ANALYSIS OF VIRGINIA BARRIER ISLAND SHORELINE MOVEMENT AND CORRELATIONS TO SEA LEVEL, WAVE HEIGHT CHANGES, AND TELECONNECTION PATTERNS James Daniel Haluska Old Dominion University, 2017 Director: Dr. John Klinck The Virginia barrier islands stretch from Assateague Island in the north to Fisherman's Island in the south. This string of islands is subject to frequent North Atlantic extra-tropical storm and hurricane influence. In addition, sea level rise has the potential to cause continued shoreline loss and inlet widening for this island group. This dissertation describes the effect of sea level rise, changes in wave height, and teleconnection pattern (AO, NAO, and MEI) correlations to shoreline location changes to the islands and inlet location and width changes. Locations of island shorelines were determined from satellite and aircraft images using ArcGIS software and the USGS Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS). Geographically registered images were digitized, and multiple transect locations on each island were measured from a common offshore baseline using DSAS. The resulting distances along with the remote sensing image dates were used to construct time series of shoreline location for each island. Data frequency was controlled by image availability, and ranged from weekly to semi-monthly. Approximately 250 shorelines per island from 1990 to 2014 were digitized. The results were then interpolated to give a monthly shoreline location for each transect. The combined observations were analyzed by empirical orthogonal function (EOF) and wavelet analysis. The analysis shows that the barrier islands are moving to the south as well as becoming narrower. As a group, the shoreline movement is primarily correlated with sea level change (r = 0.41). The islands also respond to storms and other episodic events. The response can be resilient or catastrophic depending on the extent of shoreline loss which precedes the event. If the island shoreline has narrowed to a width that cannot withstand wave and high water level induced loss, the island and associated shoreline is permanently lost. The rate of shoreline loss returns to the pre-storm rate within several weeks after the events unless island shore is permanently lost during the event. Increased losses of island length were concentrated in years 2004-2005 and 2009-2010. Wavelet analysis confirmed and explained the EOF results by showing the presence of shoreline change cycles which become more intense at times of shoreline loss. A large reversal of shoreline loss was caused by the placement of 3.5 million m of sand on the south end of Wallops Island in 2012 and the attachment of a large offshore shoal to the north end of the same island. Wreck and Ship Shoal Islands have had a net shoreline gain over the study period but with continued southward migration. There are ten inlets between the Virginia Barrier islands. Five of these had width increases of more than 100% during the study period. Two of the five widened by more than 200%. As the barrier islands have become shorter, the inlets have become wider. Due to the episodic nature of the loss of some islands, the inlet width gains have also been episodic. The statistical correlation of sea level variability with inlet width change has a coefficient of determination (r) of 0.77. The extent of this correlation is very large and may be due to a combination of sea level effects on both the islands and inlets. Inlet width change between 1999 and 2014 was analyzed by EOF and wavelet analysis. EOF analysis of all inlets indicates in addition to general widening, substantial inlet changes generally occur during high water level and high wave events associated with passing hurricanes and tropical storms. Ocean shoreline and inlet trends are for continued shoreline loss for most islands, island migration southward, and inlet widening. The findings of this study can be directly applied to adaptation or possible island protection measures where warranted.


Recombinant gene delivery vehicles based on the replication-defective AAV have gained a preeminent position in the field of gene delivery to the brain. Efficient global gene delivery to the CNS is beneficial for the study of gene products is the entire CNS as well as for introducing and expressing genes encoding potential therapeutic or protective proteins in neuronal tissue. Although efficient global gene delivery to the CNS is an ambitious goal, recent scientific developments, as for instance the expansion of the repertoire of AAV vectors by the isolation of new serotypes and the creation of AAV vectors with chimeric capsids, might open up new avenues to achieve this goal. The overall aim of this thesis was to achieve efficient, scientifically and therapeutically relevant AAV- mediated gene delivery to the mouse brain. First, experiments were performed to assess the ability of different serotype AAV vectors to achieve efficient gene delivery to the CNS upon neonatal ICV injection. AAV8 was able to achieve most efficient, widespread delivery of transgenes. Second, the transduction properties of novel mosaic vectors incorporating capsid proteins from AAV1, AAV2, and AAV8 capsids are described. The transduction profiles of these vectors were compared to those of parental serotypes in mouse primary cortical cultures and in vivo after injection into the cerebral lateral ventricles of neonatal mice. Both in culture and in vivo, these mosaic vectors displayed additional properties. Third, the properties of both parental serotype vectors and mosaic vectors were assessed upon injection into the striatum of adult mice. The lysosomal storage disease GM1-gangliosidosis, an autosomal recessive deficiency of lysosomal acid β-galactosidase is biochemically characterized by accumulation of GM1-ganglioside in the central nervous system (CNS), and partially degraded glycoproteins, keratan sulfate and oligosaccharides in visceral organs. GM1-gangliosidosis is a proper candidate for gene therapy, as not all cells in the central nervous system have to be genetically modified to achieve therapeutic efficacy, because mechanisms for efficient secretion and uptake of lysosomal enzymes exist. Next, experiments were conducted to characterize the distribution of lysosomal β-galactosidase in the adult GM1-gangliosidosis mouse brain after AAV-mediated gene delivery. Several mechanisms of distribution were observed including: diffusion, axonal transport of the enzyme and axonal transport of mRNA. To evaluate the therapeutic potential of AAV- mediated gene delivery in neonatal GM1-gangliosidosis mice, an AAV vector encoding for β-galactosidase was injected into the cerebroventricles of neonatal GM1-gangliosidosis mice. which resulted in complete correction of enzymatic deficiency and lysosomal storage throughout the GM1-gangliosidosis mouse forebrain. Based on the results described in this thesis, AAV vectors can be considered highly promising vehicles for the delivery of therapeutically relevant transgenes to the CNS.


Although RNA synthesis can be reliably controlled with different T7 transcriptional promoters during cell-free gene expression with the PURE system, protein synthesis remains largely unaffected. To better control protein levels, a series of ribosome binding sites (RBS) was investigated. While RBS strength did strongly affect protein synthesis, the RBS sequence could explain less than half of the variability of the data. Protein expression was found to depend on other factors besides the strength of the RBS, including GC content. The complexity of protein synthesis in comparison to RNA synthesis was observed by the higher degree of variability associated with protein expression. This variability was also observed in an E. coli cell extract-based system. However, the coefficient of variation was larger with E. coli RNA polymerase than with T7 RNA polymerase, consistent with the increased complexity of E. coli RNA polymerase.


The variable renewable wind and solar resources have experienced a significant growth on its rate of deployment as a clean and competitive alternative for conventional power sources in Jordan. However, the variability of these sources have brought many technical challenges to grids. This paper presents a hybrid system that provides a firma capacity and improves dispatchability with an interesting financial perspective. This hybrid system includes a wind farm and a concentrated solar power plant with thermal energy storage. The performance analysis was conducted in terms of final yield and capacity factor, while the economic analysis investigated the levelized cost of electricity LCOE. The hybrid plant was simulated and optimized using TRNSYS 17 energy simulation software, minimizing the LCOE and considering a capacity factor higher than 65% as a constraint. Solar multiple and storage size were considered as decision variables. A strong complementarity between wind and direct normal solar radiation was observed in the selected location in Jordan, which emphasizes the attractiveness of the selected hybrid system. The optimal configuration of the CSP-wind hybrid system was obtained with a solar field of a 2.6 solar multiple and a 5 hours energy storage. The achieved capacity factor was 94 %, and the LCOE is lower than those resulted for standalone CSP plants.


ABSTRACT Objective Examine the bidirectional relationships between within-person day-to-day fluctuations in physical activity (PA) and sleep characteristics among people with heart failure (HF) and insomnia. Participants Ninety-seven community-dwelling adults [median age 61.9 (interquartile range 55.3,70.9) years, female 41%] with stable HF and insomnia (insomnia severity index >7). Methods This sub-study longitudinally analyzed 15 consecutive days and nights of wrist actigraphy recordings, that were collected for baseline data prior to participation in a randomized controlled trial of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. We used two-level mixed models of within- (daily) and between-participants variation to predict daytime PA counts/minutes from sleep variables (total sleep time, sleep efficiency) and predict sleep variables from PA. Results PA counts/minutes were low compared to prior cohorts that did not have HF (209 (166,259)) and negatively associated with NYHA class (standardized coefficient βs = −0.14, p < .01), age (βs = −0.13, p = .01), comorbidities (βs = −0.19, p < .01), and body mass index (βs = −0.12, p = .04). After adjustment for all significant covariates, the within-participant association of total sleep time with next-day PA was estimated to be positive among participants with NYHA class II–IV HF (βs = 0.09, p = .01), while the within-participant association of PA with same-night total sleep time was estimated to be positive among participants aged ≥60 years (βs = 0.10, p = .03). Conclusions Depending upon age and HF class, daytime PA was associated with longer same-night sleep and/or longer sleep was associated with greater next-day PA. Among those with more advanced HF, realistic sleep improvements were associated with clinically meaningful PA gains the next day.


ABSTRACT In large-scale societal crises, organizations involved in saving lives and protecting the public need to collaborate and coordinate their crisis communication to minimize damage and increase resilience. This study analyzed strategic leadership communication fostering such coordination in a network consisting of 24 members representing a variety of authorities, organizations and units established during a large forest fire in Sweden. As the crisis unfolded over a two-week period, 10 network meetings were observed and audio recorded. Discourse analysis was employed to analyze network leaders' and members' communication during the meetings. Findings illustrate that leadership communication strategies that fostered networked coordination of organizations' crisis communication differ in significant ways from leadership communication in noncrisis and team contexts. Salient leadership communication strategies of directing/structuring and encouraging/facilitating were employed during crisis network meetings and functioned to coordinate involved organizations' crisis communication efforts during time pressure. The study contributes with new knowledge of strategic leadership communication for crisis network coordination, which is important to crisis management and can be used in crisis preparation to enhance resilience.


This paper addresses the problem of efficiently delivering a layered media stream from multiple senders to a single receiver, over channels that present correlated packet loss patterns. Using a digital fountain approach, the performance of a distributed streaming system is driven by the probability of receiving a given number of packets on aggregate over the multiple channels. In addition, such a system permits to avoid the need for communication between streaming servers. We devise an optimization problem whose solution provides the optimal number of packets that need to be transmitted per channel, in order to maximize the probability of correct decoding for a given media stream. Our findings indicate that it is in general important to consider both the Packet Loss Ratio (PLR) and Average Burst Length (ABL) in channel selection problems such as multipath routing or rate aggregation on multiple bursty channels. Finally we present a low-complexity algorithm which is able to quickly find a suboptimal yet effective solution to the combinatorial optimization problem.


As manufacturing businesses operate in an ever more competitive, global economy where products are easily commoditized, innovating by adding services to the core product offering has become a popular strategy. Contrary to the economic benefits expected, recent findings pinpoint implementation hurdles that lead to a potential performance decline, the so-called 'servitization paradox'. In this paper, we analyze this paradox by disentangling the value creation and value appropriation processes of 44 national subsidiaries of a global manufacturing firm turned product-service provider, in the 2001–2007 period. Our findings show that the firm under study is able to successfully transcend the inherent substitution of products by services and to enact complementary sales dynamics between the two activities. Moreover, labor-intensive services such as maintenance, which imply higher levels of customer proximity, further enhance product sales. Empirical results also reveal a positive yet non-linear relationship between the scale of service activities and profitability: while initial levels of servicing result in a steep increase in profitability, a period of relative decline is observed before the positive relationship between the scale of services and profitability re-emerges. These findings suggest the presence of initial short-term gains but also indicate the existence of a 'profitability' hurdle; profitable growth seems feasible only to the extent that investments in service capability are translated into economies of scale. In helping to clarify the performance implications of service innovation, our findings suggest pathways to sustainable growth through servitization for manufacturing firms.


Northern hemisphere peatlands store approximately 455 Pg of organic carbon (C) and are an important component of the global C cycle, currently acting as sinks for atmospheric C, despite peatlands only covering 3% of the planet's surface. The presence of phenolic compounds in the peatlands allows these stocks to accumulate, by slowing down the process of decomposition to below that of photosynthetic production. Phenolic inhibitors are abundant due to the unique properties in waterlogged peatlands, which have the ability to suppress phenol oxidase activity, which is among the few enzymes capable of degrading phenolic compound inhibitors. This permits accumulation of phenolic compounds, which, in turn, prevents hydrolase enzymes from breaking down organic matter and thus promoting sequestration of C in peatlands. This mechanism has been described as the "enzymic latch" and leads to carbon sequestration in peat. It is noteworthy that human carbon emissions, which exceed 8 Pg per year leading to global warming, can turn these wetlands from carbon sinks into important sources of greenhouse gases, namely carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). To help prevent further climate change, this study examined whether manipulation of the enzymic latch might reduce the rate of decomposition by increasing the abundance of phenolic inhibitors in peat soil and thus reducing the rate of carbon release into the atmosphere. The study showed that inhibitory phenolic additions may have an effect on carbon sequestration in peatlands in the form of supplementary wood chips, which have proven promote carbon storage in peat matrices. The results also demonstrated the ability of waste materials such as crude oil to suppress CO2 release that requires further study. Low molecular weight phenolic inhibitors may be more potent than high molecular weight in terms of effect on suppressing enzymic decomposition.


Herein, a reproducible, reliable, and efficient method was reported for the synthesis of palladium nanoparticles dispersed on a composite of Fe3O4 and graphene (Pd-Fe3O4/G) as a highly efficient active catalyst for being used in Suzuki cross–coupling reactions. Graphene supported Pd/Fe3O4 nanoparticles (Pd-Fe3O4/G) exhibit a remarkable catalytic performance towards Suzuki coupling reactions. Moreover, the prepared catalyst could be recycled for up to three times with high catalytic activity. The catalyst was prepared using LVCC synthesis; the prepared catalyst is highly magnetic which provides a platform to facilitate the separation process of the catalyst through applying an external magnetic field using a magnet. This adopted approach has several advantages including recyclability, mild reaction conditions, and reproducibility. The high catalytic activity is due to the catalyst-support strong interaction. Moreover, the defect sites found on reduced GO nanosheets act as nucleation centers providing a platform to anchor Pd and Fe3O4 nanoparticles and hence avoid the potential agglomeration and subsequently the anticipated decrease in the catalyst catalytic activity as a direct impact for this unfavorable agglomeration.


Five years ago when I introduced mindfulness to my MBA decision-making class it was perceived as something completely esoteric; there were maybe two or three students who could relate to the concept. Today, not only have most of them heard about it, many are practicing it. More and more corporations are offering mindfulness training to their employees. It's being incorporated into negotiation techniques and leadership manuals, in fact every area of business where strong decisions are required.


This study compares the impact of different modes of cortisol replacement therapy on the health perception and general well-being in patients with primary adrenocortical failure. 14 adults (8 female, 6 male) with Addison's disease on chronic cortisol replacement participated in the study. In a randomized double-blind cross-over design, all patients were treated with 3 modes of cortisol replacement for one week each (mode I: 20 mg hydrocortisone (HC) at 0700 h and 10 mg HC at 1900 h; mode II: 30 mg HC at 0700 h and placebo at 1900 h; mode III: placebo at 0700 h and 30 mg HC at 1900 h). Following the third week, the replacement modes were repeated in a different random order. For quality-of-life assessment the patients completed three different questionnaires (Addison-questionnaire, Basler Befindlichkeits-Skala, Beschwerde-Liste) and were interviewed about their general contentment at the last day of each treatment week. General well-being in terms of subjective contentment was best established during mode I (in 64% of patients) and less often stated with mode II (in 29%) and III (in 14%) (p < 0.05 mode I vs III). With the twice-daily replacement (mode I), sum scores of all questionnaires were changed towards improvement compared to both once-daily regimens (p < 0.05 vs mode II and III), but did not reach normal values of healthy subjects. Differences between mode II and III were insignificant. We conclude that quality of life in Addison patients is mainly influenced by the mode of cortisol replacement therapy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


A threatened and uncommon soft coral species, Dendronephthya australis found in large abundance in Port Stephens, within the Port Stephens–Great Lakes Marine Park (PSGLMP), New South Wales, Australia, was hypothesized to be an important habitat for many marine fishes and invertebrates, but is currently under threat from boat anchors, fishing debris entanglement and sand inundation.
Surveys were undertaken to assess the biodiversity associated with the soft coral habitat and its adjacent habitats (sponge, seagrass and unvegetated sand), using a combination of Underwater Visual Census (UVC) and Baited Remote Underwater Video System (BRUVS) techniques.
In total, 77 fish species and 21 invertebrate species utilized the D. australis habitat, and multivariate fish assemblages associated with soft corals were significantly different to those associated with nearby sponges, seagrass and sand habitats. Species richness of fishes and invertebrates were significantly higher in soft coral and sponge habitats than seagrass.
The D. australis habitat was found to be of high importance to juvenile snapper (Pagrus auratus: Sparidae), a species of recreational and commercial fishery importance, which occurred in highest abundance within D. australis, and were significantly smaller in size within the soft coral habitat than the adjacent sponge habitat.
Evidently, this rare soft coral habitat supports an extensive marine assemblage, potentially providing a valuable source of food and shelter for fishes and invertebrates, and given it is threatened by human-induced impacts, its protection should be a priority.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Firewalls play a critical role in protecting networks and enforcing security policies. Traditionally, firewalls have been deployed at an organization's periphery to protect it from Internet traffic. Today, however, this model no longer holds true as organizations try to safeguard themselves against other types of threats. This has led to the advent of the distributed firewall where potentially every router or end-host can run a firewall. As it is, firewalls are extremely hard to analyze and configure correctly due to complexities of network topology, routing, and administrative issues. Distributed firewalls make the situation even worse since there are multiple firewalls. This paper describes FACE - a tool that helps in analysis and configuration of distributed firewalls. Using FACE, administrators can automatically generate and analyze configurations for all firewalls in the network by specifying the filtering policy and a threat model in which a distributed firewall must provide defense against spoofed traffic from specified nodes in a network.


The serum folic acid activity (SFAA) was measured using Lactobacillus casei as the test organism. The SFAA was lower for patients with malignant tumors than for the control group. The lowest values were for malignant lymphoma and leu kemia. No relation was found between the SFAA and either the spread of the tu mors, the therapy administered, the age of the patient or the degree of wasting. Al though the SFAA was significantly lowered in leukemia, the folic acid activity (FAA) was higher in white cells of such patients than in those of healthy controls. The FAA was also determined in chicks during development of virus-induced leu kemia.


A framework is presented for analyzing most of the experimental work performed in software engineering over the past several years. The framework of experimentation consists of four categories corresponding to phases of the experimentation process: definition, planning, operation, and interpretation. A variety of experiments are described within the framework and their contribution to the software engineering discipline is discussed. Some recommendations for the application of the experimental process in software engineering are included.


The problem of segmenting a range of image into homogeneous regions, in each of which the range data corresponds to a different surface, is discussed. A maximum-likelihood (ML) segmentation is sought. As most manufactured parts are well approximated by patches of planes, cylinders, and spheres, these three simple surfaces are considered to be the only surfaces in the image. The basic approach to segmentation is to divide the range image into windows, classify each window as a particular surface primitive, and group like windows into surface regions. Grouping windows of the same surface types is cast as a weighted ML clustering problem. Mixed windows are segmented using a ML hierarchical segmentation algorithm. The resulting regions and their associated ML surface parameter and boundary estimates can then be used to perform ML object position estimation and matching. A similar approach is taken for segmenting visible-light images of Lambertian objects illuminated by a point source at infinity.<<ETX>>


This study was aimed to determine the growth performance and gonad maturation of Amur catfish, Silurus asotus reared in captivity. A total of 600 juvenile Amur catfish were reared in a 20-tonne aerated fibreglass tank for 3 months. The changes to body weight (mean ± SD) of Amur catfish at day 14 was 22.59 ± 3.59 g and attained a final average body weight of 110.95 ± 19.72 g. The average body weight gains (%) were 213.50% and gradually decreased to 109.95%. The specific growth rate recorded at 14-day intervals was 5.42%/day and fluctuated to 3.32%/day, 0.39%/day, 0.51%/day, with the corresponding measurements of 15.36 ± 1.07 cm and increments to 24.22 ± 1.34 cm. The final total length the fishes attained was an average of 25.58 ± 1.95 cm. The total length gain recorded was 124.61% and followed by 109.95%. The survival of Amur catfish within the three months was 29.17%. Length-weight relationship of the Amur catfish showed a strong correlation at log W = -2.6797 + 2.3102 log L and the value of the regression coefficient (b) equalled to 2.3102. Three stages of the oocyte (PO = primary oocyte, PVO = previtellogenic oocyte and VO = vitellogenic oocyte) determined histologically indicated that all-female gonad samples were in the developing stage. Matured gonad and spermatozoa were also observed in males. This study concludes that Amur catfish attained good growth performance and fast gonad maturation in captivity and can be a suitable species for aquaculture.


This paper reports soil development over time in different climates, on time-scales ranging from a few thousand to several hundred thousand years. Changes in soil properties over time, underlying soil-forming processes and their rates are presented. The paper is based on six soil chronosequences, i.e. sequences of soils of different age that are supposed to have developed under the similar conditions with regard to climate, vegetation and other living organisms, relief and parent material. The six soil chronosequences are from humid-temperate, Mediterranean and semi-arid climates. They are compared with regard to soil thickness increase, changes in soil pH, formation of pedogenic iron oxides (expressed as Fed/Fet ratios), clay formation, dust influx (both reflected in clay/silt ratios), and silicate weathering and leaching of base cations(expressed as (Ca+Mg+K+Na)/Al molar ratios) over time. This comparison reveals that the increase of solum thickness with time can be best described by logarithmic equations in all three types of climates. Fed/Fet ratios (proportion of pedogeniciron Fed compared to total iron Fet) reflects the transformation of iron in primary minerals into pedogeniciron. This ratio usually increases with time, except for regions, where the influx of dust (having low Fed/Fet ratios) prevails over the process of pedogeniciron oxide formation, which is the case in the Patagonian chronosequences. Dust influx has also a substantial influence on the time courses of clay/silt ratios and on element indices of silicate weathering. Using the example of a 730 kasoil chronosequence from southern Italy, the fact that soils of long chronosequences inevitably experienced major environmental changes is demonstrated, and, consequentially a modified definition of requirements for soil chronosequences is suggested. Moreover, pedogenic thresholds, feedback systems and progressive versus regressive processes identified in the soil chronosequences are discussed.


Using a two and one-half dimensional (two-dimensional for fields, three-dimensional for particle velocities) particle-in-cell (PIC) code we simulate the dynamics of a highly-elliptic sheet electron beam focused by a periodically-cusped-magnetic (PCM) field array. For edge-focusing, a periodic-quadrupole-magnetic (PQM) array is placed along the sides. Very high-space-charge, low-voltage beams may be focused in this way, without disruptive diocotron instability. The PCM-PQM hybrid array appears convenient for two-plane matching of the beam to minimize beam ripple in both transverse dimensions.


The Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) stands out as one of the most important fresh water edible fish, possessing remarkable characteristics that make it desirable for both commercial culture and as a laboratory model. For the utilization of tilapia in germ cell transplantation experiments, appropriate cell markers are required to evaluate the colonization behavior of donor-derived germ cells in recipient gonads. Here we report the production of a medaka β-actin/EGFP transgenic tilapia strain expressing the green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter gene in several tissues including germ cells in testis and ovary. Fluorescent observations in F2 generation transgenic individuals showed GFP positive cells along the body axis in pre-hatched embryos, while in hatching embryos the GFP gene was strongly expressed in the area surrounding the gills, operculum and in the cephalic region. In early larvae, fluorescent cells were scattered throughout the body, forming aggregations around the dorsal-cephalic and mouth areas. At 38 days post-fertilization, juvenile fish expressed the GFP homogeneously in the whole body. GFP fluorescence was also observed in caudal fins, muscle, and in several internal organs (gills, heart, testes, and ovaries) in 140 and 240 day F2 and F3 individuals. Immunohistochemistry using a monoclonal anti-GFP antibody in juvenile and adult gonads showed that both mitotic and meiotic germ cells were labeled with GFP. The utilization of this transgenic line in a germ cell transplantation system could offer a fast and reliable screening of donor-derived transgenic offspring, as well as accurate tracing of donor-derived cell colonization in the recipient gonad by means of immunohistochemistry using GFP antibodies. In the future, germ cell transplantation using Nile tilapia also could help to preserve the genetic resources of threatened cichlids, through cryopreservation and interspecies transplantation of germ cells from endangered cichlids into O. niloticus recipients.


Congenital anomalies, including chromosomal abnormalities, single gene disorders, and isolated/multiple anomalies due to teratogenic exposure or of unknown origin are an important medical and public health problem. They are the leading cause of stillbirth and infant mortality and an important contributor to childhood morbidity in developed countries. Although as a group they represent a signifidcant health care problem, birth defects are an assembly of numerous individually rare diseases. The available knowledge on their aetiology, epidemiology, prevention, diagnosis and treatment is inadequate. To bring together data on the individuals affected by genetic disorders and to promote the research on the causes and prevention of congenital anomalies, population - based networks of registries for the surveillance of birth defects have been set in different parts of the world. In 1979 started the EUROCAT, European network of registries covering today 1.5 million births per year, or a quarter of births in Europe. It is designed to provide epidemiological data and to identify genetic and environmental factors immportant in the aetiology of birth defects. Epidemiological data on congenital anomalies reported among live births, stillbirths, and termitantions of pregnancy after prenatal diagnosis are recorded. This makes possible the identification of teratogenic exposures and the assessment of the impact of primary prevention and prenatal screening policies and prectice at a population level. Recent studies performed by the EUROCAT will be presented, pointing out to the importance of the joint approach to European public health questions concerning surveillance of birth defects.


Trust and reputation are key issues in the multi-agent systems domain. As in human societies, software agents must interact with other agents in settings where there is the possibility that they can be exploited. This suggests the need for theoretical and computational models of trust and reputation that can be used by software agents, and accordingly, much research has investigated this issue.
The first part of this thesis investigates the conjecture that agents who make
decisions in scenarios where trust is important can benefit from the use of a social structure, representing the social relationships that exist between agents. To this end, we present techniques that can be used by agents to initially build and then progressively update such a structure in the light of experience. As the agents interact with other agents they gather information about interactions and relationships in order to build the network of agents and to better understand their social environment. We also show empirical evidence that a trust model enhanced with a social structure representation, used to gather additional information to select trustworthy agents for an agent's interactions, can improve the trust model's performance.
In the second part of this thesis, we concentrate on the context of coalition
formation. Coalition stability is a crucial issue. Stability is the motivation of an
agent's refusal to break from the original coalition and form a new one. Lack of trust in some of the coalition members could induce one agent to leave the coalition. Therefore we address the current model's limitation by introducing an abstract framework that allows agents to form distrust-free coalitions. Moreover we present measures to evaluate the trustworthiness of the agent with respect to the whole society or to a particular coalition. We also describe a way to combine the trust and distrust relationships to form coalitions which are still distrust-free.


Particle sensing in optical tweezers systems provides information on the position, velocity, and force of the specimen particles. The conventional quadrant detection scheme is applied ubiquitously in optical tweezers experiments to quantify these parameters. In this paper, we show that quadrant detection is nonoptimal for particle sensing in optical tweezers and propose an alternative optimal particle sensing scheme based on spatial homodyne detection. A formalism for particle sensing in terms of transverse spatial modes is developed and numerical simulations of the efficacies of both quadrant and spatial homodyne detection are shown. We demonstrate that 1 order of magnitude improvement in particle sensing sensitivity can be achieved using spatial homodyne over quadrant detection.


The "ABCD Profile/Evaluation Instrument" offers directors of individual biomedical communications centers a way to measure their own progress towards meeting standards of excellence. It provides guidelines for review of biomedical communications centers in a model similar to the clinical and basic medical science departments' review. Based on the results of this study, many of the directors seemed to be looking for more formal structure of biomedical communications centers involvement. Use of the Profile/Evaluation Instrument helps address this need and allows discussion in areas such as the department's existence and function in relation to its host institution. In March of 1985, the ABCD used the Profile/Evaluation Instrument standards as parameters of responsibility and service provided by biomedical communications units in its analysis and response to the AAMC GPEP report (Allan and Bradford 1985). The instrument also triggers discussion of new areas of review needed within departments. The process of matching biomedical communications job requirements and assessment training criteria will be explored in the future expansion of the personnel section of the instrument. These and other areas are crucial to the survival and well-being of biomedical communications centers. The "ABCD Profile/Evaluation Instrument" establishes a concrete reference for external review by outside agencies and internal review by administration or the department directors themselves. It offers a continuing body of information that provides the basis for future planning in the field of biomedical communications.


Recently, we proposed the gradual deformation approach for constraining stochastic models to dynamic data (well-tests and production history). In this paper, we review the basic gradual deformation algorithm and extend its application to different types of truncated Gaussian simulations (including non stationary truncated Gaussian and truncated pluri-Gaussian simulations). A case study on the calibration of a reservoir lithofacies model to well-test pressure data illustrates the efficiency of the gradual deformation approach.


Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a range of pathologies arising from fat accumulation in the liver in the absence of excess alcohol use or other causes of liver disease. Its complications include cirrhosis and liver failure, hepatocellular carcinoma, and eventual death. NAFLD is the most common cause of liver disease globally and is estimated to affect nearly one-third of individuals in the United States. Despite knowledge that the incidence and prevalence of NAFLD are increasing, the pathophysiology of the disease and its progression to cirrhosis remain insufficiently understood. The molecular pathogenesis of NAFLD involves insulin resistance, inflammation, oxidative stress, and endoplasmic reticulum stress. Better insight into these molecular pathways would allow for therapies that target specific stages of NAFLD. Preclinical animal models have aided in defining these mechanisms and have served as platforms for screening and testing of potential therapeutic approaches. In this review, we will discuss the cellular and molecular mechanisms thought to contribute to NAFLD, with a focus on the role of animal models in elucidating these mechanisms and in developing therapies.


EEG and eye tracking variables are potential sources of information about the underlying processes of target detection and storage during visual search. Fixation duration, pupil size and event related potentials (ERPs) locked to the onset of fixation or saccade (saccade-related potentials, SRPs) have been reported to differ dependent on whether a target or a non-target is currently fixated. Here we focus on the question of whether these variables also differ between targets that are subsequently reported (hits) and targets that are not (misses). Observers were asked to scan 15 locations that were consecutively highlighted for 1 s in pseudo-random order. Highlighted locations displayed either a target or a non-target stimulus with two, three or four targets per trial. After scanning, participants indicated which locations had displayed a target. To induce memory encoding failures, participants concurrently performed an aurally presented math task (high load condition). In a low load condition, participants ignored the math task. As expected, more targets were missed in the high compared with the low load condition. For both conditions, eye tracking features distinguished better between hits and misses than between targets and non-targets (with larger pupil size and shorter fixations for missed compared with correctly encoded targets). In contrast, SRP features distinguished better between targets and non-targets than between hits and misses (with average SRPs showing larger P300 waveforms for targets than for non-targets). Single trial classification results were consistent with these averages. This work suggests complementary contributions of eye and EEG measures in potential applications to support search and detect tasks. SRPs may be useful to monitor what objects are relevant to an observer, and eye variables may indicate whether the observer should be reminded of them later.


Eurodiaconia is a federation of 46 social and health care organisations founded in the Christian faith and promoting social justice. Eurodiaconia is a registered aisbl in Belgium. This publication has received financial support from the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation "EaSI" (2014-2020). For further information, please consult: http://ec.europa.eu/social/easi.The information contained in this publication does not necessarily reflect the position or opinion of the European Commission. Copyright (C) 2017 Eurodiaconia All rights reserved. MEETING REPORT


The concept of genius intrigues us. Artistic geniuses have something other people don't have. In some cases that something seems to be a remarkable kind of inspiration that permits the artist to exceed his own abilities. It is as if the artist is suddenly possessed, as if some outside force flows through them at the moment of creation. In other cases genius seems best explained as a natural gift. The artist is the possessor of an extra talent that enables the production of masterpiece after masterpiece. This book explores the concept of artistic genius and how it came to be symbolised by three great composers of the modern era: Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven.


Cheapfake is a recently coined term that encompasses non-AI ("cheap") manipulations of multimedia content. Cheapfakes are known to be more prevalent than deepfakes. Cheapfake media can be created using editing software for image/video manipulations, or even without using any software, by simply altering the context of an image/video by sharing the media alongside misleading claims. This alteration of context is referred to as out-of-context (OOC) misuse of media. OOC media is much harder to detect than fake media, since the images and videos are not tampered. In this challenge, we focus on detecting OOC images, and more specifically the misuse of real photographs with conflicting image captions in news items. The aim of this challenge is to develop and benchmark models that can be used to detect whether given samples (news image and associated captions) are OOC, based on the recently compiled COSMOS dataset.


Resting eggs of the rotifer Brachionus plicatilis were collected from the sediments of a brackish-water pond near Tampa, Florida. These core samples were examined for resting egg density and size. Resting egg density decreased exponentially from the surface down to 7 cm in the sediments at all stations, with de th in the sediments accounting for 42.3% among stations. Resting eggs were found to be significantly larger in the top 2 cm of sediment than resting eggs from deeper in the sediments. These data are discussed with regard to other work on resting egg densities in natural populations. Hypotheses are offered to explain the observed decrease in resting egg size with depth in sediments. of the total variance. The maximum resting egg density recorded was 194 RE/cm s . with no significant differences in density


Parametric instabilities excited by O-mode HF heater and the induced ionospheric modification were explored via HAARP digisonde operated in a fast mode. The impact of excited Langmuir waves and upper hybrid waves on the ionosphere are manifested by bumps in the virtual spread, which expand the ionogram echoes upward as much as 140 km and the downward range spread of the sounding echoes, which exceeds 50 km over a significant frequency range. The theory of parametric instabilities is presented. The theory identifies the ionogram bump located between the 3.2 MHz heater frequency and the upper hybrid resonance frequency and the bump below the upper hybrid resonance frequency to be associated with the Langmuir and upper hybrid instabilities, respectively. The Langmuir bump is located close to the upper hybrid resonance frequency, rather than to the heater frequency, consistent with the theory. Each bump in the virtual height spread of the ionogram is similar to the cusp occurring in daytime ionograms at the E-F2 layer transition, indicating that there is a small ledge in the density profile similar to E-F2 layer transitions. The experimental results also show that the strong impact of the upper hybrid instability on the ionosphere can suppress the Langmuir instability.


The technically recoverable global wave energy resource is estimated to be between 2 PWh/year and 5 5 PWh/year, approximately 12% and 32% of global electricity consumption Despite wave energy's vast global potential, there has been relatively little commercial deployment to date. There is large variation in both the current estimated and future expected electricity generation costs associated with wave technologies. This paper quantifies a forecasted levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for wave energy by performing a two-stage Monte Carlo simulation, considering both the variability in current LCOE estimates and uncertainty in the one-factor learning rate. We compare the forecasted LCOE to wave energy targets of the European Union and U.S. Department of Energy and show the criticality of support mechanisms to achieve learning rates that lead to economic competitiveness in the utility-scale markets.


The electrohydraulic shock treatment of microorganisms was accomplished by discharging high-voltage electricity (8 to 15 kv) across an electrode gap below the surface of aqueous suspensions of the microorganisms. This treatment was effective in destroying Escherichia coli, Streptococcus faecalis, vegetative cells and spores of Bacillus subtilis, and bacteriophage specific for S. cremoris ML1. The presence of added protein in bacterial suspensions resulted in reduced bactericidal action. Water subjected to electrohydraulic treatment retained a certain amount of toxicity when copper-core electrodes were used to apply the treatment. This was caused by copper liberated from the electrode during electrohydraulic discharge.


Muscle channelopathies caused by mutations in the SCN4A gene that encodes the muscle sodium channel are transmitted by autosomal‐dominant inheritance. We report herein the first cases of homozygous patients for sodium channel mutations responsible for paramyotonia congenita (I1393T) or hypokalemic periodic paralysis (R1132Q). A parallel was drawn between this unprecedented situation and that of myotonia congenita by including patients homozygous or heterozygous for the CLCN1 I556N channel mutation, which is known for incomplete dominance and penetrance. Standardized electromyographic (EMG) protocols combining exercise and cold served as provocative tests to compare homozygotes with heterozygotes for each of the three mutations. Surface‐recorded compound muscle action potentials (CMAPs) were used to monitor muscle electrical activity, and myotonic discharges were evaluated by needle EMG. In heterozygous patients, exercise tests disclosed abnormal patterns of CMAP changes, which matched those previously described for similar dominant sodium and chloride channel mutations. Homozygotes showed much more severe clinical features and CMAP changes. We hypothesized that the presence of 100% defective ion channels in the homozygotes could account for the most severe phenotype. This suggests that the severity of muscle channelopathies depends both on the degree of channel impairment caused by the mutation and on the number of mutant channels engaged in the pathophysiological process. Overall, this study has practical consequences for the diagnosis of muscle channelopathies and raises new questions about their pathophysiology. Muscle Nerve, 2010


A quite fourishing research thread in the recent literature on component based system is concerned with the algebraic properties of different classes of connectors. In a recent paper, an algebra of stateless connectors was presented that consists of five kinds of basic connectors, namely symmetry, synchronization, mutual exclusion, hiding and inaction, plus their duals and it was shown how they can be freely composed in series and in parallel to model sophisticated "glues". In this paper we explore the expressiveness of stateful connectors obtained by adding one-place buffers or unbounded buffers to the stateless connectors. The main results are: i) we show how different classes of connectors exactly correspond to suitable classes of Petri nets equipped with compositional interfaces, called nets with boundaries; ii) we show that the difference between strong and weak semantics in stateful connectors is reflected in the semantics of nets with boundaries by moving from the classic step semantics (strong case) to a novel banking semantics (weak case), where a step can be executed by taking some "debit" tokens to be given back during the same step; iii) we show that the corresponding bisimilarities are congruences (w.r.t. composition of connectors in series and in parallel); iv) we show that suitable monoidality laws, like those arising when representing stateful connectors in the tile model, can nicely capture concurrency aspects; and v) as a side result, we provide a basic algebra, with a finite set of symbols, out of which we can compose all P/T nets, fulfilling a long standing quest.


AbstractBackground: Unwanted pregnancy has many negative consequences on the health and wellbeing of women. Emergency contraception (EC) plays an important role in the prevention of unwanted pregnancy and contributes in the reduction of unnecessary maternal deaths due to complications of unsafe abortion.Objective: The aim of the study was to assess knowledge and practice (KAP) of female students in Bahir Dar University.Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted from May 6 to 11, 2008 among female students in Bahir Dar University. Data was collected using a pre-tested, structured questionnaire. A total of 400 female female students were enrolled in this study. The collected data was cleared manually and analyzed using Epi-Info version 3.4.3 software package. The result of the study was presented by tables and percentage.Results: Among the total of 400 respondents 386 (96.5 %) have knowledge about family planning, 334 (83.5%) heard about EC. Awareness about EC was found relatively higher among natural than social students (OR 1.82, X2 3.54). The main source of information on EC and family planning was dominantly from family member and mass media. Out of 334 respondents, who were aware about EC, only 129 (73.4 %) used EC. Two hundred forty-nine (62.3%) of the respondents believe that their religion has influence to their attitude towards EC use.Conclusion: Majority of the respondents heard about EC and family planning, however there is a great knowledge and attitude gap among respondent as they lacked detailed information and specific knowledge about EC. In order to increases knowledge about EC and to bring attitudinal change among female University students there should be continuous education on family planning and specific information about EC and establishment of family planning club is recommended.Keywords: Emergency contraception; knowledge, attitude and practice; female university students; Bahir Dar University; Ethiopia.


Owing to well-designed large-scale video-text datasets, recent years have witnessed tremendous progress in video-text Pre-training. However, existing large-scale video-text datasets are mostly English-only. Though there are certain methods studying the Chinese video-text Pre-training, they pre-train their models on private datasets whose videos and text are unavailable. This lack of large-scale public datasets and benchmarks in Chinese hampers the research and downstream applications of Chinese video-text Pre-training. Towards this end, we release and benchmark CNVid-3.5M, a large-scale public cross-modal dataset containing over 3.5M Chinese video-text pairs. We summarize our contributions by three verbs, i.e., "Build", "Filter", and "Pretrain": 1) To build a public Chinese video-text dataset, we collect over 4.5M videos from the Chinese websites. 2) To improve the data quality, we propose a novel method to filter out 1M weakly-paired videos, resulting in the CNVid-3.5M dataset. And 3) we benchmark CNVid-3.5M with three mainstream pixel-level Pre-training architectures. At last, we propose the Hard Sample Curriculum Learning strategy to promote the Pre-training performance. To the best of our knowledge, CNVid-3.5M is the largest public video-text dataset in Chinese, and we provide the first pixel-level benchmarks for Chinese video-text Pre-training. The dataset, codebase, and pre-trained models are available at https://github.com/CNVid/CNVid-3.5M.


Aim The aim of this study was to explore how Registered Nurses assess and identify delirium to inform education and improved delirium care practices in the healthcare environment of the researcher. Background Delirium is a common event for older people during a hospital admission (50 per cent). An episode of delirium may cause a range of adverse outcomes for older people: new dementia, worsening dementia, re-location into residential accommodation, and death. The prevention, recognition and management of delirium in hospitals are inadequate and demonstrated to be challenging for nurses. Multi-component interventions including education are recommended as strategies to address these issues. Clinical practice and research provide evidence of the under-recognition of delirium in hospital by medical and nursing clinicians. Although Registered Nurses are key to the provision of delirium care there was scant literature exploring how they assess and identify delirium in older people. Methods This was a qualitative descriptive study. The setting was a regional referring hospital in New South Wales, Australia, and the participants were Registered Nurses with experience of delirium care. Data collection consisted of in-depth, face-to-face group interviews (n=8). Transcribed and deidentified data underwent thematic analysis concurrent with the data collection. Findings Registered Nurses (n=24) who worked on surgical, medical, renal, aged care, rehabilitation and emergency units participated in the interviews. A total of three themes were identified to explain how Registered Nurses assess and identify delirium: (1) It's not my job; (2) It is my job; and (3) It's complex. Conclusion and implications for practice The findings demonstrated that hospital delirium care education needs to target Registered Nurses across unit specialties to build mastery in delirium assessment and identification, and reinforce nurses' integral role in recognising delirium in older persons.


selected active device is essential to design an RF power amplifier for optimum gain and power added efficiency. As they are obtained, these impedances may not be realizable network functions over the desired frequency band to yield the input and the output matching networks for the amplifier. Therefore, in this paper, first, we introduce a new method to test if a given impedance is realizable. Then, a novel "Real Frequency Line Segment Technique" based numerical procedure is introduced to assess the gain-bandwidth limitations of the given source and load impedances, which in turn results in the ultimate RF-power intake/ delivering performance of the amplifier. During the numerical performance assessments process, a robust tool called "Virtual Gain Optimization" is presented. Finally, a new definition called "Power-Performance-Product" is introduced to measure the quality of an active device. Examples are presented to test the realizability of the given source/load pull data and to assess the gain-bandwidth limitations of the given source/load pull impedances for a 45W-GaN power transistor, namely "Cree CG2H40045", over 0.8 -3.8 GHz bandwidth.


Civil society organizations are often seen as repositories of social capital, and their existence is taken as evidence that the dilemma of collective action has been resolved and that there is a willingness to trust, share and cooperate. Thus, attitudes and structures are seen as two complementary elements in the social capital debate. This article suggests that attitudes and structures are not always matched. Research carried out in two Nicaraguan villages shows that there is a major contradiction between the structure of associational living and the structure of social capital at the local level. Rather than being agents of social transformation, organizations tend to institutionalize local divides in the form of social, political or economic segregation.


This article presents an analysis of various language policy mechanisms currently circulating in secondary schools in England, with a particular focus on those that intermingle 'language', 'standard English' and 'discipline'. Although the connections between language, ideology and behaviour are well established within critical educational linguistics, this has not been explored in relation to current education policy in England, which is characterised by an overt focus on standardised English and behaviour 'management'. In a grounded approach, I explore how the disciplining of language correlates with the disciplining of the body , based on ethnographic-orientated fieldwork undertaken in a London secondary school and drawing on a broad range of policy mechanisms such as curricula, textbooks, classroom artefacts and Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion industry. I show how the current linguistic conservatism found within government policy gets reproduced in school-level policies, pedagogies and classroom interactions, and highlight these relations within a network of policy actors and key terms associated with so-called 'zero-tolerance' and 'no-excuses' schools. I show how teachers are positioned as language policy managers who work within a system of surveillance, compliance, coercion and control. As such, this article contributes to current thinking within critical language policy and the sociology of education by offering an expanded view of language ideologies in schools, whereby connections between language and discipline are explicitly illustrated and critiqued.


Thin walled tubes, particularly those of square or circular cross-section, are the common types of automobile crash-box, which equipped at the front end of a car, is one of the most important automotive parts for crash energy absorption. In the present work, energy absorption characters of square and circular cross-section thin walled tubes at low-velocity frontal impact are investigated respectively by using finite element (FE) method. The numerical simulations were carried out using the software LS-DYNA. The tubes were modeled using shell element of designation Belytschko-Tsay, which is suitable for large strain analyses. The FE model of the tube was validated by comparing the theoretical calculation results, experimental results and FE model results. Results show that on average the difference of these results was within 10%. The good correlation of results obtained show that the numerical analyses are reliable.


A method for selective harmonic elimination in pulse-width-modulated (PWM) inverter waveforms by the use of Walsh functions is presented. The Walsh operational matrix of PWM is introduced as a means of obtaining the Walsh spectral equations of PWM waveforms. The slope and intercept Fourier operational matrices of PWM are also introduced as a means of obtaining Fourier spectral equations of PWM waveforms. A noniterative algorithm that produces piecewise-linear, global solutions between angles and for the angles is proposed. The algorithm also produces the full range of variation of fundamental voltage for given harmonic elimination constraints. The set of systems of linear equations obtained replaces the system of nonlinear transcendental equations used in the Fourier series harmonic elimination approach. In general, the algorithm makes possible the synthesis of two-state PWM inverter waveforms with specified old harmonic content. >


Existing research generally confirms a countercyclical education enrollment, whereby youths seek shelter in the educational system to avoid hardships in the labor market: the "discouraged worker" thesis. Alternatively, the "encouraged worker" thesis predicts that economic downturns steer individuals away from education because of higher opportunity costs. This study provides a formal test of these opposing theories using data from the United States compared with similar sources from the United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden. I investigate whether macroeconomic stimuli—including recessions and youth unemployment fluctuations—matter for enrollment decisions. Analyses rely on 10 years of detailed individual-level panel data, consisting of birth cohorts across several decades. Across data sources, results show enrollment persistence in secondary education is stronger in response to economic downturns. These patterns differ sharply for tertiary-enrolled students and those who recently left higher education. Surprisingly, U.S. youths display an increased hazard of school leaving and a decreased hazard of educational reenrollment in response to adverse conditions. In contrast, European youths tend to make enrollment decisions supportive of discouraged-worker mechanisms or insensitivity to adverse conditions. The U.S.-specific encouraged-worker mechanism might be explained by the relative importance of market forces in one's early career and the high costs of university attendance, which induces risk aversion with regard to educational investment. The discussion addresses the consequences for educational inequality.


The impact of faking on selection assessments and the need for methods to detect such behavior has drawn increased attention of researchers in the selection field over the last quarter century. The overarching purpose of this study was to assess the validity of utilizing eye-tracking technology in the detection of applicant faking on personality measures. Specifically, this study examined the physiological cues of response latency, eye fixation, and pupil dilation and their association with deception in the context of personality assessment in a job seeking scenario. The results indicated that individuals engaged in faking behavior had significantly more eye fixations and recorded significantly higher scores on the paper and pencil measure of cognitive load. In addition, results suggest that the experimental conditions likely accounted for the alterations in cognitive load regardless of the level of social desirability of items.


White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) were extirpated from a 1,800-ha natural area along the Missouri River near Omaha, Nebraska, USA shortly after settlement in the mid-1800s, but they recolonized the area in the early 1960s. In absence of hunting and predators, the population of deer became overabundant in the 1980s and 1990s. Deer impacted plant communities at Fontenelle Forest (FF) and Gifford Point (GP) and a 200-300% increase in deer-vehicle collisions was observed in the area. We radiocollared female white-tailed deer in this region during February 1995-March 1996 to determine the effects of phenological seasons and archery and muzzleloader hunting on space use. Mean size of annual home ranges of 50 radiocollared female deer was 275 ha (range ¼ 18-4,265 ha, SE ¼ 88). Forty-one of 50 deer (82%) maintained high fidelity to their small annual home ranges (x ¼ 115 ha, SE ¼ 13) and made short seasonal movements (<1.0 km). Seven deer dispersed and exhibited large seasonal shifts in centers of home ranges (x ¼ 3.2 km, range ¼ 1-7 km) and 2 deer exhibited migratory behavior. We observed no spatial patterns associated with seasonal dispersal or migration that would subject deer in unhunted areas to harvest in hunted areas. Controlled deer hunts were implemented in the upland areas adjacent to Bellevue residential area and the lowlands of FF and GP. Effects of archery hunting on deer use areas were minimal. Deer subjected to muzzleloader hunting increased the size of use areas by 88-97% and shifted centers of use areas a mean of 666 m (SE ¼ 211, range ¼ 121-1,932 m), but they did not leave the lowland areas of FF or GP. Controlled hunts enabled the removal of resident deer from populations adjacent to the Bellevue residential area. Where practical, we suggest that regulated hunting be used as part of an overall plan to manage densities of deer and associated impacts in developed landscapes. 2011 The Wildlife Society.


The tapered RF interaction cavity of 140 GHz tunable continuous wave (CW) gyrotron operating in TE0,3,q mode has been tailored with the aim of providing RF power over a tunable bandwidth for 212 MHz DNP NMR spectroscopy applications. Gyrotron device RF interaction cavity design, its beam absent RF characteristics as well as electron beam and RF wave interaction behavior, both analytical and Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulation studies have been presented. Using linear analysis, the start oscillation currents and the RF field profiles for the various axial operating modes indices q = 1, 2, 3 have been determined. Suitable modifications in the interaction cavity have been incorporated for the enhancement of device tunable bandwidth by operating the gyrotron in the high order axial indices via magnetic tuning. Gyrotron beam-wave interaction behaviour explored using time dependent non-linear multi-mode analysis for various beam currents and magnetic fields and more than >15W of RF power over a tunable bandwidth of 400MHz has been achieved through magnetic field tuning. This tunable bandwidth gyrotron design will of immense use for enhancement of sensitivity of the DNP NMR spectroscopy.


This article previews the issues and arguments in Collins v. City of Harker Heights, on the Supreme Court's 1991-92 appellate docket. City of Harker Heights presents two separate issues. First, the Court must decide whether in pleading an action under the civil rights statute sufficiently to withstand an early motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, an aggrieved party must allege state action, the deprivation of a constitutionally protected interest, and the additional element of an "abuse of governmental authority" in the state's actions toward the injured employee. Second, the Court must determine whether an injured state employee has a liberty or personal security interest directly protected under the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause, or a life or liberty interest under Texas law, also protected by the due process clause and hence by the civil rights statute.In the second case this term concerning the scope of civil rights actions (see Hafer v. Melo), the Court addresses the potentially wide-reaching question of whether the victim of a garden-variety tort should have a day in federal court. The basic federal civil rights statute provides that any person acting under color of state law who deprives another of "any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws" is liable to the injured party 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The Supreme Court has recognized the concept of a so-called "constitutional tort," which typically permits victims of major-league constitutional violations of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to seek redress in federal court. See Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167 (1961).City of Harker Heights poses a great line-drawing dilemma for the Supreme Court. If a state worker is injured on the job, under what circumstances can the employee sue the state employer under the federal civil rights act? Are constitutional torts the only redressable injuries, or does the civil rights statute provide relief for other non-constitutional torts? At the extreme, the Court is confronted with a floodgates scenario ― that the decision in Harker Heights may open the possibility of constitutionalizing all private tort actions, giving litigants federal court access to resolve basically state-based tort disputes.City of Harker Heights presents the Court with two separate but equally important questions concerning the substantive scope of federal civil rights protection and the procedural pleading requirements for seeking redress for violations of those protections. Harker Heights is an extraordinarily important case because the Court's decision could make state governments and various municipal entities liable under Section 1983 for various employee injuries on the job. The Court's decision will be closely watched to see how it defines and limits state liability.


This study proposes an improved predictive current control (PCC) strategy for unbalanced stand-alone doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG)-based wind power systems. The proposed control scheme predicts an appropriate average rotor voltage vector in next switching period to eliminate the rotor current errors in the following control period. The identified voltage vector sequence is then applied to the rotor-side converter (RSC) by using space-vector modulation with constant switching frequency. To increase the control accuracy, a proposed compensation method for the control time delay inherent in the digital implementation, mainly due to the sampling and calculation processes, is adopted. The whole control algorithm is performed in the RSC to achieve the desired control output, that is, compensation for the stator voltage imbalance. In addition, the effect of parameter variation on the performance of the control scheme is also considered. The proposed PCC method was tested by both simulations and experiments with 2.2 kW DFIG feeding an unbalanced load to demonstrate the excellent steady-state performance as well as the extremely fast dynamic response of the proposed current controller.


In a time when the competition for water resources is increasing, water law and policy for groundwater is evolving, bringing to the fore the conflict between surface use and groundwater. Unlike the oil and gas context where the mineral estate is dominant, the superiority of severed groundwater to the surface estate has remained uncertain. The recent Texas Supreme Court case, Coyote Lake Ranch v. City of Lubbock, addressed this question, holding that the accommodation doctrine (long applied to mineral estates) applied to groundwater interests in that case. On its face, the case was a dispute between a Texas city and a landowner over the use and damage to surface property caused by groundwater development. The implications of the Supreme Court's holding, however, run deep and are significant in this time of growing water scarcity. The Coyote Lake Ranch case signals a continued push toward unifying the law governing mineral and groundwater law and emphasizes the need for the courts and the Texas Legislature to be proactive in balancing the interests and rights of all parties.
Citation: Bradbury JD, Smith CC, Ory A. 2017. Coyote Lake Ranch v. City of Lubbock: a ranch, a city and the battle over surface use. Texas Water Journal. 8(1):87-96. Available from: https://doi.org/10.21423/twj.v8i1.7054.


BACKGROUND
The transcription factor STAT3 drives progression in glioblastoma, suggesting STAT3 as a therapeutic target. Surprisingly however, glioblastoma cells generally show primary resistance to STAT3 blockade.

METHODS
Human glioblastoma cell lines LN229, U87, SF767 and U373, and patient-derived xenografts (PDX) GBM8 and GBM43 were used to evaluate EGFR activation during STAT3 inhibition. Protein and gene expression experiments, protein stability assays, cytokine arrays, phospho-tyrosine arrays and EGFR-ligand protein arrays were performed on STAT3 inhibitor-treated cells. To evaluate antitumor activity, we administered a BTC-neutralizing antibody alone and in combination with STAT3 inhibition. BTC is an EGFR ligand. We therefore treated mice with orthotopic xenografts using the 3rd-generation EGFR inhibitor osimertinib, with or without STAT3 knockdown.

RESULTS
We demonstrate that both small molecule inhibitors and knockdown of STAT3 led to expression and secretion of the EGFR ligand betacellulin (BTC), resulting in activation of EGFR, and subsequent downstream phosphorylation of nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-ᴋB). Neutralizing antibody against BTC abrogated activation of both EGFR and NF-ᴋB in response to inhibition of STAT3; with combinatorial blockade of STAT3 and BTC inducing apoptosis in glioblastoma cells. Blocking EGFR and STAT3 together inhibited tumor growth, improving survival in mice bearing orthotopic patient-derived glioblastoma xenografts in vivo.

CONCLUSION
These data reveal a feedback loop among STAT3, EGFR and NF-ᴋB that mediates primary resistance to STAT3 blockade, and suggest strategies for therapeutic intervention.


The present study deals with a solid adsorption refrigerator analysis using activated carbon/methanol pair. It is a contribution to technology development of solar cooling systems. The main objective consists to analyse the heat and mass transfer in an annular porous adsorber that is the most important component of the system. The porous medium is contained in the annular space and the adsorber is heated by solar energy. A general model equation is used for modelling the transient heat and mass transfer. Effects of the key parameters on the adsorbed quantity, the coefficient of performance, and thus on the system performance are analysed and discussed.


To improve the field resolution of a magnetometer for use in the Earth's field, we have developed a new magnetometer using a hybrid superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). A multi-turn input coil (Ni turns) is inserted between a directly-coupled SQUID and a pickup coil in series in the hybrid SQUID. Screening current couples with the SQUID by both direct current injection and magnetic coupling. To avoid flux trapping, which occurs during cooling in the Earth's field, the width of the SQUID is restricted to be 5 μm. Therefore, the input coil is not stacked on the SQUID inductor like a conventional integrated SQUID but formed around the SQUID. There is an optimal Ni as a result of the trade-off relationship between the increase of the coupling strength and the decrease of the screening current with increasing Ni. The magnetometer using the hybrid SQUID with a slit hole inductor showed an effective area of 0.45 mm>;2 at the optimal Ni of 3. The magnetic coupling was enhanced by using a square hole inductor that had a larger flux capturing area. The obtained Aeff (~ 0.6 mm2) was almost doubled from that of the conventional directly coupled magnetometer, resulting in a field noise as low as 18 fT/Hz1/2 (white).


Abstract Lesbian spaces, in terms of their social, cultural, sexual or political purposes, have been dwindling in recent years within global North lesbian geographies. For this article, I would like to put forward a historical analysis of social spaces in Hong Kong through a qualitative ethnographic study of 12 older lesbians and bisexual women aged 60 years and above. Expanding upon Yue and Leung's theoretical assertion of disjunctive modernity and urban neoliberalism, I proceed to develop my argument that lived experiences in an urban environment diffuses and decenters the assertion of one's lesbian identity and sexual subjectivity across time and space. Under the British colonial era, the assertion of one's Chinese womanhood as independent and modern intersects with rapid industrialization and social transformations which lead to culturally-specific spatial practices in locating lesbian desires. I call this mode of spatial practice as everyday erotics in density to describe the way of navigating sexual desires in relation to urban development, where becoming a woman with lesbian desires mean not only carving out one's alternative erotic space but also disengaging with traditional gender roles in one's life course and redefining gender and sexuality for an older generation of women.


This article reports on the use of dictionaries for L2 text production purposes by first-year ESP students. Research into dictionary use and cognitive studies of L2 writing are combined in this paper to outline the cognitive dimension of a dictionary consultation. Our objective is to focus on the situation in which an information need occurs, with a freshman ESP student as a specific user in mind. In an attempt to guarantee the relevance of consulting a dictionary, for the purposes of our study we separated the draft stage of a composition from that of its revision. In the latter stage, external resources like dictionaries were made available. Our data suggest that our students were able to detect problems in their writing and reported having improved their compositions after having had the chance to consult dictionaries. The corrections were nonetheless implemented only in one-third of all the problems detected. It was also found that the tentative solution in L2 allowed for monolingual dictionary consultation but students often opted for generating another access key in their native language.


This study investigates the impact of video game image quality on telepresence. Past research has demonstrated positive associations between television image quality and presence and video game technology and presence. No study to date, however, has examined the presence effects of video games played in high definition, which is becoming increasingly common due to the diffusion of new TV technologies into homes. This paper reports the results of an experiment in which image quality was manipulated. The results of the study provide some support for image quality affecting telepresence. Specifically, higher quality images in video games led to higher levels of immersion. These findings are discussed along with suggestions for future research.


Abstract This research note studies the political representation of racial minorities in Singapore. Specifically, it analyzes whether racial minority members of parliament (MPs) are more likely than Chinese MPs to represent the interests of racial minorities in the Parliament. I answer this question through conducting content analyses of the parliamentary questions raised during the plenary meetings of the 10th–12th Parliament of Singapore (2002–2015). In total, 6,678 questions were asked. Our results show that racial minority MPs were significantly more likely (21.79 times) than Chinese MPs to ask questions related to racial minorities. While this study shows that racial minority MPs were significantly more likely than Chinese MPs to ask questions related to racial minorities, it also highlights the inadequacy of representation of racial minority interests in the Parliament of Singapore. During our period of study, only 1.2% of the total number of parliamentary questions focused on racial minorities. Besides MPs' race, this study finds that partisan affiliation crucially influenced the likelihood of MPs to represent racial minority interests. Political parties played an important role in shaping MPs' representational behavior. Compared to the People's Action Party (PAP) MPs, opposition MPs were significantly more likely to raise racial minority-related questions. One possible explanation could be that opposition MPs used parliamentary questions as an important tool to challenge and criticize the governing party's policies on racial minorities. Another explanation could be that PAP racial minority MPs' first loyalty has to be to the party and government rather than their co-ethnics, given that they are beholden to party elites for their seats.


Nucleic acid-based vaccines are effective in infectious disease models but have yielded disappointing results in tumor models when tumor-associated self-antigens are used. Incorporation of helper epitopes from foreign antigens into tumor vaccines might enhance the immunogenicity of DNA vaccines without increasing toxicity. However, generation of fusion constructs encoding both tumor and helper antigens may be difficult, and resulting proteins have unpredictable physical and immunologic properties. Furthermore, simultaneous production of equal amounts of highly immunogenic helper and weakly immunogenic tumor antigens in situ could favor development of responses against the helper antigen rather than the antigen of interest. We assessed the ability of 2 helper antigens (beta-galactosidase or fragment C of tetanus toxin) encoded by one plasmid to augment responses to a self-antigen (lymphoma-associated T-cell receptor) encoded by a separate plasmid after codelivery into skin by gene gun. This approach allowed adjustment of the relative ratios of helper and tumor antigen plasmids to optimize helper effects. Incorporation of threshold (minimally immunogenic) amounts of helper antigen plasmid into a DNA vaccine regimen dramatically increased T cell-dependent protective immunity initiated by plasmid-encoded tumor-associated T-cell receptor antigen. This simple strategy can easily be incorporated into future vaccine trials in experimental animals and possibly in humans.


In this paper a general method for system level prediction of INL in pipeline analog to digital converters is presented. For each stage of the ADC, a new error model consisting of an input referred gain error and a nonlinear term is introduced. An analytic method to calculate INL from all error sources is presented. INL model for a switched-capacitor implementation is also presented


The extensive disruption to and digital transformation of travel administration across borders largely due to COVID-19 mean that digital vaccine passports are being developed to resume international travel and kick-start the global economy. Currently, a wide range of actors are using a variety of different approaches and technologies to develop such a system. This paper considers the techno-ethical issues raised by the digital nature of vaccine passports and the application of leading-edge technologies such as blockchain in developing and deploying them. We briefly analyse four of the most advanced systems – IBM's Digital Health Passport "Common Pass," the International Air Transport Association's Travel Pass, the Linux Foundation Public Health's COVID-19 Credentials Initiative and the Vaccination Credential Initiative (Microsoft and Oracle) – and then consider the approach being taken for the EU Digital COVID Certificate. Each of these raises a range of issues, particularly relating to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the need for standards and due diligence in the application of innovative technologies (eg blockchain) that will directly challenge policymakers when attempting to regulate within the network of networks.


The value of an objective exercise test for the assessment of the functional results of aortocoronary bypass was investigated in 19 patients who were studied before and six months after the operation. For positive tests the end point was defined as a net ST segment depression of 0·1 mv 80 ms after the J point of the ECG. For negative tests the end point was 85% of the age-predicted maximal heart rate response. One patient who was not able to attain either of these points after the operation was excluded. In the remaining 18 patients three indices were used in the analysis. First, the heart rate (HR) and the product of heart rate and systolic blood pressure (RPP) were measured at the defined level of ST segment depression during positive exercise tests to yield HR/ST and RPP/ST threshold respectively. Second, the HR and RPP were measured at the end point of the negative tests. Third, the duration of exercise till the end point of the tests was measured. In each patient the duration of the postoperative test was longer than that of the preoperative test. While all the patients had a positive exercise test before the operation, the test was negative in 11 after it. In 10 of these 11 patients the HR and RPP attained at the end point of the postoperative test had increased; the HR and RPP remained unchanged in one patient. Positive tests were still present in seven of the 18 patients. In five of these the HR/ST threshold and RPP/ST threshold were greater after than before operation, and they remained unchanged in two. An improvement in myocardial blood supply after aortocoronary bypass was suggested indirectly by the ability to attain, during exercise, a higher HR and RPP at the end point of the test. The test proved especially valuable in patients who retained a positive exercise test after the operation.


This paper examines the degree and recent evolution (1988–2001) of export-price dispersion among European Union countries. It also explores the effect of exchange rates on export- price dispersion by reviewing the experience of some European countries that participated in the exchange rate stability zone. The results indicate that export-price dispersion across European Union countries was usually lower than across OECD countries. Moreover, although there is little evidence of convergence, this is stronger across European Union countries. Finally, even though price dispersion was often lower across European Union countries where exchange rates have been relatively stable than across countries with relatively volatile exchange rates, exchange-rate stability has not significantly contributed to export-price convergence across participating countries over the sample period.


In the past, only a few investigations have measured vibration at the cochlea with bone conduction stimulation: dry skulls were used in those investigations. In this paper, the transmission properties of bone conducted sound in human head are presented, measured as the three-dimensional vibration at the cochlear promontory in six intact cadaver heads. The stimulation was provided at 27 positions on the skull surface and two close to the cochlea; mechanical point impedance was measured at all positions. Cochlear promontory vibration levels in the three perpendicular directions were normally within 5 dB. With the stimulation applied on the ipsilateral side, the response decreased, and the accumulated phase increased, with distance between the cochlea and the excitation position. No significant changes were obtained when the excitations were on the contralateral side. In terms of vibration level, the best stimulation position is on the mastoid close to the cochlea; the worst is at the midline of the skull. The transcranial transmission was close to 0 dB for frequencies up to 700 Hz; above it decreased at 12 dB/decade. Wave transmission at the skull-base was found to be nondispersive at frequencies above 2 kHz whereas it altered with frequency at the cranial vault.


Cancer is an important disease, and health care services have the potential to improve the quality and quantity of life for cancer patients. The delivery of these services also has recently been well codified. Given this framework, cancer care presents a unique opportunity for clinicians to develop and test outcome measures across diverse practice settings. Recently, the Institute of Medicine released a report reviewing the quality of cancer care in the United States and called for further development and monitoring of quality indicators. Thus, as we move into the 21st century, professional and regulatory agencies will be seeking to expand process measures and develop and validate outcomes-oriented measures for cancer and other diseases. For such measures to be clinically relevant and feasible, it is key that the oncology community take an active leadership role in this process. To set the stage for such activities, this article first reviews broad methodologic concerns involved in selecting measures of the quality of care, using breast cancer to exemplify key issues. We then use the case of breast cancer to review the different phases of cancer care and provide examples of phase-specific measures that, after careful operationalization, testing, and validation, could be used as the basis of an agenda for measuring the quality of breast cancer care in oncology practice. The diffusion of process and outcome measures into practice; the practicality, reliability, and validity of these measures; and the impact that these indicators have on practice patterns and the health of populations will be key to evaluating the success of such quality-of-care paradigms. Ultimately, improved quality of care should translate into morbidity and mortality reductions.


Abstract Introduction: Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among women, and is usually treated surgically. Mastectomy has a great influence on the mental and physical condition of women. Breast reconstruction offers them a chance to improve their quality of life (QOL) and self-image. The main aim of the study was to gain knowledge about the impact of breast reconstruction on the QOL of women following mastectomy, and an analysis of the QOL after breast reconstruction, in the context of prosthesis effect assessment. Materials and methods: The study comprised 100 women following breast reconstructive surgery involved in 1 of the 7 "Amazon Clubs" (post-mastectomy women's associations) in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, northwest Poland. The study was based on the author's questionnaire, and a shortened standardized version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire. Statistical calculations were performed with StatSoft Statistica v10 software, adopting a significance level of p < 0.05. Results: The women who decided to have breast reconstruction surgery, noticed improved well-being (67%) and experienced an increase in self-confidence (61%). The vast majority of the patients surveyed (93%) were satisfied with the effect of the prosthesis. Statistically significant differences in QOL were observed in the following spheres: rest and sleep, work capacity, negative feelings, and financial resources (p < 0.05) in relation to the evaluation of the prosthesis effect. Conclusions: 1. Breast reconstruction has a positive influence on improvements in well-being, increasing self-esteem, and the assessment of a more attractive appearance in women of all ages. 2. Breast reconstruction surgery has a positive impact on QOL and health in the physical, psychological, and environmental domains, especially in the women who are satisfied with the effects of the surgery. 3. A negative assessment of the breast reconstruction effect has an adverse influence on QOL. Identifying the factors affecting dissatisfaction with the post-operative outcome is crucial for a complete understanding of the subject, and for implementing measures aimed at improving the QOL of these women.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To describe patients' perspectives concerning the use of humor in their care and recovery.

DESIGN
Descriptive.

SETTING
Community-based.

SAMPLE
Nine women with a diagnosis of breast cancer.

METHODS
Open-ended interviews were conducted with participants to identify their use of humor, its influence on spirituality, and their perceptions of how nurses use humor in caring for them during their treatment for breast cancer.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLE
The use of humor as a coping skill.

FINDINGS
The narrative data revealed three major categories, each with five to six themes illuminating humor as a coping factor, the relationship between humor and nursing, and the relationship between humor and spirituality.

CONCLUSIONS
Participants identified humor as an important coping factor. They also believed it played a role in their spirituality and their perception of the meaning and purpose of life. Nurses' use of humor is important to foster deeper, more trusting relationships with patients.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Humor must be recognized as an element of spiritual coping in patients with breast cancer. A need exists for further education for nurses concerning the importance of humor in the care of patients to promote recovery and improve the nurse-patient relationship. Research is needed to explore the use of cultural influences on humor, family perspectives of humor, and the influences of the overall environment.


Evaluation of the antigen immunogenicity is one of the initial steps in selecting an effective target for antitumor vaccination. This is most relevant for tumors that have no specific markers or have a weak mutational status like neuroblastoma. The purpose of this study is to select the most immunogenic antigen for DNA vaccination against neuroblastoma and to conduct a comparative analysis of predictive programs and a mouse model. To assess the immunogenicity C57Bl/6 female mice 8-10 weeks of age (n=25) were used. The mice received two vaccinations with a DNA construct based on tyrosine hydroxylase, Birc5, and Phox2b antigens. On the 28th day, the spleens were removed and the cytotoxic activity of splenocytes and the level of production ofIFNγ were assessed. The highest levels of cytotoxic activity (18.4%) and IFNγ (60% of those responding to stimulation) were observed after vaccination with Phox2b. Thus, the most immunogenic antigen according to IEDB showed the best results in the mouse model and can be further used for DNA vaccination in neuroblastoma.


Over the last several decades, participation in producer organizations has become a key principle of development, enabling people's empowerment, inclusiveness, and facilitating democracy. Producer organizations have become crucial actors to provide services to the rural poor, and women's participation and leadership in producer organizations has become a focus of rural and agricultural development efforts. This review paper aims to document the factors that hinder women's participation in producer organizations. The review identifies several factors as major barriers for women's participation, including: socio-cultural norms; women's double burden and triple roles; women's status, age and previous membership in organizations; access to assets and resources; educational level; organizations' rules of entry, and; legal and policy environment. The paper also provides a review of lessons and good practice that can be applied by Agricultural Research for Development institutions. The review identified strategies for strengthening women's participation in producer organizations at the individual/household, community/producer organization, and policy level. The review found that at the individual/household level, strategies to improve individual capabilities and intra-household relations were crucial for promoting women's participation and leadership in producer organizations. Similarly, at the producer organizational level strategies to ensure that the structures and governance mechanisms are more gender sensitive, and promote women's inclusion, are crucial. Equally important are policies for promoting gender-sensitive producer organizations and specific measures geared at promoting women's active participation in producers' organizations.


Silicon heterojunction solar cells are emerging photovoltaic devices that have gained particular interest for their very high open-circuit voltages. Unfortunately, the amorphous silicon layers that both passivate the crystalline silicon surfaces and act as emitter and back-surface field introduce new design constraints that often reduce the short-circuit current and fill factor compared to diffused junction solar cells. Here, we investigate the roles of the front and back transparent conductive oxide films, as well as the front amorphous silicon stack, in current generation. Decreasing the doping density of the indium tin oxide (ITO) films at the front of the cells trades optical losses for electrical losses as parasitic, long-wavelength absorption is reduced but film resistance is increased. However, high currents can be obtained while retaining respectable fill factors with proper ITO and metallization combinations. The rear ITO doping may be tuned to promote long wavelength transparency while avoiding fill factor losses due to contact resistance. The p-type amorphous silicon film that forms the emitter is found to be electrically dead in the sense that no light absorbed in this layer contributes to the current. Reducing the layer thickness to improve current generation comes at a price, however, as fill factor also falls. 2×2 cm2 screen-printed silicon heterojunction solar cells fabricated with these considerations in mind exhibit short-circuit densities above 38 mA/cm2, open-circuit voltages over 725 mV, and efficiencies as high as 20.8%.


OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the prevalence and the clinical evolution of patients with an initial diagnosis of indeterminate colitis. DESIGN: Retrospective, observational study. SETTING: Fifteen gastrointestinal units in northern Italy. PARTICIPANTS: Patients with an initial diagnosis of indeterminate colitis seen between 1988 and 1993. INTERVENTIONS: Patients were traced through a common database and centres were requested to update their clinical follow-up. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Frequency of patients with an initial diagnosis of indeterminate colitis among those with IBD; rate of patients who subsequently had a definite diagnosis of either Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis. RESULTS: Fifty out of 1113 IBD patients (4.6%) had been diagnosed as having indeterminate colitis. During follow-up, 37 patients (72.5%) had a definite diagnosis of either Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis. The cumulative probability of having a definite diagnosis of either ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease was 80% 8 years after the first one (i.e. the first diagnosis). The probability of having a diagnosis of Crohn's disease was increased in patients with fever at onset, segmental endoscopic lesions or extra-intestinal complications and in current smokers. The probability of having a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis was increased in patients who had not undergone appendectomy before diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: In our area, indeterminate colitis accounts for about 5% of initial diagnoses of IBD. In about 80% of patients, a diagnosis of either ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease is made within 8 years. Several clinical and demographic features can help in identifying those patients more likely to have a subsequent diagnosis of Crohn's disease and those more likely to have a subsequent diagnosis of ulcerative colitis.