Collapse in the anterior maxillary region is one of the most fre- quently found problems in patients who have endured extractions, especially in zones which represent a great aesthetical challenge. Treatment is often administered lacking proper case planning, and therefore might originate very important defects in the alveolar pro- cess periodontal architecture. There are periodontal and prosthetic techniques which can solve this type of situations. The use of ovoid pontics combined with periodontal plastic surgery techniques is mainly administered to patient rehabilitation, and can achieve sat- isfactory functional and aesthetic results. The purpose of this study was to show two clinical cases where both techniques were used. In the fi rst clinical case, a fi xed partial prosthesis of three ceramic units In-Ceram ® devoid of metal was manufactured, using the ovoid pontic technique. In the second case, a Maryland type prosthesis of optimized ceramic polymer reinforced with fi ber glass was fab- ricated. The prosthesis contained an ovoid pontic combined with a subepithelial connective tissue graft to reconstruct the periodontal architecture of the alveolar process in the zone of the missing tooth. Results thus achieved give a natural, aesthetic and functional ap- pearance to the prosthesis pontics. RESUMEN


Through this paper aims the objective of assessment the quality of meat from slaughtered sheep at different ages, through the protein content of different types of muscles. Qualitative analysis involves, besides the structural proteins determining in addition to evaluating content in essential amino acids and amino acid nitrogen content and the pH determination after slaughter, colour and textural properties (Warner Bratzler) of meat. Biological material was represented by Longissimus dorsi muscles and Triceps brachii, collected from lambs and sheep slaughtered in the slaughterhouse. To determine the amino acid was used HPLC chromatographic method, meat colour was analyzed using spectrophotometer, meat acidity with pH meter and meat tenderness by texturometer. Biological studies have highlighted the superior nutritional characteristics of sheep meat. The statistical interpretation of data for proteins in amino acid content reveals significant differences (p<0.001) according to the muscle; histidine, arginine, valine and isoleucine presenting in Longissimus dorsi muscle superior value (23.82 mg/g, 55.76 mg/g, 38.92 mg/g and 35.23 mg/g) compared to amino acids values recorded for Triceps brachii (1.29 mg/g, 46.68 mg/g, 35.79 mg/g and 31.84 mg/g). Brachial triceps muscle analysis revealed significant differences by age (lambs showing lower values of histidine 1.29 mg/g to 18.93 mg sheep/g).


BACKGROUND
A disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases and deaths have been reported among Latinxs in the U.S. Among those most affected by the pandemic are marginalized families, including those that are undocumented and mixed-status, in which some, but not all members are undocumented. Undocumented and mixed-status families face multiple and chronic daily stressors that compromised their health and wellbeing. Salient stressors faced by undocumented Latinx families include poverty, social disadvantage, discrimination, dangerous living and working conditions, and limited access to healthcare. These stressors are frequently compounded with trauma, fear of detention, deportation, and family separation.

PURPOSE
Informed by the literature and insights from our community-based work to address the health needs of undocumented and mixed status Latinx families during the pandemic, this paper uses a social determinants of health lens to present a narrative summary that highlights four primary psychosocial stressors faced by these families and their implications for mental health.

DISCUSSION
These include stressors pertaining to (a) anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions; (b) family stressors and disruptions in family dynamics; (c) economic changes and financial losses; and (c) limited access to healthcare. Implications of the aforesaid stressors on the mental health of undocumented families and youth are also discussed. In addition, recommendations are provided for the provision of mental health services, best practices, and resources from a strengths-based approach.


Holmila, M. & Warpenius, K. (2012). Community-based prevention of alcohol-related injuries: Possibilities and experiences. International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research, 1 (1), 27-39. doi: 10.7895/ijadr.v1i1.43 ( http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v1i1.43 ) Aims: This paper discusses the possibilities of community-based prevention of alcohol-related injuries by summarizing the results from the Finnish Local Alcohol Policy (PAKKA). Design: Quasi-experimental controlled pre-/post-intervention design. Setting: The Finnish community-based prevention project PAKKA is described as an example of prevention that combines into one process the three necessary prevention elements: affecting the environment, grassroots enforcement of legislation, and education. Participants: Two intervention areas and two matched control areas. Measurements: Triangulation: purchase trials, school- and population survey and register data. Results: There were reductions in alcohol availability among minors and among intoxicated customers, an increase in abstinence among underaged youth and some changes in attitudes and knowledge on age-limit control. Conclusions: The results of PAKKA show that community-based action has the potential to produce results in all three prevention elements. One of the challenges is how to use community mobilization to target those who are less supportive of community interventions.


This paper presents results from a three-dimensional numerical simulation of flow, mixing and transport processes at the Gold Coast Seaway tidal entrance. To simulate the flow field in a realistic situation, a three-dimensional model (MIKE3) for the study area is setup. An extensive observational data set including water level variations, current, salinity, temperature, wind and atmospheric pressure measurements has been used for calibration of the model. To compare the effectiveness of a two-dimensional simulation of advection-dispersion within the Seaway against the more realistic three dimensional simulation and to better understand the benefits of the three-dimensional approach, a vertically averaged two dimensional model (MIKE 21) of the study area has also have been developed and its results been compared with the three dimensional model. The two models are run under various environmental forces to examine the relative importance of the environmental forces on the mixing and transport processes within the study area.


Adequate, well maintained transportation infrastructure is a critical element of the Pacific food system in addressing challenges of rapid urbanization. Policymakers must invest either in streamlining domestic supply chains and/or in facilitating food imports through market opening measures. Economic incentives, competitive transportation and logistic services, and policy reforms, both within the borders of individual economies as well as across the Asia-Pacific region, are also necessary. Important progress is being made in developing and expanding transportation infrastructure to better link food-producing areas with fast growing urban centers. Creating modern infrastructure, improving related services and reforming policies will help build a more seamless Asia-Pacific food system.


This book provides events management students with an accessible and essential introduction to project management.
Written by both academics and industry experts, Events Project Management offers a unique blend of theory and practice to encourage and contextualise project management requirements within events settings. Key questions include: What is project management? How does it connect to events management? What is effective project management within the events sector? How does academic theory connect to practice? The book is coherently structured into 12 chapters covering crucial event management topics such as stakeholders, supply chain management, project management tools and techniques, and financial and legal issues. Guides, templates, case study examples, industry tips and activity tasks are integrated in the text and online to show practice and aid knowledge.
Written in an engaging style, this text offers the reader a thorough understanding of how to successfully project manage an event from the creative idea to the concrete product. It is essential reading for all events management students.


In this paper, we introduce a new type of Lyapunov functions in a general framework particularly suitable for the analysis and control of systems with noise and uncertainty. These Lyapunov functions may depend on parameters possibly satisfying differential equations. The main differences with respect to classical Lyapunov functions and classical tools for the design of composite Lyapunov functions are discussed through examples. A design tool for the design of composite filtered Lyapunov functions is given, and examples show improvements over existing literature.


The growing dependence of our society on increasingly complex software systems, makes software testing ever more important and challenging. In many domains, such as healthcare and transportation, several independent systems, forming a heterogeneous and distributed system of systems, are involved in the provisioning of end-to-end services to users. However, existing testing techniques, namely in the model-based testing field, provide little tool support for properly testing such systems. Hence, in this paper, we propose an approach and a toolset architecture for automating the testing of end-to-end services in distributed and heterogeneous systems. The tester interacts with a visual modeling frontend to describe key behavioral scenarios, invoke test generation and execution, and visualize test results and coverage information back in the model. The visual modeling notation is converted to a formal notation amenable for runtime interpretation in the backend. A distributed test monitoring and control infrastructure is responsible for interacting with the components of the system under test, as test driver, monitor and stub. At the core of the toolset, a test execution engine coordinates test execution and checks the conformance of the observed execution trace with the expectations derived from the visual model. A real world example from the Ambient Assisted Living domain is presented to illustrate the approach.


Remission from insulin dependency in insulin-treated recent-onset type I (insulin-dependent) diabetic patients can result from a partial recovery of insulin secretion, an improvement in tissue sensitivity to insulin, or both. The same hypothesis must be analyzed when remission occurs in cyclosporin A (CsA)-treated patients. In this study, plasma C-peptide levels were serially measured in the basal state and after stimulation in 219 recent-onset type I diabetic patients; 129 received CsA, and all patients were similarly monitored and insulin treated. The results were analyzed in view of the occurrence of remission. Remission was defined as good metabolic control in the absence of hypoglycemic treatment for ≥1 mo. Remission occurred in 44% of the CsA-treated group and lasted for mean ± SE 10.0 ± 0.9 mo vs. 21.6% in the non-CsA-treated group with a duration of 4.4 ± 0.8 mo. Plasma C-peptide levels were initially dramatically lower than normal in both groups in the basal and stimulated states. C-peptide levels increased significantly later, at 3 and 6 mo, in both groups. C-peptide values were proportional to the rates of remission in both groups. In the non-CsA-treated group, C-peptide levels later decreased, and these patients inexorably relapsed to insulin dependency. In contrast, in the CsA-treated group, the initial recovery in insulin secretory capacity was maintained over the 18–24 mo of the study. Furthermore, higher remission rates and longer-lasting remission were obtained in patients who reached higher C-peptide levels at the 3rd mo of treatment. Conversely, a progressive decrease in C-peptide values followed interuption of CsA treatment in some patients who had previously maintained some C-peptide secretory capacity. Our results support the hypothesis of an efficient suspension by CsA of the progressive deterioration of islets. The maintenance of β-cell secretory capacity by CsA plus insulin was better than by insulin alone. However, C-peptide concentrations remained lower than normal in patients in remission. An improvement in sensitivity to insulin may have also contributed to the development of remission.


: Giant cell arteritis (GCA) and polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) are clinical diagnoses without "gold standard" serological or histological tests, excluding temporal artery biopsy for GCA. Further, other conditions may mimic GCA and PMR. Treatment with 10–20 mg of prednisolone daily is suggested for PMR or 40–60 mg daily for GCA when temporal arteritis is suspected. This ocular involvement of GCA should be treated as a medical emergency to prevent possible blindness and steroids should be commenced immediately. There are no absolute guidelines as to the dose or duration of administration; the therapeutics of treating this condition and the rate of reduction of prednisolone should be adjusted depending on the individual's response and with consideration of the multiple risks of high-dose and long-term glucocorticoids. Optimal management may need to consider the role of low-dose aspirin in reducing complications. Clinicians should also be aware of studies that indicate an increased incidence of large-artery complications with GCA. This clinical area requires further research through future development of radiological imaging to aid the diagnosis and produce a clearer consensus relating to diagnosis and treatment.


In these days, randomly moving sensor networks are used for building up a application in all the areas like industrial, environmental, and medical and so on. There are some disadvantages of this network over the WSN, this network faces the problem regarding the security attack and they create clones of the nodes. They face this problem because of their dynamic nature. There are some solutions for noticing the attack of node replication. The sensor node generally does not assemble with tamper resistant hardware. This permits the circumstances where the competitor can easily compact the sensor node. There are number of approach are done for noticing node replication offense. The methods like localize algorithm, resisting node replication attack in mobile sensor networks. In this paper we introduced PKI based method for detecting node replication attack. This method improved the localized algorithm and settles the node attack. The proposed system consist of localize algorithm for detecting node replication attack and algorithm to protecting the node replication attack with less storage requirement, processing control and communication transparency.


Background There is a vast amount of international literature which, although agreeing on the need for advanced practice nurse roles, simultaneously debates and discusses the difficulties with nomenclature, definition and subsequent implementation of such roles. Due to this ambiguity it is difficult to equally compare evidence in this field across different countries. A context‐specific systematic review on the qualitative evidence of the experience of being an advanced practice nurse in Australia has not been undertaken previously, however it is imperative for nursing managers and leaders to understand the complexities of advanced nursing roles in order to effectively utilise and retain these experienced and valuable nurses. With the creation of a national nursing regulating authority in 2010, it is timely to explore in‐depth the experience of being an advanced practice nurse from a national perspective. Objective To identify the experience of being an advanced practice nurse working in Australian acute care settings. Inclusion criteria Types of participants Registered nurses working in advanced practice roles in acute care settings throughout Australia. Phenomena of interest The experience of being an advanced practice registered nurse working in an Australian acute care setting, as reported by the nurses themselves. Types of studies Interpretive qualitative studies including designs such as phenomenology, grounded theory and ethnography. Search strategy A three step search strategy was used to identify published and unpublished studies. The search process was conducted from August to October 2011 and considered published and unpublished studies from 1990 to October 2011. Methodological quality Studies were appraised for methodological quality by two independent reviewers using the Joanna Briggs Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument. Data extraction Data was extracted from the papers included in the review using the standardised Joanna Briggs Institute Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument data extraction tool. Data synthesis Research findings were pooled using the Joanna Briggs Institute Qualitative Data and Review Instrument. Results Three published studies and one unpublished dissertation were included in the review. From these four studies, 216 findings were extracted, forming 18 categories which were then analysed to create six synthesised findings. Six meta‐syntheses under the headings of expert knowledge, confidence, education, relationships, negative experiences and patient centred experience were formed from the findings. Conclusions The synthesised findings confirm that the experience of advanced practice nurses in Australian acute care settings is complex and greatly influenced personally and professionally by the organisation as well as the unpredictable nature of working with people. Implications for practice A deeper understanding of the essence of being an advanced practice nurse may be of benefit for recruitment and retention planning. Health care organisations must also be aware of the impact they have on the nurse's experience if they are to commit to retention of nurses and to patient safety. Implications for research If the topic of advanced practice is to remain current in the Australian nursing profession then ongoing research must be conducted to identify if the title is being used more frequently within the nursing research. Nurses must be supported in publishing quality research if they are to improve articulation of their experiences.


Every company aims to find profitability. To achieve expected earnings, management should able to take proper discretion in investing financial resources available so will obtain liquidity and solvency in sufficient condition and adequate working capital efficiency and finally the expected profitability will obtained. The purpose of this research is to find out influence of working capital efficiency, liquidity, solvency to profitability at PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia. It took time series data from financial statements in period 2006 to 2010. Data collection technique is through documentation. Data source obtained from Indonesia Stock Exchange website (Internet Data Exchange/IDX). Data get analyzed by using classical assumption test, simple and multiple linear regression, and hypothesis testing using T test and F test. Based on result of this research is known that there is no significantly influence between working capital efficiency, Liquidity and Solvency to profitability.


Tractography is a non-invasive technique to investigate the brain's structural pathways (also referred to as tracts) that connect different brain regions. A commonly used approach for identifying tracts is with template-based clustering, where unsupervised clustering is first performed on a template in order to label corresponding tracts in unseen data. However, the reliability of this approach has not been extensively studied. Here, an investigation into template-based clustering reliability was performed, assessing the output from two datasets: Human Connectome Project (HCP) and MyConnectome project. The effect of intersubject variability on template-based clustering reliability was investigated, as well as the reliability of both deep and superficial white matter tracts. Identified tracts were evaluated by assessing Euclidean distances from a dataset-specific tract average centroid, the volumetric overlap across corresponding tracts, and along-tract agreement of quantitative values. Further, two template-based techniques were employed to evaluate the reliability of different clustering approaches. Reliability assessment can increase the confidence of a tract identifying technique in future applications to study pathways of interest. The two different template-based approaches exhibited similar reliability for identifying both deep white matter tracts and the superficial white matter.


Childhood is largely socially constructed and is subject to social and cultural change. Childhood is often characterised by immaturity and dependency, which may hamper the full recognition of children's rights. Children's nurses, as children's advocates, should develop a critical awareness of the concept of childhood. Children's nurses should also consider undertaking phenomenological research with children, as a means of identifying the needs of children.


In 2010 Thompson reported a "fat face thin" illusion that, when next to an inverted face, an upright face looks "fatter". Sun et al (2012 Perception 41 117-120) observed that one of the faces need not be inverted for the illusion to emerge: when two identical faces are presented one above the other, the face at the bottom appears "fatter" than the top one. Neither inverted faces nor clocks induced the illusion. Here we conducted three experiments probing the role that face contour plays in producing the fat face illusion. In experiment 1 line drawing faces were found to induce the illusion, suggesting that face contour is important for producing the illusion. In experiment 2 line drawing faces with scrambled internal features and empty line drawing faces devoid of internal features were found to induce the illusion. In experiment 3 internal face features arranged in their canonical face layout, but not in a scrambled layout, were found to induce the illusion. However, the magnitude of the effect was significantly weaker than the effect obtained for empty face contour in experiment 2. Collectively, these results suggest that a fat face illusion is obtained when there is sufficient information in the stimulus to activate an internal face schema.


Phosphate (Pi) deficiency in soils is a major limiting factor for plant growth. In response to Pi deprivation, one prominent metabolic adaptation in plants is the decrease in membrane phospholipids that consume approximately one-third cellular Pi. The level of two phospholipid-hydrolyzing enzymes, phospholipase Dζ2 (PLDζ2) and non-specific phospholipase C4 (NPC4), is highly induced in Pi-deprived Arabidopsis. To determine the role of PLDζ2 and NPC4 in plant growth under Pi limitation, Arabidopsis plants deficient in both PLDζ2 and NPC4 (npc4pldζ2) were generated and characterized. Lipid remodeling in leaves and roots was analyzed at three different durations of Pi deficiency. NPC4 affected lipid changes mainly in roots at an early stage of Pi deprivation, whereas PLDζ2 exhibited a more overt effect on lipid remodeling in leaves at a later stage of Pi deprivation. Pi deficiency-induced galactolipid increase and phospholipid decrease were impeded in pldζ2 and npc4pldζ2 plants. In addition, seedlings of npc4pldζ2 had the same root hair density as pldζ2 but shorter root hair length than pldζ2 in response to Pi deficiency. The loss of NPC4 decreased root hair length but had no effect on root hair density. These data suggest that PLDζ2 and NPC4 mediate the Pi deprivation-induced lipid remodeling in a tissue- and time-specific manner. PLDζ2 and NPC4 have distinctively different roles in root hair growth and development in response to Pi deprivation; PLDζ2 negatively modulates root hair density and length, whereas NPC4 promotes root hair elongation.


In today"s world Cloud Computing and Mobile Computing are most popular trends. Cloud Computing provides a huge processing and computing capability to its users and Mobile Computing provides all time connectivity, mobility and software functionality to mobile devices like smartphones. In future these mobile devices are expected to move around the world and switch from one network to another. For such situation a mechanism would be required in order to provide all time connectivity with the network. So, it can be said that movement of users will add congestion to the network, which will result in degradation of Quality of service and hence Quality of Experience too. So a mechanism is required to manage the resources effectively while improving and maintaining the Quality of Service. This paper introduces a framework which will enable service running on local public Cloud to populate on another public Cloud as per the requirement. It also addresses the situation where frequent migration of services would add network congestion. This will prevent network from experiencing huge traffic load and will offer automated service and resource management. Keyword: Quality of Service, Cloud Computing, Service migration, Mobile computing, network congestion.


This research evaluates accuracy of current marine vessel emissions estimation methods. Pollutants that are addressed in this study include: NOx, SO2, PM, CO2, CO, and HC. This project contributes to research seeking to reconcile apparent differences between inventory estimation methodologies, atmospheric predictions, and field observations. Current emissions inventory methodologies are applied to two different marine vessels, the Sine Maersk, 6600 TEU container vessel built in 1998, and the New Spirit, a 26,562 gross ton (48,183 deadweight ton) bulk carrier built in 2002. Direct monitoring of engine stack emissions was conducted on the Sine Maersk in February 2004, and an aircraft plume study of the New Spirit was conducted as part of a 2002 international atmospheric science experiment. The agreement between emissions calculated using published emissions rates and monitored stack test results is relatively good. The results show that improved emission inventories are consistent with monitoring results; however, emissions rates derived from in-plume observations demonstrated greater disagreement with published emissions rates. Nonetheless, good agreement between monitoring and modeling emissions rates helps confirm that differences between inventory estimates and in-plume observations are likely a result of complex chemical processing within ship plumes.


This study was designed to investigate the relationship between rater's personality and rating errors. For this, I propose a model that is Big Five Factors may relate in rating errors. This study predicted (1) Extraversion and Agreeableness is hypothesized to positively relate to the leniency error (2) Conscientiousness, Neuroticism may be positively correlated to the severity error and halo effect. Particular attention was paid to the consistency of rating error according to personality factors. The Crosstable results showed that the Agreeableness and Extraversion were significantly correlated in with leniency. But rater's other personality factors were not significantly related in leniency, severity, and halo error. The result of ANOVA indicated that Agreeableness had significant level between leniency and severity group. There was no correlation between personality factor and halo effect. Based on the empirical findings, implications and limitations were discussed. Suggestions for future research also follow.


Summary Remittances may have an impact on economic growth through channels to physical and human capital. We estimate an open economy model of these two channels consisting of seven equations using the general method of moments with heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation correction (GMM-HAC) with pooled data for four different samples of countries receiving remittances in 2003. The countries with per capita income below $ 1200 benefit most from remittances in the long run because they have the largest impact of remittances on savings. Their changes in remittances account for about 2%of the steady-state level of GDP per capita when compared to the counterfactual of having no changes of remittances. Their ratio of the steady-state growth rates with and without changes of remittances is 1.39. Transitional gains are higher than the steady-state gains only for the human capital variables of this sample. As savings react much more strongly than investment an important benefit of remittances is that less debt is incurred and less debt service is paid than without remittances. All effects are much weaker for the richer countries.


A high-frequency scanning sonar, mounted as a net sonde, was used to study fish behaviour in the mouth area of the Norwegian bottom-sampling trawl. Fish distribution patterns were significantly different by day and night. At night the fish entered the middle of the trawl, close to the bobbins, and no fish were observed escaping over the headline. During daytime the fish entered more irregularly, using the whole opening of the trawl, and haddock were lost over the headline. The daytime sonar observations were confirmed visually with an underwater vehicle with video carnera. The observations indicate that the herding process during bottom trawling may be equally efficient by day and night, and that hearing must play a significant role in this process under non-visual conditions.


Author(s): Reid, Jason Ira | Advisor(s): Kazerooni, Homayoon | Abstract: Over 265,000 individuals in the United States have a spinal cord injury. The wheelchair is currently the most prescribed mobility option for this population. Robotic exoskeleton devices are a promising alternative means of mobility that enable a paraplegic user to regain the physical and emotional health benefits of standing and walking. This dissertation will discuss novel gait strategies that were designed for a minimally-actuated medical exoskeleton device.Two novel stance control strategies will be presented that are designed to propel the exoskeleton and pilot forward out of double-stance. The first stance strategy relies on the movement of the pilot's torso as a means to dynamically propel the system forward through a step. Second, a more advanced strategy that propels the user forward while stabilizing their torso will also be proposed. Through the manipulation of lower extremity kinematics, the user can be propelled forward out of double-stance with an exoskeleton that only has actuation at the hips. Sequential methods of trajectory generation will be described for both strategies. Experimental results will be presented that support the efficacy for these stance strategies.In addition, this dissertation proposes an original sequential swing phase model. This model is used to produce a gait trajectory for the swing leg that dynamically controls an unactuated swing knee. A method for swing phase hip trajectory generation will be presented. Experimental results will be shown that validate the efficacy of the swing phase trajectory at producing a natural human-like swing phase from a swing leg that has no actuation at the knee.Extensive pilot testing of the medical exoskeleton in both structured and unstructured environments was completed. The results from these tests support the efficacy of the control algorithms and show great promise in the minimally actuated exoskeleton paradigm. This work enables a reduction in exoskeleton hardware complexity, reduced weight, and anticipated lower costs for end users so that more spinal cord injury patients may have greater access to this technology.


In this dissertation, I argue that the comic book film can be productively conceptualized along the same theoretical lines used by Gerard Genette in his literary study Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree: that is, as a genre whose individual works are constructed of multiple textual layers. In this case, these layers consist of different media—film and comics—both of which
remain uniquely visible in the final product, and whose combination results in unique articulations of cinematic style. I argue that the full import of these stylistic interventions is lost or overlooked when using an adaptation studies approach to the genre; therefore I employ a version of Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin's theory of remediation filtered through Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of literary dialogism and heteroglossia. Chapter One articulates the limitations
of adaptation theory and presents remediation as a productive alternative. Chapter Two develops a Genette-inspired six-tiered schema that details the categories into which the various strategies of remediation fit. The following two chapters draw upon this framework to explore particular formal differences between comics and film and the stylistic means through which various film
texts have addressed them: namely, the difference between the film frame and the comic book panel (Chapter Three) and cinematic movement versus comic book stasis (Chapter Four). In Chapter Five, I explode the established paradigm by considering two case studies that remediate comic books amongst a broader variety of media, which present comics as one medium in the vast contemporary digital media ecology. In the final chapter, I address the superhero film in particular, exploring the question of celluloid versus digital cinema at length and how Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy (Batman Begins; The Dark Knight; The Dark Knight Rises) uses its narrative to allegorically advocate for cinematic specificity, thus articulating a counter-example to the framework established in the previous chapters.


Mast cells are multifunctional effector cells of the immune system and are best known for theirparticipation in allergic reactions. The aim of this thesis was to investigate how the stem cell factor(SCF)-dependent development of mast cells from cord blood can be regulated by different factors, and tostudy how immature mast cells circulating in the blood can be recruited into the tissue.In this thesis it was found that flt3 ligand (FL), that has been reported to have many similarities withSCF, does not induce the development of mast cells from cord blood. However, FL support the survivalof hematopoietic progenitor cells and/or cells of the mast cell lineage. In contrast, the hematopoieticgrowth factors IL-3 and GM-CSF inhibit human mast cell development. However, there are progenitorsresistant to the lineage differentiation signals of these cytokines, keeping their potential to differentiate intomature mast cells. Furthermore, retinoic acid (RA) was found to inhibit the development of mast cells,mainly affecting uncommitted progenitors and/or mast cell progenitors. The major finding was that mastcells are less susceptible to inhibitory signals the more mature they are. This thesis also reports functional expression of the chemokine receptor CXCR4 on cells of the mast cell lineage. Its ligand, SDF-1, acts as amast cell chemotaxin and induces migration of progenitors with the capacity to differentiate into mastcells.In conclusion, this thesis shows that certain factors, can influence the development of mast cells aswell as their recruitment into tissues. These findings may be of importance for controlling the number ofmast cells in the tissues, e.g., in allergy, and thereby the severity of the inflammation.


The dementia familial encephalopathy with neuroserpin inclusion bodies (FENIB) is caused by the accumulation of mutant neuroserpin within neurons (Davis, R. L., Shrimpton, A. E., Holohan, P. D., Bradshaw, C., Feiglin, D., Sonderegger, P., Kinter, J., Becker, L. M., Lacbawan, F., Krasnewich, D., Muenke, M., Lawrence, D. A., Yerby, M. S., Shaw, C.-M., Gooptu, B., Elliott, P. R., Finch, J. T., Carrell, R. W., and Lomas, D. A. (1999) Nature 401, 376–379), but little is known about the trafficking of wild type and mutant neuroserpins. We have established a cell model to study the processing of wild type neuroserpin and the Syracuse (S49P) and Portland (S52R) mutants that cause FENIB. Here we show that Syracuse and Portland neuroserpin are retained soon after their synthesis in the endoplasmic reticulum and that the limiting step in their processing is the transport to the Golgi complex. This is in contrast to the wild type protein, which is secreted into the culture medium. Mutant neuroserpin is retained within the endoplasmic reticulum as polymers, similar to those isolated from the intraneuronal inclusions in the brains of individuals with FENIB. Remarkably, the Portland mutant showed faster accumulation and slower secretion compared with the Syracuse mutant, in keeping with the more severe clinical phenotype found in patients with the Portland variant of neuroserpin. Both mutant and wild type neuroserpin were partially degraded by proteasomes. Taken together, our results provide further understanding of how cells handle defective but ordered mutant proteins and provide strong support for a common mechanism of disease caused by mutants of the serine protease inhibitor superfamily.


The development of bipolar host materials for solution-processable thermally activated delayed fluorescence organic light-emitting diodes (TADF-OLEDs) is challenging because few host materials for TADF-OLEDs have been reported. Solution-processable bipolar host materials should have good solubility in various organic solvents and should exhibit good thermal stability and film-forming properties. In this study, three bipolar host materials (i.e.Py2Cz, Py2BFCz, and Py2ICz) for solution-processable green-emitting TADF-OLEDs were synthesized by coupling 2,4-diphenylpyrimidine to mCP and modifying the carbazole-donating units in the mCP structure. Thus, the effects of different host structures on the performance of green TADF-OLEDs could be investigated. The three host materials exhibited high thermal stability and fine morphologies in film states. Therefore, all three host materials were utilized to fabricate solution-processed green TADF-OLEDs with a green-emitting dopant. Particularly, the Py2ICz-based device displayed outstanding performance with a maximum external efficiency of 24.1% because Py2ICz has superior charge balance in the emitting layer than the others. These results unambiguously demonstrated that mCP derivatives with a pyrimidine core are suitable bipolar host materials for solution-processed green TADF-OLEDs.


Analyzing the bene cial effects of investments in information technology (IT) is an area of research that interests investors and academics. A number of studies have examined whether investments in IT have a positive effect on some measure of earnings or other form of nancial return. Results from these studies have been mixed. This paper extends the literature by adopting an investor's perspective on rm performance when IT invest- ments are made, using the preservation of capital as a performance measure. The authors examine companies that made public announcements of their investments in technology to see if they were able to mitigate losses to investors by reducing their downside risk to investors. This study further discusses whether different types of IT investments have different impacts on rm risk from an investor's viewpoint. Findings suggest that IT investments impact a rm's downside risk, and the authors offer an alternative perspective on the bene ts of IT investments, particularly where no positive incremental nancial results are evident.


The APH gene of a butirosin-producing Bacillus circulans was cloned and shown to be expressed in Escherichia coli and Streptomyces lwidans. The gene was sequenced and a possible developmentally regulated promoter identified. When the deduced protein sequence was compared with those from transposon Tn5, transposon Tn903, Streptomyces fradiae, Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus faecalis, significant homology was found, indicating that the genes may have a common origin.


By crystallizing with excess magnesium oxide the photo-luminescent efficiency of manganese-activated magnesium orthogermanate has been increased 500 percent. The emission spectra of these materials extend from 6100A to 6700A, and exhibit a unique fine structure consisting of four bands about 50A wide and having peaks approximately 90A apart. Small changes in composition leave the positions of the emission peaks invariant but greatly change the relative intensities of the peaks. This fine structure offers a valuable key to determining the optical transitions involved in the luminescence of manganese-activated phosphors. Manganese-activated zinc-magnesium fluoride phosphors exhibit under cathode-ray excitation the longest trulyexponential afterglow of any efficient known luminescent material. Crystallization of these phosphors under 100 atmospheres of hydrogen fluoride does not greatly alter their luminescent characteristics. Fluoride phosphors, particularly manganese-activated zinc fluoride, possess the unique feature among luminescent materials of being capable of evaporation and condensation in a vacuum to form thin uniform transparent layers without unduly affecting the luminescent efficiency.


This thesis proposes to theoretically and critically examine how building thermal simulation tools might be integrated throughout the whole building design process considering the knowledge and thinking involved in building thermal physics as well as the knowledge and thinking involved in architecture. It focuses in understanding both worlds to discuss how they can potentially interface with each other. In order to fully acknowledge the interdisciplinary character of this type of research, a critical and theoretical discussion is undertaken in opposition to the dominance of empirical studies and practical propositions that have been currently used to deal with the issue of integration. The proposed critical and theoretical reflection is based on a critically constructed structured methodology centred on the theme of design problem-solving. Design problem-solving is initially discussed in a domain independent basis setting up the premises for commonalities and differences between the two professions to be debated. Individual discussions in design problem-solving are presented for building thermal physics as well as building design, analysing the different paradigms they subscribe to when designing. Paradigms are contextualised within specific worldviews and related to representation systems, practices and computer tools used by each group of practitioner in their everyday activities. Contrasts between these two debates are outlined and potential scenarios to critically reflect on integration are proposed. The outcomes of the research suggest that there is no single solution for building thermal simulation tools to be better integrated throughout the whole design process. The best solution needs to be critically constructed every time a new problem arises. In order for that to happen, building physicists and architects education needs to be improved for the two professionals to be able to properly communicate and effectively construct a joint practice. Additionally, simulation tools need to be designed with configurable interfaces that can address the idiosyncrasies of each practice together with the peculiarities involved in dealing with each specific problem at hand.


Purpose: The tumor suppressor p53 plays a crucial role in maintaining genomic stability and tumor prevention. Mdm2, Mdm4, and Hausp are all critical regulators of the p53 protein. Despite the importance of the p53 pathway in prostate cancer development and progression, little is known about the association of functional single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the p53 pathway genes and prostate cancer aggressiveness. Experimental Design: In this study, we analyze the association of SNPs in p53, Mdm2, Mdm4, and Hausp genes with prostate cancer clinicopathologic variables in a large hospital-based Caucasian prostate cancer cohort (N = 4,073). Results: We found that the Mdm2 SNP309 T allele was associated with earlier onset prostate cancer (P = 0.004), higher Gleason scores (P = 0.004), and higher stages in men undergoing a radical prostatectomy (P = 0.011). Both the Mdm4 and Hausp SNPs (rs1380576 and rs1529916) were found to be associated with higher D'Amico risk prostate cancer category at the time of diagnosis (P = 0.023 and P = 0.046, respectively). Mdm4 SNP was also found to be associated with higher Gleason score at radical prostatectomy (P = 0.047). We did not observe any statistically significant association between the p53 Arg72Pro polymorphism and prostate cancer aggressiveness or pathologic variables. Conculsions: These results suggested the importance of these p53 regulators in prostate cancer development and progression. Clin Cancer Res; 16(21); 5244–51. ©2010 AACR.


Investment banks play a key role in capital markets and contribute to the efficient functioning of financial markets. As demonstrated in the recent financial crisis, however, investment banks can create and propagate risks in the financial system given their scale, as well as the interconnected and complex nature of their activities. Recognising investment banks' systemic importance, a number of international regulatory initiatives have come into force since the onset of the recent financial crisis.


Significance The US government's cocaine interdiction mission in the transit zone of Central America is now in its fifth decade despite its long-demonstrated ineffectiveness, both in cost and results. We developed a model that builds an interdisciplinary understanding of the structure and function of narco-trafficking networks and their coevolution with interdiction efforts as a complex adaptive system. The model produced realistic predictions of where and when narco-traffickers move in and around Central America in response to interdiction. The model demonstrated that narco-trafficking is as widespread and difficult to eradicate as it is because of interdiction, and increased interdiction will continue to spread traffickers into new areas, allowing them to continue to move drugs north. Counterdrug interdiction efforts designed to seize or disrupt cocaine shipments between South American source zones and US markets remain a core US "supply side" drug policy and national security strategy. However, despite a long history of US-led interdiction efforts in the Western Hemisphere, cocaine movements to the United States through Central America, or "narco-trafficking," continue to rise. Here, we developed a spatially explicit agent-based model (ABM), called "NarcoLogic," of narco-trafficker operational decision making in response to interdiction forces to investigate the root causes of interdiction ineffectiveness across space and time. The central premise tested was that spatial proliferation and resiliency of narco-trafficking are not a consequence of ineffective interdiction, but rather part and natural consequence of interdiction itself. Model development relied on multiple theoretical perspectives, empirical studies, media reports, and the authors' own years of field research in the region. Parameterization and validation used the best available, authoritative data source for illicit cocaine flows. Despite inherently biased, unreliable, and/or incomplete data of a clandestine phenomenon, the model compellingly reproduced the "cat-and-mouse" dynamic between narco-traffickers and interdiction forces others have qualitatively described. The model produced qualitatively accurate and quantitatively realistic spatial and temporal patterns of cocaine trafficking in response to interdiction events. The NarcoLogic model offers a much-needed, evidence-based tool for the robust assessment of different drug policy scenarios, and their likely impact on trafficker behavior and the many collateral damages associated with the militarized war on drugs.


The purpose of this study is to discuss about, frstly whether the submission of proof of letter or Visum Et Repertum in a criminal act to persuade the child to commit lewd acts are in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code, secondly whether the evidence proof of letter or Visum Et Repertum in the criminal investigation to persuade the child to Performing lewd acts considered by a judge. The results of this study indicate that the use of letter proof or Visum Et Repertum in a criminal act to persuade a child to commit obscene acts have complied with the provisions of Article 187 letter c of the Criminal Procedure Code, So that the explanation about the evidence of expert information must be based on the expertise and also there is an offcial statement in which in this case the expert information is completed and based on the Visum et Repertum considered by the judge as the basis for the cut off plus the testimony of the witness, the statement of the defendant and the evidence. Keywords: Letter or Visum Et Repertum, Evidence and Criminal pervert.


Abstract Using data from readers' comments to news articles from a national Danish newspaper, the article addresses the nature and function of hyperlinks as evidential practice in relation to xenophobic hate speech. Hyperlinks refer to the use of URL addresses to link to websites; hate speech is understood broadly as stigmatising discourse. Adopting a discursive approach to evidentiality that accounts for a range of phenomena including source of knowledge, participant roles, epistemic stance and interactional force, hate speech related hyperlinks and their evidential functions were identified. While not prevalent in number, hyperlinks serve to legitimise negative stances towards minority groups but also support counter speech targeting prejudicial views. Links can be used as part of processes of metaphorical shift and sarcasm as well as to provoke hate speech in comment threads. As URL addresses are frequently textual, they can have evidential functions independent of the material that they link to.


The aim of the present study is to analyze the importance and role of social networks in the decisionmaking process of a university candidate at the moment when the generation of this target group changes. The author, together with the research goal, has been monitoring the phases and influences on the initiation and decision-making of the candidate for a long time, and the perception of online tools is changing as the generation that grew up with the Internet is emerging. This study analyzes the differences, possibilities and barriers to the inclusion of social networks at the various stages of the impact on potential candidates as well as attitudes towards them. The basis for its processing are quantitative and qualitative surveys. The aim of the qualitative survey was to identify specific factors regarding the behavior and habits of students in the decision-making process of choosing a higher education institution. The research was carried out in 2015 with N = 12 respondents. The quantitative survey was focused on the analysis of the decision-making process of applicants, which is regularly verified in the monitoring of attitudes. This survey was carried out in the years 2015 to 2019, providing a total of 2082 evaluated responses for this article (2015: N = 714, 2016: N = 440, 2017: N = 99, 2018: N = 392, 2019: N = 437). The survey's target group consisted of university candidates who were approached during an Open Day visit or in the admission process of the selected Czech higher education institution. Although it is a narrowly focused sample, it is an inspiring material that is supported by a number of secondary data sources, thus creating at least a discussion platform for university marketing staff. The output of the paper is a model of inclusion of social networks in the communication mix of universities and a number of recommendations arising from the results.


The Universal teachings of the Islam provide the solution of the problems of every era. The concepts of accommodation, easiness and comfort in Islam are unique concepts found in any religion. Islamic Law promotes the concept of lenience while the concept of rigidness is not supported. It has been mentioned in number of narrations that Holy Prophet was sent with an easy Din. He has commanded to spread easiness and comfort and he has discouraged the promotion of concept of rigidity. Allah Almighty has also formulated the laws of jurisprudence on this concept of ease. He has provided relaxation in His commandments in the state of necessity and compulsion. The four schools of law have also defined the concept of necessity and exigencies. They have determined the area of necessity and elucidate the amount of relaxation that is provided in the fulfilment of obligation in state of compulsion and obsession. Dr Wahaba al-Zuhali states that necessity is that thing without which the life of a person comes in to a fatal situation. To save life, religion, money, respect and intellect of a person, in the state of compulsion and obsession one can use the prohibited things as well. In this article this concept of accommodation, easiness and lenience in the light of Quran, Hadith and sayings of Pious Predecessors will be elaborated.


Dithering particle swarm optimization (DPSO) algorithm is introduced into adaptive polarization stabilization in a 40 Gb/s optical communication system. The DPSO algorithm has the merits of rapid convergence to the global optimum, without being trapped in local sub-optima, and good robustness to noise. How to implement DPSO as a component of a control algorithm in adaptive polarization stabilization is described. Performance comparisons between PSO and DPSO were carried out theoretically and experimentally. It is demonstrated that fast changes of SOP can be successfully tracked using the DPSO algorithm.


Several plants use secondary metabolites against
insects and pathogens attack. Among such metabolites known glycoalkaloids are
the most studied. Plants from Solanaceae Family are the most abundant on those
alkaloids. Despite alfa-tomatine is a known glycoalkaloid, its specific action
against Moniliophthora perniciosa,
fungi responsible for witches broom disease in cocoa plantations was obtained
in this work. Alfa-tomatine was infusion-extracted from Solanum lycopersicum leaves, and its action against the fungi
growth was shown on the bioassays. In these tests, M. perniciosa growth was totally inhibited but other fungus tested,
the inhibition was not totally, or did not present effect on growth, showing in
this way, the specificity of alfa-tomatine to M. perniciosa. The advantages of work with a natural molecule for
the fungi control is the stability of the molecule, its resistance to high
temperature and pressure and for its use, the simple method of extraction used.
The confirmation of the alfa-tomatine molecule was done by High Performance
Liquid Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry in comparison to the Sigma
standard.


We detected increased concentrations of lipoperoxidation products, as malondialdehyde, in the serum of an infant with classic hemolytic-uremic syndrome. The concentrations declined when peritoneal dialysis was initiated and eventually returned to normal after clinical recovery. Our observation adds to the existing body of evidence that links the pathogenesis of hemolytic-uremic syndrome to peroxidative damage and tothe rationaleforusingantioxidantagentsas part of the therapy for this disease process.


In this communication, we report, for the first time in the literature, on the presence of UD-PAG-2'-epimerase catalytic activity in various organs; i.e. kidney, brain, heart, testicle, and pancreas of rat (Mus norvegicus albinus) and the kinetical behavior of hepatic and renal activities are compared in a preliminary way. The subcellular distribution, the enzymatic stability at 4 degrees C., the catalytical efficiency and stability as a function of pH, and the enzymatic activity and differential denaturation as a function of the temperature would allow to postulate on the existence of UDPAG=2'-epimerase isozymes. The medical importance of such a differential kinetical behaviour of UDPAG-2'-epimerase as a function of its tissue origin is stressed, particularly in connection to the differential diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of various human diseases.


Abstract Reliable chronological frameworks for archaeological sites are essential for accurate interpretations of the past. Geochronology represents the core of interdisciplinary research because it allows integration of diverse data on a common timeline. Since the radiocarbon revolution in Australian archaeology in the 1950s, thousands of ages have been produced across Sahul (combined landmass of Australia and New Guinea). Methods such as thermoluminescence (TL) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) have also been used on Australian archaeological deposits and enabled the study of the deep past beyond the limits of radiocarbon dating. After seven decades, these geochronological methods no longer provide just a 'date', but instead, the geochronological community is focussed on providing the most reliable, precise, and reproducible ages. These aspects of age estimation are central to the framework of the SahulArch geochronological database. SahulArch is a new publicly available continental-scale dataset in which context and quality assurance criteria of each dated sample are considered as important as the age itself. SahulArch contains a total of 10,717 ages (9,504 radiocarbon, 973 OSL, and 240 TL) from 2,318 sites across the Sahul landmass. We describe the structure of SahulArch, types of auxiliary data collected, and provide a summary of the data in SahulArch. Graphical Abstract


Determination of trace amounts (~0.05 μg) of bismuth in steel by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) has been carried out by a cascade-preconcentration and separation method that combines the one-drop solvent concentration method and solid-phase extraction method. The bismuth(III) ion from acid decomposition of the steel sample formed a complex with iodine, and this subsequently formed an ion pair with tetrabutylammonium (TBA). This ion pair was almost completely adsorbed by passage through a solid-phase packed column. The ion pair was eluted with ethyl acetate, and a small volume of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) was added to the resulting solution; successful preconcentration of the iodobismuthate complex/TBA ion pair into the DMSO phase was accomplished by removing the ethyl acetate using a compact evaporator in a water bath (40°C). The sample was diluted with an internal standard (thallium) solution and an acidic solution and was then tested by ICP-MS. The calibration curve for the proposed method showed good linearity (r2 = 0.9997) in the 0.05–10 μg range. A recovery test was performed, in which 0.05 μg and 2.5 μg of bismuth was spiked into an acidic decomposition solution of pure iron (JSS 003-6), and the recovery was 98% for both solutions, and the relative standard deviations (n = 5) were 8.8% and 1.2%, respectively. Good results were obtained applying the method to analysis of CRMs.


Background: Mutations in proteins involved in telomere maintenance lead to a range of human diseases, including dyskeratosis congenita, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and cancer. Telomerase functions to add telomeric repeats back onto the ends of chromosomes, however non-canonical roles of components of telomerase have recently been suggested. Methods: Here we use a zebrafish telomerase mutant which harbours a nonsense mutation in   to investigate the adult phenotypes of fish derived tert from heterozygous parents of different ages. Furthermore we use whole genome sequencing data to estimate average telomere lengths. Results: We show that homozygous offspring from older heterozygotes exhibit signs of body wasting at a younger age than those of younger parents, and that offspring of older heterozygous parents weigh less irrespective of genotype. We also demonstrate that   homozygous tert mutant fish have a male sex bias, and that clutches from older parents also have a male sex bias in the heterozygous and wild-type populations. Telomere length analysis reveals that the telomeres of younger heterozygous parents are shorter than those of older heterozygous parents. Conclusions: These data indicate that the phenotypes observed in offspring from older parents cannot be explained by telomere length. Instead we propose that Tert functions outside of telomere length maintenance in an age-dependent manner to influence the adult phenotypes of the next generation.


This study investigates the relationship between Taiwanese adolescents' depressive mood and their self-reported online and offline activities. The results indicate that adolescents who reported higher depressive mood were more likely to use the internet to make friends and express feelings compared to those who were lower in depressive mood. Teens higher in depressive mood reported to have fewer individuals in their immediate social network to speak with, either online or offline, when feeling blue. Hierarchical linear regression analysis shows that adolescents higher in depressive mood reported to engage in more online activities in the areas of communication, entertainment and information seeking. Further, a positive relationship between depressive mood and participation in risk behaviors is identified. These findings shed light on earlier studies that focus predominantly on US internet users, suggesting that the role that the internet plays for youths with depressive mood may vary by cultural context.


Canadian Social Welfare in the Twenty-First CenturyJohn R. Graham and Louise M. QueridoEds. Patricia M. Evans and Gerda R. Wekerle. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. 329 pp.Over the past generation, the Canadian welfare state has undergone a radical transformation. Principles of universality, nurtured during and after the Second World War, have been superseded in the 1980s and 1990s by selective programmes that target benefits according to need. Contemporary social programmes are also decreasingly comprehensive, and governments' willingness to provide a reliable funding base, likewise, has been diminished. As well, political leaders have attempted to transfer social welfare responsibility to other levels of government. Ottawa has downloaded responsibility to the provinces, or in some instances directly to municipal jurisdictions, and the provinces have downloaded more fiscal and administrative responsibilities to municipalities. All levels of government, in turn, have hoped for - and in many cases systematically sought - an increased role for non-governmental authorities - social service organizations, religious groups and community and neighbourhood groups. If these fail, default rests with those families capable of providing support. Not surprisingly, holes in the social safety net are apparent. Those experiencing these changes directly and those working on the front lines of social services can attest to the profound - and to many, the present reviewers among them, unnecessary - suffering that many Canadians experience regularly. Shelters for the homeless in major urban centres are well beyond capacity, and the homeless are increasingly apparent in downtown cores.(1) Underresourced homes for the aged provide less care for those unable to care for themselves (Lightman). Programmes such as Employment Insurance provide decreasingly comprehensive benefits to a shrinking proportion of the country's unemployed.(2) In 1995, Statistics Canada announced a 58 per cent increase in childhood poverty over the previous six years, and a total of 1.4 million Canadian children living below the poverty line (Canadian Council on Social Development). These and dozens of other social problems highlight contemporary social-policy-related problems.At least part of the underlying logic for changes to contemporary social policies has been ideological, with the rise in the 1980s of neo-conservative politics and the apparent flattening of the ideological spectrum in that decade and the years since. Part of the logic has been fiscal, with burgeoning government debt and deficits creating a rationale for reductions in certain government spending commitments - social welfare especially. Part, as well, has been the rise of a new international capitalism, sometimes referred to under a broader rubric of "globalization." Free-market forces and privatization prevail, transnational corporations are seemingly freed from a sense of national responsibility, and environmental policy, workplace conditions, job security, wages and social policies appear to be determined less by national policy and more by the market-driven forces of an increasingly international and competitive industrializing world.But as social welfare policies are commensurately transformed, is there, one wonders, any coherent vision of how things should be? Where are today's equivalents of those systematic blueprints that ushered in the post-Second World War, comprehensive welfare state that we once knew? In Great Britain, William Beveridge released his famous 1942 report, Social Insurance and Allied Services. In Canada, Leonard Marsh wrote a document similar in intent and scope, Report on Social Security for Canada (1943). These, in turn, were preceded by royal commissions, academic research and by reports for governments written by numerous commentators. There was logic to the universal welfare state, and a corpus of thinking to inform this logic. …


What are the elements that affect story interestingness or consistency in single-player videogames? The question is approached by comparing player evaluations (N=206) of 11 videogames against a set of features derived by formal (qualitative) analysis. Ordinal regression was used to analyze the collected data. The study posits that dialogue system, romance, moral choice, appearance customization, and support for different play styles relate to story evaluation. Females tend to judge game stories more favorably and those with doctoral degree less favorably than players with other education.


Dried distillers grains plus solubles (DDGS) contain fat and rumen undegradable intake protein, both of which have been shown to increase reproductive performance in heifers. The mechanisms leading to enhanced reproduction have not been fully defined. The objectives of this research were to evaluate effects of DDGS in late gestation heifer diets on animal and reproductive performance and on blood plasma concentrations of GH, IGF-I, and NEFA. Over 2 yr, 201 heifers were randomly allotted to 1 of 2 diets, which were similar in energy and adequate in rumen degradable intake protein and were fed from d 190 of gestation through calving. Diets were grass hay with DDGS or soybean hulls (SBH) and a supplement. Cow BW and BCS were measured from the beginning of treatment through weaning. Blood samples were collected prepartum on d 71 and 69 of the feeding period and weekly after calving for 4 and 6 wk (d 84 to 105 and d 76 to 111 relative to the feeding period) during yr 1 and 2, respectively. No treatment x year interactions were detected for any of the performance, hormonal, or reproductive dependent variables. Both treatments caused positive BW changes over the feeding period, but DDGS heifers had a greater (P < 0.01) positive BW change compared with SBH heifers. Initial and final BCS and BCS change were similar (P >/= 0.26) between DDGS and SBH treatments. Treatment did not influence (P >/= 0.12) BW or BCS change during the postpartum period. Calving ease, calf vigor, and calf birth weight, weaning weight, and ADG (birth to weaning) were similar (P >/= 0.41) between treatments. The proportion of cows that had initiated estrous cycles (P = 0.46) and the pregnancy distribution (P >/= 0.21) were similar between treatments. However, a greater (P = 0.058) percentage of DDGS cows became pregnant compared with SBH cows (94 and 84%). In both years, there were no effects of treatment (P >/= 0.17) or treatment x time (P >/= 0.52), but time influenced (P </= 0.05) the concentrations of GH, IGF-I, and NEFA. Concentrations of GH were greater (P </= 0.05) at calving and decreased through d 4 after calving. The IGF-I concentrations were greater (P < 0.01) around calving and decreased (P < 0.05) through d 8 or 6 (yr 1 or 2) and remained similar (P > 0.10) for the duration of the sampling period. Concentrations of NEFA increased from calving through d 8 and gradually declined through d 20. Prepartum diets containing DDGS, a source of fat and UIP, benefited pregnancy rates in well-maintained, primiparous beef heifers.


Aim: To acquire a fuller understanding of the influences on decision-making in an acute care hospital for seriously ill patients. Background: Fromthe moment of a diagnosis of serious, potentially life-limiting illness, patients and their families are faced withmultiple, complex and significant decisions that will influence the entire illness trajectory, including their end-of-life care (EOLC). Compounding personal factors is the complexity of dying today with acute ward areas in tertiary hospitals use of technological interventions to prolong life, at all costs being the norm. If hospice care is initiated, in these areas, it is often at too late a stage to relieve distressing symptoms and to offer the person the best possible path of care for a dignified death. Design and methods: A retrospective cohort research design was used for this study. Results: Thirty nine (39) medical records that met the inclusion criteria were audited. While medical records are limited in terms of the quality of the information contained in them in terms of social, behavioural and other qualitative information, the audit obtained detailed clinical information on patient characteristics, clinical care, and family and clinician involvement in the care of these patients. Communication between health professionals and patient and or family were limited. Poor documentation in the medical record did not support shared decision-making with decisions to amend the care pathway to palliative not undertaken in most instances despite no improvement in response to care or deterioration in the patient's condition. Conclusion: Communication between health care professions, patients and their family's needs to be addressed. The management of patients who are seriously ill in acute ward areas should be altered to reflect the patient's condition. Nurses, using a person-centred approach, have a role in advocating for the patient and the family in times of stress. Discussions concerning end-oflife of seriously ill patients need to be open, transparent and communicated as these discussions are critical to ensuring the patient's wishes are realised.


This paper applies the NIMSAD framework to the evaluation of IA education projects. The framework considers elements relating to the education process, the education practice, and the educators as project teams. It is proposed that the evaluation of the above elements takes place at a minimum of three time periods using the criteria of efficacy, efficiency and effectiveness. The framework recognizes the importance of the human element and provides a holistic process to evaluating IA education projects. The generic nature of the framework allows its adaptation to other curriculum development, IT and security related projects and research.


The primary objective of this research was to investigate exposure to formaldehyde. There has been very little research on personal exposure to pollutants in the community and none on personal exposure to formaldehyde. In Australia, there are very little data on indoor formaldehyde concentrations. This is despite the fact that in Europe and in the United States, formaldehyde is one of the most frequently found indoor air contaminants, and is known to cause both acute and chronic health effects.

The results of this research generally support the hypothesis that fixed site monitoring in indoor environments is able to explain a substantial portion of the personal exposure to formaldehyde. However, the study also provided results in cabinet making factories which are not consistent with this hypothesis. The results did not support the hypothesis that time weighted models will improve the accuracy of personal exposure predictions relative to linear regression models of indoor and outdoor concentrations.

The research was divided into two areas. Firstly, the spatial and temporal changes in concentrations of formaldehyde in indoor environments, and the factors affecting these levels were investigated. This resulted in a comprehensive documentation of the concentrations found in typical indoor environments, and in indoor environments likely to experience elevated concentrations of formaldehyde. Secondly, an assessment of personal exposure to formaldehyde, and a comparison of these results to formaldehyde concentrations recorded at fixed sites was conducted. This enabled the comparison of different models to understand personal exposure.

Formaldehyde exposure assessment was conducted in 186 Australian homes and 60 occupied caravans and indoor measurements recorded in 132 unoccupied caravans. There were no significant differences between levels recorded in winter or summer for conventional homes monitored during different seasons, however a significant seasonal difference occurred in concentrations recorded in caravans. The highest concentrations were recorded in winter. In conventional homes a significant decrease in formaldehyde concentrations was found in levels recorded 6 months after the initial monitoring. The decrease was greatest in homes less than 10 years of age. In 13 multi-storey office buildings, levels ranged from 4 ppb to 90 ppb, with the highest concentrations being recorded in new buildings. A new four floor building was assessed for formaldehyde over fourteen months. Formaldehyde concentrations increased as the building progressed through its construction phase, and with the introduction of furnishings and carpet. After occupation, fluctuations in formaldehyde concentrations in the building were closely correlated with outdoor temperatures.

The results from 24 hour personal exposure of people, non-occupationally exposed to formaldehyde, in conventional homes and caravans suggest that the home environment is the most important predictor of formaldehyde exposure. Measurements in conventional homes were able to account for between 54% and 61% of the variation of personal exposure. Measurements in caravans were able to account for 71% of the variation in personal exposure.

For people occupationally exposed to elevated concentrations of formaldehyde, personal exposure in the workplace is the most significant exposure in accounting for variation in 24 hour personal exposure. Time weighted models were not found to improve the explanation of variation in personal exposure.

This research derived models of formaldehyde exposure for people occupationally exposed to formaldehyde and identified concentrations in the home as the major determinant of personal exposure to people nonoccupationally exposed to formaldehyde. It also highlighted the complexity of personal exposure and the need to use time weighted models with some caution. The next step in research should be aimed at expanding these tests with different population sub-groups and the use of real time personal monitoring when the equipment is developed. This would facilitate a more complete description of personal exposure to formaldehyde and more accurate exposure models to assess the potential impact of formaldehyde on public health.


The purpose of this study was to analyze challenges perceived by students pursuing Diploma at the Institute of Adult Education (IAE). Specifically, the study examined the ways employed students in open and distance learning manage socio-economic challenges facing them; assessed ways diploma students relate workplaces with learning environment; and the ways they integrated their knowledge into work. Qualitative and quantitative research approches through questionnaires, interviews and Focus Group Discussion were used to understand these perceived challenges from 43 respondents at Tabora Regional Centre. The findings show that ODL diploma students managed challenges facing them by using evening and night time for their studies. They also took loans from financial institutions to support themselves financially. They also studied during weekends and sought part time teachers to help clarify issues that were not familiar to them. The study further found that majority of the respondents thought their workplaces were not favourable environments for supporting their learning. Moreover, the findings revealed that most distance students use their knowledge to improve their job performances, solved work-related challenges and provided guidance and counseling support services at their workplaces. The study recommends that; employers of distance students should find a better way to provide flexible school timetables to enable distance learners to study. Other recommendations include looking for various avenues to get financial support for their studies. For further studies, the study recommends studying of other levels such as degrees, masters and PhD level so as to generalize the current findings.


Purpose
The purpose of this study is to synthesise the prior literature on strategy maps to develop a practitioner's guide to the design of strategy map frameworks. Robert Kaplan and David Norton introduced the strategy map in their 2000 Harvard Business review article. A strategy map visually represents how the critical elements of an organisation's strategies are linked together. In an organisation's strategy execution process, a strategy map complements a performance measurement framework such as the balanced scorecard.

Design/methodology/approach
This is a technical paper, which primarily builds on the prior literature on the strategy map design. In particular, this study reviews 41 publications on strategy maps in the period 2000-2015, including observation of 333 strategy map frameworks.

Findings
This study develops 14 design principles across seven features of a strategy map framework. This study also identifies a significant lack of empirical research on strategy map design features and principles.

Research limitations/implications
Future research could examine whether and why various design features and principles could exert different or same effects (e.g. decision-relevance).

Practical implications
The developed design features and principles can be used by practitioners as guidance for developing customised strategy maps for their organisations.

Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature by serving as a "one-stop shop" for both practitioners and researchers seeking a comprehensive understanding of the current state of the strategy map design features and principles.


The information visualization process can be described as a set of transformations applied to raw data to produce interactive graphical representations of information for end-users. A challenge in information visualization is to provide flexible and powerful ways of describing and controlling this process. Most work in this domain address the problem at either application level or toolkit level. Approaches at the toolkit level are devoted to developers while approaches at the application level are devoted to end-users. Our approach build on previous work but goes one step beyond by proposing a unifying view of this process that can be used by both developers and end-users. Our contribution is a system named STOOG with a three-fold contribution: (1) a style-sheets based language for the explicit description of the transformation process at stake in information visualization, (2) an application that automatically builds interactive and graphical visualization of data based on style-sheet descriptions, (3) a user interface devoted to the conception of style sheets. In this paper, we present STOOG basic concepts and mechanisms and provide a case study to illustrate the benefits of using STOOG for the interactive and visual exploration of information.


Some readers may have found these results of greater interest were we able to confirm the directional hypotheses of the certainty setter model in addition to finding that spending is "related" to the reversion – the much weaker prediction of the uncertainty model. Yet the failure of the certainty

When base elections were optional, their infrequent occurrence might be expected under either a median voter or a setter model. For those districts that did hold base elections, the observations appear consistent with a setter model, but are either inexplicable by or inconsistent with a median voter model. Finally, both (a) the relationship between the number of budget elections and the presence of base elections, and (b) the outcome of mandatory base elections in 1978 provide a set of observations that are challenging to either model.

A similar challenge was posed by our investigation of budget elections when we called attention to the inadequacy of static, full information models. Rather than resolving the question of the simple setter model against the simple median voter model, our results indicate that both may be inappropriate and that endeavors dealing with complexities omitted here are warranted.


Te Hau Mihi Ata is a research project that aims to negotiate spaces for and develop processes of dialogue that allow for a deeper level of interaction between mātauranga Māori (Māori indigenous knowledge) and science. Over a two-year period a series of facilitated exchanges or "wānanga" were held focusing on areas of new technology (assisted reproductive technologies, life technologies, and future food technologies) that involved Māori scientists and people with expertise in mātauranga Māori. These dialogue events were designed to explore, through the challenge of considering new biotechnologies, the similarities and differences that emerge from approaching these issues from different knowledge paradigms. This paper will outline the key project findings from this series of exchanges including the barriers and facilitators to the dialogue process and knowledge exchange as well as discuss how participants created connections between scientific discourse and indigenous knowledge frameworks.


For rigid rotor that widely applied in gyroscopes, high precision dynamic balance is very important. The paper introduces a dynamic balance method for drum-shape gyroscope rotor: the rotor is supported by gas bearing; detecting the displacement of three points on the drum-shape rotor's end-plane, obtaining its normal direction. Then according to geometrical relation of geometric axis and polar inertia axis, the dynamic trace of the rotor can be obtained, and the rotor's mass imbalance is calculated. Experiment result shows that the method has high balance accuracy, particularly suit for high-speed gyroscope rotor whose mass imbalance is small.


In the marketing of tourist locations several strands can be exploited to stress the potentialities of a place: landscape, buildings, quality foods. European regulations connect local food to the place and to history in terms of growing or manufacturing praxis and of local traditions rooted in ways of preparing and of consuming it. In tourism, food products add to the travel experience since they can be employed to define the cultural identity of a location. This paper, while reckoning the role of quality local food products in tourism, wants to call attention to the added value British grand tourists' reports can play in defining the historical roots of quality food items. To this aim, the brief descriptions of Sicilian prickly pears from Arthur John Strutt, a British painter and a traveller, are reported, and discussed for the first time, as a means to better characterize the PDO cactus fruits grown in Sicily.


In the last decade, the III-N compounds have attracted much interest because of their applications in blue, violet and ultraviolet optoelectronics. Most of the devices and research use sapphire as a substrate for epitaxy of nitrides. However, these epi-structures contain a very high dislocation density induced by the 16% lattice mismatch between GaN and sapphire. In our laboratory, we grow single crystals of GaN at a high hydrostatic pressure of 10 kbar of nitrogen. These crystals have an ultra-low dislocation density and are successfully used for construction of violet laser diodes. This work presents experimental data of high resolution x-ray diffractometry and photoluminescence. This work consist of three parts: (i) comparison between GaN substrates and GaN/sapphire templates; (ii) influence of AlGaN layers on bowing of samples; (iii) microstructure of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells.


The effectiveness of a new structural material, namely textilereinforced mortar (TRM), was investigated experimentally in this study as a means of confining old-type reinforced concrete columns with limited capacity due to bar buckling or due to bond failure at lap splice regions. Comparisons with equal stiffness and strength fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) jackets allow for the evaluation of the effectiveness of TRM versus FRP. Tests were carried out on full scale non-seismically detailed RC columns subjected to cyclic uniaxial flexure under constant axial load. Thirteen cantilever-type specimens with either continuous longitudinal reinforcement (smooth or deformed) or lap splicing of longitudinal bars at the floor level were constructed and tested. Experimental results indicated that TRM jacketing is quite effective as a means of increasing the cyclic deformation capacity of old-type RC columns with poor detailing, by delaying bar buckling and by preventing splitting bond failures in columns with lap spliced bars. Compared with their FRP counterparts, TRM jackets used in this study were found to be equally effective in terms of increasing both the strength and deformation capacity of the retrofitted columns. From the response of specimens tested in this study, it can be concluded that TRM jacketing is an extremely promising solution for the confinement of reinforced concrete columns, including poorly detailed ones with or without lap splices in seismic regions.


Most of the loads in ac distribution systems have positive incremental impedance characteristic. However, power electronic loads, when tightly regulated, sink constant power from the system. Therefore, they have negative incremental impedance characteristic. This can cause negative impedance instability. Power electronic loads usually have a controlled or uncontrolled rectifier at the front end. In this paper, these loads are modeled using the generalized state-space averaging method. An assessment of their effects in ac distribution systems is also presented. Experimental results are presented to verify the proposed analysis.


Sulfoaluminate clinker presents a very interesting alternative to Portland clinker regarding sustainable development. An experimental program is undertaken using a sulfoaluminate clinker mixed with micro-ionized gypsum. We carry out series of tests on different mixes: rheology tests, water porosity, expansion tests, compressive strength tests at various ages, measurement of the temperature evolution during the cement hardening, alkalinity measures of the cement paste. An experimental design method is used, varying the water content, the gypsum content through S / A ratio, allowing the optimal design of the concrete mixture proportioning. Then we compare an optimal solution using this binder with a classical formulation based on Portland cement. We also evaluate environmental impact of the optimal solution versus a Portland cement solution.


This article explores some of the challenges of utilising collaborative research approaches when undertaking contracted research projects for government and non-government agencies in the adult and community education (ACE) sector. To discuss these challenges, the article draws on three recent examples of research projects undertaken for ACE sector organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand. These challenges include managing relationships with the different parties to the research; dealing with conflicting expectations of funding agencies, commissioning organisations and practitioners; and ownership and dissemination of findings. We highlight the complexity of notions of collaboration and the importance of deliberate trust-building in establishing credibility. We also open up for discussion the thorny issues of who owns the right to disseminate research findings and how far should researchers' and universities' responsibilities extend to ensure that research findings are put in the public domain?


ABSTRACT Hepatitis C virus (HCV) can be transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy and childbirth. However, the timing and precise biological mechanisms that are involved in this process are incompletely understood, as are the determinants that influence transmission of particular HCV variants. Here we report results of a longitudinal assessment of HCV quasispecies diversity and composition in 5 cases of vertical HCV transmission, including 3 women coinfected with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). The population structure of HCV variant spectra based on E2 envelope gene sequences (nucleotide positions 1491 to 1787), including hypervariable regions 1 and 2, was characterized using next-generation sequencing and median-joining network analysis. Compatible with a loose transmission bottleneck, larger numbers of shared HCV variants were observed in the presence of maternal coinfection. Coalescent Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations revealed median times of transmission between 24.9 weeks and 36.1 weeks of gestation, with some confidence intervals ranging into the 1st trimester, considerably earlier than previously thought. Using recombinant autologous HCV pseudoparticles, differences were uncovered in HCV-specific antibody responses between coinfected mothers and mothers infected with HCV alone, in whom generalized absence of neutralization was observed. Finally, shifts in HCV quasispecies composition were seen in children around 1 year of age, compatible with the disappearance of passively transferred maternal immunoglobulins and/or the development of HCV-specific humoral immunity. Taken together, these results provide insights into the timing, dynamics, and biologic mechanisms involved in vertical HCV transmission and inform preventative strategies. IMPORTANCE Although it is well established that hepatitis C virus (HCV) can be transmitted from mother to child, the manner and the moment at which transmission operates have been the subject of conjecture. By carrying out a detailed examination of viral sequences, we showed that transmission could take place comparatively early in pregnancy. In addition, we showed that when the mother also carried human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), many more HCV variants were shared between her and her child, suggesting that the mechanism and/or the route of transmission of HCV differed in the presence of coinfection with HIV-1. These results could explain why cesarean section is ineffective in preventing vertical HCV transmission and guide the development of interventions to avert pediatric HCV infection.


We propose a temporal latent space model for link prediction in dynamic social networks, where the goal is to predict links over time based on a sequence of previous graph snapshots. The model assumes that each user lies in an unobserved latent space, and interactions are more likely to occur between similar users in the latent space representation. In addition, the model allows each user to gradually move its position in the latent space as the network structure evolves over time. We present a global optimization algorithm to effectively infer the temporal latent space. Two alternative optimization algorithms with local and incremental updates are also proposed, allowing the model to scale to larger networks without compromising prediction accuracy. Empirically, we demonstrate that our model, when evaluated on a number of real-world dynamic networks, significantly outperforms existing approaches for temporal link prediction in terms of both scalability and predictive power.


In classical assimilation effects, intermediate luminance patches appear lighter when their immediate surround is comprised of white patches and appear darker when their immediate surround is comprised of dark patches. With patches either darker or lighter than both inducing patches, the direction of the brightness effect is reversed and termed as "inverted assimilation effect." Several explanations and models have been suggested, some are relevant to specific stimulus geometry, anchoring theory, and models that involve high level cortical processing (such as scission, etc.). None of these studies predicted the various types of assimilation effects and their inverted effects. We suggest here a compound brightness model, which is based on contrast-contrast induction (second-order adaptation mechanism). The suggested model predicts the various types of brightness assimilation effects and their inverted effects. The model is composed of three main stages: (1) composing post-retinal second-order opponent receptive fields, (2) calculations of local and remote contrast, and (3) adaptation of the second-order (contrast-contrast induction). We also utilize a variation of the Jacobi iteration process to enable elegant edge integration in order to evaluate the model is performance.


Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are deployed in a wide range of application scenarios. These typically involve monitoring or surveillance of animals or humans, infrastructure, or territories. Since security as well as privacy play an increasingly important role in these contexts, sensor nodes and sensor networks need to be protected from spurious environmental effects and malicious attacks. In addition to attacks known from conventional wireless networks, the specific properties of WSNs lead to new kinds of attack. Moreover, countermeasures are subject to strict resource limitations of the motes and, therefore, have to be light-weight and effective at the same time. In this paper, we first present a comprehensive security architecture for WSNs, consisting of different attack types (including WSN-specific attacks) and countermeasures. Second, we propose a modular Intrusion Detection System (IDS) as a framework for this architecture. Finally, we give details on selected modules and discuss practical implementation issues.


Abstract All over the world, the role of central banks is being redefined following the outbreak of the global financial crisis and subsequent breakdown of the "great moderation" consensus. Consequently, most advanced economies adopted non-conventional approaches of monetary policy which resulted in spill-overs to emerging markets and developing countries with implications on their financial system and monetary policy transmission. This, coupled with, internal developments in the financial systems of developing countries necessitated modifications of not only monetary policy frameworks but also responsibilities of most central banks. This chapter acknowledges possible evolutions of the financial structure variables in developing countries and uses data from Kenya to analyze the dynamic linkages between financial sector variables and monetary policy transmission in the light of the financial crisis. The study used structural vector autoregression to examine the relationship between financial structure variables and monetary policy as well as assess the relative importance of various monetary transmission channels in Kenya. The results show that the changing financial structure represented by credit to the private sector and stock market indicators in Kenya only slightly altered relative importance of monetary policy transmission. The insignificance of credit to the private sector suggests that the importance attached to the bank lending channel in previous studies is waning while the marginal significance of the stock market indicator signals the potential for asset price channel. The results also indicate that the interest rate and exchange rate channels are relatively more important in Kenya while the asset prices is only marginally significant and bank lending channel is the weakest in the intermediate stage of monetary policy transmission. However, transmission of monetary policy to the ultimate objectives is somewhat slow and weak to inflation and almost absent to output. The result implies a limited role of monetary policy on growth and questions the wisdom of pursuing multiple objectives.


Anthony Giddens has made original contributions to the fields of social theory, political sociology, the sociology of stratification and suicide. It has been said that he is one of the most outstanding sociologists living today. This set collects together carefully chosen secondary articles which bring out the scope of Giddens' work and show its importance for contemporary sociology.