We report direct experimental observation of interesting pulse synchronization dynamics in a cavity-combined Er and Yb mode-locked fiber lasers by measuring the relative position between the two-color pulses in the shared fiber section. The influence of the 1.03 μm pulse on the 1.56 μm single pulse as well as bound soliton pairs can be clearly identified as an effective phase modulation through the XPM effect with the walk-off effect taken into account. For the 1.56 μm single pulse under synchronization, the dependence of the relative position variation and the center wavelength shift on the cavity mismatch detuning is found analogous to the typical characteristics of FM mode-locked lasers with modulation frequency detuning. Moreover, depending on the cavity mismatch, the passively synchronized 1.56 μm bound soliton pairs are found to exhibit two different dynamical behaviors, i.e., phase-locked (in-phase) as well as non-phase-locked. The physical origins for these two kinds of bound soliton pairs are investigated experimentally by disclosing their locations with respective to the copropagating 1.03 μm pulse.


Last week, @dmonniaux published an interesting post entitled l'erreur n'a rien d'original  on  his blog. He was asking the following question : let , and denote three real-valued coefficients, under which assumption on those three coefficients does has a real-valued root ? Everyone aswered , but no one mentioned that it is necessary to have a proper quadratic equation, first. For instance, if both and are null, there are no roots. It reminds me all my time series courses, when I define ...


Raphael Georg Kiesewetter's treatise Die Musik der Araber nach Originalquellen dargestellt (1842) is today considered as "pioneering ethnomusicological study of Arabic writings on music". Created during a period of increased scientific interest in the Orient, it reflected the current state of knowledge about Arabic music at the time using diverse sources. From the current point of view, the book contains numerous shortcomings and does not meet the standards of modern ethno-musicological research. Nevertheless, this book offers the oppor-tunity to look back at the beginn¬ings of ethno-musicology including the problems and questions concerning Arabic music which occupied the scientific world during the 19th century. In a time before the development of sound recording, written notation was the only possibility to gain access to Arabic music. However, European music notation originated from a completely different cultural context and suited this en¬deavour to a very limited extent. In spite of the attempt to ensure objectivity, the treatises of those days remained too dependent on European conventions and listening habits to adequately capture the reality of Arab music. Still, these writings – for which Kiesewetter's Musik der Araber constitutes a paradig¬matic illustration – allow insight into the formation of the European view on the Orient in the 19th century.


Distributed programming is characterized by high communications costs and the inability to use shared variables and procedures for interprocessor synchronization and communication. *MOD is a high-level language system which attempts to address these problems by creating an environment conducive to efficient and reliable network software construction. Several of the *MOD distributed programming constructs are discussed as well as an interprocessor communication methodology. Examples illustrating these concepts are drawn from the areas of network communication and distributed process synchronization.


The difference of the effect of cornins extracted from various kinds of living tissues was examined by employing several cell lines in vitro. And the inhibitory effect on tumor growth of the cornins was tested on the mice transplanted with Ehrlich ascites carcinoma. The results are as follows: 1) The antimitotic effect of canine intestine cornin (CIC) was more effective on Ehrlich ascites carcinoma cells in vitro (JTC-11) than that of bovine intestine cornin (BIC) and that of porcine intestine cornin (PIC). 2) Dialysable fraction, undialysable fraction and crude of CIC showed similar activities on the JTC-11 cell line. 3) The antigenicity of CIC was not proved by the hemagglutination test and no mice injected intraperitoneally with large doses of CIC showed any intoxication and disturbance. 4) The inhibitory effect of CIC on tumor growth was the strongest in the three kinds of the intestine cornins with Ehrlich ascites carcinoma and some of tumor-bearing mice were cured completly by the intraperitoneal injections of CIC. 5) The cornin extracted from liver of normal rats (RLC) had marked inhibitory effect on the cell growth of the short-term cultured cell line (RLM-1) and the long-term cultured cell line (RLN-10) originated from normal rat liver, but no effect was observed on the cell line in culture which came from the DAB ascites hepatoma of the same line rat.


In this essay I argue that the tension between Susan Sontag's status as a postmodern celebrity and her devotion to the modernist cult of impersonality may be productively related to her sexuality. Beginning with her famous essay 'Notes of Camp' (1964), Sontag aligned herself (somewhat uneasily) with metropolitan gay culture. On the other hand, Sontag was one of the most famous undeclared lesbians in recent history. While she largely eschewed life writing, her fiction, essays, and interviews have often been read by critics for their autobiographical resonances. I extend this critical tendency by attending to the articulation and elision of what Jonathan Dollimore calls sexual dissidence in Sontag's writing. I also reflect on the difference the publication of the first of a series of three projected volumes of her journals makes to our ideas about Sontag and sexuality.


BACKGROUND
Metastatic thyroid cancers that are refractory to radioiodine (iodine-131) are associated with a poor prognosis. In mouse models of thyroid cancer, selective mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway antagonists increase the expression of the sodium-iodide symporter and uptake of iodine. Their effects in humans are not known.

METHODS
We conducted a study to determine whether the MAPK kinase (MEK) 1 and MEK2 inhibitor selumetinib (AZD6244, ARRY-142886) could reverse refractoriness to radioiodine in patients with metastatic thyroid cancer. After stimulation with thyrotropin alfa, dosimetry with iodine-124 positron-emission tomography (PET) was performed before and 4 weeks after treatment with selumetinib (75 mg twice daily). If the second iodine-124 PET study indicated that a dose of iodine-131 of 2000 cGy or more could be delivered to the metastatic lesion or lesions, therapeutic radioiodine was administered while the patient was receiving selumetinib.

RESULTS
Of 24 patients screened for the study, 20 could be evaluated. The median age was 61 years (range, 44 to 77), and 11 patients were men. Nine patients had tumors with BRAF mutations, and 5 patients had tumors with mutations of NRAS. Selumetinib increased the uptake of iodine-124 in 12 of the 20 patients (4 of 9 patients with BRAF mutations and 5 of 5 patients with NRAS mutations). Eight of these 12 patients reached the dosimetry threshold for radioiodine therapy, including all 5 patients with NRAS mutations. Of the 8 patients treated with radioiodine, 5 had confirmed partial responses and 3 had stable disease; all patients had decreases in serum thyroglobulin levels (mean reduction, 89%). No toxic effects of grade 3 or higher attributable by the investigators to selumetinib were observed. One patient received a diagnosis of myelodysplastic syndrome more than 51 weeks after radioiodine treatment, with progression to acute leukemia.

CONCLUSIONS
Selumetinib produces clinically meaningful increases in iodine uptake and retention in a subgroup of patients with thyroid cancer that is refractory to radioiodine; the effectiveness may be greater in patients with RAS-mutant disease. (Funded by the American Thyroid Association and others; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00970359.).


The maturation processes of applied sport psychologists have received little research attention despite trainees
and practitioners having often reported experiencing challenging circumstances when working with clients. Within clinical psychology literature the self-practice of cognitive techniques, alongside self-reflection, has been advocated as a means of addressing such circumstances, and as a significant source of experiential learning. The present study sought to identify the possible types of, and purposes for, self-practice among twelve UK-based sport psychology practitioners. Thematic analysis of semistructured interviews indicated all participants
engaged in self-practice for reasons such as managing the self, enhancing understanding of intervention, and
legitimising intervention. Some participants also described limitations to self-practice. Subsequently, three overriding themes emerged from analysis: a) the professional practice swamp, b) approaches to, and purposes
for, self-practice, and, c) limitations of self-practice. It is concluded that self-practice may provide a means of better understanding self-as-person and self-as practitioner, and the interplay between both, and is recommended as part of on-going practitioner maturation.


This article aims to contribute to a theory of populism that considers not just discursive antagonistic struggle but also the material-ecological dynamics of communication reshaping populist politics. By focusing on Turkey's "split media ecology," which is both censored and algorithmically filtered, we show that instead of simply instituting disconnection and blockage, censorship also exploits connectivity and triggers further communication. The paradox of blockage and flow supports the proliferation of conspiracy theories and results in the conception of moral, epistemological, and ontological orders for Internet communication. The question is how media-ecological affordances reconfigure antagonistic struggle and populist politics. We argue that emerging political strategy exploits connectivity and flow while incapacitating and excluding other networks. Thereby, the segregations of the split media ecology support flexible rearticulations of the "enemy" on behalf of sovereign power. Yet techno-cultural dynamics including netwar and post-truth media engagement also prove detrimental to sovereign power as we know it.


The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is the world's first large experiment with an emissions trading system for carbon dioxide (CO2) and it is likely to be copied by others if there is to be a global regime for limiting greenhouse gas emissions. After providing a brief discussion of the origins of the EU ETS, its relation to the Kyoto Protocol, and its precedents in Europe and the U.S., this paper focuses on allowance allocation—the process of deciding who will receive the newly limited rights to emit CO2. We describe how allowances were allocated in the EU ETS, with particular emphasis on the issues and problems encountered, including the lack of readily available installation-level data, the participants in the process, the use of projections, the choices of Member States with respect to auctioning, benchmarking, and new entrant provisions, and the difficult issue of deciding to whom the expected shortage was to be allocated. Finally, we discuss the recently available data on 2005 emissions and what they indicate concerning over-allocation, trading patterns, and abatement. We conclude with some observations about the broader implications of the EU ETS, what seems to be unique about CO2, and the fact that non-economic considerations inform the allocation of allowances.


Productivity and efficiency are the tools used in managing performance. This study researches and implements best practices that lead to best performance. A customer quality defined standard has to be created by benchmarking the Information Technology Service Regions which may be used to help decision-makers or management make informed decisions about (1) the effectiveness of service systems, (2) managing the performance of Information Technology Service Regions. Waiting lines or queues are an everyday occurrence and may take the form of customers waiting in a restaurant to be serviced or telephone calls waiting to be answered. The model of waiting lines is used to help managers evaluate the effectiveness of service systems. It determines precisely the optimal number of employees that must work at the centralised service desk. A Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology is used as a benchmarking tool to locate a frontier which is then used to evaluate the efficiency of each of the organizational units responsible for observed output and input quantities. The inefficient units can learn from the best practice frontier situated along the frontier line.


The Earth's magnetosphere is highly dynamic with large scale variations due to energy coming from solar wind. The magnetosphere continuously readjusts itself to the ever-changing solar wind. This creates geomagnetic field variations. The relationship between solar wind parameters, such as solar wind speed ( V ), interplanetary magnetic field ( B ) and geomagnetic activity index ( A p ) is studied in the present paper. The results show significant positive correlation between A p index and solar wind parameters. But a very high correlation is found between the product VB and A p index.


In the 1970s, researchers at the University of California started to investigate communication between humans and computers using neural signals, which lead to the emergence of brain- computer interfaces (BCIs). In the past 40 years, significant progress has been achieved in ap- plication areas such as neuroprosthetics and rehabilitation. BCIs have been recently applied to media analytics (e.g., image search and information retrieval) as we are surrounded by tremen- dous amounts of media information today. A cortically coupled computer vision (CCCV) sys- tem is a type of BCI that exposes users to high throughput image streams via the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) protocol. Media analytics has also been transformed through the enormous advances in artificial intelligence (AI) in recent times. Understanding and presenting the nature of the human-AI relationship will play an important role in our society in the future. This thesis explores two lines of research in the context of traditional BCIs and AI. Firstly, we study and investigate the fundamental processing methods such as feature extraction and clas- sification for CCCV systems. Secondly, we discuss the feasibility of interfacing neural systems with AI technology through CCCV, an area we identify as neuro-AI interfacing. We have made two electroencephalography (EEG) datasets available to the community that support our inves- tigation of these two research directions. These are the neurally augmented image labelling strategies (NAILS) dataset and the neural indices for face perception analysis (NIFPA) dataset, which are introduced in Chapter 2.
The first line of research focuses on studying and investigating fundamental processing methods for CCCV. In Chapter 3, we present a review on recent developments in processing methods for CCCV. This review introduces CCCV related components, specifically the RSVP experimental setup, RSVP-EEG phenomena such as the P300 and N170, evaluation metrics, feature extraction and classification. We then provide a detailed study and an analysis on spatial filtering pipelines in Chapter 4, which are the most widely used feature extraction and reduction methods in a CCCV system. In this context, we propose a spatial filtering technique named multiple time window LDA beamformers (MTWLB) and compare it to two other well-known techniques in the literature, namely xDAWN and common spatial patterns (CSP). Importantly, we demonstrate the efficacy of MTWLB for time-course source signal reconstruction compared to existing methods, which we then use as a source signal information extraction method to support a neuro-AI interface. This will be further discussed in this thesis i.e. Chapter 6 and Chapter 7.
The latter part of this thesis investigates the feasibility of neuro-AI interfaces. We present two research studies which contribute to this direction. Firstly, we explore the idea of neuro- AI interfaces based on stimulus and neural systems i.e., observation of the effects of stimuli produced by different AI systems on neural signals. We use generative adversarial networks (GANs) to produce image stimuli in this case as GANs are able to produce higher quality images compared to other deep generative models. Chapter 5 provides a review on GAN-variants in terms of loss functions and architectures. In Chapter 6, we design a comprehensive experiment to verify the effects of images produced by different GANs on participants' EEG responses. In this we propose a biologically-produced metric called Neuroscore for evaluating GAN per- formance. We highlight the consistency between Neuroscore and human perceptual judgment, which is superior to conventional metrics (i.e., Inception Score (IS), Fre chet Inception Distance (FID) and Kernel Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) discussed in this thesis). Secondly, in order to generalize Neuroscore, we explore the use of a neuro-AI interface to help convolutional neural networks (CNNs) predict a Neuroscore with only an image as the input. In this scenario, we feed the reconstructed P300 source signals to the intermediate layer as supervisory informa- tion. We demonstrate that including biological neural information can improve the prediction performance for our proposed CNN models and the predicted Neuroscore is highly correlated with the real Neuroscore (as directly calculated from human neural signals).


Lycopene was considered as a major carotenoid in the human diet for only the last few centuries. Recently lycopene has been found to possess chemoprotective effect against gastrointestinal tract, urinary bladder, prostate and breast cancers. In the present study, the protective effect of lycopene, the natural extract from tomato pomace against diethylnitrosamine (DEN)-induced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) formation in rats was investigated. Four groups of male albino rats at the age of 6 weeks were studied: 1) control (C), 2) DEN, i.p. injected 5 times with doses of 200 mg/kg b.w., one dose every two days. 3) Lycopene, orally given 0.12 mg/rat/day. 4) Lycopene + DEN, the treatment with lycopene started 7 days before DEN injection and continued till the end of the experimental period. Rats in group 2 and 4 were treated with Phenobarbital (PB) at a dose of 500 ppm in the drinking water as a tumor promoter. PB treatment started with the first injection of DEN and continued till the end of the experimental period. The results indicated that DEN caused HCC nodules as evidenced by a remarkable significant increase in α-L-fucosidase and metalloproteinases (MMPs) enzyme activity in both serum and cytosol. Increased activity of these enzymes is a marker for both preneoplastic and carcinoma lesions. Administration of lycopene prior to DEN injection protected rats from DEN-induced HCC as evidenced by a significant descent in α-L-fucosidase and MMPs enzymes activity in both serum and cytosol. The histological investigation of liver tissue confirmed these results. DEN group showed proliferated hyperplastic and anaplastic hepatocellular nodules surrounded with thin layer of fibroblastic cells, desmoplasia and inflammatory cells infiltrations, focal hepatic haemorrhages and necrosis. Meanwhile, lycopene + DEN group showed no histopathological changes. These results indicate that lycopene effectively inhibits DEN-induced hepatocarcinogenesis in rats.


We present observational evidence of the variation of the cloud‐tracked zonal velocity by ~20 m s–1 with a timescale of a few hundred days in the southern low latitude region based on an analysis of cloud images taken by the Venus Monitoring Camera on board Venus Express. A spectral analysis suggests that the variation has a periodicity with a period of about 255 days. Although cloud features are not always passive tracers, the periodical variation of the dynamical state is a robust feature. Superposed on this long‐term variation of the zonal velocity, Kelvin wave‐like disturbances tend to be observed in periods of relatively slow background velocity, while Rossby wave‐like disturbances tend to be observed in periods of fast background velocity. Since the momentum deposition by these waves can accelerate and decelerate the mean flow, these waves may contribute to the suggested long‐term oscillation.


The International Criminal Court was set up as a court of last resort to prosecute the most serious crimes under international law when its member states are either unable or unwilling to act. The African Union initially welcomed the court due to the continent's history of violence and war. However, their soured when the ICC began indicting African heads of state and government officials. Since then, there has been a constant "battle" over whether such defendants could invoke immunity under customary international law. General criticism of the ICC by the African Union and other observers for its lack of focus has turned into region-specific criticism of the court as a "Western tool," singling out and targeting African leaders. Consequently, African states have started to refuse to cooperate with the Court. At an AU Summit in January 2018, a resolution was adopted to seek an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice on the issue of immunity in respect to the ICC. This article will elaborate on the often-strained AU-ICC relationship prior to the 2018 AU Summit before examing three scenarios highlighting how an ICJ decision would affect the present AU-ICC relationship. The article concludes with recommendations and the observation that a compromise must be sought to end the current standoff and impasse.


While American clergy have been understood as political actors in some capacity, the precise understanding of their representation has been debated. Some argue that clergy may be seen as fidei defensor, representing a particular set of values and beliefs to the world—a trustee model. Others see the potential for clergy to advocate for the interests of local congregations embedded in particular communities—a delegate model. Neither approach has had concrete evidence to address this question, nor has any work explicitly documented clergy adopting a representational role. To remedy this defect, we polled a sample of clergy in order to gauge the degree to which they are functionally and explicitly considered representatives of their congregations. From these data, 70% have been contacted by congregation members with political concerns and 40% consider themselves or believe they are considered by congregants as representatives to government officials. Several factors increase the probability that clergy take on a representative role including holding a high view of religious authority. Clergy also consider carefully their relationship with the congregation and community before taking on the role of representative, supporting the delegate model.


OBJECTIVE
To examine whether sleep hygiene-related factors are associated with sleep quality among university students.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional survey.

SETTING
A university in Hong Kong.

PARTICIPANTS
Full-time university students recruited by convenience sampling.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Responses to a sleep questionnaire containing the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and obtaining sleep hygiene knowledge and practice, as well as knowledge on caffeine were used for data collection.

RESULTS
Regression analysis with stepwise selection procedure revealed that sleep hygiene practice was significantly associated with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score after adjusting for age, gender, year of study, and type of residence (b= -0.08, P<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
Our study's results indicated that sleep hygiene practice was significantly associated with sleep quality. Appropriate measures and sleep hygiene education need to be emphasised among university students in order to increase their awareness on the importance of adopting healthy sleep hygiene practices.


The definitive guide to Enterprise and Carrier Metro Ethernet applications. Discover the latest developments in metro networking, Ethernet, and MPLS services and what they can do for your organization Learn from the easy-to-read format that enables networking professionals of all levels to understand the concepts Gain from the experience of industry innovator and best-selling Cisco Press author, Sam Halabi, author of Internet Routing ArchitecturesMetro networks will emerge as the next area of growth for the networking industry and will represent a major shift in how data services are offered to businesses and residential customers. The metro has always been a challenging environment for delivering data services because it has been built to handle the stringent reliability and availability needs for voice. Carriers will have to go through fundamental shifts to equip the metro for next-generation data services demanded by enterprise customers and consumers. This is not only a technology shift, but also a shift in the operational and business model that will allow the incumbent carriers to transform the metro to offer enhanced data services.Metro Ethernet from Cisco Press looks at the deployment of metro data services from a holistic view. It describes the current metro, which is based on TDM technology, and discusses the drivers and challenges carriers will face in transforming the metro to address data services.Metro Ethernet discusses the adoption of metro Ethernet services and how that has led carriers to the delivery of metro data services. With a changing mix of transport technologies, the book then examines current and emerging trends, and delves into the role of virtual private networks (VPN), virtual private local area networks (VLAN), virtual private LAN services (VPLS), traffic engineering, and MPLS and Generalized MPLS (GMPLS).


This study examines the impact of economic globalization on the human trafficking inflows into the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) countries. The paper empirically tests for a cross-section of six countries, including Cambodia, the Yunnan Province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PRD), Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. Employing the Pooled OLS estimator, as the theory predicts, the economic globalization increases trafficking inflow into the GMS. However, only foreign direct investment (FDI) affects the degree of trafficking of persons, while the effect of trade is insignificant. Moreover, Exchange rate, Migration, Population and Democracy induce higher rates of trafficked persons, whereas Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other factors, such as education, vocational training and micro-finance through village development funds decrease this problem in the region. Gross National Income per capita (GNI per capita) and rule of law do not have any significant effect on human trafficking.


ABSTRACT The collection of fossil fishes from Monte Bolca (Eocene of Northern Italy), deposited at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris, was examined for the detection of parasites or traces of their activity. Of the 349 fishes studied, 62 showed a fairly well-preserved integument for the observation of skin nodules. Of these, all teleosts, six specimen exhibited skin nodules.The percentage of diseased fish is therefore 9.7%. The concerned species were Exellia (= Semiophorus) velifer (Volta, 1796), Abromasta (= Pagellus) microdon (Agassiz, 1839), Pseudosparnodus microstomus (Agassiz, 1839), Eozanclus brevirostris (Agassiz, 1833–1844) and Cyclopoma gigas Agassiz, 1833–1844. These pathologies of the integument are morphologically similar to those that can be observed in extant taxa. The causes of fish nodules are diverse (toxins, infectious agents, physical causes, imunological causes, nutritional and metabolic perturbations), but a pathogen among the group of viruses, bacteria, myxozoa, microporidia, ciliata, trematoda or turbellaria is generally involved. Their presence reflects an unbalanced palaeoenvironment in the basin where the fishes of the "Pesciara di Bolca" fossilized.


4-Substituted 2,3,5,6-tetraalkynylpyridines were prepared by tetra-fold Sonogashira reactions of the corresponding 2,3,5,6-tetrachloropyridines. 2,6-Dialkynyl-3,5-dichloropyridines were prepared by site-selective Sonogashira reactions from various 4-unsubstituted and 4-substituted tetrachloropyridines. Subsequent two-fold Sonogashira reactions of the products allowed for the synthesis of various 2,3,5,6-tetraalkynylpyridines containing different alkynyl groups. The products exhibit interesting UV/Vis and fluorescence properties. The position of absorption and emission bands can be tuned by systematic variation of the type of alkynyl substituent and by the type of substituent located at position 4 of the pyridine moiety. The presence of electron withdrawing substituents or of an alkynyl group at position 4 as well as the presence of donor substituted alkynyl groups at positions 2, 3, 5 and 6 resulted in high fluorescence quantum yields of up to 0.6, presumably due to the push-pull substitution pattern of the molecules.


Abstract. An in-depth understanding of the nature of the available terrain and its
exposure to avalanche hazard is crucial for making informed risk management
decisions when travelling in the backcountry. While the Avalanche Terrain
Exposure Scale (ATES) is broadly used for providing recreationists with
terrain information, this type of terrain classification has so far only seen
limited adoption within the professional ski guiding community. We
hypothesize that it is the generic nature and small number of terrain classes
of ATES and its precursor systems that prevent them from offering meaningful
assistance to professional decision makers. Working with two mechanized
skiing operations in British Columbia, Canada, we present a new approach for
deriving terrain classifications from daily terrain assessment records. We
used a combination of self-organizing maps and hierarchical clustering to
identify groups of ski runs that have been assessed similarly in the past and
organized them into operation-specific ski run hierarchies. We then examined
the nature of the emerging ski run hierarchies using comprehensive run
characterizations from experienced guides. Our approach produces
high-resolution ski run hierarchies that offer a more nuanced and meaningful
perspective on the available skiing terrain and provide new opportunities for
examining professional avalanche risk management practices and developing
meaningful decision aids.


The nuclear hormone receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR gamma; NR1C3) plays a central role in adipogenesis and is the molecular target of the thiazolidinedione class of antidiabetic drugs. To overcome the well-known shortcomings of thiazolidinediones, we have identified INT131 (formerly T131 and AMG131) as a potent selective ligand for PPAR gamma that is structurally and pharmacologically distinct from glitazone agonists. In vitro biochemical and cell-based functional assays showed that INT131 mediates a distinct pattern of coregulator recruitment to PPAR gamma. In adipocytes, INT131 showed minimal stimulation of adipocyte differentiation and partially activated PPAR gamma target genes involved in adipogenesis and, at the same time, showed more agonistic activity on another set of target genes that may influence insulin sensitivity directly. These unique properties of INT131 may provide a mechanistic basis for its distinct pharmacological profile. In vivo, increases in glucose tolerance were observed in Zucker (fa/fa) rats following a 14-day oral treatment with INT131. Although the maximal efficacies of INT131 and rosiglitazone were similar with respect to improvements in glucose tolerance, INT131 had less effect on heart and lung weights, weight gain, hemodilution, and plasma volume. Thus, INT131 appears to selectively modulate PPAR gamma responses in an in vivo preclinical model, showing antidiabetic efficacy while exhibiting an improved hemodynamic and cardiovascular adverse effect profile compared to the full agonist rosiglitazone. X-ray crystallography revealed that INT131 interacts with PPAR gamma through a distinct binding mode, forming primarily hydrophobic contacts with the ligand-binding pocket without direct hydrogen-bonding interactions to key residues in helix 12 that are characteristic of full agonists. Mutagenesis studies on Tyr473 in helix 12 demonstrated this residue as essential for rosiglitazone-induced receptor activation, but nonessential for INT131 function in vitro, providing one possible molecular determinant for INT131's distinct pharmacology. INT131 is currently being evaluated in a clinical setting as a therapeutic agent for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.


Missing trader intra-community (MTIC) fraud has been slowly morphing from cell phones and computer chips to other commodities. In the last few months however MTIC made a dramatic appearance in tradable CO2 permits. It closed exchanges and prompted France and the Netherlands to unilaterally change their tax treatment of CO2 trades. The UK has followed the French treatment in large measure. On Monday June 8, 2009 rumors of MTIC fraud in carbon emission permits closed the main European exchange for spot trading of European Union carbon emissions permits and Kyoto offsets. When BlueNext began trading permits again on Wednesday, June 10, 2009, the certificates, which had previously been subject to the 19.6% French VAT, were exempt (without right of deduction). MTIC fraud in tradable CO2 permits presents a high level policy dilemma – how do you aggressively pursue tax fraud without destroying the tradable permits market? Traditional tax enforcement (aside from direct pursuit of the missing trader) centers on denying deductions for VAT paid to the trader who purchased from the missing trader. This trader could well be innocent, and that is the problem. The standard of proof for allowing this deduction is whether or not this party knew or had reasonable grounds to suspect that the VAT payable in respect of the supply (or any previous or subsequent supply) would go unpaid. The underlying difficulty for the CO2 market is – even if there is no fraud – just the possibility of being denied millions of euro in VAT deductions is a significant increase in risk. On October 13, 2003 the European Parliament and the Council set out the rules for the trading of greenhouse gas emission allowances. The Directive follows from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. The intent is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8% relative to 1990 levels. The trading system began on January 1, 2005. The French, UK and the Dutch have taken self-help measures to prevent MTIC losses. None of these jurisdictions have received permission to make these changes, and objections have been raised in this regard. Each country approaches the problem structurally. The French (and now the UK) have elected (unilaterally) to treat transactions in tradable emission permits as exempt (the French exemption is without right of deduction; the UK is with the right of deduction). The Dutch have taken a different (unilateral) route – a full reverse charge regime. There is a third way, one that approaches the problem through administrative (not structural) mechanisms. It is technology-intensive, requires software certification, but is perfectly fit to a MTIC fraud problem embedded in a regulated digital marketplace. This paper presents this third method.


INTRODUCTION
Because of their circulation through the blood, the multiplicity of receptor sites, and the diversity of functions, opioids may most accurately be designated as a hormone. Opioids modulate the intensity of pain. In mammals, the opioid system has been modified to modulate social interactions as well (Panksepp and Watt, 2011).

METHODS
Over 10,000 patient encounters were observed on a neuropsychoanalytic addiction medicine service. Cold pressor times (CPT) were recorded before and after stimulation of the opioid system with low-dose naltrexone (LDN) for patients after opioid detoxification and for fibromyalgia patients.

RESULTS
Patients maintained on opioids relate autistically. The cold, unrelated nature of their human interactions was reversed by detoxification from opioids. Fibromyalgia patients have difficulty participating in human relationships, as if they lack an ability to respond interpersonally, as do post-detoxification patients. LDN improved pain tolerance as shown by a significant increase on CPT for post detoxification patients from 16 seconds to 55 seconds and in fibromyalgia patients from 21 seconds to 42 seconds, and improved relatedness. The correlation of opioid prescribing increasing over time and autism prevalence increasing over time is highly significant.

CONCLUSIONS
1. Opioid-maintained patients relate autistically. 2. Autism is a hyperopioidergic disorder. 3. Fibromylagia is a hypoopioidergic disorder. 4. Low opioid tone caused by opioid maintenance or fibromyalgia can usually be reversed with low-dose naltrexone. 5. The increase in the incidence of autism may have been caused by the increase in use of opioids for analgesia during childbirth.


OBJECTIVE
Inhalants are a serious public health concern and a dangerous form of substance use. An important unresolved issue in the inhalant literature concerns the validity of inhalant-use diagnoses and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, distinction between inhalant abuse and inhalant dependence. To address these limitations and provide the foundation for helping build stronger diagnostic and assessment tools related to inhalant problems, this study examined the dimensionality of the criteria set and the abuse-dependence distinction using item response theory (IRT) analysis.

METHOD
This study used data from a survey of the population of Missouri Division of Youth Services' residents of the residential treatment system. The current study focused on adolescents and young adults who reported a lifetime history of inhalant use (N = 279).

RESULTS
The results from the IRT analysis showed no consistent hierarchical ordering of abuse and dependence criteria, providing strong evidence against the abuse-dependence distinction. The abuse criterion of legal problems associated with use represented the item with the highest level of inhalant severity. The dependence criterion that was related to giving up important social, occupational, or recreational activities provided the most accurate discrimination between individuals at different levels of severity.

CONCLUSIONS
Inhalant-use disorders are best represented using a dimensional versus a categorical approach. IRT analysis provides guidance for selecting criteria that can be useful for brief assessments of inhalant-use problems.


The emerging literature on fatherhood is contributing to the reframing of public perceptions of low-income nonresident fathers by focusing on father presence rather than absence. Insights into how and when fathers contribute to their children beyond financial support provides for a strengths-based perspective to engage fathers in services provided for their children. A review of this literature includes practice implications related to the need for: (a) father engagement training for agency staff, (b) father-friendly programs and services, (c) child support policy reform, and (d) more research on the issue of fatherhood in the 21st century.


In this work, we propose a methodology for the energy-efficient placement of an unmanned aerial system (UAS) deployed to collect data from a set of ground user equipments (UEs). The data-communication between the UEs and the UxNB, a radio access node carried by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), of the UAS follows a non-orthogonal multiple-access (NOMA) scheme; in which all the UEs share the same time and frequency resources. The receiver removes the inter-UE interference from the co-channel UEs through joint implementation of a power-reduction technique at the UEs and the successive interference cancellation (SIC) at the receiver. Firstly, a new energy-efficiency metric, area energy efficiency (AEE) representing the total area covered by a UxNB per Watt-Hour (Wh) of energy consumed, is introduced. Then, the optimal hovering altitude of the UxNB that maximizes the AEE is determined using the proposed algorithm. Numerical evaluations show that the obtained solution using the proposed algorithm matches the globally optimal solution, and the proposed NOMA scheme prevails over an equivalent orthogonal multiple access (OMA) scheme, in terms of the AEE.


Background: Dental plaque, comprehend of microorganisms which are considered as a main etiological factor for gingivitis, is the mildest form of periodontal diseases. This burden can be reduced by scaling, but additive effects can be achieved using mouthwashes as an adjunct. Aims: To assess the clinical efficacy of essential oil (EO) mouthwash containing a combination of peppermint oil and tea tree oil on the reduction of bacterial plaque, gingivitis, as well as the colony forming units (CFU) before and after scaling. Materials and Methods: This double-blind randomized clinical trial contains thirty subjects with severe gingivitis. All were divided into three groups, A, B and C, each group contains ten patients. Baseline plaque samples were collected for microbiological evaluation from all the subjects, and plaque index (PI) and gingival index (GI) were recorded. Patients in Group A have been prescribed 10 ml of freshly prepared mouthwash after scaling thrice a day for 3 weeks; patients in Group B underwent scaling only. Patients in Group C have been prescribed only 10 ml of mouthwash without scaling. After 3 weeks, plaque samples were collected to reevaluate PI, GI, and CFU from all the samples. Statistical Analysis: One-way analysis of variance and paired sample t-test were used for analysis. Results: Reduction was seen in PI, GI and CFU in Groups A and B when compared to Group C, and there was also a significant reduction seen in Group A when compared to Group B, when P < 0.05 was considered significant. Conclusions: EO mouthwash was effective in the treatment of plaque-induced gingivitis as an adjunct to scaling without any side effects.


Studies of sign languages have been used to test traditional cognitive models of working memory (WM) that distinguish between verbal and visuospatial WM (e.g. Baddeley, 2003), without considering that sign languages operate in the visuospatial domain. Previous studies have shown that WM mental representations and processes are largely similar for signed and spoken languages (e.g. Ronnberg et al., 2004). However, it is not clear to what extent visual WM processes aid and support sign language WM.Here we characterise the neural substrates supporting sign language and visual WM, and the mechanisms that subserve differential processing for signers and for deaf individuals. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment with three groups of participants: deaf native signers, hearing native signers and hearing non-signers. Participants performed a 2-back WM task and a control task on two sets of stimuli: signs from British Sign Language or non-sense objects. Stimuli were composed of point-lights to control for differences in visual features.Our results show activation in a fronto-parietal network for WM processing in all groups, independently of stimulus type, in agreement with previous literature. We also replicate previous findings in deaf signers showing a stronger right posterior superior temporal cortex (STC) activation for visuospatial processing, and stronger bilateral STC activation for sign language stimuli.Group comparisons further reveal stronger activations in STC for WM in deaf signers, but not for the groups of hearing individuals. This activation is independent of the linguistic content of the stimuli, being observed in both WM conditions: signs and objects. These results suggest a cognitive role for STC in deaf signers, beyond sign language processing.


Two statistics are proposed for summarizing spatial patterns of DNA diversity. These autocorrelation indices for DNA analysis, or AIDAs, can be applied to RFLP and sequence data; the resulting set of autocorrelation coefficients, or correlogram, measures whether, and to what extent, individual DNA sequences or haplotypes resemble the haplotypes sampled at arbitrarily chosen spatial distances. Analyses of computer-generated sets of data, and of RFLP data from two natural populations, show that AIDAs allow one to objectively and simply identify basic patterns in the spatial distribution of haplotypes. These statistics, therefore, seem to be a useful tool both to explore the genetic structure of a population and to suggest hypotheses on the evolutionary processes that shaped the observed patterns.


This paper addresses the problem of segmenting an image into regions consistent with user-supplied seeds (e.g., a sparse set of broad brush strokes). We view this task as a statistical transductive inference, in which some pixels are already associated with given zones and the remaining ones need to be classified. Our method relies on the Laplacian graph regularizer, a powerful manifold learning tool that is based on the estimation of variants of the Laplace-Beltrami operator and is tightly related to diffusion processes. Segmentation is modeled as the task of finding matting coefficients for unclassified pixels given known matting coefficients for seed pixels. The proposed algorithm essentially relies on a high margin assumption in the space of pixel characteristics. It is simple, fast, and accurate, as demonstrated by qualitative results on natural images and a quantitative comparison with state-of-the-art methods on the Microsoft GrabCut segmentation database.


Fluoride (F-) and cadmium (Cd) are toxicants found ubiquitously in the human environment. The aim of this review was to identify and characterize studies that attempted to determine the combined toxicity of Fand Cd. The effects of Fand Cd on liver and kidney (with a special focus on chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology), bone, tooth enamel, dental caries, and brain were taken into consideration. Based on the results of the studies described in this review, various types of combined toxicity of Fand Cd might occur: additive, synergistic, or antagonistic, with the latter two being true interactions. However, the type of combined action occurring seems to depend on many factors, such as which toxic effect is considered, the dose levels of Fand Cd and their dose ratio, exposure duration, presence of other elements, etc. Moreover, when analyzing the combined toxic effects of Fand Cd, the possible interactions of these toxicants with other elements (e.g., fluoride with aluminum and arsenic; cadmium with lead, arsenic, zinc, selenium, and calcium) should also be taken into consideration. We also may not exclude the independent action of Fand Cd on some selected functions/health outcomes. Due to the huge gaps in knowledge, additional studies are required to address this important public health issue, i.e., the combined effects of exposure to these common environmental toxicants, especially among people with high exposure to these elements.


The main problems and priorities of the preparing and realization of the long-term modernization and development strategies in the Eastern and Central European countries, especially in Lithuania, are exposed. The methods and problems of strategic decisions making are described. The phenomenon of globalization, international integration and information societies development as the main factors of the modernization and social, economic and technological development in the Eastern and Central European countries, especially in Lithuania, are analyzed. Some ideas of long-term social economic strategy for Lithuania are discussed.


Cyanogenic glycosides are natural plant toxins that are present in several plants, most of which are consumed by humans. Cyanide is formed following the hydrolysis of cyanogenic glycosides that occur during crushing of the edible plant material either during consumption or during processing of the food crop. Exposure to cyanide from unintentional or intentional consumption of cyanogenic glycosides may lead to acute intoxications, characterized by growth retardation and neurological symptoms resulting from tissue damage in the central nervous system (CNS). Processing methods can detoxify cyanogenic glycosides and reduce the risk of cyanide poisoning. The efficiency of cyanide removal, however, depends on the processing technique employed and the extent of processing. Processing operations such as fermentation, boiling/ cooking, and drying, applied to process food‐containing cyanogenic glycosides have been reported to reduce cyanide content to acceptably safe levels. The present review discusses the level of cyanogenic glycosides in specific plant foods, health implications of consuming cyanogenic plants and effect of various processing method on cyanogenic glycosides with updated information gathered from the published reports on cyano‐ genic glycosides.


Digital controllers are part of nearly all modern personal, industrial, and transportation systems. Every senior or graduate student of electrical, chemical or mechanical engineering should therefore be familiar with the basic theory of digital controllers. This new text covers the fundamental principles and applications of digital control engineering, with emphasis on engineering design. Fadali and Visioli cover analysis and design of digitally controlled systems and describe applications of digital controls in a wide range of fields. With worked examples and Matlab applications in every chapter and many end-of-chapter assignments, this text provides both theory and practice for those coming to digital control engineering for the first time, whether as a student or practicing engineer. Extensive Use of computational tools: Matlab sections at end of each chapter show how to implement concepts from the chapter. Frees the student from the drudgery of mundane calculations and allows him to consider more subtle aspects of control system analysis and design. An engineering approach to digital controls: emphasis throughout the book is on design of control systems. Mathematics is used to help explain concepts, but throughout the text discussion is tied to design and implementation. For example coverage of analog controls in chapter 5 is not simply a review, but is used to show how analog control systems map to digital control systems. Review of Background Material: contains review material to aid understanding of digital control analysis and design. Examples include discussion of discrete-time systems in time domain and frequency domain (reviewed from linear systems course) and root locus design in s-domain and z-domain (reviewed from feedback control course). Inclusion of Advanced Topics In addition to the basic topics required for a one semester senior/graduate class, the text includes some advanced material to make it suitable for an introductory graduate level class or for two quarters at the senior/graduate level. Examples of optional topics are state-space methods, which may receive brief coverage in a one semester course, and nonlinear discrete-time systems. Minimal Mathematics Prerequisites The mathematics background required for understanding most of the book is based on what can be reasonably expected from the average electrical, chemical or mechanical engineering senior. This background includes three semesters of calculus, differential equations and basic linear algebra. Some texts on digital control require more mathematical maturity and are therefore beyond the reach of the typical senior.


Multiple pregnancies occur in humans and other primates, which indicate that the twinning propensity is phylogenetically old. Factors such as decreased sexual dimorphism and size, rich and diverse nutrition and paternal care are related to multiple pregnancies in other animals. In human populations, despite its costs, twinning has a genetic basis and in Europe, Africa, and America, it was found that it increases mothers' fitness. Here, we explore the hypothesis that twinning represents an evolved physiological mechanism, particularly in mothers of higher age, as an 'all-or-nothing' last chance strategy for reproduction just before menopause. We present decade-long, large-scale population data about maternities from the city of São Paulo and the entire country of Brazil that indicate a considerable main effect of advanced age in promoting twinning, particularly dizygotic (DZ) twinning, but also monozygotic (MZ) twinning and higher order maternities. We also show that socioeconomic status is an important contextual factor increasing twinning. Besides the theoretical implications, these datasets establish a Brazilian countrywide twinning rate of 9.39‰ and highlight an increasing historical trend. This chapter promotes the importance of integrating proximate patterns from human and nonhuman animals and evolutionary factors in order to reach a comprehensive view about twinning.


Argumentation theory has much to offer our understanding of the doctor-patient relationship as it plays out in the context of seeking and obtaining consent to treatment. In order to harness the power of argumentation theory in this regard, I argue, it is necessary to take into account insights from the legal and bioethical dimensions of informed consent, and in particular to account for features of the interaction that make it psychologically complex: that there is a fundamental asymmetry of authority, power and expertise between doctor and patient; that, given the potential for coercion, it is a challenge to preserve the interactive balance presumed by the requirement of informed consent; and finally that the necessary condition that patients be 'competent to consent' may undermine the requirement of respecting patient autonomy. I argue argumentation theory has the resources to deal with these challenges and expand our knowledge, and appreciation, of the informed consent interaction in health care.


ABSTRACT: If Hume is correct that the descriptive and the normative are 'entirely different' matters, then it would seem to follow that endorsing a given account of action-explanation does not restrict the account of practical normativity one may simultaneously endorse. In this essay, I challenge the antecedent of this conditional by targeting its consequent. Specifically, I argue that if one endorses a Humean account of action-explanation, which many find attractive, one is thereby committed to a Humean account of practical normativity, which many find unattractive. The key to this argument is showing that the justificatory base of any anti-Humean normative view is a generic representation of ideal rationality, which precludes any such view from combining coherently with a Humean account of action-explanation. If my arguments are successful, they demonstrate a way in which one's views in action theory can both limit and be limited by the ethical views one endorses.


Drawing on sociology, queer studies, and legal scholarship, this Comment develops a textual methodology to study sexuality in court opinions. In particular, this methodology uses inconsistencies between opinions to highlight how courts rely on cultural assumptions. This Comment applies this methodology to eighteen state same-sex marriage cases, identifying four analytic models of sexuality: sexuality consists only of behaviors; sexuality belongs to lesbians and gays; society should regulate sexuality; and marriage forms a normatively desirable model for sexuality. These models contribute significantly to public discourse over the meaning of sexuality. Applying sociological insights to narrow judicial models of sexuality suggests that courts fail to recognize the diversity of sexuality and its importance to individual identities. This Comment argues that courts should protect same-sex marriage through equal protection, rather than due process, in order to maximize individual autonomy with respect to sexuality. Finally, the Comment considers recent opinions that make progress towards broader judicial understandings of sexuality.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to determine the air-bone gaps in adults with mixed-type hearing loss using air-conduction auditory brainstem response (ABR) latencies.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Thirty adults with mixed-type hearing loss (study group) and 30 adults with normal hearing (control group) were included in this study. Before performing ABR measurements, ear, nose, and throat examinations, pure tone audiometry, speech audiometry, acoustic immittance audiometry, and transient evoked autoacoustic emission testing were performed for all participants. Absolute latencies of I, III, and V waves and interpeak latencies (IPL) at 90 decibel hearing level dB nHL were evaluated and compared with air-bone gap results.

RESULTS
ABR latencies using click and tone-burst stimulation were obtained and found to be longer in the mixed-type hearing loss group than in the normal hearing group (p<0.05). A moderate positive relationship was detected between the air-bone gap and wave III/V latencies at 0.5/1 kHz, I-V/I-III/III-V IPL at 1 kHz. Only one strong relationship was found between 1 kHz air-bone gap and I-V IPL.

CONCLUSION
In this study, the magnitude of the air-bone gap could not determined using prolonged ABR latencies. Delays in ABR latencies were observed, but prolonged ABR latencies was not helpful for calculating the air-bone gap on mixed-type hearing loss.


Optical Fiber Telecommunications VI (A&B) is the sixth in a series that has chronicled the progress in the R&D of lightwave communications since the early 1970s. Written by active authorities from academia and industry, this edition brings a fresh look to many essential topics, including devices, subsystems, systems and networks. A central theme is the enabling of high-bandwidth communications in a cost-effective manner for the development of customer applications. These volumes are an ideal reference for R&D engineers and managers, optical systems implementers, university researchers and students, network operators, and investors. Volume A is devoted to components and subsystems, including photonic integrated circuits, multicore and few-mode fibers, photonic crystals, silicon photonics, signal processing, and optical interconnections.


We present a framework for transfer learning based on modular variational Gaussian processes (GP). We develop a module-based method that having a dictionary of well fitted GPs, one could build ensemble GP models without revisiting any data. Each model is characterised by its hyperparameters, pseudo-inputs and their corresponding posterior densities. Our method avoids undesired data centralisation, reduces rising computational costs and allows the transfer of learned uncertainty metrics after training. We exploit the augmentation of high-dimensional integral operators based on the Kullback-Leibler divergence between stochastic processes to introduce an efficient lower bound under all the sparse variational GPs, with different complexity and even likelihood distribution. The method is also valid for multi-output GPs, learning correlations a posteriori between independent modules. Extensive results illustrate the usability of our framework in large-scale and multi-task experiments, also compared with the exact inference methods in the literature.


A key issue to address in the design and implementation of any assessment system is ensuring its reliability and validity. University assessment policies often require staff to prepare parallel examinations for students who are unable to sit the initial examination. There is little published literature to give confidence to staff or students that these examinations are indeed reliable or equivalent. This study was conducted to determine the validity, reliability and equivalence of two parallel examinations that have been developed under highly defined quality assurance (QA) processes in a university setting. Collated assessment results for all the 76 participants who sat the parallel examinations were subjected to statistical and correlational analysis to test for significant differences between mean scores and their associated standard deviations. Item analysis was conducted for each assessment by computing the difficulty index (DIF), discrimination index (DI) and Kuder-Richardson 20 (KR-20) reliability using classical test theory. Results indicated comparative proportions of difficulty, functional distractors and internal consistency of the assessment items on both examinations. Comparison of student performances in both examinations revealed that there was no significant difference in mean scores. However, a highly positive and significant correlation (r = 0.82) between student total scores in both examinations was evident. Approximately two thirds (62.5 %) of students with low scores in the first examination also achieved low scores in the second examination. Furthermore, two thirds of the students were ranked in the same order based on performance in both examinations. The established QA processes for assessment in the school provided a strong basis for the generation of multiple sources of data to support arguments for the validity of examinations. It is possible to develop valid, reliable and equivalent parallel tests in university settings with the presence of well-defined QA processes.


Extracted from text ... NEWS & VIEWS FOR MAGISTRATES
4
South Africa has a dual legal system of
succession in so far as it recognises
and enforces at least two systems of personal
law. The one is based on Roman-
Dutch law, amended by statute under
influence of inter alia English law; the
other system comprises a number of
closely related customary laws.
Substantial differences mark these two
systems. It is a standing practice in a
dual legal system to allow for choice of
law rules.
Historically the application of common
or customary law depended on a
person's race, and more specifically the ..


Social skills training (SST) has been used as one approach to deal with increasing delinquency problems in some countries. While the literature shows that acquisition of social skills has generally been found using SST, the generalisation of the acquired social skills from classroom trained situations to non-classroom trained situations has been less consistent. The involvement of peers has been a method that has been used successfully in other areas of training of adolescents, but the use of peers has yet to be closely examined in the context of SST. In this study, the involvement of peers in SST in enhancing skill acquisition and generalisation was examined.

The Skillstreaming the Adolescent programme(Skillstreaming) was conducted with a sample of 36 predelinquents residing in an institution in Singapore. Eighteen of the subjects were trained with peer involvement, while the other 18 were not. The subjects in each group were further divided into learning different types of skills: Initiating Social Interaction, Dealing with Group Pressure, and Expressing Your Feelings. Social skills acquisition was assessed using various measures, including the Social Skills Rating System (Gresham & Elliott, 1990), while generalisation of effects to other behaviours was assessed using the Behavior Rating Profile- 2 (Brown & Hammill, 1990). Pre- and post-test ratings were obtained.

The results of analyses of time of test were generally not significant. However, a more detailed analysis of the data indicated support for an effect of Skillstreaming on skill acquisition. The involvement of peers was not effective: Skillstreaming without peers appeared to be more effective than Skillstreaming with peers. The effect of skillstreaming was not consistent across the three skills - Skillstreaming was more effective in training the "Expressing Your Feelings" skill than in training the other skills. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of research using peers in SST, and in assessing SST packages. Cross-cultural issues are also discussed together with the implications of conducting SST in Singapore.


Anti-social behaviour has become a major political preoccupation of government and and combating it is now a major plank of criminal justice policy. Yet anti-social behaviour as a concept has been little studied, and the notion has often been accepted uncritically. This book aims to meet this need, providing a critique of the government's use of the concept of anti-social behaviour and of youth justice strategy more generally. Rougher Justice foregrounds the perspectives and experiences of young people themselves. It draws upon recent developments within the field of cultural criminology to provide an alternative interpretation of the construction of 'youthful criminal careers'. It is underpinned by research in three separate areas which focus on the new youth justice, youthful criminal careers, and anti-social behaviour and acceptable behaviour enforcement. Central to the book is an ambition to understand youthful delinquency from the inside and to recover what is lost in much of New Labour's youth justice strategy - and the methods adopted by the Youth Justice Board to evaluate this strategy, that s to say a situated and interpretive understanding of youthful delinquency drawn from the perspective of and in the voices of young people themselves.


This review provides an insight into the history of syntheses, functionalizations and applications of noble metal nanoparticles examining their interactions with polymer substrate. A survey of rapidly expanding literature on this topic is presented. The most challenging problems are outlined, among them finding new chemical and physical methods of functionalizing noble metal nanoparticles with compounds that can promote efficient binding and clearance. In addition, we present two procedures of grafting Au and Ag nanoparticles onto plasma-treated poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET). The changes in the surface physicochemical properties of modified PET, caused by plasma treatment and grafting with a dithiol and Au and Ag nanoparticles, were examined by TEM/HRTEM, AFM, UV-Vis and XPS spectrometries and by electrokinetic analysis. We achieved a higher concentration of Au and Ag nanoparticles by deposition on PET modified with dithiol. The studied polymers can be used in medicine as a prevention of bacterial film formation.


Copper sulphide materials have received great attention due to their low bandgap semiconducting properties. As compared to other chalcogenides, few synthetic examples have been reported, and a simple and scalable synthetic method for preparing size- and shape-controlled copper sulphide nanoparticles is required for potential wide application of these materials. Herein, a facile one pot scalable synthetic route has been developed for preparing highly monodisperse djurleite Cu1.94S hexagonal nanoplates. The thermal decomposition of a single precursor CuSCN was found suitable for preparing a large quantity of highly monodisperse Cu1.94S hexagonal nanoplates; a multi-gram scale product could be obtained in a single step. Under the synthetic scheme developed, the width of Cu1.94S nanoplates with a thickness of ~ 10 nm could be easily tuned from 70 nm to 130 nm. Their optical properties were investigated and their photothermal effect was also studied by photothermal optical coherence reflectometry (PT OCR). Cu1.94S hexagonal nanoplates showed a considerable photothermal effect, which was found to depend on the nanoparticle concentration.


This paper analyzes the cyclical behaviour of male real wages in Italy using the European Community Household Panel 1994-2001. We distinguish between job stayers (remaining in the same job), and within- and between-company job movers. Stayers are the large majority. We find stayers in Northern Italy to have high cyclicality of real wages, higher in fact than the US and the UK. The Northern cyclicality is significant for all sub-samples (except for public sector workers), and higher in small firms, the private sector, and for temporary workers, as expected. In contrast, we find little wage cyclicality for any sub-group in the Centre-South, even for workers in small private sector firms. Evidently, labour markets in the North of Italy operate much more competitively than in the Centre and South.


In its Pechstein ruling, the Oberlandesgericht (OLG) Munchen based itself on German antitrust law to challenge the validity of arbitration clauses in favour of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which are commonly used across the sporting world. Interestingly, competition law was used to indirectly secure a fundamental right enshrined in Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights: the right to a fair trial. In this paper we analyse whether the OLG could have come to a similar result based on Article 102 TFEU, the EU competition law provision prohibiting the abuse of a dominant position. If the reasoning used by the OLG can be transposed to EU competition law, this would have even more significant consequences for the future of the CAS. The finding of a violation of Article 102 TFEU would give the case a supranational scope and open the door for follow-on damage claims by athletes in all EU Member States.The paper is structured as follows. The first part elucidates the legal underpinnings of the jurisdiction of the CAS and explicates the forced nature of CAS arbitration. The second part examines whether the imposition of forced CAS arbitration clauses by sports governing bodies may constitute an exploitative abuse of a dominant position under Article 102 TFEU. It will be argued that the answer to this question ultimately depends on the independence of the CAS. The third part, subsequently, scrutinizes whether the CAS fulfils this fundamental requirement. Finally, conclusions are drawn about the challenges ahead for the CAS in the aftermath of the Pechstein case.


Community enforcement is an important device for sustaining efficiency in some repeated games of cooperation. We investigate cooperation when information about players' reputations spreads to their future partners through links in a social network that connects them. We nd that information supports cooperation by increasing trust between players, and obtain the `radius of trust': an endogenous network listing the potentially cooperative relationships between pairs of players in a community. We identify two aspects of trust, which relate to the network structure in different ways. Where trust depends on the shadow of punishment, players are trusted if others can communicate about them. This is linked to 2-connectedness of the network and the length of cycles within it. Where trust relates to knowledge of a player's type, players are trusting if they are more likely to receive information through their network connections. Both aspects of trust are linked to new centrality measures that we construct from the probabilities of node-to-node information transmission in networks, for which we provide a novel and simple method of calculation.


The genus Calciarcus is revisited here with the purpose of providing, based on additional sampling from both polar regions, an update on species diversity and morphology that can serve as a reference for future work. The geographic realm of the genus is significantly widened and a case is built based on consistency in appearance in favour of adding Calciarcus spp. to the well-defined community of bipolar weakly calcified coccolithophorid genera. Despite the multitude of specimens available for analysis and the fact that the specimens examined distribute themselves within three clusters based on morphological features of coccolith superstructures, it has not been possible at this stage to define a robust framework for differentiation among species of Calciarcus. Circumstantial evidence exist linking species of Wigwamma with species of Calciarcus in haploid-diploid life cycles.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare measures of socio-economic status (Index of Community Socio-educational Advantage values (ICSEA)), school performance, school funding and school readiness in terms of their impact on student performance. In this respect, the paper tests the proposition – given research that suggests the teacher is the important ingredient in improved student learning performance – that a school principal who has strategical worked to "ready" their teachers for a whole of school teaching improvement agenda will generate increased student learning results than those who have not and further this improvement will occur irrespective of the circumstance of the socio-economic circumstance of the school.

Design/methodology/approach
In total, 22 Government schools from a single school district in Australia participated in the study, after having been involved in a system sponsored "teaching improvement program". A survey, consisting of 30 seven-point Likert-style scale items, was administered to all teachers and school leaders in the school district. The survey was designed to rate levels of staff perceived alignment, capability and engagement to the programme as it was implemented by the Head in each school. The information regarding each school's ICSEA value, funding per student and student learning performance, was obtained from the database provided by the relevant authority (ACARA). All statistical analysis was completed using SPSS Version 22.

Findings
The findings of this study indicate that high levels of organisational readiness, as defined by the alignment, capability and engagement (ACE) approach, are associated with effective teaching and improvement in student outcomes. In turn, the authors interpret this to mean that the internal organisation of a school has important effects on student achievement that are independent to external factors such as school funding or even the socio-educational positioning of the school.

Research limitations/implications
The findings of this study indicate that high levels of organisational readiness, as defined by the ACE approach, are associated with effective teaching and improvement in student outcomes. The implications are that the ACE provides a framework for what the school leader needs to focus on when whole of school teaching improvement is the goal. The study did not investigate what the school leader did in each school to ready their staff.

Practical implications
These findings indicate the importance of leadership in a school and provide an insight into what the school leader needs to focus on when whole of school teaching improvement is the intended goal. This focus can thus be understood as the leader working to ensure all staff members are ACE to the improvement agenda.

Social implications
The improvement of educational outcomes is a global goal of governments. In this respect, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) school systems in particular have linked education system performance and international competitiveness in ways that place pressure on the "black box" of individual schools. Reports, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment and local testing regimes testify that governments and communities are interested in the academic performance of students within and across schooling systems. The benefits of high performing schools contribute to the standard of living of citizens and the well-being of a society more generally. This paper investigates propositions that focus the work of the school leader to achieving such inherent goals.

Originality/value
The paper introduces the concept of school readiness. The premise is considered important to the current research because it represents the ability of schools to participate in reform agendas that are characteristic of government policy positions. The "school readiness" approach lies outside the education literature, motivated by the idea that the literature on turning around failing organisations in sectors outside of education provides clear guidelines for reforming schools. The implications for turnaround leadership are particularly encouraging and important particular organisational factors, in common with sectors outside of education, are of significant importance in enhancing teacher motivation, teacher learning and consequential improvements in student outcomes. This paper seeks to add empirical evidence in support of these approaches by adopting what the authors refer as organisational "readiness" for reform developed by Schiemann (2014).


A technoeconomic analysis of photoelectrochemical (PEC) and photovoltaic-electrolytic (PV-E) solar-hydrogen production of 10000 kg H2 day−1 (3.65 kilotons per year) was performed to assess the economics of each technology, and to provide a basis for comparison between these technologies as well as within the broader energy landscape. Two PEC systems, differentiated primarily by the extent of solar concentration (unconcentrated and 10× concentrated) and two PV-E systems, differentiated by the degree of grid connectivity (unconnected and grid supplemented), were analyzed. In each case, a base-case system that used established designs and materials was compared to prospective systems that might be envisioned and developed in the future with the goal of achieving substantially lower overall system costs. With identical overall plant efficiencies of 9.8%, the unconcentrated PEC and non-grid connected PV-E system base-case capital expenses for the rated capacity of 3.65 kilotons H2 per year were $205 MM ($293 per m2 of solar collection area (mS−2), $14.7 WH2,P−1) and $260 MM ($371 mS−2, $18.8 WH2,P−1), respectively. The untaxed, plant-gate levelized costs for the hydrogen product (LCH) were $11.4 kg−1 and $12.1 kg−1 for the base-case PEC and PV-E systems, respectively. The 10× concentrated PEC base-case system capital cost was $160 MM ($428 mS−2, $11.5 WH2,P−1) and for an efficiency of 20% the LCH was $9.2 kg−1. Likewise, the grid supplemented base-case PV-E system capital cost was $66 MM ($441 mS−2, $11.5 WH2,P−1), and with solar-to-hydrogen and grid electrolysis system efficiencies of 9.8% and 61%, respectively, the LCH was $6.1 kg−1. As a benchmark, a proton-exchange membrane (PEM) based grid-connected electrolysis system was analyzed. Assuming a system efficiency of 61% and a grid electricity cost of $0.07 kWh−1, the LCH was $5.5 kg−1. A sensitivity analysis indicated that, relative to the base-case, increases in the system efficiency could effect the greatest cost reductions for all systems, due to the areal dependencies of many of the components. The balance-of-systems (BoS) costs were the largest factor in differentiating the PEC and PV-E systems. No single or combination of technical advancements based on currently demonstrated technology can provide sufficient cost reductions to allow solar hydrogen to directly compete on a levelized cost basis with hydrogen produced from fossil energy. Specifically, a cost of CO2 greater than ∼$800 (ton CO2)−1 was estimated to be necessary for base-case PEC hydrogen to reach price parity with hydrogen derived from steam reforming of methane priced at $12 GJ−1 ($1.39 (kg H2)−1). A comparison with low CO2 and CO2-neutral energy sources indicated that base-case PEC hydrogen is not currently cost-competitive with electrolysis using electricity supplied by nuclear power or from fossil-fuels in conjunction with carbon capture and storage. Solar electricity production and storage using either batteries or PEC hydrogen technologies are currently an order of magnitude greater in cost than electricity prices with no clear advantage to either battery or hydrogen storage as of yet. Significant advances in PEC technology performance and system cost reductions are necessary to enable cost-effective PEC-derived solar hydrogen for use in scalable grid-storage applications as well as for use as a chemical feedstock precursor to CO2-neutral high energy-density transportation fuels. Hence such applications are an opportunity for foundational research to contribute to the development of disruptive approaches to solar fuels generation systems that can offer higher performance at much lower cost than is provided by current embodiments of solar fuels generators. Efforts to directly reduce CO2 photoelectrochemically or electrochemically could potentially produce products with higher value than hydrogen, but many, as yet unmet, challenges include catalytic efficiency and selectivity, and CO2 mass transport rates and feedstock cost. Major breakthroughs are required to obtain viable economic costs for solar hydrogen production, but the barriers to achieve cost-competitiveness with existing large-scale thermochemical processes for CO2 reduction are even greater.


Effects of peripheral arterial chemodernervation on laryngeal reflex-induced apnea were studied in 18 piglets of either sex varying in age from 4 to 63 days. The distal trachea was cannulated with a cuffed endotracheal tube to secure a free airway and permit ventilatory measurements with a pneumotachograph. The proximal trachea was used to introduce fluids into the larynx. Water elicited apnea, bradycardia, and arterial hypertension, whereas saline caused only transient disturbances. Electrical stimulation of the superior laryngeal nerves reproduced, and conduction anesthesia ablated, the effects of water in the larynx. Carotid body contribution to respiratory drive was assessed by the ventilatory responses to increased (100%) and decreased (10%) anbient oxygen concentration. These indicated significant peripheral chemoreceptor ventilatory activity from birth with little further change in the neonatal period. Ventilatory responses to oxygen were ablated by carotid chemodenervation, but there was no change in the duration of laryngeal reflex apnea. We conclude that attenuation of laryngeal-induced apnea during postnatal development is independent of peripheral chemoreceptor activity. Our findings may have relevance to the clinical problem of sudden infant death syndrome, in which carotid body abnormalities have recently been described.


OBJECTIVE
To determine trends in the incidence and clinical presentation of ankylosing spondylitis first diagnosed between 1935 and 1989 among residents of Rochester, Minnesota, and in the survival of the patients.

METHODS
Population-based descriptive study.

RESULTS
The overall age- and sex-adjusted incidence rate was 7.3 per 100,000 person-years (95% confidence interval 6.1-8.4). The rate tended to decline between 1935 and 1989, but there was little change in the age at symptom onset or diagnosis over the 55-year study period. Overall survival was not decreased up to 28 years following diagnosis.

CONCLUSION
These data indicate that there is a constancy in the epidemiologic characteristics of ankylosing spondylitis and suggest that previously study results indicating changes may have been due to biases in patient selection and study design.


This study investigates regional and ethnic inequality in Indonesia from five dimensions : access to education and health facilities, education outcome, health outcome, voice, as well as income and consumption. We believe this is the first comprehensive study that looks at ethnic inequality in Indonesia. We find systematic inequality between urban and rural areas, but not between ethnic groups. Our results indicate that the voiceless rural areas have been left behind by urban areas that have more voice in every indicator. Although we do not establish causation, this finding supports the long-held view inherent among Indonesians. The findings of this study imply that public policy aimed at accelerating rural development is the most effective route to reduce inequality in Indonesia.


There were individuals in the vegetarian movement in Britain who believed that to refrain from eating flesh, fowl, and fish while continuing to partake of dairy products and eggs was not going far enough. Between 1909 and 1912, The Vegetarian Society's journal published a vigorous correspondence on this subject. In 1910, a publisher brought out a cookery book entitled, No Animal Food. After World War I, the debate continued within the Vegetarian Society about the acceptability of animal by-products. It centered on issues of cruelty and health as well as on consistency versus expediency. The Society saw its function as one of persuading as many people as possible to give up slaughterhouse products and also refused journal space to those who abjured dairy products. The year 1944 saw the word "vergan" coined and the breakaway Vegan Society formed.


Modulated electromagnetic field can excite ultrasonic field in metal structures, and at the crack peak, high frequency acoustic waves are generated and can be named as acoustic emission. The features of the wave can be influenced by the crack sizes, excitation signals, excitation voltage, etc. An experimental system was set up to study the correlation between signals and influencing factors. After building a model, the electric current field, electromagnetic forces field and deformation distribution field were obtained on ANSYS platform. Experiments were carried out to verify the validity and the repeatability. The high frequency component decoded from the AE waveforms represented the existence of the crack. doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/7


The purpose of this study was to characterize the nature of the response to KC-404 in the cerebral microcirculation of the newborn pig. Pial arterioles were observed directly using a closed cranial window in chloralose-anesthetized piglets. Topical application of 100, 300, 1000, 3000 and 10,000 ng/ml of KC-404 produced concentration-dependent increases in pial arteriolar diameter. Diameters were 168 +/- 18, 190 +/- 19 and 238 +/- 21 mu for control, 100 ng/ml and 10,000 ng/ml of KC-404, respectively. Responses to KC-404 (3-isobutyryl-2-isopropylpyrazolo-[1,5a]-pyridine) were blocked by indomethacin (5 mg/kg i.v.). Moreover, KC-404, topically applied to the cerebral cortex, produced small but significant increases in cortical subarachnoid cerebrospinal fluid levels of 6-keto-prostaglandin (PG) F1 alpha and PGE2, whereas thromboxane B2 levels were unchanged. Similar to topical application, i.v. KC-404 (0.5 mg/kg) produced pial arteriolar dilation without significantly altering arterial blood pressure. Intravenous KC-404 also increased cerebrospinal fluid levels of 6-keto-PGF1 alpha and PGE2, whereas thromboxane levels were unchanged. Further, topically applied KC-404 (1 microgram/ml) potentiated dilator responses to PGE2 and PGI2, whereas responses to isoproterenol were unchanged. These data indicate that KC-404 is a potent dilator of cerebral arterioles in newborn pigs. These data also suggest that KC-404 produces cerebral vasodilation predominantly by potentiating prostanoid-mediated dilation.


Field tests were conducted at an industrial plant to see whether the voltage and current waveforms at the input transformer supplying power to the plant would agree with computer generated predictions. The latter were made by using a simple simulation procedure, previously published, for analysing a power system that supplies a substantial nonlinear load. The plant demand was about 300 kW. Very good agreement was obtained between the measured waveforms and those predicted using the simulation procedure, from the presumed composition of the load. However, in many practical situations the composition of the load is not known. In general, in such cases, the load composition may be deduced from the known current waveforms of the individual load components. This is achieved by adding them together in the proper proportions so that the RMS difference between the measured current waveform and the predicted one is minimised. The work described provides the basis for a next step: integration of the simulation scheme into a large multibus system so that a standard load-flow program may be used to account for the effects of harmonics on the system.


WHIM syndrome immunodeficiency is caused by autosomal dominant gain-of-function mutations in chemokine receptor CXCR4. Patient WHIM-09 was spontaneously cured by chromothriptic deletion of one copy of 164 genes, including the CXCR4WHIM allele, presumably in a single hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) that repopulated HSCs and the myeloid lineage. Testing the specific contribution of CXCR4 hemizygosity to her cure, we previously demonstrated enhanced engraftment of Cxcr4+/o HSCs after transplantation in WHIM (Cxcr4+/w) model mice, but the potency was not quantitated. We now report graded-dose competitive transplantation experiments using lethally irradiated Cxcr4+/+ recipients in which mixed BM cells containing ~5 Cxcr4+/o HSCs and a 100-fold excess of Cxcr4+/w HSCs achieved durable 50% Cxcr4+/o myeloid and B cell chimerism in blood and ~20% Cxcr4+/o HSC chimerism in BM. In Cxcr4+/o/Cxcr4+/w parabiotic mice, we observed 80-100% Cxcr4+/o myeloid and lymphoid chimerism in the blood and 15% Cxcr4+/o HSC chimerism in BM from the Cxcr4+/w parabiont, which was durable after separation from the Cxcr4+/o parabiont. Thus, CXCR4 haploinsufficiency likely significantly contributed to the selective repopulation of HSCs and the myeloid lineage from a single chromothriptic HSC in WHIM-09. Moreover, the results suggest that WHIM allele silencing of patient HSCs is a viable gene therapy strategy.


BACKGROUND
Tumor content in circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) is a promising biomarker, but longitudinal dynamics of tumor-derived and non-tumor-derived cfDNA through multiple courses of therapy have not been well described.

METHODS
CfDNA from 663 plasma samples from 140 patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) was subject to sparse whole genome sequencing. Tumor fraction (TFx) estimated using the computational tool ichorCNA was correlated with clinical features and responses to therapy.

RESULTS
TFx associated with the number of bone metastases (median TFx = 0.014 with no bone metastases, 0.047 with 1-3 bone metastases, 0.190 for 4+ bone metastases; P < 0.0001) and with visceral metastases (P < 0.0001). In multivariable analysis, TFx remained associated with metastasis location (P = 0.042); TFx was positively correlated with alkaline phosphatase (P = 0.0227) and negatively correlated with hemoglobin (Hgb) (P < 0.001), but it was not correlated with prostate specific antigen (PSA) (P = 0.75). Tumor-derived and non-tumor-derived cfDNA track together and do not increase with generalized tissue damage from chemotherapy or radiation at the time scales examined. All new treatments that led to ≥30% PSA decline at 6 weeks were associated with TFx decline when baseline TFx was >7%; however, TFx in patients being subsequently maintained on secondary hormonal therapy was quite dynamic.

CONCLUSION
TFx correlates with clinical features associated with overall survival in CRPC, and TFx decline is a promising biomarker for initial therapeutic response.

TRIAL REGISTRATION
Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC) protocol no. 18-135.

FUNDING
Wong Family Award in Translational Oncology, Dana Farber Cancer Institute Medical Oncology grant, Gerstner Family Foundation, Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Koch Institute Support (core) grant P30-CA14051 from the National Cancer Institute (NCI).


Exam is one form of evaluation of learning and an important part of education that serves as a means of measuring the success of one form of learning and exam is the National Examination held by the government and also as a measure of success of education in Indonesia, but since the enactment of the standard graduation own anxiety for students because so far accustomed to the tradition passed one hundred percent, so that the necessary learning strategies as a form of defense in dealing with anxiety, one of them through learning styles This descriptive study involves a level of anxiety and learning styles. anxiety level is an anxiety reaction physically, psychologically and cognition menghdapi students in national examinations. While the style of learning is a form of student learning strategies based on a review of environmental effects (field dependent and field independent), speed in decision making (impulsive and reflective) and the deepening of the material (surface and deep). The population of this study are high school students in the class III 0I SMAN Batu and cluster sampling technique of random sampling of 57 students and research instrument in this case using a scale of anxiety level and learning style scale. analysis of data used is the frequency distribution. Based on data obtained from analysis of data can be described that there are subtle differences between students who tend to have lower levels of anxiety were 30 students (52.37%) and students who experienced high levels of anxiety as many as 27 students (47.37%) in the face of National Examination In the selection of learning style, based on environmental influences, learning styles field independent and field dependent style widely used by students with low anxiety levels, based on the speed of decision making use of more reflective learning styles used by students who tend to have lower levels of anxiety, whereas impulsive learning styles tends to be used by students with high anxiety levels, and based on the deepening of the material, learning styles surface and deep learning styles is also widely used by students who have low levels of anxiety This means that the level of anxiety is not the main factor that can influence the selection of student learning styles in the face of the National Examination, due to the style of learning occurs naturally brought individuals from birth, but environmental influences and a long learning process can also affect the individual in the selection of learning styles which according to him


Leaves of ten Apocynaceae species (Allamanda cathartica, Alstonia angustiloba, Calotropis gigantea, Catharanthus roseus, Cerbera odollam, Dyera costulata, Kopsia fruticosa, Nerium oleander, Plumeria obtusa and Vallaris glabra) were assessed for antiproliferative (APF) activity against selected cancer cells using the sulphorhodamine B (SRB) assay. Leaves were sequentially extracted with hexane (Hex), dichloromethane (DCM) and methanol (MeOH). Extracts were also analysed for total alkaloid content (TAC), total phenolic content (TPC), free radical scavenging (FRS) and antityrosinase (AT) activity using the Dragendorff precipitation, Folin-Ciocalteu, 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl and dopachrome assays, respectively. Five species (Alstonia angustiloba, Calotropis gigantea, Dyera costulata, Kopsia fruticosa and Vallaris glabra) were also assessed for antiplasmodial (APM) activity using the lactate dehydrogenase assay. Leaf extracts of Alstonia angustiloba, Calotropis gigantea, Catharanthus roseus, Nerium oleander, Plumeria obtusa and Vallaris glabra displayed positive APF activity. DCM extract of Calotropis gigantea, and DCM and DCM:MeOH extracts of Vallaris glabra showed strong APF activity against all six human cancer cell lines (MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, HeLa, HT-29, SKOV-3 and HepG2). Against MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells, DCM extracts of Calotropis gigantea and Nerium oleander were stronger than or comparable to standard drugs of xanthorrhizol, curcumin and tamoxifen. In term of antiplasmodial (APM) activity, all five species were effective against chloroquine-resistant K1 strain of Plasmodium falciparum. All four solvent extracts of leaves of Vallaris glabra displayed effective APM activity which is stronger than mefloquine. Against chloroquine-sensitive 3D7 strain, only extracts of Dyera costulata, Calotropis gigantea and Kopsia fruticosa showed positive APM activity. Among the ten species studied, leaf extracts of Kopsia fruticosa had the highest TAC while those of Dyera costulata had the highest TPC, FRS and AT activity. There was a strong correlation between TPC and FRS of extracts (R2 = 0.991) but not between TPC and TAC (R2 = 0.193), and not between TAC and FRS (R2 = 0.168). Vallaris glabra was chosen as the main species for further study. Stem and flower extracts displayed effective inhibition against MCF-7 and SKOV-3 cancer cells. Both leaves and flowers possessed broad-spectrum APF activity. From the MeOH leaf extract of Vallaris glabra, three types of caffeoylquinic acids and a flavonol were isolated by column chromatography. They were identified by 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR and ESI-MS analyses to be 3-O-caffeoylquinic acid (3-CQA) or neochlorogenic acid, 4-O-caffeoylquinic acid (4-CQA) or cryptochlorogenic acid and 5-O-caffeoylquinic acid (5-CQA) or chlorogenic acid (CGA). The flavonol was identified as quercetin 3-O-glucoside (QG) or isoquercitrin. From the DCM leaf extract of Vallaris glabra, a fatty acid and a triterpenoid were isolated. They were identified as stearic acid (SA) and ursolic acid (UA), respectively. Caffeoylquinic acid content of fresh leaf extracts of Vallaris glabra, Dyera costulata, Alstonia angustiloba, Nerium oleander, Kopsia fruticosa and Plumeria obtusa were quantitatively analysed using reversed-phase HPLC. Nerium oleander had the highest content of 5-CQA followed by Vallaris glabra which had the highest content of 3-CQA and 4-CQA. The 5-CQA content of Vallaris glabra was twice that of Lonicera japonicaflowers, the commercial source of CGA, while its 3-CQA and 4-CQA content was about 16 times higher. APF activity of the five compounds (3-CQA, 4-CQA, 5-CQA, QG and SA) isolated from leaf extracts of Vallaris glabra were tested against four cancer cell lines. Only SA displayed weak inhibitory activity. Although the yield of UA was too low for analysis of its inhibitory activity, a review of existing literature showed that there is a wealth of references on the potent anticancer properties of UA including those of the cancer cells used in this study. Most publications concluded that UA is a potent chemo-preventive agent for cancer. MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells treated with DCM leaf extract of Vallaris glabra and stained with fluorescent dye Hoechst 33342, provided evidence that the extract had an apoptotic effect on the MDA-MB-231 cells, based on nuclear morphological changes. Caspase colorimetry showed that the apoptotic effect involved activation of caspase-8, -9 and -3, but not caspase-6.