Search

Objective: To compare the safety and efficacy of anti-leukotrienes and inhaled glucocorticoids as monotherapy in people with asthma. Design: Systematic review of randomised controlled trials comparing anti-leukotrienes with inhaled glucocorticoids for 28 days or more in children and adults. Main outcome measure: Rate of exacerbations that required treatment with systemic glucocorticoids. Results: 13 trials (12 in adults, one in children) met the inclusion criteria; all were in people with mild and moderate asthma. Leukotriene receptor antagonists were compared with inhaled glucocorticoids at a daily dose equivalent to 400–450 μg beclometasone dipropionate. Patients treated with leukotriene receptor antagonists were 60% more likely to suffer an exacerbation requiring systemic glucocorticoids (relative risk 1.6, 95% confidence interval 1.2 to 2.2; number needed to treat 27, 13 to 81). A 130 ml greater improvement (80 ml to 170 ml) in forced expiratory volume in one second and a 19 l/min greater increase (14 l to 24 l) in morning peak expiratory flow rate were noted in favour of inhaled glucocorticoids. Differences in favour of inhaled glucocorticoids were also observed for nocturnal awakenings, use of rescue β2 agonists, and days without symptoms. Risk of side effects was no different between groups, but leukotriene receptor antagonists were associated a 2.5-fold increase risk of withdrawals due to poor asthma control (relative risk 2.5, 1.8 to 3.5). Conclusions: Inhaled glucocorticoids doses equivalent to 400 μg/day beclometasone are more effective than leukotriene receptor antagonists in the treatment of adults with mild or moderate asthma. There is insufficient evidence to conclude on the efficacy of anti-leukotrienes in children. What is already known on this topic In 2000 a Cochrane systematic review tentatively concluded that control of asthma was better in patients treated with inhaled glucocorticoids as single agents than with anti-leukotrienes The 2002 Global Initiative for Asthma guidelines still classify the role of anti-leukotrienes as “under investigation” What this study adds Anti-leukotrienes as single agent are less effective than low doses of inhaled glucocorticoids for patients with mild and moderate persistent asthma

Contact Logics provide a natural framework for representing and reasoning about regions in several areas of computer science. In this paper, we focus our attention on reasoning methods for Contact Logics and address the satisfiability problem and the unifiability problem. Firstly, we give sound and complete tableaux-based decision procedures in Contact Logics and we obtain new results about the decidability/complexity of the satisfiability problem in these logics. Secondly, we address the computability of the unifiability problem in Contact Logics and we obtain new results about the unification type of the unifiability problem in these logics.

The Relationship Between Agricultural Prices and Food Prices This paper examines the relationships between agriculture, food processing, trade and retail, and consumers at the macro-economic level in France, between 1978 and 2005. The surplus account method is applied using input-output tables (IOT). In order to do so, volume and price indices are calculated for all the elements of the IOTs' to measure the productivity of agriculture and food processing industries and measure the transfers of purchasing power between various economic agents. Agriculture includes forestry and fishing. Food processing industries are divided into two sub-sectors: meat and dairy, and other food processing industries. Trade and retail activities are measured by marketing margins. To measure relationships between sectors, we use the table of intermediate inputs. Relationships with the rest of the world are taken into account through imports and exports. The subsidies and taxes are introduced either at the stage of production, or at the stage of use of products. Payments of factors in each sector are deducted from income accounts, their volume being calculated like an aggregate of the labour and fixed assets being used., Ce texte examine, sur le plan macroéconomique, les relations entre l'agriculture, les industries agro-alimentaires, le commerce et les consommateurs, en France, entre 1978 et 2005. La méthode des comptes de surplus est appliquée aux tableaux entrées-sorties pour mesurer la productivité de l'agriculture et des industries alimentaires et apprécier les transferts de pouvoir d'achat entre les différents agents. L'agriculture inclut la sylviculture et la pêche. Les industries sont divisées en deux branches, les industries de la viande et du lait et les autres industries alimentaires. L'activité du commerce est mesurée par les marges commerciales. Pour apprécier les relations entre branches, le tableau des entrées intermédiaires est utilisé. Les relations avec l'étranger sont prises en compte à travers les importations et les exportations. Les subventions et les taxes sont introduites soit au stade de la production, soit au stade de l'utilisation des produits. Le revenu des facteurs internes des branches est déduit des comptes d'exploitation, leur volume étant calculé comme un agrégat du travail et du capital fixe utilisés., Butault Jean-Pierre. La relation entre prix agricoles et prix alimentaires. In: Revue française d'économie, volume 23, n°2, 2008. pp. 215-241.

Spiral Architecture is a relatively new and powerful approach to general purpose machine vision system. On this novel architecture, image rotation is achieved by Spiral Multiplication. However, the general image rotation on Spiral Architecture has two effects. One is scaling segmentation and the other is rotation. This paper presents an algorithm to achieve image rotation without scaling on Spiral Architecture, which improves the Spiral Architecture’s usage in image processing.

Due to current improvements in techniques for islet isolation and transplantation and protocols for immunosuppressants, islet transplantation has become an effective treatment for severe diabetes patients. Many diabetic animal models have contributed to such improvements. In this paper, we focus on 3 types of models with different mechanisms for inducing diabetes mellitus (DM): models induced by drugs including streptozotocin (STZ), pancreatomized models, and spontaneous models due to autoimmunity. STZ-induced diabetes is one of the most commonly used experimental diabetic models and is employed using many specimens including rodents, pigs or monkeys. The management of STZ models is well established for islet studies. Pancreatomized models reveal different aspects compared to STZ-induced models in terms of loss of function in the increase and decrease of blood glucose and therefore are useful for evaluating the condition in total pancreatomized patients. Spontaneous models are useful for preclinical studies including the assessment of immunosuppressants because such models involve the same mechanisms as type 1 DM in the clinical setting. In conclusion, islet researchers should select suitable diabetic animal models according to the aim of the study.

This paper introduces strong bisimulation for continuous-time Markov decision processes (CTMDPs), a stochastic model which allows for a nondeterministic choice between exponential distributions, and shows that bisimulation preserves the validity of CSL. To that end, we interpret the semantics of CSL - a stochastic variant of CTL for continuous-time Markov chains - on CTMDPs and show its measure theoretic soundness. The main challenge faced in this paper is the proof of logical preservation that is substantially based on measure theory.

Transport levels continue to increase worldwide representing complex challenges to climate change prevention and the liveability of cities. Private car use in particular represents a critical problem due to its negative impacts on global climate, local air quality and congestion. In recent years, interest has arisen in the concept of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) as one possible path towards sustainable mobility futures. MaaS builds on the idea of a shift from private car ownershipto a seamlessly integrated system providing access to multimodal mobility options including public transport and shared mobility services like car and bike sharing. Currently, only few examples of MaaS exist (e.g. Whim in Finland) and knowledge of user experiences is limited.The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of how shared mobilities fit with the everyday life and social practices of citizens. Methodologically, the paper will draw on insights from qualitative interviews with families using shared mobility schemes in Copenhagen. The interviews will be informed by a practice theoretical approach focusing on how mobility practices are shaped through elements of materials, competences, and meaning (Shove and Pantzar, 2005) in order to study the ability of MaaS to fit people’s social practices. To inform the discussion of our empirical results, we include a literature review of existing studies of user experiences with Maas and a review and analysis of user practice representations in existing MaaS trials; i.e. how the use of MaaS is envisaged. challenges to climate change prevention and the liveability of cities. Private car use in particular represents a critical problem due to its negative impacts on global climate, local air quality and congestion. In recent years, interest has arisen in the concept of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) as one possible path towards sustainable mobility futures. MaaS builds on the idea of a shift from private car ownership to a seamlessly integrated system providing access to multimodal mobility options including public transport and shared mobility services like car and bike sharing. Currently, only few examples of MaaS exist (e.g. Whim in Finland) and knowledge of user experiences is limited.The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of how shared mobilities fit with the everyday life and social practices of citizens. Methodologically, the paper will draw on insights from qualitative interviews with families using shared mobility schemes in Copenhagen. The interviews will be informed by a practice theoretical approach focusing on how mobility practices are shaped through elements of materials, competences, and meaning (Shove and Pantzar, 2005) in order to study the ability of MaaS to fit people’s social practices. To inform the discussion of our empirical results, we include a literature review of existing studies of user experiences with Maas and a review and analysis of user practice representations in existing MaaS trials; i.e. how the use of MaaS is envisaged.

The interest in multivariate statistical process control (MSPC) has increased as the industrial processes have become more complex. This paper presents an industrial process involving a plastic part in which, due to the number of correlated variables, the inversion of the covariance matrix becomes impossible, and the classical MSPC cannot be used to identify physical aspects that explain the causes of variation or to increase the knowledge about the process behaviour. In order to solve this problem, a Multivariate Statistical Process Control based on Principal Component Analysis (MSPC-PCA) approach was used and an R code was developed to implement it according some commercial software used for this purpose, namely the ProMV (c) 2016 from ProSensus, Inc. (www.prosensus.ca). Based on used dataset, it was possible to illustrate the principles of MSPC-PCA. This work intends to illustrate the implementation of MSPC-PCA in R step by step, to help the user community of R to be able to perform it., FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia(UID/CEC/00319/2013)

The paper explores the uniqueness properties of the subjective probabilities in two axiomatizations of state-dependent preferences. Karni, Schmeidler, and Vind's (KSV 1983) system depends on selecting an arbitrary auxiliary probability, and as such, does not guarantee the uniqueness of the derived subjective probability. However, an axiom system initially designed by Karni and Schmeidler (KS 1981) and further elaborated upon here does guarantee the desired uniqueness as well as a useful property of “stability” of the derived solution. When the preference relation displays state-independence, even the KS probabilities may not agree with those derived from the classic Anscombe-Aumann (AA 1963) theorem. However, we claim that, in this case, the KS rather than the AA probabilities are the appropriate representation of the agent's beliefs.

In this paper, the problem of approximating a function defined on a finite subset of the real line by a family of generalized rational functions whose numerator and denominator spaces satisfy the Haar conditions on some closed interval [a, b] containing the finite set is considered. The pointwise closure of the family restricted to the finite set is explicitly determined. The representation obtained is used to analyze the convergence of best approximations on discrete subsets of [a, b] to best approximations over the whole interval (as the discrete subsets become dense) in the case that the function approximated is continuous on [a, b] and the rational family consists of quotients of algebraic polynomials. It is found that the convergence is uniform over [a, b] if the function approximated is a so-called normal point. Only L p {L_p} norms with 1 ⩽ p > ∞ 1 \leqslant p > \infty are employed.

The intention of this paper is to set forth for a potential user of approximate molecular orbital methods some of the precautions to be considered in their application and in the interpretation of the results.

A medical genetics clinic is a unique and complex environment in which care requires a combination of medical knowledge, social intelligence, and emotional sensitivity. We offer a few pearls from our medical genetics clinic that we hope will help the pediatric or general dermatologist when caring for patients with known or suspected genetic disorders. This paper addresses five main topics: When is it more than just atopic dermatitis? How should the clinician approach blistering in the newborn period? What is mosaicism? When is genetic testing useful? Where can clinician, patients, and families turn for available resources?

In the process of European integration, national constitutional law remains crucial, in several respects. The EU Constitution, in its broadest sense, builds on the common constitutional traditions and principles of the Member States, and EU law refers back to national constitutional law in many ways. National constitutional law contributes to constitutionalising the EU, to give it legitimacy, and to ensure that the EU and the Member States as its agents continue to comply with fundamental constitutional requirements, such as the rule of law, democracy and accountability, and the protection of fundamental rights. Also, from the national perspective, national constitutional law remains essential, since it provides the foundation of membership of the EU, it is decisive for the procedures to be followed when powers are transferred at times of accession and Treaty amendment, and it serves to provide the connection between the national and the EU legal orders. Participation in the EU requires adaptation of the national constitutional arrangements, and national constitutions should not be neglected in the process of the constitutionalisation of Europe. This paper looks into the national constitutional experience of the EU-15 with the EU and asks whether lessons can be learned for candidate countries.

This paper presents a work that aims to study seismo-electromagnetic phenomena in the Western Part of the Eurasia-Nubia Plate Boundary. This region has a significant tectonic activity combined with relatively low electromagnetic noise levels, rendering high quality seismo-electromagnetic measurements possible. An overview of the topic is made and future perspectives are presented.

This paper studies the dynamic time-varying formation control of multi-agent systems. Aiming at the unmanned vehicle systems, based on the static time-varying formation in literature [18], a multi-agent dynamic time-varying formation control based on consistency is put forward. Additionally, the sufficient conditions for the agreement and the steps for solving the control parameters are given. The simulation is conducted to prove the effectiveness and robustness of the theoretical results.

Software frameworks are difficult for plugin developers to use, even when they are well designed and documented. Some of these difficulties stem from the many constraints that frameworks impose on plugin code. These constraints might restrict operations from being called on certain objects, or they might restrict how long an object is available. Additionally, the constraints are relative to the current context of the plugin, and they can involve multiple, interacting framework objects. This paper proposes a lightweight specification system and analysis to check plugins from a semantic perspective, rather than a purely structural view.

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar las formas de sociabilidad entre estudiantes secundarios de dos escuelas de gestión estatal de la provincia de Buenos Aires en Argentina. Se trata de una investigación cualitativa cuyo corpus empírico está compuesto por sociogramas, entrevistas en profundidad y grupos focales realizados con alumnos durante los años 2012 y 2014. En un primer momento, se analizan los modos de agrupamiento de los jóvenes en cada una de sus escuelas. Luego, se indagan los motivos por los cuales los estudiantes se eligen o rechazan con sus compañeros. Por último, se interpreta que las diferentes formas de sociabilidad en cada escuela están asociadas al grado de movilidad del plantel estudiantil de cada institución. The aim of this paper is to analyze the forms of sociability among secondary school students in two state-managed schools in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The research was of a qualitative nature, and its empirical corpus consists of sociograms, in-depth interviews, and focus groups carried out with students in 2012 and 2014. First, the types of young people’s groups in each school are analyzed. Then the students’ motives for selecting or rejecting classmates are researched. Lastly, the different forms of sociability in each school are interpreted to be associated with the degree of student mobility in each institution. Fil: Di Napoli, Pablo Nahuel. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofia y Letras. Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias de la Educación; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina

This paper develops a model of crime analyzing how such behavior is associated with individual and neighborhood poverty. The model shows that even under relatively minimal assumptions, a connection between individual poverty and both property and violent crimes will arise, and moreover, neighborhood effects can develop, but will differ substantially in nature across crime types. A key implication is that greater economic segregation in a city should have no effect or a negative effect on property crime, but a positive effect on violent crime. Using IV methods, I show this implication to be consistent with the empirical evidence.

This paper proposes a novel approach to design a controller in discrete time for the class of uncertain nonlinear systems in the presence of magnitude constrains of control signal which are treated as the saturation nonlinearity. A associative law between reinforcement learning algorithm based on adaptive NRBF neural networks and the theory of robust control Ho is set up in a novel control structure, in which the proposed controller allows learning and control on-line to compensate multiple uncertain nonlinearities as well as minimizing both the H. tracking performance index function and the unknown nonlinear dynamic approximation errors. The novel theorem of robust stabilization of the closed-loop system is declared and proved. Simulation results verify the theoretical analysis.

Today, around the world, Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) project finance model is used frequently in numerous projects. One key aspect to the success of project company who wishing to gain BOT tender is to prepare a financial package consistent with the expectations of the related participants in accordance with BOT contract. The debt to equity ratio, the concession length and the unit prices are the important financial decision variables to be determined by the project company. The objective of this paper is to present financial optimization model including two different procurement objectives; (1) potential of winning a BOT project and (2) potential of finding debt. The optimization model solved by multi-objective evolutionary algorithm generate a set of pareto solutions to help project company assess the trade-offs between the two competing objectives. To show application of the model, a real airport YİD project in Turkey study is conducted., Bugün dünyada pek çok projede Yap İşlet Devret (YİD) proje finansman modelinin sıklıkla kullanıldığını gözlemlemekteyiz. YİD ihalesini kazanmak isteyen proje şirketinin başarısı için kilit görüş, YİD sözleşmesi gereğince ilişkide olduğu tarafların beklentileriyle uyumlu finansal bir paket hazırlamasıdır. Proje şirketinin belirleyeceği özsermaye borç oranı, imtiyaz (çalışma) süresi ve ürün/hizmetlerin birim fiyatları önemli finansal karar değişkenleridir. Proje şirketinin ihaleyi kazanma potansiyeli ve borç bulma potansiyeli iki farklı ihale hedefidir. Çalışmanın amacı, bu hedefleri içeren finansal optimizasyon modelini sunmaktır. Çok amaçlı evrimsel algoritma ile çözümlenen model, pareto çözümler kümesi sunarak, iki çelişen amaç arasındaki değişimi değerlendirmede karar vericilere yardımcı olmaktadır. Modelin uygulaması için Türkiye’deki bir havaalanı YİD projesi verileri kullanılmıştır.

The meaning of psychosocial factors for the course of breast cancer--First results of a prospective research project. Studies investigating the meaning of psychosocial factors for the course of cancerous diseases have so far been contradictious. In this paper the basic datas and first results of a prospective research project on this topic covering 107 breast cancer patients are reported. Somatic datas such as stage of lymph-nodes, type of surgery and additional treatments (radiation therapy or chemotherapy), are less important for the coping process 6 months after primary treatment than the cognitive attitudes of the patients toward their disease. About 56 percent of the patients coped quite well with their disease, 44 percent showed difficulties. The group of patients whose somatic and psychosocial prognosis was judged rather unfavorably at the time of the first examination, showed the highest rate of recidivation and progredience in the follow-up of the first 12 months.

In the field of Business Process Management formal models for the control flow of business processes have been designed since more than 15 years. Which methods are best suited to verify the bulk of these models? The first step is to select a formal language which fixes the semantics of the models. We adopt the language of Boolean systems as reference language for Boolean process models. Boolean systems form a simple subclass of coloured Petri nets. Their characteristics are low tokens to model explicitly states with a subsequent skipping of activations and arbitrary logical rules of type AND, XOR, OR etc. to model the split and join of the control flow. We apply model checking as a verification method for the safeness and liveness of Boolean systems. Model checking of Boolean systems uses the elementary theory of propositional logic, no modal operators are needed. Our verification builds on a finite complete prefix of a certain T-system attached to the Boolean system. It splits the processes of the Boolean system into a finite set of base processes of bounded length. Their behaviour translates to formulas from propositional logic. Our verification task consists in checking the satisfiability of these formulas. In addition we have implemented our model checking algorithm as a java program. The time needed to verify a given Boolean system depends critically on the number of initial tokens. Because the algorithm has to solve certain SAT-problems, polynomial complexity cannot be expected. The paper closes with the model checking of some Boolean process models which have been designed as Event-driven Process Chains.

The Cygnus Dual Beam Radiographic Facility consists of two identical radiographic sources each with a dose rating of ∼4-rad at 1 m, and a ∼1-mm diameter spot size. The development of the rod pinch diode (RPD) was responsible for the ability to meet these criteria. The RPD in each machine uses a 0.75-mm tungsten diameter tapered anode rod extended through a 9-mm diameter cathode aperture. When properly configured, the electron beam born off the aperture edge can self-insulate and pinch onto the tip of the rod creating an intense, small x-ray source. These sources are utilized in concert with an imaging system on complex experiments, which are single-shot, high-value events. In such an application there is an emphasis on machine performance (reliability and reproducibility). Vacuum quality is a significant determinator for source performance. In this paper we discuss the Cygnus Dual Beam Radiographic Facility, the associated vacuum systems, vacuum monitor calibration and a multi-purpose vacuum chamber. Vacuum system performance, using various enhancements, will be reported. Using the vacuum system enhancements, as well as other machine tweaks, recent source performance has improved. This new level of performance will be presented via dosimetry and electrical measurements.

The performance of spatial modulation (SM) is known to be dominated by the minimum Euclidean distance (MED) in the received SM constellation. In this paper, a symbol scaling technique is proposed for SM in the multiple-inputmultiple- output (MIMO) channel that enhances the MED to improve the performance of SM. This is achieved by forming fixed sets of candidate pre-scaling factors for the transmit antennas, which are randomly generated and are known at both the transmitter and receiver. For a given channel realization, the transmitter chooses the specific set of factors that maximizes the MED. Given the channel state information readily available at the receiver for detection, the receiver independently chooses the same set of pre-scaling factors and uses them for the detection of both the antenna index and the symbol of interest. We analytically calculate the attainable gains of the proposed technique in terms of its transmit diversity order based on both the distribution of the MED and on the theory of classical order statistics. Furthermore, we show that the proposed scheme offers a scalable performance-complexity tradeoff for SM by varying the number of candidate sets of pre-scaling factors, with significant performance improvements compared to conventional SM.

This paper examines 1,089 private equity (PE) backed and non-PE backed (pure) UK buy-outs, determinants of their survival, and their exit behaviour during the period of 1966-2004. Our results suggest that 56% of the pure sample buy-outs remained in a buy-out organisational form for at least seven years after the original buy-out transaction, thus lending support to views that buy-outs present long rather than short term form. PE backed buy-outs exhibit higher exit rates, fewer early (within 12 months) exits and fewer liquidations than their pure counterparts. Buy-outs sponsored by PE syndicates, those harvested during periods with strong market conditions and greater supply of PE funding, tend to have shorter longevity. The most notable difference between the survival experiences of PE backed and pure buy-outs is documented in IPO exits, where a significant number of pure buy-outs exit early to the Alternative Investment Market (AIM). © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

The genus Adenocalymma Mart. ex Meisn,. originally described with 18 species, is currently represented by about 60 species distributed throughout tropical America. The name Adenocalymma is a compound of two Greek words: aden, adenos (m.) = glands, and kalymma (n.) = head-covering. This characteristic, glands on the calyx, is found in almost all species. Although Martius (in herb.) coined the generic name Adenocalymma, the spelling Adenocalymna was used by Meisner (l.c. 1840) when he published the original description of the genus. A year later, Endlicher (Ench. Bot.: 347. 1841), in a list of genera of Bignoniaceae, used the spelling Adenocalymma. As result two different spellings, Adenocalymma and Adenocalymna, were published. That used by Endlicher (I.c.) could be either a typographic error or a correction of the Meisner's spelling. Subsequently, Meisner, himself, in the index to his previous works (PI. Vasc. Gen. 2: 374. 1843), used the spelling Adenocalymma. This seems to have been a correction, made by the author himself, to the spelling he had used previously. In spite of that, de Candolle (Prodr. 9: 199. 1845), whose work has long been considered as a second reference for the genus, returned to Meisner's original spelling (Adenocalymna). Bureau (Bul. Soc. Bot. France 19: 19-20. 1872) pointed out that the original spelling used by Meisner (I.c. 1840) and adopted by de Candolle (l.c.) (Adenocalymna) was wrong: "Dans le tableau qui precede, nous avons ecrit Adenocalymma et non Adenocalymna. Ce genre a ete reconnu par Martius, et inscrit par lui dans son herbier, des 1839, avec l'orthographe que nous lui donnons ici, c'est-a-dire avec deux m. J'ai vu plus de dix etiquettes de la main de Martius, toutes redigees conformement a l'etymologie grecque, et dans l'Enchiridion d'Endlicher, qui a paru en 1841, on trouve le meme nom cite sous la forme correcte: Adenocalymma. Ce nom est en effet compose du substantif masculin a6rbv, evoL (glande), et du substantif neutre Xacuptatc, aro (enveloppe); il exprime un des caracteres les plus apparents du genre, dont le calice porte de larges glandes aplaties. C'est donc par erreur que ce genre a ete publie en 1845, dans le Prodromus, sous la forme Adenocalymna, et nous sommes autorises a retablir l'orthographe veritable, en vertu de l'article 66 des Lois de la nomenclature botanique". Although Bureau's paper could be considered a formal and legal correction of spelling of the generic name, acceptable under Art. 60.1 of the current Code, his judgement has not been universally accepted.

From the point of view of a data warehouse system, collecting and receiving information from source systems is crucial for all subsequent business intelligence applications. Incoming information can generally be classified into two types: (1) the state-oriented data and (2) event-oriented data or transactional data, which contains information about the change performed by processes on the instances of information objects. On the way towards achieving the goal of a full-fledged active data warehouse it becomes more and more important to provide data with minimal latency. In this paper we focus on dimensional data which is provided by general data warehouse applications. The information transfer is performed via messages containing the change of information on the dimension instances. The proposed approach is able to validate the event-messages, reconstruct the complete history of the dimension and provide a well applicable ''comprehensive slowly changing dimension'' (cSCD) interface for queries on the historical and current state of the dimension. A description of the prototype implementation for this kind of an ''active integration'' in a data warehouse and a case study at T-Mobile conclude the paper.

Rework in construction projects can cause significant waste of cost and time. Within lean construction practice, rework minimisation is of most interest among project managers. However, less attention has been paid to investigating rework reduction or avoidance in the housing supply chain. Given the increasing costs incurred due to rework generation, innovative approaches to reduce and avoid rework throughout the housing supply chain has never been more urgently required. Elaborating the root causes of rework is essential as it clearly highlights the role of various supply chain contributors. This paper investigates the root causes of rework in construction projects in general and in housing projects in particular. More specifically, the impact of rework on the entire housing supply chain will be explained.

The luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN requires the installation of additional collimators in the dispersion suppressor regions of the accelerator. The upgrade foresees the installation of one additional collimator on either side of interaction point 7 (IP7) at the location of the existing main dipoles (MBs) that will be replaced by shorter and more powerful dipoles, and of one additional collimator on either side of IP2 at the location of existing empty cryostats. This paper describes the design and the construction status of the full-length prototype of the 11-T dipole magnet, which is needed for IP7. This magnet features a two-in-one structure, like the LHC MB, impregnated coils made of Nb3Sn conductor, an inner bore of 60 mm, and a magnetic length of about 5.3 m. Two 11-T magnets are needed to replace a 15-m long MB. A by-pass cryostat placed in between the two magnets allows creating a room temperature space for the additional collimators. The magnet is designed to provide the same integrated field as the MB at nominal field. However, due to the difference in transfer function at lower field, a correction by means of a trim current has been considered. A full-length prototype is currently under construction at CERN with the goal of developing the manufacturing and inspection procedures prior to launch the series production. For this, new tooling has been developed and optimized during the fabrication of fully representative practice coils. This paper describes the design of the magnet, the main manufacturing steps, and corresponding quality indicators, which will be used to monitor the series production. Finally, the production and installation schedule will be presented.

This paper present the experimental work of double unit tunnel form building (TFB) subjected to in-plane lateral cyclic loading. A one third scale of 3-storey double unit of TFB is tested until its strength degradation. Then, the TFB is repaired and retrofitted using additional shear wall, steel angle and CFRP sheet. The crack patterns, lateral strength, stiffness, ductility and equivalent viscous damping (EVD) were analyzed and compared before and after repair and retrofit. The result indicates that the lateral strength increases by 22% in pushing and 27% in pulling direction. Moreover, the stiffness and ductility obtained before and after retrofit increase tremendously by 87.87% and 39.66%, respectively. Meanwhile, the energy absorption measured by equivalent viscous damping obtained after retrofit increase by 12.34% in pulling direction. It can be concluded that the proposed retrofit method is capable to increase the lateral strength capacity, stiffness and energy absorption of double unit TFB., {"references":["H. Kaplani, S. Yilmazi, N. Centinkaya and E. Atimtay \"Seismic\nstrengthening of RC structures with exterior shear walls\", Sadhana Vol.\n36, Part 1, February 2011, pp. 17-34, © Indian Academy of Sciences","S. Altin, U. Ersoyand T. Tankut, \"Hysteretic response of reinforce\nconcrete infilled frames\", ASCE J. Struct. Eng., 1992, 118(8): 2133–\n2150.","N. H. Hamid, N. D. Hadi, and K. D. Ghani, \"Retrofitting of beamcolumn\njoint using CFRP and steel plate\", International Journal of Civil,\nArchitectural Science and Engineering, 7, 542-548, 2013.","K. D. Ghani and N. H. Hamid, \"Seismic performance of SFRC beamcolumn\njoint with corbel under reversible lateral cyclic loading\",\nInternational Journal of Engineering and Technology (IACSIT), 4(1),\n76-80, 2012.","C. Balkaya and E. Kalkan, \"Nonlinear seismic response evaluation of\ntunnel form building structures\", Computational Structural Journal, 81,\npp 153-165, (2002).","S. Bahadir Yuksel, and E. Kalkan, \"Behaviour of tunnel form building\nunder quasi-static cyclic lateral loading\", Structural Engineering and\nMechanics, Vol. 4, No. 1, 26-33, 2012.","A. Abdul Razzaq Nasser Al-Aghabari, S.H. Hamzah, N.H. Hamid, and\nN. Rahman, \"Structural performance of two types wall slab connection\nunder out-of-plane lateral cyclic loading\", Journal of Engineering\nScience and Technology, Vol. 7, No. 2, 177-194, 2012.","S.A Anuar, N.H Hamid, and M.H. Hashim, \"Comparison of seismic\nbehaviour for a single unit tunnel form RC building before and after\nrepaired\", Advanced Material Research, Vol. 905, pp 254-258, 2014."]}

Purpose: Ludruk has a socio-cultural role for the people of East Java in the effort to preserve and develop the local culture. Especially as performing arts, ludruk can act as entertainment that can be enjoyed by various layers of society in East Java, the purpose of this study is: Describe the Improvement of the Management of the Organization of Performing Arts Ludruk Irama Sinar Nusantara Culture. Design/methodology/approach: This research is a qualitative sociological phenomenological study, based on the literature review. The data in this study form qualitative data consisting of three types, namely data behavior, oral data, and writing data. Instruments in this study are researchers themselves. Data analysis in this research consists of several activities that are done jointly, according to Miles and Huberman data reduction, display data and conclusion drawing / verification. Findings: The results of this study are: 1) In general in the approach of critical theorists of art and entertainment ludruk is the idea that they deserve attention for three reasons. First, the contents of art and works present a potentially revealing story of the human, social, and world way of working in the same way as the myth that offers a mimetic representation of the world of life experience. Secondly, ludruk as a means of art and entertainment produced reflects something from the way people live with real conditions is significant. Third, ludruk as an art, if not entertainment how able to entertain the fans as they start to switch to other entertainment. 2) Changes in the paradigm of technical managers in management skills so that the focus to practice the skills required to successfully manage ludruk seriously from various circles to preserve and develop it, to build maximum functional relationships with internal and external clients, it must have a management infusion by adopting the model most recently covering the organizational structure, the function of the marketing channel for the performing arts will lead to the improvement of the delivery of performing arts through more effective inter-organizational management, or certain services to predetermined consumption points, and more importantly improved performance is a change organizations in which managers and organizations that organize organizations place and manage programs that measure the current level of organizational performance and then generate ideas to modify organizational behavior and infrastructure incorporated into the temp at to achieve higher results. Originality/value: This paper is original Paper type: a Research Paper

This paper examines the practices of political branding that inform American election campaigns, deploying concepts such as ethical surplus, scripted messages, emotional appeal, and authenticity. Many politicians use such appeals to achieve the three goals of television campaign advertising: voter choice, voter mobilization, and voter acquisition. With reference to these concepts, my research question asks how candidates branded themselves in contrast to how their opponents branded them. This question was answered using the case study of Minnesota’s 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 8th congressional districts because these four seats switched parties during the 2018 midterm election. I examined a total of 77 ads: 28 positive and 47 negative. Within these districts, there was one female candidate and seven male candidates. The findings showed that all the candidates, whether they won or lost, employed ethical surplus, scripted messages, emotional appeals and authenticity, trying to make themselves look better or their opponent look worse. All of these ads, positive or negative, attempted to address the three goals of television campaign advertising and spread their message through scripted emotional appeals while trying to create ethical surplus and authenticity with their constituents. This research shows the differences between political parties in television advertisements and the impact that these ads may have. With the 2020 United States Election coming up on November 3rd, 2020, this research can offer valuable insight into campaign tactics, and the branding of politicians in television advertisements for flipping seats.

Background The health system in South Sudan faces extreme domestic resource constraints, low capacity, and protracted humanitarian crises. Supportive supervision is believed to improve the quality of health care and service delivery by compensating for flaws in health workforce management. This study aimed to explore the current supervision practices in South Sudan and identify areas for quality improvement. Methods The study employed qualitative approaches to collect and analyse data from six purposefully selected counties. Data were collected from 194 participants using semi-structured interviews (43 health managers) and focus group discussions (151 health workers). Thematic content analysis was used to yield an in-depth understanding of the supervision practices in the health sector. Results The study found that integrated supportive supervision and monitoring visits were the main approaches used for health services supervision in South Sudan. Supportive supervision focused more on health system administration and less on clinical matters. Although fragmented, supportive supervision was carried out quarterly, while monitoring visits were either conducted monthly or ad hoc. Prioritization for supportive supervision was mainly data driven. Paper-based checklists were the most commonly used supervision tools. Many supervisors had no formal training on supportive supervision and only learned on the job. The health workers received on-site verbal feedback and, most times, on-the-job training sessions through coaching and mentorship. Action plans developed during supervision were inadequately followed up due to insufficient funding. Insecurity, poor road networks, lack of competent health managers, poor coordination, and lack of adequate means of transport were some of the challenges experienced during supervision. The presumed outcomes of supportive supervision were improvements in human resource management, drug management, health data reporting, teamwork, and staff respect for one another. Conclusion Supportive supervision remains a daunting task in the South Sudan health sector due to a combination of external and health system factors. Our study findings suggest that strengthening the processes and providing inputs for supervision should be prioritized if quality improvement is to be attained. This necessitates stronger stewardship from the Ministry of Health, integration of different supervision practices, investment in the capacity of the health workforce, and health infrastructure development.

In this paper, several characterizations for s-closed spaces are obtained using regular semiclosed sets and some sets having two properties of near openness and near closedness in the same time. Images of s-closed spaces under some noncontinuous mappings are investigated. The relations between s-closedness and near compactness, co-compactness, almost co-compactness, light compactness, mild compactness are obtained. S-closed subsets relative to a semi-T2-spaces are also discussed. في هذا البحث بعض الخواص الجديدة لفراغات س - المغلقة التي قدمها طومسون عام 1967 ، وذلك باستخدام بعض المجموعات التي لها خاصية قريبة الانفتاح وقريبة الانغلاق في آن واحد ، كما تم مناقشة صور الفراغات س - المغلقة تحت تأثير بعض الرواسم غير المتصلة ، كما تضمن البحث دراسة عن علاقة الانغلاق السيني ببعض أنواع الأصماط ، واحتوى البحث كذلك على مناقشة للمجموعات الجزئية السينية المغلقة بالنسبة لفراغ T2 النصفي .

I'm sorry that there is a gap in this paper., Comment: 50 pages without figures, minor corrections at page 31 and page 48. New version

Due to the large amount of CO2 emissions produced nowadays by the construction sector, the scientific community is looking for measures that will bring constructions to the be as environmental-friendly as possible. One of the most popular lines of research is the use of construction waste as recycled aggregates for the production of recycled aggregates concrete. Regarding the use of coarse recycled aggregates, there are a large number of studies that validate their use at both a mechanical and durability levels. Regarding the use of fine particles, which are inherent to the existence of coarse particles, it is necessary to increase the existing knowledge before they can be widely used. In this paper, the authors have sought to isolate the weakest part of those concrete mixes with exclusively recycled aggregate, i.e. a mortar made exclusively with fine recycled aggregates, in order to analyse the effect of drying-wetting cycles on mixes with recycled aggregates only. Specifically, three types of fine aggregates were used, one natural silica aggregate, one aggregate from crushed ballast and one from crushed sleepers. The mortars made with these aggregates were subjected to 50 durability cycles in distilled water, seawater and water with sulphates. Mechanical, visual and microstructural tests were carried out to analyse the effect of each of these environments on each of the mortars.

This paper examines the postlitigation history of an English nuisance case of 1858 concerning pollution of the river Tame caused by sewage from the city of Birmingham. This case is a classic citation that purports to illustrate the absence in English nuisance law of a social benefit defense for nuisance. As the court’s judgment in law found in favor of an individual landowner against Birmingham, population 250,000, property rights were manifestly awarded where benefits were lower. Coase’s theorem arguments would expect that postlitigation negotiations would ensue, and in this case such negotiations did occur but broke down. The legal conflict stretched on over nearly 40 years, while the pollution was, in practice, allowed to continue. The argument is made that the English court, in effect, by failing to enforce its decisions robustly, did take note of the calamitous social effects that would have followed a rigorous enforcement of the court’s orders.

The development of technology in many ways determines the business concepts and way of business processes at all levels of business. Tourism business, today can not be imagined without the integration of Internet and the Web in everyday business practice. Semantic Web (which deals with aspects of the meaning) is an extension of the World Wide Web as seen through the integration of "machine" technology and human intelligence (human brain), and is often described in different ways as a utopian vision, website data-information, or paradigm change in everyday use of web. Modern business via the web starts from the behavioral approach of all involved in the business process, particularly in the area of online promotion, whereby the base of a dynamic web site should be automatism which is based on the results of semantic analysis. Business via the web is increasingly important and dominant in the business. Business “Systems” - companies in the tourism industry must follow modern trends and continuously adopt technological changes from the global context.In this way the positive effect is visible at the web site user side (satisfaction) and on the better business results on the other hand. The main feature of this paper is to present behavioral models in the tourism business through the prism of the Semantic Web paradigm., Razvoj tehnologije u mnogočemu determinira poslovne koncepte i način odvijanja poslovnih procesa na svim razinama poslovanja. Poslovanje u turizmu danas se nemože niti zamisliti bez integracije interneta i weba u svakodnevnoj poslovnoj praksi. Semantički web (koji se bavi aspektima značenja) je proširenje World Wide Weba promatrano kroz integraciju “stroja”, tehnologije i ljudske inteligencije (ljudskog mozga), a često se opisuje na različite načine kao utopijska vizija, web podatak ili pak promjena paradigme u svakodnevnom korištenju weba. Suvremeno poslovanje putem weba polazi od bihevioralnog pristupa svih involviranih u poslovni proces, posebice u segmentu on line promocije pri čemu bi temelj dinamike određenog web site-a trebao biti automatizam upravljan ponderiranim razultatima semantičke analize. Poslovanje putem weba sve je značajnije i dominantnije u poslovanju. Poslovni subjekti u turizmu moraju se suvremenim trendovima i promijenama stalno prilagođavati kako bi ne samo zadržali konkurentnosti učinkovito pozitivno djelovali na zadovoljstvo korisnika svoga “weba” i na svoje poslovanje uopće, već da bi i opstali. Glavna značajka ovoga rada jest predstavljanje bihevioralnog modela poslovanja u turizmu predstavljenog kroz prizmu semantičkog weba.

In this paper, we characterize the class of all spaces X whose products with a fixed non-Archimedan space Y are normal. In particular, we give a characterization of all spaces X whose products with every ω μ -metrizable space are normal.

В статье обсуждаются теоретические подходы к рассмотрению процессов формирования механизмов, контролирующих в ситуации речевого общения этнокультурную «адекватность» порождаемых смыслов. Цель статьи анализ факторов, которые определяют формирование психических механизмов, регламентирующих этнокультурную смысловую направленность речевых высказываний. В работе предлагается в качестве инструмента, контролирующего этнокультурную направленность порождаемых смыслов, рассматривать внутренний этнокультурный способ формирования мысли., The paper discusses the theoretical approaches to consideration of processes relevant to forming mechanisms that control ethno-cultural “adequacy” of meanings generated during speech communication. The purpose of the article is analysis of factors defining forming of mechanisms regulating ethno-cultural semantic direction of verbal utterances. The paper proposes and theoretically substantiates considering internal ethno-cultural way of thought forming as an instrument for forming mechanisms controlling ethno-cultural direction of generated meanings. The author offers associative verbal methods used in cognitive linguistics as experimental methods of investigating the internal ethno-cultural way of thought forming. The following conclusions are drawn in the paper. Internal ethno-cultural way of thought forming is internal ethno-cultural way of non-verbal thinking. Idio-ethnic peculiarities of non-verbal thinking of representatives of the given ethno-cultural community are implemented in internal ethno-cultural way of thought forming. At the same time, the internal ethno-cultural way of thought forming is objectified in character of definite combinations, sequences, configurations and etc., formed by means of units of subject-schematic code, which reveals itself in categorical structures of experimentally researched “operative” (N.N. Boldyrev) concepts. The results obtained in the study may be used in psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, conflictology, psychology of thinking.

Investment decisions in the development and production of new aircraft models is difficult because of the technical and market uncertainties associated with such a complex process. The accompanying risks can be mitigated through a flexible approach that incorporates several decision points at different stages of the process. Therefore, as the project evolves, management will be able to diagnose its progress, compare it to previous expectations, and decide to continue or not. In this paper, we present a methodology to evaluate flexible business strategies that is based on real options analysis (ROA) and Monte Carlo simulation. This methodology takes into account the flexibility that managers have to affect the success of any given project and, therefore, it provides a better estimate of project value. Numerical results are given for a representative process based on actual aircraft manufacturer's data.

The interaction with consume products has been changing due to the development of the technology, which often turns out to be a barrier rather than an opportunity for people with disabilities. Appliances in general and particularly washing machines have gone from having physical controls to have touch controls. For that reason, the main objective of this paper is to analyse the accessibility of washing machine interfaces. Therefore, a sample of four washing machines has been selected. After that, using Hierarchical Task Analysis and observation tools the sequence of use has been defined and demanded capabilities have been evaluated. Eventually, by means of the Exclusion Calculator the number of excluded people for the interaction with the machines has been obtained, not only in terms of capacities, but also regarding their age. At this point, the results define the main characteristics to consider when designing accessible washing machines.

Despite strong economic growth, investment in basic urban infrastructure -- water supply, wastewater removal and treatment, roads, and other capital-intensive systems -- has failed to keep pace with urban growth, leaving a critical urban infrastructure deficit. At the same time, urban lands in these many developing countries are among the most expensive in the world. Much of this land is owned by public authorities. Significant parts of it lie vacant, unused for public service provision or inappropriate for conversion to higher-valued economic activity. A composite public-sector balance sheet for India's urban areas would show an asset mix strong on public-sector landholdings but weak on infrastructure. This raises the following questions: Can some excess public-sector land be exchanged for infrastructure, in a manner that is politically acceptable and economically efficient? Can public land sales be a realistic source of finance for critically needed urban infrastructure investment? This paper considers the policy context that has shaped different land-disposal and earmarking initiatives, provides details about the actual workings of institutions, and examines international experience in infrastructure investment. This study contributes to the consultative process underway in India to consider strategies to unlock public land values to help finance urban infrastructure investment.

The eglA gene, encoding a thermostable endoglucanase from the hyperthermophilic archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus , was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli . The nucleotide sequence of the gene predicts a 319-amino-acid protein with a calculated molecular mass of 35.9 kDa. The endoglucanase has a 19-amino-acid signal peptide but not cellulose-binding domain. The P. furiosus endoglucanase has significant amino acid sequence similarities, including the conserved catalytic nucleophile and proton donor, with endoglucanases from glucosyl hydrolase family 12. The purified recombinant enzyme hydrolyzed β-1,4 but not β-1,3 glucosidic linkages and had the highest specific activity on cellopentaose (degree of polymerization [DP] = 5) and cellohexaose (DP = 6) oligosaccharides. To a lesser extent, EglA also hydrolyzed shorter cellodextrins (DP < 5) as well as the amorphous portions of polysaccharides which contain only β-1,4 bonds such as carboxymethyl cellulose, microcrystalline cellulose, Whatman paper, and cotton linter. The highest specific activity toward polysaccharides occurred with mixed-linkage β-glucans such as barley β-glucan and lichenan. Kinetics studies with cellooliogsaccharides and p -nitrophenyl-cellooligosaccharides indicated that the enzyme had three glucose binding subsites (−I, −II, and −III) for the nonreducing end and two glucose binding subsites (+I and +II) for the reducing end from the scissile glycosidic linkage. The enzyme had temperature and pH optima of 100°C and 6.0, respectively; a half-life of 40 h at 95°C; and a denaturing temperature of 112°C as determined by differential scanning calorimetry. The discovery of a thermostable enzyme with this substrate specificity has implications for both the evolution of enzymes involved in polysaccharide hydrolysis and the occurrence of growth substrates in hydrothermal vent environments.

Windows 95 may provide a major stimulus to Intelligent Network (IN) development, to real technological convergence between computing and telecommunication, and to a major reordering of research priorities in the field. The paper examines IN in the context of the evolution of convergence and the larger framework of information superhighway, infrastructure and society developments. It shows how the pace and direction of IN development will be driven by demand associated with organisational and institutional change, not the simple supply of greater capacity or the discovery of ‘killer applications’. This will be associated with a shift in priorities to distributed networking, information-based service development and a diversity of very specific new applications.

A potential new process to styrene monomer from n-butane consists of oxidation of n-butane to butadiene followed by dimerization of butadiene to 4-vinylcyclohexene (VCH) and oxydehydrogenation of VCH to styrene. In this paper we report a catalyst which provides 40%–50% conversion of n-butane at 80% selectivity to butadiene and the n-butenes when exposed to 5–10 s pulses of n-butane followed by air regeneration. The optimum catalyst consists of 15%–25% MoO 3 dispersed on MgO. The addition of small amounts of alkali metal compounds are used to minimize the production of carbon oxides. Characterization of these catalysts by laser Raman spectroscopy and XANES indicates that octahedral polymolybdates and micro crystals of MgMoO 4 are initially the major species at molybdenum loadings corresponding to maximum activity on fresh catalyst. Designed experiments have resulted in models predicting the relationship of selectivity and conversion for various process conditions.

This paper examines changes residential rooftop solar customers make to their demand and energy usage when they take service on a demand rate, and the impact those changes have on their bills and the utilities' cost of service.

In heterogeneous wireless networks, random packet loss and high latency lead to conventional TCP variants performing unsatisfactorily in the case of competing communications. Especially on high-latency wireless links, conventional TCP variants are unable to estimate congestion degrees accurately for fine-grained congestion control because of the effects of random packet loss and delay oscillations. This paper proposes a TCP variant at the sender side to identify congestion degrees, namely TCP-WBQ, which quickly responses to the real congestion and effectively shields against random packet loss and oscillations of latency time. The proposed algorithm of congestion control firstly constructs a backlog-queue model based on the dynamics of the congestion window, and deduces the two bounds of the model which delimit oscillations of the backlog queue for non-congestion and random packet loss respectively. TCP-WBQ detects congestion degrees more accurately and thus implements the corresponding schemes of adjusting the congestion window, maintaining a tradeoff between high throughputs and congestion avoidance. The comprehensive simulations show that TCP-WBQ works efficiently in bandwidth utilization with single and multiple bottleneck scenarios, and achieves high performance and competitive fairness in heterogeneous wireless networks.

In this paper, a new three-parameter lifetime distribution is introduced and many of its standard properties are discussed. These include shape of the probability density function, hazard rate function and its shape, quantile function, limiting distributions of order statistics, and the moments. The unknown parameters are estimated by the maximum likelihood estimation procedure. We develop an EM algorithm to find the maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters, because they are not available in closed form. The Fisher information matrix is also obtained and it can be used for constructing the asymptotic confidence intervals. Finally, a real-data application is given to demonstrate the performance of the new distribution., 19 pages, 3 figures, and 2 tables