Development Circles Research Articles

Fundamental pathological mechanisms underlying gastro-intestinal cancer peritoneal metastasis

Gastrointestinal cancer peritoneal metastasis(GICPM) is one of the biggest challenges of clinical treatment. The ultimate solution to the problem requires the clinicians to accurately understand cytologic and molecular pathological mechanisms behind GICPM, and apply such knowledge in the clinical decision-making process for diagnosis and treatment of individual patient, so as to realize "prevention" and "treatment" proactively. The core cytopathological mechanisms behind GICPM, which are closely related to clinical treatment decisions, are as follows: (1) free cancer cells or clusters in peritoneal cavity colonize the peritoneum, resulting in irreversible pathological damage to peritoneal mesothelial cells; (2) the colonized cancer cells further invade the specific structure of the peritoneal milky spots and initiate an accelerated invasive growth process; (3) the process of peritoneal interstitial fibrosis aggravates the structural destruction of the peritoneum; (4) the interaction between cancer cells and immune cells in the milk spots forms a permissive immune microenvironment that promotes the growth of peritoneal metastatic cancer. These four core cytopathological mechanisms are mutually causal and promote each other, forming a vicious circle of GICPM development. As long as clinicians accurately understand these four points, it is possible to grasp the opportunity of clinical diagnosis and treatment, change reactive and passive treatment into preventive and proactive treatment, and improve the clinical diagnosis and treatment landscape of GICPM.

Re-branding remittance fee reduction policy goals: from combating terrorist financing to poverty alleviation

ABSTRACT After the 2001 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, attention to informal migrant remittance flows were increasingly seen as a tool for terrorism financing due to their lack of oversight. After increased regulation was deemed to have the adverse impact of reducing the appeal of formal alternatives, security scholars and practitioners resorted to formalisation policies through transfer fee reductions that make formal options more accessible. In international development circles, similar policies gained traction. International commitments, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 10c) and objective 20 of the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, aim to lower transfer fees to promote remittance growth and alleviate poverty. This article scrutinises the shift in remittance policy framing, primarily driven by security concerns, to promote development. Findings suggest the 9/11 terrorist attacks provided the punctuation that gave institutions the policy tractability to act upon pre-existing privatisation motives within Bretton-Woods institutions. The findings contribute to the understanding of policy creation and the cross-pollination of policies in the security-development space.

Developmental government for sustainable development and international integration in Vietnam

Developmental government (narrowly understood as a component of a state) is a transparent, effective, efficient government which makes best use of all national resources to create socio-economic development optimistically, actively, innovatively and creatively. Developmental government is not purely a government of integrity without bureaucracy or corruption. More importantly, it plays a role of actively and comprehensively managing its key policies in the market economy to ensure democracy and social equality to bring a fast development to the nation as planned. Hence, developmental government, sustainable development and international integration are inseparable components in the process to build the country in this new development circle. This article focuses to analyze and make clear some issues on Developmental Government and the necessity to establish Developmental Government. Accordingly, the author will propose some suggestions to establish a developmental government suitable to the practicality of Vietnam to meet the requirement of sustainable development and international integration in the current situation

Model Extraction Attacks and Defenses on Cloud-Based Machine Learning Models

Machine learning models have achieved state-of-the-art performance in various fields, from image classification to speech recognition. However, such models are trained with a large amount of sensitive training data, and are typically computationally expensive to build. As a result, many cloud providers (e.g., Google) have launched machine-learning-as-a-service, which helps clients benefit from the sophisticated cloud-based machine learning models via accessing public APIs. Such a business paradigm significantly expedites and simplifies the development circles. Unfortunately, the commercial value of such cloud-based machine learning models motivates attackers to conduct model extraction attacks for free use or as a springboard to conduct other attacks (e.g., craft adversarial examples in black-box settings). In this article, we conduct a thorough investigation of existing approaches to model extraction attacks and defenses on cloud-based models. We classify the state-of-the-art attack schemes into two categories based on whether the attacker aims to steal the property (i.e., parameters, hyperparameters, and architecture) or the functionality of the model. We also categorize defending schemes into two groups based on whether the scheme relies on output disturbance or query observation. We not only present a detailed survey of each method, but also demonstrate the comparison of both attack and defense approaches via experiments. We highlight several future directions in both model extraction attacks and its defenses, which shed light on possible avenues for further studies.

Community development and financialization: making the connections

Abstract The current period of finance-driven capitalism, which can be broadly dated from the mid-1970s, has had profound implications for community development. Yet there is relatively little sustained engagement with research on financialized capitalism in community development circles. Bringing together writers and activists from a variety of contexts, the purpose of this special issue is to demonstrate the significance of financialization and its connections, on various levels, to community development globally. This introductory article synthesizes the insights of our contributors with scholarship from the fields of critical political economy, economic and historical sociology, and social movement studies, among others. In doing so, it analyses the diverse and variegated ways financialized capitalism is affecting communities’ access to public resources, affordable housing, safe and stable livelihoods, and a clean and healthy environment. We also highlight how the complexity and depth of financialization, and the extent to which it relies on highly specialized and inaccessible forms of knowledge to reproduce itself, impacts on community development as a form of praxis. The institutional cover provided to the system of finance by states and international financial institutions, and by certain NGOs and community organizations, has deeply embedded financialization at macro, micro and meso levels of the economy and society. However, while financialization places profound and often insurmountable constraints on community development’s democratic ideals, some of our contributors have pointed to possible ways forward. These are characterized by intensive popular education, political engagement and action. We also outline these in the hope that the special issue will contribute to more discussion of these vital processes and stimulate further purposive action.

Backdoor Attacks and Defenses for Deep Neural Networks in Outsourced Cloud Environments

Deep neural networks have achieved tremendous success in various fields, especially in recognition and classification applications. However, faced with the difficulty of training millions of parameters of such networks, many users outsource the training procedure of a specific prediction work to the powerful cloud servers that own abundant computation and storage resources. Although such outsourced training can significantly simplify and expedite the development circles, it also introduces many security risks. In recent years, a new type of attack, the so-called backdoor attack, has attracted much attention, where the attacker's goal is to create a maliciously deep neural network to make misclassification on the special inputs with the backdoor trigger. For its concealment, such attacks can potentially cause disastrous consequences. Subsequently, many defense mechanisms against this attack are also appearing. In this article, we conduct a retrospective review on the existing schemes of the backdoor attacks and defenses in outsourced cloud environments. According to the resources the adversary has, and whether the detection time is during run-time or not, we classify the attack and defense approaches into multiple categories. We present a detailed overview of each category, and we provide a comparison of these approaches and evaluate part of the attack schemes by the experiments. We also highlight various future research directions in this field. These views shed light on possible avenues for future research.

There is No Lean In for Men

There is no Lean In for men. That is, in the mass market leadership press, in leadership development circles, and in much of leadership research, the counterpoint to “women’s leadership” is not “me...

Eyes Outside a Boundary Line: An Example of the Willats Region-Drawing Theory?

A puzzling raised-line drawing of a head by a blind man with no experience in freehand drawing has eyes placed outside the boundary line of the head, not inside. After scribbling, in the John Willats theory of drawing development, 2D "regions" on the page stand for 3D "volumes" in the scene. If Willats is correct, in very early drawing development circles touching the boundary line from outside may show the eyes are "embedded," and very early drawing development may be similar in the blind and sighted.

In situ scavenging of mitochondrial ROS by anti-oxidative MitoQ/hyaluronic acid nanoparticles for environment-induced dry eye disease therapy

Excessive accumulation of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) triggers the vicious circle in development of environment-induced dry eye disease (DED). Thus, mitochondria-specific antioxidants that in situ scavenge ROS and restore homeostasis in mitochondria can be employed to inhibit or alleviate environment-induced DED. Herein, novel mitochondria-specific anti-oxidative nanoparticles (NPs) consisting of negatively charged hyaluronic acid and the positively charged MitoQ were prepared by charge-driven self-assembly strategy assisted by heat treatment. The effects of operation temperature on size, morphology, zeta potential, and polydispersity index (PDI) of the MitoQ NPs were investigated. The NPs prepared by this strategy exhibited relatively higher drug encapsulation capacity and loading efficiency compared to that prepared from amphiphilic block copolymer using the traditional self-assembly method. The heat treatment enhanced the interaction between the charged molecules HA and MitoQ, thus the resultant NPs had more compact structure with uniform spherical morphology. In comparison with free MitoQ, MitoQ NPs had increased mitochondrial distribution, thereby exhibited a stronger mitochondrial ROS scavenging activity in the tested cell line. MitoQ NPs also exerted a better curative effect against environment-induced DED: it better alleviated the DED symptoms, reduced the ROS accumulation on eye surface, and enhanced the suppression of gene expression of inflammation related-factors in vivo. These results present the potential use of MitoQ NPs, for the treatment of a wide range of ROS-related diseases.

Innovation management processes and sustainable iterative circles: an applied integrative approach

PurposeThis study attempts to create new insights into innovation management through the integration of innovation management processes and sustainable, iterative circles. Through the exploration of the use of sustainable, iterative circles in a manufacturing environment, this paper explores their role in facilitating customer-focused innovation practices. Other supporting antecedences for innovative behavior are reviewed, and their combined effect upon delivering cost-effective product developments are assessed.Design/methodology/approachData were collected through semi-structured interviews in manufacturing organizations from the automotive industry. Interviews were conducted with senior functional managers to interpret the application of sustainable, iterative development circles. Analysis of the data was undertaken via thematic analysis based upon pertinent and emergent themes.FindingsSustainable, iterative development circles overcame the inherent path-dependency of traditional linear development approaches, whereas, traditional approaches structure the involvement of key business functions, iterative circles facilitate more flexible approaches to product development that more closely met the requirements of the customer, especially when those requirements are in a state of flux.Practical implicationsThis iterative, customer-centric approach to product development reflects the increasingly dynamic market environments in which manufacturing organizations operate. Using this approach helps to focus the organization’s attention upon customer requirements rather than the challenges of adhering to the rigid dogma of a chosen development methodology.Originality/valueThis study proposes a new approach toward the development of innovations in manufacturing organizations utilizing the sustainable, iterative circles, and therefore, contrasts with the traditional, linear development methodologies that are usually employed.

Technology Focus: Well Testing (February 2020)

Technology Focus In my inaugural column as editor of the Well Testing Technology Focus feature, I want to shine a light on the notable trend among operators of seizing on the tremendous untapped potential that exploration and appraisal wells represent for far-field reservoir characterization and connectivity. The concept is straightforward. Upon reaching total depth and running a suite of logs and tools (which may or may not include a well test), gauges are installed as part of the plug-and-abandonment phase, thus turning an otherwise throw-away reservoir penetration into a long-term observation well. Brilliant! The gauges communicate wirelessly by electromagnetic telemetry, cleverly capitalizing on the well’s casing. Well tests conducted elsewhere in the field then can be monitored from these gauges, thereby providing valuable insight into reservoir connectivity, interwell average properties to further calibrate geologic/reservoir models, and in-place resources (or at least a minimum connected volume). This is not new; however, the technology has become more powerful and reliable, now lasting longer and withstanding more-challenging environments. Fast forward to 2020. These systems are remarkably seamless add-ons to an exploration well design. The advances epitomize the virtuous circle of service company research and development tailored to meet the needs of operators, who, in turn, test these systems and help build a track record. Issues and failures are part of the game of innovative technologies, improving robustness and adding features, job after job. The value proposition is undoubtedly appealing. The marketing around it is compelling but rarely dwells on the implications of installing such systems. What will it take to yield a conclusive test? Two common pitfalls are the false negative and false positive. The former misleadingly suggests no connectivity when the signal is merely not strong enough or is not given enough time. With the latter, an unrelated response is misconstrued for evidence of connectivity. Successfully designing and interpreting an interference test amid subsurface unknowns, tidal effects, and gauge drift, to name but a few, remains an engineering feat. While compartmentalization is often flagged as an uncertainty in field-depletion plans (and as a fatal flaw in some instances), only after start-up is its severity revealed—for example, production falling off plateau early or producer/ injector pair not in communication. Early dynamic data collection from well tests paired with such long-term systems may help minimize or circumvent this altogether. This enabling technology truly gives a whole new meaning to “data wells.” This month’s feature illustrates the vitality of our discipline. Deconvolution is being extended to multiwell applications, opening the door to its use in production. Temperature is measured continuously from top to bottom of a test interval to determine zonal contribution over time, sans production logging intervention. Interval pressure transient tests are used for the consistent characterization of fractured carbonates. The diversity of original concepts and technologies is a reminder that well testing is far more than just pressure transient analysis. Check out as well the additional-reading suggestions. Take a look back with a service company’s review of 40 years of operational best practices. Peruse an operator’s case study taking a formation tester to new limits. Look ahead to the elusive permeability log from an audacious joint industry project. Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. IPTC 19369 Innovative Mini-DST and Production-Evaluation Approach at Challenging HP/HT Conditions for the KeShen Tight Gas Reservoir: A Case Study at Tarim Basin by Shichen Shuai, PetroChina, et al. SPE 193195 Successful Well-Test Operations in Complex Reservoir Fluids: Lessons Learned and Best Practices Over 40 Years of Worldwide Operations by Yakov Shumakov, Schlumberger, et al. SPE 196116 Permeability Logging Through Constant Pressure Injection Test: In-Situ Methodology and Laboratory Tests by Sivaprasath Manivannan, Ecole Polytechnique, et al.

BRANDERPRENEURSHIP: KEWIRAUSAHAAN BERBASIS PENGEMBANGAN MEREK

This article elaborates on a strategic concept for entrepreneurs that allows their business to grow faster by synergizing the entrepreneurial spirit and the branding mindset. Indeed, many entrepreneurs still consider brand development or branding as a 'luxurious strategy' that is wasting money. However, by using the concepts and strategies that are smarter and focused, branding activities can be executed more effectively and efficiently to produce the optimum effect on business performance. Branderpreneurship concept refers to the stages as set out in the ‘circle of values development’: starting from Identifying values, Creating values, Delivering values, Communicating values, Maintaining values, Evaluating values to Updating values. Branderpreneurship concept is beneficial for novice entrepreneurs, start-up businesses, and SMEs that are developing their business. Thus, the public can more quickly recognize their business brand, grows strategically, which would have an impact on increasing business profits.

Yielding Trouble: Development Dilemmas and the Political Uses of Bad Data in Malawi, 1964–1978

This article examines the politics of statistics and the transitions in rural development thinking in early independent Malawi. As was the case elsewhere in Africa, post-colonial development initiatives in Malawi relied on the production of quantitative knowledge about social and economic life. Historians and other scholars have shown that early statistical work was experimental in nature and often produced highly questionable numbers, a fact that was often lost as officials plugged the numbers into development plans. This article explores how Malawian officials and the World Bank put bad data to use amid national debates on hunger, agriculture and the future of development at a time of local and global economic uncertainty. It reveals that bad data reflected the nonchalance about numbers that prevailed in international development circles in the 1960s. The article then moves on to look at political controversies over the production, use and value of statistics, and shows that the World Bank seized on numbers that they knew to be dubious in order to advance free-market reforms in Malawi in the mid 1970s, laying the foundation for the structural adjustment programmes that swept the country and the rest of the continent in the 1980s.

The narrow and broad argument of microfinance impacts on small- and medium-sized enterprises in Ghana

Microfinance has become a popular and fashionable word in financial and development circles. In practice, the term was often used more narrowly to refer to loans and other services from providers that identify themselves as microfinance institution. Indeed, the concept of microfinance was not new in Ghana. Microfinance plays a very crucial role in the area ofaddressing the market failures with regard to the provision of financial services to the low-income customers who until recently were receiving little or no help from the conventional financial service providers. This study examines the impact of microfinance on the operations of small- and medium-scale industries in Ghana – focusing on Tafo area of Ashanti region. The study uses sampling size of 91 clients. Data were collected through questionnaire. The findings reveal that most of the microfinance clients take loans to expand their personal businesses. The study recommends an effective monitoring system to be put in place to correct the poor collection mechanism that is currently facing the firms. Keywords: Microfinance, small- and medium-sized enterprises, Tafo district

Perspective On Excellence in Forensic Mental Health Services: What We Can Learn From Oncology and Other Medical Services.

We propose that excellence in forensic and other mental health services can be recognized by the abilities necessary to conduct randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and equivalent forms of rigorous quantitative research to continuously improve the outcomes of treatment as usual (TAU). Forensic mental health services (FMHSs) are growing, are high cost, and increasingly provide the main access route to more intensive, organized, and sustained pathways through care and treatment. A patient newly diagnosed with a cancer can expect to be enrolled in RCTs comparing innovations with the current best TAU. The same should be provided for patients newly diagnosed with severe mental illnesses and particularly those detained and at risk of prolonged periods in a secure hospital. We describe FMHSs in four levels 1 to 4, basic to excellent, according to seven domains: values or qualities, clinical organization, consistency, timescale, specialization, routine outcome measures, and research. Excellence is not elitism. Not all centers need to achieve excellence, though all should be of high quality. Services can provide each population with a network of centers with access to one center of excellence. Excellence is the standard needed to drive the virtuous circle of research and development that is necessary for teaching, training, and the pursuit of new knowledge and better outcomes. Substantial advances in treatment of severe mental disorders require a drive at a national and international level to create services that meet these standards of excellence and are focused, active, and productive to drive better functional outcomes for service users.

«Exegi monumentum»: the reflection of Schumann’s images in the Variations by J. Brahms on the theme by R. Schumann op. 23

«Exegi monumentum»: the reflection of Schumann’s images in the Variations by J. Brahms on the theme by R. Schumann op. 23

Virtuous or vicious circles? Exploring the behavioural connections between developer contributions and path dependence: Evidence from England

How urban economies evolve has a rich literature. The impulse to discern longitudinal patterns of development can be seen in the body of work on path dependence. However, it has been noted that the drivers of path dependence are under-specified. In this paper we seek to make an association between real estate development in England and the longer term path dependence that has bequeathed an extremely geographically unequally pattern of economic development. In so doing we present empirical research from a major study of ‘developer contributions’ that associates behavioural aspects of the planning process through which developer contributions are determined and the creation of virtuous/vicious circles of development. It is our contention that these virtuous and vicious circles represent an important but under-researched aspect of the highly varied path dependencies observed in settings such as England that we describe here as poverty and affluence traps.

MALTHUS, STATISTICS, AND THE STATE OF INDIAN AGRICULTURE

ABSTRACTReferences to Malthus are increasingly evident in narratives of agricultural trends in development discourse at the end of the twentieth century. This article addresses the long roots of Malthusian thinking in formulating public policy, that can be traced across from Malthus's own ideas and to subsequent construction of neo-Malthusianisms in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It deploys the distinction between two approaches to statistical data collection that emerge in Malthus's own time: an ‘open’ system that collects data to identify trends, and a ‘closed’ system that uses data to prove an existing model. The article uses these distinctions in order to demonstrate opposing tendencies in policy-making in both England and India, with particular reference to Indian agriculture. It shows how radical thinking about data collection as an inductive line of enquiry lost out to a deductive approach that regarded data on Indian agriculture as doomed, because of its ‘unimproved’ condition, and highlights three moments where opposing tendencies were important. The article concludes that this turn in thinking about food, land, and people continues to persist in agricultural policy-making in international development circles into the present.

Unpacking the systemic problems and blocking mechanisms of a regional agricultural innovation system: An integrated regional-functional-structural analysis

Although agricultural innovation systems (AIS) have recently received considerable attention in academic and development circles, links between an AIS's regional specifications and structural-functional analysis have been neglected. This paper aims to understand how regional and structural dimensions determine systemic problems and blocking mechanisms that, in turn, hinder a regional AIS's function. From the basis of a qualitative data set, it presents an analysis of an AIS in Vietnam's Northern Uplands using an integrated regional-structural-functional framework. Results indicate that the existing AIS has six unique problems that are linked to seven blocking mechanisms, mainly belonging to three structural components: infrastructure, actors and institutions. Addressing these blocking mechanisms needs systemic instruments that help stimulate and balance investments, creating spaces for the development of actors' capability, and facilitating the institutional shift towards enabling region-oriented agriculture and demand-driven innovation processes. First, this study contributes an analysis of the integration of regional dimensions and technologies captured as a structural entity into the structural-functional framework, providing novel insights into the functioning of a regional AIS. Second, it deepens the literature on structural-functional innovation systems analysis by looking at the interconnections between structural and regional dimensions and how they create blocking mechanisms. It concludes that the regional-structural-functional analysis allows the design of integrated coherent sets of systemic instruments for a regional AIS.

DESIGUALDADES E DESENVOLVIMENTO HUMANO MUNICIPAL NO ESTADO DE MATO GROSSO DO SUL ENTRE OS ANOS DE 2005 E 2013

This article aims to analyze the evolution of the socioeconomic development of municipalities from Mato Grosso do Sul State (MS, Brazil) from 2005 to 2013, measured by the Firjan Index of Municipal Development (FIMD) that analyses the interaction of public social spending on work and income, health and education sectors. The municipalities were classified in: i) trend to growth; ii) trend to development; iii) vicious circle; iv) virtuous circle. Result showed a great gap among municipalities, enhanced on that located in international borderlines. It also revealed that municipalities with major spending on health and education presented a virtuous circle of development.