A sibling-controlled, prospective study of outcomes at home and school in children with severe congenital heart disease

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to compare behaviour problems and competencies, at home and school, in 7-year-old children with congenital heart disease with a sibling control group, to examine the prospective determinants of outcome from infancy, and to explore whether any gains were maintained in our sub-group of children who had participated in a previous trial of psychological interventions in infancy.
Methods: A total of 40 children who had undergone surgery to correct or palliate a significant congenital heart defect in infancy were compared (Child Behavior Checklist) with a nearest-age sibling control group (18 participants). Comparisons were made between sub-groups of children and families who had and had not participated in an early intervention trial.
Results: Problems with attention, thought and social problems, and limitations in activity and school competencies, were found in comparison with siblings. Teacher reports were consistent with parents, although problems were of a lower magnitude. Disease, surgical, and neurodevelopmental functioning in infancy were related to competence outcomes but not behaviour problems. The latter were mediated by family and maternal mental health profiles from infancy. Limited, but encouraging, gains were maintained in the sub-group that had participated in the early intervention programme.
Conclusions: The present study is strengthened by its longitudinal design, use of teacher informants, and sibling control group. The patterns of problems and limitations discerned, and differential determinants thereof, have clear implications for interventions. We consider these in the light of our previously reported intervention trial with this sample and current outcomes at the 7-year follow-up.

Surface energy and surface proton order of the ice Ih basal and prism surfaces

Density-functional theory (DFT) is used to examine the basal and prism surfaces of ice Ih. Similar surface energies are obtained for the two surfaces; however, in each case a strong dependence of the surface energy on surface proton order is identified. This dependence, which can be as much as 50% of the absolute surface energy, is significantly larger than the bulk dependence (< 1%) on proton order, suggesting that the thermodynamic ground state of the ice surface will remain proton ordered well above the bulk order-disorder temperature of about 72 K. On the basal surface this suggestion is supported by Monte Carlo simulations with an empirical potential and solution of a 2D Ising model with nearest neighbor interactions taken from DFT. Order parameters that define the surface energy of each surface in terms of nearest neighbor interactions between dangling OH bonds (those which point out of the surface into vacuum) have been identified and are discussed. Overall, these results suggest that proton order-disorder effects have a profound impact on the stability of ice surfaces and will most likely have an effect on ice surface reactivity as well as ice crystal growth and morphology. S Supplementary data are available from stacks.iop.org/JPhysCM/22/074209/mmedia

Global quantum correlations in finite-size spin chains

We perform an extensive study of the properties of global quantum correlations in finite-size one-dimensional quantum spin models at finite temperature. By adopting a recently proposed measure for global quantum correlations (Rulli and Sarandy 2011 Phys. Rev. A 84 042109), called global discord, we show that critical points can be neatly detected even for many-body systems that are not in their ground state. We consider the transverse Ising model, the cluster-Ising model where three-body couplings compete with an Ising-like interaction, and the nearest-neighbor XX Hamiltonian in transverse magnetic field. These models embody our canonical examples showing the sensitivity of global quantum discord close to criticality. For the Ising model, we find a universal scaling of global discord with the critical exponents pertaining to the Ising universality class.

Proximity to a tobacco store and smoking cessation:A cohort study

Background
It is not clear whether the availability of tobacco affects the likelihood of smoking cessation. We examined whether the proximity to a tobacco store and
the number of stores were associated with smoking cessation, and compared results for proximity variables based on walking and straight-line (as the crow flies) distance.

Methods
The study population consisted of 8751 baseline smokers from the Finnish Public Sector study in 1997–2005. Smoking intensity (cigarettes/day) was
determined at baseline and smoking cessation was determined from a follow-up survey in 2008–2009. Proximity was measured using straight-line and walking
distance from home to the nearest tobacco store, and another exposure variable was the number of stores within 0.50 km from home. We calculated associations
with log-binomial regression models, adjusting for individual-level and area-level confounders.

Results
Of the participants, 3482 (39.8%) quit smoking during the follow-up (mean follow-up 5.5 years, SD 2.3 years). Among men who were moderate/heavy smokers at baseline and lived <0.50 km walking distance from the nearest tobacco store, the likelihood of smoking cessation was 27% (95% CI 12% to 40%) lower compared with those living ≥0.50 km from a store. Having even one store within 0.50 km walking distance from home decreased cessation in men who were moderate/heavy smokers by 37% (95% CI 19% to 51%). No decrease was found for men who were light smokers at baseline or for women.

Conclusions
Living within walking distance of a tobacco store reduced the likelihood of smoking cessation among men who were moderate/heavy smokers.

The progenitor mass of the Type IIP supernova SN 2004et from late-time spectral modeling

SN 2004et is one of the nearest and best-observed Type IIP supernovae, with a progenitor detection as well as good photometric and spectroscopic observational coverage well into the nebular phase. Based on nucleosynthesis from stellar evolution/explosion models we apply spectral modeling to analyze its 140-700 day evolution from ultraviolet to mid-infrared. We find a M_ZAMS= 15 Msun progenitor star (with an oxygen mass of 0.8 Msun) to satisfactorily reproduce [O I] 6300, 6364 {\AA} and other emission lines of carbon, sodium, magnesium, and silicon, while 12 Msun and 19 Msun models under- and overproduce most of these lines, respectively. This result is in fair agreement with the mass derived from the progenitor detection, but in disagreement with hydrodynamical modeling of the early-time light curve. From modeling of the mid-infrared iron-group emission lines, we determine the density of the "Ni-bubble" to rho(t) = 7E-14*(t/100d)^-3 g cm^-3, corresponding to a filling factor of f = 0.15 in the metal core region (V = 1800 km/s). We also confirm that silicate dust, CO, and SiO emission are all present in the spectra.

Long-range multipartite entanglement close to a first-order quantum phase transition

We provide insight into the quantum correlations structure present in strongly correlated systems beyond the standard framework of bipartite entanglement. To this aim we first exploit rotationally invariant states as a test bed to detect genuine tripartite entanglement beyond the nearest neighbor in spin-1/2 models. Then we construct in a closed analytical form a family of entanglement witnesses which provides a sufficient condition to determine if a state of a many-body system formed by an arbitrary number of spin-1/2 particles possesses genuine tripartite entanglement, independently of the details of the model. We illustrate our method by analyzing in detail the anisotropic XXZ spin chain close to its phase transitions, where we demonstrate the presence of long-range multipartite entanglement near the critical point and the breaking of the symmetries associated with the quantum phase transition.

ZIL: An Energy-Efficient Indoor Localization System Using ZigBee Radio to Detect WiFi Fingerprints

In existing WiFi-based localization methods, smart mobile devices consume quite a lot of power as WiFi interfaces need to be used for frequent AP scanning during the localization process. In this work, we design an energy-efficient indoor localization system called ZigBee assisted indoor localization (ZIL) based on WiFi fingerprints via ZigBee interference signatures. ZIL uses ZigBee interfaces to collect mixed WiFi signals, which include non-periodic WiFi data and periodic beacon signals. However, WiFi APs cannot be identified from these WiFi signals by ZigBee interfaces directly. To address this issue, we propose a method for detecting WiFi APs to form WiFi fingerprints from the signals collected by ZigBee interfaces. We propose a novel fingerprint matching algorithm to align a pair of fingerprints effectively. To improve the localization accuracy, we design the K-nearest neighbor (KNN) method with three different weighted distances and find that the KNN algorithm with the Manhattan distance performs best. Experiments show that ZIL can achieve the localization accuracy of 87%, which is competitive compared to state-of-the-art WiFi fingerprint-based approaches, and save energy by 68% on average compared to the approach based on WiFi interface.

Secure D2D Communication in Large-Scale Cognitive Cellular Networks with Wireless Power Transfer

In this paper, we investigate secure device-to-device (D2D) communication in energy harvesting large-scale cognitive cellular networks. The energy constrained D2D transmitter harvests energy from multi-antenna equipped power beacons (PBs), and communicates with the corresponding receiver using the spectrum of the cellular base stations (BSs). We introduce a power transfer model and an information signal model to enable wireless energy harvesting and secure information transmission. In the power transfer model, we propose a new power transfer policy, namely, best power beacon (BPB) power transfer. To characterize the power transfer reliability of the proposed policy, we derive new closed-form expressions for the exact power outage probability and the asymptotic power outage probability with large antenna arrays at PBs. In the information signal model, we present a new comparative framework with two receiver selection schemes: 1) best receiver selection (BRS), and 2) nearest receiver selection (NRS). To assess the secrecy performance, we derive new expressions for the secrecy throughput considering the two receiver selection schemes using the BPB power transfer policies. We show that secrecy performance improves with increasing densities of PBs and D2D receivers because of a larger multiuser diversity gain. A pivotal conclusion is reached that BRS achieves better secrecy performance than NRS but demands more instantaneous feedback and overhead.

Match-fixing and Money-laundering

his essay is premised on the following: a conspiracy to fix or otherwise manipulate the outcome of a sporting event for profitable purpose. That conspiracy is in turn predicated on the conspirators’ capacity to: (a) ensure that the fix takes place as pre-determined; (b) manipulate the betting markets that surround the sporting event in question; and (c) collect their winnings undetected by either the betting industry’s security systems or the attention of any national regulatory body or law enforcement agency.

Unlike many essays on this topic, this contribution does not focus on the “fix”– part (a) of the above equation. It does not seek to explain how or why a participant or sports official might facilitate a betting scam through either on-field behaviour that manipulates the outcome of a game or by presenting others with privileged inside information in advance of a game. Neither does this contribution seek to give any real insight into the second part of the above equation: how such conspirators manipulate a sports betting market by playing or laying the handicap or in-play or other offered betting odds. In fact, this contribution is not really about the mechanics of sports betting or match fixing at all; rather it is about the sometimes under explained reason why match fixing has reportedly become increasingly attractive as of late to international crime syndicates. That reason relates to the fact that given the traditional liquidity of gambling markets, sports betting can, and has long been, an attractively accessible conduit for criminal syndicates to launder the proceeds of crime. Accordingly, the term “winnings”, noted in part (c) of the above equation, takes on an altogether more nefarious meaning.

This essay’s attempt to review the possible links between match fixing in sport, gambling-related “winnings” and money laundering is presented in four parts.

First, some context will be given to what is meant by money laundering, how it is currently policed internationally and, most importantly, how the growth of online gambling presents a unique set of vulnerabilities and opportunities to launder the proceeds of crime. The globalisation of organised crime, sports betting and transnational financial services now means that money laundering opportunities have moved well beyond a flutter on the horses at your local racetrack or at the roulette table of your nearest casino. The growth of online gambling platforms means that at a click it is possible for the proceeds of crime in one jurisdiction to be placed on a betting market in another jurisdiction with the winnings drawn down and laundered in a third jurisdiction and thus the internationalisation of gambling-related money laundering threatens the integrity of sport globally.

Second, and referring back to the infamous hearings of the US Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organised Crime in Interstate Commerce of the early 1950s, (“the Kefauver Committee”), this article will begin by illustrating the long standing interest of organised crime gangs – in this instance, various Mafia families in the United States – in money laundering via sports gambling-related means.

Third, and using the seminal 2009 report “Money Laundering through the Football Sector” by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF, an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system), this essay seeks to assess the vulnerabilities of international sport to match fixing, as motivated in part by the associated secondary criminality of tax evasion and transnational economic crime.

The fourth and concluding parts of the essay spin from problems to possible solutions. The underlying premise here is that heretofore there has been an insularity to the way that sports organisations have both conceptualised and sought to address the match fixing threat e.g., if we (in sport) initiate player education programmes; establish integrity units; enforce codes of conduct and sanctions strictly; then our integrity or brand should be protected. This essay argues that, although these initiatives are important, the source and process of match fixing is beyond sport’s current capacity, as are the possible solutions.

Genetic diversity of root-associated fungal endophytes from Calluna vulgaris at contrasting field sites

A total of 107 putative ericoid mycorrhizal endophytes were isolated from hair roots of Calluna vulgaris from two abandoned arsenic/copper mine sites and a natural heathland site in southwest England. The endophytes were initially grouped as 14 RFLP types, based on the results of ITS-RFLP analysis using the restriction endonucleases Hinf I, Rsa I and Hae III. ITS sequences were obtained for representative isolates from each RFLP type and compared phylogenetically with sequences for known ericoid mycorrhizal endophytes and selected ascomycetes. The majority of endophyte isolates (62-92%) from each site were identified as Hymenoscyphus ericae, but a number of other less common mycorrhizal RFLP types were also identified, all of which appear to have strong affinities with the order Leotiales. None of the less common RFLP types was isolated from C. vulgaris at more than one field site. Neighbour-joining analysis indicated similarities between the endophytes from C. vulgaris and mycorrhizal endophytes isolated from other Ericaceae and Epacridaceae hosts in North America and Australia.

Control of wild rubber extraction in the forests of northeast India, 1850-1880

This paper uses the history of rubber extraction to explore competing attempts to control the forest environments of Assam and beyond in the second half of the nineteenth century. Forest communities faced rival efforts at environmental control from both European and Indian traders, as well as from various centres of authority within the Raj. Government attempts to regulate rubber collection were undermined by the weak authority of the Raj in these regions, leading to widespread smuggling. Partly in response to the disruptive influence of rubber traders on the frontier, the Raj began to restrict the presence of outsiders in tribal regions, which came to be understood as distinct areas outside British control. When rubber yields from the forests nearest the Brahmaputra fell in the wake of intensive exploitation, India's scientific foresters demanded and from 1870 obtained the ability to regulate the Assamese forests, blaming indigenous rubber tapping strategies for the declining yields and arguing that Indian rubber could be ‘equal [to] if not better' than Amazonian rubber if only tappers would change their practices. The knowledge of the scientific foresters was fundamentally flawed, however, and their efforts to establish a new type of tapping practice failed. By 1880, the government had largely abandoned attempts to regulate wild Indian rubber, though wild sources continued to dominate the supply of global rubber until after 1910.

Efficient Processing of Spatial Group Keyword Queries

With the proliferation of geo-positioning and geo-tagging techniques, spatio-textual objects that possess both a geographical location and a textual description are gaining in prevalence, and spatial keyword queries that exploit both location and textual description are gaining in prominence. However, the queries studied so far generally focus on finding individual objects that each satisfy a query rather than finding groups of objects where the objects in a group together satisfy a query.

We define the problem of retrieving a group of spatio-textual objects such that the group's keywords cover the query's keywords and such that the objects are nearest to the query location and have the smallest inter-object distances. Specifically, we study three instantiations of this problem, all of which are NP-hard. We devise exact solutions as well as approximate solutions with provable approximation bounds to the problems. In addition, we solve the problems of retrieving top-k groups of three instantiations, and study a weighted version of the problem that incorporates object weights. We present empirical studies that offer insight into the efficiency of the solutions, as well as the accuracy of the approximate solutions.

Whole Genome Sequencing Reveals Local Transmission Patterns of Mycobacterium bovis in Sympatric Cattle and Badger Populations

Whole genome sequencing (WGS) technology holds great promise as a tool for the forensic epidemiology of bacterial pathogens. It is likely to be particularly useful for studying the transmission dynamics of an observed epidemic involving a largely unsampled 'reservoir' host, as for bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in British and Irish cattle and badgers. BTB is caused by Mycobacterium bovis, a member of the M. tuberculosis complex that also includes the aetiological agent for human TB. In this study, we identified a spatio-temporally linked group of 26 cattle and 4 badgers infected with the same Variable Number Tandem Repeat (VNTR) type of M. bovis. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) between sequences identified differences that were consistent with bacterial lineages being persistent on or near farms for several years, despite multiple clear whole herd tests in the interim. Comparing WGS data to mathematical models showed good correlations between genetic divergence and spatial distance, but poor correspondence to the network of cattle movements or within-herd contacts. Badger isolates showed between zero and four SNP differences from the nearest cattle isolate, providing evidence for recent transmissions between the two hosts. This is the first direct genetic evidence of M. bovis persistence on farms over multiple outbreaks with a continued, ongoing interaction with local badgers. However, despite unprecedented resolution, directionality of transmission cannot be inferred at this stage. Despite the often notoriously long timescales between time of infection and time of sampling for TB, our results suggest that WGS data alone can provide insights into TB epidemiology even where detailed contact data are not available, and that more extensive sampling and analysis will allow for quantification of the extent and direction of transmission between cattle and badgers. © 2012 Biek et al.

Efficient RkNN Retrieval with Arbitrary Non-Metric Similarity Measures

A RkNN query returns all objects whose nearest k neighbors
contain the query object. In this paper, we consider RkNN
query processing in the case where the distances between
attribute values are not necessarily metric. Dissimilarities
between objects could then be a monotonic aggregate of dissimilarities
between their values, such aggregation functions
being specified at query time. We outline real world cases
that motivate RkNN processing in such scenarios. We consider
the AL-Tree index and its applicability in RkNN query
processing. We develop an approach that exploits the group
level reasoning enabled by the AL-Tree in RkNN processing.
We evaluate our approach against a Naive approach
that performs sequential scans on contiguous data and an
improved block-based approach that we provide. We use
real-world datasets and synthetic data with varying characteristics
for our experiments. This extensive empirical
evaluation shows that our approach is better than existing
methods in terms of computational and disk access costs,
leading to significantly better response times.

Secure D2D Communication in Large-Scale Cognitive Cellular Networks: A Wireless Power Transfer Model

In this paper, we investigate secure device-to-device (D2D) communication in energy harvesting large-scale cognitive cellular networks. The energy constrained D2D transmitter harvests energy from multiantenna equipped power beacons (PBs), and communicates with the corresponding receiver using the spectrum of the primary base stations (BSs). We introduce a power transfer model and an information signal model to enable wireless energy harvesting and secure information transmission. In the power transfer model, three wireless power transfer (WPT) policies are proposed: 1) co-operative power beacons (CPB) power transfer, 2) best power beacon (BPB) power transfer, and 3) nearest power beacon (NPB) power transfer. To characterize the power transfer reliability of the proposed three policies, we derive new expressions for the exact power outage probability. Moreover, the analysis of the power outage probability is extended to the case when PBs are equipped with large antenna arrays. In the information signal model, we present a new comparative framework with two receiver selection schemes: 1) best receiver selection (BRS), where the receiver with the strongest channel is selected; and 2) nearest receiver selection (NRS), where the nearest receiver is selected. To assess the secrecy performance, we derive new analytical expressions for the secrecy outage probability and the secrecy throughput considering the two receiver selection schemes using the proposed WPT policies. We presented Monte carlo simulation results to corroborate our analysis and show: 1) secrecy performance improves with increasing densities of PBs and D2D receivers due to larger multiuser diversity gain; 2) CPB achieves better secrecy performance than BPB and NPB but consumes more power; and 3) BRS achieves better secrecy performance than NRS but demands more instantaneous feedback and overhead. A pivotal conclusion- is reached that with increasing number of antennas at PBs, NPB offers a comparable secrecy performance to that of BPB but with a lower complexity.