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This article examines why Germany still relies on fax machines for business communication, despite the government 's digitalisation agenda. It explores the legal, cultural and practicalfactors that hinder the adoption of more modern and secure alternatives and some of the challenges for the legal profession. The article offers suggestions on possible ways to overcome these barriers andfoster digital transformation, certainly for the legal profession, in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the accomplishment of justice, courts cannot ignore the development of technology. In this sense, email and fax are means of distance communication that ensure the transmission and, respectively, the receipt of correspondence, almost instantaneously. The two modes of distance communication do not involve moving the sender of correspondence to the court or to another place (post office, headquarters or office of the courier service, for example), so that their effects can be conditioned by compliance with the program. activity of the court or place concerned. Not recognizing the advantages of these means of communication, may be equivalent to violation of the speed of civil proceedings principle, provided by art. 6 C. pr. or even to violation of free access to justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long wait times for elective services are seen as one of the major challenges for Canadian healthcare. Canadians report that they wait longer for specialists than citizens in other countries. The main reason for this is that the referral process is poorly coordinated and leads to delays in care. Electronic referral (eReferral) is seen as a potential means of improving the referral process and enabling faster access to care. There is the potential for national implementation of eReferral in Canada to help achieve this aim. However, existing initiatives have encountered challenges with user adoption and users have continued to use fax. A validated tool was used to survey both users of fax as well as users of eReferral. These two groups of users were then compared. Most family physicians using fax were satisfied overall with the process. This highlighted how challenging any change of this engrained technology will be. There were, however, some significant areas were eReferral was superior to fax. This included response time, the overall quality of referral information, completeness of the information, the timeliness of the information, and the format and layout. There is an opportunity to leverage these findings to support the adoption of eReferral and help reduce wait times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diet is an important regulator of stem cell homeostasis; however, the underlying mechanisms of this regulation are not fully known. Here, we report that insulin signaling mediates dietary maintenance of Drosophila ovarian germline stem cells (GSCs) by promoting the extension of niche escort cell (EC) membranes to wrap around GSCs. This wrapping may facilitate the delivery of bone morphogenetic protein stemness factors from ECs in the niche to GSCs. In addition to the effects on GSCs, insulin signaling-mediated regulation of EC number and protrusions controls the division and growth of GSC progeny. The effects of insulin signaling on EC membrane extension are, at least in part, driven by enhanced translation of Failed axon connections (Fax) via Ribosomal protein S6 kinase. Fax is a membrane protein that may participate in Abelson tyrosine kinaseregulated cytoskeletal dynamics and is known to be involved in axon bundle formation. Therefore, we conclude that dietary cues stimulate insulin signaling in the niche to regulate EC cellular structure, probably via Fax-dependent cytoskeleton remodeling. This mechanism enhances intercellular contact and facilitates homeostatic interactions between somatic and germline cells in response to diet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Civil Procedure Code entered into force on 15 February 2013, when neither the fax nor the e-mail were unknown anymore in the field of communication. However, the procedural provisions have proven to be tributary to some classical origins, even obsolete in some cases. The interventions of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, of the Constitutional Court, in the matter of law analyzed by the authors in this article, did not have the role of modernizing nor of improving the efficiency of the act of justice. The given interpretations have taken into account the letter of the law and not its spirit, probably starting from the strict application of the procedural provisions. Without disregarding these principles, the authors criticize in an argumented manner the solution pronounced by the Decision No 34/2017 of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the Panel for the settlement of some legal issues, ruling in the sense of qualifying the procedural act sent by e-mail or fax, after the court's work schedule, but until 24.00 of the last day of the procedural term, as being done in due time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Anthropologica is the property of CASCA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Juristische Blätter is the property of Verlag Oesterreich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Feminist activists in the 1990s used fax machines to disseminate crucial resources for media activism against domestic violence. This article analyzes how a particular feminist organization, with the help of a public relations agency, sought to transform media coverage of domestic violence by building a feminist media infrastructure that linked organizations across the United States through newsletter distribution, illuminating the constitutive relationship among social movement organizations, networking capabilities, and activist media process at that time. To evaluate this relationship, the study focuses on the specific media strategies feminists developed to respond to the high-profile O. J. Simpson gender violence case and its race-based dimensions, and to the antifeminist backlash upsurge in the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Clinicians often encounter information about drug-drug interactions (DDIs) during clinical practice. This information is found within product information (hardcopy and electronic) and various electronic systems. Prescribers may receive medication-related communications in practice that are distributed by facsimile (fax), mail, or telephone from pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). The purpose of this study was to determine if near-real time fax alerts for potential drug-drug interactions (PDDIs) would influence prescribing. Methods: A prospective study, in cooperation with a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), was conducted targeting 18 clinically important PDDIs. Fax alerts included an individualized letter to the prescriber with a list of the interacting drugs, PDDI evidence summaries with citations, and recommended clinical management strategies. Among the 18 PDDIs, 13 PDDIs could be assessed for prescription therapy changes using pharmacy claims data. A prospective cohort design was used to evaluate changes in prescription dispensing 90-days following a PDDI fax alert. Results: A total of 8,075 fax alerts were sent to prescribers and there were 4,712 alerts for the 13 PDDIs that could be assessed for change using pharmacy claims data. There were 2,019 patients (interventions) for which fax alerts were sent to their prescribers who were matched with a control group consisting of patients with the same PDDIs but for whom no fax alert was sent. Overall, this study found 154 (7.6%) of patients in the fax alert group compared to 132 (6.5%) in the control group had changes in therapy (p = 0.177). Conclusions: This fax alert intervention program observed no statistically significant differences in prescribing with a fax alert compared to the control group. If PBMs chose to send individualized, evidence-based information to clinicians regarding drug-drug interactions, this study suggests it may not be an effective intervention to mitigate harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Purpose: The Arabic language uses notations called diacritical marks around characters to change which letter a symbol represents, changing the word in which that letter is contained. We explore the potential for error of these marks when faxed in a critical case such as prescriptions. A large number of patients are hurt by medical errors each year . Extensive literature already documents the risks from handwritten prescriptions, while little work has been done with risks from reproduced printed prescriptions. No literature exists to examine risks of prescriptions in non-Roman character alphabets being reproduced. Reproduction via fax transmission is a common practice and often produces damaged copies which can lead to medication errors . Languages with diacritical marks, particularly small ones, used for critical contextual meaning would more likely be at risk for misreading due to fax damage. Methods: We generated text in English and Arabic reproducing common prescribing instructions, such as “every day” at various font sizes. This was placed on commonly used prescription paper, and reproduced via fax between 2 medical facility fax machines. Results: We demonstrate meaningful change of prescribing instructions in the Arabic text by both the fax compression algorithm changing the appearance of diacritical marks along with a large amount of stochastic noise and dropouts being present. This change produced a potentially dangerous change in the instructions in the example we present. Conclusions: Prescriptions that are faxed in languages that use diacritical marks to denote contextual meaning, are at high risk for misreading when reproduced via fax. We suggest mitigating strategies, including minimal font size and use of alliteration text in other languages. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article focuses on the development of fax technology in China and the contribution of Édouard Belin, one of the inventors of fax technology in it. It is stated that the lectures and demonstrations of fax technology by Belin in China in 1926 arouse considerable interest and thus influenced the development of fax technology in the country.

In recent years, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) has been classified by DNA microarray analysis into the germinal center B-cell-like (GC) type, the activated B-cell-like (ABC) type and type 3. The latter two types can be collectively categorized as the non-GC (NGC) type. From the prognostic perspective, the GC type has a favorable clinical outcome when compared with the NGC type. The protein Fas induces apoptosis of lymphocytes by binding with the Fas ligand (FasL), and escape from such apoptosis is considered to lead to malignant transformation of the cells and unrestricted growth of lymphoma. We proposed a hypothesis that Fas/FasL expression could be possibly related with a better survival of GC type DLBCL and evaluated 69 DLBCL cases immunohistochemically with CD10, Bcl-6, MUM1, Fas and FasL. These lymphomas were classified as GC type (positive for CD10 or Bcl-6 and negative for MUM1) or NGC type. The GC type had a better overall survival rate than the NGC type ( P = 0.0723). Among markers as given above, positive CD10 was the most significant prognostic factor for overall survival in total DLBCL ( P < 0.05). In the GC type, Fas and FasL expressions were significantly associated with a favorable overall survival (Fas: P < 0.005; FasL: P < 0.05). Hence, Fas or FasL expression might contribute to a better prognosis of this type of DLBCL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The convergence of computing and telecommunication technologies has made it possible for users to access different types of messages ubiquitously. This article describes a Java-based unified messaging system that provides a unified mailbox for e-mail, fax, and voice messages. The system serves to present these common modes of communication with a uniform interface. Users can access the system from anywhere via the web and WAP-enabled mobile phones or, alternatively, through PSTN phones. Java technology is used in the implementation, which is based on a distributed client-server model and is platform independent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure of the dependence between the times to adoption by a country of two related innovations, the fax and the cellular telephone, is modelled in two stages. The first stage is the choice of density function for the time to adoption. The second stage is describing the dependence relation. For the first stage, a Weibull density function is used with its scale factor adapted to account for the economic and technological environments in different countries. Environmental data are collected from several sources. Copulas are used to model the dependence relation, three single parameter copulas are considered, those due to Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern (FGM), Frank and Plackett. Their properties are described and a combined estimation of the copula and density function parameters carried out. The limitations of the FGM copula rule it out from further consideration. The other copulas coupled with the Weibull, using eight environmental variables, are shown to provide valuable insights into the effects of environmental variables on adoption times. Given that a country has adopted one technology, the model of the dependence relation is used to provide the conditional density of the time to adoption of the other technology. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A zinc finger protein that interacts with Xenopus TATA-binding protein was previously isolated by a yeast two-hybrid screen and found to serve as a transcriptional repressor. The gene was designated the negatively regulating zinc finger protein gene (NZFP). Herein, NZFP was found to be expressed maternally. After gastrulation, the level of NZFP mRNA decreased significantly throughout the neurula stage. However, mRNA levels increased at stage 35 and then began to decrease at stage 48. Eventually, no NZFP mRNA was observed in adult tissues except in the ovary. NZFP mRNA was detected in the animal hemisphere during gastrulation and observed in the neural ectoderm at the neurula stage. At the tailbud stage, NZFP was highly expressed in the head tissues such as brain, eyes, otic vesicles, lateral line placodes, and branchial arches, but weakly in somites. Depletion of NZFP in the embryos using RNA interference caused premature death at the gastrula stage or induced secondary partial axis after gastrulation. These results strongly suggest that NZFP is an essential transcription factor involved in the cell movement during gastrulation and the formation of the dorsal axis during early development in Xenopus. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We isolated a novel gene encoding a zinc finger protein from Xenopus laevis, designated NZFP that interacts with the TATA-binding protein (TBP). NZFP contains a highly conserved sequence designated finger associated box (FAX) and SUMO-1 consensus-binding motifs at the N-terminal half and 10 C2H2 type zinc finger motifs at the C-terminal half, respectively. Deletion mutants of NZFP fused with the Gal4 DNA binding domain were used to determine the function of NZFP during gene transcription by transfecting them into a Xenopus kidney cell line. Both full-length NZFP and the FAX domain repressed transcription activity by 3–5-fold. Moreover, an in vitro pull-down assay showed that the C-terminal core domain of TBP makes direct contact with the N-terminal portion of NZFP. We also found through chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments that the interaction between NZFP and TBP inhibits binding of TFIIA and TFIIB. These data strongly suggest that the repression by NZFP occurs through its binding to both DNA and TBP and the resulting NZFP–TBP–promoter complex inhibits preinitiation complex assembly by preventing binding of TFIIA and TFIIB. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Geometric groundtruth at the character, word, and line levels is crucial for designing and evaluating optical character recognition (OCR) algorithms. Kanungo and Haralick proposed a closed-loop methodology for generating geometric groundtruth for rescanned document images. The procedure assumed that the original image and the corresponding groundtruth were available. It automatically registered the original image to the rescanned one using four corner points and then transformed the original groundtruth using the estimated registration transformation. In this paper, we present an attributed branch-and-bound algorithm for establishing the point correspondence that uses all the data points. We group the original feature points into blobs and use corners of blobs for matching. The Euclidean distance between character centroids is used as the error metric. We conducted experiments on synthetic point sets with varying layout complexity to characterize the performance of two matching algorithms. We also report results on experiments conducted using the University of Washington dataset. Finally, we show examples of application of this methodology for generating groundtruth for microfilmed and FAXed versions of the University of Washington dataset documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizations that manage projects across international borders often find it frustratingly difficult to implement their well thought-out plans. For these multinational projects also need to be unified among different business processes, management styles, operational support systems and organizational cultures. Such cross-cultural management practices are quite common in today's global business environment with multinational outsourcing, joint ventures and alliances. While unified project direction toward technology transfer, integration, and business objectives usually comes from one central location, they need to be effectively communicated and “managed” across international lines and organizational cultures. Managers have to deal with differences in languages, time zones, organizational and personal cultures, policies, regulations, business processes and political climates. Yet another managerial challenge is the complexity of today's projects and their support environments. Technology has become a significant factor for almost every business. Information technology provides a powerful set of tools and techniques in support of multinational project operations. Multimedia conference calls, e-mail, fax, groupware and Internet web sites are just a few examples. These tools have the ability to link organizations across geographic regions and time zones. They also help to partially neutralize cultural differences [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Highlights the role of facsimile in inter-office communication, the development of fax technology and its current popularity over e-mail. Presents in detail factors to be considered when choosing a fax. Discusses the existing standards for various groups of machines, the features most in demand from users and outlines the particular market context in India – particularly the entrance of fax into the SOHO market after its complete acceptance in the enterprise office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ANTONELLI C. (1990) Induced adoption and externalities in the regional diffusion of information technology, Reg. Studies 24, 31–40. Information technology can be considered as a set of complex radical innovations which continues to evolve and has a major impact both within the plant and the office. In such a context its regional diffusion is likely to be determined by relevant externalities together with the effects of a wage-induced process of localized technological change and adoption. Data on the territorial distribution of fax machines and modems show that the levels of diffusion of information technology in Italy is highly uneven, favouring central regions endowed with higher levels of fixed and human capital and consequently income. The econometric analysis confirms that diffusion levels of both fax and modems across provinces are significantly associated with the level of wages as is to be expected from the induced adoption hypothesis and from the existence of external factors such as the presence of metropolitan areas specializing in advanced service industries. In addition, the share of employment in large firms appears to play a role for fax and the share of employment in firms with head office located in the province for modems. ANTONELLI C. (1990) Adoption induite et effets externes dans la diffusion régionale de la technologie d'information, Reg. Studies 24, 31–40. On peut considérer la technologie d'information comme un ensemble d'innovations complexes et radicales qui ne cesse d'évoluer et qui a un impact considérable à la fois dans l'usine et dans le bureau. Dans un tel contexte il est probable que sa diffusion régionale sera déterminée par des effets externes pertinents conjointement avec les effets d'un processus d'évolution et d'adoption technologiques localisées, induit par les salaires. Des données sur la distribution des machines à télcopier et des modems démontrent que les niveaux de diffusion de la technologie d'information en Italie sont fort irréguliers, favorisant les zones centrales dotées de niveaux de capital fixe et de capital humain plus élevés, et par conséquent des revenus plus élevés. L'analyse économétrique confirme que les niveaux de diffusion des machines à télécopier et des modems à travers les provinces sont en corrélation positive avec le niveau des salaires, conforme à l'hypothése d'adoption induite et à l'existence de facteurs externes, tels l'existence de zones métropolitaines qui se spécialisent dans les industries avancées, prestataires de services. En outre il s'avére que la part de l'emploi des grandes entreprises importe aux machines à télécopier, et que la part de l'emploi des entreprises dont le siége se trouve en province importe aux modems. ANTONELLI C. (1990) Vermehrte Annahme und Externalitäten in der regionalen Verbreitung der Informationstech-nologie, Reg. Studies 24, 31–40. Informationstechnologie kann als ein Satz komplexer, radikaler Innovationen betrachtet werden, der sich ständig weiter entwickelt und eine beträchtliche Auswirkung auf Fabrik und Büro ausübt. In solch einem Zusammenhang wird ihre regionale Verbreitung wahrscheinlich durch relevante Externalitäten sowie die Auswirkungen eines lohnbestimmten Prozesses örtlich beschränkten technologischen Wandels und seiner Übernahme bestimmt. Angaben über die gebietsweise Verteilung von Faxmaschinen und Modems zeigen, dass die Vebreitung der Informationstechnologie in Italien höchst ungleichmässig erfolgt, wobei Zentralgebiete, die sich eines höheren Standes an Menschen- und Betriebskapital, und demzufolge Einkommen, erfreuen, begünstigter sind. Die ökonometrische Analyse bestätigt, dass der Stand der Diffusion der Provinzen mit Fax- und Modemmaschinen bezeichnend mit Lohnhöhen verbunden ist, wie die Hypothese der vermehrten Annahme und das Bestehen externer Faktoren wie die Gegenwart von Metropolen, die sich auf fortschrittliche Dienstleistungsindustrien spezialisieren, erwarten lässt. Zusätzlich scheint der Anteil an Beschäftigung in grossen Firmen eine Rolle fur Fax zu spielen, und fur Modems der Anteil der Beschäftigung in Firmen mit Standorten ihrer Hauptgeschäftsstellen in den Provinzen. An earlier version of this paper was discussed at the 7th International Telecommunications Society Conference Cambridge, MA, 1988. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent innovations in organizational forms, such as delayered management, empowered workers, telework, and ad hoc work groups, have created a need to ensure that communication between dispersed knowledge workers can be supported. The movement toward a less cohesive workplace suggests a need to deploy computer-based media, but it is not clear which media should be deployed and under what circumstances. Addressing such significant issues must begin with insights into why knowledge workers choose particular media for particular tasks in the first place. Prior research theorizing about media choice has focused on: (1) task, (2) medium, (3) the fit between task and medium, and (4) social environment. It has not sufficiently considered the role of the availability of the intended recipient or the interaction between recipient availability and task social presence variables which could have a significant impact on media choice. To examine the effects of these two factors, the authors conducted an initial exploratory study and a subsequent controlled factor study. In the initial study, an analysis of 1,669 hypothetical scenarios from 100 knowledge workers at a worldwide transportation company indicated that social presence (SP) theory proves to be a good predictor of media choice, as does the recipient availability construct. The analysis also suggested that the interaction between recipient availability and task social presence might be a good predictor. With a partial replication, randomized treatment design, including 1,883 scenarios from 257 workers, the controlled factor study at a large financial institution generally confirmed the study hypotheses. The authors examine rival explanations simultaneously along the dimensions of task, medium, fit between task and medium, and social environment. They propose and test a new model of media choice and suggest directions for future testing of a new "task closure" model of media choice. They conclude by offering guidelines for [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]