Introduction The optimum treatment strategy for patients who undergo PCI but also require anticoagulation remains undetermined. There have been a handful of studies to date that suggest altered doses of rivaroxaban may lead to reduced bleeding, with similar ischaemic endpoints. Rivaroxaban 2.5 mg BD (Riv2.5) has attracted a lot of attention, namely due to 1) COMPASS, which suggested benefits in addition to aspirin in patients with coronary artery disease; 2) The approval of Riv2.5 by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence for acute coronary syndrome (ACS); and 3) PIONEER-AF, suggesting reduced bleeding with Riv2.5 vs vitamin K antagonist (VKA) in those with atrial fibrillation. It could therefore be postulated that Riv2.5 may be used in all patients having PCI whether stable, acute, or requiring anticoagulation. We present real world' data of Riv2.5 vs VKA in patients on dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT). Methods All consecutive patients undergoing PCI in a single centre from 2013–17 were included in the analysis and DAPT with aspirin and clopidogrel was used as the comparator. Patients on DAPT with ticagrelor or prasugrel were not considered here. Triple therapy was defined as the use of DAPT with either warfarin (VKA), Riv2.5, or full dose rivaroxaban (Riv20). The primary outcome was bleeding as defined by Bleeding Academic Research Consortium (BARC) type 3 to 5 bleeding at 12 months. Secondary outcomes included all-cause bleeding, and a composite of myocardial infarction, stroke, ischaemia driven revascularisation and cardiac death (MACCE). Results 562 patients were included in the analysis with 20% treated with triple therapy (VKA 42%, Riv2.5 33%, Riv20 25%). There was no significant difference in age and presentation (male 70%; ACS 54%). Triple therapy patients tended to be older (74±14 years) than those treated with DAPT (70±11 years, p<0.002). The primary outcome of BARC type 3–5 bleeding occurred in 3% of DAPT, 4% of VKA, 16% of Riv2.5, and 10% of Riv20 patients (Figure 1). BARC 3–5 bleeds were significantly higher in all patients on triple therapy with NOAC vs DAPT (p<0.01). Using a logistic regression model and adjusting for age, sex, diabetes and ACS, no predictor except anticoagulant use was associated with this increased bleeding. There was no significant difference in all-cause bleeding events between the triple therapy groups. MACCE was similar, however the DAPT group had a CVA event rate of 0.9%, with no events in the triple therapy groups. Conclusion Triple therapy with NOAC increases major bleeding risk by up to four-fold compared with DAPT, this figure is slightly higher than found in the literature. Reassuringly, this increased bleeding risk does not translate into MACCE, however the perception of a reduced bleeding risk with a lower NOAC dose is not supported in this cohort.


The EDEN ISS greenhouse is a space-analogue test facility near the German Neumayer III station in Antarctica. The facility is part of the project of the same name and was designed and built since 2015 and eventually deployed in Antarctica in January 2018. The first operational phase of the greenhouse started on February the 7th and continued until the 20th of November 2018. The purpose of the facility is to enable multidisciplinary research on topics related to future plant cultivation on human space exploration missions. Research on food quality and safety, plant health monitoring, microbiology, system validation, human factors and horticultural sciences was conducted. Part of the latter was an experiment to compare different plant cultivation techniques for lettuce and tomato plants. For lettuce two different harvest methods were applied, either batch harvesting of the fully grown lettuce heads or spread harvesting of mature leaves while leaving the plant alive to allow regrowth.
The dwarf tomato plants were cultivated for three different durations. The short growth cycle ended right after the first set of fruits were harvested. The plants were then terminated and new plants sown. The longest duration cultivation involved several pruning events were old stems and leaves were removed from the plants allowing regrowth of new shoots. This paper compares the impact of the different cultivation techniques on the biomass output, the required crewtime and the required energy. The results show that depending on whether the goal is to optimize for highest biomass production, lowest energy demand or lowest crewtime demand some cultivation techniques are more favorable than others.


The present study was an attempt to assess the effects of a systematic mental health program in an elementary school. Three variables were considered: the child's emotional adjustment; group interaction; and the teacher's rating of each student's behavior. Changes of these variables were assessed by the use of a human figure drawing, a sociometric device, and a behavior rating scale. Subjects for this study consisted of 88 subjects enrolled in the second and fourth grade of two parochial school s in Ellis County. St. Joseph's Elementary School, Hays, was designated as the experimental school, St. Mary's, Ellis, as the control school. All classes were administered the sociogram and human figure drawing. The teacher was asked to fill out the AML Behavior Rating Scale of each child. Following this pre-testing period, the Developing Understanding of Self and Others (DUSO) program was utilized for twelve weeks in the experimental school. The same instruments were used in a post-testing session. Data was analyzed assessing the amount of change in the dependent variables could be attributed to the independent variable (DUSO). The results were expected to reveal that a mental health program could improve a child's emotional adjustment, reduce the number of students rejected by classmates, and reduce those behaviors viewed as inappropriate by the teachers. Results showed that in the experimental class there was a significant change in group process as measured by the sociometric device. There was also a positive change in teachers' perceptions of student behavior as noted on improved behavioral ratings. No change in self- perception was found with the Human Figure Drawing. In the control classroom, either no significant change or a significantly negative change was noted both with the sociogram and the teacher rating scale.


Background The use of a post-administration rinsing process for intravenous antineoplastic drugs is very common to help to control occupational exposure to them. In paediatric haemato-oncology, drugs are often compounded in syringes to reduce the volume to be infused. In this case, extension sets with low deadspace volume are used but the required volume to rinse is not clearly specified. Purpose The aims of this study were to propose a simple methodology to assess the rinsing volume of syringe extension sets and to compare several marketed devices. Material and methods A UV spectrophotometry assay using quinine hydrochloride as drug substitute was developed. Quinine concentration ranged from 20 to 200 µg/mL. The assay was validated with the accuracy profile method and tested on 5 different assemblies (device+extension sets) with different deadspace volumes (1.28–2.80 mL) and at two different quinine concentrations (0.3 and 8.0 mg/mL). Rinsing was performed stepwise with water for injection until reaching an undetectable quinine concentration. After fitting the data with a Weibull model, assemblies were compared with an ANOVA performed on ranks (GraphPad, La Jolla, USA). Results The within day and between day precision ranges were 0.39–0.81% and 0.48–0.84%, respectively. The lower limit of quantification was 4.26 µg/mL. The volume required to completely rinse the infusion line was different according to the initial drug concentration and to the device assessed: from 6 to 10 mL for a low quinine concentration and from 7 to 17 mL for a high quinine concentration. Conclusion This study shows that a simple, cheap and easy to use methodology may be used to assess the rinsing volume of syringe extension sets. The rinsing volume is different according to the tested device. References and/or acknowledgements The author thank each supplier who provided free samples for the experiments. No conflict of interest


Abstract A grid-based, bottom-up method has been proposed by combining a vehicle emission model and a travel demand model to develop a high-resolution vehicular emission inventory for Chinese cities. Beijing is used as a case study in which the focus is on fuel consumption and emissions from hot-stabilized activities of light-duty gasoline vehicles (LGVs) in 2005. The total quantity of emissions, emission intensity, and spatial distribution of emissions at 1- by 1-km resolution are presented and compared with results from other inventory methods commonly used in China. The results show that the total daily fuel consumption and vehicular emissions of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and oxides of nitrogen from LGVs in the Beijing urban area in 2005 were 1.95 × 107 L, 4.28 × 104 t, 1.97 × 103 t, 0.28 × 103 t, and 0.14 × 103 t, respectively. Vehicular fuel consumption and emissions show spatial variations that are consistent with the traffic characteristics. The grid-based inventory developed in this study reflects the influence of traffic conditions on vehicle emissions at the microscale and may be applied to evaluate the effectiveness of traffic-related measures on emission control in China.


Abstract Neutron diffraction experiments can provide an extremely high-resolution structural picture of clay-fluid systems. Here we describe the application of time-of-flight neutron scattering to hydrated clays, including discussion of issues such as isotopic labelling, sample containment, and data analysis. Recent studies of hydrated vermiculites under ambient conditions are used as an example. We then describe a new high-pressure/high-temperature sample environment that is being used to study clay-fluid interactions, in situ under hydrostatic sedimentary basin conditions. This environment enables us to approximate conditions encountered during burial, at depths of up to 10 km.


Abstract Background: The determination of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification product sizes of the Bcl-2/IgH fusion gene from follicular lymphoma (FL) provides evidence of clonal identity. Methods: The present study describes detection of Bcl-2/IgH fusion gene clonality utilizing a small, simple microcapillary electrophoretic chip combined with a real-time PCR method. Results: The microcapillary electrophoretic chip system effectively detects size differences among the Bcl-2/IgH fusion gene amplification products of FL from patient samples; something that is not possible using traditional gel electrophoresis. We also describe the potential of this system to utilize formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue samples sectioned on charged slides. Conclusions: The simple detection of Bcl-2/IgH fusion gene clonality using a microcapillary electrophoretic chip provides reliable information for monitoring minimal residual disease of FL, and can be an effective tool for use in clinical laboratories.


Citing recent successes in forecasting elections, movies, products, and other outcomes, prediction market advocates call for widespread use of market-based methods for government and corporate decision making. Though theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that markets do often outperform alternative mechanisms, less attention has been paid to the magnitude of improvement. Here we compare the performance of prediction markets to conventional methods of prediction, namely polls and statistical models. Examining thousands of sporting and movie events, we find that the relative advantage of prediction markets is surprisingly small, as measured by squared error, calibration, and discrimination. Moreover, these domains also exhibit remarkably steep diminishing returns to information, with nearly all the predictive power captured by only two or three parameters. As policy makers consider adoption of prediction markets, costs should be weighed against potentially modest benefits.


The issues, opportunities and challenges of effectively governing an organization's Information Technology (IT) demands and resources have become a major concern of the Board and executive management in many organisations today. The Swiss healthcare is currently searching for methods and practices for the solution of operational planning and optimisation of IT processes. To make sure that the corporate hospital strategy leads to adequate business decisions an IT GRC Framework for Healthcare will be needed. This paper presents the first task — the classification of existing IT governance frameworks — within the development process. After the dissociation of IT management and corporate governance — a proposal for a classification scheme for IT governance frameworks is described and the application of the classification template is explained.


A team of engineering faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign created an integrated teaching and leadership development program in 2016 after realizing the need for both pedagogical training and leadership education for graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). Training in teaching and leadership at the graduate level are often separated even though the skills needed for good teaching are highly transferable, and many are nearly identical to skills possessed by good leaders. Through this program, GTAs are expected to develop teaching skills as well as leadership skills. Each session in the program provides context in applying leadership skills in their day-to-day duties as a teaching assistant. This program is bringing collaboration across campus with speakers from other non-engineering units, such as the campus-level teaching and learning center, the campus-level leadership center, and the Department of Theatre. Industry speakers are also invited to provide a workplace perspective, with two corporate representatives and a group of local technology entrepreneurs presenting in the past year. Four of the largest engineering departments have since joined the initiative by requiring their new GTAs to complete the program as part of their on-boarding process. With an initial cohort of 13 graduate students in Spring 2017, the program has now grown to over 190 in Fall 2019. To assess the perception of transferability between teaching skills and leadership skills among participants in the program, a comparison group versus treatment group study was conducted in Fall 2018. The comparison group is comprised of new engineering GTAs who did not participate in the program and the treatment group is comprised of participants in the program. This paper will present the result of the study and discuss lessons learned from implementing an integrated teaching and leadership development program.


Arterial pressure and diuresis were determined in anesthetized dogs against the background of single (15 mg/kg) and continuous (5 mg/kg/rhr) intravenous administration of uregit (etacrylic acid). Acute hemodynamic shifts produced by compression of common carotid arteries, vena cava anterior, intravenous administration of ephedrine (1 mg/kg) or of sodium nitrite (3 mg/kg) were attended by an increased renal excretion of sodium, potasium and water in hypertension and their passage - in hypertension. Mechaninisms governing the express regulation of the water and electrolytes homeostasis and their relation to the active transpor of sodium are considered. Arguments in favour of a conjecture as to the localization of the mechanism responsible for the express regulation of the electrolytes homeostasis in acute hemodynamic shifts are advanced.


IMPORTANCE
Cocaine dependence is a significant public health problem, yet no validated pharmacological treatment exists. The potent γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic medication vigabatrin has previously been shown to be effective in a double-blind single-site study conducted in Mexico.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the safety and efficacy of vigabatrin for the treatment of cocaine dependence in a U.S. sample.

DESIGN AND SETTING
Multisite, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, 12-week clinical trial with follow-up visits at weeks 13, 16, 20, and 24 in 11 U.S. sites.

PARTICIPANTS
In total, 186 treatment-seeking participants with cocaine dependence (mean age, 45 years). Approximately 67% were male, and about 60% were of African American race/ethnicity.

INTERVENTIONS
Participants received twice-daily doses of vigabatrin (total dosage, 3.0 g/d) or matched placebo, plus weekly computerized cognitive behavioral therapy and biweekly individual counseling for 13 weeks. Contingency management encouraged the provision of urine samples.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES
The primary outcome measure was the proportion of participants with cocaine abstinence during the last 2 weeks of the 12-week treatment phase as assessed by self-reports and quantitative urine drug screens. The weekly fraction of cocaine use days and the number of drug-free urine samples during weeks 1 through 13 were key secondary measures.

RESULTS
No significant differences were observed between the vigabatrin group and the placebo group on the primary outcome measure (P = .67), key secondary measures (P > .99), or other outcome measures. However, while pill counts and self-reports indicated that more than 66% of all participants (and >63% of the vigabatrin group) took more than 70% of their medication, post hoc vigabatrin urine concentration levels suggested that approximately 40% to 60% of patients taking vigabatrin may not have been adherent. This lack of adherence may have obscured any evidence of vigabatrin efficacy. No visual acuity or visual field deterioration occurred in any of the participants.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
No protocol-defined differences in efficacy between vigabatrin treatment and placebo were detected for any outcome variable. This may have been due to medication nonadherence or, alternatively, due to the weak efficacy of vigabatrin.

TRIAL REGISTRATION
clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00611130.


In this paper we discuss organizational culture of higher education institutions whose components have been thoroughly described by authors such as Tierney (1988) and Valimaa (1998). We focused on the elements of organizational culture which outlines the identity of a higher education institution: why does the institution exist? How does the institution reach its goals and mission? What does the institution offer to its internal and external public? As such, we analyzed the mission, structure, governance and decision making processes, teaching and research in a comparative perspective: Harvard University (HU) and the University of Bucharest (UB), Romania. By looking into the organizational culture of the best, we learnt some lessons that may inspire, motivate and urge action if UB wants to progress so as to become one day a top leader in higher education worldwide.


We report a way of manipulating the spontaneous emission process leading to a spatial modulation of spontaneous decay. The effect is observed in the case of coherently driven atoms separated by less than a transition wavelength. It is quantified by Glauber's photon-photon second-order correlation function. We show that the photon arrival time, usually regarded as an entirely random process, depends not only on where a photon is detected but also on where a former photon had been recorded previously. Our results shed light on the unexpected consequences of state reduction and entanglement for the fundamental process of spontaneous emission.


Early Warning Systems (EWSs) for the monitoring of building s and structures are strategic to implement efficient safety actions. Even if very accurate monitoring solutions are available in the market, these are not suitable for the distributed monitoring of large areas due to costs, maintenance and installation needs. In this paper a low cost approach to investigate the seismic response of buildings is presented. The proposed architecture is based on a customized network of multi-sensor nodes, equipped with two inclinometers and one triaxial accelerometer. The sensing system is aimed to detect accelerations and tilt angles with a resolution of about 0.02 g (0.2 m/s 2 ) and 0.004 ° , respectively, in the frequency range of (0.5 - 10) Hz. Each multi-sensor node is also equipped with a 16 bit Analog-to-Digital Converter, a micro SD card writer and a rechargeable battery. Performances of the developed multi-sensor node have been deeply investigated by means of a vibrational system. The response of the multi-sensor node to a real seismic stimulation and the comparison with a commercial device will be discussed. Experimental surveys in real sites will be also presented. Two operating modes have been implemented to make the system context-adaptive: continuous data transfer and event triggered. A wireless connection has been exploited to communicate with a remote server. Moreover, a dedicated Wavelet based paradigm has been developed to highlight structural response to seismic sources from other exogenous inertial components. Results obtained during different experimental surveys demonstrate the suitability of the developed system, which open the possibility to develop a low cost early warning approach for the structural monitoring.


he design-based approach is a methodology for investigating mechanisms capable of generating mental phenomena, whether introspectively or externally observed, and whether they occur in humans, other animals or robots. The study of designs satisfying requirements for autonomous agency can provide new deep theoretical insights at the information processing level of description of mental mechanisms. Designs for working systems (whether on paper or implemented on computers) can systematically explicate old explanatory concepts and generate new concepts that allow new and richer interpretations of human phenomena. To illustrate this, some aspects of human grief are analysed in terms of a particular information processing architecture being explored in our research group. We do not claim that this architecture is part of the causal structure of the human mind; rather, it represents an early stage in the iterative search for a deeper and more general architecture, capable of explaining more phenomena. However even the current early design provides an interpretative ground for some familiar phenomena, including characteristic features of certain emotional episodes, particularly the phenomenon of perturbance (a partial or total loss of control of attention). The paper attempts to expound and illustrate the design-based approach to cognitive science and philosophy, to demonstrate the potential effectiveness of the approach in generating interpretative possibilities, and to provide first steps towards an information processing account of `perturbant', emotional episodes.


This research presents an ethnographic study of how technology is used to support collaboration at work. While "groupware" applications (computer programs designed to assist co-operation) are now widespread, there have been relatively few studies about how they are actually used. Addressing this, a study of the Lotus Notes groupware system is presented. Data from fieldwork shows how staff incorporated Notes into their work practice. Notes was used to manage conversations, publicly symbolise agreement, control the division of labour and provide a resource for organising company processes. These are four different ways in which Notes is used as a "device" to co-ordinate action at work. Observations of a major Notes development project shows that the "social" aspects are an important, yet neglected, dimension of software development. Developers maintain design consensus, and close off design discussions using staff or documents to act as "proxies" for the system's end users. Ethnographic data is shown playing a similar role in development, acting as a proxy. The need to maintain consensus in the development process also explains the utility of quantitative data, in maintaining consensus amongst those involved in the design process. In common with database systems, much of the utility of Notes comes from how it represents aspects of the world. It is shown that this "representation" is not a simple correspondence between reality and the records stored in Notes. The connection between the represented and representation is an achievement, done by having the representation "believably represent". This involves making a representation "reasonable", ensuring that it tallies with other representations, that it is seen to be updated, is authorless and is shown to have a standardised production. Data from the use of two Notes applications demonstrates how this is accomplished in practice, and in turn how databases formalise the world into a specific structured format. These findings are drawn together to argue that Notes was used as a platform for publicly collaborating on the "making of sense" about what was going on in the organisation. It is suggested that Notes is a technology for "Computer Supported Collaborative Sensemaking". The data collected for this thesis comes from a three month ethnography of a British Oil company, along with interviews conducted in twenty four different organisations. This data is presented as a contribution to knowledge of how technology is used in practice.


We present our system for semantic frame induction that showed the best performance in Subtask B.1 and finished as the runner-up in Subtask A of the SemEval 2019 Task 2 on unsupervised semantic frame induction (Qasem-iZadeh et al., 2019). Our approach separates this task into two independent steps: verb clustering using word and their context embeddings and role labeling by combining these embeddings with syntactical features. A simple combination of these steps shows very competitive results and can be extended to process other datasets and languages.


The purpose of this thesis was to examine research on collaborative reading models, the learning of strategies for improving reading comprehension for secondary students of English as a second or foreign language (hereafter referred to as the L2), and to provide intervention measures that target struggling readers before remedial recommendations become necessary. The particular focus draws from research of both native-speaking English language (L1) learners and L2 learners. Few studies are available of L2 upper secondary language learners using these models and approaches. However, studies of the essential reading components needed for literacy and reading comprehension among L1 learners may provide useful help for struggling L2 readers to increase their reading comprehension of English academic texts.

This thesis is a formative exploratory literature review within the framework of cognitive linguistics, and builds on the research of others. The aim was to inform my own practice and educators in Iceland. This study draws on research from cognitive theories for second language learning. People are social beings, and literacy development begins with collaborative social exchanges amongst humans. Therefore, collaborative language learning and strategy learning may be effective ways for improving reading comprehension for adolescent learners.

Furthermore, the study explored the mastering of primary language components necessary for reading in an Alphabetic Writing System, because research indicates that some adolescents struggling with reading comprehension may suffer from insufficient component skills related to reading. These component skill prerequisites are the alphabetic principle and alphabetics, which include the phonological components—phonetics and phonemics, and phonics, in addition to word-level and sentence-level reading fluency. I refer to secondary aspects affecting reading comprehension, which take time to learn, such as background and vocabulary knowledge, strategy instruction, and cognitive development, because research gives promising, positive, to strong effects on general learning and language achievement, and reading comprehension. Consequently, this study found that research indicates promising and positive effects on reading comprehension improvement when learners receive instruction for using collaborative learning models and strategies, with most components of L2 learning.


Steady stellar winds are generally divided into two classes: (i) the winds proper, for which the energy flux per unit solid angle, E∞, is non-zero, and (ii) the breezes, for which Eoo = 0. The breezes may be distinguished from one another by the value of the ratio, g, of kinetic to thermal energy of the particles in the limit of large distance, r, from the stellar centre, or more precisely by g=lim mv2 r->∞ — kT' where v(r) is breeze velocity, T(r) is temperature, m is mean particle mass, and k is the Boltzmann constant. Solutions have previously been obtained for values of g in the range 0 < g < 1, in which the breezes are subsonic everywhere with respect to the isothermal speed of sound. It is demonstrated here that two distinct solutions exist as g -> 5/3, namely (in an obvious notation) the g = 5/3 — and the g = 5/3 + possibilities. It is shown that, if g > 5/3 (g < 5/3) the solutions are everywhere supersonic (subsonic) with respect to the adiabatic speed of sound. If 1 < g < 5/3, they possess a critical point, at which the isothermal speed of sound and the flow speed coincide. The winds are examined in the limit E∞ -> 0, and the relation with the breezes is studied. In particular, it is shown that, for r < 0(E∞-2/5), the winds satisfy the stellar breeze equations to leading order, and possess a critical point at r = 0(1). For r > 0(E∞-2/5), the solutions do not obey the breeze equations. They ultimately follow the Durney asymptotic law [T = 0(r-4/3), for r-> ∞] for the winds. This demonstration of how the winds merge continuously into the breezes as E∞ -> 0 is new. The question of how the particle density (N0) and temperature (T0) at the base of the stellar corona determine the type of solution realized outside the star is examined. Even when the flow speed, v0, at the base of the corona is subsonic, non-uniqueness can occur. In one domain of the (N0,T0) plane, two distinct types of breeze are possible; in another these, together with a wind (E∞ =f= 0), are permissible. Elsewhere (large N0, moderate T0) only a unique breeze exists or (small N0 and/or T0) a unique wind. In some domains (large T0) no steady solution exists, unless the requirement that the corona is subsonic is relaxed. In this case, however, the problems of non-uniqueness are severely aggravated.


The paper presents the productivity size and structure of agricultural farms with regard to the production trend. The aim was achieved based on the research carried out in 80 farms of the Southern Poland. Objects for research were divided into 4 groups: one-trend farms – aiming at plant and animal production, two-trend and mixed farms. It was explicitly proved that productivity of farms from the analyzed region depends on the production trend. The highest value of commodity production was reported in one-trend farms – plant production – 27,242 PLN/ha and was over 39 times higher than in case of one-trend objects – animal production (696.3 PLN/ha).


The Cyber Physical Smart Grid (CPSG) project models a small-scale power distribution system that integrates intelligent metering and distributed generation and allows for improved automation and control via a graphical user interface.  Creating a distribution system testbench allows for the testing of implementation of autonomous controls on a physical system. The cyber physical smart grid seeks to develop this testbench by creating variable controllable loads, power factor correction, renewable energy sources, and a graphical user interface to control and monitor the grid.  The project achieves these goals by using a phase angle control circuit and static resistor and inductors to create a controllable circuit that can simulate load profiles on the system.  Additionally, a controllable capacitor bank allows for power factor correction based on the phase angles determined by the phasor measurement units located at each bus.  To emulate renewable energy injection the project utilizes a synchronized DC to AC invertor that can match the voltage of the testbench and allows for control of the power supplied to the grid.   Finally the project developed a graphical user interface to allow a human operator to both view the current and historical data collected from the testbench and execute control actions as necessary to operate the grid.   The project endstate will be to develop algorithms that will determine and implement the most efficient and economical operating point by turning on and off generation sources, correcting for reactive power and turning on and off transmission lines as needed.  The testbench allows for full integration testing of smart metering and distributed generation on a physical system and improves the efficiency of the grid by making autonomous control decisions to correct power factor and transmission line loading.


Visible light promoted efficient and eco-friendly photocatalytic method for the synthesis of quinazolinones. This protocol involves commencing readily available substituted isatins and 2-aminobenzamide by using Rose Bengal as an efficient recyclable photocatalyst. This method is operationally simpler and selective, carried out in shorter reaction time with visible light in higher yields. Using this protocol, a series of twenty compounds has been synthesized, all the synthesized compounds were evaluated for their cytotoxic potential on three human cancer cell lines and most of the compounds exhibited moderate to good cytotoxic activity, while some of them showed promising cytotoxicity with IC50 values ranging between 1.13 μM-1.77 μM.


Multiple-choice testing is a staple within the U.S. higher education system. From classroom assessments to standardized entrance exams such as the GRE, GMAT, or LSAT, test developers utilize a variety of validated and heuristicdriven item-writing guidelines. One such guideline that has been given recent attention is to randomize the position of the correct answer throughout the entire answer key. Doing this theoretically limits the number of correct guesses that testtakers can make and thus reduces the amount of construct-irrelevant variance in test score interpretations. This study empirically tested the strategy to randomize the answer-key. Specifically, a factorial ANOVA was conducted to examine differences in General Biology classroom multiple-choice test scores by the interaction of method for varying the correct answer's position and student ability. Although no statistically significant differences were found, the paper argues that the guideline is nevertheless ethically substantiated.


Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) possess unique physical, optical, and electrical properties with great potential for future nanoscale device applications. Common synthesis procedures yield SWNTs with large length polydispersity and varying chirality. Electrical and optical applications of SWNTs often require specific lengths, but the preparation of SWNTs with the desired length is still challenging. Insulator-based dielectrophoresis (iDEP) integrated into a microfluidic device has the potential to separate SWNTs by length. Semiconducting SWNTs of varying length suspended with sodium deoxycholate (NaDOC) show unique dielectrophoretic properties at low-frequencies (<1 kHz) that were exploited here using an iDEP-based microfluidic constriction sorter device for length-based sorting. Specific migration directions in the constriction sorter were induced for long SWNTs (≥1000 nm) with negative dielectrophoretic properties compared to short (≤300 nm) SWNTs with positive dielectrophoretic properties. We report continuous fractionation conditions for length-based iDEP migration of SWNTs, and we characterize the dynamics of migration of SWNTs in the microdevice using a finite element model. Based on the length and dielectrophoretic characteristics, sorting efficiencies for long and short SWNTs recovered from separate channels of the constriction sorter amounted to >90% and were in excellent agreement with a numerical model for the sorting process.


(Uncorrected OCR)
Abstract of Dissertation entitled

Recycling: The Way towards Sustainable Waste Management for Hong Kong?

Submitted by

Sin Hang-chun

for partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science at the University of Hong Kong

in April 2001

The rapid economic development and population growth in the twentieth

century brought not only fortune and a better standard of living but also an unwelcome

by-product - a waste avalanche. In 1998, despite the economic downturn, Hong Kong

continued to produce a huge quantity of wastes thus risking that the existing mega-sized

landfills will be filled up faster than expected. Given Hong Kong's small area and high

population, sparing land areas for new landfills seems, if not impossible, extremely

difficult. There is an urgency to look for other outlets and solutions to its waste problems.

Since the emergence of the concept of sustainable development, it has become the focus

of the world's development regime in the twenty-first century. This study begins by

establishing conceptually and practically the applicability of the concept of sustainable

development in the context of waste management. Set against this, a 'sustainable waste

management regime' is established as the analytical framework for this project. A case study approach using Japan and the Netherlands as examples is used as a supplementary tool. This project targets to evaluate the development of the waste management and waste recycling policies in Hong Kong in the light of waste management sustainability. The question posed is: Is recycling the way to move ong Kong towards a 'sustainable waste management regime'?

Waste recycling evolves as the secon option in the waste management priority areas in Agenda 21. From an environmental )rotection point of view, it helps to conserve natural resources, reduce wastes required fi al disposal and extend the lifespan of the existing landfills. Moreover, in social terms, it creates job opportunities for the unskilled. Economically speaking, it reduces gove ent expenditure on waste treatment. Waste recycling provides a sense of environmental, s cial and economical sustainability. It is of the writer's view that waste recycling is t e cornerstone in the pursuit of a 'sustainable waste management regime' for Hong ong. However, because of the complexity of the waste problems, there is no single a proach which is able to provide an effective and long term solution. It is more sensible t tackle the waste problems through an integrated approach which includes waste mini ization as the top priority, waste recovery and recycling as the second priority methods, waste-to-energy recovery as the third one and disposal as the least desirable one.

From the government's first pIece of statutory waste management legislation - Waste Disposal Ordinance (1980) to the Waste Reduction Framework Plan (1998) to the recently proposed 'Seven Major Initiati es' (2001), the focus of the waste

management policy in Hong Kong changed from final disposal to waste minimization and recycling. With waste minimization and recycling as the major focus now, Hong Kong is heading towards a 'sustainable waste management regime'. However, the Hong Kong government continues with its laissez-faire attitude towards the waste recycling industry, refusing to provide direct subsidies to the industry whereas many other countries, like Japan and the Netherlands, do provide assistance to their recycling industry. Together with many other difficulties, the recycling industry in Hong Kong faces a very difficult situation that risks its survival. In the pursuit of a 'sustainable waste management regime', the Hong Kong government has to provide some help to the industry. Furthermore, more efforts have to be placed on the legislative, institutional and educational level. Yet, not just the government of Hong Kong but every individual has to work harder on waste minimization and recycling and also on environmental protection. Laissez- faire is not an option.


We present a new interface for Object-Oriented Database Management Systems (OODBMSs). The GOODIES 1 system combines and expands the functions of many existing interface systems, introducing some new concepts for improved browsing in an OODBMS. The implementation of GOODIES proposes a new approach to database interfaces development: instead of being strongly dependent of the underlying DBMS, GOODIES is based on the main features of the object-oriented data model. The system design is based on an internal model and on an external model. The internal model deenes the relationships that bind the interface to the DBMS. The external model determines the possible interaction between the user and the interface system. This paper describes the concepts of the design of GOODIES.


In this paper, we design a pilot outdoor wireless network based on IEEE 802.11b standard
for HealthCare Applications through computer simulation. The purpose is to demonstrate
the use of computer simulation in designing outdoor wireless networks. We use a free
software tool called Radio Mobile and freely available geographical elevation data
downloaded from NASA to determine the radio frequency (RF) coverage of a wireless
networking base-station and radio link performance. Furthermore, we demonstrate the
flexibility of computer simulation in assessing design alternatives.


This study documents the adoption and impacts of zero-tillage (ZT) wheat in the ricewheat systems of Pakistan's Punjab province primarily drawing on a detailed empirical survey of 458 rice-wheat farmers. Our random stratified sample revealed 19% to be ZT wheat adopters and a similar share of the wheat area in the surveyed communities to be under ZT. The study suggests that diffusion has stagnated and also flags the issue of disadoption (14%). ZT adopters, non-adopters, and disadopters differ significantly in terms of their resource bases, with adopters typically showing the most favorable values. ZT drastically reduces tractor operations in farmers' ZT wheat fields from an average of 8 passes to a single pass, implying a saving of 7 tractor hours and 35 liters of diesel per hectare. ZT did not have any significant effect on the mean farmer estimated wheat yield of 3.3 tons per hectare. ZT also had no significant effect on water productivity for wheat or spillover effect on the subsequent rice crop. ZT primarily appears to be a cost-saving technology for wheat in Pakistan's Punjab. Based on these findings, the study provides a number of recommendations for research and development in Pakistan Punjab's rice-wheat systems.


In this thesis I outline my living theory (Whitehead 1989) of leadership development for e-learning as an explanation of educational influence in improving training practice. This proceeds from a four-year action research self-study of my professional development as a civil servant in the context of my participation in the Professional Doctorate in Education (Leadership) programme at Dublin City University.

The study involved a systematic enquiry into the development of my knowledge and practice as I addressed myself to the question: 'how do I integrate my studies in the field of educational leadership research with my work as a civil servant in order to improve it?' In this manner the study bridges the theory-practice gap, exploring the nature of professional development through reflection on the actions undertaken to interrogate theoretical and conceptual ideas from study within training practice and vice versa, and on how new knowledge was produced through this dynamic interplay.

The study also develops conceptual understanding about the nature of elearning as an educational leadership issue in the context of three action research cycles in which I tried to support training colleagues to explore the educational potential of information and communications technologies for the development of their practice. This represents a lacuna in the research literature, which has largely treated e-learning in instrumental terms, as an
issue of technical innovation or top-down strategy.
My claim to knowledge is that I can explain the nature of my professional development and my educational influence in my own learning. The originality of this contribution lies in how I re-conceptualise leadership development for
e-learning as an epistemology of professional development in which ontological values are transformed into living standards of accountability. Potential significance lies in its contribution to the development of a knowledge base of practice for training and development.


Mouthpart structure and feeding behavior in the temperate firebug, Pyrrhocoris sibiricus Kuschakevich, an important pest that feeds on seeds of leguminous and gramineous plants, are described for the first time. Mouthparts were observed using scanning electron microscopy to examine the external morphology, distribution and abundance of sensilla on mouthparts. Feeding performance by adults on both seeds and shoots were observed using a binocular microscope. The four-segmented labium contains 3 types of sensilla trichodea, 3 types of sensilla basiconica, 1 type of sensilla placodea and 1 type of sensilla campaniformia. Among them, sensilla trichodea are most abundant. The tripartite apex of the labium consists of two lateral lobes and an apical plate. Each lateral lobe possesses a field of 12 thick-walled uniporous peg sensilla and long non-porous hair sensilla. The mandibular stylet tips have three central teeth and two pairs of lateral teeth, which may help in penetrating hard seed coats. A series of scale-like projections are present on the inner surface of the mandibular stylets. The externally smooth maxillary stylets interlock to form a larger food canal and a smaller salivary canal, and there are five tubercles near the tip of the right stylet. Cross-sections of the stylet fascicle show that each mandibular stylet has a dendritic canal. The adult feeding process involves several steps, including exploring and puncturing of the host epidermis, a probing phase, an engorgement phase, and removal of the mouthparts from the host tissue. The structure and function of the mouthparts are adapted for the seed feeding habits.


The antimicrobial susceptibility profile of L. monocytogenes and other Listeria species isolated from some ready-to-eat (RTE) foods sold in Kano metropolis, north-western Nigeria was carried out using disc-diffusion method. The results obtained showed that L. monocytogenes was moderately susceptible to all the antibiotics tested while L. inovanii and L. seelegeri exhibited high and low susceptibility patterns respectively. However, all the species were resistant to gentamicin, ciprofloxacin, augmentin and ceftriazone. Considering the fact that L. monocytogenes and other Listeria species tested in this study are slowly becoming antibiotic resistant; a situation that poses a threat to both human and animal health, the continuous examination of emerging antimicrobial resistance of these pathogens is important to ensure effective treatment of human listeriosis. The results of this study could therefore help in enriching the data on antibiotic resistance of Listeria strains isolated from foods and in developing effective risk management strategies. In addition, it is recommended that more research be conducted to ascertain the presence of these organisms in other food items in Kano, Nigeria. Keywords : Listeria species, Ready-to-eat foods, Antimicrobial susceptibility, Kano, Nigeria.


The life cycle of Acraea acerata Hew was studied in the laboratory at temperature and relative humidity ranges of 26-30°C and 40-90%, respectively. Male and female insects were caged in pairs and fed with a 10% sugar solution. Sweet potato leaves were provided as oviposition substrates. Eggs were laid in clusters and these hatched at the end of a 6-day incubation period. The larvae passed through between five and seven instar stages. The life cycle was completed between 45 and 48 days. The young instars (1st and 2nd) fed in clusters and skeletonized the leaves, while the mature larvae were solitary and fed by making large openings usually along the leaf veins. Infestation with five to ten 2nd instar larvae per plant, at six weeks after planting, caused increases in the yield of sweet potato foliage over those of the controls, but these were not significantly different (P > 0.05). This was due to a compensatory response by the plants to the insect damage. The highest population of 20 larvae depressed foliage yields by 20.0 to 37.3% as compared with the controls. This was estimated to reduce root tuber yield by 18.7% at the end of the crop growing cycle.


This research investigates the use of personal ventilation (PV) in a typical office space as a means of contaminant removal from ones breathing zone (BZ). For this work, a validated computational model was developed and used for PV assessment under different scenarios. Experimental data of Khalifa et al. (2009), Ito (2007) and Rim et al. (2009) were used to validate a computational model that is capable of simulating indoor chemical reactions with excellent agreement compared with the experiments. Through the validation process, various computational parameters were determined to be significant for producing accurate results. Grid resolution, geometry, far field BCs, turbulence model and radiation were shown to impact the solutions accuracy and care must be taken. However, it was found that adding complex, realistic features, such as unsteady breathing or sweating, does not improve the accuracy of the inhaled air quality results of the solution. With this knowledge, the benefits of two PV nozzles, a conventional round nozzle and a novel low-mixing Co-flow nozzle, were investigated for an array of scenarios including: non-reacting indoor sources, different office and PV configurations and indoor surface and volumetric reactions. Specifically, the use of PV to remove reaction products of the oxidation by Ozone of Squalene and D-Limonene were analyzed and compared to a conventional ventilation system. The Co-flow nozzle was shown to exhibit superior performance and robustness over a single jet PV system and both PV systems improved air quality in the BZ over conventional systems. It was found that well mixed behavior is not exhibited especially with large velocity and concentration gradients that are developed by the use of PV and/or when indoor sources or chemical reactions are present. A Detailed and Systematic Investigation of Personal Ventilation Systems


The gap between the supply and the demand of electricity is rapidly increasing throughout the world, due to the decommissioning of old coal-fired power plants, and the stringent regulations on carbon emissions. Power suppliers need renewable energy generating technologies which are both environment friendly and sustainable in a long term. The requirement of renewable technologies is resulting in an increased financing of the research and development in the solar and wind energy sectors. This increase in the research and development in these renewable sectors can be observed all across the developed world and in particular, the European Union, as a result of its commitment to its Renewable Energy Directive. In the United Kingdom, the wind energy sector has predominantly grown in the recent years, with the construction of multiple wind farms, both on-shore and off-shore. This is resulting in significant advancement in the designs of large wind turbines. However, the abundantly available wind energy in the urban areas is still an energy source to be explored.

The current research study is aimed at exploring the design and analysis methodologies of small-to-medium sized wind turbines for urban applications, as the published research in this area is severely limited. A drag based Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) has been considered in the present study as these types of VAWTs are more suitable for urban environments. Such VAWTs operate at lower wind speeds, have multidirectional structure, simpler construction, lower manufacturing and maintenance costs, robust design, long lasting operational life, smaller size, low level of noise and vibrations, and possess the ability to self-start and be packed closer together. Improvements to the standard drag based VAWT designs are required to make the best use of their inherent design benefits, which coupled with a more refined and effective design can lead to a wide spread use of drag based VAWTs in urban centres, increasing renewable energy production. Detailed investigates on the effects of various innovative geometrical features on the performance of the VAWT have been carried out. This has been achieved through the use of advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) based techniques.

The first aspect of the study is to carry out a detailed flow diagnostics of a standard drag based VAWT (the baseline model). Various innovative geometrical features have then been integrated with the baseline model to analyse their effects on the performance of the model. For this purpose, three dimensional models of the VAWT have been numerically analysed for the flow of dry and clean air in urban environments. Furthermore, sliding mesh technique has been employed to rotate the rotor of the VAWT. An in-depth qualitative and quantitative analysis of the global and local flow related parameters has been carried out, while instantaneous torque variations have been monitored throughout the rotation of the VAWT. The second aspect of the study is to critically analyse the start-up process (accelerating rotor) in order to determine the entire operating range of a helical VAWT design. Advanced CFD based technique, known as dynamic mesh, has been employed for this purpose. The advantage of dynamic mesh over sliding mesh is that sliding mesh assumes a constant operating point of the VAWT, while dynamic mesh generates the complete performance map of the VAWT; from the start-up to the constant operating point. Hence, the use of dynamic mesh technique is essential in understanding the transient accelerating behaviour of the VAWT. The third aspect of the current study is to develop an innovative in-house built CFD package for aerodynamic design analysis of VAWTs. The developed package is based on existing open source CFD solvers. Predictions from the developed package have been validated against a well-known and widely used commercial CFD software (ANSYS). The developed package has been shown to predict the complex flow structures in the vicinity of the VAWT, and its performance parameters, with reasonable accuracy, and hence can be used as an inexpensive tool for CFD based design analysis of VAWTs for small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs).


This paper expounds action learning for effective change leadership development using the learning-teaching helix as a paradigm for individual's introspection. Which consists of five phases—Awareness phase (as certain your strengths and weaknesses). Alignment phase (identify your core competence). Action phase (synthesize your work, business and management skills), Adoption phase (becoming a leader) and Assurance phase (excel as an educator cum coach). In addition, to succeed, the individual has to plan, strategize, prioritize and integrate. As a holistic manager the individual needs to think, feel and do to evolve from continuous action learning to the cycle of teaching for continuous innovation in organizational performance capabilities.


This thesis consists of three related essays that examine investors? order submission strategies during the pre-opening period on the Malta Stock Exchange. The pre-opening is a period of liquidity formation and price discovery characterised by the absence of trade execution. The three essays collectively examine the information content of the order book in relation to: the intensity of order submissions, the aggressiveness of investors? order placement strategy and the determination of returns generated over the pre-opening period.The first essay empirically investigates if public information concerning the current state of the order book impacts the duration between order arrivals. Utilizing an augmented ACD model, the research reveals that the information which can be inferred from the characteristics of incoming orders has a more significant impact on the intensity of buy order submissions as compared to sell order submissions during the pre-opening period. Furthermore, prospective buyers appear to be more responsive to liquidity provided by the sell side than the reverse. Locked or crossed order submissions tend to increases (decreases) the intensity of order flow on the own (opposite) side of the order book, corroborating Cao et al. (2000) that such order-types contain informative signals about the fundamental value of the asset.The second essay analyses the impact of limit order book information on the aggressiveness observed in the submission, revision and cancellation of limit orders during the market pre-opening period. The empirical results indicate that the aggressiveness of order submissions and forward price revisions react both to the existing and subsequent changes in the execution probability at market opening, driven in part by the depth on either side of the order book. The aggressiveness of order cancellations increases on both sides of the order book when the depth at the top of the ask order book increases. In addition, the results suggest that the order book height and size of the inside spread impacts the aggressiveness of order submissions, revisions and cancellations.The third essay studies the contribution of the pre-opening period to the daily price discovery process and the factors that impact the return generated over this period. The results indicate that approximately one third of daily price discovery occurs in the pre-opening period. In addition, the impact of relative depth and height of the overnight and opening order book are concentrated at the top of the order book. Furthermore, cumulative changes to relative depth attributable to order submissions most significantly impact the opening returns of less actively traded stocks. The results show a strong relationship between opening returns and cumulative changes in the relative height along the order book attributable to order submissions, cancellations and forward and backward price revisions over the pre-opening period.


This paper presents the results of an automated volatile organic compound (VOC) classification process implemented by embedding a machine learning algorithm into an Arduino Uno board. An electronic nose prototype is constructed to detect VOCs from three different fruits. The electronic nose is constructed using an array of five tin dioxide (SnO2) gas sensors, an Arduino Uno board used as a data acquisition section, as well as an intelligent classification module by embedding an approach function which receives data signals from the electronic nose. For the intelligent classification module, a training algorithm is also implemented to create the base of a portable, automated, fast-response, and economical electronic nose device. This solution proposes a portable system to identify and classify VOCs without using a personal computer (PC). Results show an acceptable precision for the embedded approach in comparison with the performance of a toolbox used in a PC. This constitutes an embedded solution able to recognize VOCs in a reliable way to create application products for a wide variety of industries, which are able to classify data acquired by an electronic nose, as VOCs. With this proposed and implemented algorithm, a precision of 99% for classification was achieved into the embedded solution.


The oral route is the most convenient route of delivering drugs intended to have systemic effects. One of the key variables determining the rate and extent of absorption from the gastrointestinal tract is the intestinal permeability to the drug. Following intestinal absorption, the drug may be extracted, metabolised and/or secreted by transport proteins and/or enzymes located in the intestinal wall and in the liver. The main objectives of this thesis were to characterise the intestinal effective permeability (Peff) the absorption mechanism(s) and the hepatic extraction offluvastatin, a drug used for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia.The intestinal Peff of fluvastatin was investigated in anaesthetised rats with use of an in situ single-pass perfusion technique and in conscious male volunteers using an in vivo jejunal perfusion technique (Loc-I-Gut®). In the rats, the regional Peff of fluvastatin was studied in the jejunum, ileum and colon at various lumenal concentrations. The possible involvement of the monocarboxylic acid transporter (MCT); the P-glycoprotein (Pgp) and the multidrug resistance associated protein (MRP) in the intestinal transport of fluvastatin was examined in the rat. The hepatic extraction of fluvastatin during the first-pass was estimated in both rats and humans in vivo.Fluvastatin has a high intestinal Peff in the human jejunum and in all the regions of the rat intestine investigated here. The Peff is concentration- and region-dependent in the rat, with the highest permeability being in the colon at the highest lumenal concentration. This concentration dependence is probably not caused by the involvement of the efflux proteins Pgp and MRP. The ability of fluvastatin to decrease the surface tension of the intestinal perfusion solution can partly explain the concentration-dependent Peff. The MCT does not transport fluvastatin to any significant extent in the rat intestine.Fluvastatin is extracted to approximately 70% and 30-50% during the first-pass in humans and rats, respectively. This extraction occurs most likely in the liver. The high degree of hepatic extraction of fluvastatin might be beneficial for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia, as the liver is the major site for the biosynthesis of cholesterol.


Background and Issues:
 Studies reveal greater in-hospital delays on evaluation for stroke when they occur in the hospitalized patient. Only 15 percent of in-hospital strokes are evaluated by a physician within 3 hours of onset. This significantly surpasses the Golden Hour target of 60 minutes to treat eligible patients. The more time that passes in eligible patients, the greater the extent of brain ischemia to be expected. Well-planned and executed stroke response processes must be developed within hospitals so that teams treating hospitalized stroke patients can achieve the time sensitive goal of door to needle within 60 minutes.

 Purpose:
 The purpose of this study was to optimize the response of inpatient staff nurses and promote their confidence with executing a newly developed inpatient stroke response process.

 Sample:
 Fifty-seven staff RNs in two medical-surgical units of a community hospital

 Method:
 The method included educational inservices with pre and post survey data collection. Each survey assessed RN knowledge of responding to inpatients having acute stroke symptoms and their confidence level in implementing the appropriate response. Simulation drills were conducted a month later. The drills assessed the RNs' response to a stroke scenario and provided opportunities to role play each step of the interdisciplinary process. A post-drill survey assessed the RNs' confidence with implementing the inpatient stroke response process.

 Results:
 Measureable increase in self-reported RN confidence with both recognizing and responding to acute stroke in hospitalized patients. On a 4 point likert-type scale, mean overall confidence in recognizing stroke symptoms went from 2.91 to 3.3 among all experience levels. Mean overall confidence in responding to stroke increased from 2.77 to 3.26. Data was stratified to reflect years of RN experience.

 Conclusions:
 RNs who participated in focused education and stroke process drills reported increased confidence in their role in stroke recognition and response. Additional data is needed to determine if increased RN confidence will lead to earlier detection of stroke, earlier interventions, and better outcomes.


ABSTRACT Collaborative biostatistics faculty (CBF) are increasingly valued by academic health centers (AHCs) for their role in increasing success rates of grants and publications, and educating medical students and clinical researchers. Some AHCs have a biostatistics department that consists of only biostatisticians focused on methodological research, collaborative research, and education. Others may have a biostatistics unit within an interdisciplinary department, or statisticians recruited into clinical departments. Within each model, there is also variability in environment, influenced by the chair's background, research focus of colleagues, type of students taught, funding sources, and whether the department is in a medical school or school of public health. CBF appointments may be tenure track or nontenure, and expectations for promotion may vary greatly depending on the type of department, track, and the AHC. In this article, the authors identify strategies for developing early-stage CBFs in four domains: (1) Influence of department/environment, (2) Skills to develop, (3) Ways to increase productivity, and (4) Ways to document accomplishments. Graduating students and postdoctoral fellows should consider the first domain when choosing a faculty position. Early-stage CBFs will benefit by understanding the requirements of their environment early in their appointment and by modifying the provided progression grid with their chair and mentoring team as needed. Following this personalized grid will increase the chances of a satisfying career with appropriate recognition for academic accomplishments.


SPHB tests of concrete under different temperatures and various loading conditions are completed, and high-temperature dynamical behavior of concrete is obtained. Dynamical mechanical behavior of concrete with high temperature is affected by not only the strain rate effect, but also the high temperature weakening effect, and the strain rate hardening effect is coupled with high temperature weakening effect, but the latter has greater influence. Concrete failure evolution is described on basis of the damage factor, the intercoupling strain rate hardening effect and temperature weakening effect are simply set as mutually independent factors, each parameter is respectively fitted with test data, finally, concrete constitutive equation under high-temperature dynamical conditions is established, and comparative analysis with test data are conducted, indicating good coincidence with test results.


Hierarchically constructing micro (i.e., intra-sentence or inter-sentence) discourse structure trees using explicit boundaries (e.g., sentence and paragraph boundaries) has been proved to be an effective strategy. However, it is difficult to apply this strategy to document-level macro (i.e., inter-paragraph) discourse parsing, the more challenging task, due to the lack of explicit boundaries at the higher level. To alleviate this issue, we introduce a topic segmentation mechanism to detect implicit topic boundaries and then help the document-level macro discourse parser to construct better discourse trees hierarchically. In particular, our parser first splits a document into several sections using the topic boundaries that the topic segmentation detects. Then it builds a smaller and more accurate discourse sub-tree in each section and sequentially forms a whole tree for a document. The experimental results on both Chinese MCDTB and English RST-DT show that our proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art baselines significantly.


This paper presents the development of a force/moment sensor named COSMO-II that can be used in the intuitive robot teaching of a six axis robot. A new principle of force/moment detection is presented that uses force sensing resistor as the transducer. The function of the COSMO-II sensor is to detect the force and moment about the principal axes of the the sensor coordinate system, so that the sensor information can be used for the intuitive robot teaching. The architecture and force/moment detection principle and the developed prototype sensor are describe. The performance of the sensor is evaluated and the results are shown. The sensor architecture is simple and can be implemented at low cost.


A dynamical model (MAGic) is presented that describes the elemental cycling of sedimentary materials involving sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride, carbon, oxygen, iron, sulfur and phosphorous through much of the Phanerozoic. The model incorporates the basic reactions controlling atmospheric carbon dioxide and oxygen concentrations, continental and seafloor weathering of silicate and carbonate rocks, net ecosystem productivity, basalt-seawater exchange reactions, precipitation and diagenesis of chemical sediments and authigenic silicates, oxidation-reduction reactions involving carbon, sulfur, and iron, and subduction-decarbonation reactions. Although MAGic contains feedback and forcing functions adapted from the GEOCARB models (Berner, 1991, 1994; Berner and Kothavala, 2001), these functions are incorporated in a reservoir-reaction scheme that is considerably more detailed. Coupled reservoirs include shallow and deep cratonic silicate and carbonate rocks and sediments, seawater, atmosphere, oceanic sediments and basalts, and the shallow mantle. Model results are reasonably consistent with recently published constraints provided by fluid inclusion, isotopic, floral, and mineralogical records. We have used these results to evaluate sensitivity to uncertainties in the history of the earth-ocean-atmosphere system over the past 500 Ma: the advent of pelagic carbonate sedimentation, the importance of burial versus early diagenetic dolomite formation, the importance of reverse weathering, and the relationship of these processes to seafloor spreading rates. Results include a general pattern of dolomite abundance during periods of elevated seafloor spreading and alkalinity production, elevated atmospheric CO 2 concentrations for most of the Phanerozoic similar to those predicted by GEOCARB, and covariance of seawater sulfate to calcium ratios with magnesium to calcium ratios. These trends are broadly consistent with proxies for seawater composition and the mass-age data of the rock record itself.


For the management of a software development project, a software quality prediction model is very helpful since it can provide the management with useful information needed for decision-makings. Many software quality prediction models and techniques have been proposed and studied in the literature. Nevertheless, the complicated situations of software development process call for a more flexible model that can cater for all factors that have impact on the quality of the target software, including the characteristics of the software product, the characteristics of the development process and the operation conditions. In this paper, a software quality prediction model based on a fuzzy neural network is presented. The proposed model is a hybrid model of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Fuzzy Logic (FL), which exploits the advantages of ANN and FL while eliminating their limitations. The model exhibits some favorable features such as being able to deal with objective data collected in the software development process as well as knowledge/experiences obtained from experts or from similar projects, which is the main information that is available in the early phases of a software development process. Using this model, early prediction of software quality becomes feasible and the management can have knowledge of the quality of target software product as early as possible, which helps to identify design errors and avoid expensive rework. Experimental results show that for problems of small-to-medium scale, the proposed model can be easily trained and thus can be of practical use.


In principle, targeted therapies have optimal activity against a specific subset of tumors that depend upon the targeted molecule or pathway for growth, survival, or metastasis. Consequently, it is important in drug development and clinical practice to have predictive biomarkers that can reliably identify patients who will benefit from a given therapy. We analyzed tumor cell-line secretomes (conditioned cell media) to look for predictive biomarkers; secretomes represent a potential source for potential biomarkers that are expressed in intracellular signaling and therefore may reflect changes induced by targeted therapy. Using Gene Ontology, we classified by function the secretome proteins of 12 tumor cell lines of different histotypes. Representations and hierarchical relationships among the functional groups differed among the cell lines. Using bioinformatics tools, we identified proteins involved in intracellular signaling pathways. For example, we found that secretome proteins related to TGF-beta signaling in thyroid cancer cells, such as vasorin, CD109, and βIG-H3 (TGFBI), were sensitive to RPI-1 and dasatinib treatments, which have been previously demonstrated to be effective in blocking cell proliferation. The secretome may be a valuable source of potential biomarkers for detecting cancer and measuring the effectiveness of cancer therapies.


Mountains are the most striking landforms of the earth. Throughout history, they have always held an important place in Western geographical imaginations. They represent spaces where forces of nature, power of reasoning and impulse of fantasy meet together. Mountain chains have never quit stirring attraction in the bosom of science, philosophy, culture and religion, representing multilayered processes of signification. This interest has responded to different aims, which, in turn, have been conveyed by different representations and narratives, echoing the most negative and enriching aspects of mountains. Hence, fascination with mountains has appeared through both scientific perspectives and subjective approaches. Thereby, the concept of mountain has been defined by the connection between the physical form of the world and the human imagination. It is a category of collective thinking that translates an idea of our image of nature, constituting a unifying concept of multiple meanings within scientific knowledge and symbolic understanding of territory.
Studies on mountains across social and human sciences have sought to integrate discourses of European science with modern issues, as travel, and with cultural systems and aesthetic languages. These studies have consolidated the possibility of addressing a physical and material study object from a hermeneutic perspective by disclosing the metaphors that have been used in human relations to geographical high places. Sierra Nevada has also constituted an important geographical area in which a wide range of imaginaries, of unquestionable relevance in the current management of the Betic Mountain, have been shaped. However, humanities have usually overlooked the formation and potential of the Massif?s geographical imaginations. While the historical knowledge of the Sierra has been studied, and many iconographic materials related to the Massif have been showed in public exhibitions, the symbolic formations of its geographical imaginaries have not been investigated yet. Metaphors, images, rhetorics and narratives that shaped these mountain interpretations, global contexts and discourses from which they arose, and historical interconnections produced between them have not been analyzed within the most recent debates of Cultural Geography.
This thesis attempts to fill in that gap. The dissertation explores the collective imaginations created from the Sierra Nevada geographic conditions. It aims at analyzing the meanings of its imagined geographies from the 16th century until the beginning of the 20th century. It presents, examines and discusses the different interpretations through which the Sierra has been scientifically studied, symbolically understood and corporeal experienced throughout modernity. In order to do so, the dissertation studies the representations and narratives by which the imaginations have been conveyed in diverse printed forms. It illustrates the origins of local and foreign historical visions of Sierra Nevada, and their effects in the present management and exploitation of the Betic Mountain.
In order to contextualize and interpret the multiple perspectives on the Sierra, the thesis sets out a comparative study between the Sierra Nevada models of representations and spatial practices, and those renderings and narratives employed in the comprehension of other high mountain areas. Against the theoretical framework of circulation of knowledge and ?travelling landscapes? through printed forms, this research explores the transmission of different modes of knowledge of foreign mountains to Sierra Nevada. The dissertation aims to show how the Sierra became an important space of reception of the geographical imaginations shaped in the Alps, the Pyrenees and other mountain chains, emerging as a site of relocation and reinterpretation of rhetorics and representations of Western high mountain. From this hypothesis, the thesis investigates of what these narratives, metaphors and models of representation consisted, how they were formed, and how they circulated in time and space to be adopted and transformed in the historical understanding of Sierra Nevada.
After the presentation of the state of the art and objectives in Chapter one, Chapter two provides some theoretical considerations. It explains the concept ?geographical imaginations?, and outlines the most relevant changes of the idea of landscape occurred in Cultural Geography. It also summarizes the significance of representation, and methods used for its analysis, in discipline approaches since the 1980?s. Finally, this chapter presents the social contribution of the research considering current problems with the Sierra Nevada management and its surroundings.
Chapter three functions as a hinge section. It presents the Sierra Nevada physical and natural features so as to think about its geographical particularities in the symbolic formation of its imaginaries. This introduction also reflects on recent cultural visibility of the Sierra through three major exhibitions held in Granada in the years 1960, 1995 and 2009 as starting points of the research on the Betic Mountain geographical imaginations of the past. The chapter discusses the objectives of these exhibitions, as well as its reception by locals.
Chapter four examines the foundational imaginaries of Sierra Nevada. It discusses how the Sierra was interpreted as the border space of productive areas in the region local communities? collective imaginations in medieval times. Then, by studying ways of knowing the mountain from the 16th century until the Enlightenment, this section focuses on the Sierra as a territory of essential natural resources for locals? ways of life, who conceptualized the Massif as an abstract geographic space of ?wonders?. The metaphors of the Massif as a mountain of wonders will be reappearing in its subsequent interpretations throughout modernity. Thus, the chapter seeks to highlight the early social and economic importance of different assessments of the Betic Mountain, rooted in pre-scientific understanding of its natural resources and its geographical context.
Chapter five analyzes popular imaginaries that turned Sierra Nevada into a natural space of legend and a place with religious connotations. This section also aims to emphasize the historical importance of the Massif?s pre-scientific visions, based on its materiality and its geographical features. Likewise, it points out the social and intellectual significance of these interpretations in later ways of conceptualizing the Sierra.
Chapter six focuses on foreign collective imaginations of Alpine evocation shaped by British travellers during the first half of the 19th century. Through the analysis and cultural contextualization of images and narratives of Sierra Nevada appeared in British travel accounts, this section shows how the aesthetic patterns, conventional narratives, and romantic myths of high mountain landscapes, previously employed in the symbolic acquaintance of the Alps, travelled across time and space through different cultural media, and were reinterpreted in the descriptions of Sierra Nevada. Thereby, the chapter discusses how the Sierra was imagined as a sublime and picturesque landscape of Alpine evocation, thus carving out the iconic landscape of Granada, Sierra Nevada and the Vega.
Chapter seven examines the scientific models of representation of Sierra Nevada during the course of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Through the study of images and narratives published as a result of scientific expeditions to the Massif by Spanish and foreign geologists and botanists, this section shows how methodological procedures, scientific practices and rendering models of foreign mountain chains, as the Alps and Pyrenees, shaped by the regulation of European geographical sciences, were transmitted to the Sierra Nevada. Through their application to the Sierra, these models, procedures and theories contributed to the definition of the first modern scientific knowledge of the Massif?s nature.
Chapter eight studies narratives and renderings shaped by the act of climbing the Betic summits by both local and foreign mountaineers. It investigates the circulation of ways of interpreting the European high mountain as a geographical space of conquest through alpinism appeared in the second half of the 19th century. By analysing accounts and images of early non-scientific expeditions to Sierra Nevada, this chapter discusses the comprehension and reinterpretation of the masculine rhetoric that sustained the rise of Alpine mountaineering in British modern society.
Chapter nine also focuses on Sierra Nevada physical exploration, but in this case through the practice of hiking carried out by local associations. Based on the analysis of hiking reports and photographs, the section examines the circulation of educational discourse that nourished this practice of mountaineering in both the Alps and Spanish mountains, especially in the Sierra de Guadarrama through the example of the Institucion Libre de Ensenanza. Considering the participation of several members of the Institucion in the rambles to Sierra Nevada, this chapter argues whether the Betic Massif, as in the case of the Guadarrama, was conceptualized as a collective geographical space with educational purposes. Likewise, the chapter explores the interweaving between masculine rhetorics of sport mountaineering and narratives of local hiking.
Finally, Chapter ten outlines the general conclusions of the issues and debates set out throughout the thesis, and presents the final discussion. This section also draws the recent effects of the geographical imaginaries in the present media representation of the Sierra, focusing on its recent development and its current canonical image within tourism and winter sports.


Private companies, government entities, and institutions such as hospitals routinely gather vast amounts of digitized personal information about the individuals who are their customers, clients, or patients. Much of this information is private or sensitive, and a key technological challenge for the future is how to design systems and processing techniques for drawing inferences from this large-scale data while maintaining the privacy and security of the data and individual identities. Individuals are often willing to share data, especially for purposes such as public health, but they expect that their identity or the fact of their participation will not be disclosed. In recent years, there have been a number of privacy models and privacy-preserving data analysis algorithms to answer these challenges. In this article, we will describe the progress made on differentially private machine learning and signal processing.


Background While the overall use of contraceptives is satisfactory (61.2%) in Bangladesh, the use of intrauterine device (IUD) is surprisingly low (0.9%) against high discontinuation rate (48%). Despite some researches in the past, it is difficult to pinpoint why IUD has never been popular in Bangladesh. While the health care professionals prescribe (need) for more use of IUD as a cheap, highly effective, long-acting and reversible method of contraception, the experience reveals that clients aspirations and desires (demand) of quality services are not appropriately addressed in providing (supply) such services: from the community to the health facilities and from the field workers to the services providers. Objectives The overall objective of the FGDs was to identify the factors that influence the uptake of IUD. The specific objectives were: (1) to identify the barriers that influences the uptake of IUD, (2) to know about the insights of the satisfied IUD clients on the IUD use, (3) to know about the insights of the field workers on the IUD use, (4) to know about the insights of the husbands of the satisfied IUD clients on the IUD use and (5) to explore the possibility of using IUD clients as the referrer of IUD and other LARC & PM methods. Methods 5 FGDs 2 with IUD users, 1 with users' husbands, 2 with field workers were organized in two Upazilas: Chirirbandar and Khansama Upazila of Dinajpur districts with total 42 participants;5 male and 37 female. These areas were selected on the basis of the low IUD performances. Result According to the study, there are inconsistences in the need, demand and supply continuum. We found that social stigma and misconceptions (God will not accept IUD users' prayers and also their funereal wouldn'tbe accepted by God; husband's lifetime may decrease if the wife uses IUD; IUD is poisonous and causes to develop cancer, etc.) about IUD is the main factor for low uptake of IUD. Besides, poor quality of service and spousal approval also play important negative role. The other factors are client's shyness, providers' bias, demotivation and information mess. Conclusion To make IUD popular in Bangladesh, the study implies to undertake interventions in 3 levels: integrated demand generation activities to remove stigma and social barriers at the community level including promotion of personal hygiene practices to make the women ready for IUD use; quality improvement intervention at the supply side including referral and services for side effect and complication management at the nearest health facilities; and special effort of utilizing female doctors as the IUD providers to reposition IUD as a method of better choice in Bangladesh.


Abstract The poorly known Cloud-forest Screech Owl (Megascops marshalli) is a Peruvian endemic known from only two localities, and its vocalizations have not been documented. We report the first Bolivian specimen and sound-recordings, an analysis of the species' longsong in comparison with other brown-eyed Andean screech owls, and discuss its distribution, natural history, ecological relationships with sympatric congeners, and conservation status. Longsongs were most similar to those of the allopatric Cinnamon Screech Owl (M. petersoni) in northern Peru and Ecuador. Principal component analysis of four vocal characters identified: (1) notable overlap between the two species; (2) some overlap of the Cloud-forest Screech Owl with Ecuadorian, but not with sympatric Bolivian populations of the Rufescent Screech Owl (M. ingens); and (3) considerable, evidently clinal geographic variation in the Rufescent Screech Owl. Divergence in vocal characteristics between the Cloud-forest Screech Owl in Bolivia and other species decreased with increasing geographic distance. The Cloud-forest Screech Owl is now known from six localities from Departamento Pasco, Peru, south to Departamento Cochabamba, Bolivia, and has a disjunct distribution with four subpopulations and an overall extent of occurrence of ∼12,700 km2. Its preferred habitat is pristine to at most slightly disturbed wet montane forest with high structural complexity, dense understory, and abundant epiphytes. It has been recorded at altitudes of 1,550–2,580 m, but locally its altitudinal range is ∼500 m, where it is narrowly syntopic with Rufescent Screech Owl at its lower and White-throated Screech Owl (M. albogularis) at its upper terminus. Narrowly overlapping altitudinal replacement in Andean Megascops taxa combined with variable location of replacement zones depending on local ecoclimatic conditions suggest that species' distributions are primarily maintained by exclusion via interspecific competition. The Cloud-forest Screech Owl is currently properly listed as Near Threatened, but further research may show it is more appropriately categorized as Vulnerable.


Up to now, adolescent speakers have been the primary focus when researching contemporary variation in the language of Sweden's urban areas. This study contributes to the growing body of research on the topic by examining and reporting on adult speakers of what is here referred to as forortssvenska (English: Suburban Swedish). This study focuses specifically on formal speech registers of eight young working-class men from Stockholm along with the perception and reception of their speech by two independent native-listener groups.The paper is the first to present quantifiable data on what has been previously referred to as a "staccato" rhythm in Suburban Swedish. Strong correlations are shown between prosodic rhythm as measured by the normalized pairwise variability index (nPVI) and speech speed to mean listener attitudes (R2=0.9). A strong correlation is also shown for nPVI's influence on mean listener-projected ethnicity (R2=0.8). Alongside variation in rhythm, we also see phonemic variation that trends toward specific indexes of social identity as revealed by speaker interviews and native-listener assessments. Alongside linguistic variation among speakers, there is also significant variation within speaker peer groups.In addition to identifying specific linguistic features, the study examines social mechanisms revealed in interviews with and qualitative observations of speaker and listener participants. In exploratory fashion, ideas on variation, register ranges, meta-pragmatic stereotyping, and ethnic boundary-making are presented to make a case for treating contemporary urban variation in Swedish as a habitual semiotic extension of speaker identity. Indicators that contemporary urban variation in Swedish may be heading in the direction of sociolectal entrenchment are also discussed.


This essay was submitted for the Royal College of Psychiatry's perinatal psychiatry medical student essay prize in 2017. The essay considers the choices available to women with bipolar disorder who become pregnant while taking sodium valproate to treat mania or for mood stabilisation. The implications of three options are considered: to stop all treatment, to switch to a different mood stabiliser or to continue on sodium valproate. The implications for the fetus, on the mother's wellbeing and the ethics of patient choice are discussed.

BACKGROUND
Pregnancy can be especially challenging for women with bipolar disorder, predominantly because of the heightened probability of relapse, potential fetal harm caused by bipolar medication, and a 250-fold risk of puerperal psychosis compared to the general population. Sodium valproate is a known teratogen, and is discouraged in pregnancy, but what choice is open to women who rely on this medication to stabilise their mood?

CONCLUSIONS
The large majority of women of childbearing age with bipolar disorder should not be prescribed sodium valproate as the risks to the unborn fetus far outweigh the benefits of the medication, as other drugs have similar if not better efficacy to stabilize the mother's mood, with lower risks to the fetus. In the small minority of women for whom valproate may be the only effective treatment, she must be fully informed of the teratogenic and neurodevelopmental risks, as well as the ways in which the pregnancy can be managed to reduce such risks.


As I came to review the final draft of this paper two events provided cause for further
reflection on the nature of what is being reviewed here. Firstly, the conclusion of the
transfer of the remaining 15,500 Liverpool City Council housing stock to a newly formed
housing association: Liverpool Mutual Homes. Then one of Eastenders' lead characters
spoke with a real sense of familiarity, of the problems he might have with 'the housing
association' when she takes in a friends family as lodgers. Delete 'housing association'
and insert 'council' to picture the same script from only 3-4 years ago. Not quite as
significant an event as that at Liverpool, but one that seems to capture some of the social
changes involved: popular culture has caught up with certain policy developments.


A variety of cancers develop in the gastrointestinal tract. Knowledge of the epidemiological risk factors and the premalignant changes associated with these cancers may help prevent or decrease the incidence of these malignancies. We enumerate the risk factors and discuss the premalignant lesions associated with each cancer in light of the many epidemiological and clinical studies important to practicing gastroenterologists.


Two-phase flow in helically coiled tubes is becoming the interest of many investigators because of its importance in various applications such as nuclear engineering, chemical engineering, refrigerating engineering and power engineering. Compared with U-type tubes used in pressurized water reactor (PWR), helically coiled tubes have advantages in size, heat transfer capacity, thermal stress toleration and two-phase stability. Accordingly the helically coiled tubes have been utilized in the steam generators of the next general reactors, such as gas-cooled reactor, fast breeder reactor and integrated pressurized water reactor. In helically coiled tubes the characteristics of momentum and heat transfer are distinct from those in straight tubes due to the presence of centrifugal force, especially for two-phase flow. Meanwhile, the transitions of flow regime, which is the crucial knowledge for the designers to determine the heat transfer rates and flow resistance, are also significantly affected by the centrifugal force. In this study, two-phase flow regimes in helically coiled tubes are investigated. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), using fractional volume of fluid (VOF) model, is carried out to simulate wavy and slug flow regimes in helically coiled tubes. The corresponding experiment is also conducted to visualize these flow regimes at different superficial flow velocities. Numerical simulation results actually reflect the influence of centrifugal force on the two-phase flow and show a good agreement with the photographs captured from the experiment. Based on the simulations at different superficial flow velocities, the boundary between the slug and wavy flow regimes is predicted, in addition, compared with that in inclined tubes. The comparison indicates that centrifugal force could induce the appearance of wavy flows in advance and prompt the transition from slug flow to wavy flow. Keyword: two-phase flow; helically coiled tubes; numerical simulation; flow regime transition


Polychaete worms are known to thrive in extreme environmental conditions, however little is known about how polychaete species will respond to major climatic stressors, such as ocean acidification. Here, we examined the distribution of Fabriciidae (Annelida, Sabellida) species along a gradient of ocean acidification, caused by carbon dioxide (CO2) vent emissions in a shallow, coastal system off the island of Ischia (Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy). A total of 265 specimens of Fabriciidae, representing six species from five genera, were collected along the gradient. Most of the species were found across the entire CO2 gradient, suggesting polychaetes may have a high tolerance for ocean acidification in the future. Two of the species were new to science, and two of the genera were previously unrecorded in the Mediterranean. A full description of the new species Brifacia aragonensis sp. nov. and Parafabricia mazzellae sp. nov. is given, both of which were most abundant in the most acidified areas (pH 6.6– 7.2). The geographical distribution and ecology of the new taxa, as well as of the other fabriciid species collected, is discussed. Taxonomic keys to identify the Fabriciidae species currently recorded in the Mediterranean Sea are also provided.


Cerebral Palsy (CP) results from an insult to the developing brain and is associated with deficits in locomotor and manual skills and in sensorimotor adaptation. We hypothesized that the poor sensorimotor adaptation in persons with CP is related to their high execution variability and does not reflect a general impairment in adaptation learning. We studied the interaction between performance variability and adaptation deficits using a multi-session locomotor adaptation design in persons with CP. Six adolescents with diplegic CP were exposed, during a period of 15 weeks, to a repeated split-belt treadmill perturbation spread over 30 sessions and were tested again 6 months after the end of training. Compared to age-matched healthy controls, subjects with CP showed poor adaptation and high execution variability in the first exposure to the perturbation. Following training they showed marked reduction in execution variability and an increase in learning rates. The reduction in variability and the improvement in adaptation were highly correlated in the CP group and were retained 6 months after training. Interestingly, despite reducing their variability in the washout phase, subjects with CP did not improve learning rates during washout phases that were introduced only four times during the experiment. Our results suggest that locomotor adaptation in subjects with CP is related to their execution variability. Nevertheless, while variability reduction is generalized to other locomotor contexts, the development of savings requires both reduction in execution variability and multiple exposures to the perturbation.