We propose and characterize parametric families of homothetic demand systems, which feature a constant pass-through rate that is common across otherwise heterogenous monopolistically competitive firms. These parametric families offer natural, flexible, and yet tractable extensions of CES. In the case of complete pass-through, the markup rate is constant, as in CES, but can differ across firms, unlike in CES. In the case of incomplete pass-thorough, the price of each firm is log-linear in its marginal cost and its choke price with the common coefficients across firms. Tougher competition, captured by a lower "average price," reduces the prices of all firms at a uniform rate and hence without affecting their relative prices. Yet, it causes a disproportionately larger decline in the revenue and the profit among firms with lower markup rates, which are not necessarily smaller or more productive firms.


Destroying hydrophobicity and increasing bioavailability of anticancer drugs
is emerging field in biomedical nanotherapy.

Methods: The porous and oval shaped Gd2O3 gadolinite nanoparticles were synthesized and surface
functionalized with folate groups using wet coprecipitation method. The presence of spinal nanophase
with Gd2O3 lattice inside nanoparticles was confirmed by the use of XRD pattern and supportive FTIR
spectrum. XRD data of nanocomposites proved the spinal core of gadolinite phase even after surface
tailoring. These porous nanoparticles were loaded with anticancer drug 5-flurouracil for enhancement
of anticancer activity on breast cancer MCF-7 cells. The elemental, optical, morphological and phase
physicochemical characterization of the nanomaterials were performed using techniques such as PL,
FTIR, XRD spectrometry, TGA thermal analysis, SEM and TEM microscopic analysis. The photoactive
biocompatibility of nanohybrids was elaborated on gram positive S. aureus bacteria by agar well
antibacterial screening in dark and light.

Results: The nanocomposites not only exhibited photoactive biocompatibility but also pH responsive in
vitro delivery applied for anticancer therapy on the basis of spectrometric assay following sustained release
with zero order Peppas release kinetics.

 The nanocomposites exhibited higher anticancer activity on MCF-7 cells than free drug
and nanohybrids after in vitro MTT assay. These 5-FU loaded folate targeted luminescent and photoactive
nanocomposites with gadolinite core find applications in the future biomedical cell-particle interface.


There is continued discussion of including Internet dependence as a diagnosis in future editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The primary aim of the study was to evaluate the utility of the proposed diagnostic criteria for Internet dependence as measured by Young's Diagnostic Questionnaire (YDQ). Although the YDQ does not provide any measure of severity, there is emerging recognition that some Internet users may display less severe or at risk Internet dependence. The degree to which the cutoff of 5 out of 8 criteria is appropriate to differentiate nondependent from dependent Internet use was evaluated by comparing the Internet usage and psychological dysfunction of 424 university students endorsing 3 and 4 diagnostic criteria (at-risk Internet dependence) to those endorsing less than 3 criteria (nondependent) and those endorsing 5 or more criteria (Internet dependence). The findings suggest that the proposed diagnostic criteria do not adequately discriminate individuals scoring 3 or 4 from those currently classified as Internet dependent. The implications of the findings for the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of Internet dependence are discussed.


Multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing with index modulation (MIMO-OFDM-IM) is a novel multicarrier transmission technique which has been proposed recently as an alternative to classical MIMO-OFDM. In this scheme, OFDM with index modulation (OFDM-IM) concept is combined with MIMO transmission to take advantage of the benefits of these two techniques. In this paper, we shed light on the implementation and error performance analysis of the MIMO-OFDM-IM scheme for next generation 5G wireless networks. Maximum likelihood (ML), near-ML, simple minimum mean square error (MMSE) and ordered successive interference cancellation (OSIC) based MMSE detectors of MIMO-OFDM-IM are proposed, and their theoretical performance is investigated. It has been shown via extensive computer simulations that MIMO-OFDM-IM scheme provides an interesting tradeoff between error performance and spectral efficiency as well as it achieves considerably better error performance than classical MIMO-OFDM using different type detectors and under realistic conditions.


Scan-based testing has proven to be a cost-effective method for achieving good test coverage in digital circuits. The Achilles heel in the application of scan-based testing is the integrity of the scan chains. The amount of die area consumed by scan elements, chain connections, and control circuitry varies with different designs. Typically, each scan cell in a scan chain has an index number. The cells in the chain are sequentially numbered from scan output to scan input, starting with 0. A chain pattern (sometimes called a flush pattern) is a pattern consisting of shift-in and shift-out operations without pulsing capture clocks. The purpose of chain patterns is to test scan chain integrity. A scan pattern (also known as a logic test pattern) is a pattern consisting of a shift-in operation, one or multiple capture clock cycles, and a shift-out operation. The purpose of scan patterns is to test system logic. The scan cells between the scan chain input and a scan cell's scan input terminal are called the upstream cells of that scan cell. The scan cells between the scan chain output and a scan cell's scan output terminal are called the downstream cells of that scan cell.


ACL-reconstruction with patellar tendon autograft is a standard procedure which can be performed arthroscopically with a femoral half tunnel drilled from the joint or using the two-tunnel technique with medial miniarthrotomy and additional femoral approach. The arthroscopic procedure with single incision was hypothesized to improve proprioception and to provide earlier rehabilitation. Twenty-nine patients with chronic ACL-deficiency were included in the prospective study. Fifteen patients were operated endoscopically, 14 patients using the two-tunnel technique. Proprioception, Lysholm and Tegner scores as well as stability (KT-1000) were assessed preoperatively, 3 and 6 months postoperatively as well as after 3.9 +/- 0.4 years. A significant deficit of proprioception was assessed in both groups preoperatively. Six months postoperatively, both groups showed a restitution of proprioception near full extension and full flexion of the knee. In the mid-range position, the proprioception could not be restored. At the final examination after 3.9 years, the deficit documented in the mid-range position still persisted. There were no differences in proprioception, clinical results and stability between the arthroscopic and the open technique.


Seed shape and size are among the most important agronomic traits because they affect yield and market price. To obtain accurate seed size data, a large number of measurements are needed because there is little difference in size among seeds from one plant. To promote genetic analysis and selection for seed shape in plant breeding, efficient, reliable, high-throughput seed phenotyping methods are required. We developed SmartGrain software for high-throughput measurement of seed shape. This software uses a new image analysis method to reduce the time taken in the preparation of seeds and in image capture. Outlines of seeds are automatically recognized from digital images, and several shape parameters, such as seed length, width, area, and perimeter length, are calculated. To validate the software, we performed a quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis for rice (Oryza sativa) seed shape using backcrossed inbred lines derived from a cross between japonica cultivars Koshihikari and Nipponbare, which showed small differences in seed shape. SmartGrain removed areas of awns and pedicels automatically, and several QTLs were detected for six shape parameters. The allelic effect of a QTL for seed length detected on chromosome 11 was confirmed in advanced backcross progeny; the cv Nipponbare allele increased seed length and, thus, seed weight. High-throughput measurement with SmartGrain reduced sampling error and made it possible to distinguish between lines with small differences in seed shape. SmartGrain could accurately recognize seed not only of rice but also of several other species, including Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). The software is free to researchers.


ObjectiveStudies provide conflicting results about the impact of comorbid conditions on the quality of chronic illness care. We assessed the effect of comorbidity type (concordant, discordant, or both) on the receipt of guideline-recommended care among patients with diabetes. Research DesignPatients were assigned to 1 of 4 condition groups: diabetes-concordant (hypertension, ischemic heart disease, hyperlipidemia), and/or diabetes-discordant (arthritis, depression, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) conditions, or neither. We evaluated hemoglobin A1c, blood pressure, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol readings at index and measured overall good quality of diabetes care, including a 6-month follow-up interval. We assessed the effect of condition group on overall good quality of care with logistic regression and generalized ordered logistic regression. ResultsWe assigned 35,872 patients to the diabetes comorbid condition groups, ranging from 2.0% in the discordant-only group to 58.0% in the concordant-only group. Patients with both types of conditions were more likely than those with no comorbidities to receive overall good quality for glycemic [odds ratio (OR), 2.13; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.86-2.41], blood pressure (OR, 1.62; 95% CI, 1.40-1.84), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (OR, 3.57; 95% CI, 3.08-4.05) control within 6 months of an index visit. They were also more likely to receive overall good quality for all 3 quality measures combined (OR, 2.17; 95% CI, 1.96-2.39). ConclusionsPatients with the greatest clinical complexity were more likely than less complex patients to receive high quality diabetes care, suggesting that increased complexity does not necessarily predispose chronically ill patients to receiving poorer care. However, caution should be used in treating certain patient groups, such as the elderly, for whom adherence to multiple condition-specific guidelines may lack benefit or cause harm.


This paper attempts to allocate a segment of the Paleozoic Ocean situated in what is now Southeastern Europe (SEE) into a regional geological and paleotectonic synthesis connecting the sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous records associated with the ocean's cycle. The Supragetic basement (external section of the Carpatho-Balkan arch) represents a tectonically reworked basement vestige of the Neoproterozoic–Lower Paleozoic oceanic floor system recrystallized under regional low temperature greenschist-facies conditions. The regional geological constraints associated with this low-grade basement are integrated with information from the overlying Silurian, Devonian and Lower Carboniferous cap-rocks of the "Kucaj Unit" to demonstrate the presence of a major Paleozoic ocean crossing this segment of SEE. In connection with the Lower Paleozoic north Gondwanan Pan-African processes, the low-grade Supragetic basement (including its Devonian cover) is in a complex relationship with the occasionally anchimetamorphic Silurian, Devonian, and Lower Carboniferous deep-water record of the polymetamorphic "Kucaj Unit". The Upper Devonian–Lower Carboniferous flysch and molasse of the "Kucaj Unit" are interposed with the Neoproterozic–Lower Paleozoic oceanic vestige or with the Supragetic basement with the corresponding Devonian Balkan-Carpathian back-arc ophiolite-bearing lithosphere and its carrier (Danubian Unit). This regional-scale synthesis demonstrates that a segment of the Rheic Ocean referred to as the Saxo-Thuringian seaway and its suture lay to the east, underneath the Permian red-bed overstepping sequence and to the west of the Danubian aggregation. Unlike many of the high-pressure rocks characterizing the segment of the Rheic suture in the Central European Variscides, the SEE zone described here has only a mild overprint.


3-Aminopropyl glycoside of 3,2'-di-O-alpha-L-fucosyl-N-acetyllactosamine (Ley tetrasaccharide) was synthesized. The glycosyl donor, 2-O-acetyl-3,4,6-tri-O-benzoyl-alpha-D-galactopyranosyl bromide, was coupled with glycosyl acceptor, 1,6-anhydro-2-acetamido-2-deoxy-beta-D-glucopyranose or its 3-O-acetyl derivative, to give the corresponding N-acetyllactosamine derivatives in 20 and 71% yields, respectively. The glycosyl donor was synthesized from 1,2-di-O-acetyl-3,4,6-tri-O-benzoyl-D-galactopyranose, which was obtained by the treatment of benzobromogalactose with sodium borohydride to yield 1,2-O-benzylidene derivative and subsequent removal of benzylidene group and acetylation. Acidic methanolysis of the disaccharide derivatives resulted in the selective removal of one or both acetyl groups to give the disaccharide acceptor bearing hydroxy groups at C3 of the glucosamine residue and C2 of the galactose residue. The introduction of fucose residues in these positions by the treatment with tetrabenzylfucopyranosyl bromide resulted in a tetrasaccharide derivative, which was converted into 3,2'-di-O-alphha-L-fucopuranosyl- 1,6-anhydro-N-acetyllactosamine peracetate after substitution of acetyl groups for benzoyl and benzyl groups. Opening of the anhydro ring by acetolysis resulted in peracetate, which was then converted into the corresponding oxazoline derivative in two steps. Glycosylation of the oxazoline derivative with 3-trifluoroacetamidopropan-1-ol and removal of O-acetyl and N-trifluoroacetyl protective groups resulted in a free spacered Ley tetrasaccharide.


Introduction Capsule endoscopy has been suggested as a potential alternative to endoscopy for detection of esophagogastric varices and severe portal hypertensive gastropathy (PHG). The aim of the study was to determine whether PillCam esophageal capsule endoscopy could replace endoscopy for screening purposes. Material and methods Sixty-two patients with cirrhosis with no previous variceal bleeding had PillCam capsule endoscopy and video endoscopy performed on the same day. Sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values (PPV, NPV) of capsule endoscopy were compared to endoscopy for the presence and severity of esophageal and gastric varices, PHG and the need for primary prophylaxis. Patients' preference was assessed by a questionnaire. Results Four (6%) patients were unable to swallow the capsule. Sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV of capsule endoscopy for detecting any esophageal varices (92%, 50%, 92%, 50%), large varices (55%, 91%, 75%, 80%), variceal red signs (58%, 87%, 69%, 80%), PHG (95%, 50%, 95%, 50%), and the need for primary prophylaxis (91%, 57%, 78%, 80%) were not optimal, with only moderate agreement (κ) between capsule and upper GI endoscopy. Had only a capsule endoscopy been performed, 12 (21.4%) patients would have received inappropriate treatment. Capsule endoscopy also failed to detect (0/13) gastric varices. The majority of patients ranked capsule endoscopy as more convenient (69%) and their preferred (61%) method. Conclusions Despite the preference expressed by patients for capsule endoscopy, we believe that upper GI endoscopy should remain the preferred screening method for primary prophylaxis.


Objective To examine the association of circulating levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) and ionised calcium with lung function and sensitisation to common environmental allergens in adolescents (12–19 years) and adults (20–59 years). Design Cross-sectional study. Participants Participants of the US third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III), a representative sample of the non-institutionalised US population, with data on serum 25(OH)D levels and spirometry (adolescents, n=2074; adults, n=4647) and 25(OH)D levels and skin prick tests (adolescents, n=1914; adults, n=4782). Main Outcome Measure Forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC) from Spirometry. Skin prick test responses to a standardised allergen panel comprising indoor allergens (house mite; Dermatophagoides farinae, cat, German cockroach), outdoor allergens (short ragweed, perennial rye, Alternaria alternata, Bermuda grass, Russian thistle and white oak), and a food allergen (peanut) and a negative control. Positive allergen response was defined as maximal weal diameter ≥3 mm for allergen and <3 mm for negative control. Results Serum levels of 25(OH)D were positively associated with FVC in adolescents (0.073 (0.025–0.121) SD) and adults (0.045 (0.013–0.078) SD) and with FEV1 in adults (0.050 (0.013–0.087)) after adjusting for health status, previously diagnosed respiratory/allergic diseases, supplement use, household pets and demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. These associations were independent of circulating calcium levels. Calcium levels were not associated with lung function in either age group. In adults, modest positive associations of ionised calcium with sensitisation to allergens of grass origin were observed (OR per SD, 1.12(1.00–1.26) for white oak and 1.13(1.01–1.26) for Bermuda grass in fully adjusted model). These associations were independent of 25(OH)D levels. All associations remained after further adjustment for smoking and alcohol use. Conclusion We found a cross-sectional association between serum 25(OH)D levels and lung function, which does not appear to be driven by increased allergen sensitisation. By contrast we report a novel positive association between serum levels of ionised calcium and grass allergen sensitisation in adults, which is independent of vitamin D.


I argue that innovative development programs that require citizen participation in the production of public goods can have unexpected benefits for individuals' dispositions toward democracy. In particular, I explore the effect of taking part in state-sponsored neighborhood development programs – direct-democracy type programs that require individuals to organize within their community as a precondition for state help – on participant dispositions toward democracy and willingness to take part in politics. To test this hypothesis, I use original survey data collected in the Mexican state of Baja California. To measure the effect of participation in neighborhood development programs, I conduct a quasi experiment via propensity score matching. I find robust evidence suggesting that participating in such programs correlates with higher levels of political participation, a better sense of community, more positive retrospective evaluations of the economy (according to both pocketbook and sociotropic measures), and overall higher support for the government.


Skillful planning and the reliance on frequent face-to-face interaction is often emphasized as preconditions for successful project work in literature on project management and product development. Our case study observations of a project involving the development of a new stacker, however, contrast with such a view. Here, most project work was carried out individually and as a matter of routine, complemented by interactive instances, such as project meetings and ad hoc problem solving interaction. Moreover, instead of a shared project goal or a shared knowledge base, the material stacker stood out as an artifact of great significance in achieving activity and knowledge coordination. Inspired by literature on sense-making, we propose a simplified model of the individual-collective dynamic in such contexts, and differentiate between processes of interacting and interrelating. Finally we discuss its coordination properties as a matter of cognitive feasibility and economizing on cost.


Here, we present positions and radial velocities for over 4000 globular clusters (GCs) in 27 nearby early-type galaxies from the SLUGGS survey. The SLUGGS survey is designed to be representative of elliptical and lenticular galaxies in the stellar mass range 10 < log /M⊙ < 11.7. The data have been obtained over many years, mostly using the very stable multi-object spectrograph DEIMOS on the Keck II 10 m telescope. Radial velocities are measured using the calcium triplet lines, with a velocity accuracy of ±10–15 km s−1. We use phase space diagrams (i.e., velocity–position diagrams) to identify contaminants such as foreground stars and background galaxies, and to show that the contribution of GCs from neighboring galaxies is generally insignificant. Likely ultra-compact dwarfs are tabulated separately. We find that the mean velocity of the GC system is close to that of the host galaxy systemic velocity, indicating that the GC system is in overall dynamical equilibrium within the galaxy potential. We also find that the GC system velocity dispersion scales with host galaxy stellar mass, in a similar manner to the Faber–Jackson relation for the stellar velocity dispersion. Publication of these GC radial velocity catalogs should enable further studies in many areas, such as GC system substructure, kinematics, and host galaxy mass measurements.


© 2005 American Institute of Physics, S-0031-9228-0508-220-7 Validating the Need to Validate Code T article "Computational Science Demands a New Paradigm" by Douglass Post and Lawrence Votta (PHYSICS TODAY, January 2005, page 35) makes some good points about the pitfalls of believing computed physics. The authors propose several criteria for verification and validation of large computational models for making public-policy decisions. Among other examples, they mention climate-change calculations. The article's figure 5 shows several famous bridges, including as the third example the infamous "Galloping Gertie," the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State, which collapsed in 1940. In that case, previous designs were pushed too far, with just one little thing forgotten: resonance! The film of that collapse is still often used in physics classes to dramatize the importance of resonance. Post and Votta "assert that computational science is currently in the midst of" the stage where computing power makes it possible to outrun good engineering judgment. The Kyoto Protocol to curtail CO2 emissions was based on a global circulation model from 1994, now a full decade old. It left out the importance of clouds, because they were just too difficult to model. That model was never even successful in accurately describing the past: It violates the first validation criterion given by Post and Votta. Nevertheless, international policymakers have not attended to validation criteria, have never doubted the truth of the model, and have gathered momentum toward implementing the Kyoto Protocol. Consequently, large economic impact is associated with those computational results. The Galloping Gertie of environmental science is the Kyoto Protocol. Unless computational scientists learn from its shortcomings, it will discredit future attempts to predict climate change. Thomas P. Sheahen (firstname.lastname@example.com) Deer Park, Maryland


Background The development of secondary health conditions (SHCs) after spinal cord injury (SCI) is common and can affect an individual's emotional well-being, and his or her health-related quality of life (QOL). Little is known about relationships between performing health-benefiting behaviours and the presence (or absence) of SHCs and QOL, particularly in South Africa. Objectives This research study was conducted in order to determine the associations between health behaviour, SHCs and QOL in people with SCI (PWSCI). Method This cross-sectional study included 36 PWSCI discharged from a private rehabilitation facility in Pretoria, South Africa. The PWSCI completed questionnaires pertaining to lifestyle, independence, presence of SHCs, social support and QOL. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics such as correlation tests and chi-square test of independence (x2) using the SPSS v25. Moderate, moderately high and high correlations are reported (Pearson r ≥ 0.4). Results were significant if p < 0.05. Results Participation in health-benefiting behaviour was associated with increased QOL (r = 0.457, p < 0.01) and increased social support from family and friends (r = 0.425, p < 0.01), which was associated with increased QOL (r = 0.671, p < 0.001). Not participating in specific neuromusculoskeletal health behaviours was found to be associated with the overall presence of SHCs (r = -0.426, p < 0.01). Conclusions Participating in health-benefiting behaviour can reduce the development of SHCs and subsequently increase QOL in PWSCI. Health professionals must focus on minimising the development of SHCs by providing specific education on good health-benefiting behaviour.


There is growing awareness that Western educational practices and language pedagogies cannot simply be exported to other parts of the world. The ethnocentricity of many teacher education projects that aim at introducing CLT to Asian societies have caused cultural conflicts and have led to the call for culturally appropriate methodologies. This paper presents an ethnographic analysis of three situations taken from two in-service teacher education courses in which cultural norms and identities were salient. It is argued that in the context of cross-cultural in-service courses it is important to identify possible culturally inappropriate procedures and ideas and locally introduce these aspects in the learning situation. This approach paves the way for 'intercultural reciprocity' (Coulby 2006), which will allow the course to evolve into a place from which C1 and C2 can be reflected upon without loss of face.


Participatory management establishes a dynamic of democratization of the public administration, since it associates planning and widespread participation, through political definitions and adjustments and changes. Its purpose is to discuss and define the population, in a democratic way, the distribution of investment resources. Major challenges put pressure on governments at the federal, state, and municipal levels, requiring them to be more creative and effective ways of achieving results, from the employment of increasingly scarce resources and an increasingly demanding and par- ticipatory population. Considering that the process of managing public resources is defined in the budget, it is necessary that it contains all the elements that facilitate and allow a correct application of these, among the universe of interests presented by the population through the participatory management process. Moreover, we propose a model for the management of optimization of the Public Budget, whose objective is to provide the administrator with the instruments necessary to optimize the application of available public resources. The methodology in the analysis of the feasibility, and the application of a multicriteria structured model and mathematical programming applied to the public budget, having as a case study a macro view of the budget for Municipal City Halls.


Dendron rod−coil molecules are a novel supramolecular building block, comprising a dendritic unit, a rodlike unit, and a coil unit (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2001, 123, 4105). It was proposed that in solution these molecules assemble into ribbonlike aggregates of high aspect ratio. We report here on the self-assembly of DRC-molecules in 2-propanol and ethyl acetate as studied with static and dynamic light scattering. In 2-propanol, aggregation occurs on a time scale of minutes. In ethyl acetate, aggregation proceeds more slowly until an equilibrium is reached. Static light scattering on 2-propanol-based samples reveals the presence of rodlike aggregates that grow with time. The static light scattering data of the ethyl acetate samples could be fitted to Kholodenko's expression for the form factor of a wormlike chain (Macromolecules 1993, 26, 4179), yielding a persistence length of 45 nm. Dynamic light scattering on ethyl acetate-based samples shows three modes. The dominant mode corresponds to translation of aggr...


In Sweden there is often controversy over the place of child victims, especially children victimized by witnessing domestic violence. In part, the confusion is due from the difficulties children have in expressing themselves and presenting evidence. It is also due to the fact that there is confusion regarding the medical and psychological effects of witnessing instances of domestic violence. Consequently, such children, although they are recognized as victims and are entitled compensation from the state, are not eligible to be awarded damages from the abuser. In fact, in one important Supreme Court case, the prosecutor argued that children that had seen and heard their father beat their mother should be considered an injured and molested party and thus entitled to qualify for the superior status of plaintiffs. The Court, however, ruled otherwise and dismissed the case. This presentation will present psychological findings to the effect that a child seeing or hearing a parent being beaten by the other parent has the same effect on the child as if the child himself or herself had been beaten. Additionally, it will present findings that early-age trauma may lead, later in life, to suffering from pains that cannot be verified by traditional medical means. With this body of psychological knowledge, the legal system should be better equipped to recognize children not only as victims but as full-fledged plaintiffs, and thus in the position to receive damages from the accused.


Cystic adventitial disease of the popliteal artery has been recognized as a cause of arterial stenosis and calf claudication for 30 years. It is reported infrequently and its etiology remains unknown. In addition, a peculiar geographic distribution of the reported cases of this disorder has been noted, with a majority of cases from Europe and Australasia. The authors report here a case from South Carolina in which a fibrous band may have contributed to compression during exercise. Noninvasive studies and angiographic studies were negative before exercise and positive after exercise. Current ideas of diagnosis, surgical treatment and possible etiology are presented.


Spiders are among the most diverse groups of arthropods remarkably known for extra oral digestion. The largest effort based on targeted 16S amplicon next generation sequencing was carried out to decipher the inter subfamily comparison of gut bacterial diversity in spiders and their functional relationship. Twelve spider species belonging to three subfamilies, Araneinae (8), Argiopinae (2) and Gasteracanthinae (2) of family Araneidae have been studied. Analysis revealed the presence of 22 phyla, 145 families, and 364 genera of microbes in the gut microbiome, with Proteobacteria as the highest abundant Phylum. Moreover, the phyla Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and Deinococcus_Thermus were also detected. The bacterial phyla Bacteriodetes and Chlamydiae dominated in Cyclosa mulmeinensis and Neoscona bengalensis respectively. At genera level, Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Cutibacterium, Staphylococcus, and Bacillus were the most dominant genera in their gut. In addition to this, the genus Prevotella was observed only in one species, Cyclosa mulmeinensis, and endosymbiont genus Wolbachia generally responsible for reproductive alterations was observed in one spider species Eriovixia laglaizei. Our study revealed that the gut bacterial diversity of the spiders collected from wild are quite different from the diet driven spider gut bacterial diversity as published earlier. A functional analysis revealed the involvement of gut microbiota in carbohydrate, lipid, amino acids, fatty acids and energy metabolism.


This report describes the design and implementation of a prototype head-up display system, eventually to be installed in an NOV operator cabin. A head-up display is any transparent display being able to present information directly in the viewer's field of view. In many applications, this can improve working conditions as operators may have information presented more conveniently than with traditional displays. The report is based on a previous project thesis, which looked into different head-up display technologies, and made a conclusion on which one of them to implement in an NOV operator cabin. Contact was established with a supplier of transparent displays at the end of the preceding project thesis. Their products seemed very promising to be integrated into a head-up display system. Therefore, cooperation was initiated towards delivery of custom made transparent displays in early 2010. Designing the display's driver electronics was decided to be the most important subject of this Master thesis. This project has focused on designing driver electronics capable of controlling the professional transparent display, as well as a relatively transparent LED test display made as an additional part of this project. Development of software has been necessary in order to get the driver electronics to operate correctly. A PC program has also been made to remotely control the display, interfaced by a serial line. Problems occurred at the supplier of the transparent displays, which resulted in no delivery of professional displays. The LED test display has therefore got the important role of showing in practice what may be expected of a professional solution, and to inspire NOV to go further with this project. There is no doubt a transparent display favorably can be introduced to an operator cabin, as it very likely can ease monitoring of important variables.


Four patients with erosive hemorrhagic gastroduodenitis were found to have high fibrinolytic activity of the gastric juice. No increase in the fibrinolytic activity could be demonstrated in the circulating blood, but the values found for fibrinogen, plasminogen and x2– macroglobulin were low. A high content of FDP was found in the serum. All patients had a markedly decreased content of factor XIII. Platelet count and other coagulation components were normal. These findings were interpreted as signs of local fibrinolysis in the diseased parts of the gastrointestinal canal. The bleeding stopped after oral and intravenous administration of a fibrinolytic inhibitor (AMCA Cyclokapron®) and of factor XIII-containing concentrate. In bleeding from gastroduodenal ulcer and esophageal varices, no increase in gastric fibrinolytic activity was found. It is suggested that the high local fibrinolytic activity in the stomach in erosive gastritis together with the low content of factor XIII contributes substantially to the hemorrhage in this condition. These observations may lead to a revision of the treatment of such cases.


This paper deals with the influence of leakage flow existing in SHF pump model on the analysis of internal flow behaviour inside the vane diffuser of the pump model performance using both experiments and calculations. PIV measurements have been performed at different hub to shroud planes inside one diffuser channel passage for a given speed of rotation and various flow rates. For each operating condition, the PIV measurements have been trigged with different angular impeller positions. The performances and the static pressure rise of the diffuser were also measured using a three-hole probe. The numerical simulations were carried out with Star CCM+ 9.06 code (RANS frozen and unsteady calculations). Some results were already presented at the XXth IAHR Symposium for three flowrates for RANS frozen and URANS calculations. In the present paper, comparisons between URANS calculations with and without leakages and experimental results are presented and discussed for these flow rates. The performances of the diffuser obtained by numerical calculations are compared to those obtained by the three-holes probe measurements. The comparisons show the influence of fluid leakages on global performances and a real improvement concerning the efficiency of the diffuser, the pump and the velocity distributions. These results show that leakage is an important parameter that has to be taken into account in order to make improved comparisons between numerical approaches and experiments in such a specific model set up.


The NASA-standard thermohydraulic analyzer, SINDA/ FLUINT (Ref 1), has been used to model various aspects of loop heat pipe * (LHP) operation for more than 12 years. Indeed, this code has many features that were specifically designed for just such specialized tasks, and is unique in this respect. Furthermore, SINDA is commonly used at the vehicle (integration) level, has a large user base both inside and outside the aerospace industry, has several graphical user interfaces, preprocessors, postprocessors, has strong links to CAD and structural tools, and has built-in optimization, data correlation, parametric analysis, reliability estimation, and robust design tools. Nonetheless, the LHP community tends to ignore these capabilities, yearning instead for "simpler" methods. However, simple methods cannot meet the challenging needs of LHP modeling such as transient start-up and noncondensible gas (NCG) effects, are often hardware-specific or proprietary, or cannot be used in a vehicle-level analysis. There are many reasons for this hesitancy to use SINDA/ FLUINT as it was intended. First, hardware developers tend to be less versed in analytic methods than the user community they serve. Second, there are political hurdles, such as the fact that ESA contractors are required to use ESA sponsored software. Third, the state-of-the-art in LHPs is not so advanced that the analysts can be ignorant of the complex two-phase thermohydraulic and thermodynamic processes and phenomena involved, and unfortunately most thermal analysts are accustomed only to "dry" thermal control (radiation, conduction, etc.). Fourth, the general-purpose and complete nature of SINDA/FLUINT tends to make it intimidating, especially in light of the third reason listed above. SINDA/FLUINT is not designed strictly for LHPs or even for LHP-like systems; it has been used for everything from nuclear reactor cooling to dynamic models of human hearts and tracheae. The user's manuals and standard training classes † rarely mention capillary phenomena because only a fraction of SINDA/FLUINT's users are thus inclined. It is to address this fourth reason that this paper has been written, since the authors can do little to redress the first three problems. This paper summarizes the available modeling capabilities applicable to various LHP design and simulation tasks. Knowledge of LHPs is assumed.


Kinship care is becoming the first choice in a continuum of services available to children requiring out-of-home care. This article highlights the key issues in kinship care and discusses them as they relate to agency structure for kinship family support in the public child welfare system. Implications for policy and practice are explored. Kinship care is not a new phenomenon. The use of relatives as caregivers has been a time-honored tradition in .many cultures. Hegar and Scannapieco [1995] offer a historical context for kinship care, noting that the voluntary fostering of children in relatives' homes is a tradition found from medieval Europe to twentieth-century Africa. Whatever the cultural or ethnic group, family ties have an inherently significant role in the physical and emotional growth and development of children. Although kinship care's historical roots as an informal practice are deep, its use as a child welfare service is relatively new and brings to the forefront issues that were not present in the informal family arrangements that existed in past years. The Formalization of Kinship Care The formalization of kinship care within the child welfare system can be attributed to several factors. First, the number of children entering out-of-home care has increased over the past 10 to 12 years. In 1982, 243,000 children were placed in out-ofhome care; by 1992, the number of placements totaled 429,000 [Dubowitz 1994; Gleeson & Craig 1994]. Second, during that same time the quantity of nonrelative family foster homes decreased. According to the U. S. General Accounting Office, the shortage of nonrelative family foster homes may, in part, be attributed to the poor public image of family foster care, the increased participation of women in the labor force, low foster care reimbursement rates, and inadequate support services [Spar 1993]. A third factor contributing to the formalization of kinship care has been the growing recognition of the benefits of family care and the stabilizing effect extended family can have on placement. In fact, some authors maintain that the growth in kinship care arrangements can be attributed, in part, to society's commitment to the extended family as a significant source of strength and stability [Berrick et al. 1994; Hegar & Scannapieco 1995]. Children who are placed in kinship homes are in out-ofhome care for many of the same reasons that have led to the increase in the number of children entering other forms of care. Many parents are unable to care appropriately for their children due to the effects of parental substance abuse. Other societal factors include increases in homelessness, poverty, and the incidence of HIV/AIDS. Such conditions also influence the number of child abuse and neglect reports. Kinship Care as a Resource Kinship care as a resource for children and families cannot be discussed without considering why it was not incorporated into planning for children as a regular matter early on. Kinship carethe use of relatives as an alternative to placement of a child with an unknown family-is a natural bridge for children [Child Welfare League of America 1994]. It provides continuity, lessens the trauma of separation, preserves family ties, and offers growth and development within the context of a child's culture and community. One significant explanation for the past hesitancy of child welfare agencies to use relatives as a placement resource was the concept of the intergenerational cycle of child maltreatment. Studies have suggested that the dynamics of physical and sexual abuse continue from one generation to another, thereby creating intergenerational patterns of behavior. The intergenerational cycle concept reflects the belief that parents who maltreat their children were often victims, as children, of similar treatment at the hands of their own parents [Johnson 1994]. Such a belief affects how relatives are viewed as caregivers, especially with respect to the protection of children, and questions the wisdom of using relatives who had influence over the abusive or neglectful parents. …


Epitaxially graded barium strontium titanate (BaxSr1-x)TiO3 (x = 0.75, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0, abbreviated as BST75, BST80, BST90 and BTO respectively) thin films were fabricated by pulsed laser deposition method on the (La0.7Sr0.3)MnO3 (LSMO)/LaAlO3 (LAO) single crystal substrate. Scanning probe microscopy with a contact mode was used to characterize the temperature dependence of polarization from room temperature to 140°C. Results indicated that the piezo-response signal of the BST graded films had an obvious change with temperature, and that the graded structures had a flatter temperaturedependence of permittivity. Furthermore, the contrasts of the SPM images were lower for the ferroelectric – paraelectric (F-P) phase transition temperatures of BST 75, BST 80, and BST90, but higher for the F-P transition temperature of BTO.


PURPOSE
To evaluate whether the amount of glaucomatous optic nerve damage at presentation of the patient and the rate of progression of glaucoma during follow-up are related to central corneal thickness.

METHODS
The prospective observational clinical study included 861 eyes of 454 white subjects (239 normal eyes of 121 subjects, 250 ocular hypertensive eyes of 118 patients, 372 eyes of 215 patients with chronic open-angle glaucoma). For 567 eyes (304 patients) with ocular hypertension or chronic open-angle glaucoma, follow-up examinations were performed, with a mean follow-up time of 62.7 +/- 33.2 months (median, 60.8; range, 6.2-124.9). All patients underwent qualitative and morphometric evaluation of color stereo optic disc photographs and white-on-white visual field examination. Central corneal thickness was measured by corneal pachymetry.

RESULTS
Central corneal thickness correlated significantly (P < 0.001) and positively with the area of the neuroretinal rim and negatively with the loss of visual field. Development or progression of glaucomatous visual field defects detected in 119 (21.0%) eyes was statistically independent of central corneal thickness, in univariate (P = 0.99) and multivariate Cox regression analyses (P = 0.19).

CONCLUSIONS
At the time of patient referral, the amount of glaucomatous optic nerve damage correlated significantly with a thin central cornea. Progression of glaucomatous optic nerve neuropathy was independent of central corneal thickness, suggesting that central corneal thickness may not play a major role in the pathogenesis of progressive glaucomatous optic nerve damage.


The European Parliament, after a lengthy debate, has eventually approved an Insolvency Regulation Recast, which amends Regulation 1346/2000 on cross-border insolvency proceedings. The Recast provides for significant innovations of the original Regulation, such as a EU-wide register of insolvencies or a new proceeding for insolvencies of corporate groups. The fundamental logic of the Regulation, however, has not been changed: the Recast does not harmonise insolvency rules at EU level and its goal is still selecting competent venues and applicable insolvency regimes. In many respects, the Recast simply codifies CJEU's case law, with the aim of increasing legal certainty. The Recast is however innovative regarding the definition of COMI, by repealing the causality relation between criterions of "permanence" and "ascertainability". Eventually, the Recast aims at better coordinating secondary proceedings and main proceedings; in this regard, it introduces "synthetic secondary proceedings", whereby the insolvency practitioner of a main proceeding undertakes to respect other Member States distributional criterions in order to avoid the opening of a secondary proceeding. The real impact of these innovations is uncertain and depends on how national case law will interpret and apply the new rules.


In this paper we propose a log likelihood-ratio function of foreground and background models used in a particle filter to track the eye region in dark-bright pupil image sequences. This model fuses information from both dark and bright pupil images and their difference image into one model. The tracker overcomes the issues of prior selection of static thresholds during the detection of feature observations in the bright-dark difference images. The auto-initialization process is performed using cascaded classifier trained using adaboost and adapted to IR eye images. Experiments show good performance in challenging sequences with test subjects showing large head movements and under significant light changes.


The critical role of Langerhans cells (LC) in contact hypersensitivity (CHS) was recently questioned in studies using different LC-depletion mouse models. On one hand, inducible ablation of LC led to diminished ear swelling, suggesting functional redundancy between LC and (Langerin+) dermal dendritic cells (DC). On the other hand, constitutive or acute depletion of LC resulted in an enhanced reaction, supporting a regulatory role of LC in CHS. To address this controversy by conditional gene targeting, we generated Langerin-Cre knockin mice. Breeding these mice to a Cre-reporter strain demonstrated robust and specific DNA recombination in LC, as well as other Langerin+ tissue DC. In agreement with the vital requirement of TGF-β signaling for LC development, crossing Langerin-Cre to mice homozygous for a loxP-flanked TGF-βR1 allele resulted in permanent LC deficiency, whereas the homeostasis of dermal Langerin+ DC was unaffected. In the absence of LC, induction of CHS in these Langerin+ DC-specific TGF-βR1–deficient mice elicited decreased ear swelling compared with controls. This novel approach provided further evidence against a regulatory function of LC in CHS. Moreover, these Langerin-Cre mice represent a unique and powerful tool to dissect the role and molecular control of Langerin+ DC populations beyond LC.


Hospitalized cancer patients are at high risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE). Despite current recommendations in clinical guidelines, thromboprophylaxis with low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) is underused. We performed an observational prospective study to analyse factors influencing prophylaxis use, VTE events and mortality in cancer-hospitalized patients. 1072 consecutive adult cancer patients were included in an University Hospital from April 2014 to February 2017, and followed-up for 30 days after discharge. The rate of LMWH prophylaxis was 67.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 64.7% to 70.4%), with a 2.8% rate of VTE events (95% CI 1.9% to 3.9%) and 3.5% rate of major bleeding events (95% CI 2.5% to 4.8%). 80% of VTE events occurred despite appropriate thromboprophylaxis. Overall, 30-day mortality rate was 13.2% (95% CI 11.2% to 15.3%). Active chemotherapy treatment, hospital stay ≥ 4 days, and metastatic disease were associated with a higher use of LMWH. On the contrary, patients with hematologic malignancies, anemia or thrombocytopenia were less prone to receive thromboprophylaxis. The main reasons for not prescribing LMWH prophylaxis were thrombocytopenia (23.9%) and active/recent bleeding (21.8%). The PRETEMED score, used for VTE risk stratification, correlated with 30-day mortality. There is room for improvement in thromboprophylaxis use among hospitalized-cancer patients, especially among those with hematologic malignancies. A relevant number of VTE events occurred despite prophylaxis with LMWH. Therefore, identification of risk factors for thromboprophylaxis failure is needed.


Sir Aubrey Lewis, LLD, DSc, MD, FRCP, FRCPsych, lately emeritus professor of psychiatry, University of London, formerly of the Institute of Psychiatry, was a distinguished and important English psychiatrist. Two volumes of his collected works were published shortly after his retirement in 1966. This group of 24 articles was written between his retirement and his death in 1975. They are primarily essays in the history of psychiatry and are characterized by superb erudition and a deep understanding of his profession and its roots, written in elegant English. He once wrote, "The humanities cannot, by definition, be classified as sciences but history and ethics and, in the long run, philosophy are branches of knowledge from which medicine draws sustenance. This is particularly true of their relation to psychiatry." The articles are introduced by Michael Shepherd, and there is a bibliography of Sir Aubrey's articles for 1926 to 1978. It will not


This study was carried out to investigate the effect of the intracellular signaling molecule nitric oxide (NO) on osmoregulation of tobacco cells under osmotic stress caused by phenylethanoid glycosides 6000 (PEG 6000). The results show that the PEG stress induced a specific pattern of endogenous NO production with two peaks in tobacco cells in vivo. Treatments with the NO donor sodium nitroprusside (SNP) significantly improved vitality and re-growth capacity, lowered cell death rate and alleviated the damage of tobacco cells caused by PEG 6000 stress. Further study indicated that SNP treatments led to relatively lower cell solute potential and higher water potential, which was beneficial for maintaining cell pressure potential under PEG stress. These results indicate that NO could improve the tolerance of tobacco cells to osmotic stress by enhancing their osmoregulation capacity. In addition, SNP treatments increased the accumulation of proline, one of the important organic osmoregulators in the tobacco cells under normal culture condition as well as PEG stress. The investigation on proline metabolism pathways demonstrated that the SNP-induced proline accumulation might be a combined result of sequential activation of several key enzymes of proline biosynthesis, including glutamate dehydrogenase and Δ1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthetase of glutamate pathway, and arginase and ornithine aminotransferase of ornithine pathway, and the inhibition of proline dehydrogenase of proline degradation pathway. All of these results suggest that NO takes part in the response and adaptation of tobacco cells to osmotic stress by enhancing their osmoregulation capacity and proline accumulation.


This paper proposes a modular frame based on hybrid Petri nets for modeling the signalized urban traffic network for control purpose. A kind of level of detail modeling methodology is used. After an aggregate model of the urban traffic network system is defined, the key elements such as traffic lights and intersections, which describe the typical feature of the traffic network in the aggregate model, are refined to introduce detail models. The proposed model of the intersection describes the turning direction of each traffic flow explicitly and takes into account the conflicts among the traffic flows. Furthermore, the time factor is considered in the system model. As a result, the total model obtained can not only reflect the logical relationship among the traffic flows, but also describe and calculate the physical characteristics of the vehicles such as the location, velocity, and passing time interval. Consequently, the performance index can be calculated with less effort for a given traffic timing plan and different timing plans can be compared in order that an optimal or suboptimal traffic control plan may be chosen. Finally, the implementation issues of the methodology are discussed.


The stabilization of dynamic switched control systems is focused on and based on an operator-based formulation. It is assumed that the controlled object and the controller are described by sequences of closed operator pairs on a Hilbert space of the input and output spaces and it is related to the existence of the inverse of the resulting input-output operator being admissible and bounded. The technical mechanism addressed to get the results is the appropriate use of the fact that closed operators being sufficiently close to bounded operators, in terms of the gap metric, are also bounded. That philosophy is followed for the operators describing the input-output relations in switched feedback control systems so as to guarantee the closed-loop stabilization.


Combining the advantages of different imaging modalities leads to improved clinical results. For example, ultrasound provides good real-time structural information without any radiation and PET provides sensitive functional information. For the ongoing ClearPEM-Sonic project combining ultrasound and PET for breast imaging, we developed a dual-modality PET/Ultrasound (US) phantom. The phantom reproduces the acoustic and elastic properties of human breast tissue and allows labeling the different tissues in the phantom with different concentrations of FDG. The phantom was imaged with a whole-body PET/CT and with the Supersonic Imagine Aixplorer system. This system allows both B-mode US and shear wave elastographic imaging. US elastography is a new imaging method for displaying the tissue elasticity distribution. It was shown to be useful in breast imaging. We also tested the phantom with static elastography. A 6D magnetic positioning system allows fusing the images obtained with the two modalities. ClearPEM-Sonic is a project of the Crystal Clear Collaboration and the European Centre for Research on Medical Imaging (CERIMED).


The plantation industry in Malaysia is aggressively expanding over the past decade driven by global demands for palm oil as a food staple and more recently bio fuels. The rapid growth in the industry is heavily dependent upon high labour and workforce. Such intensity has carried out social impact on the communities including plantation workers, small holders and their dependents. Therefore, this paper will outline what appear to be never ending issues impetus social problems. Ethnic conflict, fighting, gambling, alcohol abuses are only a few issues that call for immediate multi-action plan from all involved stakeholders. Those issues can be the causes as well as the effects. The contributing factors form a chain reaction to the whole social dynamics in the plantation's climate.The main aim is hence to breach the gap between industries, practitioners, and academicians in order to develop the competencies of the next generation social workers. They can play their roles in tackling the social issues, taking into account the different contexts and environment.


This paper shows that domain-independent tools from classical planning can be used to model and solve a broad class of game-theoretic problems we call Cost-Adversarial Planning Games (CAPGs). We define CAPGs as 2-player normal-form games specified by a planning task and a finite collection of cost functions. The first player (a planning agent) strives to solve a planning task optimally but has limited knowledge about its action costs. The second player (an adversary agent) controls the actual action costs. Even though CAPGs need not be zero-sum, every CAPG has an associated zero-sum game whose Nash equilibrium provides the optimal randomized strategy for the planning agent in the original CAPG. We show how to find the Nash equilibrium of the associated zero-sum game using a cost-optimal planner via the Double Oracle algorithm. To demonstrate the expressivity of CAPGs, we formalize a patrolling security game and several IPC domains as CAPGs.


The plastic marine sextant has become a common sight in celestial navigation courses owing to its relatively low cost. Mixed statements concerning the quality of such sextants are heard ; however, no experimental data seems to have been published concerning their accuracy. The temperature dependence of the index error is proposed as a first approximation indicator of the suitability of plastic sextants for navigation. This paper describes some experiments performed to actually quantify the change in index error with temperature, as well as examine the stability of the instruments' index error at a constant temperature. These results were compared with the results of the same experiment performed on a metal sextant. While the changes in index error with temperature are much larger for the plastic sextants than for the metal sextant used for comparison, the changes were found to be highly linear and repeatable, and the index errors of the plastic sextants, when at a constant temperature, were as stable as the those of the metal sextant under the same conditions.


Interference detection of arbitrary geometric objects is not a trivial task due to the heavy computational load imposed by implementation issues. The hierarchically structured bounding boxes help us to quickly isolate the contour of segments in interference. In this paper, a new approach is introduced to treat the interference detection problem involving the representation of arbitrary shaped objects. Our proposed method relies upon searching for the best possible way to represent contours by means of hierarchically structured rectangular oriented bounding boxes. This technique handles 2D objects boundaries defined by closed B-spline curves with roughness details. Each oriented box is adapted and fitted to the segments of the contour using second order statistical indicators from some elements of the segments of the object contour in a multiresolution framework. Our method is efficient and robust when it comes to 2D animations in real time. It can deal with smooth curves and polygonal approximations as well results are present to illustrate the performance of the new method.


Metastasis is the major cause of death from cancer, yet the optimal strategy against it remains uncertain. The pathogenesis of hematogenous metastasis is dynamic and consists of the following steps: 1) detachment of tumor cells from the primary site, 2) invasion into the host's blood vessels, 3) migration in the host's blood stream, 4) transport along the circulation, 5) arrest in or adhesion to the capillary in a distant organ, 6) extravasation, and 7) proliferation within the foreign tissues. A key to successful hematogenous metastasis is tumor survival in the bloodstream because most circulating tumor cells are rapidly destroyed by the shear forces or are attacked by the immune system. Less than 0.01% of these cells result in metastasis. Tumor cell–induced platelet aggregation has been reported to facilitate hematogenous metastasis by increasing the arrest of tumor cell emboli in the microcirculation. Platelet aggregation is also believed to protect tumor cells from immunological assault in the circulation. We have identified Aggrus as a platelet–aggregating factor expressed on a number of human cancers. Because hematogenous metastasis is reduced when neutralizing antibodies or eliminating carbohydrates attenuates Aggrus function, Aggrus's main contribution to hematogenous metastasis of Aggrus–expressing cells, then, is by promoting platelet aggregation. Aggrus could serve as an ideal target for drug development to block metastasis.


1. The report describes the demonstration and evaluation of ISP1, which was designed to demonstrate the potential of the SHAMAN framework for digital preservation in the context of memory institutions and for the research and development community. 2. The demonstration process was carried out by means of presentations based on screen-casts in three locations, Frankfurt, Vilnius and Glasgow. The audiences for the demonstrations consisted persons occupying of a wide range of roles in memory institutions, including senior management, operational level staff and IT support staff. 3. The evaluation is based on the reports of focus groups held in the three locations, together with structured data from self-completed questionnaires, administered on the same occasions. 4. Participants in the focus groups responded favourably to the ideas demonstrated in the presentations. There was particular interest in the choice of mainly open source software and in automation of processes, both of which have cost reduction implications, and in the idea of a digital preservation policy: the majority of participating organizations had no such policy. Participants also drew attention to aspects of preservation which they found lacking in the presentation and which were desirable, specifically: the preservation of font information; working with already obsolete formats; the automatic extraction of necessary metadata; the fact of mixed media archives involving, e.g., film and audio files; support for controlled vocabularies for search and discovery; and demonstration of workflows at a more practical level. 5. The questionnaire results revealed most approval of the retrieval and verification capabilities and less for the ingest processes. Otherwise the results supported the findings from the focus groups in general. There was a division of opinion over the value of the Multivalent browser and the application of grid technology, possibly because of differences in knowledge of these matters. Highest priority was assigned to data migration, access and authentication and bit stream preservation and least to independence standards and search capacity – issues that may be worth further exploration. 6. Evaluation has also been performed to determine the project"s impact on the R&D community by means of submission and rejection rates of papers to journals and conferences, and bibliometric and Webometric analyses. The results demonstrate that the research outputs from the project are of interest to the R&D community and that the impact of the project as a whole compares favourably with other European projects in the digital preservation area. 7. The evaluation has revealed strengths and shortcomings in the demonstration process, which will influence the development of demonstrators for ISP2 and ISP3. The SHAMAN framework for digital preservation is seen as offering new possibilities and rigorous methods for the field by the practitioners in memory institutions.


On November 8, 2016, government of India had demonetized the two high denomination currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 to curb the black money, corruption and terrorism in the economy. As in India people are more comfortable with cash transactions. But, sometimes such transactions are misused by the society and people with accounted money also start using high amount of transaction in form of cash that again generates black money, corruption counterfeit currency and terror financing. Thus, government's move towards demonetisation of currency will definitely address the above mentioned issues and also help the economy become more digitize. In this regard, the present study shows the impact of demonetisation on Indian economy in view of short term costs and long term benefits.


Through psychoanalytical concepts, interview research and biographical text, this paper discusses the importance of objects in the lives of the bereaved. D. W. Winnicott's concept of the transitional object is used to analyse grief work through objects. Like the transitional objects of childhood, the bereaved often mourn through intimate things belonging to the now deceased. It is not just the experience and process of grief that transitions with and through objects, but objects too transition in terms of their status, value and meaning. Objects once intensely used in grieving are often experienced ambivalently later on. As concrete symbolic material, objects orient in time and space the often disorientating and displacing experiences of grief. This paper makes a temporal and category distinction between objects incorporated in the work of mourning and objects that, with time and distance, become the remembered objects of mourning. Melancholy objects are conceptualized as the memorialized objects of mourning.


"Liberating Economics" draws on central concepts from women's studies scholarship to construct a feminist understanding of the economic roles of families, caring labor, motherhood, paid and unpaid labor, poverty, the feminization of labor, and the consequences of globalization. Barker and Feiner consistently recognize the importance of social location -- gender, race, class, sexual identity, and nationality -- in economic processes shaping the home, paid employment, market relations, and the global economy. Throughout they connect women's economic status in the industrialized nations to the economic circumstances surrounding women in the global South. Rooted in the two disciplines, this book draws on the rich tradition of interdisciplinary work in feminist social science scholarship to construct a parallel between the notions that the "personal is political" and "the personal is economic."Drucilla K. Barker is Professor of Economics and Women's Studies, Hollins University.Susan F. Feiner is Associate Professor of Economics and Women's Studies, University of Southern Maine.


A reformation in the process of training teachers is needed. This reforming of the long kept principles and practices for the education of pre-service teachers could be addressed through the framework of internationalizing teacher education. This paper offers a model that challenges teacher educators, schools of education, licensing policy makers, and philanthropic entities to pick up the gauntlet toward the purpose of redefining teacher education programs and elicit the corroboration and collaboration of transcontinental academies of teaching and learning. The proposed four-pronged framework can be adapted or extended. In theory, it should only require the re-commissioning of current policies or fiscal and human resources to reflect a more globally sentient approach to teaching and learning and the training of teachers for the primary through secondary age learner. While the proposal does not indicate a need to transition from the current framework for teacher education through on-site and field based training, it does offer a framework for expanding the process to include a greater collaboration between intercontinental groups in an expanded global social context. The proposal offers a possible organizational extension to traditional programs for teacher education and includes a challenge for teacher educators to examine and expand current philosophy for teacher education programming.


Using three-dimensional convection simulations, it is shown that a sinusoidal variation of horizontal shear leads to a kinematic α effect with a similar sinusoidal variation. The effect exists even for weak stratification and arises owing to the inhomogeneity of turbulence and the presence of impenetrable vertical boundaries. This system produces large-scale magnetic fields that also show a sinusoidal variation in the cross-stream direction. It is argued that earlier investigations overlooked these phenomena partly because of the use of horizontal averaging and also because measurements of α using an imposed field combined with long time averages give erroneous results. It is demonstrated that in such cases the actual horizontally averaged mean field becomes non-uniform. The turbulent magnetic diffusion term resulting from such non-uniform fields can then no longer be neglected and begins to balance the α effect.


In this paper a dynamic approach to measure the coupling of software systems is proposed. The conventionally used static measures are only limited suitable for the evaluation and characterization of such systems. We extend the static methodology with a dynamic component and define new measures based on this approach. A model for system characterization based on varying execution profiles is given. The layout of an automated monitor system is presented, which can be directly integrated into a software development system.


This review addresses the state of the art of the systematics and the improvements in the biology, ecology and species diversity of the two annelid taxa Parergodrilidae and Orbiniidae, the early branching group of Orbiniida sensu Struck et al., 2015 according to molecular studies. An effort to identify gaps of knowledge is given to understand the distribution, dispersal and the diversity Parergodrilidae and Orbiniidae hold, as well as to give several directions for future research. Parergodrilidae is a taxon of interstitial annelids constituted by the terrestrial Parergodrilus heideri (monotypic genus up to date), reported throughout Europe but also in Korea and North America, and the genus Stygocapitella, which includes eleven species from the upper shore of sandy beaches distributed along Europe and other regions of the world. Orbiniidae contains more than 200 described species spread over 20 valid genera, varying in size from a few millimeters up to 30 cm, distributed globally and living in a wide variety of soft bottoms. Improving the knowledge on these two sister-taxa is crucial for the understanding of the evolution to interstitial forms by progenesis in Annelida.


Pneumatic artificial Muscles (PAMs) are, nowadays, widely used in factory floor automation as well as in robotics. One of the major appeals about PAMS is the high force to weight ratio as well as their light weight, structural flexibility. Furthermore, PAMS do not exhibit any mechanical wear they are relatively low in cost. However PAMs are known to exhibit hysteresis nonlinearities between the input pressure and the output force as well as the contraction ratio and the input pressure. Such nonlinearities are known to cause oscillations in the open-loop system's responses, as well as poor tracking performance and potential instabilities. This work reviews the some of the available models used to simulate the hysteresis nonlinearities in PAMs which will facilitate to study the effects of these nonlinearities in order to characterize and to enable the design of controllers for compensating for the


The impact of sunlight on aliphatic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons profiles of Agbabu natural bitumen in Nigeria was investigated. The raw flow type of the bitumen was purified and exposed to sunlight for six consecutive months. Different portions of the bitumen were withdrawn at an interval of one month and were separated into aliphatic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon fractions by column chromatography, followed by the GC analyses of various fractions. The total aliphatic hydrocarbon content was found to be 485, 424, 416 and 392 g/kg for control, one, three and six months solar-irradiated bitumen samples, respectively; while the total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons content found in the control, one, three and six months solar-irradiated bitumen samples were 708, 733, 609 and 638 µg/g, respectively. The effects of sunlight on the compositional patterns of bitumen were discussed.


Transmasculine gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is technically challenging, and in the past associated with a high but improving complication rate. Few surgical centers are performing this surgery, which can include metoidioplasty and phalloplasty, and patients often travel great distances for their surgery. While many will continue care with their original surgeons, others cannot due to social/geographic factors, or because emergencies arise. Thus, patients may seek care with their local urologist for relief of delayed complications, the most common of which include urethral stricture, penile prosthesis issues and urethrocutaneous fistula. This review will discuss the surgical elements behind metoidioplasty and phalloplasty, and the diagnosis and treatment for the most common postoperative issues.


To obtain high-quality infrared image real-timely, a new correction enhancement method is proposed. The method can both compensate nonuniformity of IRFPA by using calibration-based piecewise polynomial interpolation correction algorithm and increase image contrast by using histogram-based adaptive threshold image enhancement algorithm. The experiment is performed by carrying out the method in an embedded imaging system. The results show that the system can process infrared image real-timely and the processed image is clear with high signal to noise ratio.


SAN FRANCISCO, April 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -Nektar Therapeutics (Nasdaq: NKTR) today announced that it has initiated dosing patients in the Phase 1/2 REVEAL clinical study evaluating the efficacy and safety of the combination of investigational medicines NKTR-262 and NKTR-214 in the treatment of solid tumors. NKTR-262 is a novel toll-like receptor (TLR) agonist designed to induce the body's innate immune response and create antigen-specific T cells to fight cancer. NKTR-214 is designed to activate the adaptive immune system to expand and proliferate these specific cancerfighting T cells in the tumor micro-environment.


Simple Online and Realtime Tracking (SORT) is a pragmatic approach to multiple object tracking with a focus on simple, effective algorithms. In this paper, we integrate appearance information to improve the performance of SORT. Due to this extension we are able to track objects through longer periods of occlusions, effectively reducing the number of identity switches. In spirit of the original framework we place much of the computational complexity into an offline pre-training stage where we learn a deep association metric on a largescale person re-identification dataset. During online application, we establish measurement-to-track associations using nearest neighbor queries in visual appearance space. Experimental evaluation shows that our extensions reduce the number of identity switches by 45%, achieving overall competitive performance at high frame rates.


OBJECTIVES
We assessed whether households' participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was associated with improvements in well-being, as indicated by lower rates of psychological distress.

METHODS
We used longitudinal data for 3146 households in 30 states, collected between October 2011 and September 2012 for the SNAP Food Security survey, the largest longitudinal national survey of SNAP participants to date. Analyses compared households within days of program entry to the same households approximately 6 months later. We measured psychological distress in the past 30 days on a 6-item Kessler screening scale and used multivariable regression to estimate associations between SNAP participation and psychological distress.

RESULTS
A smaller percentage of household heads exhibited psychological distress after 6 months of participation in SNAP than at baseline (15.3% vs 23.2%; difference = -7.9%). In adjusted models, SNAP participation was associated with a decrease in psychological distress (adjusted relative risk = 0.72; 95% confidence interval = 0.66, 0.78).

CONCLUSIONS
Continuing support for federal nutrition programs, such as SNAP, may reduce the public health burden of mental illness, thus improving well-being among vulnerable populations.


The objective of this study is to assess the investment feasibility analysis of rainwater harvesting in a building located in Brazil. Rainwater was used to supply toilets, cleaning and irrigation. The costs of materials, labour and maintenance were obtained to carry out the economic analysis; the indicators used were the net present value, internal rate of return and payback period. The investment feasibility analysis and the potential for potable water savings were obtained by means of computer simulation. The potential for potable water savings ranged from 26.70% to 64.70%. The net present value, internal rate of return and payback period for the best scenario were, respectively, R$ 132,801.47, 3.73% per month and 32 months. For the worst scenario the net present value was R$ 9,451.26, the internal rate of return was 0.91% per month and the payback period was 166 months. Thus, rainwater can be used as a sustainable alternative and be financially feasible.


Silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) are receiving much attention due to their various physical, chemical and antimicrobial properties. The aim of this study is to synthesize the Ag NPs using various capping agents ("B-cyclodextrin, starch, sodium citrate and chitosan") and investigate the effective capped Ag NP, based on their particle size, stability and antibacterial properties against a range of gram positive and gram negative bacteria (Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Bacillus mesentericus). This will contribute to further understanding the effects of capping agents on how they can improve stability and properties of Ag NPs as well as help determine their potential for future application as an alternative treatment to antibiotics against multidrug resistant bacteria. The capped Ag NPs were characterized by UV-Vis spectroscopy, FTIR and DLS. The UV-Vis spectra exhibited an absorption band between 400-430 nm for all capped Ag NPs, indicating colloidal spherical shapped Ag NPs. Amongst all the synthesized capped Ag NPs, greater stability was achieved by the sodium citrate capped Ag NPs (SC-Ag NPs) until six weeks. The smallest particle size was observed for chitosan capped silver nanoparticle (CH-Ag NPs) and both chitosan capped Ag NPs and sodium citrate capped Ag NPs (SC-Ag NPs) proved to be the most effective capping agents in terms of antibacterial activities with CHAg NPs consistently displaying the strongest and broadest antibacterial activity against all tested bacteria followed by SC-Ag NPs. Conclusively, the influence of capping agents on Ag NPs was seen to better stabilize Ag NPs to varying degrees and enhance their antibacterial activity when compared to uncapped Ag NPs.


The curation of historic documents is a difficult task as it requires to combine information and raw material from many different sources. Digital tools can support such a sensemaking task and group collaboration can help the discovery of knowledge. While most of people's personal devices (such as phones, tablets and laptops) are connected to the internet, they are not aware of each other's presence or relationship when in close proximity. Leveraging people's personal devices and other devices in their surroundings provides an opportunity to support the curation of historic documents in ad hoc small group scenarios. I describe my motivation and a selection of related work, leading to requirements for such a system. I then state how I am planning to address these challenges and my current state of research, following two parallel tracks: building and testing technology as well as conducting observational studies and interviews to inform my designs.


Background Practical criteria for the use of serum pepsinogen (PG) values in diagnosing Helicobacter pylori infection have not yet been determined. Methods The results of gastric endoscopies, H. pylori infection tests, and PG values were retrospectively reviewed. Subjects were assigned to groups, including never-infected (with neither infection nor gastric mucosal atrophy), infected (with atrophy or findings indicating infection in endoscopy and positive infection tests except for antibody tests), and ex-infected (with gastric mucosal atrophy and negative infection tests, except for antibody tests). The optimal criteria with combined use of the PG II concentrations and the PG I/PG II ratio were investigated separately for PG measurements obtained with the chemiluminescent magnetic particle immunoassay (CLIA) and latex agglutination (LA) methods, such that the specificity was greater than 70% and the sensitivity was no less than 95% among the never-infected and infected subjects. Similar analyses were performed by combining the data from ex-infected and infected subjects. Results For the CLIA (LA) method, the optimal criterion among 349 (397) never-infected and 748 (863) infected subjects was a PG II value of at least 10 (12) ng/mL or a PG I/PG II ratio no more than 5.0 (4.0), which produced 96.3% (95.1%) sensitivity and 82.8% (72.8%) specificity. When 172 (236) ex-infected subjects were included, the optimal criterion was the same, and the sensitivity was 89.1% (86.9%). Conclusions The above criteria may be practical for clinical use, and PG tests using these criteria might prevent unnecessary endoscopic examinations for never-infected subjects.


Mycosis Fungoides is a type of Cutaneus T-Cell Lymphoma (CTCL), Non-Hodgins Lymphoma (NHL) manifestations in other organs are known as extranodal NHL and on the skin known as Primary Cutaneus Lymphoma which is the second most common after NHL proliferation in gastrointestinal organs. It has been reported a 42-year-old male, a Balinese. Based on clinical symptoms as well as histologic and immunostaining examinations, these patients are then diagnosed with Mycosis Fungoides. Early diagnosis in patients with Fungoides Mycosis is often difficult to do because it has similar clinical features with other diseases and depend of what stage patient came. Regular observation and repeat biopsy is necessary in patients with a history of chronic and progressive dermatosis.


A model/method was developed for predicting the precipitation hardening response of particle strengthened alloys hardened by ordered precipitates based on the microstructure, composition, and heat treatment, and utilizing a minimum number of experimental tests. The overall approach was based on the dislocation particle interaction mechanics, particle growth and coarsening, thermodynamics, and particle strengthening mechanisms applicable to precipitation hardened alloys. The model/method evaluates, from a minimum number of experimental tensile tests, several of the microstructural constants necessary in determining the precipitation strengthening response of a particle strengthened alloy. The materials that were used as vehicles to demonstrate the model were precipitation hardenable aluminum-lithium-zirconium and nickel-aluminum alloys. Utilizing these demonstration alloys, the method used a minimum number of four tensile tests to predict the variation in strength with aging time, aging temperature, and composition, for the underaged, the peak-aged, and the overaged conditions. Predictions of the precipitation strengthening response were made using the Wagner particle distribution model and the predicted results using this distribution model compared well with the experimental yield strength results.


This study is based on daily experience in the Aerospace Industries. Aircraft structures are mostly made from Aluminium Alloys, especially the 2024 alloy. Strengthening of this material to achieve the T42 condition is by heat treating and quenching (solution treatment) after which it is left at room temperature (natural aging) for 96 hours approximately. This is time consuming and will adversely affect productivity. Precipitation hardening of aluminium and aluminium alloys occurs either at room temperature (natural aging) or at elevated temperature (artificial aging or precipitation treatment). An attempt was made to accelerate this aging process and examine the properties of the material when introduced at above room temperature (40°C, 50°C, 60°C, 70°C, 80°C and 90°C) but below the normal precipitation treatment temperature (120°C) after being solution heat treated. The material selected for this study was aluminium 2024 sheet with 1.6 mm thickness, manufactured by ALCOA. Microstructures of aged materials were difficult to differentiate between natural and artificial aged, the grains were almost equiaxed which consist of rounded Al2CuMg as an undissolved excess phase , irregularly shaped particles of unreacted (Mn,Fe)3SiAI12 and reaction product Al7Cu2Fe, along with fine dispersoid of Cu2Mn3Al20. Aging at elevated temperatures (artificial aging), the ultimate strength tended to decrease by increasing the aging temperature. Although the strength was low at temperature 40°C but the minimum acceptance criteria for T42 condition has been achieved within 24 hours of aging time. The highest ultimate strength was achieved by aging at temperature 50°C and the lowest strength was by aging at temperature 90°C. One of the factor caused this phenomenon was by exposure to temperature whereby a number of microstructural changes were introduced including coarsening of the matrix precipitate s and grain boundary precipitation or development of a precipitate free - zone. Conditioning this material above room temperature showed that strengthening process is successfully done and aging time to achieve T42 condition was decreased by increasing the ambient temperature and the optimum ranges of accelerating aging temperatures are 40, 50 and 60°C. The ability to accelerate this aging process will be of great benefit to processors (manufactures) particularly where time is concerned.


A multi-fiber reflection displacement micrometer is developed. The device consists of a light source and a receiving fiber-array of identical fibers and photo detectors that detect the light reflected from the surface being measured. The differential output of each neighboring fiber pair is proportional to the surface displacement in a section of the total range. The light intensity variation of the source and the reflectance change of the surface are compensated when the differential output is divided by the summation output. A scale voltage is given to each output of neighboring fibers in order to shift each output to correspond to the actual displacement within the total range, which can be varied by selecting the number of fibers in the receiving fiber array. The micrometer offers the advantages of wide range, non-contact, no electrical interference, simplicity, and low cost. It can be used in medical experiments and laboratory instruments.


It is a common practice that today's cloud data centers guard the performance by monitoring the resource usage, e.g., CPU and RAM, and issuing anomaly tickets whenever detecting usages exceeding predefined target values. Ensuring free of such usage anomaly can be extremely challenging, while catering to a large amount of virtual machines (VMs) showing bursty workloads on a limited amount of physical resource. Using resource usage data from production data centers that consist of more than 6K physical machines hosting more than 80K VMs, we identify statistic properties of anomaly instances (AIs) on physical servers, highlighting their burst duration and potential root causes. To strike a tradeoff between a strong performance guarantee and resource provisions, we propose a tail-driven anomaly avoidance policy for boxes, TailGuard, which allows a small fraction of AIs, e.g., 5% of usages can be above the target value, and still avoid severe performance degradation, typically caused by a burst of continuous AI. Specifically, TailGuard first introduces a novel usage tail prediction that explores the similarity patterns across a great number of boxes within a very recent history, and then redistributes the server load in an online fashion by proactive VM cloning and reactive load balancing. Evaluation results show that TailGuard can not only achieve an accuracy comparable with prediction methodology that relies on long history of usage data but also dramatically reduce the number of CPU AIs by 60%, with a tenfold reduction of their duration, from more than 25 time windows to only 2.


OBJECTIVES
We examined how maternal work and welfare receipt are associated with children receiving recommended pediatric preventive care services.

METHODS
We identified American Academy of Pediatrics-recommended preventive care visits from medical records of children in the 1999-2004 Illinois Families Study: Child Well-Being. We used Illinois administrative data to identify whether mothers received welfare or worked during the period the visit was recommended, and we analyzed the child visit data using random-intercept logistic regressions that adjusted for child, maternal, and visit-specific characteristics.

RESULTS
The 485 children (95%) meeting inclusion criteria made 41% of their recommended visits. Children were 60% more likely (adjusted odds ratios [AOR` = 1.60; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.27, 2.01) to make recommended visits when mothers received welfare but did not work compared with when mothers did not receive welfare and did not work. Children were 25% less likely (AOR = 0.75; 95% CI = 0.60, 0.94) to make preventive care visits during periods when mothers received welfare and worked compared with welfare only periods.

CONCLUSION
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families maternal work requirement may be a barrier to receiving recommended preventive pediatric health care.


This study examines the religious participation of Islamic immigrants in Belgium using data from the Migration History and Social Mobility Survey collected in 1994–1996 from 2,200 men who had immigrated from Turkey and Morocco. Religious participation is measured as mosque attendance, fasting during Ramadan, and sacrificing a sheep at the Festival of Sacrifice. Results show that the religious participation of Islamic immigrants depends on both premigration and postmigration characteristics. Religious participation is higher among immigrants who: (1) attended a Koranic school in their country of origin, (2) were socialized in a religious region of their home country, (3) received little schooling, (4) currently live in an area of Belgium with a greater number of mosques, and (5) associate with a high number of co-ethnics. These results suggest that the religious participation of Islamic immigrants in Belgium is an outcome of characteristics unique to immigrants as well as processes common among the general population.


The strengths of the RF signals arriving from more access points in a wireless LANs are related to the position of the mobile terminal and can be used to derive the location of the user. In a heterogeneous environment, e.g. inside a building or in a variegated urban geometry, the received power is a very complex function of the distance, the geometry, the materials. The complexity of the inverse problem (to derive the position from the signals) and the lack of complete information, motivate to consider flexible models based on a network of functions (neural networks). Specifying the value of the free parameters of the model requires a supervised learning strategy that starts from a set of labeled examples to construct a model that will then generalize in an appropriate manner when confronted with new data, not present in the training set. The advantage of the method is that it does not require ad-hoc infrastructure in addition to the wireless LAN, while the flexible modeling and learning capabilities of neural networks achieve lower errors in determining the position, are amenable to incremental improvements, and do not require the detailed knowledge of the access point locations and of the building characteristics. A user needs only a map of the working space and a small number of identified locations to train a system, as evidenced by the experimental results presented.


Time-dependent light input is an important feature of computational models of the circadian clock. However, publicly available models encoded in standard representations such as the Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML) either do not encode this input or use different mechanisms to do so, which hinders reproducibility of published results as well as model reuse. The authors describe here a numerically continuous function suitable for use in SBML for models of circadian rhythms forced by periodic light-dark cycles. The Input Signal Step Function (ISSF) is broadly applicable to encoding experimental manipulations, such as drug treatments, temperature changes, or inducible transgene expression, which may be transient, periodic, or mixed. It is highly configurable and is able to reproduce a wide range of waveforms. The authors have implemented this function in SBML and demonstrated its ability to modify the behavior of publicly available models to accurately reproduce published results. The implementation of ISSF allows standard simulation software to reproduce specialized circadian protocols, such as the phase-response curve. To facilitate the reuse of this function in public models, the authors have developed software to configure its behavior without any specialist knowledge of SBML. A community-standard approach to represent the inputs that entrain circadian clock models could particularly facilitate research in chronobiology.


We engage with recent applications of the Marxist "labor theory of value" to online prosumer practices, and offer an alternative framework for theorizing value creation in such practices. We argue that the labor theory of value is difficult to apply to online prosumer practices for two reasons. One, value creation in such practices is poorly related to time. Two, the realization of the value accumulated by social media companies generally occurs in financial markets, rather than in direct commodity exchange. In an alternative framework, we offer an understanding of value creation as based primarily on the capacity to initiate and sustain webs of affective relations, and value realization as linked to a reputation based financial economy. We argue that this model describes the process of value creation and appropriation in the context of online prosumer platforms better than an approach based on the Marxist labor theory of value. We also suggest that our approach can cast new light on value creation within informational capitalism in general.


The viscosity of blast furnace slag which was taken from Shuicheng Iron and Steel Group Co. Limited was experimentally measured by column whirling method using the ND-II slag viscosity tester. By adding analytical reagent CaO, SiO2, Al2O3, MgO and TiO2 in accordance with orthogonal design, the contents of compositions in slag were adjusted in CaO/SiO2=1.16-1.24, 14.06-17.06mass%Al2O3, 5-7mass%TiO2, 8.96-9.96mass%MgO. The results showed that the viscosity of BF slag decreased with increasing TiO2; when the Al2O3 content in the slag was 14.06%, the viscosity of BF slag had a lowest value, a highest value had for 15.56% Al2O3 content, and a lower value for 17.06% Al2O3 content. There is no significant effect on the viscosity by both the magnesia and the binary basicity.


Mobility restrictions have been imposed on over half of the world's population as part of efforts to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. Given the economic and psychological expense of these policies, understanding how their benefits depend on structural factors is critical for optimal policy design. We find causal evidence that the effectiveness of mobility-restricting policies in the United States has been critically constrained by ethnic divisions-U.S. counties with high levels of ethnic divisions fared worse than their less-divided counterparts after lockdowns in both COVID-19 cases and related deaths. This is especially true in areas with higher racial segregation. Following President Trump's State of Emergency declaration, a one standard deviation increase in the ethnic fragmentation index (EFI) in the most racially segregated counties increased COVID-19 cases and associated deaths by 1; 014 and 63, respectively; in the least segregated counties these outcomes are 112 and 4, respectively. These results highlight that ethnic divisions, rather than ethnic diversity, spurred drastic differences in COVID-19's impact. Consistent with less effective mobility restrictions in more ethnically divided counties, we find smaller mobility reductions and less mask-wearing in these counties following policy implementation. These results are not driven by a lack of physical public goods or by socioeconomic differences. Instead, we interpret our findings as the result of mobility restriction policies' imperfect enforceability. Where ethnic divisions are present, communication is sparser, pro-social norms are weaker, and communities are less able to enforce adherence by enacting social sanctions. Our results suggest that policies promoting ethnic and racial integration can allay the negative social and economic impacts of contagious disease by decreasing the likelihood of disease spread.