Abstract Neoproterozoic glacial records have been discovered on 23 palaeocontinents, their rate of discovery changing little since 1871. Yet, half of all the resulting publications appeared since 2000. The history of research before 1998 is described in five stages defined by publication spikes; subsequent work is not covered because historical perspective is lacking. In stage 1 (1871–1907), 'Cambrian' (now Neoproterozoic) glaciation was recognized successively in Scotland, Australia, India, Norway, Svalbard and China. Criteria for recognition included faceted and striated pebbles in matrix-supported conglomerates resting on ice-worn bedrock pavements. In stage 2 (1908–1940), Neoproterozoic glaciation was shown to have been widespread in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Major textbooks summarized these findings, but the rejection of continental drift (to account for late Palaeozoic glacial dynamics) put a chill on research. In stage 3 (1942–1964), the occurrence of glacial deposits within carbonate successions, as well as nascent palaeomagnetic observations, suggested that Neoproterozoic glaciers reached sea-level at low palaeolatitudes, but the belated recognition of sediment gravity flowage caused glacial interpretations to be prematurely abandoned in key areas. In stage 4 (1965–1981), the extent of Neoproterozoic glaciation was rethought in light of plate tectonics. Distinctive chemical sediments (iron±manganese formations and cap carbonates) were identified. In basic climate models, modest lowering of solar luminosity resulted in global glaciation due to ice-albedo feedback, and deglaciation due to greenhouse forcing resulted from silicate-weathering feedback in the carbon cycle. Neoproterozoic glacial geologists were blind to these ideas. In stage 5 (1982–1997), reliable palaeomagnetic data combined with glacial marine sedimentation models confirmed that Neoproterozoic ice sheets reached sea level close to the palaeoequator.


Computer-Based Information Systems (CBIS) are now widely used for supporting business activities; they are recognised as a tool that can produce information for management decision-making. The present study has utilised both qualitative and
quantitative methods of data collection to investigate the way computer-based information systems are being used for management purposes in Saudi Arabia. Some data have also been obtained in the UK to examine comparatively the impact of computer-based information systems on the work of managers in business organisations
in Saudi Arabia and the UK. This examination has involved determining the uses that
managers are making of CBIS, and evaluating levels of satisfaction.
The sample has covered a range of firms, but has concentrated particularly on oil companies and banks. The reason for this choice is that Saudi Arabia depends on these two for much of its economic activity. For the UK, the study has involved a
small sample of three companies. The first was Shell, to compare with the Saudi
Arabian oil companies. The other two companies were Astra and Andaris. These were selected as high technology companies which were expected to put considerable emphasis on computer-based in formation systems. In order to fulfil the aims and objectives of this study, a research model was
developed, which describes the characteristics of the approach for the study and the variables considered. The first stage of the subsequent investigation involved a questionnaire distributed in Saudi Arabia firms (72.1% of 1000 questionnaires were returned) and UK firms (74 % of 140 questionnaires were returned). The second stage involved a series of interviews carried out in both Saudi Arabia (19 respondents) and the UK (11 respondents) with selected managers and selected computer centre
managers.
The main findings of the study show that CBIS is already highly used in Saudi
Arabia, but that some problems (e.g. with training) still remain. There also appear to
be some differences between Saudi Arabia and the UK.


Glutathione-S-transferase (GST) is a ubiquitous multi-functional protein superfamily that plays important roles in plant primary and secondary metabolism, stress and intercellular signal transduction. Concomitantly, it also functions as a ligand in the metabolism of plant hormones and substance transport. In order to understand the GST gene family in upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.), herein we analyzed the species, evolutionary relationship, physical location, gene structure, conserved motifs and expression patterns. We identified 70 GST genes in the whole genome of upland cotton, and divided them into U, F, T, Z, EF1Bγ and TCHQD groups by phylogenetic tree and gene structure analyses. The gene mapping analysis indicated that the GST genes were on every chromosome except chromosome AD/At2, AD/At4, AD/At5, AD/Dt5 and AD/Dt10. Moreover, the GST gene cluster appeared on four chromosomes (AD/At9, AD/Dt7, AD/Dt12 and AD/Dt13). qRT-PCR assays showed that eight genes (GhGSTF2-9) were expressed in the root, stem, leave and fiber of different developmental stages while GhGSTF1 might be a pseudogene. Combining qRT-PCR and bioinformatic analysis, we speculated that GhGSTF8 might be involved in the transport and accumulation of proanthocyanidins/anthocyanins; GhGSTF4, 6 and 9 might play roles in regulating the growth and stress response of upland cotton; the function of GhGSTF2, 3, 5 and 7 remains to be further investigated. Our work provides a theoretical basis for further studies on the molecular evolution and function of the GST gene family in upland cotton.


High power carbon dioxide lasers have successfully been used in drilling or cutting ngineering materials such as metals, polymers and ceramics over the years. Can a arbon dioxide laser be used to efficiently drill different rocks in a deep gas well? esearch sponsored by US Department of Energy has been carried out to answer this uestion. This paper will report the study results of using a super-pulsed CO2 laser beam drill rocks. A 6 kW CO2 laser operated at superpulse mode was used to carry out the sts. Both linear tracks and deep holes were produced on the rocks. The energy required remove a unit volume of rock, specific energy, was determined. Test results show that perpulsed CO2 laser beam can be efficiently used to drill deep, large diameter holes in etroleum rocks with the assistance of purging gas.


ABSTRACT The food-borne pathogen Vibrio parahaemolyticus has been reported as being present in New Zealand (NZ) seawaters, but there have been no reported outbreaks of food-borne infection from commercially grown NZ seafood. Our study determined the current incidence of V. parahaemolyticus in NZ oysters and Greenshell mussels and the prevalence of V. parahaemolyticus tdh and trh strains. Pacific (235) and dredge (21) oyster samples and mussel samples (55) were obtained from commercial shellfish-growing areas between December 2009 and June 2012. Total V. parahaemolyticus numbers and the presence of pathogenic genes tdh and trh were determined using the FDA most-probable-number (MPN) method and confirmed using PCR analysis. In samples from the North Island of NZ, V. parahaemolyticus was detected in 81% of Pacific oysters and 34% of mussel samples, while the numbers of V. parahaemolyticus tdh and trh strains were low, with just 3/215 Pacific oyster samples carrying the tdh gene. V. parahaemolyticus organisms carrying tdh and trh were not detected in South Island samples, and V. parahaemolyticus was detected in just 1/21 dredge oyster and 2/16 mussel samples. Numbers of V. parahaemolyticus organisms increased when seawater temperatures were high, the season when most commercial shellfish-growing areas are not harvested. The numbers of V. parahaemolyticus organisms in samples exceeded 1,000 MPN/g only when the seawater temperatures exceeded 19°C, so this environmental parameter could be used as a trigger warning of potential hazard. There is some evidence that the total V. parahaemolyticus numbers increased compared with those reported from a previous 1981 to 1984 study, but the analytical methods differed significantly.


Aqueous solutions have found broad usages as lubricants, in conjunction with other possible utilizations, in metal working and other industries. Due to the inferior lubricity, functional additives are needed to improve their tribological performances, including oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions or aqueous surfactants. The rheology of aqueous solution with polyethoxylated ether added (PEOE) is measured, including the influences of the temperature and the concentration on dynamic viscosity variation. The dynamic viscosity of PEOE aqueous solutions increases with PEOE concentration. The dynamic viscosity of PEOE aqueous solutions decreases with the rise of temperature up to cloud points. If the temperature is higher than cloud points, however, the dynamic viscosity will increase, through which a non Newtonian characteristic, i.e., the shear thinning, is expressed.


Experimental work in animals and humans suggests that various short-lasting patterns of neural activity, including single- or multiple-cycle oscillatory episodes, may reflect state changes of self-organizing large- scale networks. Such state-marking events, including K complexes, spindles, hippocampal sharp wave ripples (SPW-R), and ponto-geniculo-occipital (PGO) waves, are in fact thought to regulate cognitive capacities, such as learning, memory encoding and consolidation, as well as memory-guided decision making.
Although the neural events themselves have long been studied in great detail with neurophysiological methods, the actual brain-states related to them remain elusive, primarily due to a dearth of methodologies permitting concurrent recordings in various structures and mapping of whole-brain activity. The use of multishank-multichannel (MS-MC) electrical recordings of activity in different structures per se permits both the detection and the contextual identification of structure-specific neural events, for that matter also of their interrelationships. Combining in real-time the MS-MC recordings with spatiotemporally resolved functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) evidently offers a unique opportunity to study the cooperative patterns of a large number of brain structures either leading or responding to recorded events. In an effort to map and study such patterns, we have recently developed so-called neural event triggered fMRI (NET-fMRI) and used it to understand the dynamics of the networks related to SPW-R and PGO events, both considered to be critical for the sequential states of system and synaptic memory consolidation during sleep.
The observed neurophysiological interactions of hippocampus, thalamus, cortex and pontine nuclei, together with the maps of robust up/down modulation of the brainwide metabolic activity revealed both synergistic and strong antagonistic interactions between memory systems, as well as between the activities of sensory thalamic and neuromodulatory nuclei and the hippocampal formation during epochs potentially related to memory consolidation. On-going work is currently examining the event-triggered neurophysiological responses in a number of structures, mapped with imaging, as well as the extent to which fMRI-measured multistructure activity patterns at any given time may themselves predict the occurrence of various neural events.


Objectives: The objective of the study was to evaluate differences in post partum bleeding, transfusion requirement and length of hospital stay in women with focal vs. diffuse placenta accreta. The same parameters were compared in women undergoing balloon occlusion vs. no occlusion of the iliac arteries at Caesarean delivery for accreta. Methods: Prospective observational study of women with suspected focal or diffuse placenta accreta on routine sonography. Follow up scans were performed as required. Surgical and histologic correlation was performed after Caesarean delivery. Independent groups t-tests and non-parametric Mann-Whitney U were used in the statistical analysis. Results: 25 women were diagnosed on ultrasound with placenta accreta, 9 with focal accreta and 16 with diffuse involvement. On average, women in the diffuse group exhibited significantly greater blood loss (P < 0.001) than the focal group and had a higher transfusion requirement (P = 0.12). There was no significant difference in hospital stay between the groups. 12 women underwent balloon iliac occlusion at Caesarean delivery, 2 of whom had focal accreta diagnosed prenatally and 10 had diffuse accreta. There were no significant differences in blood loss, transfusion requirement or length of hospital stay between the balloon vs. no-balloon occlusion groups. Conclusions: Prenatal diagnosis of extent of placenta accreta is clinically important and should guide management around delivery. Although the numbers in this study are small, no significant differences in blood loss or transfusion requirement were observable between the balloon occlusion vs. no occlusion group. Further studies are required to assess whether this is a worthwhile and cost-effective intervention in management of placenta accreta.


This study investigated the effects of a sport nutrition education intervention (SNEI) on dietary intake, knowledge, body composition, and performance in NCAA Division I baseball players. Resistance trained NCAA Division I baseball players (82.4 ± 8.2 kg; 1.83 ± 0.06 m; 13.7 ± 5 % body fat) participated in the study during 12 weeks of off-season training. Fifteen players volunteered for SNEI while 15 players matched for position served as controls (C) for body composition and performance. The nutrition intervention group (NI) received a 90 min SNEI encompassing energy intake (Kcal), carbohydrate (CHO), protein (PRO), fat, food sources, and hydration. Sport nutrition knowledge questionnaires were administered to NI pre and post. Nutritional status was determined by three-day dietary logs administered to NI pre and post. Body composition and performance (5-10-5 shuttle test, vertical jump, broad jump, 1 RM squat) were measured pre and post for C and NI. Knowledge increased in NI. Pro and fat, but not CHO intake increased in NI. FM decreased pre to post in NI (11.5 ± 4.8 vs. 10.5 ± 5.4 kg) but not C (11.3 ± 4.7 vs. 11.9 ± 4.5 kg). FFM increased pre to post with no differences between groups. The 5-10-5 shuttle times decreased significantly more in NI (4.58 ± 0.15 vs. 4.43 ± 0.13 sec) compared to C (4.56 ± 0.18 vs. 4.50 ± 0.16 sec). Jump and squat performance increased pre to post with no differences between groups. Our findings indicate that an off season SNEI is effective at improving sport nutrition knowledge and some, but not all, nutrient intakes and performance measures in Division I baseball players.


ABSTRACT Many eolian sand grains have well-rounded concavities. These concavities occur in grains of all minerals in a single sample and preferentially at larger grain sizes, suggesting that they form by mechanical abrasion in the eolian environment rather than by chemical dissolution. The concavities develop through abrasion at contacts between near-surface grains in the bed. The energy for this abrasion is provided by collisions of saltating grains with the sand bed. As a grain with a concavity cycles through a range of depths in a ripple, agitation of the bed driven by grain-bed impacts promotes the formation of a grain-grain contact between that concavity and a protuberance on a neighboring grain. This in turn focuses further wear at the contact, thereby circumventing the natural tendency oward grain sphericity that would arise from random grain orientation. A quantitative physical model combining theories of grain-bed impacts and of granular materials with experimental surface erosion rates establishes the plausibility of this mechanism. Within the model, concavities grow to a limiting size that is a significant fraction (order 10-30%) of a grain diameter, within the range of observed concavity sizes.


HYBRID WEAKNESS FOUND IN THE BACKCROSS PROGENY OF AN INTER-SPECIFIC CROSS OF ORYZA SATIVA / O. GLUMAEPATULA. Hybrid breakdown expressed as sterility or weakness or both in F2 or later generations is considered to be a reproductive barrier between two distantly related taxa. Hybrid breakdown that showed poor growth habit with fertile seeds was found in the backcross progenies (BC4F2) which were derived from a cross between a cultivated rice Oryza sativa L. cv. Taichung 65 and a wild rice Oryza glumaepatula Steud (Acc. IRGC 105668) where Taichung 65 was used as a recurrent parent. Through segregation analysis of BC4F2 population, a novel gene for weakness was identified, and this gene was designated as hwf1 (hybrid weakness f-1). RFLP (Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism) analysis was employed to determine the chromosomal location of hwf1 gene. The result revealed that hwf1 was located between G3006 and C933 RFLP markers, with map distances of 0.5 cM and 1.9 cM, respectively, and co-segregated with C708, C820, and R288 on the short arm of chromosome 4. Since both O. glumaepatula (Acc. IRGC 105668) and Taichung 65 that was used as parents showed normal growth habit, the weakness in this study was assumed to be controlled by a set of complementary recessive genes. One of the complementary genes is hwf1 from O. glumaepatula, and another gene should be from Taichung 65, because the genetic background of the BC4F2 populations that were used for analysis is Taichung 65. The gene from Taichung 65 has not been identified yet, therefore, it is necessary to conduct the experiment for finding out the complement of hwf1 gene in near future.


Byline: C. Ramasubramanian Introduction Work is therapeutic and essential for an individual's physical survival and psychological well-being. It is an important part of a cultural role, which occupies much of an individual's time, supplies a source of income, provides a basis of identity, and contributes to one's physiological and psychological well-being in the society.[sup] [1] Many research studies found that participation in paid work activity led to an increase in quality of life and improvement in motivation toward activities. In a 10-year follow-up study conducted by Salyers et al .,[sup] [2] in UK, mental health consumers reported that work improved multiple areas of their lives, which included more self-confidence and hope about the future, and less boredom and loneliness. In the absence of necessary vocational training facilities leading to vocational rehabilitation either in the mental hospital setting or community settings, the mentally disabled persons become more and more dependent on the families which in turn are increasingly frustrated with these individuals and ultimately such unhealthy chain reactions result in patients being thrown out of the families. Thus, wandering becomes their main activity, begging becomes their vocation, and public's mockery becomes reward from the society. Especially when the mentally ill happens to be the head of the family or the only bread winner of the family, lack of vocational rehabilitation programs may lead to many untold miseries. The plight of the children and helpless wife is pathetic. The family gets totally disorganized - young children are forced to give up their schooling in order to earn their livelihood through hard child labor; wife, if not supported either by the relatives or by the social security measures, becomes the personification of sadness and hopelessness. Such family situations, more often than not, become the target of antisocial elements too. Vocational rehabilitation of people with Severe Mental Illness (SMI) has become the focus of psychiatric practice, for the past two decades. The increasing awareness of the low employment rates of people with SMI has speeded up a growing interest in vocational rehabilitation among mental health professionals.[sup] [3] The literature indicates that 75-90% of adults with SMI are unemployed in UK.[sup] [4] . Many action-oriented programs resulting from systematic exploration of the rehabilitation potentials are being initiated and implemented for the welfare of the blind, deaf-mute, and orthopedically handicapped. For example, there are 13 vocational rehabilitation centers organized by the ministry of Labor Employment and Training, Government of India, functioning in different state capitals that deal with the problems of the physically handicapped. Even the special employment exchanges are concerned with the welfare of the physically handicapped. But in the case of mentally disabled - either mentally ill or mentally retarded - only sporadic attempts are made to fully utilize the inherent potentials. Unfortunately, there is neither special employment exchange nor any vocational rehabilitation center for the welfare of the mentally disabled persons. Current Scenario of Mental Disability in India Prevalence A WHO-World Bank study in 1993 revealed four of the top ten conditions resulting in disability are mental disorders worldwide. These are schizophrenia, depression, obsessive compulsive disorders, and alcoholism. In India, it is estimated that about 10% of the general population suffers from common mental disorders, with 1% having major psychiatric illness. In spite of vigorous treatment with continuous medications, about 30% of chronic patients with psychotic illness suffers from various disabilities.[sup] [5] . According to WHO,[sup] [5] 10% of the world population is disabled. Psychiatric disorders account for nearly one-third of the disability in the world. …


Nanostructuring of Silicon surface has perceived exponential growth over time due to its high demanding properties like superhydrophobicity and high anti-reflection [1]–[3]. Especially hierarchical structures (combination of micro- and nano- structures) on Silicon with significantly increased surface area has demonstrated enhanced optical and surface wettability properties, making it highly suitable for applications like self-cleaning, solar cell, photoluminescence, contamination prevention, etc [3]–[5]. Various techniques like vapour-liquid-solid (VLS), reactive ion etching (RIE), electrochemical etching and wet anisotropic electroless etching have been optimised for  micro- and nanostructuring over Silicon surface [5]–[9]. Methods like VLS and RIE are expensive and complicated. Wet electrochemical and electroless etching processes are simpler but electrochemical etching gives a very non-uniform porous structure and electroless etching only gives rise to microstructure and is also dependent on the orientation of Silicon surface. Nanostructuring of Silicon wafers using metal assisted etching has also been reported which is a rapid process [4], [10]. However, this process only results in the formation of nanostructured Silicon. There are reports where wet chemical etching and metal assisted etching process have been combined to realize hierarchical structures on Silicon but it does require longer time and large area uniformity in the formation of hierarchical structures is unpredictable [3], [11].
In this work, for the first time we propose an extremely fast and facile electroless method of fabricating hierarchical structures on Silicon wafer covering a large area. Added major benefits to this proposed method is that complete wafer can be textured within 3 to 8 minutes time span and is not dependent on the orientation or doping concentration of Silicon.
The unpolished side of a commercial Silicon wafer having grooved cup shaped microstructures on it was used as the base to deposit silver (Ag) nanoparticles electrolessly. After the Ag nanoparticle deposition for varied time between 30 s to 2 min, the Silicon wafer was etched for different time duration (1 min to 7 min) in dilute mixture of Hydrofluoric acid (HF) and Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Eventually the Ag nanoparticles were etched away in dilute Nitric acid leaving behind the hierarchical structures of Silicon unaffected. Pyramidal shaped microstructured Si surface was also used for deposition of Ag nanoparticles followed by a similar processing as mentioned above.
Diffused optical reflectance measurement on the hierarchical structured Silicon showed significant reduction by 46% in comparison to plane polished Silicon. Moreover insignificant variation in reflectance was observed over a broad wavelength range of 300 nm to 1400 nm.
It is concluded that such facile large area processing of hierarchical anti-reflecting structures on Si can be extremely beneficial for optical applications using Silicon.
References:
[1]      Y. Cao et al., "Fabrication of silicon wafer with ultra low reflectance by chemical etching method," Appl. Surf. Sci., vol. 257, no. 17, pp. 7411–7414, 2011.
[2]      Y. Xiu, L. Zhu, D. W. Hess, and C. P. Wong, "Hierarchical silicon etched structures for controlled hydrophobicity/ superhydrophobicity," Nano Lett., vol. 7, no. 11, pp. 3388–3393, 2007.
[3]      D. Qi et al., "Simple Approach to Wafer-scale Self-cleaning Antireflective Surfaces," pp. 1–5.
[4]      W.-F. Kuan and L.-J. Chen, "The preparation of superhydrophobic surfaces of hierarchical silicon nanowire structures.," Nanotechnology, vol. 20, no. 3, p. 35605, 2009.
[5]      Y. Xiu, S. Zhang, V. Yelundur, A. Rohatgi, D. W. Hess, and C. P. Wong, "Superhydrophobic and Low Light Reflectivity Silicon Surfaces Fabricated by Hierarchical Etching," Langmuir, vol. 24, no. 18, pp. 10421–10426, Sep. 2008.
[6]      C. R. Tellier and A. Brahim-Bounab, "Anisotropic etching of silicon crystals in KOH solution," J. Mater. Sci., vol. 29, no. 22, pp. 5953–5971, 1994.
[7]      G. Barillaro, A. Nannini, and M. Piotto, "Electrochemical etching in HF solution for silicon micromachining," Sensors Actuators A Phys., vol. 102, no. 1–2, pp. 195–201, Dec. 2002.
[8]      V. Schmidt, S. Senz, and U. G?sele, "Diameter-Dependent Growth Direction of Epitaxial Silicon Nanowires," Nano Lett., vol. 5, no. 5, pp. 931–935, May 2005.
[9]      F. Marty et al., "Advanced etching of silicon based on deep reactive ion etching for silicon high aspect ratio microstructures and three-dimensional micro- and nanostructures," Microelectronics J., vol. 36, no. 7, pp. 673–677, Jul. 2005.
[10]     S. Gielis, M. H. vander Veen, S. De Gendt, and P. M. Vereecken, "Silver-assisted Etching of Silicon Nanowires S. Gielis," ECS Trans., vol. 33, no. 18, pp. 49–58, 2011.
[11]     D. Z. Dimitrov and C.-H. Du, "Crystalline silicon solar cells with micro/nano texture," Appl. Surf. Sci., vol. 266, pp. 1–4, 2013.


Percutaneous transhepatic fine calibre cholangioscopy is described. A specially developed transparent instrument is used, which makes it unnecessary to have a steerable endoscope; visualisation of the biliary tree is of diagnostic value for assessing biliary stenoses due to tumours (choice of biopsy site, extent of intraductal radiation therapy) and for the assessment of anastomoses between the biliary system and the gut (condition of the mucosa, stenoses). In the presence of percutaneous biliary drainage, the method has little utility. Extension of the method for treating intraductal stones may be possible if in future a useful lumen can be added to the fine endoscope.


Weeds represent one of the major biological constraints to upland rice production in low input agricultural systems. The effects of weeding regimes and rice cultivars on weed growth and rice yield were investigated over three seasons. Four weeding regimes [0 (no weeding control), 1, 2, and 3] and three popular rice varieties (NARIC 2, a local cultivar, and NERICA 4), were tested in 4x3 factorial experiment in a Randomised Complete block with three replicates. The most important weed species recorded were; Biden pilosa, Commelina benghalensis L., Euphorbia hirta L., Micrococca mercurialis  Benth., Galisonga parviflora Cav, Sida rhombifolia L., Triumfeta spp, Guizotia scabra, Celocia trigyna, Cyprus rotundus, Panicum Maximum Jacq, and Imperata cylindrica L. Across cultivars, the best weeding regimes for weed control and rice yields were single weeding and weeding twice. Differences among interaction effects between variety and weeding regime were not significant for most traits, except ripening ratio and grain yield in experiment one and experiment two. Across weeding regimes, NERICA 4 out yielded the other varieties in all the three experiments. However, a single well timed hand hoe weeding, together with the use of a cultivar with good adaptation to unfavourable rice growing conditions, such as NERICA 4, would increase land and labour productivity of upland rice-based systems in Uganda.

 Key words: Genotype, rice, upland, weeding regimes, yield.


Automation of office work constitutes a new growing appl ication of information systems. The original characteri stics of an Office Information System (OIS) in comparison with a conventional information system imply the need for devel opi ng new design methodol ogies and model s, which are cl assified and discussed in this paper. OIS are not just document management systems (or word processing systems), 1.e., they do not consider only, or mainly, static aspects of data: they are in fact more general information systems where documents are only one of the many elements of the system. In addition, while conventional IS are often applied to support operational activities, office work shows many different facets, and therefore it is not reduci bl e to a set of operatl onal activities. Correspondi ngly, whil e the main phases that are commonly recognized in the design of a conventional IS (such as requi rements analysis, requi rements specification, logical design, optimization and implementation, system eval uatl on and . modification) can be transferred al so to OIS design, the , conceptual models for requirements specifications, on which the early design phases are based, should instead be changed in order to allow the specification of particular aspects of an OIS. Such aspects include new functionalities, such as filtering of data, reminding of activities to be performed, scheduling of manual and automatic activities, and communication; some specific types of data are also needed in an OIS: groups of data (documents and dossiers), unstructured and incomplete data, sophisticated handling of time, and of compl ex situations, distributed data, office workers roles. Other particular aspects are related to the fact that an office system is intrisically evol uti onary, and with the usage of the system: highly interactive, integrating different functions, requiring great flexibility with possible interruptions of tasks and with a high number of exceptions arising during the work. *This paper is forthcoming in ACM Transactions on Office Information Sy stems.


Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), a psychological disorder currently recognized by the DSM-IV-TR, is typically associated with distorted cognitions, particularly in regards to high levels of excessive worry. Accordingly, much research has attempted to better understand these, and other cognitive factors that may predict symptoms consistent with such a diagnosis. One study conducted by Tull and colleagues (2009) found that cognitive factors such as anxiety sensitivity and difficulties in emotion regulation may serve as predisposing factors in the development of GAD. My study continues this line of research by assessing the predictive nature of several cognitive constructs (i.e., worry, rumination, coping styles, and anxiety sensitivity) in accordance with symptoms consistent with a diagnosis of GAD. Undergraduate students (N =285) completed anxiety-related measures on an online anxiety prediction study. Results indicated that women reported more generalized anxiety symptoms than men. In addition, regression analyses indicated gender differences in predictors of GAD. Coping strategies and rumination proved to add to the prediction of GAD.


Since the 1970s, neo-liberalism has become a key ideology driving the global economy. It originates in the liberalism of enlightenment thinkers, neo-classical economics (marginal utility) and a resistance to totalitarianism. In 1938 a colloquium of prominent economists/philosophers, discussed how 19th century liberalism could be renewed without a naturalistic 'laissez-faire' approach. From 1944, with the publication of "The road to serfdom" till almost the end of his life, Hayek expounded and developed key thoughts of the colloquium, such as the market economy or, in his words, catallaxy, a spontaneously evolving order, based on private property, subject to general rules of conduct, but not to state control. Its actors seek to maximise their income, albeit on the basis of fragmentary, dispersed, knowledge. Thus, Hayek's thoughts have contributed to the emergence of neo-liberalism during the 1980s and following years as a set of policy prescriptions guiding international organisations such as the international monetary fund (IMF) etc. as well as many nations. Neo-liberalism should be seen in relationship with technicism, an ideology of progress through science and technology. Since the renaissance and the enlightenment, technicism has become a pervasive influence on the whole of Western culture to the extent that it is hardly noticed. Neo-liberal policies have been acting as a catalyst of technicism, especially through global free trade. This study aims at identifying three weaknesses in Hayek's thinking, especially as expressed in his concept of three orders: catallaxi, taxes and cosmos: the theory of the catallaxi shows an imprint of technicism, especially in the form of an automatically working price mechanism and the construction of rules for the catallaxi; he has failed to appreciate problems such as the trend towards the formation of monopolies/oligopolies, based on expensive new technics, and its adverse environmental impacts. The latter cannot solely be solved through the price mechanism; the ordering of the market society by rules developed by experts might not be conducive to freedom. An alternative view of a free society is inspired by the order of taxes and the principle of sphere sovereignty developed by reformational philosophy.

 Key words: Hayek, market society, price mechanism, neo-liberalism, orders, catallaxy, taxi, freedom.


We present a high-resolution (R ∼ 35,000), high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N > 200) Magellan/MIKE spectrum of the star RAVE J094921.8−161722, a bright (V = 11.3) metal-poor red giant star with [Fe/H] = −2.2, identified as a carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) star from the RAVE survey. We report its detailed chemical abundance signature of light fusion elements and heavy neutron-capture elements. We find J0949−1617 to be a CEMP star with s-process enhancement that must have formed from gas enriched by a prior r-process event. Light neutron-capture elements follow a low-metallicity s-process pattern, while the heavier neutron-capture elements above Eu follow an r-process pattern. The Pb abundance is high, in line with an s-process origin. Thorium is also detected, as expected from an r-process origin, as Th is not produced in the s-process. We employ nucleosynthesis model predictions that take an initial r-process enhancement into account, and then determine the mass transfer of carbon and s-process material from a putative more massive companion onto the observed star. The resulting abundances agree well with the observed pattern. We conclude that J0949−1617 is the first bonafide CEMP-r + s star identified. This class of objects has previously been suggested to explain stars with neutron-capture element patterns that originate from neither the r- nor the s-process alone. We speculate that J0949−1617 formed in an environment similar to those of ultra-faint dwarf galaxies like Tucana III and Reticulum II, which were enriched in r-process elements by one or multiple neutron star mergers at the earliest times.


Ecosystem changes are happening with surprising speed and on much shorter-than-projected time scales. This essay explores the complexities of such abrupt environmental shifts, how scientists conceptualize a runaway nature, and how uncertainty poses a problem of projection and action. Its ethnographic material engages contexts where rapidly faltering projections and policies interface in unsettled ways with the realities of emergency response, especially to wildfires. Attuned to the political and existential hazards at work in a science of critical transitions, the essay argues for the importance of a distinct kind of intellectual and ethical labor, horizoning work, amid physical worlds on edge.


We present a novel direction-aware feature-level frequency decomposition network for single image deraining. Compared with existing solutions, the proposed network has three compelling characteristics. First, unlike previous algorithms, we propose to perform frequency decomposition at feature-level instead of image-level, allowing both low-frequency maps containing structures and high-frequency maps containing details to be continuously refined during the training procedure. Second, we further establish communication channels between low-frequency maps and high-frequency maps to interactively capture structures from high-frequency maps and add them back to low-frequency maps and, simultaneously, extract details from low-frequency maps and send them back to high-frequency maps, thereby removing rain streaks while preserving more delicate features in the input image. Third, different from existing algorithms using convolutional filters consistent in all directions, we propose a direction-aware filter to capture the direction of rain streaks in order to more effectively and thoroughly purge the input images of rain streaks. We extensively evaluate the proposed approach in three representative datasets and experimental results corroborate our approach consistently outperforms state-of-the-art deraining algorithms.


In this paper, it monitored ground subsidence in the coal mining area using two-pass D-InSAR technique. We obtained 9 ALOS PALSAR single-look complex (SLC) images in Yanzhou coal mining area from December 2007 to Februay 2009. Based on SAR interferometric pairs and SRTM DEM, we detected the subsided areas and got the vertical subsided quantity. We got the ground subsidence maps in different stages from 2007 to 2009. Several important subsided areas were selected and then analyzed in detail. It analyzed the general laws of mining subsidence. The results indicated that two-pass D-InSAR technique based on L-band PALSAR data and SRTM DEM is a very simple, rapid and efficient way to detect and to monitor ground subsidence in the coal mining area, even in the areas with vegetation covered.


We present a pointer analysis algorithm designed for source-to-source transformations. Existing techniques for pointer analysis apply a collection of inference rules to a dismantled intermediate form of the source program, making them difficult to apply to source-to-source tools that generally work on abstract syntax trees to preserve details of the source program. Our pointer analysis algorithm operates directly on the abstract syntax tree of a C program and uses a form of standard dataflow analysis to compute the desired points-to information. We have implemented our algorithm in a source-to-source translation framework and experimental results show that it is practical on real-world examples.


: The therapy of drug addicts must not be confused with measures to reduce drug problems. Therapy means medical care for the treatment of a disease. In the treatment of drug addiction, we apply pharmacological and psychological therapy but also psychosocial techniques to address the problems of an addict. Actions might contain causal, symptomatic, or palliative therapies according to the measures currently available. The choice of a treatment procedure in the frame of the available alternatives is oriented on the objective findings, the chance for success, and the patient's intentions. The therapy of the drug addiction is divided into the stages of contact, detoxification, weaning, and aftercare. We aim for a patient's living without consuming drugs and the ability to critically and socially deal with the reality. The break with the pleasure/reluctance principle and switching to the performance principle is crucial. We have success rates ranging between 20 and 40% over five years in the currently available treatment-facility. The substitution therapy is also available as an additional choice for a smaller group of addicts where we do without an abstinence. Naturally, this is a substitution with methadone and may only be a measure for prolonging life. The application of heroine has currently no foundation as it has no advantages to the administration of methadone. Therefore, we should focus mainly on abstinence orientated procedures and to keep the methadone substitution ready for a small group resistant to therapy.


The developmental features of liver of human embryos and featuses during early ontogenesis are the subject of electron microscopy study. The changes in hepatocytes ratio of different differentiation stages during late periods of embryogenesis and early periods of fetogenesis are identified. The formation of cytoplasmic organelles and changes of nucleo-cytoplasmic ratio of liver were are observed.


Abstract : An egocentric perception model of attribution suggests that three major factors affect self-serving perceptual biases which occur after task performance: performance quality, the importance of the task, and the possibility of continuing to work on similar future tasks. To assess the effects of these variables on attributions, 126 subjects worked in four-person, same-sex groups on a social sensitivity task. The 2 by 2 by 2 by 2 factorial design included: (a) group success or failure, (b) high versus low task importance, (c) expectations of future testing versus no future testing, and (d) sex of subjects. Although the manipulation checks indicated that the task importance and future testing manipulations were quite successful, only group performance consistently affected attributions. As compared to subjects in groups that failed, successful subjects attributed greater responsibility for the performance to self, average group member, and group as a whole, and attributed the cause of the performance more to personal ability and less to internal constraints, situational distractions, and task difficulty. The results support an information processing model of egocentrism rather than a self-serving motivational model, and extend previous findings of attributed causality that were obtained in individual testing situations to group testing situations. (Author)


Ooids are a common component of carbonate successions of all ages and present significant potential as paleoenvironmental proxies, if the mechanisms that control their formation and growth can be understood quantitatively. There are a number of hypotheses about the controls on ooid growth, each offering different ideas on where and how ooids accrete and what role, if any, sediment transport and abrasion might play. These hypotheses have not been well tested in the field, largely due to the inherent challenges of tracking individual grains over long timescales. This study presents a detailed field test of ooid-growth hypotheses on Little Ambergris Cay in the Turks and Caicos Islands, British Overseas Territories. This field site is characterized by westward net sediment transport from waves driven by persistent easterly trade winds. This configuration makes it possible to track changes in ooid properties along their transport path as a proxy for changes in time. Ooid size, shape, and radiocarbon age were compared along this path to determine in which environments ooids are growing or abrading. Ooid surface textures, petrographic fabrics, stable-isotope compositions (δ^(13)C, δ^(18)O, and δ^(34)S), lipid geochemistry, and genetic data were compared to characterize mechanisms of precipitation and degradation and to determine the relative contributions of abiotic (e.g., abiotic precipitation, physical abrasion) and biologically influenced processes (e.g., biologically mediated precipitation, fabric destruction through microbial microboring and micritization) to grain size and character. A convergence of evidence shows that active ooid growth occurs along the transport path in a high-energy shoal environment characterized by frequent suspended-load transport: median ooid size increases by more than 100 μm and bulk radiocarbon ages decrease by 360 yr westward along the ∼ 20 km length of the shoal crest. Lipid and 16S rRNA data highlight a spatial disconnect between the environments with the most extensive biofilm colonization and environments with active ooid growth. Stable-isotope compositions are indistinguishable among samples, and are consistent with abiotic precipitation of aragonite from seawater. Westward increases in ooid sphericity and the abundance of well-polished ooids illustrate that ooids experience subequal amounts of growth and abrasion—in favor of net growth—as they are transported along the shoal crest. Overall, these results demonstrate that, in the Ambergris system, the mechanism of ooid growth is dominantly abiotic and the loci of ooid growth is determined by both carbonate saturation and sediment transport mode. Microbes play a largely destructive, rather than constructive, role in ooid size and fabric.


RATIONALE
Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) primarily describe their exertional dyspnea using descriptors alluding to increased effort or work of breathing and unsatisfied inspiration or inspiratory difficulty.

OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of changes in dynamic respiratory mechanics during incremental (INCR) and high-intensity constant work-rate (CWR) cycle exercise on the evolution of dyspnea intensity and its major qualitative dimensions in patients with moderate-to-severe COPD.

METHODS
Sixteen subjects with COPD performed symptom-limited INCR and CWR cycle exercise tests. Measurements included dyspnea intensity and qualitative descriptors, breathing pattern, operating lung volumes, and esophageal pressure (Pes).

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
During both exercise tests, there was an inflection in the relation between tidal volume (Vt) and ventilation. This inflection occurred significantly earlier in time during CWR versus INCR exercise but at a similar ventilation, Vt, and tidal Pes swing. Beyond this inflection, there was no further change in Vt despite a continued increase in ventilation and tidal Pes. During both tests, "work and effort" was the dominant dyspnea descriptor selected up to the inflection point, whereas after this point dyspnea intensity and the selection frequency of "unsatisfied inspiration" rose sharply.

CONCLUSIONS
Regardless of the exercise test protocol, the inflection (or plateau) in the Vt response marked the point where dyspnea intensity rose abruptly and there was a transition in the dominant qualitative descriptor choice from "work and effort" to "unsatisfied inspiration." Intensity and quality of dyspnea evolve separately and are strongly influenced by mechanical constraints on Vt expansion during exercise in COPD.


Cattle genotypes and adoption of new feeding technology are necessary for improving beef cattle production and managing efficiently beef production costs. A study was conducted to determine the effects of cattle genotypes and levels of concentrate supplements on cost effectiveness of feedlot beef production in a Complete Randomized Block Design in 3×4 factorial arrangements with 4 replications. Feeds were urea-treated rice straw (UTRS: 4%, w/w) and concentrates made from decorticated cottonseed cake (66%) and maize bran (34%). The experimental animals were Ankole (A×A: n=16), Ankole × Friesian (A×F: n=16) and Ankole × Sahiwal (A×S: n=16) steers. Proxy indicators used to determine profitability and likelihood of economic viability were Initial and Final values of carcass existing abattoir price (RwF 1800/kg beef); Break-even scenarios using What-if Analysis in Excel, 2010; and Gross Margin (GM). Results suggested that cost effectiveness of feedlot beef did not differ (p>0.05) by genotype; but they differed (p<0.05) by diets. It is concluded that beef feedlots using UTRS was marginally economical at 500 g/day of concentrate supplements. A policy incentive to reduce Breakeven Price (BEP) is suggested. A confirmatory study using actual slaughters is recommended.

 Key words: Feedlot beef production, cattle genotype, gross margin, what-if analysis.


Recent game technology ascends development of low-cost virtual environment to the next level in two domains : reality representation and user interaction or engagement. In architecture and urban design realm, realistic 3D representation become more important in such way of conceptualizing ideas and analyzing the context of design problem. This research will present development of virtual urban environment using game engine technology. Aim of this research is to promote game engine as a tool for visual representation, visual analysis and further basic tool for urban design study. At the end, we point out potentials as well as constraints both in technical and design method issues in game technology based on the research findings.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of blocked and random practice schedules on the performance accuracy, speed, temporal evenness, and attitude of beginning band students in a group instructional setting. The research assumptions were based on the contextual interference hypothesis, which predicts that a blocked practice order (low contextual interference) leads to superior performance immediately following practice but that a random practice order (high contextual interference) supports superior performance at delayed retention testing. Beginning clarinet students (N = 41) completed three practice sessions and one retention testing session, performing three seven-pitch exercises. At the end of practice, no significant differences were found between blocked and random practice groups for accuracy, speed, or temporal evenness. At retention, the random group performed significantly faster than the blocked group, F(1, 38) = 24.953, p < .001, η2 = .92, and the blocked group performed significantly slower than it did at the end of practice (p < .001). No significant differences were found between groups for transfer tasks or for attitude toward practice.


Bandung artists have a considerable role in the development of art in Indonesia. Bandung artist shows a typical pattern creation process and differential in every generation. In the era of contemporary art, while categorization in art was collapsed, the Bandung artist shows its existence with fresh works. Each trace is summed up in the work of art that span a variety of styles and media. In addition to the strong influence of art school in Bandung, it produce artists who are not only proficient in the processing of the material but also excellent in concept. The method of this research is qualitative with postmodernism aesthetics and art creation process closure. The goal of this research is to mapping the art creation of Bandung based group of artists in the contemporary art paradigm, to be a reference of teaching materials on the subject of Art Creation Methode. Creative process of artists performed on an ongoing basis can be categorized as a method of work which if drawn further be understood as a process of scientific research. I hope that this research as a theoretical basis can added value in art education in Indonesia. Keywords : Mapping, methoder, art creation, contemporary art.


Management practices are one of the most important factors affecting forest structure and function. Landowners in southern United States manage forests using appropriately sized areas, to meet management objectives that include economic return, sustainability, and esthetic enjoyment. Road networks spatially designate the socio-environmental elements for the forests, which represented and aggregated as forest management units. Road networks are widely used for managing forests by setting logging roads and firebreaks. We propose that common types of forest management are practiced in road-delineated units that can be determined by remote sensing satellite imagery coupled with crowd-sourced road network datasets. Satellite sensors do not always capture road-caused canopy openings, so it is difficult to delineate ecologically relevant units based only on satellite data. By integrating citizen-based road networks with the National Land Cover Database, we mapped road-delineated management units across the regional landscape and analyzed the size frequency distribution of management units. We found the road-delineated units smaller than 0.5 ha comprised 64% of the number of units, but only 0.98% of the total forest area. We also applied a statistical similarity test (Warren's Index) to access the equivalency of road-delineated units with forest disturbances by simulating a serious of neutral landscapes. The outputs showed that the whole southeastern U.S. has the probability of road-delineated unit of 0.44 and production forests overlapped significantly with disturbance areas with an average probability of 0.50.


Objectives:
Diabetes mellitus is a strong risk factor for atherosclerosis and is often characterized by hyperlipidemia. This review was done to evaluate the effectiveness of pharmacological management of hyperlipidemia with atorvastatin versus simvastatin in lowering high cholesterol among diabetic and cardiac patients.

Sources:
Trials were identified by searching four electronic databases (Medline, Cochrane, Pub Med, Scopus and Highwire) and the reference lists of eligible publications.

Keywords:
Dyslipidemia, statins and diabetes, atheroscelerosis, statins, atorvastatin, simvastatin

Methods:
We performed a systematic review of trials that randomly assigned participants to receive atorvastatins versus simvastatin or simvastatin versus placebo or atorvastatin versus placebo for a minimum of 6 week. A meta-analysis was performed using a fixed-effects model, and odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to estimate pooled treatment effects. All statistical tests were two sided. Revman 5.0 version have been used to assess the difference between two treatment group.

Result:
Thirteen trials were included, involving a total of 20598 participants. Trials differed considerably in their inclusion criteria; outcomes measured, and type of lipid-lowering therapy used. The pooled results from all eligible trials indicated that atorvastatin therapy had no statistically significant effect than simvastatin on overall mortality (Risk Ratio (RR) 0.88; 95% confidence Interval (CI) 0.34 to 2.27; P = 0.78)) or on total cardiovascular events (RR 0.99; 95% CI 0.69 to 1.42, P = 0.95). However, analysis showed that atorvastatin significantly reduced the total blood cholesterol versus simvastatin (RR 0.74; CI 0.55 to 0.98). This was primarily due to a positive effect on total coronary events (RR 8.24; 95%CI 8.18 to 8.29; P < 0.00001). Greatest evidence of effectiveness came from the use of atorvastatin in people with blood cholesterol 3.5 mmol/litre.

Conclusion:
The role of statin therapy as a main component of cardiovascular risk reduction in-patients with diabetes. Atorvastatin have significantly better outcomes in lowering blood cholesterol against simvastatin but there was no significant difference in the mortality and total cardiovascular events.


It has been well established in human genetics that when one is testing for linkage between two loci, the significance test must be one-sided for the purpose of reflecting the theoretical limits placed on the estimated recombination fraction. However, the issue becomes obscure when phase-known/-unknown data are considered. This paper presents the subtle difference in hypotheses for testing linkage between two loci when data from which one estimates recombination fractions is phase known or phase unknown. It is shown that a one-sided significance test is appropriate for phase-known data, while a two-sided significance test is correct for phase-unknown data.


OBJECTIVES
Establishing indirect immunofluorescence (IFAT) and enzyme-inked immunoassay (ELISA) serological tests' ability to detect canine visceral leishmaniasis (CVL) infection.

METHODS
211 cross-bred dogs from the south of the Tolima department (a visceral leishmaniasis endemic area) were evaluated by clinical and serological exams, using the Colombian Leishmania infantum (infantum) MHOM/COL/CL044B strain as antigen. Sera reactivity to Trypanosoma cruzi- specífic antigens was evaluated by Western blot (WB) for establishing crossed-reactions or coinfections. CVL frequency was 44 ,1 % (93/211) by IFAT and 50,2 % (103/211) by ELISA.

RESULTS
Seroreactivity to T. cruzi-specific antigens was 1 ,42 % (3/211). Agreement between the serological techniques was low (K=12 ,1 %) and, in spite of clinical signs being present in the animals being evaluated, the prevalence ratios found demonstrated the lack of association between the occurrence of the clinical manifestations and the diagnostic tests' seropositivity.

CONCLUSIONS
The low association between the serological tests used in diagnosing Leishmania infantum suggested the need for further studies aimed at establishing an algorithm for diagnostic tests in Colombia for confirming the real state of the animals' infection and thereby efficiently orientating public health resources allocated for controlling canine visceral leishmaniasis.


In the Merton (1973) ICAPM, state variables that capture the evolution of the investor's opportunity set are necessary to explain observed asset prices. We show that augmenting the CAPM by a measure of market-wide volatility innovation yields a twofactor model that performs well in explaining the cross-section of returns on securities in several asset classes. The consistent pricing of volatility risk (with a negative risk premium) suggests that volatility risk indeed acts as a state variable rather than being just another statistical factor. In addition, we propose a novel method for extracting volatility risk factors from the cross-section and find it help to price assets, especially synthetic volatility swaps.


To examine further the role of the liver in acid-base homeostasis, we studied hepatic amino acid uptake and urea synthesis in rats in vivo during acute acidosis and alkalosis, induced by infusion of 1.8 mmol of HCl or NaHCO3 over 3 h. Amino acids and NH4+ were measured in portal vein, hepatic vein, and aortic plasma, and arteriovenous differences of amino acids and urinary urea and NH4+ excretion were measured. In acidosis, urinary urea excretion was reduced 36% (P < 0.01), whereas urinary NH4+ excretion increased ninefold (P < 0.01), but the sum of urea and NH4+ excretion was unchanged. Total hepatic amino acid uptake, as determined from arteriovenous differences, was decreased by 63% (P < 0.01) in acidosis, with the major effect being noted with alanine and glycine. Only glutamine was released in both acidosis and alkalosis but was not significantly different in the two conditions. Since intracellular concentrations of readily transportable amino acids were not different at low pH despite accelerated protein degradation, these results indicate that hepatic amino acid transport was inhibited markedly and sufficiently to explain the observed decrease in urea synthesis. Total hepatic vein amino acid content was greater in acidosis than alkalosis (P < 0.01). Directly or indirectly, by conversion to glutamine elsewhere, these increased amino acids were degraded in kidney and accounted for the ninefold increase in urinary NH4+ excretion.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Whole word masking (WWM), which masks all subwords corresponding to a word at once, makes a better English BERT model. For the Chinese language, however, there is no subword because each token is an atomic character. The meaning of a word in Chinese is different in that a word is a compositional unit consisting of multiple characters. Such difference motivates us to investigate whether WWM leads to better context understanding ability for Chinese BERT. To achieve this, we introduce two probing tasks related to grammatical error correction and ask pretrained models to revise or insert tokens in a masked language modeling manner. We construct a dataset including labels for 19,075 tokens in 10,448 sentences. We train three Chinese BERT models with standard character-level masking (CLM), WWM, and a combination of CLM and WWM, respectively. Our major findings are as follows: First, when one character needs to be inserted or replaced, the model trained with CLM performs the best. Second, when more than one character needs to be handled, WWM is the key to better performance. Finally, when being fine-tuned on sentence-level downstream tasks, models trained with different masking strategies perform comparably.


To proactively defend computer systems against cyber-attacks, a honeypot system—purposely designed to be prone to attacks—is commonly used to detect attacks, discover new vulnerabilities, exploits or malware before they actually do real damage to real systems. Its usefulness lies in being able to operate without being identified as a trap by adversaries; otherwise, its values are significantly reduced. A honeypot is commonly classified by the degree of interactions that they provide to the attacker: low, medium and high-interaction honeypots. However, these systems have some shortcomings of their own. First, the low and medium-interaction honeypots can be easily detected due to their limited and simulated functions of a system. Second, the usage of real systems in high-interaction honeypots has a high risk of security being compromised due to its unlimited functions. To address these problems, we developed Asgard an adaptive self-guarded honeypot, which leverages reinforcement learning to learn and record attacker's tools and behaviour while protecting itself from being deeply compromised. In this paper, we compare Asgard and its variant Midgard with two conventional SSH honeypots: Cowrie and a real Linux system. The goal of the paper is (1) to demonstrate the effectiveness of the adaptive honeypot that can learn to compromise between collecting attack data and keeping the honeypot safe, and (2) the benefit of coupling of the environment state and the action in reinforcement learning to define the reward function to effectively learn its objectives. The experimental results show that Asgard could collect higher-quality attacker data compared to Cowrie while evading the detection and could also protect the system for as long as it can through blocking or substituting the malicious programs and some other commands, which is the major problem of the high-interaction honeypot.


IS scholars have been studying the diffusion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for some time now and certain research methods have emerged as the dominant ones in this body of literature. In this paper, we first note these methods citing representative studies and then present an alternate approach to studying ICT diffusion using systems dynamics (SD). Any diffusion, by nature, is a temporal phenomenon. The essence of SD is to uncover the underlying network of cause-effect relationships that is generating a temporally evolving behaviour. Thus it is a natural for studying ICT diffusion, particularly when diffusion is driven by complex interactions among contextual variables. SD has not received much attention in the ICT diffusion literature, but this method has strengths that complement those of the other methods currently in common use, thereby enhancing our understanding of the phenomenon. The characteristics of SD also make it particularly appropriate for studying ICT diffusion in the Pacific Asia region which is characterized by substantial differences in contextual variables that drive ICT diffusion, such as literacy rates, economic development and infrastructure sophistication, besides having wide diversity in cultural norms.


We study the problem of determining the optimal spatial node density for deployment of a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) for distributed detection of a randomly located target in a sensing field. We formulate an optimization problem for the single cluster case and account for factors such as the Medium Access Control(MAC) protocol that is used, the wireless channel's propagation characteristics, a randomized sleep/wake-up scheduling protocol, network coverage constraints, the energy consumed, the time to reach a decision, and the total number of nodes available. We show that the optimal node density that minimizes the average Decision Error Probability (DEP) at the Cluster Head (CH) is a function of the distance from the CH and also examine trade-offs between the DEP and other network parameters as the spatial sensor density is varied across the cluster. Solution of the optimization problem and simulations are used to reveal the significant performance improvement that non-uniform spatial densities provide over uniform densities and the many optimal trade-offs that are possible amongst energy, network lifetime, detection performance and time to reach a decision.


This paper introduces a numerical solution method for a class of discrete-time polling systems by relying on the power method, Kronecker matrix representations and the shuffle algorithm. The class of polling models considered consists of several infinite pseudo queues, deterministic service times, Bernoulli service and Markovian routing and includes exhaustive, 1-limited and k-limited service as special cases. A truncated, large finite state Markov chain is obtained by solving a series of finite state Markov chains with increasing size. The model is motivated by the analysis of networks on chips and its superiority over other existing approximation methods in terms of the accuracy and computation times is demonstrated.


We and others have shown that human basophils can synthesize and release IL-4. However, IL-13, a cytokine that closely resembles IL-4, has not hitherto been described as a basophil product. The production of IL-13 by basophils was demonstrated by immunocytochemistry. Approximately 70% of basophils stimulated with anti-FcepsilonRIalpha (antibody to the alpha subunit of IgE receptor type I) stained for IL-13. Under similar experimental conditions, mononuclear cells failed to stain for IL-13. The cytokine was localized to basophilic granules by electron microscopic examination of immunogold staining. The secretion of IL-13 into the culture supernatant was assayed by ELISA. Kinetic studies showed detectable IL-13 release at 3 h, which steadily increased up to 24 h. This is significantly different from the kinetics of basophil histamine and IL-4 release. IL-13 production was also observed upon stimulation with anti-IgE, anti-FcepsilonRIalpha, IL-3, and A23187 in a dose-dependent manner. PBMC, neutrophils, and eosinophils isolated from the same donors did not release IL-13 after anti-IgE stimulation. The anti-IgE-induced basophil IL-13 synthesis could be enhanced by IL-3 preincubation (with and without IL-3 preincubation, anti-IgE-induced IL-13 production was 227 +/- 99 and 42 +/- 13 pg/10(6) basophils, respectively). PBMC produced a significant amount of IL-1 3 upon stimulation with PHA, but a low level of IL-13 in response to A23187 and/or PMA. Eosinophils and neutrophils did not produce IL-13 when cultured with A23187, IL-5, and anti-FcepsilonRIalpha. This is the first demonstration of IL-1 3 production by basophils. Our data suggest that basophils, in addition to secreting mediators, can represent an important source of proallergic cytokines.


In this paper, we consider designing locally stabilizing controllers, each of which stabilizes each disconnected subsystem, in a distributed manner for large-scale networked linear systems. To this end, we design a low-dimensional hierarchical distributed compensator such that the L2-performance of the closed-loop system improves as long as that of the locally stabilizing controllers improves. We solve a controller reduction problem where the approximation error of the low-dimensional compensator gets better as long as the performance of the locally stabilizing controllers improves, while preserving the hierarchical distributed structure of the original compensator. Finally, we demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method through a numerical example of a power network.


MOTIVATION
The growth of next-generation sequencing means that more effective and efficient archiving methods are needed to store the generated data for public dissemination and in anticipation of more mature analytical methods later. This article examines methods for compressing the quality score component of the data to partly address this problem.

RESULTS
We compare several compression policies for quality scores, in terms of both compression effectiveness and overall efficiency. The policies employ lossy and lossless transformations with one of several coding schemes. Experiments show that both lossy and lossless transformations are useful, and that simple coding methods, which consume less computing resources, are highly competitive, especially when random access to reads is needed.

AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION
Our C++ implementation, released under the Lesser General Public License, is available for download at http://www.cb.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp/asailab/members/rwan.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Accurately determining the occupant loading onto the side glazing and surrounding structures during collisions is an important component of the development of occupant ejection mitigation systems. This paper details simulations performed in order to determine the centrifugal loading of a typical adult occupant against adjacent portions of the vehicle during rollover. This paper estimates centrifugal force vectors and the effective mass of a 50th percentile male on the glazing during the airborne (unconstrained) portion of rollovers of increasing severity.

An LS-DYNA model of a Ford Bronco II sport utility vehicle was developed. This finite element (FE) model was then coupled with the MADYMO Hybrid III 50th percentile Anthropomorphic Test Dummy (ATD). Progressively greater centrifugal accelerations acted upon the occupant and vehicle in order to acquire the loads on the glazing and door. The effective mass of the ATD interacting with the glazing was calculated using interfacial contact forces.

The results of this investigation show a non-linear increase in loading upon the glazing, door and B-pillar with increasing rotational velocity, and that the effective mass of the occupant on the glazing is highest at a roll velocity of 270 deg/sec.


The investment in the development of the existing portfolio of clinics, as well as in their maintenance and operation, constitutes 3–4% of the annual budgets of health maintenance organizations (HMOs) in Israel. These clinics are the primary facilities for the provision of health services. The research objective was the implementation of previously defined key performance indicators (KPIs) in a 42 clinic sample in order to: (1) assess the maintenance performance of the facilities, (2) intraand inter-benchmark the performance and efficiency, (3) establish a policy for the strategic and tactical maintenance management, and (4) set priorities in the maintenance plan. These actions should be part of a cycle for continuous improvement of the performance and maintenance of the facilities. This set of seven hybrid KPIs can be used for the leading and lagging analysis of the planning and control of facility maintenance. A case study is presented as an example of the applicability of the method.


Many data sources can be interpreted as time-series, and a key problem is to identify which pairs out of a large collection of signals are highly correlated. We expect that there will be few, large, interesting correlations, while most signal pairs do not have any strong correlation. We abstract this as the problem of identifying the highly correlated pairs in a collection of n mostly pairwise uncorrelated random variables, where observations of the variables arrives as a stream. Dimensionality reduction can remove dependence on the number of observations, but further techniques are required to tame the quadratic (in n) cost of a search through all possible pairs.
We develop a new algorithm for rapidly finding large correlations based on sketch techniques with an added twist: we quickly generate sketches of random combinations of signals, and use these in concert with ideas from coding theory to decode the identity of correlated pairs. We prove correctness and compare performance and effectiveness with the best LSH (locality sensitive hashing) based approach.


The supervision of plant hygiene of sweet chestnut grove on Pécsbánya (South Hungary) started more than four years ago. Hypovirulent strains were applied as a biological process to control Cryphonectria parasitica fungus which causes the chestnut blight disease. By now the performed interventions have shown obvious results, the vitality of the trees has greatly improved, the amount of harvested nuts is increasing, and the hypovirulent strain has been spreading within the area. During plant health inspection the galls of chestnut gall wasp (Dryocosmus kuriphilus) was found in the year of 2015, which is the obvious symptom of new occurrence of the pest. The pest was eradicated by destroy galls, which allows taking out of consideration the damage by now in this area.


Interstitial implants are either removable or permanent (and occasionally a combination of both). Permanent implants are generally utilized where tumors are not accessible enough to permit easy removal of sources or where accurate source distribution is less critical. They are useful for cancers of the lung, pancreas, prostate, bladder, lymph nodes, etc. Radon and gold-198 have been largely replaced by iodine-125. Our major interests are in the removable after-loading iridium-192 implant techniques. Template (steel guide) and non-template (plastic tube) techniques are utilized. Templates are preferred where the tumor volume can only be approached from one side and where accurate positioning of sources would otherwise be difficult. They are useful for cancers of the cervix, vagina, urethra, and rectum. Non-template (plastic tube) techniques are preferred where the tumor volume can be approached from at least two sides and where templates are either not feasible or not essential for accurate positioning of sources. The single needle non-template approach is useful for cancers of lip, nodes, and breast (plastic button) and for cancers of the oral cavity and oropharynx (gold button). The paired needle non-template approach is useful for cancers of the gum, retromolar trigone, and base of tongue (loop technique) and for cancers of the palate (arch technique). Procedures for each technique are described in detail.


Abstract Understanding the mechanisms that create spatial and temporal patterns of functional diversity in stream networks is a goal of basic research and has implications for effective conservation of freshwater ecosystems. These patterns are likely to be influenced by the combination of temporally variable environmental conditions, movement constraints imposed by network structure, and the trait composition of local communities. We developed a simplified metacommunity model to investigate complex interactions among these factors under lottery competition for local resources, such as establishment sites. We used this model to examine how local and regional community composition varied in 3 scenarios: a null implementation involving only spatial effects, an implementation that combined network constraints with dispersal-trait variation, and an implementation in which a trade-off between multiple functional traits was paired with varying levels of temporal autocorrelation in the intensity of mortality. These simulations clarified the conditions that allow a single functional strategy to exclude others in a dendritic network and demonstrated 2 distinct modes of regional partitioning that can support the persistence of multiple functional strategies within such networks. The results suggested that the emergence of watershed or headwater–outlet partitioning depends on the functional dispersal differences present in the metacommunity and that autocorrelated mortality levels can collapse these regional divisions when they depend on a trade-off between dispersal ability and mortality resistance. We discuss the need to confront the complexity of interacting controls on community composition in rivers and streams and suggest opportunities to move beyond the basic framework we present.


Death Monks Academics The purpose of this paper is to relate the rituals of death practised in the Monks' Republic of Mount Athos in northern Greece, and to reflect on them as an academic. To do this fifty days and nights were spent on the Holy Mountain conducting ethnography; this enabled both the monks' enactments to be captured and their interpretations recorded. The monastic rituals of death on Mount Athos are presented according to three emergent, paradoxical themes. These are that death is: both near and far; both a blessing and a tragedy; both uniting and dividing. The paper, the first study of monastic rituals of death on Mount Athos, then reflects on these themes in relation to being an academic, concluding that the limited commemoration of our colleagues in universities is intertwined with the slow death of the academic vocation.


Perhaps one of the most amazing events that occurs in nature, is in the emergence and growth of biological life. Emergence speaks of the well-coined phrase Primordial ooze from which the chemical building blocks of life first gave rise to the complicated molecular structure of Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), that has the mind boggling task of encoding every chemical and physical attribute and trait of the organism for which it is encoded. This incredible feat of nature is only equalled by the ability of single fertilized cell (zygote) to undergo a seemingly magical transformation through enlargement, growth and change to give rise to a fully formed animal (or plant). The study and body of knowledge of this latter process is called Developmental Biology, and it seeks to define and explain all of the intricate sub-stages and bio-chemical, molecular and physical processes along the time-line of this transformation, that is from fertilization to birth, hatching or germination and beyond.

One might consider, and quite reasonably, that the variety of different processes leading to the development of a complete biological organism would be so vast as to render the problem untenable. Indeed the almost inconceivable amount of genetic information contained within the nucleus of the simplest of cells would seem to corroborate this assumption. However when one takes a more holistic view, we can see that the development of any complex biological organism can be reduced to a set of five distinct processes, all of which are orchestrated to define structures from a body of cells. Viewed in this light the generation of any complex multi-cellular organism, be it small or large, must involve: cell-division, differentiation, pattern formation, change in form and growth [1].

To mediate and orchestrate these different processes during the development of the embryo are a enumerable number of bio-chemicals that are produced within the cells that can diffuse into the surrounding environment, activating (and de-activating) inter/intra-cellular signalling pathways that trigger further productions and possibly one or more of the processes suggested above. One such case of this, and which is of particular interest in this thesis, is in the role of morphogens in the growth of vertebrate embryos, where it is known that interacting morphogen gradients can give rise to spatially stable concentrations [2] that are known to be involved in organ growth [3], primitive streak formation [4] and the extension and patterning of the primary body axis [5, 6, 7].

In this thesis we are considering one such problem involving these mechanisms/processes, during the primary body axis extension in the chick embryo. During this phase of development the early brain is beginning to form and the central nervous system (CNS) is beginning to extend unilaterally in a posterior direction defining the main anteroposterior (head to tail) body axis; in simple terms one may see this as the generation of the spinal cord and surrounding structures. Extension of this axis is known to be orchestrated by a small cellular structure located at the posterior-most tip of the extension, encompassing what is known as the primary organising centre in the chick embryo: Hensen's node. This structure including the node is known to move independently/autonomously of the rest of the embryo and as it does so the cells in the region are growing and proliferating, and ultimately differentiating and leaving this region to literally fuel the axial extension.

This broad description leads us to the heart of our thesis, and which will preoccupy the rest of this dissertation. We postulate that the motile behaviour of the group is as a result of biochemical gradients to which the group is attracted toward areas of highest concentration or towards areas of lowest concentration of some as yet unnamed morphogen. That is we assume that the group moves as a result of a chemotaxis. Furthermore, the growth and subsequent differentiation of cells exiting the group, contributing to the growth of the CNS, are also regulated by the same morphogen. Therefore we propose that a singular bio-chemical mechanism can account for the motile and growth behaviour observed during CNS extension.


In this paper, the design space, including fin thickness (Tfin), fin height (Hfin), fin ratio of bit-cell transistors, and surface orientation, is researched to optimize the stability, leakage current, array dynamic energy, and read/write delay of the FinFET SRAM under layout area constraints. The simulation results, which consider the variations of both Tfin and threshold voltage (Vth), show that most FinFET SRAM configurations achieve a superior read/write noise margin when compared with planar SRAMs. However, when two fins are used as pass gate transistors (PG) in FinFET SRAMs, enormous array dynamic energy is required due to the increased effective gate and drain capacitance. On the other hand, a FinFET SRAM with a one-fin PG in the (110) plane shows a smaller write noise margin than the planar SRAM. Thus, the one-fin PG in the (100) plane is suitable for FinFET SRAM design. The one-fin PG FinFET SRAM with Tfin = 10 nm and Hfin = 40 nm in the (100) plane achieves a three times larger noise margin when compared with the planar SRAM and consumes a 17% smaller bit-line toggling array energy at a cost of a 22% larger word-line toggling energy. It also achieves a 2.3 times smaller read delay and a 30% smaller write delay when compared with the planar SRAM.


In the family environment, individuals maintain their first interpersonal relationships with significant people, establishing important affective support for the development of each member. In this way, it is known that family is a privileged space for the development of the individual and of society. However, the birth of a disabled child can alter family relationships, and for many families there will be a need to undergo changes and adaptations. Considering the importance of families for child development and that parents of children with disabilities can experience parental experience in a differentiated way, this research aimed to identify and compare quality of life, resources, parental educational social skills, marital relationship, needs and social support, between parents and mothers of children with intellectual disability, physical disability, autism and delay in child development and correlate these variables. The research was developed with 120 participants, being 60 mothers and 60 parents. Participants were divided into four groups, each group being composed of 30 participants (15 fathers and 15 mothers). The groups were divided according to the diagnosis of children (intellectual disability, physical disability, autism and delayed child development). To collect data, the following instruments were used: Quality of Life Questionnaire "WHOQOL-bref"; Inventory of resources in the family environment; Script of Social Parenting Educational Skills Interview; Conjugal Relationship Questionnaire; Questionnaire on family needs and Social support questionnaire. These instruments contain quantitative data, which have been carried out measures of central tendency and dispersion. To compare the data of the parents and the mothers, from each group separately, the t-test was performed and the Pearson correlation test was used to relate the variables. The results showed that there were differences in at least one aspect related to quality of life, social educational parental skills, resources in the family environment, marital relationship, need and social support, when comparing fathers and mothers of children with intellectual disability, physical, autism and delayed neuropsychomotor development. As an exception, the items related to the follow-up and non-follow-up (G1, G2, G3 and G4), the daily activities of the child (G1, G3 and G4), the attitudes of the spouse who (G1 and G3) and social support (G4), which did not present statistically significant differences. The data suggest that the parents of children with disabilities experience their role in a different way, emphasizing that the interventions must meet the demands of the same considering their singularities. The correlations showed that the higher the parents' satisfaction with quality of life, marital relationship and social support, the smaller the family needs were, the higher the levels of social support were available, and the more skilled the parents could be. present in the parental and matrimonial relationship. It is concluded that the parental demands are modified depending on the deficiency and developmental delay that the child has. Thus, it is important to provide services, projects and programs that involve families and consider their real demands.


A transfinite hierarchy of Turing degrees of c.e. sets has been used to calibrate the dynamics of families of constructions in computability theory, and yields natural definability results. We review the main results of the area, and discuss splittings of c.e. degrees, and finding maximal degrees in upper


Underground low voltage (LV) power cables have a long life span, and so far minimum effort was put in methods for condition assessment. However, a slow but steady increase in the amount of faults is being observed and future de-central power generation may further put pressure on the reliability of the LV grid. Therefore, condition monitoring for LV cable systems is under investigation. With the occurrence of intermittent faults, fast transients from discharges may be observed before an outage occurs. To estimate if such signals are measurable, a model of the cable valid up to 50 MHz was derived. Numerical simulations have been used to obtain the parameters of the multi-conductor transmission line model, with special consideration of the copper screen configuration. Measurements on a 60 m cable segment have been performed to verify the model, showing good agreement. This model will be used to investigate signal propagation through a LV grid with focus on the feasibility to base LV condition monitoring on signals which may originate from upcoming cable faults.


Urea-formaldehyde resins modified by melamine were synthesized by four catalysts (H2SO4, HCl, H3PO4, and NaOH/NH4OH) with a F/U/M molar ratio of 1.38/1/0.074. Resin structure and thermal behavior were studied by C-NMR and DSC techniques. For H2SO4, HCl, and H3PO4 catalysts, resins were prepared by two stage pH adjustment: the first pH stage was set at 1.25 (H3PO4 pH 1.60) and second pH stage was set at 5.0. For the NaOH/NH4OH catalyst, the resin was set at pH 5.0 from the start. Of the four catalysts, HCl catalyzed resins, with the highest free urea and lowest free formaldehyde, consistently yielded the lowest formaldehyde emission; NaOH/NH4OH catalyst resulted in the best IB strength tested at dry conditions and also after 24 h cold water soak and the lowest water absorption and thickness swell. The resins catalyzed with H3PO4 had the highest free formaldehyde and no free urea yielding the highest formaldehyde emission. Each DSC thermogram was proceeded by a weak exothermic peak and followed by an obvious endothermic peak. The exothermic peak temperatures were 125.0, 131.1, 111.4, and 125.2 C, and endothermic peak temperatures were 135.8, 147.6, 118.9, and 138.4 C, respectively, for H2SO4, HCl, H3PO4, and NaOH/NH4OH catalysts. The close proximity of the peak temperatures of the exothermic and endothermic reactions strongly suggests that there is potential interference of heat flow between the exothermic and endothermic reactions which may impact resin curing. VC 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 119: 3538–3543,


The energy sector of any country plays a major role in its economy in today's world. The reduction of Transmission and Distribution losses is a key discussion point at all forums. In parallel to such efforts the automation of theft monitoring and generation of e-Billing is a requirement of the time. The automation in metering and billing will not only help tackle the problem of distribution losses to some extent but will also help in using the manpower of electricity distribution companies in a more effective manner. The application of Automated Meter Reading (AMR) system, e-Billing and e-Monitoring using Machine to Machine (M2M) connectivity is the primary theme of this paper. It explains the design of a prototype meter for AMR application, its M2M connectivity to the central server and generation of e-bills for the customers. The paper also concisely introduces the quantum of losses across the globe and particularly in Pakistan in terms of T&D losses. These figures have been collected from various authentic sources including World Bank's Development Indicators.


Most families can access a range of health information and advice. Information and advice sources often include nurses, the Internet, social media, books, as well as family and friends. While the immediate aim may be to find information, it can also be to assist with parenting skills, solve parenting problems or as part of decision-making processes about their child's health. These processes are strongly influenced by the parent's level of health literacy. Health literacy describes a person's capacity to obtain and utilize health related information. Although there are numerous health literacy definitions all have clearly defined steps. These steps are: obtaining relevant information; then understanding this information; and finally being able to use the information to achieve the expected outcome. Previous research has linked low levels of parental health literacy with poorer child health outcomes. Given this link, increasing health literacy levels would be advantageous for both families and health services. Nurses working with families are in a position to support the family to increase their health literacy through the use of a variety of strategies. This article outlines how health literacy can influence the way parents seek help when they are concerned about child health issues, the relevance of parental health literacy for nurses and suggests some tools that could be used to support the increase of health literacy.


Fiduciary funds are those that are both superior performers and likely to remain shareholder stewards. The purpose of this study is to provide fund investors with guidance for selecting fund advisors and fiduciary funds. Through application of four particular dimensions of analysis, shareholders are able to identify funds with attributes consistent with fiduciary funds.


The 140-kbp late chorion locus of Bombyx mori strain 703 contains 15 divergently oriented gene pairs encoding the high cysteine (Hc) eggshell proteins. Sequence homology is approximately 91% for the 2-kb region of each gene pair, including the 5' flanking region, intron and exons. The homology rapidly disappears within a few hundred basepairs of the 3' end of most genes. Here we present the results of the nucleotide sequence and genomic blot comparison of Hc genes from different races of B. mori. Comparison of the nucleotide sequences of the same gene pair in two different races reveals that most of the nucleotide differences occur in clusters or patches and correspond to sequences present in other Hc genes in the locus. The number of nucleotide differences that have accumulated in the highly conserved regions of the gene pair (2.3/100 bp), most of which are attributable to patchwork exchanges, is significantly higher than the number of differences in the poorly conserved 3' flanking regions (0.6/100 bp), due primarily to new mutations. These data are consistent with a gene conversion process, which in the short-term generates new combinations of sequence variants, but in the long-term results in concerted evolution. Genomic blot analyses of different geographical races of B. mori reveal that there is variation in the number of Hc gene pairs (14-19 gene pairs), indicating that unequal crossovers also occur in the locus.


Objective To assess the feasibility, acceptability and fidelity of a feeding team intervention with an embedded randomised controlled trial of team-initiated (proactive) and woman-initiated (reactive) telephone support after hospital discharge. Design Participatory approach to the design and implementation of a pilot trial embedded within a before-and-after study, with mixed-method process evaluation. Setting A postnatal ward in Scotland. Sample Women initiating breast feeding and living in disadvantaged areas. Methods Quantitative data: telephone call log and workload diaries. Qualitative data: interviews with women (n=40) with follow-up (n=11) and staff (n=17); ward observations 2 weeks before and after the intervention; recorded telephone calls (n=16) and steering group meetings (n=9); trial case notes (n=69); open question in a telephone interview (n=372). The Framework approach to analysis was applied to mixed-method data. Main outcome measures Quantitative: telephone call characteristics (number, frequency, duration); workload activity. Qualitative: experiences and perspectives of women and staff. Results A median of eight proactive calls per woman (n=35) with a median duration of 5 min occurred in the 14 days following hospital discharge. Only one of 34 control women initiated a call to the feeding team, with women undervaluing their own needs compared to others, and breast feeding as a reason to call. Proactive calls providing continuity of care increased women's confidence and were highly valued. Data demonstrated intervention fidelity for woman-centred care; however, observing an entire breast feed was not well implemented due to short hospital stays, ward routines and staff–team–woman communication issues. Staff pragmatically recognised that dedicated feeding teams help meet women's breastfeeding support needs in the context of overstretched and variable postnatal services. Conclusions Implementing and integrating the FEeding Support Team (FEST) trial within routine postnatal care was feasible and acceptable to women and staff from a research and practice perspective and shows promise for addressing health inequalities. Trial registration ISRCTN27207603. The study protocol and final report is available on request.


African American Pastors' Perspectives on Health Promotion Ministries by Brenda Ivy Watson MS, North Carolina State University, 2005 BS, North Carolina State University 2000 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Public Health Walden University May 2017 Abstract The centrality of the church in African American communities makes it a culturally compelling sponsor for health promotion activities targeting health disparities among the medically underserved. Pastoral support is critical in determining whether a church initiates or supports a health promotion agenda, but there is little understanding of theThe centrality of the church in African American communities makes it a culturally compelling sponsor for health promotion activities targeting health disparities among the medically underserved. Pastoral support is critical in determining whether a church initiates or supports a health promotion agenda, but there is little understanding of the variables that influence this decision. The aim of the qualitative study was to investigate the perceptions of African American pastors regarding the decision to incorporate health promotion programs in their churches. This study was guided by the health belief model using a phenomenological approach. Data were collected using both semi-structured and open-ended interviews. Ten pastors of North Carolina African American churches, with and without health promotion ministries, were recruited for the study. Eight pastors agreed to participate in the study. They were interviewed, and interviews were recorded and transcribed. The data were open coded and analyzed. NVivo 11 was used to manage the data. Five themes emerged from the study: the importance of health promotion, pastor support of a health promotion program, pastor influence on individuals in the congregation, the health status of church members, and barriers and facilitators. Positive social change may be realized by using this information to increase the effectiveness of culturally sensitive health information and developing health education programs that specifically target the African American faith community. Information from this research could help guide public health agencies on how to approach health programming in this specific area and for this population. African American Pastors' Perspectives on Health Promotion Ministries by Brenda Ivy Watson MS, North Carolina State University, 2005 BS, North Carolina State University 2000 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy