textabstractWe propose to estimate the economic cost for Palestine and for Palestinian residents due to the lack of peaceful resolution with Israel. Thereto we make use of the consensus estimates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) of real growth rates of economic variables and of the nominal national accounts for Palestine over the period 1994-2006. We identify four periods: 1994-1999 with high real growth rates of gross domestic product (GDP) and of gross national income (GNI); 2000-2002 with a strong decline; 2003-2005 with a modest growth; and 2006 with a renewed decline. We derive the real national accounts (prices1999) for the end years: 1999, 2002 and 2005. It follows that over 2000-2002 the real GDP declined by 27.5%; GNI by almost one third; but that real gross disposable income (GDI) "only" declined by 11.3%; and that over 2000-2005 the declines were 13.8% (GDP) ; about 20%(GNI); and 2.9% (GDI), respectively. Consequently, in 2005, the year preceding the renewed isolation of Palestine, real GDP, GNI and GDI were still below their 1999 level. Based on the modest growth scenario of IMF and WB (3% real growth and 3% price increase) we estimate that over the period 2000-2002 the cost for Palestine, measured in terms of nominal GNI, was equal to the GNI of 1999 (5.5 billion US$), and over 2000-2005 to two-and-a-half times the 1999 GNI. Based on the same growth scenario, we estimate the loss for a Palestinian resident, measured in terms of nominal GDI per capita, to be 30% of the 1999 level by the end of 2002 and 25% by the end of 2005.


textabstractThis dissertation focuses on how executive compensation is designed and its implications for corporate finance and government regulations. Chapter 2 analyzes several proposals to restrict CEO compensation and calibrates two models of executive compensation that describe how firms would react to different types of restrictions. We find that many restrictions on CEO compensation would have unintended consequences. Restrictions on total realized (ex-post) payouts lead to higher average compensation, higher rewards for mediocre performance, lower risk-taking incentives, and the fact that some CEOs would be better off with a restriction than without it. Restrictions on total ex-ante pay lead to a reduction in the firm's demand for CEO talent and effort. Restrictions on particular pay components, and especially on cash payouts, can be easily circumvented. Chapter 3 examines how executive dividend protection affects corporate payout policy. I find that the dividend protection on executive restricted stock and option grants is associated with higher dividend payouts and lower share repurchases. Using the 2003 tax reform as an exogenous shock in dividend payouts, I provide further evidence that executive dividend protection causes changes in dividend payout policies. Chapter 4 studies a special subset of CEOs who works for a one-dollar annual salary. Rather than being the sacrificial acts they are projected to be, our findings suggest that some adoptions of one-dollar CEO salaries are opportunistic behavior of the wealthier, more overconfident, influential CEOs. Overall, these findings support the literature which claims that CEOs employ camouflage in compensation schemes to reduce the likelihood of public outrage over private benefits.


By use of a blur-pseudostimulus technique and high-speed infrared optometric measurements, the singularity of blur as a stimulus to human accommodation was studied. Blur is not the sole stimulus; it is a necessary cue, but not a sufficient one. The accommodative system makes use of one or more available odd-error (error sign) cues, which are believed to supplement blur with requisite focusing information.


For many alpine areas in Switzerland, winter tourism is the most important source of income, and snow-reliability is one of the key elements of the offers made by tourism in the Alps. 85% of Switzerland's current ski resorts can be designated as snow-reliable. If climate change occurs, the level of snow-reliability will rise from 1200 m up to 1800 m over the next few decades. Only 44% of the ski resorts wouldthen still be snow-reliable. While some regions may be able to maintain their winter tourism with suitable adaptation strategies, others would lose winter tourism due to a diminishing snow pack. Climate change must be viewed as a catalyst that is reinforcing and accelerating the pace of structural changes in tourism. Today, adaptation strategies are predominant in tourism (e.g. artificial snow production). As an industry that will be severely affected by climate change, however, tourism will increasingly have to focus on mitigation strategies (e.g. less greenhouse gas emissions by tourism traffic).


This article concerns the analysis of food security in the North Caucasian macro-region. Any State is faced the challenge to provide safe food of domestic production to its population. This task is particularly relevant due to the emergence of a series of challenges and threats for country food sovereignty and its solution is impossible without active state support. The subjects of the North Caucasus Federal District have been selected as objects for this research.To identify the problems in country food security, the authors analyzed the global rating «The Global Food Security Index" of the world's states. The authors also studied the internal and the external, economic and political objective and subjective factors and the potential for food security of macro-region. The authors analyzed the dynamics of development of the main types of agricultural production, the self-reliance level and production of basic foods, norms and actual food consumption.The authors show that with current sanctions and Russian anti-sanctions, there is a possibility of significant increase in agricultural production. The article draws conclusions on the significant differentiation of population per capita incomes by regions of the country and consumption of staple food. This study made it possible to identify the main problems and their impact on current Agro-Food market of the Russian Federation.The study recommends measures to strengthen food security by operational regional monitoring and by defining the evaluation indicators system of the level of food security comparable to systems at the international level.


Today problems exist with how the leases are recognized in public companies that uses the IFRS. The liability to make lease payments is not recognized as a liability in the balance sheet even though it should according to the current lease accounting standard. There are two different classifications of leases, financial and operational, where the latter means that the liability to make lease payment does not end up in the balance sheet. Today many lease contracts are tailored to be classified as operational to avoid the liability on the balance sheet.The problem described above has for long been known and the international accounting organisations, IASB and FASB, have been working on a solution to the problem for many years. The project's completion in form of a new standard has been postponed several times and it is currently scheduled for the earliest to entry into service during 2013.This thesis aims at investigating the IASB's and FASB's joint project to solve the lease accounting problem and its effects on the Swedish commercial real estate market.The approach adopted in this thesis is to examine the available literature about the problem and the project and to conduct interviews with expert in the field and possible future stakeholder that will be affected.The conclusions of the thesis are that the effects due to the project will mainly be for the lessee and then indirectly for the lessor. The lessees will try to find solutions like shorter leases to avoid the biggest effects of the new standard but to what extent they will avoid these remains uncertain. The lessor will most likely see a higher demand for shorter leases that will increase the risk in the lessors business. This will probably cause higher rental prices for listed companies.


Creating openings in the webs of steel I-section beams has been a common method of incorporating services within the floor–ceiling zone of buildings. In the literature, the web opening problem was dealt with only for steel beams with plane web plates and the effect of an opening on a corrugated web was not considered. The present paper deals mainly with the effect of web openings on the shear strength/stability of sinusoidally corrugated web beams. A general purpose finite element program (ABAQUS) was used. Simply supported corrugated web beams of 2m length and with rectangular web openings at quarter span points were considered. These points are generally considered to be the optimum locations of web openings for steel beams. Various cases were analyzed including the dimensions of the openings and the corrugation parameters such as the amplitude of the sine wave and corrugation density. Models without web holes were also analyzed and compared with other cases which were all together examined in terms of load-deformation characteristics and ultimate shear resistance.


This dissertation is an examination of the planning and management issues involved in the implementation of a regional health authority decision to close a mental handicap hospital and reprovide services in seven districts which had used the hospital. Several features made this project worthy of attention: it was among the earliest hospital closures; it involved a very large number of districts and therefore was a complex situation which nonetheless was fairly typical of long-stay hospitals in the London area; all residents, regardless of degree of disability, were to be given the chance of living in the community: local authorities were also involved along with health authorities, and this project could illustrate new principles of joint planning. The project further lent itself to a consideration of the adequacy and accuracy of the academic literature on planning and related activities. The research focussed on three areas. The first set of issues related to the approaches to planning used by regional officers who had responsibility for seeing the project through to completion. The Darenth project tested the new NHS planning system which was based on a rational planning model, and found that it could not deliver what was wanted from it. Regional officers created new types of working relationships with districts which allowed progress to be made. The second set of issues concerned the management of the rundown of the hospital. Aspects of the rundown discussed are: retention and redeployment of staff; physical contraction of the hospital; impact on residents; financing the rundown. The third set of issues related to joint planning. One of the purposes behind the introduction of joint planning into the NHS was creation of a mechanism to bring about a more appropriate balance of social and health care for people who were currently long-stay patients. But it was not joint planning with local authorities which got these residents out into the community. This study documents some of the reasons why government policy intentions could not be met. The main findings of this study point to the inadequacy of a model of planning which is based solely on rational process. Policy and implementation interact over time, as ideas and personalities change, as objectives are redefined in light of current circumstances, and as recognition is given to the competition for dominance of objectives of different participants in the planning process.


Alfa, also knows as Stipa tenacissimaI or "halfa", is grown in North Africa and south Spain. Due to its short fiber length, paper made from alfa pulp retains bulk and takes block letters well. In this study alfa was evaluated for bleached pulp production. Two cellulose pulps with different chemical compositions were pulped by a conventional kraft process. One sample was taken from the original alfa material and another from alfa that had been pretreated by diluted acid. The pulp produced from the pretreated alfa was bleached by the elemental-chlorine-free sequences DEPD and DEDP. The yield, Kappa number, brightness, and α- cellulose content of bleached and unbleached pulps were evaluated. The results showed that during the chemical pulping process, treated alfa cooked more easily than the original alfa. The treated alfa pulp also showed very good bleaching, reaching a brightness level of 94.8% ISO with a yield of 93.6% at an α-cellulose content 96.8(%) with a DEDP bleaching sequence, compared to 83.2% ISO brightness level, 92.8% yield, and 95.1% α-cellulose content for bleached pulp with a DEPD bleaching sequence. Therefore, this alfa material could be considered as a worthwhile choice for cellulosic fiber supply.


LASP1 is an actin-binding protein associated with actin assembly dynamics in cancer cells. Here, we report that LASP1 is overexpressed in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) where it promotes invasion and metastasis. We found that LASP1 overexpression in PDAC cells was mediated by HIF1α through direct binding to a hypoxia response element in the LASP1 promoter. HIF1α stimulated LASP1 expression in PDAC cells in vitro and mouse tumor xenografts in vivo. Clinically, LASP1 overexpression in PDAC patient specimens was associated significantly with lymph node metastasis and overall survival. Overall, our results defined LASP1 as a direct target gene for HIF1α upregulation that is critical for metastatic progression of PDAC.


CPDB is a now-discontinued database created and maintained by Dr. Lois Swirsky Gold, the Director of the CPDB project. For almost 30 years, it was a reference point for long-term animal cancer tests and for risk assessment in humans. It also went beyond just cataloguing studies, but it also presented calculated TD50 values for over 1,500 chemicals. Lhasa Limited has built on the work initiated by Gold and released a free and online carcinogenicity database based on the CPDB. By doing so, Lhasa is committing to maintaining the database , while also bringing in over 30 years of experience in predictive software and structure searchable databases. Moreover, Lhasa has revised the original data from CPDB, grouping studies with the same active ingredient but different formulation, giving more details and information to the final user. Finally, Lhasa recalculated the TD50 value for all chemicals, based on Gold's method, assuring consistency between the previous database and the current one. You can download this presentation as a PDF .


Purpose: Once a set of suppliers has been determined, according to criteria of quality, price and reliability, among others, there remains the problem of assigning orders to the selected suppliers, in order to cover the needs at the lowest cost. We consider the case in which the needs of a component for a set of plants should be covered by suppliers with linear piecewise concave cost functions, a lower bound on the order size for the non-zero deliveries and a capacity constraint. The purpose is to design procedures for solving this problem. Design/methodology/approach: With the aim of providing practical tools to solve the problem of assigning orders to suppliers with linear piecewise concave costs, two mixed integer linear programs are proposed. Findings: The two MILP models are compared through an extensive computational experiment. This shows that both models, with a slight advantage for one of them, can be solved within a very short time, even when the dimensions of the instance largely exceed those that can occur in real cases. Originality/value: The paper proposes novel models that can be used to solve the problem to optimality in reasonable times and with standard optimization software.


Visual cortex neurons have receptive fields resembling oriented bandpass filters, and their response distributions on natural images are non-Gaussian. Inspired by this, we previously showed that comparing the response distribution to normal distribution with the same variance gives a good thresholding criterion for detecting salient levels of edginess in images. However, (1) the results were based on comparison with human data, thus, an objective, quantitative performance measure was not taken. Furthermore, (2) why a normal distribution would serve as a good baseline was not investigated in full. In this paper, we first conduct a quantitative analysis of the normal-distribution baseline, using artificial images that closely mimic the statistics of natural images. Since in these artificial images, we can control and obtain the exact saliency information, the performance of the thresholding algorithm can be measured objectively. We then interpret the issue of the normal distribution being an effective baseline for thresholding, under the general concept of suspicious coincidence proposed by Barlow. It turns out that salience defined our way can be understood as a deviation from the unsuspicious baseline. Our results show that the response distribution on white-noise images (where there is no structure, thus zero salience and nothing suspicious) has a near-Gaussian distribution. We then show that the response threshold directly calculated from the response distribution to white-noise images closely matches that of humans, providing further support for the analysis. In sum, our results and analysis show an intimate relationship among subjective perceptual measure of salience, objective measures of salience using normal distributions as a baseline, and the theory of suspicious coincidence.


Summary Attenuation angles γ of inhomogeneous plane waves propagating in isotropic or anisotropic, perfectly elastic or viscoelastic media are investigated. In isotropic viscoelastic media, the attenuation angle always varies between 0 0 and 90 0 . In anisotropic viscoelastic media, however, the attenuation angle varies in the range , where the boundary attenuation angle γ � may be greater than, equal to, or less than 90 0 . The boundary attenuation angle depends on the viscoelastic moduli of the medium and on the properties of the plane wave under consideration, mainly on the direction of propagation of the wave. In the plane-wave attenuation analysis, the attenuation angle γ is often considered as a parameter of the inhomogeneous plane wave under consideration, which can be chosen arbitrarily. It is shown in this paper that such parameterization of the inhomogeneous plane wave may lead to serious errors and problems, particularly if the attenuation angle is chosen greater than or close to the boundary attenuation angle. For γ > γ � , such approach yields non-physical results (forbidden directions), for γ < γ � but close to γ, it yields inaccurate, unstable and even indefinite expressions. As the boundary attenuation angle is usually not known a priori, the attenuation angle should not be chosen freely. A simple approach to compute quantities characterizing propagation of inhomogeneous plane waves, used in this paper is based on the so-called mixed specification of the slowness vector. The mixed specification does not use the attenuation angle γ as a free parameter of the inhomogeneous plane wave, and avoids the problems mentioned above. It makes possible to compute exactly the phase velocity of the wave, the attenuation angle, the boundary attenuation angle, the propagation and attenuation vectors, etc. The derived equations may be used quite generally, for isotropic or anisotropic, perfectly elastic or viscoelastic media media, and for homogeneous and inhomogeneous waves (including evanescent waves).


Scholars have conceived of the life-course stages of the boy and adult male by way of a typically dichotomous construction of active/passive male sexuality. This binary scheme, presented uncritically in much modern scholarship, dictates that boys assumed the passive role in male-to-male sex until roughly the age of 18-20 or the occasion of their first shave, while adults took the active role. This view implies that male sexual relations were pederastic and could be viewed as part of a rudimentary sexual development of a boy to a man, from passive to active, provided he was of free status. Conversely, men who behaved as boys (i.e., were pas-sive) were regarded as 'abnormal', and men who slept with free boys were regarded as criminal.


Large-scale atomistic simulations with classical potentials can provide valuable insights into microscopic deformation mechanisms and defect-defect interactions in materials. Unfortunately, these assets often come with the uncertainty of whether the observed mechanisms are based on realistic physical phenomena or whether they are artifacts of the employed material models. One such example is the often reported occurrence of stable planar faults (PFs) in body-centered cubic (bcc) metals subjected to high strains, e.g., at crack tips or in strained nano-objects. In this paper, we study the strain dependence of the generalized stacking fault energy (GSFE) of {110} planes in various bcc metals with material models of increasing sophistication, i.e., (modified) embedded atom method, angular-dependent, Tersoff, and bond-order potentials as well as density functional theory. We show that under applied tensile strains the GSFE curves of many classical potentials exhibit a local minimum which gives rise to the formation of stable PFs. These PFs do not appear when more sophisticated material models are used and have thus to be regarded as artifacts of the potentials. We demonstrate that the local GSFE minimum is not formed for reasons of symmetry and we recommend including the determination of the strain-dependent (110) GSFE as a benchmark for newly developed potentials.


Intertemporal Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models have the potential to quantify the implications of sectoral and temporal linkages which are often crucial for understanding the effects of economic shocks. However, such models will prove to be of practical use for policy analysis only if accurate solutions can be obtained at reasonable cost. Often, the usefulness of intertemporal CGE models for policy analysis is diminished because the degree of economic detail incorporated is compromised in order to maintain computational tractability. The purpose of this paper is to describe how Euler's method may be used to solve large-scale intertemporal CGE models without compromising significantly on the type and degree of economic detail modelled. In particular, there is no need to restrict the number of costate variables (e.g., by assuming that capital stocks are homogeneous) nor to assume that the solution will always be interior.


ABSTRACT Exposure to war and violence has major consequences for society at large, detrimental impact on people's individual lives, and may also have intergenerational consequences. To gain more insight into these intergenerational consequences, research addressing the impact of the Holocaust on offspring is an important source of information. The aim of the current study was to systematically review the mechanisms of intergenerational consequences by summarizing characteristics in Holocaust survivors and their offspring suggested to impact the offspring's mental health. We focused on: 1) parental mental health problems, 2) (perceived) parenting and attachment quality, 3) family structure, especially parental Holocaust history, 4) additional stress and life events, and 5) psychophysiological processes of transmission. We identified 23 eligible studies published between 2000 and 2018. Only Holocaust survivor studies met the inclusion criteria. Various parent and child characteristics and their interaction were found to contribute to the development of psychological symptoms and biological and epigenetic variations. Parental mental health problems, perceived parenting, attachment quality, and parental gender appeared to be influential for the mental well-being of their offspring. In addition, having two survivor parents resulted in higher mental health problems compared to having one survivor parent. Also, there was evidence suggesting that Holocaust survivor offspring show a heightened vulnerability for stress, although this was only evident in the face of actual danger. Finally, the results also indicate intergenerational effects on offspring cortisol levels. Clinical and treatment implications are discussed. HIGHLIGHTS • The aim was to review the mechanisms of intergenerational consequences of the holocaust.• Survivor mothers were more influential for the well-being of their offspring than fathers.• Having two survivor parents resulted in higher mental health problems compared to one.• Heightened vulnerability for stress in offspring was found in the presence of actual danger• The results indicated intergenerational effects with regard to cortisol levels.


This paper outlines an argument for how development in child speech and gesture could shed light on language evolution: child acquisition can be thought of as two types of acquisition, one of which goes extinct (gesture-first, Acquisition 1) and is replaced by another (gesture–speech unity, Acquisition 2). For ontogenesis, this implies that children acquire two languages, one of which is extinct, and which again goes extinct in ontogenesis (it continues as "gestures of silence" rather than as gestures of speech). There is no way to get from Acquisition 1 to Acquisition 2. They are on different tracks. Even when they converge in the same sentence, as they sometimes do, they alternate and do not combine. I propose that the 3~4 year timing of Acquisition 2 relates to the natural selection of a kind of gestural self–response I call "Mead's Loop", which took place in a certain psychological milieu at the origin of language. This milieu emerges now in ontogenesis at 3~4 years and with it Mead's Loop. It is self-aware agency, on which a self-response depends. Other developments, such as theory of mind and shared intentionality, likewise depend on it and also emerge around the same time. The prefrontal cortex, anchoring a ring of language centers in the brain, matures at that point as well, another factor influencing the late timing. On the other hand, a third acquisition, speech evoking adult attachment, begins at (or even before) birth, as shown by a number of studies, and provides continuity through the two acquisitions and extinction.


In this article, we examine gender and the work culture in Australian private law firms. Our primary focus is the extent to which flexible work practices remain a quagmire for female lawyers. We consider the systemic barriers affecting women lawyers, including hidden attitudes, the persistence of a gendered division of labour in the private sphere, the ongoing gender pay gap in Australia, and the ways in which the law firm ethos of long working hours disadvantages women. We then present some practical steps to remedy this situation, including accommodating working mothers' time constraints, mentoring and networking, and training for managers and support staff. It is proposed that more needs to be done to encourage employers to implement these methods with confidence that flexible work arrangements can provide benefit to the firm as a whole, as well as individual employees. To achieve this, we put forward a reform of the framework in order to implement these practical steps. We also discuss some ways to possibly effect attitudinal change in law firm culture and conclude with some observations about the future of legal practice in this context. Finally, further involvement of the Law Council of Australia is proposed, to impose conditions on the practicing certificates of lawyers in supervisory roles to assist them in complying with the framework. This would also ensure that flexible work arrangements are accessible to both employers and employees, which in turn will assist in dissolving the systematic discrimination that female lawyers face in private law firms.


INTRODUCTION
Women in Haiti and throughout the Haitian Diaspora shoulder a disproportionate burden of cervical cancer morbidity and mortality. The widespread Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination holds promise for helping to attenuate this disparity. However, previous research has not fully examined Haitian women's perceptions of, and barriers to, HPV vaccination, which is essential for informing future intervention. The current paper aims to fill this gap.

METHODS
As part of ongoing Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) efforts, we conducted a series of focus groups with Haitian immigrant women in Little Haiti, the predominantly Haitian neighborhood in Miami, Florida, U.S. Focus group questions assessed women's knowledge and beliefs about cervical cancer and HPV, their opinions of vaccines in general, their knowledge and perceptions of the HPV vaccine specifically and health communications preferences for cervical cancer prevention.

RESULTS
Among the participants who had heard of HPV, many held misconceptions about virus transmission and did not understand the role of HPV in the development of cervical cancer. Virtually all participants expressed support for vaccines in general as beneficial for health. Some women had heard of the HPV vaccine, primarily as the result of a contemporary popular media campaign promoting the Gardasil® vaccine. Physician recommendation was commonly mentioned as a reason for vaccination, in addition to having more than one sex partner. Women felt the HPV vaccine was less appropriate for adolescent girls who are presumed as not sexually active. Women indicated a strong preference to obtain health information through trusted sources, such as Haitian physicians, Haitian Community Health Workers, and especially Kreyol-language audiovisual media.

DISCUSSION
Study findings indicate a need for culturally and linguistically appropriate educational initiatives to promote awareness of HPV and its role in cervical cancer, the importance of vaccination against the virus, explicitly differentiating HPV from HIV and providing specific information about vaccine safety.

CONCLUSION
In the U.S., there is a substantial lack of educational information available in Haitian about HPV and cervical cancer. This gap results in missed opportunities to promote disease prevention through vaccination and regular screening. Addressing such gaps is essential for achieving health equity among Haitian immigrant women and other, similarly underserved women, who are disproportionately burdened by cervical cancer.


Recently, attention has focused on whether particulate air pollution is a specific trigger of myocardial infarction (MI). The results of several studies of single locations assessing the effects of ambient particular matter on the risk of MI have been disparate. We used a multicity case-crossover study to examine risk of emergency hospitalization associated with fine particulate matter (PM) with aerodynamic diameter < 10 μm (PM10) for > 300,000 MIs during 1985–1999 among elderly residents of 21 U.S. cities. We used time-stratified controls matched on day of the week or on temperature to detect possible residual confounding by weather. Overall, we found a 0.65% [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.3–1.0%] increased risk of hospitalization for MI per 10 μg/m3 increase in ambient PM10 concentration. Matching on apparent temperature yielded a 0.64% increase in risk (95% CI, 0.1–1.2%). We found that the effect size for PM10 doubled for subjects with a previous admission for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or a secondary diagnosis of pneumonia, although these differences did not achieve statistical significance. There was a weaker indication of a larger effect on males but no evidence of effect modification by age or the other diagnoses. We also found that the shape of the exposure–response relationship between MI hospitalizations and PM10 is almost linear, but with a steeper slope at levels of PM10 < 50 μg/m3. We conclude that increased concentrations of ambient PM10 are associated with increased risk of MI among the elderly.


This paper deals first of all with highlighting the structure of the financial sector in the European Union. It provides a quantitative overview of the role of the different financial and non financial sectors in offering capital funds to accomplish the needs of households, companies, governments, etc. The analysis tries to solve questions such as who provides funds, who uses them, in what forms the finance is formalised or through what channels financial resources flow. The second part analyses some important aspects of the implementation of the Capital Markets Union, which will be a key step in completing the EU Single Market. Our paper concludes with stating that the integration of the capital markets will be a strong step in supporting economic growth and competitiveness in the EU in the long run.


The issue of sustainable development has multiple aspects, all of which need to be considered if sustainability is to be guaranteed. On the environmental front, climate change and depletion of natural resources are two factors that are threatening the earth's ability to regenerate. On the economic front, development that does not pay sufficient attention to income inequality and provision of basic needs to all is a process in danger of imploding. This essay explores the role that finance can play to ensure that investment protects the environment and promotes economic systems that are internally sustainable. Dirk Schoenmaker argues that seeing the role of finance as one of allocating funding to productive investments in a narrow sense is no longer appropriate. What constitutes 'productive' cannot be independent of a project's environmental and socio-economic impact because there are often trade-offs between short-term profits and long-term impact. What might appear to be a profitable project over a given time period could have negative impacts that might only become apparent in the longer term. This essay discusses these trade-offs in the context of the conflicting objectives of shareholders and other stakeholders - the motivation of the former to generate profits might at times jeopardise the long-term interests of the latter. This essay shows how that is a consequence of short-termism and a failure to act with the collective interest in mind. But if sustainability is paramount, as it should be, then the shareholders' and stakeholders' motives need to be better aligned. This essay provides a framework for moving in this direction and offers guidelines to counter short-termism, with an emphasis on incentive-compatible measures for all. Moving from traditional to sustainable finance means having to counter attitudes that are embedded in the ways our economic systems are organised. Shifting away from them requires both new ways of operating but, importantly, new underlying principles that put sustainability centre stage to guide our thinking. It is important that we put this process in motion, and the earlier the better. Maria Demertzis, Deputy Director of Bruegel Brussels, July 2017


This article reflects on the ethical and epistemological challenges facing researchers engaged in contemporary studies of Islam and Muslims in the West. Particularly, it focuses on the impact of the constructions and categorisations of Muslims and Islam in research. To do this, it considers the entwinement of public discourses and the development of research agendas and projects. To examine this complex and enmeshed process, this article explores ideological, discursive and epistemological approaches that it argues researchers need to consider. In invoking these three approaches alongside an analysis of a collection of recent research, this article contends that questions of race, religion and politics have been deployed to reinforce, rather than challenge, certain essentialist/orientalist representations of Islam and Muslims in the West in research. As this article shows, this practice is increasingly threatening to compromise, in a Habermasian communicative sense (i.e., the opportunity to speak and be heard for all concerned), the ethical and epistemological underpinnings of social science research with its emphasis on inclusion and respect.


A laser beam propagating through turbulence experiences random amplitude and phase fluctuations, which can severely degrade the performance of free space optical communication systems. In this letter, time diversity is demonstrated as a technique which can decrease turbulence influence. Statistically, laser propagation along an atmospheric path is uncorrelated with an earlier-time path for a time interval greater than the atmospheric turbulence correlation time. To estimate time diversity system performance, a 2.2-km optical link is set up for comparing the fade probability of a system using time diversity with a system not using time diversity. The experimental results obtained under different turbulence conditions are shown which are in good agreement with the theory.


The Neotropical obligate fungivorous beetle Ceracis cucullatus (Mellié) has attracted attention of coleopterists due to the increasing number of records of populations in Africa. Although its disjunct populations have been interpreted as a cohesive taxonomic unity, previous comparisons between African and Neotropical specimens revealed differences in their external morphology, causing uncertainty about the true unity of the species. Here, we compare the external morphology of specimens named Cer. cucullatus from several localities of the Neotropical, Palearctic, Afrotropical, Afrotemperate and Oriental regions. As results, we reverse three previous junior synonymies of Cer. cucullatus, proposing Cer. lamellatus (Pic) and Cer. tabellifer (Mellié), both reinstated status and new combinations, as separate species. We also propose Enn. bilamellatum Pic as a new synonym of Cer. tabellifer. In face of these taxonomic changes, we identify Cer. tabellifer as the actual invasive species on African lands, instead of Cer. cucullatus as was previously accepted. Then, through historical records gathered from scientific collections and literature, and through examination of recently collected specimens from South Africa and Brazil, we provide data on host fungi and geographic distribution of Cer. tabellifer. Based on these data, we discuss possible explanations to the successful invasion of Cer. tabellifer in Africa and elsewhere and its potential threat to native faunas of ciids. This study helps to fulfil an old gap in the literature on biological invasions, with considerably more studies on predatory species, disease vectors or potential pests of agricultural crops, than on non-pest fungivorous organisms.


Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. involves an action under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). The case was brought in the United States, Southern District of New York, by the widow of Dr. Barinem Kiobel, a Nigerian activist and member of the Ogoni tribe, and others for human rights violations committed in the Niger River Delta. Defendants include Royal Dutch Petroleum, Shell Transport and Trading Co., and Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria. Although the human rights violations including murder and torture were allegedly committed by the Nigerian military government, it is claimed that the Royal Dutch Petroleum defendants aided and abetted the Nigerian military in the human rights violations. The plaintiffs had engaged in protests about the environmental damage caused by the Royal Dutch Petroleum defendants in the area of the Niger Delta and the plight of the Ogoni people in Ogoniland. At the trial level, the court decided that certain claims involving violations of the Law of Nations could be heard by the court. However, the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided that there is a presumption against extraterritoriality in the application of the ATS, and that "mere presence" of a defendant corporation in the United States is insufficient for a court to assume jurisdiction. However, the question remains: What corporate presence would serve as a sufficient basis for a court to assume jurisdiction under the ATS? Given the possibility that corporations could, and perhaps in the future will, be found liable for human rights violations occurring in foreign locales even after Kiobel, prudent risk management behooves corporations and their counsel to monitor whether human rights violations are occurring in connection with their operations, even when those human rights violations are committed by foreign governments or their agents.


Did James Joyce, that icon of modernity, spearhead the dismantling of the Cartesian subject? Or was he a supreme example of a modern man forever divided and never fully known to himself? This volume reads the dialogue of contradictory cultural voices in Joyce's works-revolutionary and reactionary, critical and subject to critique, marginal and central. It includes ten essays that identify repressed elements in Joyce's writings and examine how psychic and cultural repressions persistently surface in his texts. Contributors include Joseph A. Boone, Marilyn L. Brownstein, Jay Clayton, Laura Doyle, Susan Stanford Friedman, Christine Froula, Ellen Carol Jones, Alberto Moreirias, Richard Pearce, and Robert Spoo.


A key feature of welfare reform in 1996 was the replacement of a national entitlement to a minimum economic provision for each poor family by a system under which states enjoy considerable flexibility in deciding whether and under what terms to provide for families in poverty. Some states devolved that authority further down the chain to local or private organizations. In Maryland, the state neither devolved authority to local jurisdictions nor retained it at the state level. Instead, the state placed a large measure of authority for program design and implementation in the hands of state officials whose offices are located in and serve people in one of the counties or the City of Baltimore. By using state data, I've analyzed whether, after welfare reform, it matters to welfare applicants and recipients where they live. It turns out that, beginning with making the first decisions about whether to grant benefits and then assessing how a family might be able to move from welfare to work, it depends a great deal on where in the state an applicant or recipient lives. Differences in the delivery of benefits and services may correlate to some degree with the percentage of women employed in the local jurisdiction, but there is little correlation to unemployment rates or other important differences among the jurisdictions. Further, the data indicate that residents of the two jurisdictions with majority African-American residents are unable to access two important program features. I argue that the state's differential treatment of its residents is actionable as a denial of equal protection under the state constitution because there is no adequate justification for the discrimination. In my view, the applicable standard is, at minimum, rational basis with bite. In the alternative, I argue for a higher standard based on the potential for harm to multiple vulnerable groups, including women, children, people of color and people with disabling conditions. I distinguish a school financing case on the basis that, in that case, it was local control that led to the differences in funding of schools in the various jurisdictions. In the absence of local control, decisions about welfare reform do not necessarily conform to local interests and concerns and discrimination on the basis of a resident's particular location within the state cannot, therefore, be justified on those bases.


The Cañadón Asfalto Formation, Cañadón Asfalto Basin, Patagonia, Argentina, is interpreted as fluvial-lacustrine deposits. A palynological study of the lower and middle parts of the unit, at the Cañadón Lahuincó and Cañadón Caracoles sections, Cerro Cóndor Depocentre Chubut province, northwestern Patagonia, Argentina is presented. The quantitative composition of the palynofloras is characterised by the dominance of pollen produced by the conifer families Cheirolepidiaceae (Classopollis) and Araucariaceae (mainly Araucariacites and Callialasporites), suggesting that warm-temperate and relatively humid conditions under highly seasonal climate prevailed during the depositional times of the unit. The abundance of Botryococcus supports the presence of a shallow lake with probably saline conditions. Five palynomorph ecogroups (PEGs) were recognised: upland, lowland, riverside, coastal lake and aquatic. The ecological requirements of the different plant families forming the PEGs enable the inference of a sub-tropical palaeoclimate for the Cañadón Asfalto region during late Early Jurassic to mid Middle Jurassic, which is consistent with the 'seasonally dry (winterwet)' biome.


The new US model income tax treaty contains an unusual addition: mechanisms for the parties to unilaterally override the negotiated treaty rates in specified circumstances. Previewed last year in proposed form — a first for Treasury — these new mechanisms work as kill-switches, partially terminating the treaty as to one or both treaty partners. The idea is to forestall a more problematic outcome, such as an enduring breach of one of the parties' expectations, or the opposite, a complete termination of all the treaty terms in the face of such a breach. Yet embedding a kill-switch in a treaty creates distinct legal, procedural, and political pressures in the tax-treaty relationship that implicate treaty negotiation, ratification, interpretation, and dispute resolution. Kill-switches also communicate a defensive tenor in the tax treaty relationships among many countries. This Article analyzes the new kill-switch provisions and concludes that their introduction in the U.S. Model reflects the steady deterioration of tax treaties from essentially diplomatic documents premised on the good faith of the parties to detailed contracts drafted in anticipation of the opposite.


In the Nordic power system, the frequency quality has decreased significantly over the years. One of the reasons for this is a superimposed periodic frequency oscillation with a time period of around 40-90 seconds, which may be due to the increasing amount of unregulated power in the Nordic grid [2]. To increase the frequency quality, a project was initiated to find measures to mitigate the oscillations. From this project, a set of qualification tests for primary governing was specified. Primary governing, also known as frequency containment reserves (FCR), is the first response to a change in frequency of the grid. For a unit to participate in the delivery of FCR, the plant has to pass the requirements set by the project group. For this reason, Statkraft initiated that a simulation model of Songa hydro power plant should be developed, to perform the qualification tests and assess whether the plant can deliver FCR according to the new requirements. A simulation model was therefore constructed in MATLAB using the Method of Characteristics and equations describing the behaviour of the turbine and governor, as well as a generator connected to the grid. Frequency containment reserves are divided into two categories, normal and disturbance. The FCR-N delivery is tested by applying a frequency step response and sine sweep. From these tests, the capacity, dynamic performance and stability can be determined from the power response of the unit. Based on the gain and phase of the sinusoidal response, a set of vectors in the complex plane, corresponding to a certain frequency time period, can be developed. These vectors are plotted with circles illustrating the requirements for the dynamic performance and stability. The criteria is fulfilled if the vectors point outside the circle. A final stability verification is performed by a Nyquist diagram obtained by multiplying the FCR-Vectors with a mathematical expression for the grid. The unit has sufficient stability if the Nyquist plot passes the point (-1, j0) on the right hand side, and if it bypasses a specified stability margin circle. The capacity of the FCR-D delivery is determined by a step and ramp response sequence, where the recorded values are the steady-state power response, the active power and energy five seconds after the start of the ramp. To determine the stability, a Nyquist diagram is constructed by the FCR-Vectors and a FCR-D grid transfer function. Performing the qualification tests on the simulation model of Songa hydro power plant, resulted in a FCR-N capacity of 3.7MW at maximum load and 4.6MW at minimum load, which correspond well to measurements performed at the actual plant. The FCRN dynamic performance of the unit was shown to be satisfactory, but the stability was more difficult to determine as the stability circles and Nyquist plot came to differing conclusions. An investigation of the grid transfer function, defined by the project group, revealed that the conclusion on stability from the diagram is dependent on how the function is normalized. The FCR-D capacity, and dynamic performance, was negative for all simulations except for FCR-D downwards regulation at minimum load. The Nyquist stability requirement was not achieved for neither of the simulations. Unfortunately, changing the governor settings did not lead to a more stable system according to the Nyquist stability criteria.


A study of the systematics and the distribution of the squid genus Illex Steenstrup, 1880 was made, utilizing specimens and data from the collections of various institutions throughout the world. The thesis begins with an extensive survey of the literature on the four species of this ommastrephid genus.
Three species, Illex illecebrosus (Lesueur, 1821), I. coindetii (Verany, 1837) and I. argentinus (Castellanos, 1960) are here described and illustrated in detail, together with a modified description of I. oxygonius Roper, Lu and Mangold, 1969. Neotypes of I. illecebrosus and I. coindetii are established.
A selection of morphometric characters are studied to determine
the growth pattern of each species. The growth patterns are expressed
as linear regressions between the mantle length and various measurements
and indices standard in teuthoid systematics.
The taxonomic and morphometric characters of all four species
are compared. Strong sexual dimorphism in the head dimensions, arm
lengths and sucker sizes exist in I. coindetii, I. oxygonius I argentinus. Sexual dimorphism involving these characters in I. illecebrosus is not apparent.
The bathymetric range of I. illecebrosus is 0-500 m.
During its inshore migration in Newfoundland waters it is in
relatively shallow water of 15-30 m, in the Chesapeake Bay region
it is concentrated in the upper 150 m. The bathymetric range of I. coindetii is 0-1080 m, but concentrated at 200-500 m in the Gulf
of Mexico and at 400-600 m in the Caribbean Sea. In the eastern
Atlantic, I. coindetii is found at 160-320 min the Blanes region of
Spain, 200-250 m along the Algerian coast, 40-500 m in the PortVendres
and Las Rosas region, and at 37-485 m in the Gulf of Guinea.
The bathymetric range for I. argentinus is 0-800 m and that of I oxygonius is 50-555 m with greatest concentration at 50-300 m in the
Chesapeake Bay region.
All four species appear to exhibit diel vertical migration
in that they are closely associated with the bottom during the daylight
hours and disperse at night.
The relationship between the occurrence of Illex and basic
hydrographic conditions, e.g., temperature, salinity, and density
are analyzed insofar as the available data permits. I. coindetii and I. oxygonius inhabit warmer, more saline water, while I. illecebrosus and I. argentinus are distinctly boreal and antiboreal species,
inhabiting less saline cold water.
Noting the amphi-Atlantic distribution of I. coindetii, yet
the lack of collections from the mid- Atlantic region, it is postulated that the distribution is associated with the gyre of water
circulation in the northern Atlantic. The most important limiting
factor appears to be temperature.
All four species are valid, although some characteristics
commonly associated with cephalopod taxonomy are felt to be of little
importance in delineating the species of this genera. It is further
suggested that greater importance be given to some characters not
commonly employed.


This paper is devoted to the use of two tools for creating morphologically annotated linguistic corpora: UniParser and the EANC platform. The EANC platform is the database and search framework originally developed for the Eastern Armenian National Corpus (www.eanc.net) and later adopted for other languages. UniParser is an automated morphological analysis tool developed specifically for creating corpora of languages with relatively small numbers of native speakers for which the development of parsers from scratch is not feasible. It has been designed for use with the EANC platform and generates XML output in the EANC format. UniParser and the EANC platform have already been used for the creation of the corpora of several languages: Albanian, Kalmyk, Lezgian, Ossetic, of which the Ossetic corpus is the largest (5 million tokens, 10 million planned for 2013), and are currently being employed in construction of the corpora of Buryat and Modern Greek languages. This paper will describe the general architecture of the EANC platform and UniParser, providing the Ossetic corpus as an example of the advantages and disadvantages of the described approach.


The Effects of Laryngeal Desiccation and Nebulized Isotonic Saline in Male Speakers Whitney Jane Robb Department of Communication Disorders, BYU Master of Science Hydration of the vocal folds is important for the production of normal voice. Dehydration makes voice production more difficult and increases vocal effort. Laryngeal desiccation has been shown to increase phonation threshold pressure (PTP) and self-perceived phonatory effort (PPE) in females. Nebulized saline may reverse or offset this effect. However, few data exist regarding the effects of laryngeal desiccation and nebulized treatments in males. Further, the dose-response relationship between laryngeal desiccation and nebulized hydration treatments is unknown. This study examined the effects of two doses of nebulized isotonic saline following a laryngeal desiccation challenge in healthy male speakers. In a double-blinded, within-subjects design, 10 male college students (age range 18-26 years) attended two data collection sessions involving a 30-minute desiccation challenge followed by 3 mL or 9 mL of nebulized isotonic saline. PTP for the 10th and 80th fundamental frequency (F0) percentiles and PPE were collected before and after the desiccation challenge and at 5, 35, and 65 minutes after the nebulized treatment. PPE increased significantly following the laryngeal desiccation challenge (p < .01). Following nebulization, PPE decreased toward baseline for both doses of isotonic saline (p < .01), but failed to reverse the desiccation effect completely. No statistically significant changes in PTP occurred following the laryngeal desiccation challenge or subsequent treatments. Compared with previous research involving females, these results suggest males may respond differently to laryngeal desiccation and nebulized hydration treatments.


We measured the tilting of a femtosecond laser wave packet in a birefringent rutile crystal. The measurements were carried out with a linear interferometric technique that, in contrast to nonlinear correlation techniques, allows measurement at very low power. A 23-fs delay between the left and the right parts of a 30-fs, 800-nm wave packet with 20° divergence was measured for a 1-mm-thick rutile crystal, in agreement with theoretical predictions.


Industrial pollution is a significant global threat to biodiversity, but its consequences on rainforest ecosystems remain poorly understood. Amphibians are especially susceptible to pollutants released on natural environments due to their aquatic-terrestrial life cycle. Here, we explored the association of severe historical air, water, and soil pollution with physiological and morphological alterations on Rhinella ornata individuals, an endemic toad species of Atlantic Forest, a world biodiversity hotspot. We hypothesized that individuals sampled in sites closer to the pollution source will present worse indicators of health. As predicted, toads at decreasing distances from the pollution source presented enlargement of organs related to detoxification function (liver and kidneys) and compensatory immunological function (spleen). Contrary to our predictions, however, we do not found significant effects of proximity to the pollution source on individuals' body condition index, on the indicative of fertility (testicles masses) or on macroparasite infection's response (eosinophil counts). Surprisingly, proximity to the pollution source was associated with lower chronic stress levels (neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio) on individuals. We discuss which processes could promote the alterations found on the toads. We also discuss the possible acquirement of local resistance to contamination on toads populations closer from pollution source, giving the more than 60 years of exposure to chemical contaminants in the area.


Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) from an HLA-haploidentical relative (haplo-HSCT) is a suitable option for children with acute leukemia (AL) either relapsed or at high-risk of treatment failure. We developed a novel method of graft manipulation based on negative depletion of αβ T and B cells and conducted a prospective trial evaluating the outcome of children with AL transplanted with this approach. Eighty AL children, transplanted between September 2011 and September 2014, were enrolled in the trial. All children were given a fully myeloablative preparative regimen. Anti-T-lymphocyte globulin from day -5 to -3 was used for preventing graft rejection and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD); no patient received any posttransplantation GVHD prophylaxis. Two children experienced primary graft failure. The cumulative incidence of skin-only, grade 1-2 acute GVHD was 30%; no patient developed extensive chronic GVHD. Four patients died, the cumulative incidence of nonrelapse mortality being 5%, whereas 19 relapsed, resulting in a 24% cumulative incidence of relapse. With a median follow-up of 46 months for surviving patients, the 5-year probability of chronic GVHD-free, relapse-free survival (GRFS) is 71%. Total body irradiation-containing preparative regimen was the only variable favorably influencing relapse incidence and GRFS. The outcomes of these 80 patients are comparable to those of 41 and 51 children given transplantation from an HLA-identical sibling or a 10/10 allelic-matched unrelated donor in the same period. These data indicate that haplo-HSCT after αβ T- and B-cell depletion represents a competitive alternative for children with AL in need of urgent allograft. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT01810120.


Marine aggregates play an important role in the cycling of carbon, nutrients and trace metals. Within aggregates the oxygen depleted by aerobic microbial respiration may not be replaced rapidly, generating anoxic or suboxic microzones. Reduced compounds that are unstable in the oxygenated water column have been previously found associated with marine snow. Therefore, in the experiments described in this thesis, artificial aggregates were made in the laboratory from senescent phytoplankton material and incubated to investigate the role of the associated microbial populations to the biogeochemical redox cycling of iron and manganese and to the degradation of organic matter. The release of dissolved iron from artificial aggregates which did not contain any measurable (~10 ?m) anoxic microzones, was demonstrated under dark conditions. The rate of release was controlled by the amount of reducible Fe(III) available, and appears to be limited by the competing oxidation of Fe(II). Moreover highly significant releases in reduced Mn were detected from aggregates incubated under a constant velocity shear, although the same aggregates did not affect the dissolution of iron. A possible reason is likely associated with the higher stability of Mn(II), compared to Fe(II) in aerobic environments. Molecular (16S rRNA gene) analyses showed the bacterial community associated with artificial aggregates to be similar to that found in natural aggregates and dominated by (predominantly uncultured) ?- and ?-Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Planctomycetes and Cyanobacteria. It was possible to culture NO3 --, Fe(III)- and Mn(IV)-reducing bacteria from the artificial aggregates, and marine particles incubated with Fe(III) under anaerobic conditions contained a range of ?- and ?-Proteobacteria known to respire Fe(III) and in most cases Mn(IV). Moreover several microorganisms belonging to ?-Proteobacteria were isolated from marine aggregates and strains affiliated to the genera Amphritea, Marinobacterium and Marinobacter, were demonstrated to grow through the reduction of Fe(III), with Marinobacter also capable of respiring Mn(IV). Whilst the precise mechanism of reduction is not clear, it is evident that marine aggregates can be a source of Fe(II) and dissolved Mn, in coastal waters and most probably other natural water systems. Fatty acid analyses revealed the prevalence of saturated over unsaturated fatty acids indicating that aggregates were already partially degraded when incubation started. Nonetheless, the lipids in the artificial aggregates were rapidly degraded further as indicated by a depletion in short chain ( monounsaturated fatty acids. In contrast, the concentrations of linear and branched, saturated long chain (>20) fatty acids fluctuated, suggesting that some of these lipids could have been produced in situ by marine microorganisms rather than deriving from II higher plant debris. In addition, a bacterial branched monounsaturated fatty acid (11- methyl-octadecenoic acid), which has not previously been found in marine particles was present in artificial aggregates. Roseobacter litoralis found among the aggregateattached bacteria contains 11-methyl-octadecenoic acid, and other bacteria present in artificial aggregates have the potential to produce long-chain saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Thus, the fatty acid assemblage appears to reflect both organic matter degradation, including selective preservation, but also changes in the microbial assemblage. A range of future studies are suggested to elucidate the mechanisms for Fe(III) and Mn(IV) reduction in aggregates. These include microscale analyses of dissolved species and evaluation of the presence of metal binding ligands associated with aggregates. Moreover it is important to assess the activity of the Fe(III)- and Mn(IV)- reducing bacteria present in aggregates in situ and the production of long chain fatty acids in degrading aggregates.


The overriding objective of MFIs in Ethiopia is to provide a broad range of microfinance services to large numbers of poor households. This is realized by developing capable and sustainable MFIs. A large number of MFIs have achieved significant progress in terms of both outreach and sustainability. As of June 2005, the twenty six deposit taking MFIs had an active loan portfolio of about 1.5 billion Birr (173 million USD) delivered to 1,211,305 active clients. They mobilized about 501million Birr (58 million US dollars) in savings. The Ethiopian MFIs attained such a significant outreach in a brief period of time. Between 2001 and 2005, the number of clients, volume of loan portfolio and savings increased by 263%, 479%, and 206%, respectively. In 2004, 12 out of the 15 MFIs were operationally sustainable, while 5 were financially sustainable. The majority of the MFIs increased their efficiency and productivity indicators as a result of expansion or increase in outreach. Out of the 15 MFIs, eleven had less than 5% portfolio at risk, which was encouraging. Out of the 13 MFIs which registered significant growth in outreach, 9 showed a remarkable decline in their portfolio at risk. As a result of the increased outreach, many of the MFIs maintained and some improved their portfolio quality. A careful balancing of increasing outreach and sustainability; with a parallel focus on institutional capacity; reducing costs and risks; and improving efficiency, profitability and portfolio quality, is needed to address the financial demand millions of unbanked people in Ethiopia. The specific interventions to increase the growth and sustainability of MFIs include: (a) Improving the institutional capacity of the MFIs by the implementing an efficient organizational structure, (changes in organization culture, structure and systems, for instance, decentralized lending decisions) with appropriate staff incentive and reward system, improvement of the skill of human resource, good governance, introduction of innovative financial products, and the increase of geographic expansion; (b) creating an enabling legal, regulatory and policy environment; (c) improve access to capital; (d) selective government and donor support; and (e) improving the demand side of the equation


Through a series of complex transformations, the pixel-like input to the retina is converted into rich visual perceptions that constitute an integral part of visual recognition. Multiple visual problems arise due to damage or developmental abnormalities in the cortex of the brain. Here, we provide an overview of how visual information is processed along the ventral visual cortex in the human brain. We discuss how neurophysiological recordings in macaque monkeys and in humans can help us understand the computations performed by visual cortex.


Microtubules in the dendrites of cultured hippocampal neurons are of nonuniform polarity orientation. About half of the microtubules have their plus ends oriented distal to the cell body, and the other half have their minus ends distal; in contrast, microtubules in the axon are of uniform polarity orientation, all having their plus ends distal (Baas, P.W., J.S. Deitch, M. M. Black, and G. A. Banker. 1988. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 85:8335-8339). Here we describe the developmental changes that give rise to the distinct microtubule patterns of axons and dendrites. Cultured hippocampal neurons initially extend several short processes, any one of which can apparently become the axon (Dotti, C. G., and G. A. Banker. 1987. Nature [Lond.]. 330:477-479). A few days after the axon has begun its rapid growth, the remaining processes differentiate into dendrites (Dotti, C. G., C. A. Sullivan, and G. A. Banker. 1988. J. Neurosci. 8:1454-1468). The polarity orientation of the microtubules in all of the initial processes is uniform, with plus ends distal to the cell body, even through most of these processes will become dendrites. This uniform microtubule polarity orientation is maintained in the axon at all stages of its growth. The polarity orientation of the microtubules in the other processes remains uniform until they begin to grow and acquire the morphological characteristics of dendrites. It is during this period that microtubules with minus ends distal to the cell body first appear in these processes. The proportion of minus end-distal microtubules gradually increases until, by 7 d in culture, about equal numbers of dendritic microtubules are oriented in each direction. Thus, the establishment of regional differences in microtubule polarity orientation occurs after the initial polarization of the neuron and is temporally correlated with the differentiation of the dendrites.


Depression is common in palliative care, and its adverse impact on quality of life, function and physical symptom severity is well documented.1–3 Alleviating low mood mitigates the emotional, social and physical impact of advanced illness—but for patients with a short prognosis the options are limited. Most psychotherapeutic approaches require a series of sessions delivered over several weeks, and antidepressant medication may take 1–6 weeks to have full therapeutic effect. Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in the use of psychostimulants for treating depression, especially in patients with advanced disease. The potential for psychostimulants to enhance mood, energy and arousal within hours holds particular promise for palliative patients. Though the evidence base is scant and methodologically shaky,4 several authorities have recommended psychostimulants for patients with a short life expectancy,5 ,6 and they are increasingly being used, particularly in the USA.

This issue presents the results of METIORON—a multicentre, double-blind, randomised placebo-controlled trial of the effect of methylphenidate on depressive symptoms in advanced cancer. Centeno and colleagues' randomised controlled trial (RCT) is, to our knowledge, the first to evaluate the effect of psychostimulants on palliative patients' mood as the primary outcome. The study investigators compared response with methylphenidate versus placebo over a 28-day period. In common with many RCTs undertaken in this setting, poor accrual and high attrition undermined the power of the study to provide a definitive answer to the question posed. Nevertheless, the observed non-significant trend towards improved mood with methylphenidate versus placebo is an important finding.

Studies assessing the impact of psychostimulants on depression in non-palliative populations have yielded mixed results, with no clear indication of efficacy. A Cochrane review by Candy et al 7 in 2008 identified 24 trials …


With the growth of the availability of large speech corpora, statistical models of prosody control have been studied intensively. These computational models have improved the naturalness of synthetic speech and are expected to provide additional supra‐segmental information for speech recognition. Though only conventional statistical methods such as linear regression, regression trees, or neural nets have been employed in these computational models, their success has been due to efforts to accommodate observed prosodic characteristics and qualitatively known control mechanisms. In this talk, a review will be presented on how observed prosodic characteristics have been modeled with these statistical tools and also how new statistical models can be designed to cope with the insufficiencies of conventional models. It is expected that the investigation of well‐constrained models and their constraints will lead one to more efficient computational models and deeper understanding of prosody control mechanism thro...


In this paper, we explore the changes wrought by digitisation upon the domains of culture and knowledge. Half a century into the process of the digitisation of text, we argue that only now are we on the cusp of a series of paradigm shifts in the processes of writing, and concomitantly, our modes of cultural expression and our social processes of knowing. We describe the transition underway in the fundamental mechanics of rendering, the new navigational order which is associated with this transition, the demise of isolated written text that accompanies the rise of multimodality, the ubiquity of recording and documentation, a shift in the balance of representation agency, and its correlate in the emergence of a new dynamics of difference. The shape of these hugely significant changes is just beginning to become clear in the new, internet-mediated social media. The potential of the new textual regime is to transform our very means of production of meaning. However, when we come to examine the domain of formal knowledge production, historically pivoting on the peer reviewed journal and published monograph, there are as yet few signs of change. This paper points in a tentative way to potentials for knowledge-making which are as yet unrealised: new semantic markup processes which will improve knowledge discovery, data mining and machine translation; a new navigational order in which knowledge is not simply presented in a linear textual exegesis; the multimodal representation of knowledge in which knowledge evaluators and validators gain a broader, deeper and less mediated view of the knowledge they are assessing; navigable databanks in which reviewers and readers alike can make what they will of data and interactions recorded incidental to knowledge making; co-construction of knowledge through recursive dialogue between knowledge creators and knowledge users, to the extent of eliding that distinction; and a polylingual, polysemic knowledge world in which source natural language is arbitrary and narrowly specialised discourses and bodies of knowledge can be valued by their intellectual quality instead of the quantitative mass of their readership and citation.


Lenalidomide (Len) plus dexamethasone (Dex) is approved for the treatment of relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM). It is possible that single‐agent Len may be effective as prolonged treatment regimen in RRMM once patients demonstrate an initial response to Len+Dex induction. Patients with RRMM who responded to first‐line Len+Dex in an observational study (NCT01430546) received up to 24 cycles of either Len (25 mg/day) or Len+Dex (25 mg/day and 40 mg/week) as prolonged treatment in a subsequent phase 2 clinical trial (NCT01450215). In the observational study (N = 133), median time to response was 1.7 (range 0.6–9.6) months. A complete response to all treatments received in both studies was observed in 11% of patients; very good partial response and partial response rates were 31% and 38%, respectively. Corresponding response rates in the subgroup of patients who did not enter the phase 2 trial (n = 71) were 3%, 18%, and 39%, respectively. Rates of disease progression at 2 years in the phase 2 trial were 47% versus 31% for Len versus Len+Dex (P = 0.14). After 36 months median follow‐up in surviving patients, median time to progression was not reached with Len+Dex and was 24.9 months (95% confidence interval 12.5–not calculable, P < 0.001) with Len. Three‐year OS among the total observational study population was 61% (95% CI, 52–69%). The corresponding rate among patients who entered the phase 2 clinical trial was 73% (95% CI, 60–83%) and was significantly lower among those patients who achieved ≥PR but did not proceed into the phase 2 trial (55%; P = 0.01). In the phase 2 trial, OS was 73% in both treatment arms (P = 0.70). Neutropenia and thrombocytopenia were more common with prolonged (phase 2 trial) versus short‐term (observational study) Len administration but remained manageable. Prolonged treatment with Len with or without Dex provides sustained, clinically relevant responses and demonstrates an acceptable safety profile.


Mobile commerce or better known as M-commerce is a fairly new phenomenon in the wake of the second technology wave from the famous E-commerce (electronic commerce) in the 21 st century. As the Internet started to proliferate in many parts of the world, the mobile phone penetration in terms of voice communication started to grow rapidly. This simultaneous rapid growth has caused a new phenomenon of convergence of Internet computing and mobile communication where M-commerce has its root. M-commerce has the potential to enhance the work-life within the employed mobile phone users in Bangladesh. The purpose of this study is to examine whether awareness and knowledge, convenience of Mobile devices and WAP/GPRS enabled handsets, pricing and cost, security and privacy, rich and fast information, and perceived usefulness have any influence on the adoption of M-commerce among employed Mobile phone users in two major cities in Bangladesh – Dhaka and Chittagong. A survey method was used to collect data. The findings suggest that pricing and cost, rich and fast information, and security and privacy are significant predictors of the adoption of M-commerce. Self-efficacy is found to be a moderating factor for the adoption of M-commerce services. The findings also suggest that there is no significant gender difference in terms of M-commerce adoption level among mobile users in Bangladesh.


This paper contributes to knowledge about regional resilience to displacement and examines the extent to which the characteristics of the i) regional closures, ii) individuals in a region, iii) regional industry, iv) regional economy and v) regional attractiveness influence the re-employment of displaced employees. The results indicate that regions where the average size of establishment closures is large or the regional displacement rate is high exhibit increased resilience in terms of re-employing displaced employees in the same region. Unrelated and related industrial variety are positively related to resilience to displacement in regions with low re-employment capacities, whereas there is some evidence that regional attractiveness is positively related to resilience in regions with a good ability to re-employ displaced employees.


In recent years, reagents have been developed that specifically target signals critical for effective T cell activation and function. Manipulation of the CD28/CD80/86 and CD40/CD154 pathways has exhibited extraordinary efficacy, particularly when the pathways are blocked simultaneously. Despite the reported efficacy of anti-CD154 in rodents and higher models, its future clinical use is uncertain due to reported thromboembolic events in clinical trials. To circumvent this potential complication, we developed and evaluated a chimeric Ab targeting CD40 (Chi220, BMS-224819) as an alternative to CD154. Although Chi220 blocks CD154 binding, it also possesses partial agonist properties and weak stimulatory potential. The anti-CD40 was tested alone and in combination with a rationally designed, high affinity variant of CTLA4-Ig, LEA29Y (belatacept), in a nonhuman primate model of islet transplantation. Although either agent alone only modestly prolonged islet survival (Chi220 alone: 14, 16, and 84 days; LEA29Y alone: 58 and 60 days), their combination (LEA29Y and Chi220) dramatically facilitated long term survival (237, 237, 220, >185, and 172 days). We found that the effects of Chi220 treatment were not mediated solely through deletion of CD20-bearing cells and that the combined therapy did not significantly impair established antiviral immunity.


Guidelines and Expert Consensus Documents summarize and evaluate all currently available evidence on a particular issue with the aim to assist physicians in selecting the best management strategies for a typical patient, suffering from a given condition, taking into account the impact on outcome, as well as the risk–benefit ratio of particular diagnostic or therapeutic means. Guidelines are no substitutes for textbooks. The legal implications of medical guidelines have been discussed previously.

A great number of Guidelines and Expert Consensus Documents have been issued in recent years by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) as well as by other societies and organizations. Because of the impact on clinical practice, quality criteria for development of guidelines have been established in order to make all decisions transparent to the user. The recommendations for formulating and issuing ESC Guidelines and Expert Consensus Documents can be found on the ESC website (http://www.escardio.org/knowledge/guidelines/rules).

In brief, experts in the field are selected and undertake a comprehensive review of the published evidence for management and/or prevention of a given condition. A critical evaluation of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures is performed including the assessment of the risk/benefit ratio. Estimates of expected health outcomes for larger societies are included, where data exist. The level of evidence and the strength of recommendation of particular treatment options are weighed and graded according to pre-defined scales, as outlined in Tables 1 and  2 .

View this table:

 Table 1
Classes of recommendations

View this table:

 Table 2
Levels of evidence

The experts of the writing panels have provided disclosure statements of all relationships they may have which might be perceived as real or potential sources of conflicts of interest. These disclosure forms are kept on file at the European Heart House, headquarters of the ESC. Any changes in conflict of interest that arise during the writing period must be notified …


Simulations and experiments show oligo-glycines, polypeptides lacking any side chains, can collapse in water. We assess the hydration thermodynamics of this collapse by calculating the hydration free energy at each of the end points of the reaction coordinate, here taken as the end-to-end distance (r) in the chain. To examine the role of the various conformations for a given r, we study the conditional distribution, P(Rg|r), of the radius of gyration for a given value of r. The free energy change versus Rg, -kBT ln P(Rg|r), is found to vary more gently compared to the corresponding variation in the excess hydration free energy. Using this observation within a multistate generalization of the potential distribution theorem, we calculate a tight upper bound for the hydration free energy of the peptide for a given r. On this basis, we find that peptide hydration greatly favors the expanded state of the chain, despite primitive hydrophobic effects favoring chain collapse. The net free energy of collapse is seen to be a delicate balance between opposing intrapeptide and hydration effects, with intrapeptide contributions favoring collapse.


An Applied Model of Teaching Materials to Improve Students' Speaking Skill showed the best results of the experimental study done to the students of the English Study Program of Teacher Training and Educational Science Faculty Serambi Mekkah University Banda Aceh. The subject was specifically applied to the students of the mentioned institution, in terms of finding out its impact to the teaching-learning process of students' speaking skill referred to the principles of language teaching. The main target of this study is to produce the teaching materials in the form of textbook; therefore, it is done in three years. The first year was focused on preparing the research instrument. The second year will be concerned with all kinds of revising the instrument. While the last year will get various kinds of data to revise the teaching materials to become simple, practical, and applicable handbook labelled of Book-ISBN branded for the speaking class.


Cryptanalytic time-memory trade-offs were introduced by Hellman in 1980 in order to perform key-recovery attacks on cryptosystems. A major advance was presented at Crypto 2003 by Oechslin, with the rainbow table variant that outperforms Hellman's seminal work. This paper introduces the fingerprint tables, which drastically reduce the number of false alarms during the attack compared to the rainbow tables. The key point of our technique consists in storing in the tables the fingerprints of the chains instead of their endpoints. The fingerprint tables provide a time-memory trade-off that is about two times faster than the rainbow tables on usual problem sizes. We experimentally illustrate the performance of our technique, and demonstrate that it is faster than Ophcrack, a Windows LM Hash password cracker considered so far to be the fastest one ever implemented.


Many image editing operations, such as colorization, matting or deformation, can be performed by propagating user-defined sparse constraints (e.g. scribbles) to the rest of the image using content-aware weight functions. Image manipulation has been recently extended to simultaneous editing of multiple images of the same subject or scene by precomputing dense correspondences, where the content-aware weights play a core role in defining the sub-pixel accurate image warps from source to target images. In this paper, we expand the range of applications for content-aware weights to the multi-image setting and improve the quality of the recently proposed weights and the matching framework. We show that multiple images of a subject can be used to refine the content-aware weights, and we propose a customization of the weights to enable easily-controllable interactive depth segmentation and assignment, image matting and deformation transfer, both in singleand multi-image settings.


Differential cryptanalysis of block ciphers requires the identification of differential characteristics with high probability. For block ciphers that have a large block size and a large number of rounds, identifying these differential trails is a computationally intensive task. Matsui first proposed a branch-and-bound algorithm to search for differential trails in 1994. There have been numerous improvements made to the branch-and-bound algorithm since then, such as improving its efficiency by bounding the number of active s-boxes, incorporating a meet-in-the-middle approach, and adapting it to different block cipher architectures like ARX. Although mixedinteger linear programming (MILP) technique has been widely used recently to evaluate the differential resistance of block ciphers, MILP is still an inefficient technique for clustering differential trails (also known as the differential effect). The branch-and-bound method is still a tool better suited for the task of trail clustering. However, it still requires enhancements before being feasible for block ciphers with large block sizes, especially for a large number of rounds. Motivated by the need for a more efficient branch-and-bound algorithm to search for block cipher differential clusters, we propose a GPU-accelerated branch-and-bound approach. The proposed GPU-accelerated algorithm substantially increases the performance of the differential cluster search. We were able to derive a branch enumeration and evaluation kernel that is 5.95 times faster than its CPU counterpart. Then to showcase the practicality of the proposed approach, it is applied on TRIFLE-BC, a 128-bit block cipher. By utilizing the proposed GPU kernel together the incorporation of a meet-in-the-middle approach, we were able to improve the performance of the algorithm by approximately 60 times the original recursive algorithm based on a 20-round TRIFLE-BC. Also, differential clusters with sizes of approximately 2 million for 43 rounds were constructed, leading to slight improvements to the overall differential probabilities. This result depicts the practicality of the proposed GPU framework in constructing clusters consisting of millions of differential trails, which could be used to improve cryptanalytic findings against other block ciphers in the future.


We investigated the mechanism of action, safety, and efficacy of the Site-Specific Immunomodulator (SSI) QBECO, a novel immunotherapy for Crohn's disease (CD). Using human monocytic THP-1 cells, we demonstrate that SSI QBECO (derived from the common colon bacteria E. coli) activates macrophages to an M1 phenotype (associated with enhanced capacity to eliminate bacteria and activate innate immune responses). We assessed SSI QBECO in a compassionate use protocol of ten adult patients with active CD. Patients with moderate to severe clinical symptoms receiving conventional CD treatments and/or complementary therapies were included, except patients receiving anti-TNF medications. SSI QBECO was self-administered subcutaneously every second day, for a minimum of 2.5 months and a maximum of 11 months. All 10 patients reported improvement of symptoms while on the SSI QBECO treatment. Seven patients reported full resolution of clinical symptoms during a course of SSI QBECO of at least three months. Three patients have experienced ongoing sustained clinical remission after discontinuing all medications, including SSI treatment. The longest case of clinical remission is still ongoing (>4 years). No serious severe adverse clinical events were reported. Collectively, we conclude that treatment with the immunoactive SSI QBECO was well tolerated and effective for treatment of Crohn's disease in this case series.


Convergence in Competition Law. The influence of EC law on substantive application, access, evidence and review by the Dutch administrative competition court, viewed in the light of effective judicial protection The theme of this dissertation is convergence in competition law. It focuses on the influence of European administrative law on Dutch competition law procedures before the administrative competition courts. The underlying thesis is that substantive statutory convergence in the Dutch Competition Law Act will give rise to procedural convergence, as a result of the general idea that procedural law is shaped by and ancillary to substantive law. There are many ways in which such influence may take form: from spontaneous parallelism, top-down influence by the EC principle of effectiveness, to spill-over effects into national procedural law. Should this general thesis prove correct for Dutch administrative competition court procedures, this dissertation would substantiate the idea of a developing administrative ius commune. However, this general expectation is not necessarily affirmed by the results of this research. To map procedural convergence, the research was narrowed down to three central themes: access to court, evidentiary law and review by the competition courts. Judgments concerning the application of the cartel prohibition, merger control and competition complaints have been analysed with regard to these three themes. In summary, the research shows that substantive statutory convergence does not necessarily lead to procedural convergence with regard to these three themes. The research then adds a further layer in which these results are evaluated in light of the requirements of effective judicial protection. These requirements have been defined by analysing the EC principle of effectiveness and proposing a national principle of effective judicial protection. In summary, this evaluation brings to light that the requirements are not always met. For example, access to court must be sufficient in light of the underlying substantive law. Also effective judicial protection requires that there must be a clear and effective system of judicial protection. Such access is not always given. The allocation of the burden of proof must not make it impossible for the competition authority to enforce competition law effectively, but must also, specifically in proceedings concerning a criminal charge, not be shifted to the undertaking accused. Neither must it be so onerous that access to a substantive hearing before the competition authority becomes impossible for complainants. The standard of proof should, at the very least, be clear. However, many evidentiary rules have not yet been dealt with in judgments by the national courts and clarity is lacking in several respects. Furthermore, judicial review must be sufficiently intensive, again in light of substantive law. It can be questioned however, whether this requirement is always met, doubts particularly concern review of economic evidence and the rights of defence. Lastly, the judges themselves must be active and involved, and should concentrate on the central issue of the dispute. For this the courts need to have (recourse to) sufficient expertise. Again, it can be questioned whether this is the case across the board. Generally therefore, the requirements of effective judicial protection are not satisfied in every case. Concrete recommendations have been put forward to ameliorate this situation.


A Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model was developed for the disposition of dioxins in various fish species. The model was developed based on available information on the mechanisms of uptake, distribution, storage and elimination of dioxins in various species (other than fish) and empirical data on disposition of dioxins in the fish tissues. Two versions of the model were implemented: one for exposure to dioxins in water through the gill and the other one for exposure through food. Model compartments included the gill, kidney, liver and other richly-perfused tissues, as well as fat and other slowly-perfused tissues. In the food exposure version, the gut was also included as a richly-perfused tissue. The water exposure model was calibrated using two independent data sets for exposure of fathead minnow and medaka to 2,3,7,8-TCDD in water. The estimated parameter values in the two data sets were comparable and the predictions agreed with the observations very well. The results were compared to those produced by the default methods (bioconcentration factors). Uncertainty in the model prediction as a result of variability in input parameters was also discussed for the parameters with the highest impacts on the model outcome. The predictions of the food pathway exposure model were compared to data for rainbow trout liver.


This work was supported by the project PTDC/AGRTEC/3366/2012 with the acronym Rose4Pack (Biodegradable active packaging with rosemary extract (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) to improve food shelf-life) and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and COMPETE Program (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028015). Denise Costa is grateful for the research grant under the project Rose4Pack. Tânia Albuquerque is grateful for research grant (BRJ/DAN-2012) funded by National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo Jorge, I.P.


This paper surveys China's legal system in the economic reform era. We analyze the role of law in the economy, assessing whether China's formal legal system contributed to those expectations of stable and predictable rights of property and contract that are prerequisites for growth. The paper begins by detailing legal developments. The relationship between legal and economic development was bidirectional - a coevolutionary process. We then examine three spheres of activity - property rights, agreements to trade, and corporate governance - asking whether law plays an important role, how that role has changed, and what the current problems are. Common themes arise. First, there have been profound changes, with law playing an increasingly important role. Second, formal legal institutions have not made a critical contribution to China's remarkable economic success. This latter conclusion leaves open the question of which mechanisms generated the necessary expectations of reasonable returns from decentralized economic activity. We briefly reflect on mechanisms other than law that might have produced such expectations, for example, the role of local Communist Party officials. However, lack of empirical information suggests this is a topic for future research.


We are surrounded by interactive devices, artifacts, and systems. The general assumption is that interactivity is good -- that it is a positive feature associated with being modern, efficient, fast, flexible, and in control. Yet there is no very precise idea of what interaction is and what interactivity means. In this book, Lars-Erik Janlert and Erik Stolterman investigate the elements of interaction and how they can be defined and measured. They focus on interaction with digital artifacts and systems but draw inspiration from the broader, everyday sense of the word.Viewing the topic from a design perspective, Janlert and Stolterman take as their starting point the interface, which is designed to implement the interaction. They explore how the interface has changed over time, from a surface with knobs and dials to clickable symbols to gestures to the absence of anything visible. Janlert and Stolterman examine properties and qualities of designed artifacts and systems, primarily those that are open for manipulation by designers, considering such topics as complexity, clutter, control, and the emergence of an expressive-impressive style of interaction. They argue that only when we understand the basic concepts and terms of interactivity and interaction will we be able to discuss seriously its possible futures.


This paper proposes an Internet of Thing system architecture based on Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) for agricultural applications. The system consists of sensor nodes and a gateway, which allows a user to monitor environmental data for agriculture using a web browser. The sensor node is a microcontroller based Arduino including wireless module and connected sensors such as temperature, relative humidity, luminosity, air pressure and other sensors. A WiFi interface is deployed to exchange the environmental information from sensor nodes to the gateway running Linux. The gateway manages and transfers data to a Cloud where data were stored and visualized as graphs.


Periodically-poled lithium niobate (PPLN) is proving to be a very versatile and effective nonlinear optical material. It has a high nonlinearity (20pm/V) and offers non-critical phase-matching over its entire transmission range. In the first experiments demonstrating synchronously-pumped parametric oscillation in PPLN, the tuning range achieved using a 1047nm pump (from a mode-locked Nd:YLF laser) covered 1.67µm - 2.806µm (signal+idler), using 6mm long PPLN samples that we had fabricated by electric field poling. In the experiment reported here, we have used longer samples (19mm, fabricated by Crystal Technology). This has resulted in lower thresholds, now down to as low as ~8mW of mean pump power at 1047nm. We have also used shorter grating periods, thus allowing a considerable extension of tuning range, now covering 1.33µm - 4.81µm. The efficient performance of the OPO at the long wavelength limit is particularly notable. PPLN allows extension to longer wavelengths than bulk lithium niobate since the IR absorption edge for the extraordinary polarisation (as used in PPLN) is at a longer wavelength than for the ordinary polarisation. While the infrared absorption of 0.75cm at 4.8µm is already significant for our 19mm PPLN sample, the long-wave limit for oscillation was, in fact, set by the shortest grating period available and not by the IR absorption. It is the high-gain available from PPLN, helped by the long sample and mode-locked pump, that allows operation well into the region of IR absorption. Thus, pumping with a mode-locked 1047nm Nd:YLF laser (4ps pulses, 120MHz, ~1W mean power, Microlase DPM-1000-120), a threshold (mean incident power) of only 80mW was achieved for 4.8µm generation. An available output of 40mW was measured at 4.8µm for 800mW of incident pump power. The observed pump depletion was ~75%, a level which was maintained or exceeded across the entire tuning range, implying that over 100mW of 4.8µm power was generated, of which some 60% was lost by IR absorption and reflection at the PPLN AR coating. Based on these performance figures we calculate that, allowing for the increased IR absorption, this PPLN device could be usefully extended even beyond 5µm, thus covering an extensive and important range in infrared spectrum