OF DISSERTATION FACTORS REGULATING FEATURES OF METABOLIC SYNDROME The collective presence of central obesity, low HDL-cholesterol, and elevated triglycerides, blood pressure, and fasting blood glucose constitutes Metabolic Syndrome (MetS), a disease state that increases the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), present in up to 90% of obese adults, is also linked to MetS. As in CVD, disruptions in cholesterol metabolism play a contributing role in the development of T2DM and NAFLD. Genes involved in cholesterol synthesis, secretion, and catabolism are diurnally regulated in the liver and adipose. Disruptions in the sleep-wake cycle are thought to potentiate metabolic disorders associated with CVD, thus revealing a potential role of disrupted circadian rhythms in the development of MetS phenotypes. We initially observed that a group of clock-controlled genes in the Par bZip family were downregulated in adipose tissue of obese mice and humans. Further studies revealed that deletion of the core clock gene, Bmal1, from adipose tissue alone (ABKO mice) or in combination with the liver (LABKO mice) altered feeding behavior and locomotor activity. Obesity was increased in LABKO mice but there were no further detrimental effects in either ABKO or LABKO mice. Interestingly, high-fat diet suppressed Bmal1 transcript levels in adipose tissue suggesting that the muted effects observed with genetic Bmal1 deletion were likely due to the overpowering effects of a high-fat diet. Cholesterol metabolizing and bile acid synthesizing enzymes oscillate diurnally at the transcriptional level. Promoting cholesterol elimination through bile acid synthesis and biliary secretion is essential for reducing hepatic cholesterol, a perpetrating factor in the progression of NAFLD. Previous studies in animal models demonstrated that deletion of the hepatic cholesterol transporters, Abcg5 and Abcg8 (G5G8), decreased biliary cholesterol secretion and increased obesity and hepatic steatosis. Ursodiol (Urso) increased G5G8 protein expression and in combination with ezetimibe, a cholesterol-lowering agent, showed promise as a therapeutic for NAFLD. However, bile acid synthesis was suppressed in the presence of Urso and ezetimibe, suggesting that the overall effect on cholesterol elimination was minimized. The increase in G5G8 and decrease in bile acid synthesis was associated with an increase in Fgf15/19, a suppressor of bile acid synthesis. In order to determine if and how FGF15/19 regulates G5G8, mice were injected with FGF19. G5G8 protein expression and biliary total cholesterol were increased. Additionally, G5G8 localized to the canalicular surface of hepatocytes. Urso caused a similar localization of G5G8 that appeared to be dependent of the FGF15/19-FGFR4 signaling pathway. Interestingly, G5G8 was not required for maintaining cholesterol homeostasis in the presence of FGF15/19. Data from murine models suggest Urso and ezetimibe promote cholesterol elimination, though the effects may be limited by the suppression of bile acid synthesis. Nonetheless, there may be a therapeutic window in which optimal cholesterol elimination can be reached. Additionally, the effects of Urso and ezetimibe are variable between mice and humans. Given the clinical availability of the two drugs, the translatability into humans and the potential to address whether Urso and ezetimibe can minimize NAFLD is great.


One of the targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is to substantially reduce the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic collisions. To this aim, European cities adopted various urban mobility policies, which has led to a heterogeneous number of injuries across Europe. Monitoring the discrepancies in injuries and understanding the most efficient policies are keys to achieve the objectives of Vision Zero, a multi-national road traffic safety project that aims at zero fatalities or serious injuries linked to road traffic. Here, we identify urban features that are determinants of vulnerable road user safety through the analysis of inter-mode collision data across European cities. We first build up a data set of urban road crashes and their participants from 24 cities in 5 European countries, using the widely recommended KSI indicator (killed or seriously injured individuals) as a safety performance metric. Modelling the casualty matrices including road infrastructure characteristics and modal share distribution of the different cities, we observe that cities with the highest rates of walking and cycling modal shares are the safest for the most vulnerable users. Instead, a higher presence of low-speed limited roads seems to only significantly reduce the number of injuries of car occupants. Our results suggest that policies aimed at increasing the modal share of walking and cycling are key to improve road safety for all road users.


This paper explores the links among growth, the informal economy, and rent-seeking bureaucracies. The presence of congestion associated with the enforcement of property right implies that informality can be useful. Whether bureaucratic rent-seeking is detrimental to growth then depends on how good a substitute informality is to production in the formal sector. In order to create profits which can be appropriated, rent-seeking bureaucrats limit entry into the formal economy. As a result, firms operate in the informal sector even when the cost of informality is high, in which case lower growth emerges. However, when the cost of informality is low, a large number of firms choose to operate informally irrespective of entry conditions. In the latter case, growth is unaffected by a rent-seeking bureaucracy as entry restrictions in the formal economy do not bind.


In this work, we present a sampling-based approach to trajectory classification which enables automated high-level reasoning about topological classes of trajectories. Our approach is applicable to general configuration spaces and relies only on the availability of collision free samples. Unlike previous sampling-based approaches in robotics which use graphs to capture information about the path-connectedness of a configuration space, we construct a multiscale approximation of neighborhoods of the collision free configurations based on filtrations of simplicial complexes. Our approach thereby extracts additional homological information which is essential for a topological trajectory classification. We propose a multiscale classification algorithm for trajectories in configuration spaces of arbitrary dimension and for sets of trajectories starting and ending in two fixed points. Using a cone construction, we then generalize this approach to classify sets of trajectories even when trajectory start and end points are allowed to vary in path-connected subsets. We furthermore show how an augmented filtration of simplicial complexes based on an arbitrary function on the configuration space, such as a costmap, can be defined to incorporate additional constraints. We present an evaluation of our approach in 2-, 3-, 4- and 6-dimensional configuration spaces in simulation and in real-world experiments using a Baxter robot and motion capture data.


The efficient allocation of increasingly scarce water resources is a growing challenge worldwide, particularly during times of drought. This paper describes the development and application of an innovative technique to optimize the allocation of raw water supply to the city of London, UK during a period of drought in 2006. Using genetic algorithms, an optimization tool was developed to derive near-optimal operating strategies for the water company9s multiple reservoir system for different projected rainfall scenarios and also to test the robustness of drought contingency strategies for operating the reservoirs down to a lower level under a severe drought condition. The project demonstrated that this approach is rigorous yet practical, the optimization technique is robust and effective and that optimal water allocation is an efficient measure to overcome water scarcity under drought conditions and mitigate consequent impacts. The potential application of genetic algorithms to the day to day operation of a complex water resource system represents a step-change in the industry9s approach to managing such systems.


Musical skill has been included among the phenotypic strengths in Williams syndrome (WS), often considered as a superior ability. Nevertheless, limited research has been carried out on this skill. Singing abilities of a group of individuals with WS were compared with those of a control group of typically developing participants matched for chronological age. Both objective acoustic measurements and musicians' and nonmusicians' perceptions were obtained from singing tasks. Results showed that singing abilities were not superior or excellent in WS. Furthermore, singing abilities in individuals with WS could be impaired in comparison with typically developing peers.Music training facilitated sung performance in both participants with WS and their controls. However, only individuals with WS showed disadvantages in learning music. Results do not support the general view regarding outstanding musical abilities in WS.


Techniques for the introduction of transgenes to control blackheart by particle bombardment and Agrobacterium co-transformation have been developed for pineapple cv. Smooth Cayenne. Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) is the enzyme responsible for blackheart development in pineapple fruit following chilling injury. Sense, anti-sense and hairpin constructs were used as a means to suppress PPO expression in plants. Average transformation efficiency for biolistics was approximately 1% and for Agrobacterium was approximately 1.5%. These results were considered acceptable given the high regeneration potential of between 80-90% from callus cultures. Southern blot analysis revealed stable integration of transgenes with lower copy number found in plants transformed with Agrobacterium compared to those transformed by biolistics. Over 5000 plants from 55 transgenic lines are now undergoing field evaluation in Australia


The application of duplex stainless steels in various applications such as in petrochemical, water desalination and paper milling industries has rapidly increased in recent years, taking advantage of the combination of high strength and good corrosion resistance from the dual phase stainless steels. However, having low wear resistance and low surface hardness limits the applicability of the steels for wider applications; thus, improvement of the features is essential. A thermochemical hybrid treatment process has been developed to improve the wear resistance and surface hardness of duplex stainless steels without compromising its corrosion resistance. The process was performed by using a mixture of
methane (CH4), ammonia(NH3) and nitrogen (N2) at low temperature of below 500°C. The process simultaneously introduces the alloying elements of carbon and nitrogen into the surface of the duplex stainless steels forming a precipitation free layer along with improvement of wear resistance and surface hardness. This study discusses the influence of the process parameters such as temperature, holding time and gas composition used during the process towards the structural development and morphology of the layer as well as the effects of precipitation on the chromium element. It was found that the
nitrogen and carbon diffused at the layer producing expanded austenite phase and expanded ferrite phase of a complex combination of YN, yc, GIN and ao The expanded phases increased the surface hardness up to five times, improvised the wear resistance of the treated samples. However, traces of precipitation of chromium were detected in sample treated at prolonged 30 hours of holding time and for the sample treated for a temperature of 500 °C, indicating the limit of the process parameter used to produce the precipitation free expanded phases. It can be concluded that the improvement on the surface hardness and wear resistance of duplex stainless steel can be achieved by the formation of expanded phases at the layer by controlling the main parameters during the thermochemical process


Drawing on more than a quarter century of field and documentary research in rural North China, this book explores the contested relationship between village and state from the 1960s to the start of the twenty-first century. The authors provide a vivid portrait of how resilient villagers struggle to survive and prosper in the face of state power in two epochs of revolution and reform. Highlighting the importance of intra-rural resistance and rural-urban conflicts to Chinese politics and society in the Great Leap and Cultural Revolution, the authors go on to depict the dynamic changes that have transformed village China in the post-Mao era. This book continues the dramatic story in the authors' prizewinning Chinese Village, Socialist State. Plumbing previously untapped sources, including interviews, archival materials, village records and unpublished memoirs, diaries and letters, the authors capture the struggles, pains and achievements of villagers across three generations of social upheaval.


We celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of The Hastings Center and realize how quickly a new academic and intellectual species can evolve. Today, Homo ethicus is well established in a newly recognized territory, that is, people pursue Ph.D. degrees in bioethics and actually get jobs. While bioethics is now more or less centered in philosophical ethics, it remains true to its interdisciplinary origins--it collaborates with theology, literature, and psychology, as well as with law, medicine, and policy studies. As a psychologist and longtime participant observer of the bioethical enterprise, I contend that psychological factors have always played a major role in bioethics. After all, human beings are the "self-interpreting animals," to use Charles Taylor's pungent phrase, ergo ethical questions involve subjective psychological processing within conscious selves. What, for instance, constitutes an 'informed consent,' or a 'substituted judgment'? When we deal with an actual person's 'pain,' 'risk taking,' 'suffering,' 'needs,' 'desires,' 'interest,' 'competence,' or 'quality of life,' what is going to count as an adequate description? Even the first ethical commandment, to "do no harm," has to confront the psychological reality that human beings can be harmed without suffering a scratch. To my mind the subjective and interpersonal dimensions of bioethics have too often been obscured, subsumed into objective, abstract formulations that more easily pass muster with physicians, lawyers, and philosophers of a certain cast of mind (gender irrelevant). Yet one psychological set of subjective concerns remains visible: how do you engender highly ethical decisionmakers? How does a person's character and personality affect ethical action? Must you be morally wise and good to do bioethics well? Debates over ethical competence and ethical expertise arise when you attempt to educate or induct newcomers into bioethics, or try to persuade the morally tone-deaf in some institution or profession. Despite these problems, I'm afraid most ethicists would still maintain that the personality and morality of the individual ethicist has little to do with the quality of his or her ethical analyses or judgments. As long as ethicists don't take bribes, abuse drugs, or suffer from medically diagnosed Alzheimer disease, their personal qualities can be ignored. Perhaps these hyperrationalists could be induced to accept an "impaired ethicist act"--but only after the profession's "credentialling problems" have been properly ironed out. Those claiming that ethical expertise has little to do with personal character tend to offer odd analogies to prove their point. At one college where I was holding forth on the importance of emotions in ethical decisionmaking, I was asked, "My dear Mrs. Callahan, do you really think it makes any difference if your surgeon reads novels?" My questioner, for his part (gender not irrelevant?), was a mathematician advocating a computer approach to bioethics (quantify the variables, enter the information, run the program, and read out the solution). …


Non-intrusive occupant identification enables numerous applications in Smart Buildings such as personalization of climate and lighting. Current non-intrusive identification techniques do not scale beyond 20 people whereas commercial buildings can have 100 or more people. This paper proposes a new method to identify occupants by sensing their body shape, movement and walking patterns as they walk through a SonicDoor, a door instrumented with three ultrasonic sensors. The proposed method infers contextual information such as path detection and historical walks through different doors of the building in order to enhance the identification accuracy. Each SonicDoor is instrumented with ultrasonic ping sensors, one on the top to sense height and two on the sides of the door to sense width of the person walking through the door. SonicDoor detects a walking event and analyzes it to infer whether the Walker is using a phone, holding a handbag, or wearing a backpack. It extracts a set of features from the walking event and corrects them using a set of transformation functions to mitigate the bias. We deployed five SonicDoors in a real building for two months and collected data consisting of over 9000 walking events spanning over 170 people. The proposed method identifies up to 100 occupants with an accuracy of 90.2%, which makes it suitable for large-scale realistic buildings. SonicDoor method surpasses the state of the art by a factor of five, which is limited to 20 people.


Many cancers, including breast cancer malignant melanoma, metastasize to the bone, and the local factors in the host tissues that contribute to metastatic colonization are beginning to be uncovered. Chemokines in the target tissue to which the cancer cells will metastasize are important, and Jones et al. show that the cytokine RANKL (receptor activator of nuclear factor κB ligand) is another factor that governs metastasis to bone for tumor cells that express the receptor RANK. RANK was detected in primary human tumor samples from breast and prostate cancer, as well as in several cancer cell lines. Cancer cell lines (human breast and prostate and mouse melanoma) responded to RANKL with actin reorganization, activation of several signaling pathways, and cell migration. The decoy receptor osteoprotegerin (OPG) blocked actin polymerization and cell migration induced by RANKL. Injection of the mouse melanoma cell line B16F10 into the hearts of mice led to metastasis of the cancer cells to multiple organs, including the bones, which produced paralysis and ultimately death. Treatment of the mice with OPG specifically reduced metastasis to the bones, eliminated paralysis over the course of the experiment, and increased the survival of the mice. Thus, RANKL appears to be a key factor contributing to bone metastasis and may be a clinical target for reducing morbidity and pain associated with cancers that metastasize to the bone. Interestingly, RANK was found on normal untransformed mouse mammary epithelial cells, and RANKL stimulated the migration of these cells, suggesting that RANKL plays a role in normal breast tissue. D. H. Jones, T. Nakashima, O. H. Sanchez, I. Kozieradzki, S. V. Komarova, I. Sarosi, S. Morony, E. Rubin, R. Sarao, C. V. Hojilla, V. Komnenovic, Y.-Y. Kong, M. Schreiber, S. J. Dixon, S. M. Sims, R. Khokha, T. Wada, J. M. Penninger, Regulation of cancer cell migration and bone metastasis by RANKL. Nature 440, 692-696 (2006). [PubMed]


This paper estimates the impact of binge drinking on sexual activity among a nationally representative set of high school students during the 1990s and 2000s. The main innovations are explicitly controlling for time-invariant preferences regarding sexual behavior and alcohol use, and eliminating non-drinkers from the comparison group. I find that binge drinking significantly increases participation in sex, promiscuity, and the failure to use birth control, albeit by amounts considerably smaller than implied by merely conditioning on exogenous factors. For all outcomes, impacts rise substantially with binge drinking frequency. Results are similar using alternative comparison groups defined by excluding those who do not exhibit other risky behaviors, and by gender and race/ethnicity, but vary by grade level and over time in different ways for engaging in sex than protective behavior. Effects are much larger for the small fraction of students that has not been taught about AIDS/HIV infection in school.


Background The aim of this study was to assess ethnic variations in informed decision-making about prenatal screening for Down's syndrome and to examine the contribution of background and decision-making variables. Methods Pregnant women of Dutch, Turkish and Surinamese origin were recruited between 2006 and 2008 from community midwifery or obstetrical practices in The Netherlands. Each woman was personally interviewed 3 weeks (mean) after booking for prenatal care. Knowledge, attitude and participation in prenatal screening were assessed following the 'Multidimensional Measure of Informed Choice' that has been developed and applied in the UK. Results In total, 71% of the Dutch women were classified as informed decision-makers, compared with 5% of the Turkish and 26% of the Surinamese women. Differences between Surinamese and Dutch women could largely be attributed to differences in educational level and age. Differences between Dutch and Turkish women could mainly be attributed to differences in language skills and gender emancipation. Conclusion Women from ethnic minority groups less often made an informed decision whether or not to participate in prenatal screening. Interventions to decrease these ethnic differences should first of all be aimed at overcoming language barriers and increasing comprehension among women with a low education level. To further develop diversity-sensitive strategies for counselling, it should be investigated how women from different ethnic backgrounds value informed decision-making in prenatal screening, what decision-relevant knowledge they need and what they take into account when considering participation in prenatal screening.


The purpose of this book is to bridge the gap between the large, systematic body of scholarship on the U.S. Congress and the significant though more scattered scholarship on legislatures outside the United States. Although there is no single paradigm that guides research on Congress, there has been a succession of dominant methodologies. Among these the rational choice approach is the most recent. Furthermore, the sustained work on Congress has produced an accepted body of knowledge on many aspects of the institution, and considerable agreement on the current research agenda. By comparison, research on legislatures outside the United States employs a greater variety of methodologies and substantive emphases, influenced by the different contexts in which these legislatures exist and by the differences in national scholarly traditions. The theories, concepts, and measures that guide this research have varied considerably. It is therefore difficult to relate the contributions of research on legislatures outside the United States to our general understanding of the legislative institution. The premise underlying this book is that students of the U.S. Congress and students of other legislatures have a great deal to learn from each other.

The political science literature on Congress is impressive but its findings are parochial in the sense that they are seldom tested in other legislative settings. Legislative specialists seem to be comfortable with the implicit but improbable conclusion that the U.S. Congress is unique. Overall, to the extent that legislative research is confined within national compartments, few generalizations can be made about legislatures as such.

In the introduction to this volume, we set out what we regard as the implications of research on Congress for the field of comparative legislative research. The subsequent essays -- on legislative recruitment and careers; on legislative representation; on party structures in legislatures; on rules and procedures; and on the evolution of legislatures -- demonstrate that there is by now considerable convergence in methods and substantive interests among all legislative scholars. The final essay draws some conclusions about past obstacles to that convergence and about present prospects for its further development.

Many of the essays in this volume were originally presented at an international legislative research conference at the University of Iowa in 1998. We are grateful tot he National Science Foundation, the Benjamin F. Schambaugh Memorial Fund, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and the University of Iowa for their support of this conference. We appreciate the work of Karen Stewart, Administrative Assistant in the Department of Political Science at the University of Iowa, for her work in organizing the conference.

The papers presented at the conference were the subject of discussion and of written critiques by a group of distinguished commentators: Richard Calland (Cape Town Democracy Center), Herbert Doring (University of Potsdam)Heinz Eulau (Stanford University), C. Lawrence Evans (College of William and Mary), Malcolm E. Jewell (University of Kentucky), Keith Krehbiel (Stanford University), David R. Mayhew (Yale University), Michael L. Mezey (DePaul University), Njuguna Ng'ethe (University of Nairobi), Lia Nijzink (University of Leiden)Samuel C. Patterson (Ohio State University), Suzanne Schuttemeyer (University of Halle), Kaare Strom (University of California at San Diego), and John R. Wright (Ohio State University). On the basis of that discussion, all of the papers were substantially revised.

The essays in this volume by John R. Hibbing, Gary F. Moncrief, Werner J. Patzelt, Fabiano Santos, David T. Canon, Michael Laver, Steven S. Smith, Gary W. Cox, Bjorn Erik Rasch, Rick K. Wilson, and John M. Carey, Frantisek Formanek, and Ewa Karpowicz weere first published in the Legislative Studies Quarterly. We thank the Comparative Legislative Research Center of the University of Iowa, which publishes the journal, for permission to reprint these essays here. Finally, we are grateful to Michelle L. Wiegand, Managing Editor of the Quarterly, for supervising all aspects of the publication of these essays.

We intend this volume , and the substantial references to the literature that accompany each essay, to be both a reflection of and a contribution to cross-national collaboration in the field of legislative studies, We hope it will strengthen comparative legislative research.


Background There is a paucity of valid, brief instruments for the assessment of lifetime major depressive disorder (MDD) that can be used in, for example, large-scale genomics, imaging or biomarker studies on depression. We developed the LIfetime Depression Assessment Self-report (LIDAS), which assesses lifetime MDD diagnosis according to DSM criteria, and is largely based on the widely used Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). Here, we tested the feasibility and determined the sensitivity and specificity for measuring lifetime MDD with this new questionnaire, with a regular CIDI as reference. Method Sensitivity and specificity analyses of the online lifetime MDD questionnaire were performed in adults with (n = 177) and without (n = 87) lifetime MDD according to regular index CIDIs, selected from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA) and Netherlands Twin Register (NTR). Feasibility was tested in an additional non-selective, population-based sample of NTR participants (n = 245). Results Of the 753 invited persons, 509 (68%) completed the LIDAS, of which 419 (82%) did this online. User-friendliness of the instrument was rated high. Median completion time was 6.2 min. Sensitivity and specificity for lifetime MDD were 85% [95% confidence interval (CI) 80–91%] and 80% (95% CI 72–89%), respectively. This LIDAS instrument gave a lifetime MDD prevalence of 20.8% in the population-based sample. Conclusions Measuring lifetime MDD with an online instrument was feasible. Sensitivity and specificity were adequate. The instrument gave a prevalence of lifetime MDD in line with reported population prevalences. LIDAS is a promising tool for rapid determination of lifetime MDD status in large samples, such as needed for genomics studies.


Summary 1. It is well known that climate change alters abiotic factors (temperature and water availability) that directly affect ecosystem properties. However, less is known about the indirect impacts of climate change on ecosystem structure and function. Here, we show that experimental warming may deteriorate ecosystems via trophic interactions. 2. In a Tibetan alpine meadow, plant species composition, size, coverage and above-ground biomass were investigated to reveal the effect of artificial warming (c. 1 � Cm ean annual temperature at the soil surface), which was accomplished using warmed and ambient open top chambers. In addition, rodent damage to plants was assessed. 3. The dicot forb silverweed Potentilla anserina increased significantly, while other species groups remained unchanged or decreased in plant community dominance rank after 2 years of artificial warming. The change in community structure was attributed to the difference in biomass allocation and growth form among species. 4. In the third year, plateau zokors Myospalax fontanierii, a widespread rodent herbivore, damaged plants in the warmed chambers, while leaving plants in the ambient chambers mostly undamaged. Above-ground biomass was found to be smaller in the warmed chambers than the controls in the third year, in contrast to the trend of the first 2 years. In addition, zokor burrow density was positively correlated with silverweed biomass and its dominance within communities, which was consistent with findings of independent field investigations that silverweed-dominated plots were more likely to be visited and damaged by the zokors than sites-dominated by grass species. 5. Synthesis and applications. The top-down negative effect of zokor damage on above-ground biomass in the warmed chambers was induced by the bottom-up effect of changes in species composition and community structure on zokor foraging behaviour, which were driven by artificial warming. Such trophic interactions may invalidate some predictions of ecological effects by current species-climate envelope models. Furthermore, because management measures including increasing the water table, planting grass and moderate cattle grazing may prevent silverweed dominance, we suggest that these interventions could be employed to control zokor damage in alpine meadows that are predicted to be drier and warmer in the future.


Textual Entailment is one of the recent natural language processing challenges, where the meaning of an expression "Hypothesis" could be entailed by the meaning of another expression "Text". In comparison with English Language, the Arabic language has more challenges in determining entailment judgment, due to lexical and syntactic ambiguity. The proposed work in this paper has adopted a lexical analysis technique of Textual Entailment to study the suitability of this technique for Arabic language. In addition a semantic matching approach was added in order to enhance the precision of the proposed entailment system. The lexical analysis is based on calculating word overlap and bigram extraction and matching. The semantic matching has been incorporated with word overlap to increase the accuracy of words matching. The system has been evaluated by measuring precision and recall, those two metrics are the main evaluation measures used in Recognizing Textual Entailmen challenge number 2 to evaluate participated systems. The system has achieved precision of 68%, 58% for both Entails and NotENtails respectively with overall recall of 61%.


In this paper, we focus on the application of Compressive Sensing (CS) techniques to Impulse Radio (IR) Ultra-WideBand (UWB) positioning systems under indoor propagation environments. Direct Position Estimation (DPE) approaches can potentially improve the position estimation accuracy of conventional two-step techniques by directly estimating the position coordinates from the observed signal in a single step. Furthermore, DPE does not require a threshold selection upon which accuracy of two-step approaches depend on. Although in the presence of multipath the actual gains are not straight forward, recent evaluation of DPE positioning in IR-UWB system proved accurate positioning estimate gains. However it comes at a cost of higher computational complexity. This paper exploits the sparseness of the problem to reduce the computational load of the positioning estimation process and relax the requirements of the Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) when sampling UWB signals. Based on the fact that the number of unknown targets is small in the discrete spatial domain, this paper incorporates the multiple location hypotheses into an overcomplete basis, which highlights the sparseness of the spatial domain. This fact motivates the use of CS-based sampling and sparsity-based reconstruction techniques to jointly evaluate all possible hypotheses, thus avoiding the traditional position-by-position scanning where the multiple location hypotheses are evaluated independently. In so doing, we not only achieve a significant reduction in computational time but also we relax the sampling requirements.


CONTEXT
The adipokine leptin facilitates long-term potentiation and synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus, promotes beta-amyloid clearance, and improves memory function in animal models of aging and Alzheimer disease (AD).

OBJECTIVE
To relate baseline circulating leptin concentrations in a community-based sample of individuals without dementia to incident dementia and AD during follow-up and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures of brain aging in survivors.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
Prospective study of plasma leptin concentrations measured in 785 persons without dementia (mean [SD] age, 79 [5] years; 62% female), who were in the Framingham original cohort at the 22nd examination cycle (1990-1994). A subsample of 198 dementia-free survivors underwent volumetric brain MRI between 1999 and 2005, approximately 7.7 years after leptin was assayed. Two measures of brain aging, total cerebral brain volume and temporal horn volume (which is inversely related to hippocampal volume) were assessed.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
Incidence of dementia and AD during follow-up until December 31, 2007.

RESULTS
During a median follow-up of 8.3 years (range, 0-15.5 years), 111 participants developed incident dementia; 89 had AD. Higher leptin levels were associated with a lower risk of incident dementia and AD in multivariable models (hazard ratio per 1-SD increment in log leptin was 0.68 [95% confidence interval, 0.54-0.87] for all-cause dementia and 0.60 [95% confidence interval, 0.46-0.79] for AD). This corresponds to an absolute AD risk over a 12-year follow-up of 25% for persons in the lowest quartile (first quartile) vs 6% for persons in the fourth quartile of sex-specific leptin levels. In addition, a 1-SD elevation in plasma leptin level was associated with higher total cerebral brain volume and lower temporal horn volume, although the association of leptin level with temporal horn volume did not reach statistical significance.

CONCLUSION
Circulating leptin was associated with a reduced incidence of dementia and AD and with cerebral brain volume in asymptomatic older adults.


Climate change has led to more frequent extreme winters (aka, dzud) and summer droughts on the Mongolian Plateau during the last decade. Among these events, the 2000–2002 combined summer drought–dzud and 2010 dzud were the most severe on vegetation. We examined the vegetation response to these extremes through the past decade across the Mongolian Plateau as compared to decadal means. We first assessed the severity and extent of drought using the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) precipitation data and the Palmer drought severity index (PDSI). We then examined the effects of drought by mapping anomalies in vegetation indices (EVI, EVI2) and land surface temperature derived from MODIS and AVHRR for the period of 2000–2010. We found that the standardized anomalies of vegetation indices exhibited positively skewed frequency distributions in dry years, which were more common for the desert biome than for grasslands. For the desert biome, the dry years (2000–2001, 2005 and 2009) were characterized by negative anomalies with peak values between −1.5 and −0.5 and were statistically different (P < 0.001) from relatively wet years (2003, 2004 and 2007). Conversely, the frequency distributions of the dry years were not statistically different (p < 0.001) from those of the relatively wet years for the grassland biome, showing that they were less responsive to drought and more resilient than the desert biome. We found that the desert biome is more vulnerable to drought than the grassland biome. Spatially averaged EVI was strongly correlated with the proportion of land area affected by drought (PDSI <− 1) in Inner Mongolia (IM) and Outer Mongolia (OM), showing that droughts substantially reduced vegetation activity. The correlation was stronger for the desert biome (R2 = 65 and 60, p < 0.05) than for the IM grassland biome (R2 = 53, p < 0.05). Our results showed significant differences in the responses to extreme climatic events (summer drought and dzud) between the desert and grassland biomes on the Plateau.


Bio-dispersants have been considered as superior alternatives of currently used dispersants as they are generally more biodegradable, less toxic, and better at enhancing biodegradation. However, the application of bio-dispersants is limited by the availability of economic products and the corresponding producers that can work effectively. Hyperproducers generated by metabolic engineering of biosurfactant producers are highly desired to overcome this obstacle. A Rhodococcus erythropolis SB-1A strain was isolated from Newfoundland offshore oily water samples. One of its mutant derived by random mutagenesis with ultraviolet radiation, producing high levels of biosurfactants was selected by the oil spreading technique. The mutant produces biosurfactants with critical micelle dilutions (CMD) approximately 4 times of the parent strain. The results obtained with thin layer chromatography (TLC) indicated the produced biosurfactant remained unchanged between the mutant and the parent strain. In addition, the produced biosurfactants were recovered with solvent extraction method and applied as the oil spill response agents to effectively disperse oil slick. Based on the baffled flask test (BFT) results, the dispersion efficiency of the biosurfactants produced by the mutant is higher than that induced by the parent strain and Corexit 9527 while comparable to the Corexit 9500.


Biofuels have been widely promoted as an important part of the global energy mix, due to public interest in alternative energy sourcing and a potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Concurrently, questions have been raised about the social and environmental costs of biofuel production. While previous studies have focused primarily on biofuel production from conventional, starch-based feedstocks, this study provides a preliminary analysis of the production of cellulosic-based ethanol mandated in the U.S. renewable fuel standard. Using a global general equilibrium framework and switchgrass as a model bioenergy crop, results suggests that meeting the mandate will further intensify competition for land both domestically and abroad. Impacts of cellulosic production on global commodity prices, quantities, export, and land use are also documented.


The term "obstructive uropathy" refers to the complex structural and functional changes following the interruption of normal urinary runoff, which can occur at every level of the urinary tract. Depending on its origin, duration and severity, urinary tract obstructions can be acute or chronic, mono or bilateral, partial or complete. The obstruction can be localized or extended to the entire pielo-caliceal system and/or homolateral urethra. The term "hydronephrosis" indicates the dilation of the pelvis detected through imaging techniques. Among these, ultrasound is considered the gold standard in the diagnosis of obstructive uropathy: it allows to distinguish three degrees of urinary tract dilation, depending on the extent of the dilation itself and the thickness of the parenchyma. Nephrologists are confronted daily with patients who experience kidney failure and must be able to quickly distinguish between chronic and acute and, in the latter case, to discern between issues of nephrological or urological competence. This short review aims at helping them deal with this very common scenario, through the use of ultrasound.


Road crashes are the main cause of death of young people in the developed world. The factors that cause traffic crashes are numerous; however, most researchers agree that a lack of driving experience is a major contributing factor. Another reason that has been reported for the increased crashes is that novice drivers have not developed the optimum visual search strategies of their more experienced counterparts. Although several training interventions have tried to improve scanning of novice drivers, they have limited success. The aims of this Thesis are to identify some parameters that influence visual search and to develop an efficient training intervention that will improve drivers' visual skills. In Experiment 1 an image-based questionnaire was used to assess driving instructors' and novice drivers' priority ratings to different areas of the driving scene. Results showed that for both groups the opinions regarding visual field prioritisation were highly consistent when compared to chance. Despite the rating consistencies, group differences were found, across all scenarios with "Rear View Mirrors" being the visual field with the most frequent observed group differences. Certain categories ("Road Ahead" and "Mirrors") were highly ranked across all scenarios, while other categories were more scenario specific. In Experiments 2 & 3 a novel experimental paradigm was used to investigate the interaction bottom-up and top-down influences upon drivers' visual attention. Analysis showed that participants' fixation locations had a stronger relationship with where participants clicked (top down) than with saliency peaks (bottom up). In Experiments 4 & 5 the difference in eye movements between driving instructors and learner drivers was examined during simulated driving. Results showed that driving instructors had an increased sampling rate, shorter processing time and broader scanning of the road than learner drivers. Scenario-specific analysis showed that instructors fixated more than learners on side mirrors while learners showed higher visual allocation to the rear view mirror. It was also found that poor visibility conditions and especially rain decrease the effectiveness of drivers' visual search. Finally in Experiments 6, 7 & 8 we asked how we can improve learner drivers' visual skills. Results from Experiments 6 & 7 demonstrated that the ability to distinguish between the eye movements of learner drivers and driving instructors improved as the number of objective differences between the two groups increased across specific scenarios. In Experiment 8 a pilot study showed that a scenario specific training intervention can improve certain aspects of learner drivers' visual skills. The findings of this Thesis have both theoretical and practical implications regarding drivers' visual search.


Mobile wireless environments present new challenges to the design and validation of system supports for facilitating development of mobile applications. This dissertation concerns two major system-support mechanisms in mobile wireless networks, namely, location management and service management. We address this research issue by considering three topics: location management, service management, and integrated location and service management. A location management scheme must effectively and efficiently handle both user location-update and location-search operations. We first quantitatively analyze a class of location management algorithms and identify conditions under which one algorithm may perform better than others. From insight gained from the quantitative analysis, we design and analyze a hybrid replication with forwarding algorithm that outperforms individual algorithms and show that such a hybrid algorithm can be uniformly applied to mobile users with distinct call and mobility characteristics to simplify the system design without sacrificing performance. For service management, we explore the notion of location-aware personal proxies that cooperate with the underlying location management system with the goal to minimize the network communication cost caused by service management operations. We show that for cellular wireless networks that provide packet services, when given a set of model parameters characterizing the network and workload conditions, there exists an optimal proxy service area size such that the overall network communication cost for service operations is minimized. These proxy-based mobile service management schemes are shown to outperform non-proxy-based schemes over a wide range of identified conditions. We investigate a class of integrated location and service management schemes by which service proxies are tightly integrated with location databases to further reduce the overall network


Exercise triggers release of a myokine from skeletal muscle that induces the "browning" of white adipose tissue. The transcriptional coactivator PGC-1α [peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor γ (PPARγ) coactivator 1α] stimulates the expression of genes involved in energy metabolism and mitochondrial biogenesis. In addition, PGC-1α participates in the differentiation of brown adipose tissue, which dissipates energy as heat in a process called thermogenesis. Of the major white adipose depots, the subcutaneous layer can be most easily induced to acquire characteristics of brown fat ("browning"), such as increased numbers of mitochondria and the expression of brown fat–specific and thermogenic genes. Mice that overexpress PGC-1α in muscle show systemic physiological changes, such as resistance to diabetes, leading Boström et al. to investigate how PGC-1α in muscle regulates white and brown adipose tissue. In mice overexpressing PGC-1α in muscle, subcutaneous white adipose tissue (but not brown adipose tissue or visceral white adipose tissue) showed increased mRNA and protein abundance of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1), which is involved in thermogenesis. Primary subcutaneous adipocytes that were exposed to medium conditioned by myocytes overexpressing PGC-1α showed increased abundance of brown fat–specific genes. Five PGC-1α target genes in muscle encoded proteins likely to be secreted, including FNDC5 (fibronectin type III domain containing 5). Exercise increases the expression of the gene encoding PGC-1α in muscle, and the PGC-1α target genes showed increased mRNA abundance in exercised mice and in muscle biopsies taken from human subjects after endurance exercise. Primary subcutaneous white adipocytes treated with FNDC5 showed increased expression of Ucp1, higher mitochondrial density, and increased oxygen consumption. FNDC5 was glycosylated and cleaved at the C terminus to generate a 32-kD secreted fragment that the authors named irisin. The plasma concentration of irisin was decreased in mice with a muscle-specific ablation of PGC-1α and increased by exercise in mice and humans. Adenoviral overexpression of Fndc5 increased Ucp1 mRNA expression in subcutaneous fat in mice on a standard or high-fat diet; in mice on a high-fat diet, it also increased oxygen consumption, improved glucose tolerance and fasting insulin, and slightly reduced body weight. Thus, exercise triggers muscle to release irisin, which induces subcutaneous white adipose tissue to acquire characteristics typical of brown adipose tissue, and could potentially be developed as a treatment to counteract the effects of diet-induced obesity. P. Boström, J. Wu, M. P. Jedrychowski, A. Korde, L. Ye, J. C. Lo, K. A. Rasbach, E. A. Boström, J. H. Choi, J. Z. Long, S. Kajimura, M. C. Zingaretti, B. F. Vind, H. Tu, S. Cinti, K. Højlund, S. P. Gygi, B. M. Spiegelman, A PGC1-α-dependent myokine that drives brown-fat-like development of white fat and thermogenesis. Nature 481, 463–468 (2012). [PubMed]


Problem statement: Southern Waste Management environment (SWM environment) is a company responsible for the collection and disposal of solid waste for the city of Johor Bahru, a city with over one million populations. The company is implementing an integrated solid waste management system where it involved in the optimization of resources to ensure the effectiveness of its services. Formulating this real life problem into vehicle routing problem with stochastic demand model and using some designed algorithms to minimize operation cost of solid waste management. Approach: The implementation of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) for solving solid waste collection problem as a VRPSD model was described. A set of data modified from the well known 50 customers problems were used to find the route such that the expected traveling cost was minimized. The total cost was minimized by adopting a preventive restocking policy which was trading off the extra cost of returning to depot after a stock-out with the cost of returning depot for restocking before a stock-out actually occurs. For comparison purposes, Simulated Annealing (SA) was used to generate the solution under the same condition. Results: For the problem size with 12 customers with vehicle capacity 10 units, both algorithms obtained the same best cost which is 69.4358 units. But the percentage deviations of averages from the associated best cost are 0.1322 and 0.7064 for ACS and SA. The results indicated that for all demand ranges, proposed ACO algorithm showed better performance than SA algorithm. Conclusion: SA was able to obtain good solutions for small ranges especially small size of problem. For ACS, it is always provide good results for all tested ranges and problems sizes of the tested problem.


Abstract The objectives of the research are to describe the cultural activities offered in residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation for Aboriginal Australian men, along with client perceptions of the benefits associated with these cultural activities. Participants were 101 Australian Aboriginal male clients attending five residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation services in New South Wales. Participants completed a semi-structured interview and questionnaires that included the Growth and Empowerment Measure, the Aboriginal Cultural Engagement Survey, Clinical Global Impressions, and two questionnaires regarding cultural engagement while in treatment. Service users indicated that the most beneficial cultural activities offered within services were traditional art/craft, culturally-focused talks/meetings, and being on the land. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that cultural engagement in everyday life significantly predicted empowerment but not other measures of mental ill-health. The opinions of service users are presented, and recommendations are made regarding ways to enhance the effectiveness of cultural activities within drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs.


Abstract The aim of the study was to explore pre-competition training practices of elite endurance runners. Training details from elite British middle distance (MD; 800 m and 1500 m), long distance (LD; 3000 m steeplechase to 10,000 m) and marathon (MAR) runners were collected by survey for 7 days in a regular training (RT) phase and throughout a pre-competition taper. Taper duration was [median (interquartile range)] 6 (3) days in MD, 6 (1) days in LD and 14 (8) days in MAR runners. Continuous running volume was reduced to 70 (16)%, 71 (24)% and 53 (12)% of regular levels in MD, LD and MAR runners, respectively (P < 0.05). Interval running volume was reduced compared to regular training (MD; 53 (45)%, LD; 67 (23)%, MAR; 64 (34)%, P < 0.05). During tapering, the peak interval training intensity was above race speed in LD and MAR runners (112 (27)% and 114 (3)%, respectively, P < 0.05), but not different in MD (100 (2)%). Higher weekly continuous running volume and frequency in RT were associated with greater corresponding reductions during the taper (R = −0.70 and R = −0.63, respectively, both P < 0.05). Running intensity during RT was positively associated with taper running intensity (continuous intensity; R = 0.97 and interval intensity; R = 0.81, both P < 0.05). Algorithms were generated to predict and potentially prescribe taper content based on the RT of elite runners. In conclusion, training undertaken prior to the taper in elite endurance runners is predictive of the tapering strategy implemented before competition.


Few organizational acronyms are more familiar to Americans than those of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Although neither organization is particularly popular, both loom large in American life and popular culture. Because there is a tax aspect to just about everything, it should come as no surprise that the domains of the NCAA and the IRS overlap in a number of ways. For many decades, the strong tendency in those areas has been for college athletics to enjoy unreasonably generous tax treatment-sometimes because of the failure of the IRS to enforce the tax laws enacted by Congress, sometimes because Congress itself has conferred dubious tax benefits on college sports. In just the past year, however, there have been signs of what may be a major attitudinal shift on the part of Congress-although so far there have been no signs of a corresponding change at the IRS. This article offers an in-depth look at the history and current status of four areas of intersection between the federal tax laws and college sports. Part I considers the possible application of the tax on unrelated business income (UBI) to big-time college sports. It concludes that, even in the absence of any change in the statute, there is a strong argument that revenues from the televising of college sports should be subject to the UBI tax. Part II examines the tax status of athletic scholarships. It explains that athletic scholarships as currently structured are taxable under the terms of the Internal Revenue Code, and that the IRS seems to have made a conscious decision not to enforce the law. While the first two parts of the article address areas where the traditional sweetheart arrangement between the IRS and the NCAA remains in effect, the final two parts of the article consider areas where Congress has very recently intervened to increase the tax burden on college athletics. Part III describes how Congress, three decades ago, explicitly permitted taxpayers to claim charitable deductions for most of the cost of season tickets to college football and basketball games, and how Congress in 2017 to the surprise of many observers, including the authors of this article-repealed that special tax benefit. Finally, Part IV addresses issues of both statutory interpretation and policy raised by Congress's creation, in 2017, of a 21 percent excise tax on at least some universities paying seven-figure salaries to their football and basketball coaches. The article's conclusion suggests the IRS should follow the lead of Congress, and reconsider the administrative favoritism toward college sports described in Parts I and II.


An original approach for modelling disinfection by-products formation in chlorinated water is proposed. Assuming a multi-step formation mechanism, and introducing partition coefficients to differentiate the various compounds formed as a consequence of halogen incorporation and oxidation reactions, a system of linear differential equations is obtained and solved in explicit terms. Two sets of solutions are derived: the first one assuming that the reaction rate is the same for all species included in the model, as a consequence of steady state approximation; the second one assuming that the reaction rate is different from one species to another. Experimental data, obtained varying reaction time and chlorine dose, are used to calibrate the two models. Statistic tests are also performed to compare the two sets of solutions and validate the assumed hypotheses.


We report an efficient wavelength conversion via four-wave-mixing in reverse biased silicon-on-isolator p-i-n rib waveguides and demonstrate, for the first time, the conversion of a high-speed optical pseudo-random bit sequence data at 40 Gb/s. Results give a wavelength conversion efficiency of -8.6dB using a 8cm long waveguide with clear open eye on the wavelength converted signal . Conversion efficiency as functions of pump power and bias voltages has also been investigated. We show a slope efficiency close to 2 as predicted by theory.


This article seeks to explain what policy approaches and policy measures are best suited for promoting new regional industrial path development and what needs and possibilities there are for such policy to change and adapt to new conditions in order to remain efficient. The article departs from the notion of Smart Specialization and discusses how regional strategies that are inspired by this approach influence path renewal and new path creation and how they are related to and aligned with policy strategies implemented at other scales (local, regional, national, supranational). Our main argument is that new regional industrial growth paths require both continuity and change within the support structure of the innovation system. Unless smart specialization strategies are able to combine such adaptation and continuity, they fail to promote path renewal and new path creation. Our arguments are illustrated with empirical findings from the regional innovation system of Scania, South Sweden.


This article attempts to provide a definitive overview of the text, structure, history, and purpose of the Singapore Convention on Mediation (also known as the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation), a new multilateral treaty developed by the U.N. Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

The Convention, scheduled to open for signature in August 2019, provides a uniform, efficient framework for the recognition and enforcement of mediated settlement agreements that resolve international, commercial disputes — akin to the framework that the 1958 New York Convention provides for arbitral awards.

Unlike the other primary international organizations that develop commercial law treaties, UNCITRAL does not commission official commentaries or explanatory reports for the treaties it produces. This article aims to fill this gap based on the records of the negotiations and the firsthand experiences of the author in proposing and participating in the negotiations.


The lower troposphere of the western Arctic (eastern Siberia to northern Canada) was relatively warm during spring in the 1990s. Based on the NCEP‐NCAR reanalysis, supplemented by the Television Infrared Observational Satellite (TIROS) Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) Polar Pathfinder dataset, this warmth is a result of a recent increase in the frequency of warm months, compared to the previous four decades. The primary difference between four notably warm springs in the 1990s and four cold springs in the 1980s was the sense of the horizontal advection term in a lower-tropospheric heat budget for northern Alaska/southern Beaufort Sea. While the horizontal advection of heat was highly episodic, it was related to changes in the mean circulation at low levels, in particular a shift from anomalous northeasterly flow in the 1980s to anomalous southwesterly flow in the 1990s during March and April. This change in the low-level winds in the western Arctic coincided with a systematic shift in the Arctic Oscillation (AO) near the end of the 1980s, and reflects the equivalent barotropic nature of the AO. The stratospheric temperature anomalies associated with the AO were greatest in March; the low-level wind anomalies brought about near-surface temperature anomalies in northern Alaska that peaked in April. In addition to substantial decadal differences, there was considerable month-to-month and yearto-year variability within the last two decades.


Abstract Recent work by the U.S. Geological Survey indicated that the Lower Cretaceous Pearsall Formation contains an estimated mean undiscovered, technically recoverable unconventional gas resource of 8.8 trillion cubic ft in the Maverick Basin, South Texas. Cumulative gas production from horizontal wells in the core area of the emerging play has exceeded 5 billion cubic ft since 2008. However, very little information is available to characterize the Pearsall Formation as an unconventional gas resource beyond the Maverick Basin in the greater Gulf Coast region. Therefore, this reconnaissance study examines spatial distribution, thickness, organic richness and thermal maturity of the Pearsall Formation in the onshore U.S. Gulf states using wireline logs and drill cuttings sample analysis. Spontaneous potential and resistivity curves of approximately forty wireline logs from wells in five Gulf Coast states were correlated to ascertain the thickness of the Pearsall Formation and delineate its three members: Pine Island Shale, James Limestone or Cow Creek Limestone, and Bexar Shale, in ascending stratigraphic order. In Florida and Alabama the Pearsall Formation is up to about 300 ft thick; in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and East Texas, thickness is up to as much as 800 ft. Drill cuttings sampled from 11 wells at depths ranging from 4600 to 19,600 feet subsurface indicate increasingly oxygenated depositional environments (predominance of red shale) towards the eastern part of the basin. Cuttings vary widely in lithology but indicate interbedded clastics and limestones throughout the Pearsall Formation, consistent with previous regional studies. Organic petrographic and geochemical analyses of 17 cutting samples in the Pearsall Formation indicate a wide range in thermal maturity, from immature (0.43% Ro [vitrinite reflectance]) in paleo-high structural locations to the peak oil window (0.99% Ro) in the eastern portion of the Gulf Coast Basin. This is in contrast to dry gas thermal maturity throughout the Pearsall Formation in the South Texas Maverick Basin. Organic carbon content is low overall, even in immature samples, with a range of 0.17 to 1.08 wt.% by Leco in 22 Pearsall Formation samples. The pyrolysis output range was 0.23 to 2.33 mg hydrocarbon/g rock. The thermal maturity and Rock-Eval pyrolysis data and organic petrologic observations from this study will be used to better focus specific areas of investigation where the Pearsall Formation may be prospective as an unconventional hydrocarbon source and reservoir.


What began as the obscure local case of two Italian immigrant anarchists accused of robbery and murder flared into an unprecedented political and legal scandal as the perception grew that their conviction was a judicial travesty and their execution a political murder. This book is the first to reveal the full national and international scope of the Sacco-Vanzetti affair, uncovering how and why the two men became the centre of a global cause celebre that shook public opinion and transformed America's relationship with the world. Drawing on extensive research on two continents, and written with verve, this book connects the Sacco-Vanzetti affair to the most polarizing political and social concerns of its era. Moshik Temkin contends that the worldwide attention to the case was generated not only by the conviction that innocent men had been condemned for their radical politics and ethnic origins but also as part of a reaction to U.S. global supremacy and isolationism after World War I. The author further argues that the international protest, which helped make Sacco and Vanzetti famous men, ultimately provoked their executions. The book concludes by investigating the affair's enduring repercussions and what they reveal about global political action, terrorism, jingoism, xenophobia, and the politics of our own time.


Abstract A hypothetical ideal wollastonite with regular octahedra and T3 tetrahedron is presented and used to compare and contrast the pyroxenes and pyroxenoids. While clinopyroxenes have close-packed arrangements of oxygen anions, several lines of evidence demonstrate that pyroxenoids do not. One such line is the number of tetrahedra in a single tetrahedral chain per octahedra in a single associated octahedral chain (interior to the octahedral band), referred to as the "single-chain T:O ratio," which is 1:1 in pyroxenes but 3:2 in wollastonite and always greater than 1:1 in other MSiO3 pyroxenoids. Because the Si-tetrahedron is extremely resistant to distortion, this forces marked distortion in at least one pyroxenoid octahedral site. The octahedral layers in pyroxenes and pyroxenoids are compared by placing them in the context of a fully occupied, closest-packed sheet of idealized octahedra, and it is shown that they are fundamentally different. The new mineral yangite is analyzed from the perspective developed in this study. It is structurally similar to the pyroxenoids, but the structure is a new type because it contains double tetrahedral chains and mixed polyhedral layers containing double chains of tetrahedra and bands of octahedra of width two. The tetrahedral chains are wollastonite-type chains and the wollastonite-type double chain is shown to have important differences from the amphibole double chain. A possible explanation for the existence of this crystal structure based on a hydrogen bond between Pb and O is presented.


Women Composers and Music Technology in the United States: Crossing the Line. By Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006. [301 p. ISBN 0754604616. $79.95.] Index, bibliography, discography, webliography. As Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner notes in her introductory overview of the history of publishing about women and music, this history contains lacunae regarding avantgarde women composers, particularly of the post-World War II period. Her recent Women Composers and Music Technology in the United Stales makes great headway in filling these gaps and is the most substantial publication to date to investigate the achievements of women composers of electroacoustic music, defined as "[music] which uses technology as a tool and gives the composer access to virtually any sound" (p. 5). Hinkle-Turner brings her experience as a composer of such music to this project. She received her D.M.A. in music composition from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, served as acting director of the electronic and computer music studios at Florida International University and the Experimental Music Studios at the University of Iowa, and currently teaches twentiethcentury music and multimedia applications in music theory in the University of North Texas, College of Music. Hinkle-Turner builds on earlier, more narrowly focused publications in her survey of approximately 150 electroacoustic works by more than 100 women composers in the United States, including music educators, independent artists, and technological inventors, and covers the period from the 1930s to the present. While most of the composers were born in the United States, a few are included who were born elsewhere, but have worked extensively here and are essential to its history of electroacoustic music, e.g., Annea Lockwood (New Zealand), Thea Musgrave (Scotland) and Jin Hi Kirn, and Insook Choi (South Korea). Discussions include biographical information, particularly as it sheds light on the conception and creation of the composers' music; analyses of works; technical reviews of equipment and construction methods when deemed helpful in understanding a work; and composers' reflections on working as a woman in the world of music technology. Most of HinkleTurner's research draws on the primary sources of interviews, personal correspondence, the composers' writings, and unpublished vitas, biographies, and program notes sent to her by the composers. While Hinkle-Turner focuses on the period from the 1930s onward, she opens her second chapter "Precedents and Pioneers" with mention of Lady Ada Lovelace (18151852), who contributed to the work of Charles Babbage, inventor of the first calculating machine, the Difference Engine. According to Hinkle-Turner, Lovelace was the first person to suggest that such a machine might write music, thus constituting the earliest known connection between women and electroacoustic music. HinkleTurner moves forward through time with an overview of experimentation with various music machines, observing that GermanAmerican composer Johanna Magdalena Beyer (1888-1944) scored one of the first pieces for purely electronic instruments, Music of the Spheres (1938), an interlude piece for Beyer's opera Status Quo. Incorporated into Hinkle-Turner's survey of composers is a discussion of organizations that were crucial to the development of electroacoustic music composition. During the World War II era, technological advances led to the creation of large communication centers such as the Office de radiodiffusion et television francais (Paris) and Westdeutscher Rundfunk (Cologne, Germany). In United States academia, Columbia and Princeton universities collaborated in 1959 to create the ColumbiaPrinceton Electronic Music Center (CPEMC), whose example stimulated the establishment of additional academic studios such as those at the University of Illinois (1959), the University of Toronto (1959), the San Francisco Tape Center (1962), and Mills College (1966). …


HCV is a major cause of chronic liver disease worldwide. Much has been learned about HCV since its discovery 27 years ago by molecular cloning when standard virological methods failed to identify this important human pathogen. Elaboration of in vitro models enabled studies of the HCV life cycle and a search for inhibitors of viral replication, leading to the development of effective therapies of chronic HCV infection based on direct-acting antivirals with cure rates of more than 95%.

Despite of the tremendous success of HCV therapy and substantial progress in our knowledge of the virus life cycle, the structure, composition and morphogenesis of HCV particles circulating in the blood of infected patients still remain elusive and determination of the ultrastructure of HCV particles by electron microscopy is a significant challenge.

The putative infectious HCV particle consists of a nucleocapsid-containing the single-stranded RNA genome associated with the viral core protein and a lipid bilayer where the viral envelope proteins (E1 and E2) are assembled as heterodimers. In reality, the structure of HCV is more complex and the virus exhibits unusual and striking features. Indeed, a hallmark of HCV particles is their association with host-cell lipids and lipoproteins, mainly very low-density lipoproteins (VLDL) and low-density lipoproteins (LDL).1 ,2 Thus, virus particles in patients' sera …


Thin film semiconductors of Sn.Se, and nickel doped Tin oxide are potential candidates for the development of future generation improved efficiency and low cost solar cell devices. This is due to their high absorption coefficient and good optical properties in the visible region of the solar spectrum. Nickel doped tin oxide and tin monoselenide thin films will be deposited using spray pyrolysis. Precursor solution will be prepared using a 0.05M Tin (II) Chloride (SnCI4.2H20) in de-ionized water and then being added in 100 ml ethanol to get equal proportions or to obtain a consistent balance of water and ethanol, followed by 1.5 weight percentage of nickel chloride 6-hydrate (NiCh.6H20).Thin films of tin selenide (SxSey) with atomic ratio y/x = 0.5 will be prepared on a glass substrate at deposition temperature, T=470°C using spray pyrolysis technique. The initial materials for the preparation of the films will be an alcoholic solution consisting of tin chloride Sncb.2H20 and 1,1-dimethl-2-selenourea (C3HgN2Se).Thin films of Sn02, Sn02: Ni, Sn.Se, and SnxSeySn02: Ni will be deposited on glass substrate using Spray pyrolysis. Spray pyrolysis deposition is a low-cost, up-scalable technique that allows obtaining thin (poly) crystalline films over large surface areas. The samples will be characterized by measuring their optical properties using UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometer and will be used to calculate solid state and optical properties like band gap (Eg), refractive index (n) and absorbance (a). This will be analyzed to determine how optical conductance, transmittance, absorbance vary with the conditions of deposition using the Scout Software. Electrical characterization measurements especially sheet resistance will be done using four point probe method using Keithley 2400 Source Meter. Tin Selenide a p type and Nickel doped tin oxide n type deposited on a glass substrate will form a p-n junction. The diode characteristics such as short circuit current (Isc), open circuit voltage (Voc), fill factor (FF) and conversion coefficient (11) of the solar cell will be determined. Tin selenide (SnxSey) and nickel doped tin oxide (Sn02: Ni) semiconductor have an important role in solar cell devices. Its fabrication is expected to be cost effective and of improved solar conversion efficiency.


The synthonic modeling approach provides a molecule-centered understanding of the surface properties of crystals. It has been applied extensively to understand crystallization processes. This study aimed to investigate the functional relevance of synthonic modeling to the formulation of inhalation powders by assessing cohesivity of three active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs, fluticasone propionate (FP), budesonide (Bud), and salbutamol base (SB)) and the commonly used excipient, α-lactose monohydrate (LMH). It is found that FP (-11.5 kcal/mol) has a higher cohesive strength than Bud (-9.9 kcal/mol) or SB (-7.8 kcal/mol). The prediction correlated directly to cohesive strength measurements using laser diffraction, where the airflow pressure required for complete dispersion (CPP) was 3.5, 2.0, and 1.0 bar for FP, Bud, and SB, respectively. The highest cohesive strength was predicted for LMH (-15.9 kcal/mol), which did not correlate with the CPP value of 2.0 bar (i.e., ranking lower than FP). High FP-LMH adhesive forces (-11.7 kcal/mol) were predicted. However, aerosolization studies revealed that the FP-LMH blends consisted of agglomerated FP particles with a large median diameter (∼4-5 μm) that were not disrupted by LMH. Modeling of the crystal and surface chemistry of LMH identified high electrostatic and H-bond components of its cohesive energy due to the presence of water and hydroxyl groups in lactose, unlike the APIs. A direct comparison of the predicted and measured cohesive balance of LMH with APIs will require a more in-depth understanding of highly hydrogen-bonded systems with respect to the synthonic engineering modeling tool, as well as the influence of agglomerate structure on surface-surface contact geometry. Overall, this research has demonstrated the possible application and relevance of synthonic engineering tools for rapid pre-screening in drug formulation and design.


Abstract Visual analytics has been gaining increasing interest due to its fascinating characteristic that leverages both humans' visual perception and the power of computing. Although various computational methods are being proposed, they do not properly support visual analytics. One of the biggest obstacles towards their real-time visual analytic integration is their high computational complexity. As a way to tackle this problem, this paper presents an iteration-wise computational framework, motivated by the fact that most advanced computational methods work by refining the solution iteratively. By visually delivering the results for each iteration to users, the proposed framework enables users to quickly acquire the information that the computational method provides as well as the ability to interact with them in real time. We show the benefits of the proposed framework by using various dimension reduction and clustering methods.


The number of businesses experiencing financial distress increased significantly during the past several years. The number of Chapter 11 reorganization cases likewise rose. And many of these business failures were spectacular, leaving little value for creditors and even less for shareholders. Consequently, how the business debtor's limited asset pie is divided and who gets to allocate the pieces are very relevant and important questions. The U.S. Bankruptcy Code generally contemplates the appointment of a committee of the debtors' unsecured creditors to serve as a fiduciary for all general unsecured creditors and as a statutory watchdog over the debtor and its assets. The creditors' committee typically includes seven to nine of the debtor's largest unsecured creditors, and it receives access to much of the debtor's proprietary and confidential information, as well as a seat at the plan of reorganization negotiation table. Serving as a member of the creditors' committee often gives a creditor a say in how the asset pie is divided. Whether that creditor uses its committee seat for the benefit of all creditors or simply to further its own agenda is an open question. This article presents the first in-depth empirical analysis of the activities of creditors' committees in, and their impact on, Chapter 11 reorganization cases. The primary data examine approximately 296 Chapter 11 cases in six different jurisdictions. This analysis is supplemented by survey data collected from individuals who have served on creditors' committees or worked as a professional to business debtors or creditors' committees. The data support several strong associations between the presence of a creditors' committee and, for example, whether the debtor reorganizes or pursues a sale of substantially all of its assets and the ultimate percentage recovery distributed to general unsecured creditors. Overall the article provides critical data and analyses to help policymakers, judges and Chapter 11 participants refine the role of creditors' committees to maximize their utility.


Germany is still in many ways a reluctant leader, even if its economic strength and its increasingly distinctive sets of political interests dictate that, in many areas at least, lead it must. Furthermore, it is not just in Germany's interests to do so, other states in the EU now expect Germany to act decisively not just in times of crisis but also in setting future agendas. Whilst it is self-evidently no longer the case that France and Germany can independently set the pace and tone of European integration, and more voices and interests vie to be heard, it is still to Germany that many states instinctively look when trying to solve many of their EU-related problems.
The reflexive pro-Europeanism of pre-unification Germany has however given way to a more selective and ambiguous approach to European integration. At a time when German leadership in the EU is arguably more in demand than ever, in particular in the current Euro crisis, the willingness and ability of German governments to provide such leadership can subsequently no longer be taken for granted.
The first part of this working paper begins by sketching out the major changes in German European policy, putting them into the broader context of whether German foreign policy in general has "normalised". It then analyses the main drivers of these changes: first, a shift in the international and European-level opportunity structures of German policy towards European integration; and second, a tightening of the political constraints and a reappraisal of the standards of appropriateness in the making of German European policy at the domestic level. It then moves on to analysing Germany's recent behaviour in dealing with the Eurozone crisis before concluding with some speculations on the implications that all of the above have for Germany's European Policy in the future.
The second part of the working paper investigates the economic background to German leadership of the EU. In particular, it argues that Germany's swift recovery from the global financial crisis has once more demonstrated that the country is the major economic power in Europe. Given its economic strength, leadership in rescuing the Eurozone has been forced upon a reluctant Germany.


Water is a point of friction on the Indian subcontinent and fears of looming 'water wars' are growing. One factor compounding such fears is the presence of a hydro-hegemon; India. Power asymmetry between riparians, however, does not necessarily lead to violent conflict (even though it can create inequitable outcomes). Indeed, the presence of a hydro-hegemon serves as a stabilising factor. This is currently the case in South Asia. Understanding the flows of power in transboundary water interactions in the region is of consequence to Australia's increasing involvement in the hydropolitics there.


Synthetic aperture Radar is a twodimensional radar or three-dimensional radar that plays a prominent role in remote sensing. After many researchers have been done the advanced radar is polar metric synthetic aperture radar. PolSAR radar is fully polar metric radar it provides valuable data on relating experimental target than conventional artificial aperture radar. Therefore, it plays a significant job in numerous grounds like agriculture, military and geology. Based on this classification, ISODATA and minimum distance classification are utilized to explain the spatial and spectral data of polarimetric synthetic aperture radar. The initial step is to create the spatial data utilized for preprocessing stage. The PolSAR image is produced by decomposition and super pixels and then the date is estimated. The next method is to utilize spatial data for post-processing it sustains the minimum distance classification .The result is obtained by minimum distance categorization. The third method utilizes spatial data openly for categorization. In this method, SENTINEL data is applied to classify the PolSAR image. This SENTINEL data is classified by using SNAP software Based on Max-Margin the trademark work is structured and restrictive arbitrary field is utilized to proliferate the logical data in both naming field and perception field. Otherworldly term and spatial term are two significant pieces of the representation Keyword: POLSAR, ISODATA, SENTINEL data, SNAP, ArcGIS, ENVI


How charitable are charities? Can a charity that provides education or healthcare and has no profits be noncharitable? The Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees think those questions are so important that they have been examining whether and when nonprofit hospitals deserve tax exemption. Many state and local governments have done likewise. And apart from any possible action of the IRS or Congress or state legislatures, Independent Sector and other institutions serving and monitoring charities have been giving increased attention to how charities can more effectively achieve their charitable purposes. Even if there were no outside pressures, the community of consultants and advisers to charities would seek to find ways to measure success by more than sustainable budgets or outputs such as meals served or babies delivered.

All those efforts at one level or the other raise the important and sensitive issue of measurement. I contend that there is one powerful tool that could be used by many nonprofit organizations to try to more effectively measure ? at least in one important respect ? whether they are charitable and, to some degree, the extent of their charitability.

The measurement tool I suggest charities use is nothing more than the accountant?s most powerful tool: the balance sheet. However, the balancing exercise I am recommending goes beyond the traditional balancing of assets and liabilities and to what I will call the uses and sources of resources intended to achieve private charitable transfers.


Introduction: Autoimmune bullous skin diseases (ABDs) represent a heterogeneous group of disorders of the skin and mucosa; these disorders are commonly associated with deposits of immunoglobulins, complement, and fibrinogen, usually directed against distinct adhesion molecules. Methods: We utilized hematoxylin and eosin (H & E) stained tissues sections to evaluate for the presence of rouleaux in lesional skin biopsies of patients affected by ABDs including patients with endemic and nonendemic pemphigus foliaceus, bullous pemphigoid (BP), pemphigus vulgaris (PV), dermatitis herpetiformis (DH), and a group of controls taken from routine biopsies seen in our practice. Results: Most autoimmune bullous skin diseases biopsies showed rouleaux formation within and around post-capillary venules in the superficial vascular plexus in association with a pinkish brush-like material that resembles fibrin or other amorphous eosinophilic material. Discussion: We document that rouleaux and the pinkish aggregates are present in within biopsies taken from lesional skin in the majority of patients with ABDs and speculate that this maybe as result of the exocytosis of inflammatory cells, antibodies that form when exposed to the extracellular matrix which is already edematous in most ABDs. In addition red blood cells in the presence of plasma proteins or other macromolecules may form aggregates. Further studies are needed.


Abstract Science IDEAS is an evidence-based model that reflects interdisciplinary research findings that support the integration of literacy (e.g., reading comprehension) within science instruction in grades K-5. Presented is a framework for planning integrated science and literacy instruction in which six elements (handson investigations, reading, journaling/writing, propositional concept maps, application activities, prior knowledge/cumulative review) serve as a means of providing students with conceptually-coherent, in-depth science instruction. Reviewed is a multi-year Science IDEAS research initiative whose findings demonstrate the effectiveness of the model in engendering student science and reading achievement growth in grades K-2 and in grades 3-5 in a manner that facilitates positive transfer to grades 6-8. Based on the results presented and related research, curriculum policy changes that would increase the time allocated to science instruction in grades K-5 are suggested as a means of improving the present school reform movement. Keywords: science and reading, science and literacy, integrated science instruction Introduction Given recent trends that indicate minimal changes in student achievement outcomes in science and reading comprehension (NCES, 2009a,b; 2012), science educators and the general public continue to be concerned about the performance of K-12 students in these two critical curriculum areas. Clearly, in providing a potential academic foundation for later success at the secondary level, instruction in elementary science in combination with content-area reading comprehension proficiency plays a critical role across grades 3-5. Yet, even with consistent recommendations from a variety of national reports (e.g., Duschl et al., 2007; NCES, 2009a,b; NRC, 2011; Snow, 2002), the amount of instructional time allocated to science education at the elementary school level has been substantially reduced in favor of increased time for narrative reading instruction (Cervetti, et al., 2006; Dillon, 2006; Jones et al., 1999). However, even with additional instructional time, reading achievement across grades K-12 remains a major unsolved problem in school reform (NCES, 2009a,b). Given the preceding trends, an increasing number of researchers are investigating the feasibility of instructional models that lead to evidence-based solutions in which reading is embedded as an element of effective science instruction in grades K-5. In effect, there has been increased interest, advocacy and a growing body of research evidence from science education (Romance & Vitale, 2001, 2006, 2011a,b, 2012, in press) and reading researchers (Duke, 2000b Guthrie, Wigfield, Barbosa, 2004 Guthrie, Wigfield, & Perencevich, 2004 Palincsar & Magnussom, 2001; Pearson et al., 2010) suggesting that linking science learning with forms of literacy (reading, writing, journaling, discussion) provides an effective way of accelerating student achievement in both science and literacy (e.g., reading comprehension) at the elementary level. Science IDEAS Model: Integrating Literacy within Science In addressing approaches for linking literacy within science in a manner that is feasible for schools to use, this article describes an integrated science-literacy model, Science IDEAS, and summarizes a series of research findings from 1992 through 2011 that provide cumulative evidence of the effectiveness of the model in simultaneously increasing student achievement in science and reading comprehension. The Science IDEAS model was initially validated within a grade 4 upper elementary setting (Romance & Vitale, 1992) and subsequently broadened across ethnically and academically diverse classroom settings in grades 4-5 (Romance & Vitale, 2001). In more recent studies (Romance & Vitale, 201 la, 2012), the Science IDEAS model was implemented schoolwide for an entire year across grades 3-5. …


Abstract. In the first part of this study for revisiting the cold condensation effect on global distribution of semi-volatile organic chemicals (SVOCs), the atmospheric transport of SVOCs to the Arctic in the mid-troposphere in a mean meridional atmospheric circulation over the Northern Hemisphere was simulated by a two-dimensional (2-D) atmospheric transport model. Results show that under the mean meridional atmospheric circulation the long-range atmospheric transport of SVOCs from warm latitudes to the Arctic occurs primarily in the mid-troposphere. Although major sources are in low and mid-latitude soils, the modeled air concentration of SVOCs in the mid-troposphere is of the same order as or higher than that near the surface, demonstrating that the mid-troposphere is an important pathway and reservoir of SVOCs. The cold condensation of the chemicals is also likely to take place in the mid-troposphere over a source region of SVOCs in warm low latitudes through interacting with clouds. We demonstrate that the temperature dependent vapour pressure and atmospheric degradation rate of SVOCs exhibit similarities between lower atmosphere over the Arctic and the mid-troposphere over a tropical region. Frequent occurrence of atmospheric ascending motion and convection over warm latitudes carry the chemicals to a higher altitude where some of these chemicals may partition onto solid or aqueous phase through interaction with atmospheric aerosols, cloud water droplets and ice particles, and become more persistent at lower temperatures. Stronger winds in the mid-troposphere then convey solid and aqueous phase chemicals to the Arctic where they sink by large-scale descending motion and wet deposition. Using calculated water droplet-air partitioning coefficient of several persistent organic semi-volatile chemicals under a mean air temperature profile from the equator to the North Pole we propose that clouds are likely important sorbing media for SVOCs and pathway of the cold condensation effect and poleward atmospheric transport. The role of deposition and atmospheric descending motion in the cold condensation effect over the Arctic is also discussed.


We report neutron diffraction data on single crystal PrO2 which reveal a cooperative Jahn-Teller distortion at TD=120±2 K. Below this temperature an internal distortion of the oxygen sublattice causes the unit cell of the crystallographic structure to become doubled along one crystal axis. We discuss several possible models for this structure. The antiferromagnetic structure below TN=13.5 K is found to consist of two components, one of which shares the same doubled unit cell as the distorted crystallographic structure. We also present measurements of the magnetic susceptibility, the specific heat capacity, and the electrical conductivity of PrO2. The susceptibility data show an anomaly at a temperature close to TD. From the specific heat capacity data we deduce that the ground state is doubly degenerate, consistent with a distortion of the cubic local symmetry. We discuss possible mechanisms for this. The conductivity shows an activated behavior with an activation energy Ea=0.262±0.003 eV.


In attempting to conceptualize feminine subjectivity beyond the familiar paradigm of dualism and within the parameters of ethics, this study examines the political and intellectual identity of contemporary poststructuralist feminism and its profound resonance with the nineteenth-century British female Bildungsroman. Rooted in fundamental questions about the nexus between feminist theory and feminist literature, genre and gender, subjectivity and ethics, sexuality and textuality, and mimesis and politics, this book aims specifically to configure feminine subjectivity in the horizon of becoming - always incomplete, non-identarian, performative, unknowable, and thus paradoxically unbecoming - as it disseminates in a modality of alterity in novels by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot. The close reading of major novels by these women writers illuminates the artistic density and ethical depth of their writing by demonstrating that these women writers rewrite the genealogy of subjectivity and invent their own Bildungsroman as a rich narrative vehicle for the feminine.


Azidoarenes involving various functional groups were successfully reduced to aniline derivatives using commercially available aluminium oxy-hydroxide-supported palladium (Pd/AlO(OH)) nanoparticles (0.5 wt% Pd) in an aqueous medium with sodium borohydride as the hydrogen source. To develop the green process, water was utilized in conjunction with methanol. The results demonstrated that the halogen substituted azidoarenes were selectively converted to the corresponding aniline compounds without dehalogenation. In general, all of the reactions were completed within 10–30 min at room temperature with yields of over 99%. In order to optimize the reaction conditions, the parametric effects of the solvent type and the amount of the catalyst/NaBH4 were examined. Consequently, for the first time, a novel, practical and environmentally friendly process was developed for the conversion of azidoarenes to aniline derivatives in the fluence of Pd/AlO(OH) nanoparticles.


Skateboarding has resurged and so have its associated hazards and injuries. There are an estimated 8 million skateboarders now in the United States.1 Pediatricians informed about skateboard activities in their areas can help prevent needless injuries to children and adolescents.
 During the last skateboard injury epidemic, the annual incidence of injuries peaked at 150 000 in 1977 and subsequently decreased to 16 000 in 1983. It is likely that this decrease in injuries was primarily related to decreased skateboard activity and not to improved safety conditions. With increased popularity the number has risen, with an estimated 56 435 injuries being treated in emergency departments in 1992.1 In addition, an estimated 1900 hospitalizations occurred due to skateboard-related injuries during this period. The vast proportion of admissions were from head injuries.2
 Analysis of Consumer Product Safety Commission data from 1991 indicates the following salient features of the current outbreak of skateboard injuries during this period3:
 • 95% involved skateboarders younger than 25 years; 61% involved 5- to 14-year-olds;
 • 87% of victims were male;
 • 74% of injuries involved the extremities—usually fractures of radius and ulna, 21% to the head and neck, and 5% to the trunk;
 • severe injuries (intracranial, internal) were uncommon, moderate injuries (long bone fractures) were most common, and deaths occurred almost always from collisions with motor vehicles;
 • younger victims incurred a higher proportion of head and neck injuries than older victims—head injury occurred in 75% of the victims in the 0- to 4-year-old age group, 50% in the 5- to 9-year-old group, and 15% in the 10- to 19-year-old category;
 • head injuries in the older age groups were more severe because of collisions with motor vehicles; and
 • helmets designed for skateboarding are seldom worn but will protect skateboarders from serious head injury; data on the protective value of elbow pads, knee pads, and wrist guards are inconclusive; they may reduce injury severity. The use of bicycle or hockey helmets has not been evaluated.4,5


Climate change and changing land use challenge the livability and flood safety of Dutch cities. One option cities have to become more climate-proof is to increase infiltration of stormwater into soil through permeable pavement and thus reduce discharge of stormwater into sewer systems. To analyze the market receptivity for permeable pavements in the Netherlands, this article focuses on the perception of end-users towards key transition factors in the infrastructure transformation processes. Market receptivity was studied on two levels: (1) on the system level, by analyzing 20 key factors in the Dutch urban water sector that enable wider application of permeable pavements; and (2) on the technology level, by analyzing 12 key factors that explain why decision makers select permeable pavements or not. Results show that trust between cooperating partners was perceived as the system level key factor that needs to be improved most to facilitate the wider uptake of permeable pavements. Additionally, the association of end-users with permeable pavement, particularly their willingness to apply these technologies and their understanding of what kinds of benefits these technologies could bring, was regarded the most important receptivity attribute. On the technology level, the reliability of permeable pavement was regarded as the most important end-user consideration for selecting this technology.