Haus House

Preliminary design work for the Solar Decathlon 2014 entry Techstyle Haus completed in a wintersession 2013 RISD design studio in Erfurt, Germany taught by Jonathan Knowles. The Solar Decathlon competition challenges twenty collegiate teams to design and build sustainable homes that are powered exclusively by solar energy and incorporate sustainable architecture and design. Techstyle Haus is an international Brown University, RISD and University of Applied Sciences Erfurt,Germany collaboration designing a solar passivehaus out of high performance textiles

Techstyle Haus

Preliminary design work for the Solar Decathlon 2014 entry Techstyle Haus completed in a wintersession 2013 RISD design studio in Erfurt, Germany taught by Jonathan Knowles. The Solar Decathlon competition challenges twenty collegiate teams to design and build sustainable homes that are powered exclusively by solar energy and incorporate sustainable architecture and design. Techstyle Haus is an international Brown University, RISD and University of Applied Sciences Erfurt,Germany collaboration designing a solar passivehaus out of high performance textiles

Additecture

Preliminary design work for the Solar Decathlon 2014 entry Techstyle Haus completed in a wintersession 2013 RISD design studio in Erfurt, Germany taught by Jonathan Knowles. The Solar Decathlon competition challenges twenty collegiate teams to design and build sustainable homes that are powered exclusively by solar energy and incorporate sustainable architecture and design. Techstyle Haus is an international Brown University, RISD and University of Applied Sciences Erfurt,Germany collaboration designing a solar passivehaus out of high performance textiles

Deploying the NASA Valkyrie Humanoid for IED Response: An Initial Approach and Evaluation Summary

As part of a feasibility study, this paper shows the NASA Valkyrie humanoid robot performing an end-to-end improvised explosive device (IED) response task. To demonstrate and evaluate robot capabilities, sub-tasks highlight different locomotion, manipulation, and perception requirements: traversing uneven terrain, passing through a narrow passageway, opening a car door, retrieving a suspected IED, and securing the IED in a total containment vessel (TCV). For each sub-task, a description of the technical approach and the hidden challenges that were overcome during development are presented. The discussion of results, which explicitly includes existing limitations, is aimed at motivating continued research and development to enable practical deployment of humanoid robots for IED response. For instance, the data shows that operator pauses contribute to 50\% of the total completion time, which implies that further work is needed on user interfaces for increasing task completion efficiency.Comment: 2019 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robot

A Role for the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR) in Virulence and Antifungal Susceptibility in Aspergillus fumigatus

Filamentous fungi rely heavily on the secretory pathway, both for the delivery of cell wall components to the hyphal tip and the production and secretion of extracellular hydrolytic enzymes needed to support growth on polymeric substrates. Increased demand on the secretory system exerts stress on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which is countered by the activation of a coordinated stress response pathway termed the unfolded protein response (UPR). To determine the contribution of the UPR to the growth and virulence of the filamentous fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus, we disrupted the hacA gene, encoding the major transcriptional regulator of the UPR. The ΔhacA mutant was unable to activate the UPR in response to ER stress and was hypersensitive to agents that disrupt ER homeostasis or the cell wall. Failure to induce the UPR did not affect radial growth on rich medium at 37°C, but cell wall integrity was disrupted at 45°C, resulting in a dramatic loss in viability. The ΔhacA mutant displayed a reduced capacity for protease secretion and was growth-impaired when challenged to assimilate nutrients from complex substrates. In addition, the ΔhacA mutant exhibited increased susceptibility to current antifungal agents that disrupt the membrane or cell wall and had attenuated virulence in multiple mouse models of invasive aspergillosis. These results demonstrate the importance of ER homeostasis to the growth and virulence of A. fumigatus and suggest that targeting the UPR, either alone or in combination with other antifungal drugs, would be an effective antifungal strategy

Efficacy of brief behavioral counselling by allied health professionals to promote physical activity in people with peripheral arterial disease (BIPP): study protocol for a multi-center randomized controlled trial

Background: Physical activity is recommended for people with peripheral arterial disease (PAD), and can improve walking capacity and quality of life; and reduce pain, requirement for surgery and cardiovascular events. This trial will assess the efficacy of a brief behavioral counselling intervention delivered by allied health professionals to improve physical activity in people with PAD. Methods: This is a multi-center randomised controlled trial in four cities across Australia. Participants (N = 200) will be recruited from specialist vascular clinics, general practitioners and research databases and randomised to either the control or intervention group. Both groups will receive usual medical care, a written PAD management information sheet including advice to walk, and four individualised contacts from a protocol-trained allied health professional over 3 months (weeks 1, 2, 6, 12). The control group will receive four 15-min telephone calls with general discussion about PAD symptoms and health and wellbeing. The intervention group will receive behavioral counselling via two 1-h face-to-face sessions and two 15-min telephone calls. The counselling is based on the 5A framework and will promote interval walking for 3 × 40 min/week. Assessments will be conducted at baseline, and 4, 12 and 24 months by staff blinded to participant allocation.Objectively assessed outcomes include physical activity (primary), sedentary behavior, lower limb body function, walking capacity, cardiorespiratory fitness, event-based claudication index, vascular interventions, clinical events, cardiovascular function, circulating markers, and anthropometric measures. Self-reported outcomes include physical activity and sedentary behavior, walking ability, pain severity, and health-related quality of life. Data will be analysed using an intention-to-treat approach. An economic evaluation will assess whether embedding the intervention into routine care would likely be value for money. A cost-effectiveness analysis will estimate change in cost per change in activity indicators due to the intervention, and a cost-utility analysis will assess change in cost per quality-adjusted life year. A full uncertainty analysis will be undertaken, including a value of information analysis, to evaluate the economic case for further research. Discussion: This trial will evaluate the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of a brief behavioral counselling intervention for a common cardiovascular disease with significant burden. Trial registration: ACTRN 12614000592640 Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry. Registration Date 4 June 2014

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good

Severe early onset preeclampsia: short and long term clinical, psychosocial and biochemical aspects

Preeclampsia is a pregnancy specific disorder commonly defined as de novo hypertension and proteinuria after 20 weeks gestational age. It occurs in approximately 3-5% of pregnancies and it is still a major cause of both foetal and maternal morbidity and mortality worldwide1. As extensive research has not yet elucidated the aetiology of preeclampsia, there are no rational preventive or therapeutic interventions available. The only rational treatment is delivery, which benefits the mother but is not in the interest of the foetus, if remote from term. Early onset preeclampsia (<32 weeks’ gestational age) occurs in less than 1% of pregnancies. It is, however often associated with maternal morbidity as the risk of progression to severe maternal disease is inversely related with gestational age at onset2. Resulting prematurity is therefore the main cause of neonatal mortality and morbidity in patients with severe preeclampsia3. Although the discussion is ongoing, perinatal survival is suggested to be increased in patients with preterm preeclampsia by expectant, non-interventional management. This temporising treatment option to lengthen pregnancy includes the use of antihypertensive medication to control hypertension, magnesium sulphate to prevent eclampsia and corticosteroids to enhance foetal lung maturity4. With optimal maternal haemodynamic status and reassuring foetal condition this results on average in an extension of 2 weeks. Prolongation of these pregnancies is a great challenge for clinicians to balance between potential maternal risks on one the eve hand and possible foetal benefits on the other. Clinical controversies regarding prolongation of preterm preeclamptic pregnancies still exist – also taking into account that preeclampsia is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the Netherlands5 - a debate which is even more pronounced in very preterm pregnancies with questionable foetal viability6-9. Do maternal risks of prolongation of these very early pregnancies outweigh the chances of neonatal survival? Counselling of women with very early onset preeclampsia not only comprises of knowledge of the outcome of those particular pregnancies, but also knowledge of outcomes of future pregnancies of these women is of major clinical importance. This thesis opens with a review of the literature on identifiable risk factors of preeclampsia

Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI

Search for stop and higgsino production using diphoton Higgs boson decays

Results are presented of a search for a "natural" supersymmetry scenario with gauge mediated symmetry breaking. It is assumed that only the supersymmetric partners of the top-quark (stop) and the Higgs boson (higgsino) are accessible. Events are examined in which there are two photons forming a Higgs boson candidate, and at least two b-quark jets. In 19.7 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collision data at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, recorded in the CMS experiment, no evidence of a signal is found and lower limits at the 95% confidence level are set, excluding the stop mass below 360 to 410 GeV, depending on the higgsino mass