12 months from the diagnosis (1) with a 2-year overall survival (OS) rate of 5% (2,3). In effect the first line of treatment, consistent in a doublet of a platinum-based agent and etoposide, obtain an overall response rate (ORR) of approximately 70% (4) that can be partly improved by adding, when possible, prophylactic cranial and thoracic radiation (5,6). However responses to first line have a very limited duration that rarely exceed 6 months (4). At recurrence therapeutic strategies are limited to few options that essentially haven't changed since 1996 when topotecan was defined as the standard second line. The ORR obtained by topotecan is in the 15% to 24% range, median time to progression (TTP) is 13.3 weeks and median survival time is 25 weeks. These results have been relevant at that time because for the first time single-agent chemotherapy has shown in this setting similar activity to combination chemotherapy with less toxicity (7). However many attempts of improvement in the last 20 years have been conducted with several chemotherapeutic agents, such as irinotecan, gemcitabine or pemetrexed, with unconvincing results (8). Only amrubicin, a fully synthetic 9 amino anthracyclin, pro-drug of amrubicinol, has shown in several phase II and III trial hints of major activity than that of topotecan. In fact in the ACT-1 phase III trial amrubicin has shown an ORR of 31.1% vs. 16.9% in the topotecan control arm (odds ratio 2.223, P<0.0001). However no differences have been seen in term of progression free survival (PFS) and OS, even if in the experimental arm less frequent grade 3–4 hematologic toxicities have been seen (9). On the basis of these data amrubicin has been registered and is available in second line treatment of SCLC in Japan.


Inclusive Design seeks to reduce barriers to fuller participation in society faced by individuals and communities whose needs, perspectives, strengths, vulnerabilities, and backgrounds may differ greatly from those of the designer(s). The potential risks and consequences of unintended exclusion, misinterpretation, oversight and so on, can be high. Many of the conceptual, philosophical, environmental and cultural biases we might have as designers (and which can influence our design choices), may exist in the form of "implicit" attitudes and may not be aligned with our conscious beliefs. Research findings by Ellen Langer (e.g.: E. Langer et al. 2008), show that certain Mindfulness strategies can reduce the impact of such hidden biases and conceptual constructs. A method for detecting implicit attitudes, using the Implicit Association Test, is explored, with an aim to propose Mindfulness strategies both as a countermeasure for implicit attitudes as well as an overall support for Inclusive Design.


Discovering the appropriate type of an entity in the Web of Data is still considered an open challenge, given the complexity of the many tasks it entails. Among them, the most notable is the definition of a generic and cross-domain ontology. While the ontologies proposed in the past function mostly as schemata for knowledge bases of different sizes, an ontology for entity typing requires a rich, accurate and easily-traversable type hierarchy. Likewise, it is desirable that the hierarchy contains thousands of nodes and multiple levels, contrary to what a manually curated ontology can offer. Such level of detail is required to describe all the possible environments in which an entity exists in. Furthermore, the generation of the ontology must follow an automated fashion, combining the most widely used data sources and following the speed of the Web. In this paper we propose deepschema.org, the first ontology that combines two well-known ontological resources, Wikidata and schema.org, to obtain a highly-accurate, generic type ontology which is at the same time a first-class citizen in the Web of Data. We describe the automated procedure we used for extracting a class hierarchy from Wikidata and analyze the main characteristics of this hierarchy. We also provide a novel technique for integrating the extracted hierarchy with schema.org, which exploits external dictionary corpora and is based on word embeddings. Finally, we present a crowdsourcing evaluation which showcases the three main aspects of our ontology, namely the accuracy, the traversability and the genericity. The outcome of this paper is published under the portal: http://deepschema.github.io.


The application of the draw bead could reduce the concave/convex wall features. However, it also affected the wall thinning. Therefore, it is difficult to determine the suitable draw bead geometry to obtain a straight wall without the wall thinning. In this study, the effects of draw bead geometry of height and width on concave/convex wall feature and wall thinning were investigated by using the finite element method (FEM) and experiments. Based on the stress distribution analysis, the increasing in draw bead width and the decreasing in draw bead height lead to the concave wall feature increased; however, the application of the too small draw bead width and the too large draw bead height generated the convex wall feature. The wall thinning also decreased as the draw bead width increased as well as the draw bead height decreased. Therefore, the application of suitable draw bead height and width significantly suppressed the concave/convex wall feature and wall thinning, which resulted in the straight wall with the smallest wall thinning could be achieved.


Spectroscopic observations of white dwarfs reveal that many of them are polluted by exoplanetary material, whose bulk composition can be uniquely probed this way. We present a spectroscopic and photometric analysis of the DA white dwarf WDJ181417.84−735459.83, an object originally identified to have a strong infrared (IR) excess in the 2MASS and WISE catalogues that we confirmed to be intrinsic to the white dwarf, and likely corresponding to the emission of a dusty disc around the star. The finding of Ca, Fe, and Mg absorption lines in two X-SHOOTER spectra of the white dwarf, taken 8 years apart, is further evidence of accretion from a dusty disc. We do not report variability in the absorption lines between these two spectra. Fitting a blackbody model to the IR excess gives a temperature of 910 ± 50 K. We have estimated a total accretion flux from the spectroscopic metal lines of $|\dot{\rm M}| = 1.784 \times 10^{9}\,$g s−1.


Taking transaction costs into account in a mean-variance portfolio optimization in FX markets significantly improves the after cost Sharpe ratio out-of-sample. The optimization reduces trading costs and turnover, whereas the before cost performance remains unchanged. Rules-of-thumb to reduce costs - such as (i) construct equally weighted strategies, (ii) trade at a low frequency, (iii) restrict trading to low cost assets, (iv) only rebalance if the current position is far from the desired position, or (v) use expected returns net of costs in the optimization - are inefficient as there are adverse effects on the (before cost) performance which dominate the cost savings.


Frameworks for parallel computing have recently become popular as a means for presenting parallel algorithms as reusable components. Frameworks for parallel computing in general, and POET in particular, focus on finding ways to orchestrate cooperation between objects implementing parallel algorithms. POET seeks to be a general platform for scientific parallel algorithm components which can be modified, linked, "mixed and matched" to a user's specification. The paper centers on the characteristics that allow these components to cooperate, and at the same time, remain "black boxes" that users can drop into the frame without having to know the intricate details of message passing, data layout, etc.


Abstract Vipps is a peer-to-peer mobile payment solution launched by Norway's largest financial services group DNB. The Vipps transaction data may be viewed as a graph with users corresponding to the nodes, and the financial transactions between the users defining the edges. We have followed the evolution of this graph from May 2015 to September 2016. This is a unique data set, as information about transactions of individuals is usually not available for research. In this paper, we use an advanced statistical model where preferential attachment is combined with fitness. We show that the intrinsic quality of the nodes in the Vipps network plays an important part in the evolution of the network. This insight may, e.g., be used to identify influential nodes for viral marketing.