The snow leopard is one of the highly valued species from high-altitude mountain ecosystems of Central and Southeast Asia, including Pakistan. This keystone species is facing a myriad of conventional and emerging threats, including poaching and trade, that are poorly documented in Pakistan. To understand the dynamics and drivers of the poaching and trading of snow leopards in Pakistan, we investigated the issue in depth through a multifaceted survey in the snow leopard range of the country. We recorded 101 snow leopard poaching incidences from 11 districts during 2005–2017. The reported poaching incidences varied spatially (x̄ = 9 ± 2.6 [95% Cl: 3–15]) and temporally (x̄ = 7.8 ± 1.09) and accounted for 2–4% annual population loss (n = 200–420) in a period of 13 years. Poaching and trade together constituted 89% of the total incidence reported and animals were mostly shot (66%), poisoned (12%), snared (12%) and captured (4%), respectively. Only a fraction (3%) of the incidences were reported to the relevant law enforcement agencies. Trade routes included large cities and neighbouring countries, even the Middle East and Europe. The average base and end prices for each item were 245 ± 36 USD and 1,736 ± 520 USD, respectively, while maximum monetary fines set as per the law were 275 USD. Our results establish the need for developing multi-stakeholder coordination mechanisms at regional, national and international levels and information sharing to curb this menace. Improving the existing laws and surveillance system, while taking the local communities onboard, will further help to this end.


Precision pulsar timing can be used for a variety of astrophysical tests, from the detection of gravitational waves to probing the properties of the interstellar medium. Here we analyze various noise contributions to pulsar timing residuals from continuous multi-hour observations of seven millisecond pulsars (MSPs). We present scintillation bandwidth measurements for all MSPs in the sample, some for the first time. We also present scintillation timescale measurements and lower limits for all MSPs for the first time. In addition, we present upper limits on the contribution of pulse phase jitter to the timing residual error for all MSPs. These long observations also allow us to constrain variations in dispersion measures (DMs) on hour-long timescales for several millisecond pulsars. We find that there are no apparent DM variations in any of the MSPs studied on these timescales, as expected. In light of new radio telescopes, such as the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, which will be able to time many pulsars for a short time each day, we search for differences in timing precisions from continuous pulse times of arrival (TOAs) and from equivalent length time-discontinuous TOAs. We find no differences in the precision for any of the MSPs in our sample, as expected. We conclude that the TOA variations are consistent with the expected breakdown into template-fitting, jitter, and scintillation errors.


The deacetylase SIRT1 regulates multiple biological processes including cellular metabolism and aging. Importantly, SIRT1 can also inactivate the p53 tumor suppressor via deacetylation, suggesting a role in oncogenesis. Recently, SIRT1 was shown to be released from its endogenous inhibitor DBC1 by a process requiring AMPK and the phosphorylation of SIRT1 by yet undefined kinase(s). Here we provide further evidence that AMPK directly phosphorylates SIRT1 on T344, releasing it from DBC1. Furthermore, a phospho-mimetic SIRT1 (T334E) showed decreased binding to DBC1, supporting the importance of this phosphorylation in AMPK-mediated regulation of SIRT1 activity. In addition, inhibition of AMPK by Compound C led to increased p53 acetylation, suggesting a role for the AMPK/SIRT1 pathway in regulating p53 signaling. Together, our results support a hypothesis that AMPK negatively regulates p53 acetylation via phosphorylation of SIRT1 on T344. Furthermore, our findings also define the AMPK/ SIRT1 axis as a possible targetable pathway to regulate p53 function.


Land is the main source of income and consumption for the Nepalese people. This study analyses the economic relationship between access to land and poverty in Nepal by establishing the link between land and consumption as well as land and income. A generalised additive model (GAM) and ordinary least squares (OLS) demonstrate that greater access to land for the poor increases income and consumption and thereby reduces poverty. The significant marginal value of land for both consumption and income implies that an effective land reform policy could well be the most effective approach to alleviate rural poverty. However, land reform must come as part of a larger overhaul. Cluster analysis shows that land reform should target appropriate subgroups within the community in order to differentiate those who would make use of the extra land from those who would not, and apply appropriate strategies to each subgroup. It reveals the importance of subgroups in determining an appropriate strategy for tackling poverty. Three distinct groups are found within our dataset that explain most of the variation. JEL: I30; C14; O12; Q15


Abstract We propose a way to directly nowcast the output gap using the Beveridge–Nelson decomposition based on a mixed-frequency Bayesian VAR. The mixed-frequency approach produces similar but more timely estimates of the U.S. output gap compared to those based on a quarterly model, the CBO measure of potential, or the HP filter. We find that within-quarter nowcasts for the output gap are more reliable than for output growth, with monthly indicators for a credit risk spread, consumer sentiment, and the unemployment rate providing particularly useful new information about the final estimate of the output gap. An out-of-sample analysis of the COVID-19 crisis anticipates the exceptionally large negative output gap of − 8 . 3 % in 2020Q2 before the release of real GDP data for the quarter, with both conditional and scenario nowcasts tracking a dramatic decline in the output gap given the April data.


Objectives: Motorcycle riding is increasing globally and confers a high risk of crash-related injury and death. There is community demand for investment in rider training programs but no high-quality evidence about its effectiveness in preventing crashes. This randomised trial of an on-road rider coaching program aimed to determine its effectiveness in reducing crashes in novice motorcycle riders. Methods: Between May 2010 and October 2012, 2399 newly-licensed provisional riders were recruited in Victoria, Australia and completed a telephone interview before randomisation to intervention or control groups. Riders in the intervention group were offered an on-road motorcycle rider coaching program which involved pre-program activities, 4 h riding and facilitated discussion in small groups with a riding coach. Outcome measures were collected for all participants via telephone interviews at 3 and 12 months after program delivery (or equivalent for controls), and via linkage to police-recorded crash and offence data. The primary outcome was a composite measure of police-recorded and self-reported crashes; secondary outcomes included traffic offences, near crashes, riding exposure, and riding behaviours and motivations. Results: Follow-up was 89% at 3 months and 88% at 12 months; 60% of the intervention group completed the program. Intention-to-treat analyses conducted in 2014 indicated no effect on crash risk at 3 months (adjusted OR 0.90, 95% CI: 0.65–1.27) or 12 months (adjusted OR 1.00, 95% CI: 0.78–1.29). Riders in the intervention group reported increased riding exposure, speeding behaviours and rider confidence. Conclusions: There was no evidence that this on-road motorcycle rider coaching program reduced the risk of crash, and we found an increase in crash-related risk factors. ublis © 2015 The Authors. P


In recent years, the ever-growing amount of documents on the Web as well as in closed systems for private or business contexts led to a considerable increase of valuable textual information about topics, events, and entities. It is a truism that the majority of information (i.e., business-relevant data) is only available in unstructured textual form. The text mining research field comprises various practice areas that have the common goal of harvesting high-quality information from textual data. These information help addressing users' information needs.

In this thesis, we utilize the knowledge represented in user-generated content (UGC) originating from various social media services to improve text mining results. These social media platforms provide a plethora of information with varying focuses. In many cases, an essential feature of such platforms is to share relevant content with a peer group. Thus, the data exchanged in these communities tend to be focused on the interests of the user base. The popularity of social media services is growing continuously and the inherent knowledge is available to be utilized. We show that this knowledge can be used for three different tasks.

Initially, we demonstrate that when searching persons with ambiguous names, the information from Wikipedia can be bootstrapped to group web search results according to the individuals occurring in the documents. We introduce two models and different means to handle persons missing in the UGC source. We show that the proposed approaches outperform traditional algorithms for search result clustering. Secondly, we discuss how the categorization of texts according to continuously changing community-generated folksonomies helps users to identify new information related to their interests. We specifically target temporal changes in the UGC and show how they influence the quality of different tag recommendation approaches. Finally, we introduce an algorithm to attempt the entity linking problem, a necessity for harvesting entity knowledge from large text collections. The goal is the linkage of mentions within the documents with their real-world entities. A major focus lies on the efficient derivation of coherent links.

For each of the contributions, we provide a wide range of experiments on various text corpora as well as different sources of UGC.
The evaluation shows the added value that the usage of these sources provides and confirms the appropriateness of leveraging user-generated content to serve different information needs.


Department of Hematology, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, People's Republic of China Background: There is great uncertainty in the treatment of elderly patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which leads to great challenges in treatment decision. The aim of this study is to find more suitable induction therapy and consolidation therapy for elderly AML patients. Methods: A total of 149 consecutive newly diagnosed elderly AML patients (aged ≥60 years) who received induction chemotherapy in our medical center from January 2015 to December 2019 were retrospectively analyzed. Results: After the first induction treatment, the complete remission/or complete remission with incomplete hematologic recovery (CR/CRi) rates in the standard-intensity chemotherapy group was significantly higher than that in the low-intensity chemotherapy group (58.2% vs 32.9%, p = 0.003). Compared with the low-intensity chemotherapy, the incidence of severe infection in the standard-intensity chemotherapy was significantly increased (p < 0.001), but the early mortality was comparable. One hundred and seven patients received minimal residual disease (MRD) examination after the first induction treatment; and MRD was negative accounting for 51.9% in the standard-intensity chemotherapy group, while only 32.7% in the low-intensity group (p = 0.05). The 2-year-overall survival (OS) of patients in standard-intensity induction chemotherapy group (37.2%) was slightly higher than that in low-intensity induction chemotherapy group (23.4%) (p = 0.075). Eighty-one CR/CRi patients received intermediate or high dose cytarabine (n = 35) or sequential chemotherapy regimens (n = 46) as consolidation treatment. The 2-year OS and event-free survival (EFS) of patients in the intermediate or high-dose cytarabine group were significantly higher than those in the sequential chemotherapy regimens group (73.0% vs 38.5%, p = 0.002; 54.8% vs 35.0%, p = 0.035). Conclusion: Our results showed that standard-intensity induction chemotherapy can significantly improve the CR rate for elderly AML patients, and does not increase the early mortality; consolidation therapy with intermediate or high-dose cytarabine can significantly improve EFS and OS for elderly AML patients achie ved CR.


Introduction Directly Observed Polypectomy Skills (DOPyS) is a validated tool used to assess polypectomy skills in the UK. The overall competency for polypectomy is graded on a scale of 1 to 4 and is used to certify trainees for level 1 polypectomy (size < 1 cm) & level 2 polypectomy (size 1–2 cm). Trainees are certified as competent if they achieve grades 3 or 4 for more than 90% of their last 4 consecutive DOPyS. We aimed to analyse time required for a trainee to progress from DOPyS score 1 to 4Abstract PTH-116 Figure 1 Methods Retrospective data from the e-portfolio of 707 (4965 DOPyS) trainees from Jan 2009 to Sept 2015 was examined. A dataset of 24 trainees who had documented DOPyS overall score of 1 (CS1), 2 (CS2), 3 (CS3) and 4 (CS4) was recovered. For the purpose of the analysis only those trainees (n = 8) who started out at CS1 were included. 16 were excluded from analysis as they started at a higher level. Primary outcome was number of days taken by each trainee to reach the competency levels (i.e. CS2, CS3 and CS4). The proportion of trainees reaching each level was examined using Kaplan-Meier analysis to show the proportion reaching this level over time. Time taken for 25%, 50% and 75% of trainees to reach the desired level was calculated. Results Table shows time taken for 25%, 50% and 75% of trainees to reach each of the levels. The results show 50% reach CS2 after 91 days and CS3 after 112 days. It took 191 days for half of trainees to reach level CS4.Abstract PTH-116 Table 1 Level Days for 25% to reach level Days for 50% to reach level Days for 75% to reach level CS2 14 91 127 CS3 28 112 178 CS4 126 191 324 Conclusion 75% of trainees analysed reach an overall competency of 4 in 324 days. In the UK DOPyS score 3 or 4 are required to start applying for provisional/full certification and in our cohort 75% of trainees analysed achieved it in a time frame of 6 months to a year. Further prospective studies analysing time taken, procedure numbers & associated factors are needed to assess the learning curve for polypectomy & implement changes to improve efficiency in training
Limitation
 The retrospective data and the small numbers are the limitations of the study Disclosure of Interest None Declared


This paper analyzes a set of 9,035 salaryman senryū poems over an eighteen-year period (1990–2007) in order to track salaryman reactions to workplace transition from an organizational behavioralist perspective. Major findings include: (i) the number of submissions and votes for the major poetry competition, Salaryman Senryū, have been falling since 1994, suggesting a decline in shared salaryman mentality; (ii) there has been a shift in the relative importance of broad themes, so that the workplace as a category of senryū poems is of less centrality in 2007 than it was in 1990; (iii) within the workplace category, (negative) interpersonal relations, especially with supervisors, still dominate; and (iv) workstyle is also a strong subtheme, with workers showing more interest in work processes than actual work conditions. The analysis also shows that the years 1996 and 1997 are a watershed where poems shift from a more jocular to strident tone. The overall implication of the study is a potential breach of the social contract between Japanese employers and regular employees, which will require the assiduous application of supportive employment practices (SEP) in order to ensure a high level of employee performance and engagement.


Context. Protoplanetary disks contain structures such as gaps, rings, and spirals, which are thought to be produced by the interaction between the disk and embedded protoplanets. However, only a few planet candidates are found orbiting within protoplanetary disks, and most of them are being challenged as having been confused with disk features.
Aims. The VLT/MUSE discovery of PDS 70 c demonstrated a powerful way of searching for still-forming protoplanets by targeting accretion signatures with medium-resolution integral field spectroscopy. We aim to discover more proto-planetary candidates with MUSE, with a secondary aim of improving the high-resolution spectral differential imaging (HRSDI) technique by analyzing the instrumental residuals of MUSE.
Methods. We analyzed MUSE observations of five young stars with various apparent brightnesses and spectral types. We applied the HRSDI technique to perform high-contrast imaging. The detection limits were estimated using fake planet injections.
Results. With a 30 min integration time, MUSE can reach 5σ detection limits in apparent Hα line flux down to 10−14 and 10−15 erg s−1 cm−2 at 0.075′′ and 0.25′′, respectively. In addition to PDS 70 b and c, we did not detect any clear accretion signatures in PDS 70, J1850-3147, and V1094 Sco down to 0.1′′. MUSE avoids the small sample statistics problem by measuring the noise characteristics in the spatial direction at multiple wavelengths. We detected two asymmetric atomic jets in HD 163296 with a very high spatial resolution (down to 8 au) and medium spectral resolution (R ~ 2500).
Conclusions. The HRSDI technique when applied to MUSE data allows us to reach the photon noise limit at small separations (i.e., <0.5′′). With the combination of high-contrast imaging and medium spectral resolution, MUSE can achieve fainter detection limits in apparent line flux than SPHERE/ZIMPOL by a factor of ~5. MUSE has some instrumental issues that limit the contrast that appear in cases with strong point sources, which can be either a spatial point source due to high Strehl observations or a spectral point source due to a high line-to-continuum ratio. We modified the HRSDI technique to better handle the instrumental artifacts and improve the detection limits. To avoid the instrumental effects altogether, we suggest faint young stars with relatively low Hα line-to-continuum ratio to be the most suitable targets for MUSE to search for potential protoplanets.


In a combined experimental and model study, we investigated the thermal L-band signatures of a sandy soil with periodic topography (furrows) with dimensions close to the observation wavelength of 21 cm. Measurements were carried out with a radiometer mounted on a tower and aimed at a soil box with an artificially prepared furrowed soil surface. Corresponding reflectivities were derived from brightness temperature measurements performed under dry and moist conditions, with the furrow direction either along or perpendicular to the plane of incidence. Results showed that the furrows had a pronounced effect on the reflectivity, depending on the polarization of the observed radiance, the direction of the furrows, and the soil moisture. A physical reflectivity model for dielectric periodic surfaces was used to explain the soil reflectivities measured for the different furrow directions and soil-water contents. Using this model improved the agreement between the measured and modeled reflectivities considerably compared to the Fresnel reflectivities. The observed dependence of soil reflectivity on furrow orientation and soil moisture could be reproduced by the reflectivity model. The quantitative agreement with the observed reflectivities was further improved by using a simple empirical approach to consider the small-scale heterogeneity of the top soil layer.


- Soybean crop rotation with irrigated rice is an alternative for the management of weedy rice ( Oryza sativa ) resistant to herbicides from the imidazolinone chemical group. This work had the purpose to evaluate the phytotoxicity of soybean crops containing the technologies Cultivance ® (CV) and tolerance to sulphonylurea and Roundup Ready ® (RR), deriving from increasing doses of the imazapyr and imazapic herbicide mixture, applied in the irrigated rice crop management. Thus, the experiment was performed on field, where treatments consisted in three soybean cultivars (BRS382CV, CD249STS and NA5909RR) and five doses of the imazapyr and imazapic herbicides mixture (0, 49, 98, 196 and 392 g a.i. ha -1 ). The evaluated variables were phytotoxicity, yield components and physiological quality of the seeds. Soybean cultivar BRS382CV is tolerant to herbicide carryover, applied in the management of weedy rice in irrigated rice crops, but the other cultivars are susceptible to it. Cultivar productivity, yield components and physiological quality of the seeds are affected by the carryover increase of the imazapyr and imazapic herbicide mixture.


Abstract Using microarrays to analyze differential gene expression as a function of p53 status and radiation quality, we observed downregulation of a large set of histone genes in p53 wild-type TK6 cells 24 h after exposure to equitoxic doses of high-LET (1.67 Gy 1 GeV/amu 56Fe ions) or low-LET (2.5 Gy γ rays) radiation. Quantitative real-time PCR of specific subtypes of core (H2A, H2B, H3 and H4) and linker (H1) histones confirmed this result. DNA synthesis and histone gene expression are tightly coordinated during the S phase of the cell cycle, and both processes are regulated by cell cycle checkpoints in response to DNA damage caused by ionizing radiation. However, we observed similar repression of histone gene expression in both TK6 cells and their p53-null derivative NH32 after radiation exposure, although the histone gene expression was not decreased to the same extent in NH32 cells as it was in TK6 cells. We also found decreased histone gene expression that was dose- and time-dependent in the colon cancer cell line HCT116 and its p53-null derivative. These results show that both high- and low-LET radiation exposure negatively regulate histone gene expression in human lymphoblastoid and colon cancer cell lines independent of p53 status.


Impaired wound healing may cause economic and social problems and seriously reduce the quality of life. The uses of herbal medicines as new alternative treatments are under investigation. This study investigated the effect of Glycyrrhiza glabra L. extract on the full-thickness wound healing in Guinea Pig model. Eight male Guinea Pigs (700-800 g) were used to be creared a square full-thickness wound with 1.5 ×1.5 dimensions on the lumbodorsal area. The wounds were randomly divided into four groups: I; control, II; 1% phenytoin, III; 5% G. glabra and IV; 10 % G.glabra. On day 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12, wound size was measured for assessment of the percent of wound healing. In order to determine the wound healing activity, excisional biopsies were evaluated histopathologically on the 12th days of treatments. Acute inflammation, granulation tissue fibroblast maturation, collagen deposition, epidermal layer formation, neovascularization, keratin layer formation were evaluated according to the Abramov score method. Hydroalcoholic extract of G.glabra exhibited total phenolic and flavonoid contents of 114.1 ± 5.45 and 82.85 ± 6.38 mg, respectively. G.glabra creams (5% and 10% w/w)were significantly increased the epidermal formation, collagen deposition and neovascularization, and was decreased acute inflammation in comparison to the control group. Wound healing rate were increased in the G. glabra groups. G.glabra creams 10 % was more effective than 5% w/w. Our findings proved that 5% and 10% w/w G. glabra creams were effective in acute dermal wound healing. More studies with different doses of G. glabra extract are recommended.


Maximizing performance when using real-world samples and small volume, high sensitivity columns which degrade the native chromatographic separation is a challenge. Loss in column performance is due to precolumn dispersion and volume overload. In this work a series of methods based on novel instrumentation and sound theory is presented to improve a chromatographic result for such samples in both isocratic and gradient elution modes. An approach called temperature-assisted solute focusing (TASF) was developed to improve sample focusing or preconcentration. TASF is designed to address precolumn dispersion in capillary scale LC. Volume overload is a common form of precolumn dispersion and degrades LC performance. TASF works by relying on the temperature dependence of solute retention and high power thermoelectric or Peltier elements (TECs) to actively heat/cool a short segment of the column near its inlet during sample loading. Cooling the head of the column transiently increases retention for solutes during injection, improving focusing and solving the volume overload problem. Following focusing rapid heating decreases retention releasing the compressed injection band to the downstream portion of the column. The TASF approach was assessed using a series of three instruments with well characterized solutes developing it into a robust platform capable of routine, unattended use. Three models for solvent-based on-column focusing in isocratic elution were experimentally investigated. Solvent-based on-column focusing is a well-known method to increase concentration sensitivity and combat precolumn dispersion by injecting samples made in weak elution solvents. Additionally, solvent-based focusing occurs naturally as a consequence of increased solute retention in the sample solvent and a step gradient generated by the difference between sample and mobile phase composition. Finally, a simple graphical method for rapid chromatographic optimization was developed. This plot was designed specifically to assist practitioners to determine experimental conditions to achieve a desired column efficiency or peak capacity in a defined time in both isocratic and gradient elution modes.


A total of 280 all-male, 7 -day old broiler chicks were randomly assigned to four treatments. Treatment I was the basal broiler diets with 100% limestone. For Treatments II to V, limestone in the basal broiler diet was replaced by marble dust (MD) on a weight for weight basis at four different levels, i.e., 25, 50, 75 and 100%, respectively. The calcium content of MD used in this study was 2% higher than that of limestone powder . Trace amount of magnesium and fluorine were detected from MD but not in limestone powder. Weight for weight substitution of limestone with MD consistently increased the calcium content of the broiler diets. Feed consumption, feed efficiency, mortality and bone hardness of broilers were not significantly affected by marble dust as partial or complete replacement of limestone in the diets. However, body weight gain and IOFCC (income over feed and chick cost) were lower in broilers fed diets with marble dust than those fed diets with 100% limestone.


OBJECTIVE
To report the findings of a second external quality assessment of Giemsa-stained blood film microscopy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, performed one year after the first.

METHODS
A panel of four slides was delivered to diagnostic laboratories in all provinces of the country. The slides contained: (i) Plasmodium falciparum gametocytes; (ii) P. falciparum trophozoites (reference density: 113,530 per µl); (iii) Trypanosoma brucei subspecies; and (iv) no parasites.

FINDINGS
Of 356 laboratories contacted, 277 (77.8%) responded. Overall, 35.0% of the laboratories reported all four slides correctly but 14.1% reported correct results for 1 or 0 slides. Major errors included not diagnosing trypanosomiasis (50.4%), not recognizing P. falciparum gametocytes (17.5%) and diagnosing malaria from the slide with no parasites (19.0%). The frequency of serious errors in assessing parasite density and in reporting false-positive results was lower than in the previous external quality assessment: 17.2% and 52.3%, respectively, (P < 0.001) for parasite density and 19.0% and 33.3%, respectively, (P < 0.001) for false-positive results. Laboratories that participated in the previous quality assessment performed better than first-time participants and laboratories in provinces with a high number of sleeping sickness cases recognized trypanosomes more frequently (57.0% versus 31.2%, P < 0.001). Malaria rapid diagnostic tests were used by 44.3% of laboratories, almost double the proportion observed in the previous quality assessment.

CONCLUSION
The overall quality of blood film microscopy was poor but was improved by participation in external quality assessments. The failure to recognize trypanosomes in a country where sleeping sickness is endemic is a concern.


In this paper we study the problem of forming coalitions for dynamic tasks in multirobot systems. As robots, either individually or in groups, encounter new tasks for which individual or group resources do not suffice, robot coalitions that are collectively capable of meeting these requirements need to be formed. We propose a hybrid approach to this problem where coalitions proceed with the task if they have sufficient resources after liberating redundant members while they report it to a task coordinator in cases where their resources do not suffice. In turn, the task coordinator forms capable coalitions based on coalition formation games in which groups of robots are evaluated together in regards to each task's required resources and cost of forming a coalition. The resulting coalitions are such that no group of robots has a viable alternative to staying within their assigned coalition. Thus, as new tasks are confronted, coalitions merge and split so that the resulting coalitions are capable of the newly encountered tasks. Simulations and experiments performed on groups of heterogeneous mobile robots demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


BACKGROUND
The prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and its pharmacologic treatment have increased dramatically in the past decade in the United States and Britain. We examined the use of methylphenidate hydrochloride for the treatment of ADHD in children in northern Israel.

METHODS
We evaluated all prescriptions for methylphenidate filled in 1999 for children aged 5-18 years residing in northern Israel who were insured by Clalit Health Services, a health maintenance organization that covers approximately 70% of the population.

RESULTS
Methylphenidate was prescribed to 1.45% of the children in northern Israel in 1999, an increase of 20% in the overall prevalence of methylphenidate use since 1992. Eighty-two percent were boys. The rate of prescription varied widely by type of settlement, from 0.2% in Arab cities and towns to 5.7% in kibbutzim. Primary care physicians wrote 78% of all the prescriptions.

CONCLUSIONS
The increase in methylphenidate use was much smaller in northern Israel than in most other developed regions and countries. More efforts at diagnosis and treatment of attention deficit disorders may need to be directed at Arab populations and those with inadequate medical services.


The results of 93 phytosociological descriptions of five types of kelp forest from a number of phyto geographically distinct regions are presented. Methods are described for the measurement of a complex of meaningful ecosystem parameters which fall into three groups; individual performance, ecosystem performance and ecosystem potential. The results of such measurements in the phytosociologically defined units are presented." The validity of these results and the phytometer approach is discussed and tentative conclusions are drawn from the results regarding the biotic and abiotic components of the ecosystems.


Purpose: Many studies demonstrate the importance of an empathic communication with prostate cancer patients and show various information needs. Most of the studies are cross sectional. The present analysis aims to 1) provide detailed prospective data on the actual quality of patient information provided by urologists in private practice in Germany; and 2) explore sociodemographic, communicative, and health- and treatment related determinants of the quality of provider-patient-communication. Methods: HAROW is a prospective, observational study designed to collect clinical data and patient reported outcomes of different treatment options (hormonal therapy, active surveillance, radiation, operation, watchful waiting) for newly diagnosed patients with localized prostate cancer under real conditions. At 6-month intervals, general clinical data, patient reported outcomes and patients' assessment of patient-physician-communication are documented. A total of 1893 questionnaires at t0 (initial diagnosis) and t1 (six months after diagnosis) were analyzed. A linear regression model was estimated. Results: The mean age of the men was 68.38 years, and most lived with their spouse or partner (94.1%). Most patients were informed about treatment options (t0 96%, t1 93.2%), but much fewer received information about self-help groups (t0 36.4%, t1 45.8%), rehabilitation (t0 59.9%, t1 68%), and second medical opinion (t0 57.2%, t1 59.3%). Older men (p = 0.02) and men living alone (p = 0.048) received less information than others. Physician empathy (p = 0.000) and prostatectomy treatment (p = 0.020) were positively associated with receiving more information. Conclusion: There is room for improvement in terms of informing prostate cancer patients about rehabilitation, second medical opinion and self-help groups. Urologists being empathetic share more information with their patients. Some patients receive less information than others, especially older patients living alone.


This article investigates whether the Feldstein and Horioka (1980) argument on domestic saving-investment relationship is supported by the data of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa region when financial development levels and exchange rate regimes are taken into account. To this end, we employ both the Auroregressive Distributed Lag bounds cointegration test and panel mean group procedures. The results support the view that a successful international financial integration requires compatible levels of financial intermediation. The evidence also suggests that saving-investment cointegration is not invariant to exchange rate regimes.


Many thermoregulatory functions of mammals are related to the fact that they are endotherms. There are several morphological and physiological adaptations that mammals have developed over time to allow them to maintain internal heat, even in cold climates. Many mammals use UCP1, a protein that facilities non-shivering thermogenesis, to generate heat. Recent work has shown that despite UCP1's importance for non-shivering thermogenesis, inactivating mutations have occurred in at least 8 of 18 placental orders (Gaudry et al. 2017). My study focused on three species of Bornean treeshrews: Tupaia tana, Tupaia montana, and Tupaia minor (Order: Scandentia), and aimed to confirm whether or not the three tropical treeshrews show evidence of UCP1. I used Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and designed primer sets to analyze the tissues of Tupaia montana and Tupaia minor to determine if either show evidence of UCP1. I searched the genome of Tupaia tana using the computer software, BLAST, and generated a potential protein sequence for UCP1. I designed primer sets based on areas of conservation in UCP1 for Tupaia tana, Tupaia belangeri, and mouse, though the bands produced in gel electrophoresis were not significant. My results present preliminary data and methodology to determine if tropical treeshrew species have functional UCP1. My study progresses our understanding of thermoregulation by addressing how mammalian taxa adapt to their unique thermal niches and to differing environmental factors.


ABSTRACT The present study examined how the similarity-attraction relationship is affected by a combination of the tendency to compare oneself to other people (Social Comparison Orientation, SCO) and group membership. We expected that high-SCO individuals would prefer similar to dissimilar others only when the target belonged to their in-group and was relevant for the evaluation of their self-concept. It was also expected that among low-SCO individuals who are more certain about the self and less concerned about "being evaluated," a main effect of attitude similarity would appear, regardless of the group membership of the target. Results partially support these predictions and suggest that further research should be carried out into the combined effects of individual and group variables in the attraction literature.


1. A study was made of the influence on reticulo-ruminal motility, recorded by electromyography, of ruminal infusions of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and lactic acid in twenty-four sheep maintained by intragastric infusion of a complete liquid diet, in three sheep fed grass pellets, and in nine chronically vagotomized sheep; abomasal and duodenal infusions of VFA and lactic acid were tested in five sheep fed grass pellets. 2. Ruminal infusions ofVFAs and lactic acid progressively inhibited the amplitude of the reticulo-ruminal contractions. In many experiments there was no effect on contraction frequency until the cessation of all reticulo-ruminal contractions at which point the maximal concentration ofVFA recorded in the abomasum was 28 mm, and that of lactic acid was 20 mM. 3. The concentrations of undissociated VFAs causing cessation of reticulo-ruminal contractions in the vagus-intact sheep were very similar to the concentrations causing abolition of the organized intrinsic motility of the chronically vagotomized sheep. 4. The inhibition of reticulo-ruminal motility with ruminal infusions of mixtures ofVFAs and of lactic acid together with VFAs could largely be explained by the sum of the effects of the individual acids present. 5. Abomasal infusion of VFA or lactic acid inhibited the amplitude of ruminal, especially primary ruminal, contractions at concentrations of undissociated acid of 60 mm and above and increased the frequency of reticulum and primary ruminal contractions at about 80 mM. 6. Duodenal infusion of VFAs and lactic acid (100 mm, 5 ml/min) strongly inhibited abomasal motility without affecting reticulo-ruminal motility, and at a higher rate (100 mm, 10 ml/min) abolished motility and inhibited both the amplitude and frequency of reticulo-ruminal contractions. 7. It is concluded that the initial inhibition of reticulo-ruminal motility in ruminal acidosis is unlikely to involve any significant influence from duodenal, or abomasal receptors. The final cessation of reticulo-ruminal motility with ruminal acidosis could involve local effects of VFAs in the reticulo-rumen as well as through excitation of acid-sensitive reticulo-ruminal receptors.


Chronic viral hepatitis is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in the present day world [Goldstein et al, 2005; Baldo et al, 2008]1,2. The situation is particularly precarious in the developing countries [Jafri et al, 2006]3. It is estimated that by the year 2020-5, there will be three fold rise in cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma from HBV and HCV [Nguyen et al, 2008; Law et al, 2003]4,5. In chronic viral hepatitis the prognosis and management are highly dependent on the extent of liver fibrosis [Sebastiani et al, 2006]6. Though classically considered the "gold standard"; the liver biopsy is far from perfect, and has significant limitations [Poynard et al, 2004]7. This has led researchers to look for other methods to assess the stage of liver fibrosis [Afdhal et al, 2004]8.The noninvasive markers are the most widely used alternative to liver biopsy [ Manning et al, 2008; Castera et al, 2007; Morra et al, 2007]9,10,11. In the study presented, the association between serum markers, platelet parameters and liver fibrosis was investigated taking liver biopsy as the reference standard. A set of 5 serum markers, Fibroscore, consisting of: bilirubin, gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT), hyaluronic acid (HA), alpha 2 macroglobulin (A2M), and platelets; has shown very high diagnostic accuracy for the near absence of fibrosis, and cirrhosis. The area under the ROC for F2 (stage 2) fibrosis was 0.808, for F3 the ROC was 0.938, and for F4 the ROC was 0.959. A central cut off point of > 0.5, in the model, predicted clinically significant fibrosis, (F2, F3 and F4) with a sensitivity of 82%, specificity of 92%, and overall diagnostic accuracy of 89%. By increasing the cut off to 0.65, for stages F2-F4, the PPV was 95%. Lowering the cut off to < 0.08 for the exclusion of stages F2-F4 provided 98% NPV, thus almost certainly ruling out stages F2-F4. The PDW index consists of platelet distribution width (PDW), mean platelet volume (MPV), and platelet count. The area under the ROC for advanced fibrosis (F3-F4) for PDW index was 0.840, compares with the well known AST to Platelet Ratio Index (APRI) with area under ROC of 0.888. It is concluded that, Fibroscore has a high diagnostic accuracy for stages F2-F4,and PDW Index reliably predicts advanced fibrosis. The noninvasive markers will be helpful in the screening and management of fibrotic liver disease [Morra et al, 2007]11, and will replace liver biopsy in most patients with chronic liver disease from viral related causes [Castera et al, 2007; Morra et al, 2007]10,11.


The adolescents aged between 15 and 17 with postural disorders in the sagittal plane, who live in mountainous regions in the Carpathians, achieve less than their peers with similar postural disorders, who live in plain regions. The research aims to develop the comprehensive programme for correcting postural disorders in the sagittal plane among pupils, who live in mountainous regions in the Carpathians, using physical rehabilitation, and establish the links between empirical data of the experiment and neurosciences to develop methods of complex psychophysical and neurophysiological diagnostic and rehabilitation of adolescents with such disorders in further research. The research is based on a detailed observation of 319 adolescents aged between 15 and 17 from mountainous regions of the Ukrainian Carpathians and 94 pupils from plain regions with postural disorders in the sagittal plane. The research methods are the following: an analysis of the scientific and specialized literature; surveys and questionnaires; pedagogical tests; methods for determining the indicators of physical development, functional readiness and functions of the spine; methods of mathematical statistics, namely, the Ruffier-Dickson test, Otto test, Schober test, Thomayer test, Fleischmann test, Sedin test and spinal index, inclinometer measurements. The pupils who suffer from the stoop and round spine have shown a decrease in average values in the angles of lordosis and kyphosis curves; pupils who suffer from flat back – an increase in the angles of the sacral bone, lordosis and kyphosis curves; pupils who suffer from the round and concave back – a decrease in the angles of the sacral bone, lordosis and kyphosis curves. The implementation of the author's programme for physical rehabilitation has made it possible to achieve a statistically significant improvement in most of the analyzed indicators. Finally, the article extrapolates the results of the experiment to their neurophysiological and neuromedical application in terms of enhancing anamnesis and taking into account post-correction data in subsequent medical treatment.


To the Editor. —We would like to report a case of fulminant hepatitis that was probably caused by propylthiouracil therapy. To our knowledge, this is the first such fatal case reported, although death due to agranulocytosis after propylthiouracil administration has been previously described. 1 Report of a Case. —A 20-year-old woman was in excellent health until the diagnosis of Graves' disease was made. Her condition was characterized by profound exophthalmos, a triiodothyronine uptake of 64% (normal, 22% to 34%), a thryoxine radioimmunoassay of 28.5 μg/dL (normal, 5 to 11 μg/dL), and a free thyroxine index of 18.2 (normal, 0.8 to 2.3). Subsequently, administration of 100 mg of propylthiouracil three times a day was instituted. Two weeks after therapy began, she experienced malaise and jaundice associated with abnormal findings from liver function tests. Laboratory values were as follows: SGOT, 750 IU/L (normal, 0 to 41 IU/L); alkaline phosphatase, 248 IU/L (normal,


This study aimed at investigating the different factors that influence men and women to study IT in New Zealand. A comparison of the type of access, influential people and personal motivations was made between men and women studying IT in New Zealand. The data for this study was collected from 148 participants, 42 of which were women. The results show that there are specific people namely friends, fathers, brothers, teachers and partners in women's lives and friends and fathers in men's lives that influence their decision to study IT. The access men and women had to computers was found to be largely the same across genders. The majority of men and women were introduced to computers at home between the ages of 6 and 12 and both genders reported having high access at home and university and limited access at primary and secondary school. The nature of their access differed between genders and age groups. Finally, in terms of motivation, men and women were found to have different weightings of motivation for studying a career in IT. Men tended to have more intrinsic motivations, for example interest and enjoyment, whereas women had more extrinsic motivations, for example job opportunities.


AN ARTICLE with this catchy title in The Journal of the American Medical Association ( 196 :985 [June 13] 1966) by K. R. Boucot et al concerns a study of 6,137 men 45 years of age or older who volunteered to report twice each year for x-ray examination of the chest and to answer questions concerning smoking habits and respiratory symptoms. The prevalence of cough increased with age and with increasing degrees of smoking. During the nine- to ten-year follow-up of these patients 150 histologically confirmed bronchogenic carcinomas occurred; 66 were present on the initial examination and 84 developed subsequently. The study was concerned with the latter group of new lung cancers that developed while the men were under observation. No lung cancer developed among the 805 nonsmokers. Of the 520 occasional cigarette smokers (less than one-half pack per day), 1% developed lung cancer. Among the 964 heavy cigarette smokers, 3%


The study reported here originated in my therapeutic work with children at risk and my search for a therapeutic approach which would help them develop the inner strength to cope with their difficulties. The concept of 'meaning in life' as a source of strength has been extensively and richly studied among older age groups, both with respect to the different personal meanings which everyone finds in their life and with respect to the effect on one's life of possessing a sense of 'meaning in life', but it has been neglected almost entirely among children. As a result, the aim of this research was to further knowledge about the concept of 'meaning in life' for children. Due to the paucity of research with children regarding this issue, it was needed to first establish that meaning in life was at all a relevant and researchable concept for children. Consequently, the primary research questions were as follows:

Does the concept of 'meaning in life' have relevance for children? Relatedly, what are the (dis)connections between children's understandings of their own lives, and what matters to them, and, the adult concept of 'meaning in life?
To examine these over-arching questions, the following four sub-questions were devised:

- What do children think are the most important and meaningful things in their lives?
- What do children think is the best way to live life?
- What nature of goals and purpose do children have for their lives and do they believe that they have character traits and strengths which would help them to fulfil their goals/purpose?
- How do children's individuality and the differences between them show themselves in their perspectives on meaning in life? To what extent is gender associated with variations in response?

The research adopted a Constructivist-Phenomenological approach, with the aim of getting as close as possible to the children's own perceptions and experience of their world.

Thirty eight-year-old children in their third year at two primary schools in different neighbourhoods of the same central Israeli city were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. This data collection approach was complemented by two creative elements: a short semi-humorous story told at the start to set the tone of the interview, and a picture drawn at the end of the interview by the children to illustrate what was important in their life. Some interviews were carried out individually and some as a group. The data analysis method chosen was Smith's (1996) and Smith and Osborn's (2008) Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).

This thesis makes two original contributions to knowledge. The first is the discovery that meaning in life is as pertinent a concept among children as it is among adults. Children may not understand the concept of 'meaning in life' in as full a way as an adult might, but they do have clear and well-shaped opinions about the most important things in their lives (e.g. family and friends) and how they should best live (e.g. by helping others and living in peace). They have goals and plans for the future (e.g. Ambitions to become a pilot or teacher) and they believe that they have traits and strengths that will help them in reaching their goals (e.g. that being wise, kind or curious will help them in life).

The second important contribution is methodological: the research technics developed in this study (the semi-structured interview enriched by story-telling and picture-drawing) has provided what appears to be a reliable way of generating valid responses from the participants. It could be used by researchers in the future to further understanding about how children perceive the notion of meaning in life.


This paper investigates the strength of conviction with which women aged 27-32 years discussed their childbearing aspirations, bringing together both quantitative and qualitative responses to this question. Analyses found that although the participants tick box 'yes' or 'no' answers pointed overwhelmingly to aspirations for children, their interview narratives revealed a sliding scale of certainty. Many women expressed both desires for and doubts about having children, with their conviction usually shaped by a balance between maternal feeling, competing priorities, planned timing and perceptions of choice. The findings support the argument that women's reproductive decisions are predominantly the result of the circumstances in which they are made, as opposed to representing personal choice.


No agreement on what constitutes a safe and reproducible anticontamination protocol exists for ancient starch research. Protocols applied to laboratory work may represent 'symptomatic treatment' only, as contamination of archaeological materials in the field may be more extensive than realized. This paper is the first systematic study on the impact that modern starches from surface and buried soils, windborne dispersal, human motion, excavation techniques and toolkits, and field attire has on archaeological sample quality. The study area is Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. We identify seven starch types (discrete granules, n = 788) that embody the starch contamination landscape for the region. This study also demonstrates the various diagenetic changes that buried starch granules undergo in a short time, such as cavitation, fissuring, disruption and gelatinization. There are significant differences in morphotype class representation between the topsoil starches and those collected deeper below ground at excavated sites. Diagenetically transformed granules from underground storage organs dominate in soils, while native starches from cereal endosperm (Panicoideae and Triticeae) abound above ground in airborne samples. Furthermore, we illustrate how lithic samples excavated under standard field conditions can be contaminated, and that when a sample is compromised during excavation, it may be impossible to distinguish between target and introduced starches, especially when granules are identical or morphologically similar. The paper provides field recommendations to control false positives.


In response to roadway geometry and traffic control devices, motorists may change their speeds within a work zone. Speed profile data were collected for 208 vehicles who traveled a 1.5-mile long section of a work zone, and speed reduction patterns were determined for Autos and Trucks. Four driver categories were identified based on the patterns. About 61% of the drivers reduced their speeds considerably after the first work zone speed limit signs, but nearly 15% of the drivers did not reduce their speeds until they neared the location of construction activities. About 11% of the drivers traveled at consistently high speeds and did not considerably reduce their speeds. The remaining drivers did not display a common pattern. The average speeds of Autos and Trucks were 5-18 mph and 1-12 mph, respectively, over the work zone speed limit. Vehicles decreased their speeds to the lowest level near the work space, but increased them after passing it. Even at the work space, about 65% of Autos and 47% of Trucks traveled faster than the speed limit. Autos and Trucks reduced their speeds by 1-13 mph and 3-12 mph, respectively, compared to their speeds at the beginning of the taper. The speeds at the beginning of the taper were used to group the vehicles into four speed groups. The maximum reduction in the average speed at different locations was greater with greater initial mean speeds; indicating that, on the average, the vehicles with higher initial speeds reduced their speeds more than the vehicles with lower initial speeds. However, the drivers in the higher initial speed groups kept higher speeds in the work zone than the drivers in the lower initial speed groups, even though the former group had greater speed reductions than the latter group.


: Introduction and Aims: Diagnostic Radiology has the largest share in the artificial ionizing radiation sources in the society. One of the most important factors in reducing radiation dose is quality control and ensuring the quality and performance of radiology devices.Quality control is conducted to produce high-quality radiographic images with minimum radiation dose. Materials and Methods: Ten normal X-ray machines in 5 hospitals affiliated to Kurdistan university of Medical Sciences were studied. Then, 10 standard test of quality control were conducted based on the protocol recommended by the 74 report (quality control standards) American Association of Medical Physics (AAMP) and Report No. 103 of the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP). Finally, data were statistically evaluated and the percentage of error of each parameter was compared with existing standards. Results: In some devices the overall filtration parameters' error and voltage accuracy was higher than acceptable range and needed to be reformed. Also, in some devices the percentage of parameter error of radiation field compliance and light field was more than acceptable range based on the existing standards. Some devices in the province had boundary and threshold error. Conclusion: According to the recommendations of the Commission on Radiation Protection and Medical Physics Society of America, most of the parameters of the devices in question were in agreement with existing standards and were in acceptable range.


As consumers have showed a concern for the reduction of chemical preservatives in food, the interest for natural compounds with antimicrobial properties has been investigated. In this study the acid potency and the antimicrobial effect of cinnamon and clove and their water extracts were tested in water and milk. Additionally, survival of S. aureus in yogurt inoculated with cinnamon and clove (0.3% conc.) during three days of storage was monitored. Clove and cinnamon showed strong acid potency in water as 2.5% concentration from both herbs dropped the PH of water to 5.4 and 6, respectively. However, the same concentration of both herbs had a slight effect on PH of milk as they lowered it to 6.5. Interestingly, 10% concentration of clove and cinnamon in water made zones of inhibition of 18 mm and 15mm, respectively. But, at the same concentration in milk only clove made zone of inhibition of 14mm. No zone of inhibition was observed at concentration equal to or below 5% of clove and cinnamon in milk. On the other hand, the mean counts of S. aureus in yogurt were similar in control samples and samples treated with cinnamon and clove. The P value during three days of storage was above 0.05, indicating non-significant differences between the treated and control samples. In conclusion, the buffering capacity of milk and dairy products neutralize the acidity of cinnamon and clove and make them ineffective on S. aureus. Therefore, cinnamon and clove may improve the sensory quality of milk and dairy products but not provide any degree of safety against S. aureus in these products.


The functioning of the par-regions of the small multi-copied colicinogenic plasmids ColE1 and ColA has been analysed under the different conditions of plasmid-containing cells cultivation. The efficient cointegrate resolution of the multimeric forms of the plasmid ColE1 has been demonstrated in Escherichia coli K12 cells under the different conditions of cell cultivation. It took place at 30 degrees-42 degrees C on the minimal as well as rich medium, at the different stages of cell cycle in the presence or absence of antibiotic, under aerobic as well as semi-anaerobic conditions.


The chosen conditions of social assistance policy in Podkarpacie ProvinceIn each country, a very important part of social policy is a social assistance. The social assistance helps people who are poor and socially excluded, because of economic and social reasons. The efficiency of social assistance is determined by many external and internal conditions. This article presents results of empirical research conducted on 378 social workers and chosen conditions of social assistance policy in Podkarpacie Province. The results of research and analysis suggest that policy of social assistance in the Podkarpacie Province is ineffective.


Internet service providers rely on load balancers to distribute client requests for many web services over backend servers. Dedicated load-balancer appliances are expensive and do not scale easily with traffic demand. Instead, future load balancers should be built from smaller commodity components. Rather than rely exclusively on specialpurpose load-balancing software, we argue that data center switches should be programmed to perform most of the load-balancing function. Commodity switches offer highspeed packet processing, as well as flexible interfaces for installing rules that forward packets. However, hardware switches have small rule tables, and software switches do not forward packets at high speeds. Our Niagara load-balancing architecture combines the per-packet performance of hardware and the large rule-space of software switches. The hardware switches approximate the load-balancing weights for each service, and the software switches correct for small errors in the approximation and ensure connection affinity during weight changes. Our main contributions are algorithms for (i) approximating the weights for each service, (ii) allocating a limited rule table across many services, and (iii) computing incremental updates to the rules when the weights change. Experiments demonstrate that Niagara can load-balance 10,000 VIPs using only 4000 hardware rules, while having software switches redirect just 3% of traffic.


Summary

1. The highly variable hydrology of dryland rivers has important implications for population dynamics in these systems. In western Queensland, fluctuations in sub-population size are likely to lead to local bottlenecks and extinctions, increasing the need for connectivity and gene flow to maintain population viability.

2. Using microsatellite markers, we explored evidence for this metapopulation structure in two species of freshwater fish (Maquaria ambigua and Tandanus tandanus) and one crustacean (Macrobrachium australiense) in a sub-catchment of the upper Murray–Darling Basin, Australia.

3. Overall, we found very weak genetic structure for all three species. Two species (M. ambigua and M. australiense) showed some significant genetic structure that did not correlate with geographic distance. However, decomposed pairwise regression analysis revealed evidence for intense genetic drift at the waterhole scale, suggesting that local bottlenecks are driving what little genetic structure does exist for these species.

4. The results identify the local impact of bottlenecks on genetic diversity, but highlight the importance of gene flow in maintaining population viability in these highly variable systems. As the impacts of bottlenecks are likely to be tempered by gene flow, it is suggested that the maintenance of connectivity is of paramount importance in this dryland system.


Every year come mid-March, the NCAA College Basketball tournaments start and mania promptly ensues. Games that should be blowouts become nail-biters, upsets happen, and a few underdog teams become what are known as "cinderellas". All of which shows how it has earned the name March Madness®. Our team plans to address the problem of being able to predict the outcome of a game in the tournament. Our goal is to try and quantify and/or explain a team's ability to "stay in a game", their competitiveness, and their "cinderella-ness" based on how they performed in the regular season. Then, using the attributes we determine for each team, can we predict our overall goal of who will win each game in the tournament. We will be using the dataset provided by Kaggle, which includes data on how both Men's and Women's basketball teams performed and placed in tournaments in previous years. Our methodology will be strongly rooted in exploratory data analysis with a strong emphasis on clean, properly processed data to try and achieve the most accurate predictions from our machine learning models.


Following the first democratic elections in 1994, the South African government has introduced several laws regulating the country's business environment for the purpose of protecting consumers from unethical business practices. One such law is the Consumer Protection Act (68 of 2008) (CPA). The CPA was implemented for a number of reasons,including to conform to international best practices regarding consumer law, to replace the existing but out-dated laws, and, most importantly, to provide protection to vulnerable consumers who in the past were exposed to unethical business practices as a result of the antecedent of apartheid. Despite the good intentions of the CPA, the law will be of little value to consumers if retailers do not generally know and apply it. Therefore, a study was undertaken to measure the perceived and actual knowledge of the CPA amongst retailers. A self-administered questionnaire was used to measure perceived and actual knowledge of the CPA amongst a sample of 97 small independent retailers located in 10 shopping malls in the Vaal Triangle area of South Africa. The findings indicate that whilst small independent retailers consider themselves well-informed regarding the CPA, their actual knowledge of the Act is lacking. This suggests that a number of small independent retailers in South Africa may be conducting their business in a manner that does not comply with the CPA and, therefore, is not in the best interests of consumers.


Aim Until recently Australia has lacked guidelines and practical examples from the field on best practice for implementing Advance Care Planning (ACP) in Residential Care Facilities (RCFs). In 2008 the Victorian Department of Health funded an ACP programme at Alfred Health. This presentation will detail our experience of 5 years of continuous quality improvement in ACP in RCFs. Methods Alfred Health has three RCFs on site at Caulfield Hospital, which provides care to 120 permanent residents. Over the 5 year time period, initiatives were implemented in an effort to improve ACP processes and outcomes. These included: dedicated ACP staffing time in partnering with staff in RCFs, education and training of staff, development of documents, implementation of systems and procedures, engagement of GP's and the development of an auditing tool to measure change. Results Prior to the implementation of ACP in 2008, there were no obvious systems in place to support ACP. Documentation of resident end of life care wishes and NFR status were unclear and confusing for staff to follow. The 2012 audit of RCFs at Caulfield Hospital reveal that 89% of residents participated in ACP and 48% of residents have clear medical treatment plans which have been completed by the GP. Conclusion Our experience provides a successful example of how to implement quality improvement in ACP in RCFs over a realistic time frame with limited resources.


This thesis proposes a new model for the marginal distribution of HTTP request rate. The model applies to aggregate network traffic generated by a population of users accessing the Web on the Internet. The new model is relatively simple and allows for both the accurate estimation of peak HTTP request rate and the development of two new rules of thumb concerning HTTP request rate. Previous models of HTTP request rate have generally been single user models of a form that are both complex to transform into a model of aggregate traffic and apply to the estimation of peak aggregate HTTP request rate. One comparable model of aggregate HTTP traffic models HTTP request inter-arrival time rather than HTTP request rate and is shown to over estimate peak HTTP request rate. There are few existing rules of thumb concerning HTTP request rate. The two rules proposed here are the first for the estimation of either standard deviation or peak HTTP request rate at the second time scale. The new model for the marginal distribution of aggregate per second HTTP request rate is based on the Polya-Aeppli probability distribution. The selection of the Polya-Aeppli distribution can be justified from observed distributions of HTTP request rate of individual Web users and the number of active users per second in a population of Web users. The results are based on the analysis of five independent traces of Web traffic. One trace, collected by the candidate, is of per-user Web traffic generated in a postgraduate research laboratory at the University of Wollongong (UOW) between 1994 and 1997. The other four traces are large independent traces of aggregate Web traffic collected between 1996 and 2002.


- In order to provide an accurate diagnosis and management strategy for adult patients with acute abdominal pain and peritoneal irritation, it is important to understand the value of various forms of diagnostics modalities. -History, physical examination and laboratory results can generally differentiate between an acutely serious and a less serious abdominal problem. - Patients with acute abdominal pain and no increase in either the leukocyte count or the concentration of C-reactive protein should be re-evaluated after 12 hours. If laboratory values are increased, then diagnostic imaging is necessary. - For patients with diffuse abdominal pain and for patients with signs of shock or respiratory insufficiency, a CT-scan is the imaging method of choice. - If symptoms are located in the left upper quadrant, an upright chest radiograph or a plain abdominal film are recommended. If symptoms are located in the right upper quadrant, ultrasonography will be preferred. If the diagnosis is still uncertain, a CT-scan will be performed. - A CT-scan is indicated for lower abdominal pain in women with increased inflammatory parameters and in men aged 50 years or older with increased inflammatory parameters. - If the cause of the abdominal pain is still unclear following a CT-scan, then diagnostic laparoscopy may be considered for fertile women of childbearing age and for men aged less than 50 years with signs of appendicitis.


Nitric oxide (NO) is intensively synthesized in the embryo of birds. There is evidence that NO mediates myogenesis at the embryonic stage. In this regard, it might be possible to control muscle development and meat productivity by modulating NO synthesis. Using high-precision and a highly sensitive enzymatic sensor, the authors found that it is not the rate of synthesis that correlates with meat productivity, but the rate of NO oxidation to nitrate, which occurs in the tissues of the embryo. In broilers, it is several orders of magnitude higher than in layers. This indicator is solely due to the characteristics of embryonic tissues and is allelically determined. In-ovo arginine supplementation, a source of NO, did not lead to a significant increase in its synthesis and oxidation, but occasionally increased live weight gain, which was likely associated with a deficiency of free arginine and was not directly related to the effect of nitric oxide. Exogenous NO donors were oxidized with the same intensity as endogenous donors. These compounds did not have a significant effect on growth rate. Also, a reduction of 50% in the rate of NO synthesis under the action of a NO synthase inhibitor did not affect this parameter. Thus, regulation of poultry meat productivity is possible by modulating gene expression related to embryonic NO oxidation and ensuring an optimal amino acid and energy equilibrium, rather than by promoting embryonic NO synthesis.


The flow-induced noise can be very disturbing to the users in the HVAC&R system. The flow-induced noise varies with the flow regimes near the expansion device, especially related to the flow regimes before entering the expansion device. The flow regimes are not only related to the mass flow rate of the flow and the quality of the flow but also related to the gravity orientation of the flow. Therefore, the flow regimes in the tube with different orientations can be different. In this paper, the comparison of the psychoacoustic annoyance of flow-induced noise with different needle valve installations is studied. A needle valve is connected to the system, and the microphone is used as the noise measuring technique. The installation includes the horizontal tube directions, the vertical upward tube directions, the 45 o inclined upward tube directions, the 45 o inclined downward tube directions, and the vertical downward tube directions. Also, the flow-induced noise generated by an angle valve is used to compare with the straight valve. The results show that the annoyance of flow-induced noise increases as the flow quality increases. Also, it shows that it is the void fraction of the flow other than the quality of the flow that influences the intensity of flow-induced noise. The vertical upward tube installation is the best installation of all five options. The possible explanation is that the flow's void fraction is the lowest as the flow goes vertical upwards. In this case, the intensity of the noise of the case should be the lowest as well. An angle valve is installed as a comparison. It shows that the inlet flow regimes are the primary influence of flow-induced noise for flow-induced noise. The annoyance of which is close to the flow-induced noise of straight valve with horizontal direction.


In this paper, we present an efficient numerical method for arbitrary shaped porous structure generation for 3D printing. A phase-field model is employed for modeling phase separation phenomena of diblock copolymers based on the three-dimensional nonlocal Cahn–Hilliard (CH) equation. The nonlocal CH equation is a fourth-order nonlinear partial differential equation. To efficiently solve the governing equation, an unconditionally gradient stable convex splitting method for temporal discretization with a Fourier spectral method for the spatial discretization is adopted. The standard fast Fourier transform is used to speed up the computation. A new local average concentration function is introduced to the original nonlocal CH equation so that we can locally control the morphology of the structure. The proposed algorithm is simple to implement and complex shaped structures can also be implemented with corresponding signed distance fields. Various numerical tests are performed on simple and complex structures. The computational results demonstrate that the proposed method is efficient to generate irregular porous structures for 3D printing.


Quantifying evapotranspiration (ET) over vast ecosystems such as the Sandhills of Nebraska is crucial in linking the surface, subsurface, and atmospheric processes affecting a region. There are numerous methods of obtaining large-scale ET estimates, but most are constrained by the availability of data. This study investigates implementation of an approach that uses a simple land-cover-based standardized tall (ETrs) and short (ETas) surface reference crop evapotranspiration and crop coefficient to compute actual ET over various spatial and seasonal scales. Subsequently, computed ETrs was used to get the preliminary estimate of regional ET over the entire Sandhills at the 30 m scale by using Landsat vegetation data. Therefore, while the final ET values are a close approximation to actual ET, it does not relate to the real water consumption by the vegetation in the Sandhills. The 30 m ET values were aggregated at four different scales (500 m, 1 km, 5 km and 10 km) using three methods of interpolation (nearest neighbor, bilinear interpolation, and cubic convolution) in estimating coarser-scale ET. Although the differences in the estimated ET among these four resolutions and three interpo lation methods were generally small in magnitude, aggregation resulted in a mean percentile error of up to 4% when compared with estimated high-resolution 30 m ET over the region. In general, both nearest neighbor and bilinear interpolation methods were found to perform better than the cubic convolution method.


Primary spinal chondrosarcoma (CS) is rare. Only a few previous case reports have included a detailed description of the surgical process used to treat the CS. In addition, a paucity of documentation exists comparing differences in the outcomes between the approaches in en bloc resection. Here, we present a case of CS in the lumbar (L) spine treated with two-stage (anterior and posterior approach) en bloc surgery and analyze the differences between one-stage and two-stage approaches in the treatment of primary lumbar CS. A 30-year-old male patient with an L3 vertebral body CS presented with back pain and lower limb weakness. Lumbar spine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed an L3 vertebral body tumor with cord and root compression. Two-stage surgery comprising posterior total laminectomy and transpedicular screw fixation over L2–L4 in the first stage, with subsequent anterior corpectomy, cage implantation, and anterior lumbar interbody fusion was performed to achieve total tumor removal and stabilization. The patient's symptoms improved postoperatively, with no recurrence as of the 2-year follow-up. The analysis of previous similar cases showed that two-stage surgery, compared with one-stage surgery, appears to be beneficial in lumbar spine multisegment disease, providing a lower recurrence rate.


The recent interest in positrons distribution in the space revealed the anomalous presence of high energetic positrons. There are different possible origins of such positrons, including the decay of heavy particles in the dark matter, also pulsars or neutron stars. In our study we calculated the annihilation properties of the electron – positron bound system in superstrong magnetic fields expected for neutron stars. For this aim we use solutions of the (relativistic) Bethe-Salpeter equation derived by L.B. Leinson and A. Perez [1]. The results indicate strong dependency of the annihilation properties (rate and intensity) on the value of the magnetic field.


Recently, intuition has emerged as a key concept in interface design and studies have advanced towards developing methods of intuitive design. Yet, most of these methods elicited intuitive use by relying on a similarity-approach, mimicking previous technologies to produce familiar products. With the identification of abstract image schemas as representations for sensorimotor based knowledge, it appears that a solution is found to create user interfaces that are inclusive, innovative, and intuitive to use. Tapping into this knowledge that is gained through experience, opens up new possibilities to design truly novel interfaces, independent of technology familiarity. This thesis aims to highlight the significance of intuitive reasoning for human computer interaction with an extensive review of the process, relating it to the dual-processing continua and the skill, rules, and knowledge framework. Between flexibility and cognitive efficiency on one side and effortlessness, semi-automaticity and operation beneath conscious awareness on the other side, this modus is the sweet spot of processing. Secondly, this article makes a case for further investigation of the use of image schema representations in design, which in theory have the potential to mitigate several dark sides of intuition such as the assimilation bias and far-transfer problems. Furthermore, image schema methods could facilitate interfaces that are attuned to mitigate fallbacks to low level perceptive and intuitive mental behavior.


Market analysts have foreseen the emergence of cloud brokers in the mediation of cloud services. But rather than focus on current kinds of intermediary role, it is more constructive to consider the kinds of brokerage capability that could be offered in the future, which go far beyond the integration, aggregation and customization services available today. This paper identifies advanced capabilities for cloud service governance, quality assurance and optimization that will be critical in catalyzing the emergence of cloud service ecosystems, environments in which all parties will find their symbiotic niches. It shows the path whereby a platform provider could evolve to become the hub of a cloud service ecosystem, through gradually taking on more of these advanced brokerage capabilities. The paper provides an overview of work conducted by the EU FP7 Broker@Cloud project towards realizing these advanced brokerage capabilities.


We extend the definition of an orbit portrait to the context of non-autonomous iteration, both for the combinatorial version involving collections of angles and for the dynamic version involving external rays where combinatorial portraits can be realized by the dynamics associated with sequences of polynomials with suitably uniformly bounded degrees and coefficients. We show that, in the case of sequences of polynomials of constant degree, the portraits which arise are eventually periodic which is somewhat similar to the classical theory of polynomial iteration. However, if the degrees of the polynomials in the sequence are allowed to vary, one can obtain portraits with complementary arcs of irrational length which are fundamentally different from the classical ones.


The aim of this research was to evaluate relationships between the PORCUS classification system and factors affecting boar taint in pork. Intact male pork carcasses (n = 176) were randomly selected in a South African commercial abattoir from three PORCUS carcass classification groups (P, O and R) and samples from their Longissimus lumborum (LL) were obtained at 24 hours post mortem. Correlations between carcass weight, backfat depth, intramuscular fat percentage and subcutaneous fat androstenone concentrations were estimated. A sub-sample of O carcasses (n = 12) with high levels of androstenone levels were used to determine the influence of pan-frying, oven-roasting and sous vide cooking methods on meat proximate composition and fat androstenone concentration. Although O carcasses were heaviest, backfat depth increased over the carcass classifications. Intramuscular fat percentages were lowest in O carcasses, and crude protein percentages were higher in O compared with R carcasses. The correlation between percentages of backfat depth and LL intramuscular fat was insignificant.No differences were observed between classifications in androstenone concentration, which had a weak positive correlation with carcass weight. All cooked samples exceeded the established sensory threshold for androstenone (>0.45 mu g/g). Cooking methods were ineffective in decreasing the potential for consumers to experience boar taint. Therefore, alternative processing methods should be considered for these carcasses. In addition, the PORCUS classification system cannot be used reliably to estimate the intramuscular fat content or androstenone concentration of a carcass. These findings are interpreted to suggest a revision of the application of the current classification system is required.


Teaching is an information-rich profession with increasing demands on accountability and performance. Ideally, a well-managed information space provides teachers with relevant information when they need it, thus increasing their efficiency and efficacy and conceivably improving teaching quality. Little is known about teacher personal information management (PIM). This exploratory study employed interviews to establish a context to study teacher PIM. The study found that teachers draw information from a variety of physical and digital sources, and while they were aware of sources that had valuable information, especially digital libraries and their school library media centers, they rarely used them. Teachers used distinctive personal organization schemes to manage their information, sorting information alphabetically, topically, and by educational standards. This study introduced the observed phenomenon of "information heritage," where teachers were handed down information from their predecessors and then had to choose what to do with it and how to incorporate it into their PIM practices. Teachers store their information physically in cabinets, closets, and shelves, and digitally on their computer hard drives, school group drives, and using bookmarks. Ephemeral information created by teachers often has time management purposes.


4 Abstract: In today's era, internet is the mean of convenience for sharing information over distance. Our day to day transactions completely relies on sharing of information and digital media. The sharing of confidential data can be done by using digital media such as images, audio and video etc. Certain technique has been brought forward to accomplish this sharing scenario. The enormous developments in the field of multimedia and internet technology easily let us do the distribution of digital media and data. Nowadays sharing of confidential data over network is a major issue, as there is a possibility of having threat to the information that we are delivering in terms of privacy and security. Hence it is necessary to find appropriate solution because the information that we are delivering needs to be delivered securely and safely. Considering this aspect, here we have implemented a system that hides the vital data behind an image in encrypted format by using multi-carrier/signature iterative generalized least-squares (MIGLS) algorithm, considering the fact that the quality of the image should not be differed, deflected or reduced.


Notwithstanding the progress made across the cancer care continuum, a major problem that many patients with cancer experience is the difficulty of access to global standards of care. Awareness of this problem has been increasing most especially when the economic context of a country forces health systems to deliver quality care despite the rising costs of diagnostic and therapeutic innovations amidst limited resources. Ultimately, inappropriate delivery of care to patients with cancer contributes to inadequate and unequal access to high-value therapy increasing financial toxicity among patients. This paper aims to highlight (1) the economic burden of cancer in the Philippines, (2) the saliency of identifying low-value interventions which come in two forms: the persistent over usage of proven ineffective modalities, and the underusage of potentially effective ones, and (3) the adverse effects of a decentralized health care system. The paper will also provide suggestions to address the challenges of achieving health equity in cancer care.


Sustainable energy technologies often use fluids with complex properties. As an example, sulfur is a promising fluid for use in thermal energy storage systems, with highly non-linear thermophysical properties. The viscosity of liquid-phase sulfur varies by four orders of magnitude due to polymerization of sulfur rings between 400 K and 500 K, followed by depolymerization of long rigid chains, and a decrease in viscosity, as temperature increases. These properties may compromise the accuracy of long-established empirical correlations in the design of TES systems. This work uses omputational fluid dynamics to compute steady-state free convection heat transfer coefficients of sulfur in concentric cylinders at temperatures between 400 K and 600 K. The results show that uneven distributions of high and low viscosity sulfur in the system cause variations in flow patterns and highly nonlinear heat transfer coefficients as temperature gradients increase. As a result, existing empirical correlations for describing system performance become inaccurate. Comparison of simulation results to predictions from well-established literature correlations show that errors may surpass 50%. Nusselt versus Rayleigh number correlations for heat transfer are significantly affected by the loss of self-similarity. The analysis proves that existing correlations are not able to capture the complex properties of sulfur in this temperature range, suggesting that alternative modeling techniques are needed for design and optimization of sulfur TES systems. These challenges are unlikely to be limited to sulfur as a working fluid or TES, but will appear in a range of energy systems.


The producers of nuclear energy are responsible for the safe handling, management, and disposal of their wastes, as well as for the costs arising, according to the Finnish nuclear energy legislation. National authorities supervise the nuclear waste management and issue regulations for this purpose. The research needs of the authorities have traditionally been supported by public research programmes. The four-year KYT programme (2002–2005) followed the earlier public nuclear waste research programmes that started as long ago as in 1989. The main research area in KYT was in studies promoting the assessment of the longterm safety of the geological disposal of spent nuclear fuel. This wide area was divided into five sub-areas: (1) the methodology of safety assessment; (2) the release of radionuclides from the repository; (3) bedrock and groundwater; (4) radionuclide transport in bedrock, and (5) biosphere studies. The second research area covered strategic alternatives in spent nuclear fuel management. Studies in this area were focused on advanced fuel cycles, including e.g. partitioning and transmutation (P&T). In addition, there were limited studies on reactor wastes resulting from the operation of nuclear power plants. KYT promoted Finnish know-how in nuclear waste management for the use of national authorities. It acted as a national forum for discussion and co-operation between the authorities, the nuclear industry, and the research community. Furthermore, it trained new experts in the field, as the most experienced nuclear waste specialists are approaching their retirement. The next major milestone in the Finnish nuclear waste management programme is the construction licence application for the disposal facility for spent fuel, due around 2012. The licensing process increases the need for high-quality research on the technical safety of the facility. The successor to the KYT programme, called KYT2010, will be carried out from 2006 to 2010.


This publication contains testimony, given by personnel at the Center for the Study of Educational Finance, initially intended for legislators at the federal and state levels to help them deal with public policy matters in K-12 finance. The first document is testimony given before the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, the subcommittee on Education, Arts, and Humanities, in July 1993. The Subcommittee was holding hearings on problems and issues in public school finance as background for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 as amended, and on other pending K-12 legislation. The second document is testimony given to the Revenue Committee of the Illinois State Senate in September 1993. The committee was holding hearings on the tax structure of Illinois and its relationship to education funding. The third document was prepared for State Senator Alice Palmer of Chicago, and was a continuation of the State Revenue hearings. The fourth document is a letter to Progress Illinois concerning the state's progressive income tax. Documents 5 through 7 are communications from Dr. Robert Arnold to selected legislators, including the president of the Illinois State Senate and Representative Penny Wessels. The appendix provides information on the status of school finance constitutional litigation as of November


The data have some issues, which are explicitly acknowledged and discussed in the text (Section 2.2.3 and Appendix B). We also respectfully disagree on the claim that the study catchment is so unusual. Most of the headwater catchments in the Dolomitic region, and in general in the southern side of the Alps, share similar features in terms of substrate heterogeneity and possible presence of internal karst regions. Nevertheless, the revised version of the paper will better emphasize the specific geological features of the study catchment, the duration of the study period, and the impact of these factors on the main results of the paper (see below).


External and internal persistence of inoculated Salmonella and spread to uninoculated broiler chicks in the same pens were studied by sampling ceca and rinses of feathered carcasses in tw o experiments. Half of the day-old chicks in pens were orally inoculated with a nalidixic-acid-resistant strain of Salmonella Typhimurium at three levels of inoculum (0.1 mL delivering approximately 4 X 10 , 10 , or 10 2 4 6 cfu). At 3, 6, and 8 weeks of age, equal numbers of inoculated and non-inoculated pen mates were individually electrocuted and rinsed in 400 mL of diluent, after which ceca were removed aseptically, with a total of 654 chickens sampled in the two experiments. There were no differences in Salmonella incidence between inoculated and non-inoculated birds at any age, so the marker Salmonella was well distributed within pens. Total incidence was 70%, 86%, and 83% at the 10 , 10 , and 10 inoculum levels, respectively. 2 4 6 Considering both cecal and rinse samples, incidence was 81%, 84%, and 72% at 3, 6, and 8 weeks of age respectively. There were 95 positives in the cecal samples only, 149 positives in the rinses only, and 277 positives in both ceca and rinse samples, so sampling either ceca or carcass rinses alone underestimated the total incidence of the marker Salmonella.


This paper develops a model encompassing both Becker's matching model, and Tinbergen-Rosen's hedonic model. We study its properties and provide identification and estimation strategies. Using data on internal migration in China, we estimate the model and compute equilibrium under counter-factual alternatives to decompose the migration surplus. Our findings reveal that about 1/5 of the migration surplus of migrant women is generated in the marriage market and 3/5 in the labor market. We also find that the welfare of urban men married with a migrant wife would have been 10% lower had their migrant wives not entered the urban marriage market.


Winter sports are very entertaining, exciting, and pleasurable but they can be simultaneously very dangerous and hazardous with the high ratio of damages. The hostile environment, equipments, devices, and the athlete's lack of sufficient skills cause the increase in the amount of damages and dangers derived from them. One of the winter sports is tube-riding. Because the tube-rider does not have any controls on the tube with regard to the speed control, path direction, brake, and stop, it leads to the high amount of damages; therefore this study aims to investigate the life experiences of the spinal cord injured in the winter sport of tube-riding. The researcher used a quantitative approach of qualitative phenomenology in the study. The participants were the spinal cord injured who were selected among the injured of winter sport of Koohrang tube-riding piste in Chaharrmahal and Bakhtiari province. The sampling was aim based and finally through data saturation, six spinal cord injured were selected for the study. Data were collected by the interviewing the participants deeply and then were noted completely. Data analysis was based on Colaizzi approach. After analyzing the data, the life living up and down theme was elicited. The theme includes four subsets: 1) Physically living ups and down, 2) Mental, psychical, and emotional living ups and down, 3) Economical living ups and down, and 4) Social living ups and down. The obtained results of the study present a deep understanding of the life experiences of the spinal cord injured in the winter sport of tube-riding to the nurses and hygienic observers and also it is a warning for people and authorities to prevent and decrease the damages of this winter sport. Abedi HA, Ghani Dehkordi F, Hajinezhad MA, Najafi Khah MA, Ghezelsefli Z, Esmaeili Vardanjani SA. The Life Experiences of the Spinal Cord Injured in the Winter Sport of Tube-riding: A Qualitative Phenomenology Research. Life Sci J 2012;9(4):5529-5535] (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 820


Palliative care can be defined as the active, holistic care of patients with advanced progressive illness, and incorporates symptom management with psychological, social and spiri-tual care (WHO, 1990). Palliative care is for patients in the advanced stages of illness.
Supportive care follows people throughout the process of their disease, from pre-diagnosis, treatment, cure, continuing illness, death and into bereavement. The aim of supportive care is to maximise benefits of treatment and help people to live as well as possible with a disease (NCHSPCS, 2002).
The majority of palliative/supportive care is delivered in pri-mary care, and up to 90% of people spend most of their last year of life at home (Aoun et al, 2005).
Palliative services were initially only available for cancer suf-ferers, however recent policy proclaims that palliative and supportive care services should be available to all, regard-less of diagnosis (DoH, 2008) and a plethora of services now exist to meet these needs.
This research will take a interpretive phenomenological meth-odology to explore the experience of receiving these services from the perspectives of patients and their informal carers,


The first two years of an undergraduate student's STEM program of study are particularly treacherous, with roughly half of STEM majors switching to other fields or dropping out entirely after their sophomore year. Moreover, attending a rural high school that was unable to offer higher-level math courses and being a first-generation college student further increase the likelihood of STEM attrition.    This presentation will feature early evaluation results from the First2 Network's first 18 months of operation. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the First2 Network is a collective impact effort to improve STEM persistence among rural, first-generation college students in West Virginia. With students themselves as co-creators of solutions to problems of persistence, core Network activities include iterative testing of improvements to practice, development of a statewide network to support student success, and capacity building to ensure sustainability.   Study methods include surveys and interviews, observation of Network activities, document review, social network analysis, and tracking of student progress. Key findings suggest rapid Network expansion, establishment of core processes to support workgroups, provision of Network-wide training in improvement science, and successful facilitation of four summer immersive research experiences for targeted students. Early outcomes include statistically significant improvements in students' STEM efficacy and STEM identity following summer immersive experiences, and improved survey scores indicating progress through iterative testing cycles. Early persistence data from participating students will be available by the time of the conference.    The First2 Network is supported by National Science Foundation INCLUDES Award Nos. 1834595, 1834586, 1834601, 183457, and 1834569.


Narcolepsy is a central neurologic system disease. It begins early in life with disabling symptoms including excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, sleep paralysis, hypnagogic hallucination and nocturnal sleep fragmentation. Patient with typical symptoms of narcolepsy is diagnosed by objective data from nocturnal polysomnography and multiple sleep latency tests. Narcolepsy is controlled with various medications. Nowadays, modafinil with favorable side effects profiles compared with traditional stimulant is mainly used. Gamma hydroxyl butyrate is effective in cataplexy. Cataplexy is also controlled with antidepressant such as Venlafaxine, SSRI, and TCA. As the knowledge of pathophysiology of narcolepsy expands, new treatment including immunological method, application of hypocretin and histamine systems have been tried.