Re-Evaluating The Underlying Premises Of Free Market Privatization In Current Dispensation

The contextual framework or policy orthodoxy persuading the implementation of privatization was the prevalent thinking that economic systems functioned best in a “free market”, with little or no government intervention. In the same vein was the belief that a more productive allocation and rationalization of factors of production will dictate a wholesale transfer from public to private sector of the ownership and control of productive assets, their allocation and pricing, including the residual profits flowing from them. The most effective vehicle for such implementation of free market privatization was adjudged to be unfettered deregulation. To the extent that it enabled the untangling of bureaucratic impediments to the inflow and retention of capital to the countries by way of foreign direct investment (FDI) and portfolio investment (PI), including the repatriation of resultant profits, it was a welcome outcome. Unfettered deregulation, as clearly manifested in recent years, particularly in well-known developed economies, appears to have produced an outcome substantially inconsistent with the traditional suppositions, begging the obvious question in the minds of academicians and policymakers alike. Where to, from here? The answer to the apparent conflict and/or contradiction is more urgent in the developing and emerging economies where privatization, and in a broader sense, the ideas and practices based on free market principles and on free market prescriptions have been promoted and sold as sacrosanct, if not necessary for their economic growth and survival. Given the current state of the global financial market which, at best, can be said to be in a state of flux, and the myriads of supposedly economic development initiatives invoking the likes of privatization  and deregulation, we are tempted to ask the following questions:  Are there any fixes? Could there be better, more accommodating alternative assumption(s), doctrine(s) or paradigm(s)

Nominal Logic Programming

Nominal logic is an extension of first-order logic which provides a simple foundation for formalizing and reasoning about abstract syntax modulo consistent renaming of bound names (that is, alpha-equivalence). This article investigates logic programming based on nominal logic. We describe some typical nominal logic programs, and develop the model-theoretic, proof-theoretic, and operational semantics of such programs. Besides being of interest for ensuring the correct behavior of implementations, these results provide a rigorous foundation for techniques for analysis and reasoning about nominal logic programs, as we illustrate via examples.Comment: 46 pages; 19 page appendix; 13 figures. Revised journal submission as of July 23, 200

Minimal symmetric Darlington synthesis

We consider the symmetric Darlington synthesis of a p x p rational symmetric Schur function S with the constraint that the extension is of size 2p x 2p. Under the assumption that S is strictly contractive in at least one point of the imaginary axis, we determine the minimal McMillan degree of the extension. In particular, we show that it is generically given by the number of zeros of odd multiplicity of I-SS*. A constructive characterization of all such extensions is provided in terms of a symmetric realization of S and of the outer spectral factor of I-SS*. The authors's motivation for the problem stems from Surface Acoustic Wave filters where physical constraints on the electro-acoustic scattering matrix naturally raise this mathematical issue

MP3 - A meteorology and physical properties package to explore air-sea interaction on Titan

The exchange of mass, heat and momentum at the air:sea interface are profound influences on the terrestrial environment, affecting the intensity of hurricanes, the size of waves and lake-effect precipitation. Titan presents us with an opportunity to study these processes in a novel physical context, with a different sea, atmosphere and gravity. The MP3 instrument, under development for the proposed Discovery mission TiME (Titan Mare Explorer [1,2]) is an integrated suite of small, simple sensors that combines the function of traditional meteorology packages with liquid physical properties and depth-sounding : these latter functions follow the concept of - and indeed use spare elements from - the Huygens Surface Science Package (SSP,[3]). However, unlike Huygens’ brief and dynamic 3 hours of measurement, in TiME’s 6-Titan-day (96 Earth day) nominal mission enabled by radioisotope power, MP3 will have an unprecedented long-term measurement opportunity in one of the most evocative environments in the solar system, Titan’s sea Ligeia Mare

Cardioprotective effect of the mitochondrial unfolded protein response during chronic pressure overload

Background The mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt) is activated when misfolded proteins accumulate within mitochondria and leads to increased expression of mitochondrial chaperones and proteases to maintain protein quality and mitochondrial function. Cardiac mitochondria are essential for contractile function and regulation of cell viability, while mitochondrial dysfunction characterizes heart failure. The role of the UPRmt in the heart is unclear. Objectives The purpose of this study was to: 1) identify conditions that activate the UPRmt in the heart; and 2) study the relationship among the UPRmt, mitochondrial function, and cardiac contractile function. Methods Cultured cardiac myocytes were subjected to different stresses in vitro. Mice were subjected to chronic pressure overload. Tissues and blood biomarkers were studied in patients with aortic stenosis. Results Diverse neurohumoral or mitochondrial stresses transiently induced the UPRmt in cultured cardiomyocytes. The UPRmt was also induced in the hearts of mice subjected to chronic hemodynamic overload. Boosting the UPRmt with nicotinamide riboside (which augments NAD+ pools) in cardiomyocytes in vitro or hearts in vivo significantly mitigated the reductions in mitochondrial oxygen consumption induced by these stresses. In mice subjected to pressure overload, nicotinamide riboside reduced cardiomyocyte death and contractile dysfunction. Myocardial tissue from patients with aortic stenosis also showed evidence of UPRmt activation, which correlated with reduced tissue cardiomyocyte death and fibrosis and lower plasma levels of biomarkers of cardiac damage (high-sensitivity troponin T) and dysfunction (N-terminal pro–B-type natriuretic peptide). Conclusions These results identify the induction of the UPRmt in the mammalian (including human) heart exposed to pathological stresses. Enhancement of the UPRmt ameliorates mitochondrial and contractile dysfunction, suggesting that it may serve an important protective role in the stressed heart

​Residential mobility:Towards progress in mobility health research

Research into health disparities has long recognized the importance of residential mobility as a crucial factor in determining health outcomes. However, a lack of connectivity between the health and mobility literatures has led to a stagnation of theory and application on the health side, which lacks the detail and temporal perspectives now seen as critical to understanding residential mobility decisions. Through a critical re-think of mobility processes with respect to health outcomes and an exploitation of longitudinal analytical techniques, we argue that health geographers have the potential to better understand and identify the relationship that residential mobility has with health.“The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 615159 (ERC Consolidator Grant DEPRIVEDHOODS, Socio-spatial inequality, deprived neighbourhoods, and neighbourhood effects)”OLD Urban Renewal and Housin

The effectiveness of problem solving therapy for stroke patients: Study protocol for a pragmatic randomized controlled trial

Background: Coping style is one of the determinants of health-related quality of life after stroke. Stroke patients make less use of active problem-oriented coping styles than other brain damaged patients. Coping styles can be influenced by means of intervention. The primary aim of this study is to investigate if Problem Solving Therapy is an effective group intervention for improving coping style and health-related quality of life in stroke patients. The secondary aim is to determine the effect of Problem Solving Therapy on depression, social participation, health care consumption, and to determine the cost-effectiveness of the intervention.Methods/design: We strive to include 200 stroke patients in the outpatient phase of rehabilitation treatment, using a multicenter pragmatic randomized controlled trial with one year follow-up. Patients in the intervention group will receive Problem Solving Therapy in addition to the standard rehabilitation program. The intervention will be provided in an open group design, with a continuous flow of patients. Primary outcome measures are coping style and health-related quality of life. Secondary outcome measures are depression, social participation, health care consumption, and the cost-effectiveness of the intervention.Discussion: We designed our study as close to the implementation in practice as possible, using a pragmatic randomized trial and open group design, to represent a realistic estimate of the effectiveness of the intervention. If effective, Problem Solving Therapy is an inexpensive, deliverable and sustainable group intervention for stroke rehabilitation programs.Trial registration: Nederlands Trial Register, NTR2509

Generating Performance Portable Code using Rewrite Rules: From High-Level Functional Expressions to High-Performance OpenCL Code

Computers have become increasingly complex with the emergence of heterogeneous hardware combining multicore CPUs and GPUs. These parallel systems exhibit tremendous computational power at the cost of increased programming effort resulting in a tension between performance and code portability. Typically, code is either tuned in a low-level imperative language using hardware-specific optimizations to achieve maximum performance or is written in a high-level, possibly functional, language to achieve portability at the expense of performance. We propose a novel approach aiming to combine high-level programming, code portability, and high-performance. Starting from a high-level functional expression we apply a simple set of rewrite rules to transform it into a low-level functional representation, close to the OpenCL programming model, from which OpenCL code is generated. Our rewrite rules define a space of possible implementations which we automatically explore to generate hardware-specific OpenCL implementations. We formalize our system with a core dependently-typed λ-calculus along with a denotational semantics which we use to prove the correctness of the rewrite rules. We test our design in practice by implementing a compiler which generates high performance imperative OpenCL code. Our experiments show that we can automatically derive hardware-specific implementations from simple functional high-level algorithmic expressions offering performance on a par with highly tuned code for multicore CPUs and GPUs written by experts

Baseline predictors of mortality among predominantly rural-dwelling end-stage renal disease patients on chronic dialysis therapies in Limpopo, South Africa

BACKGROUND: Dialysis therapy for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) continues to be the readily available renal replacement option in developing countries. While the impact of rural/remote dwelling on mortality among dialysis patients in developed countries is known, it remains to be defined in sub-Saharan Africa. METHODS: A single-center database of end-stage renal disease patients on chronic dialysis therapies treated between 2007 and 2014 at the Polokwane Kidney and Dialysis Centre (PKDC) of the Pietersburg Provincial Hospital, Limpopo South Africa, was retrospectively reviewed. All-cause, cardiovascular, and infection-related mortalities were assessed and associated baseline predictors determined. RESULTS: Of the 340 patients reviewed, 52.1% were male, 92.9% were black Africans, 1.8% were positive for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and 87.5% were rural dwellers. The average distance travelled to the dialysis centre was 112.3 ± 73.4 Km while 67.6% of patients lived in formal housing. Estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) at dialysis initiation was 7.1 ± 3.7 mls/min while hemodialysis (HD) was the predominant modality offered (57.1%). Ninety-two (92) deaths were recorded over the duration of follow-up with the majority (34.8%) of deaths arising from infection-related causes. Continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) was a significant predictor of all-cause mortality (HR: 1.62, CI: 1.07-2.46) and infection-related mortality (HR: 2.27, CI: 1.13-4.60). On multivariable cox regression, CAPD remained a significant predictor of all-cause mortality (HR: 2.00, CI: 1.29-3.10) while the risk of death among CAPD patients was also significantly modified by diabetes mellitus (DM) status (HR: 4.99, CI: 2.13-11.71). CONCLUSION: CAPD among predominantly rural dwelling patients in the Limpopo province of South Africa is associated with an increased risk of death from all-causes and infection-related causes