Development and validation of a reversed phase High Performance ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

A simple, rapid, accurate and economical isocratic Reversed Phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography (RPHPLC) method was developed, validated and used for the evaluation of content of different brands of paracetamol tablets. The method was validated according to ICH guidelines and may be adopted for the ...

Beyond the adoption/ non-adoption dichotomy: the impact of innovation characteristics on potential adopters' transition through adoption process stages

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Agarwal, M.K.; Frambach, R.T.

2002-01-01

Research on innovation adoption has suffered from a bias towards understanding the factors that affect the dichotomous adoption/non-adoption decision.Much less attention is devoted to the question why potential adopters fail to progress to the adoption stage from earlier stages in the decision

Citizen Action Can Help the Code Adoption Process for Radon-Resistant New Construction: Decatur, Alabama

Science.gov (United States)

Adopting a code requiring radon-resistant new construction (RRNC) in Decatur, Alabama, took months of effort by four people. Their actions demonstrate the influence that passionate residents can have on reversing a city council’s direction.

INTERNET USE ADOPTION AMONG ACADEMICIANS: Comparing Innovative Adopters and Other Adopter Types

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Norbayah BTE MOHD SUKI

2006-04-01

Full Text Available Online shopping represents an innovation to be adopted or rejected by online consumersglobally. Previous experiences and knowledge of innovation are the main factors affectingpeople’s willingness to adopt a new innovation. We explore how Internet use differsbetween academicians who are innovative adopters and other types of adopters.Academicians who are innovative adopters are hypothesized to: have more years of experience on online shopping, have greater frequency of purchase, and pay a higher price for items purchased online.Data were collected from 301 respondents. Results provide new perspective on innovativeadopters among Malaysian academicians; they have less experience than other adopters inshopping for products online, make fewer purchases online and pay small amount ofmoney in shopping for products online than other adopters. Directions for future research are also discussed.

Agent-based simulations of the influence of social policy and neighboring communication on the adoption of grid-connected photovoltaics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Murakami, Tomoyuki

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Multi-agent systems coupled with an electric power flow analysis. • Influence of social policy and communication on the adoption of photovoltaics. • Strong intervention near a transformer drives the greatest PV adoption. • Strong intervention far from a transformer increases social costs. - Abstract: Agent-based simulations coupled with an analysis of the flow of electric power are carried out to examine the influence of the social policy of the government and the neighboring communication between customers on the adoption of distributed rooftop photovoltaic electrical power generators (PVs). How the relationships between the social policy and the possibility of a reverse current restriction give rise to the collective behavior of autonomous individuals, and how the end customers interact and form relationships with its environment are described. Strong intervention by the government in the areas near a main high-voltage power distribution transformer, where the possibility of a reverse current restriction is relatively low, drives the greatest adoption of the PV system. The near areas are primarily occupied by customers with only a PV to improve the diffusion rate of PVs via the self-organization by the communication between customers. It also lead in a decrease in the need for compensation devices, which in turn minimizes the social cost. Growth in the number of PVs in areas far from the transformer is assisted by the installation of batteries as compensation for the lost opportunity due to restrictions in those areas on reverse power currents. Therefore, excessive intervention by the government in the far areas results in an increase in the social cost of managing reverse currents

Application of positron annihilation technique to reverse osmosis membrane materials

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shimazu, A.; Ikeda, K.; Miyazaki, T.; Ito, Y.

2000-01-01

Positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy has been adopted as a new approach for studying vacancies of reverse osmosis membrane materials composed of cellulose acetate films and aromatic polyamide resins. The intensity of the ortho-positronium (o-Ps) lifetime increased with the amount of vacancies determined using N 2 isotherm at -195 deg. C. Changes of vacancy profiles induced by heat treatment in the cellulose acetate films were detected using o-Ps. It was found that the positron annihilation technique is applicable to the study of vacancy profiles associated with salt selectivity in typical reverse osmosis membranes.

Open adoption: adoptive parents' reactions two decades later.

Science.gov (United States)

Siegel, Deborah H

2013-01-01

Unlike in the past, most adoption agencies today offer birth parents and adoptive parents the opportunity to share identifying information and have contact with each other. To understand the impacts of different open adoption arrangements, a qualitative descriptive study using a snowball sample of 44 adoptive parents throughout New England began in 1988. Every seven years these parents who adopted infants in open adoptions have participated in tape-recorded interviews to explore their evolving reactions to their open adoption experiences. This article reports the results of in-depth interviews with these parents now that their children have reached young adulthood. This longitudinal research illuminates how open adoptions change over the course of childhood and adolescence, parents' feelings about open adoption, challenges that emerge in their relationships with their children's birth families, how those challenges are managed and viewed, and parents' advice for others living with open adoption and for clinical social work practice and policy. Findings reveal that regardless of the type of openness, these adoptive parents generally feel positive about knowing the birth parents and having contact with them, are comfortable with open adoption, and see it serving the child's best interests.

Strengthening Adoption Practice, Listening to Adoptive Families

Science.gov (United States)

Atkinson, Anne; Gonet, Patricia

2007-01-01

In-depth interviews with 500 adoptive families who received postadoption services through Virginia's Adoptive Family Preservation (AFP) program paint a richly detailed picture of the challenges adoptive families face and what they need to sustain adoption for many years after finalization. Findings document the need for support in a variety of…

E-COMMERCE MARKET AND PERSPECTIVES FOR THE REVERSE COMMERCE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michał Laskowski

2015-12-01

Full Text Available E-commerce has been evolving from being a purely niche phenomenon to owning a vital share in economies of developed countries. Growth of such distribution and sales channel has been highly correlated with technological improvements penetrating modern societies. Today we stand in front of new ideas, adoption barriers and profit opportunities. There are a few trends ready to take off in the near future, one of them is the idea of reverse e-commerce, which is engaging the consumer even more into a highly personalized buying process. Nevertheless, every new idea needs the suitable time and place to launch. The purpose of this analysis is to verify prospects for the reverse e-commerce, which has a huge market potential. Reverse e-Commerce has every chance of becoming a new, still undiscovered now, marketing channel.

Adoptive parenting.

Science.gov (United States)

Grotevant, Harold D; Lo, Albert Yh

2017-06-01

Challenges in adoptive parenting continue to emerge as adoption policies and practices evolve. We review three areas of research in adoptive parenting that reflect contemporary shifts in adoption. First, we highlight recent findings concerning openness in adoption contact arrangements, or contact between a child's families of birth and rearing. Second, we examine research regarding racial and cultural socialization in transracial and international adoptions. Finally, we review investigations of parenting experiences of lesbian and gay adoptive parents. Overall, parenting processes (e.g., supportive vs. problematic family interaction) are better predictors of child adjustment than are group differences (e.g., open vs. closed adoptions; adoption by heterosexual vs. same-sex parents). The distinctive needs of adopted children call for preparation of adoption-competent mental health, casework, education, and health care professionals. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Environmental, social and financial impacts of a logistics reverse policy adopted by a television manufacturer – a case study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eduardo Correia Miguez

2008-07-01

Full Text Available Since the introduction of the concept of sustainability in development models, the reverse logistics is no longer seen only as additional costs to organizations, demanded by legal requirements but will be seen as a competitive advantage. The study showed from the analysis of the production of screens and cones of television sets with CRT technology, that was possible to apply the reverse logistics in the production process, getting at the same time the environmental, social and financial return. The achievement of economic and financial returns was measured through the application of techniques of Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return. Key-words: Reverse Logistics, Environmental benefits, Social benefits, Financial benefits

Synergism in work site adoption of employee assistance programs and health promotion activities.

Science.gov (United States)

Blum, T C; Roman, P M; Patrick, L

1990-05-01

As workplaces increasingly adopt proactive programs directed toward employee health issues, the interrelation between different programs becomes an important issue. Of interest here is the "synergy" in patterns of program adoption between employee assistance programs (EAPs) and health promotion activities (HPAs). We utilize the 1985 National Survey of Worksite Health Promotion Activities (N = 1358) for analyses of the dual presence of EAPs and HPAs, and in multivariate analyses we consider factors affecting such dual presence. The data suggest that synergy occurs, with EAP adoption appearing to influence HPA adoption to a greater extent than the reverse. In multivariate analyses, synergy is confirmed by the finding that, among a variety of relevant organizational characteristics, EAP presence and HPA presence are the best predictors of each other's presence. The analyses also indicate that there is minimal commonality in program ingredients across organizations reporting the presence of HPAs. Implications of the data for the future development of these two programming strategies are discussed.

The Adoption Process: Knowing the Experience of Adopting Families.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ana Carolina Gravena Vanalli

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Adoption includes changes to both the child and the adoptive home. Seeking to know the experiences regarding adoption, the couple and the family's experiences, two adoptive mothers were interviewed. The results indicate that the integration of the adopted child was carried out in a positive way, filling an apparent empty spot, and the adopted child was considered responsible for family harmony.

Bridging the Divide: Openness in Adoption and Post-adoption Psychosocial Adjustment among Birth and Adoptive Parents

Science.gov (United States)

Ge, Xiaojia; Natsuaki, Misaki N.; Martin, David; Leve, Leslie; Neiderhiser, Jenae; Shaw, Daniel S.; Villareal, Georgette; Scaramella, Laura; Reid, John; Reiss, David

2008-01-01

Using 323 matched parties of birth mothers and adoptive parents, this study examined the association between the degree of adoption openness (e.g., contact and knowledge between parties) and birth and adoptive parents’ post-adoption adjustment shortly after the adoption placement (6 to 9 months). Data from birth fathers (N=112), an understudied sample, also were explored. Openness was assessed by multiple informants. Results indicated that openness was significantly related to satisfaction with adoption process among adoptive parents and birth mothers. Increased openness was positively associated with birth mothers’ post-placement adjustment as indexed by birth mothers’ self reports and the interviewers’ impression of birth mothers’ adjustment. Birth fathers’ report of openness was associated with their greater satisfaction with the adoption process and better post-adoption adjustment. PMID:18729667

The Texas Adoption Project: adopted children and their intellectual resemblance to biological and adoptive parents.

Science.gov (United States)

Horn, J M

1983-04-01

Intelligence test scores were obtained from parents and children in 300 adoptive families and compared with similar measures available for the biological mothers of the same adopted children. Results supported the hypothesis that genetic variability is an important influence in the development of individual differences for intelligence. The most salient finding was that adopted children resemble their biological mothers more than they resemble the adoptive parents who reared them from birth. A small subset of the oldest adopted children did not resemble their biological mothers. The suggestion that the influence of genes declines with age is treated with caution since other adoption studies report a trend in the opposite direction.

Novel technologies for reverse osmosis concentrate treatment: a review.

Science.gov (United States)

Joo, Sung Hee; Tansel, Berrin

2015-03-01

Global water shortages due to droughts and population growth have created increasing interest in water reuse and recycling and, concomitantly, development of effective water treatment processes. Pressured membrane processes, in particular reverse osmosis, have been adopted in water treatment industries and utilities despite the relatively high operational cost and energy consumption. However, emerging contaminants are present in reverse osmosis concentrate in higher concentrations than in the feed water, and have created challenges for treatment of the concentrate. Further, standards and guidelines for assessment and treatment of newly identified contaminants are currently lacking. Research is needed regarding the treatment and disposal of emerging contaminants of concern in reverse osmosis concentrate, in order to develop cost-effective methods for minimizing potential impacts on public health and the environment. This paper reviews treatment options for concentrate from membrane processes. Barriers to emerging treatment options are discussed and novel treatment processes are evaluated based on a literature review. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Electron temperature diagnostics in the RFX reversed field pinch experiment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bartiromo, R.; Carraro, L.; Marrelli, L.; Murari, A.; Pasqualotto, R.; Puiatti, M.E.; Scarin, P.; Valisa, M.; Franz, P.; Martin, P.; Zabeo, L.

2000-01-01

The paper presents an integrated approach to the problem of electron temperature diagnostics of the plasma in a reversed field pinch. Three different methods, sampling different portions of the electron distribution function, are adopted, namely Thomson scattering, soft X-ray spectroscopy by pulse-height analysis and filtered soft X-ray intensity ratio. A careful analysis of the different sources of systematic errors is performed and a novel statistical approach is adopted to mutually validate the three independent measurements. A satisfactory agreement is obtained over a large range of experimental conditions, indicating that in the plasma core the energy distribution function is well represented by a maxwellian. (author)

Process of adoption communication openness in adoptive families: adopters’ perspective

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Acciaiuoli Barbosa-Ducharne

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Communication about adoption is a family interaction process which is more than the simple exchange of information. Adoption communication can be characterized in terms of the level of openness of family conversations regarding the child’s past and the degree of the family’s adoption social disclosure. The objective of this study is to explore the process of adoption communication openness in Portuguese adoptive families by identifying the impact of variables related to the adoption process, the adoptive parenting and the adoptee. One hundred twenty five parents of children aged 3 to 15, who were adopted on average 4 years ago, participated in this study. Data was collected during home visits using the Parents Adoption Process Interview. A cluster analysis identified three different groups of families according to the level of adoption communication openness within the family and outside. The findings also showed that the process of the adoption communication openness started when parents decided to adopt, developed in parent-child interaction and was susceptible to change under professional intervention. The relevance of training given to prospective adopters and of professional practice based on scientific evidence is highlighted.

Adopted children in their adoptive families.

Science.gov (United States)

Schechter, M D; Holter, F R

1975-08-01

The adoptive process can produce unusual stresses on the child, and biologic and adoptive parents, from prenatal to postnatal life, and through the various phases of physical and pscyhological development. Because of the possibility of these children and their families falling into the "at risk" category with greater potential for psychological and social problems, the pediatrician is of primary importance in diagnosis and counseling. The pediatrician can be of major help in properly diagnosing emotional, behavioral and/or learning problems occurring in adopted children. There must be a thorough evaluation of the child and his family to understand and properly treat symptomatic behavior. The pediatrician can give advice regarding developmental milestones, and especially help the adoptive parents in appreciating their conscious and unconscious attitudes so as to enhance attachment behaviors. Pediatricians are the consultants to whom parents turn for advice regarding the timing of telling about adoption. This advice needs to be individualized according to the specific child's needs. Using a developmental conceptual framework, the pediatrician is in the best position to help the parents and their adopted children with their feelings about societal attitudes and how these can most appropriately be handled. Along this line, the pediatrician can give help and advice when and if the adoptee decides to search for his biologic parents. There is a need to clarify laws which seal the original birth certificate permitting those adoptees who wish to attain a knowledge of potentially related disease processes and an identity with his own genealogical past to do so. This would also allow the adoptee to offer his own children information about their own genetic pool and an awareness of adoption as one of the most valuable and historically significant child rearing practices.

Open adoption of infants: adoptive parents' feelings seven years later.

Science.gov (United States)

Siegel, Deborah H

2003-07-01

Adoptions today increasingly include contact between adoptive and birth families. What do these "open adoptions" look like? How do the participants feel about them? This article, based on part of a longitudinal study that first examined adoptive parents' perceptions of their infants' open adoptions seven years ago, explores the parents' reactions now that their children are school age. This qualitative descriptive research revealed changes in the openness in the adoptions over time and identified four dimensions along which open adoptions vary. Findings showed parents' enthusiasm for the openness in their adoptions, regardless of the type and extent of openness. Implications for social work practice, education, and policy are explored.

Hospitious Adoption: How Hospitality Empowers Children and Transforms Adoption

Science.gov (United States)

Gritter, James L.

2009-01-01

Building on previous books by the author, "Hospitious Adoption: How Hospitality Empowers Children and Transforms Adoption" examines the next step after open adoption. Gritter takes the approach that practicing goodwill, respect, and courage within the realm of adoption makes the process move smoother and enriches children's lives. Following a…

Fouling and cleaning of seawater reverse osmosis membranes in Kalpakkam Nuclear Desalination Plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Murugan, V.; Rajanbabu, K.; Tiwari, S.A.; Balasubramanian, C.; Yadav, Manoj Kumar; Dangore, A.Y.; Prabhakar, S.; Tewari, P.K.

2005-01-01

Seawater reverse osmosis plant of 1800 m 3 /day capacity is a part of 6300 m 3 /day capacity Nuclear Desalination Demonstration Project, at Kalpakkam. The plant was commissioned in October 2002 and is in continuous operation. This paper deals with types of foulants, membrane cleaning procedures and the improvement in the reverse osmosis system after cleaning. This paper also describes analysis of foulants which may consist of adsorbed organic compounds, particulate matter, microorganisms, metallic oxides and chemical cleaning procedure to be adopted, which is characteristics of sea water used as the membrane foulant is very much specific with respect to the sea water constituents. The cleaning of the membranes in Kalpakkam Nuclear Desalination plant were taken up as the quality of permeate deteriorated and differential pressure across membrane had gone-up. This paper essentially deals with selection of cleaning chemicals, the experience gained in cleaning procedure adopted and effects of cleaning for the membrane system. (author)

Thinking About Adoption

Science.gov (United States)

... asked questions. Q: I think I want to adopt. Where do I begin?​ A: Thinking about adoption ... through adoption. Learn more about their How-to-Adopt and Adoption Parenting Network . Q: What are the ...

Application of a High-Power Reversible Converter in a Hybrid Traction Power Supply System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gang Zhang

2017-03-01

Full Text Available A high-power reversible converter can achieve a variety of functions, such as recovering regenerative braking energy, expanding traction power capacity, and improving an alternating current (AC grid power factor. A new hybrid traction power supply scheme, which consists of a high-power reversible converter and two 12-pulse diode rectifiers, is proposed. A droop control method based on load current feed-forward is adopted to realize the load distribution between the reversible converter and the existing 12-pulse diode rectifiers. The direct current (DC short-circuit characteristics of the reversible converter is studied, then the relationship between the peak fault current and the circuit parameters is obtained from theoretical calculations and validated by computer simulation. The first two sets of 2 MW reversible converters have been successfully applied in Beijing Metro Line 10, the proposed hybrid application scheme and coordinated control strategy are verified, and 11.15% of average energy-savings is reached.

Adoption

Science.gov (United States)

... a relative, foster parent, or a completely new family. An adoptive family might be a single parent, a couple, or ... doesn't mean they don't love their adoptive family or feel close to them. This curiosity, which ...

Reverse Logistics Systems: Persepsi dan Harapan Konsumen

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Farida Pulansari

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Complaint is a signal that indicates important information directly by customers. Complaint will give valuable information to company to plan recovery strategies to maintain customer satisfaction and loyalty. Hence, Electronic Waste (E-waste becomes a hot issue internationally, domestically and locally. There are many kind of regulations, strategy, methods or approach to minimize of E-waste. The goal of this research is design of House of Reverse Logistics (HRL to understanding the customer needs and wants for Reverse Logistics (RL implementation. This research adopted Quality Function Deployment (QFD method to construct the HRL. Differences among them are determination of the customer needs and wants. HRL insert five perspectives i.e. Input, Structure, Process, Output and Social & Organization. In other hand, QFD only inserts consumer perspective. The results showed the highest factors of consumer dissatisfaction comes from: 20% of third-party services mechanism, 10% from collaboration RL system (collection centers, recycling centers, disposal center ,10% comes the standardization of servicing system and 60% of others

A novel image encryption algorithm using chaos and reversible cellular automata

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xingyuan; Luan, Dapeng

2013-11-01

In this paper, a novel image encryption scheme is proposed based on reversible cellular automata (RCA) combining chaos. In this algorithm, an intertwining logistic map with complex behavior and periodic boundary reversible cellular automata are used. We split each pixel of image into units of 4 bits, then adopt pseudorandom key stream generated by the intertwining logistic map to permute these units in confusion stage. And in diffusion stage, two-dimensional reversible cellular automata which are discrete dynamical systems are applied to iterate many rounds to achieve diffusion on bit-level, in which we only consider the higher 4 bits in a pixel because the higher 4 bits carry almost the information of an image. Theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate the proposed algorithm achieves a high security level and processes good performance against common attacks like differential attack and statistical attack. This algorithm belongs to the class of symmetric systems.

Impact of RFID Information-Sharing Coordination over a Supply Chain with Reverse Logistics

Science.gov (United States)

Nativi Nicolau, Juan Jose

2016-01-01

Companies have adopted environmental practices such as reverse logistics over the past few decades. However, studies show that aligning partners inside the green supply chain can be a substantial problem. This lack of coordination can increase overall supply chain cost. Information technology such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has the…

Adopters and non-adopters of Internet banking: A segmentation study

OpenAIRE

Patsiotis, A.; Hughes, T.; Webber, D. J.

2012-01-01

Purpose – This study examines Internet banking adoption and resistance behaviour in Greece in order to develop profiles of adopters and non-adopters of the service. The aim is to illustrate customers’ resistance behaviour towards Internet banking. Existing research does not explain resistance behaviour, since it does not clearly distinguish non-adoption from resistance. Consequently, it has not recognized the different types of non-adoption.\\ud Design/methodology/approach – A measuring instru...

Healthy depictions? Depicting adoption and adoption news events on broadcast news.

Science.gov (United States)

Kline, Susan L; Chatterjee, Karishma; Karel, Amanda I

2009-01-01

Given that the public uses the media to learn about adoption as a family form, this study analyzes U.S. television news coverage of adoption between 2001 and 2005 (N = 309 stories), to identify the types of news events covered about adoption. A majority of news stories covered fraud, crime, legal disputes, and negative international adoption cases. Adoptees as defective or unhealthy were depicted more in negative news event stories, birth parents appeared less overall, and adoptive parents were most likely to have healthy depictions in positively oriented adoption experience, big family, and reunion stories. Although three quarters of the stories used primary adoption participants as news sources, one-third of the negative event stories did not contain healthy depictions of adoption participants. The authors discuss ways journalists and researchers might improve adoption news coverage.

Adopters and non-adopters of wood pellet heating in Norwegian households

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sopha, Bertha Maya; Hertwich, Edgar G.; Kloeckner, Christian A.

2011-01-01

The aim of the present paper is to understand the differences between adopters and non-adopters of wood pellet heating in Norwegian households by comparing the two groups with regard to key points of adoption. A mail survey of 669 adopters and 291 non-adopters of wood pellet heating was conducted in 2008. Results indicate that there are significant differences between groups with respect to socio-demographic factors, decision-related factors, heating systems adopted and reasons for shifting heating systems. The results also indicate that the adopter group shows characteristics of early adopters, whereas the non-adopter group has characteristics of late adopters. The results for levels of income and education contradict what would be predicted from theory, however. Both groups show no significant difference with respect to values, but the perception of which heating system is the most environmentally friendly differs significantly. The top three reasons cited by the adopter group for installing wood pellet heating are getting an environmentally friendly heating system, low operation costs and an anticipated increase in electricity prices. According to the non-adopter group, the main barriers to adoption are high installation costs, followed by the difficulties of refitting the house for wood pellet heating. A higher subsidy (i.e., an average of 64% of the total installation cost) rather than the current subsidy of up to 20% was required by the non-adopter group to switch to wood pellet heating. (author)

Critical success factors for reverse logistics in Indian industries

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mangla, Sachin Kumar; Govindan, Kannan; Luthra, Sunil

2016-01-01

Industries face significant pressures to enact eco-friendly practices in their supply chain due to the constraints of natural resources and growing ecological awareness among customers. Reverse logistics (RL) has been considered as a systematic approach for industries to improve their environmental...... Economic and Strategic main factors belong to effect group. This model will help business analysts and supply chain managers formulate both short-term and long-term, flexible decision strategies for successfully managing and implementing RL adoption in the supply chain scenarios....... of the CSFs, while the DEMATEL approach categorizes the causal relationships among them. The findings of this work shows that the Global competitiveness main factor is highly prioritized, and thus, needs to be focused greatly in order to increase the effectiveness of RL adoption in business. The relative...

Age at placement, adoption experience and adult adopted people's contact with their adoptive and birth mothers: an attachment perspective.

Science.gov (United States)

Howe, D

2001-09-01

Adoption holds particular interest for attachment researchers. Although children adopted as babies experience almost continuous care by their adoptive parents, older placed children experience at least one major change of caregiver when they join their adoptive family. Moreover, in the majority of cases, older placed children have generally suffered a pre-adoption history of abuse, neglect and/or rejection. It is now being recognized that older placed children's attachment histories and internal working models (IWMs) established in relationship with their initial carers remain active in relationship with their new carers. Transactional models have helped both researchers and practitioners to understand the dynamics of parent-child relationships in cases where insecure children with histories of neglect, abuse and rejection find themselves in new caregiving environments. The present study examines the childhood experiences of adult adopted people and their current levels of contact with their adoptive mothers, and in cases where people had searched for and found a birth relative, current levels of contact with their birth mother. Although no information was collected on the adopted adult's pre-placement history, age at placement was used as a proxy measure to examine whether older placed children reported different adoption experiences and what their current levels of contact were with their adoptive and birth mothers. The findings show that age at placement was associated with adopted people's reported experiences of being adopted and current rates of contact with their adoptive and birth mothers, with those placed at older ages most likely to report that they (1) did not feel they belonged in their adoptive families while growing up, (2) did not feel loved by their adoptive mother, (3) were least likely to remain in high-frequency contact with their adoptive mother, and (4) were least likely to remain in high-frequency contact with their birth mother. An

Reversible flowchart languages and the structured reversible program theorem

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yokoyama, Tetsuo; Axelsen, Holger Bock; Glück, Robert

2008-01-01

Many irreversible computation models have reversible counterparts, but these are poorly understood at present. We introduce reversible flowcharts with an assertion operator and show that any reversible flowchart can be simulated by a structured reversible flowchart using only three control flow...... operators. Reversible flowcharts are r- Turing-complete, meaning that they can simuluate reversible Turing machines without garbage data. We also demonstrate the injectivization of classical flowcharts into reversible flowcharts. The reversible flowchart computation model provides a theoretical...

Reverse innovation: an opportunity for strengthening health systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Snowdon, Anne W; Bassi, Harpreet; Scarffe, Andrew D; Smith, Alexander D

2015-02-07

Canada, when compared to other OECD countries, ranks poorly with respect to innovation and innovation adoption while struggling with increasing health system costs. As a result of its failure to innovate, the Canadian health system will struggle to meet the needs and demands of both current and future populations. The purpose of this initiative was to explore if a competition-based reverse innovation challenge could mobilize and stimulate current and future leaders to identify and lead potential reverse innovation projects that address health system challenges in Canada. An open call for applications took place over a 4-month period. Applicants were enticed to submit to the competition with a $50,000 prize for the top submission to finance their project. Leaders from a wide cross-section of sectors collectively developed evaluation criteria and graded the submissions. The criteria evaluated: proof of concept, potential value, financial impact, feasibility, and scalability as well as the use of prize money and innovation team. The competition received 12 submissions from across Canada that identified potential reverse innovations from 18 unique geographical locations that were considered developing and/or emerging markets. The various submissions addressed health system challenges relating to education, mobile health, aboriginal health, immigrant health, seniors health and women's health and wellness. Of the original 12 submissions, 5 finalists were chosen and publically profiled, and 1 was chosen to receive the top prize. The results of this initiative demonstrate that a competition that is targeted to reverse innovation does have the potential to mobilize and stimulate leaders to identify reverse innovations that have the potential for system level impact. The competition also provided important insights into the capacity of Canadian students, health care providers, entrepreneurs, and innovators to propose and implement reverse innovation in the context of the

[Perception of parental socialization strategies in adoptive and non-adoptive families].

Science.gov (United States)

Bernedo Muñoz, Isabel María; Fuentes Rebollo, María Jesús; Fernández-Molina, M; Bersabé Morán, Rosa

2007-11-01

Although parental socialization styles have been investigated in recent years, little research has been carried out on the issue of parental styles in adoptive families. The aim of this research is to analyse parental styles both from the point of view of the parents and of adopted and non-adopted adolescents, taking as covariables the adolescents' sex and age. The sample was made up of 55 adopted adolescents (20 boys and 35 girls with an age range of 11-17 years) and their 55 adoptive parents, and 402 non-adopted adolescents (200 boys and 202 girls with an age range of 11-17 years), and their 258 parents. Two scales evaluated parental styles: the Affect Scale and the Rules and Demands Scale. The results showed that, both from the point of view of the parents and of the adolescents, adoptive families are more affective, communicative and inductive, and less critical and indulgent than non-adoptive families. No differences were found between adopted and non-adopted adolescents on the Parents' Rigidity Scale.

Reverse Algols

Science.gov (United States)

Leung, K. C.

1989-01-01

Reverse Algols, binary systems with a semidetached configuration in which the more massive component is in contact with the critical equipotential surface, are examined. Observational evidence for reverse Algols is presented and the parameters of seven reverse Algols are listed. The evolution of Algols and reverse Algols is discussed. It is suggested that, because reverse Algols represent the premass-reversal semidetached phase of close binary evolution, the evolutionary time scale between regular and reverse Algols is the ratio of the number of confirmed systems of these two Algol types.

Adoptive parenting and attachment: association of the internal working models between adoptive mothers and their late-adopted children during adolescence.

Science.gov (United States)

Pace, Cecilia S; Di Folco, Simona; Guerriero, Viviana; Santona, Alessandra; Terrone, Grazia

2015-01-01

Recent literature has shown that the good outcome of adoption would mostly depend on the quality of adoptive parenting, which is strongly associated with the security of parental internal working models (IWMs) of attachment. Specifically, attachment states-of-mind of adoptive mothers classified as free and autonomous and without lack of resolution of loss or trauma could represent a good protective factor for adopted children, previously maltreated and neglected. While most research on adoptive families focused on pre-school and school-aged children, the aim of this study was to assess the concordance of IWMs of attachment in adoptive dyads during adolescence. Our pilot-study involved 76 participants: 30 adoptive mothers (mean age = 51.5 ± 4.3), and their 46 late-adopted adolescents (mean age = 13.9 ± 1.6), who were all aged 4-9 years old at time of adoption (mean age = 6.3 ± 1.5). Attachment representations of adopted adolescents were assessed by the Friend and Family Interview (FFI), while adoptive mothers' state-of-mind with respect to attachment was classified by the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). Adolescents' verbal intelligence was controlled for. Late-adopted adolescents were classified as follows: 67% secure, 26% dismissing, and 7% preoccupied in the FFI, while their adoptive mothers' AAI classifications were 70% free-autonomous, 7% dismissing, and 23% unresolved. We found a significant concordance of 70% (32 dyads) between the secure-insecure FFI and AAI classifications. Specifically adoptive mothers with high coherence of transcript and low unresolved loss tend to have late-adopted children with high secure attachment, even if the adolescents' verbal intelligence made a significant contribution to this prediction. Our results provides an empirical contribution to the literature concerning the concordance of attachment in adoptive dyads, highlighting the beneficial impact of highly coherent states-of-mind of adoptive mothers on the attachment

Adoptive parenting and attachment: association of the Internal Working Models between adoptive mothers and their late-adopted children during adolescence

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cecilia Serena ePace

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Introduction. Recent literature has shown that the good outcome of adoption would mostly depend on the quality of adoptive parenting, which is strongly associated with the security of parental internal working models (IWMs of attachment. Specifically, attachment states-of-mind of adoptive mothers classified as free and autonomous and without lack of resolution of loss or trauma could represent a good protective factor for adopted children previously maltreated and neglected. While most research on adoptive families has focused on pre-school and school-aged children, the aim of this study was to assess the concordance of IWMs of attachment in adoptive dyads during adolescence.Method. Our pilot-study involved 76 participants: 30 adoptive mothers (mean age=51.5±4.3, and their 46 late-adopted adolescents (mean age = 13.9 ± 1.6, who were all aged four to nine years old at time of adoption (M = 6.3 ± 1.5. Attachment representations of adopted adolescents were assessed by the Friend and Family Interview (FFI, while adoptive mothers’ state-of-mind with respect to attachment was classified by the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI. Adolescents’ verbal intelligence was controlled.Results. Late-adopted adolescents were classified as follows: 67% secure, 26% dismissing and 7% preoccupied in the FFI, while their adoptive mothers’ AAI classifications were 70% free-autonomous, 7% dismissing, and 23% unresolved. We found a significant concordance of 70% (32 dyads between the secure-insecure FFI and AAI classifications. Specifically adoptive mothers with high coherence of transcript and low unresolved loss tend to have late-adopted children with high secure attachment, even if the adolescents’ verbal intelligence made a significant contribution to this prediction.Discussion. Our results provides an empirical contribution to the literature concerning the concordance of attachment in adoptive dyads, highlighting the beneficial impact of highly coherent

Reversible dissipative processes, conformal motions and Landau damping

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Herrera, L.; Di Prisco, A.; Ibáñez, J.

2012-01-01

The existence of a dissipative flux vector is known to be compatible with reversible processes, provided a timelike conformal Killing vector (CKV) χ α =(V α )/T (where V α and T denote the four-velocity and temperature respectively) is admitted by the spacetime. Here we show that if a constitutive transport equation, either within the context of standard irreversible thermodynamics or the causal Israel–Stewart theory, is adopted, then such a compatibility also requires vanishing dissipative fluxes. Therefore, in this later case the vanishing of entropy production generated by the existence of such CKV is not actually associated to an imperfect fluid, but to a non-dissipative one. We discuss also about Landau damping. -- Highlights: ► We review the problem of compatibility of dissipation with reversibility. ► We show that the additional assumption of a transport equation renders such a compatibility trivial. ► We discuss about Landau damping.

Reversible dissipative processes, conformal motions and Landau damping

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Herrera, L., E-mail: laherrera@cantv.net.ve [Departamento de Física Teórica e Historia de la Ciencia, Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao (Spain); Di Prisco, A., E-mail: adiprisc@fisica.ciens.ucv.ve [Departamento de Física Teórica e Historia de la Ciencia, Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao (Spain); Ibáñez, J., E-mail: j.ibanez@ehu.es [Departamento de Física Teórica e Historia de la Ciencia, Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao (Spain)

2012-02-06

The existence of a dissipative flux vector is known to be compatible with reversible processes, provided a timelike conformal Killing vector (CKV) χ{sup α}=(V{sup α})/T (where V{sup α} and T denote the four-velocity and temperature respectively) is admitted by the spacetime. Here we show that if a constitutive transport equation, either within the context of standard irreversible thermodynamics or the causal Israel–Stewart theory, is adopted, then such a compatibility also requires vanishing dissipative fluxes. Therefore, in this later case the vanishing of entropy production generated by the existence of such CKV is not actually associated to an imperfect fluid, but to a non-dissipative one. We discuss also about Landau damping. -- Highlights: ► We review the problem of compatibility of dissipation with reversibility. ► We show that the additional assumption of a transport equation renders such a compatibility trivial. ► We discuss about Landau damping.

Managing Reverse Logistics or Reversing Logistics Management?

OpenAIRE

Brito, Marisa

2004-01-01

textabstractIn the past, supply chains were busy fine-tuning the logistics from raw material to the end customer. Today an increasing flow of products is going back in the chain. Thus, companies have to manage reverse logistics as well.This thesis contributes to a better understanding of reverse logistics. The thesis brings insights on reverse logistics decision-making and it lays down theoretical principles for reverse logistics as a research field.In particular it puts together a framework ...

REVERSE LOGISTICS OF PACKAGING AS A SUSTAINABLE STRATEGY FOR COST REDUCTION: A STUDY IN A BOTTLER BEVERAGES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laryssa Guedes de Oliveira

2013-09-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to examine the possibility of reducing production costs with the implementation of a program of reverse logistics packaging. Therefore we conducted a literature review focusing on reverse logistics, sustainability, packaging and glass recycling. The research was conducted through a descriptive case study, conducted from a survey and a semi structured interview. The study was developed in a beverage bottler, the Engarrafamento Coroa, a company that adopts in its bottling system using bottles purchased from recycling cooperatives. The results indicate that by reverse logistics is possible to reduce costs and environmental impact associated with the pollution and waste of materials, and provides revenue generation.

'Adoption and attachment theory' the attachment models of adoptive mothers and the revision of attachment patterns of their late-adopted children.

Science.gov (United States)

Pace, C S; Zavattini, G C

2011-01-01

This study examined the attachment patterns of late-adopted children (aged 4-7) and their adoptive mothers during the first 7- to 8-month period after adoption and aimed to evaluate the effect of adoptive mothers' attachment security on the revision of the attachment patterns of their late-adopted children. We assessed attachment patterns in 20 adoptive dyads and 12 genetically related dyads at two different times: T1 (time 1) within 2 months of adoption and T2 (time 2) 6 months after T1. The children's behavioural attachment patterns were assessed using the Separation-Reunion Procedure and the children's representational (verbal) attachment patterns using the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task. The attachment models of the adoptive mothers were classified using the Adult Attachment Interview. We found that there was a significant enhancement of the late-adopted children's attachment security across the time period considered (P= 0.008). Moreover, all the late-adopted children who showed a change from insecurity to security had adoptive mothers with secure attachment models (P= 0.044). However, the matching between maternal attachment models and late-adopted children's attachment patterns (behaviours and representations) was not significant. Our data suggest that revision of the attachment patterns in the late-adopted children is possible but gradual, and that the adoptive mothers' attachment security makes it more likely to occur. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Market adoption of reverse factoring

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Iacono, Umberto Dello; Reindorp, Matthew; Dellaert, Nico

2015-01-01

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to show that market dynamics can significantly influence th lifecycle and value of a supply chain finance (SCF) arrangement. Design/methodology/approach - Based on a review of scientific and trade literature, the author construct a model of market dynamics for

A Non-Modeling Exploration of Residential Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Adoption and Non-Adoption

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Moezzi, Mithra [Portland State Univ., Portland, OR (United States); Ingle, Aaron [Portland State Univ., Portland, OR (United States); Lutzenhiser, Loren [Portland State Univ., Portland, OR (United States); Sigrin, Benjamin O. [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

2017-09-01

Although U.S. deployment of residential rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems has accelerated in recent years, PV is still installed on less than 1 percent of single-family homes. Most research on household PV adoption focuses on scaling initial markets and modeling predicted growth rather than considering more broadly why adoption occurs. Among the studies that have investigated the characteristics of PV adoption, most collected data from adopters, sometimes with additional non-adopter data, and rarely from people who considered but did not adopt PV. Yet the vast majority of Americans are non-adopters, and they are a diverse group - understanding their ways of evaluating PV adoption is important. Similarly, PV is a unique consumer product, which makes it difficult to apply findings from studies of other technologies to PV. In addition, little research addresses the experience of households after they install PV. This report helps fill some of these gaps in the existing literature. The results inform a more detailed understanding of residential PV adoption, while helping ensure that adoption is sufficiently beneficial to adopters and even non-adopters.

International Adoption: Issues of Acknowledgement of Adoption and Birth Culture.

Science.gov (United States)

Trolley, Barbara C.; And Others

1995-01-01

Families who adopt children internationally are faced with not only the acknowledgement of the adoption but also the recognition of the child's birth culture. Thirty-four families were surveyed to assess issues regarding the relevance, frequency, and means of acknowledgement of the adoption and of the birth culture. Findings suggest ways adoption…

Reverse Logistics

OpenAIRE

Kulikova, Olga

2016-01-01

This thesis was focused on the analysis of the concept of reverse logistics and actual reverse processes which are implemented in mining industry and finding solutions for the optimization of reverse logistics in this sphere. The objective of this paper was the assessment of the development of reverse logistics in mining industry on the example of potash production. The theoretical part was based on reverse logistics and mining waste related literature and provided foundations for further...

[Adoptive parents' satisfaction with the adoption experience and with its impact on family life].

Science.gov (United States)

Sánchez-Sandoval, Yolanda

2011-11-01

In this study, we discuss the relevance of adoptive families' satisfaction in the assessment of adoption processes. The effects of adoption on a sample group of 272 adoptive families are analyzed. Most families show high levels of satisfaction as to: their decision to adopt, the features of their adopted children and how adoption has affected them as individuals and as a family. Statistical analyses show that these families can have different satisfaction levels depending on certain features of the adoptees, of the adoptive families or of their educational style. Life satisfaction of the adoptees is also related to how their adoptive parents evaluate the adoption.

To Adopt Or Not To Adopt? The Transnational Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Africa

OpenAIRE

Zori, S.

2015-01-01

The idea that policy diffusion can occur via two different mechanisms has gained attention in the realm of international accounting since the European Union’s adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) in 2005. Proponents of classical economic approaches to policy adoption argue that countries adopting IFRS are motivated solely by the economic consequences of the standards from which they anticipate an improvement in information quality. Neo-institutional scholars argue, ...

Characterization of retentivity of reversed phase liquid chromatography columns.

Science.gov (United States)

Ying, P T; Dorsey, J G

1991-03-01

There are dozens of commercially available reversed phase columns, most marketed as C-8 or C-18 materials, but with no useful way of classifying their retentivity. A useful way of ranking these columns in terms of column "strength" or retentivity is presented. The method utilizes a value for ln k'(w), the estimated retention of a solute from a mobile phase of 100% water, and the slope of the plot of ln k' vsE(T)(30), the solvent polarity. The method is validated with 26 solutes varying in ln k'(w) from about 2 to over 20, on 14 different reversed phase columns. In agreement with previous work, it is found that the phase volume ratio of the column is the most important parameter in determining retentivity. It is strongly suggested that manufacturers adopt a uniform method of calculating this value and that it be made available in advertising, rather than the uninterpretable "% carbon".

Contact in Adoption and Adoptive Identity Formation: The Mediating Role of Family Conversation

Science.gov (United States)

Korff, Lynn Von; Grotevant, Harold D.

2012-01-01

The present study examined adoption-related family conversation as a mediator of the association between adoptive parents’ facilitation of contact with birth relatives and adolescent adoptive identity formation. The sample consisted of 184 adoptive families. Data were collected in two waves from adoptive mothers and fathers, and adoptees (M = 15.68 years at adolescence; M = 24.95 years at emerging adulthood) using semistructured interviews and questionnaires. Structural equation models showed a good fit to sample data, and analyses supported the hypothesized mediation model. Contact with birth relatives is associated with more frequent adoption-related family conversation, which in turn is associated with the development of adoptive identity. These results highlight the importance of supporting activities such as contact that lead to adoption-related family conversation. PMID:21517175

Adoption of Children with Disabilities: An Exploration of the Issues for Adoptive Families

Science.gov (United States)

Good, Gretchen A.

2016-01-01

This systematic literature review is an exploration of issues for adoptive families throughout the adoption process and into the various phases of the life of the adoptive family. Although there has been much recent research related to adoption, in general, very little adoption literature addresses the often unspoken needs of families who want to…

Geological storage of radioactive wastes: governance and practical implementation of the reversibility concept; Stockage geologique de dechets radioactifs: gouvernance et mise en oeuvre pratique du concept de reversibilite

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Anon.

2011-01-15

This document comments the different issues associated with the concept of reversibility in the case of geological disposal of radioactive wastes: adopted approach for investigations on the practical implementation of reversibility, decision and assessment process related to the practical implementation of reversibility, role of local actors in decision and monitoring process on a middle and long term, control and vigilance during the reversibility period, memory preservation and its inter-generational transmission, modalities of financing reversibility and the radioactive waste management system, development of a citizen ability and expertise sharing, and perspectives

The Danish Adoption Register.

Science.gov (United States)

Petersen, Liselotte; Sørensen, Thorkild I A

2011-07-01

The Danish Adoption Register was established in 1963-1964 to explore the genetic and environmental contribution to familial aggregation of schizophrenia. The register encompass information on all 14,425 non-familial adoptions of Danish children legally granted in Denmark 1924-1947. It includes name and date of birth of each adoptee and his or her biological and adoptive parents, date of transfer to adoptive parents and date of formal adoption. The linkage to biological and adoptive parents is close to complete, even biological fathers are registered for 91.4% of the adoptees. Adoption registers are a unique source allowing disentangling of genetic and familial environmental influences on traits, risk of diseases, and mortality.

Inhibitors of e-Government adoption: Determinants of habit and adoption intentions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manuel Rey-Moreno

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Explanatory models of e-Government adoption are based on the premise that user behavior results from users’ intentions, which derive from users’ beliefs and attitudes. According to such models, citizens’ high intentions to use e-Government tools should have led to the widespread adoption of these tools. Yet this has not occurred. Therefore, existing models fail to explain the adoption of e-Government. These models must be complemented to explain the cause of citizens’ failure to adopt e-Government. Attempts to build a satisfactory model include the design of dual models (jointly analyzing facilitators and inhibitors and integrating models (jointly analyzing the interaction between intention and habit in prompting behavior. This study identified several inhibitors of e-Government adoption. Organizational support, self-efficacy, benefits, loss aversion, regret aversion, control, transition costs, sunk costs/switching costs, uncertainty, habit, resistance, and inertia were found to inhibit citizens’ adoption of e-Government.

Contact in adoption and adoptive identity formation: the mediating role of family conversation.

Science.gov (United States)

Von Korff, Lynn; Grotevant, Harold D

2011-06-01

The present study examined adoption-related family conversation as a mediator of the association between adoptive parents' facilitation of contact with birth relatives and adolescent adoptive identity formation. The sample consisted of 184 adoptive families. Data were collected in two waves from adoptive mothers and fathers, and adoptees (M = 15.68 years at adolescence; M = 24.95 years at emerging adulthood) using semistructured interviews and questionnaires. Structural equation models showed a good fit to sample data, and analyses supported the hypothesized mediation model. Contact with birth relatives is associated with more frequent adoption-related family conversation, which in turn is associated with the development of adoptive identity. These results highlight the importance of supporting activities such as contact that lead to adoption-related family conversation. 2011 APA, all rights reserved

Limitations of a metabolic network-based reverse ecology method for inferring host-pathogen interactions.

Science.gov (United States)

Takemoto, Kazuhiro; Aie, Kazuki

2017-05-25

Host-pathogen interactions are important in a wide range of research fields. Given the importance of metabolic crosstalk between hosts and pathogens, a metabolic network-based reverse ecology method was proposed to infer these interactions. However, the validity of this method remains unclear because of the various explanations presented and the influence of potentially confounding factors that have thus far been neglected. We re-evaluated the importance of the reverse ecology method for evaluating host-pathogen interactions while statistically controlling for confounding effects using oxygen requirement, genome, metabolic network, and phylogeny data. Our data analyses showed that host-pathogen interactions were more strongly influenced by genome size, primary network parameters (e.g., number of edges), oxygen requirement, and phylogeny than the reserve ecology-based measures. These results indicate the limitations of the reverse ecology method; however, they do not discount the importance of adopting reverse ecology approaches altogether. Rather, we highlight the need for developing more suitable methods for inferring host-pathogen interactions and conducting more careful examinations of the relationships between metabolic networks and host-pathogen interactions.

Multi-criteria approach for strategic planning of reverse supply chain

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abdelkader Benzohra

2017-04-01

Full Text Available A reverse supply chain is viewed as a process from consumption point to recovery point and the management of domestic waste is considered as a specific and complex reverse supply chain. This important sector represents a high challenging problem for our cities, constrained by financial, social, health and environmental considerations. This paper proposes multicriteria decision aid to help choose an efficient domestic waste management strategy. In fact, Multicriteria decision making techniques are considered as a key option to solve this type of problems, giving a solution that represents a good compromise between different preferences. The adopted approach consists in outranking a set of candidate management plans using a method based on partial aggregation criteria. This model is applied on a real case study of an Algerian city and to validate the obtained results, a deep sensitivity analysis is carried out, giving the most appropriate plans.

A Process Re-engineering Framework for Reverse Logistics based on a Case Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hing Kai Chan

2010-09-01

Full Text Available Reverse logistics has gained increasing attention in recent years as a channel for companies to achieve operational excellence. The process involves manipulation of returned materials, or even products, which forms a pivotal role in sustainable development throughout the whole supply chains. To make reverse logistics possible, process re-engineering may need to be carried out. However, the processes involved in reengineering are practically complicated. Objectives, benefits, and applicability of any process re-engineering require a careful and detailed strategic planning. This paper aims to propose an easy-to-follow step-by-step framework for practitioners to perform process re-engineering, to learn and identify the critical issues in each step, and to be successful in applying process re-engineering in order to enhance reverse logistics performance. A learner-centred approach is adopted based on a case study of process re-engineering, which is demonstrated in the paper for explanation.

Contact in Adoption and Adoptive Identity Formation: The Mediating Role of Family Conversation

OpenAIRE

Korff, Lynn Von; Grotevant, Harold D.

2011-01-01

The present study examined adoption-related family conversation as a mediator of the association between adoptive parents’ facilitation of contact with birth relatives and adolescent adoptive identity formation. The sample consisted of 184 adoptive families. Data were collected in two waves from adoptive mothers and fathers, and adoptees (M = 15.68 years at adolescence; M = 24.95 years at emerging adulthood) using semistructured interviews and questionnaires. Structural equation models showed...

Rate of electronic health record adoption in South Korea: A nation-wide survey.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Young-Gun; Jung, Kyoungwon; Park, Young-Taek; Shin, Dahye; Cho, Soo Yeon; Yoon, Dukyong; Park, Rae Woong

2017-05-01

The adoption rate of electronic health record (EHR) systems in South Korea has continuously increased. However, in contrast to the situation in the United States (US), where there has been a national effort to improve and standardize EHR interoperability, no consensus has been established in South Korea. The goal of this study was to determine the current status of EHR adoption in South Korean hospitals compared to that in the US. All general and tertiary teaching hospitals in South Korea were surveyed regarding their EHR status in 2015 with the same questionnaire as used previously. The survey form estimated the level of adoption of EHR systems according to 24 core functions in four categories (clinical documentation, result view, computerized provider order entry, and decision supports). The adoption level was classified into comprehensive and basic EHR systems according to their functionalities. EHRs and computerized physician order entry systems were used in 58.1% and 86.0% of South Korean hospitals, respectively. Decision support systems and problem list documentation were the functions most frequently missing from comprehensive and basic EHR systems. The main barriers cited to adoption of EHR systems were the cost of purchasing (48%) and the ongoing cost of maintenance (11%). The EHR adoption rate in Korean hospitals (37.2%) was higher than that in US hospitals in 2010 (15.1%), but this trend was reversed in 2015 (58.1% vs. 75.2%). The evidence suggests that these trends were influenced by the level of financial and political support provided to US hospitals after the HITECH Act was passed in 2009. The EHR adoption rate in Korea has increased, albeit more slowly than in the US. It is logical to suggest that increased funding and support tied to the HITECH Act in the US partly explains the difference in the adoption rates of EHRs in both countries. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Becoming an Adoptive Parent

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

McIlvenny, Paul; Raudaskoski, Pirkko Liisa

Our research approaches transnational adoption as a nexus of local and global practices which are mediated in talk, text and other modalities of discourse. We use mediated discourse analysis combined with virtual ethnography to understand the cross-cultural similarities and differences in transna......Our research approaches transnational adoption as a nexus of local and global practices which are mediated in talk, text and other modalities of discourse. We use mediated discourse analysis combined with virtual ethnography to understand the cross-cultural similarities and differences...... in transnational adoption practice and representation. We present the results of our analysis of how the experiences of adoptive parents are (re)mediated in a Danish television documentary series following five prospective adoptive couples, not all of whom succeed in their 'quest' to adopt from abroad. Furthermore......, we trace how adopters publicly narrate their own experiences and problems with fertility and with adoption, as well as how they construct their personal websites, network with others locally and internationally, orient to other ‘sites’ or sources of information, share advice and create 'public goods...

Adopted Children and Discipline

Science.gov (United States)

... Family Dynamics > Adoption & Foster Care > Adopted Children & Discipline Family Life ... are the reasons for these patterns of parental inaction? Some adoptive parents are afraid their youngster might stop loving ...

Reversible Thermoset Adhesives

Science.gov (United States)

Mac Murray, Benjamin C. (Inventor); Tong, Tat H. (Inventor); Hreha, Richard D. (Inventor)

2016-01-01

Embodiments of a reversible thermoset adhesive formed by incorporating thermally-reversible cross-linking units and a method for making the reversible thermoset adhesive are provided. One approach to formulating reversible thermoset adhesives includes incorporating dienes, such as furans, and dienophiles, such as maleimides, into a polymer network as reversible covalent cross-links using Diels Alder cross-link formation between the diene and dienophile. The chemical components may be selected based on their compatibility with adhesive chemistry as well as their ability to undergo controlled, reversible cross-linking chemistry.

Personality disorders in adopted versus non-adopted adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Westermeyer, Joseph; Yoon, Gihyun; Amundson, Carla; Warwick, Marion; Kuskowski, Michael A

2015-04-30

The goal of this epidemiological study was to investigate lifetime history and odds ratios of personality disorders in adopted and non-adopted adults using a nationally representative sample. Data, drawn from the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), were compared in adopted (n=378) versus non-adopted (n=42,503) adults to estimate the odds of seven personality disorders using logistic regression analyses. The seven personality disorders were histrionic, antisocial, avoidant, paranoid, schizoid, obsessive-compulsive, and dependent personality disorder. Adoptees had a 1.81-fold increase in the odds of any personality disorder compared with non-adoptees. Adoptees had increased odds of histrionic, antisocial, avoidant, paranoid, schizoid, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder compared with non-adoptees. Two risk factors associated with lifetime history of a personality disorder in adoptees compared to non-adoptees were (1) being in the age cohort 18-29 years (but no difference in the age 30-44 cohort), using the age 45 or older cohort as the reference and (2) having 12 years of education (but no difference in higher education groups), using the 0-11 years of education as the reference. These findings support the higher rates of personality disorders among adoptees compared to non-adoptees. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Zero field reversal probability in thermally assisted magnetization reversal

Science.gov (United States)

Prasetya, E. B.; Utari; Purnama, B.

2017-11-01

This paper discussed about zero field reversal probability in thermally assisted magnetization reversal (TAMR). Appearance of reversal probability in zero field investigated through micromagnetic simulation by solving stochastic Landau-Lifshitz-Gibert (LLG). The perpendicularly anisotropy magnetic dot of 50×50×20 nm3 is considered as single cell magnetic storage of magnetic random acces memory (MRAM). Thermally assisted magnetization reversal was performed by cooling writing process from near/almost Curie point to room temperature on 20 times runs for different randomly magnetized state. The results show that the probability reversal under zero magnetic field decreased with the increase of the energy barrier. The zero-field probability switching of 55% attained for energy barrier of 60 k B T and the reversal probability become zero noted at energy barrier of 2348 k B T. The higest zero-field switching probability of 55% attained for energy barrier of 60 k B T which corespond to magnetif field of 150 Oe for switching.

Contact Between Adoptive and Birth Families: Perspectives from the Minnesota Texas Adoption Research Project.

Science.gov (United States)

Grotevant, Harold D; McRoy, Ruth G; Wrobel, Gretchen M; Ayers-Lopez, Susan

2013-09-01

A growing number of adoptive families have contact with their children's birth relatives. The Minnesota Texas Adoption Research Project is examining longitudinally the consequences of variations in contact arrangements for birth mothers, adoptive parents, and adopted children in domestic infant adoptions, and is studying the dynamics of relationships within these family systems. Individuals who had contact were more satisfied with their arrangements than those who did not have contact. Satisfaction with contact predicted more optimal adjustment among adopted adolescents and emerging adults. Adoption-related communication predicted identity development among adopted adolescents and emerging adults. Birth mothers who were more satisfied with their contact arrangements, regardless of level of contact, had less unresolved grief 12 to 20 years after placement. Adoptive and birth relatives who engage in contact need flexibility, strong interpersonal skills, and commitment to the relationship. These skills can be learned, and they can be supported by others, through informal, psychoeducational, and therapeutic means.

Adoption and Assisted Reproduction. Adoption and Ethics, Volume 4.

Science.gov (United States)

Freundlich, Madelyn

The controversies in adoption have extended across a spectrum of policy and practice issues, and although the issues have become clear, resolution has not been achieved nor has consensus developed regarding a framework on which to improve the quality of adoption policy and practice. This book is the fourth in a series to use an ethics-based…

Reverse Osmosis

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

many applications, one of which is desalination of seawater. The inaugural Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded in 1901 to van 't Hoff for his seminal work in this area. The present article explains the principle of osmosis and reverse osmosis. Osmosis and Reverse Osmosis. As the name suggests, reverse osmosis is the ...

Korean Adoptee Identity: Adoptive and Ethnic Identity Profiles of Adopted Korean Americans

Science.gov (United States)

Beaupre, Adam J.; Reichwald, Reed; Zhou, Xiang; Raleigh, Elizabeth; Lee, Richard M.

2015-01-01

Adopted Korean adolescents face the task of grappling with their identity as Koreans and coming to terms with their adoptive status. In order to explore these dual identities, the authors conducted a person-centered study of the identity profiles of 189 adopted Korean American adolescents. Using cluster analytic procedures, the study examined…

Effects of the history of adoption in the emotional adjustment of adopted adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Reppold, Caroline Tozzi; Hutz, Claudio Simon

2009-11-01

Since the decade of 1980, the model of stress and coping proposed for the assessment of vulnerability of adoptive families emphasizes that the emotional adjustment of those adopted is moderated by variables such as institutionalization, the manner and age at which the adoption was revealed, the change of first name, and the contact with the biological family. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship of these variables to the perceived parenting style, mood, and self-esteem of the adopted adolescents. Participants in the study were 68 adolescents, between the ages of 14 and 15, adopted during infancy through judicial channels. The adolescents responded to a questionnaire about the history of adoption and to scales of Parenting Styles, Depression and Self-esteem. The main results indicated that the late revelation of adoption and the change of the first name are connected to higher levels of depression and low self-esteem and to more frequent perceptions of negligent or authoritarian parenting style. The contact with the biological family was frequently mentioned among those who perceived their parents as authoritative and presented the best indicator of mood and self-esteem. These findings were discussed in light of the necessity for multidisciplinary actions which can improve the psychological adaptation of the adopting families.

An Analytical Reverse Engineering of IELTS Listening Tasks for a Construct Model

OpenAIRE

Masood Khalili Sabet; Hamid Reza Babaee Bormanaki

2017-01-01

The study reported here was concerned with the issue of reverse engineering of language test items as it relates to the identification of the language constructs underlying listening tasks of LELTS test. In this regard, the IELTS examination papers, from IELTS 1 to IELTS 10 were compiled as a corpus for the analysis. Tasks were analyzed using a taxonomic frame work adopted from Moore, Morton and price (2012), that was originally adapted from Weir and Urquhart (1998), with a focus on two dimen...

Managing Reverse Logistics or Reversing Logistics Management?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

M.P. de Brito (Marisa)

2004-01-01

textabstractIn the past, supply chains were busy fine-tuning the logistics from raw material to the end customer. Today an increasing flow of products is going back in the chain. Thus, companies have to manage reverse logistics as well.This thesis contributes to a better understanding of reverse

The International Adoption Project: population-based surveillance of Minnesota parents who adopted children internationally.

Science.gov (United States)

Hellerstedt, Wendy L; Madsen, Nikki J; Gunnar, Megan R; Grotevant, Harold D; Lee, Richard M; Johnson, Dana E

2008-03-01

To conduct the first population-based surveillance in the United States of parents who adopted children from countries outside of the United States. A 556-item survey was mailed to 2,977 parents who finalized an international adoption in Minnesota between January 1990 and December 1998; 1,834 (62%) parents returned a survey. Eighty-eight percent of the parents reported transracial adoptions (97% of the parents were white); 57% of the adopted children were Asian; 60% were female; and on average, the children were 18 months-old at the time of placement. Only 15% of the parents reported household annual incomes less than $50,000 and 71% reported they had college educations. Sixty-one percent traveled to their child's country of birth prior to the adoption. Almost three-quarters involved their children in experiences related to their birth countries and 98% would recommend international adoption. Three-quarters of the parents believe that parental leave was an issue for them as they adopted. This is the first population-based survey of U.S. parents who have adopted internationally. The adoptive parents were socioeconomically different than birth parents in Minnesota and their families are most likely to be transracial. Because international adoption has become more prevalent, it is important to understand the strengths and needs of families that are created through this unique form of migration.

Transmission of infectious diseases from internationally adopted children to their adoptive families.

Science.gov (United States)

Sciauvaud, J; Rigal, E; Pascal, J; Nourrisson, C; Poirier, P; Poirier, V; Vidal, M; Mrozek, N; Laurichesse, H; Beytout, J; Labbe, A; Lesens, O

2014-08-01

Internationally adopted children may suffer from different pathologies, including infectious diseases contracted in the country of origin. We evaluated the frequency of infectious diseases that may disseminate from adoptees to adoptive families on their arrival in France. All children who attended the clinic for international adoption in Clermont-Ferrand from January 2009 through to December 2011 were eligible for inclusion in the study. Standardized medical records dedicated to international adoption were retrospectively reviewed for demographic data, clinical diagnosis, and biological and radiological results. Data were completed by phone interviews with adoptive families after informed consent. One hundred and forty-two medical records were retrospectively reviewed and 86% of families agreed to be interviewed. One hundred and seventy-one potentially transmissible infections were diagnosed in 142 children, 12% (n = 20) of which were transmitted to adoptive families. Most of these infections were benign and transmission was restricted to the close family. Tinea was diagnosed in 44 adoptees and transmitted in 15 cases. Panton Valentine leukocidin producing methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (MSSA) was transmitted to an adoptive father who required hospitalization for bursitis. Transmission also occurred for CMV (n = 1), hepatitis A (n = 1), giardiasis (n = 1), scabies (n = 1), Moluscum (n = 2) and pediculosis (n = 2). Two cases of chronic hepatitis B and latent tuberculosis were diagnosed without subsequent transmission. In conclusion, infectious diseases are common in internationally adopted children and should be detected shortly after arrival to avoid transmission. © 2013 The Authors Clinical Microbiology and Infection © 2013 European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.

Predictors of race, adoption, and sexual orientation related socialization of adoptive parents of young children.

Science.gov (United States)

Goldberg, Abbie E; Smith, JuliAnna Z

2016-04-01

Using a sample of 125 lesbian, gay, and heterosexual adoptive parent couples with young children (M = 6.32 years), this study examined predictors of direct socialization (preparation for adoptism, racism, and heterosexism) and indirect socialization (modeling interactions by responding to outsiders' inquiries about their child's adoptive status, racial background, or family structure). In terms of direct socialization, parents of older children tended to engage in more socialization around adoptism and heterosexism, and parents of daughters tended to engage in more socialization around racism and heterosexism. Greater perceived child interest in adoption was related to more direct socialization around adoptism. Parents of color reported more direct socialization around racism. Having a child of color was related to more direct socialization around heterosexism. Regarding indirect socialization, sexual minority parents reported more socialization around adoption and race. Greater perceived child interest in adoption was related to more indirect adoption socialization. Being more "out" was related to more indirect socialization around parent sexual orientation. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Cultural Tourism in Transnational Adoption: "Staged Authenticity" and Its Implications for Adopted Children

Science.gov (United States)

Quiroz, Pamela Anne

2012-01-01

The discursive practices of adoptive parents in two online transnational adoption forums (2006-2008) and observations of five international adoption workshops suggest that what Heather Jacobson described as "culture keeping", the cultural socialization of children that retains a sense of native group identity, is more aptly characterized as…

A comparison of adoptive parents' perceptions of their child's behavior among Indian children adopted to Norway, the United States, and within country: implications for adoption policy.

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Suzanne; Groza, Victor

2013-01-01

The Hague Convention on the Protection of Children suggests that intercountry adoption be considered as a permanent care option only after other solutions within the child's country of origin have been exhausted. Data from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) were examined for 478 Indian children ages 4-18 adopted domestically, adopted to Norway, and adopted to the United States. The CBCL has a reported reliability of .9 (Achenbach, 1991; Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1983) and contains five subscales assessing internalizing problems plus a summative Internalizing Scale, and three subscales assessing externalizing problems plus a summative Externalizing Scale. Perceptions of Norwegian, American, and Indian adoptive parents regarding their child's functioning were compared. Children adopted to Norway and the United States were perceived by their parents to be functioning significantly better behaviorally than children adopted within country, while controlling for age of child and gender of adoptive parent completing the CBCL. Policymakers should examine the evidence prioritizing within country adoption over intercountry adoption.

Beyond preadoptive risk: The impact of adoptive family environment on adopted youth's psychosocial adjustment.

Science.gov (United States)

Ji, Juye; Brooks, Devon; Barth, Richard P; Kim, Hansung

2010-07-01

Adopted children often are exposed to preadoptive stressors--such as prenatal substance exposure, child maltreatment, and out-of-home placements--that increase their risks for psychosocial maladjustment. Psychosocial adjustment of adopted children emerges as the product of pre- and postadoptive factors. This study builds on previous research, which fails to simultaneously assess the influences of pre- and postadoptive factors, by examining the impact of adoptive family sense of coherence on adoptee's psychosocial adjustment beyond the effects of preadoptive risks. Using a sample of adoptive families (n = 385) taking part in the California Long Range Adoption Study, structural equation modeling analyses were performed. Results indicate a significant impact of family sense of coherence on adoptees' psychosocial adjustment and a considerably less significant role of preadoptive risks. The findings suggest the importance of assessing adoptive family's ability to respond to stress and of helping families to build and maintain their capacity to cope with stress despite the sometimes fractious pressures of adoption.

That's not how the learning works - the paradox of Reverse Innovation: a qualitative study.

Science.gov (United States)

Harris, Matthew; Weisberger, Emily; Silver, Diana; Dadwal, Viva; Macinko, James

2016-07-05

There are significant differences in the meaning and use of the term 'Reverse Innovation' between industry circles, where the term originated, and health policy circles where the term has gained traction. It is often conflated with other popularized terms such as Frugal Innovation, Co-development and Trickle-up Innovation. Compared to its use in the industrial sector, this conceptualization of Reverse Innovation describes a more complex, fragmented process, and one with no particular institution in charge. It follows that the way in which the term 'Reverse Innovation', specifically, is understood and used in the healthcare space is worthy of examination. Between September and December 2014, we conducted eleven in-depth face-to-face or telephone interviews with key informants from innovation, health and social policy circles, experts in international comparative policy research and leaders in the Reverse Innovation space in the United States. Interviews were open-ended with guiding probes into the barriers and enablers to Reverse Innovation in the US context, specifically also informants' experience and understanding of the term Reverse Innovation. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed thematically using the process of constant comparison. We describe three main themes derived from the interviews. First, 'Reverse Innovation,' the term, has marketing currency to convince policy-makers that may be wary of learning from or adopting innovations from unexpected sources, in this case Low-Income Countries. Second, the term can have the opposite effect - by connoting frugality, or innovation arising from necessity as opposed to good leadership, the proposed innovation may be associated with poor quality, undermining potential translation into other contexts. Finally, the term 'Reverse Innovation' is a paradox - it breaks down preconceptions of the directionality of knowledge and learning, whilst simultaneously reinforcing it. We conclude that this term means

Predicting Virtual Learning Environment Adoption

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Penjor, Sonam; Zander, Pär-Ola Mikael

2016-01-01

This study investigates the significance of Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) theory with regard to the use of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) at the Royal University of Bhutan (RUB). The focus is on different adoption types and characteristics of users. Rogers’ DOI theory is applied...... to investigate the influence of five predictors (relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, trialability and observability) and their significance in the perception of academic staff at the RUB in relation to the probability of VLE adoption. These predictors are attributes of the VLE that determine the rate...... of adoption by various adopter group memberships (Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards). Descriptive statistics and regression analysis were deployed to analyse adopter group memberships and predictor significance in VLE adoption and use. The results revealed varying attitudes...

Bridging the divide: openness in adoption and postadoption psychosocial adjustment among birth and adoptive parents.

Science.gov (United States)

Ge, Xiaojia; Natsuaki, Misaki N; Martin, David M; Leve, Leslie D; Neiderhiser, Jenae M; Shaw, Daniel S; Villareal, Georgette; Scaramella, Laura; Reid, John B; Reiss, David

2008-08-01

Using 323 matched parties of birth mothers and adoptive parents, this study examined the association between the degree of adoption openness (e.g., contact and knowledge between parties) and birth and adoptive parents' postadoption adjustment shortly after the adoption placement (6 to 9 months). Data from birth fathers (N = 112), an understudied sample, were also explored. Openness was assessed by multiple informants. Results indicated that openness was significantly related to satisfaction with adoption process among adoptive parents and birth mothers. Increased openness was positively associated with birth mothers' postplacement adjustment, as indexed by birth mothers' self-reports and the interviewers' impression of birth mothers' adjustment. Birth fathers' report of openness was associated with their greater satisfaction with the adoption process and better postadoption adjustment.

Obtaining Competitiveness Through Reverse Logistics: A Case Study in a Wood Industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patricia Guarnieri

2006-10-01

Full Text Available The reverse logistics make possible the return of residues to productive and/or business cycle. The present study has as objective to analyse the practices of a wood industry regarding to the residues and the ecological, lawful, and economic returns, obtained with the application of the reverse logistics concepts in the business environment. The technical procedure adopted was the case study. The data collection was made through the direct observation and interviews with the people in charge of the production and logistics sectors. The main results found were: the residues generated returns to the productive cycle obeying the environmental legislation, transforming itself in raw material again. The lawful revaluing of wood residues obtain competitiveness to company, because solve the residues destination problem providing the return for productive and business cycle, thus aggregating economic, lawful and ecological value to the wood residues.

The experience of adoptive parents in adoption reunion relationships: a qualitative study.

Science.gov (United States)

Petta, Gabrielle A; Steed, Lyndall G

2005-04-01

The issues experienced by adoptive parents when faced with an adult child's searching or reunion relationship with his or her birth family, how adoptive parents place themselves within this process, and the factors that influence their experience at this time were explored in a qualitative study of 21 adoptive parents. Themes derived from semistructured interviews are discussed, and implications for clinical practice and future research are suggested. Copyright (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved.

33 CFR 230.21 - Adoption.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... FOR IMPLEMENTING NEPA § 230.21 Adoption. See 40 CFR 1506.3. A district commander will normally adopt... recirculated as provided in 40 CFR 1506.3 (b) or (c), the adopted EIS with the supplement, if any, will be processed in accordance with this regulation. A district commander may also adopt another agency's EA/FONSI. ...

Reverse genetics with animal viruses. NSV reverse genetics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mebatsion, T.

2005-01-01

New strategies to genetically manipulate the genomes of several important animal pathogens have been established in recent years. This article focuses on the reverse genetics techniques, which enables genetic manipulation of the genomes of non-segmented negative-sense RNA viruses. Recovery of a negative-sense RNA virus entirely from cDNA was first achieved for rabies virus in 1994. Since then, reverse genetic systems have been established for several pathogens of medical and veterinary importance. Based on the reverse genetics technique, it is now possible to design safe and more effective live attenuated vaccines against important viral agents. In addition, genetically tagged recombinant viruses can be designed to facilitate serological differentiation of vaccinated animals from infected animals. The approach of delivering protective immunogens of different pathogens using a single vector was made possible with the introduction of the reverse genetics system, and these novel broad-spectrum vaccine vectors have potential applications in improving animal health in developing countries. (author)

Injection-induced gluteus muscle contractures: diagnosis with the "reverse Ober test" and surgical management.

Science.gov (United States)

Scully, William F; White, Klane K; Song, Kit M; Mosca, Vincent S

2015-03-01

Adoption rates are increasing in the United States and other developed countries. A large proportion of adopted children have been found to have unsuspected medical diagnoses, including orthopedic problems. One condition, termed injection-induced gluteus maximus contracture, has been previously described in several case series and can be difficult to diagnose if unfamiliar with this condition. By reviewing the etiology and pathoanatomy of this problem, as well as the typical examination findings, including the near-pathognomonic-positive "reverse Ober test," treating providers will be better prepared to recognize and properly treat this condition. This is a retrospective review of 4 patients treated at our institution for injection-induced gluteus maximus contracture. Patient history, physical examination findings, and treatment outcomes were recorded. All had undergone surgical treatment through a longitudinal incision along the posterior margin of the iliotibial band, with division of thickened, contracted gluteus tissue down to the ischial tuberosity. All 4 of the patients were adopted from orphanages in developing countries. Chief complaints of the patients varied, but physical examination findings were very consistent. Three of the 4 patients had undergone rotational osteotomies for presumed femoral retroversion before their diagnosis and treatment for injection-induced gluteus maximus contracture. All patients had concave, atrophic buttock contours and numerous punctate buttock scars. All walked with an out-toed gait and had marked apparent femoral retroversion. Each patient was found to have full hip adduction when the hip was extended but a hip abduction contracture when the hip was flexed. This finding of increasing abduction as an extended/adducted hip is flexed to 90 degrees is described as a positive "reverse Ober test." After surgical treatment, all hips could adduct to neutral from full extension to full flexion. Although common in some countries

Olanzapine Reverses MK-801-Induced Cognitive Deficits and Region-Specific Alterations of NMDA Receptor Subunits

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Xiao; Li, Jitao; Guo, Chunmei; Wang, Hongli; Sun, Yaxin; Wang, Han; Su, Yun-Ai; Li, Keqing; Si, Tianmei

2018-01-01

Cognitive dysfunction constitutes an essential component in schizophrenia for its early presence in the pathophysiology of the disease and close relatedness to life quality of patients. To develop effective treatment of cognitive deficits, it is important to understand their neurobiological causes and to identify potential therapeutic targets. In this study, adopting repeated MK-801 treatment as an animal model of schizophrenia, we investigated whether antipsychotic drugs, olanzapine and haloperidol, can reverse MK-801-induced cognitive deficits and how the reversal processes recruited proteins involved in glutamate neurotransmission in rat medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and hippocampus. We found that low-dose chronic MK-801 treatment impaired object-in-context recognition memory and reversal learning in the Morris water maze, leaving reference memory relatively unaffected, and that these cognitive deficits can be partially reversed by olanzapine, not haloperidol, treatment. At the molecular level, chronic MK-801 treatment resulted in the reduction of multiple N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor subunits in rat mPFC and olanzapine, not haloperidol, treatment restored the levels of GluN1 and phosphorylated GluN2B in this region. Taken together, MK-801-induced cognitive deficits may be associated with region-specific changes in NMDA receptor subunits and the reversal of specific NMDA receptor subunits may underlie the cognition-enhancing effects of olanzapine. PMID:29375333

Effect of sequence and stereochemistry reversal on p53 peptide mimicry.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alessio Atzori

Full Text Available Peptidomimetics effective in modulating protein-protein interactions and resistant to proteolysis have potential in therapeutic applications. An appealing yet underperforming peptidomimetic strategy is to employ D-amino acids and reversed sequences to mimic a lead peptide conformation, either separately or as the combined retro-inverso peptide. In this work, we examine the conformations of inverse, reverse and retro-inverso peptides of p53(15-29 using implicit solvent molecular dynamics simulation and circular dichroism spectroscopy. In order to obtain converged ensembles for the peptides, we find enhanced sampling is required via the replica exchange molecular dynamics method. From these replica exchange simulations, the D-peptide analogues of p53(15-29 result in a predominantly left-handed helical conformation. When the parent sequence is reversed sequence as either the L-peptide and D-peptide, these peptides display a greater helical propensity, feature reflected by NMR and CD studies in TFE/water solvent. The simulations also indicate that, while approximately similar orientations of the side-chains are possible by the peptide analogues, their ability to mimic the parent peptide is severely compromised by backbone orientation (for D-amino acids and side-chain orientation (for reversed sequences. A retro-inverso peptide is disadvantaged as a mimic in both aspects, and further chemical modification is required to enable this concept to be used fruitfully in peptidomimetic design. The replica exchange molecular simulation approach adopted here, with its ability to provide detailed conformational insights into modified peptides, has potential as a tool to guide structure-based design of new improved peptidomimetics.

Openness in Adoption: Exploring Family Connections.

Science.gov (United States)

Grotevant, Harold D.; McRoy, Ruth G.

Noting social and demographic changes provoking a trend toward openness in adoption practice, this book presents the findings from a nationwide study examining the impact of variations in openness in adoption on participants in the adoptive kinship network: adopted children, adoptive parents, and the children's birth parents. The first chapter of…

Juridical aspects of post mortem adoption

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sergio Rodrigo Martinez

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The legislature, with the enactment of the Statute of Children and Adolescents, now provides the named posthumous adoption, allowing the death of the adopter, in the course of the procedure does not generate the extinction pleaded adoption. Has the purpose to show that, notwithstanding the absence of such law, the construction of new adopters and adopted by families are recognized, since permeated the socially demonstrated affection, even in passing the death of the person occurs before you have to start legal formalization of the adoption petition, thus characterizing the figure of posthumous adoption without prior judicial manifestation.

Adoption of nuclear power generation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sommers, P.

1980-01-01

This article develops a model of the innovation-adoption decision. The model allows the economic situation of a utility and its perception of uncertainty associated with an innovation to affect the probability of adopting it. This model is useful when uncertainties affecting decisions about adoption persist throughout the diffusion process, thereby making the usual adoption model implicit in rate-of-diffusion studies inappropriate. An empirical test of the model finds that firm size, power pool size, and selected aspects of uncertainty about the innovation are significant predictors of US utility companies' decisions on whether or not to adopt nuclear power generation. 17 references, 2 tables

Adoption Applicants Screening: Characteristics and Challenges

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

رضا رزاقی

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Recently an increasing interest in studying and exploring the Iranian adoptive families has been evolved. Nevertheless, there are still frequent unknown factors about adoption in Iran. This study proceed to survey on characteristics of adoptive applicants due to programming and interventional needs in adoption counselling area. In this study, the descriptive survey method has been used and it involved all clients who referred to adoption counseling from March 2014 to March 2016. The clients were 411 adoptive applicants who ate-nded in semi-structured interview. Among the clients, 78% of them aimed at the adoption institutionally and 22% have followed the process illegally. Nearly half of the marriage life of infertile couples were spent to seek for infertility services. The findings indicated that nearly 27 percent of applicants are ready for adoption and other applicants require more preparation or canceling adoption process. Adoptive applicant screening process is critical and sensitive and consulting services facilitate this process; but the important point is the use of standard instrument and check-lists according to local and cultural conditions.

To adopt or not to adopt? The RFID adoption consideration by entrepreneurs in a purchasing cooperative in Dutch book retailing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Sijde, P.C.; van Reekum, R.; Jeurissen, W; Rosendaal, B.W.

2015-01-01

Our focus is on the agenda-setting of a purchasing cooperative aiming to have their members consider the adoption of a new logistics information system based on RFID. Adding "technology trust", we used the UTAUT model to determine the adoption intention of associated book retailers. Using structural

Legal and Regulatory Barriers to Reverse Innovation.

Science.gov (United States)

Rowthorn, Virginia; Plum, Alexander J; Zervos, John

Reverse innovation, or the importation of new, affordable, and efficacious models to high-income countries from the developing world, has emerged as a way to improve the health care system in the United States. Reverse innovation has been identified as a key emerging trend in global health systems in part because low-resourced settings are particularly good laboratories for low-cost/high-impact innovations that are developed out of necessity. A difficult question receiving scant attention is that of legal and regulatory barriers. The objective of this paper is to understand and elucidate the legal barriers faced by innovators bringing health interventions to the United States. Semistructured qualitative interviews were conducted with 9 key informants who have directly participated in the introduction of global health care approaches to the United States health system. A purposive sampling scheme was employed to identify participants. Phone interviews were conducted over one week in July 2016 with each participant and lasted an average of 35 minutes each. Purely legal barriers included questions surrounding tort liability, standard of care, and concerns around patient-administered self-care. Regulatory burdens included issues of international medical licensure, reimbursement, and task shifting and scope of work challenges among nonprofessionals (e.g. community health workers). Finally, perceived (i.e. not realized or experienced) legal and regulatory barriers to innovative modalities served as disincentives to bringing products or services developed outside of the United States to the United States market. Conflicting interests within the health care system, safety concerns, and little value placed on low-cost interventions inhibit innovation. Legal and regulatory barriers rank among, and contribute to, an anti-innovation atmosphere in healthcare for domestic and reverse innovators alike. Reverse innovation should be fostered through the thoughtful development of

40 CFR 1506.3 - Adoption.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

...) An agency may adopt a Federal draft or final environmental impact statement or portion thereof... are substantially the same, the agency adopting another agency's statement is not required to recirculate it except as a final statement. Otherwise the adopting agency shall treat the statement as a draft...

An algebra of reversible computation.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yong

2016-01-01

We design an axiomatization for reversible computation called reversible ACP (RACP). It has four extendible modules: basic reversible processes algebra, algebra of reversible communicating processes, recursion and abstraction. Just like process algebra ACP in classical computing, RACP can be treated as an axiomatization foundation for reversible computation.

On thermodynamic and microscopic reversibility

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Crooks, Gavin E

2011-01-01

The word 'reversible' has two (apparently) distinct applications in statistical thermodynamics. A thermodynamically reversible process indicates an experimental protocol for which the entropy change is zero, whereas the principle of microscopic reversibility asserts that the probability of any trajectory of a system through phase space equals that of the time reversed trajectory. However, these two terms are actually synonymous: a thermodynamically reversible process is microscopically reversible, and vice versa

Banking on the equator. Are banks that adopted the equator principles different from non-adopters?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Scholtens, B.; Dam, L.

We analyze the performance of banks that adopted the Equator Principles. The Equator Principles are designed to assure sustainable development in project finance. The social, ethical, and environmental policies of the adopters differ significantly from those of banks that did not adopt the Equator

Reversibility of female sterilization.

Science.gov (United States)

Siegler, A M; Hulka, J; Peretz, A

1985-04-01

The discussion considers the current status of reversibility of sterilization in the US and describes clinical and experimental efforts for developing techniques designed for reversibility. It focuses on regret following sterilization, reversal potential of current sterilization techniques, patient selection, current reversal techniques, results of sterilization procedures, experimental approaches to reversal of current techniques of sterilization, and sterilization procedures devised for reversibility, in humans and in animals. Request is the 1st stage of reversal, but a request for sterilization reversal (SR) does not always mean regret for a decision made at the time. Frequently it is a wish to restore fertility because life circumstances have changed after a sterilization that was ppropriate at the time it was performed. Schwyhart and Kutner reviewed 22 studies published between 1949-69 in which they found that the percentage of patients regretting the procedure ranged from 1.3-15%. Requests for reversal remain low in most countries, but if sterilization becomes a more popular method of contraception, requests will also increase. The ideal operation considered as a reversaible method of sterilization should include an easy, reliable outpatient method of tubal occlusion with miniml risk or patient discomfort that subsequently could be reversed without the need for a major surgical intervention. Endoscopic methods have progressed toward the 1st objective. A recent search of the literature uncovered few series of SR of more than 50 cases. The 767 operations found were analyzed with regard to pregnancy outcome. The precent of live births varied from 74-78.8%, and the occurance of tubal pregnancies ranged from 1.7-6.5%. All of the confounding variables in patient selection and small numbers of reported procedures preclude any conclusion about the different techniques or the number of operations that give a surgeon a level of expertise. Few authors classify their

Constraining the reversing and non-reversing modes of the geodynamo. New insights from magnetostratigraphy.

Science.gov (United States)

Gallet, Y.; Pavlov, V.; Shatsillo, A.; Hulot, G.

2015-12-01

Constraining the evolution in the geomagnetic reversal frequency over hundreds of million years is not a trivial matter. Beyond the fact that there are long periods without reversals, known as superchrons, and periods with many reversals, the way the reversal frequency changes through time during reversing periods is still debated. A smooth evolution or a succession of stationary segments have both been suggested to account for the geomagnetic polarity time scale since the Middle-Late Jurassic. Sudden changes from a reversing mode to a non-reversing mode of the geodynamo may also well have happened, the switch between the two modes having then possibly been controlled by the thermal conditions at the core-mantle boundary. There is, nevertheless, a growing set of magnetostratigraphic data, which could help decipher a proper interpretation of the reversal history, in particular in the early Paleozoic and even during the Precambrian. Although yielding a fragmentary record, these data reveal the occurrence of both additional superchrons and periods characterized by extremely high, not to say extraordinary, magnetic reversal frequencies. In this talk, we will present a synthesis of these data, mainly obtained from Siberia, and discuss their implication for the magnetic reversal behavior over the past billion years.

The Danish Adoption Register

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petersen, Liselotte; Sørensen, Thorkild I A

2011-01-01

The Danish Adoption Register was established in 1963-1964 to explore the genetic and environmental contribution to familial aggregation of schizophrenia.......The Danish Adoption Register was established in 1963-1964 to explore the genetic and environmental contribution to familial aggregation of schizophrenia....

Characterisation of adopters and non-adopters of dairy technologies in Ethiopia and Kenya

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kebebe, E.G.; Oosting, S.J.; Baltenweck, I.; Duncan, A.J.

2017-01-01

While there is a general consensus that using dairy technologies, such as improved breeds of dairy cows, can substantially increase farm productivity and income, adoption of such technologies has been generally low in developing countries. The underlying reasons for non-adoption of beneficial

Reverse logistics - a framework

NARCIS (Netherlands)

M.P. de Brito (Marisa); R. Dekker (Rommert)

2002-01-01

textabstractIn this paper we define and compare Reverse Logistics definitions. We start by giving an understanding framework of Reverse Logistics: the why-what-how. By this means, we put in context the driving forces for Reverse Logistics, a typology of return reasons, a classification of

Tubal Ligation Reversal

Science.gov (United States)

... seal off the fallopian tubes, such as the Essure or Adiana systems, generally aren't reversible. Why ... electrocautery). Some types of sterilization, such as the Essure or Adiana systems, aren't considered reversible. Risks ...

Preserving privacy of online digital physiological signals using blind and reversible steganography.

Science.gov (United States)

Shiu, Hung-Jr; Lin, Bor-Sing; Huang, Chien-Hung; Chiang, Pei-Ying; Lei, Chin-Laung

2017-11-01

Physiological signals such as electrocardiograms (ECG) and electromyograms (EMG) are widely used to diagnose diseases. Presently, the Internet offers numerous cloud storage services which enable digital physiological signals to be uploaded for convenient access and use. Numerous online databases of medical signals have been built. The data in them must be processed in a manner that preserves patients' confidentiality. A reversible error-correcting-coding strategy will be adopted to transform digital physiological signals into a new bit-stream that uses a matrix in which is embedded the Hamming code to pass secret messages or private information. The shared keys are the matrix and the version of the Hamming code. An online open database, the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database, was used to test the proposed algorithms. The time-complexity, capacity and robustness are evaluated. Comparisons of several evaluations subject to related work are also proposed. This work proposes a reversible, low-payload steganographic scheme for preserving the privacy of physiological signals. An (n,  m)-hamming code is used to insert (n - m) secret bits into n bits of a cover signal. The number of embedded bits per modification is higher than in comparable methods, and the computational power is efficient and the scheme is secure. Unlike other Hamming-code based schemes, the proposed scheme is both reversible and blind. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Internationally Adopted Children from Non-European Countries: General Development during the First Two Years in the Adoptive Family

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Monica Dalen

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Internationally adopted children are often delayed in their development and demonstrate more behaviour problems than nonadopted children due to adverse preadoption circumstances. This is especially true for children adopted from Eastern European countries. Few studies have focused on children adopted from non-European countries. This paper presents results from an ongoing longitudinal study of 119 internationally adopted children from non-European countries during their first two years in Norway. Several scales measuring different aspects of the children’s development are included in the study: communication and gross motor development, temperamental characteristics, and behaviour problems. The results show that internationally adopted children are delayed in their general development when they first arrive in their adoptive families. After two years the children have made significant progress in development. However, they still lag behind in communication and motor skills compared to non-adopted children. The temperamental characteristics seem very stable from time of adoption until two years after adoption. The children demonstrate a low frequency of behaviour problems. However, the behaviour problems have changed during the two years. At time of adoption they show more nonphysically challenging behaviour while after two years their physically challenging behaviour has increased.

Internationally adopted children from non-European countries: general development during the first two years in the adoptive family.

Science.gov (United States)

Dalen, Monica; Theie, Steinar

2012-01-01

Internationally adopted children are often delayed in their development and demonstrate more behaviour problems than nonadopted children due to adverse preadoption circumstances. This is especially true for children adopted from Eastern European countries. Few studies have focused on children adopted from non-European countries. This paper presents results from an ongoing longitudinal study of 119 internationally adopted children from non-European countries during their first two years in Norway. Several scales measuring different aspects of the children's development are included in the study: communication and gross motor development, temperamental characteristics, and behaviour problems. The results show that internationally adopted children are delayed in their general development when they first arrive in their adoptive families. After two years the children have made significant progress in development. However, they still lag behind in communication and motor skills compared to non-adopted children. The temperamental characteristics seem very stable from time of adoption until two years after adoption. The children demonstrate a low frequency of behaviour problems. However, the behaviour problems have changed during the two years. At time of adoption they show more nonphysically challenging behaviour while after two years their physically challenging behaviour has increased.

Inducing Lactation: Breastfeeding for Adoptive Moms

Science.gov (United States)

... Dynamics > Adoption & Foster Care > Inducing Lactation: Breastfeeding for Adoptive Moms Family Life Listen Español Text Size Email Print Share Inducing Lactation: Breastfeeding for Adoptive Moms Page Content Article Body A growing number ...

49 CFR 230.89 - Reverse gear.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 49 Transportation 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Reverse gear. 230.89 Section 230.89 Transportation... Reversing Gear § 230.89 Reverse gear. (a) General provisions. Reverse gear, reverse levers, and quadrants... quadrant. Proper counterbalance shall be provided for the valve gear. (b) Air-operated power reverse gear...

Adoption, nation, migration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Müller, Anders Riel

2013-01-01

Som transnationalt adopteret vokser man ofte op med en fortælling om, at man er født i et fattigt land. Og at ens første forældre var fattige eller oplevede så store problemer, at de ikke så andre muligheder end at afgive en til adoption. Det er en historie, man bliver fortalt igen og igen. Og som...... man ender med at fortælle sig selv. Fattigdom er problemet. Adoption er løsningen. Eller er det?...

Myosin binding protein-C activates thin filaments and inhibits thick filaments in heart muscle cells.

Science.gov (United States)

Kampourakis, Thomas; Yan, Ziqian; Gautel, Mathias; Sun, Yin-Biao; Irving, Malcolm

2014-12-30

Myosin binding protein-C (MyBP-C) is a key regulatory protein in heart muscle, and mutations in the MYBPC3 gene are frequently associated with cardiomyopathy. However, the mechanism of action of MyBP-C remains poorly understood, and both activating and inhibitory effects of MyBP-C on contractility have been reported. To clarify the function of the regulatory N-terminal domains of MyBP-C, we determined their effects on the structure of thick (myosin-containing) and thin (actin-containing) filaments in intact sarcomeres of heart muscle. We used fluorescent probes on troponin C in the thin filaments and on myosin regulatory light chain in the thick filaments to monitor structural changes associated with activation of demembranated trabeculae from rat ventricle by the C1mC2 region of rat MyBP-C. C1mC2 induced larger structural changes in thin filaments than calcium activation, and these were still present when active force was blocked with blebbistatin, showing that C1mC2 directly activates the thin filaments. In contrast, structural changes in thick filaments induced by C1mC2 were smaller than those associated with calcium activation and were abolished or reversed by blebbistatin. Low concentrations of C1mC2 did not affect resting force but increased calcium sensitivity and reduced cooperativity of force and structural changes in both thin and thick filaments. These results show that the N-terminal region of MyBP-C stabilizes the ON state of thin filaments and the OFF state of thick filaments and lead to a novel hypothesis for the physiological role of MyBP-C in the regulation of cardiac contractility.

Reversible Communicating Processes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Geoffrey Brown

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Reversible distributed programs have the ability to abort unproductive computation paths and backtrack, while unwinding communication that occurred in the aborted paths. While it is natural to assume that reversibility implies full state recovery (as with traditional roll-back recovery protocols, an interesting alternative is to separate backtracking from local state recovery. For example, such a model could be used to create complex transactions out of nested compensable transactions where a programmer-supplied compensation defines the work required to "unwind" a transaction. Reversible distributed computing has received considerable theoretical attention, but little reduction to practice; the few published implementations of languages supporting reversibility depend upon a high degree of central control. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that a practical reversible distributed language can be efficiently implemented in a fully distributed manner. We discuss such a language, supporting CSP-style synchronous communication, embedded in Scala. While this language provided the motivation for the work described in this paper, our focus is upon the distributed implementation. In particular, we demonstrate that a "high-level" semantic model can be implemented using a simple point-to-point protocol.

The pediatrician's role in supporting adoptive families.

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Veronnie F; Schulte, Elaine E

2012-10-01

Each year, more children join families through adoption. Pediatricians have an important role in assisting adoptive families in the various challenges they may face with respect to adoption. The acceptance of the differences between families formed through birth and those formed through adoption is essential in promoting positive emotional growth within the family. It is important for pediatricians to be aware of the adoptive parents' need to be supported in their communication with their adopted children.

East Meets West: Adopted Chinese Girls' Nighttime Sleep Problems and Adoptive Parents' Self-Judgment About Parenting.

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Tony; Mahoney, Emily; Jackson, Andrea; Rice, Jessica

2017-01-01

We investigated the association between adopted Chinese girls' nighttime sleep problems and adoptive parents' self-judgment about their parenting. The girls were 1.7-6.9 years old (M = 4.6 years, SD = 1.0) and were adopted at 7-56 months (M = 13.9 months, SD = 6.6) by families in North America. At Wave 2 of a longitudinal study on adopted Chinese children's development, the adoptive parents provided survey data on bedtime resistance or anxiety and parasomnias in their daughters and their own parental sense of entitlement and parenting competence. Results showed that controlling for child and family demographics, parasomnias, but not bedtime resistance or anxiety, negatively predicted parental sense of entitlement (B = -.13, p parenting competence (B = -.14, p < .01).

The Role of Birth/Previously Adopted Children in Families Choosing to Adopt Children with Special Needs.

Science.gov (United States)

Mullin, Ellen Steele; Johnson, LeAnne

1999-01-01

Notes that successful child placement depends on engaging birth or previously adopted children during the adoption process, yet other children are often overlooked when parents are adopting a special-needs child. Presents a model which recognizes dynamics of strength and vulnerability and applies that model to preparing and supporting the adoptive…

The Geomagnetic Field During a Reversal

Science.gov (United States)

Heirtzler, James R.

2003-01-01

By modifying the IGRF it is possible to learn what may happen to the geomagnetic field during a geomagnetic reversal. If the entire IGRF reverses then the declination and inclination only reverse when the field strength is zero. If only the dipole component of the IGRF reverses a large geomagnetic field remains when the dipole component is zero and he direction of the field at the end of the reversal is not exactly reversed from the directions at the beginning of the reversal.

Emotional and behavioral problems associated with attachment security and parenting style in adopted and non-adopted children.

Science.gov (United States)

Altınoğlu Dikmeer, Ilkiz; Erol, Neşe; Gençöz, Tülin

2014-01-01

This study aimed to investigate and compare emotional and behavioral problems in Turkish adoptees and non-adopted peers raised by their biological parents. The study included 61 adopted children (34 female and 27 male) aged 6-18 years and 62 age- and gender-matched non-adopted children (35 female and 27 male). Parents rated their children's problem behaviors using the Child Behavior Checklist/6-18, temperament characteristics using the School Age Temperament Inventory, their own personality traits using the Basic Personality Traits Inventory, and their parenting styles using the Measure of Child Rearing Styles. Children rated their parents' availability and reliability as attachment figures using the Kerns Security Scale and parenting styles using the Measure of Child Rearing Styles. Adolescents aged 11-18 years self-rated their problem behaviors using the Youth Self Report. Group differences and correlations were analyzed. There were non-significant differences in all scale scores between the adopted and non-adopted groups. In contrast to the literature, age of the children at the time of adoption was not associated with problem behaviors or attachment relationships. On the other hand, the findings indicate that as the age at which the children learned that they had been adopted increased emotional and behavioral problems increased. Adoption alone could not explain the problem behaviors observed in the adopted children; the observed problem behaviors should be considered within the context of the developmental process.

Why farmers adopt best management practice in the United States: A meta-analysis of the adoption literature

Science.gov (United States)

Baumgart-Getz, Adam; Stalker Prokopy, Linda; Floress, Kristin

2012-01-01

This meta-analysis of both published and unpublished studies assesses factors believed to influence adoption of agricultural Best Management Practices in the United States. Using an established statistical technique to summarize the adoption literature in the United States, we identified the following variables as having the largest impact on adoption: access to and quality of information, financial capacity, and being connected to agency or local networks of farmers or watershed groups. This study shows that various approaches to data collection affect the results and comparability of adoption studies. In particular, environmental awareness and farmer attitudes have been inconsistently used and measured across the literature. This meta-analysis concludes with suggestions regarding the future direction of adoption studies, along with guidelines for how data should be presented to enhance the adoption of conservation practices and guide research.

Macro influencers of electronic health records adoption.

Science.gov (United States)

Raghavan, Vijay V; Chinta, Ravi; Zhirkin, Nikita

2015-01-01

While adoption rates for electronic health records (EHRs) have improved, the reasons for significant geographical differences in EHR adoption within the USA have remained unclear. To understand the reasons for these variations across states, we have compiled from secondary sources a profile of different states within the USA, based on macroeconomic and macro health-environment factors. Regression analyses were performed using these indicator factors on EHR adoption. The results showed that internet usage and literacy are significantly associated with certain measures of EHR adoption. Income level was not significantly associated with EHR adoption. Per capita patient days (a proxy for healthcare need intensity within a state) is negatively correlated with EHR adoption rate. Health insurance coverage is positively correlated with EHR adoption rate. Older physicians (>60 years) tend to adopt EHR systems less than their younger counterparts. These findings have policy implications on formulating regionally focused incentive programs.

Healthy Travel for International Adoptions

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Podcasts

The number of international adoptions, many from developing countries, has doubled in the last 10 years. This podcast discusses ways adoptive families can protect their own health and the health of their new children.

The transition into adoptive parenthood: Adoption as a process of continued unsafe uncertainty when family scripts collide.

Science.gov (United States)

Tasker, Fiona; Wood, Sally

2016-10-01

Our prospective study investigated couples' expectations of adoptive parenthood and explored how these changed with their actual experience of parenthood. Six heterosexual couples were interviewed just before placement began and 6 months after the children had arrived. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyse both sets of interview data. Expectations of adoptive parenthood mostly transformed smoothly into adoption experience for couples, but challenges were experienced when family scripts collided and a continued feeling of unsafe uncertainty then prevailed within these newly formed family systems. Family script collision seemed a particular problem for couples adopting sibling pairs. To further professional practice in working with families over the transition to adoptive parenting, we suggest that professionals keep in mind a framework that includes the following: Internal and external world influences on family members, Intergenerational issues, Family scripts and the Structural challenges of adoption (IIFS). © The Author(s) 2016.

Improvisation during Process-Technology Adoption

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tjørnehøj, Gitte; Mathiassen, Lars

2010-01-01

SPI technology adoption and events that causes the process to drift in unpredictable directions. To further understand how management's attempt to control the process is complemented by drifting, this article investigates the role of improvisation in adoption of SPI technology in a Danish software......Most software firms struggle to take advantage of the potential benefits of software process improvement (SPI) as they adopt this technology into the complex and dynamic realities of their day-to-day operation. Such efforts are therefore typically fluctuating between management's attempt to control...... firm, SmallSoft, over a 10-year period (1996–2005). We found that micro-level and macro-level improvisations interacted, often in uncoordinated ways, to shape SPI technology adoption at SmallSoft. The improvisations enhanced employee creativity, motivation and empowerment, created momentum...

[Automatic Classification of Dry Cough and Wet Cough Based on Improved Reverse Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficients].

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Chunmei; Liu, Baojun; Li, Ping; Mo, Hongqiang; Zheng, Zeguang

2016-04-01

Automatic classification of different types of cough plays an important role in clinical.In the previous research of cough classification or cough recognition,traditional Mel frequency cepstrum coefficients(MFCC)which extracts feature mainly from low frequency band is usually used as feature expression.In this paper,by analyzing the distributions of spectral energy of dry/wet cough,it is found that spectral difference of two types of cough exits mainly in middle frequency band and high frequency band.To better reflect the spectral difference of dry cough and wet cough,an improved method of extracting reverse MFCC is proposed.In this method,reverse Mel filter-bank in which filters are allocated in reverse Mel scale is adopted and is improved by placing filters only in the frequency band with high spectral energy.As a result,features are mainly extracted from the frequency band where two types of cough show both high spectral energy and distinguished difference.Detailed process of accessing improved reverse MFCC was introduced and hidden Markov models trained by 60 dry cough and 60 wet cough were used as cough classification model.Classification experiment results for 120 dry cough and 85 wet cough showed that,compared to traditional MFCC,better classification performance was achieved by the proposed method and the total classification accuracy was raised from 89.76%to 93.66%.

Muscular activation during reverse and non-reverse chewing cycles in unilateral posterior crossbite.

Science.gov (United States)

Piancino, Maria Grazia; Farina, Dario; Talpone, Francesca; Merlo, Andrea; Bracco, Pietro

2009-04-01

The aim of this study was to characterize the kinematics and masseter muscle activation in unilateral posterior crossbite. Eighty-two children (8.6 +/- 1.3 yr of age) with unilateral posterior crossbite and 12 children (8.9 +/- 0.6 yr of age) with normal occlusion were selected for the study. Electromyography (EMG) and kinematics were concurrently recorded during mastication of a soft bolus and a hard bolus. The percentage of reverse cycles in the group of patients was 59.0 +/- 33.1% (soft bolus) and 69.7 +/- 29.7% (hard bolus) when chewing on the crossbite side. When chewing on the non-affected side, the number of reverse cycles was 16.7 +/- 24.5% (soft bolus) and 16.7 +/- 22.3% (hard bolus). The reverse cycles on the crossbite side were narrower with respect to the cycles on the non-affected side. Although both types of cycles in patients resulted in lower EMG activity of the masseter of the crossbite side than of the contralateral masseter, the activity of the non-affected side was larger for reverse than for non-reverse cycles. It was concluded that when chewing on the crossbite side, the masseter activity is reduced on the mastication side (crossbite) and is unaltered (non-reverse cycles) or increased (reverse) on the non-affected side.

Machine Replacement, Technology Adoption and Convergence.

OpenAIRE

Boucekkine, Raouf; Martinez, Blanca

1999-01-01

In this paper, we introduce adoption costs in a canonical vintage capital model. Adoption costs take the form of a direct loss in production during a fixed period of time. We explicitly characterize the optimal machine replacement policy as a function of the adoption period. Using an explicit numerical method, we study the dynamics of the model. In particular, we find that while an increase in the adoption costs lowers the long run level of output, it also rises the magnitude of short run flu...

The Causes of Preference Reversal.

OpenAIRE

Tversky, Amos; Slovic, Paul; Kahneman, Daniel

1990-01-01

Observed preference reversal cannot be adequately explained by violations of independence, the reduction axiom, or transitivity. The primary cause of preference reversal is the failure of procedure invariance, especially the overpricing of low-probability, high-payoff bets. This result violates regret theory and generalized (nonindependent) utility models. Preference reversal and a new reversal involving time preferences are explained by scale compatibility, which implies that payoffs are wei...

Running continuous academic adoption programmes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Tobias Alsted

Running successful academic adoption programmes requires executive support, clear strategies, tactical resources and organisational agility. These two presentations will discuss the implementation of strategic academic adoption programs down to very concrete tool customisations to meet specific...

Optical roughness BRDF model for reverse Monte Carlo simulation of real material thermal radiation transfer.

Science.gov (United States)

Su, Peiran; Eri, Qitai; Wang, Qiang

2014-04-10

Optical roughness was introduced into the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) model to simulate the reflectance characteristics of thermal radiation. The optical roughness BRDF model stemmed from the influence of surface roughness and wavelength on the ray reflectance calculation. This model was adopted to simulate real metal emissivity. The reverse Monte Carlo method was used to display the distribution of reflectance rays. The numerical simulations showed that the optical roughness BRDF model can calculate the wavelength effect on emissivity and simulate the real metal emissivity variance with incidence angles.

75 FR 68166 - National Adoption Month, 2010

Science.gov (United States)

2010-11-04

... potential, and spread their wings when given the loving and firm foundation of family. Adoptive families... to ensure that all qualified caregivers have the ability to serve as adoptive families. This year, on... care adoptions as part of my Administration's support for this important day. Adoptive families are...

Azidoblebbistatin, a photoreactive myosin inhibitor

Science.gov (United States)

Képiró, Miklós; Várkuti, Boglárka H.; Bodor, Andrea; Hegyi, György; Drahos, László; Kovács, Mihály; Málnási-Csizmadia, András

2012-01-01

Photoreactive compounds are important tools in life sciences that allow precisely timed covalent crosslinking of ligands and targets. Using a unique technique we have synthesized azidoblebbistatin, which is a derivative of blebbistatin, the most widely used myosin inhibitor. Without UV irradiation azidoblebbistatin exhibits identical inhibitory properties to those of blebbistatin. Using UV irradiation, azidoblebbistatin can be covalently crosslinked to myosin, which greatly enhances its in vitro and in vivo effectiveness. Photo-crosslinking also eliminates limitations associated with the relatively low myosin affinity and water solubility of blebbistatin. The wavelength used for photo-crosslinking is not toxic for cells and tissues, which confers a great advantage in in vivo tests. Because the crosslink results in an irreversible association of the inhibitor to myosin and the irradiation eliminates the residual activity of unbound inhibitor molecules, azidoblebbistatin has a great potential to become a highly effective tool in both structural studies of actomyosin contractility and the investigation of cellular and physiological functions of myosin II. We used azidoblebbistatin to identify previously unknown low-affinity targets of the inhibitor (EC50 ≥ 50 μM) in Dictyostelium discoideum, while the strongest interactant was found to be myosin II (EC50 = 5 μM). Our results demonstrate that azidoblebbistatin, and potentially other azidated drugs, can become highly useful tools for the identification of strong- and weak-binding cellular targets and the determination of the apparent binding affinities in in vivo conditions. PMID:22647605

Family interactions in adoptive compared to nonadoptive families.

Science.gov (United States)

Rueter, Martha A; Keyes, Margaret A; Iacono, William G; McGue, Matt

2009-02-01

Despite the large and growing numbers of adoptive families, little research describes interactions in families with adopted adolescents. Yet, adopted adolescents' increased risk for adjustment problems, combined with the association between family interactions and adolescent adjustment in nonadoptive families, raises questions about differences in adoptive and nonadoptive family interactions. We compared observed and self-reported family interactions between 284 adoptive and 208 nonadoptive families and within 123 families with 1 adopted and 1 nonadopted adolescent. Adolescents averaged 14.9 years of age. Comparisons were made using analysis of variance incorporating hierarchical linear methods in SAS PROC MIXED to control family-related correlations in the data. Parents and children reported more conflict in adoptive families when compared with nonadoptive families. Families with 1 adopted and 1 nonadopted adolescent reported more conflict between parents and adopted adolescents. Observed parental behavior was similar across adoptive and nonadoptive children although adopted adolescents were less warm and, in families with 2 adopted children, more conflictual than nonadopted adolescents. These findings suggest a need for further investigation of the association between family interactions and adopted adolescent problem behavior. Copyright 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

Representative Incidents in the Adoption Process.

Science.gov (United States)

Farrington, Jay A.; And Others

This paper presents three case studies of innovation, based on interviews with six adoption agents. Key episodes and incidents which illustrate important principles are drawn from the experiences of these adoption agents. The case studies offer examples of both success and failure--by both internal and external adoption agents. They also emphasize…

Policy Issues in Gay and Lesbian Adoption.

Science.gov (United States)

Sullivan, Ann

1995-01-01

Notes that adoption agencies have developed few specific policies on the issue of lesbian and gay adoption. Provides an overview of key considerations about homosexual adopters, including beliefs and values of agency professionals, the legal and social ramifications of adoption into a relationship not based on marriage, and possible consequences…

Organizational adoption of preemployment drug testing.

Science.gov (United States)

Spell, C S; Blum, T C

2001-04-01

This study explored the adoption of preemployment drug testing by 360 organizations. Survival models were developed that included internal organizational and labor market factors hypothesized to affect the likelihood of adoption of drug testing. Also considered was another set of variables that included social and political variables based on institutional theory. An event history analysis using Cox regressions indicated that both internal organizational and environmental variables predicted adoption of drug testing. Results indicate that the higher the proportion of drug testers in the worksite's industry, the more likely it would be to adopt drug testing. Also, the extent to which an organization uses an internal labor market, voluntary turnover rate, and the extent to which management perceives drugs to be a problem were related to likelihood of adoption of drug testing.

Tips of the dual-lumen microcatheter-facilitated reverse wire technique in percutaneous coronary interventions for markedly angulated bifurcated lesions.

Science.gov (United States)

Nomura, Tetsuya; Kikai, Masakazu; Hori, Yusuke; Yoshioka, Kenichi; Kubota, Hiroshi; Miyawaki, Daisuke; Urata, Ryota; Sugimoto, Takeshi; Keira, Natsuya; Tatsumi, Tetsuya

2018-04-01

In practical settings of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), we sometimes encounter difficulty in introducing a guidewire (GW) to the markedly angulated side branch (SB), and the reverse wire technique is considered as a last resort to overcome such a situation. We analyzed 12 cases that underwent PCI with dual-lumen microcatheter-facilitated reverse wire technique between January 2013 and July 2016. We retrospectively investigated the lesion's characteristics and the details of the PCI procedures, and discussed tips about the use of this technique. The SB that exhibits both a smaller take-off angle and a larger carina angle is considered to be the most suitable candidate for this technique. The first step of this technique involves the delivery of the reverse wire system to the target bifurcation. However, most cases exhibit significant stenosis proximal to the bifurcation, which often hampers the delivery of the reverse wire system. Because the sharply curved reverse wire system is easier to pass the stenosis as compared to the roundly curved system, we recommend a sharp curve should be adopted for this technique. On the other hand, it is sure that device delivery is much easier on the GW with a round curve as compared to that with a sharp curve. Therefore, it is important to modify the details of this procedure on a case-by-case basis according to the lesion's characteristics.

32 CFR 584.4 - Adoption proceedings.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... CUSTODY, AND PATERNITY § 584.4 Adoption proceedings. (a) General. This chapter does not apply to those... soldier for leave to attend an adoption hearing on (date) has been granted. (ii) A request by the soldier for leave to attend an adoption hearing on (date), if made, would be approved. (iii) Due to military...

Inter-Organizational Information Systems Adoption

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lyytinen, Kalle; Damsgaard, Jan

2011-01-01

consisting of dyadic, hub and spoke, industry and community configurations. Specific forms or adoption analysis are suggested for each type of configuration. Overall, configuration analysis redirects IOIS adoption studies both at the theoretical and the methodological level, and a corresponding research...

(SAGE): Adopt, adapt, or contextualise?

African Journals Online (AJOL)

and time-consuming and requires CPG knowledge ... Step 4. Consider whether to adopt, adapt or contextualise. Step 4.1 Adopt. Decide to .... review. PLoS One 2013;8:e82915. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082915. 14. AGREE ...

Economics of household technology adoption in developing countries: evidence from solar technology adoption in rural India

OpenAIRE

Aklin, M.; Bayer, P.; Harish, S.P.; Urpelainen, J.

2018-01-01

Innovation is one of the most important drivers of economic development. Even in developing countries, households have access to a wide array of new technologies. However, factors affecting households’ technology adoption decisions remain poorly understood. Using data on solar microgrid adoption from rural India, we investigate the determinants of household technology adoption. We offer all households identical solar products to avoid bias from product differentiation. Households pay a monthl...

Renewable energy adoption in an ageing population: Heterogeneity in preferences for micro-generation technology adoption

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Willis, Ken, E-mail: Ken.Willis@ncl.ac.uk [School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU (United Kingdom); Scarpa, Riccardo [Department of Economics, Waikato School of Management, University of Waikato, Hamilton (New Zealand); Gilroy, Rose; Hamza, Neveen [School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU (United Kingdom)

2011-10-15

Many countries are endeavouring to supply more of their energy from renewable resources. Such countries are also experiencing an aging population with a greater proportion of people aged {>=}65 years. This demographic shift may reduce the uptake of renewable energy, if older person households are less inclined to accept change and adopt new technologies. This paper assesses whether such households have different behavioural responses to energy efficiency compared to the rest of society and investigates whether micro-generation renewable energy technologies are less likely to be adopted by these households. It uses conditional logit and mixed logit models to investigate the impact of age of household on primary heating adoption, and also to assess the impact of older households on the installation of discretionary micro-generation technologies (solar thermal, solar voltaic, and wind power) to supplement existing heating and lighting systems. Results indicate that primary heating choice is not affected but that older person households are less inclined to adopt micro-generation technologies. - Highlights: > Heterogeneity exists in decisions on micro-generation technology installation. > Older person households are less inclined to adopt micro-generation technologies. > Micro-generation technologies fail a social cost-benefit analysis test.

Renewable energy adoption in an ageing population: Heterogeneity in preferences for micro-generation technology adoption

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Willis, Ken; Scarpa, Riccardo; Gilroy, Rose; Hamza, Neveen

2011-01-01

Many countries are endeavouring to supply more of their energy from renewable resources. Such countries are also experiencing an aging population with a greater proportion of people aged ≥65 years. This demographic shift may reduce the uptake of renewable energy, if older person households are less inclined to accept change and adopt new technologies. This paper assesses whether such households have different behavioural responses to energy efficiency compared to the rest of society and investigates whether micro-generation renewable energy technologies are less likely to be adopted by these households. It uses conditional logit and mixed logit models to investigate the impact of age of household on primary heating adoption, and also to assess the impact of older households on the installation of discretionary micro-generation technologies (solar thermal, solar voltaic, and wind power) to supplement existing heating and lighting systems. Results indicate that primary heating choice is not affected but that older person households are less inclined to adopt micro-generation technologies. - Highlights: → Heterogeneity exists in decisions on micro-generation technology installation. → Older person households are less inclined to adopt micro-generation technologies. → Micro-generation technologies fail a social cost-benefit analysis test.

Associations between Discussions of Racial and Ethnic Differences in Internationally Adoptive Families and Delinquent Behavior among Korean Adopted Adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, Kayla N; Lee, Richard M; Rueter, Martha A; Kim, Oh Myo

2015-04-01

Internationally adopted adolescents may have more delinquent behavior than non-adopted adolescents. One explanation is these adolescents experience discrimination and loss of culture, and adoptive parents are not adequately addressing these experiences. However, studies have not examined the effects of family discussions of racial and ethnic differences within adoptive families on adopted adolescents' delinquent behavior. To test this relationship, this study utilized data from 111 U.S. internationally adoptive families with 185 South Korean adopted adolescents (55% female, M age = 17.75). During an observational assessment, families discussed the importance of their racial and ethnic differences, and adolescents completed a delinquent behavior questionnaire. Analysis of covariance showed differences in adolescent delinquent behavior across three ways adoptive families discussed racial and ethnic differences; adolescents whose families acknowledged differences had the fewest mean delinquent behaviors. There were no significant differences in delinquent behavior between adolescents whose families acknowledged or rejected the importance of racial and ethnic differences. However, adopted adolescents whose families held discrepant views of differences had significantly more problem behavior than adolescents whose families either acknowledged or rejected the importance of racial and ethnic differences. Clinicians, adoption professionals, and other parenting specialists should focus on building cohesive family identities about racial and ethnic differences, as discrepant views of differences are associated with the most adoptee delinquent behavior.

Adoption: biological and social processes linked to adaptation.

Science.gov (United States)

Grotevant, Harold D; McDermott, Jennifer M

2014-01-01

Children join adoptive families through domestic adoption from the public child welfare system, infant adoption through private agencies, and international adoption. Each pathway presents distinctive developmental opportunities and challenges. Adopted children are at higher risk than the general population for problems with adaptation, especially externalizing, internalizing, and attention problems. This review moves beyond the field's emphasis on adoptee-nonadoptee differences to highlight biological and social processes that affect adaptation of adoptees across time. The experience of stress, whether prenatal, postnatal/preadoption, or during the adoption transition, can have significant impacts on the developing neuroendocrine system. These effects can contribute to problems with physical growth, brain development, and sleep, activating cascading effects on social, emotional, and cognitive development. Family processes involving contact between adoptive and birth family members, co-parenting in gay and lesbian adoptive families, and racial socialization in transracially adoptive families affect social development of adopted children into adulthood.

Reverse logistics policy – differences between conservative and innovative reverse logistics management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alena Klapalová

2013-01-01

Full Text Available One of the of the key barriers that hampers effective and efficient management of reverse flows detected within a number of empirical surveys and case studies focused on reverse logistics and/or return management is business (organisational policy, specifically lack of policy, deficiency in existing policy or inferior policy. Despite this fact, there is a gap in literature which would show some evidence from practice that innovative reverse logistics policy both can pay off and is associated with certain aspects of reverse logistics management. Such proof can have several implications. It can support the call for better understanding and more research of the linkages of reverse logistics with other corporate functions, promote the acceptation of strategic character of reverse logistics and stress the role of RL policy within the rest of overall corporate management.The aim of this paper is to contribute and to enrich the existing body of knowledge concerning the above-mentioned gap through presentation of survey results that was realized in 2012 among managers of 244 Czech firms. The results demonstrate the statistically significant association between the innovativeness of RL policy and profitability of firms, quality of RL planning, perception of RL importance, level of RL knowledge and perception of product innovation importance for firms’ competitiveness and frequency of product innovation. They also reveal statistically significant differences between firms with conservative and innovative RL policy and the perceived existence of some barriers to manage RL.

Post-adoption contact, adoption communicative openness, and satisfaction with contact as predictors of externalizing behavior in adolescence and emerging adulthood.

Science.gov (United States)

Grotevant, Harold D; Rueter, Martha; Von Korff, Lynn; Gonzalez, Christopher

2011-05-01

This study examined the relation between three variables related to adoptive family relationships (post-adoption contact between adoptive and birth family members, adoption communicative openness, and satisfaction with contact) and adoptee externalizing behavior in adolescence and emerging adulthood. The study included 190 families of infant-placed, domestic adoptees during childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze predictors of externalizing behavior from contact (adoptive parents and adolescent reports), adoption communicative openness (adoptive mothers), and satisfaction with contact (adoptive parents and adolescent). Externalizing behavior showed moderate stability across childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood. Contact and adoption communicative openness were related to each other, but not to externalizing behaviors in adolescence or emerging adulthood. Controlling for the effect of Childhood Externalizing, adoptive families most satisfied with contact reported relative declines in adoptee externalizing behavior during adolescence compared to those in less satisfied families. Satisfaction was also indirectly associated with Emerging Adult Externalizing, through its effect on Adolescent Externalizing. Although contact and adoption communicative openness were highly correlated with each other, neither was related to adoptees' externalizing behavior in adolescence or emerging adulthood. Family-level satisfaction with contact was more predictive of externalizing outcomes. © 2010 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry © 2010 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Adoption and Cognitive Development: A Meta-Analytic Comparison of Adopted and Nonadopted Children's IQ and School Performance

Science.gov (United States)

van Ijzendoorn, Marinus H.; Juffer, Femmie; Poelhuis, Caroline W. Klein

2005-01-01

This meta-analysis of 62 studies (N=17,767 adopted children) examined whether the cognitive development of adopted children differed from that of (a) children who remained in institutional care or in the birth family and (b) their current (environmental) nonadopted siblings or peers. Adopted children scored higher on IQ tests than their nonadopted…

Geomagnetic Field During a Reversal

Science.gov (United States)

Heirtzler, J. R.

2003-01-01

It has frequently been suggested that only the geomagnetic dipole, rather than higher order poles, reverse during a geomagnetic field reversal. Under this assumption the geomagnetic field strength has been calculated for the surface of the Earth for various steps of the reversal process. Even without an eminent a reversal of the field, extrapolation of the present secular change (although problematic) shows that the field strength may become zero in some geographic areas within a few hundred years.

The adoption of sustainable innovations: The role of instrumental, environmental, and symbolic attributes for earlier and later adopters

NARCIS (Netherlands)

H. Noppers, E.; Keizer, K.; Bockarjova, M.; Steg, L.

2015-01-01

We investigated motivations of potential earlier and later adopters for adopting sustainable innovations. A large questionnaire study revealed that potential earlier adopters of innovative cars evaluated the symbolic attributes of electric cars, but not the instrumental and environmental attributes,

Supercritical fluid reverse micelle separation

Science.gov (United States)

Fulton, J.L.; Smith, R.D.

1993-11-30

A method of separating solute material from a polar fluid in a first polar fluid phase is provided. The method comprises combining a polar fluid, a second fluid that is a gas at standard temperature and pressure and has a critical density, and a surfactant. The solute material is dissolved in the polar fluid to define the first polar fluid phase. The combined polar and second fluids, surfactant, and solute material dissolved in the polar fluid is maintained under near critical or supercritical temperature and pressure conditions such that the density of the second fluid exceeds the critical density thereof. In this way, a reverse micelle system defining a reverse micelle solvent is formed which comprises a continuous phase in the second fluid and a plurality of reverse micelles dispersed in the continuous phase. The solute material is dissolved in the polar fluid and is in chemical equilibrium with the reverse micelles. The first polar fluid phase and the continuous phase are immiscible. The reverse micelles each comprise a dynamic aggregate of surfactant molecules surrounding a core of the polar fluid. The reverse micelle solvent has a polar fluid-to-surfactant molar ratio W, which can vary over a range having a maximum ratio W[sub o] that determines the maximum size of the reverse micelles. The maximum ratio W[sub o] of the reverse micelle solvent is then varied, and the solute material from the first polar fluid phase is transported into the reverse micelles in the continuous phase at an extraction efficiency determined by the critical or supercritical conditions. 27 figures.

Reversed Microstructures and Tensile Properties after Various Cold Rolling Reductions in AISI 301LN Steel

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antti Järvenpää

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Heavy cold rolling is generally required for efficient grain size refinement in the martensitic reversion process, which is, however, not desirable in practical processing. In the present work, the influence of cold rolling reductions of 32%, 45% and 63% on the microstructure evolution and mechanical properties of a metastable austenitic AISI 301LN type steel were investigated in detail adopting scanning electron microscopy with the electron backscatter diffraction method and mechanical testing. A completely austenitic microstructure and a partially reversed counterpart were created. It was found that the fraction of grains with a size of 3 µm or larger, called medium-sized grains, increased with decreasing the prior cold rolling reduction. These grains are formed mainly from the shear-reversed austenite, transformed from slightly-deformed martensite, by gradual evolution of subgrains to grains. However, in spite of significant amounts of medium-sized grains, the tensile properties after the 32% or 45% cold rolling reductions were practically equal to those after the 63% reduction. The austenite stability against the formation of deformation-induced martensite in subsequent straining was reduced by lowering the cold rolling reduction, due to the larger grain size of medium-sized grains and the shift of their orientation towards {211} .

r-Universal reversible logic gates

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vos, A de; Storme, L

2004-01-01

Reversible logic plays a fundamental role both in ultra-low power electronics and in quantum computing. It is therefore important to know which reversible logic gates can be used as building block for the reversible implementation of an arbitrary boolean function and which cannot

Quantum reverse hypercontractivity

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cubitt, Toby [Department of Computer Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom and Centre for Quantum Information and Foundations, DAMTP, University of Cambridge, Cambridge (United Kingdom); Kastoryano, Michael [NBIA, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, 2100 Copenhagen (Denmark); Montanaro, Ashley [School of Mathematics, University of Bristol, Bristol (United Kingdom); Temme, Kristan [Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125 (United States)

2015-10-15

We develop reverse versions of hypercontractive inequalities for quantum channels. By generalizing classical techniques, we prove a reverse hypercontractive inequality for tensor products of qubit depolarizing channels. We apply this to obtain a rapid mixing result for depolarizing noise applied to large subspaces and to prove bounds on a quantum generalization of non-interactive correlation distillation.

Introduction to reversible computing

CERN Document Server

Perumalla, Kalyan S

2013-01-01

Few books comprehensively cover the software and programming aspects of reversible computing. Filling this gap, Introduction to Reversible Computing offers an expanded view of the field that includes the traditional energy-motivated hardware viewpoint as well as the emerging application-motivated software approach. Collecting scattered knowledge into one coherent account, the book provides a compendium of both classical and recently developed results on reversible computing. It explores up-and-coming theories, techniques, and tools for the application of rever

A Study on Reverse Logistics

OpenAIRE

Reddy, Dhananjaya

2011-01-01

In the competitive world of manufacturing, companies are often searching for new ways to improve their process, customer satisfaction and stay ahead in the game with their competitors. Reverse logistics has been considered a strategy to bring these things to life for the past decade or so. This thesis work tries to shed some light on the basics of reverse logistics and how reverse logistics can be used as a management strategy. This paper points out the fundamentals of reverse logistics and l...

Optimized reversible binary-coded decimal adders

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thomsen, Michael Kirkedal; Glück, Robert

2008-01-01

Abstract Babu and Chowdhury [H.M.H. Babu, A.R. Chowdhury, Design of a compact reversible binary coded decimal adder circuit, Journal of Systems Architecture 52 (5) (2006) 272-282] recently proposed, in this journal, a reversible adder for binary-coded decimals. This paper corrects and optimizes...... their design. The optimized 1-decimal BCD full-adder, a 13 × 13 reversible logic circuit, is faster, and has lower circuit cost and less garbage bits. It can be used to build a fast reversible m-decimal BCD full-adder that has a delay of only m + 17 low-power reversible CMOS gates. For a 32-decimal (128-bit....... Keywords: Reversible logic circuit; Full-adder; Half-adder; Parallel adder; Binary-coded decimal; Application of reversible logic synthesis...

Depression and anxiety among postpartum and adoptive mothers

Science.gov (United States)

Schiller, Crystal Edler; Richards, Jenny Gringer; O’Hara, Michael W.; Stuart, Scott

2012-01-01

Similar to biological mothers during the postpartum period, women who adopt children experience increased stress and life changes that may put them at risk for developing depression and anxiety. The purpose of the current study was to compare levels of depression and anxiety symptoms between postpartum and adoptive women and, among adoptive women, to examine associations between specific stressors and depressive symptoms. Data from adoptive mothers (n=147), recruited from Holt International, were compared to existing data from postpartum women (n=147). Differences in the level of depression and anxiety symptoms as measured by the Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms among postpartum and adoptive women were examined. Associations between specific stressors and depressive symptoms were examined among adoptive mothers. Postpartum and adoptive women had comparable levels of depressive symptoms, but adoptive women reported greater well-being and less anxiety than postpartum women. Stressors (e.g., sleep deprivation, history of infertility, past psychological disorder, and less marital satisfaction) were all significantly associated with depressive symptoms among adoptive women. The level of depressive symptoms was not significantly different between the two groups. In contrast, adoptive women experienced significantly fewer symptoms of anxiety and experienced greater well-being. Additionally, adoptive mothers experienced more depressive symptoms during the year following adoption when the stressors were present. Thus, women with these characteristics should be routinely screened for depression and anxiety. PMID:21725836

Mandatory IFRS adoption and accounting comparability

OpenAIRE

Cascino, Stefano; Gassen, Joachim

2010-01-01

The adoption of IFRS by many countries worldwide fuels the expectation that financial accounting might become more comparable across countries. This expectation is opposed to an alternative view that stresses the importance of incentives in shaping accounting information. We provide early evidence on this debate by investigating the effects of mandatory IFRS adoption on the comparability of financial accounting information around the world. Our results suggest that while mandatory adoption of...

20 CFR 222.53 - When a legally adopted child is dependent-child adopted after entitlement.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 20 Employees' Benefits 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false When a legally adopted child is dependent-child adopted after entitlement. 222.53 Section 222.53 Employees' Benefits RAILROAD RETIREMENT BOARD REGULATIONS UNDER THE RAILROAD RETIREMENT ACT FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS Child Support and Dependency § 222.53 When...

What do reversible programs compute?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Axelsen, Holger Bock; Glück, Robert

2011-01-01

Reversible computing is the study of computation models that exhibit both forward and backward determinism. Understanding the fundamental properties of such models is not only relevant for reversible programming, but has also been found important in other fields, e.g., bidirectional model...... transformation, program transformations such as inversion, and general static prediction of program properties. Historically, work on reversible computing has focussed on reversible simulations of irreversible computations. Here, we take the viewpoint that the property of reversibility itself should...... are not strictly classically universal, but that they support another notion of universality; we call this RTM-universality. Thus, even though the RTMs are sub-universal in the classical sense, they are powerful enough as to include a self-interpreter. Lifting this to other computation models, we propose r...

Fundamentals of reversible flowchart languages

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yokoyama, Tetsuo; Axelsen, Holger Bock; Glück, Robert

2016-01-01

Abstract This paper presents the fundamentals of reversible flowcharts. They are intended to naturally represent the structure and control flow of reversible (imperative) programming languages in a simple computation model, in the same way classical flowcharts do for conventional languages......, structured reversible flowcharts are as expressive as unstructured ones, as shown by a reversible version of the classic Structured Program Theorem. We illustrate how reversible flowcharts can be concretized with two example programming languages, complete with syntax and semantics: a low-level unstructured...... language and a high-level structured language. We introduce concrete tools such as program inverters and translators for both languages, which follow the structure suggested by the flowchart model. To further illustrate the different concepts and tools brought together in this paper, we present two major...

Magnetic reversals from planetary dynamo waves

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sheyko, Andrey; Finlay, Chris; Jackson, Andrew

2016-01-01

A striking feature of many natural dynamos is their ability to undergo polarity reversals. The best documented example is Earth's magnetic field, which has reversed hundreds of times during its history. The origin of geomagnetic polarity reversals lies in a magnetohydrodynamic process that takes ...... to kinematic dynamo waves. Because our results are relevant in a regime of low viscosity and high magnetic diffusivity, and with geophysically appropriate boundary conditions, this form of dynamo wave may also be involved in geomagnetic reversals.......A striking feature of many natural dynamos is their ability to undergo polarity reversals. The best documented example is Earth's magnetic field, which has reversed hundreds of times during its history. The origin of geomagnetic polarity reversals lies in a magnetohydrodynamic process that takes...... place in Earth's core, but the precise mechanism is debated. The majority of numerical geodynamo simulations that exhibit reversals operate in a regime in which the viscosity of the fluid remains important, and in which the dynamo mechanism primarily involves stretching and twisting of field lines...

Measures for Predictors of Innovation Adoption

Science.gov (United States)

Chor, Ka Ho Brian; Wisdom, Jennifer P.; Olin, Su-Chin Serene; Hoagwood, Kimberly E.; Horwitz, Sarah M.

2014-01-01

Building on a narrative synthesis of adoption theories by Wisdom et al. (2013), this review identifies 118 measures associated with the 27 adoption predictors in the synthesis. The distribution of measures is uneven across the predictors and predictors vary in modifiability. Multiple dimensions and definitions of predictors further complicate measurement efforts. For state policymakers and researchers, more effective and integrated measurement can advance the adoption of complex innovations such as evidence-based practices. PMID:24740175

KNOWLEDGE, TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION AND FINANCIAL INNOVATION

OpenAIRE

Ana Fernandes

2004-01-01

Why are new financial instruments created? This paper proposes the view that financial development arises as a response to the contractual needs of emerging technologies. Exogenous technological progress generates a demand for new financial instruments in order to share risk or overcome private information, for example. A model of the dynamics of technology adoption and the evolution of financial instruments that support such adoption is presented. Early adoption may be required for financial...

Beyond adoption status: Post-adoptive parental involvement and children's reading and math performance from kindergarten to first grade.

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Tony Xing; Kim, Eun Sook; Baggerly, Jennifer; Mahoney, E Emily; Rice, Jessica

2017-01-01

In this study, we went beyond adoption status to examine the associations between postadoption parental involvement and children's reading and math performance from kindergarten to first grade. Secondary data on a sample of adopted children and nonadopted children were drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class of 1998 to 1999 (ECLS-K). Weighted data on the children's reading performance were available for 13,900 children (181 were adopted); weighted data on the children's math performance were available for 14,128 children (184 were adopted). Descriptive data showed no group difference in reading scores at all 3 Waves but adopted children scored lower than nonadopted children in math at Wave 2 (Spring of kindergarten) and Wave 3 (Spring of first grade). However, controlling for 6 covariates, latent growth modeling showed that adoption status was unrelated to Wave 1 reading and math scores or subsequent growth rate. Rather, parents' beliefs on skills needed to succeed in kindergarten were a significant predictor of reading and math performance at Wave 1 and subsequent growth rates, and parents' educational expectation was a significant predictor of growth rate in reading and math. Our findings highlight the importance of parental involvement in adopted children's learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Adoption of innovations with contrarian agents and repentance

Science.gov (United States)

Gordon, Mirta B.; Laguna, M. F.; Gonçalves, S.; Iglesias, J. R.

2017-11-01

The dynamics of adoption of innovations is an important subject in many fields and areas, like technological development, industrial processes, social behavior, fashion or marketing. The number of adopters of a new technology generally increases following a kind of logistic function. However, empirical data provide evidences that this behavior may be more complex, as many factors influence the decision to adopt an innovation. On the one hand, although some individuals are inclined to adopt an innovation if many people do the same, there are others who act in the opposite direction, trying to differentiate from the ;herd;. People who prefer to behave like the others are called mimetic, whereas individuals who resist adopting new products, the stronger the greater the number of adopters, are named contrarians. Besides, in the real world new adopters may have second thoughts and change their decisions accordingly. In this contribution we include this possibility by means of repentance, a feature which was absent in previous models. The model of adoption of an innovation has all the ingredients of a previous version, in which the agents decision to adopt depends on the appeal of the novelty, the inertia or resistance to adopt it, and the social interactions with other agents, but now agents can repent and turn back to the old technology. We present analytic calculations and numerical simulations to determine the conditions for the establishment of the new technology. The inclusion of repentance can modify the balance between the global incentive to adopt and the number of contrarians who prevent full adoption, generating a rich landscape of temporal evolution that includes cycles of adoption.

Adopt Your Watershed

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Adopt Your Watershed is a Website that encourages stewardship of the nation's water resources and serves as a national inventory of local watershed groups and...

Adopting Sustainability in the Organization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Frandsen, Sanne; Morsing, Mette; Vallentin, Steen

2013-01-01

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between sustainability adoption and internal legitimacy construction. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is designed as a critical inquiry into existing research and practice on sustainability adoption, illustrated by two...... corporate vignettes. Findings – Prior studies tend to assume that awareness raising is a sufficient means to create employee commitment and support for corporate sustainability programs, while empirical observations indicate that managerial disregard of conflicting interpretations of sustainability may...... result in the illegitimacy of such programs. Originality/value – The authors suggest that a loosely coupled approach to sustainability adoption is a productive way to understand internal legitimacy construction, as it appreciates complexity and polyphony....

Motives to adopt renewable electricity technologies: Evidence from Sweden

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bergek, Anna; Mignon, Ingrid

2017-01-01

The diffusion of renewable electricity technologies (RETs) has to speed up for countries to reach their, often ambitious, targets for renewable energy generation. This requires a large number of actors – including individuals, companies and other organizations – to adopt RETs. Policies will most likely be needed to induce adoption, but there is limited knowledge about what motivates RET adoption. The purpose of this paper is to complement and expand the available empirical evidence regarding motives to adopt RETs through a survey to over 600 RET adopters in Sweden. The main finding of the study is that there are many different motives to adopt RETs and that RET adopters are a heterogeneous group with regard to motives. Although environmental concerns, interest in the technology, access to an RE resource and prospects to generate economic revenues are important motives in general, adopters differ with regard to how large importance they attach to the same motive and each adopter can also have several different motives to adopt. There are also differences in motives between adopter categories (especially independent power producers vs. individuals and diversified companies) and between RETs (especially wind power vs. solar power). This implies that a variety of policy instruments might be needed to induce further adoption of a variety of RETs by a variety of adopter categories. - Highlights: • There are many different motives to adopt renewable electricity technologies (RETs). • Adopters attach different levels of importance to the same motive. • Adopters can have several different motives to adopt a particular RET. • Motives to adopt RETs differ between wind power, solar PV and small-scale hydro. • Motives to adopt RETs differ between IPPs, individuals and diversified companies.

CERTS customer adoption model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rubio, F. Javier; Siddiqui, Afzal S.; Marnay, Chris; Hamachi,Kristina S.

2000-03-01

This effort represents a contribution to the wider distributed energy resources (DER) research of the Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions (CERTS, http://certs.lbl.gov) that is intended to attack and, hopefully, resolve the technical barriers to DER adoption, particularly those that are unlikely to be of high priority to individual equipment vendors. The longer term goal of the Berkeley Lab effort is to guide the wider technical research towards the key technical problems by forecasting some likely patterns of DER adoption. In sharp contrast to traditional electricity utility planning, this work takes a customer-centric approach and focuses on DER adoption decision making at, what we currently think of as, the customer level. This study reports on Berkeley Lab's second year effort (completed in Federal fiscal year 2000, FY00) of a project aimed to anticipate patterns of customer adoption of distributed energy resources (DER). Marnay, et al., 2000 describes the earlier FY99 Berkeley Lab work. The results presented herein are not intended to represent definitive economic analyses of possible DER projects by any means. The paucity of data available and the importance of excluded factors, such as environmental implications, are simply too important to make such an analysis possible at this time. Rather, the work presented represents a demonstration of the current model and an indicator of the potential to conduct more relevant studies in the future.

A functional language for describing reversible logic

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thomsen, Michael Kirkedal

2012-01-01

Reversible logic is a computational model where all gates are logically reversible and combined in circuits such that no values are lost or duplicated. This paper presents a novel functional language that is designed to describe only reversible logic circuits. The language includes high....... Reversibility of descriptions is guaranteed with a type system based on linear types. The language is applied to three examples of reversible computations (ALU, linear cosine transformation, and binary adder). The paper also outlines a design flow that ensures garbage- free translation to reversible logic...... circuits. The flow relies on a reversible combinator language as an intermediate language....

Redefining family relationships following adoption : adoptive parents' perspectives on the changing nature of kinship between adoptees and birth relatives.

OpenAIRE

Jones, C.; Hackett, S.

2012-01-01

Contemporary child adoption in the UK and USA has been conceptualised as an extended kinship network of adopted children, birth relatives and adopters (Reitz and Watson, 1992; Grotevant and McRoy, 1998). This contrasts sharply with the traditional model of adoption as a form of family substitution. Yet, such a reconceptualisation raises many questions about the meaning of kinship for those involved. This paper draws on data from a series of biographical interviews with twenty-two parents who ...

Geomagnetic Reversals during the Phanerozoic.

Science.gov (United States)

McElhinny, M W

1971-04-09

An antalysis of worldwide paleomagnetic measurements suggests a periodicity of 350 x 10(6) years in the polarity of the geomagnetic field. During the Mesozoic it is predominantly normal, whereas during the Upper Paleozoic it is predominantly reversed. Although geomagnetic reversals occur at different rates throughout the Phanerozoic, there appeaars to be no clear correlation between biological evolutionary rates and reversal frequency.

The intrapersonal conflict particularities of potential adopters.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Inga Russu

2016-11-01

Full Text Available This article addresses a contemporary issue for the Republic of Moldova concerning psychological implications of the adoption process for prospective adopters. This demand is due to the fact that the majority of couples or people passing through the decision making adoption process are facing a number of conlicting emotions and spiritual states. Thereby, is signiicant to understand the adoption multidimensionality of social and intrapersonal components. Adoptive parents can feel themselves as victims of „the process”. For them, the assessment of living conditions, the assessment of moral and social guarantees, inclusion or exclusion as eligible adoptive parents, represent a procedure part, which generates frustrations and anxieties. Some of them, often suffer from lack of supporting and understanding, as family members point of view, friends and known people. Also, in this context, parents may face some frustrations related to the matching procedure harmonisation with long cogitation process of the child.

THE INTRAPERSONAL CONFLICT PARTICULARITIES OF POTENTIAL ADOPTERS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Inga RUSSU

2016-11-01

Full Text Available This article addresses a contemporary issue for the Republic of Moldova concerning psychological implications of the adoption process for prospective adopters. This demand is due to the fact that the majority of couples or people passing through the decision making adoption process are facing a number of conflicting emotions and spiritual states. Thereby, is significant to understand the adoption multidimensionality of social and intrapersonal components. Adoptive parents can feel themselves as victims of „the process”. For them, the assessment of living conditions, the assessment of moral and social guarantees, inclusion or exclusion as eligible adoptive parents, represent a procedure part, which generates frustrations and anxieties. Some of them, often suffer from lack of supporting and understanding, as family members point of view, friends and known people. Also, in this context, parents may face some frustrations related to the matching procedure harmonisation with long cogitation process of the child.

Resveratrol reverses morphine-induced neuroinflammation in morphine-tolerant rats by reversal HDAC1 expression

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ru-Yin Tsai

2016-06-01

Conclusion: Resveratrol restores the antinociceptive effect of morphine by reversing morphine infusion-induced spinal cord neuroinflammation and increase in TNFR1 expression. The reversal of the morphine-induced increase in TNFR1 expression by resveratrol is partially due to reversal of the morphine infusion-induced increase in HDAC1 expression. Resveratrol pretreatment can be used as an adjuvant in clinical pain management for patients who need long-term morphine treatment or with neuropathic pain.

Same-Sex Adoption as a Welfare Alternative? Conservatism, Neoliberal Values, and Support for Adoption by Same-Sex Couples.

Science.gov (United States)

Perry, Samuel L; Whitehead, Andrew L

2015-01-01

Despite conservatives' long-term opposition to gay and lesbian parenting, scholars theorize that a strong commitment to neoliberalism may influence conservative Americans to become more tolerant of same-sex adoption as a way to relieve the government from subsidizing poor families. Drawing on national survey data (2010 Baylor Religion Survey), we test whether holding neoliberal values is associated with greater support for same-sex adoption in general and across political or religious conservatives. We find no support for either theory-emphatically the opposite, in fact. Neoliberal values are negatively associated with support for same-sex adoption for Americans in general and among political and religious conservatives. We find little evidence of a tension among conservatives regarding same-sex adoption as both their neoliberal values and moral beliefs incline them to oppose same-sex adoption along with other same-sex family relationships.

Parental alcohol dependence and the transmission of adolescent behavioral disinhibition: a study of adoptive and non-adoptive families.

Science.gov (United States)

King, Serena M; Keyes, Margaret; Malone, Stephen M; Elkins, Irene; Legrand, Lisa N; Iacono, William G; McGue, Matt

2009-04-01

To examine the genetic and environmental influences of parental alcoholism on offspring disinhibited behavior. We compared the effect of parental alcoholism history on offspring in adoptive and non-adoptive families. In families with a history of parental alcohol dependence, we examined the effect of exposure to parental alcoholism symptoms during the life-time of the adolescent. Setting Assessments occurred at the University of Minnesota from 1998 to 2004. Adolescents adopted in infancy were ascertained systematically from records of three private Minnesota adoption agencies; non-adopted adolescents were ascertained from Minnesota birth records. Adolescents and their rearing parents participated in in-person assessments. For adolescents, measures included self- reports of delinquency, deviant peers, substance use, antisocial attitudes and personality. For parents, we conducted DSM-IV clinical assessments of alcohol abuse and dependence. A history of parental alcohol dependence was associated with higher levels of disinhibition only when adolescents were related biologically to their rearing parents. Within families with a history of parental alcoholism, exposure to parental alcohol misuse during the life-time of the adolescent was associated with increased odds of using alcohol in adopted adolescents only. These findings suggest that the association between a history of parental alcohol dependence and adolescent offspring behavioral disinhibition is attributable largely to genetic rather than environmental transmission. We also obtained some evidence for parental alcohol misuse as a shared environmental risk factor in adoptive families.

Myosin II activity is required for functional leading-edge cells and closure of epidermal sheets in fish skin ex vivo.

Science.gov (United States)

Morita, Toshiyuki; Tsuchiya, Akiko; Sugimoto, Masazumi

2011-09-01

Re-epithelialization in skin wound healing is a process in which epidermal sheets grow and close the wound. Although the actin-myosin system is thought to have a pivotal role in re-epithelialization, its role is not clear. In fish skin, re-epithelialization occurs around 500 μm/h and is 50 times faster than in mammalian skin. We had previously reported that leading-edge cells of the epidermal outgrowth have both polarized large lamellipodia and "purse string"-like actin filament cables in the scale-skin culture system of medaka fish, Oryzias latipes (Cell Tissue Res, 2007). The actin purse-string (APS) is a supracellular contractile machinery in which adherens junctions (AJs) link intracellular myosin II-including actin cables between neighboring cells. In this study, we developed a modified "face-to-face" scale-skin culture system as an ex vivo model to study epidermal wound healing, and examined the role of the actin-myosin system in the rapid re-epithelialization using a myosin II ATPase inhibitor, blebbistatin. A low level of blebbistatin suppressed the formation of APS and induced the dissociation of keratocytes from the leading edge without attenuating the growth of the epidermal sheet or the migration rate of solitary keratocytes. AJs in the superficial layer showed no obvious changes elicited by blebbistatin. However, two epidermal sheets without APSs did not make a closure with each other, which was confirmed by inhibiting the connecting AJs between the superficial layers. These results suggest that myosin II activity is required for functional leading-edge cells and for epidermal closure.

'Adoption' by maternal siblings in wild chimpanzees

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hobaiter, Catherine; Schel, Anne Marijke; Langergraber, Kevin; Zuberbühler, Klaus

2014-01-01

The adoption of unrelated orphaned infants is something chimpanzees and humans have in common. Providing parental care has fitness implications for both the adopter and orphan, and cases of adoption have thus been cited as evidence for a shared origin of an altruistic behaviour. We provide new data

Post-Adoption Services: Needs of the Family

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, Denise

2005-01-01

This study, conducted in an agency providing post-adoption services, describes the demographic characteristics of parents and children in post-adoptive families and assesses the differences in perceptions between mothers and fathers, as well as other characteristics of families who adopt children with special needs. (Contains 3 tables.)

Principles of a reversible programming language

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yokoyama, Tetsuo; Axelsen, Holger Bock; Glück, Robert

2008-01-01

The principles of reversible programming languages are explicated and illustrated with reference to the design of a high-level imperative language, Janus. The fundamental properties for such languages include backward as well as forward determinism and reversible updates of data. The unique design...... languages, and demonstrate this for Janus. We show the practicality of the language by implementation of a reversible fast Fourier transform. Our results indicate that the reversible programming paradigm has fundamental properties that are relevant to many different areas of computer science....... features of the language include explicit post-condition assertions, direct access to an inverse semantics and the possibility of clean (i.e., garbage-free) computation of injective functions. We suggest the clean simulation of reversible Turing machines as a criterion for computing strength of reversible...

Innovation adoption: a review of theories and constructs.

Science.gov (United States)

Wisdom, Jennifer P; Chor, Ka Ho Brian; Hoagwood, Kimberly E; Horwitz, Sarah M

2014-07-01

Many theoretical frameworks seek to describe the dynamic process of the implementation of innovations. Little is known, however, about factors related to decisions to adopt innovations and how the likelihood of adoption of innovations can be increased. Using a narrative synthesis approach, this paper compared constructs theorized to be related to adoption of innovations proposed in existing theoretical frameworks in order to identify characteristics likely to increase adoption of innovations. The overall goal was to identify elements across adoption frameworks that are potentially modifiable and, thus, might be employed to improve the adoption of evidence-based practices. The review identified 20 theoretical frameworks that could be grouped into two broad categories: theories that mainly address the adoption process (N = 10) and theories that address adoption within the context of implementation, diffusion, dissemination, and/or sustainability (N = 10). Constructs of leadership, operational size and structure, innovation fit with norms and values, and attitudes/motivation toward innovations each are mentioned in at least half of the theories, though there were no consistent definitions of measures for these constructs. A lack of precise definitions and measurement of constructs suggests further work is needed to increase our understanding of adoption of innovations.

Adopting the perspective of another in belief attribution: contribution of Relational Frame Theory to the understanding of impairments in schizophrenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Villatte, Matthieu; Monestès, Jean-Louis; McHugh, Louise; Freixa i Baqué, Esteve; Loas, Gwenolé

2010-06-01

Impaired ability of identifying mental states is a characteristic of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. In particular, people suffering from this illness tend to fail at attributing a belief to another, which has been linked to difficulties in changing interpersonal perspective. Following the view of Relational Frame Theory on perspective-taking skills, the current study aimed at examining the involvement of social anhedonia, one of the frequent features of schizophrenia, in the development of deficits in reversing the I-YOU relation (i.e., adopting the perspective of another). A task consisting of attributing a belief to another or to the self was employed with 30 non-clinical participants with a high level of social anhedonia and with 15 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. In comparison to two control groups, both experimental groups showed significant poorer performance when adopting the perspective of another. These results constitute important indications to target specific relational repertoires when attempting to remediate impairments in mental states attribution linked to schizophrenia.

Healthy Travel for International Adoptions

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Podcasts

2007-10-22

The number of international adoptions, many from developing countries, has doubled in the last 10 years. This podcast discusses ways adoptive families can protect their own health and the health of their new children.  Created: 10/22/2007 by National Center for the Prevention, Detection and Control of Infectious Diseases (NCPDCID).   Date Released: 10/24/2007.

‘Picking People to Hate’: Reversible reversals in stand-up comedy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Keisalo, Marianna Päivikki

2017-01-01

Generally speaking, ritual reversals mean switching to the opposite of what is considered ‘the normal order’. Such reversals can occur, for example, in terms of social hierarchies in rites of passage, in action in carnival, or in the framing of action as ritual or performance. For comedic figures...... cultural grounds and show how the study of comedic performance can offer insights into the semiotics of performance more broadly....

Periodicity and Immortality in Reversible Computing

OpenAIRE

Kari , Jarkko; Ollinger , Nicolas

2008-01-01

Additional material available on the web at http://www.lif.univ-mrs.fr/~nollinge/rec/gnirut/; We investigate the decidability of the periodicity and the immortality problems in three models of reversible computation: reversible counter machines, reversible Turing machines and reversible one-dimensional cellular automata. Immortality and periodicity are properties that describe the behavior of the model starting from arbitrary initial configurations: immortality is the property of having at le...

Stimulating a Sustainable Construction through Holistic BIM Adoption: The Root Causes of Recurring Low BIM Adoption in Malaysia

Science.gov (United States)

Mamter, S.; Abdul-Aziz, AR; Mamat, ME

2017-06-01

Fostering the Building Information Modelling (BIM) implementation is one of Malaysia sustainable strategies towards greener construction. Hence, the Eleventh Malaysia plan focuses on transforming construction industry through the increase of technology adoption in order to enhance construction productivity. Therefore, there is a growing and urgent demand to provide BIM competent. However, a significant number of parties are reluctant to develop and invest in BIM due to unsolved root causes. Scholars have identified barriers relating to the infancy stage of BIM adoption in Malaysia. Unfortunately, there is a lack of study to explore deeper the root causes of recurring for the barriers anticipate the low BIM adoption. This paper attempts to delve into the initiatives of BIM stake players in fostering BIM adoption and to determine the root causes of recurring barriers due to low BIM adoption. The study adopted the semi-structured interviews which involved BIM stake players as a sample population. From the findings, authors revealed four root causes of recurring barriers; absence of BIM policy and BIM compulsion, poor holistic readiness, software integration competition strategy, and reluctant in sharing knowledge. The findings espoused here are preliminary and more results are expected to emerge as the research progresses.

Adoptees' contact with birth parents in emerging adulthood: the role of adoption communication and attachment to adoptive parents.

Science.gov (United States)

Farr, Rachel H; Grant-Marsney, Holly A; Grotevant, Harold D

2014-12-01

As adoptees transition to adulthood, their roles in the family may shift, providing them with opportunities to have increasing autonomy in their decisions about contact and initiating conversations about adoption. Research has often focused more on adoptees as children, yet in emerging adulthood, there are important shifts in the life roles and relationships of adoptees during which adoptive parents continue to be meaningful. This study examined associations among attachment and communication within the adoptive family during adulthood with emerging adult adoptees' experience of birth family contact (frequency of and satisfaction with birth family contact), in a sample of 167 emerging adults with varied contact with birth family (from no contact to frequent contact). Results suggest that perceptions of secure parent-child attachment relationships, as well as sensitive and open communication with adoptive parents about adoption, continue to be important for emerging adult adoptees and lead to greater satisfaction for adoptees with birth parent contact-regardless of whether adoptees actually have birth family contact. In particular, positive family communication about adoption during adulthood was predictive of satisfaction with birth parent contact. Limitations and implications are discussed. © 2014 Family Process Institute.

Highly Adoptable Improvement: A Practical Model and Toolkit to Address Adoptability and Sustainability of Quality Improvement Initiatives.

Science.gov (United States)

Hayes, Christopher William; Goldmann, Don

2018-03-01

Failure to consider the impact of change on health care providers is a barrier to success. Initiatives that increase workload and have low perceived value are less likely to be adopted. A practical model and supporting tools were developed on the basis of existing theories to help quality improvement (QI) programs design more adoptable approaches. Models and theories from the diffusion of innovation and work stress literature were reviewed, and key-informant interviews and site visits were conducted to develop a draft Highly Adoptable Improvement (HAI) Model. A list of candidate factors considered for inclusion in the draft model was presented to an expert panel. A modified Delphi process was used to narrow the list of factors into main themes and refine the model. The resulting model and supporting tools were pilot tested by 16 improvement advisors for face validity and usability. The HAI Model depicts how workload and perceived value influence adoptability of QI initiatives. The supporting tools include an assessment guide and suggested actions that QI programs can use to help design interventions that are likely to be adopted. Improvement advisors reported good face validity and usability and found that the model and the supporting tools helped address key issues related to adoption and reported that they would continue to use them. The HAI Model addresses important issues regarding workload and perceived value of improvement initiatives. Pilot testing suggests that the model and supporting tools are helpful and practical in guiding design and implementation of adoptable and sustainable QI interventions. Copyright © 2017 The Joint Commission. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

How decision reversibility affects motivation.

Science.gov (United States)

Bullens, Lottie; van Harreveld, Frenk; Förster, Jens; Higgins, Tory E

2014-04-01

The present research examined how decision reversibility can affect motivation. On the basis of extant findings, it was suggested that 1 way it could affect motivation would be to strengthen different regulatory foci, with reversible decision making, compared to irreversible decision making, strengthening prevention-related motivation relatively more than promotion-related motivation. If so, then decision reversibility should have effects associated with the relative differences between prevention and promotion motivation. In 5 studies, we manipulated the reversibility of a decision and used different indicators of regulatory focus motivation to test these predictions. Specifically, Study 1 tested for differences in participants' preference for approach versus avoidance strategies toward a desired end state. In Study 2, we used speed and accuracy performance as indicators of participants' regulatory motivation, and in Study 3, we measured global versus local reaction time performance. In Study 4, we approached the research question in a different way, making use of the value-from-fit hypothesis (Higgins, 2000, 2002). We tested whether a fit between chronic regulatory focus and focus induced by the reversibility of the decision increased participants' subjective positive feelings about the decision outcome. Finally, in Study 5, we tested whether regulatory motivation, induced by decision reversibility, also influenced participants' preference in specific product features. The results generally support our hypothesis showing that, compared to irreversible decisions, reversible decisions strengthen a prevention focus more than a promotion focus. Implications for research on decision making are discussed.

Processes linked to contact changes in adoptive kinship networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Dunbar, Nora; van Dulmen, Manfred H M; Ayers-Lopez, Susan; Berge, Jerica M; Christian, Cinda; Gossman, Ginger; Henney, M Susan M; Mendenhall, Tai J; Grotevant, Harold D; McRoy, Ruth G

2006-12-01

The purpose of this study was to reveal underlying processes in adoptive kinship networks that experienced increases or decreases in levels of openness during the child's adolescent years. Intensive case study analyses were conducted for 8 adoptive kinship networks (each including an adoptive mother, adoptive father, adopted adolescent, and birth mother), half of whom had experienced an increase in openness from indirect (mediated) to direct (fully disclosed) contact and half of whom had ceased indirect contact between Waves 1 and 2 of a longitudinal study. Adoptive mothers tended to be more involved in contact with the birth mother than were adoptive fathers or adopted adolescents. Members of adoptive kinship networks in which a decrease in level of contact took place had incongruent perspectives about who initiated the stop in contact and why the stop took place. Birth mothers were less satisfied with their degree of contact than were adoptive parents. Adults' satisfaction with contact was related to feelings of control over type and amount of interactions and permeability of family boundaries. In all adoptive kinship networks, responsibility for contact had shifted toward the adopted adolescent regardless of whether the adolescent was aware of this change in responsibility.

Responding to the Needs of the Adopted Child

Science.gov (United States)

Gajda, Rebecca

2004-01-01

In today's societal landscape, "adoption," the legal process by which a child becomes a full and permanent member of a new family, is becoming commonplace. Even though most people have had a personal experience with adoption in some capacity, those most closely associated with adoption (birth parents, adoptees, and adoptive parents) continue to be…

MODELS OF PROJECT REVERSE ENGINEERING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Віктор Володимирович ІВАНОВ

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Reverse engineering decided important scientific and technical problems of increasing the cost of the existing technical product by transforming it into a product with other features or design. Search ideas of the new application of existing products on the base of heuristic analysis were created. The concept of reverse engineering and its division into three types: conceptual, aggregate and complete was expanded. The use of heuristic methods for reverse engineering concept was showed. The modification model of Reverse engineering based on the model of РМВОК was developed. Our model includes two new phases: identification and transformation. At the identification phase, technical control is made. At the transformation phase, search heuristic idea of the new applied existing technical product was made. The model of execution phase that included heuristic methods, metrological equipment, and CAD/CAM/CAE program complex was created. The model that connected economic indicators of reverse engineering project was developed.

Awareness of BIM adoption in Brunei

Science.gov (United States)

Rahman, Md Motiar

2017-09-01

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is getting increased attention day-by-day due to its many benefits, including clash detection, collaboration between contract parties, visualization future structure, optimized schedule and project control, waste control, design documentation, and harmonized facilities management. As such, many countries have already adopted BIM, and many other countries are exploring the potential of adopting it. However, it is still relatively new and unknown to some other countries like Brunei. This study was therefore undertaken to generate and/or gauge the awareness of Brunei construction industry participants, targeting adoption of BIM, through a structured questionnaire survey. Responses from 90 industry participants reveal that Brunei Construction industry is not well aware of BIM, lack the required technical knowledge and application in construction, and cost involvement. They are unsure about the potential benefits and barriers to implementing BIM. However, respondents are hopeful that BIM can bring the required changes in construction, willing to adopt BIM, expects cliental support with initial investment for its adoption, and believe that BIM is the future of construction project information management. On the whole, private sector was seen to be more aware on BIM than public sector. The study outcomes are expected to provide the policy makers a first-hand information on the industry awareness on BIM, which in turn help them for further exploration / examination and to design any action plan and guidelines for BIM adoption.

'Adoption' by maternal siblings in wild chimpanzees.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Catherine Hobaiter

Full Text Available The adoption of unrelated orphaned infants is something chimpanzees and humans have in common. Providing parental care has fitness implications for both the adopter and orphan, and cases of adoption have thus been cited as evidence for a shared origin of an altruistic behaviour. We provide new data on adoptions in the free-living Sonso chimpanzee community in Uganda, together with an analysis of published data from other long-term field sites. As a default pattern, we find that orphan chimpanzees do not become adopted by adult group members but wherever possible associate with each other, usually as maternal sibling pairs. This occurs even if both partners are still immature, with older individuals effectively becoming 'child household heads'. Adoption of orphans by unrelated individuals does occur but usually only if no maternal siblings or other relatives are present and only after significant delays. In conclusion, following the loss of their mother, orphaned chimpanzees preferentially associate along pre-existing social bonds, which are typically strongest amongst maternal siblings.

Innovation Adoption: A Review of Theories and Constructs

Science.gov (United States)

Chor, Ka Ho Brian; Hoagwood, Kimberly E.; Horwitz, Sarah M.

2013-01-01

Many theoretical frameworks seek to describe the dynamic process of the implementation of innovations. Little is known, however, about factors related to decisions to adopt innovations and how the likelihood of adoption of innovations can be increased. Using a narrative synthesis approach, this paper compared constructs theorized to be related to adoption of innovations proposed in existing theoretical frameworks in order to identify characteristics likely to increase adoption of innovations. The overall goal was to identify elements across adoption frameworks that are potentially modifiable and, thus, might be employed to improve the adoption of evidence-based practices. The review identified 20 theoretical frameworks that could be grouped into two broad categories: theories that mainly address the adoption process (N = 10) and theories that address adoption within the context of implementation, diffusion, dissemination, and/or sustainability (N = 10). Constructs of leadership, operational size and structure, innovation fit with norms and values, and attitudes/motivation toward innovations each are mentioned in at least half of the theories, though there were no consistent definitions of measures for these constructs. A lack of precise definitions and measurement of constructs suggests further work is needed to increase our understanding of adoption of innovations. PMID:23549911

Garbage collection for reversible functional languages

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mogensen, Torben Ægidius

2015-01-01

Reversible languages are programming languages where all programs can run both forwards and backwards. Reversible functional languages have been proposed that use symmetric pattern matching and data construction. To be reversible, these languages require linearity: Every variable must be used...

Books on Adoption for Young Children: Looking at Language.

Science.gov (United States)

Schimmel, Nancy; Love, Susan

1997-01-01

Books can inform, reassure, and give young children the vocabulary to talk about adoption. This article presents and examines the language used to talk about adoption in eleven current children's books. Discusses surrogacy, adoption, "natural" parents, grief, "chosen-baby" stories, age at adoption, international adoption,…

Who wants to adopt and who wants to be adopted: a sample of American families and sub-Saharan African orphans.

Science.gov (United States)

Balding, Christopher; Feng, Yan; Atashband, Armita

2015-12-01

The debate between pro- and anti-international adoption advocates relies heavily on rhetoric and little on data analysis. To better understand the state of orphans and potential adopters in this debate, we utilize the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) and the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to study who adopts internationally and the status of orphaned children in sub-Saharan Africa. According to NSFG data adopters are church going, highly educated, stable families aware of the challenges faced by international adoption, with high rates of infertility and rates of child abuse half the population average. According to the DHS data, orphans in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from significantly higher deprivation, reduced schooling and increased levels of stunting and underweight reported than their cohort. Using this data, we estimate conservatively that that 1 50 000 orphans from our sample of sub-Saharan African countries died from their 5-year birth cohort. Given the large number of families seeking to adopt and the high number of orphan deaths, it seems counterproductive to restrict international adoptions given the significantly lower risks faced by children in adopted families compared with remaining orphaned. © The Author 2015; all rights reserved. Published by Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY AND IMPACT EVALUATION DIFFERENTIALS BETWEEN THE ADOPTERS AND NON-ADOPTERS OF NERICA IN THE SIX BASELINE STATES IN NIGERIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abiodun Elijah OBAYELU

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The study examined the adoption rate of New Rice for Africa (NERICA, technical efficiency differentials of production of these varieties between adopters and non-adopters and the determinants. It further analysed the impact of adoption of NERICA on area cultivated, output, yield, expenditure and total income of rice farmers in the NERICA baseline states in Nigeria. To achieve the objectives, it employed the descriptive statistics, stochastic production frontier and counterfactual outcomes framework of modern evaluation technique (the Local Average Treatment Effect to analyse 621 rice farmers across the six NERICA baseline states in Nigeria in 2012. The findings show that NERICA adopters were more technically efficient than the non-adopters. In addition, adoption of NERICA was found to significantly increase the areas of land cultivated, output, yield, household expenditure, per capita household expenditure and total income among NERICA adopters by 1.2ha (p < 0.01, 1998.2kg (p< 0.01, 191.2kg/ha (p < 0.1, N13,222.63≈$66.4 (p < 0.05, N2,015.6≈$10.1 (p < 0.05 and N145,098.7 ≈$728.0 (p < 0.01 respectively despite their high level of inefficiency (39 percent by the adopters. The positive impact of NERICA adoption on rice yields, poverty status measured by the per capita household expenditure and total farm income of farmers is a clear indication that NERICA has the potential to increase rice productivity, reduce poverty and food insecurity. NERICA adoption rate will rise if more farmers are aware of the varieties in the study. Farmers who had adopted, and government at all levels should therefore intensify their efforts to encourage others rice farmers possibly through the extension agents on the need to grow NERICA varieties so as to increase rice production level, reduce rice importation and ensure a sustainable rice production.

Awareness, persuasion, and adoption: Enriching the Bass model

Science.gov (United States)

Colapinto, Cinzia; Sartori, Elena; Tolotti, Marco

2014-02-01

In the context of diffusion of innovations, we propose a probabilistic model based on interacting populations connected through new communication channels. The potential adopters are heterogeneous in the connectivity levels and in their taste for innovation. The proposed framework can model the different stages of the adoption dynamics. In particular, the adoption curve is the result of a micro-founded decision process following the awareness phase. Eventually, we recover stylized facts pointed out by the extant literature in the field, such as delayed adoptions and non-monotonic adoption curves.

END-OF-USE PRODUCTS IN REVERSE LOGISTICS

OpenAIRE

Marta Starostka-Patyk

2007-01-01

Reverse logistics is a very useful tool for enterprises which have to deal with end-of-use products. Forward logistics is not able to manage them, because they show up on the beginning of reverse supply chain. That is the reason for growing importance of reverse flows. Reverse logistics is quite new logistics system. This paper presents the idea of reverse logistics and end-of-use products problems.

Reversal of subtidal dune asymmetries caused by seasonally reversing wind-driven currents in Torres Strait, northeastern Australia

Science.gov (United States)

Harris, Peter T.

1991-07-01

Large subtidal sand dunes (sandwaves) located in Adolphus Channel, Torres Strait, have been observed to reverse their asymmetric orientation between September-February. This has been attributed to a reversal in wind-driven currents, which flow westward during the SE trade season (April-November) and eastwards during the NW monsoon season [December-March: HARRIS (1989) Continental Shelf Research, 9, 981-1002]. Observations in September 1988 and February 1989 from another area of dunes in Torres Strait corroborate this asymmetry reversal pattern. The results indicate that such reversals may be common in Torres Strait and in other areas where subtidal bedforms are subject to modification by superimposed, seasonally reversing, wind-driven currents.

SOME REMARKS ON THE NEW AMENDMENTS IN THE ADOPTION PROCEDURE REGARDING THE ADOPTION DEFINING TERMS AND SUBSTANTIVE CONDITIONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laura Cetean-Voiculescu

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Adoption is one of the most important measures to protect children in need, namely that category of children who are deprived of parental care, loss due to various reasons. If a child in need can not be maintained or reinstated in his natural family, state authorities must have an alternative measure of protection: guardianship, special protective measures provided by Law no. 272/2004 on the protection and promotion of children's rights (placement, emergency placement or specialized supervision or adoption, regulated by Law no. 273/2004. This paper aims to critically analyze the Adoption of the new rules, with special regard to the definition, principles and conditions for the adoption procedure.

Re an Adoption Application (Surrogacy), 11 March 1987.

Science.gov (United States)

1987-01-01

The Court was asked to make an adoption order in favor of a couple who had paid another woman to bear a child for them using the husband's sperm. The Court made the order, noting that the Surrogacy Arrangements Act 1985, which bans commercial surrogacy agencies, negotiations, and advertisements had not been enacted at the time of this arrangement. It also held that the arrangement did not violate the Adoption Act 1958, which prohibits payments or rewards for or in consideration of adoption, because the payment to the surrogate was not made in contemplation of adoption. Moreover, it concluded that even if the payment had been made in contemplation of adoption, the Adoption Act gave the Court the power to authorize the payment retrospectively. full text

Adoption of Improved Potato Varieties in Nepal

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Samaya Gairhe

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Nepal is one of the top twenty countries where potato contributes substantially for the human diet. Enhancing adoption of improved potato varieties could impact on farmer’s income, household food and nutritional security. As such, using a multistage sampling procedure, a study was conducted to assess the determinants of improved potato varieties adoption in Nepal covering 180 samples in four districts, two in hills and two in Tarai region. The study revealed that; Kavre and Bardiya districts in the hills and Tarai, respectively, were dominated by improved potato varieties adoption. On the other hand, Dhankuta and Jhapa in the hills and Tarai, respectively, were dominated by local potato varieties adoption. The informal seed sources followed by agro-vet and market were the major sources for improved varietal adoption. Farmers’ accesses to training and formal seed sources were important factor determining improved potato varietal adoption. However, households with larger farm size were less likely to allocate more area for improved potato varieties as many of farmers were reluctant to take potato cultivation as agri-business and still follow subsistence farming. Potato R&D programs, therefore, need to strengthen formal seed system to enhance access to quality potato seeds and build producer’s capacity through regular training and exposer visits in order to improve adoption of improved potato varieties in Nepal.

Magnetic reversals from planetary dynamo waves.

Science.gov (United States)

Sheyko, Andrey; Finlay, Christopher C; Jackson, Andrew

2016-11-24

A striking feature of many natural dynamos is their ability to undergo polarity reversals. The best documented example is Earth's magnetic field, which has reversed hundreds of times during its history. The origin of geomagnetic polarity reversals lies in a magnetohydrodynamic process that takes place in Earth's core, but the precise mechanism is debated. The majority of numerical geodynamo simulations that exhibit reversals operate in a regime in which the viscosity of the fluid remains important, and in which the dynamo mechanism primarily involves stretching and twisting of field lines by columnar convection. Here we present an example of another class of reversing-geodynamo model, which operates in a regime of comparatively low viscosity and high magnetic diffusivity. This class does not fit into the paradigm of reversal regimes that are dictated by the value of the local Rossby number (the ratio of advection to Coriolis force). Instead, stretching of the magnetic field by a strong shear in the east-west flow near the imaginary cylinder just touching the inner core and parallel to the axis of rotation is crucial to the reversal mechanism in our models, which involves a process akin to kinematic dynamo waves. Because our results are relevant in a regime of low viscosity and high magnetic diffusivity, and with geophysically appropriate boundary conditions, this form of dynamo wave may also be involved in geomagnetic reversals.

Multiple reversal olfactory learning in honeybees

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Theo Mota

2010-07-01

Full Text Available In multiple reversal learning, animals trained to discriminate a reinforced from a non-reinforced stimulus are subjected to various, successive reversals of stimulus contingencies (e.g. A+ vs. B-, A- vs. B+, A+ vs. B-. This protocol is useful to determine whether or not animals learn to learn and solve successive discriminations faster (or with fewer errors with increasing reversal experience. Here we used the olfactory conditioning of proboscis extension reflex to study how honeybees Apis mellifera perform in a multiple reversal task. Our experiment contemplated four consecutive differential conditioning phases involving the same odors (A+ vs. B- to A- vs. B+ to A+ vs. B- to A- vs. B+. We show that bees in which the weight of reinforced or non-reinforced stimuli was similar mastered the multiple olfactory reversals. Bees which failed the task exhibited asymmetric responses to reinforced and non-reinforced stimuli, thus being unable to rapidly reverse stimulus contingencies. Efficient reversers did not improve their successive discriminations but rather tended to generalize their choice to both odors at the end of conditioning. As a consequence, both discrimination and reversal efficiency decreasedalong experimental phases. This result invalidates a learning-to-learn effect and indicates that bees do not only respond to the actual stimulus contingencies but rather combine these with an average of past experiences with the same stimuli.  

Adoption experiences of women and men and demand for children to adopt by women 18-44 years of age in the United States, 2002.

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Jo

2008-08-01

This report presents national estimates of the prevalence of adoption for men and women 18-44 years of age, the demand for children to adopt by women, and women's preferences for characteristics of the adopted child. Analysis is based on data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth. This survey interviewed a nationally representative sample of women and men 15-44 years of age in their households. Results are weighted to produce national estimates of the characteristics of men and women who have adopted children, lifetime and current demand for adoption by women, and the characteristics of children preferred by women when they are considering adoption. Adoption remains rare in the United States. Among all women aged 18-44 in 2002, only 1.1% had adopted a child and 1.6% were currently seeking to adopt. Women were more likely to be currently seeking to adopt, to have ever sought to adopt, and to have actually adopted a child if they had used infertility services or had impaired fecundity. Older women and women who were in their second or later marriage were also more likely to have adopted a child. Hispanic and non-Hispanic black women were more likely to be currently seeking to adopt compared with non-Hispanic white women. More men than women have adopted children in their lifetimes. Among adopters, 17% of women and 6% of men were never married. Adopting a child has been and remains a relatively rare event in the United States. Adoption is a mechanism by which adults legalize their parental relationship to nonbiological children as well as a means to bring children into families. Studies examining adoption should include men as well as women and persons of all marital statuses.

Reversibility: An Engineer's Point of View

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Berest, Pierre [LMS, ecole Polytechnique (France)

2012-07-01

Reversibility is the most consistent option in a democratic country. However reversibility may also have several drawbacks which must be identified and mitigated. Reversibility of a geological repository is a relatively new idea in France. The 1991 law dedicated to nuclear waste management considered reversibility as a possible option. Fifteen years later, the 2006 law mandated that a deep repository must be reversible and that the exact content of this notion should be defined by a new law to be discussed by the Parliament in 2015. Reversibility was not a concern put forward by engineers. It clearly originated from a societal demand sponsored and formulated by the Parliament. Since 1991, the exact meaning of this mandate progressively became more precise. In the early days, reversibility meant the technical and financial capability to retrieve the wastes from the repository, at least for some period of time after being emplaced. Progressively, a broader definition, suggested by Andra, was accepted: reversibility also means that a disposal facility should be operated in such a way that a stepwise decision-making process is possible. At each step, society must be able to decide to proceed to the next step, to pause or to reverse a step. Several benefits can be expected from a reversible repository. Some technical safety concerns may be only recognised after waste emplacement. Radioactive wastes may become a resource whose recoverability is desirable. Regulations may change, alternative waste treatment or better disposal techniques may be developed, or the need to modify a component of the facility may arise. Looking back at how chemical or domestic wastes were managed some 50 years ago easily underscores that it is not unreasonable to hope for significant advances in the future. For scientists and engineers, reversibility proves to have several other merits. To design and build a good repository, time is needed. The operator of a mine or of an oil field knows that

Åben Adoption

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jeldtoft, Nadia

2007-01-01

Denne rapport er en systematisk forskningsoversigt over udenlandske erfaringer med adoption i forhold til anbringelse uden for hjemmet, fx familiepleje, institutionsanbringelse og hjemgivelse til de biologiske forældre. Konklusionerne i rapporten er overraskende entydige: Adopterede børn klarer sig...

Adoption som indsats

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christoffersen, Mogens; Hammen, Ida; Raft Andersen, Karen

Denne rapport er en systematisk forskningsoversigt over udenlandske erfaringer med adoption i forhold til anbringelse uden for hjemmet, fx familiepleje, institutionsanbringelse og hjemgivelse til de biologiske forældre. Konklusionerne i rapporten er overraskende entydige: Adopterede børn klarer sig...

Reversible and non-reversible enlargement of cerebral spinal fluid spaces in anorexia nervosa

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Artmann, H.; Grau, H.; Adelmann, M.; Schleiffer, R.

1985-01-01

Brain CT studies of 35 patients with anoxia nervosa confirmed the observations of other authors: cerebral dystrophic changes correlate with weight loss and the reversibility of these changes also correlates with the normalization of body weight. Other corroborated facts are: the most numerous and most pronounced enlargements are of the cortical sulci and the interhemispheric fissure, moderate widening affects the ventricles and the rarest and most insignificant changes are those of the cerebellum. The reversibility of the changes showed a parallel to the extent of the changes themselves and to the duration of improvement of the body weight. The reversibility of the enlargement of the cortical sulci and of the distances between the frontal horns of the lateral ventricles was more often significant than that of the abnormal measurements of the cella media. This difference is based on minimal early acquired brain damage which occurs in 60% of our patients. This high incidence of early acquired minimal brain disease in patients with anorexia nervosa is here discussed as a nonspecific predisposing factor. Although there is no exact explanation of the etiology of the reversible enlargement of cerenral spinal fluid (CSF) spaces in anorexia nervosa, the changes resemble those in alcoholics. The mechanisms of brain changes in alcoholism, as shown experimentally, seem to us to throw light on the probable mechanism of reversible dystrophic brain changes in anorexia nervosa. (orig.)

Reversible and non-reversible enlargement of cerebral spinal fluid spaces in anorexia nervosa

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Artmann, H.; Grau, H.; Adelmann, M.; Schleiffer, R.

1985-07-01

Brain CT studies of 35 patients with anoxia nervosa confirmed the observations of other authors: cerebral dystrophic changes correlate with weight loss and the reversibility of these changes also correlates with the normalization of body weight. Other corroborated facts are: the most numerous and most pronounced enlargements are of the cortical sulci and the interhemispheric fissure, moderate widening affects the ventricles and the rarest and most insignificant changes are those of the cerebellum. The reversibility of the changes showed a parallel to the extent of the changes themselves and to the duration of improvement of the body weight. The reversibility of the enlargement of the cortical sulci and of the distances between the frontal horns of the lateral ventricles was more often significant than that of the abnormal measurements of the cella media. This difference is based on minimal early acquired brain damage which occurs in 60% of our patients. This high incidence of early acquired minimal brain disease in patients with anorexia nervosa is here discussed as a nonspecific predisposing factor. Although there is no exact explanation of the etiology of the reversible enlargement of cerenral spinal fluid (CSF) spaces in anorexia nervosa, the changes resemble those in alcoholics. The mechanisms of brain changes in alcoholism, as shown experimentally, seem to us to throw light on the probable mechanism of reversible dystrophic brain changes in anorexia nervosa.

Holistic BIM Adoption and Diffusion in Malaysia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mamter Shahela

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Building Information Modeling is modeling technology and associated set of processes to produce, communicate and analyze digital information models for construction life cycle. Although many benefits can gain by the implementation of BIM, the pace adoption of BIM in Malaysia is still slow. There is an abundance of theories and models purporting to describe the drivers and mechanisms of how new technologies are adopted or diffused into a particular section of society or by individuals or stake players. In addition, many acceptance theories, which imply the adoption of new technologies and can be applied in every sector. This paper aims to present a review of the existing literature of BIM adoption and diffusion theory/model/framework in Malaysia. Researcher revealed the list of driven factors of Holistic BIM Adoption. In addition, it will deal with how to work effectively with groups that initially are relatively

Reversal agents in anaesthesia and critical care

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nibedita Pani

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Despite the advent of short and ultra-short acting drugs, an in-depth knowledge of the reversal agents used is a necessity for any anaesthesiologist. Reversal agents are defined as any drug used to reverse the effects of anaesthetics, narcotics or potentially toxic agents. The controversy on the routine reversal of neuromuscular blockade still exists. The advent of newer reversal agents like sugammadex have made the use of steroidal neuromuscular blockers like rocuronium feasible in rapid sequence induction situations. We made a review of the older reversal agents and those still under investigation for drugs that are regularly used in our anaesthesia practice.

Racial and Ethnic Socialization as Moderators of Racial Discrimination and School Adjustment of Adopted and Non-adopted Korean American Adolescents

Science.gov (United States)

Seol, Kyoung Ok; Yoo, Hyung Chol; Lee, Richard M.; Park, Ji Eun; Kyeong, Yena

2015-01-01

This study investigated roles of racial and ethnic socialization in the link between racial discrimination and school adjustment among a sample of 233 adopted Korean American adolescents from White adoptive families and 155 non-adopted Korean American adolescents from immigrant Korean families. Adopted Korean American adolescents reported lower levels of racial discrimination, racial socialization, and ethnic socialization than non-adopted Korean American adolescents. However, racial discrimination was negatively related to school belonging and school engagement, and ethnic socialization was positively related to school engagement for both groups. Racial socialization also had a curvilinear relationship with school engagement for both groups. Moderate level of racial socialization predicted positive school engagement, whereas low and high levels of racial socialization predicted negative school engagement. Finally, ethnic socialization moderated the link between racial discrimination and school belonging, which differed between groups. In particular, ethnic socialization exacerbated the relations between racial discrimination and school belonging for adopted Korean American adolescents, whereas, ethnic socialization buffered this link for non-adopted Korean American adolescents. Findings illustrate the complex relationship between racial and ethnic socialization, racial discrimination, and school adjustment. PMID:26479418

Adopting to Agile Software Development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Linkevics Gusts

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Agile software development can be made successful, but there is no well-defined way how to achieve this. The problem is that the successful adoption of agile methods and practices is a complex process and this process should be customizable for a particular organization or a team. This research focuses on identification of agile methods and practices. Result of the research is the ranking of agile methods, practices and their usage trends. As some terms of agile software development are interpreted differently in different organizations and teams, terminology used is analyzed. Results of the research can be used as a reference material for those who are planning to adopt agile methods or are looking for the next agile practice to implement. Results will be used for the development of an expert system to support agile adoption.

The misconception of mean-reversion

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eliazar, Iddo I; Cohen, Morrel H

2012-01-01

The notion of random motion in a potential well is elemental in the physical sciences and beyond. Quantitatively, this notion is described by reverting diffusions—asymptotically stationary diffusion processes which are simultaneously (i) driven toward a reversion level by a deterministic force, and (ii) perturbed off the reversion level by a random white noise. The archetypal example of reverting diffusions is the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process, which is mean-reverting. In this paper we analyze reverting diffusions and establish that: (i) if the magnitude of the perturbing noise is constant then the diffusion's stationary density is unimodal and the diffusion is mode-reverting; (ii) if the magnitude of the perturbing noise is non-constant then, in general, neither is the diffusion's stationary density unimodal, nor is the diffusion mode-reverting. In the latter case we further establish a result asserting when unimodality and mode-reversion do hold. In particular, we demonstrate that the notion of mean-reversion, which is fundamental in economics and finance, is a misconception—as mean-reversion is an exception rather than the norm. (fast track communication)

Adoptees and adoptive families :an exploration of the formation of the legal family, the stigma of adoption, and the decision to search

OpenAIRE

Kressierer, Dana Katherine

1994-01-01

In this thesis I utilize sociological theories on deviance, published research on adoption, and surveys of 41 adoptees and 15 adoptive parents in order to address four primary questions: 1.What factors have influenced adoption historically, and continue to influence current practices? 2.In what ways does the legal system treat the adoptive family differently than the consanguine family? 3.Is there a stigma associated with adoption? 4.What factors are associat...

ICT Adoption in Facilities Management Supply Chain

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Scupola, Ada

2012-01-01

This article involves a qualitative study of factors impacting the adoption of ICT solutions in the Danish facility management supply chain. The results show that there are a number of drivers and barriers that influence the adoption of ICT solutions in this service sector. These have been grouped...... concerned with ICT adoption, operations and service management (especially facilities management) as well as operation managers and ICT managers....

Risk of Suicide Attempt in Adopted and Nonadopted Offspring

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Keyes, M. A.; Malone, S. M.; Sharma, A.

2013-01-01

OBJECTIVE: We asked whether adoption status represented a risk of suicide attempt for adopted and nonadopted offspring living in the United States. We also examined whether factors known to be associated with suicidal behavior would mediate the relationship between adoption status and suicide att...... of the risk of suicide attempt in adopted offspring may inform the larger investigation of suicidality in all adolescents and young adults.......OBJECTIVE: We asked whether adoption status represented a risk of suicide attempt for adopted and nonadopted offspring living in the United States. We also examined whether factors known to be associated with suicidal behavior would mediate the relationship between adoption status and suicide...... attempt. METHODS: Participants were drawn from the Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study, which included 692 adopted and 540 nonadopted offspring and was conducted at the University of Minnesota from 1998 to 2008. Adoptees were systematically ascertained from records of 3 large Minnesota adoption...

Reciprocal and dynamic polarization of planar cell polarity core components and myosin

Science.gov (United States)

Newman-Smith, Erin; Kourakis, Matthew J; Reeves, Wendy; Veeman, Michael; Smith, William C

2015-01-01

The Ciona notochord displays planar cell polarity (PCP), with anterior localization of Prickle (Pk) and Strabismus (Stbm). We report that a myosin is polarized anteriorly in these cells and strongly colocalizes with Stbm. Disruption of the actin/myosin machinery with cytochalasin or blebbistatin disrupts polarization of Pk and Stbm, but not of myosin complexes, suggesting a PCP-independent aspect of myosin localization. Wash out of cytochalasin restored Pk polarization, but not if done in the presence of blebbistatin, suggesting an active role for myosin in core PCP protein localization. On the other hand, in the pk mutant line, aimless, myosin polarization is disrupted in approximately one third of the cells, indicating a reciprocal action of core PCP signaling on myosin localization. Our results indicate a complex relationship between the actomyosin cytoskeleton and core PCP components in which myosin is not simply a downstream target of PCP signaling, but also required for PCP protein localization. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.05361.001 PMID:25866928

Parkinson’s disease managing reversible neurodegeneration

Science.gov (United States)

Hinz, Marty; Stein, Alvin; Cole, Ted; McDougall, Beth; Westaway, Mark

2016-01-01

Traditionally, the Parkinson’s disease (PD) symptom course has been classified as an irreversible progressive neurodegenerative disease. This paper documents 29 PD and treatment-induced systemic depletion etiologies which cause and/or exacerbate the seven novel primary relative nutritional deficiencies associated with PD. These reversible relative nutritional deficiencies (RNDs) may facilitate and accelerate irreversible progressive neurodegeneration, while other reversible RNDs may induce previously undocumented reversible pseudo-neurodegeneration that is hiding in plain sight since the symptoms are identical to the symptoms being experienced by the PD patient. Documented herein is a novel nutritional approach for reversible processes management which may slow or halt irreversible progressive neurodegenerative disease and correct reversible RNDs whose symptoms are identical to the patient’s PD symptoms. PMID:27103805

Innovation Adoption: A Review of Theories and Constructs

OpenAIRE

Wisdom, Jennifer P.; Chor, Ka Ho Brian; Hoagwood, Kimberly E.; Horwitz, Sarah M.

2014-01-01

Many theoretical frameworks seek to describe the dynamic process of the implementation of innovations. Little is known, however, about factors related to decisions to adopt innovations and how the likelihood of adoption of innovations can be increased. Using a narrative synthesis approach, this paper compared constructs theorized to be related to adoption of innovations proposed in existing theoretical frameworks in order to identify characteristics likely to increase adoption of innovations....

Birth parents who relinquished babies for adoption revisited.

Science.gov (United States)

Pannor, R; Baran, A; Sorosky, A D

1978-09-01

The fact that adoption records may be opened by court decree to enable adoptees to have access to identifying information about their birth parents makes it incumbent upon those concerned with adoption practices to study the impact of this on adoptees, adoptive parents, birth parents, and professional practice. This paper reports on research addressed to the attitudes and feelings of birth parents years after they relinquished babies for adoption.

Evolution of adoption from Roman law to modern law

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kitanović Tanja

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The work is dedicated to the evolution of adoption practice from ancient Roman law to modern law. Adoption represents ancient social and legal practice which has during time changed manifestations and the causes it served. Adoption in ancient Rome served the interests of pater familias without biological posterity. Adoption practice benefited the continuance of families and the family cult of adopters, whose family lines, with no natural posterity, were threatened to become extinct. After the stagnation in the feudal epoch, adoption was reaffirmed in the bourgeois law. Civil codes in European countries, whose legal systems were built on the foundations of the ancient Roman legal tradition, originally favoured the interests of individuals with no biological children, who were granted to extend their families by adopting, and hence transfer their assets on the obtained heirs. After the wars in the 20th century, which led to a rapid increase in the number of parentless children, the concept of adoption was radically changed, so that since that time the adoption has primarily served the interests of the adopted children and the care for them in the adoptive families. Adoption becomes a form of a social, legal family protection of children without adequate parental care, and that is the most desirable form to provide for children, for the adoptee completely integrates with the adoptive family and takes the right of the born child, where the family environment provides and encourages the optimal mental and physical development of the child.

Adopt, Adapt, Enact or Use?

OpenAIRE

Lauterbach , Jens; Mueller , Benjamin

2014-01-01

Part 1: IS/IT Implementation and Appropriation; International audience; Information Systems (IS) are omnipresent in today’s organizations. While much research has been performed on adoption, implementation, and use of IS, still many practitioners are faced with IS change endeavors in organizations that equal “death march” projects and fail before or directly after go-live. Research with a positivist stance has thoroughly studied factors that describe individuals’ intentions to adopt or use te...

Factors in Agile Methods Adoption

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Samia Abdalhamid

2017-05-01

Full Text Available There are many factors that can affect the process of adopting Agile methods during software developing. This paper illustrates the critical factors in Agile methods adoption in software organizations. To present the success and failure factors, an exploratory study is carried out among the critical factors of success and failure from existing studies. Dimensions and Factors are introduced utilizing success and failure dimensions. The mind map was used to clarify these factors.

Intercountry Adoption Agencies and the HCIA

NARCIS (Netherlands)

P. Selman (Peter); K.E. Cheney (Kristen)

2014-01-01

textabstractThis report discusses concerns raised by participants of Thematic Area 3 (Intercountry Adoption Agencies and the HCIA) of the International Forum on Intercountry Adoption and Global Surrogacy held in August 2014. The aim is to report the views of those participating in this area on the

Reversible machine code and its abstract processor architecture

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Axelsen, Holger Bock; Glück, Robert; Yokoyama, Tetsuo

2007-01-01

A reversible abstract machine architecture and its reversible machine code are presented and formalized. For machine code to be reversible, both the underlying control logic and each instruction must be reversible. A general class of machine instruction sets was proven to be reversible, building...

Barriers and Strategies on Adoption of E-Learning in Tanzanian Higher Learning Institutions: Lessons for Adopters

Science.gov (United States)

Kisanga, Dalton; Ireson, Gren

2015-01-01

Tanzanian Higher learning institutions (HLIs) are faced with challenges of adopting e-learning in education. This study involved experts in e-learning to examine barriers of adopting e-learning and the best strategies to address them. Data were gathered from a series of semi-structured interviews with e-learning experts from two HLIs in Tanzania.…

Autonomous motivation is associated with hearing aid adoption.

Science.gov (United States)

Ridgway, Jason; Hickson, Louise; Lind, Christopher

2015-07-01

To use the self-determination theory of motivation to investigate whether different forms of motivation were associated with adults' decisions whether or not to adopt hearing aids. A quantitative approach was used in this cohort study. Participants completed the treatment self-regulation questionnaire (TSRQ), which measured autonomous and controlled motivation for hearing aid adoption. Sociodemographic data and audiometric information were also obtained. Participants were 253 adults who had sought information about their hearing but had not consulted with a hearing professional. Participants were categorized as hearing aid adopters if they had been fitted with hearing aids 4-6 months after completing the TSRQ, and as non-adopters if they had not. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine associations between autonomous and controlled motivation, sociodemographic and audiometric variables, and hearing aid adoption (n = 160). Three factors were significantly associated with increased hearing aid adoption when the influence of other variables was accounted for: autonomous motivation, perceived hearing difficulty, and poorer hearing. Controlled motivation was not found to influence hearing aid adoption. These empirical findings that link autonomous motivation to decisions of hearing help-seekers have implications for the ways practitioners may evaluate motivation and could inform discussions with clients about hearing aid adoption.

Assessing personal disposition of individuals towards technology adoption

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Irbha Magotra

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The present study has attempted to explore personal disposition of individuals towards technology adoption through the development of an index named as Technology Adoption Index. For developing the index, exploratory factor analysis approach has been employed on the sample of 1201 responses collected from the residents of 12 different cities in India. Accordingly, the results of the index have indicated significant role of seven personal traits, namely, optimism, innovativeness, self-efficacy, risk taking propensity, habit, social influence and psychological resilience while manifesting personal disposition of individuals towards technology adoption, i.e., the technology adoption propensity of the individuals. Further, an attempt has also been made to explore the socio-economic characteristics of the individuals possessing distinct level of personal disposition towards technology adoption. Accordingly, the results have unveiled that the personal disposition of the individuals towards technology adoption increases with enhancement in their income and qualification but decreases with enhancement in their age. As a measurement tool, Technology Adoption Index can be used as ready-recknor by practitioners for the identification of technology adoption propensity of the individuals. This will facilitate organizations in developing and designing new products and services which can be readily accepted by the individuals.

20 CFR 222.54 - When a legally adopted child is dependent-grandchild or stepgrandchild adopted after entitlement.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 20 Employees' Benefits 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false When a legally adopted child is dependent-grandchild or stepgrandchild adopted after entitlement. 222.54 Section 222.54 Employees' Benefits RAILROAD RETIREMENT BOARD REGULATIONS UNDER THE RAILROAD RETIREMENT ACT FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS Child Support and...

A Typology of Reverse Innovation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

von Zedtwitz, Max; Corsi, Simone; Søberg, Peder Veng

2015-01-01

secondary market introduction, this study expands the espoused definition of reverse innovation beyond its market-introduction focus with reversals in the flow of innovation in the ideation and product development phases. Recognizing that each phase can take place in different geographical locations...... taking place in an emerging country. This analytical framework allows recasting of current research at the intersection between innovation and international business. Of the 10 reverse innovation flows, six are new and have not been covered in the literature to date. The study addresses questions......’s portfolio of global innovation competence and capability. The implications for management are concerned with internal and external resistance to reverse innovation. Most significantly, while greater recognition and power of innovation in formerly subordinate organizational units is inconvenient to some...

Elements of a Reversible Object-Oriented Language

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schultz, Ulrik Pagh; Axelsen, Holger Bock

2016-01-01

This paper presents initial ideas for the design and implementation of a reversible object-oriented language based on extending Janus with object-oriented concepts such as classes that encapsulate behavior and state, inheritance, virtual dispatching, as well as constructors. We show that virtual...... dispatching is a reversible decision mechanism easily translatable to a standard reversible programming model such as Janus, and we argue that reversible management of state can be accomplished using reversible constructors. The language is implemented in terms of translation to standard Janus programs....

Drift reversal capability in helical systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yokoyama, M.; Itoh, K.; Okamura, S.

2002-10-01

The maximum-J (J is the second adiabatic invariant) capability, i.e., the drift reversal capability, is examined in quasi-axisymmetric (QAS) stellarators and quasi-poloidally symmetric (QPS) stellarators as a possible mechanism for turbulent transport suppression. Due to the existence of non-axisymmetry of the magnetic field strength in QAS configurations, a local maximum of J is created to cause the drift reversal. The increase of magnetic shear in finite beta equilibria also has favorable effect in realizing the drift reversal. The radial variation of the uniform magnetic field component plays a crucial role for the drift reversal in a QPS configuration. Thus, the drift reversal capability and its external controllability are demonstrated for QAS and QPS stellarators, by which the impact of magnetic configuration on turbulent transport can be studied in experiments. (author)

Drift reversal capability in helical systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yokoyama, M.; Itoh, K.; Okamura, S.; Matsuoka, K.; Nakajima, N.; Itoh, S.-I.; Neilson, G.H.; Zarnstorff, M.C.; Rewoldt, G.

2003-01-01

The maximum-J (J is the second adiabatic invariant) capability, i.e., the drift reversal capability, is examined in quasi-axisymmetric (QAS) stellarators and quasi-poloidally symmetric (QPS) stellarators as a possible mechanism for turbulent transport suppression. Due to the existence of non-axisymmetry of the magnetic field strength in QAS configurations, a local maximum of J is created to cause the drift reversal. The increase of magnetic shear in finite beta equilibria also has favorable effect in realizing the drift reversal. The radial variation of the uniform magnetic field component plays a crucial role for the drift reversal in a QPS configuration. Thus, the drift reversal capability and its external controllability are demonstrated for QAS and QPS stellarators, by which the impact of magnetic configuration on turbulent transport can be studied in experiments. (author)

Kinetic Line Voronoi Operations and Their Reversibility

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mioc, Darka; Anton, François; Gold, Christopher

2010-01-01

In Geographic Information Systems the reversibility of map update operations has not been explored yet. In this paper we are using the Voronoi based Quad-edge data structure to define reversible map update operations. The reversibility of the map operations has been formalised at the lowest level...... mechanisms and dynamic map visualisations. In order to use the reversibility within the kinetic Voronoi diagram of points and open oriented line segments, we need to assure that reversing the map commands will produce exactly the changes in the map equivalent to the previous map states. To prove...... that reversing the map update operations produces the exact reverse changes, we show an isomorphism between the set of complex operations on the kinetic Voronoi diagram of points and open oriented line segments and the sets of numbers of new / deleted Voronoi regions induced by these operations, and its...

Atrioventricular Pacemaker Lead Reversal

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mehmet K Aktas, MD

2007-01-01

Full Text Available During cardiac surgery temporary epicardial atrial and ventricular leads are placed in case cardiac pacing is required postoperatively. We present the first reported series of patients with reversal of atrioventricular electrodes in the temporary pacemaker without any consequent deleterious hemodynamic effect. We review the electrocardiographic findings and discuss the findings that lead to the discovery of atrioventricular lead reversal.

Reversal modes in asymmetric Ni nanowires

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Leighton, B.; Pereira, A. [Departamento de Fisica, Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH), Avda. Ecuador 3493, 917-0124 Santiago (Chile); Escrig, J., E-mail: jescrigm@gmail.com [Departamento de Fisica, Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH), Avda. Ecuador 3493, 917-0124 Santiago (Chile); Center for the Development of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (CEDENNA), Avda. Ecuador 3493, 917-0124 Santiago (Chile)

2012-11-15

We have investigated the evolution of the magnetization reversal mechanism in asymmetric Ni nanowires as a function of their geometry. Circular nanowires are found to reverse their magnetization by the propagation of a vortex domain wall, while in very asymmetric nanowires the reversal is driven by the propagation of a transverse domain wall. The effect of shape asymmetry of the wire on coercivity and remanence is also studied. Angular dependence of the remanence and coercivity is also addressed. Tailoring the magnetization reversal mechanism in asymmetric nanowires can be useful for magnetic logic and race-track memory, both of which are based on the displacement of magnetic domain walls. Finally, an alternative method to detect the presence of magnetic drops is proposed. - Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Asymmetry strongly modifies the magnetic behavior of a wire. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Very asymmetric nanowires reverse their magnetization by a transverse domain wall. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer An alternative method to detect the presence of magnetic drops is proposed. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Tailoring the reversal mode in asymmetric nanowires can be useful for potential applications.

Moses and Superman Come Home: Counseling Adoptees and Adoptive Families.

Science.gov (United States)

Saiz, Stephen G.

This paper looks at three parties impacted by adoption: the adoptive parents, the adopted child, and the adoptive family. When working with adoptive parents, counselors should respect the strength of the couple, their commitment to parenthood, and the closeness that may develop from weathering the issue of childlessness. Adoptive parents are…

"Homoaffectivity" in the adoption scene: An anthropological debate

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ricardo Andrade Coitinho Filho

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This paper analyzes the legal treatment given to adoption in the courts of Rio de Janeiro in the context when the adoption requests are done by homosexual couples. The main purpose is to understand, through the analysis of eight legal adoption documents required by homosexuals, in which way the conceptions about family, parenthood and sexualities are produced by the legal practitioners responsible for conducting adoption applications in the period between 2000 untill 2013.

Competitive Advantages Through it Innovation Adoption by Smes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. Moghavvemi

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Purpose—This paper seeks to explain the impact of IT innovation on competitive advantage; the barriers and the benefits companies gain from adopting and using these innovations and propose a model with which it is possible to measure determinants of IT innovation adoption among SMEs. Design/methodology/approach—This paper presents conceptual consideration on the role of SMEs in the Malaysian economy and the effect of government policy in encouraging companies to adopt IT innovation. The proposed research framework will be empirically validated using survey data. This study is an ongoing research, in the existing stage a theoretical argument is developed and methodology is in the process of being tested through regression analysis. Findings—Conclusions are drawn on the status of Malaysian SMEs to adopt IT innovation. We added attitude and self-efficacy to the Innovation Diffusion Theory to suit it to the individual situation. Therefore a novel approach is needed in order to study and understand it. Research limitations/implications—The paper represents work in progress. Practical implications – This paper present the theoretical framework for further study of IT innovation adoption among Malaysia SMEs. Originality/Value—The Information Technology concept is considered a powerful competitive weapon in the modern economy. This study used Innovation Diffusion Theory as the base theory, and added attitude and self efficacy as determinants to measure the individual’s perception toward innovation adoption. Individual self-efficacy and attitude toward innovation adoption shape beliefs and perceptions toward innovation, leading them to adopt or reject an innovation. Adding these factors to Innovation Diffusion Theory will narrow the breadth of the theory and possibilities to frame a single study which allows examination of the individual and technological dimension toward technology adoption. Keywords: IT innovation adoption, competitive

Competitive Advantages Through it Innovation Adoption by Smes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. Moghavvemi

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Purpose—This paper seeks to explain the impact of IT innovation on competitive advantage; the barriers and the benefits companies gain from adopting and using these innovations and propose a model with which it is possible to measure determinants of IT innovation adoption among SMEs.Design/methodology/approach—This paper presents conceptual consideration on the role of SMEs in the Malaysian economy and the effect of government policy in encouraging companies to adopt IT innovation. The proposed research framework will be empirically validated using survey data. This study is an ongoing research, in the existing stage a theoretical argument is developed and methodology is in the process of being tested through regression analysis.Findings—Conclusions are drawn on the status of Malaysian SMEs to adopt IT innovation. We added attitude and self-efficacy to the Innovation Diffusion Theory to suit it to the individual situation. Therefore a novel approach is needed in order to study and understand it.Research limitations/implications—The paper represents work in progress.Practical implications – This paper present the theoretical framework for further study of IT innovation adoption among Malaysia SMEs.Originality/Value—The Information Technology concept is considered a powerful competitive weapon in the modern economy. This study used Innovation Diffusion Theory as the base theory, and added attitude and self efficacy as determinants to measure the individual’s perception toward innovation adoption. Individual self-efficacy and attitude toward innovation adoption shape beliefs and perceptions toward innovation, leading them to adopt or reject an innovation. Adding these factors to Innovation Diffusion Theory will narrow the breadth of the theory and possibilities to frame a single study which allows examination of the individual and technological dimension toward technology adoption.Keywords: IT innovation adoption, competitive

Introduction to time reversal theory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Henley, E.M.

1987-01-01

Theory and reaction mechanisms relevant to time reversal invariance are reviewed. Consequences of time reversal invariance are presented under the headings of CP tests, electromagnetic moments, weak emissions or absorptions, and scattering reactions. 8 refs., 4 figs

Vasectomy reversal: a clinical update

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abhishek P Patel

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Vasectomy is a safe and effective method of contraception used by 42-60 million men worldwide. Approximately 3%-6% of men opt for a vasectomy reversal due to the death of a child or divorce and remarriage, change in financial situation, desire for more children within the same marriage, or to alleviate the dreaded postvasectomy pain syndrome. Unlike vasectomy, vasectomy reversal is a much more technically challenging procedure that is performed only by a minority of urologists and places a larger financial strain on the patient since it is usually not covered by insurance. Interest in this procedure has increased since the operating microscope became available in the 1970s, which consequently led to improved patency and pregnancy rates following the procedure. In this clinical update, we discuss patient evaluation, variables that may influence reversal success rates, factors to consider in choosing to perform vasovasostomy versus vasoepididymostomy, and the usefulness of vasectomy reversal to alleviate postvasectomy pain syndrome. We also review the use of robotics for vasectomy reversal and other novel techniques and instrumentation that have emerged in recent years to aid in the success of this surgery.

Adoption of telemedicine: from pilot stage to routine delivery

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zanaboni Paolo

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Today there is much debate about why telemedicine has stalled. Teleradiology is the only widespread telemedicine application. Other telemedicine applications appear to be promising candidates for widespread use, but they remain in the early adoption stage. The objective of this debate paper is to achieve a better understanding of the adoption of telemedicine, to assist those trying to move applications from pilot stage to routine delivery. Discussion We have investigated the reasons why telemedicine has stalled by focusing on two, high-level topics: 1 the process of adoption of telemedicine in comparison with other technologies; and 2 the factors involved in the widespread adoption of telemedicine. For each topic, we have formulated hypotheses. First, the advantages for users are the crucial determinant of the speed of adoption of technology in healthcare. Second, the adoption of telemedicine is similar to that of other health technologies and follows an S-shaped logistic growth curve. Third, evidence of cost-effectiveness is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the widespread adoption of telemedicine. Fourth, personal incentives for the health professionals involved in service provision are needed before the widespread adoption of telemedicine will occur. Summary The widespread adoption of telemedicine is a major -- and still underdeveloped -- challenge that needs to be strengthened through new research directions. We have formulated four hypotheses, which are all susceptible to experimental verification. In particular, we believe that data about the adoption of telemedicine should be collected from applications implemented on a large-scale, to test the assumption that the adoption of telemedicine follows an S-shaped growth curve. This will lead to a better understanding of the process, which will in turn accelerate the adoption of new telemedicine applications in future. Research is also required to identify

Adoption of telemedicine: from pilot stage to routine delivery

Science.gov (United States)

2012-01-01

Background Today there is much debate about why telemedicine has stalled. Teleradiology is the only widespread telemedicine application. Other telemedicine applications appear to be promising candidates for widespread use, but they remain in the early adoption stage. The objective of this debate paper is to achieve a better understanding of the adoption of telemedicine, to assist those trying to move applications from pilot stage to routine delivery. Discussion We have investigated the reasons why telemedicine has stalled by focusing on two, high-level topics: 1) the process of adoption of telemedicine in comparison with other technologies; and 2) the factors involved in the widespread adoption of telemedicine. For each topic, we have formulated hypotheses. First, the advantages for users are the crucial determinant of the speed of adoption of technology in healthcare. Second, the adoption of telemedicine is similar to that of other health technologies and follows an S-shaped logistic growth curve. Third, evidence of cost-effectiveness is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the widespread adoption of telemedicine. Fourth, personal incentives for the health professionals involved in service provision are needed before the widespread adoption of telemedicine will occur. Summary The widespread adoption of telemedicine is a major -- and still underdeveloped -- challenge that needs to be strengthened through new research directions. We have formulated four hypotheses, which are all susceptible to experimental verification. In particular, we believe that data about the adoption of telemedicine should be collected from applications implemented on a large-scale, to test the assumption that the adoption of telemedicine follows an S-shaped growth curve. This will lead to a better understanding of the process, which will in turn accelerate the adoption of new telemedicine applications in future. Research is also required to identify suitable financial and

Wrongful Adoption: Law, Policy and Practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Freundlich, Madelyn; Peterson, Lisa

The past decade has seen an increase in cases where adoptive parents fail to receive accurate or complete information about a child's physical, emotional, or developmental problems or about the child's birth family and history. In these cases adoptive parents are confronted with extremely expensive medical care or mental health care. This…

Adopting Internet Banking in Ghana

OpenAIRE

G.O. Ofori-Dwumfuo; Betty A. Dankwah

2013-01-01

This study looks at the benefits, challenges and barriers in adopting Internet banking at a major bank in Ghana. The development of the Internet is changing the way financial services are provided in Ghana. The Internet banking facility has resulted in new ways of delivering banking services. The research is a case study based on the staffs that has worked with the bank for more than three years. In evaluating benefits, challenges and barriers to the bank in adopting Internet banking, intervi...

25 CFR 18.301 - May a tribe create and adopt a single heir rule without adopting a tribal probate code?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 25 Indians 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false May a tribe create and adopt a single heir rule without adopting a tribal probate code? 18.301 Section 18.301 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR PROBATE TRIBAL PROBATE CODES Approval of Single Heir Rule § 18.301 May a tribe create and adopt a...

Why sub-Saharan Africa lags in electronic health record adoption and possible strategies to increase its adoption in this region.

Science.gov (United States)

Odekunle, Florence Femi; Odekunle, Raphael Oluseun; Shankar, Srinivasan

2017-01-01

Poor health information system has been identified as a major challenge in the health-care system in many developing countries including sub-Saharan African countries. Electronic health record (EHR) has been shown as an important tool to improve access to patient information with attendance improved quality of care. However, EHR has not been widely implemented/adopted in sub-Saharan Africa. This study sought to identify factors that affect the adoption of an EHR in sub-Saharan Africa and strategies to improve its adoption in this region. A comprehensive literature search was conducted on three electronic databases: PubMed, Medline, and Google Scholar. Articles of interest were those published in English that contained information on factors that limit the adoption of an EHR as well as strategies that improve its adoption in sub-Saharan African countries. The available evidence indicated that there were many factors that hindered the widespread adoption of an EHR in sub-Saharan Africa. These were high costs of procurement and maintenance of the EHR system, lack of financial incentives and priorities, poor electricity supply and internet connectivity, and primary user's limited computer skills. However, strategies such as implementation planning, financial supports, appropriate EHR system selection, training of primary users, and the adoption of the phased implementation process have been identified to facilitate the use of an EHR. Wide adoption of an EHR in sub-Saharan Africa region requires a lot more effort than what is assumed because of the current poor level of technological development, lack of required computer skills, and limited resources.

Investigating personal characteristics on e-banking adoption

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ali Arfaeian

2013-12-01

Full Text Available During the past few years, there have been increasing interests on doing banking transactions using online services through internet. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to study the role of personal and social characteristics on acceptance of e-banking adoption. The proposed study designs two questionnaires and distributes them among 384 randomly selected people who use online banking in province of Alborz, Iran. The proposed study examines the effects of five factors including Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to experience, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness on e-banking adoption. Using regression techniques, the study has confirmed that Neuroticism and Agreeableness have negative and meaningful impact on e-banking adoption while Conscientiousness has positive and meaningful relationship with e-banking adoption.

Reversible deep storage: reversibility options for storage in deep geological formations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2009-01-01

This report describes the definition approach to reversibility conditions, presents the main characteristics of high-activity and intermediate-activity long-lived wastes, describes the storage in deep geological formations (safety functions, general description of the storage centre), discusses the design options for the different types of wastes (container, storage module, handling processes, phenomenological analysis, monitoring arrangements) and the decision process in support reversibility (steering of the storage process, progressive development and step-by-step closing), and reports and discusses the researches concerning the memory of the storage site

Chemical reactions in reverse micelle systems

Science.gov (United States)

Matson, Dean W.; Fulton, John L.; Smith, Richard D.; Consani, Keith A.

1993-08-24

This invention is directed to conducting chemical reactions in reverse micelle or microemulsion systems comprising a substantially discontinuous phase including a polar fluid, typically an aqueous fluid, and a microemulsion promoter, typically a surfactant, for facilitating the formation of reverse micelles in the system. The system further includes a substantially continuous phase including a non-polar or low-polarity fluid material which is a gas under standard temperature and pressure and has a critical density, and which is generally a water-insoluble fluid in a near critical or supercritical state. Thus, the microemulsion system is maintained at a pressure and temperature such that the density of the non-polar or low-polarity fluid exceeds the critical density thereof. The method of carrying out chemical reactions generally comprises forming a first reverse micelle system including an aqueous fluid including reverse micelles in a water-insoluble fluid in the supercritical state. Then, a first reactant is introduced into the first reverse micelle system, and a chemical reaction is carried out with the first reactant to form a reaction product. In general, the first reactant can be incorporated into, and the product formed in, the reverse micelles. A second reactant can also be incorporated in the first reverse micelle system which is capable of reacting with the first reactant to form a product.

IFRS Adoption and Accounting Quality: A Review

OpenAIRE

Duarte, Ana; Saur- Amaral, Irina; Azevedo, Graça

2015-01-01

Literature on IFRS adoption by countries concerning high quality, understandable and applicable IFRS in order to be worldwide accepted has generated a pertinent discussion, since the results presented in the literature are not unanimous on the adoption of IFRS and accounting quality. Soderstrom and Sun (2007) analyzed a research published in leading accounting journals selected from 1990’s on the consequences of IFRS adoption and found that the determinants of accounting quality after the ado...

Status of time reversal invariance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Henley, E.M.

1989-01-01

Time Reversal Invariance is introduced, and theories for its violation are reviewed. The present experimental and theoretical status of Time Reversal Invariance and tests thereof will be presented. Possible future tests will be discussed. 30 refs., 2 figs., 1 tab

Re an Adoption Application (Surrogacy)

Science.gov (United States)

1987-03-02

In England, it is illegal under the Adoption Act 1958 to pay or reward anyone in an effort to adopt a child. A family court was asked in this case whether a surrogacy arrangement involving the payment of 5,000 pounds violated the Act. The applicants, a husband and wife, were unable to have children and had entered into an informal arrangement with a woman who agreed to engage in sexual intercourse with the husband and bear a child for the couple in exchange for 10,000 pounds. Because the surrogate wrote a book about her experience from which she made money, and sincerely wanted to help out the childless couple, she accepted only half of her fee. Convinced that the surrogate arrangement was not commercial in nature, the court found no violation of English law, authorized the payment to the mother, and authorized adoption of the child by the father and his wife.

The Value of Successful MBSE Adoption

Science.gov (United States)

Parrott, Edith

2016-01-01

The value of successful adoption of Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) practices is hard to quantify. Most engineers and project managers look at the success in terms of cost. But there are other ways to quantify the value of MBSE and the steps necessary to achieve adoption. The Glenn Research Center (GRC) has been doing Model-Based Engineering (design, structural, etc.) for years, but the system engineering side has not. Since 2010, GRC has been moving from documents centric to MBSE/SysML. Project adoption of MBSE has been slow, but is steadily increasing in both MBSE usage and complexity of generated products. Sharing of knowledge of lessons learned in the implementation of MBSE/SysML is key for others who want to be successful. Along with GRC's implementation, NASA is working hard to increase the successful implementation of MBSE across all the other centers by developing guidelines, templates and libraries for projects to utilize. This presentation will provide insight into recent GRC and NASA adoption efforts, lessons learned and best practices.

Identifying PEV early adopters and their needs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tsang, A.

2009-01-01

This presentation discussed drivers and incentives for the widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) as well as the potential impacts on electric utility customers. For many drivers, the adoption of EVs will result in fuel cost savings of $1200 per year. Approximately 73 per cent of Canada's population is concentrated in urban areas. Ninety-five per cent of car trips are less than 30 km in distance. Canada's federal and provincial governments support the adoption of EVs. British Columbia (BC) currently has the most attractive combination of low electricity prices and high fuel costs in North America. Provincial sales tax rebates of up to $2000 are available for EV adopters, while carbon taxes are now being applied to fossil fuel users. New homes in Vancouver are required to provide dedicated charging circuits for EVs. The use of EVs will create new demands for customer service from fuel retailers, developers, fleets and consumer services. BC is expected to have one of the highest EV adoption rates in North America. Unconstrained EV charging is expected to impact the electricity grid by 2015. tabs., figs.

Resource implications of adopting a restrictive neonatal blood ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Resource implications of adopting a restrictive neonatal blood transfusion policy. ... Objective. To determine whether adopting a restrictive BTF policy results in fewer transfusions. Methods. Data were retrospectively collected on all infants who received BTFs in the GSH nursery over a 6-month period following adoption of a ...

Implications of Transnational Adoption Status for Adult Korean Adoptees

Science.gov (United States)

Langrehr, Kimberly J.; Yoon, Eunju; Hacker, Jason; Caudill, Kathy

2015-01-01

This study used a consensual qualitative research method to explore the implications of transnational adoption in the lives of 12 adult Korean adoptees. From the analysis, 6 domains emerged: (a) adoption history and preadoptive memories, (b) meaning of adoption, (c) adoptive family dynamics, (d) racism, (e) identity formation, and (f) counseling…

Factors Influencing Adoption of Cocoa Technologies Disseminated ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Factors Influencing Adoption of Cocoa Technologies Disseminated by Olam Organisation in ... Journal of Agricultural Research and Development ... level, household size, no of farm family assisting on the farm, management system adopted, ...

Progress in electronic medical record adoption in Canada.

Science.gov (United States)

2015-12-01

To determine the rate of adoption of electronic medical records (EMRs) by physicians across Canada, provincial incentives, and perceived benefits of and barriers to EMR adoption. Data on EMR adoption in Canada were collected from CINAHL, MEDLINE, PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, the Health Council of Canada, Canada Health Infoway, government websites, regional EMR associations, and health professional association websites. After removal of duplicate articles, 236 documents were found matching the original search. After using the filter Canada, 12 documents remained. Additional documents were obtained from each province's EMR website and from the Canada Health Infoway website. Since 2006, Canadian EMR adoption rates have increased from about 20% of practitioners to an estimated 62% of practitioners in 2013, with substantial regional disparities ranging from roughly 40% of physicians in New Brunswick and Quebec to more than 75% of physicians in Alberta. Provincial incentives vary widely but appear to have only a weak relationship with the rate of adoption. Many adopters use only a fraction of their software's available functions. User-cited benefits to adoption include time savings, improved record keeping, heightened patient safety, and confidence in retrieved data when EMRs are used efficiently. Barriers to adoption include financial and time constraints, lack of knowledgeable support personnel, and lack of interoperability with hospital and pharmacy systems. Canadian physicians remain at the stage of EMR adoption. Progression in EMR use requires experienced, knowledgeable technical support during implementation, and financial support for the transcription of patient data from paper to electronic media. The interoperability of EMR offerings for hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics is the rate-limiting factor in achieving a unified EMR solution for Canada.

The Challenges of Adopting International Financial Reporting ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The Challenges of Adopting International Financial Reporting System in Nigeria. ... Nigeria is going to adopt International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) ... its challenges and to proffer solutions that would ensure seamless transition in ...

Towards a reversible functional language

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yokoyama, Tetsuo; Axelsen, Holger Bock; Glück, Robert

2012-01-01

/equality operator also simplifies inverse computation and program inversion. We discuss the advantages of a reversible functional language using example programs, including run-length encoding. Program inversion is seen to be as lightweight as for imperative reversible languages and realized by recursive descent...

How decision reversibility affects motivation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bullens, L.; van Harreveld, F.; Förster, J.; Higgins, T.E.

2014-01-01

The present research examined how decision reversibility can affect motivation. On the basis of extant findings, it was suggested that 1 way it could affect motivation would be to strengthen different regulatory foci, with reversible decision making, compared to irreversible decision making,

Reversible networks in supramolecular polymers

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Havermans - van Beek, D.J.M.

2007-01-01

Non–covalent interactions between low molecular weight polymers form the basis of supramolecular polymers. The material properties of such polymers are determined by the strength and lifetime of the non–covalent reversible interactions. Due to the reversibility of the interactions between the low

Smallholder adoption and economic impacts of tissue culture ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This study was conducted with an objective of determining the correlates of adoption of tissue culture banana technology and its impacts on household incomes in Kenya. The results show that while some households have opted not to adopt tissue culture banana biotechnology, almost all the adopters are growing tissue ...

EHR adoption among doctors who treat the elderly.

Science.gov (United States)

Yeager, Valerie A; Menachemi, Nir; Brooks, Robert G

2010-12-01

The purpose of this study is to examine Electronic Health Record (EHR) adoption among Florida doctors who treat the elderly. This analysis contributes to the EHR adoption literature by determining if doctors who disproportionately treat the elderly differ from their counterparts with respect to the utilization of an important quality-enhancing health information technology application. This study is based on a primary survey of a large, statewide sample of doctors practising in outpatient settings in Florida. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine whether doctors who treat a high volume of elderly (HVE) patients were different with respect to EHR adoption. Our analyses included responses from 1724 doctors. In multivariate analyses controlling for doctor age, training, computer sophistication, practice size and practice setting, HVE doctors were significantly less likely to adopt EHR. Specifically, compared with their counterparts, HVE doctors were observed to be 26.7% less likely to be utilizing an EHR system (OR=0.733, 95% CI 0.547-0.982). We also found that doctor age is negatively related to EHR adoption, and practice size and doctor computer savvy-ness is positively associated. Despite the fact that EHR adoption has improved in recent years, doctors in Florida who serve the elderly are less likely to adopt EHRs. As long as HVE doctors are adopting EHR systems at slower rates, the elderly patients treated by these doctors will be at a disadvantage with respect to potential benefits offered by this technology. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

A Conceptual Model of eLearning Adoption

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muneer Abbad

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Internet-based learning systems are being used in many universities and firms but their adoption requires a solid understanding of the user acceptance processes. The technology acceptance model (TAM has been used to test the acceptance of various technologies and software within an e-learning context. This research aims to discuss the main factors of a successful e-learning adoption by students. A conceptual research framework of e-learning adoption is proposed based on the TAM model.

farmer's characteristics and adoption of recommended practices ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Prof. Ekwueme

80 respondents reveals that fadama farming was dominated by females ... determinants of respondents' adoption of fadama-related technologies, accounting for about 39% of .... of male adoption of improved practices could be related to the.

Role of value compatibility in IT adoption

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bunker, Deborah; Kautz, Karlheinz; Nguyen, Anne Luu Thanh

2007-01-01

Compatibility has been recognised as an important element in the adoption of IT innovations in organisations but as a concept it has been generally limited to technical or functional factors. Compatibility is also significant, however, with regard to value compatibility between the organisation......, and the adopted IT innovation. We propose a framework to determine value compatibility analysing the organisation's and information system's structure, practices and culture, and explore the value compatibility of an organisation with its adopted self-service computer-based information system. A case study......-service acceptance and training issues experienced by the case organisation. These findings add insight into the problems experienced with value compatibility and the adoption of the information systems, and show the potential use of the proposed framework in the detection of such problems.Journal of Information...

Organizational Green IT Adoption: Concept and Evidence

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qi Deng

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Green IT has emerged as an important research topic in information systems and in other areas, such as business sustainability management. Some progress has been made in our understandings of green IT in a wide area of research topics, ranging from the green IT definition to the motivation for adopting green IT by organizations. This paper provides a holistic review and explanation of why organizations adopt green IT. Based on an extensive review of extant studies and a broad theoretical foundation, the paper presents a theoretical framework on organizational green IT adoption (OGITA. For researchers, the study provides a comprehensive review of previous green IT adoption studies and a roadmap for future research. For practitioners, the study provides managers and policy makers a systematic analytical framework in guiding their business decisions.

TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF PRODUCTION OF QUALITY PROTEIN MAIZE BETWEEN ADOPTERS AND NON-ADOPTERS, AND THE DETERMINANTS IN OYO STATE, NIGERIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abiodun Elijah OBAYELU

2016-11-01

Full Text Available This study determined the technical efficiency (TE of production of Quality Protein Maize (QPM and the effect on the adoption of QPM in Oyo State, Nigeria. QPM is an improved maize variety developed to reduce protein deficiency problems. A total of 100 maize farmers were sampled through a two-stage sampling procedure. Stochastic frontier approach using maximum likelihood estimation (MLE was used to analyse the TE in the production of QPM, while probit regression was used to determine the effect of TE and other socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents on the adoption of QPM. The results revealed a mean TE of 0.89 and 0.78 for adopters and non-adopters of QPM respectively. This implied that adopters of QPM are more technically efficient than the non-adopters. Quantity of seed planted and fertilizer directly and significantly affected the TE of QPM while gross margin of maize farmers and income from other sources (at P<0.05, the level of education of farmers and QPM farm size (P<0.01 have significant and a negative effects on technical inefficiency from the results of the Tobit regression. The age (P<0.05 of the farmer has direct effect on technical inefficiency. In conclusion, TE, level of output, information availability on QPM and early maturity were significant determinants of QPM rather than the gross margin of production. Farmers decide to adopt QPM technology because of the high level of technical efficiency in the production of this variety. Their output from QPM can be increased by 11 percent, while the non-adopters can increase their maize output by 22 percent using the available technology.

The Optimal Timing of Adoption of a Green Technology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cunha-e-Sa, M.A.; Reis, A.B.

2007-01-01

We study the optimal timing of adoption of a cleaner technology and its effects on the rate of growth of an economy in the context of an AK endogenous growth model. We show that the results depend upon the behavior of the marginal utility of environmental quality with respect to consumption. When it is increasing, we derive the capital level at the optimal timing of adoption. We show that this capital threshold is independent of the initial conditions on the stock of capital, implying that capital-poor countries tend to take longer to adopt. Also, country-specific characteristics, as the existence of high barriers to adoption, may lead to different capital thresholds for different countries. If the marginal utility of environmental quality decreases with consumption, a country should never delay adoption; the optimal policy is either to adopt immediately or, if adoption costs are t oo high , to never adopt. The policy implications of these results are discussed in the context of the international debate surrounding the environmental political agenda

Sex reversal in vertebrates

OpenAIRE

2016-01-01

This special topic issue of Sexual Development gives an overview of sex reversal in vertebrates, from fishes naturally changing their sex, to rodents escaping the mammalian SRY-determining system. It offers eight up-to-date reviews on specific subjects in sex reversal, considering fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, marsupials, and placental mammals, including humans. The broad scope of represented animals makes this ideal for students and researchers, especially those interested in the...

17 CFR 200.67 - Power to adopt rules.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 17 Commodity and Securities Exchanges 2 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Power to adopt rules. 200.67... AND ETHICS; AND INFORMATION AND REQUESTS Canons of Ethics § 200.67 Power to adopt rules. In exercising... by the Congress imposes the obligation upon the members to adopt rules necessary to effectuate the...

Are You Pregnant and Thinking about Adoption?

Science.gov (United States)

... agreements can be useful tools in setting common expectations and should be filed before the adoption is ... allow, and some States require, adoptive parents to pay for the birth mother’s counseling (with various time ...

Enzymatic reactions in reversed micelles

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hilhorst, M.H.

1984-01-01

It has been recognised that enzymes in reversed micelles have potential for application in chemical synthesis. Before these expectations will be realised many problems must be overcome. This thesis deals with some of them.
In Chapter 1 the present knowledge about reversed micelles and

Reversible arithmetic logic unit for quantum arithmetic

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thomsen, Michael Kirkedal; Glück, Robert; Axelsen, Holger Bock

2010-01-01

This communication presents the complete design of a reversible arithmetic logic unit (ALU) that can be part of a programmable reversible computing device such as a quantum computer. The presented ALU is garbage free and uses reversible updates to combine the standard reversible arithmetic...... and logical operations in one unit. Combined with a suitable control unit, the ALU permits the construction of an r-Turing complete computing device. The garbage-free ALU developed in this communication requires only 6n elementary reversible gates for five basic arithmetic-logical operations on two n......-bit operands and does not use ancillae. This remarkable low resource consumption was achieved by generalizing the V-shape design first introduced for quantum ripple-carry adders and nesting multiple V-shapes in a novel integrated design. This communication shows that the realization of an efficient reversible...

SMEs' E-commerce Adoption

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Scupola, Ada

2009-01-01

Purpose - Proposes providing an insight about factors affecting business-to-business e-commerce adoption and implementation in small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), highlighting similarities and differences between Danish and Australian SMEs.    Design/methodology/approach - The research...... conducted in Danish and Australian companies. Findings - The findings both corroborate previous results about significant factors affecting SMEs' b-to-b e-commerce adoption and implementation and provide new, interesting insights. The study also finds many similarities and differences between Denmark...... and Australia.  Research limitations/implications - The main limitation relates to the difficulty of generalization of the findings to a larger population of SMEs.  To overcome this, a statistical survey is planned to be conducted in the future. Practical implications - The results of the empirical research...

Building Bridges between Hard and Soft Knowledge: The Co-production of Andra's Socio-technical Approach on Reversibility

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aparicio, Luis

2012-01-01

to gathering the different views on the topic of reversibility, technical as well as social and political, and maintaining a continuous dialogue with all interested parties. In order to deal with this complexity, social sciences and humanities research (SSH) was integrated into Andra's scientific programme in 2008. Studies were launched to actively explore the many sides of the notion and elaborate a comprehensive rationale on the topic; the robustness of Andra's proposals is scrutinised in interdisciplinary fora. A modest and progressive approach has been adopted by Andra since then, aiming at developing an interdisciplinary research community on the topic. This initiative goes well beyond the usual rhetoric of 'openness', which frequently hides a rather simplistic approach toward society. In the collaboration between Andra's scientists and engineers and SSH researchers initiated more than two years ago, there is no question at all of 'listening' passively to the public and 'confirming' how people are blinded by fears. On the contrary, the underlying assumption is that SSH researchers are researchers like others and share with them a general interest in knowledge production. Co-producing knowledge with other scientists, engineers and stakeholders can be (made) interesting for them if only their specific identities are respected and recognition within their communities is (made) possible. Finally, the definition of a reversible geological disposal facility can be (made) a promising fieldwork for them. One of the most prominent results of this collaborative effort is the book Making Nuclear Waste Governable: Deep Underground Disposal and the Challenge of Reversibility, which is devoted to the current French approach on reversibility. Throughout the different chapters, the book discusses the issue of how to implement 'definitive securing' of the waste, as stated by the French law, while providing flexibility over time. Its originality is precisely to focus on the

Reverse engineering for quality systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nolan, A.J.

1995-01-01

When the age of software engineering began, many companies were faced with a problem of how to support the older, pre-software-engineering, programs. The techniques of reverse engineering and re-engineering were developed to bridge the gap between the past and the present. Although reverse engineering can be used for generating missing documentation, it can also be used as a means to demonstrate quality in these older programs. This paper presents, in the form of a case study, how Rolls-Royce and Associates Limited addressed the quality issues of reverse engineering and re-engineering. (author)

Field reversal in mirror machines

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pearlstein, L.D.; Anderson, D.V.; Boozer, A.H.

1978-01-01

This report discusses some of the physics issues anticipated in field-reversed mirrors. The effect of current cancellation due to electrons is described. An estimate is made of the required impurity level to maintain a field-reversed configuration. The SUPERLAYER code is used to simulate the high-β 2XIIB results, and favorable comparisons require inclusion of quasilinear RF turbulence. Impact of a quadrupole field on field-line closure and resonant transport is discussed. A simple self-consistent model of ion currents is presented. Conditions for stability of field-reversed configurations to E x B driven rotations are determined

Competition of simple and complex adoption on interdependent networks

Science.gov (United States)

Czaplicka, Agnieszka; Toral, Raul; San Miguel, Maxi

2016-12-01

We consider the competition of two mechanisms for adoption processes: a so-called complex threshold dynamics and a simple susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) model. Separately, these mechanisms lead, respectively, to first-order and continuous transitions between nonadoption and adoption phases. We consider two interconnected layers. While all nodes on the first layer follow the complex adoption process, all nodes on the second layer follow the simple adoption process. Coupling between the two adoption processes occurs as a result of the inclusion of some additional interconnections between layers. We find that the transition points and also the nature of the transitions are modified in the coupled dynamics. In the complex adoption layer, the critical threshold required for extension of adoption increases with interlayer connectivity whereas in the case of an isolated single network it would decrease with average connectivity. In addition, the transition can become continuous depending on the detailed interlayer and intralayer connectivities. In the SIS layer, any interlayer connectivity leads to the extension of the adopter phase. Besides, a new transition appears as a sudden drop of the fraction of adopters in the SIS layer. The main numerical findings are described by a mean-field type analytical approach appropriately developed for the threshold-SIS coupled system.

Influence of Marketing on Consumer's Adoption of E-Banking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MSc. Ganimete Podvorica

2014-02-01

Full Text Available The financial system plays an extraordinary role in developing and enriching the domestic economy. E-banking service as an innovative software product and service for customers was introduced few years ago in the country from variety of national and international banks: ProCredit Bank, Raiffeissen Bank, Teb Bank, NLB Bank etc., enabling consumers to have access to their bank accounts over the internet. Since internet usage grows rapidly in the country even adoption of e-banking is expected to flourish. Behavior of customers toward adoption is explained using different behavioral model. The objective of this study is to analyze the consumer-adoption process toward e-banking. The survey is used in this respect, to find out the way they learn, try, and adopt or reject e-banking service. Furthermore, the hypothesis those females are significantly different from males on adoption of e-banking services, it prevails the null hypothesis that gender doesn’t affect adoption of e-banking services. The study reveals the characteristics of the consumers toward ebanking adoption process, such as differences in individual readiness to try new product; the information searching; advertisement and direct marketing influence; and speed rates of adoption and non adoption among genders.

Ruins in Reverse. An Exhibition at Tate Modern (March 1st - June 24th 2013

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Colin Philip Sterling

2013-07-01

Full Text Available In the same week Ruins in Reverse opened at the Tate Modern gallery in London, Jonathan Jones asked on his Guardian Blog whether archaeology might be ‘the new art’ (2013. He posed this question as a result of two recent exhibitions at The British Museum, namely Ice Age Art and Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum, both of which sought to emphasise the aesthetic qualities of archaeological objects. As Jones argued, such exhibitions ‘popularise’ the discipline by drawing attention to the ‘stupendous beauty of things that survive from the past’. While visitor numbers go some way to demonstrating the veracity of this comment, it seems restrictive both to art and to archaeology to frame any relationship between the two in this way. The spectacular archaeological find is atypical and potentially deceptive. A more potent line of enquiry - one adopted by several of the artists featured in Ruins in Reverse - might be to consider the present itself through an archaeological lens, applying the language of ‘discovery’ and ‘excavation’ to artefacts and locations that few would call stupendous or beautiful.

FinTech Adoption Across Generations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Carlin, Bruce; Olafsson, Arna; Pagel, Michaela

financial fee payments and penalties, but differs cross-sectionally in the population. After adopting the new technology, Millennials and members of Generation X incur fewer financial fees and penalties, whereas Baby Boomers do not benefit from the technological advance. Millennials and Gen Xers save fees...... by using their credit cards rather than overdrafts to manage short-term liabilities. Moreover, Millennials shift some of their spending to discretionary entertainment, whereas members of Generation X remain more austere. Finally, while men tend to adopt new technology and access information at a higher...

Sex Reversal in Birds.

Science.gov (United States)

Major, Andrew T; Smith, Craig A

2016-01-01

Sexual differentiation in birds is controlled genetically as in mammals, although the sex chromosomes are different. Males have a ZZ sex chromosome constitution, while females are ZW. Gene(s) on the sex chromosomes must initiate gonadal sex differentiation during embryonic life, inducing paired testes in ZZ individuals and unilateral ovaries in ZW individuals. The traditional view of avian sexual differentiation aligns with that expounded for other vertebrates; upon sexual differentiation, the gonads secrete sex steroid hormones that masculinise or feminise the rest of the body. However, recent studies on naturally occurring or experimentally induced avian sex reversal suggest a significant role for direct genetic factors, in addition to sex hormones, in regulating sexual differentiation of the soma in birds. This review will provide an overview of sex determination in birds and both naturally and experimentally induced sex reversal, with emphasis on the key role of oestrogen. We then consider how recent studies on sex reversal and gynandromorphic birds (half male:half female) are shaping our understanding of sexual differentiation in avians and in vertebrates more broadly. Current evidence shows that sexual differentiation in birds is a mix of direct genetic and hormonal mechanisms. Perturbation of either of these components may lead to sex reversal. © 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel.

A study of adopted children, their environment, and development:

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christoffersen, Mogens

2012-01-01

The study explores the developmental consequences for children who have been adopted. The comparison group is comprised of their non- adopted siblings or children in foster homes or group care. A search in scientific databases resulted in more than 3,300 hits about adoption. Among these, 56...... fulfilled the selection criteria from 17 studies across more than 2,000 adoptees and controls. Adopted children scored higher on IQ, school-performance, and lack of behavioral problems than their non-adopted siblings or peers who stayed behind in orphanages or foster homes. The results from OECD countries...

Creating grander families: older adults adopting younger kin and nonkin.

Science.gov (United States)

Hinterlong, James; Ryan, Scott

2008-08-01

There is a dearth of research on older adoptive parents caring for minor children, despite a growing number of such adoptions finalized each year. This study offers a large-scale investigation of adoptive families headed by older parents. We describe these families and explore how preadoptive kinship between the adoptive parent and the child impacts adoption outcomes. We analyze data from kin (n = 98) and nonkin (n = 310) adoptive families headed by adults aged 60 years and older. We find that older kin adoptive families are smaller, report lower income, and include adoptive mothers with less formal education. Children in these families had less severe needs for special care at the time of placement. Although kin and nonkin older parents offer similar assessments of their parent-child relationships, kin adopters indicate a greater willingness to adopt the same child again and yet report less positive current family functioning. Multivariate regression analyses reveal that preadoptive kinship predicts more negative parental assessment of the adoption's impact on the family and less positive family functioning net of other parent, family, and child characteristics. Externalizing behavior by the child (e.g., delinquency or aggression) is the strongest predictor of deleterious outcomes for both groups. Kin adoption by older adults creates new families under strain but does not reduce parental commitment to the child. We conclude that older adults serve as effective adoptive parents but would benefit from preadoption and postadoption services to assist them in preparing for and positively addressing the challenging behaviors exhibited by adopted children.

Reverse engineering of RFID devices

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bokslag, W.

2015-01-01

This paper discusses the relevance and potential impact of both RFID and reverse engineering of RFID technology, followed by a discussion of common protocols and internals of RFID technology. The focus of the paper is on providing an overview of the different approaches to reverse engineering RFID

Extreme reversed sexual dichromatism in a bird without sex role reversal.

Science.gov (United States)

Heinsohn, Robert; Legge, Sarah; Endler, John A

2005-07-22

Brilliant plumage is typical of male birds, reflecting differential enhancement of male traits when females are the limiting sex. Brighter females are thought to evolve exclusively in response to sex role reversal. The striking reversed plumage dichromatism of Eclectus roratus parrots does not fit this pattern. We quantify plumage color in this species and show that very different selection pressures are acting on males and females. Male plumage reflects a compromise between the conflicting requirements for camouflage from predators while foraging and conspicuousness during display. Females are liberated from the need for camouflage but compete for rare nest hollows.

Economic impact of reversion

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2005-01-01

Estimations of the Norwegian hydropower production and various reversion models' market value have been made. The value of the Norwegian hydropower production until 01.01.2007 is estimated to about Nok 289 billion after taxes, or about 2,42 Nok/kWh medium production, given an expected future electricity price of around 0,25 Nok/kWh and a discount rate at 6,5 percent in nominal terms after taxes. The estimate is slightly above the level of prices for Norwegian hydropower plants in the last 8-10 years. The value of reversion in private plants which today have a limited licence time is estimated to Nok 5,5 billion. The value of reversion in public-owned Norwegian hydropower plants are about Nok 21 billion with a 60 year licence period from 01.01.2007, and about 12 billion for 75 years (ml)

Mandatory IFRS adoption and executive compensation: Evidence from China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qingchuan Hou

2014-03-01

Full Text Available This study investigates how the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS affects the contractual benefits of using accounting information to determine executive compensation in China. After controlling for firm and corporate governance characteristics, we find strong evidence supporting the positive role of mandatory IFRS adoption on the accounting-based performance sensitivity of executive compensation. Subsample analysis suggests that improvements in accounting-based performance sensitivity after IFRS adoption differ across regions with various levels of institutional quality and across firms that are affected to a different extent by the adoption. Additional analysis supports the argument that the positive effects of IFRS adoption on the use of accounting performance in executive compensation are driven by the reduction in accounting conservatism associated with IFRS adoption.

Reverse-symmetry waveguides: Theory and fabrication

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Horvath, R.; Lindvold, Lars René; Larsen, N.B.

2002-01-01

We present an extensive theoretical analysis of reverse-symmetry waveguides with special focus on their potential application as sensor components in aqueous media and demonstrate a novel method for fabrication of such waveguides. The principle of reverse symmetry is based on making the refractive...... index of the waveguide substrate less than the refractive index of the medium covering the waveguiding film (n(water) = 1.33). This is opposed to the conventional waveguide geometry, where the substrate is usually glass or polymers with refractive indices of approximate to1.5. The reverse configuration...... are combined with air-grooved polymer supports to form freestanding single-material polymer waveguides of reverse symmetry capable of guiding light....

Design of a novel quantum reversible ternary up-counter

Science.gov (United States)

Houshmand, Pouran; Haghparast, Majid

2015-08-01

Reversible logic has been recently considered as an interesting and important issue in designing combinational and sequential circuits. The combination of reversible logic and multi-valued logic can improve power dissipation, time and space utilization rate of designed circuits. Only few works have been reported about sequential reversible circuits and almost there are no paper exhibited about quantum ternary reversible counter. In this paper, first we designed 2-qutrit and 3-qutrit quantum reversible ternary up-counters using quantum ternary reversible T-flip-flop and quantum reversible ternary gates. Then we proposed generalized quantum reversible ternary n-qutrit up-counter. We also introduced a new approach for designing any type of n-qutrit ternary and reversible counter. According to the results, we can conclude that applying second approach quantum reversible ternary up-counter is better than the others.

Business model elements impacting cloud computing adoption

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bogataj, Kristina; Pucihar, Andreja; Sudzina, Frantisek

The paper presents a proposed research framework for identification of business model elements impacting Cloud Computing Adoption. We provide a definition of main Cloud Computing characteristics, discuss previous findings on factors impacting Cloud Computing Adoption, and investigate technology a...

Kinematic reversal schemes for the geomagnetic dipole.

Science.gov (United States)

Levy, E. H.

1972-01-01

Fluctuations in the distribution of cyclonic convective cells, in the earth's core, can reverse the sign of the geomagnetic field. Two kinematic reversal schemes are discussed. In the first scheme, a field maintained by cyclones concentrated at low latitude is reversed by a burst of cyclones at high latitude. Conversely, in the second scheme, a field maintained predominantly by cyclones in high latitudes is reversed by a fluctuation consisting of a burst of cyclonic convection at low latitude. The precise fluid motions which produce the geomagnetic field are not known. However, it appears that, whatever the details are, a fluctuation in the distribution of cyclonic cells over latitude can cause a geomagnetic reversal.

Asthma and allergic rhinitis in adoptees and their adoptive parents.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, J M; Cadoret, R J; Burns, T L; Troughton, E P

1998-08-01

Since the highest risk for the development of atopic disease is in early life, environmental risk factors need to be separated from the genetic component in this high risk period. Adoptees removed at birth and placed in adoptive families present a way to separate environmental and genetic factors at this early susceptible age. An opportunity for a pilot study of asthma and allergic rhinitis in adoptive families was presented when a psychiatrist (RC) was planning a behavioral study of young adult adoptees and their adoptive parents. A detailed questionnaire about allergic rhinitis and asthma was added after the psychiatrists' interview. Placement was not influenced by a history of allergy in adoptive or natural parents. The adoptee and at least one adoptive parent completed questionnaires in 367 families. The adoptees had been removed at birth and placed in the adoptive family within 3 months (83% within 1 month). Compared with adoptive families without asthma or allergic rhinitis, an adoptive mother with asthma or rhinitis, when the adoptive father was not affected, increased the risk for asthma in the adoptee (OR = 3.2, P adoptive mother alone (OR = 3.2, P Adoptive father asthma or allergic rhinitis showed a trend toward increased asthma in the adoptee (OR = 1.9, P adoption by parents with asthma or allergic rhinitis suggests that further well planned adoptee studies should be made.

Theory of field-reversed mirrors and field-reversed plasma-gun experiments. Paper IAEA-CN-38/R-2

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anderson, D.V.; Auerbach, S.P.; Berk, H.L.

1980-01-01

Experimental and theoretical studies of field reversal in a mirror machine are reported. Plasma-gun experiments demonstrate that reversed-field plasma layers are formed. Low energy plasma flowing behind the initially produced plasma front prevents tearing of the layer from the gun muzzle. MHD simulation shows that tearing can be obtained by impeding the slow plasma flow with a plasma divider. It is demonstrated theoretically that a field-reversed mirror imbedded in a multipole field can be sustained in steady state with neutral-beam injection even in the absence of impurities. MHD stability analysis shows that growth rates of elongated reversed-field theta-pinch configurations decrease with axial extension, which indicates the importance of including finite Larmor radius in the analysis. Tilting-mode criteria are improved by proper shaping, and a problimak shape is proposed. Tearing mode stability of reversed-field theta-pinches is greatly enhanced by flux exclusion. Self-consistent, 1-1/2-dimensional transport codes have been developed, and initial results are presented

Theory of field-reversed mirrors and field-reversed plasma-gun experiments. Paper IAEA-CN-38/R-2

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anderson, D.V.; Auerbach, S.P.; Berk, H.L.

1980-01-01

Experimental and theoretical studies of field reversal in a mirror machine are reported. Plasma-gun experiments demonstrate that reversed-field plasma layers are formed. Low energy plasma flowing behind the initially produced plasma front prevents tearing of the layer from the gun muzzle. MHD simulation shows that tearing can be obtained by impeding the slow plasma flow with a plasma divider. It is demonstrated theoretically that a field-reversed mirror imbedded in a multipole field can be sustained in steady state with neutral-beam injection even in the absence of impurities. MHD stability analysis shows that growth rates of elongated reversed-field theta-pinch configurations decrease with axial extension, which indicates the importance of including finite Larmor radius in the analysis. Tilting-mode criteria are dramatically improved by proper shaping, and a problimak shape is proposed. Tearing mode stability of reversed-field theta-pinches is greatly enhanced by flux exclusion. Self-consistent, 1-1/2-dimensional transport codes have been developed, and initial results are presented

The rearing environment and risk for drug abuse: a Swedish national high-risk adopted and not adopted co-sibling control study.

Science.gov (United States)

Kendler, K S; Ohlsson, H; Sundquist, K; Sundquist, J

2016-05-01

Although drug abuse (DA) is strongly familial, with important genetic influences, we need to know more about the role of rearing environment in the risk for DA. To address this question, we utilized a high-risk adopted and non-adopted co-sibling control design. High-risk offspring had one or more biological parents registered for DA, alcohol use disorders or criminal behavior. Using Swedish registries, we identified 1161 high-risk full-sibships and 3085 high-risk half-sibships containing at least one member who was adopted-away and one member who was not. Registration for DA was via national criminal, medical and pharmacy registers. In Sweden, adoptive families are screened to provide high-quality rearing environment for adoptees. Controlling for parental age at birth and gender (and, in half-siblings, high-risk status of the other parent), risk for DA was substantially lower in the full- and half-siblings who were adopted v. not adopted [hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals: 0.55 (0.45-0·69) and 0.55 (95% CI 0.48-0.63), respectively]. The protective effect of adoption on risk for DA was significantly stronger in the full- and half-sibling pairs with very high familial liability (two high-risk parents) and significantly weaker when the adoptive family was broken by death or divorce, or contained a high-risk parent. In both full- and half-sibling pairs, we found replicated evidence that rearing environment strongly impacts on risk for DA. High-quality rearing environments can substantively reduce risk for DA in those at high genetic risk.

Reversible deep disposal

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2009-10-01

This presentation, given by the national agency of radioactive waste management (ANDRA) at the meeting of October 8, 2009 of the high committee for the nuclear safety transparency and information (HCTISN), describes the concept of deep reversible disposal for high level/long living radioactive wastes, as considered by the ANDRA in the framework of the program law of June 28, 2006 about the sustainable management of radioactive materials and wastes. The document presents the social and political reasons of reversibility, the technical means considered (containers, disposal cavities, monitoring system, test facilities and industrial prototypes), the decisional process (progressive development and blocked off of the facility, public information and debate). (J.S.)

Securing Biometric Images using Reversible Watermarking

OpenAIRE

Thampi, Sabu M.; Jacob, Ann Jisma

2011-01-01

Biometric security is a fast growing area. Protecting biometric data is very important since it can be misused by attackers. In order to increase security of biometric data there are different methods in which watermarking is widely accepted. A more acceptable, new important development in this area is reversible watermarking in which the original image can be completely restored and the watermark can be retrieved. But reversible watermarking in biometrics is an understudied area. Reversible ...

Adoption of new drugs by physicians: a survival analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Garjón Francisco

2012-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background New drugs often substitute others cheaper and with a risk-benefit balance better established. Our aim was to analyse the diffusion of new drugs during the first months of use, examining the differences between family physicians and specialists. Methods Prescription data were obtained of cefditoren, duloxetine, etoricoxib, ezetimibe, levocetirizine, olmesartan, pregabalin and tiotropium 36 months after their launching. We obtained the monthly number of prescriptions per doctor and the number prescribers of each drug by specialty. After discarding those with less than 10 prescriptions during this period, physicians were defined as adopters if the number of prescriptions was over the 25th percentile for each drug and level (primary or secondary care. The diffusion of each drug was studied by determining the number of adopter family physicians throughout the study period. Among the group of adopters, we compared the month of the first prescription by family physicians to that of other specialists using the Kaplan-Meier method. Results The adoption of the drugs in primary care follows an exponential diffusion curve that reaches a plateau at month 6 to 23. Tiotropium was the most rapidly and widely adopted drug. Cefditoren spread at a slower rate and was the least adopted. The diffusion of etoricoxib was initially slowed down due to administrative requirements for its prescription. The median time of adoption in the case of family physicians was 4-6 months. For each of the drugs, physicians of a specialty other than family physicians adopted it first. Conclusions The number of adopters of a new drug increases quickly in the first months and reaches a plateau. The number of adopter family physicians varies considerably for different drugs. The adoption of new drugs is faster in specialists. The time of adoption should be considered to promote rational prescribing by providing timely information about new drugs and independent

Reverse genetics of avian metapneumoviruses

Science.gov (United States)

An overview of avian metapneumovirus (aMPV) infection in turkeys and development of a reverse genetics system for aMPV subgroup C (aMPV-C) virus will be presented. By using reverse genetics technology, we generated recombinant aMPV-C viruses containing a different length of glycoprotein (G) gene or...

Adoption and Sibling Rivalry

Science.gov (United States)

... Life Medical Home Family Dynamics Adoption & Foster Care Communication & Discipline Types of Families Media Work & Play Getting ... as deep, loving, and long-lasting as any parent-child relationship. Last Updated 11/21/2015 Source Caring ...

Government Intervention in SMEs E-Commerce Adoption

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hugger, Ada Scupola

2005-01-01

Institutional involvement, and especially the role of government, has historically been determinant in the adoption and diffusion of technological innovations. This study investigates the role of government in the adoption and diffusion of e-commerce in small and medium size enterprises. King et ...

Farmers' Characteristics and Adoption' of Recommended Practices ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Gender, educational and household characteristics of respondents were significant determinants of respondents' adoption of Fadama-related technologies, accounting for about 39% of variability in adoption. High costs of water pumps, lack of agro-chemicals (fertilizers) and inadequate funds were major constraint to ...

Adoption of communication technologies and national culture

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hofstede, G.J.

2001-01-01

This paper investigates the question what attributes of countries influence the differential speed at which they adopt new communication technologies. On the basis of empirical data, it concludes that besides GNP per capita, cultural variables predict the speed of technology adoption. In particular,

THEORETICAL FRAMES FOR DESIGNING REVERSE LOGISTICS PROCESSES

OpenAIRE

Janusz K. Grabara; Sebastian Kot

2009-01-01

Logistics processes of return flow became more and more important in present business practice. Because of better customer satisfaction, environmental and financial aspects many enterprises deal with reverse logistics performance. The paper is a literature review focused on the design principles of reverse logistics processes Keywords: reverse logistics, designing.

Reversal of target-specific oral anticoagulants

Science.gov (United States)

Siegal, D.M.; Cuker, Adam

2014-01-01

Target-specific oral anticoagulants (TSOACs) provide safe and effective anticoagulation for the prevention and treatment of thrombosis in a variety of clinical settings by interfering with the activity of thrombin (dabigatran) or factor Xa (rivaroxaban, apixaban, edoxaban, betrixaban). Although TSOACs have practical advantages over vitamin K antagonists (VKAs), there are currently no antidotes to reverse their anticoagulant effect. Herein we summarize the available evidence for TSOAC reversal using nonspecific and specific reversal agents. We discuss important limitations of existing evidence, which is derived from studies in human volunteers, animal models and in vitro experiments. Studies evaluating the safety and efficacy of reversal agents on clinical outcomes such as bleeding and mortality in patients with TSOAC-associated bleeding are needed. PMID:24880102

Optical reversible programmable Boolean logic unit.

Science.gov (United States)

Chattopadhyay, Tanay

2012-07-20

Computing with reversibility is the only way to avoid dissipation of energy associated with bit erase. So, a reversible microprocessor is required for future computing. In this paper, a design of a simple all-optical reversible programmable processor is proposed using a polarizing beam splitter, liquid crystal-phase spatial light modulators, a half-wave plate, and plane mirrors. This circuit can perform 16 logical operations according to three programming inputs. Also, inputs can be easily recovered from the outputs. It is named the "reversible programmable Boolean logic unit (RPBLU)." The logic unit is the basic building block of many complex computational operations. Hence the design is important in sense. Two orthogonally polarized lights are defined here as two logical states, respectively.

Adoption of Innovative Information Systems by SMEs: Comparing The Role of Firm’s Enacted Capabilities of Active Adopters and Non-Active Adopters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Noor Akma Mohd Salleh

2007-10-01

Full Text Available The adoption of innovative information systems (IS by small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs across heterogeneous culture, locales, and markets are a critical and an ongoing challenge. Such challenge requires more than just good ideas and extensive resources. It requires organisational capabilities that can be labelled as “enacted capabilities”. This study defines enacted capabilities as the firm’s ability to mobilise and deploy IS-based resources in combination or co-present with other capabilities within SMEs. Consequently, the aim of this study is to make a contribution by empirically examining the enacted capabilities of SMEs in developing countries that may influence the success of innovative IS adoption. In line with this objective, an innovative IS adoption behaviour investigation is conducted particularly as to why some SMEs are able to be enabled for use and utilise innovative IS, while others fail to do so. A survey of 206 of the CEOs/owners from Malaysian SMEs was con-ducted. The innovative IS examined was the government’s electronic procure-ment systems. The findings are consistent with the notion that all SMEs have enacted capabilities. Some SMEs integrate and coordinate them in a different way, depending on the context of each organisation. The findings also indicate that strong enacted capabilities and perceived net benefits affect the SMEs’ ability to perform or assimilate IS related strategic change.

Exploring the reversibility of marine climate change impacts in temperature overshoot scenarios

Science.gov (United States)

Zickfeld, K.; Li, X.; Tokarska, K.; Kohfeld, K. E.

2017-12-01

Artificial carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere has been proposed as a measure for mitigating climate change and restoring the climate system to a `safe' state after overshoot. Previous studies have demonstrated that the changes in surface air temperature due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions can be reversed through CDR, while some oceanic properties, for example thermosteric sea level rise, show a delay in their response to CDR. This research aims to investigate the reversibility of changes in ocean conditions after implementation of CDR with a focus on ocean biogeochemical properties. To achieve this, we analyze climate model simulations based on two sets of emission scenarios. We first use RCP2.6 and its extension until year 2300 as the reference scenario and design several temperature and cumulative CO2 emissions "overshoot" scenarios based on other RCPs, which represents cases with less ambitious mitigation policies in the near term that temporarily exceed the 2 °C target adopted by the Paris Agreement. In addition, we use a set of emission scenarios with a reference scenario limiting warming to 1.5°C in the long term and two overshoot scenarios. The University of Victoria Earth System Climate Model (UVic ESCM), a climate model of intermediate complexity, is forced with these emission scenarios. We compare the response of select ocean variables (seawater temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen) in the overshoot scenarios to that in the respective reference scenario at the time the same amount of cumulative emissions is achieved. Our results suggest that the overshoot and subsequent return to a reference CO2 cumulative emissions level would leave substantial impacts on the marine environment. Although the changes in global mean sea surface variables (temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen) are largely reversible, global mean ocean temperature, dissolved oxygen and pH differ significantly from those in the reference scenario. Large ocean areas exhibit

Adoption of Technology and the Socio-Economic Status of Rural ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

economic status of rural women. A comparison of adopters and non-adopters reveals that the adopters are generally more privileged and occupy a higher status because of adoption. In addition, education and awareness are crucial variables in the ...

Gay and Lesbian Adoptive Families: An Exploratory Study of Family Functioning, Adoptive Child's Behavior, and Familial Support Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Erich, Stephen; Leung, Patrick; Kindle, Peter; Carter, Sharon

2005-01-01

Traditional legal and social forces have hindered the adoption of children by gay and lesbian individuals and couples. Using a convenience sample drawn from gay and lesbian support groups and Internet sites, this exploratory study examines adoptive families with gay and lesbian parents in terms of family functioning capabilities, child's behavior,…

Aspects of governance in the practical implementation of the concept of reversibility for deep geological disposal. Report no. 308

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Reaud, C.; Schieber, C.; Schneider, T.; Gadbois, S.; Heriard Dubreuil, G.

2010-01-01

The European project COWAM in Practice (CIP) was aimed to lead for three years (2007-2009) a process of monitoring, analyzing and evaluating the governance linked with radioactive waste management. This project, in cooperation with a research group and stakeholders, was conducted in parallel in 5 European countries (Spain, France, United Kingdom, Romania, Slovenia). In France, the issue of reversibility for a deep geological disposal was introduced in the Act of December 30, 1991 on the possible options to manage radioactive waste. The Act of June 28, 2006 relative to sustainable management of materials and radioactive waste confirmed the option, by calling for a reversible waste disposal facility in a deep geological formation to be designed. The main issue is no longer to justify the adoption of reversibility, but to investigate the practical procedures for its implementation. The French stakeholder Group 4 involved in the European project COWAM In Practice (CIP) had identified several subjects for investigation: - The different aspects associated with the practical implementation of reversible disposal: technical aspects, and aspects relative to monitoring, safety and expertise, in terms of legal, financial, administrative and political, etc. responsibility related to the notion of reversibility. - The stakes of governance related to the processes of assessment and decision-making - The roles of local stakeholders in these processes. The analysis conducted by CEPN in cooperation with the French stakeholder group, facilitated by Mutadis, showed that the practical implementation of reversibility aims to maintain a capacity of choice between three options: to continue to maintain the reversibility, to retrieve packages or to initiate the closure of all or part the disposal facility. Maintaining this choice in the long term implies setting up specific institutional, financial and decision-making systems,etc,. that need to be jointly developed in advance by all the

Principle and realization of segmenting contour series algorithm in reverse engineering based on X-ray computerized tomography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Yanfang; Liu Li; Yan Yonglian; Shan Baoci; Tang Xiaowei

2007-01-01

A new algorithm of segmenting contour series of images is presented, which can achieve three dimension reconstruction with parametric recognition in Reverse Engineering based on X-ray CT. First, in order to get the nested relationship between contours, a method of a certain angle ray is used. Second, for realizing the contour location in one slice, another approach is presented to generate the contour tree by scanning the relevant vector only once. Last, a judge algorithm is put forward to accomplish the contour match between slices by adopting the qualitative and quantitative properties. The example shows that this algorithm can segment contour series of CT parts rapidly and precisely. (authors)

Comparability Effects of Mandatory IFRS Adoption

OpenAIRE

Stefano Cascino; Joachim Gassen

2012-01-01

The mandatory adoption of IFRS by many countries worldwide fuels the expectation that financial accounting information might become more comparable across countries. This expectation is opposed to an alternative view that stresses the importance of incentives in shaping accounting information. We provide early evidence on this debate by investigating the effects of mandatory IFRS adoption on the comparability of financial accounting information around the world. Using two comparability proxie...

Influences on physicians' adoption of electronic detailing (e-detailing).

Science.gov (United States)

Alkhateeb, Fadi M; Doucette, William R

2009-01-01

E-detailing means using digital technology: internet, video conferencing and interactive voice response. There are two types of e-detailing: interactive (virtual) and video. Currently, little is known about what factors influence physicians' adoption of e-detailing. The objectives of this study were to test a model of physicians' adoption of e-detailing and to describe physicians using e-detailing. A mail survey was sent to a random sample of 2000 physicians practicing in Iowa. Binomial logistic regression was used to test the model of influences on physician adoption of e-detailing. On the basis of Rogers' model of adoption, the independent variables included relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, peer influence, attitudes, years in practice, presence of restrictive access to traditional detailing, type of specialty, academic affiliation, type of practice setting and control variables. A total of 671 responses were received giving a response rate of 34.7%. A total of 141 physicians (21.0%) reported using of e-detailing. The overall adoption model for using either type of e-detailing was found to be significant. Relative advantage, peer influence, attitudes, type of specialty, presence of restrictive access and years of practice had significant influences on physician adoption of e-detailing. The model of adoption of innovation is useful to explain physicians' adoption of e-detailing.

Understanding producers' motives for adopting sustainable practices

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Trujillo-Barrera, Andres; Pennings, Joost M.E.; Hofenk, Dianne

2016-01-01

Understanding the motives and risk attitudes of producers to engage in sustainable practices is important for policy-makers who wish to increase the likelihood of adoption and improve the design of incentives. This article examines the underlying motives of producers to adopt sustainable

Determinants of rainwater harvesting technology (RWHT) adoption ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

2014-11-26

Nov 26, 2014 ... study evaluated the determinants of farmers' decisions to adopt rainwater harvesting technology ... adoption of RWHT in the study area. ... In South Africa, agriculture involves large numbers of ... Study area and data collection ..... study in rainwater harvesting: A 2011 perspective. ... Kluwer Academic.

Hidden Randomness between Fitness Landscapes Limits Reverse Evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Longzhi; Serene, Stephen; Xiao Chao, Hui; Gore, Jeff

2012-02-01

Natural populations must constantly adapt to the ever-changing environment. A fundamental question in evolutionary biology is whether adaptations can be reversed by returning the population to its ancestral environment. Traditionally, reverse evolution is defined as restoring an ancestral phenotype (physical characteristics such as body size), and the classic Dollo's Law has hypothesized the impossibility of reversing complex adaptations. However, this ``law'' remains ambiguous unless reverse evolution can be studied at the level of genotypes (the underlying genome sequence). We measured the fitness landscapes of a bacterial antibiotic-resistance gene and analyzed the reversibility of evolution as a global, statistical feature of the landscapes. In both experiments and simulations, we find that an adaptation's reversibility declines as the number of mutations it involves increases, suggesting a probabilistic form of Dollo's Law at the molecular level. We also show computationally that slowly switching between environments facilitates reverse evolution in small populations, where clonal interference is negligible or moderate. This is an analogy to thermodynamics, where the reversibility of a physical process is maximized when conditions are modified infinitely slowly.

Reverse logistics in the construction industry.

Science.gov (United States)

Hosseini, M Reza; Rameezdeen, Raufdeen; Chileshe, Nicholas; Lehmann, Steffen

2015-06-01

Reverse logistics in construction refers to the movement of products and materials from salvaged buildings to a new construction site. While there is a plethora of studies looking at various aspects of the reverse logistics chain, there is no systematic review of literature on this important subject as applied to the construction industry. Therefore, the objective of this study is to integrate the fragmented body of knowledge on reverse logistics in construction, with the aim of promoting the concept among industry stakeholders and the wider construction community. Through a qualitative meta-analysis, the study synthesises the findings of previous studies and presents some actions needed by industry stakeholders to promote this concept within the real-life context. First, the trend of research and terminology related with reverse logistics is introduced. Second, it unearths the main advantages and barriers of reverse logistics in construction while providing some suggestions to harness the advantages and mitigate these barriers. Finally, it provides a future research direction based on the review. © The Author(s) 2015.

Timing of adoption of clean technologies by regulated monopolies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Youssef Slim Ben

2015-01-01

Full Text Available We consider a monopoly firm producing a good and, at the same time, polluting and using fossil energy. By incurring an investment cost, this firm can adopt a lower production cost clean technology using renewable energy. We determine the optimal adoption date for the firm in the case where it is not regulated at all and in the case where it is regulated at each period. Interestingly, the regulated firm adopts the clean technology earlier than what is socially optimal, as opposed to the nonregulated firm. The regulator can induce the firm to adopt the clean technology at the socially optimal date by a postpone adoption subsidy. Nevertheless, the regulator may be interested in the earlier adoption of the firm to encourage the diffusion of the use of clean technologies in other industries.

Prefix reversals on binary and ternary strings

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hurkens, C.A.J.; Iersel, van L.J.J.; Keijsper, J.C.M.; Kelk, S.M.; Stougie, L.; Tromp, J.T.

2007-01-01

Given a permutation $\\pi$, the application of prefix reversal $f^{(i)}$ to $\\pi$ reverses the order of the first $i$ elements of $\\pi$. The problem of sorting by prefix reversals (also known as pancake flipping), made famous by Gates and Papadimitriou (Discrete Math., 27 (1979), pp. 47–57), asks for

Reversal of laryngotracheal separation in paediatric patients.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Young, Orla

2012-02-01

OBJECTIVE: Laryngotracheal separation (LTS) is an effective and reliable definitive treatment for intractable aspiration. A major advantage of this treatment for intractable aspiration is its\\' potential reversibility. Should the underlying disorder improve, a reversal of the procedure may be attempted. This has been successfully achieved in the adult population. To our knowledge, no previous cases have been reported of successful reversal of LTS in children. METHODS: A retrospective review from 2003 to 2010 identified four cases of intractable aspiration treated with LTS in our department. Two of these patients displayed objective evidence of sufficient recovery of their underlying aspiration to consider reversal. Patient selection for reversal was dependent upon successful oral intake for 9 months along with videofluoroscopic evidence of normal or minimally impaired swallow. RESULTS: Two children who were successfully treated for intractable aspiration with LTS demonstrated objective evidence of recovery sufficient to attempt reversal. Both children underwent successful surgical reversal of LTS using a cricotracheal resection with end-to-end anastamosis, similar to that used in treatment of subglottic stenosis. Both children can now tolerate oral diet and their speech and language development is in line with their overall developmental level. CONCLUSIONS: Laryngotracheal separation is an effective and reliable definitive treatment for intractable aspiration facilitating protection of the airway and allowing safe swallowing with unimpeded respiration, but with the major drawback of loss of phonation. To our knowledge, we document the first two cases of successful LTS reversal in children.

Effects of IFRS adoption on tax avoidance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Renata Nogueira Braga

Full Text Available ABSTRACT This study investigates the association between mandatory International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS adoption and corporate tax avoidance. In this study, tax avoidance is defined as a reduction in the effective corporate income tax rate through tax planning activities, whether these are legal, questionable, or even illegal. Three measures of tax avoidance are used and factors at the country and firm level (that have already been associated with tax avoidance in prior research are controlled. Using samples that range from 9,389 to 15,423 publicly-traded companies from 35 countries, covering 1999 to 2014, it is found that IFRS adoption is associated with higher levels of corporate tax avoidance, even when the level of book-tax conformity required in the countries and the volume of accruals are controlled, both of which are considered potential determinants of this relationship. Furthermore, the results suggest that after IFRS adoption, firms in higher book-tax conformity environments engage more in tax avoidance than firms in lower book-tax conformity environments. It is also identified that engagement in tax avoidance after IFRS adoption derives not only from accruals management, but also from practices that do not involve accruals. The main conclusion is that companies engage more in tax avoidance after mandatory IFRS adoption.

Drivers for precision livestock technology adoption: A study of factors associated with adoption of electronic identification technology by commercial sheep farmers in England and Wales.

Science.gov (United States)

Lima, Eliana; Hopkins, Thomas; Gurney, Emma; Shortall, Orla; Lovatt, Fiona; Davies, Peers; Williamson, George; Kaler, Jasmeet

2018-01-01

The UK is the largest lamb meat producer in Europe. However, the low profitability of sheep farming sector suggests production efficiency could be improved. Although the use of technologies such as Electronic Identification (EID) tools could allow a better use of flock resources, anecdotal evidence suggests they are not widely used. The aim of this study was to assess uptake of EID technology, and explore drivers and barriers of adoption of related tools among English and Welsh farmers. Farm beliefs and management practices associated with adoption of this technology were investigated. A total of 2000 questionnaires were sent, with a response rate of 22%. Among the respondents, 87 had adopted EID tools for recording flock information, 97 intended to adopt it in the future, and 222 neither had adopted it, neither intended to adopt it. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and multivariable logistic regression modelling were used to identify farmer beliefs and management practices significantly associated with adoption of EID technology. EFA identified three factors expressing farmer's beliefs-external pressure and negative feelings, usefulness and practicality. Our results suggest farmer's beliefs play a significant role in technology uptake. Non-adopters were more likely than adopters to believe that 'government pressurise farmers to adopt technology'. In contrast, adopters were significantly more likely than non-adopters to see EID as practical and useful (p≤0.05). Farmers with higher information technologies literacy and intending to intensify production in the future were significantly more likely to adopt EID technology (p≤0.05). Importantly, flocks managed with EID tools had significantly lower farmer- reported flock lameness levels (p≤0.05). These findings bring insights on the dynamics of adoption of EID tools. Communicating evidence of the positive effects EID tools on flock performance and strengthening farmer's capability in use of technology are likely

Rotating Reverse-Osmosis for Water Purification

Science.gov (United States)

Lueptow, RIchard M.

2004-01-01

A new design for a water-filtering device combines rotating filtration with reverse osmosis to create a rotating reverse- osmosis system. Rotating filtration has been used for separating plasma from whole blood, while reverse osmosis has been used in purification of water and in some chemical processes. Reverse- osmosis membranes are vulnerable to concentration polarization a type of fouling in which the chemicals meant not to pass through the reverse-osmosis membranes accumulate very near the surfaces of the membranes. The combination of rotating filtration and reverse osmosis is intended to prevent concentration polarization and thereby increase the desired flux of filtered water while decreasing the likelihood of passage of undesired chemical species through the filter. Devices based on this concept could be useful in a variety of commercial applications, including purification and desalination of drinking water, purification of pharmaceutical process water, treatment of household and industrial wastewater, and treatment of industrial process water. A rotating filter consists of a cylindrical porous microfilter rotating within a stationary concentric cylindrical outer shell (see figure). The aqueous suspension enters one end of the annulus between the inner and outer cylinders. Filtrate passes through the rotating cylindrical microfilter and is removed via a hollow shaft. The concentrated suspension is removed at the end of the annulus opposite the end where the suspension entered.

Combining or Separating Forward and Reverse Logistics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Herbert-Hansen, Zaza Nadja Lee; Larsen, Samuel; Nielsen, Anders

2018-01-01

Purpose – While forward logistics handles and manages the flow of goods downstream in the supply chain from suppliers to customers, reverse logistics (RL) manages the flow of returned goods upstream. A firm can combine reverse logistics with forward logistics, keep the flows separated, or choose......-research addresses intra-RL issues while the relationship between forward and reverse logistics is under-researched. This paper contributes to RL-theory by identifying the contextual factors that determine the most advantageous relationship between forward and reverse logistics, and proposes a novel decision making...

Imminent adopters of electronic health records in ambulatory care

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rainu Kaushal

2009-03-01

Conclusions Imminent adopters of EHRs differed from users and non-users. Financial considerations appear to play a major role in adoption decisions. Knowledge of these differences may assist policymakers and healthcare leaders as they work to increase EHR adoption rates.

Parameter dependence of resonant spin torque magnetization reversal

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fricke, L.; Serrano-Guisan, S.; Schumacher, H.W.

2012-01-01

We numerically study ultra fast resonant spin torque (ST) magnetization reversal in magnetic tunneling junctions (MTJ) driven by current pulses having a direct current (DC) and a resonant alternating current (AC) component. The precessional ST dynamics of the single domain MTJ free layer cell are modeled in the macro spin approximation. The energy efficiency, reversal time, and reversal reliability are investigated under variation of pulse parameters like direct and AC current amplitude, AC frequency and AC phase. We find a range of AC and direct current amplitudes where robust resonant ST reversal is obtained with faster switching time and reduced energy consumption per pulse compared to purely direct current ST reversal. However, for a certain range of AC and direct current amplitudes a strong dependence of the reversal properties on AC frequency and phase is found. Such regions of unreliable reversal must be avoided for ST memory applications.

Parameter dependence of resonant spin torque magnetization reversal

Science.gov (United States)

Fricke, L.; Serrano-Guisan, S.; Schumacher, H. W.

2012-04-01

We numerically study ultra fast resonant spin torque (ST) magnetization reversal in magnetic tunneling junctions (MTJ) driven by current pulses having a direct current (DC) and a resonant alternating current (AC) component. The precessional ST dynamics of the single domain MTJ free layer cell are modeled in the macro spin approximation. The energy efficiency, reversal time, and reversal reliability are investigated under variation of pulse parameters like direct and AC current amplitude, AC frequency and AC phase. We find a range of AC and direct current amplitudes where robust resonant ST reversal is obtained with faster switching time and reduced energy consumption per pulse compared to purely direct current ST reversal. However, for a certain range of AC and direct current amplitudes a strong dependence of the reversal properties on AC frequency and phase is found. Such regions of unreliable reversal must be avoided for ST memory applications.

Facilitators & Barriers to the Adoption of Ergonomic Solutions in Construction

Science.gov (United States)

Dale, Ann Marie; Jaegers, Lisa; Welch, Laura; Barnidge, Ellen; Weaver, Nancy; Evanoff, Bradley A.

2017-01-01

Background Rates of musculoskeletal disorders in construction remain high. Few studies have described barriers and facilitators to the use of available ergonomic solutions. This paper describes these barriers and facilitators and their relationship to the level of adoption. Methods Three analysts rated 16 proposed ergonomic solutions from a participatory ergonomics study and assessed the level of adoption, six adoption characteristics, and identified the category of adoption from a theoretical model. Results Twelve solutions were always or intermittently used and were rated positively for characteristics of relative advantage, compatibility with existing work processes, and trialability. Locus of control (worker vs. contractor) was not related to adoption. Simple solutions faced fewer barriers to adoption than those rated as complex. Conclusions Specific adoption characteristics can help predict the use of new ergonomic solutions in construction. Adoption of complex solutions must involve multiple stakeholders, more time, and shifts in culture or work systems. PMID:28195660

21 CFR 177.2550 - Reverse osmosis membranes.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 21 Food and Drugs 3 2010-04-01 2009-04-01 true Reverse osmosis membranes. 177.2550 Section 177... Components of Articles Intended for Repeated Use § 177.2550 Reverse osmosis membranes. Substances identified in paragraph (a) of this section may be safely used as reverse osmosis membranes intended for use in...

Prefix reversals on binary and ternary strings

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hurkens, C.A.J.; van Iersel, L.J.J.; Keijsper, J.C.M.; Kelk, S.M.; Stougie, L.; Tromp, J.T.

2007-01-01

Given a permutation $\\pi$, the application of prefix reversal $f^{(i)}$ to $\\pi$ reverses the order of the first $i$ elements of $\\pi$. The problem of sorting by prefix reversals (also known as pancake flipping), made famous by Gates and Papadimitriou (Discrete Math., 27 (1979), pp. 47–57), asks

Information Technology Adoption, Corporate Governance and Bank Performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Umi Muawanah

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Many academicians and practitioners have been acknowledging that information technology (IT adoption could improve company performance. However, previous research indicates contradictory evidence. These inconsistencies can be attributed to variations among the studies in choosing proxy for IT adoption and due to contingent on other factors. This research aims at analyzing the influence of a contingent factor that is corporate governance (CG concerning the effectiveness of IT adoption in influencing company performance measured by change in return on assets. Two proxies are used for IT adoption: company expenses on IT and the level of the organization managing IT. Data is collected and analyzed from annual reports of all banks listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2011 to 2013. Multiple linear regression models are employed. This research shows that corporate governance practice could improve the effectiveness of IT adoption in improving company performance. This research implies that better CG practices in providing direction and monitoring on IT can lead to better company performance.

Reverse innovation in maternal health.

Science.gov (United States)

Firoz, Tabassum; Makanga, Prestige Tatenda; Nathan, Hannah L; Payne, Beth; Magee, Laura A

2017-09-01

Reverse innovation, defined as the flow of ideas from low- to high-income settings, is gaining traction in healthcare. With an increasing focus on value, investing in low-cost but effective and innovative solutions can be of mutual benefit to both high- and low-income countries. Reverse innovation has a role in addressing maternal health challenges in high-income countries by harnessing these innovative solutions for vulnerable populations especially in rural and remote regions. In this paper, we present three examples of 'reverse innovation' for maternal health: a low-cost, easy-to-use blood pressure device (CRADLE), a diagnostic algorithm (mini PIERS) and accompanying mobile app (PIERS on the Move), and a novel method for mapping maternal outcomes (MOM).

Trendy solutions: Why do states adopt Sustainable Energy Portfolio Standards?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chandler, Jess [Georgia Institute of Technology, 685 Cherry Street, Atlanta, GA 30332-0345 (United States)], E-mail: jess.chandler@gatech.edu

2009-08-15

Thirty-four states had adopted Sustainable Energy Portfolio Standards (SEPS) or similar goals by the end of 2008, with 14 adoptions since 2006. There appears to be something trendy about SEPS and states may adopt SEPS when internal variables would indicate otherwise. This analysis extends the current discussion of SEPS adoption beyond internal variables, relying on innovation and diffusion theory. Logistic regression with SEPS adoption as the dependent variable is used to test internal determinants and diffusion measures for the years 1997-2008. Of the internal determinants variables, affluence and government ideology were found to be positive and significant. The results show that regional and neighbor diffusion variables are significant in SEPS adoption decisions-even when accounting for ideological distance from previous adopters.

Trendy solutions. Why do states adopt Sustainable Energy Portfolio Standards?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chandler, Jess [Georgia Institute of Technology, 685 Cherry Street, Atlanta, GA 30332-0345 (United States)

2009-08-15

Thirty-four states had adopted Sustainable Energy Portfolio Standards (SEPS) or similar goals by the end of 2008, with 14 adoptions since 2006. There appears to be something trendy about SEPS and states may adopt SEPS when internal variables would indicate otherwise. This analysis extends the current discussion of SEPS adoption beyond internal variables, relying on innovation and diffusion theory. Logistic regression with SEPS adoption as the dependent variable is used to test internal determinants and diffusion measures for the years 1997-2008. Of the internal determinants variables, affluence and government ideology were found to be positive and significant. The results show that regional and neighbor diffusion variables are significant in SEPS adoption decisions - even when accounting for ideological distance from previous adopters. (author)

Trendy solutions: Why do states adopt Sustainable Energy Portfolio Standards?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chandler, Jess

2009-01-01

Thirty-four states had adopted Sustainable Energy Portfolio Standards (SEPS) or similar goals by the end of 2008, with 14 adoptions since 2006. There appears to be something trendy about SEPS and states may adopt SEPS when internal variables would indicate otherwise. This analysis extends the current discussion of SEPS adoption beyond internal variables, relying on innovation and diffusion theory. Logistic regression with SEPS adoption as the dependent variable is used to test internal determinants and diffusion measures for the years 1997-2008. Of the internal determinants variables, affluence and government ideology were found to be positive and significant. The results show that regional and neighbor diffusion variables are significant in SEPS adoption decisions-even when accounting for ideological distance from previous adopters.

Smartphone adoption

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petrovcikova, Katarina; Sudzina, Frantisek

2017-01-01

Smartphones are used by majority of Western population, and they are mobile phones of choice also in the rest of the world. The Theory of Consumption Values (TCV) is a marketing theory that explains purchase behavior of consumer goods and services. The framework consists of functional, social......, epistemic, hedonic, and conditional values; the latter being functional and/or social values present only in a specific situation. TCV is used in mobile device adoption literature disproportionably more often than in other fields. But virtually all TCV studies focused on smartphones are qualitative. The aim...

Adoptive Family Adjustment and Its Relation to Perceived Family Environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Martin, Betty; Kelly, Mary Margaret; Towner-Thyrum, Elizabeth

1999-01-01

Interviewed adopted college students regarding perceptions of adoptive family life. Found that overall satisfaction with adoptive status and family life was the strongest predictor of perceived general family environment. Perception of adoptive parents' communication styles predicted different aspects of family environment. Acknowledgment of life…

Stability of the field-reversed mirror

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Morse, E.C.

1979-01-01

The stability of a field reversed mirror plasma configuration is studied with an energy principle derived from the Vlasov equation. Because of finite orbit effects, the stability properties of a field-reversed mirror are different from the stability properties of similar magnetohydrodynamic equilibria. The Vlasov energy principle developed here is applied to a computer simulation of an axisymmetric field-reversed mirror state. It has been possible to prove that the l = 0 modes, called tearing modes, satisfy a sufficient condition for stability. Precessional modes, with l = 1, 2, are found to be unstable at low growth rate. This suggests possible turbulent behavior (Bohm confinement) in the experimental devices aiming at field reversal. Techniques for suppressing these instabilities are outlined, and the applicability of the Vlasov energy principle to more complicated equilibrium models is shown

Reversible Lithium Neurotoxicity: Review of the Literature

Science.gov (United States)

Netto, Ivan

2012-01-01

Objective: Lithium neurotoxicity may be reversible or irreversible. Reversible lithium neurotoxicity has been defined as cases of lithium neurotoxicity in which patients recovered without any permanent neurologic sequelae, even after 2 months of an episode of lithium toxicity. Cases of reversible lithium neurotoxicity differ in clinical presentation from those of irreversible lithium neurotoxicity and have important implications in clinical practice. This review aims to study the clinical presentation of cases of reversible lithium neurotoxicity. Data Sources: A comprehensive electronic search was conducted in the following databases: MEDLINE (PubMed), 1950 to November 2010; PsycINFO, 1967 to November 2010; and SCOPUS (EMBASE), 1950 to November 2010. MEDLINE and PsycINFO were searched by using the OvidSP interface. Study Selection: A combination of the following search terms was used: lithium AND adverse effects AND central nervous system OR neurologic manifestation. Publications cited include articles concerned with reversible lithium neurotoxicity. Data Extraction: The age, sex, clinical features, diagnostic categories, lithium doses, serum lithium levels, precipitating factors, and preventive measures of 52 cases of reversible lithium neurotoxicity were extracted. Data Synthesis: Among the 52 cases of reversible lithium neurotoxicity, patients ranged in age from 10 to 80 years and a greater number were female (P = .008). Most patients had affective disorders, schizoaffective disorders, and/or depression (P lithium levels were less than or equal to 1.5 mEq/L (P lithium, underlying brain pathology, abnormal tissue levels, specific diagnostic categories, and elderly populations were some of the precipitating factors reported for reversible lithium neurotoxicity. The preventive measures were also described. Conclusions: Reversible lithium neurotoxicity presents with a certain clinical profile and precipitating factors for which there are appropriate

Reversible lithium neurotoxicity: review of the literatur.

Science.gov (United States)

Netto, Ivan; Phutane, Vivek H

2012-01-01

Lithium neurotoxicity may be reversible or irreversible. Reversible lithium neurotoxicity has been defined as cases of lithium neurotoxicity in which patients recovered without any permanent neurologic sequelae, even after 2 months of an episode of lithium toxicity. Cases of reversible lithium neurotoxicity differ in clinical presentation from those of irreversible lithium neurotoxicity and have important implications in clinical practice. This review aims to study the clinical presentation of cases of reversible lithium neurotoxicity. A comprehensive electronic search was conducted in the following databases: MEDLINE (PubMed), 1950 to November 2010; PsycINFO, 1967 to November 2010; and SCOPUS (EMBASE), 1950 to November 2010. MEDLINE and PsycINFO were searched by using the OvidSP interface. A combination of the following search terms was used: lithium AND adverse effects AND central nervous system OR neurologic manifestation. Publications cited include articles concerned with reversible lithium neurotoxicity. The age, sex, clinical features, diagnostic categories, lithium doses, serum lithium levels, precipitating factors, and preventive measures of 52 cases of reversible lithium neurotoxicity were extracted. Among the 52 cases of reversible lithium neurotoxicity, patients ranged in age from 10 to 80 years and a greater number were female (P = .008). Most patients had affective disorders, schizoaffective disorders, and/or depression (P lithium levels were less than or equal to 1.5 mEq/L (P lithium, underlying brain pathology, abnormal tissue levels, specific diagnostic categories, and elderly populations were some of the precipitating factors reported for reversible lithium neurotoxicity. The preventive measures were also described. Reversible lithium neurotoxicity presents with a certain clinical profile and precipitating factors for which there are appropriate preventive measures. This recognition will help in early diagnosis and prompt treatment of

A maturity model for blockchain adoption

OpenAIRE

Wang, Huaiqing; Chen, Kun; Xu, Dongming

2016-01-01

Background: The rapid development of the blockchain technology and its various applications has rendered it important to understand the guidelines for adopting it. Methods: The comparative analysis method is used to analyze different dimensions of the maturity model, which is mainly based on the commonly used capability maturity model. Results: The blockchain maturity model and its adoption process have been discussed and presented. Conclusions: This study serves as a guide to institutions to...

FACTORS INFLUENCING ADOPTION DECISIONS OF MAIZE FARMERS IN NIGERIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olusegun Ayodeji Fadare

2014-07-01

Full Text Available The needs to develop improved varieties of maize have been in the heart of various researchers and institutions in Nigeria because of its strategic role in tackling food insecurity and poverty. Despite substantial efforts to improve maize varieties, the level of adoption of improved maize varieties (IMV in Nigeria in still very low. Although previous adoption studies have indicated a number of socioeconomic and institutional/organizational variables as important factors influencing adoption of improved maize (crop varieties in the country, whether these factors are the main issues of concern, and whether the inclusion of regional/agro-ecological variables in adoption model are also important in explaining what could drive farmers’ adoption behaviour requires investigation. This study therefore examined factors influencing adoption of IMV among farmers in Nigeria using a selected portion of the Nigeria Living Standard Measurement Survey data collected by the National Bureau of Statistics and the World Bank for 2010/2011 cropping season with descriptive statistics and probit model as tools for data analysis. The results suggest, in line with some previous studies, that farm size, education level of farmers and access to extension services would significantly influence adoption of IMV. The results also indicate that farmers across the entire agro-ecological regions of country share some negative sentiments regarding adoption of IMV. Renewed emphasis on interventions that would enable farmers gain more access to farmland, and promote formal education and extension service are advocated. An attempt to incorporate variables that capture farmers’ perception/experience on agroclimatic/ ecologically related concerns in adoption study could aid better understand of what drives farmers’ adoption decisions across the country especially in the light of the emerging climate change issues and its implication on food production.

Learning for supplying as a motive to be the early adopter of a new energy technology: A study on the adoption of stationary fuel cells

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang, A.Y.-J.; Liu, R.-H.

2008-01-01

By early adopting a new technology, firms may attempt to improve their production efficiency and become further involved in the supply chain of the technology. These two different advantages derived from learning a new technology are identified as motives for adopting the technology. When learning for supplying (LFS) (becoming involved in the supply chain of the new technology) highlighted in this paper is significant enough, potential adopters may still be willing to adopt the new technology, even though learning for using (LFU) (increasing current production efficiency) is not significant. This paper identifies LFS as a motive for early adopters of the new technology. Firms may adopt a new technology for the purpose of learning how to become the suppliers of the relevant parts, materials, or equipment for the new technology. By investigating the adoption decision of a new energy technology (namely, phosphoric acid fuel cells (PAFC)), our arguments are supported by both observation of early adopters' attributes and a survey of Taiwanese firms' willingness to adopt new technology

Critical Factors for Personal Cloud Storage Adoption in China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jianya Wang

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Purpose: In order to explain and predict the adoption of personal cloud storage, this study explores the critical factors involved in the adoption of personal cloud storage and empirically validates their relationships to a user's intentions. Design/methodology/approach: Based on technology acceptance model (TAM, network externality, trust, and an interview survey, this study proposes a personal cloud storage adoption model. We conducted an empirical analysis by structural equation modeling based on survey data obtained with a questionnaire. Findings: Among the adoption factors we identified, network externality has the salient influence on a user's adoption intention, followed by perceived usefulness, individual innovation, perceived trust, perceived ease of use, and subjective norms. Cloud storage characteristics are the most important indirect factors, followed by awareness to personal cloud storage and perceived risk. However, although perceived risk is regarded as an important factor by other cloud computing researchers, we found that it has no significant influence. Also, subjective norms have no significant influence on perceived usefulness. This indicates that users are rational when they choose whether to adopt personal cloud storage. Research limitations: This study ignores time and cost factors that might affect a user's intention to adopt personal cloud storage. Practical implications: Our findings might be helpful in designing and developing personal cloud storage products, and helpful to regulators crafting policies. Originality/value: This study is one of the first research efforts that discuss Chinese users' personal cloud storage adoption, which should help to further the understanding of personal cloud adoption behavior among Chinese users.

ADOPTION OF IMPROVED TECHNOLOGY IN ETHIOPIA By

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Etsub [ ETSUB

forms often used are the probit (the standard cumulative distribution function) and ... are techniques for estimating the probability of an event (such as adoption) that can .... credit, availability of labour, etc., are expected to influence the adoption behaviour ..... and have the opportunity to adjust productive resources over time.

Adoptive Parents' Attitudes Toward Open Birth Records.

Science.gov (United States)

Geissinger, Shirley

1984-01-01

Investigated adoptive parents' (N=42) attitudes toward the open birth record issues using a mail survey. Analysis indicated that parental fear was the most important variable. Most supported a measure allowing adult adoptees access to birth records, provided such access was agreeable to birth and adoptive parents. (JAC)

Covering Adoption: General Depictions in Broadcast News

Science.gov (United States)

Kline, Susan L.; Karel, Amanda I.; Chatterjee, Karishma

2006-01-01

Using theories of stigma (Goffman, 1963) and media frames (Iyengar, 1991), 292 news stories pertaining to adoption that appeared on major broadcast networks between 2001 and 2004 were analyzed. Media coverage of adoptees contained more problematic than positive depictions. Although birth parents were not always depicted, adoptive parent and…

Social media adoption in local health departments nationwide.

Science.gov (United States)

Harris, Jenine K; Mueller, Nancy L; Snider, Doneisha

2013-09-01

We examined whether characteristics of local health departments (LHD) and their geographic region were associated with using Facebook and Twitter. We also examined the number of tweets per month for Twitter accounts as an indicator of social media use by LHDs. In 2012, we searched for Facebook and Twitter accounts for 2565 LHDs nationwide, and collected adoption date and number of connections for each account. Number of tweets sent indicated LHD use of social media. LHDs were classified as innovators, early adopters, or nonadopters. Characteristics of LHDs were compared across adoption categories, and we examined geographic characteristics, connections, and use. Twenty-four percent of LHDs had Facebook, 8% had Twitter, and 7% had both. LHDs serving larger populations were more likely to be innovators, tweeted more often, and had more social media connections. Frequency of tweeting was not associated with adoption category. There were differences in adoption across geographic regions, with western states more likely to be innovators. Innovation was also higher in states where the state health department adopted social media. Social media has the potential to aid LHDs in disseminating information across the public health system. More evidence is needed to develop best practices for this emerging tool.

Longitudinal analyses of adoptive parents' expectations and depressive symptoms.

Science.gov (United States)

Foli, Karen J; Lim, Eunjung; South, Susan C

2017-12-01

Grounded in a theoretical model specific to adoptive parents, we examined the relationship between parental expectations and depressive symptoms across time. Assessments of 129 adoptive parents of 64 children were performed at three time points before and after placement of an adopted child with the family: 4-6 weeks pre-placement and 4-6 weeks and 5-6 months post-placement. Expectations were assessed in four dimensions: expectations of self as parents, of the child, of family and friends, and of society. Depressive symptoms were assessed with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale. Associations between parental expectations and depressive symptoms were analyzed, and longitudinal multilevel modeling was conducted to explore influences on expectations over time. Parental expectations changed from pre- to post-placement. With the exception of expectations of self as parent, adoptive parents' pre-adoption expectations were affirmed in the post-adoption time periods. In each expectation dimension, higher affirmation of expectations was correlated with decreased depressive symptoms before and after placement of a child. While parental expectations are not unique to adoptive parents, the essence and characteristics of certain expectations are unique to these parents. When working with adoptive parents, nurses who care for families should assess expectations both pre- and post-placement with awareness of their relationship to depressive symptoms. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Effect of Family Communication Patterns on Adopted Adolescent Adjustment

Science.gov (United States)

Rueter, Martha A.; Koerner, Ascan F.

2008-01-01

Adoption and family communication both affect adolescent adjustment. We proposed that adoption status and family communication interact such that adopted adolescents in families with certain communication patterns are at greater risk for adjustment problems. We tested this hypothesis using a community-based sample of 384 adoptive and 208…

The use of reverse logistics for waste management in a Brazilian grocery retailer.

Science.gov (United States)

Dias, Karina T S; Braga Junior, Sergio S

2016-01-01

Retail growth is a result of the diversification of departments with the intention to look to consumer's needs and level of demand. Pressed by consumers and by the law, the adoption of environmental preservation practices is becoming stronger among grocery retailers. The objective of this research was to analyse the practices of reverse logistics performed by a retailer and measure the amount of waste generated by each department. To reach the proposed goal, a field research study was conducted to directly observe a grocery retailer in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, for a period of 6 months and monitor the amounts of cardboard and plastic discarded by each department. Using the Wuppertal method, the first result observed was that the retailer stopped its monthly production of approximately 20 tonne of biotic and abiotic material, which influence global warming and degradation of the ozone layer. Another result observed with the implementation of reverse logistics, was that the general grocery department mostly used cardboard and plastic. This sector includes products such as food cupboard, drinks, household, health and beauty, and pet articles. The fresh fruit and vegetable department and the meat, chicken and frozen department were increasingly using less plastic and cardboard packaging, increasing the use of returnable and durable packaging and thus promoting sustainability. © The Author(s) 2015.

The Quiet Migration Redux: International Adoption, Race, and Difference.

Science.gov (United States)

Leinaweaver, Jessaca B

2014-01-01

Demographers frame international adoption primarily as an unusual kind of migration. This insight offers anthropologists new ways to think about kinship. Drawing on demographic scholarship and anthropological kinship and migration studies, this article develops a new and hybrid approach to international adoption as a complex social process that is both migratory and productive of kinship. Viewing international adoption as a form of migration reveals how the stated "push factors" and actual "pull factors" of international adoption do not align perfectly. Using an anthropological life course perspective, the article then explores how the experiences of these "migrants" and those close to them, over time, are better understood as racialization than solely the product of migration. Looking at adoptees' lives through a migration lens reveals some of the persistent discomforts that prevent open conversations about racial difference and minority status in an adoptive context, that is, one where children have been caused to migrate, recruited into families. This article draws on data from ethnographic fieldwork with Spanish parents who have adopted Peruvian children to argue that international adoption is a unique form of immigration that produces a minority category within a majority population.

Embryo donation parents' attitudes towards donors: comparison with adoption.

Science.gov (United States)

MacCallum, Fiona

2009-03-01

Embryo donation produces a family structure where neither rearing parent is genetically related to the child, as in adoption. It is not known how embryo donation parents view the donors compared with how adoptive parents view the birth parents. 21 couples with an embryo donation child aged 2-5 years were compared with 28 couples with an adopted child. Parents were administered a semi-structured interview, assessing knowledge of the donors/birth parents, frequency of thoughts and discussions about the donors/birth parents and disclosure of the donor conception/adoption to the child. Comparisons were made between mothers and fathers to examine gender differences. Embryo donation parents generally knew only the donors' physical characteristics, and thought about and talked about the donors less frequently than adoptive parents thought about and talked about the birth parents. Embryo donation fathers tended to think about the donors less often than did mothers. Disclosure of the child's origins in embryo donation families was far less common than in adoptive families (P parents' views on the donors differ from adoptive parents' views on the birth parents, with donors having little significance in family life once treatment is successful.

Substrate stiffness promotes latent TGF-β1 activation in hepatocellular carcinoma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pang, Mingshu; Teng, Yao; Huang, Jianyong; Yuan, Yuan; Lin, Feng; Xiong, Chunyang

2017-01-01

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was usually coupled with increased stiffness of the extracellular matrix (ECM) and elevated level of transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1). However, the mechanism by which substrate rigidity modulated TGF-β1 signaling transduction remained unknown. This paper investigated the molecular mechanism of how matrix stiffness regulating TGF-β1 signaling in HCC cells. By means of stiffness tunable collagen I-coated polyacrylamide (PA) gels, we found that the expressions of β1 integrin, p-FAK Y397 and p-Smad2 upregulated on stiffer gels as well as the content of TGF-β1 in culture media of HCC cells, which were inhibited by RGD blocking peptides, Y-27632 (ROCK inhibitor) or Blebbistatin (myosin II inhibitor). Cellular traction force was also significantly higher when plated on stiffer substrates but dramatically decreased after treatment with Y-27632 or Blebbistatin. Furthermore, the upregulation of p-Smad2 in the HCC cells on stiffer PA gels induced by exogenetic latent TGF-β1 was downregulated in the presence of RGD peptides. The nuclear translocation of Smad2 induced by latent TGF-β1 was inhibited by Y-27632 or Blebbistatin. Our results suggested that the extracellular matrix stiffness regulated latent TGF-β1 activation by cytoskeletal tension in HCC cells, showing that matrix stiffness was a key regulator involving the TGF-β1 activity in HCC cells. The current study presented a mechanism of how hepatocirrhosis developed into liver cancer. - Highlights: • TGF-β1 signaling pathway regulated by ECM stiffness was studied in hepatocellular carcinoma. • Matrix stiffness promoted latent TGF-β1 activation via β1 integrin-FAK-Rho GTPase pathway. • A mechanism of how hepatocirrhosis developed into liver cancer was presented.

Why, when, and how fast innovations are adopted

Science.gov (United States)

Gonçalves, S.; Laguna, M. F.; Iglesias, J. R.

2012-06-01

When the full stock of a new product is quickly sold in a few days or weeks, one has the impression that new technologies develop and conquer the market in a very easy way. This may be true for some new technologies, for example the cell phone, but not for others, like the blue-ray. Novelty, usefulness, advertising, price, and fashion are the driving forces behind the adoption of a new product. But, what are the key factors that lead to adopt a new technology? In this paper we propose and investigate a simple model for the adoption of an innovation which depends mainly on three elements: the appeal of the novelty, the inertia or resistance to adopt it, and the interaction with other agents. Social interactions are taken into account in two ways: by imitation and by differentiation, i.e., some agents will be inclined to adopt an innovation if many people do the same, but other will act in the opposite direction, trying to differentiate from the "herd". We determine the conditions for a successful implantation of the new technology, by considering the strength of advertising and the effect of social interactions. We find a balance between the advertising and the number of anti-herding agents that may block the adoption of a new product. We also compare the effect of social interactions, when agents take into account the behavior of the whole society or just a part of it. In a nutshell, the present model reproduces qualitatively the available data on adoption of innovation.

Determinants of internet poker adoption.

Science.gov (United States)

Philander, Kahlil S; Abarbanel, B Lillian

2014-09-01

In nearly all jurisdictions, adoption of a new form of gambling has been a controversial and contentious subject. Online gambling has been no different, though there are many aspects that affect online gambling that do not appear in the brick and mortar environment. This study seeks to identify whether demographic, economic, political, technological, and/or sociological determinants contribute to online poker gambling adoption. A theoretical discussion of these categories' importance to online poker is provided and exploratory empirical analysis is used to examine their potential validity. The analysis revealed support for all of the proposed categories of variables thought to be predictive of online gambling legality.

Model Adoption Exchange Payment System: Executive Summary.

Science.gov (United States)

Ambrosino, Robert J.

This executive summary provides a brief description of the Model Adoption Exchange Payment System (MAEPS), a unique payment system aimed at improving the delivery of adoption exchange services throughout the United States. Following a brief introductory overview, MAEPS is described in terms of (1) its six components (registration, listing,…

Explaining e-business adoption - Innovation & entrepreneurship in Dutch SMEs

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Veen, M.

2005-01-01

Explaining e-business adoptionThis dissertation deals with the explanation of e-business adoption in Dutch small and medium sized enterprises. The adoption of e-business plays an important part in making existing business more efficient and effective. Moreover, it is a tool for business development

Determinants of adoption and productivity of improved rice varieties ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The study employed adoption index, logit model and stochastic frontier model to assess the adoption status, its determinants and impact on farmers' productivity respectively. The results show that farmers have responded appreciably to intervention programme that promote the use of improved rice varieties with an adoption ...

analysis of adoption of agro-biotechnological innovations in pig

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Adinya photo

farmers on adoption of new technologies in pig production has positive influence on output of improved ... number of factors among which include non-adoption of ... I. B. Adinya, Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, Cross River University of Technology ... Theoretical framework on adoption behaviour of pig.

Factors leading to inflation targeting : The impact of adoption

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Samarina, Anna; Sturm, Jan-Egbert

2013-01-01

This paper examines how the analysis of inflation targeting (IT) adoption is affected by allowing for a structural change after adoption, using panel probit models for 60 countries over the period 1985-2008. Our findings suggest that there is a structural change after IT adoption. Including the

Monoamines stimulate sex reversal in the saddleback wrasse.

Science.gov (United States)

Larson, Earl T; Norris, David O; Gordon Grau, E; Summers, Cliff H

2003-02-15

Monoamine neurotransmitters (norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin) play an important role in reproduction and sexual behavior throughout the vertebrates. They are the first endogenous chemical signals in the regulation of the hypothalamo-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis. In teleosts with behavioral sex determination, much is known about behavioral cues that induce sex reversal. The cues are social, processed via the visual system and depend on the ratio of females to males in the population. The mechanisms by which these external behavioral cues are converted to an internal chemical regulatory process are largely unknown. The protogynous Hawaiian saddleback wrasse, Thalassoma duperrey, was used to investigate the biological pathway mediating the conversion of a social cue into neuroendocrine events regulating sex reversal. Because monoamines play an important role in the regulation of the HPG axis, they were selected as likely candidates for such a conversion. To determine if monoamines could affect sex reversal, drugs affecting monoamines were used in an attempt to either induce sex reversal under non-permissive conditions, or prevent sex reversal under permissive conditions. Increasing norepinephrine or blocking dopamine or serotonin lead to sex reversal in experimental animals under non-permissive conditions. Increasing serotonin blocked sex reversal under permissive conditions, while blocking dopamine or norepinephrine retarded the process. The results presented here demonstrate that monoamines contribute significantly to the control sex reversal. Norepinephrine stimulates initiation and completion of gonadal sex of reversal as well as color change perhaps directly via its effects on the HPG axis. Dopamine exercises inhibitory action on the initiation of sex reversal while 5-HT inhibits both initiation and completion of sex reversal. The serotonergic system appears to be an integral part of the pathway mediating the conversion of a social cue into a

On flow reversals in Rayleigh-Bénard convection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chandra, Mani; Verma, Mahendra K

2011-01-01

The dynamics of flow reversals are studied numerically using Fourier mode analysis. Our analysis shows that the Fourier modes represent the large-scale flows accurately. We observe that during the reversals, the amplitude of one of the large-scale modes vanishes, while another mode rises sharply, very similar to the cessation-led reversals observed earlier in experiments and numerical simulations. The Fourier coefficients of the RBC equations obey certain symmetries properties, which dictates which modes change sign in flow reversals. Based on our simulation results and symmetry properties of the Fourier modes, we provide a qualitative explanation for the flow reversals.

Drivers for precision livestock technology adoption: A study of factors associated with adoption of electronic identification technology by commercial sheep farmers in England and Wales

Science.gov (United States)

Hopkins, Thomas; Gurney, Emma; Shortall, Orla; Lovatt, Fiona; Davies, Peers; Williamson, George; Kaler, Jasmeet

2018-01-01

The UK is the largest lamb meat producer in Europe. However, the low profitability of sheep farming sector suggests production efficiency could be improved. Although the use of technologies such as Electronic Identification (EID) tools could allow a better use of flock resources, anecdotal evidence suggests they are not widely used. The aim of this study was to assess uptake of EID technology, and explore drivers and barriers of adoption of related tools among English and Welsh farmers. Farm beliefs and management practices associated with adoption of this technology were investigated. A total of 2000 questionnaires were sent, with a response rate of 22%. Among the respondents, 87 had adopted EID tools for recording flock information, 97 intended to adopt it in the future, and 222 neither had adopted it, neither intended to adopt it. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and multivariable logistic regression modelling were used to identify farmer beliefs and management practices significantly associated with adoption of EID technology. EFA identified three factors expressing farmer’s beliefs–external pressure and negative feelings, usefulness and practicality. Our results suggest farmer’s beliefs play a significant role in technology uptake. Non-adopters were more likely than adopters to believe that ‘government pressurise farmers to adopt technology’. In contrast, adopters were significantly more likely than non-adopters to see EID as practical and useful (p≤0.05). Farmers with higher information technologies literacy and intending to intensify production in the future were significantly more likely to adopt EID technology (p≤0.05). Importantly, flocks managed with EID tools had significantly lower farmer- reported flock lameness levels (p≤0.05). These findings bring insights on the dynamics of adoption of EID tools. Communicating evidence of the positive effects EID tools on flock performance and strengthening farmer’s capability in use of

Advancing Consumer Adoption of Blockchain Applications

OpenAIRE

Witherspoon, Zane

2017-01-01

Blockchain technology as a whole is experiencing a dramatic rise in adoption, in no small part due to the developer-friendly Ethereum network. While the number of smart-contract powered distributed applications (Dapps) continues to rise, they face many of the same challenges all new technologies face as they are introduced to a market. By modeling the consumer adoption of blockchain technology and analyzing scholarly literature on supply-side factors affecting the diffusion of technology, we ...

Clean translation of an imperative reversible programming language

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Axelsen, Holger Bock

2011-01-01

We describe the translation techniques used for the code generation in a compiler from the high-level reversible imperative programming language Janus to the low-level reversible assembly language PISA. Our translation is both semantics preserving (correct), in that target programs compute exactly...... the same functions as their source programs (cleanly, with no extraneous garbage output), and efficient, in that target programs conserve the complexities of source programs. In particular, target programs only require a constant amount of temporary garbage space. The given translation methods are generic......, and should be applicable to any (imperative) reversible source language described with reversible flowcharts and reversible updates. To our knowledge, this is the first compiler between reversible languages where the source and target languages were independently developed; the first exhibiting both...

Adoption, nation, migration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Müller, Anders Riel

2013-01-01

Som transnationalt adopteret vokser man ofte op med en fortælling om, at man er født i et fattigt land. Og at ens første forældre var fattige eller oplevede så store problemer, at de ikke så andre muligheder end at afgive en til adoption. Det er en historie, man bliver fortalt igen og igen. Og so...

Parkinson’s disease managing reversible neurodegeneration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hinz M

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Marty Hinz,1 Alvin Stein,2 Ted Cole,3 Beth McDougall,4 Mark Westaway5 1Clinical Research, NeuroResearch Clinics, Inc., Cape Coral, FL, 2Stein Orthopedic Associates, Plantation, FL, 3Cole Center for Healing, Cincinnati, OH, 4CLEARCenter of Health, Mill Valley, CA, USA; 5Four Pillars Health, Brendale, QLD, Australia Abstract: Traditionally, the Parkinson’s disease (PD symptom course has been classified as an irreversible progressive neurodegenerative disease. This paper documents 29 PD and treatment-induced systemic depletion etiologies which cause and/or exacerbate the seven novel primary relative nutritional deficiencies associated with PD. These reversible relative nutritional deficiencies (RNDs may facilitate and accelerate irreversible progressive neurodegeneration, while other reversible RNDs may induce previously undocumented reversible pseudo-neurodegeneration that is hiding in plain sight since the symptoms are identical to the symptoms being experienced by the PD patient. Documented herein is a novel nutritional approach for reversible processes management which may slow or halt irreversible progressive neurodegenerative disease and correct reversible RNDs whose symptoms are identical to the patient’s PD symptoms. Keywords: Parkinson’s disease, L-dopa, carbidopa, B6, neurodegeneration

AN OVERVIEW ON RETAIL REVERSE LOGISTICS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ioana Olariu

2014-07-01

Full Text Available This article is a theoretical approach on retail reverse logistics. Environmental concern and the current marketing strategy have spurred retailers to implement strategies to facilitate product returns from end customers. Reverse logistics, indicating the process of this return flow, encompasses such activities as the movement of returned products, facilities to accommodate returned items, and overall remedy process for returned items. The retail industry, under great competitive pressure, has used return policies as a competitive weapon. Grocery retailers were the first to begin to focus serious attention on the problem of returns and to develop reverse logistics innovations. Grocery retailers first developed innovations such as reclamation centers. Reclamation centers, in turn, led to the establishment of centralized return centers. Centralizing returns has led to significant benefits for most firms that have implemented them. Over the last several years, retailers have consolidated. Now, more than ever, reverse logistics is seen as being important. This reverse distribution activity can be crucial to the survival of companies, because the permanent goodwill of the company is at stake. Businesses succeed because they respond to both external and internal changes and adjust in an effective manner to remain competitive.

Stepwise innovation adoption : a neglected concept in innovation research

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Huizingh, K.R.E.; Brand, M.J.

2009-01-01

Most innovation researchers tend to consider innovation adoption as a binary process, implying that companies have either adopted an innovation or not. In this paper we focus on e-commerce as an innovation that can be adopted stepwise. We distinguish between two levels of e-commerce, basic and

Adoption research, practice, and societal trends: Ten years of progress.

Science.gov (United States)

Wiley, Mary O'Leary

2017-12-01

Adoption involves the legal transfer of parental rights and responsibilities from a child's birth parents to adults who will raise the child (Reitz & Watson, 1992). Research related to adoption has expanded over the past 10 years and has incorporated more focus on implications for practice and public policy. This expansion has reflected increased awareness of the lived experience of adopted individuals, in addition to that of adoptive families and birth or first parents and families, collectively known as the adoption kinship network (Grotevant & McRoy, 1998). Trends discussed included research and social trends or movements (2007-2017) since the publication of the final article in a series of articles in the psychological literature related to adoption in The Counseling Psychologist (Baden & Wiley, 2007; Lee, 2003; O'Brien & Zamostny, 2003; Wiley & Baden, 2005; Zamostny, O'Brien, Baden, & Wiley, 2003; Zamostny, Wiley, O'Brien, Lee, & Baden, 2003). This article summarizes the social trends and research related to adoption over the last 10 years, including longitudinal and meta-analytic studies, increased research and conceptualization of ethnic and racial identity development, research on microaggressions, and research on diverse adoptive families, including those with gay and lesbian parents. Social trends included increased knowledge related to Internet accessibility, genetic information, continued focus on openness, and viewing adoption through a more critical lens. Implications are discussed for the development of programs that enhance competence of mental health professionals and adoption professionals in adoption-competent practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Parallelization of Reversible Ripple-carry Adders

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thomsen, Michael Kirkedal; Axelsen, Holger Bock

2009-01-01

The design of fast arithmetic logic circuits is an important research topic for reversible and quantum computing. A special challenge in this setting is the computation of standard arithmetical functions without the generation of \\emph{garbage}. Here, we present a novel parallelization scheme...... wherein $m$ parallel $k$-bit reversible ripple-carry adders are combined to form a reversible $mk$-bit \\emph{ripple-block carry adder} with logic depth $\\mathcal{O}(m+k)$ for a \\emph{minimal} logic depth $\\mathcal{O}(\\sqrt{mk})$, thus improving on the $mk$-bit ripple-carry adder logic depth $\\mathcal...

Time reversibility in the quantum frame

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Masot-Conde, Fátima [Escuela Superior Ingenieros, Dpt. Física Aplicada III, Universidad de Sevilla Isla Mágica, 41092- Sevilla (Spain)

2014-12-04

Classic Mechanics and Electromagnetism, conventionally taken as time-reversible, share the same concept of motion (either of mass or charge) as the basis of the time reversibility in their own fields. This paper focuses on the relationship between mobile geometry and motion reversibility. The goal is to extrapolate the conclusions to the quantum frame, where matter and radiation behave just as elementary mobiles. The possibility that the asymmetry of Time (Time’s arrow) is an effect of a fundamental quantum asymmetry of elementary particles, turns out to be a consequence of the discussion.

Promising and Reversible Electrolyte with Thermal Switching Behavior for Safer Electrochemical Storage Devices.

Science.gov (United States)

Shi, Yunhui; Zhang, Qian; Zhang, Yan; Jia, Limin; Xu, Xinhua

2018-02-28

A major stumbling block in large-scale adoption of high-energy-density electrochemical devices has been safety issues. Methods to control thermal runaway are limited by providing a one-time thermal protection. Herein, we developed a simple and reversible thermoresponsive electrolyte system that is efficient to shutdown the current flow according to temperature changes. The thermal management is ascribed to the thermally activated sol-gel transition of methyl cellulose solution, associated with the concentration of ions that can move between isolated chains freely or be restricted by entangled molecular chains. We studied the effect of cellulose concentration, substituent types, and operating temperature on the electrochemical performance, demonstrating an obvious capacity loss up to 90% approximately of its initial value. Moreover, this is a cost-effective approach that has the potential for use in practical electrochemical storage devices.

Forecasting the adoption of residential ductless heat pumps

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hlavinka, Alexander N.; Mjelde, James W.; Dharmasena, Senarath; Holland, Christine

2016-01-01

Energy-efficient technologies have the potential to provide savings to households and utilities, but consumers do not always adopt these innovations over traditional technologies. The ductless heat pump (DHP) is one such technology designed to increase energy efficiency and comfort in space conditioning. DHP adoption by single-family residences in the Pacific Northwest of the United States is investigated by quantifying the effects of utility-provided rebates and expenditures on activities such as advertising and installer training on the number of installations and forecasting installations through 2018. The number of installations is elastic with respect to net installation costs and inelastic with respect to expenditures. Given the proposed rebate budgets, doubling the current rebate is necessary to maximize installations through 2018. - Highlights: • The ductless heat pump (DHP) is an energy-efficient form of space conditioning. • Rebate and marketing programs designed to increase adoptions of DHPs are examined. • Residential adoption of DHPs is sensitive to rebates and tax credits. • Advertising and training have a smaller effect on adoption than rebates.

Adopting small-scale production of electricity

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tengvard, Maria; Palm, Jenny (Linkoeping Univ., Dept. of Technology and Social Change, Linkoeping (Sweden)). e-mail: maria.tengvard@liu.se

2009-07-01

In Sweden in 2008, a 'new' concept for small-scale electricity production attracted massive media attention. This was mainly due to the efforts of Swedish company Egen El, which is marketing small-scale photovoltaics (PVs) and wind turbines to households, both homeowners and tenants. Their main selling point is simplicity: their products are so easy to install that everyone can do it. Autumn 2008 also saw IKEA announce that within three years it would market solar panels. How, then, do households perceive these products? Why would households choose to buy them? How do households think about producing their own electricity? Analysis of material based on in-depth interviews with members of 20 households reveals that environmental concerns supply the main motive for adopting PVs or micro wind power generation. In some cases, the adopting households have an extensively ecological lifestyle and such adoption represents a way to take action in the energy area. For some, this investment is symbolic: a way of displaying environmental consciousness or setting an example to others. For still others, the adoption is a protest against 'the system' with its large dominant actors or is a way to become self-sufficient. These microgeneration installations are rejected mainly on economic grounds; other motives are respect for neighbours and difficulties finding a place to install a wind turbine.

Emerging Trends in Fostering and Child Adoption Practices among ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The paper examines emerging trends in child fostering and adoption practices among the Igbo in time perspective. It discusses traditional practices that served as alternatives to child adoption in the pre-colonial period, child adoption practice which is one of the legacies of British colonial administration and the various ...

Cloud Computing Adoption in Organisations: Review of Empirical Literature

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hassan Haslinda

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This study reviews literature on cloud computing adoption in organisations to identify its influential factors and its operationalisation in prior literature. We classify the factors that influence the cloud computing adoption using the three contexts suggested by the Technology-Organisation-Environment (TOE framework, namely, technology, organisation, and environment. The finding suggests that the influences of these factors vary across studies and most of the studies have operationalised cloud computing adoption using intention to adopt cloud computing or binary variable, rather than the actual use of the technology.

Reversible and irreversible heat engine and refrigerator cycles

Science.gov (United States)

Leff, Harvey S.

2018-05-01

Although no reversible thermodynamic cycles exist in nature, nearly all cycles covered in textbooks are reversible. This is a review, clarification, and extension of results and concepts for quasistatic, reversible and irreversible processes and cycles, intended primarily for teachers and students. Distinctions between the latter process types are explained, with emphasis on clockwise (CW) and counterclockwise (CCW) cycles. Specific examples of each are examined, including Carnot, Kelvin and Stirling cycles. For the Stirling cycle, potentially useful task-specific efficiency measures are proposed and illustrated. Whether a cycle behaves as a traditional refrigerator or heat engine can depend on whether it is reversible or irreversible. Reversible and irreversible-quasistatic CW cycles both satisfy Carnot's inequality for thermal efficiency, η ≤ η C a r n o t . Irreversible CCW cycles with two reservoirs satisfy the coefficient of performance inequality K ≤ K C a r n o t . However, an arbitrary reversible cycle satisfies K ≥ K C a r n o t when compared with a reversible Carnot cycle operating between its maximum and minimum temperatures, a potentially counterintuitive result.

Designing Novel Quaternary Quantum Reversible Subtractor Circuits

Science.gov (United States)

Haghparast, Majid; Monfared, Asma Taheri

2018-01-01

Reversible logic synthesis is an important area of current research because of its ability to reduce energy dissipation. In recent years, multiple valued logic has received great attention due to its ability to reduce the width of the reversible circuit which is a main requirement in quantum technology. Subtractor circuits are between major components used in quantum computers. In this paper, we will discuss the design of a quaternary quantum reversible half subtractor circuit using quaternary 1-qudit, 2-qudit Muthukrishnan-Stroud and 3-qudit controlled gates and a 2-qudit Generalized quaternary gate. Then a design of a quaternary quantum reversible full subtractor circuit based on the quaternary half subtractor will be presenting. The designs shall then be evaluated in terms of quantum cost, constant input, garbage output, and hardware complexity. The proposed quaternary quantum reversible circuits are the first attempt in the designing of the aforementioned subtractor.

Adoption of rainwater harvesting technologies by farmers in ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Adoption of rainwater harvesting technologies by farmers in Tanzania with particular reference to the Western, Pare Lowlands. ... in time) about adoption rather than depending on single season static data. ... AJOL African Journals Online.

Open Adoption Placement by Birth Mothers in Their Twenties.

Science.gov (United States)

Clutter, Lynn B

The purpose of this study was to summarize birth mothers' descriptions of unplanned pregnancy experienced in their twenties and how open adoption influenced their lives. Naturalistic inquiry was used with purposive sampling from one agency and telephone interviews of women who experienced unplanned pregnancy in their twenties and relinquishment through open adoption. Recorded, transcribed, and deidentified interviews were analyzed for qualitative themes. Fifteen participants judiciously weighed the open adoption decision. Over half parented other children prior to placement. Most knew they could not have parented this child due to life stressors. Placement was a hard decision, but ongoing contact with birth child and adoptive family was valued. Open adoption processes made them stronger by being happy that their child experienced family life with greater opportunities than birth mothers could offer at the time. Summarized themes used the acronym COMMITTED: C-care deeply about what is best for the child, O-ongoing open adoption: good and hard, M-meeting together regularly, M-moving on in personal growth, accomplishments, and milestones, I-independence from previous stressors or crises, T-transitions, T-therapeutic support, E-emotions, D-depression giving way to deepened strength and personal direction. Open adoption is reinforced as a positive resolution of unintended pregnancy for birth mothers in their twenties.

Economic Motives for Adopting LGBT-Related Workplace Policies

OpenAIRE

Sears, Brad; Mallory, Christy; Hunter, Nan

2011-01-01

The past decade has seen a large increase in the number of corporations adopting LGBT-related workplace policies.  This study evaluates the economic impact of non-discrimination and benefits policies by analyzing the extent to which economic reasons motivate corporations to adopt such policies.  This study reviews statements issued when adopting such policies by the top 50 Fortune 500 companies and the top 50 federal government contractors.  Overall, we find that almost all of top 50 Fortune ...

Patterns and Predictors of Adoption Openness and Contact: 14 Years Postadoption

Science.gov (United States)

Crea, Thomas M.; Barth, Richard P.

2009-01-01

Increased attention is being paid to open adoption arrangements between birth parents and adopted children and families. This study examines openness and contact among 469 adoptions at 14 years postadoption from the fourth wave of the California Long-Range Adoption Study (CLAS) and 378 adoptions matched across all waves. The proportion of families…

Adoption consideration and concerns among young adult female cancer survivors.

Science.gov (United States)

Gorman, Jessica R; Whitcomb, Brian W; Standridge, Daniel; Malcarne, Vanessa L; Romero, Sally A D; Roberts, Samantha A; Su, H Irene

2017-02-01

We compared adoption consideration between female young adult cancer survivors and women of the same age in the general US population, hypothesizing that cancer survivors who desired children would report greater interest in adoption than an age-adjusted general population sample who desired children. After age-standardizing the cancer survivor cohort to match the age distribution of the 2006-2010 National Survey for Family Growth (NSFG), we estimated adoption consideration among women age 18-35 years who wanted a (another) child in the two cohorts overall and within age groups. We assessed characteristics and concerns related to adoption consideration among cancer survivors. Among cancer survivors, 81.6 % (95 % CI 75.7-87.6) reported that they would consider adoption compared to 40.3 % (95 % CI 40.3-40.3) of women in the general population. While over 80 % of the cancer survivor sample reported that they would consider adoption, only 15 % of cancer survivors reported no concerns about adoption. The most common concerns were desire for a biological child (48 %), expense (45 %), adoption agency candidacy (41 %), and needing more information (39 %). We observed a twofold higher interest in adoption when comparing the cancer survivor with the general population, suggesting that adoption is a consideration for many young women who have survived cancer. Adoption is an important family-building option for those who want to have a child but are unable to or choose not to have a biological child. However, young adult survivors may need more support to understand and navigate this process.

Observing relationships in Finnish adoptive families: Oulu Family Rating Scale.

Science.gov (United States)

Tienari, Pekka; Wynne, Lyman C; Sorri, Anneli; Lahti, Ilpo; Moring, Juha; Nieminen, Pentti; Joukamaa, Matti; Naarala, Mikko; Seitamaa, Markku; Wahlberg, Karl-Erik; Miettunen, Jouko

2005-01-01

Adoption studies were intended to separate genetic from environmental "causal" factors. In earlier adoption studies, psychiatric diagnostic labels for the adoptive parents were used as a proxy for the multiple dimensions of the family rearing environment. In the Finnish Adoption Study, research design provided the opportunity to study directly the adoptive family rearing environment. For this purpose 33 sub-scales were selected creating what we call Oulu Family Rating Scale (OPAS, Oulun PerheArviointiSkaala). In this paper, the manual for scoring of these sub-scales is presented.

Time reversibility, computer simulation, algorithms, chaos

CERN Document Server

Hoover, William Graham

2012-01-01

A small army of physicists, chemists, mathematicians, and engineers has joined forces to attack a classic problem, the "reversibility paradox", with modern tools. This book describes their work from the perspective of computer simulation, emphasizing the author's approach to the problem of understanding the compatibility, and even inevitability, of the irreversible second law of thermodynamics with an underlying time-reversible mechanics. Computer simulation has made it possible to probe reversibility from a variety of directions and "chaos theory" or "nonlinear dynamics" has supplied a useful vocabulary and a set of concepts, which allow a fuller explanation of irreversibility than that available to Boltzmann or to Green, Kubo and Onsager. Clear illustration of concepts is emphasized throughout, and reinforced with a glossary of technical terms from the specialized fields which have been combined here to focus on a common theme. The book begins with a discussion, contrasting the idealized reversibility of ba...

Essays in technology adoption and corporate finance

OpenAIRE

Patel, Pratish

2013-01-01

This dissertation consists of three chapters that concern technology adoption and corporate finance. The first chapter analyzes the optimal investment strategy of two firms confronted with the option to adopt a new technology. The second chapter analyzes the link between debt maturity and term spread. The third chapter analyzes the role of debt financing on skyscraper heights.

Market effects on electronic health record adoption by physicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Abdolrasulnia, Maziar; Menachemi, Nir; Shewchuk, Richard M; Ginter, Peter M; Duncan, W Jack; Brooks, Robert G

2008-01-01

Despite the advantages of electronic health record (EHR) systems, the adoption of these systems has been slow among community-based physicians. Current studies have examined organizational and personal barriers to adoption; however, the influence of market characteristics has not been studied. The purpose of this study was to measure the effects of market characteristics on EHR adoption by physicians. Generalized hierarchal linear modeling was used to analyze EHR survey data from Florida which were combined with data from the Area Resource File and the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. The main outcome variable was self-reported use of EHR by physicians. A total of 2,926 physicians from practice sizes of 20 or less were included in the sample. Twenty-one percent (n = 613) indicated that they personally and routinely use an EHR system in their practice. Physicians located in counties with higher physician concentration were found to be more likely to adopt EHRs. For every one-unit increase in nonfederal physicians per 10,000 in the county, there was a 2.0% increase in likelihood of EHR adoption by physicians (odds ratio = 1.02, confidence interval = 1.00-1.03). Health maintenance organization penetration rate and poverty level were not found to be significantly related to EHR adoption. However, practice size, years in practice, Medicare payer mix, and measures of technology readiness were found to independently influence physician adoption. Market factors play an important role in the diffusion of EHRs in small medical practices. Policy makers interested in furthering the adoption of EHRs must consider strategies that would enhance the confidence of users as well as provide financial support in areas with the highest concentration of small medical practices and Medicare beneficiaries. Health care leaders should be cognizant of the market forces that enable or constrain the adoption of EHR among their practices and those of their competitors.

Ice ages and geomagnetic reversals

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Patrick

1992-01-01

There have been speculations on the relationship between climatic cooling and polarity reversals of the earth's magnetic field during the Pleistocene. Two of the common criticisms on this relationship have been the reality of these short duration geomagnetic events and the accuracy of their dates. Champion et al. (1988) have reviewed recent progress in this area. They identified a total of 10 short-duration polarity events in the last 1 Ma and 6 of these events have been found in volcanic rocks, which also have K-Ar dates. Supposing that the speculated relationship between climatic cooling and geomagnetic reversals actually exist, two mechanisms that assume climatic cooling causes short period magnetic reversals will be investigated. These two methods are core-mantle boundary topography and transfer of the rotational energy to the core.

Reverse Knowledge Transfer in MNEs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mudambi, Ram; Piscitello, Lucia; Rabbiosi, Larissa

2014-01-01

a positive correlation with the extent of reverse knowledge transfers to the parent MNE. Relying on the headquarters-subsidiary view of the MNE, we argue that, beyond a point, increasing subsidiary innovativeness will be associated with lower reverse knowledge transfers. Further, we argue......It is now well recognized that multinational enterprises (MNEs) are differentiated networks wherein subsidiaries vary in terms of their ability to create new knowledge and competencies for their parent groups. In much of this theory, it is taken for granted that subsidiary innovativeness has...... that this relationship is sensitive to the subsidiary entry mode. Using data from a sample of 293 Italian subsidiaries, we find strong support for our hypotheses. In particular, our results confirm that the effect of subsidiary innovativeness on reverse knowledge transfers displays an inverted-U shape...

Magnetic islands at the field reversal surface in reversed field pinches

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pinsker, R.I.; Reiman, A.H.

1985-09-01

In the reversed field pinch (RFP), magnetic field perturbations having zero poloidal mode number and any toroidal mode number are resonant at the field reversal surface. Such perturbations are a particular threat to the RFP because of their weak radial dependence at low toroidal mode number, and because the toroidal field ripple is essentially of this type. The widths of the resulting islands are calculated in this paper. The self-consistent plasma response is included through the assumption that the plasma relaxes to a Taylor force-free state. The connection with linear tearing mode theory is established for those limits where arbitrarily large islands result from infinitesimal perturbations. Toroidal effects are considered, and application of the theory to RFP experiments is discussed

Reversible logic synthesis methodologies with application to quantum computing

CERN Document Server

Taha, Saleem Mohammed Ridha

2016-01-01

This book opens the door to a new interesting and ambitious world of reversible and quantum computing research. It presents the state of the art required to travel around that world safely. Top world universities, companies and government institutions  are in a race of developing new methodologies, algorithms and circuits on reversible logic, quantum logic, reversible and quantum computing and nano-technologies. In this book, twelve reversible logic synthesis methodologies are presented for the first time in a single literature with some new proposals. Also, the sequential reversible logic circuitries are discussed for the first time in a book. Reversible logic plays an important role in quantum computing. Any progress in the domain of reversible logic can be directly applied to quantum logic. One of the goals of this book is to show the application of reversible logic in quantum computing. A new implementation of wavelet and multiwavelet transforms using quantum computing is performed for this purpose. Rese...

"Teaching Case": ComprehensiveCare and the Re-Adoption of an Electronic Health Records System: Preparing for a Successful Adoption after a Failed Attempt

Science.gov (United States)

Gomillion, David L.

2017-01-01

After a prior failed adoption, ComprehensiveCare plans for a second attempt in adopting Electronic Health Records. The owner-physicians on the board of directors have replaced the administrator due in part to the missteps of the prior adoption. William Shoemaker, the new administrator, must grapple with several important decisions to provide the…

The early growth and development study: a prospective adoption design.

Science.gov (United States)

Leve, Leslie D; Neiderhiser, Jenae M; Ge, Xiaojia; Scaramella, Laura V; Conger, Rand D; Reid, John B; Shaw, Daniel S; Reiss, David

2007-02-01

The Early Growth and Development Study is a prospective adoption study of birth parents, adoptive parents, and adopted children (N=359 triads) that was initiated in 2003. The primary study aims are to examine how family processes mediate or moderate the expression of genetic influences in order to aid in the identification of specific family processes that could serve as malleable targets for intervention. Participants in the study are recruited through adoption agencies located throughout the United States, following the birth of a child. Assessments occur at 6-month intervals until the child reaches 3 years of age. Data collection includes the following primary constructs: infant and toddler temperament, social behavior, and health; birth and adoptive parent personality characteristics, psychopathology, competence, stress, and substance use; adoptive parenting and marital relations; and prenatal exposure to drugs and maternal stress. Preliminary analyses suggest the representativeness of the sample and minimal confounding effects of current trends in adoption practices, including openness and selective placement. Future plans are described.

Evaluation of a novel dog adoption program in two US communities.

Science.gov (United States)

Mohan-Gibbons, Heather; Weiss, Emily; Garrison, Laurie; Allison, Meg

2014-01-01

Millions of dogs enter animal welfare organizations every year and only a fraction of them are adopted. Despite the most recent American Pet Products Association (APPA) data that nearly half the US population owns a dog, only 20% acquired their dog from an animal welfare organization. Studies show that people consider adopting from an animal shelter more often than they actually do, which indicates a potential market increase if programs can make shelter dogs more visible to adopters. This research focused on a novel adoption program where shelter dogs were transferred into foster homes who were tasked with finding an adopter. Shelter dogs were placed in the path of potential adopters and bypassed the need for the adopter to go to the shelter. The results show that this novel program was effective in a variety of ways including getting dogs adopted. Although length of stay was significantly longer for dogs in the program, the dogs were in a home environment, not taking up kennel space in the shelter. The program also had a lower rate of returns than dogs adopted at the shelter. The foster program tapped adopters in different geographical segments of the community than the dogs adopted from the shelter. By bringing shelter dogs to where adopters spend their time (ex: restaurants, parks, hair salons), the program potentially captured a segment of the population who might have obtained their dog from other sources besides the shelter (such as breeders or pet stores). This novel approach can be an effective method for adoption, has many benefits for shelters, and can tap into a new adopter market by engaging their community in a new way.

Evaluation of a Novel Dog Adoption Program in Two US Communities

Science.gov (United States)

Mohan-Gibbons, Heather; Weiss, Emily; Garrison, Laurie; Allison, Meg

2014-01-01

Millions of dogs enter animal welfare organizations every year and only a fraction of them are adopted. Despite the most recent American Pet Products Association (APPA) data that nearly half the US population owns a dog, only 20% acquired their dog from an animal welfare organization. Studies show that people consider adopting from an animal shelter more often than they actually do, which indicates a potential market increase if programs can make shelter dogs more visible to adopters. This research focused on a novel adoption program where shelter dogs were transferred into foster homes who were tasked with finding an adopter. Shelter dogs were placed in the path of potential adopters and bypassed the need for the adopter to go to the shelter. The results show that this novel program was effective in a variety of ways including getting dogs adopted. Although length of stay was significantly longer for dogs in the program, the dogs were in a home environment, not taking up kennel space in the shelter. The program also had a lower rate of returns than dogs adopted at the shelter. The foster program tapped adopters in different geographical segments of the community than the dogs adopted from the shelter. By bringing shelter dogs to where adopters spend their time (ex: restaurants, parks, hair salons), the program potentially captured a segment of the population who might have obtained their dog from other sources besides the shelter (such as breeders or pet stores). This novel approach can be an effective method for adoption, has many benefits for shelters, and can tap into a new adopter market by engaging their community in a new way. PMID:24663804

Evaluation of a novel dog adoption program in two US communities.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Heather Mohan-Gibbons

Full Text Available Millions of dogs enter animal welfare organizations every year and only a fraction of them are adopted. Despite the most recent American Pet Products Association (APPA data that nearly half the US population owns a dog, only 20% acquired their dog from an animal welfare organization. Studies show that people consider adopting from an animal shelter more often than they actually do, which indicates a potential market increase if programs can make shelter dogs more visible to adopters. This research focused on a novel adoption program where shelter dogs were transferred into foster homes who were tasked with finding an adopter. Shelter dogs were placed in the path of potential adopters and bypassed the need for the adopter to go to the shelter. The results show that this novel program was effective in a variety of ways including getting dogs adopted. Although length of stay was significantly longer for dogs in the program, the dogs were in a home environment, not taking up kennel space in the shelter. The program also had a lower rate of returns than dogs adopted at the shelter. The foster program tapped adopters in different geographical segments of the community than the dogs adopted from the shelter. By bringing shelter dogs to where adopters spend their time (ex: restaurants, parks, hair salons, the program potentially captured a segment of the population who might have obtained their dog from other sources besides the shelter (such as breeders or pet stores. This novel approach can be an effective method for adoption, has many benefits for shelters, and can tap into a new adopter market by engaging their community in a new way.

Gender differences in adoption of recommended improved cassava ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Gender differences in adoption of recommended improved cassava production ... (39%) are involved in full time farm employment and the incidence of single parenthood ... The females on the other hand recorded higher adoption rates of the ...

Factors influencing the adoption of smartphones by undergraduate ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Factors influencing the adoption of smartphones by undergraduate students at ... ha ve thus far c oncentrated on the adoption of mobile technologies especially ... who may also want to explore the implementation of mobile learning systems, ...

Reversible perspective and splitting in time.

Science.gov (United States)

Hart, Helen Schoenhals

2012-01-01

The element of time--the experience of it and the defensive use of it--is explored in conjunction with the use of reversible perspective as a psychotic defense. Clinical material from a long analysis illustrates how a psychotic patient used the reversible perspective, with its static splitting, to abolish the experience of time. When he improved and the reversible perspective became less effective for him, he replaced it with a more dynamic splitting mechanism using time gaps. With further improvement, the patient began to experience the passage of time, and along with it the excruciating pain of separation, envy, and loss.

Refractory reverse amblyopia with atropine penalization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Preeti Ajit Patil

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Pharmacological penalization with atropine has been shown to be equally effective as conventional occlusion therapy in the treatment of amblyopia in children. Reverse amblyopia of the sound eye with atropine penalization has been reported before, but is more common in cases where the effect is augmented with optical penalization and is mostly reversible. We report a case of reverse amblyopia with atropine penalization, in a 4-year-old girl, which was refractory to treatment. This report highlights the need for strict monitoring of the vision in the sound eye and regular follow-up in children undergoing amblyopia treatment.

Competing explanations for adopting energy innovations for new office buildings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vermeulen, Walter J.V.; Hovens, Jeroen

2006-01-01

An integrative model to explain potential adopters' decisions to adopt energy innovations was adapted and applied in the field of new office building construction. We tested the relative effects of competing theoretical explanations (derived from economics, innovation science and policy science) on the decision to adopt. The research covered 35 projects representing 9% of the total volume of new office construction in the Netherlands between 2000 and mid-2002. Two levels of explanations for adopting innovations were derived: (a) the potential adopter's weighed assessments of the innovations and his or her nature of decision making and (b) explanation of those first-level variables. Using multiple regression techniques, we determined the relative influence on innovation-adoption of variables covering economy and technology, government intervention, company characteristics, and influences from market and society. The decision to adopt 'mature' innovations, in contrast to 'young' innovations, is based more on routine procedures than project-specific considerations. Policies need to take this difference into consideration. We also show evidence that in promoting adoption of E-innovations for new office buildings the Dutch system of applying Energy Performance Standards and subsidies proofs to be effective

Tandem mirror and field-reversed mirror experiments

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Coensgen, F.H.; Simonen, T.C.; Turner, W.C.

1979-08-21

This paper is largely devoted to tandem mirror and field-reversed mirror experiments at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (LLL), and briefly summarizes results of experiments in which field-reversal has been achieved. In the tandem experiment, high-energy, high-density plasmas (nearly identical to 2XIIB plasmas) are located at each end of a solenoid where plasma ions are electrostatically confined by the high positive poentials arising in the end plug plasma. End plug ions are magnetically confined, and electrons are electrostatically confined by the overall positive potential of the system. The field-reversed mirror reactor consists of several small field-reversed mirror plasmas linked together for economic reasons. In the LLL Beta II experiment, generation of a field-reversed plasma ring will be investigated using a high-energy plasma gun with a transverse radial magnetic field. This plasma will be further heated and sustained by injection of intense, high-energy neutral beams.

Estimation and uncertainty of reversible Markov models.

Science.gov (United States)

Trendelkamp-Schroer, Benjamin; Wu, Hao; Paul, Fabian; Noé, Frank

2015-11-07

Reversibility is a key concept in Markov models and master-equation models of molecular kinetics. The analysis and interpretation of the transition matrix encoding the kinetic properties of the model rely heavily on the reversibility property. The estimation of a reversible transition matrix from simulation data is, therefore, crucial to the successful application of the previously developed theory. In this work, we discuss methods for the maximum likelihood estimation of transition matrices from finite simulation data and present a new algorithm for the estimation if reversibility with respect to a given stationary vector is desired. We also develop new methods for the Bayesian posterior inference of reversible transition matrices with and without given stationary vector taking into account the need for a suitable prior distribution preserving the meta-stable features of the observed process during posterior inference. All algorithms here are implemented in the PyEMMA software--http://pyemma.org--as of version 2.0.

Oxidative dissolution of ADOPT compared to standard UO2 fuel

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nilsson, Kristina; Roth, Olivia; Jonsson, Mats

2017-01-01

In this work we have studied oxidative dissolution of pure UO 2 and ADOPT (UO 2 doped with Al and Cr) pellets using H 2 O 2 and gammaradiolysis to induce the process. There is a small but significant difference in the oxidative dissolution rate of UO 2 and ADOPT pellets, respectively. However, the difference in oxidative dissolution yield is insignificant. Leaching experiments were also performed on in-reactor irradiated ADOPT and UO 2 pellets under oxidizing conditions. The results indicate that the U(VI) release is slightly slower from the ADOPT pellet compared to the UO 2. This could be attributed to differences in exposed surface area. However, fission products with low UO 2 solubility display a higher relative release from ADOPT fuel compared to standard UO 2 -fuel. This is attributed to a lower matrix solubility imposed by the dopants in ADOPT fuel. The release of Cs is higher from UO 2 which is attributed to the larger grain size of ADOPT. - Highlights: •Oxidative dissolution of ADOPT fuel is compared to standard UO 2 fuel. •Only marginal differences are observed. •The main difference observed is in the relative release rate of fission products. •Differences are claimed to be attributed to a lower matrix solubility imposed by the dopants in ADOPT fuel.

Market factors and electronic medical record adoption in medical practices.

Science.gov (United States)

Menachemi, Nir; Mazurenko, Olena; Kazley, Abby Swanson; Diana, Mark L; Ford, Eric W

2012-01-01

Previous studies identified individual or practice factors that influence practice-based physicians' electronic medical record (EMR) adoption. Less is known about the market factors that influence physicians' EMR adoption. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between environmental market characteristics and physicians' EMR adoption. The Health Tracking Physician Survey 2008 and Area Resource File (2008) were combined and analyzed. Binary logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between three dimensions of the market environment (munificence, dynamism, and complexity) and EMR adoption controlling for several physician and practice characteristics. In a nationally representative sample of 4,720 physicians, measures of market dynamism including increases in unemployment, odds ratio (OR) = 0.95, 95% confidence interval (CI) [0.91, 0.99], or poverty rates, OR = 0.93, 95% CI [0.89, 0.96], were negatively associated with EMR adoption. Health maintenance organization penetration, OR = 3.01, 95% CI [1.49, 6.05], another measure of dynamism, was positively associated with EMR adoption. Physicians practicing in areas with a malpractice crisis, OR = 0.82, 95% CI [0.71, 0.94], representing environmental complexity, had lower EMR adoption rates. Understanding how market factors relate to practice-based physicians' EMR adoption can assist policymakers to better target limited resources as they work to realize the national goal of universal EMR adoption and meaningful use.

Spontaneous direct and reverse osmosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Valitov, N.Kh.

1996-01-01

It has been ascertained experimentally that in the course of separation of CsCl, KCl, NaCl aqueous solutions by semi-permeable membrane from distilled water the direct and then reverse osmosis are observed. The same sequence is observed in case of separation of CsCl aqueous solutions from NaCl of different concentrations. The reason for the direct and reverse osmosis has been explained. 5 refs.; 3 figs. 1 tab

Adaptive Behavior in Adopted Children: Predictors from Early Risk, Collaboration in Relationships within the Adoptive Kinship Network, and Openness Arrangements.

Science.gov (United States)

Grotevant, Harold D.; Ross, Nicole M.; Marchel, Mary Ann; McRoy, Ruth G.

1999-01-01

Examined links between early risk and problematic developmental outcomes in adopted children during middle childhood. Found no direct relation between prenatal, perinatal, or preplacement risk factors and problematic socioemotional adjustment. With 12 high-risk children, proactive cooperation among the child's adoptive and birth family members on…

Reversibility of continuous-variable quantum cloning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Filip, Radim; Marek, Petr; Fiurasek, Jaromir

2004-01-01

We analyze a reversibility of optimal Gaussian 1→2 quantum cloning of a coherent state using only local operations on the clones and classical communication between them and propose a feasible experimental test of this feature. Performing Bell-type homodyne measurement on one clone and anticlone, an arbitrary unknown input state (not only a coherent state) can be restored in the other clone by applying appropriate local unitary displacement operation. We generalize this concept to a partial reversal of the cloning using only local operations and classical communication (LOCC) and we show that this procedure converts the symmetric cloner to an asymmetric cloner. Further, we discuss a distributed LOCC reversal in optimal 1→M Gaussian cloning of coherent states which transforms it to optimal 1→M ' cloning for M ' < M. Assuming the quantum cloning as a possible eavesdropping attack on quantum communication link, the reversibility can be utilized to improve the security of the link even after the attack

Ascorbyl radical disproportionation in reverse micellar systems

Science.gov (United States)

Gębicki, J. L.; Szymańska-Owczarek, M.; Pacholczyk-Sienicka, B.; Jankowski, S.

2018-04-01

Ascorbyl radical was generated by the pulse radiolysis method and observed with the fast kinetic spectrophotometry within reverse micelles stabilized by AOT in n-heptane or by Igepal CO-520 in cyclohexane at different water to surfactant molar ratio, w0. Rate constants for the disproportionation of the ascorbyl radicals were smaller than those for intermicellar exchange for both type of reverse micelles and slower than those in homogeneous aqueous solutions. However, they increased with increasing w0 for AOT/n-heptane system, while they decreased for Igepal CO-520 system. The absorption spectra of ascorbic acid AOT/n-heptane reverse micellar system showed that the "pH" sensed by this molecule is lower than that in respective homogeneous aqueous solutions. The obtained results were rationalized taking into account three main factors (i) preferential location of ascorbic acid molecules in the interfacial region of the both types of reverse micelles; (ii) postulate that the pH of the interface is lower than that of the water pool of reverse micelles and (iii) different structure of the interface of the reverse micelles made by AOT in n-heptane and those formed by Igepal CO-520 I cyclohexane. Some possible consequences of these findings are discussed.

Differences in public and private sector adoption of telemedicine: Indian case study for sectoral adoption.

Science.gov (United States)

Sood, Sanjay P; Negash, Solomon; Mbarika, Victor W A; Kifle, Mengistu; Prakash, Nupur

2007-01-01

Telemedicine is the use of communication networks to exchange medical information for providing healthcare services and medical education from one site to another. The application of telemedicine is more promising in economically developing countries with agrarian societies. The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) identifies three healthcare services: clinical medical services, health and medical education, and consumer health information. However, it is not clear how these services can be adopted by different sectors: public and private. This paper looks at four Indian case studies, two each in public and private sectors to understand two research questions: Are there differences in telemedicine adoption between public and private hospitals. If there are differences: What are the differences in telemedicine adoption between public and private sectors? Authors have used the extant literature in telemedicine and healthcare to frame theoretical background, describe the research setting, present the case studies, and provide discussion and conclusions about their findings. Authors believe that as India continues to develop its telemedicine infrastructures, especially with continued government support through subsidies to private telemedicine initiatives, its upward trend in healthcare will continue. This is expected to put India on the path to increase its life expectancy rates, especially for it rural community which constitute over 70% of its populace.

Reverse amblyopia with atropine treatment.

Science.gov (United States)

Hainline, Bryan C; Sprunger, Derek C; Plager, David A; Neely, Daniel E; Guess, Matthew G

2009-01-01

Occlusion, pharmacologic pernalization and combined therapy have been documented in controlled studies to effectively treat amblyopia with few complications. However, there remain concerns about the effectiveness and complications when, as in this case, there are not standardized treatment protocols. A retrospective chart review of 133 consecutive patients in one community based ophthalmology practice treated for amblyopia was performed. Treatments evaluated were occlusion only, atropine penalization, and combination of occlusion and atropine. Reverse amblyopia was defined as having occured when the visual acuity of the sound eye was 3 LogMar units worse than visual acuity of the amblyopia eye after treatment. Improvement in vision after 6 months and 1 year of amblyopia therapy was similar among all three groups: 0.26 LogMar lines and 0.30 in the atropine group, 0.32 and 0.34 in the occlusion group, and 0.24 and 0.32 in the combined group. Eight (6%) patients demonstrated reverse amblyopia. The mean age of those who developed reverse amblyopia was 3.5 years, 1.5 years younger than the mean age of the study population, 7/8 had strabismic amblyopia, 6/8 were on daily atropine and had a mean refractive error of +4.77 diopters in the amblyopic eye and +5.06 diopters in the sound eye. Reverse amblyopia did not occur with occlusion only therapy. In this community based ophthalmology practice, atropine, patching, and combination therapy appear to be equally effective modalities to treat ambyopia. Highly hyperopic patients under 4 years of age with dense, strabismic amblyopia and on daily atropine appeared to be most at risk for development of reverse amblyopia.

Technology adoption in nonrenewable resource management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cunha-e-Sa, Maria A.; Balcao Reis, Ana; Roseta-Palma, Catarina

2009-01-01

Technological change has played an important role in models of nonrenewable resource management, since its presence mitigates the depletion effect on extraction costs over time. We formalize the problem of a competitive nonrenewable resource extracting firm faced with the possibility of technology adoption. Based on a quadratic extraction cost function, our results show that the expected net benefits from adoption increase both with the size of the resource stock and with prices. A boundary that separates the region where expected net benefits are positive from the one where they are negative is derived. (author)

Micro magnetic modeling of magnetization reversal in permanent magnets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Toussaint, J.C.; Kevorkian, B.; Givord, D.; Rossignol, M.F.

1996-01-01

Micro magnetic numerical 3 D calculation is presented in this paper to investigate the effect of a soft magnetic heterogeneity on the magnetization reversal of a single hard magnetic grain. Both equilibrium and transient magnetization configurations are obtained by solving the dynamic Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (L.L.G.) equation. A modified forward difference method is used to integrate the time dependent L.L.G. equation without conflicting with the constraint of constant magnetic moment. A continuum view of the material medium is adopted and the spatial finite difference method is used to describe the system as a set of cubic elements. In each element the magnetization is interpolated with quadratic polynomial functions and constrained to follow the Brown condition at the surface. A multigrid approach is developed to calculate the magnetic potential and the resulting stray field associated with a given microstructure. The calculated properties are compared to actual properties of Nd Fe B sintered magnets. Assuming a soft nucleus of 160 angstrom diameter and 80 angstrom depth, the calculated coercive field is about 1.45 T, close to experimental values and the calculated angular dependence of H c resembles experimental behaviours. (author)

Designing the Reverse Supply Chain

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gobbi, Chiara

2011-01-01

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of the product residual value (PRV) and the loss of value over time of returned products in the reverse supply chain configuration. It also examines whether or not the distinction of Fisher's functional and innovative products holds...... that allows for recapturing most of the PRV. These notions have then been tested by analyzing two reverse supply chains with a case study research methodology. Findings – The findings show that low PRV is associated with second-class recovery options (recycling and energy recovery) and that high PRV...... is associated with first-class recovery options (reconditioning and remarketing). When the recovery option is recycling, time is not relevant, the primary objective is cost reduction (efficiency), the chain is centralized, and actors and phases of the reverse chain are determined by the specificity...

Green House Adoption and Nursing Home Quality.

Science.gov (United States)

Afendulis, Christopher C; Caudry, Daryl J; O'Malley, A James; Kemper, Peter; Grabowski, David C

2016-02-01

To evaluate the impact of the Green House (GH) model on nursing home resident-level quality of care measures. Resident-level minimum data set (MDS) assessments merged with Medicare inpatient claims for the period 2005 through 2010. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we compared changes in care quality and outcomes in 15 nursing homes that adopted the GH model relative to changes over the same time period in 223 matched nursing homes that had not adopted the GH model. For individuals residing in GH homes, adoption of the model lowered readmissions and several MDS measures of poor quality, including bedfast residents, catheter use, and pressure ulcers, but these results were not present across the entire GH organization, suggesting possible offsetting effects for residents of non-GH "legacy" units within the GH organization. GH adoption led to improvement in rehospitalizations and certain nursing home quality measures for individuals residing in a GH home. The absence of evidence of a decline in other clinical quality measures in GH nursing homes should reassure anyone concerned that GH might have sacrificed clinical quality for improved quality of life. © Health Research and Educational Trust.

Privacy Attitudes among Early Adopters of Emerging Health Technologies.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cynthia Cheung

Full Text Available Advances in health technology such as genome sequencing and wearable sensors now allow for the collection of highly granular personal health data from individuals. It is unclear how people think about privacy in the context of these emerging health technologies. An open question is whether early adopters of these advances conceptualize privacy in different ways than non-early adopters.This study sought to understand privacy attitudes of early adopters of emerging health technologies.Transcripts from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with early adopters of genome sequencing and health devices and apps were analyzed with a focus on participant attitudes and perceptions of privacy. Themes were extracted using inductive content analysis.Although interviewees were willing to share personal data to support scientific advancements, they still expressed concerns, as well as uncertainty about who has access to their data, and for what purpose. In short, they were not dismissive of privacy risks. Key privacy-related findings are organized into four themes as follows: first, personal data privacy; second, control over personal information; third, concerns about discrimination; and fourth, contributing personal data to science.Early adopters of emerging health technologies appear to have more complex and nuanced conceptions of privacy than might be expected based on their adoption of personal health technologies and participation in open science. Early adopters also voiced uncertainty about the privacy implications of their decisions to use new technologies and share their data for research. Though not representative of the general public, studies of early adopters can provide important insights into evolving attitudes toward privacy in the context of emerging health technologies and personal health data research.

Privacy Attitudes among Early Adopters of Emerging Health Technologies.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheung, Cynthia; Bietz, Matthew J; Patrick, Kevin; Bloss, Cinnamon S

2016-01-01

Advances in health technology such as genome sequencing and wearable sensors now allow for the collection of highly granular personal health data from individuals. It is unclear how people think about privacy in the context of these emerging health technologies. An open question is whether early adopters of these advances conceptualize privacy in different ways than non-early adopters. This study sought to understand privacy attitudes of early adopters of emerging health technologies. Transcripts from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with early adopters of genome sequencing and health devices and apps were analyzed with a focus on participant attitudes and perceptions of privacy. Themes were extracted using inductive content analysis. Although interviewees were willing to share personal data to support scientific advancements, they still expressed concerns, as well as uncertainty about who has access to their data, and for what purpose. In short, they were not dismissive of privacy risks. Key privacy-related findings are organized into four themes as follows: first, personal data privacy; second, control over personal information; third, concerns about discrimination; and fourth, contributing personal data to science. Early adopters of emerging health technologies appear to have more complex and nuanced conceptions of privacy than might be expected based on their adoption of personal health technologies and participation in open science. Early adopters also voiced uncertainty about the privacy implications of their decisions to use new technologies and share their data for research. Though not representative of the general public, studies of early adopters can provide important insights into evolving attitudes toward privacy in the context of emerging health technologies and personal health data research.

The effect of policy incentives on electric vehicle adoption

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Langbroek, Joram H.M.; Franklin, Joel P.; Susilo, Yusak O.

2016-01-01

In order to increase the attractiveness of electric vehicles (EVs), packages of policy incentives are provided in many countries. However, it is still unclear how effective different policy incentives are. Also, it is questionable that they have the same impact on different groups of people. In this study, based on a stated-choice experiment, the effect of several potential policy incentives on EV-adoption, as well as the influence of socio-psychological determinants are investigated, using constructs of the Transtheoretical Model of Change (TTM) and the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT). The probability of stated EV-adoption increases if policy incentives are offered in the choice experiment, which is expected because of the decrease of the generalized cost of EV-use. The high stated valuation of free parking or access to bus lanes makes those incentives an efficient alternative to expensive subsidies. EV-adoption probability increases for people that are further in the process of behavioural change. However, the responsiveness to subsidies decreases for people in more advanced stages-of-change. People that believe EVs to be effective in decreasing the negative externalities of the current transport system and people whose travel patterns can cope with the use of EVs also have a higher probability to choose the EV. - Highlights: •Policy incentives have a positive influence on electric vehicle adoption. •Being in advanced stages-of-change to EV-adoption increases likelihood to adopt EVs. •People in more advanced stages-of-change to EV-adoption are less price-sensitive. •People with a high self-efficacy and response efficacy are more likely to adopt EVs.

Flux trapping during field reversal in a field reversed theta pinch

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Milroy, R.D.; Hoffman, A.L.; Slough, J.T.; Harding, D.G.

1983-01-01

In this paper we present new results from both numerical and experimental studies of the formation of the conducting sheath near the tube wall and its effectiveness in trapping bias flux during field reversal

Collective epithelial cell sheet adhesion and migration on polyelectrolyte multilayers with uniform and gradients of compliance

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Martinez, Jessica S. [Department of Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306 (United States); Schlenoff, Joseph B. [Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306 (United States); Keller, Thomas C.S., E-mail: tkeller@bio.fsu.edu [Department of Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306 (United States)

2016-08-01

Polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEMUs) are tunable thin films that could serve as coatings for biomedical implants. PEMUs built layer by layer with the polyanion poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) modified with a photosensitive 4-(2-hydroxyethoxy) benzophenone (PAABp) group and the polycation poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) are mechanically tunable by UV irradiation, which forms covalent bonds between the layers and increases PEMU stiffness. PAH-terminated PEMUs (PAH-PEMUs) that were uncrosslinked, UV-crosslinked to a uniform stiffness, or UV-crosslinked with an edge mask or through a neutral density optical gradient filter to form continuous compliance gradients were used to investigate how differences in PEMU stiffness affect the adhesion and migration of epithelial cell sheets from scales of the fish Poecilia sphenops (Black Molly) and Carassius auratus (Comet Goldfish). During the progressive collective cell migration, the edge cells (also known as ‘leader’ cells) in the sheets on softer uncrosslinked PEMUs and less crosslinked regions of the gradient formed more actin filaments and vinculin-containing adherens junctions and focal adhesions than formed in the sheet cells on stiffer PEMUs or glass. During sheet migration, the ratio of edge cell to internal cell (also known as ‘follower’ cells) motilities were greater on the softer PEMUs than on the stiffer PEMUs or glass, causing tension to develop across the sheet and periods of retraction, during which the edge cells lost adhesion to the substrate and regions of the sheet retracted toward the more adherent internal cell region. These retraction events were inhibited by the myosin II inhibitor Blebbistatin, which reduced the motility velocity ratios to those for sheets on the stiffer PEMUs. Blebbistatin also caused disassembly of actin filaments, reorganization of focal adhesions, increased cell spreading at the leading edge, as well as loss of edge cell-cell connections in epithelial cell sheets on all

Collective epithelial cell sheet adhesion and migration on polyelectrolyte multilayers with uniform and gradients of compliance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Martinez, Jessica S.; Schlenoff, Joseph B.; Keller, Thomas C.S.

2016-01-01

Polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEMUs) are tunable thin films that could serve as coatings for biomedical implants. PEMUs built layer by layer with the polyanion poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) modified with a photosensitive 4-(2-hydroxyethoxy) benzophenone (PAABp) group and the polycation poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) are mechanically tunable by UV irradiation, which forms covalent bonds between the layers and increases PEMU stiffness. PAH-terminated PEMUs (PAH-PEMUs) that were uncrosslinked, UV-crosslinked to a uniform stiffness, or UV-crosslinked with an edge mask or through a neutral density optical gradient filter to form continuous compliance gradients were used to investigate how differences in PEMU stiffness affect the adhesion and migration of epithelial cell sheets from scales of the fish Poecilia sphenops (Black Molly) and Carassius auratus (Comet Goldfish). During the progressive collective cell migration, the edge cells (also known as ‘leader’ cells) in the sheets on softer uncrosslinked PEMUs and less crosslinked regions of the gradient formed more actin filaments and vinculin-containing adherens junctions and focal adhesions than formed in the sheet cells on stiffer PEMUs or glass. During sheet migration, the ratio of edge cell to internal cell (also known as ‘follower’ cells) motilities were greater on the softer PEMUs than on the stiffer PEMUs or glass, causing tension to develop across the sheet and periods of retraction, during which the edge cells lost adhesion to the substrate and regions of the sheet retracted toward the more adherent internal cell region. These retraction events were inhibited by the myosin II inhibitor Blebbistatin, which reduced the motility velocity ratios to those for sheets on the stiffer PEMUs. Blebbistatin also caused disassembly of actin filaments, reorganization of focal adhesions, increased cell spreading at the leading edge, as well as loss of edge cell-cell connections in epithelial cell sheets on all

Health information technology adoption in U.S. acute care hospitals.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Ning Jackie; Seblega, Binyam; Wan, Thomas; Unruh, Lynn; Agiro, Abiy; Miao, Li

2013-04-01

Previous studies show that the healthcare industry lags behind many other economic sectors in the adoption of information technology. The purpose of this study is to understand differences in structural characteristics between providers that do and that do not adopt Health Information Technology (HIT) applications. Publicly available secondary data were used from three sources: American Hospital Association (AHA) annual survey, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) analytics annual survey, and Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) databases. Fifty-two information technologies were grouped into three clusters: clinical, administrative, and strategic decision making ITs. Negative binomial regression was applied with adoption of technology as the dependent variables and eight organizational and contextual factors as the independent variables. Hospitals adopt a relatively larger proportion of administrative information technology as compared to clinical and strategic IT. Large size, urban location and HMO penetration were found to be the most influential hospital characteristics that positively affect information technology adoption. There are still considerable variations in the adoption of information technology across hospitals and in the type of technology adopted. Organizational factors appear to be more influential than market factors when it comes to information technology adoption. The future research may examine whether the Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program in 2011 would increase the information technology uses in hospitals as it provides financial incentives for HER adoptions and uses among providers.

Knowledge and adoption of solar home systems in rural Nicaragua

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)