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Using U.S. household‐level data and plausibly exogenous variation in the location‐timing of home purchases with a single lender, I find that negative home equity causes a 2% to 6% reduction in household labor supply. Supporting causality, households are observationally equivalent at origination and equally sensitive to local housing shocks that do not cause negative equity. Results also hold comparing purchases within the same year‐metropolitan statistical area that differ by only a few months. Though multiple channels are likely at work, evidence of nonlinear effects is broadly consistent with costs associated with housing lock and financial distress.

The use of antibiotic lock solutions as prophylaxis for catheter-associated blood stream infection (CRBSI) has been shown to be effective in previous randomized controlled trials. However, the cost-effectiveness of this approach had not been studied. In 2012, the routine gentamicin-heparin lock solution used in Auckland City Hospital was withdrawn from the market, leading to a change to heparin-only lock. This was then replaced with gentamicin-citrate lock in 2014. This situation allowed review of the CRBSI rate and financial impact of different catheter lock solutions. A retrospective audit was performed from 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2015 to investigate the rate of culture-proven CRBSI in patients with tunneled cuffed dialysis catheters. There were 89 cases of CRBSI involving 64 patients in the 5-year period. In comparison with the heparin-only lock, both gentamicin-heparin and gentamicin-citrate locks had a significantly lower rate of bacteremia, with rate ratios of 0.46 (confidence interval 0.30-0.72) and 0.11 (confidence interval 0.05-0.22), respectively. The inpatient costs as a consequence of the CRBSI were NZ$27 792 per 1000 catheter days for heparin-only lock, NZ$10 608.56 per 1000 catheter days for gentamicin-heparin lock, and NZ$ 1898.45 per 1000 catheter days for gentamicin-citrate lock. The lack of antibiotic lock solutions led to an increase in bacteremia rates and higher financial cost for inpatient management of bacteremia. Our findings highlight the importance of consistent supply of pharmaceuticals.

Prosthetic rehabilitation of a completely edentulous patient should never be restricted to the replacement of missing teeth. The ultimate aim of complete denture treatment should be restoration of the full range of oral functions and esthetics. Slumped cheeks are always a concern for esthetically demanding complete denture patients. This article describes a simple, scientific, cost-effective technique to improve facial esthetics in a completely edentulous patient with the help of a cheek plumper. The technique used here implements the concept of neutral zone to precisely determine the amount of space available for the cheek plumper. The simple friction lock attachments that retained the cheek plumpers on the prosthesis were also fabricated after determining the space available in the appropriate areas. Thus an effort was made to keep the cheek plumpers unobtrusive yet effective to ensure complete integration of the prosthesis into the stomatognathic system.

The present work demonstrates a new fully regenerative, molecular machine-like “ON-OFF-ON” chemosensor based on a β-carboline molecule “OFF-ON-OFF” cycle. It behaves as a molecular lock that requires a hydrogen sulfate (HSO4−) ion as “key” to open the lock and a fluoride (F−) ion as “hand” that removes the key from the lock to close the lock. The reversibility and reusability of sensor for the detection of hydrogen sulfate and fluoride ions were tested for six cycles. Experimental and computational studies reveal that the proton transfer process from hydrogen sulfate (HSO4−) ion to the pyridinic nitrogen atom of norharmane leading to the formation of a hydrogen bonded ion pair (HBIP) provides the optical changes in the visible region that are advantageous for real time and on-site application.

4,4'-Biphenol (BPO), a common, cheap chemical, is employed as a "molecular lock" in blends of fluorine-containing polymer or small molecule donors and fullerene acceptors to lock donors via hydrogen bond formed between the donor and BPO. The molecular lock is a versatile key to enhance the efficiency and stability of organic solar cells simultaneously.

Could we be unwittingly divesting too much control in technology? In so doing, could we be sleepwalking into a future in which our personal assets are no longer ours, but all too easily relinquished by the bank or mortgage company? Molly Wright Steenson, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, thinks so. She evokes an arresting vision of a close future in which our smartphones and the operating systems integrated within our cars and homes become our friend-enemy, immediately locking us out when they are no longer programmed to respond directly to our touch.

Enzyme-substrate interactions are a fundamental concept of biochemistry that is built upon throughout multiple biochemistry courses. Central to understanding enzyme-substrate interactions is specific knowledge of exactly how an enzyme and substrate interact. Within this narrower topic, students must understand the various binding sites on an enzyme and be able to reason from simplistic lock and key or induced fit models to the more complex energetics model of transition state theory. Learning to understand these many facets of enzyme-substrate interactions and reasoning from multiple models present challenges where students incorrectly make connections between concepts or make no connection at all. This study investigated biochemistry students' understanding of enzyme-substrate interactions through the use of clinical interviews and a national administration (N = 707) of the Enzyme–Substrate Interactions Concept Inventory. Findings include misconceptions regarding the nature of enzyme-substrate interactions, naive ideas about the active site, a lack of energetically driven interactions, and an incomplete understanding of the specificity pocket. © 2015 by the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 43(4):213–222, 2015.

The Nix operating system permits different roles to be assigned to the cores. One of the roles is to be able to run user-space code with no interrupts from the operating system, which is particularly useful for high-performance computing. System calls are especially expensive to a core playing this role. This paper presents a new implementation of optimistic semaphores that avoid performing expensive system calls in an uncontended scenario. The implementation is straightforward and somewhat unorthodox: a semaphore is based on a data structure and a lock that are shared between user space and kernel space. This study aims at evaluating if such an approach is viable. In addition, the implementation includes a non-deterministic choice operation over a collection of semaphores, altsems. This novel operation facilitates the creation of higher-level communication mechanisms, such as sockets and channels. To support this claim, we implemented a new kind of buffered communication channels named tubes, tailored for communicating processes running on different heterogeneous cores. The paper describes the implementation of the semaphores and the tubes, a comparative analysis of optimistic and non-optimistic semaphores on Nix, and a comparative analysis of tubes and other kinds of communication channels that are available on the Nix operating system. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Lock housing assembly is a vehicle component which is designed and manufactured by a 2nd tier supplier of a car maker. This paper showed a middle-out systems engineering approach for a gray box item development. In the case of gray box item development, the communication between a car maker and suppliers is a key success factor to overcome unclear and unbalanced design responsibility from the viewpoint of supplier. To show the middle-out systems engineering process, this paper addressed the development of a magnesium lock housing assembly. This project used some methodologies such as Quality Function Deployment (hereafter QFD) and functional flow diagram etc. to enhance communication capabilities. The customer requirements were developed with QFD while functional flow diagram was used to derive quality control parameters.

When investigating someone's hair a single lock is cut, washed, extracted and analysed. The forensic institutes in Switzerland agreed to retain a second lock for a possible reassessment. We were interested in the reproducibility of the concentrations of analytes in hair locks taken from different areas of the head of the same person covering the same time period. Therefore we analysed ethyl glucuronide and caffeine as model substances in 10 hair locks from three individuals categorised as social drinkers. The individual coefficients of variation varied between 14% and 28% for ethyl glucuronide and between 13% and 62% for caffeine corresponding to factors of 1.6 to 4.2 for the highest to the lowest concentrations between the hair locks. This finding has a significant importance both when the second hair lock has to be analysed in a forensic case and if the interpretation of the result is depending on a cut-off value. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

When Stephen Lock retired from editing the British Medical Journal in 1991 after a quarter of a century with the journal, I was just in my third year of editing Emergency Medicine Australasia (or Emergency Medicine as it was then). I remember thinking how long that period of Lock’s journal editing was, and realising how diametrically opposed were the requirements of being an emergency physician (rapid decision-making, short concentrated attention span, time periods measured in minutes to hours) and those of a journal editor (strategic long-range planning, judgements considered over months to years and time periods measured in years to decades). I was an unabashed fan of Stephen’s and of his successor Richard Smith, and the wonderful, eclectic, human medical journal they put together over all those years. Balancing journalism and science became their journal’s hallmark, presenting a human and sometimes humorous face to medicine, ensuring that art, music, history and personal reflection were given equal stand

BackgroundFaced with a lack of evidence, institutions often develop local protocols for use of heparin to flush-lock venous access ports. Our objective was to evaluate catheter-related complications in patients after introduction of a lower-concentration heparin flush protocol.ProcedurePatients with

Lock time and convergence time are the most important challenges in delay-locked loops DLLs. In this paper we cover French very high frequency band with a novel all-digital fast-lock DLL-based frequency synthesizer. Because this new architecture uses a digital signal processing unit instead of using phase frequency detector, charge pump, and loop filter in conventional DLL, therefore, it shows better jitter performance, lock time, and convergence speed than previous related works. Optimization methods are used to make input and output signals of the proposed DLL in phase. The proposed architecture is designed to cover all channels of French very high frequency band by choosing number of delay cells in signal path. Simulation has been done for 22-27 delay cells, and fREF=16MHz, which can produce output frequency in range of 176-216MHz. Locking time is approximately 0.3µs, which is equal to five clock cycles of reference clock. All of the simulation results show superiority of the proposed structure. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper presents algorithms for concurrently reading and modifying a red-black tree RBTree. The algorithms allow wait-free, linearly scalable lookups in the presence of concurrent inserts and deletes. They have deterministic response times for a given tree size and uncontended read performance that is at least 60% faster than other known approaches. The techniques used to derive these algorithms arise from a concurrent programming methodology called relativistic programming. Relativistic programming introduces write-side delay primitives that allow the writer to pay most of the cost of synchronization between readers and writers. Only minimal synchronization overhead is placed on readers. Relativistic programming avoids unnecessarily strict ordering of read and write operations while still providing the capability to enforce linearizability. This paper shows how relativistic programming can be used to build a concurrent RBTree with synchronization-free readers and both lock-based and transactional memory-based writers. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A flexible, understandable, inexpensive, and native method of change control is needed for the DOORS® requirements management tool. The Proposed Attribute Method (PAM) has been developed as a cost-effective approach for change control. For those attributes to be change controlled, proposed attributes are created. Proposed change views are created that contain the actual and proposed attributes. DOORS eXtension Language (DXL) scripts are executed to lock down attribute and type definitions, as well as the values of the attributes to be controlled. Responsible Engineers fill in the proposed attribute values and obtain approval for the proposed changes. A DXL script is run to move the proposed values to the actual values. Implementation of the proposed changes usually takes a few minutes or less. The PAM method provides instant visibility into all proposed changes in work. Minimal knowledge of DXL scripting is needed to tailor the scripts for new projects (assuming only a certain format for identifying the change control authority). Pros and cons of PAM are discussed. While this paper focuses on a DOORS implementation, the PAM process should be applicable to other requirements management tools as well.

Global Navigation Satellite Systems positioning accuracy indoor and urban canyons environments are greatly affected by multipath because of distortions in its autocorrelation function. In this paper, we propose a new multipath mitigation technique based on the concept of S-curve shaping for the new alternative binary offset carrier AltBOC-modulated signals, which will most likely be used in both European Galileo system and Chinese Compass system. The definition of an optimum S-curve is employed to reduce the false lock points and to improve the multipath mitigation capability via determining the shape of the local code tracking reference function. The structure of the proposed code tracking loop for AltBOC signals is quite simple and only requires one complex correlator. Results demonstrate that the proposed technique provides superior multipath mitigation performance compared with the conventional receiver correlation techniques and removes the ambiguity completely. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

SUMMARY Lock-based resource sharing protocols for single processor systems are well understood and supported in programming languages such as Ada and the Real-Time Specification for Java, and in Real-Time Operating Systems, such as those that conform to the Real-Time POSIX standard. In contrast, multiprocessor resource sharing protocols are still in their infancy with no agreed best practices, and yet current real-time programming languages and operating systems claim to be suitable for multiprocessor applications. This paper reviews the currently available multiprocessor resource allocation policies and analyzes their applicability to the main industry standard real-time programming languages. It then proposes a framework that allows programmers to define and implement their own locking policy. A prototype implementation of the framework for Ada is presented and evaluated. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We present Meta 2, a second-generation immersive optical-see-through AR system. Its design allows the user to see the virtual contents within the surrounding real environment through a freeform visor display. With its integrated sensor modules, Meta 2 can lock virtual objects within the real environment, regardless of user’s head pose and movements. It also provides a natural hand gesture input system, supporting hand-eye interaction with the virtual content. Meta 2’s optical engine uses an off-axis freeform visor that offers an unusually large, 90-degree FOV, providing a more immersive AR user experience.

This chapter contains sections titled: Select ?> for Update Statement ACID Properties of Transactions Read Phenomena and Data Inconsistencies Oracle Isolation Levels Multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC) and Read Consistency Oracle Locks Lock Escalations versus Conversions Oracle Latches Oracle Enqueues Deadlocks Taking Advantage of Oracle's Scalable Concurrency Model Case Study: A JDBC Example Summary Recommended Reading Exercises ]]>

A series of full-scale shaking table tests are conducted using the E-Defense shaking table facility on a base-isolated four-story RC hospital structure. A variety of furniture items, medical appliances, and service utilities are placed on the hospital specimen in as realistic a manner as possible. Four ground motions are adopted, including recorded near-fault ground motions and synthesized long-period, long-duration ground motions. The test results show that the base-isolated system performed very effectively against near-fault ground motions due to significant reduction in the floor acceleration response, and operability and functionality of the hospital service is improved significantly as compared with the case observed for the corresponding base-fixed system. Against the long-period ground motion, however, the hospital service is difficult to maintain, primarily because of the significant motion of furniture items and medical appliances supported by casters. Resonance accentuated large displacements and velocities on the floors of the base-isolated system, which causes such furniture items and medical appliances to slide, sometimes more than 3 m, resulting in occasional collision with other furnitures or against the surrounding partition walls. It is notable that a key to maintaining the function of the medical facilities is to securely lock the casters of furniture and medical appliances. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.