Inertial microfluidics-based devices have recently attracted much interest and attention due to their simple structure, high throughput, fast processing and low cost. They have been utilised in a wide range of applications in microtechnology, especially for sorting and separating microparticles. This novel class of microfluidics-based devices works based on intrinsic forces, which cause microparticles to migrate laterally and locate at their equilibrium positions. In this article, a comprehensive theoretical formulation is presented for the dynamics of ultrasmall particles in microfluidics-based devices. Explicit expressions are presented for various important forces, which act on a microparticle, such as drag, Magnus, Saffman and wall-induced forces. In addition, the drag coefficient, diffusion phenomenon and Peclet number are formulated. Finally, the influences of particle size, as a crucial parameter, on various intrinsic forces including drag, Magnus and Saffman forces as well as the wall-induced force, are investigated. It is found that the drag, wall-induced and Saffman forces have an important role to play in the dynamics of microparticles in inertial microfluidics while the effects of Magnus force and diffusion can be ignored in most applications.


Mass strandings of whales and dolphins have puzzled biologists since Aristotle. Although environmental factors are often assumed to initiate strandings, social forces must also influence the dynamics of many of these events, particularly for the primary species involved in mass strandings, the long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas). Here, we test two hypotheses derived from common assumptions about the social dynamics of long-finned pilot whales by identifying maternal lineages from mtDNA haplotypes and inferring kinship from microsatellite genotypes of 490 individuals from 12 stranding events. Contrary to the "extended matriline" hypothesis, we found that multiple maternal lineages were present in at least 9 of the 12 mass strandings. Contrary to the "kinship cohesion" hypothesis, we found no correlation between spatial distribution and kinship along the stranding beach. Most notably, we documented the spatial disruption of the expected proximity between mothers and their dependent calves. These results challenge the common assumption that kinship-based behavior, such as care-giving, are a primary factor in these mass strandings. We suggest instead that disruption of kinship bonds could result from interactions among unrelated social groups during feeding or mating aggregations, perhaps playing a causal role in these events. Our finding that dependent calves were often spatially separated or absent from their mothers has important implications for humane management of rescue efforts. To improve our understanding of the social causes and consequences of mass strandings, future documentation of strandings should include exhaustive DNA sampling, with accompanying spatial and temporal records.


Abstract Although fitness depends on both survivorship and fecundity, we tend to assume fecundity relates to fitness more directly than survivorship. In fact, several recent ecological studies suggest fitness depends more heavily on annual survivorship than annual fecundity for most taxa with lifespans longer than one year. These studies review elasticities of transition matrices for a broad range of taxa. Elasticities covary monotonically with selection gradients for demographic rates and are identical to selection gradients for traits rescaled to have mean values of zero and variance of one. For all taxa except semelparous perennial plants, adult survivorship has consistently higher elasticity than other suites of demographic rates. Fecundity only rarely has the highest elasticity. Thus, differences in yearly survival affect fitness disproportionately more than differences in yearly fecundity, even in many exponentially growing populations. This pattern reinforces the importance of interpreting the contribution of vital rates to fitness in the context of life history and population dynamics. Corresponding Editor: T. Mousseau


: Using the fermenting technique that hydrolysis the phytate in soybeans. The absorption rate of iron was improved and a series of fermented soya foods were produced. Feeding the fermented food to 437 children for 6 months, the incidence of IDA children significantly decreased from 21.7% to 1.25%. The iron absorption rate (21.8%) in the children given the diet containing fermented soy was significantly higher than that of (14.2%) in the children given the bland diet (control group) and about the same as that in the FeSO4 group (22.48%) 58Fe.


This paper focuses on a new way for students to deepen their knowledge in image processing and analysis with the help of an online laboratory. The existing solution provides a remotely controlled visual presenter which is used to project a document or book to various kinds of screens. The visual presenter can be controlled remotely and it provides the possibility to design, create and upload your own autofocus algorithm. Via the serial port and an image acquisition card the visual presenter can be controlled with the LabVIEW 8.6 software (National instruments, USA). Because of numerous advantages such as single login and reservation system for more online laboratories the whole experiment is realized within the iLab shared architecture.


Insured weather losses in the US reached record highs in the early 1990s, leading to major concerns in the insurance industry about the causes, including the possibility of climate change due to global warming. Several studies addressing the interpretation of the record high losses used historical insurance data sets, those for crop‐hail losses and others based on the catastrophic events to the property insurance industry, both covering the 1949–1995 period. The past loss values were adjusted by insurance experts for shifting coverage, inflation, and evolving construction practices. The resulting adjusted values of crop loss and costly catastrophes to property both showed similar distributions for 1949–1995, with losses being high in the 1950s and again in the early 1990s. This distribution was found to have a weak relationship with extra‐tropical cyclone activity in the US, but most of the recent increase in weather losses to insured property was found to be related to shifting societal factors that have put ever more property at risk in storm‐prone areas, including coastal areas and large metropolitan areas. The low property and crop storm losses of the 1966–1985 period had created an incorrect perception of the weather risk in the insurance industry, which did not understand nor appreciate the existence of the decadal‐scale fluctuations that exist in climate conditions. Copyright © 1999 Royal Meteorological Society


In this study we present several lines of evidence suggesting a 'non-ingestive' mecha- nism by which nanoflagellates attached to sinking or suspended particles can enhance aggregation and enlargement of smaller particles in marine environments. Using epifluorescence microscopy, we observed the adhesion of model particles (0.5 µm fluorescent latex beads) in the feeding current from a particle-attached flagellate, Paraphysomonas imperforata, to the aggregate colonized by the fla- gellate. Particle counter measurements showed a significant increase in larger aggregates occurring only in the presence of living P. imperforata. The transfer rate of model particles to larger aggregates was determined by a flow cytometric technique and was observed to be higher in the presence of the attached flagellate than in free-living ones. In nutrient-enriched coastal seawaters, the transfer of model submicron particles to large particles (5 to 20 µm) was significantly reduced with the addition of eucaryotic and respiratory inhibitors (thiuram, NaN3). Ingestion of the latex beads by nanoflagel- lates did not explain the observed transfer rates of beads to larger particles. Collectively, the feeding current of attached flagellates, which has been ignored before as a mechanism for particle aggrega- tion in marine environments, accelerates the attachment of submicron particles to larger particles. This process might be important in coastal productive waters, where both attached flagellates and submicron particles are abundant.


Global free trade presents both challenges and opportunities for South African agribusiness firms. To improve their competitiveness, firms need to become more customer orientated and cost effective. Product differentiation (adding value to products) and niche marketing are just two approaches firms can use to satisfy consumer wants. Cost leadership can be achieved through economies of size, reducing transaction costs and adopting cost-saving technology. This study presents recognised strategies that firms can adopt to meet the challenges of competition. Total Quality Management (continuous process improvement) can be used in conjunction with process reengineering (radical process redesign), whilst both concepts are integrated into process management. The main focus of this study is on quality issues, especially the experiences with the ISO 9000 quality assurance standards amongst South African agribusiness firms. Worldwide, the ISO 9000 standards have received considerable support from firms seeking to improve their economic competitiveness. A postal survey was conducted in 1998 amongst 92 South African agribusiness firms to establish the extent of adoption of the ISO 9000 quality assurance standards, reasons for certification and the costs and benefits of adopting these standards. Almost 36 percent of respondent firms were ISO 9000 certified. The desire to improve customer service, a basis for quality improvement and the need to improve operational efficiency (reduce wastage) were the most important factors influencing certification. Certification had a positive impact on most performance indicators, in particular on documented processes (e.g. record-keeping), overall firm performance and quality of output.Total costs of achieving ISO 9000 certification did not exceed 1,02 percent of turnover. Cost economies were evident for large firms. Two-group and three-group Discriminant analyses were conducted to identify and rank factors that distinguish between firms which had adopted the ISO 9000 standards, those which had adopted alternative quality assurance systems, and those operating without any formal quality assurance standards. Results revealed that ISO 9000 certified firms tended to be larger, established firms with parent company affiliation, manufacturing products derived from agricultural output and exporting to developed countries. Most non-ISO 9000 certified firms had adopted an alternative quality assurance system. Firms with no recognised form of quality assurance tended to be cooperatives involved in service provision. The most important variable distinguishing ISO 9000 adopters from adopters of alternative quality assurance systems was turnover (firm size). The presence of size economies could prevent small firms from adopting ISO 9000. Due to the fact that the ISO 9000 quality assurance standards are internationally recognised and have received considerable international support, government might consider subsidising the costs of ISO 9000 certification amongst small and medium-sized enterprises wanting to export to developed countries. In addition, government and business associations could increase awareness of ISO 9000 and its associated costs and benefits amongst South African firms by disseminating relevant information.


ABSTRACT In Democratic Education in a Globalized World (Routledge, 2019) I defend a discourse theory of global justice as the appropriate normative 1 1 I would like to thank the guest editors of the book symposium, Klaus Dingwerth and Simon Pistor, as well as David Tresilian and Sharman Levinson for valuable exchanges on this article. ground for conceiving educational justice and citizenship education under conditions of economic and political globalization. In addition, I articulate democratic conceptions of global educational justice and citizenship education that recognize a moral-political right to democratically adequate education and call for the creation of transnational democratic consciousness. Based on these conceptions I spell out school practices such as historically informed, cross-cultural learning within socially diverse settings that would contribute to realizing these conceptions. In this article I reply to liberal perfectionist, communitarian-conservative and empiricist-historical critiques of Democratic Education in a Globalized World from Michael Festl, Martin Beckstein and Michael Geiss, respectively. I emphasize the feasibility of injustice-reducing educational practices, I explain how a discourse theory of justice accommodates considerations of both the good and the right, and I justify why the grim record of past educational experience does not render pointless the pursuit of progressive aims through education.


The aim of this thesis is to investigate the effects of interstellar processing using presolar samples. Dust in the interstellar medium is predicted to have experienced grain-grain and grain-gas collisions, cosmic-ray bombardment, or the formation of ices on their surfaces. Each process is likely to have altered presolar grains. The grains are extracted from meteorites and can be analyzed in the laboratory to try and understand these processes. The main analytical tool used in this research was a new time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry instrument equipped with a Au-cluster primary ion source. Analysis of presolar grains required that a rigorous experimental procedure was developed. A depth-profiling technique for the analysis of micron-sized samples was produced and the limitations of the technique considered. Secondary ion mass spectrometry suffers from matrix effects, so homogeneous silicate glass standards were analyzed. The use of Au-cluster primary ions was shown to enhance practical secondary ion yields relative to those with Au+, consistent with increased sputter rates. Relative sensitivity factors for major and trace elements in the standards were obtained using both normal and delayed secondary ion extraction techniques. Depth-profiles of Li, B, Mg, Al, K, Ca, Ti, V, Cr and Fe were obtained from eleven presolar SiC grains. In some SiC grains, the abundances of several elements were up to orders-of-magnitude higher in the outer ~200nm relative to the grain cores. This was attributed to the implantation of interstellar matter, accelerated to velocities of ~1000kms-1 by supernovae shockwaves. Other SiC grains contained homogeneously distributed trace elements, or evidence of elemental zoning, which could be explained by condensation processes around the grains? parent stars. These grains must have experienced minimal processing in the interstellar medium. It is suggested that the two populations represent SiC grains whose residence times in the interstellar medium significantly differed, consistent with previous findings of noble gas and Li isotopic studies. A further study investigated carbonaceous grains isolated from the Murchison meteorite using a size and density procedure adapted for presolar graphite. No graphite grains were found and possible reasons for this are discussed. The structural and isotopic natures of thirty-three carbonaceous grains were determined by correlated, multi-instrument analyses. The grains contained solar C, N and O isotopic compositions. Deuterium was enriched in the grains with ?D values up to +333 � 110?. These enrichments suggest exchange of H with cold interstellar gas in the outer part of the early solar nebula or interstellar medium. Raman spectroscopic and transmission electron microscopic analysis showed the grains to be composed of carbon more structurally disordered and amorphous than most carbonaceous phases observed in extra-terrestrial samples. It is argued that amorphization of the grains occurred through solar wind ion irradiation in the proto-solar nebula. This model is supported by previous studies of terrestrial soot and carbon-rich ices irradiated by H+ and He+ ion doses of ~10^15 ? 10^16 ions cm-2. Implantation and mixing of H+ ions is likely to have diluted the grains? original H isotopic composition.


Sublimation-grown 3C-SiC crystals were implanted with B ions at elevated temperature (400 °C) using multiple energies (100 to 575 keV) with a total dose of 1.3×1017 atoms/cm2 in order to form intermediate band (IB) in 3C-SiC. The samples were then annealed at 1400 °C for 60 min. An anomalous area in the center was observed in the PL emission pattern. The SIMS analysis indicated that the B concentration was the same both within and outside the anomalous area. The buried boron box-like concentration profile can reach ~3×1021 cm-3 in the plateau region. In the anomalous area a broad emission band (possible IB) emerges at around ~1.7-1.8 eV, which may be associated with B-precipitates having a sufficiently high density.


Three-dimensional (3-D) finite-element heat-transfer and thermal stress models were established to predict temperature, distortion and thermal stress in a continuous casting mold for steel slabs during operation. The effects of copper plate thickness, water slot depth, nickel layer and casting speed on temperature, distortion and thermal stress of copper plate were analyzed in detail. The results show that during casting, a maximum temperature, about 285°C, was found just near the meniscus of the centre of hot copper surface, and decreasing the thickness of copper plate and nickel layer, and increasing water slot depth are available in decreasing the copper plate temperature, therefore improving the mold life. The maximum distortion of wide and narrow copper faces are 0.245 mm and 1.01 mm, respectively, and it increases with increasing copper plate thickness and casting speed, and decreasing water slot. Nickel layer thickness has little effect on distortion and much effect on thermal stress.


Abstract Invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) remains difficult to diagnose and to treat. Most common risk factors are prolonged neutropenia, hematopoietic stem cell or solid organ transplantation, inherited or acquired immunodeficiency, administration of steroids or other immunosuppressive agents including monoclonal antibodies and new small molecules used for cancer therapy. Critically ill patients are also at high risk of IPA. Clinical signs are unspecific. Early computed tomography (CT)-scan identifies the two main aspects, angioinvasive and airway invasive aspergillosis. Although CT-scan findings are not fully specific they usually allow early initiation of therapy before mycological confirmation of the diagnosis. Role of 18F-fludeoxyglucose positron emission tomography with computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT) is discussed. Confirmation is based on microscopy and culture of respiratory samples, histopathology in case of biopsy, and importantly by detection of Aspergillus galactomannan using an immunoassay in serum and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. Deoxyribonucleic acid detection by polymerase chain reaction is now standardized and increases the diagnosis yield. Two point of care tests detecting an Aspergillus glycoprotein using a lateral flow assay are also available. Mycological results allow classification into proven (irrespective of underlying condition), probable or possible (for cancer and severely immunosuppressed patients) or putative (for critically ill patients) IPA. New antifungal agents have been developed over the last 2 decades: new azoles (voriconazole, posaconazole, isavuconazole), lipid formulations of amphotericin B (liposomal amphotericin B, amphotericin B lipid complex), echinocandins (caspofungin, micafungin, anidulafungin). Results of main trials assessing these agents in monotherapy or in combination are presented as well as the recommendations for their use according to international guidelines. New agents are under development.


The paper describes results of a parametric study obtained while using an analytical model described earlier (Bunama and Karim, 1997b) investigating the combined effects of mass, energy and momentum transfer with variable transport and thermodynamic properties on the formation of fuel vapour-air mixtures above a stagnant liquid fuel surface within the confines of a vertical cylindrical vessel. This was done mainly to examine the establishment of the formation of flammable mixtures and their changes in size and location with time within liquid fuel tanks that are partially empty. The effects of changes in the ambient and wall temperatures, presence of liquid on the walls and vessel geometry were considered. Moreover, the results of a corresponding experimental investigation are presented. Much of the data relates to the high volatility fuel n-pentane that represents the tighter fuel fractions in commercial fuels which through their early evaporation contribute much to the fire hazards in fuel tanks.Copyright © 1998 by ASME


The ubiquity of Lyman alpha (Lyα) emission in a sample of four bright [O iii]-strong star-forming galaxies with redshifts above seven has led to the suggestion that such luminous sources represent a distinct population compared with their fainter, more numerous counterparts. The presence of Lyα emission within the reionization era could indicate that these sources created early ionized bubbles due to their unusually strong radiation, possibly because of the presence of active galactic nuclei. To test this hypothesis, we secured long integration spectra with XSHOOTER on the VLT for three sources selected to have similar luminosities and prominent excess fluxes in the IRAC 3.6 or 4.5 μm band, usually attributed to strong [O iii] emission. We secured additional spectroscopy for one of these galaxies at z = 7.15 using MOSFIRE at the Keck telescope. For the most well-studied source in our sample with the strongest IRAC excess, we detect significant nebular emission from He ii and N v indicative of a non-thermal source. For the other two sources at z = 6.81 and z = 6.85, for which no previous optical/near-infrared spectroscopy was available, Lyα is seen in one and C iii] emission in the other. Although based on a modest sample, our results further support the hypothesis that the phenomenon of intense [O iii] emission is associated preferentially with sources lying in early ionized bubbles. However, even though one of our sources at z = 7.15 suggests the presence of non-thermal radiation, such ionized bubbles may not uniquely arise in this manner. We discuss the unique advantages of extending such challenging diagnostic studies with JWST.


The behavior of blood glucose, plasma free fatty acids and cortisol has been studied after insulin administration in subjects with diabetes mellitus without known complications and with normal plasma cortisol circadian rhythm. The mean plasma cortisol response to hypoglycemia in the diabetic subjects was below that of the normal controls, but not statistically significant. The slower rise to normal in the diabetic group was probably due to the lesser degree of hypoglycemia.


We examine the roles of information sharing and borrower's legal rights in affecting the procyclical effect of bank loan loss provisions. Based on a sample of Asian banks, our empirical results highlight that higher non-discretionary provisions reduce loan growth and, hence, non-discretionary provisions are procyclical. A closer investigation suggests that better information sharing through public credit registries managed by central banks, not private credit bureaus managed by the private sector, might substitute for the role of dynamic provisioning systems in mitigating the procyclicality of non-discretionary provisions. We also document that higher discretionary provisions in countries with stronger legal rights for borrowers temper the procyclical effect of non-discretionary provisions. However, these findings hold only for small banks. This suggests that the implementation of dynamic provisioning systems to mitigate the procyclicality of non-discretionary provisions is more crucial for large banks.


Epitaxial growth is a critical technology in numerous areas ranging from elemental semiconductors to optoelectronic materials, from magnetic multilayers to inorganic insulators, from protein crystals to quantum dots. This book brings together an international mix of researchers and scientists to address common themes in epitaxial growth. Contributions by experts in the field are enriched by the additional mix of student and invited papers. Topics include: growth mechanisms; characterization; strained systems and novel epitaxy.


In the period November 1967 to September 1968 Haemophilus influenzae type b was isolated from the blood of 11 young children. Only three of these presented with meningitis; others had septic arthritis, oesteomyelitis, subcutaneous abscesses, cellulitis, respiratory infections, and undifferentiated pyrexia. During the preceding five years H. influenzae type b was isolated from the blood cultures of 15 patients, and all but two of these were cases of meningitis. Blood culture has proved of value in establishing the role of H. influenzae type b in a broad spectrum of acute infections, and the suggestion is made that meningitis may represent only a minority of cases of haemophilus septicaemia. Because H. influenzae is resistant to some antibiotics bacteriological diagnosis of such cases is important if the correct treatment is to be given.


Walking in Jakarta, Indonesia, is often regarded as inconvenient, unsafe, and associated with limited mobility and accessibility. These attributes are the manifestation of Jakarta's socio-spatial structures over time (path dependence) of spatial development events in the past, which considered walking as less important in comparison to vehicular movement. In this paper, we explore Jakarta's trajectory by analysing and interpreting the results of mathematical street network models using space syntax at a metropolitan scale for three discrete time steps (1940, 1959, 2018). We juxtapose the computational analysis with Jakarta's history of urban development and selected transport data. Our findings indicate that vehicular dominance (i.e. car-oriented development) has been inadvertently imposed in Jakarta's socio-spatial structure over time. This structure highly penalises those without access to private motorised vehicles, thus entrenching the existing socio-economic inequalities; especially for the potentially marginalised groups (e.g. urban poor, immigrants, those with disability, elderly, children). For them, this structure influences the accessibility to key functions such as schools and health care services. In light of sustainable urban mobility and the United Nation's sustainable development goals (SDGs), our findings highlight the influence that socio-spatial structures have on transport mobility practice. Moreover, our results provide insights for understanding and addressing mobility inequality. We further link our results to current planning policies in Jakarta. This application of space syntax contributes to urban strategic and transport planning by emphasising the need to change the conventional urban planning practices, which heavily prioritises road infrastructures while neglecting the socio-spatial structure and intertwined land use of the city.


Using input, output and pollution data of industrial enterprises in 30 Chinese provinces and municipalities from 1998 to 2005, this paper creates an environmental production frontier function model to assess China's industrial growth sources, particularly environmental control and changes in the industrial environmental structure's impact on industrial productivity. It found that (1) at its current stage, China's rapid industrial growth is accompanied by a slow increase in pollution; (2) environmental total factor productivity has become a primary driver of rapid growth with less pollution; (3) environmental control didn't cause any substantial restraint on China's industrial growth; (4) improvement in industrial environmental structure contributes an increasingly large share to economic growth with less pollution. China's industrial productivity is increasing, its growth model is being transformed, and the environment is exerting a diminishing constraint on economic growth.


The traditional lifestyle and beliefs of pastoralists and small-scale farmers with confined livestock, together with certain farming environments, create favourable conditions for the spread and transmission of brucellosis. The risks associated with these practices are difficult to control because of a lack of alternatives and simple and/or affordable solutions. Brucellosis affects the health and productivity of livestock as well as that of their owners and caretakers and can have a deep economic impact. The control of brucellosis is likely to be cost effective. Good quantitative information on brucellosis in livestock and the human population is essential for demonstrating the benefits of intervention. Effective vaccines for the control of brucellosis in cattle and small ruminants are available and cheap, and in high-risk areas there is an urgent need to start large-scale vaccination programmes. Risks for the spread and transmission of brucellosis, such as the migration of herds with frequent contacts with other herds at common feeding grounds and near water sources, are inherent in the way of life of pastoralists. Such risks may need to be accepted when developing a control programme. Thus, the control of brucellosis by vaccination is expected to be more effective for confined livestock. Essential to the success of mass vaccination in controlling brucellosis is achieving a high degree of protection of adult livestock in a very short period and vaccinating young stock before natural infection can occur. To reduce the risk of transmission of infection from neighbouring areas where animals are not vaccinated, a region-wide approach is important. Because shepherds and farmers may have very little knowledge of infectious diseases and the consequences of infection, providing disease information and education is important to help them understand the need for control measures. Public health services can also assist in encouraging acceptance of control programmes in livestock by creating awareness of brucellosis as a human disease. To reduce costs, brucellosis control programmes can be combined with other veterinary or public health activities or interventions. An up-to-date livestock census and an effective surveillance system are crucial for the control of brucellosis, as the disease may quickly re-emerge from remaining foci of infection. Although test and slaughter may be an option for the management of remaining or re-emerging foci of infection, such a strategy is frequently not an option because of the cost.


The worldwide prevalence of diabetes mellitus is increasing, which especially involves people aged >65 years. A recent study also found that almost 75% of adults with diabetes have two or more comorbid conditions. The aim of the study was to investigate the impact of comorbidities on health care service use and health care costs of an elderly diabetes cohort with high health care needs (HHCN), based on real-world data.

 For the purposes of the present study, people with a diagnosis of diabetes, residing in the area served by the ex-ULSS4-Veneto LHU, and characterized as having HHCN, corresponding to ACG-RUBs 4 and 5 were considered. The comorbidities was assessed using clinical diagnoses that the ACG System assigns to single patients by combining different information flows. The presence of correlation between comorbidity classes and total annual health care costs and use was tested with Spearman Test. Moreover, the association between above mentioned variables was tested with a appropriate regression, adjusting for age and sex.

 Mean overall cost and drug cost ranged respectively from 6284 euro, 525 euro in a patient with only 1 comorbidity to 10752 euro and 1764 euro for a patient with more than 8 comorbidities. The study shows that all measures of health care services use (as emergency care accesses; number of outpatients visits; number of inpatients admissions) have a statistically significant correlation with comorbidities class. However, multivariate analyses revealed that no different use in hospitalization was associated with comorbidity class. A significant correlation was also detected among costs variables (total annual costs and pharmacy costs) and comorbidity classes.

 The increase in total healthcare services use and costs due to the increased number of comorbidities was seen mainly for primary care services, highlighting the need of primary care to be strengthen in an ageing and multi-morbid population.

 Overall cost and drug cost for patients with more than 8 comorbidities are respectively almost doubled and more than threefold greater than those with only one comorbidities. The study revealed an increase in primary care services, suggesting an implementation of these services giving the aging population and the increase prevalence of comorbid diabetic patients worldwide.


In this paper, we describe the ViVoLab speech activity detection (SAD) system submitted to the Fearless steps Challenge phase III. This series of challenges have proposed a number of speech processing task dealing with audio from Apollo space missions over the last few years. The focus in this edition is set on the generalisation capabilities of the systems, with new evaluation data from different channels. Our proposed submission is based on the use of the unsupervised representation learning paradigm, seeking to obtain a new and more discriminative audio representation than traditional perceptual features such as log Mel-filterbank energies. These new features are used to train different variations of a convolutional recurrent neural network (CRNN). Experimental results show that features learned via unsupervised learning provide a much more robust representation, significantly reducing the mismatch observed between development and evaluation partition results. Obtained results largely outperform the organisation baseline, achieving a DCF metric of 2.98% on the evaluation set and ranking third among all the participant teams.


Pre-training on large-scale video data has become a common recipe for learning transferable spatiotemporal representations in recent years. Despite some progress, existing methods are mostly limited to highly curated datasets (e.g., K400) and exhibit unsatisfactory out-of-the-box representations. We argue that it is due to the fact that they only capture pixel-level knowledge rather than spatiotemporal semantics, which hinders further progress in video understanding. Inspired by the great success of image-text pre-training (e.g., CLIP), we take the first step to exploit language semantics to boost transferable spatiotemporal representation learning. We introduce a new pre-text task, Turning to Video for Transcript Sorting (TVTS), which sorts shuffled ASR scripts by attending to learned video representations. We do not rely on descriptive captions and learn purely from video, i.e., leveraging the natural transcribed speech knowledge to provide noisy but useful semantics over time. Our method enforces the vision model to contextualize what is happening over time so that it can re-organize the narrative transcripts, and can seamlessly apply to large-scale uncurated video data in the real world. Our method demonstrates strong out-of-the-box spatiotemporal representations on diverse benchmarks, e.g., +13.6% gains over VideoMAE on SSV2 via linear probing. The code is available at https://github.com/TencentARC/TVTS.


A loxodromic antenna array is a spiral array on the spherical surface. Distribution of elementary antennas on the spherical surface was made by following loxodromic curves. This type of antenna array offers a wide range of opportunities in the variation of their radiation patterns through antenna distribution and phase control. The paper studies different loxodromic antenna arrays based on the influence of an Archimedean spiral configuration pattern on the radiation pattern of a spherical antenna array. Analysis was made using a developed moment method program with a spectral-domain approach.


The of classical scholars concerning imâmat can be divided broadly into two tendencies. The first try to idealize imâmat concept accompanied with repudiation directly or indirectly toward reality which is considered non ideal. The second try to idealize imâmat concept but accompanied with possibilities to accommodate reality and historical experience although it is considered non ideal. Scholars who tend to first tendency can be categorized as idealist while they are tend to second tendency can be categorized as realist.

According to Hamid Enayat, Sunni scholars commonly have realistic political thought while Khawarij and Syi'ah commonly have idealistic political thought. According to him so far as the Sunni thinking on the Caliphate enjoyed any continuity , one can detect in it a pronounced sense of realism, an eagerness to adjust theory to practice. Compared with their Syi'i counterparts , the Sunni exponents of the theory of the Caliphate between the fifth and eighth centuries displayed much greater flexibility in adapting their ideas to political reality.

Al-Juwaini Imam al-Haramain is well known as Sunni figure in his era. As a Sunni it can be hypothesized that he has realistic political thought. But in theological thought he has his own opinion which differs with Asyariyah or Sunni mainstream. Harun Nasution said that al-Juwaini Imam al-Haramain has theological concept that different with Asy;ariyah and more close to Mu'tazilah concept. Ahmad Amin described him as somebody that returned to Mu'tazilah by zigzag road. Tsuraya Kiswati Farhan in her dissertation concluded that al-Juwaini Imam al-Haramain has independent thought in theology ,he doesn't follow any sect that present in his era. .

If in theological thought ,Imam al-Haramain cannot be categorized to Asy'ariyah sect , then the question emergence is whether in political thought he can be categorized as realistic thinker which is generally adopted by Sunni ? If it is right then the question is what is the color of realistic thought that he has been developed.

Further , considering in classical Islamic history religion and politics can't be separated then the additional question can be proposed is how the relationship between religion and power in Imam al-Haramain view. The other question is how the relationship between ruler and people.
The primary source of this dissertation is the book written by Imam al-Haramain entitle Ghiyâts al-Umam fi Iltiyâs al-Zhulam or well known by al-Ghiyâtsi. Other books written by Ulemas about imâmat or siyâsat used as secondary source.

In line with source of data used in this research, this research employed library research method with descriptive analysis technique accompanied with comparative approach. In concordance with discipline will be enriched , this research uses juridical , political and sociological approach.

Based on available data and based on realistic political thought criteria made by writer, it can be concluded that al-Juwaini Imam al-Haramain has realistic political thought. Then based on such statements in many places where he usually returned all things to their functions accompanied with contextual and rational explanation, the realism he developed can be named functional or rational realism.
And then if the relationship between religion and power in

Imam al-Haramain view measured by tree classifications offered by Masykuri Abdillah or Munawir Sjadzali; integrated , intersectional and separated, the writer tend to place Imam al-Haramain concept on relationship between religion and power in two categories; integrated and intersectional. In principal , he wish that there is integrated relationship between religion and power, it mean that the ruler of state is also the leader of religion. But if the condition impossible to make it , he accepted a such separation between religion leader and political leader but both of them should enhanced each other in symbiotic relationship.
The relationship between ruler and people in al-Haramain concept is contractual in the shape of reciprocal relationship which resulted rights and duties in balanced manner. People asked to follow their Imam but Imam also asked to maintain his duties and tasks.

If al-Haramain thought concerning government viewed from sovereignty theory discourse developed in Islam ; theocracy, democracy, theo-democracy, nomocracy, aristocracy and combined between democracy and aristocracy, the color of government in al-Haramain concept of Imâmat can be placed between democracy and aristocracy or between democracy and theocracy.

Al-Haramain his self prefer to use term khilâfat or imâmat to name his concept on political leadership and ideally he wish that there is only one imâmat or khilafat for all Muslims.


1. Three experiments were performed on white mice (strain MF1) to establish if there was social or physiological suppression of metabolism, mediated by elevated ambient levels of CO2, when animals were in close contact. In the first two experiments the metabolism of two mice were each measured solitarily and paired together in the same chamber, both with and without a partition that allowed visual, auditory and olfactory communication but restricted physical contact.

2. Comparisons were made between the sum of the two solitary measurements, and the observed measurements of paired individuals. In the first experiment air flow was low and ambient CO2 was always at levels predicted to produce suppression (> 0·2%), independent of whether the animals were measured alone or paired.

3. The paired mice had greater metabolism than expected from the sum of their solitary metabolic rates whether the partition was present or absent. This increase was due to increased activity of the animals when in pairs. This experiment indicated that when CO2 levels were maintained in the range 0·2–0·5% there was no social suppression of metabolism.

4. In experiment 2 metabolic rates were measured of solitary mice exposed to subthreshold levels of CO2 (≈ 0·12%) and paired mice that experienced levels above the supposed threshold (≈ 0·24%). Again the observed metabolism of the paired mice exceeded the sum of their metabolic rates when solitary. The increase was also attributable to greater activity of the animals in pairs.

5. This experiment indicated no social suppression effect when CO2 varied in the range 0·12–0·24%. Moreover there was no significant difference between the oxygen consumptions of mice in experiment 2 compared with experiment 1, indicating that independent of the social context there was no suppressive effect of increases in CO2 concentration over the range 0·12–0·5% CO2.

6. Finally, in experiment 3, when two mice were placed in sequential separate chambers (allowing no social contact), their summed metabolism did not differ from the sum of their solitary measurements when a CO2 absorber was placed in the airflow linking the chambers. When the CO2 absorber was absent the observed metabolism of the pair exceeded the sum of the solitary measurements.

7. Overall, across all three experiments no evidence was found for either a social or a physiological suppression of metabolism mediated via CO2 (0·12–0·5%).


: Labrocytes situated in the external tunica of the cat basis cerebri arteries have been studied by means of Falck's method and electron microscopically. It has been stated that dilated areas in islets of the mast cells, having ultrastructure peculiar for actively secreting formations, are situated at the distance of 80-100 nm from the smooth muscle cells of the middle tunica. Close structural and functional relations have been found to exist between the adventitial labrocytes and neural conductors of the arteries. Participation of the arterial mast cells in mechanisms of local selfregulation is supposed.


Abstract Invasion of rangeland by exotic forage species threatens ecosystem structure and function and can cause catastrophic economic losses. Herbicide treatments often are the focus of management efforts to control invasions. Management with the fire-grazing interaction (or patch burning) might suppress an invasive forage species that has grazing persistence mechanisms developed apart from the fire-grazing interaction. We studied tallgrass prairies invaded by sericea lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata [Dum.-Cours.] G. Don) to compare rate of invasion between traditional management and management with patch burning, to evaluate the effect of burn season on sericea lespedeza invasion within pastures managed with patch burning, and to correlate canopy cover of sericea lespedeza to canopy cover of other functional groups with and without herbicides. Sericea lespedeza canopy cover increased from 1999 to 2005 in both traditional- and patch-burn pastures, but sericea lespedeza increased from 5% to 16% canopy cover in traditionally managed pastures compared to 3% to 5% in the patch-burn pastures. Rate of increase in canopy cover of sericea lespedeza was less in patches burned in summer (0.41% · year−1) than in patches burned in spring (0.58% · year−1) within patch-burn pastures. Most plant functional groups, including forbs, were weak-negatively correlated with canopy cover of sericea lespedeza. Although herbicide application reduced mass of sericea lespedeza, other components of the vegetation changed little. Herbicide treatments temporarily reduced sericea lespedeza but did not predictably increase other plant functional groups. Patch burning reduced the rate of invasion by sericea lespedeza by maintaining young, palatable sericea plants in the burn patch, and could play a vital role in an integrated weed management strategy on rangelands.


SUMMARY 1. The compound influence of habitat complexity and patch size on stream invertebrate assemblages associated with submerged macrophytes was investigated through field sampling of two natural macrophyte species with contrasting leaf morphologies (complex, Ranunculus yezoensis; simple, Sparganium emersum) and an experiment with two artificial plants with different levels of morphological complexity. 2. The artificial plant experiment was designed to separate the effects of habitat area (patch size) and habitat complexity, thus enabling a more rigorous assessment of complexity per se than in previous studies where only a single patch size was used. Simple and complex artificial plants were established with five different patch sizes corresponding to the range found in natural plants. 3. Invertebrates occurred on both complex and simple forms of natural and artificial plants at similar abundances with dipterans and ephemeropterans being predominant. Taxon richness was higher on structurally complex Ranunculus than on simple Sparganium and was similarly higher on the complex artificial plant than on the simple one, over the entire range of habitat patch sizes. Thus, architectural complexity affected the taxon richness of epiphytic invertebrates, independently of habitat scale. 4. On the natural plants there was no difference in the abundance (both number of individuals and biomass) of invertebrates between simple and complex forms, while on artificial plants more invertebrates occurred on complex than on simple forms. The amount of particulate organic matter, >225 lm (POM) and chlorophyll a showed mixed patterns on natural and artificial plants, suggesting that the availability of these resources is not an overriding proximate factor controlling invertebrate abundance on plants. The difficulty of extrapolating from experimental results involving use of artificial plants is discussed, especially when considering the relationship between habitat structure and the occurrence of epiphytic invertebrates on natural plants.


PURPOSE
To assess whether MRI can detect atrophy of the trigeminal nerve in patients with trigeminal neuralgia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A prospective MRI study was conducted in 39 patients (trigeminal neuralgia, trigeminal neuropathy, or atypical facial pain) and 25 volunteers. Using a coronal orientation (T1 Flash 3D; T2 CISS 3D), regions of interest were delineated in the cisternal part of the trigeminal nerve along the border of the nerve to calculate the volume of the nerve. The volume of the nerve was compared side-by-side in each patient (t-test, p < 0.05) and the volume difference compared between patients and volunteers.

RESULTS
The volume of the compromised trigeminal nerve in patients with trigeminal neuralgia was lower than on the contralateral healthy side, with the difference between healthy and compromised side statistically significant (p < 0.05). In all other patients and in all volunteers, no significant difference was found between the volume of the healthy and compromised nerve. The volume difference between the healthy and compromised side in patients with trigeminal neuralgia was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than in all other patients and volunteers.

CONCLUSION
Atrophy of the trigeminal nerve caused by a nerve-vessel conflict can be detected by MRI. Only patients with trigeminal neuralgia show this unilateral atrophy. Therefore, it is possible to demonstrate the result of the nerve-vessel conflict and to determine the consequences of such a conflict.


The rules of the genetic code are established by aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) enzymes, which covalently link tRNA with the cognate amino acid. Many aaRSs are involved in diverse cellular processes beyond translation, acting alone, or in complex with other proteins. However, studies of aaRS noncanonical assembly and functions in plants are scarce, as are structural studies of plant aaRSs. Here, we have solved the crystal structure of Arabidopsis thaliana cytosolic seryl-tRNA synthetase (SerRS), which is the first crystallographic structure of a plant aaRS. Arabidopsis SerRS displays structural features typical of canonical SerRSs, except for a unique intrasubunit disulfide bridge. In a yeast two-hybrid screen, we identified BEN1, a protein involved in the metabolism of plant brassinosteroid hormones, as a protein interactor of Arabidopsis SerRS. The SerRS:BEN1 complex is one of the first protein complexes of plant aaRSs discovered so far, and is a rare example of an aaRS interacting with an enzyme involved in primary or secondary metabolism. To pinpoint regions responsible for this interaction, we created truncated variants of SerRS and BEN1, and identified that the interaction interface involves the SerRS globular catalytic domain and the N-terminal extension of BEN1 protein. BEN1 does not have a strong impact on SerRS aminoacylation activity, indicating that the primary function of the complex is not the modification of SerRS canonical activity. Perhaps SerRS performs as yet unknown noncanonical functions mediated by BEN1. These findings indicate that - via SerRS and BEN1 - a link exists between the protein translation and steroid metabolic pathways of the plant cell. DATABASE: Structural data are available in the PDB under the accession number PDB ID 6GIR.


ABSTRACT Building on the insight of Durkheim, the current study examines the hypothesis that cross-national proxies for social integration explain variation in confidence in the police across different countries. Combining six sources of data from 84 nations with a total sample size of 122,330 respondents, the current research uses hierarchical generalised linear modelling (HGLM) logistic regression analyses to investigate the potential mechanism of social integration in shaping confidence in the police. Results show that three proxies of social integration (i.e. homicide rates, group grievance, and suicide rates) are negatively and significantly associated with confidence in the police. Additionally, results replicated the U-shaped convex curvilinear relationship between democracy and police confidence. Durkheim's notion of social integration can offer a theoretical framework to account for the effects of country-level variables on confidence in the police across cultural boundaries.


This paper formalizes the observable interface behaviour of open systems for a strongly-typed, concurrent object-oriented language with single-class inheritance. We formally characterize the observable behaviour in terms of interactions at the program-environment interface. The behaviour is given by transitions between contextual judgments, where the absent environment is represented abstractly as assumption context. A particular challenge is the fact that, when the system is considered as open, code from the environment can be inherited to the component and vice versa. This requires to incorporate an abstract version of the heap into the environment assumptions when characterizing the interface behaviour. We prove the soundness of the abstract interface description.


The rapid wastage of mountain glaciers and their contribution to sea level rise require worldwide monitoring of their mass balance. In this paper, we show that changes in glacier thickness can be accurately measured from satellite images. We use SPOT image pairs to build Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) of the Mont Blanc area (French Alps) for different years. To register the DEMs, we adjust their longitude, latitude and altitude over motionless areas. The uncertainty of the thickness change measurement is greatly reduced by averaging over areas covering altitude intervals of 50 m. Comparisons with topographic profiles and a differential DEM from aerial photographs obtained on the Mer de Glace indicate an overall accuracy of 1 m for the thickness change measurement. Below 2100 m, satellite DEMs show an evolution of the thinning rate from 1 ± 0.4 m.a−1 (years 1979–1994) to 4.1 ± 1.7 m.a−1 (2000–2003).


12th Interdisciplinary Co lloquium on Proverbs, 4–11 November 2018, Tavira, PortugalThe city of Tavira Portugal, possessing the proud title of the world capital of proverbs, in 2018 hosted the 12th Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Proverbs of the International Association of Paremiology AIP-IAP. The high level of the Colloquium is guaranteed by the multiannual participation of such renowned academics as Wolfgang Mieder USA and František Čermák Czech Republic. The thematic set-up of the 2018 Colloquium moved from "interdisciplinary" to paremiological. Most of the papers analyzed strictly paremiological subjects e.g. the role of grammatic gender in proverbs, the Matti Kuusi International type system, basic English proverbs, and a smaller but no less valuable part was dedicated to the general role of proverbs in literature and society legal application of proverbs, proverbs and education, etc.. Traditionally, the Portuguese linguistic and cultural input was significant.


Background: In heart failure (HF) disturbed CaMKII-dependent sodium current (INa) and sodium channel gating leads to arrhythmias and contractile dysfunction. Enhanced Angiotensin II (Ang II) signaling has been implicated in the development of HF, and contributes to contractile dysfunction and arrhythmias. Ang II can activate CaMKII by at least two independent pathways, but the mechanisms are not fully understood yet. One pathway involves Ang II-induced activation of NADPH oxidase 2 (Nox 2) resulting in the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). It was shown shown that ROS directly oxidize CaMKII leading to prolonged CaMKII activation, arrhythmias and contractile dysfunction. Alternatively, Ang II stimulates inositol trisphosphate receptors (IP3R), which release Ca2+ from stores into the cytsol. This Ca2+ release (via Calmodulin) could also activate CaMKII. On the other hand, it was recently shown that ROS can also oxidize the regulatory subunit I of the cAMP-dependent protein kinase A (PKA), resulting in redox-dependent activation of PKA.
Aim of this study was to discover the effect of Ang II on the INa and the sodium channel gating and to identify the underlying mechanisms of the Ang II dependent signaling.
Methods: Peak INa, steady-state inactivation, intermediate inactivation (IIM), recovery from inactivation and late INa was measured in isolated ventricular myocytes from mice lacking the gp91phox subunit of Nox 2 (gp91phox-/-) and wildtype (WT) littermates as control with whole-cell patch clamp technique.
Results: Incubation of the cells with Ang II significantly increased INa current density. Inhibition of PKA with H89 significantly blunted this Ang II-effect. The increase was also completely absent in gp91phox-/-.
The sodium channel gating was influenced by Ang II as well. In WT, Ang II significantly left-shifted steady-state inactivation consistent with less sodium channels available at a given membrane voltage. Furthermore the IIM was significantly enhanced and the recovery from inactivation significantly slowed. Neither knockout of gp91phox nor PKA inhibition with H89 could reverse this Ang II- induced effects on the channel gating.
Late INa was significantly enhanced after incubation with Ang II in a Nox2- and PKA-independent manner. Pharmacological inhibition of both CaMKII with AIP and IP3R with 2-APB could completely reverse the Ang II-induced increase.
Conclusion: Ang II has intracellular complex effects through at least two different signal cascades. Via an ROS-dependent activation of the PKA, Ang II influences the regulation of the INa current density. However the gating activity of the sodium channel is regulated independently of ROS and PKA.
Besides the late INa is regulated by IP3R and CaMKII independent from ROS and PKA. There may be Ca2+ release by the IP3R and associated Ca2+/Calmodulin-dependent activation of the CaMKII.


Abstract Fine copper alloy vessels are an important class of metalwork made during the Islamic era (which began in AD 622) in the lands bordering the Eastern Mediterranean. Many of these vessels are decorated with silver, gold and black inlays that are easily damaged or lost. Candlesticks and other multi-component pieces frequently suffer because of the weakness of the original joining techniques used. Elemental analyses (by atomic absorption and inductively coupled mass spectrometry) of the collections at the British Museum have already been published, and an extensive programme of X-ray fluorescence analysis, Xradiography and microscopic examination is building on that information. Drawing on the current knowledge of the technical aspects of this copper alloy metalwork, this paper outlines findings relevant to the conservation, display and interpretation of these impressive vessels.


In this study, lectotypifications of 21 valid or synonym names of the genus Dianthus L. (Caryophyllaceae) were determined. Among these; the types of D. acrochlorus Stapf, D. haussknechtii Boiss., D. hypochlorus Boiss. & Heldr., D. kastembeluensis Freyn & Sint., D. kotschyanus Boiss. & Heldr., D. lydus Boiss., D. micranthus Boiss. & Heldr., D. multipunctatus Ser. var. gracilior Boiss., D. pallens Sibth. & Sm. var. oxylepis Boiss. and D. striatellus Fenzl were based upon the specimens collected from two or more localities. The types of D. bitlisianus Kotschy ex Boiss., D. brevicaulis Fenzl, D. carmelitarum Reut. ex Boiss., D. cibrarius Clem., D. hymenolepis Boiss., D. muschianus Kotschy ex Boiss., D. polycladus Boiss. and D. setisquameus Hausskn. ex Bornm. were based upon the specimens collected from a single locality without mentioning any "type". And D. arpadianus Ade & Bornm. var. trojanus Bornm. & Sint., D. engleri Hausskn. & Bornm. and D. siphonocalyx Blakelock were based upon the specimens for which multiple "types" were stated. Most of the specimens of the lectotypes determined in this study were collected from Turkey and the rest came from Syria and Iraq. Research Article


The historical background to Murchison's massive work of synthesis of 1839, The Silurian System, is considered with special reference to Shropshire, one of its most critical areas of investigation. The question of why there has always seemed to be such a great chronological gap between the onsets of industrialization and of geological investigations (subjects often thought to be intricately linked) is posed. Evidence is given for the considerable amount of pre-Murchisonian investigation of the geology in the area. It proves to be often of a notable quality, particularly after 1810 with new focus on the ordering of stratigraphical sequences. It becomes clear that Murchison was often unwilling to acknowledge properly his debts, whether factual or conceptual, to those who had gone before him. Murchison's work as a 'Silurian' historian proves of noticeably lower quality than his work as a stratigrapher.


Academic) Persistence of perennial grass crops is essential to their profitable management. Recently, orchardgrass producers in the Mid-Atlantic have reported a reduction in the persistence and regrowth vigor of their swards. The overall objective was to evaluate which factors play a major role in controlling the persistence of orchardgrass harvested for hay in the Mid-Atlantic. A survey of orchardgrass fields, growth chamber experiment, and field experiment were conducted to that end. The objectives were to: (1) assess soil fertility, management practices, disease status, and climate in relation to producer perceived stand persistence rating, orchardgrass biomass, and soil test thresholds in orchardgrass hayfields in 4 states, (2) examine the interactions of high temperature and low cutting height on the physiology and regrowth of orchardgrass in controlled environments, and (3) evaluate yield, composition, and size/density compensation-corrected productivity of orchardgrass and orchardgrass/alfalfa mixtures harvested to four cutting heights over three years. The survey of hayfields indicated that the sward age, soil organic matter, grazing, manure application, and historical average high temperature were main determinants of stand persistence score. In the growth chamber experiment, regrowth was significantly reduced by the 35°C treatment as compared to 20°C. Low cutting height significantly reduced regrowth in the cool temperature treatment, but no effect of cutting height was detected under heat stress. In the field experiment, yields were highest from plots cut to 5 cm, but orchardgrass cover in these plots thinned through the experiment. Tiller size and density measurements indicated that cutting heights of 10 cm or greater were able to achieve and maintain optimal leaf area while productivity was reduced for the 5 cm treatment. Overall, it is apparent that excessively low cutting heights are a major cause of reduced persistence in orchardgrass swards and that high temperature stress will limit regrowth. These factors likely interact with fertility and disease status, and together cause the premature loss of orchardgrass stands. Efforts should be made to communicate the importance of increased cutting height to producers. Breeding of orchardgrass resistant to fungal pathogens and heat stress may be required to sustain an orchardgrass hay industry in the Mid-Atlantic.


The conference intends to stimulate interaction among academic researchers and commercial developers of interactive entertainment systems. In addition to paper presentations, posters and demos, the conference will foster discussions in topic centered workshops and special events such as the design garage. Underlying Interactive Device Technologies (mobile devices, home entertainment centers, haptic devices, wall screen displays, information kiosks, holographic displays, fog screens, distributed smart sensors, immersive screens and wearable devices), can provide through a variety of Media Delivery Infrastructures (multimedia networks, interactive radio, streaming technologies, DVB-T/M, ITV, P2P, satellite broadcasting, UMTS, Bluetooth, Broadband, VoIP) and a series of user centered Intelligent Computational Technologies and Interactive Applications for Entertainment as described.


Relation detection is a core component of many NLP applications including Knowledge Base Question Answering (KBQA). In this paper, we propose a hierarchical recurrent neural network enhanced by residual learning which detects KB relations given an input question. Our method uses deep residual bidirectional LSTMs to compare questions and relation names via different levels of abstraction. Additionally, we propose a simple KBQA system that integrates entity linking and our proposed relation detector to make the two components enhance each other. Our experimental results show that our approach not only achieves outstanding relation detection performance, but more importantly, it helps our KBQA system achieve state-of-the-art accuracy for both single-relation (SimpleQuestions) and multi-relation (WebQSP) QA benchmarks.


embolization. It was observed that the macular edema had almost completely reverted after this treatment. Conclusions: CCF is a rare condition and occurs mainly secondary to head trauma. Although spontaneous fistulas are usually of low flow and indirect and can revert without intervention in the majority of cases, in our patient it was decided to perform embolization due to decreased visual acuity and macular edema.


ICT has been widely accepted and adopted as a key driver for various sectors of the economy for both the developing and developed nations. In developing countries, there have been multiple interventions to employ the available technology such as mobile, wireless, radio and TV technologies in key areas that concern human development such as health, agriculture, education and finance. The design and development practices, are mostly borrowed from established markets with different user profiles, and do not always consider the profile of the target users such as their level of education, language and culture. In this research, we explore the design and development of ICT4D innovations, specifically in mAgriculture among medium to low-literate communities in developing countries. The aim of this research was to evaluate the design principles used in ICT4D for mAgriculture applications, and how they attempt to accommodate smallholder farmers of different literacy and technology exposure backgrounds. The study made proposals of consideration to be made by researchers, developers and content providers, when designing ICT4D innovations targeting smallholder farmers and users of low to medium literacy levels.


ABSTRACT Clinical isolates of the respiratory pathogen Bordetella pertussis in the United States have become predominantly deficient for the acellular vaccine immunogen pertactin through various independent mutations. Here, we report the complete genome sequences for four B. pertussis isolates that harbor novel deletions responsible for pertactin deficiency.


While it is known that the problem of death is a central topic animating the author/s of the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi , leading Chinese and Western interpretations of this Chinese classic have usually focused much more on other themes and aspects. Even more problematic in the author's view is the fact that the Zhuangzi has been closely associated with one death philosophy, the set of concepts, arguments and figures present in chapter 6. This study puts death back at the very center of the Zhuangzian philosophical project yet insisting at the same time on the difficulties of defending one philosophy of death since different passages introduce new concepts, imagery, nuances and perspectives. The Zhuangzi 's focus on death is being situated within a discussion of the "immortality" ideal––accepting a total death ("to die") or find refuge in immortality ideals ("not to die"). Different passages from the Inner Chapters are being presented as proposing three distinct immortality projects or strategies––personal, social and cosmic––to address the problem of death. E. Becker's reflections on the challenge of mortality and the psychological need of a "beyond" in order to cope with the consciousness of death provide the basic theoretical framework underlying the discussion of the Zhuangzi in this essay.


ABSTRACT Crisis resolution teams (CRTs) deliver acute mental health care in the community. This care implies collaboration with carers. The article explores experiences of mental health crisis from the carer's perspective and what carers experience as helpful and/or unhelpful help from CRTs. In-depth interviews with carers are analyzed using a narrative approach. The configuration of data elements into coherent stories reveals that thematically similar experiences also have a highly personal imprint. Understanding a carer's individual experiences and needs in a contextual, storied manner can reveal information that is crucial to the collaboration of help that is perceived as helpful within a home-based approach to a mental health crisis.


This paper analyses and evaluates the use of an asynchronous online discussion list introduced to an established distance education print based course on recreational drug use and abuse. This discussion list was established in order to be able to meet a course objective of challenging assumptions and attitudes about drug use, which was difficult to measure in the previous format. This paper chronicles the introduction and evaluation of an asynchronous discussion board based on the constructivist model of learning. It demonstrates the benefits gained from adding an on-line discussion list, including attitudinal change and the opportunity for academic discourse between students.


Abstract This study explores meaningful work in the transitional context of Vietnam under Đổi Mới – the renovation policy implemented in 1986. Based on 60 in-depth interviews with participants from various industries, the study emphasises how features of a transitional context can deeply influence the way people make sense of meaningfulness in the workplace. Institutional constraints (institutionalised corruption and lack of institutional support), social constraints (low social trust and sense of insecurity), spiritual yearnings (engaged Buddhism) and other tensions relating to occupational, gender and age differences are found to influence and shape participants' distinctive views of the qualities of meaningful work (pragmatic, reflexive, self-transcendent, and ethical). These views differ from Western ways of conceptualising meaningful work, and affect individuals' negotiation of meaningful work. This study contributes a non-Western perspective on meaningful work, introducing meaningful work through the lens of Buddhist principles and offering a contextualised framework.


Abstract Aim The objective of this study was to develop dermal nanosuspension (NS) based gel formulation of etodolac (ETD). Methods Etodolac nanosuspension (ETD-NS) was prepared by wet milling method and dispersed in hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (NS-HPMC) or hydroxyethyl cellulose (NS-HEC) gels. Rheologic and mechanical properties were investigated. In vitro and ex vivo permeability studies were performed. Topical anti-inflammatory and analgesic activity were evaluated in regard to carrageenan-induced inflammatory paw oedema and radiant heat tail-flick method, respectively. Results The ETD-NS with approximately 190 nm particle size (PS), 0.16 polydispersity index (PDI), and −15 mV zeta potential (ZP) values were obtained. The work of bioadhesion values of NS-HEC and NS-HPMC gels were 0.229 mJ/cm2 for both gels. Dermal permeation of ETD from NS-HEC gel (7.18%) was found significantly higher than the NS-HPMC gel (4.56%). Enhanced anti-inflammatory and analgesic activity of NS-HEC gels were observed in comparison with micronised ETD. Conclusions ETD-NS based gel formulation is promising for topical delivery of ETD.


A survey, to which 401 hand therapists responded, was conducted to establish research priorities in the field of hand therapy and to investigate barriers to hand therapy research. Results indicated that reimbursement issues, particularly those generated by managed care, were reported to have adversely affected quality of patient care, job satisfaction, job security, and ability to conduct research. Research priorities were defined in this study, and the need for clinical trials to determine the effectiveness of hand therapy interventions was found to be urgent. Research questions identified by respondents reflected both the traditional disorders treated by hand therapists, such as tendon repairs, and a greater concern with issues concerning cumulative trauma. Barriers to research were reported by respondents, and ways in which professional organizations could meet clinicians' needs in conducting and utilizing research were highlighted.


Summary
Salsola australis, like other agricultural weed species of the Salsola genus, produces a mobile seedbank. Aspects of this mobile seedbank were investigated in three field trials, including total seed production, rate of seed shedding, rate at which seeds lose germinability and the distance and directionality of plant movement. Total seed production was highly variable (ranging from 138 to 7734 seeds per plant), but was directly related to aboveground plant biomass at maturity. Following senescence, mature plants broke free of their root system and the wind driven plants moved considerable distances (1.6–1247.2 m). Half of the mobile plants moved <100 m, as they became entangled with other S. australis plants within the stand. Seed shedding commenced before the plants became mobile and increased with movement, but was also related to the aging and weathering processes experienced by stationary or mobile plants. All plants retained a proportion of their seed in spite of movement, weathering and ageing of the plants, although germinability of retained seed dropped to <2% after 2 months. Salsola australis engages in broad scale seed dispersal similar to that observed in other species of the Salsola genus, allowing this species to maintain a high rate of invasion and range expansion.


A hierarchical, agglomerative, symbolic clustering methodology based on a similarity measure that takes into consideration the position, span, and content of symbolic objects is proposed. The similarity measure used is of a new type in the sense that it is not just another aspect of dissimilarity. The clustering methodology forms composite symbolic objects using a Cartesian join operator when two symbolic objects are merged. The maximum and minimum similarity values at various merging levels permit the determination of the number of clusters in the data set. The composite symbolic objects representing different clusters give a description of the resulting classes and lead to knowledge acquisition. The algorithm is capable of discerning clusters in data sets made up of numeric as well as symbolic objects consisting of different types and combinations of qualitative and quantitative feature values. In particular, the algorithm is applied to fat-oil and microcomputer data. >


We study the problem of learning goal-conditioned policies in Minecraft, a popular, widely accessible yet challenging open-ended environment for developing human-level multi-task agents. We first identify two main challenges of learning such policies: 1) the indistinguishability of tasks from the state distribution, due to the vast scene diversity, and 2) the non-stationary nature of environment dynamics caused by partial observability. To tackle the first challenge, we propose Goal-Sensitive Backbone (GSB) for the policy to encourage the emergence of goal-relevant visual state representations. To tackle the second challenge, the policy is further fueled by an adaptive horizon prediction module that helps alleviate the learning uncertainty brought by the non-stationary dynamics. Experiments on 20 Minecraft tasks show that our method significantly outperforms the best baseline so far; in many of them, we double the performance. Our ablation and exploratory studies then explain how our approach beat the counterparts and also unveil the surprising bonus of zero-shot generalization to new scenes (biomes). We hope our agent could help shed some light on learning goal-conditioned, multi-task agents in challenging, open-ended environments like Minecraft. The code is released at https://github.com/CraftJarvis/MC-Controller.


Abstract Agave palmeri (Palmer's agave) is a long-lived, monocarpic, perennial succulent which provides a critical flower nectar food source for the threatened species, Leptonycteris curasoae (lesser long-nosed bat) among other animals. Agave palmeri flower only once after approximately 25 years. To support the demography needed to have some plants flowering every year, wild populations of A. palmeri must be conserved and mining, construction, and recreational impacts must be mitigated. Collecting, storing, and transplanting wild plants was tested as a potential method for restoring and maintaining A. palmeri populations. In January 2009, 387 wild plants were collected, roughly half the plants were potted in field soil, and the remainder were placed in pots without soil (bare-root) and covered with burlap cloth. During 6-months storage, 1% of plants potted in field soil died while 31% of bare-root plants died. In July 2009, a denuded and scarified field plot was planted with the surviving 277 A. palmeri individuals. Plants received one of three water treatments: a 90-day slow-release gel irrigation supplement, 8 L (2 gal) of water, or no water or gel. Three years after transplanting, survivorship was assessed. The watering treatments had no significant effect on survivorship. The number of green leaves at the time of collection was the most important factor in predicting if the plants lived, died, or survived to flower before dying . Mortality is concentrated in the smallest and largest plants. Transplanting appears to be a viable method of returning diverse size classes of A. palmeri to disturbed sites.


The frequency and poor prognosis of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) emphasizes the requirement for improved biomarkers for use in the treatment and prognosis of mCRC. In the present study, somatic variants in exonic regions of key cancer genes were identified in mCRC patients. Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues obtained by biopsy of the metastases of mCRC patients were collected, and the DNA was extracted and sequenced using the Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine. For the targeted amplification of known cancer genes, the Ion AmpliSeq™ Cancer Panel, which is designed to detect 739 Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC) mutations in 604 loci from 46 oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes using as little as 10 ng of input DNA, was used. The sequencing results were then analyzed using the Ampliseq™ Variant Caller plug-in within the Ion Torrent Suite software. In addition, Ingenuity Pathway software was used to perform a pathway analysis. The Cox regression analysis was also conducted to investigate the potential correlation between alteration numbers and clinical factors, including response rate, disease-free survival and overall survival. Among 10 specimens, 65 genetic alterations were identified in 24 genes following the exclusion of germline mutations using the SNP database, whereby 41% of the alterations were also present in the COSMIC database. No clinical factors were found to significantly correlate with the alteration numbers in the patients by statistical analysis. However, pathway analysis identified 'colorectal cancer metastasis signaling' as the most commonly mutated canonical pathway. This analysis further revealed mutated genes in the Wnt, phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β/SMAD signaling pathways. Notably, 11 genes, including the expected APC, BRAF, KRAS, PIK3CA and TP53 genes, were mutated in at least two samples. Notably, 90% (9/10) of mCRC patients harbored at least one 'druggable' alteration (range, 1–6 alterations) that has been linked to a clinical treatment option or is currently being investigated in clinical trials of novel targeted therapies. These results indicated that DNA sequencing of key oncogenes and tumor suppressors enables the identification of 'druggable' alterations for individual colorectal cancer patients.


Why is it so difficult to make change happen? Many companies fail because they do not have the right internal structure and mindset to succeed. The author illustrates how to manage change effectively by examining how product‐based companies must transform to launch true service‐driven ventures. Using three case studies, he documents common pitfalls and barriers, then outlines the steps necessary for developing a well‐conceived service strategy. He introduces "business logics" as a key for identifying characteristics that define business types and the performance measures that support their success. The author then explains how a knowledge‐driven business model identifies the critical behaviors, competencies, market conditions, finances and other resources needed to make change happen. He advises organizations to test their strategies using simulations to ensure employees are prepared to internalize behavior and culture changes.


About 40% of neurons (114/289) studied in the cat area 17 gave a larger (by 3.06 +/- 0.32 times on average) response to a flashed cross, corner or y-like figures centered in the RF than to an optimal single bar. Most such neurons (72%) were found to be highly selective both to shape (angle between the lines) and to orientation of these figures. In the studied neuronal selection we have also found all possible types of invariance of sensitivity to orientation and/or shape of these figures. Separated and combined stimulation of RF center and surrounding area revealed in 44 units summation, antagonism or absence of interaction of these zones by the selectivity index (cross/bar response ratio). Cross-sensitivity was investigated in 85 V1 neurons before, during and after local blockade of GABAA ergic inhibition by microiontophoretical application of bicuculline. Inhibition either emerged or increased cross-sensitivity (32% of cells), or depressed it (36% of cases), while in some neurons it does not influenced the function. Possible mechanisms of the described effects are discussed as well as their functional implication for second-order feature extraction in the visual cortex: selective or invariant sensitivity of neurons to the shape and orientation of the line-crossings.


differential diagnosis, dandy walker, Blake's pouch cyst, Vermian hypoplasia. BV angel was 66◦ and we diagnosed Dandy walker. The patient decided to continue with the pregnancy and did not want to take amniocentesis after enough counselling. After that, BPD and ventricle were getting normal size, elevation cerebellar vermis and ventriculomegaly disappeared at 30w. MRI image at 31w revealed only hypoplasia cerebellar vermis and corpus callosum loss. In fetus, CNS was developing and after birth kept change. We have to know that we should become careful to diagnose and explanation of prognosis at 2nd trimester.


Thymic malignancies present particular issues due to the pace of disease progression, patterns of recurrence, and causes of death that make nuances of how outcomes are reported particularly important. The relatively limited number of patients also creates a challenge to glean as much as possible from the available experience, but risks over-interpretation and potentially misleading conclusions. Therefore the International Thymic Malignancy Interest Group has developed a set of standards for reporting of outcome measures of clinical studies, which have been adopted for collaborative projects undertaken by the organization. Widespread adoption of this baseline will enhance the ability to compare results from different series.


This study presents comparisons between six algorithms used in the calculation of apparent thermal diffusivity (K h ) of the topsoil during measurement campaigns conducted at two equatorial sites. It further investigates the effects of transient and seasonal variations in soil moisture content (theta) on the estimation of K h . The data used comprise soil temperatures (T) measured at depths of 0.05 m and 0.10 m, and theta within the period of transition from the dry season to the wet season at Ile Ife (7.55˚ N, 4.55˚ E), and for the peak of the wet season at Ibadan (7.44˚ N, 3.90˚ E). The thermal diffusivity, K h , was calculated from six algorithms, of: harmonic, arctangent, logarithmic, amplitude, phase, and conduction-convection. The reliability of these algorithms was tested using their values to model T at a depth of 0.10 m, where direct measurements were available. The algorithms were further evaluated with statistical indices, including the empirical probability distribution function of the differences between the measured and modeled temperatures ([delta capitalized]T). The maximum absolute values of [delta capitalized]T for the six algorithms investigated were: 0.5˚C, 0.5˚C, 0.5˚C, 1˚C, 1˚C and 1˚C, respectively. K h showed an increasing trend as theta increased from the dry season to the peak of the wet season, with R 2 = 0.70 for the harmonic algorithm. The accuracy of all of the algorithms in modeling T reduced with transient variations of theta. The harmonic, arctangent and logarithmic algorithms were the most appropriate for calculating K h for the region of study. The empirical relation between theta and K h and the values of K h obtained in this study can be used to improve the accuracy of meteorological and hydrological models.


Few issues set off such impassioned debate as euthanasia and assisted suicide, but until now, no one has shown what their practice means in the actual experience of patients, doctors, and families. Herbert Hendin has studied such experience in the United States and also in the Netherlands, where assisted suicide and euthanasia are accepted. Using interviews with leading medical and legal architects of Dutch practices, and evaluating actual cases, Dr. Hendin addresses the difficult questions: Who actually makes the decision that a patient will die? How do the needs and character of family, friends, and doctors affect the choice? Throughout the book and in his conclusion, Dr. Hendin shows what we can do to find better options for those facing the final phase of life.


Evoked otoacoustic emissions (EOAE) remain intraindividually similar in repeated measurements. After application of medication for general anesthesia no significant changes of EOAE could be seen. Damping of amplitude and energy, mostly seen in the late phase of general anesthesia, might be caused by possible middle ear pressure changes from nitrous oxide. The recording of EOAE under general anesthesia provides an additional method in objective infant hearing evaluation and expands our diagnostic tools in those cases when children do not cooperate.


Human type 10 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (HSD) is a homotetrameric protein located in mitochondria. This enzyme was alternatively named short chain L-3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase (SCHSD). This NAD(H)-dependent dehydrogenase is essential for the metabolism of branched-chain fatty acids and isoleucine, and is expressed in a variety of tissues, e.g., prostate, brain, liver, and heart. This enzyme inactivates 17beta-estradiol and exhibits a strong oxidative 3alpha-HSD activity to convert 5alpha-androstanediol and allopregnanolone into 5alpha-dihydrotestosterone (5alpha-DHT) and 5alpha-dihydroprogesterone, respectively, in living cells. Certain malignant prostatic epithelial cells and activated astrocytes in Alzheimer's disease patient's brain contain extraordinarily high levels of this enzyme. This mitochondrial dehydrogenase enables prostate cancer cells to generate 5alpha-DHT in the absence of testosterone. Its inactivation of allopregnanolone is important to the modulation of GABA(A) receptor. Among steroidogenic enzymes 17beta-HSD10 plays a significant part in the intracrinology. Although this protein has an affinity for amyloid-beta peptide, its role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease is far from clear. Additional knowledge of this versatile enzyme would provide the foundation for designing new drugs aimed at treating some neurological diseases and certain types of cancers.


Transfer learning is an inherent aspect of human learning. When humans learn to perform a task, we rarely start from scratch. Instead, we recall relevant knowledge from previous learning experiences and apply that knowledge to help us master the new task more quickly.
This principle can be applied to machine learning as well. Machine learning often addresses single learning tasks in isolation. Even though multiple related tasks may exist in a domain, many algorithms for machine learning have no way to utilize those relationships. Algorithms that allow successful transfer from one task (the source) to another task (the target) are necessary steps towards making machine learning as adaptable as human learning.
This thesis investigates transfer methods for reinforcement learning (RL), where an agent takes series of actions in an environment. RL often requires substantial amounts of nearly random exploration, particularly in the early stages of learning. The ability to transfer knowledge from previous tasks can therefore be an important asset for RL agents. Transfer from related source tasks can reduce the low initial performance that is common in challenging target tasks.
I focus on transferring relational knowledge that guides action choices. Relational knowledge typically uses first-order logic to express information about relationships among objects. First-order logic, unlike propositional logic, can use variables that generalize over classes of objects. This greater generalization makes first-order logic more effective for transfer.
This thesis contributes six transfer algorithms in three categories: advice-based transfer, macro transfer, and MLN transfer. Advice-based transfer uses source-task knowledge to provide advice for a target-task learner, which can follow, refine, or ignore the advice according to its value. Macro-transfer and MLN-transfer methods use source-task experience to demonstrate good behavior for a target-task learner.
I evaluate these algorithms experimentally in the complex reinforcement-learning domain of RoboCup simulated soccer. All of my algorithms provide empirical benefits compared to non-transfer approaches, either by increasing initial performance or by enabling faster learning in the target task.


This thesis focuses on the statistical analysis of Chromatin immunoprecipitation
sequencing (ChIP-Seq) data produced by Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). ChIP-Seq
is a method to investigate interactions between protein and DNA. Specifically, the method
aims to identify the binding sites of a particular protein of interest, such as a transcription
factor, in the genome. In the context of cancer research, this information is important
to check whether, for example, a particular transcription factor can be considered as a
therapeutic target.
The sequence data produced by ChIP-Seq experiment are in the form of mapped short
sequences, which are called reads. The reads are counted at each single genomic position,
and the read counts are the data to be analysed. There are many problems related to the
analysis of ChIP-Seq data, and in this research we focus on three of them.
First, in the analysis of ChIP-Seq data, the genome is not analysed in its entirety; instead
the intensity of read counts is estimated locally. Estimating the intensity of read counts
usually involves dividing the genome into small regions (windows). If the window size
is small, the noise level (low read counts) would dominate and many empty windows
would be observed. If the window size is large, the windows would have many small read
counts, which would smooth out some important features. The need exists for an approach
that enables researchers to choose an appropriate window size. To address this problem,
an approach was developed to optimise the window size. The approach optimises the
window size based on histogram construction. Note, the developed methodology is
published in [46].
Second, different studies of ChIP-Seq can target different transcription factors and then
give different conclusions, which is expected. However, they are all ChIP-Seq datasets
and many of them are performed on the same genome, for example the human genome.
So is there a pattern for the distribution of the counts? If the answer is yes, is the pattern common in all ChIP-Seq data? Answering this question can help in better understanding
the biology behind this experiment. We try to answer this question by investigating
RUNX1/ETO ChIP-Seq data. We try to develop a statistical model that is able to describe
the data. We employ some observed features in ChIP-Seq data to improve the performance
of the model. Although we obtained a model that is able to describe the RUNX1/ETO
data, the model does not provide a good statistical fit to the data.
Third, it is biologically important to know what changes (if any) occur at the binding sites
under some biological conditions, for example in knock-out experiments. Changes in the
binding sites can be either in the location of the sites or in the characteristics of the sites
(for example, the density of the read counts), or sometimes both. Current approaches for
differential binding sites analysis suffer from major drawbacks. First, unclear underlying
models as a result of dependencies between methods used, for example peak finding and
testing methods. Second, lack of accurate control of type-I error. Hence there is a need
for approach(es) to address these drawbacks. To address this problem, we developed three
statistical tests that are able to detect significantly differential regions between two ChIPSeq
datasets. The tests are evaluated and compared to some current methodologies by
using simulated and real ChIP-Seq datasets. The proposed tests exhibit more power as
well as accuracy compared to current methodologies.


We study complex-valued scaling as a type of symmetry natural and unique to complex-valued measurements and representations. Deep Complex Networks (DCN) extend real-valued algebra to the complex domain without addressing complex-valued scaling. SurReal extends manifold learning to the complex plane, achieving scaling invariance with manifold distances that discard phase information. Treating complex-valued scaling as a co-domain transformation, we design novel equivariant/invariant layer functions and architectures that exploit co-domain symmetry. We also propose novel complex-valued representations of RGB images, where complex-valued scaling indicates hue shift or correlated changes across color channels. Benchmarked on MSTAR, CIFAR10, CIFAR100, and SVHN, our co-domain symmetric (CDS) classifiers deliver higher accuracy, better generalization, more robustness to co-domain transformations, and lower model bias and variance than DCN and SurReal with far fewer parameters.


We study the impact of private ownership, incentive pay, and local development objectives on university licensing performance. We develop and test a simple contracting model of technology‐licensing offices using new survey information together with panel data on U.S. universities for 1995–99. We find that private universities are much more likely to adopt incentive pay than public ones but that ownership does not affect licensing performance conditional on the use of incentive pay. Adopting incentive pay is associated with about 30–40 percent more income per license. Universities with strong local development objectives generate about 30 percent less income per license but are more likely to license to local (in‐state) start‐up companies. In addition, we show that government constraints on university licensing activity are costly in terms of forgone license income and the creation of start‐up companies. These results are robust to controls for observed and unobserved heterogeneity.


The Commonwealth Government has the increased participation of under-represented groups to a 20% diversity target for Australian universities. It also has minimum targets of 40% of all Australians (25-34 years) holding a Bachelor's degree by 2020. These targets are baseline items in a government agenda of improving educational outcomes for Australians and pivotal in addressing skill shortages in industries such as construction. In construction there is a skewing of skill shortages to the higher order or post entry level skills. Demand for higher skilled occupations such as construction managers, outstrips demand for construction trades (DEEWR, 2010). But whilst 41% of the industry have VET qualifications, only 10% possess HE qualifications in construction. Movement between the VET and HE sectors is low: of all construction students qualifying at AQF 4, less than 10% continue on to higher education and less than 1% of VET qualified persons in the construction workforce seek re-entry to university. This paper examines national data in construction education pathways and evaluates, using the DEMO matrix, the enablers in pathways to HE qualifications. The evaluation is based upon survey responses of two cohorts entering higher education from non-traditional pathways- articulating VET students and mature-aged workers. The results indicate that pathway programmes into construction degrees can attract non-traditional cohorts, but elements such as learner engagement, confidence, people-rich resources and collaboration are critical features of successful pathways.