Waste oils are all mineral or synthetic oils that cannot be used for the purpose for which they were originally produced. These are: hydraulic oils, motor oils, ship oils, liquids for the transfer of heat or insulation, oily remains from reservoirs, oil-water emulsions and various oil-water mixtures. In its chemical makeup used motor oil contains hydrocarbons, organic minerals, heavy metals (cobalt, magnesium, iron, zinc), sulfur, chlorine, nitrogen, phosphorus, compounds from additives and other products that are dangerous as they have cancerous effects on health. As it is considered the biggest contaminant of the environment and classified as hazardous waste; special attention must be given in the handling of used motor oil to ensure its appropriate disposal. Setting up of a viable system for Mechanical-Physical Treatment of used motor oil makes it possible to re-use it as a secondary raw material i.e. the problem of collection, transportation, treatment and storing of the used motor oil is being solved. . The subject of this research is the advantage of the mechanical-physical treatment of used motor oil. Rerefined motor oil can be used for multiple purposes such as a base for the other synthetic oils, for heating etc. Improper disposal of used motor oil causes multiple damage; firstly, losing the valuable secondary base which, with the addition of certain additives, can be used as the basis for the other synthetic oils; secondly, causing damage to the environment by the pollution with inability to repair the damage to all environmental components.


Various methods of determining age of passerine birds, using eye color, shape of flight feathers, plumage color patterns, etc. are presented in handbooks for bird banders, such as Pyle, et al., Identification Guide to North American Passerines (1987). We compared several such methods with the standard, reliable (but time-consuming) method, "skulling", in 22 species of passerines captured and banded during Fall 1994, in a general netting operation at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Field Station. In many species these methods were in agreement; however in 10 species there was substantial disagreement, especially involving buffy covert tips in thrushes and shape of rectrices or primary remiges in warblers. Since members of these groups are caught in large numbers, it is important to reevaluate these criteria and find more reliable methods.


This paper examines the proposition that investing in common stocks is less risky the longer an investor plans to hold them. If the proposition were true, then the cost of insuring against earning less than the risk-free rate of interest should decline as the length of the investment horizon increases. The paper shows that the opposite is true even if stock returns are "mean-reverting" in the long run. The case for young people investing more heavily in stocks than old people cannot, therefore, rest solely on the long-run properties of stock returns. For guarantors of money-fixed annuities, the proposition that stocks in their portfolio are a better hedge the longer the maturity of their obligations is unambiguously wrong.


This work presents a high-resolution lake-level record of the late Holocene Dead Sea, a hypersaline terminal lake whose drainage basin encompasses both Mediterranean and hyperarid climatic zones. The lake-level curve reflects the regional hydrologic variations in the drainage basin, which in turn represent the Levant paleoclimates. The curve is based on 46 radiocarbon ages of organic remains from well- exposed sedimentary sequences along the Dead Sea shores. These sequences record fluvial and lacustrine depositional environments. The paleolakeshores are marked by shore ridges, coarse-sand units, and aragonite crusts; in the modern Dead Sea, such features indicate the exact elevation of the shore. The late Holocene Dead Sea level fluctuated within the range of 390 to 415 m below sea level (mbsl). For most of the time the lake was below the topographic sill (402 mbsl) separating the northern and southern basins of the Dead Sea and was confined to the deep northern basin. Nevertheless, short-term rises in the late Holocene Dead Sea level caused the flooding of the shallow and flat southern basin. Highstands occurred in the second and first centuries B.C. and the fourth century A.D. during the Roman and early Byzan tine periods, respectively, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries A.D. during the Crusader period, and at the end of the nineteenth century A.D. The rises mark a significant change in the annual rainfall in the region, which likely exceeded the instrumentally measured modern average. The curve also indicates drastic drops that exposed the sedimentary sequences to erosion. The oldest and probably deepest drop in the lake level culminated during the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries B.C. after a retreat from a higher lake stand. The longest lowstand occurred after the Byzantine period and continued at least until the ninth century A.D. This arid period coincided with the invasion of Moslem-Arab tribes into the area during the seventh century A.D. The dramatic fall of the Dead Sea level during the twentieth century is primarily artificial and has been caused by the diversion of runoff water for the drainage basin, but the magnitude is not considered exceptional for the late Holocene. Although the past drops in the lake never exceeded the modern artificial drop rates, they do represent extreme arid conditions that occurred frequently over the past several thousand years.


Poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) alter the function of many membrane proteins, whereas monounsatured fatty acids generally are inert. We previously showed that docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) at pH 7 decreases the bilayer stiffness, consistent with an amphiphile-induced increase in elasticity, but not with a negative change in curvature; oleic acid (OA) was inert (Bruno, Koeppe and Andersen, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 2007, 104, 9638-9643). To further explore how PUFAs and other amphiphiles may alter lipid bilayer properties, and thus membrane protein function, we examined how changes in acyl chain unsaturation and head group charge and size alter bilayer properties, as sensed by bilayer-spanning gramicidin A (gA) channels of different lengths. Compared to DHA, the neutral DHA-methyl ester has reduced effects on bilayer properties and 1-palmitoyl-2-docosahexaenoyl-phosphatidylcholine (PDPC) forms bilayers that are softer than dioleoylphosphatidylcholine (DOPC). The changes in channel function are larger for the short gA channels, indicating that changes in elasticity dominate over changes in curvature. We altered the fatty acid protonation by titration: docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is more potent at pH 9 (relative to pH 7) and is inert at pH 4; OA, which was inert at pH 7, becomes a potent modifier of bilayer properties at pH 9. At both pH 7 and 9, DHA and OA produced larger changes in the lifetimes of the short gA channels, demonstrating that they increase lipid bilayer elasticity when deprotonated--though OA promotes the formation of inverted hexagonal phases at pH 7. The positively charged oleylamine (OAm), which has a small head-group and therefore should be a negative curvature promoter, inhibited gA channel function with similar reductions in the lifetimes of the short and long gA channels, indicating a curvature-dominated effect. Monitoring the single-channel conductance, we find that the negatively charged fatty acids increase the conductance by increasing the local negative charge around the channel, whereas the positively charged OAm has no effect. These results suggest that deprotonated fatty acids increase bilayer elasticity by reversibly adsorbing at the bilayer/solution interface.


Forensically informative nucleotide sequencing (FINS) is a molecular approach to identify biological materials based on DNA sequences. It focuses on the clustering of samples with reference species through an analysis of the phylogenetic relationship among the species. The choice of loci is critical to the successful use of FINS for identification. In this study, we investigated the influence of six loci (ITS, matK, rbcL, rps16, trnH-psbA and trnL-trnF) on the application of FINS for the identification of traditional Chinese medicine as demonstrated in Baihuasheshecao, a traditional anti-tumor herb derived from Hedyotis diffusa willd. A total of 36 plant samples of Hedyotis species and eight samples of Baihuasheshecao commodities were collected from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, mainland China and the USA. Internal transcribed spacers (ITS) sequences displayed the highest rate of formation of single species cluster (89%), followed by rps16 (78%), matK (74%), trnL-trnF (72%), trnH-psbA (67%) and rbcL (61%). All the loci could discriminate H. diffusa from the common substitute species H. corymbosa, H. pinifolia and H. tenelliflora. FINS identification based on ITS, trnH-psbA and trnL-trnF revealed that five Baihuasheshecao commodities were genuine herb derived from H. diffusa, while the other three commodities were substitutes derived from H. corymbosa. MatK, rbcL and rps16 could not be amplified from all commodity samples and were thus inapplicable for FINS identification of dried the samples. In conclusion, the success of FINS identification depends on the DNA loci as they show different abilities to differentiate genuine species from substitutes, to discriminate closely related species and to generate quality sequences. In this study, the eligibility of DNA locus for FINS identification of Baihuasheshecao commodities, in descending order, is ITS > trnL-trnF > trnH-psbA > rps16 > matK > rbcL.


To the Editor,

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a malignant disease of terminally differentiated B cells presenting with bone lesions, renal failure, infections, anemia, hypercalcemia, and hyperviscosity syndrome. The malignant plasma cells are usually confined to the bone marrow in MM. Extramedullary plasmacytoma (EMP) accounts for 4% of all plasma cell malignancies. EMP mainly occurs in the respiratory tract (82.2%), with gastrointestinal (GI) tract involvement in less than 5% of all EMP cases. The small bowel is the most common site of GI involvement, followed by the stomach, colon, and esophagus [1]. Here, we report a 69-year-old patient, admitted to hospital with hematemesis and melena, and finally diagnosed with massive upper GI bleeding caused by gastric plasmacytoma.

A 69-year-old male presented at the Emergency Unit with hematemesis and melena. He was known to have a history of MM and had previously been treated with vincristine, doxorubicin, and dexamethasone therapy with a very good partial response. The patient underwent emergent esophagogastroduodenoscopy. There was fresh blood in the lumen, oozing from an ulcerated, multilobulated mass 3 × 3 cm in diameter occupying the greater curvature of the proximal corpus (Forrest 1B). In addition, there were many separated polypoid, ulcerated masses about 1 cm in diameter in the body of the stomach (Fig. 1). The bleeding was successfully ablated with adrenaline injection and heater probe cautery. The patient was treated with intravenous fluids, proton pump inhibitors, erythrocytes, and fresh frozen plasma suspensions in the intensive care unit. A repeat endoscopy was performed 48 hours later, which revealed the previously identified gastric masses without evidence of bleeding. Biopsies were obtained from the lesions. The pathology specimens showed diffuse atypical plasma cell infiltration with prominent staining for CD38 and lambda immunostains leading to a pathological diagnosis of plasmacytoma (Figs. 2 and and33).

Figure 1

Endoscopic view of the gastric plasmacytomas.

Figure 2

Gastric mucosa with diffuse atypical plasma cell infiltration (H&E, ×40).

Figure 3

Immunostained section shows diffuse and strong reactivity for CD38 (×200).

Extramedullary involvement, particularly involvement of the GI tract, is rare in MM. Most patients with gastric plasmacytomas are elderly and often present with nonspecific GI symptoms, including anorexia, weight loss, abdominal pain, vomiting, and rarely GI bleeding, usually from an ulcerated lesion. Intestinal obstruction or malabsorption may be the presenting symptom in patients with colonic or small bowel involvement [2]. On endoscopy, gastric plasmacytomas present as nodular ulcerated masses and occasionally irregular thickened gastric folds that can mimic gastrointestinal stromal tumor, lymphoma, or carcinoma [3]. The diagnosis is based on morphology and immunohistochemical demonstration of monoclonal kappa and lambda light chains or heavy chains found in plasma cells [4]. Although the treatment of EMP has not been standardized, managing mass-related local complications such as bleeding or bowel obstruction is critical in these patients. Surgery and irradiation with or without chemotherapy might be other treatment options [5]. Once GI involvement is present, the prognosis is very poor despite aggressive therapy. Consequently, although very rare, gastric plasmacytoma should be kept in mind in a patient with GI bleeding and atypical endoscopic lesions, especially those with a history of hematologic malignancy.


The current research focus on "big data" problems highlights the scale and complexity of analytics required and the high rate at which data may be changing. In this paper, we present our high performance, scalable and portable software, Spatio-Temporal Interaction Networks and Graphs Extensible Representation (STINGER), that includes a graph data structure that enables these applications. Key attributes of STINGER are fast insertions, deletions, and updates on semantic graphs with skewed degree distributions. We demonstrate a process of algorithmic and architectural optimizations that enable high performance on the Cray XMT family and Intel multicore servers. Our implementation of STINGER on the Cray XMT processes over 3 million updates per second on a scale-free graph with 537 million edges.


This "illuminated" video essay works through the juxtaposition of textual and audiovisual material to interrogate the cultural and philosophical whiteness of bodies and institutions. It demonstrates a reciprocal and circular relationship between textuality and audiovisuality insofar as the documented practice responds to a textual object — a physical copy of Giorgio Agamben's book The Open: Man and Animal — while another layer of critical poetic text interrupts, critiques, analyzes, and illuminates the video. Agamben's treatment of Heidegger is taken as a reference point to deconstruct the racialized human/animal binary, while the productively ambiguous perspective on whiteness found in contemporary Black studies and critical race theory is invoked as a possible alternative. At the same time, the tactile and sensory qualities of the documented practice — hovering between song and speech, gesture and action — emphasize the embodied, material, and affective dimensions of both whiteness and our attempts to escape it. The video asks: Can the white body be decolonized without killing it? Its multimedial form implies that answers to such a question can only be found through forms of thought that displace the tyranny of writing, or logocentrism, as is also suggested by Fred Moten in the video's closing epigraph.


Achalasia is a primary esophageal motor disorder of unknown etiology producing complaints of dysphagia, regurgitation, and chest pain. The current treatments for achalasia involve the reduction of lower esophageal sphincter (LES) pressure resulting in improved esophageal emptying. Calcium channel blockers and nitrates, once used as initial treatment strategy for early achalasia, are now only used in patients who are not candidates for pneumatic dilation or surgery and those not responding to botulinum toxin injections. By virtue of the more rigid balloons, the current pneumatic dilators are more effective and have better efficacy than the older more compliant balloons. The graded approach to pneumatic dilation using the Rigiflex balloons (3.0, 3.5, and 4.0 cm) are now the most commonly used nonsurgical means of treating patients with achalasia, resulting in symptom improvement in up to 90% of patients. Surgical myotomy, once with high morbidity and long hospital stay, can now be performed laparoscopically with similar efficacy to the open surgical approach (94% vs. 84%, respectively), reduced morbidity, and hospitalization time. Given the advances in both balloon dilation and laparoscopic myotomy, most patients with achalasia can now choose between these two equally efficacious treatment options. Botulinum toxin injection of the LES should be reserved for patients who cannot undergo balloon dilation and are not surgical candidates.


In a distributed system such as a Data Grid, it is desirable to maintain and query dynamic and timely information about active participants such as services, resources and user communities. This enables information discovery and collective collaborative functionality that operate on the system as a whole, rather than on a given part of it. However, it is not obvious how a database (registry) should maintain information populated from a large variety of unreliable, frequently changing, autonomous and heterogeneous remote data sources. In particular, how can one avoid sacrificing reliability, predictability and simplicity while allowing to express powerful queries over time-sensitive dynamic information? We propose the so-called hyper registry, which has a number of key properties. An XML data model allows for structured and semi-structured data, which is important for integration of heterogeneous content. The XQuery language allows for powerful searching, which is critical for non-trivial applications. Database state maintenance is based on soft state, which enables reliable, predictable and simple content integration from a large number of autonomous distributed content providers. Content link, content cache and a hybrid pull/push communication model allow for a wide range of dynamic content freshness policies, which may be driven by all three system components: content provider, hyper registry and client.


One of the most important issues which medical science has been facing is wound healing for the tissue repair with the least complications. In this study, we aimed to isolate, purify and quantitate tannins and phenolic compounds from exocarp and pulp of fruits of Iranian pomegranate cultivars. Our findings demonstrate that the highest amount of tannin extracts from ethanol extract of the black peel exocarp was 201.76 ± 1.93. The highest amount of flavonoids from the ethanol extract of Sweet Alac exocarp was119.69 ± 1.02 as well as antioxidant compounds activity in the exocarp and pulp showed that the highest activity is in the ethanol extract of the black peel was 95.65 ± 3.1. The total phenolic activity indicated that the Sour white peel ethanol extract has the highest phenolic activity 327.05 ± 863. Our data suggest that the ethanol extract of pomegranate exocarp has the higher amounts of tannins and flavonoids, compounds that are known to be beneficial for wound healing. Taken together, these data suggest that compounds isolated from Iranian pomegranate cultivars offer new options for managements of wound healing.


The cyclosporins comprise a family of cyclic 11-peptides containing seven N-methylated, hydrophobic amino acids. Cyclosporine A (CsA) representing the major member of this family is widely used as immunosuppressive agent in organ transplantations. The biological activity resides in the cells of lymphocytes T forming in a first step a binary complex with cyclophilin A (CyPA), which transforms to a ternary complex in binding to a second receptor molecule, i.e calcineurin (CN). The formation of a ternary complex results in an inhibition of a dephosphorylation step of transcription factor NFAT, preventing the translocation of NFAT needed for T-cell activation. More recently it was found that CyPA acts in addition as ligand for polyprotein gag pr55 liberated by the capsid of the virus HIV, stimulating the production of the virus. In complexing to CsA, this step is prevented, blocking the bio-synthetic pathway for the HIV reproduction. In previous research work of the Mutter group, CsA has been transformed by chemical synthesis to non-immunosuppressive, anti-viral analogues as potential drugs against AIDS. Based on these studies, the present PhD thesis aims to overcome some major limitations in the application and further exploration of structure-activity-relationship (SAR) studies of pharmaceutically interesting CsA analogues. The low bioavaibility of CsA results from its hydrophobic character combined with low water solubility. For overcoming this problem, the first part of the present thesis elaborates novel types of prodrug systems based on the recently developed concept of "switch-peptides" (M.Mutter et al., Angew.Chem., 2004). To this end, CsA is transformed to O-isoacyl-CsA derivatives featuring a selectively cleavable amino-protecting group Y (figure 1), resulting in a stable, highly soluble prodrug devoid of any biological activity (Soff state). The transformation into the active compound (Son state) can be triggered at physiological conditions by the photolytic or enzymatic cleavage of Y, followed by spontaneous O to N acyl migration. By the introduction of linkers in the enzymatically cleavable system, the transformation of the prodrug into the native compound can be modulated over a broad time interval, i.e between minutes and several hours. Interestingly, the use of photocleavable groups results in completely stable prodrug systems (Soff state), whereas the structurally more demanding enzymatically cleavable systems show strongly increased water solubility, but reduced thermodynamic stability. Figure 1: CsA as prodrug applying the concept of "switch-peptides" The elaborated systems can be transferred to analogues of CsA containing Ser, Thr or Cys residues at specific positions. As a most promising candidate for exploring antiviral, non-immunosuppressive properties, we focus in the second part of the thesis on the synthesis of functional CsA analogues at position 8 by N-alkylation reactions. Previous studies by O.Turpin (PhD thesis 2004, EPFL) have shown, that the differential reactivity of the non N-methylated sites in CsA allows for a selective introduction of functional groups. Scheme 1: Strategy for the synthesis of linear precursor molecules of (Axx8)-CsA By applying optimized methodologies as outlined in Scheme 1, i.e selective N-alkylation at position 8 (step 1), rearrangement reaction (2), ring opening step and Edman degradation (3), we succeeded in overall yields of the linear decapeptide up to 25 % as versatile precursor molecule. Most notably, key step 1 proceeded in high yields, allowing for direct chemical derivatisations within the CN-binding site. In conclusion, the elaboration of synthetic pathways to novel prodrug systems ("switch-peptides") in combination with a selective access to CsA analogues modified at the calcineurin-binding site offers new perspectives in the design of cyclophilin inhibitors of high therapeutical relevance.


The fourth edition of Atlas of the Human Brain presents the anatomy of the brain at macroscopic and microscopic levels, featuring different aspects of brain morphology and topography. This greatly enlarged new edition provides the most detailed and accurate delineations of brain structure available. It includes features which assist in the new fields of neuroscience ? functional imaging, resting state imaging and tractography. Atlas of the Human Brain is an essential guide to those working with human brain imaging or attempting to relate their observations on experimental animals to humans. Totally new in this edition is the inclusion of Nissl plates with delineation of cortical areas (Brodmann's areas), the first time that these areas have been presented in serial histological sections.The contents of the Atlas of the brain in MNI stereotaxic space has been extensively expanded from 143 pages, showing 69 levels through the hemisphere, to 314 pages representing 99 levels.In addition to the fiber-stained (myelin) plates, we now provide fifty new (Nissl) plates covering cytoarchitecture. These are interdigitated within the existing myelin plates of the stereotaxic atlas.All photographic plates now represent the complete hemisphere. All photographs of the cell- and fiber-stained sections have been transformed to fit the MNI-space.Major fiber tracts are identified in the fiber-stained sections.In the Nissl plates cortical delineations (Brodmann's areas) are provided for the first time.The number of diagrams increased to 99. They were now generated from the 3D reconstruction of the hemisphere registered to the MNI- stereotaxic space. They can be used for immediate comparison between our atlas and experimental and clinical imaging results.Parts of cortical areas are displayed at high magnification on the facing page of full page Nissl sections. Images selected highlight those areas which are thought to correspond with those published by von Economo and Koskinas (1925). A novel way of depicting cortical areal pattern is used: The cortical cytoarchitectonic ribbon is unfolded and presented linearly. This linear representation of the cortex enables the comparison of different interpretations of cortecal areas and allows mapping of activation sites. Low magnification diagrams in the horizontal (axial) and sagittal planes are included, calculated from the 3D model of the atlas brain.


Aeronomy is, by definition, a multidisciplinary science which can be used to study the terrestrial atmosphere, as well as any planetary atmosphere and even the interplanetary space. It was officially recognized in 1954 by the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics. The major objective of the present paper is to show how aeronomy developed since its infancy. The subject is so large that a guideline has been chosen to see how aeronomy affects our atmospheric knowledge. This guideline is the solar Lyman alpha radiation which has different effects in the solar system. After a short description of the origins of aeronomy the first observations of this line are summarized since the beginning of the space age. Then the consequences of these observations are analyzed for the physics and chemistry of the neutral terrestrial atmosphere. New chemical processes had to be introduced, as well as new transport phenomena. Solar Lyman alpha also influences the structure of the Earth's ionosphere, particularly the D-region. In the terrestrial exosphere, solar Lyman alpha scattered resonantly by atomic hydrogen is at present the only way to estimate this constituent in an almost collisionless medium. Since planetary atmospheres also contain atomic hydrogen, the Lyman alpha line has been used to deduce the abundance of this constituent. The same is true for the interplanetary space where Lyman alpha observations can be a good tool to determine the concentration. The last section of the paper presents a question which is intended to stimulate further research in aeronomy.


Traditional data repositories introduced for the needs of business

processing, typically focus on the storage and querying of crisp

domains of data. As a result, current commercial data repositories

have no facilities for either storing or querying imprecise/

approximate data.

No significant attempt has been made for a generic and applicationindependent

representation of value imprecision mainly as a

property of axes of analysis and also as part of dynamic

environment, where potential users may wish to define their "own"

axes of analysis for querying either precise or imprecise facts. In

such cases, measured values and facts are characterised by

descriptive values drawn from a number of dimensions, whereas

values of a dimension are organised as hierarchical levels.

A solution named H-IFS is presented that allows the representation

of flexible hierarchies as part of the dimension structures. An

extended multidimensional model named IF-Cube is put forward,

which allows the representation of imprecision in facts and

dimensions and answering of queries based on imprecise

hierarchical preferences. Based on the H-IFS and IF-Cube

concepts, a post relational OLAP environment is delivered, the

implementation of which is DBMS independent and its performance

solely dependent on the underlying DBMS engine.


On 18 September, the people of Scotland will vote on whether their nation should separate from the United Kingdom and become independent. With the margin of victory now expected to be razor-thin, the debate among researchers is growing more strident over whether independence will ring in a golden era for Scottish science—or cripple it for years to come. Researchers opposed to independence say a split will harm science, depriving it of funds and talent. "Yes" campaigners counter that the Scottish government has vowed to protect science during the transition and to maintain funding at least at current levels. A strong science record is at stake.


Scholars and reformers have in recent years begun to imagine new and different configurations for how the state can design policing institutions. These conversations have increased in volume and urgency in response to the 2020 national uprising against police violence, when radical demands born within social movements have gained steam—demands to defund the police, to institute "people's budgets," and to give communities control over the state provision of security. In recent years, within this time of foment and possibility, social movements have been proposing, creating, and sometimes establishing new governance arrangements that shift power over policing to those who have been most harmed by mass criminalization and mass incarceration. These recent pushes by social movements for power-shifting surface a fundamental set of questions about the very purpose of police reform, adding a new way for scholars and reformers to think about the contours and objectives of the state's provision of safety and security—what this Article terms the power lens.

This Article examines the movement focus on power-shifting in the governance of the police at both the local and national levels. It fleshes out a three-part theoretical account of why the power lens is an important and necessary addition to how scholars and reformers view the regulation of policing. First, shifting power to policed populations is reparative, in the sense that it shifts power downward toward populations who have been denied political power directly as a result of the history of policing policies and practices in their neighborhoods. Second, power-shifting is a means of promoting anti-subordination, based on the idea that it is wrong for the state to engage in practices that enforce the inferior social status of historically oppressed groups. Third, a power lens on police reform promotes a particular view of contestatory democracy, one in which democratic policing has as one of its objectives the facilitation of countervailing power for those subject to the domination of the state. Taken together, the power lens brings a critical eye to the ways in which the construction of the notion of "expertise" often denies agency to the people who most often interact with police in the streets and on the roads. More broadly, the power lens opens up discussions of reform to first-order questions about how the state should go about providing safety and security in our time, with or without the police as we know it.


We often learn of successful pedagogical experiments, but we seldom hear of the the ones that failed. For this special session we solicited submissions from the SIGCSE membership, selected the best from among these, and will have presentations at the session by the selected authors. Our contributions describe pedagogical approaches that seemed to be good ideas but turned out as failures. Contributors will describe their pedagogical experiment, the rationale for the experiment, evidence of failure, and lessons learned.


A circular economy involves maintaining manufactured products in circulation, distributing resource and environmental costs over time and with repeated use. In a linear supply chain, manufactured products are used once and discarded. In high-income nations, health care systems increasingly rely on linear supply chains composed of single-use disposable medical devices. This has resulted in increased health care expenditures and health care-generated waste and pollution, with associated public health damage. It has also caused the supply chain to be vulnerable to disruption and demand fluctuations. Transformation of the medical device industry to a more circular economy would advance the goal of providing increasingly complex care in a low-emissions future. Barriers to circularity include perceptions regarding infection prevention, behaviors of device consumers and manufacturers, and regulatory structures that encourage the proliferation of disposable medical devices. Complementary policy- and market-driven solutions are needed to encourage systemic transformation.


Resident health record is an essential information source for the management and delivery of aged care services. Paper-based record is beset by many defences, such as illegibility, missing data, double data entry and difficulty in information retrieving. Electronic health records (EHRs) have been introduced into residential aged care facilities (RACFs) to improve record management. However, to date, the actual impacts of EHRs in RACFs have not been systematically studied. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify the impacts of EHR systems in RACFs and their causes, and to examine how to overcome the challenges for the implementation of EHR systems. A qualitative, interpretative research was undertaken. The empirical data was collected from semi-structured interviews of 110 care staff members working in nine RACFs belonging to three organisations. The audio records were transcribed in Microsoft Word. Content analysis was conducted using Microsoft Excel. The updated DeLone and McLean Information Systems Success Model was used as the theoretical framework for data analysis. The study has identified three categories of impacts, both positive and negative: the impacts on individual care staff members, on residents and on the RACFs. The top 10 frequently mentioned benefits are: quick data retrieval, ease and speed of data input, ease of access, improved format and content of records, enhanced communication with external health care providers, more information about the residents, motivation of staff to enter data, better communication among staff and improved performance appraisal by management. The most obvious negative impact was negative staff attitudes toward documenting resident records in the EHR systems. The factors leading to these impacts were also examined. The benefits were realised because of the nature of the aged care EHR systems in comparison with paper-based records, the way the systems were used by the staff and the fact that one benefit could lead to another. The negative impacts were caused by the quality of the EHR system, an inadequate approach to the implementation of the system – including lack of training and support – and technical problems with third party products. Strategies for the introduction of the system that might overcome the challenges of implementation were classified in three categories: hardware allocation, useful additional functions, user interface redesign and training and support. Although the negative impacts discouraged the care staff members from using the system, the overall benefits led to a smooth organisational transition to electronic documentation practice.


Saturn formed beyond the snow line in the primordial solar nebula that made it possible for it to accrete a large mass. Disk instability and core accretion models have been proposed for Saturn's formation, but core accretion is favored on the basis of its volatile abundances, internal structure, hydrodynamic models, chemical characteristics of protoplanetary disk, etc. The observed frequency, properties and models of exoplanets provide additional supporting evidence for core accretion. The heavy elements with mass greater than 4He make up the core of Saturn, but are presently poorly constrained, except for carbon. The C/H ratio is super-solar, and twice that in Jupiter. The enrichment of carbon and other heavy elements in Saturn and Jupiter requires special delivery mechanisms for volatiles to these planets. In this chapter we will review our current understanding of the origin and evolution of Saturn and its atmosphere, using a multi-faceted approach that combines diverse sets of observations on volatile composition and abundances, relevant properties of the moons and rings, comparison with the other gas giant planet, Jupiter, analogies to the extrasolar giant planets, as well as pertinent theoretical models.


The recent concerns regarding biodiversity loss have resulted in the emergence of new conservation management strategies, one of which is rewilding. Rewilding aims to restore ecosystem functionality with minimum human input. While rewilding does have potential to benefit both habitats and species, like most traditional conservation methods, it has many limitations. However, rewilding does present a unique opportunity to reshape abandoned landscapes and investigate how this impacts organisms and the interactions they have with their environment. A group of organisms not typically associated with rewilding are pollinators. The current decline in pollinator populations is strongly linked to habitat loss and fragmentation, and rewilding has the potential to improve pollinator abundance and diversity. This study aimed to assess the impacts a rewilding project has on pollinator populations at a local scale. Pan traps were set up in fields at Knepp Rewilding Estate and all pollinators captured were identified to species level. Transect walks were also conducted in individual fields to gather more information on pollinator numbers and diversity, and to observe pollinator behaviour. The results of this study suggest that year since agricultural abandonment has no significant effect on pollinators. However, the vegetation structure within fields does impact the pollinator groups recorded in this study. Overall, pollinators preferred areas of greater vegetation height deviation, and this trend was amplified when individual groups were analysed separately. Bumblebees and hoverflies preferred taller vegetation, whereas butterflies and moths were more frequently observed in open habitat. A major factor contributing to the distribution of pollinators was limited forage choice, although other factors not measured could also play a role. The results of this study, though broad, demonstrate the need for rewilding projects to maintain an element of habitat heterogeneity. Further research into this topic is necessary to provide a more extensive insight into how pollinators utilise different resources and how this influences their distribution. However, this study has shown that pollinators can benefit from rewilding, which has implications for both rewilding projects and future pollinator conservation.


Aging of binders in pavements is much less understood than laboratory aging of neat binders because of a number of complications. Complications include suitable extraction and recovery methods; uncontrolled variables and unknowns such as mixture characteristics (e.g., air voids), maintenance treatments, traffic, and climate; sustaining of a research effort to study a given pavement during an appropriate time frame (in excess of one decade); and cost. An ongoing research effort sponsored by the Texas Department of Transportation studied binder oxidative hardening at 15 pavements across Texas. Results indicate that typically unmodified binders in pavements oxidize and harden to a degree that exceeds generally accepted pavement aging assumptions. In addition, this hardening may extend much deeper into the pavement than has been previously assumed or documented. Data suggest that pavements can oxidize at surprisingly uniform rates with depth once early oxidation occurs and that these rates continue for an extended time. As a rough measure, 1 month environmental room aging of 1-mm neat binder films at 60°C was equivalent to about 15 months in Texas Highway 21 after the early higher hardening rate period.


Early identification of higher risk patients presenting with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) will allow a more aggressive strategy and approach. The aim of this study was to evaluate the shock index (ratio of heart rate/systolic blood pressure on admission) as a predictor of mortality post PPCI in addition to other parameters. Methods We analysed prospectively collected data on 3049 STEMI patients treated with PPCI in a large tertiary centre between March 2008 and December 2011, out of which 2424 patients were up to the age of 75 (young) and 625 patients older than 75 (elderly). Results Compared to younger patients, in-hospital mortality rates were 4-fold higher in the elderly (11.5% vs. 2.8%, OR 3.5, 95% CI 2.0–5.9). Cardiogenic shock (OR 8.7 [5.1–14.6]), non-TIMI3 flow post PCI (OR 5.0 [3.1–7.9]), age over 75 (OR 3.5 [2.3–5.3]) and a positive shock index pre PPCI (OR 3.5 [2.0–5.9]) were the strongest independent predictors of in-hospital mortality. For long-term outcome (median follow-up period 454 days) we excluded 141 (4.6%) patients that died during the initial hospital stay. Previous angina (Hazard ratio 2.9), and previous cerebrovascular events (HR 3.7) were predictors of adverse outcome in the younger patients, while previous myocardial infarction (HR 2.0) and a positive shock index (HR 2.3) were predictors in the elderly. Cardiogenic shock prior to PPCI was not able to predict long-term outcome for in-hospital survivors. Conclusion Mortality rates following PPCI were higher in elderly patients although remained acceptable. Invasively measured shock index before PPCI is the strongest independent predictor of long-term outcome in elderly patients. In addition, predictors of in-hospital mortality were similar across different age groups but differed significantly in relation to longer-term mortality.


Like many of the English-speaking market democracies, Australia and, perhaps to a lesser extent the US, like to think of themselves as merit-based societies in which everyone has a "fair go". This idea led to the creation of school systems that guaranteed all children, no matter their origins, access to a publicly funded education. By creating educational and economic opportunity, this arguably helped the emergence of strong middle classes in each country.

But the current reality is of education systems that are socially stratified and full of inequalities. There is much evidence to suggest that our schools, rather than promoting equity, are effectively serving as engines of inequality. This is true of schools in other countries that have embraced choice and competition to organise education.

Social stratification in the Australian education system is sharper than in most countries. Students from wealthy, privileged backgrounds tend to go to high-fee, independent high schools. Kids from low-income, disadvantaged backgrounds tend to go to government high schools.


The past several years have witnessed a burst of scholarship at the intersection of national security and administrative law. Many supporters of this approach endorse a heightened, "super-strong" brand of Chevron deference to presidential decisionmaking during times of emergency. Believing that the Executive's comparative advantage in expertise, access to information, and accountability warrant minimal judicial scrutiny, these Chevron-backers advance an Executive-centric view of national security powers. Other scholars, by contrast, dispute Chevron's relevance to national security. These Chevron-detractors argue for an interventionist judiciary in national security matters. Both camps criticize the Supreme Court's scaling of deference to the Executive after 9/11: Chevron-backers argue that the Court failed to accord sufficient deference to the President, while Chevron-detractors argue that the Court failed to clarify the scope of individual liberties. However, neither side appreciates the role that Justice Jackson's seminal Youngstown concurrence has played in the Court's resolution of recent national security cases. Youngstown makes congressional legislation – not Executive power or individual rights – the central judicial concern in cases pitting individual liberty against Executive power. The post-9/11 Supreme Court, following Justice Jackson, has used judicial review to catalyze congressional action by remanding to Congress policy questions lacking joint political branch support. This dual-branch theory of governance preserves a critical rule-of-law basis for judicial review of national security decisionmaking that Chevron's backers and its detractors overlook.


The northernmost parts of the Nordic countries are extremely peripheral in a European context. The lack of accessibility very often coincides with problems of population loss through out-migration. The question for the Nordic countries is how best to develop policies that can stimulate economic activities in these regions despite their geographical handicaps.


Background: Performance of additional tasks disturbs postural control in elderly. It is unknown, however, how postural control is affected in elderly fallers and non-fallers in a reduced sensory situation. Objective: To compare differences between single and dual tasking in three test conditions; (1) no-vision, (2) under reduced somatosensory information and (3) with a combination of both conditions. Design: An observational cohort study with participants assigned to a 12-month pretest fall assessment and a postural balance assessment. Methods: Fifteen independently living elderly participated (77.5 ± 7.0 [63-87] years). Falls were pre-assessed with a 1year monthy "fall calendar". Postural control was analyzed by means of a force platform. Participants were standing quiet (first task) while counting backwards (second task). A 2-factor (group x condition) ANOVA was performed at p<.05. Differences of postural (DTCp) and cognitive dual task costs (DTCc) between test conditions were analyzed (one-way ANOVA). Results: The analysis showed significant group (fallers/non-fallers) and condition effects. Post hoc analyses indicated that the postural control variables were significantly different during the concurrent reduced vision and somatosensory information. Dual task costs showed a significant difference between normal (N) and the combined condition (NV+RP) in non-fallers. Conclusion: The combination of reduced visual and somatosensory information causes a larger disturbance of postural stability compared with the reduction of visual or somatosensory information alone. Non-fallers seem to have no threats to the postural control stability in this combined reduced sensory situation. They reduce their postural control, which leaves them enough resources to compensate for the reduced sensory information. The Open Rehabilitation Journal, 2010, 3, 169-176 169 1874-9437/1


Young Alexis de Tocqueville arrived in the United States for the first time in May 1831, commissioned by the French government to study the American prison system. For the next nine months he and his companion, Gustave de Beaumont, travelled and observed not only prisons but also the political, economic and social systems of the early republic. Along the way, they frequently reported back to friends and family members in France. This book presents the first translation of the complete letters Tocqueville wrote during that seminal journey, accompanied by excerpts from Beaumont's correspondence that provide details or different perspectives on the places, people, and American life and attitudes the travellers encountered. These delightful letters provide an intimate portrait of the complicated, talented Tocqueville, who opened himself without prejudice to the world of Jacksonian America. Moreover, they contain many of the impressions and ideas that served as preliminary sketches for Democracy in America, his classic account of the American democratic system that remains an important reference work to this day. Accessible, witty and charming, the letters Tocqueville penned while in America are of major interest to general readers, scholars, and students alike.


Antibodies are produced by B cells in response to foreign substances (antigens) such as bacteria and viruses. The development of the antibody response is dependent on the nature of the antigen, the subset of B cells activated and whether the immune system has previously encountered the antigen.

Keywords:

antibody response;
B-cell response;
antigen recognition;
affinity maturation;
clonality;
class switching


Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) legislation for fish and shellfish was passed as part of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002. Farm-raised and wild-caught seafood items caught after December 4, 2004, began COOL in April 4, 2005. COOL requires retailers to display the country of origin on seafood. Using a nonlinear AIDS model the demand for 3 salmon products was estimate--precooked, uncooked fresh, and uncooked frozen. COOL had no significant impact on consumer demand for the three products. The 3 salmon products were all found to be inelastic, but uncooked fresh was found to be more price sensitive than precooked and uncooked frozen salmon.


"Behavioral Law and Economics" (BLE) is a specialized component of the legal literature that purports to base its conclusions on a branch of economic analysis known as behavioral economics. The central claim of BLE is that by applying findings of behavioral economics to the real world it can provide more accurate assumptions about individual behavior and decision making than neoclassical economics and thus better and more effective policy prescriptions where needed. To date, however, BLE's claims have been almost entirely a priori, taking certain suggested biases identified in the laboratory experiments by behavioral economists and claiming that they extend significantly to actual consumer behavior and the need for regulation. Yet it is well accepted that the proper test of the scientific validity of an economic theory is the accuracy of its predictions relative to empirically testable hypotheses, not a priori reasoning or hypothetical extensions. This paper focuses on an area where BLE has been particularly active and even influential—the analysis of consumer use of credit cards. Comparison of the claims of BLE against hypotheses of the traditional neoclassical model of consumer credit use developed over the past century finds that available empirical evidence uniformly rejects BLE's hypotheses for consumer credit. In short, while behavioral considerations are an important component of economic analysis, its BLE extension to policy in the consumer credit area has not yet proven to be useful.


Recently, in IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, Fan et al. proposed a lightweight RFID protocol which has been suggested to be employed for protecting the Medical Privacy in an IoT system. However, the protocol has trivial flaws, as it is shown recently by Aghili et al., in Future Generation Computer Systems. Aghili et al. also proposed an improved version of the protocol, based on the similar designing paradigm, called SecLAP. Although the protocol's designers claimed full security against all attacks, we show that the proposed protocol has serious security flaws, by presenting traceability and passive secret disclosure attacks against this protocol. More precisely, we present passive partial secret disclosure attack with the complexity of eavesdropping one session of the protocol and success probability of '1'. The disclosed parameters can be used to trace the tag/reader in any later session which compromises the tag/reader privacy. In addition, we present a passive full secret disclosure attack against SecLAP which can disclose 2n-bit secret key, n-bit TID and n-bit RID with the computational complexity of 27n. In addition, we show that, as it is expected, Fan et al.'s protocol has security flaws in random oracle model, where the adversary's advantage after q queries to distinguish the protocol from a random oracle is 1− 2−q. We also evaluate the security of SecLAP in the random oracle model and show that it is as insecure as its predecessor.


OBJECTIVES:It is not known whether patients with symptoms of dysphagia but normal upper endoscopy benefit from empiric esophageal dilation. The aim of this prospective study was to determine whether patients with solid food dysphagia and normal upper endoscopy have symptomatic benefit from empiric dilation using a through-the-scope balloon.METHODS:Patients who were seen for complaints of solid food dysphagia and who had normal endoscopic examinations at our institution from 1998 through 1999 were identified. Those patients who had agreed before sedation to participate in the study, if eligible, were randomized to either sham or balloon dilation using an 18-mm through-the-scope balloon at the time of esophagogastroduodenoscopy. All potentially eligible patients who had given provisional consent completed a dysphagia questionnaire and a 10-cm visual analog dysphagia scale before endoscopy. Follow-up questionnaires were completed on day 1 and at 3 months and 6 months after the procedure. The primary endpoint of the study was the patient's self-assessment of difficulty swallowing, based on the questionnaires.RESULTS:A total of 83 patients met the study criteria and were randomized to balloon dilation (n = 43) or sham (n = 40). The two groups were comparable in age, sex, severity of baseline dysphagia, and use of antireflux medication. Improvement in dysphagia comparing sham to balloon on day 1 was 66% versus 67% (p = 0.99); at 3 months it was 82% versus 76% (p = 0.56); and at 6 months it was 84% versus 73% (p = 0.38). There were no reported complications in either group.CONCLUSION:The data from this prospective randomized, controlled study do not support the practice of empiric dilation in patients with symptoms of dysphagia without an endoscopically evident cause of dysphagia.


Introduction. Congenital atrioventricular block (BAVC) in the absence of other malformations or structural cardiac abnormalities is most often due to the transplacental transfer of maternal autoimmune antibodies anti-RO (SSA) or anti-LA (SSB) found in the serum of mothers with systemic lupus erytematosus or Sjogren sindrom. Only in 1-2% of cases, autoantibodies can affect fetal myocardial tissue, causing inflammation, subsequently fibrosis, ultimately leading to blocking in the atrioventricular node. The damage of the leading tissue can produce grade I, II or III (complete) atrioventricular block and can start in utero, at birth, or in the early neonatal period. While grade I and II atrioventricular block are reversible, BAV III (atrioventricular block) is always irreversible and its treatment consists in permanent pacing. Newborn babies may develop dilated cardiomyopathy. Case presentation. We present a case of neonatal bradyarrythmya, with onset in the first 48 hours of life, appearing in a newborn male, at term, without structural cardiac abnormalities, rhythm disorder detected on EKG by BAV grade II Mobitz I (Luciani-Weckebach period) and Mobitz II. We searched for and found anti-lupus antibodies in the serum of the mother, without having been presented at birth, or with a history of autoimmune disease. The particularity of the case consisted in the association of rhythm disorder with signs of superior digestive haemorrhage, and after that, ulceronecrotic enterocolitis. Besides the treatment of bradyarrhythmia with atropine, the administration of nonspecific human immunoglobulins has proven efficient in this case, leading to gradual disparagement of BAVC in a few days of treatment, the newborn being healthy at twelve days of life. Conclusion. The early diagnosis and prompt management were important in this case for a good prognosis and for preventing the complications.


This study evaluates the use of fresh water diatoms, from lacustrine sediments, to infer past changes in climate. The main aim of the thesis is to reconstruct changes in climate over the past 500 years, including the Little Ice Age event, using lake sediments from Central Southern Norway. The relationship between surficial high altitude lake sediment diatom species and measured environmental variables is explored in 80 lakes from Central Southern Norway and North West Scotland through the creation of a 'surface sample training set'. 40 of these lakes have ice-cover duration data and diatom assemblages from these are examined to determine their relationship with measured environmental parameters. Multivariate statistical techniques demonstrate that ice-cover duration accounts for a statistically significant proportion of the diatom variance, and an ice-cover transfer function using weighted- averaging- tolerance- down- weighted (WA(tol)) techniques is developed. Unfortunately, large errors are incurred with the resulting model. For this reason diatom assemblages from all 80 lakes are explored in conjunction with the available environmental parameters. Canonical correspondence analysis with forward selection and Monte Carlo permutation tests reveal that three environmental variables independently explain significant proportions of the diatom variance. These variables are January temperature, TOC and pH. A January temperature transfer function is produced using weighted- averaging- partial- least- squares (WA-PLS) techniques and a pH transfer function is produced using WA(tol) methods. These quantitative inference models are used to help identify changes in climate for two high altitude Norwegian lakes (Gavalivatnet and Hornsjoen). Few changes occur in the diatom inferred pH reconstructions and few linkages are, therefore, made between pH and climate. The January temperature transfer function was applied and its performance is directly compared with measured values of century- long meteorological records. It appears to perform well at Hornsjoen and infers successfully the recent climatic warming. The reconstruction at Gavalivatnet does not reflect the extent of recent climatic warming suggesting that the method is not so robust for this site. Inferences about the changes in the Norwegian climate during the LIA are made using a combination of diatom inferred reconstructed temperatures, lithostratigraphic changes, chrysophyte cyst production and diatom species shifts. Several trends are evident within the proxy records of the lakes which can be linked with the climatic changes associated with the Little Ice Age and recent climatic warming. It is concluded, however, that although changes in the lake biota could be related to climatic fluctuations the signal is complex and multi-faceted. It is proposed that the two lakes respond individually to climatic changes, due to differing lake chemistry and bathymetry, despite being exposed to similar driving macroclimate variables.


Randomization has emerged as a useful technique for data disguising in privacy-preserving data mining. Its privacy properties have been studied in a number of papers. Kargupta et al. challenged the randomization schemes, and they pointed out that randomization might not be able to preserve privacy. However, it is still unclear what factors cause such a security breach, how they affect the privacy preserving property of the randomization, and what kinds of data have higher risk of disclosing their private contents even though they are randomized.We believe that the key factor is the correlations among attributes. We propose two data reconstruction methods that are based on data correlations. One method uses the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) technique, and the other method uses the Bayes Estimate (BE) technique. We have conducted theoretical and experimental analysis on the relationship between data correlations and the amount of private information that can be disclosed based our proposed data reconstructions schemes. Our studies have shown that when the correlations are high, the original data can be reconstructed more accurately, i.e., more private information can be disclosed.To improve privacy, we propose a modified randomization scheme, in which we let the correlation of random noises "similar" to the original data. Our results have shown that the reconstruction accuracy of both PCA-based and BE-based schemes become worse as the similarity increases.


Prostacyclin is a pulmonary vasodilator and is produced by prostacyclin synthase and stimulates adenylate cyclase (AC) via the prostacyclin receptor (IP) to produce cAMP. Forskolin is a direct stimulant of AC. Phosphodiesterase 3 hydrolyzes cAMP and is inhibited by milrinone. Objective: To characterize the prostacyclin-AC-cAMP pathway in the ovine ductal ligation model of persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn (PPHN). Setting: University-based laboratory animal facility. Subjects: Lambs delivered to time-dated pregnant ewes. Interventions: Fifth generation pulmonary arteries (PA) and lung parenchyma were isolated from control fetal lambs (n = 8) and fetal lambs with PPHN induced by antenatal ductal ligation (n = 9). We studied relaxation responses to various agonists (milrinone, forskolin, prostacyclin, and iloprost, a prostacyclin analog) that increase cAMP in PA after half-maximal constriction with norepinephrine and pretreatment with propranolol ± indomethacin. Lung protein levels of prostacyclin synthase, IP, AC2, and phosphodiesterase 3A were analyzed by Western blot and cAMP by enzyme-linked immunoassay. Main Results: Milrinone relaxed control and PPHN PA and pretreatment with indomethacin significantly impaired this response. Relaxation to milrinone, prostacyclin, and iloprost were significantly impaired in PA from PPHN lambs. Pretreatment with milrinone markedly enhanced relaxation to prostacyclin and iloprost in PPHN PA, similar to relaxation in control PA. Relaxation to forskolin was similar in control and PPHN PAs indicating normal AC activity. Protein levels of prostacyclin synthase and IP were decreased in PPHN lungs compared with control, but AC2, cAMP, and phosphodiesterase 3A remained unchanged. Conclusions: Prostacyclin and iloprost are dilators of PAs from PPHN lambs and their effect is enhanced by milrinone. This combination therapy may be an effective strategy in the management of patients with PPHN.


Soil horizon interfaces have been shown to be focal points for localized, three-dimensional redistribution of water and solutes in field soils. Therefore, understanding of the physics of water flow and transport in layered soils requires experimental observations of the magnitude and variability of local soil water flux under a variety of well-defined boundary conditions. We developed a time domain reflectometry (TDR) method to measure the spatial pattern of steady-state, local soil water flux density above and below a soil horizon interface under quasi-steady surface water application and implemented it in laboratory and field experiments. Time series of TDR-measured bulk soil electrical conductivity and TDR-measured soil volumetric water content at each location are used to quantify the solute travel time under steady-state flow conditions, which is then used to quantify steady-state, local soil water flux density. Results from laboratory and field experiments showed that the proposed methodology yielded local soil water flux density estimates that were, on average, 104% of the applied surface water flux density (i.e., mass recovery = 104%), which is consistent with transient, local soil water flux density estimates from a previous study. For the field experiments, steady-state, local soil water flux density estimates above and below an A/B horizon interface (measured across the length of a 6.75-m transect) were negatively correlated to each other. The strength of the negative correlation, however, decreased with increasing surface water application rate, suggesting that the hydrologic response of the soil horizon interface is flux-dependent. This flux-dependent correlation between A and B horizon steady-state soil water flux density is probably attributable to the spatial covariance between A and B horizon soil hydraulic properties.


In this essay, I mean to re-examine the notion of virtuosity, which has been characterized as a Romantic reaction to bourgeois rationalism that mobilizes virtuoso musical technique in the service of critiquing bourgeois understandings of art. Furthermore, most critics accuse virtuosos of providing vulgar spectacle in place of sober execution linked to questionable ethics. Pace those assessments, I mean to argue that virtuosity represents, at least in the hands of a black American guitarist such as MacAlpine, a liberatory strategy, that despite being rooted in Romantic notions of autonomous art, challenges a critical stance which views black artistry as merely expressive. I argue that MacAlpine does not simply seek the discursive legitimacy that performing classical music (or in a "classical" style) can give a heavy metal musician but, as a black American guitarist, uses the kind of virtuosity that is linked to the European concert tradition as a means for transcending the stereotypes of black musicians as intuitive talents who draw on reserves of emotional excess, rather than as thoughtful musicians whose abilities have been trained and crafted by diligent study and practice.


Abstract Background: Although noninvasive ventilation (NIV) improves survival and quality of life (QOL) in ALS, use of NIV is suboptimal. Objective: To determine compliance with "early" NIV initiation, requisite for the feasibility of a large study of early NIV initiation, and examine factors impacting compliance. Methods: Seventy-three ALS participants with forced vital capacities (FVC) >50% were enrolled. Participants with FVC over 80% (Group 1) were initiated on NIV early (FVC between 80 and 85%). Participants with FVC between 50 and 80% (Group 2) started NIV at FVC between 50 and 55%. Symptom surveys, QOL scores, and NIV compliance (machine download documenting use ≥4 hours/night >60% of time) were collected following NIV initiation. Results: 53.6% of Group 1 and 50% of Group 2 were compliant 28 days following NIV initiation, with increased compliance over time. Participants who were unmarried, had lower income, lower educational attainment, or limited caregiver availability were less likely to be compliant. Bothersome symptoms in non-compliant participants included facial air pressure, frequent arousals with difficulty returning to sleep, and claustrophobia. Both compliant and noncompliant participants felt improved QOL with NIV; improvement was significantly greater in compliant participants. Conclusions: These data suggest ALS patients can comply with NIV early in their disease, and potentially benefit as evidenced by improved QOL scores, supporting both feasibility and need for a study comparing early versus late NIV initiation. Moreover, modifiable symptoms were identified that could be optimized to improve compliance. Further studies are needed to determine the impact of "early" intervention on survival and QOL.


Industrial revolution, a consequence of the rapid economic growth, has contributed to ever increasing demand for energy and has resulted in about 40% rise in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, from 280 ppm in 1750 to 400 ppm in 2015. Abundant use of fossil fuels has become a cause of concern due to their adverse effects on the environment, particularly related to the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2), a major contributor of GHG. In this context, CO2 capture and is storage or transformation gained significance in the recent research scenario. Various matured CO2 capture technologies such as amine based capture, needs high energy input, especially in desorption process and are also not sustainable in nature. Alternatively, carbonic anhydrase (CA) proved to be more efficient in capturing CO2 at faster rate and also needs less energy input for desorption process. However, utilization of the captured CO2 is more important rather than its capture, to close the carbon cycle and recycle it. In this direction, bioelectrochemical system (BES) is presenting an exciting opportunity with a possibility of simultaneous CO2 capture and biotransformation to value-added products in a sustainable way. Both microbes and enzymes were studied as catalyst in BES, though the application of enzymes is less foreseen. Present study demonstrates the biotransformation of CO2 to ethanol using a cascade of dehydrogenases [formate dehydrogenase (FateDH), formaldehyde dehydrogenase (FaldDH) and alcohol dehydrogenase (AlcDH)] together on the electrode of BES. Further to that, carbonic anhydrase (CA) was also included in the cascade and found that the product yield increased by 15% contributing to ethanol production rate of ∼0.6 kg/m3/h along with current density of ∼2 A/m2. When the FaldDH was excluded from the cascade also, there is no reduction in productivity of ethanol. It was surprising to get ethanol instead of methanol but based on literature, it is also possible for the production of ethanol directly from formic acid, which is economically more viable.


There have been many retrospective analyses written about the marriage-equality movement since the Supreme Court's 2015 ruling that made marriages between people of the same sex legal in all 50 states. Most attribute that triumph to a stunningly swift turnaround in public comfort with and approval of same-sex relationships. However, public opinion data indicates that this narrative is inaccurate. In 2015, 51% of General Social Survey respondents declared that they found sexual relationships between people of the same sex to be "wrong" at least "some of the time." Nevertheless, at the same time, 56% of respondents affirmed that people of the same sex ought to have the legal right to marry. This dissonance suggests that the most common narrative about the success of the movement misses something crucial about how political persuasion happened in this case, as well as the way that political persuasion happens in general. In this article, I show that the massive shift in support for same-sex marriage was likely not the result of large majorities changing their underlying attitudes regarding gay sexual relationships, but was instead the result of activists inserting new criteria for evaluating same-sex marriage into popular political discourse by consistently using resonant arguments. These arguments reframed the political stakes, changed the public meaning of the marriage debate, and altered the decisional context in which people determine their policy preferences.


'All philosophy is a metaphysics of happiness…or it's not worth an hour of trouble' claims Alain Badiou in this lively intervention into one of the most persistent themes in philosophy: what is happiness? And what do I need to do to be happy? The desire to be happy is one of our most universal goals and yet there doesn't seem to be any easy answers or formulas for achieving happiness. And the concept has become so commodified and corrupted to be almost unrecognizable as something worth pursuing. In light of this, should we just give up the aspiration to be happy altogether? Alain Badiou thinks not.
 While eschewing futile procedures for magically becoming 'happy', Badiou does passionately maintain that in order to be truly happy we need philosophy. And, bolder still, that a life lived philosophically is the happiest life of all!


'Reincarnation' in reinforcement learning has been proposed as a formalisation of reusing prior computation from past experiments when training an agent in an environment. In this paper, we present a brief foray into the paradigm of reincarnation in the multi-agent (MA) context. We consider the case where only some agents are reincarnated, whereas the others are trained from scratch -- selective reincarnation. In the fully-cooperative MA setting with heterogeneous agents, we demonstrate that selective reincarnation can lead to higher returns than training fully from scratch, and faster convergence than training with full reincarnation. However, the choice of which agents to reincarnate in a heterogeneous system is vitally important to the outcome of the training -- in fact, a poor choice can lead to considerably worse results than the alternatives. We argue that a rich field of work exists here, and we hope that our effort catalyses further energy in bringing the topic of reincarnation to the multi-agent realm.


Rateless codes are a class of codes without a predefined number of encoding symbols. Fountain codes are the first such codes. Luby Transform codes, designed by Michael Luby, are examples of these codes. The accepted and efficient decoding algorithm for these dense bipartite codes is the belief propagation (BP) algorithm as opposed to Gaussian elimination algorithm. LT codes are more efficient as the number of symbols grow. However for streaming purposes, the number of source symbols needs to be constrained while at the same time the probability of success be maintained. In this paper we propose a BP decoding enhancement algorithm using redundancies in the already received encoding symbols to improve the probability of performance of LT decoding. We show that in the limit our proposal achieves up to 15% performance improvement in decoding throughput with similar channel conditions. We emulate our proposal in software and the results follow that predicted by theoretical analysis.


The general price level does not provide a sensitive indicator of whether monetary policy is tight or loose, because mostprices are sticky. Interest rates are free to move, but they are an ambiguous indicator of monetary policy: one does not know whether changes in the interest rate are due to changes in the expected inflation rate or the real interest rate.Commodity prices provide the ideal sensitive indicator.This paper has two distinct aims. First, a theoretical model of "over-shooting" in commodity markets is presented. A known change in the money supply is shown to cause an instantaneous change in commodity prices that is greater than the proportionate change that describes long-run equilibrium.Second, we take the occasion of the Fed's Friday money supply announcements to test the theory. We find that an unexpectedly large money announcement causes significant negative reactions in prices of six commodities. This supports at once the sticky-price or overshooting view, and the notion that the market has confidence in the Fed's commitment to correct any deviations from its money growth targets.


This research focuses on four main topics: Children's' Cognitive Development as it relates to age-appropriate interior design; Children's Hospital Design and healing environments; Public Spaces in Hospitals – interior architecture and interior design; Contextual Issues – specifically, the religious, ethnic and national context of Palestine. Literature indicates that research is needed in the design of healing environments for children in order to create spaces that are child-friendly and meet their cognitive development needs. There is little research available about the design of the public areas of children's hospital including the main entrance, atrium and thoroughfares. Also, most empirical research uses traditional social science methods to understand the requirements for healing environments for children (e.g. interviews, observations). Few studies use design- or arts-based approaches. Furthermore, most research has been conducted in the West, with little research from other countries, like Palestine, where few hospitals are devoted only to children. This research aimed to determine: (1) key design factors, functions, constraints and programme requirements for designing the public spaces of children's hospitals in an age-appropriate way to promote healing; (2) how context-specific issues relating to Palestine play a role in determining the key design factors. From a critical analysis of the literature, specific research questions and the development of a primary research plan were developed. The main research question is: For a new children's hospital in Palestine, how should the public areas (i.e., main entrance, atrium, and throughfares) be designed so that they are suitable for all age ranges and promote healing? In Palestine, qualitative data were collected during nine co-design and cocreation workshops that included arts-based activities and semi-structured interviews. Participants included children from 3-18 years, parents, doctors, nurses, reception and admissions staff, and four groups of designers. All participants, excluding the designers, participated in drawing and modeling activities. The use of drawings with children is an indispensable tool because their verbal expression is often not highly developed, and because preferences and ideas can be expressed more intuitively. Similarly, models can be effective tools because children can express ideas and preferences about form, materials and size through them in a way that words alone cannot describe. This study uses a thematic analysis approach to analysing the qualitative data. The results of data analysis were sorted into main themes and sub-themes. The key findings of this study are: context-specific issues (i.e. culture, gender, separation and religion issues); physical environments: interior architecture and interior design – medical spaces (e.g. emergency, outpatients, triage room and others); non-medical spaces (e.g. play areas, indoor and outdoor green areas, entertainment activities, spaces for eating, reception, waiting areas and admissions); interior design elements (e.g. image design, art, form and shape, wayfinding signage, and colours); and environmental considerations (e.g. noise, hygiene, smell, and light). These findings will inform guidelines and recommendations and will be supported by visual models for the design of children's hospitals, particularly public spaces in the particular context of Palestine. The guidelines will contribute to the creation of supportive healing environments for all stakeholders, but particularly for children. This study demonstrates that practical design methods in the research process can be very effective in fostering creativity and in drawing out ideas and preferences from young children and other stakeholders. Such methods provide a novel approach to the design of healing environments for children.


Electromagnetic transformers have become obstacles to progress power supply miniaturization. Thus, piezoelectric transformers, which are more compact, immune to magnetic field and that present a high galvanic insulation, become more and more an alternative to electromagnetic transformers. In this paper, two different piezoelectric transformers have been studied and compared: a Rosen type and a radial mode type. The first approach consists in performing an analytical model. This approach is inspired by the technique used in electroacoustics and allows to build an electric equivalent circuit of the vibrating structure. The second approach deals with numerical finite element method using ANSYS software. A three-dimensional finite element model of each transformer has been then simulated to find out the resonance frequency but also to determine the transformation ratio as a function of the frequency for several values of the load resistance. In order to validate the models, experiments have been performed. Measurements of the voltage gain, output power and efficiency of both piezoelectric transformer types have been obtained and compared taking into account their characteristics.


The development of information technology can improve performance and enable a variety of activities can be implemented quickly, precisely and accurately, so that ultimately will raise productivity. At this time of information technology has started to become an important necessity. In other words we've started hanging with the help of information technology. Information Technology spur a new way of life. PT. KERETA API is a business entity engaged in the travel agency. In their daily sales data is recorded into the ledger and then processed into the reports are still done manually. Recording and processing data manually requires a long time that caused the information produced is not qualified. It is caused because humans have limitations in doing a job, people need a break. In addition, the results of a report from manual processing is usually only a very easily accessible by everyone so that the cause information is not secure. Information that is not qualified could cause the company wrong in setting policies and making decisions so that if not addressed are feared to affect the company'sfuture. Based on the description above, to meet the needs of PT. KERETA API NGANJUK required a system of computerized sales information that can be used to facilitate the company in terms of data processing companies such as storage and data search, making reports and manage user access rights to company data. The goal is to make data processing information systems sales and purchases of computerized to facilitate PT. KERETA API NGANJUK in doing data processing sales quickly so as to produce quality information.


The balance of payments of the country has been characterized by a widening current account deficit and a depletion of reserves. This is mainly due to the fact that exports have declined in recent years both in volume and value terms. One of the main factors which contributed to the decline in exports is the lack of incentives to produce. The major disincentive to produce exportable is the unattractive producer price. It is, therefore, important to get the prices right In this paper attempts are made to establish the overvaluation of the Birr using some quantitative and qualitative indicators. The expected effects of devaluation are also briefly discussed. Since the economy is operating below capacity and to mitigate the social cost of adjustment substantial results could be achieved by exchange rate adjustment coupled with an increased inflow of external assistance to finance the import of inputs such as raw materials, fertilizers and spare parts. In order for devaluation to be effective it must take place in tandem with economic reforms aimed at eliminating distortions that reduce economic efficiency. In addition to mitigating the negative impact of devaluation in different ways and means, it jis also important to educate the public on the need for it, because it might cause political instability.


We consider a dynamic assortment selection problem where the goal is to offer a sequence of assortments that maximizes the expected cumulative revenue, or alternatively, minimize the expected regret. The feedback here is the item that the user picks from the assortment. The distinguishing feature in this work is that this feedback has a multinomial logistic distribution. The utility of each item is a dynamic function of contextual information of both the item and the user. We propose two Thompson sampling algorithms for this multinomial logit contextual bandit. Our first algorithm maintains a posterior distribution of the true parameter and establishes $\tilde{O}(d\sqrt{T})$ Bayesian regret over $T$ rounds with $d$ dimensional context vector. The worst-case computational complexity of this algorithm could be high when the prior distribution is not a conjugate. The second algorithm approximates the posterior by a Gaussian distribution, and uses a new optimistic sampling procedure to address the issues that arise in worst-case regret analysis. This algorithm achieves $\tilde{O}(d^{3/2}\sqrt{T})$ worst-case (frequentist) regret bound. The numerical experiments show that the practical performance of both methods is in line with the theoretical guarantees.


This thesis consists of the four papers which consider different aspects of stochastic process modeling, error analysis, and minimization of computational cost. In Paper I, we construct a Multipath Fading Channel (MFC) model for wireless channels with noise introduced through scatterers flipping on and off. By coarse graining the MFC model a Gaussian process channel model is developed. Complexity and accuracy comparisons of the models are conducted. In Paper II, we generalize a multilevel Forward Euler Monte Carlo method introduced by Mike Giles for the approximation of expected values depending on solutions of Ito stochastic differential equations. Giles' work proposed and analyzed a Forward Euler Multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) method based on realizations on a hierarchy of uniform time discretizations and a coarse graining based control variates idea to reduce the computational cost required by a standard single level Forward Euler Monte Carlo method. This work is an extension of Giles' MLMC method from uniform to adaptive time grids. It has the same improvement in computational cost and is applicable to a larger set of problems. In paper III, we consider the problem to estimate the mean of a random variable by a sequential stopping rule Monte Carlo method. The performance of a typical second moment based sequential stopping rule is shown to be unreliable both by numerical examples and by analytical arguments. Based on analysis and approximation of error bounds we construct a higher moment based stopping rule which performs more reliably. In paper IV, Born-Oppenheimer dynamics is shown to provide an accurate approximation of time-independent Schrodinger observables for a molecular system with an electron spectral gap, in the limit of large ratio of nuclei and electron masses, without assuming that the nuclei are localized to vanishing domains. The derivation, based on a Hamiltonian system interpretation of the Schrodinger equation and stability of the corresponding hitting time Hamilton-Jacobi equation for non ergodic dynamics, bypasses the usual separation of nuclei and electron wave functions, includes caustic states and gives a different perspective on the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, Schrodinger Hamiltonian systems and numerical simulation in molecular dynamics modeling at constant energy.


The microscopic mechanisms of Bi electrodeposition on Au(111) and Au(100) electrodes in the overpotential regime were studied by in situ scanning tunneling microscopy with high spatial and temporal resolution. Atomic resolution images of the needle-like Bi(110) deposits formed on Au(111) reveal the central influence of covalent Bi-Bi bonds on the deposit morphology. In the straight steps along the needle edges the Bi atoms are interlinked by these bonds, whereas at the needle tip and at kinks along the needle edges dangling bonds exist, explaining the rapid structural fluctuations at these sites. For ultrathin Bi deposits on Au(100) a more open atomic arrangement was found within the surface plane, which was tentatively assigned to an epitaxially stabilised Bi(111) film. Furthermore, well-defined nanowires, consisting of zigzag chains of Bi surface atoms, were observed on this surface.


Best-first width search (BFWS) is a recent approach to satisficing planning that combines traditional heuristics with novelty measures to achieve a balance between exploration and effective search guidance (exploitation). One such novelty measure is based on counting the number of subgoals achieved on the path from a state in which a relaxed plan was computed. We introduce a new lookahead strategy for greedy best-first search based on this idea, where after each expansion, a bounded lookahead search is guided by relaxed subgoal counting. Furthermore, we combine this technique with partial delete relaxation heuristics to improve the subgoals. Using the hCFF heuristic with online-refinement of conjunctions, we obtain a planner that significantly outperforms the state of the art in satisficing planning on the IPC benchmarks.


Using the far-UV (FUV) and near-UV (NUV) photometry from the NASA Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), we searched for evidence of increased stellar activity due to tidal and/or magnetic star–planet interactions (SPI) in the 272 known FGK planetary hosts observed by GALEX. With the increased sensitivity of GALEX, we are able probe systems with lower activity levels and at larger distances than what has been done to date with X-ray satellites. We compared samples of stars with close-in planets (a < 0.1 AU) to those with far-out planets (a > 0.5 AU) and looked for correlations of excess activity with other system parameters. This statistical investigation found no clear correlations with a, Mp, or Mp/a, in contrast to some X-ray and Ca ii studies. However, there is tentative evidence (at a level of 1.8σ) that stars with radial-velocity-(RV)-detected close-in planets are more FUV-active than stars with far-out planets, in agreement with several published X-ray and Ca ii results. The case is strengthened to a level of significance to 2.3σ when transit-detected close-in planets are included. This is most likely because the RV-selected sample of stars is significantly less active than the field population of comparable stars, while the transit-selected sample is similarly active. Given the factor of 2–3 scatter in fractional FUV luminosity for a given stellar effective temperature, it is necessary to conduct a time-resolved study of the planet hosts in order to better characterize their UV variability and generate a firmer statistical result.


This article is the outcome of research on qualitative methodology funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Discussions on this subject with Pierre Bourdieu, Marcel Fournier and Eric Forgues enabled me to develop the positions adopted in this text. I wish to express my gratitude to them. I also wish to thank Marie-Rose De Groof Vianna for revision of the text and Nancy Cote for its translation. Abstract. This article exposes the developments of qualitative methodology in French sociology with respect to methods proposed by Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Touraine: "provoked and accompanied" self-analysis and the sociological intervention. In addition to the presentation of these two methods, the propose of this article is to describe and discuss the position of these two authors on certain problems such as representativeness, objectivity, status of data, epistemological rupture and lastly on the question of the writing.by which sociological knowledge is formed from common sense knowledge contained in the data. This brings us to a broader discussion on these questions. The strengths and weaknesses of these two methods are finally examined. Resume. Cet article aborde les developpements de la methodologie qualitative au sein de la sociologie francaise. Il met l'accent sur les methodes recemment proposees par Pierre Bourdieu et Alain Touraine: l'auto-analyse provoquee et accompagnee et l'intervention sociologique. L'article traite plus largement des positions de ces deux auteurs a propos de la representativite et de l'objectivite en sociologie, de meme que du statut attribue au sens commun et a la rupture epistemologique. Sur cette lancee, l'ecriture sociologique est aussi consideree. Les forces et les limites de ces deux methodes sont examinees au regard de ces differents points. At the present time, qualitative methods are making headway in French sociology. They are the object of constant interest and their contents are much discussed. Two outstanding figures in French sociology, Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Touraine, have given them pride of place in their recent research. The aim of this paper is to examine the methods that these authors have recently developed: the sociological intervention and the provoked and accompanied self-analysis. A detailed presentation is made of these methods and their respective strong and weak points are then underlined. The latter are approached in such a way as to open a broad discussion on the problems faced by sociology such, for instance, as the status of common sense in relation to the sociological explanation. The lessons learned from these methods permit, in conclusion, the formulation of propositions for which, however, the author of this paper is alone responsible. Brief Introduction Touraine's use of qualitative methods is not recent, however, since his first surveys on worker consciousness (Touraine, 1966) were already recommending the semi-directed sociological interview. But it was in his book La voix et le regard that he first proposed employing the sociological intervention method, by which he hoped to renew sociological methodology. This method has had a considerable impact on French-language sociology and has given rise to numerous studies on women, students, environmentalists and the labour movement in France (Touraine, 1978; 1983b; 1987). This group of studies - carried out on the initiative of Touraine himself, with a team joined by well-known French sociologists of the day such as Michel Wieviorka and Francois Dubet - is referred to as permanent sociology, in other words a sociology constantly at work and directly involved in political and social action. The sociological study of social movements in Quebec has also made considerable use of the sociological intervention method (Gagnon, 1982; Maheu, 1988). In Bourdieu's work, qualitative methods appear in his first studies of an ethnological nature (Bourdieu, 1977a). …


Completely updated in a new edition,this book fully defines computer-related crime and the legal issues involved in its investigation. Re-organized with different chapter headings for better understanding of the subject, it provides a framework for the development of a computer crime unit. Updated with new information on technology, this book is the only comprehensive examination of computer-related crime and its investigation on the market. It includes an exhaustive discussion of legal and social issues, fully defines computer crime, and provides specific examples of criminal activities involving computers, while discussing the phenomenon in the context of the criminal justice system. Computer Forensics and Cyber Crime 2e provides a comprehensive analysis of current case law, constitutional challenges, and government legislation. New to this edition is a chapter on Organized Crime & Terrorism and how it relates to computer related crime as well as more comprehensive information on Processing Evidence and Report Preparation. For computer crime investigators, police chiefs, sheriffs, district attorneys, public defenders, and defense attorneys.


South Sudan is a fragile country.South Sudan is one of the most food insecure countries in the world.Conflict and long standing economic and social changes are disrupting agricultural production, markets, and community livelihoods, which are consequently increasing food insecurity and poverty rates in South Sudan.Though the current macro-economic crisis threatens to worsen food security even further, it also presents an opportunity to tap into South Sudan's vast agricultural potential.Conflict sensitive efforts to improve agro-logistics in South Sudan are key to increasing the availability of agricultural commodities in markets, which could contribute to better food security.The evidence base on approaches to conflict sensitivity in weak and fragile state situations like South Sudan highlights how agricultural commodity markets are complex sites of authority and control. This literature also suggests that agricultural commodity markets are regulated by a variety of formal and informal institutions that structure interactions within groups of traders. This includes formal legislation and less visible factors such as social regulation, that might be more likely to function along lines such as class, ethnic identity and gender. This literature also notes how markets can often be 'sites of violence in their own right' that can continue to embed and perpetuate inequality. With this broad understanding in mind, this study raises vital considerations about the logics of power in South Sudan's agro-logistics system.This study is unique as it recommends conflict sensitive interventions that can improve selected market linkages between food surplus and food deficit areas.The World Bank's South Sudan High Frequency Market Price Survey, a Market Linkages Survey (MLS), and existing literature provide quantitative and qualitative data to inform interventions. Various data sources have been used to assess the current situation of food markets in South Sudan. The Market Price Survey provides weekly price data from 2012 onwards for several markets and food products in South Sudan. Price data is used to assess whether and how markets are integrated in South Sudan.Following the price analysis, qualitative data on various factors that may have contributed to the integration or isolation of markets is presented. This data was collected by the MLS and administered to over 500 traders across 14 towns. The findings from these data is analyzed in tandem with literature from various sources to identify suitable market linking interventions.The recommendations in this document are based on a review of the available literature and food price and market linkage data. Part one provides a background on South Sudan's agriculture, trade and trade barriers. Part two uses weekly market prices to determine market integration preceded by reviewing food prices and the differentials in food prices for different markets and agricultural commodities. Results from the market linkages survey are presented in Part three. Recommendations are discussed in Part four.