There has been considerable debate about the value of psychological therapies for voice hearers who suffer such distress that they seek psychiatric help. To date, however, the utility of person-centred therapy for this client group has not been investigated.
A convenience sample of ten participants who heard voices and had decided to start person-centred therapy was recruited from the researcher's caseloads at a NHS mental health trust, an independent low-secure psychiatric unit and a counselling agency. On completion of their therapy, participants were interviewed about their experiences of therapy and of hearing voices. Data were analysed using a thematic approach informed by relational existential-phenomenological ideas. Brief consideration was also given to qualitative and quantitative outcomes.
Three themes were identified that referred to how participants recollected their experiences of voices before the therapy: i) An unwelcome intrusion; ii) "Feeling like a freak"; iii) Poignant yearning for things to be different. A fourth theme referred to participants' accounts of their voices once that therapy had concluded: iv) Changing experiences, different views - sometimes.
Four themes related to their subjective experiences of person-centred therapy: i) Being treated like a person; ii) Being offered possibilities; iii) Forging a way through; iv) It's not always just about the voices.
In general, participants gave positive accounts of person-centred therapy suggesting it could be a useful option for this client group. There was, however, some variation in response. Findings demonstrated the importance of engaging with individual voice hearer perspectives on their unusual experiences, and on what might alleviate their associated distress.
There was some evidence of reliable and clinically significant change which was explored in relation to qualitative findings. Issues around the use of symptom related measures to test effectiveness of therapy are discussed.
Some implications of this analysis for a person-centred understanding of the meaning of voice hearing are offered, with a focus on the potential for growth.
Limitations of the study relating to the dual therapist-researcher relationship and to the homogeneity and size of sample are discussed.


Abstract Conservation of wood turtles (Glyptemys insculpta) requires improved ecological knowledge near the southern extent of their geographic range. Our objectives were to determine home range sizes and structural habitat characteristics of wood turtles near the southern border of their geographic range in eastern West Virginia. We captured 284 wood turtles (137 males, 88 females, and 59 juveniles) along a 13.7-km reach of river from spring 2009 to summer 2011. Home ranges (95% minimum convex polygons) varied from 0.62 to 36.97 ha; male home ranges tended to be elongated along the river, whereas female and juvenile home ranges encompassed a greater proportion of terrestrial habitat. Low bare ground and rock cover and high vegetative vertical density were structural characteristics associated with the turtles' habitat compared with random plots. Our study provides vital data about home range, movements, and habitat use of wood turtles along the southern border of their range. These data will assist in planning management strategies that will promote the survival and sustainability of the species. We recommend establishing and maintaining riparian zones along waterways bordering agricultural fields to provide essential habitat for the species.


Today, increasing evidences of systemic side effects with the treatments available for IBD limit their therapeutic outcomes. The challenge is to target anti-TNF- agent to the inflamed tissue. Here, we have demonstrated that TNF- siRNA can be efficiently loaded into F4-80 antibody (Ab) coated PLA-PEG-Mal nanoparticles (NPs) to target colonic macrophages (MPs). The NPs were characterized for particle size, cytotoxicity, binding characteristics, etc. These NPs are ~600 nm in diameter, non-cytotoxic, and are efficiently taken up by MPs inhibiting TNF-α secretion by the MPs in vitro. In vivo, the release of TNF siRNA loaded inside F4/80 Ab coated NPs into colitis mice model showed higher colitis attenuation (like reduced weight loss, MPO activity and neutrophils infiltration) when compared to NPs not covered. Thus, we have formulated an efficient targeted drug delivery system in which TNF-α-siRNA NPs coated with F4/80 Ab represent an efficient therapeutic option for diseases such as IBD. INDEX WORDS: Nanoparticles, TNF- siRNA, Macrophages, IBD


To evaluate the prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus carriage among healthy preschool children in our region, nasal swabs were collected from 5- to 7-year-old healthy children who were attending a day care center. Sociodemographic features and the data related with risk factors were obtained from the children's parents. Of the 200 children, S. aureus was isolated in 36 (18%) subjects. Methicillin-resistant S. aureus was isolated in 2 (5.6%) of these subjects, neither of whom had any identified risk factors. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing revealed that all tested strains were sensitive to gentamicin, vancomycin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, rifampicin, and mupirocin. Erythromycin, clindamycin, fusidic acid, and tetracycline resistance were determined to be 16.6, 8.3, 5.6, and 8.3%, respectively.


Although the teenage pregnancy rate in the United States has declined over the years, it is still higher than the teenage pregnancy rates in other industrialized countries. This paper attempts to identify the types of changes that have occurred between 1994 and 2017 by comparing the results of a 1996 study by Ventura, Martin, Matthews & Clarke with the results obtained using the 2017 National Natality Dataset obtained from the Center of Disease Control via the National Center of Health Statistics. The new data from 2017 demonstrates that the proportions of teenage births have gone down over the past few years, and that the racial/ethnicity component of teenage childbearing is also showing a narrowing trend. Even though we recognize the downward trend in teenage pregnancy, the concerns regarding the long-term socioeconomic outcomes arising from teenage births are still at large. We conduct a quantitative Logit analysis to identify what factors increase the probability of teenage motherhood in the United States and also conduct a short analysis of relevant existing public policies to provide recommendations for improvements that could potentially reduce the risk factors of teenage pregnancy in the United States.


BACKGROUND
Rates of advanced chronic kidney disease and renal replacement therapy are higher in South Asian than in white British populations. Low birth weight is also more frequent in South Asian populations and has been associated with increased risks of kidney disease, perhaps due to a reduced nephron endowment.

METHODS
Using ultrasound scans at 34 weeks of gestation, we measured fetal kidney dimensions (transverse and anteroposterior diameters, length and circumference) and derived volume in a random sample of 872 white British and 715 South Asian participants in the Born in Bradford cohort study. Kidney measurements were compared between ethnic groups.

RESULTS
Birth weight for gestational age at 40 weeks was 200 g less in South Asian babies compared with white British babies. The mean kidney volume for gestational age was 16% lower in South Asian than in white British babies [8.79 versus 10.45 cm(3), difference 1.66 cm(3) (95% confidence interval 1.40-1.93, P < 0.001)]. The difference was robust after adjustment for maternal age, socio-economic factors, marital status, body mass index, smoking and alcohol use in pregnancy, parity, baby's gender and birth weight for gestational age [adjusted difference 1.38 cm(3) (0.97-1.84), P < 0.001]. There were smaller reductions in other fetal measures.

CONCLUSION
South Asian babies have smaller kidneys compared with white British babies, even after adjusting for potential confounders including birth weight. This finding may contribute to increased risks of adult kidney disease in South Asian populations.


Purpose: The study is aimed at examining authentic leadership influences on creativity in a public organisation given job thriving and leader-member exchange as a mediator and a moderator respectively.
Design/Method/Approach: The cross-sectional research design was adopted with data collected via a structured questionnaire from 269 mid-level employees who were healthcare professionals working in hospitals and primary healthcare centres under the purview of the Delta State Ministry of Health in Nigeria. The partial least square (PLS) method was adopted as the analytical tool for hypothesis testing. This structural equation modelling (SEM) method was performed with SMARTPLS 3.3.3 software.
Findings: The results demonstrate that authentic leadership has a non-significant relationship with creativity except through job thriving. Further, the moderated mediation result shows that leader-member exchange strengthens the relationship between job thriving and creativity and enhances positive influences of authentic leadership in a creativity context.
Theoretical Implications: The study provides plausible evidence on the pathways through which authentic leadership, as a positive form of leadership, explicates influence on creativity, wherein job thriving and leader-member exchange interact as contextual variables.
Practical Implications: Public organisations should introduce regular leadership training to enable managers to learn behaviours that would enhance their authenticity at work. An assessment can be integrated into leadership training programmes to ensure its efficacy.
Originality/Value: Not all employees are motivated to engage in creative work in bureaucratized settings due to the leadership behaviour in practice. This study demonstrates how authentic leadership engenders creativity through the enhancement of certain contextual variables: job thriving and leader-member exchange.
Research Limitations/Future Research: This research was limited to a specific public organisation and Nigerian State. Although the empirical information provided herein may be insightful and have applicable value for other public organisations as well as Nigerian States, it is important to replicate this research with a broader sample and geographic spread to improve its generality. The study relies on cross-sectional data which may offer little explanations of causality effects among the latent variables, future research works should consider a longitudinal research approach for clearer and concrete inferences.
Paper Type: Empirical
JEL Classification: L32, M10, O31


The motorcycle riders are subjected to extreme vibrations due to the vibrations of its engine, improper structural design of the motorcycle and the bad road conditions. The literature review reveals that the vibrations are most hazardous to the health if it exceeds the limit. The experiments were conducted to measure the magnitude of the vibrations acting on the rider during motorcycle riding under various road conditions. Experimental values of accelerations and frequencies which are beyond permissible limits according to the literature confirm that vibration certainly affects health of the motorcycle rider.


There are many instances in which laboratory measurements have limits of detection. The results for such tests will be reported as "< d" where d represents the limit below which measurements cannot be (reliably) obtained. A number of methods can be used to handle such data when calculating numerical summary statistics. Here, we use the example of IL-6 tear cytokine levels to describe a simple, reliable method to handle such instances, and compare this method to other commonly used approaches. Purpose


: Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) is a collective investment scheme that pooled fund and reinvests it mainly in real estate markets. Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) stated that through diversification of the portfolio, a fund could maximise investment returns while minimising the corresponding risks related to specific investments. In this sense, REITs seem to fit the bill for investors that need to diversify their real estate investment portfolio while minimising risk related to direct investment in the physical property market. In Malaysia, there are different types of REITs that investors may consider invested in, from diversifying REITs to REITs that its investment portfolio specific to a property type. However, there are limited numbers of studies that look into the performance of each REITs company in Malaysia. This paper aims to evaluate the performance of M-REITs based on its asset composition in which the evidence of diversification benefit can be established. This study analyses pricing data of nine M-REITs companies for a period between 2008 and 2015 using the co-integration method. The findings show that there is no significant long-run relationship among M-REITs companies suggesting that there exist diversification benefits in M-REITs


Coastal marine ecosystems worldwide are being altered rapidly by the in- vasion of nonindigenous species. Unlike terrestrial and freshwater systems, the impacts of an invading species have never been quantified on multiple trophic levels for a marine food web. We measured the impact of the nonindigenous green crab, Carcinus maenas, on a coastal marine food web in central California and found that this predator exerted strong "top-down" control, significantly reducing the abundances of several of the 20 invertebrate species monitored over a 9-yr period. Densities of native clams, Nutricola tantilla and Nutricola confusa, and native shore crabs, Hemigrapsus oregonensis, showed 5-fold to 10- fold declines within 3 yr of the arrival of green crabs. Field and laboratory experiments indicated that green crab predation caused these declines. We also tested for indirect re- sponses of invertebrates and vertebrates to green crab predation. There were significant increases in the abundances of two polychaete taxa, Lumbrineris sp. and Exogene sp., and tube-building tanaid crustaceans, Leptochelia dubia, most likely due to the removal of co- occurring green crab prey. However, we observed no changes in shorebird abundances (13 species) over a 9-yr period suggesting that green crabs have had no "bottom-up" effect on shorebirds, which subsist on benthic invertebrate prey. We predict that such bottom-up control will occur as the local effects and geographic range of green crabs increase. The 2-yr temporal scale of direct and indirect responses of the invertebrates in this low energy, soft-substrate system was also in agreement with the results of perturbation experiments by others on rocky shores, which showed that most direct and indirect responses also occur within a 2-yr time frame.


Aims: To explore the association of household gas cooking and respiratory illnesses in preschool children and their relation to outdoor air pollution. Methods: Cross-sectional study among households that used gas stoves for cooking in two housing estates with contrasting air qualities in Hong Kong. A structured questionnaire was administered to parents of 426 children aged 0–6 years on their exposure to gas cooking and passive smoking, and the prevalence of respiratory illnesses. Results: A total of 111 children (26.1%) were reported to have one or more respiratory illnesses (allergic rhinitis, asthma, bronchitis, sinusitis, and pneumonia). Of these, 21 (18.9%), 41 (36.9%), and 49 (44.1%) children were from households that cooked once, twice, and three times a day with gas. Hierarchical logistic regression models adjusting for socioeconomic, demographic, and indoor risk factors including passive smoking showed that household gas cooking was positively associated with respiratory illnesses. There was a dose-response relation between the frequency of gas cooking and the prevalence of respiratory illnesses in the estate with lower outdoor air pollution (OR = 6.1 and 3.2 respectively, for cooking three and two meals a day, compared to one meal a day). This relation was not observed in the more polluted estate. The association between the presence of a cigarette smoker in the household and the prevalence of respiratory illnesses was not significant. Conclusions: As gas cooking is common in urban households, the findings could have important public health implications.


It is shown that currently used apparent power definitions, namely the arithmetic VA, S/sub A/ and the vector VA, S/sub V/, both lack an important property: the system power losses are not a linear function of the apparent power squared, S/sub A//sup 2/ or S/sub V//sup 2/. The only apparent power definition known today, that holds this property for all the possible situations-balanced, unbalanced, sinusoidal or nonsinusoidal-has the mathematical expression suggested by F. Buchholz; and explained by W. Goodhue. This paper gives a set of basic examples meant to emphasize the merit of Buchholz-Goodhue approach.


Does inefficiency of financial markets have real consequences? Or does it only result in transfers of wealth from noise traders to arbitrageurs? We study firm business investment to address this question. In our model, benevolent managers of overvalued companies invest in projects with negative net present value and managers of undervalued companies forego projects with positive net present value. Empirically, we find a positive relation between investment and a number of proxies for mispricing, controlling for investment opportunities and financial slack, suggesting that overpriced (underpriced) firms tend to over invest (under invest). Consistent with the predictions of our model, we find that investment is more sensitive to mispricing for firms with higher R&D intensity (suggesting longer periods of information asymmetry) or share turnover (suggesting that the firms' shareholders are short-term investors). We document similar patterns in the cross-section of average returns. Firms with relatively high (low) investment subsequently have relatively low (high) stock returns, after controlling for investment opportunities and other characteristics linked to return predictability. These patterns are stronger for firms with higher R&D intensity or higher share turnover.


5G networks are expected to support significantly higher data rates than legacy networks through ultra-dense deployment of networks, higher system bandwidths and higher spectral efficiency. Such networks would also be supporting a diverse set of use cases in order to provide connectivity solutions for other industry verticals. One of the key requirements of 5G is to support all these enhancements with higher energy efficiency, for which the lean system design avoiding always-on signals is considered to be a key enabler. In this paper, we propose a mobility based reference signal configuration adaptation mechanism, and investigate the impacts on mobility support and energy efficiency with such a system design. Based on the performance evaluations conducted, it is shown that such lean design, optimized for mobility can provide enhanced mobility support and higher user throughput, while enabling higher energy saving potential. The higher throughput is obtained due to the reduction of always-on signals which are used for discovery in legacy networks and flexibly utilizing them for data transmissions in 5G networks.


Deceptive techniques played a prominent role in many human conflicts throughout history. Digital conflicts are no different as the use of deception has found its way to computing since at least the 1980s. However, many computer defenses that use deception were ad-hoc attempts to incorporate deceptive elements. In this paper, we present a model that can be used to plan and integrate deception in computer security defenses. We present an overview of fundamental reasons why deception works and the essential principles involved in using such techniques. We investigate the unique advantages deception-based mechanisms bring to traditional computer security defenses. Furthermore, we show how our model can be used to incorporate deception in many part of computer systems and discuss how we can use such techniques effectively. A successful deception should present plausible alternative(s) to the truth and these should be designed to exploit specific adversaries' biases. We investigate these biases and discuss how can they be used by presenting a number of examples.


Collective action is critical for successful market formation. However, relatively little is known about how and under what conditions actors overcome collective action problems to successfully form new markets. Using the benefits of simulation methods, we uncover how collective action problems result from actor resource allocation decisions interacting with each other and how the severity of these problems depends on central market- and actor-related characteristics. Specifically, we show that collective action problems occur when actors undervalue the benefits of market-oriented resource allocation and when actors contribute resources that are imperfectly substitutable. Further, we show that collective action problems occur when actors are embedded in networks with others sharing a similar role in market formation. Collectively, our findings contribute new insights to organization theory on collective action and market formation and to strategy on value creation and strategic decision-making regarding resource allocation.


It is often said that we live in a network society. Increased familiarity with technical networks has brought the concept to the forefront of public imagination making the network a dominant trope. Whether inherent or ascribed, topologies seem to appear in social theories, transportation systems, technological structures and biological systems to name only a few examples. Often descriptions of networks combine semantics reflecting both conceptual and physical meaning. Regardless of content, be it conceptualization of power, information between computers, relationships between people or neurons; networks rely on topologies and protocols that locate nodes in relation to one another. In the field of technology certain networks are apparent the internet and the world wide web constitute easily identifiable examples. In the social sciences, descriptions of relationships between people and even of self identity lend nicely to nodes, edges, curves and vertices. In the blurring of boundaries between disciplines the language of the network also becomes a node of interconnection. Technology, sociology, and various branches of theory reference each other in a search for deeper meaning within disciplines. Protocols for Alternative Sexuality and Sensibility or PASS is a wireless networked system designed to function with a multidisciplinary description of a network in mind, incorporating conceptual implications and technical implementation of networking. PASS is a system which visibly tracks connections in public space based on the embodiment of protocols associated with sexual identity. These user configured devices exchange information with other devices in order to uncover the often hidden interconnections created by the internalization of sexual identity. Sexual identity is represented by several alternative paradigms in addition to the culturally predicated homosexual/heterosexual binary. The resulting connections are made visible via independent graphical displays that indicate the various paradigms and connections at play. PASS shows how dominant cultural networks necessitate counter spaces which exist simultaneously in time and space with the hegemonic structures. It is in the revealing of these alternative spaces that I seek a technology of resistance; by connecting people in these counter spaces we create dynamic modes for understanding the influence of normativity and the experience of otherness. The physical representation of these theories reveal the hegemonic protocol structures of interconnection which we internalize as social norms. Thesis Supervisor: Chris Csikzentmihilyi Title: Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Laboratory PASS: Protocols for Alternative Sexuality and Sensibility by Gemma Shusterman The following people served as readers for this thesis: Thesis Reader Krzysztof Wodiczko Professor of Visual Arts, MIT Director, Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT


The Potential for Non-Fossil Fuel Energy Sources: Solar Power A. Polansky. Wind Technology After a Decade of Development R. Swisher. The Potential for Reducing Carbon Emissions through Efficiency: The Transportation Sector S. Plotkin. The Potential for Reducing Carbon Emissions through Efficiency in Industrial Processes M. Ross. U.S. Energy Policies and Strategies: The U.S. Energy Strategy E.R. Williams. Integrating Energy and the Environment A. Christofaro. Global Energy Strategies: The Perspectives of Developing Countries and Economics in Transition: Russia/Eastern Europe A. Kalinin. Energy Use in India A. Mathur. Integrating Concerns of Developing and Developed Nations: Population and Energy Use M.S. Strauss. Greenhouse Gases and Emissions Trading A. LeBlanc, D.J. Dudek. 20 additional articles. Index.


Abstract K-12 students need to become familiar with engineering because 21st-century careers integrate engineering practices across all science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. While the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) emphasize learning real science and engineering practices, further work is needed to authenticate engineering for K-12 education. The NGSS are presented in a way that merges a single general practice with a core disciplinary idea and cross-cutting concept. Based on this framing and underlying epistemology, NGSS engineering practices are often implemented as overgeneralized, isolated, and largely context-neutral. Yet, in the STEM workplace, practices are rarely done in isolation from one another. Research is needed to better understand the integrated use of NGSS practices in STEM workplaces in order to make these practices more visible and accessible for use in K-12 classrooms. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 22 entry-level employees and managers in STEM-intensive workplaces. Using emergent and a priori coding, we identified how NGSS practices and contextual features are situated and connected in the STEM workplace. Our findings suggest that by adding rich contextual features, practices become more interconnected and reflective of authentic engineering in the STEM workplace. This process will enable educators to interpret K-12 engineering standards in an authentic way that supports deep engagement in learning engineering.


Abstract The Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (Anti-ELAB) movement in Hong Kong was marked by a significant degree of tactical radicalisation in its first six months. Yet the movement also succeeded in maintaining a high degree of solidarity and public support. This article explains how tactical radicalisation and public receptiveness toward radical actions was achieved. It does this by drawing upon protest onsite survey data, public opinion poll data, analysis of digital media contents and field observations. Theoretically, it combines a relational approach with an emphasis on the role of discursive negotiation. The article first reconstructs the trend of movement radicalisation in Hong Kong since the late 2000s. It then examines the interactional dynamics that drove the process of radicalisation along multiple pathways during the first six months of the Anti-ELAB movement. The articulation of justifications and discursive negotiation of collective restraints is then examined. Overall, the analysis reconstructs the process of stepwise and constrained radicalisation in the Anti-ELAB movement. General theoretical implications of the analysis are discussed.


In this paper, we aim at reducing the variance of doubly stochastic optimization, a type of stochastic optimization algorithm that contains two independent sources of randomness: The subsampling of training data and the Monte Carlo estimation of expectations. Such an optimization regime often has the issue of large gradient variance which would lead to a slow rate of convergence. Therefore we propose Dual Control Variate, a new type of control variate capable of reducing gradient variance from both sources jointly. The dual control variate is built upon approximation-based control variates and incremental gradient methods. We show that on doubly stochastic optimization problems, compared with past variance reduction approaches that take only one source of randomness into account, dual control variate leads to a gradient estimator of significant smaller variance and demonstrates superior performance on real-world applications, like generalized linear models with dropout and black-box variational inference.


Idiopathic pulmonary �brosis (IPF) is an interstitial lung disease characterized by chronic progressive pulmonary �brosis and a poor prognosis. Till now, no studies have been reported on revealing mechanisms and identifying biomarkers by integratively analyzing transcriptome and proteomes of IPF patients. Here we examined the landscape of IPF patients' gene expression in the transcription and translation phases and investigated the expression and functions of two new potential biomarkers. Differentially expressed (DE) mRNAs were mainly enriched in pathways of immune system activities and in�ammatory responses, while DE proteins are associated with extracellular matrix production and wound repair. The upregulated genes in both phases are associated with wound repair and cell differentiation, while the downregulated genes in both phases are associated with reduced immune activities and the damage of the alveolar tissues. On this basis, we identi�ed thirteen potential marker genes. Among them, we validated the expression changes of BTNL9 and PLLP and investigated their functional pathways in the IPF mechanism. Both genes are downregulated in the tissues of IPF patients and Bleomycin-induced mice, and co-expression analysis indicates that they have a protective effect by inhibiting extracellular matrix production and promoting wound repair in alveolar epithelial cells.


The Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus (Linnaeus, 1758), uses filter feeding and visual predation to catch prey. In filter feeding, the mucus secreted in their gill rakers traps planktonic organisms. In visual predation, the fish spot and capture food, eating it directly. At different ontogenetic stages, the Nile tilapia may impact the zooplankton community differently, since it changes how it captures its prey. The objective in this study was to verify which zooplankton groups contribute to the diet of O. niloticus at the post-larval stage, and if the way they capture food may determine prey size. We evaluated the diet of Nile tilapia kept in ponds for four months. We randomly removed one fish per pond every month. Stomach contents and gills of fish were extracted, fixed in formaldehyde and then analyzed with an optical microscope and stereomicroscope with a micrometric ocular in order to measure the zooplankton and the gill rakers. Fish increased consumption of rotifers, and decreased the consumption of microcrustaceans considerably up to zero in the last month. The gill raker size, nevertheless, increased as tilapia grew. Therefore, negative correlations were found between raker size and size of ingested zooplankton, showing that the size of ingested prey decreases throughout this cichlid's life. Juveniles filter feed on rotifers, and actively prey on microcrustaceans. As adults, fish stop preying visually and the mucus secreted by the gill rakers trap only small individuals. Juvenile Nile tilapia filter feed and visually prey on zooplankton. However, when adults, filter-feeding plays a more important role in the way the zooplankton community is affected. The increase in the size of the Nile tilapia's gill raker does not determine the consumption of larger zooplankton prey, and the presence of mucus in these structures plays a major role for the capture of zooplankton during the cichlid's adult stage.


We studied the effect of the location of electrical stimulation on the acute analgesic response to percutaneous neuromodulation therapy in patients with nonradiating neck pain. Sixty-eight patients received three different nonpharmacologic modalities, namely "needles only" (neck), local (neck) dermatomal stimulation, and remote (lower back) dermatomal stimulation in a random sequence over the course of an 11-wk study period. All treatments were given for 30 min, 3 times per week for 3 wk, with 1 wk "off" between each modality. The assessment tools included the health status survey short form (SF-36) questionnaire, as well as 10-cm visual analog scales for assessing pain, physical activity, and quality of sleep. The pain visual analog scale was repeated 5–10 min after each treatment session. The daily oral nonopioid analgesic requirements were recorded in the patient diary during the entire study period. At the end of each 3-wk treatment block, the SF-36 questionnaire was repeated. Compared with needles only and remote dermatomal stimulation, local dermatomal stimulation produced a significantly greater decrease in pain (38% ± 17% vs 9% ± 16% and 13% ± 18%), increase in physical activity (41% ± 21% vs 11% ± 17% and 16% ± 15%), and improvement in the quality of sleep (34% ± 18% vs 7% ± 17% and 10% ± 18%) compared with baseline values (P <0.05). The need for oral analgesic medications was decreased by an average of 6% ± 15%, 37% ± 18%, and 9% ± 13% during the 3-wk treatment period with the needle only, local dermatomal, and remote dermatomal stimulation, respectively. The posttreatment SF-36 test results revealed that all three modalities produced improvements compared with the prestudy scores for both the physical component summary and mental component summary. However, the magnitude of the changes in the physical component summary and mental component summary with local dermatomal stimulation was significantly greater (+7.9 and +3.6, respectively) than needle only (+3.4 and +1.7, respectively) or remote dermatomal stimulation (+3.7 and +1.9, respectively). No side effects were reported at the needle insertion sites. We conclude that electrical stimulation at the specific dermatomal levels corresponding to the local pathology produces greater short-term improvements in pain control, physical activity, and quality of sleep in patients with chronic neck pain. Implications The location of peripheral electrical stimulation influences the acute analgesic response to percutaneous modulation therapy in patients with long-term neck pain. This study demonstrates that electrical stimulation at the involved dermatomal levels produced a greater hypoalgesic effect than remote dermatomal stimulation. These data suggest that percutaneous modulation therapy-induced analgesia results from neuromodulatory changes.


A solid methodology to understand human perception and preferences in human-robot interaction (HRI) is crucial in designing real-world HRI. Social cognition posits that the dimensions Warmth and Competence are central and universal dimensions characterizing other humans [1]. The Robotic Social Attribute Scale (RoSAS) proposes items for those dimensions suitable for HRI and validated them in a visual observation study. In this paper we complement the validation by showing the usability of these dimensions in a behavior based, physical HRI study with a fully autonomous robot. We compare the findings with the popular Godspeed dimensions Animacy, Anthropomorphism, Likeability, Perceived Intelligence and Perceived Safety. We found that Warmth and Competence, among all RoSAS and Godspeed dimensions, are the most important predictors for human preferences between different robot behaviors. This predictive power holds even when there is no clear consensus preference or significant factor difference between conditions.


Chronic fatigue – "an overwhelming sense of tiredness, lack of energy and feeling of exhaustion" (Krupp 1996) – is a frequent phenomenon in chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. It is often rated by patients as their worst complaint, the most difficult problem to cope with, and the most important reason for work disability. Fatigue must not be mistaken for normal tiredness, and as such does not respond to rest or sleep. Fatigue is a major problem not only to the individual patient, but also to society with high societal cost due to medical expenses, sick leave and loss to the working force. Roughly 70-80% of patients with diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and primary Sjøgrens syndrome (pSS) report fatigue. These numbers are highly dependent on the fatigue instruments used, and the cut-off to separate normal from abnormal scores. Some studies in chronic inflammatory diseases indicate that the higher the disease activity the more fatigue. A number of studies don't support this view. Especially studies that have used fatigue instruments without elements of disease activity indicate a separation of these two elements. How can this be explained if inflammation is the trigger for fatigue? It is well known that mental depression influences fatigue, but also pain, sleep disorders, and social factors have been associated with the severity of fatigue. There is growing evidence that biological factors play important roles in generation and regulation of fatigue. Activation of the innate immune system and cellular stress responses seem to be central elements. A model for understanding of fatigue is the "sickness behavior model" in animals. Sickness behavior is a survival-enhancing strategy, observed during infection and inflammation, and is highly conserved during evolution. It is characterized by sleepiness, social withdrawal and loss of appetite, and is a complex and automated behavior believed to protect the sick individual from predators (Dantzer 2008). Sickness behavior has many elements of fatigue. Chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases can be regarded as a "chronic infection", and activation of innate immunity cells like macrophages leads to production of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-1β. This cytokine is passively and actively transported over the blood-brain-barrier, resulting in sickness behavior through activation of specific receptor complexes on neurons in the brain. Fatigue in humans can be considered a component of sickness behavior, and observations in humans confirm several of the results from animal studies. Studies in pSS show that the IL-1 system is activated in the cerebrospinal fluid and also that blocking of IL-1 with an IL-1receptor antagonist drug is able to relieve fatigue in pSS (Norheim 2012). These observations strengthen the view that IL-1 plays a significant role in fatigue. Another possible cause of fatigue is oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is a term used to refer to an imbalance with increased production of free radicals compared to the compensatory mechanisms that inhibit or repair the damage that may occur. Molecular mechanisms that protect against cellular stresses may be "fatigue generators" that act on the brain through unknown pathways. Recent studies indicate that there is a genetic basis for fatigue, and that genetic variation and genetic regulation determine the severity of fatigue in the individual subject. References Dantzer R, O'Connor JC, Freund GG, et al. From inflammation to sickness and depression: when the immune system subjugates the brain. Nat Rev Neurosci 2008;9:46-56. Krupp LB, Pollina DA. Mechanisms and management of fatigue in progressive neurological disorders. Curr Opin Neurol 1996; 9:456-60. Norheim KB, Harboe E, Gøransson LG et al. Interleukin-1 inhibition and fatigue in primary Sjögren's syndrome–a double blind, randomized clinical trial. PLoS One 2012;7:e30123. Disclosure of Interest R. Omdal Shareholder of: Photocure ASA, Nordic Nanovector ASA, Grant/research support from: R.O. has received an unrestricted grant of NOK 100,000 from Pfizer for research on fatigue in RA and AS., Speakers bureau: Pfizer, Roche, GSK, BMS


Measurements have demonstrated that, with occasional exceptions, radar return from the ground is largely due to area scatter, even at angles of incidence near the vertical. An expression is derived here for a power superposition integral expressing the mean pulse envelope for the pulse returned from the ground to a radar. This integral is the convolution of the transmitted pulse form in power units with a function which includes effects of antenna pattern, ground properties, and distance. This function is generalized to include the effects of specular reflection and large isolated scatterers, as well as the more prevalent area scatter. While beam-width-limited illumination always results in inverse-square altitude variation for area scatter, it is shown that the variation with altitude for pulse-length-limited illumination varies from inverse-square to inverse-cube, and is a function of altitude as well as of ground properties and antenna pattern. Mean returned pulses are presented for various grounds and antenna orientations.


Bioluminescence tomography (BLT) poses a typical ill-posed inverse problem with a large number of unknowns and a relatively limited number of boundary measurements. It is indispensable to incorporate a priori information into the inverse problem formulation in order to obtain viable solutions. In the paper, Bayesian approach has been firstly suggested to incorporate multiple types of a priori information for BLT reconstruction. Meanwhile, a generalized adaptive Gaussian Markov random field (GAGMRF) prior model for unknown source density estimation is developed to further reduce the ill-posedness of BLT on the basis of finite element analysis. Then the distribution of bioluminescent source can be acquired by maximizing the log posterior probability with respect to a noise parameter and the unknown source density. Furthermore, the use of finite element method makes the algorithm appropriate for complex heterogeneous phantom. The algorithm was validated by numerical simulation of a 3-D micro-CT mouse atlas and physical phantom experiment. The reconstructed results suggest that we are able to achieve high computational efficiency and accurate localization of bioluminescent source.


The Church of England makes extensive use of liturgical texts. These texts were never intended simply to sit on the page, but to be used or performed. This thesis examines the Church of England's use of its liturgical texts by applying criteria from the disciplines of both sociology and theology. Chapter One identifies the various ways in which this study could be approached. The methods of literary criticism, historical analysis and empirical study are all investigated. These are, however, of limited value for exploring what makes 'good' worship. I therefore follow an interdisciplinary study. Chapter Two looks at the nature of ritual performance from the perspective of sociology. I explore the areas of ritual, flow, symbol and performance by making reference to the works of Rappaport, Victor Turner, Csikszentmihalyi, Flanagan, Schechner and others. Chapter Three moves to an examination of the theology of ritual performance. Various authors from Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions are cited in an examination of the theological implications of the use of symbols and symbolic language. Fellowship (Koinonia) is linked with Turner's notion of communitas, and the link between music and word is examined. Chapter Four applies the insights from chapters two and three to examine some of the texts in use in the Church of England. The use of the Peace, and the development of the Eucharistic Prayers are investigated, and the use of symbol is explored with particular reference to the service of Baptism. Chapter Five looks at the possibilities for new directions in worship in the Church of England with particular reference to the Commentary in the Service of the Word. Sociological insights must be applied to the study of liturgy in order for the new texts being produced to meet people's needs in bringing them through worship to an encounter with God.


Author(s): Gorenzel, W. Paul; Salmon, Terrell P. | Abstract: We reviewed the historical and current status of the American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos), urban crow roosts and control efforts in California. Crows aggregate in traditional winter roosting areas. In the late 1930s most crows in California roosted in the Sacramento Valley in rural locations. Crow roosts were not a concern except for potential damage to adjacent farmlands. From the 1960s through 1980s crows colonized urban areas for nesting and winter roosting. A phone survey of vertebrate pest management officials indicated all known roosts were in urban areas, with most occurring in the Sacramento Valley. From 1970 to 1989 the winter crow population in the Central Valley of California doubled, with more crows found in the Sacramento Valley than the San Joaquin Valley. In the late 1980s crows in a traditional roost area in Yuba City, Sutter County, increased to 1 million birds. Political pressure prevented attempts at population reduction in 1991 and 1992 and led to examination of non-lethal techniques to disperse crows from urban roosts. Methods and materials tested included mylar tape, strobe lights, netting, monofilament lines, eyespot balloons, pyrotechnic devices, water-misters, sticky repellents, and taped crow and owl vocalizations. Qualitative evaluations by residents and local officials indicated strips of mylar tape tied on branch tips and pyrotechnic devices were relatively effective in dispersing crows.


Mechanically alloyed aluminium powder was prepared by attrition-milling for 10 hours in the presence of a wax. Milled powders were annealed in vacuum at different temperatures (500, 575, 600, 625 and 650°C). Compacts were consolidated starting from unannealed and from 600°Cannealed powders. Studies by SEM microfractography and quantitative metallography, to investigate the influence of Fe-Al intermetallics on compacts fracture, have been carried out. It is concluded that fracture takes place at regions where the area occupied by the intermetallics is high and intermetallics particles are big. Intermetallic particle size can be controlled by an appropriated heat treatment.


The purpose of this examination is to research viable methodologies for in-corporating Project-based Learning (PoBL) in instructing and learning Woodwork Technology Education (WTE) at tertiary foundations in Nige-ria. A mixed-method approach including both quantitative and subjective technique was utilized for the investigation. The example of the examination involved 50 in-administration postgraduate understudies from Nigerian tertiary foundations concentrating Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in University Teknologi Malaysia for the quantitative perspective and 9 in-administration postgraduate understudies for the subjective part. A 16-thing organized poll was utilized for quantitative information accumulation while semi-organized meeting convention was utilized for subjective information gathering. Quantitative information was investigated utilizing SPSS programming variant 24 to process the rate and intend to demonstrate the degree of understanding or difference on things of the survey. NVIVO 12 was utilized for subjective data examination. Mem-ber check and pear questioning were utilized to build up the reliability of the interview convention. The principal discoveries of the examination un-covered that PoBL has not been embraced in WTE educating and learning at tertiary establishments of Nigeria, and the conventional instructional methodology including lecture, demonstration and task have been the instructional methodologies received. It was additionally uncovered from the discoveries that rebuilding of WTE educational plan at tertiary organizations in Nigeria to concentrate on a student-focused methodology, just as sorting out courses and workshops for WTE speakers to be familiar with the utilization of PoBL in WTE instructing and learning as a component of the successful techniques for incorporating PoBL in instructing and learn-ing WTE at tertiary establishments in Nigeria. PoBL is appropriate in the instructional procedures of courses like WTE which include intellectual and psychomotor aptitude procurement. At long last, the deficiencies of studies identifying with PobL in Nigeria illuminates the need to attempt this examination in WTE at tertiary organizations.


Variable selection is vital to statistical data analyses. Many of procedures in use are ad hoc stepwise selection procedures, which are computationally expensive and ignore stochastic errors in the variable selection process of previous steps. An automatic and simultaneous variable selection procedure can be obtained by using a penalized likelihood method. In traditional linear models, the best subset selection and stepwise deletion methods coincide with a penalized leastsquares method when design matrices are orthonormal. In this paper, we propose a few new approaches to selecting variables for linear models, robust regression models and generalized linear models based on a penalized likelihood approach. A family of thresholding functions are proposed. The LASSO proposed by Tibshirani (1996) is a member of the penalized leastsquares with the L1-penalty. A smoothly clipped absolute deviation (SCAD) penalty function is introduced to ameliorate the properties of L1-penalty. A uni ed algorithm is introduced, which is backed up by statistical theory. The new approaches are compared with the ordinary leastsquares methods, the garrote method by Breiman (1995) and the LASSO method by Tibshirani (1996). Our simulation results show that the newly proposed methods compare favorably with other approaches as an automatic variable selection technique. Because of simultaneous selection of variables and estimation of parameters, we are able to give a simple estimated standard error formula, which is tested to be accurate enough for practical applications. Two real data examples illustrate the versatility and e ectiveness of the proposed approaches.


The effectiveness of mesquite plant, Prosopis juliflora (SW) D.C. (Family: Mimosaceae), seed extracts against rice weevil. Sitophilus oryzae (L), reared on wheat grains was investigated in the laboratory. The tested plant extracts of P. juliflora in petroleum ether, chloroform, and acetone, effectively controlled adults and their toxicity based on LC95 and LC5O values respectively was in order: acetone (12.0, 5.8ml/kg) < pet ether (8.0, 4.1ml/kg) chloroform (6.3, 2.2ml/kg). A highly significant oviposition deterency effect (P< 0.05) was found for all extracts at LC50 levels, while at LC95 levels, oviposition was nearly completely inhibited. Thus, progeny emergence was completely suppressed at Legs levels, also at LCSC, of acetone extract. Chlorofonn extract indicated a slow rate of degradation alter one month of storage (90% mortality). All tested plant extracts reduced weight loss in wheat grains after 45 days of storage, but chloroform extract was the most effective. Most treatments did not significantly affect water absorption but viability was significantly reduced. Petroleum ether and chloroform extracts caused a significant inhibition effect on acetyl choline esterase (AchE) in adults while acetone extract caused a significant activation effect. All three different extracts, caused a significant activation effect on phosphases (AcP and AlkP), except for chloroform and acetone extract treatments which caused significant inhibition of AcP in adults. All extracts caused a significant decrease in protein and carbohydrate contents of adults, except the carbohydrate content of adults treated with acetone extract. There was a significant increase in lipid content in adults treated with all three extracts and significant increase of carbohydrate content only in adults treated with acetone extract.


Following acceptance of the Special Issue article by the Guest Editor, El-Sayed Abd El-Aziz, concerns were raised regarding the integrity of the peer review process [...]


By using a vector autoregressive model, this paper decomposes labor productivity of the Italian energy sector, into technological and non technological shocks. We take the innovative approach to use economic theory, about long-run impacts of di¤erent shocks, to identify the empirical model, and to measure the labor productivity response to each shock, separately. The key identifying restriction is that the level of productivity is determined in the long-run by shocks to technology. We …nd that: (1) productivity responds positively to technological shocks, leading to a transition from one equilibrium to another; (2) capital accumulation shows a persistent decline in response to a positive technological shock, revealing that, in energy sector, technology and capital stock are substitutes. Yet, non technological shocks play a minor and transitory role in explaining productivity change. Results show that shocks that move the productivity at business cycle frequencies may also a¤ect the dynamics of the energy sector in the


During the 1980s there was both centralization and decentralization in the British policy process. The centre was to be responsible for broad policy whilst the institutions in closest contact with those who consumed or used a service were to be responsible for implementation. This style was, in part, a reaction to the perception that organized interests acted as a severe restraint on the centre. Experience, however, demonstrated government's dependence on the cooperation of organized interests and their intermediate organizations. This article argues that effective policy-making requires the formation of intermediate organizations linking macro- and micro-institutions. These organizations are vital for communication, representation and negotiation and therefore they inevitably constrain the centre's freedom. Effective policy requires a partnership between the centre and sub-centre via intermediate institutions and these institutions are likely to become more important as decentralization continues. The role of intermediate institutions are explored via case studies of training and arts policy.


We present a 3-D finite element model of a novel hexagonal SAW biosensor based on LiTaO3 substrate. This SAW biosensor involves the use of one delay path for biological species detection whereas the other delay paths are used to simultaneously remove the non-specifically bound proteins using the acoustic streaming phenomenon, thus eliminating biofouling issues associated with other biosensors. Prior to this biosensor fabrication on any piezoelectric substrate, it is important to establish the type of waves that are generated along the various delay paths. The choice of a delay path for sensing and simultaneous cleaning application depends on the propagation characteristics of the wave generated along the crystal cut and orientation corresponding to that delay path. The frequency response as well as wave propagation characteristics along the delay path corresponding to crystal orientation with on-axis propagation along 36° YX LiTaO3 substrate are analyzed using a coupled field FE model. Similar analysis is extended to the off-axis propagation directions corresponding to Euler rotations by 60° and -60° along the x-z plane. Our findings indicate that the on-axis direction with a significant surface shear horizontal (SH) component should be employed for biological species detection whereas the off-axis directions having mixed modes with a dominant Rayleigh wave component are most suitable for simultaneous cleaning or removal application.


Food law is one of those systems subject to global regulation: when the first food crisis hit in the late 1990s, the response of the European Union was to build up a well-structured skeleton of regulatory tools in order to frame psychotic symptoms of a threat to our health.  The crisis and the consecutive drops in consumption were the engine that powered a season of regulatory reforms. Particularly, the regulatory model is based on good administration principles, a set of actors (national and supranational) and a toolbox of global mechanisms worked as  laissez-passer  to the qualification of food law as a sector of the global administrative law. The ripple effects of the regulation on the economies connected to the European market witness this trespass from the regional problem-solution to a wider dimension. After the global financial earthquake provoked by the 2008 financial crisis, a dramatic and even more pervasive wave of crisis engulfed Europe and the entire world. Since the financial crisis triggered an increase in unemployment, severe wage cuts and increased payments for loans, caused a decrease in the overall consumption of products worldwide. The decline in consumption consequently resulted in the decrease of the consumption of agro-food products, as people became more price-sensitive and were trying to reduce their expenditures. Because the overall household's disposal income decreased, the price contradiction became more noticeable for products with higher value added. As a result, the demand for more expensive products fell and nowadays many people choose to consume basic and cheaper products, leading thus to the decrease use of agro-food products. And once again the food law system had to be re-thought.  The decision to focus on safety and to build up a structured system around "safe food" - that worked so well as an anxiolytic response to the first (food) crisis - has to leave room to a more elaborate set of regulatory techniques, where the password shall be related to a concept of integrated sustainability, rather than on a vague concept of "consumers' health protection. Moving from a top-down regulatory perspective to a wider scenario, where the sharing economy offers proactive solutions to step forward, seems to be necessary. It has been observed that the sharing economy is such a puzzle for governments .  However, beyond the problem of the definition itself, this type of activities raises a number of important and controversial questions in the legal, economic, as well as in the social and environmental fields. In order to provide a comprehensive picture, this study addresses the need of  re-thinking at the entire subject of food and sustainability, starting from a new epistemological approach and, secondly, tries to point out how crucial it is to re-organise the good administration principles in a perspective where the participatory approach plays a pivotal role.


Political scientists invoke the standard rationale to justify making and using formal models. It goes like this: (1) we rely on formal models to generate predictions, (2) we treat these predictions as empirical hypotheses, and (3) we seek to test these hypotheses against evidence derived from the "real world." I show that this interpretation of formal models as directly empirical is inadequate just insofar as it fails to capture the way we actually use them. I then offer an alternative rationale for making and using formal models. Specifically, I argue that we use models, like we use fables, for conceptual purposes.


Factor, multinomial logistic regression and cluster analyses are used in combination to provide a predictive model of store patronage behaviour for consumers in Cardiff, Wales. A subset of variables and factors that are important for consumers when choosing a supermarket were used to provide a picture of each store's clientele. Multinomial logistic regression allowed an overall model of supermarket choice to be developed and also enabled comparisons to be made of individual supermarkets within the sample. A detailed picture of store patronage is presented along with predictions about store choice for a number of "consumer clusters". The results demonstrate the utility of the predictive multinomial models when used in conjunction with other analytical techniques and reinforces a number of studies that have investigated patronage behaviour.


Blocking macrophage phagocytosis of tumor cells by anti-CD47 antibody (Ab) has demonstrated therapeutic efficacy in xenograft models. We have observed that in an immunocompetent host, a CTL adaptive response is essential for immungenic tumor regression after anti-CD47 Ab treatment. Furthermore, anti-CD47 Ab treatment promotes DC but not macrophage-mediated cross priming of CTLs in a type I IFN dependent fashion. In addition, we found that anti-CD47 Ab-mediated immunity requires the functional adaptor protein STING, but not MyD88, suggesting that cytosolic sensing of DNA from tumor cells is enhanced by anti-CD47 Ab treatment futher bridging the innate and adaptive responses. Importantly, we observed that the timing of standard chemotherapeutics impacts anti-CD47 Ab-initiated anti-tumor immunity. Together, our study reveals that anti-CD47 antibody can trigger DNA sensing pathway for adaptive immune-mediated destruction of immungenic tumors. Citation Format: Meng Xu. Unmasking cancer to innate sensing by anti-CD47 antibody triggers adaptive immune-mediated destruction of immunogenic tumors. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR Inaugural International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; September 16-19, 2015; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2016;4(1 Suppl):Abstract nr A155.


At the elite level the mental or psychological factors affect the sportsperson's abilities. For developing greater pressure-handling ability, we need to examine individuals who are exposed to handling risk and pressure. Stress refers to the physical, energetic state of activation in the body. It is the physical intensity level. The level of stress or activation can vary from deep sleep to intense excitement. The idea of peak activation level is that for every skill there is an optimal level of activation, a level that corresponds to a maximum performance level. The peak stress state is the level of energy and intensity that relates to an athlete's best performance level. Top achievers in sports operate in or near to their peak stress level in pressure situations. In the present research paper the Indian male wrestlers were studied on select psycho-physiological variables and their profiles were analysed. The wrestlers were then exposed to the Progressive Muscle Relaxation training for 45 days and their responses were recorded on the four psycho-physiological variables. Thus the complete pretesting and the post training profiling was done and the outcomes were interpreted. The analysis of the present scenario of the psychological condition of the Indian male wrestlers were done and accordingly the recommendations are being made for the improvement of the performance of Indian wrestlers so that they can perform better by overcoming the psychological hurdles at the elite level.


Laboratory behavioural tasks are an essential research tool. As questions asked of behaviour and brain activity become more sophisticated, the ability to specify and run richly structured tasks becomes more important. An increasing focus on reproducibility also necessitates accurate communication of task logic to other researchers. To these ends we developed pyControl, a system of open source hardware and software for controlling behavioural experiments comprising; a simple yet flexible Python-based syntax for specifying tasks as extended state machines, hardware modules for building behavioural setups, and a graphical user interface designed for efficiently running high throughput experiments on many setups in parallel, all with extensive online documentation. These tools make it quicker, easier and cheaper to implement rich behavioural tasks at scale. As important, pyControl facilitates communication and reproducibility of behavioural experiments through a highly readable task definition syntax and self-documenting features. Resources Documentation: https://pycontrol.readthedocs.io Repositories: https://github.com/pyControl User support: https://groups.google.com/g/pycontrol


Contrastive representation learning has been recently proved to be very efficient for self-supervised training. These methods have been successfully used to train encoders which perform comparably to supervised training on downstream classification tasks. A few works have started to build a theoretical framework around contrastive learning in which guarantees for its performance can be proven. We provide extensions of these results to training with multiple negative samples and for multiway classification. Furthermore, we provide convergence guarantees for the minimization of the contrastive training error with gradient descent of an overparametrized deep neural encoder, and provide some numerical experiments that complement our theoretical findings


AIM
to investigate the proliferative activity and distribution of pluripotent stem cells in various histological types of amelobrastoma.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
The surgical and archival materials of 76 patients with ameloblastoma from the Central Research Institute of Dentistry and Oral Surgery, Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, were used. Tissue antigens were determined using a rabbit monoclonal antibody against to Ki-67 and SOX2.

RESULTS
Proliferating (Ki-67) and pluripotent (SOX2) cells were identified in various histological types of ameloblastoma. A weak significant correlation was found between tumor size, pluripotent stem cells, and cellular proliferative activity. Enhanced cell proliferative activity and extensive bone tissue destruction significantly correlated with the development of recurrent ameloblastoma.

CONCLUSION
The presence of pluripotent stem cells, the proliferative activity of ameloblastoma cells, and the extensiveness of bone tissue destruction allow basal-cell and plexiform options to be considered as the most aggressive indicators.


This study investigates the Intellectual Capital (IC) voluntary disclosures. Limited attention is given to examine IC practices of the business entities in the developing countries (including Jordan). Specifically, this paper documents the practices by the large industrial Jordanian firms when disclosing information related to IC and to what extent they do report such non-financial information in their annual reports. Based on relevant literature (namely, Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; and Johnson, 1999), we apply a research index on 60 publicly listed companies classified under the industrial sector at Amman Stock Exchange (ASE). Our findings suggest that information about the intellectual capital has been extensively disclosed by the industrial companies in Jordan. Up to 59% of the hypothesized IC disclosure items were found in the annual reports of the study sample. The evidence reported in this study reveals that human capital is the most disclosed aspect among all three investigated components of IC (i.e. human, internal, and external capital). Unsurprisingly, the multivariate crosssectional regression analysis reveal size and ownership concentration have the highest explanatory power since that larger companies with greater concentration in their ownership tend to disclose more information about their intellectual capital.


Japan is one of the most urbanised and industrialised countries in the world. Yet the Japanese continue to practise a variety of religious rituals and ceremonies despite the high-tech, highly regimented nature of Japanese society. Ceremony and Ritual in Japan focuses on the traditional and religious aspects of Japanese society from an anthropological perspective, presenting new material and making cross-cultural comparisons. The chapters in this collection cover topics as diverse as funerals and mourning, sweeping, women's roles in ritual, the division of ceremonial foods into bitter and sweet, the history of a shrine, the playing of games, the exchange of towels and the relationship between ceremony and the workplace. The book provides an overview of the meaning of tradition, and looks at the way in which new ceremonies have sprung up in changing circumstances, while old ones have been preserved, or have developed new meanings.


A large variety of assay methods based on optical principles can be miniaturized and adapted for use as in vivo monitors with the currently available optical fiber technology. Especially exciting is the capability of adapting the selectivity of immunoassays to continuous on-line biosensors by the use of hollow dialysis fibers. Thus, one can envision biosensors that could have many different applications in artificial organ development, from passive systemic monitoring to active feedback control devices for drug delivery.


The coexistence of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in the same patient is rare. A 71-year-old woman developed a B-lineage lymphoid blast crisis at 18 months after diagnosis of Ph-positive CML. At this time, a lymphoid cell population with morphologic and immunophenotypic features of CLL was demonstrated. The retrospective review of the tests performed at diagnosis and thereafter disclosed the presence of lymphoid nodules in the initial bone marrow biopsy in the absence of lymphocytosis. Subsequently, there was an appearance of moderate lymphocytosis in the following months. Therefore, diagnosis of CML and coexistent CLL was established. Although a transient remission of blast crisis was achieved, blast cells reappeared two months later and the patient died shortly afterwards. Molecular studies of the immunoglobulin heavy chain gene (IH) rearrangement pattern point to the origin of the diseases in two different cell clones. In addition, previously published cases of simultaneous CLL and CML are reviewed.


T he unsettled state of science in and around the U.S. government continues; herewith a summary accounting of where progress stands, or doesn't.

Earlier, Science was most troubled by the lateness of major appointments; we are now only somewhat relieved. A year and 3 months in office went by before the Bush administration finally found a Surgeon General and a director for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and half a year before it appointed a Science Adviser to the President. Still among the missing, however, is a commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration, and no less than six directorships are open at NIH. The Smithsonian Institution, a science asset of, but not quite in, the U.S. government, continues to be plagued by a brain drain of its own. Several directors have left during the tenure of Secretary Small—most recently his second in command, Dennis O'Connor. The dissatisfaction with Small, who was also criticized for some controversial fund-raising adventures, ought to concern the institution's regents.

Elsewhere, the administration contributed to an unnecessary dispute with the international scientific community by its opposition to the reelection of Robert Watson as chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That campaign, jump-started by a memo from Exxon-Mobil shortly after the inauguration, rested on the charge that Watson is a holdover from the Clinton White House. He's guilty of that, all right, but the Third Assessment Report produced by the IPCC is a consensus document, with input from about 200 scientists. Its consensus on the realities of climate change is now robust enough to make denial look silly. Equally silly is the notion that Watson, the chief scientist at the World Bank, had some mysterious hold over his colleagues that made them do whatever he wanted. He has been succeeded by Rajendra Pachauri, a capable Indian economist who should not be blamed for the way he got there.

At difficult times in the past, we have learned to look to the U.S. Congress for solace, and the substantial improvement in the budget for NIH was indeed good news. But, as argued in this space earlier in the budget negotiations, a balanced science portfolio is more important than ever, and how the National Science Foundation and other agencies will fare is uncertain. That is because those budgets are hostage to a forthcoming allocation decision that will determine how much discretionary money (that is, dollars not committed to obligatory payments such as interest and welfare) will be available for purposes other than defense.

In the meantime, the Senate will have to make another kind of decision, nonmonetary this time, that will be vitally important to science. The president has announced his support for a bill sponsored by Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS). This legislation (S. 1899) is promoted as a ban on the cloning of human beings, but it does a great deal more than that. It prohibits reproductive cloning—okay so far—but also bans the range of experiments sometimes misleadingly described as "therapeutic cloning." Worse, like the equivalent House bill, it criminalizes reasonable scientific work.

Many scientists seem not to have realized what this law would do. Suppose, for example, that a cell biologist interested in mechanisms of reprogramming in human cells performs the following experiment. Using enucleated early stem cells derived from a line established before the president's 9 August 2001 ethical borderline, she transfers nuclei from cultured brain cells into those stem cells to follow their subsequent differentiation. Her objective is information that might be useful in developing therapies for genetic defects in brain chemistry, but under the terms of the Brownback law, she could be sentenced to a jail term of up to 10 years. That is downright chilling.

Perhaps it is not surprising that the president has supported the bill; it is both surprising and disappointing that Senator Bill Frist (R-TN), often a thoughtful voice for science and medicine, has joined in. Fortunately, a bipartisan alternative has arisen, cosponsored by such major players as Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT). The bill (S. 2439) manages both to interdict reproductive cloning, which we applaud, and to avoid the pitfall of criminalizing basic research aimed at therapy (see p. [997][1]). We hope that scientists will be vigorous in urging its passage.

 [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.296.5570.997a


Time, in a human life, has been defined in modern philosophy, psychology and psychopathology as a well-organized structure. The question concerning the right relation to time has not been treated so often. Hereby, different aspects have to be considered. (1) Inasfar as time can be seen as a perpetually flowing stream, the duty arises to fit in (one-self), in the right way, without haste and without tarrying, in the course of time. This demands the virtue of imperturbability. (2) From the experience of continuous wane results the desire for steadiness in eternity. The penetration into temporality is successful in two ways: in the absolute determination of existence, and in the experience of the great, overwhelming happiness. But these moments are rare. (3) In the relation to the future, again two interrelated possibilities have to be distinguished. On one side, it has to be planned responsibly but, on the other side, all plans are limited by fate and accident. Opposite to the deeply experienced threat lies the true hope as a last structure of time by man, which must be seized resolutely against all temptations.


Multi-view feature learning is an attractive research topic with great practical success. Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) has become an important technique in multi-view learning, since it can fully utilize the inter-view correlation. In this paper, we mainly study the CCA based multi-view supervised feature learning technique where the labels of training samples are known. Several supervised CCA based multi-view methods have been presented, which focus on investigating the supervised correlation across different views. However, they take no account of the intra-view correlation between samples. Researchers have also introduced the discriminant analysis technique into multi-view feature learning, such as multi-view discriminant analysis (MvDA). But they ignore the canonical correlation within each view and between all views. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-view feature learning approach based on intra-view and inter-view supervised correlation analysis (I2SCA), which can explore the useful correlation information of samples within each view and between all views. The objective function of I2SCA is designed to simultaneously extract the discriminatingly correlated features from both inter-view and intra-view. It can obtain an analytical solution without iterative calculation. And we provide a kernelized extension of I2SCA to tackle the linearly inseparable problem in the original feature space. Four widely-used datasets are employed as test data. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed approaches outperform several representative multi-view supervised feature learning methods.


The Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) proposed for developing countries has become a thorny issue in the Doha Development Agenda's (DDA) agricultural negotiations. Proponents of the mechanism argue that it is a necessary compromise to counter sharp price declines or rapid import surges in staple commodity markets of developing nations. Opponents of the SSM, which include many developed exporters, contend that the policy flexibility contained in current SSM proposals would severely limit market access if the mechanism is triggered. The impact of the SSM depends on a number of parameters: the number of times the SSM is triggered, whether the price or volume SSM is triggered, the size of current tariffs, the magnitude with which tariffs are reduced in the DDA, and the number of times a developing country will actually make use of the SSM. This study introduces a static, synthetic, global, partial equilibrium model of the world soybean complex to assess the preliminary aspects of the DDA's proposed tariff cuts. Future work on this project will extend the model to a stochastic framework from which to simulate the effects of an SSM combined with the DDA tariff cutting formulas for developing nations.


Magnetic resonance imaging is an excellent technique to achieve anatomical details and highly resolved images. The search for efficient contrast agents to increase the signal to background ratio led us to evaluate paramagnetic spherulites as potential Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) contrast agents. Spherulites are supramolecular assemblies, made of lipidic concentric multilayers, able to encapsulate with high efficiency soluble macromolecules. Despite their highly interesting structure, spherulites have never been proposed as imaging agents. We proposed here three approaches to render spherulites paramagnetic: encapsulating a soluble contrastophore, inserting a lipidic contrastophore derivative or grafting a soluble contrastophore at the surface of the spherulites. Following similar strategies, liposomes were prepared for comparison. The conservation of the spherulite structure, throughout these three strategies, was shown by cryoelectron microscopy and small angle light scattering. The effect of the paramagnetic spherulites was studied by magnetic resonance imaging at different magnetic fields. The results showed that insertion of a contrastophore lipidic derivative into spherulite bilayers and grafting a contrastophore at the surface of the spherulites were the two strategies which led to the highest MRI contrast improvement.


Parasitic nematodes of the genus Trichinella cause significant food-borne illness and occupy a unique evolutionary position at the base of the phylum Nematoda, unlike the free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Although the forthcoming genome sequence of Trichinella spiralis can provide invaluable comparative information about nematode biology, a basic framework for understanding the history of the genus Trichinella is needed to maximize its utility. We therefore developed the first robust and comprehensive analysis of the phylogeny and biogeographic history of Trichinella using the variation in three genes (nuclear small-subunit rDNA, and second internal transcribed spacer, mitochondrial large-subunit rDNA, and cytochrome oxidase I DNA) from all 11 recognized taxa. We conclude that (i) although Trichinellidae may have diverged from their closest extant relatives during the Paleozoic, all contemporary species of Trichinella diversified within the last 20 million years through geographic colonization and pervasive host switching among foraging guilds of obligate carnivores; (ii) mammalian carnivores disseminated encapsulated forms from Eurasia to Africa during the late Miocene and Pliocene, and to the Nearctic across the Bering Land Bridge during the Pliocene and Pleistocene, when crown species ultimately diversified; (iii) the greatest risk to human health is posed by those species retaining an ancestral capacity to parasitize a wide range of hosts; and (iv) early hominids may have first acquired Trichinella on the African savannah several million years before swine domestication as their diets shifted from herbivory to facultative carnivory.


The origins of confessional handbooks or penitentials can be traced back to the seventh century, when Irish and Anglo-Saxon authors composed lists of sins and their corresponding penances. These texts were to be used by priests in order to enjoin a suitable penance on confessants. The penitential genre spread to the Frankish regions, where new texts were composed in the eighth and ninth centuries. While penitentials gradually passed into disuse in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the penitential genre experienced a short renaissance in the southern and central parts of Italy. This comparatively late production of new penitentials is more remarkable, because few new texts were compiled in the rest of Europe during this period. This study focuses upon five penitentials from South and Central Italy to examine in greater detail the flowering of penitential literature in this region. An analysis of the sources of these texts revealed both their indebtness to Frankish traditions as well as their originality. This book has shown that thematic uniformity in the penitentials was achieved by their focus upon upon criminal sins, such as sexual and marital sins and violence. This study also provides an analysis of the rites of confession of penance which were often included in the Italian penitentials. Furthermore, this study explored the manuscripts in which the penitentials were copied in order to establish which role these texts fulfilled in ecclesiastical life. By taking into account this codicological evidence, it is possible to answer the question as to whether these texts really functioned in daily pastoral care or whether they were theoretical texts with a largely educational purpose. After examining such features as the size, the decoration, and the contents of the manuscripts that contain penitentials, it can be shown that these texts could function within both an educational and a pastoral context. The influence of penitentials upon the canon law of that region was particularly strong, which can be discerned in two major, South Italian canon law collections of this age, the Collection in Nine Books and the Collection in Five Books. The compilers of these collections not only included many rulings of penitentials, but also changed existing rulings and created new ones themselves. In turn, many regulations of these documents entered some of the penitentials of liturgical manuscripts. The Italian penitentials, in other words, display a lively interaction between liturgical and legal genres.


Formation of the cuticle from components of the secretory cavity and subcuticular wall was studied by transmission electron microscopy of glandular trichomes of Cannabis prepared by high pressure cryofixation-cryosubstitution. Secretory vesicles in the secretory cavity resembled those localized in the subcuticular wall as well as the vesicle-related material associated with the irregular inner surface of the cuticle and appeared to provide precursors for thickening of the cuticle. Some contiguous vesicles in the secretory cavity and subcuticular wall lacked a surface feature at their point of contact, supporting an interpretation of vesicle fusion. Fibrillar matrix from the secretory cavity contributed fibrillar matrix to the subcuticular wall, and persisted as residual fibrillar matrix associated with secretory materials coalesced to the thickened inner surface of the cuticle. Elongated fibrils arranged in uniformly spaced parallel pairs contributed to the organization of fibrillar matrix in the subcuticular wall. Striae were evident in the outer portion of the cuticle, and appeared to represent sites of degraded residual fibrillar matrix associated with secretory materials coalesced to the inner cuticular surface. This study supports an interpretation that contents of secretory vesicles from the secretory cavity contribute to formation of glandular cuticle.


Substituted morpholine derivatives, such as, for instance, the compound 2-[ alpha -(2-methoxy-phenoxy)-benzyl]-morpholine are disclosed. The claimed compounds are active on the central nervous system, and may be used as antidepressant agents.


Sketching in general engineering and science has been "outmanoeuvred" by computer graphics while still holding on in architectural engineering as a tool to think about spatial relationships, allowing the students to develop conceptual designs quicker than any CAD. Moreover, a recent paper reported that sketching helped students in geology develop critical thinking skills. Based on students' feedback, it was concluded that it led to a deeper understanding of important concepts. Should it surprise us that psychological research shows that sketching facilitates inference, discovery and learning? This paper presents a model for creating and assessing assignments that uses engineering sketching to teach and learn in a second year course at UNSW, CVEN2101-Engineering Construction. The class focuses on studying key principles related to the safe and effective utilization of construction equipment such as trucks, excavators, cranes and temporary structures. Students faced the challenge to investigate how the physics and math relate to digging, lifting and the creation of large forces while keeping labourers safe. The concept of forensic engineering had to be used to study the cause of accidents. The developed model includes various measurements and proper motion paths, in an attempt to quantify the level of understanding. It is felt, that based on the findings of this study, that engineering sketching not only allows inventing new mechanisms, as Leonardo da Vinci did, but equally important, provides a valuable and reliable tool to teach and learn construction engineering.


A study to determine the virulence of five Verticillium dahliae isolates on five varieties of cotton (SZ 9314, G 501, FQ902, BC 853 and 563-97-12) was carried out under both field (at five sites Cotton Research Institute (CRI), Henderson, Rafingora, Chisumbanje and Chinhoyi) and greenhouse conditions. The molecular differences of the five isolates were also compared using the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) at Tobacco Research Board's Molecular Biology Laboratory. In the field experiments to determine virulence, the five varieties named above were planted at each site in a Completely Randomised Block Design with four replications. Monthly infections and fortnight scoring were done from January to the end of May. Infection percentages were calculated at the end of the season. They were arc sine transformed and then subjected to analysis of variance using Gestat 3.2. Fortnightly scores were used to calculate the area under the disease progress curves (AUDPC) using Sigma Plot 8. Significant differences (p<0.05) in infection percentages (arc sine transformed) were obtained at CRI, Chisumbanje and Chinhoyi but not at Rafingora and Henderson. There were no significant varietal differences for AUDPC at four sites (CRI, Chisumbanje, Rafingora and Henderson) except Chinhoyi, which had significant AUDPC differences between the varieties. From the five sites, soil samples were taken to isolate Verticillium dahliae. The isolates were tested for their virulence on five varieties used in the field. The trial was laid in a split plot design with Verticillium dahliae isolates as main plots and varieties as subplots. A single pot with one plant constituted a plot. Inoculum was prepared from the isolates and plants were stem pricked at the base at six weeks after planting. Severity scores were done a week after infection for the next four weeks. All the isolates were virulent, with isolates from CRI and Chinhoyi producing significantly higher AUDPC on all varieties than other isolates form other sites. Significant AUDPC were observed with G501 and BC853 having the lowest AUDPC while SZ9314 and F902 had the highest AUDPCs and variety 563-97-12 had intermediate AUDPC. PCR was run to compare five Verticillium dahliae isolates against the standard fungus from imported from South Africa at the Tobacco Research Board. Two primers were used (primer 19/22 and 42/70). Primer 22/70 managed to produce more bands (eleven bands) than primer 19/22 which produced five bands. Bands were scored and a cluster analysis was done to compare the differences of the banding patterns. Results show that there were differences at molecular level between the isolates. Differences were evident between the Rafingora isolate and the other isolates. Relationship between virulence and molecular differences was no established. However our results are preliminary and further research still need to be carried out on the isolates.


Wind energy promises to become an important source of energy in the near future. Penetrating large-scale wind power into power systems presents a lot of challenges to power system operators, generation companies and wind turbine manufactures. In order to design less expensive and more efficient wind turbines, manufacturers have tried a lot of possibilities. However reliability is also an important issue. For this reason much attention needs to be paid to the reliability improvement. In the beginning, this thesis introduces and discusses modern wind turbines, gives failure rates to express the reliability, analyzes problems and the most critical subassemblies of wind turbines, and gives the possible methods to make wind turbines more reliable. For electrical part of wind turbine, generator is a crucial component. In this thesis a fault tolerant energy conversion system was designed to meet the specification. With certain faults the system can continue operating and output power. Therefore the reliability of wind turbines is increased. Finally the design procedure, and comparisons of this fault tolerant generator system and conventional generator system are given.


Tracking multiple objects is a challenging problem for an automated system,
with applications in many domains. Typically the system must be able to
represent the posterior distribution of the state of the targets, using a recursive
algorithm that takes information from noisy measurements. However, in
many important cases the number of targets is also unknown, and has also
to be estimated from data.
The Probability Hypothesis Density (PHD) filter is an effective approach
for this problem. The method uses a first-order moment approximation to
develop a recursive algorithm for the optimal Bayesian filter. The PHD
recursion can implemented in closed form in some restricted cases, and more
generally using Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods. The assumptions
made in the PHD filter are appealing for computational reasons in real-time
tracking implementations. These are only justifiable when the signal to noise
ratio (SNR) of a single target is high enough that remediates the loss of
information from the approximation.
Although the original derivation of the PHD filter is based on functional
expansions of belief-mass functions, it can also be developed by exploiting elementary
constructions of Poisson processes. This thesis presents novel strategies
for improving the Sequential Monte Carlo implementation of PHD filter
using the point process approach. Firstly, we propose a post-processing state
estimation step for the PHD filter, using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods
for mixture models. Secondly, we develop recursive Bayesian smoothing
algorithms using the approximations of the filter backwards in time. The
purpose of both strategies is to overcome the problems arising from the PHD
filter assumptions. As a motivating example, we analyze the performance of
the methods for the difficult problem of person tracking in crowded environments


Drug abuse has been a social problem for many years and is often complicated by the emergence of new types of abused drugs or new forms of abuse. Abuse of cough medicine has been a focus of concern in Hong Kong since the late 1980s. This paper describes the findings of a qualitative study of the phenomenon of cough medicine abuse in Hong Kong. Focus group interviews were conducted to explore the perceived causes and effects of cough medicine abuse among Chinese young people in Hong Kong. The results from focus group interviews with cough medicine abusers, their family members, and service providers reveal that the primary factors accounting for adolescent cough medicine abuse are social pressure (peer and environmental influences), personal problems (evasion and avoidance), family (difficult relationships or harmful incidents), availability (ease of access), and ignorance. The research participants reported that their cough medicine dependence had serious side effects that threatened their physical and psychological wellbeing, as well as their interpersonal and family relationships. Based on the findings, several recommendations for the prevention of cough medicine abuse are proposed.


This paper offers a new perspective on the emergence of machinery in the cotton spinning trade during the third quarter of the eighteenth century. It does so by examining the interplay between economic, political, and national interests within the early Hanoverian state. Changes in trading relationships between textile producers across the three kingdoms of England/Wales, Ireland, and Scotland created escalating supply-side problems, which, by the 1760s, would precipitate a quest for solutions based on new technologies.


The contribution of bureaucratic actors, such as those of the United Nations Secretary-General, has been a focus in the study of individuals' contribution to international relations and the study of United Nations reform. In this context, role expansion has been a central concern. In January 2017, a new Secretary-General took office on the 38th floor of the United Nations, following a successful campaign to reform the selection process by increasing its transparency. Despite different campaign foci, campaign groups framed their claims for reform in the context of 'representation', which shaped expectations and understanding of the role and its authority. Expectations play a key role in role expansion beyond personality, leeway or institutional demand. This article discusses the representation of states, gender and the people as referents for the Secretary-General's role, which corresponds to campaign claims regarding regional rotation, a woman Secretary-General and greater independence for the Secretary-General.


The proposal of the education of character skills in childhood has and still represents an authoritative experience within the educational landscape with particular regard to the school environment. If the proposal of character education has been so widely accepted to date, how can it be a valid support for the school even after the pandemic? In order to represent a valid support to all intents and purposes, should it maintain the traits that have distinguished it up to now or should it change in some respects? In particular, what skills should then be promoted by character education in schools after the pandemic? Starting from these problematic spaces and in order to work on a reconstruction of possible answers to the questions raised, the present contribution is articulated around three main reflexive nests: the education of character with particular regard to the proposal of character skills by James Josef Heckman; the relationship between conscientiousness (central to the discourses on character) and patience, an educational proposal centered on patience's skills that should be promoted through character education in schools, especially at primary level, after the pandemic.


There is ample consensus that, besides objective characteristics, psycho-attitudinal factors play a key role in influencing people's mode choice. Hybrid choice models use these theoretical frameworks so as to include latent constructs for capturing the impact of subjective factors on mode choice. But recent work in transportation research raised the question about the ability of hybrid choice models to derive policy implications that aim to change travel behavior, given the focus on cross-sectional data. To address this problem we designed a survey for collecting longitudinal data (socio-economic and psycho-attitudinal) to evaluate, on the one hand, the long-term effects on travel mode choice of the implementation of a new light rail line in the metropolitan area of Cagliari (Italy), on the other to detect any changes in the psycho-attitudinal factors and socio-economic characteristics after implementation of those measures. In particular, the objective of the study is to analyze whether these changes in individual characteristics are able to affect mode choice from a modeling perspective, through the specification and estimation of hybrid models. Our results show that latent variables were not significantly different over waves, showing that the impact of the psychological construct remained stable over time, even after the introduction of the new light rail. Additionally, we found some evidence that the variables that explain the latent variables could change over time.