bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Office of Strategic Services versus Special Operations Executive: Competition for the Italian Resistance, 1943–1945
Authors: Piffer Tommaso
Published: January 2016

This article explores the relationship between the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in the Italian campaign during World War II. Drawing on recently declassified records, the article analyzes three issues that prevented satisfactory coordination between the two agencies and the impact those issues had on the effectiveness of the Allied military support given to the partisan movements: (1) the U.S. government's determination to maintain the independence of its agencies; (2) the inability of the Armed Forces Headquarters to impose its will on the reluctant subordinate levels of command; and (3) the relatively low priority given to the Italian resistance at the beginning of the campaign. The article contributes to recent studies on OSS and SOE liaisons and sheds additional light on an important turning point in the history of their relations.
Provoking America: Le Duan and the Origins of the Vietnam War
Authors: Shore Zachary
Published: January 2016

This article concentrates on the North Vietnamese official who became the driving force within the Vietnamese Workers’ Party (VWP) and was crucial in shaping the Vietnamese Communists’ protracted war strategy. A great deal has been written about the personality and policies of Ho Chi Minh, but Le Duan's powerful influence on strategy has been largely overlooked. The article covers Le Duan's background and rise to power as the VWP First Secretary, as well as his strategic thinking about the United States from the 1950s through the deployment of U.S. ground troops in 1965. Although other VWP leaders influenced wartime strategy, Le Duan as First Secretary carried the greatest weight within the Politburo and exerted the strongest influence over the southern Communists, who were pivotal in fighting both U.S. and South Vietnamese forces. In his role as head of the southern Communists Le Duan developed strategies for defeating the United States and then implemented them as his power grew. The article spotlights several recurrent themes in his thinking: the nature of a protracted war, the role of casualties, and U.S. global standing. Each of these subjects influenced how the North Vietnamese intended to defeat the United States over the long term and offers insights into how Hanoi understood its enemy.
The End of the Soviet Union
Authors: Brown Archie
Published: January 2016

This essay reviews a recent book by Serhii Plokhii, The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union. Focusing on the role of the USSR's union-republics, especially Russia and Ukraine, in the breakup of the country, the book explains why efforts to hold the Soviet Union together ultimately proved abortive. The book, like earlier literature, debunks tenacious myths about the dissolution of the Soviet Union—myths that have been discredited before but are worth rebutting again—and provides an in-depth account of the final weeks of the USSR.
Microdomain [Ca2+] Fluctuations Alter Temporal Dynamics in Models of Ca2+-Dependent Signaling Cascades and Synaptic Vesicle Release
Authors: Weinberg Seth H.
Published: January 2016

Ca2+-dependent signaling is often localized in spatially restricted microdomains and may involve only 1 to 100 Ca2+ions. Fluctuations in the microdomain Ca2+concentration (Ca2+) can arise from a wide range of elementary processes, including diffusion, Ca2+influx, and association/dissociation with Ca2+binding proteins or buffers. However, it is unclear to what extent these fluctuations alter Ca2+-dependent signaling. We construct Markov models of a general Ca2+-dependent signaling cascade and Ca2+-triggered synaptic vesicle release. We compare the hitting (release) time distribution and statistics for models that account for [Ca2+] fluctuations with the corresponding models that neglect these fluctuations. In general, when Ca2+fluctuations are much faster than the characteristic time for the signaling event, the hitting time distributions and statistics for the models with and without Ca2+fluctuation are similar. However, when the timescale of Ca2+fluctuations is on the same order as the signaling cascade or slower, the hitting time mean and variability are typically increased, in particular when the average number of microdomain Ca2+ions is small, a consequence of a long-tailed hitting time distribution. In a model of Ca2+-triggered synaptic vesicle release, we demonstrate the conditions for which [Ca2+] fluctuations do and do not alter the distribution, mean, and variability of release timing. We find that both the release time mean and variability can be increased, demonstrating that Ca2+fluctuations are an important aspect of microdomain Ca2+signaling and further suggesting that Ca2+fluctuations in the presynaptic terminal may contribute to variability in synaptic vesicle release and thus variability in neuronal spiking.
Kernelized Elastic Net Regularization: Generalization Bounds, and Sparse Recovery
Authors: Feng Yunlong , Lv Shao-Gao , Hang Hanyuan , Suykens Johan A. K.
Published: January 2016

Kernelized elastic net regularization (KENReg) is a kernelization of the well-known elastic net regularization (Zou & Hastie, 2005 ). The kernel in KENReg is not required to be a Mercer kernel since it learns from a kernelized dictionary in the coefficient space. Feng, Yang, Zhao, Lv, and Suykens ( 2014 ) showed that KENReg has some nice properties including stability, sparseness, and generalization. In this letter, we continue our study on KENReg by conducting a refined learning theory analysis. This letter makes the following three main contributions. First, we present refined error analysis on the generalization performance of KENReg. The main difficulty of analyzing the generalization error of KENReg lies in characterizing the population version of its empirical target function. We overcome this by introducing a weighted Banach space associated with the elastic net regularization. We are then able to conduct elaborated learning theory analysis and obtain fast convergence rates under proper complexity and regularity assumptions. Second, we study the sparse recovery problem in KENReg with fixed design and show that the kernelization may improve the sparse recovery ability compared to the classical elastic net regularization. Finally, we discuss the interplay among different properties of KENReg that include sparseness, stability, and generalization. We show that the stability of KENReg leads to generalization, and its sparseness confidence can be derived from generalization. Moreover, KENReg is stable and can be simultaneously sparse, which makes it attractive theoretically and practically.
The eu Neighbourhood Policies and the Security Crises within the Eastern Neighbourhood
Authors: Petrov Roman
Published: January 2016

The European Union (eu) is in search of an appropriate and efficient framework of relations with its neighbours. Recent events show that the eu has failed to prevent escalating civil conflicts in many regions of Ukraine in the eu neighbourhood. This contribution scrutinizes the current eu external policies towards its Eastern neighbours. The first part of the chapter studies the scope and content of the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership and their impact on security in the region. The second part of the paper analyses the impact of the eu neighbourhood policies on the ‘post-Crimea’ and ‘post-Donbass’ eu neighbourhood.
Ukraine, Protracted Conflicts and the osce
Authors: Remler Philip
Published: January 2016

Aspects of the Ukraine crisis present enormous problems for the future of osce and other international conflict mediation. Annexation, “hybrid” warfare, the proliferation of non-recognized separatist polities, the absence of a shared baseline of facts and, therefore, the sharp divergence of narratives, and perhaps most of all, the development of fortress mentalities – all of these have challenged the “Helsinki acquis” on which the osce is based. Developments in the protracted conflicts – greater Russian control over three of the separatist polities to the point of crypto-annexation and the spread of the idea that democracy and human rights are no more than tools of Western imperialist domination – affect the way in which the osce and its mediators are perceived. The cycle of Russian assertiveness and Western response has created a self-reinforcing spiral that consolidates alliances among those who share a fortress mentality, is used to justify past actions, discourages “weakness” in the face of pressure, and encourages ever more aggressive responses to it. In the face of this discouraging picture, osce mediators should build on the remaining areas of co-operation – especially on the Karabakh conflict – and emphasize osce impartiality. The osce has always been a “big tent,” a forum of diverse equals, none of whom has a perfect record on democracy and human rights. Criticizing and being criticized is not, therefore, a “double standard,” but a dialogue that enriches all participating States.
The United States and the osce after the Ukraine Crisis
Authors: Terrence Hopmann P.
Published: January 2016

Ever since negotiations on the Helsinki Final Act opened in Helsinki in 1973, the United States has regarded the Conference (later Organization) on Security and Co-operation in Europe with some ambivalence. The role of the Helsinki Final Act in establishing a normative regime that contributed significantly to undermining the authoritarian regimes in the former Warsaw Pact countries, eventually bringing an end to the Cold War, is widely recognized and appreciated in the United States. However, the expanded post-Cold War role of the osce has received less attention in us foreign policy and, with respect to issues of European security, has clearly been assigned a secondary role in that policy behind the nato Alliance. Those knowledgeable about the osce in the United States widely regard its role in positive terms on issues such as human rights, rights of persons belonging to minorities, rule of law, election monitoring and other “soft” security issues. However, the osce role in “hard” security issues has been given little attention and receives only limited support, due largely to its inability to achieve consensus on most serious security problems and its lack of resources to effectively implement those decisions that it takes. Nevertheless, the recent crisis in Ukraine has awakened us interest in the osce as the institutional framework best able to manage that crisis. The challenge for the German Chairmanship in 2016 will be to build upon this renewed us attention to the osce’s role in “hard” security issues, in promoting negotiated resolutions to this and other stalemated conflicts, in rebuilding the badly damaged regime of confidence-building measures and conventional arms control, as well as responding, within the multilateral osce framework, to new security threats, such as cyber warfare and countering violent extremism.
Water Lilies Among the Wheat Fields
Authors: Sik Sarah
Published: January 2016

While John Scott Bradstreet’s introduction of the Japanese jin-di-sugi method of woodworking at the Minneapolis Craftshouse has been well chronicled, his work in the more ephemeral arena of Japanese gardening has not been similarly illuminated. This article considers Bradstreet’s activities as a Japanese gardener in the context of his eleven trips to Japan, examining three gardens in Minneapolis. The broader context of the introduction of Japanese gardens to the American public at World’s Fairs is also considered, along with the development of a critical perspective among design reform advocates who discriminated between an educated approach informed by the history and symbolism of Japanese gardening, versus the popular Japoniste fad for picturesque effects.
A Synthesis of Reading and Spelling Interventions and Their Effects on Spelling Outcomes for Students With Learning Disabilities
Authors: Williams Kelly J. , Walker Melodee A. , Vaughn Sharon , Wanzek Jeanne
Published: January 2016

Spelling is one of the most challenging areas for students with learning disabilities (LD), and improving spelling outcomes for these students is of high importance. In this synthesis, we examined the effects of spelling and reading interventions on spelling outcomes for students with LD in Grades K through 12. A systematic search of peer-reviewed literature published between 2004 and 2014 was conducted using electronic databases and hand searches of relevant journals. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to meet the following criteria: (a) Participants were identified with LD and were in Grades K through 12, (b) designs were either treatment/comparison or single case, (c) a reading or spelling intervention was implemented, (d) at least one spelling outcome was measured, and (e) instruction was in English. Ten studies met criteria for inclusion in the synthesis, and effectiveness ranged from ineffective to highly effective. Findings demonstrated that spelling outcomes for taught words were improved for students with LD with the use of explicit instruction or self-correction strategies.
Lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients’ experience with counselling and psychotherapy in South Africa: implications for affirmative practice
Authors: Victor Cornelius J , Nel Juan A
Published: January 2016

The Psychological Society of South Africa has embarked on a process of developing affirmative practice guidelines for psychology professionals working with sexually and gender-diverse people, inclusive of, but not limited to, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex concerns. Towards informing the guidelines, we explored self-identified lesbian, gay, and bisexual people’s experiences of psychotherapy and counselling in South Africa. A total of 15 qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with selected participants. Among others, positive experiences entailed receiving unconditional positive regard, acceptance, and non-judgement from counsellors and/or psychotherapists. This included the counsellors and/or psychotherapists positively affirming participants’ sexual orientation by, for instance, viewing same-sex attractions, feelings, and behaviour as normal variants of sexuality and seeing sexual orientation as one aspect of the person, not the only aspect. Negative experiences were almost exclusively ascribed to the counsellors and/or psychotherapists being disaffirming of the client’s sexual orientation. Findings provide a potential basis for future affirmative practice guidelines and indicate that taking a stance affirming of sexual orientation was considered to be important.
Limiting Occupational Medical Evaluations under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act
Authors: Rothstein Mark A. , Roberts Jessica , Guidotti Tee L.
Published: January 2016

Although medical care delivery by one's personal physician is the paradigmatic American healthcare arrangement, in the workplace setting, many Americans undergo medical evaluations to assess their fitness for duty or degree of impairment. This Article explores the complex and evolving legal status of occupational medical evaluations. Beginning with the legal and ethical frameworks of occupational medical practice, the Article then examines the effects of increasingly detailed legal regulation under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act on employees, employers, and physicians.
Socially compliant mobile robot navigation via inverse reinforcement learning
Authors: Kretzschmar Henrik , Spies Markus , Sprunk Christoph , Burgard Wolfram
Published: January 2016

Mobile robots are increasingly populating our human environments. To interact with humans in a socially compliant way, these robots need to understand and comply with mutually accepted rules. In this paper, we present a novel approach to model the cooperative navigation behavior of humans. We model their behavior in terms of a mixture distribution that captures both the discrete navigation decisions, such as going left or going right, as well as the natural variance of human trajectories. Our approach learns the model parameters of this distribution that match, in expectation, the observed behavior in terms of user-defined features. To compute the feature expectations over the resulting high-dimensional continuous distributions, we use Hamiltonian Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. Furthermore, we rely on a Voronoi graph of the environment to efficiently explore the space of trajectories from the robot’s current position to its target position. Using the proposed model, our method is able to imitate the behavior of pedestrians or, alternatively, to replicate a specific behavior that was taught by tele-operation in the target environment of the robot. We implemented our approach on a real mobile robot and demonstrated that it is able to successfully navigate in an office environment in the presence of humans. An extensive set of experiments suggests that our technique outperforms state-of-the-art methods to model the behavior of pedestrians, which also makes it applicable to fields such as behavioral science or computer graphics.
New Daily Persistent Headache Is Most Likely to Begin at the Start of School
Authors: Grengs Leah R. , Mack Kenneth J.
Published: January 2016

This study was performed to determine if there were a time of year that children were more likely to transition into a chronic daily headache. We retrospectively reviewed records of 103 patients with chronic migraine and 104 patients with new daily persistent headache. Of these, 56 chronic migraine and 92 new daily persistent headache patients were able to identify the specific month in which they began to experience daily headaches. Thirty-nine percent of new daily persistent headache patients had an onset of daily headache in either September or January, months traditionally associated with the start of the school semester in the United States. Only a single patient reported onset in May or June. Data for the transition from episodic to chronic migraine also showed higher rates in September and January, but did not reach statistical significance. These data demonstrate the higher rates of new daily persistent headache onset during school start months and question what factors may be responsible for this association.
Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Siblings of Indian Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders
Authors: Kumar Ankur , Juneja Monica , Mishra Devendra
Published: January 2016

This study determined the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders in 201 siblings of children with autism spectrum disorders. Siblings were screened using Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers and Social Responsiveness Scale, parent version. Screen-positive siblings were assessed using Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition) criteria. The risk of autism spectrum disorder in siblings was correlated with various familial and disease characteristics of the index case. Prevalence of autism spectrum disorder in siblings was 4.97%. There was a significant effect of the presence of aggressive behavior, externalizing problems and total problems in the proband, assessed using Childhood Behavior Checklist, and the young age of the father at conception on sibling risk of autism spectrum disorder. Results of our study are in line with previous studies reporting similar prevalence but have also brought up the association with behavioral problems as a possible risk factor. Siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder should be routinely screened, and genetic counseling for this increased risk should be explained to the family.
An optimum preload method for machine tool spindle ball bearings
Authors: Xu Tao , Xu Guanghua , Zhang Qing , Zhang Sicong , Luo Ailing
Published: January 2016

To provide a suitable rotation rate for different machining processes, a single machine tool spindle should work over a wide range of speeds. This study considered the effects of speed on dynamic behaviour of ball bearings and combined the fatigue life model and ball bearing internal load distribution model to determine the appropriate preload. First, the influence of speed on internal load distribution and ball bearing contact angles was analysed. The preload was calculated using a ball bearing internal load distribution model. Next, assuming constant bearing fatigue life, the theoretical preload curves were determined using the fatigue life model by changing the reliability factor. Finally, at low speeds, the maximum designed preload (design value) was set as the initial preload. With the increase in speed, the optimum preload was hierarchically obtained within the internal region between the theoretical preload curves. An experimental test rig for the optimum preload of ball bearings, which can automatically adjust the preload, was developed. The proposed method for determining the optimum preload was verified using the measured performance indicators, including the temperature, motor currents, and vibration of ball bearings. The results showed that the optimum preload suggestion made the test ball bearings exhibit excellent behaviour.
Approaching the characteristic curve of the cutter’s envelope based on a velocity field
Authors: Zhiwang Gan , Zhitong Chen , Meng Zhou
Published: January 2016

The characteristic curve of the envelope generated by the tool motions is an important medium for measuring the distance between the tool and the desired surface. Via the single parametric surface envelope theory in differential geometry, this article proved the correctness of the characteristic curve obtained by minimum distance pairs. Simultaneously, combined with the existing envelope theory and the longitude method, an algorithm based on a velocity field is proposed to approach the characteristic curve. The torus cutter is first dispersed into longitudes and then the characteristic point on each longitude is determined with the estimated velocity. In the experiments, the actual velocity of the estimated characteristic point is computed by the true trajectory simulation of the tool. Therefore, the deviation of the proposed method could be measured comparing with the actual velocity. In the implementations, the proposed method is validated in machining a flat, a spiral, and a blade surfaces. In machining the spiral, our algorithm improves approximately 7 times accuracy with 1/7 time cost compared with the existing methods. The results in the blade surface example prove the stableness of the proposed algorithm.
Which is riskier: life on the floodplain or in housing imposed from above? The case of flood-prone areas in Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil
Authors: José de Almeida Neto Domingos , Heller Léo
Published: January 2016

Poor communities living in areas at high risk of flooding are often considered by authorities to be victims of their own “choice” in locating their dwellings in such areas. Instead of the government contributing to improving their resilience, the situation can become a way to justify the people’s relocation to areas not susceptible to flooding. The dynamics of living in flood-prone areas are examined here in the context of the Baixada da Habitasa and Seis de Agosto districts in Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil. Analysis of documents and semi-structured interviews with managers and with inhabitants of the districts under study, obtained soon after the last flood (April/May 2014), provide the basis of this study. Situations where people face up to the floods and reject removal to temporary shelters (or the temporary payment of a monthly sum as rent) are explored. This resistance to relocation can be seen even when the state proposes their transfer to permanent housing.
Gender Inequalities in Noncommunicable Disease Risk Factors Among Indonesian Urban Population
Authors: Christiani Yodi , Byles Julie E. , Tavener Meredith , Dugdale Paul
Published: January 2016

Gender is an important determinant of health. We conducted a study to examine hypertension, obesity, hypercholesterolemia, and smoking behavior among adults aged >15 years in urban Indonesia. We compared the prevalence, predicted socioeconomic factors, the gender inequalities, and the contributing factors to the inequalities. Women had a higher risk of obesity and hypercholesterolemia and raised blood pressure in later life ( P < .001). In contrast, men had a higher risk of being a current smoker and raised blood pressure at younger age ( P < .001). The gender inequalities in hypertension, obesity, and hypercholesterolemia can be accounted for by disparities in socioeconomic factors between men and women, particularly involvement in paid work. However, the inequalities were also accounted for by different effects of the socioeconomic factors in men and women. Gender is interlinked with socioeconomic and biological factors in determining health. This emphasizes the need of gender responsive policies to control and prevent chronic disease.
Let the music be your master: Power laws and music listening habits
Authors: Mongiardino Koch Nicolás , Soto Ignacio M.
Published: January 2016

Music preferences have long been studied owing to their importance in the fields of psychology and sociology. However, previous efforts seldom focused on people’s deliberate choices of music in everyday life. In this study, we aimed to analyze music listening behaviors using personal records of music listening activity. We obtained the history of songs listened to by 50 different users of the online database system Last.fm, spanning on average five years of activity. With the use of this data set, we are able to confirm that the number of songs reproduced per artist follows a truncated power-law distribution. The scaling parameter of the distribution varies considerably among users, providing a metric that characterizes the way in which different people explore music. We propose that this pattern is consistent with a preferential attachment model, according to which the probability of listening to a given artist at a given time is proportional to the frequency to which the artist was listened to in the past. These results provide new insight regarding the way in which individual music preferences are built.
Psychopathic Traits in Early Childhood: Further Validation of the Child Problematic Traits Inventory
Authors: Colins Olivier F. , Fanti Kostas , Larsson Henrik , Andershed Henrik
Published: January 2016

The aim was to further test the reliability and validity of a newly developed instrument designed to assess psychopathic personality traits in children, the Child Problematic Traits Inventory (CPTI). Data from the Preschool Twin Study in Sweden were used, a national general population study of 5-year-old twins ( n = 1,188, 50.3% girls). Both preschool teachers and parents were used as informants. Confirmatory factor analysis replicated the intended three-factorial structure of the 28 items of the CPTI. Overall, our findings demonstrated good internal consistency and convergent validity, with all the teacher-rated CPTI scores being associated with teacher and parent ratings of externalizing psychopathology, aggressive behavior, fearlessness, and prosocial peer involvement. In conclusion, the CPTI hold promise as a teacher-rated tool for assessing psychopathic traits in childhood, though more research is needed to see if these findings can be generalized to other countries, settings, and older children.
Aligning Strategy and Performance Management Systems
Authors: Vieira Rui , O’Dwyer Brendan , Schneider Roman
Published: January 2016

This article presents a case study examining the problems and possibilities of performance management in a wind-farm company. Drawing on Ferreira and Otley’s recently developed performance management systems (PMSs) framework, the study demonstrates how the framework facilitates in-depth, holistic, and critical evaluations of existing PMSs, and how these evaluations can drive the development of revised PMSs that balance economic, social, and environmental goals. This integrated focus on PMS evaluation and design is unique as earlier work seeking to develop systems to promote and measure sustainable performance tends to establish them in isolation from informed evaluations of existing systems. Drawing on the case analysis, the article proposes a form of “sustainable balanced scorecard” to enable a company to streamline its management decision making. It also offers guidance for companies on the development of PMSs that can contribute to their survival and growth in a wind energy sector characterized by increasing competition.
The body comes to family therapy: Treatment of a school-aged boy with hyperventilation-induced non-epileptic seizures
Authors: Kozlowska Kasia , Chudleigh Catherine , Elliott Bronwen , Landini Andrea
Published: January 2016

We present the case of a 10-year-old boy, Evan, where a knock to the head activated memories of past bullying, causing intense distress, activation of the body’s stress-regulation systems and recurrent hospital presentations with hyperventilation-induced non-epileptic seizures. We describe the initial assessment session that enabled Evan and his family to understand the context for Evan’s non-epileptic seizures, to engage with the therapeutic team and to collaborate in the implementation of a mind–body multimodal family-based intervention. Once the physical symptoms had been addressed therapeutically, we explored possible dangers within the family and school systems and we worked with Evan and his family to increase his ability to access comfort and protection from his parents. Our short hospital intervention highlighted the importance of ongoing therapeutic work with Evan and the family and laid the foundation stones for the next part of the family’s therapeutic journey.
Ocular itch associated with allergic conjunctivitis: latest evidence and clinical management
Authors: Ackerman Stacey , Smith Lisa M. , Gomes Paulo J.
Published: January 2016

Allergic conjunctivitis is one of the most common allergic conditions worldwide. Its incidence is increasing due to changing climate, pollution, increased pollen loads, and the subject’s heightened immunological sensitivity in response to these environmental changes. The pathophysiology predominantly involves immunoglobulin E-related mast-cell activation, with release of histamine and other mediators contributing to the propagation of the response by calling in other immune cells and further inflammation. This article presents the evolution of ocular allergy treatments, from vasoconstrictors, to antihistamines and mast-cell stabilizers, to the dual-acting agents, as well as corticosteroid and immunomodulatory options. Future targets for allergy treatment are also discussed.
A systems approach to hemostasis: 4. How hemostatic thrombi limit the loss of plasma-borne molecules from the microvasculature
Authors: Welsh John D. , Muthard Ryan W. , Stalker Timothy J. , Taliaferro Joshua P. , Diamond Scott L. , Brass Lawrence F.
Published: January 2016

Key Points

Following vessel injury, the extravasation of plasma borne molecules continues long after hemostasis occurs. Limiting molecular extravasation is driven by platelet accumulation and retraction, but not fibrin deposition.
Tympanoplasty—conchal cavum approach
Authors: Man S. Christopher , Nunez Desmond A.
Published: January 2016

The three well recognized tympanoplasty approaches: permeatal, postaural, and endaural, each have advantages and disadvantages. The permeatal approach is suitable only for ears with adequate canal size. The postaural approach limits visualization of the posterior eardrum margin. The endaural approach limits the view of the eardrum's anterior margin. This study describes a modified endaural approach, developed to overcome these limitations. A retrospective case series review and collection of a prospective cohort of patient reported outcome data were undertaken to assess the technique.

Method

Standard incisions as used in an endaural approach are placed within the ear canal. The novel incision extends from the superior canal incision into the conchal cavum. This allows a flap of the thick, hairbearing skin from both the bony and cartilaginous portions of the canal to be raised, and everted, to provide an excellent view of the entire drum. Perichondrium can be harvested for grafting from the conchal cavum. The clinical charts of all patients operated on by the first author using this technique from 2010–2012 were retrospectively reviewed. The size and position of the perforation, size of the canal, whether primary or revision surgery, graft take rate, hearing results and the occurrence of chondritis/perichondritis were recorded. To investigate the morbidities and the acceptance by the patients of the incision/scar in the conchal cavum, all patients undergoing the procedure in the 8 months up to the end of August 2013 were prospectively recruited to complete a self-assessment Likert scale questionnaire recording postoperative pain, and satisfaction with the cosmesis of the operative site. The clinician recorded if there was any evidence of chondritis/perichondritis.

Results

A 100 % graft take rate was achieved in the 75 adults treated by the first author from 2010 to 2012 regardless of the size and position of the perforation, configuration of the canal, primary or revision surgery. Preoperative Pure Tone Audiometric (PTA) Air Bone Gap (ABG) averaged over 3 frequencies (0.5, 1 and 2 K Hz) was 19.4dB (standard deviation = 9.6, range 2 to 50). Postoperative PTA ABG average was 6.2 dB (standard deviation = 8.3, range -7 to 37), demonstrating a statistically significant post-surgery mean improvement of 13.2 dB (paired T-test, p < 0.001). Twenty-one patients who underwent the procedure in 2013, reported minimal postoperative analgesic use, and scored the acceptability of the incision scar highly (4.8 out of a maximum of 5). There was no case of chondritis/perichondritis in the 96 cases.

Conclusion

Whilst it is the surgeon's decision to use a permeatal, postaural or endaural approach, the endaural approach with the conchal cavum modification is an excellent alternative to the traditionally described approaches.

Trial Registration

Clinical trial number: NCT02000843 at ClinicalTrials.gov
Complete genome sequence of Methanospirillum hungatei type strain JF1
Authors: Gunsalus Robert P. , Cook Lauren E. , Crable Bryan , Rohlin Lars , McDonald Erin , Mouttaki Housna , Sieber Jessica R. , Poweleit Nicole , Zhou Hong , Lapidus Alla L. , Daligault Hajnalka Erzsebet , Land Miriam , Gilna Paul , Ivanova Natalia , Kyrpides Nikos , Culley David E. , McInerney Michael J.
Published: January 2016

Methanospirillum hungatei strain JF1 (DSM 864) is a methane-producing archaeon and is the type species of the genus Methanospirillum, which belongs to the family Methanospirillaceae within the order Methanomicrobiales. Its genome was selected for sequencing due to its ability to utilize hydrogen and carbon dioxide and/or formate as a sole source of energy. Ecologically, M. hungatei functions as the hydrogen- and/or formate-using partner with many species of syntrophic bacteria. Its morphology is distinct from other methanogens with the ability to form long chains of cells (up to 100 μm in length), which are enclosed within a sheath-like structure, and terminal cells with polar flagella. The genome of M. hungatei strain JF1 is the first completely sequenced genome of the family Methanospirillaceae, and it has a circular genome of 3,544,738 bp containing 3,239 protein coding and 68 RNA genes. The large genome of M. hungatei JF1 suggests the presence of unrecognized biochemical/physiological properties that likely extend to the other Methanospirillaceae and include the ability to form the unusual sheath-like structure and to successfully interact with syntrophic bacteria.
De Nostalgia
Authors: Kittler Friedrich
Published: January 2016

The essay presents a reading of three war-related texts: Friedrich Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell, Heinrich von Kleist’s The Battle of Hermann, and Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Written against the background of the Revolutionary Wars and the Prussian Wars of Liberation, respectively, the plays by Schiller and Kleist engage in the discursive construction of an emphatic sense of heimat (home), either by way of creating the new sentiment of homesickness (originally called nostalgia) or by advocating the complete destruction of the very home territory you are trying to defend. Gravity’s Rainbow, in turn, decodes the Second World War as a massive exercise in technology transfer. It effectively presents a deconstruction of heimat in an age in which the imperative to merge technologies supersedes all national agendas.
Ambient CO2, fish behaviour and altered GABAergic neurotransmission: exploring the mechanism of CO2-altered behaviour by taking a hypercapnia dweller down to low CO2 levels
Authors: Regan Matthew D. , Turko Andy J. , Heras Joseph , Andersen Mads Kuhlmann , Lefevre Sjannie , Wang Tobias , Bayley Mark , Brauner Colin J. , Huong Do Thi Thanh , Phuong Nguyen Thanh , Nilsson Göran E.
Published: January 2016

Recent studies suggest that projected rises of aquatic CO2 levels cause acid–base regulatory responses in fishes that lead to altered GABAergic neurotransmission and disrupted behaviour, threatening fitness and population survival. It is thought that changes in Cl− and HCO3− gradients across neural membranes interfere with the function of GABA-gated anion channels (GABAA receptors). So far, such alterations have been revealed experimentally by exposing species living in low-CO2 environments, like many oceanic habitats, to high levels of CO2 (hypercapnia). To examine the generality of this phenomenon, we set out to study the opposite situation, hypothesizing that fishes living in typically hypercapnic environments also display behavioural alterations if exposed to low CO2 levels. This would indicate that ion regulation in the fish brain is fine-tuned to the prevailing CO2 conditions. We quantified pH regulatory variables and behavioural responses of Pangasianodon hypophthalmus, a fish native to the hypercapnic Mekong River, acclimated to high-CO2 (3.1 kPa) or low-CO2 (0.04 kPa) water. We found that brain and blood pH was actively regulated and that the low-CO2 fish displayed significantly higher activity levels, which were reduced after treatment with gabazine, a GABAA receptor blocker. This indicates an involvement of the GABAA receptor and altered Cl− and HCO3− ion gradients. Indeed, Goldman calculations suggest that low levels of environmental CO2 may cause significant changes in neural ion gradients in P. hypophthalmus. Taken together, the results suggest that brain ion regulation in fishes is fine-tuned to the prevailing ambient CO2 conditions and is prone to disruption if these conditions change.
The Dutch Techcentre for Life Sciences: Enabling data-intensive life science research in the Netherlands
Authors: Eijssen Lars , Evelo Chris T. , Kok Ruben , Mons Barend , Hooft Rob W.W. ,   and the other founding members of DTL Data (see Acknowledgements)
Published: January 2016

We describe the Data programme of the Dutch Techcentre for Life Sciences (DTL, www.dtls.nl). DTL is a new national organisation in scientific research that facilitates life scientists with technologies and technological expertise in an era where new projects often are data-intensive, multi-disciplinary, and multi-site. It is run as a lean not-for-profit organisation with research organisations (both academic and industrial) as paying members. The small staff of the organisation undertakes a variety of tasks that are necessary to perform or support modern academic research, but that are not easily undertaken in a purely academic setting. DTL Data takes care of such tasks related to data stewardship, facilitating exchange of knowledge and expertise, and brokering access to e-infrastructure. DTL also represents the Netherlands in ELIXIR, the European infrastructure for life science data. The organisation is still being fine-tuned and this will continue over time, as it is crucial for this kind of organisation to adapt to a constantly changing environment. However, already being underway for several years, our experiences can benefit researchers in other fields or other countries setting up similar initiatives.
Make-Take Structure and Market Quality: Evidence from the U.S. Options Markets
Authors: Anand Amber , Hua Jian , McCormick Tim
Published: January 2016

We examine the make-take structure, which compensates liquidity suppliers and charges liquidity demanders, in the options markets where it competes with a traditional structure that uses payments for order flow. Using the introduction of the make-take structure as an event, we find that execution costs (including fees) for liquidity demanders decline after the event for the affected options, that the make-take structure encourages market makers to improve quoted prices, and that brokers change their routing behavior to include fees in the routing decision. The decline in execution costs is consistent with the benefits of the increased quote competition from the make-take structure prevailing over the fees the structure charges to liquidity demanders.

This paper was accepted by Wei Jiang, finance.
Multistage Adaptive Robust Optimization for the Unit Commitment Problem
Authors: Lorca Álvaro , Sun X. Andy , Litvinov Eugene , Zheng Tongxin
Published: January 2016

The growing uncertainty associated with the increasing penetration of wind and solar power generation has presented new challenges to the operation of large-scale electric power systems. Motivated by these challenges, we present a multistage adaptive robust optimization model for the most critical daily operational problem of power systems, namely, the unit commitment (UC) problem, in the situation where nodal net electricity loads are uncertain. The proposed multistage robust UC model takes into account the time causality of the hourly unfolding of uncertainty in the power system operation process, which we show to be relevant when ramping capacities are limited and net loads present significant variability. To deal with large-scale systems, we explore the idea of simplified affine policies and develop a solution method based on constraint generation. Extensive computational experiments on the IEEE 118-bus test case and a real-world power system with 2,736 buses demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is effective in handling large-scale power systems and that the proposed multistage robust UC model can significantly outperform the deterministic UC and existing two-stage robust UC models in both operational cost and system reliability.
Comparison of heat transfer coefficient for different fabrics by vapor-compression system
Authors: Joghatai Majid , Semnani Dariush , Salimpour Mohammad Reza , Ashrafi Zahra , Khoeini Davood
Published: January 2016

The selection of a suitable fabric layer is an important aspect in the development of a cooling garment. One of the essential ingredients in selecting fabric for cooling garments is high heat transfer coefficient. In this study five different type of knitting fabrics with similar woven pattern were selected. The fabrics were attached to a vapor-compression system which is one of the most important systems in cooling garments. Heat transfer coefficient was calculated for each fabric for three different refrigerator flow rates. The most efficient fabric for applying in cooling garments was determined from the point of heat transfer coefficient.
Discontinuous Change Facilitated by Emotional Expression Through Drawing and the Accurate Verbal Responsiveness of the Therapist
Authors: Kumano Horoaki
Published: January 2016

Murase’s (2015) case study of Mr. R meticulously examined the process of psychotherapy with a severely disturbed male client who received a variety of diagnoses such as personality disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and nonspecific psychotic disorder. His condition was drastically improved through interaction with the therapist using the medium of drawing. The severity of his condition was shocking enough for me as a psychiatrist in private practice to carefully examine the differences and similarities with the assessment and intervention that I usually practice as a behavior therapist. This case study took the form of a "narrative case study," in which there were no quantitative outcome measurements used; however, there were more similarities than differences with single case experimental design in behavior therapy. Intervention in this case was carried out through communication enabled by drawing. It can be inferred that central to this process were emotional expression through drawing and the accurate verbal responsiveness of the therapist. As the intervention progressed, there emerged discontinuous change in the client without his making conscious efforts to do. I examine the mechanism behind this next. Murase’s intervention seems to be directed at the client’s living and its context itself, while setting the initial condition and constraining condition that determine the new emerging context. This is in sharp contrast to behavior therapy that directs its intervention to facilitate continuous change in a set of behaviors selected by the assessment using functional analysis. In this case study, the initial condition consists of the assessment expressed as "first take the pulse of the situation before you, then apply the method that best conforms to it (p.109)," which enabled two constraining conditions: the framework for self-expression in the form of drawing, and honest attitude and responsiveness with no evasiveness or shakiness. These are core facilitative determinants of this therapy. Finally, I conclude my commentary by discussing how case studies can provide models and guidance for future generations of therapists and therapy researchers.
On Reading Dr. Kumano's and Dr. McLeod's Commentaries
Authors: Murase Kayoko
Published: January 2016

I would like to express my gratitude for the opportunity to read commentaries by non-Japanese and Japanese commentators and reflect back on both this case and on the basic principles of psychotherapy. Both commentators (McLeod, 2015 and Kumano, 2015) picked up profound themes such as therapist
Functional organization of human SAMHD1 and mechanisms of HIV-1 restriction
Authors: Ahn Jinwoo
Published: January 2016

Sterile alpha motif and histidine-aspartate domain containing protein 1 (SAMHD1) is a triphosphohydrolase that catalyzes the conversion of deoxyribonucleoside triphosphate to deoxyribonucleoside and triphosphate. SAMHD1 has been a recent focus of study since it was identified as a potent human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) restriction factor in the intrinsic antiviral immune system. Recent biochemical and biological studies have suggested that SAMHD1 restricts HIV-1 infection in non-cycling cells by limiting the pool of deoxyribonucleoside triphosphates, thereby interfering with HIV-1 reverse transcription. SAMHD1 also possesses single-stranded DNA and RNA binding activity, with reported nuclease activity, conferring additional HIV-1 restriction function. This review summarizes current knowledge regarding the structure of SAMHD1 and the regulation of its function in HIV-1 restriction.