Introduction(1) Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of nineteen and forty-four.(2) In the United States, a woman is beaten every fifteen seconds.(3) When a mother is battered, it affects more than the intended victim. Recent studies show that children also suffer when their mothers are abused, regardless of whether they witness the abuse.(4) Yet, New York's child custody statute does not do enough to protect these innocent victims of spousal abuse. Unfortunately for the children, custody disputes within the New York courts are steadily on the rise.(5) The New York State Legislature recently passed a bill which explicitly requires judges to consider evidence of domestic violence in child custody determinations.(6) While acting in the best interests of a child is a step in the right direction, it is not enough. The Legislature must create a statutory presumption against awarding a spousal abuser custody of a child. Only then will the best interests of a child truly be met. Part I of this Comment details the historical statutory treatment of domestic violence and describes the various types of custody statutes.(7) Part II Summarizes the various studies and literature on the effects on a child who witnesses domestic violence.(8) Part III addresses the growing awareness of domestic violence, nationally and then specifically in New York.(9) Part IV analyzes the deficiencies of the current New York custody statute, Domestic Relations Law section 240.(10) Part V then studies the presumption statutes of other states and concludes that such a statute is needed in New York as well.(11) I. How State Statutes Address Domestic Violence and Custody A change in the treatment of domestic violence by state legislatures has been very recent.12 As the national awareness of the effects of domestic violence has grown, many state governments have recognized the harmful effects of spousal abuse on children. These states have reacted, through their codes, to attempt to better protect children. A. History of the Treatment of Domestic Violence and Custody Issues such as domestic violence have not always been overlooked in child custody determinations as they sometimes are today.(13) Historically, the morality of parents was considered before custody was granted.(14) Spousal abuse was seen as a form of cruelty, and the abuser was not given custody." With the advent of no-fault divorce in the 1970s, the focus shifted away from suspect immoral behaviors of a parent. A married couple was able to divorce without having to prove the other had done the children any wrong.(16) Courts and statutes turned from assessing parental behaviors toward a standard involving the best interests of the child.(17) Under this standard, courts and legislatures are less concerned with the relationship between the parents, especially if there appears to be no physical effect upon the child.(18) Statutes began favoring joint custody, and fathers were permitted a more active role in raising their children.(19) While this may appear to be a fairer standard for some, in reality it does not benefit mothers and children who were abused by their husbands and fathers during the marriage.(20) Research has shown that the abuse tends to escalate after divorce.(21) After many years, domestic violence is once again reemerging as a factor to be considered in child custody decisions.(22) Today there are custody statutes which address domestic violence in forty-four states and the District of Columbia.(23) This change is due to a growing awareness of domestic violence and the detrimental emotional, as well as physical, effects on its victims.(24) B. Description of the Custody Statutes The majority of state child custody statutes use a best interests of the child standard.(25) Under this standard, the court purports to consider what type of custody arrangement would be best for a child in a particular situation. …


OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to evaluate the trend of HPV vaccine initiation and completion among girls in Texas from 2008 to 2010.

METHODS
Data were obtained from the Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System (BRFSS) over 3 years (2008-2010). The information regarding HPV vaccination was gathered from the parents of 9- to 17-year-old daughters (choosing only 1 per household) in randomly selected households in the sample area.

RESULTS
The highest prevalence of vaccine initiation and completion were detected in 2010 (20.9% and 9.7%, respectively). Over the study period, HPV vaccine initiation statistically significantly increased (2008, 14.9%; 2009, 20.7%; 2010, 24.3%; p = 0.002), corresponding to an annual increase in coverage of 33.5% (odds ratio [OR] = 1.33; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.11-1.60). Similarly, HPV vaccination completion increased (2008, 6.3%; 2009, 9.6%; 2010, 11.6%; p = 0.021), corresponding to an annual increase in coverage of 37.1% (OR = 1.37; 95% CI: 1.05-1.79). Increasing trends in HPV vaccination initiation and completion were observed in mothers, white, non-Hispanic parents, parents who had attended some college or were college graduates, parents who were married/partnered, and parents who lived in urban areas.

CONCLUSION
Although HPV vaccination coverage in Texas is lower than recommended, there have been increases in the trends of vaccine initiation and completion. The campaigns promoting HPV vaccination should target specific population groups in which HPV immunization rates did not increase over time.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To describe fatigue in women with breast cancer undergoing radiotherapy and to explore the impact of fatigue on their health status.

DESIGN
Prospective, descriptive, repeated measures.

SETTING
A major oncology center, Saint Savvas Cancer Hospital, in Athens, Greece.

SAMPLE
Consecutive sample of 106 women (mean age = 55 + 12), with histologically confirmed diagnosis for stage I or II breast cancer who were receiving adjuvant radiotherapy for approximately six weeks.

METHODS
Data were collected with the Revised Piper Fatigue Scale (PFS) and the Short Form-36 (SF-36) Health Survey Scale in the first two days of radiotherapy (T0), during the third week (T1), and during the last week of treatment (T2).

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Fatigue, health status.

FINDINGS
Across-subjects analysis revealed that fatigue increased during radiotherapy in patients with breast cancer regardless of stage, type of surgery, or whether they received chemotherapy (p 0.05). Between-subject analysis revealed that no differences existed in the PFS between different groups (chemotherapy versus no chemotherapy, breast conservation versus mastectomy, stage I versus stage II) at each measurement point. A negative correlation was found between the subscales of the PFS and all of the subscales of the SF-36.

CONCLUSIONS
Fatigue intensity increased significantly during the course of radiotherapy, and patients experienced a significant deterioration in their overall health status.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Findings contribute to the growing body of evidence regarding fatigue and its impact on health status in Greek patients with breast cancer and provide insights for effective nursing assessment, patient education, and symptom management.


A binary CSP instance satisfying the brokentriangle property (BTP) can be solved in polynomial time. Unfortunately, in practice, few instances satisfy the BTP. We show that a local version of the BTP allows the merging of domain values in binary CSPs, thus providing a novel polynomial-time reduction operation. Experimental trials on benchmark instances demonstrate a significant decrease in instance size for certain classes of problems. We show that BTP-merging can be generalised to instances with constraints of arbitrary arity. A directional version of the general-arity BTP then allows us to extend the BTP tractable class previously defined only for binary CSP.


Background: Scrub typhus is rampant in northern, eastern, and southern India. Central nervous system involvement in the form of meningitis or meningoencephalitis is common in scrub typhus. As specific laboratory methods remain inadequate or inaccessible in developing countries, prompt diagnosis is often difficult. Aim: The aim of this study was to characterize neurological complications in scrub typhus from northeastern region of India. Subjects and Methods: We did a prospective study of scrub meningoencephalitis at North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Medical Sciences among patients admitted to hospital between October 2009 and November 2011. The diagnosis was made based on the clinical pictures, presence of an eschar, and a positive Weil-Felix test (WFT) with a titer of >1:160 and if required a positive scrub IgM enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Lumbar puncture was performed in patients with headache, nuchal rigidity, altered sensorium or cranial nerve deficits, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain performed if needed. Results: Twenty-three patients of scrub typhus meningitis that were serologically confirmed were included in the study. There were 13 males and 10 females. Fever ≥1 week was the most common manifestation (39.1%).Interestingly, none had an eschar. Median cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cell count, lymphocyte percentage, CSF protein, CSF glucose/blood glucose, CSF ADA were 17 cells/μL, 90%, 86 mg/dL, 0.6605 and 3.6 U/mL, respectively. All patients were treated with doxycycline. There was no mortality in our study. Conclusions: Absence of Eschar does not rule out scrub typhus. Clinical features and CSF findings can mimic tuberculous meningitis so misdiagnosis may lead to unwarranted prolonged empirical antituberculous therapy in cases of lymphocytic meningoencephalitis. Delay in treatment can be potentially fatal. WFT still serves as a useful and affordable diagnostic tool for this disease in resource-poor countries.


The report presents a regional synopsis on the state of urban management in Latin America and the Caribbean for participants of the Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) in Istanbul (1996). It was prepared by the Latin American and Caribbean Commission on Human Settlements, which was created in 1995, under the auspices of the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations Development Programme. A set of strategies are presented to meet the future challenges of housing, productivity and quality of life in cities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Best practices in the region are discussed and a summary of political positions for Habitat II are proposed. The following cases are discussed in detail: urban planning in Curitiba, the Council for the Integration of Grassroots Improvement Programs in the State of Ceara, the National Affordable Housing Fund (El Fondo Nacional de Habitaciones Populares, FONHAPO) of Mexico, and the formalization of informal property in Peru.


Brave Old World is Tom Hodgkinson's year-round guide to the ancient art of husbandry. In this indispensable addition to his much-loved guides for the free-spirited, Tom Hodgkinson takes us on a modern tour of the ancient arts of everyday living: philosophy, husbandry and merriment. Drawing on the wisdom of an eclectic range of thinkers and writers, and, as ever, on Tom's own honestly recounted and frequently imperfect attempts to travel the road to self-sufficiency, Brave Old World charts the progress of a year in pursuit of the pleasures of the past. From January to December, let Tom be your guide to a better, older way of life. "A meditation on why life has been a dreadful mistake ever since the Reformation brought us paid jobs and the work ethic. Brave Old World is hugely inspiring even when it is most bonkers". (Sarah Bakewell, New Statesman). "A delightful read. Share in the exuberant joys and comic misfortunes of an eccentric who has made up his mind about the existence he wants to lead, and has gone ahead and lived it". (James Delingpole, Mail on Sunday). Tom Hodgkinson is the founder and editor of The Idler and the author of How to be Idle, How to be Free, The Idle Parent and Brave Old World. In spring 2011 he founded The Idler Academy in London, a bookshop, coffeehouse and cultural centre which hosts literary events and offers courses in academic and practical subjects - from Latin to embroidery. Its motto is 'Liberty through Education'.


In times of wars, disasters, and famines, many people become victims of displacement, poverty, and social abnegation, living on the margin of the settled world. John Millington Synge's plays are abundant with such nomadic figures, who are homeless and rarely come into contact with the stagnant bourgeois society, and when they do, they exit at the end of the plays, condemning the hypocrisy and the materialism of that sedentary community. The free life of Synge's vagabonds is depicted as being superior to the restricted existence of the bourgeois world. These peripatetic characters possess a sensitive and poetic nature, acquired from their unrestricted life in the outdoors and the inspiration of the natural world. They serve the playwright in his criticism of the naiveté and the materiality of the bourgeois society. This research is a character study of these nomadic people, based on British thinker's, Colin Wilson's, philosophy of the outsider. It examines these characters in two of Synge's plays, namely In the Shadow of the Glen (1903) andThe Well of the Saints (1905).


Received: May 2013, Accepted: March 2014 Background: Safety signs provide information as well as instructions concerning the hazard or dangers in the workplace. The correct comprehension of these signs is very important for doing the necessary feedback in the specific situation which are described. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study, the comprehension of 10 selected safety signs were investigated in 53 randomly selected employees of an industrial company in Shiraz. The comprehension test was carried out with the aid of a standard questionnaire obtained from ISO 9186-1:2007. Results: In this study the mean comprehension scores of the tested signs were 65.95 percent with standard deviation if 28.7. The highest and lowest comprehension scores were for "use hearing protectors" and "biological hazard" respectively. The comprehension of 40 percent of the tested safety signs was lower than the minimum acceptable values of ISO 3864 and ANSI Z535.3 standards. Conclusion: This study showed that there is a significant difference in comprehensions of tested safety signs. For full comprehension of safety signs it is necessary to train the employees or add supplementary texts to the symbols in some cases.


The second messenger cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) is the most important modulator of sympathetic control over cardiac contractility. In cardiac myocytes and many other cell types, however, cAMP transduces the signal generated upon stimulation of various receptors and activates different cellular functions, raising the issue of how specificity can be achieved. In the general field of signal transduction, the view is emerging that specificity is guaranteed by tight localization of signaling events. Here, we show that in neonatal rat cardiac myocytes, β-adrenergic stimulation generates multiple microdomains with increased concentration of cAMP in correspondence with the region of the transverse tubule/junctional sarcoplasmic reticulum membrane. The restricted pools of cAMP show a range of action as small as approximately 1 micrometer, and free diffusion of the second messenger is limited by the activity of phosphodiesterases. Furthermore, we demonstrate that such gradients of cAMP specifically activate a subset of protein kinase A molecules anchored in proximity to the T tubule.


Particle physics experiments, like the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, can generate thousands of data points listing detected particle reactions. An important learning task is to analyze the reaction data for evidence of conserved quantities and hidden particles. This task involves latent structure in two ways: first, hypothesizing hidden quantities whose conservation determines which reactions occur, and second, hypothesizing the presence of hidden particles. We model this problem in the classic linear algebra framework of automated scientific discovery due to Valdes-Perez, Zytkow and Simon, where both reaction data and conservation laws are represented as matrices. We introduce a new criterion for selecting a matrix model for reaction data: find hidden particles and conserved quantities that rule out as many interactions among the nonhidden particles as possible. A polynomial-time algorithm for optimizing this criterion is based on the new theorem that hidden particles are required if and only if the Smith Normal Form of the reaction matrix R contains entries other than 0 or 1. To our knowledge this is the first application of Smith matrix decomposition to a problem in AI. Using data from particle accelerators, we compare our algorithm to the main model of particles in physics, known as the Standard Model: our algorithm discovers conservation laws that are equivalent to those in the Standard Model, and indicates the presence of a hidden particle (the electron antineutrino) in accordance with the Standard Model.


We have examined the effects of collagen IV on the morphological development of embryonic rat sympathetic neurons in vitro. In short- term (less than or equal to 24 h) culture, collagen IV accelerated process outgrowth, causing increases in the number of neurites and total neuritic length. Analysis of proteolytic fragments of collagen IV indicated that the NC1 domain was nearly as active as the intact molecule in stimulating process outgrowth; in contrast, the 7S domain and triple helix-rich fragments of collagen IV were inactive. Moreover, anti-NC1 antiserum inhibited neuritic outgrowth on collagen IV by 79%. In long-term (up to 28 d) cultures, neurons chronically exposed to collagen IV maintained a single axon but failed to form dendrites. Thus, the NC1 domain of collagen IV can alter neuronal development by selectively stimulating axonal growth. Comparison of collagen IV's effects to those of laminin revealed that these molecules exert quantitatively different effects on the rate of initial axon growth and the number of axons extended by sympathetic neurons. Moreover, neuritic outgrowth on collagen IV, but not laminin, was blocked by cycloheximide. We also observed differences in the receptors mediating the neurite-promoting activity of these proteins. Two different antisera that recognize beta 1 integrins each blocked neuritic outgrowth on both collagen IV and laminin; however, an mAb (3A3) specific for the alpha 1 beta 1 integrin inhibited collagen IV but not laminin-induced process growth in cultures of both sympathetic and dorsal root neurons. These data suggest that immunologically distinct integrins mediate the response of peripheral neurons to collagen IV and laminin.


The purpose of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of a continence educational pamphlet to encourage people with urinary incontinence to seek professional help. We distributed a continence educational pamphlet to people who presented at a general practice clinic and who indicated that they experienced urinary incontinence. These people (n=55) consented to being interviewed two weeks following the receipt of the pamphlet. At the time of the interviews, 94.5% of participants still experienced urinary incontinence symptoms. Over half (59.6%) of the participants had taken action to manage their incontinence, with 67.7% of these people having done so as a result of receiving the pamphlet or being involved in the study. Of the people who had sought help for their incontinence (n=25), most had either visited their general practitioner (GP) (80.6%) or visited specialists in addition to their GP (12.9%). Continence educational pamphlets are an inexpensive method of promoting help-seeking behaviours in people with urinary incontinence and should be used in primary healthcare settings.


This communication reflects on the challenges brought by academic social networks to institutional repositories. The study reveals the practices of academics from the Faculties of Dental Medicine, Psychology and the Institute of Education on the issue of the visibility of scientific information in academic social networks and in institutional repositories. The data were obtained by analysing the profiles of professors and researchers in a professional social network, ResearchGate, crossed with the documents of the Institutional Repository of the University of Lisbon (Repositório.UL), related to the studied schools. Statistical methods and quantitative data were used to compare the behaviours of the teachers and the researchers concerning their preferences on scientific documents dissemination throughout the World Wide Web.


We evaluate the impact of firm‐specific export subsidies on exports in Colombia. Using a two‐step selection model, we predict firm‐specific subsidy amounts that can be explained by the characteristics that determine firms' eligibility for government support and its amount. Drawing on the accounts of the discretionary allocation of subsidies in developing countries, we interpret the discrepancy between the predicted and the observed subsidy amounts as a proxy for a firm's ties to government officials. Controlling for observable and unobservable firm characteristics as well as persistence in exporting, we find that although, in general, subsidies exhibit a positive impact on export volumes, this impact is diminishing in subsidy size and in the degree of a firm's connectedness.


The latitudinal species richness gradient (LRG) has been the subject of intense interest and many hypotheses but much less consideration has been given to longitudinal richness differences. The effect of postglacial dispersal, determined by connectivity and vagility, on richness was evaluated for the species-poor European and North American Pacific and species-rich Atlantic regional freshwater fish faunas. The numbers of species, by habitat, migration and distributional range categories, were determined from regional species lists for these three realms. The current orientation and past connections of drainage channels indicate that connectivity is greatest in the Atlantic and least in the Pacific. With increasing connectivity across realms, endemism decreased and postglacial recolonization increased, as did the LRG slope, with the greatest richness difference occurring between southern Atlantic and Pacific regions. Recolonizing species tended to be migratory, habitat generalists and from families of marine origin. Diversification, as indicated by species/genus ratios, probability of diversification, taxonomic distinctness and endemicity, declined with increasing latitude in all realms and was least in Europe. Richness patterns are consistent with an LRG driven by the time available for postglacial recolonization and by differences in dispersal ability, with richness differences across realms reflecting differences in dispersal and diversification.


In this paper, we propose a semi-supervised kernel matching method to address domain adaptation problems where the source distribution substantially differs from the target distribution. Specifically, we learn a prediction function on the labeled source data while mapping the target data points to similar source data points by matching the target kernel matrix to a submatrix of the source kernel matrix based on a Hilbert Schmidt Independence Criterion. We formulate this simultaneous learning and mapping process as a non-convex integer optimization problem and present a local minimization procedure for its relaxed continuous form. Our empirical results show the proposed kernel matching method significantly outperforms alternative methods on the task of across domain sentiment classification.


Microbial adhesion of four bacterial and two yeast strains isolated from explanted voice prostheses to silicone rubber before and after conditioning with a biosurfactant obtained from the probiotic bacterium Streptococcus thermophilus A was investigated in a parallel plate flow chamber. The silicone rubber with and without an adsorbed biosurfactant layer was characterized using contact angle measurements. Water contact angles indicated that the silicone rubber surface with adsorbed biosurfactant was more hydrophilic (58 degrees) than bare silicone rubber (109 degrees). The results obtained showed that the biosurfactant was effective in decreasing the initial deposition rates, and the number of bacterial cells adhering after 4 h, for all microorganisms tested. A decrease in the initial deposition rate was observed for Rothia dentocariosa GBJ 52/2B and Staphylococcus aureus GB 2/1 from 1937+/-194 to 179+/-21 microorganisms cm(-2) s(-1) and from 1255+/-54 to 233+/-26 microorganisms cm(-2) s(-1), respectively, accounting for an 86% reduction of the initial deposition rate for both strains. The number of bacterial cells adhering to the silicone rubber with preadsorbed biosurfactant after 4 h was further reduced by 89% and 97% by the two strains, respectively. The two yeast strains tested showed less reduction in adhesion after 4 h, to values between 67% and 70%. Such a pretreatment with surface-active compounds may constitute a promising strategy to reduce the microbial colonization rate of silicone rubber voice prostheses.


AbstractThe specific heat, thermal expansion, permittivity, and electrocaloric effect in bulk of BaTiO_3 (BT) samples in the form of nano- (nBT-500 nm) and micro- (mBT-1200 nm) ceramics fabricated using spark plasma sintering and solid-state plasma techniques have been investigated. The size effect has been reflected, to a great extent, in the suppression of the specific heat and thermal expansion anomalies and in the changes in the temperatures and entropies of phase transitions and permittivity, and a decrease in the maximum intensive electrocaloric effect: $$\Delta T_{{{\text{AD}}}}^{{\max }}$$ = 29 mK ( E = 2.0 kV/cm) for nBT and $$\Delta T_{{{\text{AD}}}}^{{\max }}$$ = 70 mK ( E = 2.5 kV/cm) for mBT. The conductivity growth at temperatures above 360 K leads to the significant irreversible heating of the samples due to the Joule heat release in the applied electric field, which dominates over the electrocaloric effect.


New sediment is being released from the Elwha River dam reservoirs into the Strait of Juan de Fuca for the first time in 100 years, but it is unknown where this sediment will settle and how it will affect the geological environment. In this study, we examined the overall profile of the Elwha River delta and how it is influenced by the new sedimentation. Beach surveys, fathometer transects, and grain-size analyses were combined to evaluate the entire delta front. Grain-size and delta slopes were not found to be correlated in this study. The foreshore of the delta had the steepest slope and was comprised of sandy substrate. The low-tide terrace consisted of large cobbles and had a near horizontal slope. Offshore, the substrate varied widely but no relationship was found between substrate composition and slope. Profiles of the subaqueous delta revealed much longer topsets to the east of the river mouth, suggesting eastward littoral transport. Furthermore, three submarine ancient spits to the east of the delta demonstrate this historical transport pattern. One reason the substrate morphology of the Elwha delta does not look predicted is because the Elwha has been starved of sediment for the past century. Data from this study established a platform for further studies and hints at a future relationship that could be discovered.


Our study starts with an analysis of two nineteenth century "foundational novels" from Puerto Rico (La Peregrinacion de Bayoan, 1863) and Cuba (Amistad Funesta, 1885), and continues with an analysis of the literary work produced by twentieth Century Cuban and Puerto Rican female authors (Luisa Capetillo, Mariblanca Sabas Aloma, Nancy Morejon, Ana Lydia Vega, Achy Obejas, Frances Negron-Muntaner, and Mayra Santos-Febres). Through a comparative approach focused on the diverse representations of gender, sexuality, Caribbeanness, and nation, we have studied the similarities and differences among these female writers' literary projects, as well as the continuities/discontinuities of their own projects in regards to the geo-cultural and biopolitical imaginaries developed by their literary predecessors, Eugenio Maria de Hostos and Jose Marti, respectively. This comparative and critical analysis addresses three specific questions and concerns:•to study how the geo-cultural and political imaginaries represented in these two novels have been designed under the image of a single and unified fraternal and virile political body which excludes women from the social, and/or those bodies or sexualities which threaten to fragment the ideal construction of a unified and homogeneous civil society, and which obstruct the literary representation of the ideal virile subject, leader of the national emancipatory cause.•to examine how the above-mentioned female writers have challenged such politico-patriarchal configurations, which have in turn, established the hegemonic cultural landscape for each country and for the Caribbean region in relation to the discourses of sexual preference and economy (the heterosexual family), race (racial mixing/"mestizaje" or whitening/"blanqueamiento"), and geography (insularism, Caribbeanness/ "Antillanismo", or Americanness/ "Nuestroamericanismo").•to analyze how the challenge to these modernizing norms (heterosexist, phallocentric and pro-transculturation) opens the way towards new alliances amongst the peoples of the Caribbean islands and their Diasporas, based on a spirit of solidarity and an affective search for the Other. These critical projects allow us to imagine the Caribbean as a culturally flexible region, and as a more equal, just, and open society, founded upon a new "minoritarian ethics" capable of resisting and deconstructing the effects of coloniality of power, already present in anticolonial XIXth century literature.


Depending on a statistics every ninth citizen of Lithuania is dependent on alcohol. Even if studies researched the problem of alcoholism for a while, problems of members of their families were ignored, noticed and discussed just in the last few decades. The biggest effect the consequences on alcoholism is for kids and spouses of the alcoholics. According to the data of the research "Social adaptation of children of alcoholics" specific features of the alcoholic family, the rules that exist in it are revealed, kids attitudes towards his family, kids role in the family are analysed through children subjective experiences. Children raised in such families are constantly feeling inner pressure, instability, helplessness, fair, guilt, shame and despair. Their needs are ignored, constant stress and painful experiences follow, rude situations are influencing formation of personality, self-confidence and social adaptation.


Imagining the divine as female is rare—even controversial—in most religions. Hinduism, by contrast, preserves a rich and continuous tradition of goddess worship. A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses conveys the diversity of this tradition by bringing together a fresh array of captivating and largely overlooked Hindu goddess tales from different regions. As the first such anthology of goddess narratives in translation, this collection highlights a range of sources from ancient myths to modern lore. The goddesses featured here battle demons, perform miracles, and grant rare Tantric visions to their devotees. Each translation is paired with a short essay that explains the goddess's historical and social context, elucidating the ways religion adapts to changing times.


The eukaryotic six-subunit origin recognition complex (ORC) governs the initiation site of DNA replication and formation of the prereplication complex. In this report we describe the isolation of the wild-type Homo sapiens (Hs)ORC and variants containing a Walker A motif mutation in the Orc1, Orc4, or Orc5 subunit using the baculovirus-expression system. Coexpression of all six HsORC subunits yielded a stable complex containing HsOrc subunits 1-5 (HsORC1-5) with virtually no Orc6 protein (Orc6p). We examined the ATPase, DNA-binding, and replication activities of these complexes. Similar to other eukaryotic ORCs, wild-type HsORC1-5 possesses ATPase activity that is stimulated only 2-fold by single-stranded DNA. HsORC1-5 with a mutated Walker A motif in Orc1p contains no ATPase activity, whereas a similar mutation of either the Orc4 or Orc5 subunit did not affect this activity. The DNA-binding activity of HsORC1-5, using lamin B2 DNA as substrate, is stimulated by ATP 3- to 5-fold. Mutations in the Walker A motif of Orc1p, Orc4p, or Orc5p reduced the binding efficiency of HsORC1-5 modestly (2- to 5-fold). Xenopus laevis ORC-depleted extracts supplemented with HsORC1-5 supported prereplication complex formation and X. laevis sperm DNA replication, whereas the complex with a mutation in the Walker A motif of the Orc1, Orc4, or Orc5 subunit did not. These studies indicate that the ATP-binding motifs of Orc1, Orc4, and Orc5 are all essential for the replication activity associated with HsORC.


We examine the business model of traditional commercial banks in the context of their co-existence with shadow banks. While both types of intermediaries create safe "money-like" claims, they go about this in different ways. Traditional banks create safe claims by relying on deposit insurance, supported by costly equity capital. This structure allows bank depositors to remain "sleepy": they do not have to pay attention to transient fluctuations in the mark-to-market value of bank assets. In contrast, shadow banks create safe claims by giving their investors an early exit option that allows them to seize collateral and liquidate it at the first sign of trouble. Thus traditional banks have a stable source of funding, while shadow banks are subject to runs and fire-sale losses. These different funding models in turn influence the kinds of assets that traditional banks and shadow banks hold in equilibrium: traditional banks have a comparative advantage at holding fixed-income assets that have only modest fundamental risk, but are relatively illiquid and have substantial transitory price volatility.


Genus Thalictrum is rather controversial in terms of its taxonomical status with many taxonomic disarrangements which lead to different inter and infra-specific complexes. The members of this genus have high medicinal value such as antitumor, antimicrobial, antitussive, hypotensive, antiamebic effects, etc. due to the presence of chemical components viz., bisbenzylisoquinolines, proberberine, aporphine, etc. This paper is an attempt to provide an overall glance of Indian Himalayan Thalictrum species with their correct nomenclature, synonyms, habitat, distribution and uses. The work is based on own collections from different parts of Indian Himalayan region as well as herbarium specimens deposited in various known herbaria. In India, highest diversity of Thalictrum species is found inUttarakhand state (17) followed by Sikkim (16), Himachal Pradesh (14) and Jammu & Kashmir (10). Many of the taxa are endemic and threatened, thereby necessitating their propagation and conservation.


Background: To assess the effect on malaria prevalence, village specific monthly administrations of pyrimethamine, chlorproguanil, chloroquine or placebo were given to children in four previously treatment-naïve Liberian villages, 1976–78. Plasmodium falciparum in vivo resistance developed to pyrimethamine only. Selection of molecular markers of P. falciparum resistance after 2 years of treatment are reported. Methods: Blood samples were collected from 191 study children in a survey in 1978. Polymorphisms in pfcrt, pfmdr1, pfdhfr, pfdhps, pfmrp1 and pfnhe1 genes were determined using PCR-based methods. Results: Pfcrt 72–76 CVIET was found in one chloroquine village sample, all remaining samples had pfcrt CVMNK. Pfmdr1 N86 prevalence was 100%. A pfmdr1 T1069ACT→ACG synonymous polymorphism was found in 30% of chloroquine village samples and 3% of other samples (P = 0.008). Variations in pfnhe1 block I were found in all except the chloroquine treated village (P < 0.001). Resistance associated pfdhfr 108N prevalence was 2% in the pyrimethamine village compared to 45–65% elsewhere, including the placebo village (P = 0.001). Conclusions: Chloroquine treatment possibly resulted in the development of pfcrt 72–76 CVIET. Selection of pfmdr1 T1069ACG and a pfnhe1 block 1 genotypes indicates that chloroquine treatment exerted a selective pressure on P. falciparum. Pyrimethamine resistance associated pfdhfr 108N was present prior to the introduction of any drug. Decreased pfdhfr 108N frequency concurrent with development of pyrimethamine resistance suggests a non-pfdhfr polymorphisms mediated resistance mechanism.


Objective To evaluate the association between chocolate intake and incident clinically apparent atrial fibrillation or flutter (AF). Methods The Danish Diet, Cancer, and Health Study is a large population-based prospective cohort study. The present study is based on 55 502 participants (26 400 men and 29 102 women) aged 50–64 years who had provided information on chocolate intake at baseline. Incident cases of AF were ascertained by linkage with nationwide registries. Results During a median of 13.5 years there were 3346 cases of AF. Compared with chocolate intake less than once per month, the rate of AF was lower for people consuming 1–3 servings/month (hazard ratio (HR) 0.90, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.82 to 0.98), 1 serving/week (HR 0.83, 95% CI 0.74 to 0.92), 2–6 servings/week (HR 0.80, 95% CI 0.71 to 0.91) and ≥1 servings/day (HR 0.84, 95% CI 0.65 to 1.09; p-linear trend <0.0001), with similar results for men and women. Conclusions Accumulating evidence indicates that moderate chocolate intake may be inversely associated with AF risk, although residual confounding cannot be ruled out.


ABSTRACT An important task of mobility scholars is to attend to how time and space are generated through mobilities. Building upon research inspired by Deleuze and Guattari that foregrounds experiential mobilities, we use the notion of the refrain to chart experiences of long-distance rail commuting with a particular focus on how these journeys are crafted to be productive. Moreover, we consider a series of interruptions and their transformative potential. We read wanted and unwanted interruptions as breaks in the consistency of a refrain – disruptions to the socio-material, affective, and expressive arrangements that constitute a sense of productivity. We submit that in the wake of interruption, a refrain may dissolve or reform in three different ways: as repeat, as variation, or as developing variation. These categorisations help us to understand the differential influence of interruption on a refrain. We illustrate our argument by drawing on ethnographic research conducted with 16 mobile commuters who regularly journey by train for work between Wollongong and Sydney (Australia) – a trip of at least 90 minutes each way along a key commuting corridor. Through building an account of long-distance commuting, this article provides insights into how productivity (and productive subjects) may manifest through mundane activities.


A musical work is a set of instructions that typically consists of music notation, which includes notes, and in some instances, musical lyrics. Music copyright infringement cases do not appropriately take account of the nature of music notation as a set of instructions. This leads to analysis in infringement cases that seriously misconstrues the history, uses, and functions of music notation. This misreading is a historical relic of the ways in which copyright has been applied to music. Copyright was first applied to words and was initially visual and textual in orientation. Since the earliest copyright laws, copyright subject matter has progressively expanded from granting rights to protect written expression to other artistic arenas. Copyright law has, however, consistently undervalued the art of performance while favoring the written expression of music, which has had a profound impact on varied musical forms. This emphasis on writings has disfavored some plaintiffs who have sought greater protection for their own performance practice, while at the same time disfavored some defendants whose creative, non-notated performance practice should allow a greater scope for their borrowing. This Article suggests that courts in interpreting infringement in music cases must look beyond the visual-textual and take better account of how music is actually perceived and practiced.


Abstract – The objective of the present study was to compare the muscle fiber characteristics of four muscles ( longissimus lumborum (LL), semitendinosus (ST) , biceps femoris (BF) and psoas major (PM)) collected from 37 Aberdeen Angus (AA), Gascon (GS), Holstein (HO), and Fleckvieh (FL) young bulls reared under identical housing and feeding conditions. Furthermore, the relationships between histochemical characteristics and instrumental meat toughness were evaluated. Significant differences between muscles were found in muscle fiber cross-sectional area (CSA), fiber type proportions and in the relative area of the muscle occupied by each fiber type. The smallest CSA of all fiber types was detected in the PM muscle while the highest values were found for the type I in the ST muscle and for the types IIA and IIB in the BF muscle. The lowest fiber type proportions and the relative areas of the muscle for types I, IIA and IIB were observed in ST, LL and BF muscles, respectively. Significant breed differences were only found in the ST and BF muscle. Higher proportions of type I fibers were detected in AA and HO than in GS and FL bulls. On the contrary, GS and FL animals had higher relative areas occupied by IIB fibers than the other groups. Key Words


We analyze the time series of four major cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple) before the digital market crash at the end of 2017 - beginning 2018. We introduce a methodology that combines topological data analysis with a machine learning technique -- $k$-means clustering -- in order to automatically recognize the emerging chaotic regime in a complex system approaching a critical transition. We first test our methodology on the complex system dynamics of a Lorenz-type attractor, and then we apply it to the four major cryptocurrencies. We find early warning signals for critical transitions in the cryptocurrency markets, even though the relevant time series exhibit a highly erratic behavior.


Single-crystal epitaxial MgO thin films were grown directly onto high-quality Fe single crystal and Fe whisker substrates and covered with Fe/Au layers. Reflection high-energy electron diffraction and low-energy electron diffraction patterns and scanning tunneling microscopy images showed that the growth of MgO proceeded pseudomorphically in a nearly layer-by-layer mode up to six monolayers. A misfit dislocation network is formed for MgO layers thicker than six monolayers. The thin MgO films were characterized electrically by scanning tunneling spectroscopy. The tunneling barrier in MgO was found to depend on the MgO layer thickness, starting from 2.5 eV at two monolayer thickness to the expected full barrier of MgO of 3.6 eV at six monolayers. A small fraction of the scanned area showed randomly placed spikes in the tunneling conductance. Tunneling I-V curves at the defects showed a lower tunneling barrier than that in the majority of the MgO film. The total tunneling current integrated over areas of 1003100 nm 2 , however, was not dominated by spikes of higher conductance. These local defects in the MgO barrier were neither related to atomic steps on the Fe substrates nor to individual misfit dislocations. Magnetic anisotropies and exchange coupling in Fe/ MgO~001! and Fe/MgO/Fe~001! structures were studied using ferromagnetic resonance and Brillouin light scattering.


The manner in which college athletes enter the professional market of basketball has significantly deteriorated during the past several decades. The transition from college to the NBA has become more fraught with challenges and misinformation than ever before, a fact likely to lead to a wide range of mistakes by countless student-athletes trying to evaluate whether and when to enter professional basketball.Highlighting a particular area where student-athletes' interests are marginalized, this Article calls attention to the challenges that student-athletes in the sport of men's college basketball face when trying to make a fully informed decision as they evaluate whether or not to enter the NBA draft and forgo remaining college eligibility. Unfortunately this difficult decision period is not unique to men's basketball, but highlights a broader trend showing that colleges, conferences and the NCAA have done shockingly little to provide guidance and counsel to student-athletes across the country who are navigating the transition from college to the professional leagues. This Article will address both how we developed the current legal rules governing this environment by reviewing the history of the NBA draft and the NCAA's role in overseeing college athletes and its definition of amateurism. With this recent trend in mind, this Article will then turn its attention to a recent NCAA rule change that unambiguously illustrates the fact that the best interests of the student-athlete are marginalized, if not ignored, in the process of making the leap from college to the NBA. Finally, to foster dialogue, solutions will be proposed on how to address the hardships college student-athletes face during this transition period.Among the most meaningful recommendations are: 1. The NBA should adopt draft eligibility rules that declare high school graduates are automatically draft eligible and need not petition or declare their intention for the draft. If a player decides to attend college, NBA rules should require that the player not be draft eligible for two years - after a player's sophomore year of college. 2. NCAA and NBA rules should permit and encourage potential players to hire an "advisor" to assist during this challenging period. 3. The NCAA and NBA should expand and shift the number of days during which student-athletes may explore their potential as an NBA player while maintaining their college eligibility. 4. The creation of a true "NBA Combine" - similar to the NFL Combine - within the time frame the NCAA permits tryouts that enable all underclassmen to compete and perform in front of NBA personnel. 5. Colleges and universities across the country should invest in Professional Sports Counseling Panels ("PSCPs") so that student-athletes can get unbiased guidance during this critical period of their lives. 6. The NBA and the NCAA could jointly revise the rules relative to the NBA draft, whereby any student-athlete who declares himself eligible has the ability, if not selected in the first round of the NBA draft and thus guaranteeing himself a contract under the latest CBA, to return to college. 7. Encourage student-athletes to graduate by offering financial incentives at the NBA level for those with additional years in college.


Objectives: We proposed a cost effective model to predict the traffic to inform the public about the current traffic condition to all persons who are entering the same lane. Analysis: In real time application like traffic monitoring, it needs to process huge volume of data in huge size. We analyzed the traffic prediction using the current technologies Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark framework. Spark is processing the 10 Terabytes of data in half-a-second. The main uniqueness from our approach is that we can predict the road traffic using Spark within half-a-second. Findings: Road traffic is predicted using Ultrasonic and PIR sensor within a half second. The proposed system uses the vehicle count and speed to predict the traffic condition. Existing system using hadoop will predict the traffic in few seconds. Whereas in the proposed system performance gets increased using Spark. Therefore, the results are more helpful in finding the road traffic condition. Improvement: The proposed system predicts it in a half a second by using Spark whereas the existing system predicted the road traffic by consuming more time.


Ground Improvement using vibro stone columns is gaining increasing acceptance on
marginal soft clay sites as a sustainable foundation solution, particularly for lightly
loaded low-rise structures supported by shallow, narrow footings. Most experience in
this context however has been with widespread loads and use of the wet top-feed stone
column technique, which has now been largely superseded, on environmental grounds,
by the dry bottom-feed technique, and for which no significant published field trial data
currently exists in deep soft clay deposits in the context of shallow, narrow footings.
This research is therefore principally concerned with evaluating both the ground
response to installation of partial depth vibro stone columns using the dry bottom-feed
method in a deep moderately sensitive soft clay soil, together with the influence of
parameters such as stone column spacing and length, founding depth within a thin
surface 'crust', and also foundation shape on the performance of narrow footings
subsequently constructed and subjected to incremental loading, over the installed stone
columns, at the Bothkennar soft clay research site in Scotland. Comparisons are made
with footings constructed within the surface 'crust' at Bothkennar without stone
columns.
Whilst stone columns were satisfactorily constructed with the dry bottom-feed
technique at Bothkennar, it was evident that the vibroflot should not remain in the
ground for longer than is necessary, in order to avoid excessive soil disturbance. For this
reason construction of partial depth stone columns to a more uniform diameter, without
construction of an 'end bulb', is advocated. Stress ratio was found to increase
significantly with increasing length of stone column and also applied load, up to a
maximum value of around 4.0. Moreover, for a trial footing founded at the base of the
'crust', stresses attracted by the columns were higher than all other columns where
founding depth (level) was at shallower depth in the crust. A significant stress transfer
was also measured beneath the toe of columns intentionally installed shorter than the
minimum design length predicted by the Hughes and Withers (1974) approach at all
iii
applied loads, but not for columns equal to, or longer than minimum design length,
confirming the predictions of this laboratory-based approach at the field scale. The
stress measurements recorded by the field instrumentation demonstrate that the
behaviour of the composite stone column-soil-foundation system is complex, with
simultaneous and interdependent changes in pore pressures, soil stress ratios and
resulting stiffness of both soil and columns.
Whilst observed settlements exceeded those predicted, with larger foundation
settlements observed at low applied loads over stone columns than at the same loading
level in untreated ground, principally due to soil disturbance and accelerated
consolidation effects during initial loading, at higher applied loadings however the stone
columns significantly reduced the rate and magnitude of settlement compared to a
foundation in the untreated 'crust'. It is therefore clear that the stone columns 'reinforced'
the weak soil, providing a significantly increased factor of safety against bearing failure.


Author(s): Regnier, Cindy; Mathew, Paul; Robinson, Alastair; Schwartz, Peter; Walter, Travis | Abstract: Utility incentive programs remain one of the most significant means of deploying commercialized, but underutilized building technologies to scale. However, these programs have been largely limited to component-based products (e.g., lamps, RTUs). While some utilities do provide 'custom' incentive programs with whole building and system level technical assistance, these programs require deeper levels of analysis, resulting in higher program costs. This results in custom programs being restricted to utilities with greater resources, and are typically applied mainly to large or energy-intensive facilities, leaving much of the market without cost effective access and incentives for these solutions. In addition, with increasingly stringent energy codes, cost effective component-based solutions that achieve significant savings are dwindling. Building systems (e.g., integrated facade, HVAC and/or lighting solutions) can deliver higher savings that translate into large sector-wide savings if deployed at the scale of these programs. However, systems application poses a number of challenges – baseline energy use must be defined and measured; the metrics for energy and performance must be defined and tested against; in addition, system savings must be validated under well understood conditions. This paper presents a sample of findings of a project to develop validated utility incentive program packages for three specific integrated building systems, in collaboration with Xcel Energy (CO, MN), ComEd, and a consortium of California Public Owned Utilities (CA POUs) (Northern California Power Agency(NCPA) and the Southern California Public Power Authority(SCPPA)). These program packages consist of system specifications, system performance, MaV protocols, streamlined assessment methods, market assessment and implementation guidance.


Hash tables are ubiquitous. Properties such as an amortized constant time complexity for insertion and querying as well as a compact memory layout make them versatile associative data structures with manifold applications. The rapidly growing amount of data emerging in many fields motivated the need for accelerated hash tables designed for modern parallel architectures. In this work, we exploit the fast memory interface of modern GPUs together with a parallel hashing scheme tailored to improve global memory access patterns, to design WarpCore – a versatile library of hash table data structures. Unique device-sided operations allow for building high performance data processing pipelines entirely on the GPU. Our implementation achieves up to 1.6 billion inserts and up to 4.3 billion retrievals per second on a single GV100 GPU thereby outperforming the state-of-the-art solutions cuDPP, SlabHash, and NVIDIA RAPIDS cuDF. This performance advantage becomes even more pronounced for high load factors of over 90%. To overcome the memory limitation of a single GPU, we scale our approach over a dense NVLink topology which gives us close-to-optimal weak scaling on DGX servers. We further show how WarpCore can be used for accelerating a real world bioinformatics application (metagenomic classification) with speedups of over two orders-of-magnitude against state-of-the-art CPU-based solutions. WarpCore is open source software written in C++/CUDA-C and can be downloaded at https://github.com/sleeepyjack/warpcore.


A series of major security breaches at companies with sensitive personal information has sparked significant attention to the problems with privacy protection in the United States. Currently, the privacy protections in the United States are riddled with gaps and weak spots. Although most industrialized nations have comprehensive data protection laws, the United States has maintained a sectoral approach where certain industries are covered and others are not. In particular, emerging companies known as "commercial data brokers" have frequently slipped through the cracks of U.S. privacy law. In this article, the authors propose a Model Privacy Regime to address the problems in the privacy protection in the United States, with a particular focus on commercial data brokers. Since the United States is unlikely to shift radically from its sectoral approach to a comprehensive data protection regime, the Model Regime aims to patch up the holes in existing privacy regulation and improve and extend it. In other words, the goal of the Model Regime is to build upon the existing foundation of U.S. privacy law, not to propose an alternative foundation. The authors believe that the sectoral approach in the United States can be improved by applying the Fair Information Practices - principles that require the entities that collect personal data to extend certain rights to data subjects. The Fair Information Practices are very general principles, and they are often spoken about in a rather abstract manner. In contrast, the Model Regime demonstrates specific ways that they can be incorporated into privacy regulation in the United States. This is the final version of this paper (Version 3.0), earlier versions of which are also available on SSRN. This version of the paper is published in the Illinois Law Review.


The sequestration process of greenhouse contaminants such as CO2 via hollow fiber membrane contactor (HFMC) is regarded as a promising technology to manage the deleterious impressions of CO2 on environment such as global warming and air pollution. This investigational paper renders a wide-ranging 2D simulation in order to assess the removal performance of CO2 from CO2/CH4 gaseous stream (containing 80 % CH4 and 20 % CO2) in the HFMC. As the novelty, the evaluation of CO2 acid gas removal from gaseous mixture applying four novel absorbing agents (potassium threonate (PT), piperazine (PZ), pure water (H2O) and methyldiethanolamine (MDEA)) is implemented in the HFMC with the aim of introducing a more efficient liquid absorbent for CO2 sequestration. Model validation is done based on the comparison of mathematical model outcomes and experimental data in a wide range of H2O velocity and confirms a desirable agreement with an average relative deviation (ARD) of approximately 3 % for CO2 flux. It is perceived from the results that PZ is introduced as the most efficient liquid absorbent for CO2 sequestration and MDEA, PT and H2O are in the next category (100 % removal using PZ > 96 % removal using MDEA > 89 % removal using PT > 57 % removal using H2O). The results corroborate that increase in membrane tortuosity and gas velocity negatively affects the sequestration process while increment of module length and porosity improve the separation of CO2.


We introduce GRiD: a GPU-accelerated library for computing rigid body dynamics with analytical gradients. GRiD was designed to accelerate the nonlinear trajectory opti-mization subproblem used in state-of-the-art robotic planning, control, and machine learning, which requires tens to hundreds of naturally parallel computations of rigid body dynamics and their gradients at each iteration. GRiD leverages URDF parsing and code generation to deliver optimized dynamics kernels that not only expose GPU-friendly computational patterns, but also take advantage of both fine-grained parallelism within each computation and coarse-grained parallelism between computations. Through this approach, when performing multiple computations of rigid body dynamics algorithms, GRiD provides as much as a 7.2x speedup over a state-of-the-art, multi-threaded CPU implementation, and maintains as much as a 2.5x speedup when accounting for I/O overhead. We release GRiD as an open-source library for use by the wider robotics community.


Good prediction of the behavior of wind around buildings improves designs for natural ventilation in warm climates. However wind modeling is complex, predictions are often inaccurate due to the large uncertainties in parameter values. The goal of this work is to enhance wind prediction around buildings using measurements through implementing a multiple-model system-identification approach. The success of system-identification approaches depends directly upon the location and number of sensors. Therefore, this research proposes a methodology for optimal sensor configuration based on hierarchical sensor placement involving calculations of prediction-value joint entropy. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models are generated to create a discrete population of possible wind-flow predictions, which are then used to identify optimal sensor locations. Optimal sensor configurations are revealed using the proposed methodology and considering the effect of systematic and spatially distributed modeling errors, as well as the common information between sensor locations. The methodology is applied to a full-scale case study and optimum configurations are evaluated for their ability to falsify models and improve predictions at locations where no measurements have been taken. It is concluded that a sensor placement strategy using joint entropy is able to lead to predictions of wind characteristics around buildings and capture short-term wind variability more effectively than sequential strategies, which maximize entropy.


We illustrate the benefits of using Natural Deduction in combination with weak Higher-Order Abstract Syntax for formalizing an object-based calculus with objects, cloning, method-update, types with subtyping, and side-effects, in inductive type theories such as the Calculus of Inductive Constructions. This setting suggests a clean and compact formalization of the syntax and semantics of the calculus, with an efficient management of method closures. Using our formalization and the Theory of Contexts, we can prove formally the Subject Reduction Theorem in the proof assistant Coq, with a relatively small overhead.


Title of Document: THE IMPACT OF WATER QUALITY ON HEALTH IN RURAL CHINA Jing Zhang, Doctor of Philosophy, 2011 Directed By: Professor Judith Hellerstein Department of Economics Providing people with safe drinking water is one of the most important healthrelated infrastructure programs in the world. This dissertation investigates the effects of a major water improvement program in rural China on the health of adults and children. Using panel data covering about 4,500 households from 1989 to 2006, I estimate the impact of introducing village-level access to water from water plants on various measures of health. Ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation of the impact suggests a weak positive influence of the program on people's health status, but these results may be contaminated by endogenous timing and placement of the water quality interventions across China. To address potential endogeneity problems, I use topographic characteristics of communities as instruments for program placement, as these characteristics affect the costs of the construction of water plants and pipelines into villages. My instrumental variables (IV) results show that the introduction of treated plant water into villages has had a stronger impact on the health status of both adults and children. However, the IV strategy may result into overestimation due to some omitted variables. Combining both OLS and IV estimates, I find that the illness incidence of adults decreased by 11 to 50 percent and their weight-for-height increased by 0.835 to 2.580 kg/m following the program implementation. There was also an improvement in self-reports of health. Children's weight-for-height and height itself both rose, by 0.446 to 0.754 kg/m and 0.962 to 2.489 cm respectively, as a result of the program. Using a variety of robustness checks, I show that the results are not driven by measurement errors, omitted variable bias, or attrition bias, and that the mechanism by which the program was effective was via improved water quality rather than simply via increased access to water. No obvious heterogeneous treatment effects are found across income and educational groups. THE IMPACT OF WATER QUALITY ON HEALTH IN RURAL CHINA


Preface. Acknowledgements. Dedication. Glossary, Abbreviations, and Definitions. Chapter I: Introduction and Fundamentals. 1.1 Definition and Description of Mass Spectrometry. 1.2 Basic Design of Mass Analyzer Instrumentation. 1.3 Mass Spectrometry of Protein, Metabolite, and Lipid Biomolecules. 1.3.1 Proteomics. 1.3.2 Metabolomics. 1.3.3 Lipidomics. 1.4 Fundamental Studies of Biological Compound Interactions. 1.5 Mass-to-Charge Ratio (m/z) - How the Mass Spectrometer Separates Ions. 1.6 Exact Mass versus Nominal Mass. 1.7 Mass Accuracy and Resolution. 1.8 High Resolution Mass Measurements. 1.9 Rings Plus Double Bonds (r + db). 1.10 The Nitrogen Rule in Mass Spectrometry. 1.11 Chapter Problems. 1.12 References. Chapter II: Ionization in Mass Spectrometry. 2.1 Ionization Techniques and Sources. 2.2 Electron Ionization (EI). 2.3 Chemical Ionization (CI). 2.3.1 Positive Chemical Ionization. 2.3.2 Negative Chemical Ionization. 2.4 Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Ionization (APCI). 2.5 Electrospray Ionization (ESI). 2.6 Nano-Electrospray Ionization (nano-ESI). 2.7 Atmospheric Pressure Photo Ionization (APPI). 2.7.1 APPI Mechanism. 2.7.2 APPI VUV Lamps. 2.7.3 APPI Sources. 2.7.4 Comparison of ESI and APPI. 2.8 Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization (MALDI). 2.9 Fast Atom Bombardment (FAB). 2.9.1 Application of FAB versus EI. 2.10 Chapter Problems. 2.11 References. Chapter III: Mass Analyzers in Mass Spectrometry. 3.1 Mass Analyzers. 3.2 Magnetic and Electric Sector Mass Analyzer. 3.3 Time-of-Flight Mass Analyzer (TOF/MS). 3.4 Time-of-Flight/Time-of-Flight Mass Analyzer (TOF-TOF/MS). 3.5 Quadrupole Mass Filter. 3.6 Triple Quadrupole Mass Analyzer (QQQ/MS). 3.7 Three Dimensional Quadrupole Ion Trap Mass Analyzer (QIT/MS). 3.8 Linear Quadrupole Ion Trap Mass Analyzer (LTQ/MS). 3.9 Quadrupole/Time-of-Flight Mass Analyzer (Q-TOF/MS). 3.10 Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Analyzer (FTICR/MS). 3.10.1 Introduction. 3.10.2 FTICR Mass Analyzer. 3.10.3 FTICR Trapped Ion Behavior. 3.10.4 Cyclotron and Magnetron Ion Motion. 3.10.5 Basic Experimental Sequence. 3.11 Linear Ion Trap Fourier Transform Mass Analyzer (LTQ-FT/MS). 3.12 Linear Ion Trap Orbitrap Mass Analyzer (LTQ-Orbitrap/MS). 3.13 Chapter Problems. 3.14 References. Chapter IV: Collision and Unimolecular Reaction Rate Theory. 4.1 Introduction to Collision Theory. 4.2 Non-covalent Bond Dissociation Energy. 4.3 Low Molecular Weight BDE Predictive Model. 4.4 Computer Modeling of BDE Values. 4.5 High Molecular Weight BDE Predictive Model. 4.6 Non-covalent BDE of Li+ Adduct of Mono-pentadecanoin. 4.7 Practice Problems. 4.7.1 Problem 1. 4.7.2 Problem 2. 4.7.3 Problem 3. 4.7.4 Problem 4. 4.7.5 Problem 5. 4.8 BDE Determination of Li+ Lipid Dimer Adducts. 4.9 Covalent Apparent Threshold Energies of Li+ Adducted Acylglycerols. 4.9.1 Apparent Threshold Energy Predictive Model. 4.9.2 Apparent Threshold Energies for Lithiated Mono-pentadecanoin. 4.9.3 Apparent Threshold Energies for Lithiated 1-Stearin,2-palmitin. 4.9.4 Apparent Threshold Energies for Lithiated 1,3-Dipentadecanoin. 4.10 Computational Reaction Enthalpies and Predicted Apparent Threshold Energies. 4.11 Conclusions. 4.12 References. Chapter V: The Mass Spectrum: Odd Electron Molecular Ion versus Even Electron Precursor Ion Mass Spectra. 5.1 Electron Ionization (EI) Odd Electron (OE) Processes. 5.2 Oleamide Fragmentation Pathways ? Odd Electron M+u by Gas Chromatography/Electron Ionization-Mass Spectrometry (GC/EI-MS). 5.3 Oleamide Fragmentation Pathways ? Even Electron [M+H]+ by Electrospray Ionization/Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry (ESI/IT-MS). 5.4 Problem: Methyl Oleate EI Mass Spectrum. 5.5 References. Chapter VI: Product Ion Spectral Interpretation. 6.1 Introduction to Product Ion Spectral Interpretation. 6.2 Structural Elucidation of 1,3-dipentadecanoin. 6.3 Problem: Lithiated Mono-penradecanoin Product Ion Spectrum. Chapter VII: Proteomics. 7.1 Introduction to Proteomics. 7.2 Protein Structure and Chemistry. 7.3 Bottom-up Proteomics ? Mass Spectrometry of Peptides. 7.3.1 History and Strategy. 7.3.2 Protein Identification Through Product Ion Spectra. 7.3.3 High Energy Product Ions. 7.3.4 De Novo Sequencing. 7.3.5 Electron Capture Dissociation (ECD). 7.4 Top-down Proteomics: Mass Spectrometry of Intact Proteins. 7.4.1 Background. 7.4.2 Gas-Phase Basicity and Protein Charging. 7.4.3 Calculation of Charge State and Molecular Weight. 7.4.4 Top-Down Protein Sequencing. 7.5 Post Translational Modification of Proteins (PTM). 7.5.1 Three Main Types of PTM. 7.5.2 Glycosylation of Proteins. 7.5.3 Phosphorylation of Proteins. 188.8.131.52 Phosphohistidine as Post Translational Modification. 7.5.4 Sulfation of Proteins. 18.104.22.168 Glycosaminoglycan Sulfation. 126.96.36.199 Tyrosine Sulfation. 7.6 Systems Biology and Bioinformatics. 7.6.1 Biomarkers in Cancer. 7.7 Chapter Problems. 7.8 References. Chapter VIII: Biomolecule Spectral Interpretation - Small Molecules. 8.1 Introduction. 8.2 Ionization Efficiency of Lipids. 8.3 Fatty Acids. 8.3.1 Negative Ion Mode Electrospray Behavior of Fatty Acids. 8.4 Quantitative Analysis by GC/EI Mass Spectrometry. 8.5 Wax Esters. 8.5.1 Oxidized Wax Esters. 8.5.2 Oxidation of Monounsaturated Wax Esters by Fenton Reaction. 8.6 Sterols. 8.6.1 Synthesis of Cholesteryl Phosphate. 8.6.2 Single Stage and High Resolution Mass Spectrometry. 8.6.3 Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H-NMR). 8.6.4 Theoretical NMR Spectroscopy. 8.6.5 Structural Elucidation. 8.7 Acylglycerols. 8.7.1 Analysis of Monopentadecanoin. 8.7.2 Analysis of 1,3-Dipentadecanoin. 8.7.3 Analysis of Triheptadecanoin. 8.8 ESI-Mass Spectrometry of Phosphorylated Lipids. 8.8.1 Electrospray Ionization Behavior of Phosphorylated Lipids. 8.8.2 Positive Ion Mode ESI of Phosphorylated Lipids. 8.8.3 Negative Ion Mode ESI of Phosphorylated Lipids. 8.9 Chapter Problems. 8.10 References. Chapter IX: Biomolecule Spectral Interpretation - Biological Macromolecules. 9.1 Introduction. 9.2 Carbohydrates. 9.2.1 Ionization of Oligosaccharides. 9.2.2 Carbohydrate Fragmentation. 9.2.3 Complex Oligosaccharide Structural Elucidation. 9.3 Nucleic Acids. 9.3.1 Negative Ion Mode of a Yeast 76-mer tRNAPhe. 9.3.2 Positive Ion Mode MALDI Analysis. 9.4 Chapter Problems. 9.5 References. Chapter X: MALDI-TOF-Postsource Decay (PSD). 10.1 Introduction. 10.2 Metastable Decay. 10.3 Ion Mirror Ratio Measurement of PSD Spectra. 10.4 PSD of Phosphatidylserine. 10.4.1 Problem 10.1. 10.5 PSD of Phosphatidylcholines. 10.5.1 Problem 10.2. 10.5.2 Problem 10.3. 10.6 PSD of Phosphatidylglycerol. 10.6.1 Problem 10.4. 10.6.2 Problem 10.5. Appendix I: Atomic Weights and Isotopic Compositions. Appendix II: Chapter Problem Solutions. Appendix III: Table of Physical Constants. Index.


In this paper, I begin to unpack the retail boom that erupted within Manchester since
the I.R.A bomb of June 1996 and that regenerated the former industrial city into a city
that took an 'entrepreneurial turn' to aesthetically improve itself. This urban
renaissance and regeneration has enabled Manchester to compare and establish itself
as one the top European cities to place a business and the second most visited city
within Britain. This paper helps understand what were the driving forces behind the
redevelopment and how the city was able to fund such innovative ideas within its
regeneration that attracted vast sums of investment. Underpinning the success in
Manchester's retail regeneration is that of the City Council being at the forefront of
ideas and defining co-operative networks between the public and private sectors of the
city that came together to rebuild and re-brand the city. The piece begins with a
historical understanding of the city and the I.R.A bomb of 1996 that has led to these
developments within the city before introducing the readings of other authors and
academics into the developments of Manchester and its entrepreneurial attitudes
towards development. The analysis and conclusion of this piece brings the research to
a close that Manchester City Council achieved its intentions of aesthetically
enhancing the city and shrugging off its old industrial image in which a retail 'boom'
has secured this change in developing a prosperous economy within the city.


The future of American STEM education is here...in every state there are thousands students that would benefit from science education if only they had the resources support systems and psychological ownership. There are brilliant young minds that could be called on to solve a myriad of world problems earning money and respect in the process. But these students dona't see science as a viable option for a life. Or they do but there are no textbooks in the classroom or the teacher is the fifth one this semester...and he is on the verge of leaving too. If STEM (science technology engineering and mathematics) careers are the future driving force of the American economy; and if only an anointed few American students choose STEM as a career path where will that leave us as a nation as we strive to compete on the global stage? Will America maintain its position as leader of the free world? Can a country that shuns the word ai??eliteai?? ever maintain its elite status? Everything we value depends on this; our national security reputation and quality of life all depend on our ability to meet the needs of future generations of American workers as they compete for jobs. Jobs that will require problem solving skills innovation creativity scientific literacy and mathematical knowledge. Jobs that will require Americans who are tops in their fields with expertise intellectual curiosity ambition and vision. This book seeks to address these problems as well as providing an historical backdrop for the discussion of STEM in American schools race and gender issues the effects of the standards movement on STEM and what good teaching looks like in urban public schools. The future is here. Will we rise to the occasion?


Indonesian language is heavily riddled with colloquialism whether in written or spoken forms. In this paper, we identify a class of Indonesian colloquial words that have undergone morphological transformations from their standard forms, categorize their word formations, and propose a benchmark dataset of Indonesian Colloquial Lexicons (IndoCollex) consisting of informal words on Twitter ex-pertly annotated with their standard forms and their word formation types/tags. We evaluate several models for character-level transduction to perform morphological word normalization on this testbed to understand their failure cases and provide baselines for future work. As IndoCollex catalogues word formation phenomena that are also present in the non-standard text of other languages, it can also provide an attractive testbed for methods tailored for cross-lingual word normalization and non-standard word formation.


The increasing environmental pollution resulting from the use of non-renewable fossil fuels as well as the development of economic dependencies among countries because of the lack of such types of fuels underline the intense need for the use of sustainable forms of energy. Biomass derived biofuels provide such an alternative. The main tasks of biomass feedstock production are planting and cultivation, harvest, storage, and transportation. A number of complex decisions characterize each of these tasks. These decisions are related to the monitoring of crop health, the improvement of crop productivity using innovative technologies, and the examination of limitations in existing processes and technologies associated with biomass feedstock production. Other critical issues are the development of sustainable methods for the delivery of the biomass while maintaining product quality. There is the need for the development of an automated integrated research tool based on resilience and sustainability which will allow the coordination of different research fields but also perform research on its own. The specific tool should aim in the optimization of different parameters which specify the research done and in the case of biomass feedstock production; such parameters are the transportation of biomass from the field to the biorefinery, the equipment used, and the biomass storage conditions. This optimization would enhance decision making in the field of bioenergy production. Based on the need for such an automated integrated research tool, this paper presents an information system that provides automated functionalities for better decision making in the bioenergy production field based on the collection and analysis of agricultural robot and sensor data.


When the war in Afghanistan ended in 2002, the country was largely governed by Afghans. This result came about because, rather than inserting thousands of troops into the country, the United States fought the war using a new type of military operation that relied on special forces, airpower, and Afghan allies. In the operation, approximately fifty U.S. special forces personnel accomplished what planners had believed would require 50,000 U.S. ground troops. In the wake of the war, military planners largely dismissed the Afghan model as unworkable elsewhere. The performance of the model in Afghanistan and later in Iraq, however, illustrates that the traditional military's pessimism toward this method is unwarranted. The Afghan model vastly improves U.S. leverage in coercive diplomacy and war because it requires few U.S. ground troops and facilitates the transition to stability and democracy by empowering indigenous allies.


AbstractThe evolution equation of potential temperature has to date been treated as an approximation to the oceanic version of the first law of thermodynamics. That is, oceanographers have regarded the advection and diffusion of potential temperature as the advection and diffusion of "heat." However, the nonconservative source terms that arise in the evolution equation for potential temperature are estimated to be two orders of magnitude larger than the corresponding source terms for Conservative Temperature. In this paper the nonconservative source terms of potential temperature, Conservative Temperature, and entropy are derived for a stratified turbulent fluid, then quantified using the output of a coarse-resolution ocean model and compared to the rate of dissipation of mechanical energy, epsilon. It is shown that the error incurred in ocean models by assuming that Conservative Temperature is 100% conservative is approximately 120 times smaller than the corresponding error for potential temperature and ...


In this paper, we investigate the relation between the different accounting treatments of R&D expenditures and the risk of the entity in order to identify under which treatment insiders are more likely to carry out earnings management. By analysing the R&D investment strategies of a sample of 137 listed Italian entities that complied with the requirements of IAS 38 during fiscal year 2009, following Lantz and Sahut (2005), we calculate several indexes that show the preferences of insiders to account R&D expenditures as costs or capital assets, and we study the relation of such preferences with the risk of the entity, which we measure with the unlevered beta. We hypothesize that the entities, which considered the R&D investments as costs, are the riskiest ones due to the higher probability that insiders carried out earnings management. Our results confirm such hypothesis. This paper could have implications for academics and standard setters that could learn that behind accounting discretion, insiders could opportunistically behave against outsiders.


Presented at Art History of Games Symposium at 11 am on February 6, 2010 in the High Museum of Art's Rich Auditorium on the campus of the Woodruff Arts Center, in midtown Atlanta.


The purpose of this qualitative evaluation was to determine students' perceptions of the value and effectiveness of the use of multimedia case studies in introductory engineering courses at two universities. The action evaluation design was predicated on the 4P model, which includes presage, pedagogy, process, and product components. Students at a large, public university and at a smaller, private university completed surveys (N=102 for Fall 2011 and N= 36 for Spring 2012) and participated in focus groups (N=44 in Fall 2011 and N=12 in Spring 2012). Instructors at both universities collaborated to ensure similar course content. Findings include that students with prior knowledge of the concepts of the course through previous work in high school found the concepts to be redundant or reinforcing of their understanding. While some students preferred working alone, students noted the benefits of working in teams. The pedagogical tools and techniques used in the course that were perceived as helpful included project work that involved groups, lab-related activities, such as hands on projects, and lecture activities. Multimedia case studies were judged to be helpful in learning course concepts by 74% of students at the larger university and by 82% of students at the smaller university. Preferred process and product components included active learning, particularly working in groups to solve problems, which were a focus of the case studies. Areas of strength and needed improvement are also discussed from the viewpoint of students and the research team of instructors and evaluators.


Hydropower has been the main source of energy in Nigeria, until recently when thermal and fossil-fuel driven turbines and other alternatives are becoming commonplace. The concern for power generation tends to becloud environmental and natural resource degradation that accompanies execution of hydropower projects or plants. One of the principal resources concerned is the watershed of hosting rivers. These impacts reflect on fishery, navigation, domestic and agricultural water supplies. This study examined the impacts of hydropower plants on watershed of Jebba Lake on Niger River and evaluates the environmental cost of that impact on the various facets of the watershed. It also assessed the efficacy of remediation in respect of hydropower plants hosting communities. Contingent valuation method was adopted through a survey of local communities and the Jebba lake of Niger River watershed, Jebba, Nigeria. Stratified samples were drawn from fishers, farmers and dwellers of neighboring communities. Data were tabulated and percentages, mean scores, variances and standard deviations were computed. The hypotheses were tested using ANOVA, F-statistics and the t-test. Results shows that beyond the marketed cost of producing power there are myriads of environmental costs, often concealed by the difficulty of determining the non-market values of the benefits and cost associated therewith. It was concluded that the environmental impact of hydropower plants/projects is significant and calls for critical study during its environmental administration process. Thus, the total cost of producing electricity should reflect environmental components in order to serve as adequate basis for pricing units of production.

 Key words: Accounting, environmental costs, hydropower, watershed.


This book examines how Great Britain, as a colonial power in Africa, organized and exercised control at the international and domestic level to advance British interests in Uganda and beyond. While this book is by no means an exhaustive study of the various modes of control that took hold in Uganda since its inception as a territorial state up to the period of juridical independence, it is hoped that its historiographical contributions to the post-colonial dispensation of Uganda will be threefold. First, it systematically sheds light on the combined influence of racist ideology, class, and politics in perpetuating informal imperial control in Uganda. Second, it demonstrates that consolidating informal imperial control has required externalizing the legitimacy of the Ugandan state. This suggests that African leaders not supported by external powers may be externally delegitimized and their position made untenable. Third, it demonstrates that the informal control imposed upon Africans by external powers, by removing incentives for internal legitimacy, encouraged violations of human rights as African leaders did not need to obtain the consent of their own people in order to remain in power. Furthermore, it advances the argument that democracy, the rule of law and the protection of human rights can be achieved in Africa if leaders enjoy internal legitimacy derived from the people. The various modes of control imposed by former masters over colonial and post-colonial states were not meant to protect African, but imperial interests.


Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) solutions incorporated with multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were electrospun at various weight percentages, and then the electrical resistance and some thermal properties of these nanocomposite fibers were determined using a high-accuracy electrical resistance measurement device. During the electrospinning process, system and process parameters, such as concentrations, applied voltage, tip-to-collector distance, and pump speeds, were optimized to receive the consistent nanocomposite fibers. When polymers are used in many industrial applications, they require high electrical and thermal conductivities. Most polymers exhibit low electrical conductivity values; however, in the presence of conductive inclusions, the electrical resistance of the MWCNT fibers was reduced from 50 MΩ to below 5 MΩ, which may be attributed to the higher electrical conductivities of these nanoscale inclusions and fewer voids under the applied loads. This study may open up new possibilities in the field for developing electrically conductive novel nanomaterials and devices for various scientific and technological applications.


In the adaptive setting, many multi-armed bandit applications allow the learner to adaptively draw samples and adjust sampling strategy in rounds. In many real applications, not only the query complexity but also the round complexity need to be optimized. In this paper, we study both PAC and exact top-$k$ arm identification problems and design efficient algorithms considering both round complexity and query complexity. For PAC problem, we achieve optimal query complexity and use only $O(\log_{\frac{k}{\delta}}^*(n))$ rounds, which matches the lower bound of round complexity, while most of existing works need $\Theta(\log \frac{n}{k})$ rounds. For exact top-$k$ arm identification, we improve the round complexity factor from $\log n$ to $\log_{\frac{1}{\delta}}^*(n)$, and achieve near optimal query complexity. In experiments, our algorithms conduct far fewer rounds, and outperform state of the art by orders of magnitude with respect to query cost.


A cross-border e-commerce Mystery Shopping Survey conducted in 2015, finds that the practice of erecting virtual barriers is still common in cross-border e-commerce within the EU, as it was in 2009. Electrical appliances, electronics and computer games are particularly difficult to buy online from another country. Geo-blocking often takes place at the delivery stage of the online purchase process and less often at the access stage. Larger websites can also block access according to a buyer's IP address. Geo-blocking is less probably between countries sharing a common language while a common border or geographical proximity has no effect. Travel services have a different pattern of geo-blocking from tangible goods, where geo-blocking mainly takes place at the access stage. Price analysis shows that differentiation takes place in all sectors, but is more common in the sectors less affected by geo-blocking.


In this paper, a psychologically-inspired model for an Iterative Prisoner's dilemma (IPD) agent is proposed. This model is inspired by the "psychic apparatus" theory that was developed by Sigmund Freud in 1940. The model captures an agent with a true "character" by concurrently supporting the three constructs of personality: the Super-Ego, which represents the ideal part of the agent that always tries to elicit cooperation from opponents, the Id, which is characterized by its willingness to defect all the time to achieve instant gratification, and the Ego, which is the intelligent, realistic, part of the agent that relies on opponent-modeling techniques to decide on the best next move. These three constructs compete against each other in order to take control of the agent. This model was successfully prototyped and participated in a simulated IPD tournament along with other benchmark strategies. "FREUD", as the agent is called, achieved outstanding results in this mini-tournament by winning with a good margin. Our model represents a novel abstraction for IPD agent architecture that is potentially applicable to any decision-making task that requires evaluating the benefit of competitive vs. cooperative behavior.


Extreme hydrological events have increased the frequency of
ooding scenarios in recent
years, resulting in significant bridge inundation and associated damages. Turbulence structures
within the
ow field are highly energetic and possess high sediment entrainment
capacity which will lead to the scour formation around the bridge foundation and consequently
causes structural instability or even failure of the structure. This research employs
the method of Large Eddy Simulation (LES) to elucidate the complex
ow mechanisms
around bridge abutments in changing conditions. The level set method (LSM) is adopted
in LES code to predict the complex water surface profiles and an extensive validation of
the method against complementary experiment is presented. A faithful representation of a
natural river which consists of an asymmetrical compound channel with a parabolic main
channel and two variable-length abutments with sloped sidewalls and rounded corners, and
a bridge deck is presented in this thesis. The LES code is used to analyse the effect of
bridge abutment length on the turbulence structure and
ow field through the bridge opening.
Extensive analysis by means of streamwise velocity contours, 2D and 3D streamlines,
isosurfaces of Q-criterion, contours of wall-normal vorticity, probability density functions,
quadrant analysis, power density spectra, and water surface elevation contours has been
carried out and have shown significant differences between the different abutment lengths.
The findings attempt to contribute to the design of resilient hydraulic structures especially
on considering the shape and size of an abutment. The investigation of
ow mechanisms
around bridge abutments under different scour conditions (i.e. pre-scour and equilibrium
scour) is presented in the later part of the thesis. Through 3D streamlines and contours
of vertical velocity and turbulent kinetic energy, the equilibrium scour case reveals an increase
in the three-dimensionality of the
ow around the left abutment in the scour region
when compared with the
at bed case. Focusing on the near bed quantities, i.e. bed shear
stress and near bed turbulent kinetic energy, the equilibrium scour case shows a significant
relaxation at the vicinity of the left abutment, indicating a drastic reduction in sediment
activities.


TO THE EDITOR: Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF)-associated blastocytosis with a lack of an associated left shift poses a challenge for accurate assessment of the underlying disease [1]. In particular, blastocytosis after chemotherapy for acute leukemia may mimic a recurrence of underlying leukemia. Only a few cases of myeloblastosis in AML or ALL or of leukoerythroblastosis in AML after G-CSF therapy have been described anecdotally in the literature [2,3,4]. Herein, we report a case of myeloblastosis in ALL within 2 days of G-CSF administration masquerading as early relapse, causing a diagnostic dilemma. This was compounded by a striking lack of telltale evidence that G-CSF treatment was effective, such as increased granulation and a left shift.

A 25-year-old man diagnosed with common acute lymphoblastic leukemia antigen [CALLA] positive, precursor B-cell ALL (Fig. 1A) completed his first phase of induction chemotherapy with methotrexate, cyclophosphamide, and cytarabine. His day 36 bone marrow showed 2.8% blasts with positive minimal residual disease (MRD) (0.046%). To accelerate recovery from persistent neutropenia, he was treated with G-CSF; an adequate response was noted, with a total leukocyte count (TLC) of 2.9×109/L. On day 70, he completed his second phase of induction chemotherapy and was started on G-GSF therapy for severe neutropenia (TLC: 0.76×109/L). On day 73, his peripheral blood smear showed marked leukopenia with a predominance of lymphocytes and 2% blasts without any left shift or increased granulations. This lack of prototypical G-CSF response along with previous MRD positivity and presence of 2% blasts led to a suspicion of relapse, and bone marrow examination was advised. Marrow aspirate showed hypocellular marrow with 14% blasts, and focal areas showed up to 25% blasts (Fig. 1B), along with a lack of a maturing myeloid component, which suggested relapse. Trephine biopsy, in contrast, showed hypocellularity with only a few scattered CD34 positive blasts. This necessitated flow cytometric evaluation, where the blasts showed negativity for B lymphoblastic markers and expressed myeloid markers, including CD13, CD33, and CD34, suggesting that they were regenerating myeloblasts (Fig. 1C-F). No further therapy was administered and the patient was kept on close hematological follow-up. The counts recovered after 4 days, with the typical responses of a left shift and increased granulation. Follow-up marrow examination after complete recovery of blood counts, 10 days after discontinuing G-CSF therapy, revealed cellular marrow elements with 4% blasts (regenerating) and negative MRD (<0.01%).

Fig. 1

(A) Diagnostic blasts with a high nucleocytoplasmic ratio and scant agranular cytoplasm (Giemsa stain, ×1,000). (B) Regenerating blasts are larger with moderate granular cytoplasm (Giemsa stain, ×1,000). (C-F) Immunophenotyping showing ...

Post-G-CSF blastocytosis is a problematic and confusing issue that is difficult to differentiate from disease recurrence and hemopoietic recovery. In our case, there were regenerating blasts (>20%) in the bone marrow, with an absence of telltale G-CSF-induced changes, such as presence of immature granulocytes, monocytosis, or prominent granulations on peripheral smear. To conclude, the regenerating blast percentage may increase after G-CSF therapy to >20%, without concomitant increases in other mature myeloid precursors.

The lag time before complete response to G-CSF therapy may be as long as 10 days, as seen in our case, posing potential problems in management and a challenge in therapeutic decisions. A careful morphological assessment of the blasts at the time of diagnosis, aided by awareness of these G-CSF-associated aberrant patterns and flow cytometric characterization can help guide management decisions.


While the words we are everywhere can be frequently heard at gay and lesbian political events, The Gay and Lesbian Atlas provides the first empirical confirmation of this rallying cry. Drawing on the most recent data from the U.S. Census, this groundbreaking work offers a detailed geographic and demographic portrait of gay and lesbian families in all 50 states plus the top 25 U.S. metropolitan areas. These results, presented in more than 250 full-color maps and charts, will both confirm and challenge anecdotal information about the spatial distribution and demographic characteristics of this community. It is probably no surprise that San Francisco, Key West, and western Massachusetts all host large gay and lesbian populations, but it might surprise some that Houston, Texas, contains one of the ten gayest neighborhoods in the country, or that Alaska and New Mexico have high concentrations of gay and lesbian couples in their senior populations. The Atlas is a unique and important resource for the political and public policy communities, public health officials, social scientists, and anyone interested in gay and lesbian issues


A study was conducted to assess the potential of establishing small-scale dairy processing

schemes that would bring development and economic growth, alleviate poverty and enhance

the standards of life of the Namibian livestock rearing population. Lessons were deducted

from the Zimbabwe Smallholder Dairy Development Program (DDP). Secondary data was

collected at Nyarungu DDP head Quarters and the NPC, DVS, DEES in Namibia. A

structured questionnaire was also used to collect data to assess the potential for milk

production in Otjinene. Descriptive statistics were computed using SPSS (version 16.0).

Economic viability of small-scale processing centre in Zimbabwe and Otjinene was done

using the GMA and NPV tools. The potential for milk production in Otjinene was 12 716

l/day which was obtained from 748 households, each producing an average of 17 litres per

day. It was concluded that Otjinene has potential to produce surplus milk that would sustain a

processing centre. DDP processing centres had negative GM, indicating unvaiblity coupled to

a horde of challenges. GM and NPV for Otjinene Projected centre were positive indicating

viability and profitability. In conclusion, the smallholder dairy processing centres that are

marginally viable or unviable in Zimbabwe are feasible and profitable options in Otjinene.

The success of the Otjinene centre was attributed to the number of cattle for milk production

and the processing of different high value products that increases the revenue bases.
Nevertheless similar assessments need to be done during the late summer and the dry season
in order to estimate the potential milk supply surpluses or shortfalls in different seasons.


We examine the nonlinear interaction between the linearly polarized modes on a few-mode elliptical-core optical fiber. Three modes are involved in this process: the fundamental (LP01) mode and the two second-order symmetry modes, LP11 (even) and LP11 (odd), which have slightly different propagation constants. In practical situations the large δβ = β01 − β11(β is the propagation constant) precludes any significant coupling between the fundamental and either of the LP11 modes; however, coupling between the two LP11 symmetry modes may occur for sufficient pump intensities. Exact and approximate analytic expressions are given.