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Delays and cost overruns are frequent problems in the construction industries of both developed and developing countries. Studies aimed at identifying the causes are often undertaken with just a broad appreciation of the construction process and frequently do not deal with multicultural issues when considering the reasons for overruns. The paper critically reviews existing attempts to uncover the
Following a brief discussion on aspects of visual appearance and roles respectively, two user studies are presented and discussed. Both focus on learner experiences and explore the reciprocal relation between visual appearance of virtual agents and their pedagogical roles. The paper concludes with some preliminary guidelines for the early stages of the design process of virtual pedagogical agents.
The present international standards for safety, protective and occupational footwear EN ISO 20344 – 20347 classify footwear as cold protective by a pass/fail test where the limits are set for an allowed 10 °C temperature drop inside the footwear at a sole location during 30 minutes at a temperature gradient of about 40 °C. In a test of five footwear including a summer sandal it was shown that all
Fractional exhaled nitric oxide is elevated in allergen-provoked asthma. The cellular and molecular source of the elevated fractional exhaled nitric oxide is, however, uncertain.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the natural antioxidant astaxanthin in functional dyspepsia in different doses and compared with placebo. Design: The study was a controlled, prospective, randomized, and double blind trial. Participants: Patients with functional dyspepsia, divided into three groups with 44 individuals in each group (placebo, 16 mg, or 40 mg astaxan
Ovarian masses are common and a good pre-surgical assessment of their nature is important for adequate treatment. Bayesian Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLPs) using the evidence procedure were used to predict whether tumors are malignant or not. Automatic Relevance Determination (ARD) is used to select the most relevant of the 40+ available variables. Cross-validation is used to select an optimal combi
Most works published on iterative CDMA receivers assume perfect channel knowledge or very simple channel models like the flat-fading channel. We want to extend the scope to multipath propagation scenarios and suggest an iterative scheme with channel estimation in the uplink of a chip-synchronous CDMA system. Channel estimates rely on pilot symbols and a posteriori probabilities on code bits of a S
BackgroundIncidence of condyloma, or genital warts (GW), is the earliest possible disease outcome to measure when assessing the effectiveness of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination strategies. Efficacy trials that follow prespecified inclusion and exclusion criteria may not be fully generalizable to real-life HPV vaccination programs, which target a broader segment of the population. We assesse
The ESA space astrometry mission Gala, due for launch in early 2012, will in addition to its huge output of fundamental astrometric and astrophysical data also provide stringent tests of general relativity. In this paper we present an updated analysis of Gaia's capacity to measure the PPN parameter gamma as part of its core astrometric solution. The analysis is based on small-scale astrometric sol
The early science results from the new generation of high-resolution stellar spectroscopic surveys, such as Galactic Archaeology with HERMES (GALAH) and the Gaia European Southern Observatory survey (Gaia-ESO), will represent major milestones in the quest to chemically tag the Galaxy. Yet this technique to reconstruct dispersed coeval stellar groups has remained largely untested until recently. We
New laminar burning velocity measurements of 85: 15% (by volume) H-2-CO and H-2-N-2 mixtures with O-2-He oxidizer are reported at lean conditions and elevated pressures (1-10 atm). Experiments are conducted using the heat flux method at initial temperature of 298 K. In this technique a near adiabatic flame is stabilized by balancing the heat loss from the flame to the burner with heat gain to the
This paper reports on a joint numerical and experimental investigation of the release of potassium from biomass during gasification process. In this work, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) was adopted to measure quantitatively the concentration of potassium from gasifying biomass. The effect of temperature on the potassium release is investigated in hot gas mixture of CO2, H2O with diffe
According to Tulving and Thomson (1973), similarity in encoding and recall contexts will facilitate recall. We investigated if similarity between the original voice event and the voice lineup helps people to identify the target from a voice lineup and helps improve the realism in participants' confidence judgments of the identification reports. Participants (n = 199) tried to identify a voice hear
Accurate characterization of the astrometric errors in the forthcoming Gaia catalogue is essential for making optimal use of the data. Using small-scale numerical simulations of the astrometric solution, we investigate the expected spatial correlation between the astrometric errors of stars as function of their angular separation. Extrapolating to the full-scale solution for the final Gala catalog
Background Countdown to 2015 tracks progress towards achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5, with particular emphasis on within-country inequalities. We assessed how inequalities in maternal, newborn, and child health interventions vary by intervention and country. Methods We reanalysed data for 12 maternal, newborn, and child health interventions from national surveys done in
C1q is the central pattern-recognition molecule in the classical pathway of the complement system and is known to have a key role in the crossroads between adaptive and innate immunity. Hereditary C1q deficiency is a rare genetic condition strongly associated with systemic lupus erythematosus and increased susceptibility to bacterial infections. However, the clinical symptoms may vary. For long, t
The scientific objectives of the Cain mission cover areas of galactic structure and evolution, stellar astrophysics, exoplanets, solar system physics, and fundamental physics. Astrometrically, its main contribution will be the determination of millions of absolute stellar parallaxes and the establishment of a very accurate, dense and faint non-rotating optical reference frame. With a planned launc
