Natural, short-lived halocarbons play a role in the stratospheric ozone budget, besides the anthropogenic emitted, long-lived chlorine- and brominefluorocarbons. The tropical oceans are a known source of reactive iodine and bromine to the atmosphere in the form of iodinated and brominated methanes (VSLS), as e.g.methyl iodide (CH3I), dibromomethane (CH2Br2) and bromoform (CHBr3), which contributes to reactive bromine within the lower stratosphere. Elevated atmospheric concentrations above the oceans are related to oceanic supersaturations of the compounds, caused by photochemical and biological production. The tropical Western Pacific is of special interest since it is a largely uncharacterized region for the oceanic compounds and in certain regions a projected hot spot for their emissions and transport pathways into the stratosphere. From 9 to 25 October 2009 the IFM-GEOMAR (Kiel, Germany) conducted a cruise with RV Sonne in the tropical western Pacific to investigate trace gas emissions on a 4030 nm (7,500 km) and 60 degrees latitude covering transit between Tomakomai (Japan, 42°35,4N/ 141°37,5E) and Townsville (Australia, 19°06,6S/ 146°50,5E). The ships cruise crossed various biogeochemical regimes of the northern and southern western Pacific Ocean, which differ in seawater properties, currents, productivity and atmospheric dynamics (e.g. Kuroshio Front, Northern Pacific Gyre, Pacific warm pool and Coral Seas). We will present highlights of the oceanic and atmospheric halocarbon measurements during the ships campaign, halocarbon emissions from the western Pacific Ocean, sources and the relationship between VSLS emissions and various phytoplankton functional groups, as being derived from in situ and satellite measurements.


The identification of biomarkers indicating the level of aggressiveness of prostate cancer (PCa) will address the urgent clinical need to minimize the general overtreatment of patients with non-aggressive PCa, who account for the majority of PCa cases. Here, we isolated formerly N-linked glycopeptides from normal prostate (n = 10) and from non-aggressive (n = 24), aggressive (n = 16), and metastatic (n = 25) PCa tumor tissues and analyzed the samples using SWATH mass spectrometry, an emerging data-independent acquisition method that generates a single file containing fragment ion spectra of all ionized species of a sample. The resulting datasets were searched using a targeted data analysis strategy in which an a priori spectral reference library representing known N-glycosites of the human proteome was used to identify groups of signals in the SWATH mass spectrometry data. On average we identified 1430 N-glycosites from each sample. Out of those, 220 glycoproteins showed significant quantitative changes associated with diverse biological processes involved in PCa aggressiveness and metastasis and indicated functional relationships. Two glycoproteins, N-acylethanolamine acid amidase and protein tyrosine kinase 7, that were significantly associated with aggressive PCa in the initial sample cohort were further validated in an independent set of patient tissues using tissue microarray analysis. The results suggest that N-acylethanolamine acid amidase and protein tyrosine kinase 7 may be used as potential tissue biomarkers to avoid overtreatment of non-aggressive PCa.


When and if the will to roll back mass incarceration and create just, fair, and effective sentencing systems becomes manifest, the way forward is clear: -First, three-strikes, mandatory minimum sentence, and comparable laws should be repealed. -Second, any three-strikes, mandatory minimum sentence, or similar laws that are not repealed should be radically narrowed in scope and severity. -Third, any three-strikes, mandatory minimum sentence, and similar laws that are not repealed should be changed to include provisions authorizing judges to impose some other sentence "in the interest of justice." -Fourth, LWOP laws should be repealed, or radically narrowed. -Fifth, truth-in-sentencing laws should be repealed. -Sixth, criminal codes should be amended to set substantially lower maximum sentences scaled to the seriousness of crimes. -Seventh, every state should establish a sentencing commission and promulgate a presumptive sentencing guidelines system. -Eighth, any state that does not establish an effective set of presumptive sentencing guidelines should establish a system of parole guidelines. -Ninth, every state and the federal government should reduce its combined rate of jail and prison confinement to half its 2014 level by 2020. -Tenth, every state should enact legislation making all prisoners serving fixed terms longer than five years, or indeterminate terms, eligible for consideration for release at the expiration of five years, and all prisoners aged 35 or over eligible for consideration for release after serving three years. These proposals are evidence-based, and mostly technocratic. Those calling for prison population targets and reducing the lengths of sentences being served may appear bold to some. Relative to the problems they address they are modest and partial. Reducing rates of imprisonment by half in the United States, a country with comparatively low crime rates, to a level that will remain 3 to 3.5 times those of other developed Western countries, can hardly be seen as overly ambitious.


Climate change is currently a global issue faced by human beings. Combating climate change is a top priority for the EU policy. In 2007 the EU endorsed an integrated approach to climate and energy policy and committed to transforming the EU into a highly energy-efficient, low Carbon economy. The EU has long been a driving force in international negotiations for larger global actions to structure an effective global climate regime. This paper focuses primarily on examining climate change law, strategy and practices in the EU. The following core issues are exploited: What is the concept and impacts of climate change on the EU? What is the legal framework, decision-making procedure, institutional structure of the EU's climate change policy? To what extent the EU's climate change policy is influenced by the European Council and the EU's foreign policy under the Lisbon Treaty? What is the strategy adopted by EU at the international negotiations on


Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are increasing in Japan in response to economic pressure and new legislation, and this increased activity creates a new frontier of opportunities for investment professionals. This article discusses the current M&A environment in Japan, and presents evidence on the market performance of Japanese bidders in the past decade. The findings indicate that the M&A market was relatively flat before 1999. However, after major legislative changes in 1999 to boost M&A growth in Japan, abnormal returns could be earned by Japanese bidders for Japanese targets. On the contrary, Japanese bidders for non-Japanese targets incurred insignificant negative abnormal returns over the same period, perhaps reflecting the challenge faced by the bidders in coordinating cross-border transactions. The article provides insight into the Japanese M&A market and helps M&A professionals assess gains from trading strategies in Japan.


1.1 This test method covers the determination of volatile sulfur-containing compounds in light petroleum liquids. This test method is applicable to distillates, gasoline motor fuels (including those containing oxygenates) and other petroleum liquids with a final boiling point of approximately 230"C (450"F) or lower at atmospheric pressure. The applicable concentration range will vary to some extent depending on the nature of the sample and the instrumentation used; however, in most cases, the test method is applicable to the determination of individual sulfur species at levels of 0.1 to 100 mg/kg. 1.2 The test method does not purport to identify all individual sulfur components. Detector response to sulfur is linear and essentially equimolar for all sulfur compounds within the scope (1.1) of this test method; thus both unidentified and known individual compounds are determined. However, many sulfur compounds, for example, hydrogen sulfide and mercaptans, are reactive and their concentration in samples may change during sampling and analysis. Coincidently, the total sulfur content of samples is estimated from the sum of the individual compounds determined; however, this test method is not the preferred method for determination of total sulfur. 1.3 The values stated in SI units are to be regarded as the standard. The values given in parentheses are for information only. 1.4 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.


It is difficult to imagine any biological process that is not initiated by the binding of some chemical entity (or 'ligand') to a protein. Thus, enzymatic catalysis, signal transduction, ion channel activity, immune responses and the various events involved in genetic expression are all obvious examples of events which, at the molecular level, must begin with the binding of some ligand to a specific binding site on a protein molecule. Furthermore, as each one of these processes proceeds along its reaction pathway, modulation of the affinities of such ligands, positive and negative interactions caused by the binding of other ligands and the release of these ligands either in their original or in altered form constitute obligatory steps in the driving forces and controlling restraints that adapt them to their specific tasks. We extend the basic conceptions set forth in this article to a more detailed level focused on the fundamental nature of ligand–ligand interactions of a protein–ligand complex and the energetic mechanistic consequences to which they lead.

Key Concepts:

Every biological reaction is initiated by a protein–ligand binding step.

Such reactions never involve the binding of only a single ligand or a single step.

The binding of two ligands to the same protein always involves a mutual interaction.

The product of a ligand-binding reaction is a new entity in itself; its structure and its properties may differ substantially from the simple sum of those of its initial components.

The concept of G Weber's 'thermodynamic square' permits the evaluation of a variety of interaction parameters.

Patterns of interaction parameters provide a basis for exploring ligand-binding energy transduction.

Measurement of ligand-binding heat by techniques using higher levels of mathematical integration provide more detailed dissection into parameters such as enthalpy, entropy, heat capacity and their corresponding interaction terms.

The 'fluctuating protein' concept suggests that protein reactions proceed as multiple traces on multidimensional free-energy landscapes.

Consequences of the thermodynamic complexity of ligand binding suggest new views of such processes as enzymatic catalysis, signalling events and evolutionary aspects.

Keywords:

proteins;
ligands-binding;
thermodynamics;
cooperativity;
free energy;
enthalpy;
entropy;
heat capacity;
enzymes


PURPOSE
In this study, we evaluated the results of a balloon-aided single-port thoracoscopic debridement of late-stage thoracic empyema in children.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
We retrospectively reviewed age, gender, duration of prehospital illness, physical findings, surgical interventions, and the morbidity in 12 children with late-stage parapneumonic empyema. The diagnosis of pleural effusion was confirmed by a thoracocentesis before thoracoscopy. A balloon connected to a 12 F feeding tube was inserted into the thoracic cavity and inflated with air before the enterance of the thoracoscope. By this maneuver, a cavity was formed just under the enterance point. Thereafter, a routine debridement and chest irrigation was performed by thoracoscopy. Only one port was inserted in all but 1 patient, and the telescope was used as a dissecting tool. A thorax tube was inserted through the port site at the end of the procedure and left for the drainage.

RESULTS
The main symptoms of the patients were dyspnea, cough, and fever. The empyema was located on the right hemithorax in 5 patients and on the left side in 7 patients. A second port was necessary to enhance the dissection in 1 case. The chest tube was removed within 3-30 days (median, 11 days) after the surgical approach. No complication directly related to the procedure was seen. The only problems postoperatively were a self-limited and spontaneously resolved bronchopleural fistula in 4 patients, and we had to perform an additional thoracoscopy to resolve the remaining intrapleural adhesions in 1 child.

CONCLUSIONS
Thoracoscopic debridement in patients with late-stage thoracic empyema may be very beneficial, and this treatment method may provide any further thoracotomy. A balloon inflated in the thoracic cavity may achieve a wider field of vision for thorascopic surgery, and single-port thoracoscopy is sufficient and safe for the dissection.


We present and empirically implement an equilibrium labor market search model where risk-averse workers facing medical expenditure shocks are matched with firms making health insurance coverage decisions. We use our estimated model to evaluate the equilibrium impact of many health care reform proposals, including the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA). We use the estimates of the early impact of the ACA as a model validation. We find that income-based subsidies for health insurance premiums are crucial for the sustainability of the ACA, while the ACA can still substantially reduce the uninsured rate without the individual or the employer mandate.


The purpose of an irrigation system is to apply the desired amount of water, at the correct application rate and uniformly to the whole field, at the right time, with the least amount of non-beneficial water consumption (losses), and as economically as possible. We know that irrigated agriculture plays a major role in the livelihoods of nations all over the world and South Africa is no exception. With the agricultural water-use sector being the largest of all water-use sectors in South Africa, there have been increased expectations that the sector should increase efficiency and reduce consumption in order to increase the amount of water available for other uses. Studies and research over 40 years, on the techniques of flood-, mobile- and micro-irrigation have contributed to the knowledge base of applying irrigation methods correctly. In a recent study on irrigation efficiency, the approach is that irrigation efficiency should be assessed by applying a water balance to a specific situation rather than by calculating vari ous performance indicators. The fraction of the water abstracted from the source that is utilised by the plant is called the beneficial water-use component, and optimised irrigation water supply is therefore aimed at maximising this component. It implies that water must be delivered from the source to the field both efficiently and effectively. Optimising water use at farm level requires careful consideration of the implications of decisions made during both development (planning and design), and management (operation and maintenance), taking into account technical, economic and environmental issues. An exciting, newly-developed South African Framework for Improved Efficiency of Irrigation Water Use covers 4 levels of water-management infrastructure: the water source, bulk conveyance system, the irrigation scheme and the irrigation farm. The water-balance approach can be applied at any level, within defined boundaries, or across all levels to assess perfor mance within the entire water management area.


The problem related to ADR functioning in Armenia has a crucial importance for further economic development. The institutional development in Armenia has formed a peculiar reality of "institutional consistency" in this field, an essential element of which is a fragile dividing line between formal and informal institutions. Business reality shows that in Armenia the usage of ADR in "business to business" relations is widespread. The matter is that mostly it takes a form of informal relations, and actually formal ADR institutions have become "unclaimed". This fact creates serious obstacles for the Government which seeks to establish effectively functioning formal ADR institutions. Unless the reasons as to why informal ADR mechanism is in high demand are identified, it is obvious that it will not be possible to elaborate a feasibly justified policy in this field. The aim of the study is to have a general overview on the dispute resolution mechanisms in Armenia and to study opportunities for their efficient implementation. Particularly the study is focusing on the following questions 1. What is the theoretical background of contract enforcement 2. What are the theoretical costs of contract enforcement to businesses? 3. How disputes in B2B are being solved in Armenia? 4. What are the real costs the businesses face during dispute resolution 5. How the costs of dispute resolution stipulate selection between different resolution mechanisms


In this article it is assumed that in speech communication not only the pronunciation by the speaker and the sensitivity and the discrimination facility of the ears of the listener are important factors, but equally the speed of processing. A previous study showed that Dutch students studying French needed more time to recognize target phonemes in spoken French sentences than did French native speakers. Based on this result it was hypothesized that the hearing impaired need more time for word recognition than comparable normal hearing subjects.To investigate this hypothesis two tests were developed:1. A list of cvc combinations, consisting of words and non-words is presented to the subject who has to press a button as soon as he hears an existing word.2. A series of sentences, where target words are presented in highly constraining, normally constraining and not constraining contexts. The subject has to press the response button as soon as he hears a visually presented.Recognition times for the different items measured in a group of 55 hard of hearing subjects were related to the "normal values" obtained in a group of 16 normal hearing young subjects.The tests gave a clear indication that recognition time is a significant personal measure. Besides, a correlation was found between the increase of the recognition time and hearing loss, but not between recognition time and age. It was clear that hard of hearing people needed more time for word recogni-tion and that the use of a hearing aid reduced this time interval. The measure in which the pressure for a fast reaction caused an increase in errors appeared to correlate significantly with the way subjects experienced their handicap, more than with the hearing loss and the discrimination loss as such.


The major limitation of the lifetime and reliability of electrical machines are stator winding faults. Inter-turn faults are for that matter often the origin of more severe faults, which can lead to complete system failures. Particularly, three-phase permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSMs) have significant drawbacks in terms of fault tolerant operation. In comparison, six-phase PMSMs are more complex to analyze and to operate, but for this reason, also offer greater possibilities for the control scheme during fault. This paper presents the first analytical machine model to investigate the behavior of six-phase PMSMs with stator winding faults on turn level. In order to keep the model compact, the levels of abstraction vary within the stator winding circuit. The machine model is acausally implemented, which allows the simulation with current sources and current controlled voltage sources. The simulation results of the presented model are compared with the simulation results of an equivalent finite element analysis model. The average torque differs between the two models in case of an inter-turn fault at nominal load operation by 0.3 %, the amplitude of the fault current differs by 3.3 % and the frequency spectra of the voltages show equal characteristics, while the computation time is 200 times faster with the analytical model. We use the developed model for the analysis of the machine behavior under stator winding faults relevant in practice. With the machine analysis's outcome, we are able to develop a more sophisticated fault management system, which enhances fault tolerant operation in comparison with three-phase PMSMs.


Publication Date January 1989 Abstract Ralph Waldo Emerson felt that the study of history was significant to the individual for what it revealed about his own life. The monuments of other ages should be studied until the student "lives along the whole line of temples and sphinxes and catacombs, passes through them all with satisfaction, and they live again to the mind, or are now." The interest with which he might have viewed his own nation's monuments in the form of presidential libraries can only be surmised. He might have been appalled that the simple democratic nation he knew in the 1840s had come to erect imposing memorials to its presidents. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine him finding fault with the efforts to preserve and make available to its citizens the written record of the country's chief executives. Certainly, it is much easier to make the "There and Then" of history, the "Here and Now" of knowledge, if the full documentary record of a time is preserved. Recommended Citation Funderburke, Richard Dees, "Jimmy Carter and the Presidential Library System," Provenance, Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists 7 no. 1 (1989) . Available at: https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/provenance/vol7/iss1/3  Download


In "Inventing Chemistry", historian John C. Powers turns his attention to Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738), a Dutch medical and chemical professor whose work reached a wide, educated audience and became the template for chemical knowledge in the eighteenth century. The primary focus of this study is Boerhaave's educational philosophy, and Powers traces its development from Boerhaave's early days as a student in Leiden through his publication of the Elementa chemiae in 1732. Powers reveals how Boerhaave restructured and reinterpreted various practices from diverse chemical traditions - including craft chemistry, Paracelsian medical chemistry, and alchemy - shaping them into a chemical course that conformed to the pedagogical and philosophical norms of Leiden's medical faculty. In doing so, Boerhaave gave his chemistry a coherent organizational structure and philosophical foundation and thus transformed an artisanal practice into an academic discipline. "Inventing Chemistry" will be essential reading for historians of chemistry, medicine, and academic life.


3-Hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG CoA) reductase is anchored to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane by a hydrophobic NH2- terminal domain that contains seven apparent membrane-spanning regions and a single N-linked carbohydrate chain. The catalytic domain, which includes the COOH-terminal two-thirds of the protein, extends into the cytoplasm. The enzyme is normally degraded with a rapid half-life (2 h), but when cells are depleted of cholesterol, its half-life is prolonged to 11 h. Addition of sterols accelerates degradation by fivefold. To explore the requirements for regulated degradation, we prepared expressible reductase cDNAs from which we either deleted two contiguous membrane-spanning regions (numbers 4 and 5) or abolished the single site for N-linked glycosylation. When expressed in hamster cells after transfection, both enzymes retained catalytic activity. The deletion-bearing enzyme continued to be degraded with a rapid half-life in the presence of sterols, but it no longer was stabilized when sterols were depleted. The glycosylation-minus enzyme was degraded at a normal rate and was stabilized normally by sterol deprivation. When cells were induced to overexpress the deletion-bearing enzyme, they did not incorporate it into neatly arranged crystalloid ER tubules, as occurred with the normal and carbohydrate-minus enzymes. Rather, the deletion-bearing enzyme was incorporated into hypertrophied but disordered sheets of ER membrane. We conclude that the carbohydrate component of HMG CoA reductase is not required for proper subcellular localization or regulated degradation. In contrast, the native structure of the transmembrane component is required to form a normal crystalloid ER and to allow the enzyme to undergo regulated degradation by sterols.


I analyse the impact of search engines on our cognitive and epistemic practices. For that purpose, I describe the processes of assessment of documents on the Web as relying on distributed cognition. Search engines together with Web users, are distributed assessment systems whose task is to enable efficient allocation of cognitive resources of those who use search engines. Specifying the cognitive function of search engines within these distributed assessment systems allows interpreting anew the changes that have been caused by search engine technologies. I describe search engines as implementing reputation systems and point out the similarities with other reputation systems. I thus call attention to the continuity in the distributed cognitive processes that determine the allocation of cognitive resources for information gathering from others.


The scheduling of tasks in real-time, resource-constrained embedded systems is typically performed using a simple scheduler. Scheduling algorithm is the key scheduler component which determines the way in which tasks can be executed to meet their timing constraints. To ensure precise task scheduling, the right decisions about the scheduler implementation have to be made. It has been argued that there is a wide gap between scheduling theory and its practical implementation which must be bridged to achieve a meaningful validation of embedded systems.
The work described in this thesis attempts to address this gap by proposing a simple (generic) technique, called the Scheduler Test Case (STC), which provides the facility to explore how a particular real-time scheduler implementation can be expected to behave under a range of both normal and abnormal operating conditions. The primary focus of this thesis is on single-processor embedded systems employing Time-Triggered Co-operative (TTC) architectures. The technique proposed is a testing method which helps facilitate an empirical "black-box" comparison between the behaviour of a set of representative implementation classes of the TTC scheduling algorithm. The key criterion against which scheduler behaviour is weighed up is the system predictability manifested by predictable task execution sequence, low timing jitter and unplanned error handling capabilities. The implementation costs (including CPU, memory and power requirements) involved in creating each scheduler are also considered for distinguishing between the different TTC implementations.
The STC technique is then extended to provide a practical means for assessing the behaviour of multi-processor embedded designs employing Shared-Clock (S-C) scheduling architectures and TTC algorithm on the Controller Area Network (CAN) hardware protocol. In this part of the study, the STC technique explores the impact of using particular implementations of the S-C scheduler on the overall timing behaviour of multi-processor embedded systems. In addition to jitter behaviour which is measured empirically, the STC evaluates the communication behaviour by assessing the message latencies between any two communicating nodes in the network and the time frame required by the network to detect a temporary node failure. The results are expressed using mathematical equations. Moreover, the implementation costs (including network utilisation and memory overheads) are also considered to differentiate between the compared S-C schedulers.
The thesis finally concludes by discussing the overall findings of this project and making some proposals for future work in the area concerned with in the project.


Attention-dependent modulation of neural activity in visual association cortex (VAC) is thought to depend on top-down modulatory control signals emanating from the prefrontal cortex (PFC). In a previous functional magnetic resonance imaging study utilizing a working memory task, we demonstrated that activity levels in scene-selective VAC (ssVAC) regions can be enhanced above or suppressed below a passive viewing baseline level depending on whether scene stimuli were attended or ignored (Gazzaley, Cooney, McEvoy, et al. 2005). Here, we use functional connectivity analysis to identify possible sources of these modulatory influences by examining how network interactions with VAC are influenced by attentional goals at the time of encoding. Our findings reveal a network of regions that exhibit strong positive correlations with a ssVAC seed during all task conditions, including foci in the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG). This PFC region is more correlated with the VAC seed when scenes were remembered and less correlated when scenes were ignored, relative to passive viewing. Moreover, the strength of MFG-VAC coupling correlates with the magnitude of attentional enhancement and suppression of VAC activity. Although our correlation analyses do not permit assessment of directionality, these findings suggest that PFC biases activity levels in VAC by adjusting the strength of functional coupling in accordance with stimulus relevance.


The concept of sustainability, and especially sustainable development, is among the most ambitious and controversial concepts in the scientific literature. Knowledge and research concerning the condition, development or transformation of sustainability has become not only the original means of the generation of socio-economic science knowledge. It is also an alternative for the analysis of especially sophisticated development problems – e.g. the problems of survival, effective change and avoidance of huge losses pertaining to such complexes as cities, countries or regions. Finding the ways of such knowledge conversion into the field of science is complex, but there is no alternative. Research of sustainable development has already become especially prevalent, and, thus, the objects of cognition should be structured, possibilities should be consolidated, and the efficiency of the use of resources must be elevated. The first challenge of sustainability research conversion into the sustainability science is a thorough mastering of the systemic research technologies, as well as the development of the principal methodology of systemic research while evolving the possibilities of civilisation survival on Earth. The objective of the research is to find an adequate quantitative measure of complex system development sustainability and investigate in detail the type of development of a small country or region that could be named as a realisation of sustainable development possibilities. The methodology of the research includes the application of an adequate portfolio model, stochastic optimisation, and systemic analysis. The conclusions obtained by the research state that development possibilities of a small country should not be evaluated only in terms of economic-ecological aspects; more components, such as politics, integration, marketing, social-demographics, creativity, religion, innovation, finance, and investment should be included, which could be logically divided into four subsystems of country universal sustainability. The research also presents the adequate composition of efficiency and reliability of the general effect pertaining to the activity of all the subsystems, as well as the optimal allocation of marginal investment unit among the four subsystems. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.25.5.3797


For the past two centuries, the colonial appeals to the Privy Council fell between the cracks on both sides of the Atlantic. For Americans, the creation of the Supreme Court and the absence of published reports of appeals implied legal discontinuity between "American" (post-1787) law and the pre-1787 British imperial world. For the British, the loss of the Atlantic colonies and the lack of printed precedents in appeals implied legal discontinuity between English common law and the colonial appeals. Elsewhere I have written about the importance of the appeals for colonial American legal history and the history of the development of the global law of the colonial world. Here I want to focus on the importance of the appeals for English legal history.


We present the crystal structure of an acridine drug derivatized at carbon 9, [N(alpha)-(9-acridinoyl)-tetraarginine], intercalated within the dodecamer [d(CGCGAATTCGCG)](2). The presence of a lateral chain at the central carbon 9 atom differentiates this compound from most acridine drugs hitherto studied, which are usually derivatized at carbon 4. The DNA:drug interaction we observe differs from that observed in previous studies, which primarily involves shorter, mainly hexameric sequences, in two important regards: the acridine intercalates within an AA/TT base step, rather than within a CG/CG base step; and the binding site is located at the center of the sequence, rather than at one end of the duplex. In addition, we observe a novel crystal packing arrangement, with six dodecamer duplexes and seven hydrated magnesium ions in the asymmetric unit of a large (66.5 x 68.4 x 77.4 A(3)) unit cell in space group P2(1)2(1)2(1). The duplexes are organized in layers parallel to the ab plane, with consecutive layers crossing each other at right angles.


Background In Japan, which is always the top-ranked life expectancy in the world, the healthcare issues for elderly people transitions from internal; cancer, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease to motor system and function referred as "Locomotive syndrome". It seems few reports about effects of sport habit in younger age on the locomotors and ability of the elderly. We have carried out medical checkup for the former Japanese Olympian at 1964 every four years since 1970. Objective The aim of this study is clarify characteristics about current locomotive conditions and functions of former elite athletes who had undoubtedly sport habit retrospectively. Methods We performed medical checkup for 119 (90 male and 29 female; mean age is 72.1 years old (M:72.6, F:70.4) former elite athletes who had participated Olympic Games in 1964 (Tokyo). And analyzed current sport habit, degree of osteoarthritis on knee and lumbar spine (L5/S1) by Kellgren-Laurence classification (K-L score), with or without symptom, bone mineral density (BMD) and T-score by DEXA. Results Currently, in total 68.1% (M:70.0%, F:62.1%) of former elite athletes had carry on some sports activity over 1–2 times per week. The mean K-L score of lumbar spine and knee was 2.2 (M:2.1 F: 2.4), 1.6 (M:1.4, F:2.2), respectively. The rate of symptom existence about lumbar spine and knee was 31.9% (M:37.9%, F:30%), 42.9% (M:34.4%, F:69.0%), respectively. The whole body BMD and T-score was 1.18 103.6% (M:1.22 106.6%, F:1.04 94.4%). Conclusions Former elite athletes maintain sports activity even though over aged 70. Although they have mild degenerative changes on their locomotive organs, there are few complaints except female knee joint. In addition, they kept high BMD and T-score. The sport habit during younger age may bring good effect for elderly locomotors.


I present a theoretical analysis of the phase diagram of bilayer Josephson junction arrays in the presence of charge and magnetic frustration. Using a dual description I show that the fundamental constituents of this theory are electric and magnetic excitations and that their condensations lead to a plethora of possible phases. The new formulation points out to the emergence of a rich phase diagram not attainable by standard mean field theory approaches. In addition to the usual superconducting and insulating states in the bilayer system, I find states exhibiting Hall quantization coexisting with interlayer coherence, states with Hall quantization without interlayer coherence and interlayer coherent states without Hall quantization.


Ever since so-called smart bombs debuted in the Vietnam War, precision weapons have been an expected part of modern warfare. While most Americans are aware of the use of these technological wonders, frequently viewing images of pinpoint accuracy on their television screens, few understand how the weapons work. In this very readable explanation, Michael Rip and James Hasik not only clarify the complex technology but chronicle the use of these modern marvels and elaborate on the promises and the pitfalls behind them.At the root of today's precision weapons is the Global Positioning System (GPS) -- the same system used by professional marine and aerial navigators and even by modern hikers, drivers of upscale automobiles, and sailboat owners. The authors remove much of the mystery of this satellite-based system, explaining how it has revolutionized the art and science of navigation and overturned many of the solutions to the age-old problems of targeting. Relevant examples taken from today's headlines demonstrate both the capabilities and the limitations of these weapons. Their use in Bosnia, Kosovo, and the stand-off engagements in the no-fly zones of Iraq make a great deal more sense with this book in hand. Many of the emerging debates spawned by a mandated review of U.S. defense policy are clarified. From the details of the weapons systems and their employment to their political implications, this sweeping analysis of the effects of a revolutionary technology on military operations and strategy is without parallel. A wealth of illustrations help the reader understand how technologies work and fit together, how they are practically used, and what they mean for the future.


Of 122 mouse monoclonal antibodies selective for human breast cancer, 13 immunoprecipitated an acidic glycoprotein from SK-Br-3 and ZR-75-30 human breast cancer cells. The antigen (BCA200) migrates with an apparent molecular weight of 200,000 on reducing and 180,000 on nonreducing sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, suggesting a single polypeptide chain with a folded domain stabilized by a disulfide bond. Cross-blocking and sandwich immunoassays detected at least three distinct antigenic determinants on BCA200. Scatchard experiments measured 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 antigen copies per SK-Br-3 cell. The tissue distribution of BCA200 was studied using two monoclonals to different epitopes. Neither antibody stained any cells in human blood. When frozen sections of 20 normal human tissues were immunoperoxidase stained, the only positive structures were mucinous glands of colon, transitional epithelium of bladder, sweat glands of skin, and acinar epithelium of breast. Antibody 454C11 stained 16 of 21 breast tumor frozen sections and 9 of 12 breast cancer cell lines, while antibody 520C9 stained 5 of 20 breast tumors and 4 of 10 breast cancer lines. Cross-reaction was observed with lung, prostatic, pancreatic, endometrial, and ovarian cancer, but not with lymphoma, melanoma, colon, stomach, bladder, or esophageal cancer. When conjugated to ricin A chain, 10 of 13 antibodies produced immunotoxins selectively cytotoxic to SK-Br-3 breast cancer cells.


Demographic trends portend the rapid ageing of Developing Asia (DA), albeit at varying rates. This phenomenon, along with the need to extend coverage of social protection systems is likely to increase public and private expenditure on social protection, particularly for pensions and healthcare. This paper analyses the options for additional financing of social protection in DA. As total national and fiscal resources devoted to social protection increase, an important issue will be how the additional burden is shared between different sectors, and financing instruments. The paper, however, focuses on options to finance additional social protection expenditure. Three broad options are suggested: first, realizing efficiency gains in managing provident and pension fund organizations; second, design and service delivery innovations including better policy coordination and coherence within and amongst healthcare and pension programmes; third, developing capabilities to obtain resources from conventional and unconventional sources of budgetary revenue. The paper also stresses that complementary reforms in fiscal, labour market, financial and capital markets will be needed to manage rapid ageing in DA, and therefore the issue of ageing should be viewed as involving several economic and social arrangements, and not in isolation.


At the 2009 Pittsburgh Summit, G20 leaders requested an analysis of the scope of energy subsidies and suggestions regarding how they may be phased out and rationalised. This report responds to this request by identifying and measuring fuel tax concessions in the fisheries sector. It provides data on fuel use, tax concessions, and related information for OECD countries and partners, as well as describing some of the key challenges in measuring data of this type.


ABSTRACT We investigate private authority in European Union (EU) energy governance in order to address two research questions: First, how has authority been conferred on, and acquired by private actors? Second, to what extent has this lateral shift of authority been contested and on which grounds? The paper links the literatures on regulatory governance and private authority. This allows us to shed light on an issue that tends to be neglected in the discussion about the transfer of competencies in the energy field: the horizontal transfer of authority. In our case study about the role of transmission system operators (TSOs) in the creation of an internal electricity market, we identify three distinct settings where both the level of sovereignty-based contestation and the shift towards private authority vary. We find that private rulemaking has gained in importance due to functional expertise requirements, but also because it provides an escape route in a context of political contestation.


Abstract The natural radionuclides 234 Th (half-life=24·1 days) and 7 Be (half-life=53·3 days) were measured in suspended particles of the turbidity maximum zone of the lower Hudson River estuary during several tidal cycles in August 1995 in an effort to understand the dynamics and sources of particles to this zone. The relatively short half-lives and high particle reactivity of 234 Th and 7 Be, coupled with the spatially variable production of 234 Th (from 238 U, which varies conservatively with salinity in the Hudson), make these radionuclides useful tracers of particle dynamics. The activity ratio of 234 Th xs / 7 Be reduces the effects of particle type, concentration and size on the individual activities and serves as an indicator of where in the estuary the particles were labelled with these radionuclides. Detailed sampling at three stations in the turbidity maximum during the course of a tidal cycle shows an average 234 Th xs / 7 Be activity ratio of 1·9±0·7. Comparable 234 Th xs / 7 Be ratios in suspended particles from surface and bottom water with different salinities indicate that particles are mixed throughout the water column. Comparison of observed 234 Th xs / 7 Be activity ratios with those calculated from models assuming that local processes dominate the tracer distributions suggests that particle residence times are short. However, the observed ratios are greater on average than those calculated, indicating the import of particles with higher ratios from the more saline reaches of the estuary. Estimates of the particle fluxes necessary to account for the observed 234 Th/ 7 Be activity ratios suggest that about 30% of the flux could arise from advective transport of particles into the turbidity maximum zone in association with the tidal circulation and the remainder is supplied from local resuspension. A sensitivity analysis shows that these estimates are dependent on the activity ratio in the suspended sediment reservoir and fluxes of radionuclides supplied by local resuspension. Variability in these factors gives rise to estimates of the advected flux that can vary from 24% to 59%.


MPEG is currently developing a new scalable video coding (SVC) standard which should provide compression efficiency similar to current non-scalable video coding standard. The extension of H.264/AVC hybrid video coding using motion-compensated temporal filtering (MCTF) is a current solution. This paper presents a dynamic group of picture (GOP) structure to improve the quality of the SVC coded video by using variable GOP sizes along the video sequences without the restriction of the fixed GOP size or the limited adaptive GOP size. The dynamic GOP structure keeps temporal importance information of frames in the encoded video, which helps in coding efficiency and provides better user perception. An effective GOP size determination method is also proposed in this paper. The proposed scheme has been validated by experimental results.


Copyright © 2016, MEJDS. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background and objective: Written language disorder is one of the most common disorders among students. Correct and timely diagnosis of this disorder is considered as the initial and important step in its treatment, education, and research. The present study revieweed diagnostic methods and tools used for this disorder by researchers. Method: The research design was a descriptive-causal-comparative one. A library method was used for data collection. The research corpus consisted of all the previous research performed in the area of written language disorder. A total of 36 original studies were selected as the research corpus through targeted sampling. The diagnostic methods used to detect written language disorder were identified through investigating their research methodologies. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data through SPSS software. Results: The results showed that domestic researchers have mostly applied criterion-based methods to diagnose the written expression disorder (30 diagnoses from among a total of 36 diagnoses). DSM-5 does not recognize this method to be valid because it fails to clarify all components of this disorder the results also indicated that the researchers had examined only one component of dictation in written language. Also, the level and rate of disorder were not compared with the community norms Moreover, the results indicated that no significant agreement existed in applying unified valid criteria. Conclusion: Criterion-based diagnoses are thought-provoking and a great deal of confusion is observed in diagnosing the disorder based on the used criteria. Thus developing standardized tools to diagnose written language disorder is an essential suggestion.


A highly efficient asymmetric Mannich-type reaction between a-tetralone-derived b-keto esters/amides and 1,3,5-triaryl-1,3,5-triazinanes was realized in the presence of chiral N,N0-dioxide–Ni(II) or Mg(II) complex. A variety of optically active b-amino compounds with all-carbon quaternary stereocenters were obtained in good yields with excellent enantioselectivities. A possible transition state was proposed based on these experiments and previous reports.


We identify the causal effect of trade-integration with China and Eastern Europe on voting in Germany from 1987 to 2009. Looking at the entire political spectrum, we find that only extreme-right parties respond significantly to trade integration. Their vote share increases with import competition and decreases with export access opportunities. We unpack mechanisms using reduced form evidence and a causal mediation analysis. Two-thirds of the total effect of trade integration on voting appears to be driven by observable labor market adjustments, primarily changes in manufacturing employment. These results are mirrored in an individual-level analysis in the German Socioeconomic Panel.


Creating hand-drawn animation is traditionally a laborious task, in which artists are highly involved to draw key frames and, thereafter, create inbetween frames from each pair of key frames. Although the development of paperless animation systems and autoinbetween techniques somehow relieves artists' burden of creating many inbetween frames by hand, artists still have to painstakingly do all key-frame drawings by hand or using a computer. An alternate approach to avoid the laborious manual drawing task is to incorporate automatic feature line extraction from animated 3D models to create 2D animations. Computer-generated lines could be used as initial drawings for artists, where they can further refine or exaggerate lines with personal styles for animation production. This thesis proposes a solution consisting of several techniques and an integrated framework for automatic line extraction in 2D animation. The first technique is a 3D line extraction method to extract lines from 3D triangle mesh models to closely resemble what artists would perceive and draw. The second technique is a method to generate temporally coherent 3D lines from 3D models using innovative hysteresis thresholding. The third technique is a matching algorithm to create correspondence of 3D individual lines (i.e., paths) across a sequence of frames. The second and the third techniques are used for sequencing the extracted lines frame-by-frame into an animation for temporal coherence. Each of the three algorithms is a valued contribution to Non Photorealistic Rendering. Finally, an integrated framework is proposed with a novel interactive tool set for ii artists to create 2D stylized animations by incorporating automatic line extraction from animated 3D models. The framework is artist driven – it allows artists to edit or stylize line work in 2D, similar to what they do in a traditional animation pipeline but utilizing 3D information. The framework is validated with a 2D animation software. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the framework in creating an animation with the software.


Abstract : In a continuing effort to document the use of airpower in Southeast Asia, the Office of Air Force History presents in this volume two major contributions to the "airpower story." Monograph 4, "The Vietnamese Air Force, 1951-1975, An Analysis of its Role in Combat," was written by General William W. Momyer, USAF (Ret), former commander of air forces in Vietnam. It presents an objective review of the South Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) and the role played by the U.S. Air Force in VNAF's short 14-year life span. To provide the necessary perspective to this complex subject, the author presents a comparative analysis of the successes and failures of airpower during the three major enemy offensives: the Tet offensive of 1968, the North Vietnamese offensive of Easter 1972, and the March 1975 offensive. The conclusions touch upon some of the fundamental doctrinal principles of airpower and highlight areas that must be carefully considered in any future employment. The events presented in Monograph 5, written by Thomas D. Des Brisay, although not directly related to the war in Vietnam, took place in Southeast Asia, and were performed by the same men, organizations, and machines which fought so gallantly in that war. It is almost a step-by-step account of the "Mayaguez Affair" and the role of airpower in its successful outcome. Particular emphasis is given to the courage and determination of the young helicopter pilots during the delivery and recovery of U.S. Marines from Kho Tang Island. These two monographs provide the student of airpower with an excellent case study in the tactical employment of air resources at two widely separated points in the spectrum of conflict. For the general reader, they provide a vivid and substantive discussion on the use of combat airpower and should give some understanding of the magnitude and complexity of any airpower operation, large or small.


The report evaluates the impacts of climate change on the hydrological regime and water resources of the Blue Nile River Basin in Ethiopia. It starts from the construction of the climate change scenarios based on the outcomes of several general circulation models (GCMs), uses a simple hydrological model to convert theses scenarios into runoff, and examines the impacts by means of a set of indices. The results, however uncertain with existing accuracy of climate models, suggest that the region is likely to have the future potential to produce hydropower, increase flow duration, and increase water storage capacity without affecting outflows to the riparian countries in the 2050s.


First published in 1966, and since translated into 16 languages, this remarkable book has become an essential document of architectural literature. A "gentle manifesto for a nonstraightforward architecture," Venturi's "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture" expresses in the most compelling and original terms the postmodern rebellion against the purism of modernism. Three hundred and fifty architectural photographs serve as historical comparisons and illuminate the author's ideas on creating and experiencing architecture. "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture" was the winner of the Classic Book Award at the AIA's Seventh Annual International Architecture Book Awards.


In 2017, a Massachusetts court convicted Michelle Carter of manslaughter for encouraging the suicide of Conrad Roy by text message, but imposed a sentence of only fifteen months. The conviction was unprecedented in imposing homicide liability for verbal encouragement of apparently voluntary suicide. Yet if Carter killed, her purpose that Roy die arguably merited liability for murder and a much longer sentence. This Article argues that our ambivalence about whether and how much to punish Carter reflects suicide's dual character as both a harm to be prevented and a choice to be respected. As such, the Carter case requires us to choose between competing conceptions of criminal law, one utilitarian and one libertarian. A utilitarian criminal law seeks to punish inciting suicide to reduce harm. A libertarian criminal law, on the other hand, justifies voluntary suicide as an exercise of liberty, and incitement of suicide as valuable speech. Utilitarian values are implicit in the foreseeability standards prevailing in the law of causation, but libertarian values are implicit in the reluctance of prosecutors to seek, and legislatures to define, homicide liability for assisting suicide. The prevalence of statutes punishing assisting—but not encouraging—suicide as a nonhomicide offense reflects a compromise between these values. These statutes are best interpreted as imposing accomplice liability for conduct left unpunished for two antithetical reasons: it is justified in so far as the suicide is autonomous and excused in so far as the suicide is involuntary. This explains why aiding suicide is punished, but less severely than homicide. Yet even these statutes would not punish Carter's conduct of encouragement alone. Her conviction although seemingly required by prevailing causation doctrine, is unprecedented.


Results from 4 experiments support the view that, regardless of contextual information, when an end-product interpretation of an utterance does not rely on the salient (lexicalized and prominent) meanings of its components, it will not be faster than nor as fast to derive as when it does. To test this view, we looked into interpretations of salience-based (here, literal) interpretations and expectation-based (here, ironic) interpretations in contexts inducing an expectation for irony. In Experiment 1, expectancy was manipulated by introducing an ironic speaker in vivo who also uttered the target utterance. Findings show that ironic targets were slower to read than literal counterparts. Experiment 2 shows that ironies took longer to read than literals and that response times to ironically related probes were longer than to literally related probes, regardless of context. Experiments 3 and 4 show that, even when participants were given extra processing time and were exclusively presented ironically biasing contexts, the expectancy for irony acquired throughout such exposure did not facilitate expectancy-based compared to salience-based interpretations.


The purpose of this study was to examine participants' degree of preference for styles of popular, jazz, and classical music, comparing the results to Leblanc's (1979) findings. The participants, 156 fifth graders from a metropolitan area in the Midwest, listened to a recording of 19 musical examples and recorded their preference for each. The participants most preferred punk rock music followed by pop, rap, dance, heavy metal, hard rock, and country music. Traditional jazz and Romantic classical music were the least favored styles. Comparison with Leblanc (1979) suggested similarity in the ranking of styles, while also implying a decline in overall music preference since that study. Many studies have investigated the preferences of participants for different styles of music. In each study that included popular music among the styles measured, popular music was the most preferred of the styles (Rogers, 1957; Leblanc, 1979; Leblanc, 1981; Shehan, 1981; and Hargreaves, Comber, & Colley, 1995). Moreover, studies have shown that older participants tend to prefer the music that was popular during their young adult years (Gibbons, 1977; Hargreaves & North, 1997). If popular music is most preferred by participants, and if popular music is defined as the music of a subject's young adulthood, then several questions may be posed. What are the current prevailing styles of popular music? How are current popular styles different from those of twenty, ten, or even five years ago? How might this impact teaching strategies and content in order to create teaching environments that accommodate the backgrounds and interests of today's music students? To this end, it is important that teachers know the musical preferences and interests of their students. Although many studies indicate that popular music is the most preferred style, most treat popular/rock music as a single style of music rather than assessing the numerous sub-styles that exist in popular music. In 1979, Leblanc published a study that measured the preference of fifth-grade participants for a variety of musical styles including two popular music styles: rock and easy-listening pop. The results provided a foundation of style preference from which subsequent research could isolate specific variables and measure their effect on preference. In light of the rapidly changing musical landscape in contemporary popular culture, it seems prudent to revisit Leblanc's landmark results and replicate this research measuring preferences for current popular music styles. Leblanc (1979) examined the preferences of 278 fifth-grade students from eleven classrooms in the St. Louis area. This study employed a listening tape consisting of one representative example of thirteen different styles of music. Specific selections were chosen by the researcher and then validated through comparison with style indications given by graduate music students. The tape also included three examples of ambient sound. Participants were asked to listen to each example and rate their preference for it on a scale of 1 to 7. The rank order of stylistic preferences as indicated by preference means were as follows: (a) easy-listening pop, (b) rock, (c) ragtime, (d) Dixieland, (e) band march, (f ) country western/bluegrass, (g) random generated electronic sounds, (h) electronic pop, (i) modern swing, (j) sports car, (k) avant-garde, (l) classical instrumental, (m) black gospel, (n) windshield wipers with rain, (o) sacred choral, and (p) folk. Further analysis revealed that the responses given for the six top ranked styles were not significantly different, while there was a significant difference in comparison to the responses for classical instrumental, black gospel, sacred choral, and folk selections. Leblanc's findings represented an important step in understanding the preference relationships between a variety of generic styles as well as some styles within these genres. Because numerous styles are commonly associated with current popular culture, it is important to expand on Leblanc's study of popular sub-styles in order to develop an accurate sense of music preference among today's youth. …


The onset of phytoplankton blooms in late winter, early spring has been traditionally associated with the shoaling of the mixed layer above a critical depth. Here we show that the onset of a bloom can also be triggered by a reduction in air–sea fluxes at the end of winter. When net cooling subsides at the end of winter, turbulent mixing becomes weak, thereby increasing the residence time of phytoplankton cells in the euphotic layer and allowing a bloom to develop. The necessary change in the air–sea flux generally precedes mixed‐layer shoaling, and may provide a better indicator for the onset of the spring bloom than the mixed‐layer depth alone. Our hypothesis is supported by numerical simulations and remote sensing data.


I don't blame my executioners. I will pray God bless them. So said General Tomoyuki Yamashita, Japan's most accomplished military commander, as he stood on the scaffold in Manila in 1946. His stoic dignity typified the man his U.S. Army defence lawyers had come to deeply respect in the first war crimes trial of World War II. Moments later, he was dead. But had justice been served? Allan A. Ryan reopens the case against Yamashita to illuminate crucial questions and controversies that have surrounded his trial and conviction, but also to deepen our understanding of broader contemporary issues--especially the limits of command accountability. The atrocities of 1944 and 1945 in the Philippines--rape, murder, torture, beheadings, and starvation, the victims often women and children--were horrific. They were committed by Japanese troops as General Douglas MacArthur's army tried to recapture the islands. Yamashita commanded Japan's dispersed and besieged Philippine forces in that final year of the war. But the prosecution conceded that he had neither ordered nor committed these crimes. MacArthur charged him, instead, with the crime -if it was one -of having "failed to control" his troops, and convened a military commission of five American generals, none of them trained in the law. It was the first prosecution in history of a military commander on such a charge. In a turbulent and disturbing trial marked by disregard of the Army's own rules, the generals delivered the verdict they knew MacArthur wanted. Yamashita's lawyers appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, whose controversial decision upheld the conviction over the passionate dissents of two justices who invoked, for the first time in U.S. legal history, the concept of international human rights. Drawing from the tribunal's transcripts, Ryan vividly chronicles this tragic tale and its personalities. His trenchant analysis of the case's lingering question - should a commander be held accountable for the crimes of his troops, even if he has no knowledge of them - has profound implications for all military commanders.


The purpose of this study was to establish whether or not there were gender specific spelling errors committed by boys and girls in Kiswahili functional writing.  The study adopted a triangulation approach in its theoretical framework.  As a result, three theories were used: Error Analysis by Corder, (1976), Interlanguage by Selinker, (1972) and Gender Social Role by Eagly, (1987). The study was carried out in Nyamira County, Kenya.  The sample comprised 326 Form Four participants of equal gender distribution drawn from eight public secondary schools.  Simple random and purposive sampling techniques were used to select the study participants.  The participants wrote a Kiswahili functional essay whereby spelling errors were identified and typified for comparison guided by proportion study criterion.  The data for this study were analyzed qualitatively using measures of central tendencies that involved use of means, frequencies and percentages. The study revealed that there were no gender specific spelling errors.  The finding would be central to curriculum developers in underscoring teaching of phonological awareness phonemic understanding, and phonics to both genders.  The finding also necessitates mounting of remedial phonological information, phonemic awareness, and phonics for the boys using information and communication technology systems and appropriate gender destereotyping instructional methods to bridge gender spelling gaps.  Finally, boys should be taught nonsense words with a view to improving their spelling ability.


"The indigenous people of Talaanding in Basac village, Bukidnon, the Philippines, had to deal with a high occurrence of disease and a high number of malnourished children in their village. This situation was due to the inability of the local health clinic to provide adequate health service and medicine to the community. Using an approach that promotes social learning and collective action, a CIFOR Adaptive Collaborative Management (ACM) research team facilitated a group of women, mostly the village health workers, in addressing their local health problems by using their local knowledge of medicinal plants and herbal medicines. This paper describes the ACM concept and the social learning processes that the women went through in identifying their health-related problems in the village, devising strategies to deal with those problems, monitoring the outcomes of their action, and improving their subsequent strategies. This paper also shows that the ACM processes promoted not only collective action and social learning among the women, but also helps to revive local knowledge of herbal medicines and conserve genetic resources in the area. The sustainability of the women's efforts will depend on their ability to mobilize more community members to manage the established herb gardens, to enforce rules so that the costs and benefits of the gardens can be shared more equally, to link-up with local government and other stakeholders, and to continuously learn and adapt their management strategies." Author's Abstract


Linguistic hybridity is the process of the authorial unmasking of another's speech, through a language that is double-accented and double-styled. The present study investigates how linguistic resources, especially code-switching is used for meaning making in local comedy shows in Hawai'i. Local comedy is inseparable from the use of carnivalistic act. This act deconstructs attempts at stabilizing social systems by being playfully and non-violently subversive. While there are many studies of language and humor, there are much fewer studies on the use of code-switching in comedy. The present study is particularly interested in the latter and specifically addresses Bakhtin's work on carnival. It is often maintained that ethnic jokes marginalize those of Filipino origin as the Other. However, the present paper claims that both functions of comedy - marginalizing of the Other and disrupting of official views of reality - are inseparably intertwined. Andy Bumatai, a local comic, tactically achieves carnivalistic effects while negotiating and juggling his subjectivity. Given this, code-switching as well as language selection can be a powerful tool for doublevoicing. Little is known about the pragmatics of pidgin and creole languages. Hence, the present study provides a starting point for future projects on the discursive practice in Hawai'i Creole.


Leatherback sea turtles, the most unique of the seven species of sea turtles, are critically endangered and being pushed toward extinction in the Pacific Ocean. The crash of the Pacific leatherback population is the result of human exploitation and incidental take by commercial fisheries compounded by ongoing loss and degradation of nesting habitats. The Sea Turtle Restoration Project (STRP) is a nonprofit project with over twenty years of actions focused on saving sea turtles and protecting marine biodiversity. STRP advocacy work combines public outreach and engagement for local and international issues with strategic litigation to establish protections for Pacific leatherbacks and their essential habitat. Successes include the closure and implementation of new restrictions on the Hawaiian longline fishery, the creation of the Leatherback Conservation Area which closes the drift gillnet fishery over 210,000 square miles during leatherback foraging season, and the establishment of the largest area of marine critical habitat ever designated for a sea turtle. STRP will continue to support cooperation among fishermen, local community members, national organizations and law enforcement officers around the globe to protect leatherbacks. Global cooperation is required to reduce the many threats to sea turtles and to ensure the survival and recovery of their populations.


In "Home Run: Escape From Nazi Europe" John Nichol and Tony Rennell tell the incredible true stories of the British soldiers and airmen on the run through Nazi occupied Europe in their own words. Throughout the Second World War, thousands found themselves cut off behind the lines in Nazi occupied Europe - soldiers were left stranded on beaches after the chaotic evacuation of Dunkirk, airmen flying operations against the Germans were blasted out of the sky by flak and fighters. They were alone and on the run in enemy territory with just one goal - to get back to Britain and to safety. Some made solitary treks through hundreds of miles of enemy territory, others attempted precarious sea crossings in stolen boats. Many placed their lives in the hands of brave civilians who risked the wrath of a brutal regime if they dared to offer assistance. Life for the evaders hung in the balance and if they were to survive they had to rely on guile and sheer luck. John Nichol and Tony Rennell tell the dramatic story of the heroes who made it home ...and those who did not. "Gripping, moving and thoughtful. The excellent team of Nichol and Rennell have done it again". (Patrick Bishop, author of "Fighter Boys"). John Nichol is a former RAF flight lieutenant whose Tornado bomber was shot down on a mission over Iraq during the first Gulf War in 1991. He was captured and became a prisoner of war. He is the bestselling co-author of "Tornado Down" and, with Tony Rennell, "The Last Escape", "Tail-End Charlies", "Home Run" and "Medic", and author of five novels. He is also a journalist and widely quoted military commentator. Tony Rennell is the author of "Last Days of Glory: The Death of Queen Victoria" and co-author of "When Daddy Came Home", a highly praised study of demobilization in 1945, and with John nichol, "The Last Escape", "Tail-End Charlies", "Home Run" and "Medic". He is a former deputy editor of the "Sunday Times" and writes regularly on historical subjects for the "Daily Mail".


Ultra-violet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) and other surface-sensitive electron spectroscoples (Auger electron spectroscopy, low energy electron diffraction, electron energy loss spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectrdn spectroscopy) have been used to study the electronic properties of the cleavage (110) faces of GaP, InP and GaAs, both In their clean state and during oxygen adsorption. UPS shows that filled surface states are absent from the bulk bandgap In all three compounds, and only the tall of the empty surface state distribution extends Into the bandgap on InP (110) and GaAs (110). The Fermi level of GaP(110) Is pinned 1.50eV above the valence band maximum by a band of empty surface states which Is also seen In synchrotron radiation-excited photoemission partial-yield measurements. The sticking coefficient for oxygen Is very small on all three compounds studied here, exposures around 107 Langmuirs (10 Torr. sec) being necessary for monolayer coverage on the (110) faces. The Fermi level on GaP remains pinned after adsorption of 108 Langmuirs of oxygen, and for InP and GaAs pinning within the gap is Induced by extrinsic states at coverages of less than one-thousandth of a monolayer. The energies of some symmetry points In the bulk bandstructures of GaP and InP are determined unambiguously for the first time from a direct-transition analysis of the low-energy UPS data. The assignment of Auger peaks in clean GaP and the nature of the P-O Interatomic Auger transitions and Interface plasmons found during oxygen adsorption are discussed in detail. Electron beam-enhanced oxidation was observed, and a new mechanism proposed for this, Involving adsorption of oxygen Into the ceramic parts of the electron gun, followed by the projection of oxygen Ions towards the sample.


There is a continuing need to use recent and consistent multisectoral economic data to support policy analysis and the development of economywide models. Updating and estimating input-output tables and Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) for a recent year is a difficult and a challenging problem. Typically, input-output data are collected at long intervals (usually five years or more), while national income and product data are available annually, but with a lag. Supporting data also come from a variety of sources; e.g., censuses of manufacturing, labor surveys, agricultural data, government accounts, international trade accounts, and household surveys. The traditional RAS approach requires that we start with a consistent SAM for a particular period and "update" it for a later period given new information on row and column sums. This paper extends the RAS method by proposing a flexible entropy difference approach to estimating a consistent SAM starting from inconsistent data estimated with error, a common experience in many countries. The method is flexible and powerful when dealing with scattered and inconsistent data. It allows incorporating errors in variables, inequality constraints, and prior knowledge about any part of the SAM (not just row and column sums). Since the input-output accounts are contained within the SAM framework, updating an input-output table can be viewed as a special case of the general SAM estimation problem. The paper presents the structure of a SAM and a mathematical description of the estimation problem. It then describes the classical RAS procedure and the entropy difference approach. An example of the entropy difference approach applied to the case of Mozambique is presented. In addition, an appendix includes a listing of the computer code in the GAMS language used in the procedure.


The present model - relates money to capital and economic growth- advances the ISLM-AS approach- captures macroeconomic policy concepts - combines the business with the credit cycleCapital-based credit cycle analysis links business activity to economic growth and closes the gap between the short and the long run. This approach reinstates capital as a crucial variable of macroeconomics. Capital connects the neoclassical growth theory with money in a model derived from the equation exchange. Based on a strict distinction between the monetary and the real variables, the capital-based credit cycle model provides a tool for identifying the various stages of the business cycle in its relation to liquidity, savings and capital accumulation. As a device for teaching and research, the model offers a consistent analytical framework that will serve as a complement to the standard models of macroeconomics.


This study presents a comparison between the use of wearable laser scanning (WLS) and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) devices for automatic tree detection with an estimation of two dendrometric variables: diameter at breast height (DBH) and total tree height (TH). Operative processes for data collection and automatic forest inventory are described in detail. The approach used is based on the clustering of points belonging to each individual tree, the isolation of the trunks, the iterative fitting of circles for the DBH calculation and the computation of the TH of each tree. TLS and WLS point clouds were compared by the statistical analysis of both estimated forest dendrometric parameters and the possible presence of bias. Results show that the apparent differences in point density and relative precision between both 3D forest models do not affect tree detection and DBH estimation. Nevertheless, tree height estimation using WLS appears to be affected by the limited scanning range of the WLS used in this study. TH estimations for trees below a certain height are equivalent using WLS or TLS, whereas TH of taller trees is clearly underestimated using WLS.


The pathogenesis of HD and HDL2, similar progressive neurodegenerative disorders caused by expansion mutations, remains incompletely understood. No systematic quantitative proteomics studies, assessing global changes in HD or HDL2 human brain, were reported. To address this deficit, we used a stable isotope labeling-based approach to quantify the changes in protein abundances in the cortex of 12 HD and 12 control cases and, separately, of 6 HDL2 and 6 control cases. The quality of the tissues was assessed to minimize variability due to post mortem autolysis. We applied a robust median sweep algorithm to quantify protein abundance and performed statistical inference using moderated test statistics. 1211 proteins showed statistically significant fold changes between HD and control tissues; the differences in selected proteins were verified by Western blotting. Differentially abundant proteins were enriched in cellular pathways previously implicated in HD, including Rho-mediated, actin cytoskeleton and integrin signaling, mitochondrial dysfunction, endocytosis, axonal guidance, DNA/RNA processing, and protein transport. The abundance of 717 proteins significantly differed between control and HDL2 brain. Comparative analysis of the disease-associated changes in the HD and HDL2 proteomes revealed that similar pathways were altered, suggesting the commonality of pathogenesis between the two disorders.


The present study is part of the EU-Fp7 project SECURE. The research question in the present study is: How is the current Swedish MST curriculum for preschool implemented by the teachers, and perceived by the 5-year old learners?The introduction of a revised preschool curriculum in 2011 has given MST a prominent place in Swedish preschool, and may be intended by the authorities to change the weak positions and declining trends in the PISA and TIMSS surveys for Swedish school children. The new teaching task seems to be highly appreciated by the preschool teachers. However, the curriculum is quite ambitious, and a major concern is how the implementation will be done. The concept of "emergent science" is discussed in order to induce positive attitudes towards MST.In this study, semi-structured interviews with teachers in 15 Swedish preschools are the main source of information combined with some interviews with learners and photographic materials. The method for the analysis uses a category system of which results from some of the categories are reported.The preschool teachers are aware of the new role as teachers rather than just child minders. The revised curriculum seems to increase the self-confidence for MST of the learners as well as the teachers. The teachers say that the learners are interested in MST and that it is a case of catching opportunities, which may lead to emergent science. The 5-year old learners confirm that they like the activities related to MST.Working with hypotheses and storyline activities is shown as an example how emergent science can be promoted in 5-year old children. Activities connected to "emerging science" have been common in Swedish preschools for some time, but after the implementation of the revised curriculum teachers also verbalize this for themselves and the learners.


The paper measures regional competitiveness of Scotland in comparison to ten EU regions and small countries using the International Benchmarking Index Family ('IB Index Family') developed by BAK Basel Economics.1 The IB Index Family contains an index with three dimensions of competitiveness: Performance, Attractiveness and Structural Potential. The Performance Index measures recent economic success; the Attractiveness Index measures how well a region is an attractive location to companies and highly-qualified individuals; and the Structural Potential Index estimates future potential economic growth based on current economic structure. The application of the IB Index Family provides a first-step into a more in-depth benchmarking of the competitiveness of a region, which is necessary when working towards detailed policy conclusions. The paper explains these measurement tools and applies them in a short benchmarking analysis of Scotland and ten EU regions and small nations (e.g. Ireland, Norway, Western Sweden etc.).


Neural networks have achieved success in a wide array of perceptual tasks but often fail at tasks involving both perception and higher-level reasoning. On these more challenging tasks, bespoke approaches (such as modular symbolic components, independent dynamics models or semantic parsers) targeted towards that specific type of task have typically performed better. The downside to these targeted approaches, however, is that they can be more brittle than general-purpose neural networks, requiring significant modification or even redesign according to the particular task at hand. Here, we propose a more general neural-network-based approach to dynamic visual reasoning problems that obtains state-of-the-art performance on three different domains, in each case outperforming bespoke modular approaches tailored specifically to the task. Our method relies on learned object-centric representations, self-attention and self-supervised dynamics learning, and all three elements together are required for strong performance to emerge. The success of this combination suggests that there may be no need to trade off flexibility for performance on problems involving spatio-temporal or causal-style reasoning. With the right soft biases and learning objectives in a neural network we may be able to attain the best of both worlds.


This study documented the lived career-ending injury experiences among elite Irish rugby football union (IRFU) players. Three players took part in semistructured one-on-one interviews. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, 1996) revealed that the process of psychosocial injury rehabilitation and the subsequent transition process was for the most part a distressing one and evolved in a cyclical, yet stage-like (Heil, 1994), manner. The nature of the postinjury career transition appeared to be dependent on the interactional balance of participants' psychosocial responses to injury, existing coping mechanisms, and other factors related to the injury and career transition process. Appropriate social support network, use of sport medicine and counseling professionals, as well as organizational officials are needed to best prepare elite rugby players for life outside of sport, and to ensure a healthy career transition (Taylor & Ogilvie, 1994) out of sport.


Abstract. The problem discussed in this research is connected with the functionality of the graphical user interface (GUI) of global web mapping services displayed on different devices. Displaying a mapping service on devices with diverse display screen size causes the adaptation of the graphical user interface to the size of the screen. This adaptation is the result of the responsive design technique which enables one to display the same web content on different devices. Eight global web mapping services: Google Maps, Bing Maps, OpenStreetMap (OSM), Baidu Maps, Yandex Maps, 2GIS, MapQuest, and HERE WeGo, constituted the source of the data. All of them were displayed on four display screens: the monitor of a personal computer, laptop, tablet, and smartphone in order to compare the similarities in the adaptation of GUI, its functions and map content.The aim of the research conducted was to find different solutions for displaying GUI of the same mapping service on diverse display screens of various devices and to track which functions are the most common and how they differ in terms of graphics.Methodology of the research is based on the comparative analysis of eight global web mapping services in terms of the number of GUI buttons, their layout, graphic style, the map functionality, and map content displayed on four devices of different display screen size.The results showed that most of the global web mapping services adapt to the device and their way of use. Some of them are also responsive in the context of external conditions. Interestingly, the adaptation between the PC monitor, laptop and tablet occurs only by changing the size of GUI buttons, other functions remaining the same. Only in the case of smartphones GUI adapts to the size of the device, the number of buttons decreases and their layout changes, new functionality is available (e.g. day/night mode), and the map content is more generalized. On that basis, authors concluded that GUI of global map services constituted a good example of responsive web design.


A convenient defined medium was developed for use with Campylobacter species. Using this media C. jejuni NCTC 11168 was shown to be able to utilise mucin, L- serine, L-proline, L-glutamic acid, L-valine, L-glutamine, L-histidine, L-tyrosine, L-aspartate, L-asparagine and L-glycine as sole carbon sources. Amongst the sugars tested fucose, ribose and D-glucosamine hydrochloride supported growth. When different strains of Campylobacter were introduced into GMEM there were marked differences in growth. Out of six strains of C. jejuni, two grew well, whilst three out of five strains of C. coli grew well and two strains grew poorly in GMEM. Strains C. coli NCTC 11350, C. coli NCTC 11438 and C. jejuni NCTC 11951 failed to grow in GMEM alone, but when L-serine or L-glutamine were added NCTC 11438 and NCTC 11951 grew well, whilst the growth of NCTC 11951 was partially stimulated. The addition of carbon sources during the survival of C. jejuni had different effects depending on their nature. When mucin was added 10 hours post survival, recovery was stimulated by 10-fold yet when metabolisable single carbon sources were added, survival was decreased by 6-logs suggesting that the provision of unbalanced nutrition induces substrate accelerated death. This study also addressed potential mechanisms of mucin utilization in C jejuni. Mutants deficient in SdaC (serine transporter) and in AspA (aspartate ammonia lyase) were shown to be deficient in serine and aspartate utilization respectively but both were still able to utilize mucin suggesting that the liberation of serine and asparate from mucin is not important for its use as a carbon source. A plate based assay for mucinase/protease activity, and an assay using P-nitrophenol derivatives of sugars, did not detect any mucinolytic or glycosidic activities in C. jejuni. Mucin degradation is likely to generate short peptides and consequently, the mechanisms of peptide utilisation and transport were also investigated. Peptides containing either two or four aspartate residues supported some growth but this was less than when aspartate was provided alone. Peptides of four- or seven residues containing serine supported the best growth. It would appear then that C. jejuni can utilize peptides containing aspartate and serine as carbon sources. Mutants deficient in Cj 1580c-1584c, a putative ABC transport system for peptides, and Cj0653c, a putative aminopeptidase were still able to utilize peptides and neither system can be involved in the transport of the peptides assessed here. In addition a screen to isolate mutants unable to utilize peptides was developed using toxic peptide analogues. L-Ala-AEP (L-alanyl-L aminoethylphosphonic) was show to be suitable for this purpose but not triornithine or bialophos as C. jejuni NCTC 11168 was naturally resistant to these. When different strains of C. jejuni and C. coli were assessed for L-Ala-AEP sensitivity, three out of three strains of C. jejuni tested were sensitive and three of four stains of C. coli tested were resistant. This most likely reflects the existence of different mechanisms of peptide uptake or degradation in strains of Campylobacter, The new defined media also provided an opportunity to study the use of iron compounds and compatible solutes by C. jejuni. C. jejuni was shown to be able to acquire iron from DL- neorepinephrine, epinephrine, caffeic acid, rutin and quercetin but not catechin. although at high concentrations caffeic acid and rutin were growth inhibitory. Using GMEM it was found that at high osmolarities (0.15-0.3 M NaCl) the addition of the compatible solutes proline and betaine did not stimulate the growth of C. jejuni as is the case in other bacteria. In contrast, glycine betaine appeared to be growth inhibitory irrespective of the osmolarty of the media.


A number of oxygen heterocycles were synthesized using the palladium-catalyzed intramolecular etherification of aryl halides by employing di-tert-butylphosphinobiaryl ligands. The reaction proceeds under mild conditions using weak bases such as Cs(2)CO(3) or K(3)PO(4). A variety of functional groups are tolerated in the reaction, and enantioenriched alcohols can be coupled without erosion of optical purity. The mildness of the reaction conditions allows for the use of polyfunctionalized substrates. This method was used as the key step in the synthesis of MKC-242, an antidepressant currently in clinical trials. The synthesis of MKC-242 was achieved in 40% overall yield from commercially available sesamol and acrylonitrile.


This paper considers the growth of dark pools: trading venues for equities without pre-trade transparency. It first documents the emergence and expansion of dark pools in European equity markets in the context of regulatory changes and increased high-frequency trading (HFT). It finds that the market share of trading conducted in dark pools has stabilised below 10% and is similar across groups of stocks from different countries. Second, this paper assesses the nature of competition between dark pools, which is based on price and services offered to clients. It documents a substantial degree of horizontal differentiation among European dark pools, with venues providing different options for placing and processing orders likely to attract different types of traders. The hypothesis that most dark pools are primarily used to shield large orders from information leakage is not supported by evidence. This finding is based on a simple indicator that assesses different dark pools in terms of the level of protection from information leakage due to trading with HFT or predatory traders. Finally, this paper evaluates the benefits and costs of the use of dark pools from the perspective of individual traders as well as for market efficiency and financial stability. Recent evidence appears to reject the notion that dark pools adversely affect volatility in stock markets. JEL Classification: G10, G14, G18


SUMMARY The attenuation vector plays an important role in investigating waves propagating in dissipative, isotropic or anisotropic media. It is defined as the imaginary part of the complex-valued traveltime gradient. The real part of the complex-valued traveltime gradient is referred to as the propagation vector. In this paper, simple expressions for the attenuation vector are derived for seismic body waves propagating in heterogeneous, weakly dissipative, anisotropic media. The ray-theory perturbation method is used, in which the dissipative medium is considered to be a small perturbation of a perfectly elastic medium. The general perturbation procedure proposed by Klimey (2002) is very suitable for this purpose, as it does not require ray tracing in dissipative media; the computation of rays in the reference perfectly elastic medium, followed by quadratures along them, is quite sufficient. It is shown that the waves propagating in a heterogeneous, weakly dissipative, anisotropic or isotropic medium are, in general, inhomogeneous. This means that their attenuation vector is not parallel to the propagation vector. This holds even for waves generated by a point-source in a homogeneous anisotropic weakly dissipative medium. An exception is a wave generated by a point-source in a homogeneous isotropic dissipative medium, where the generated wave is homogeneous. Thus, the commonly used concept of homogeneous waves can be applied neither to heterogeneous nor to anisotropic dissipative media. The situation is different for plane waves propagating in homogeneous dissipative isotropic or anisotropic media. In this case, the homogeneity or inhomogeneity of the plane wave may be chosen freely. Besides the attenuation vector, we also study the complex-valued ray-velocity vector. In heterogeneous media, the complex-valued ray-velocity vector is generally inhomogeneous, that is, its real and imaginary parts are not parallel. It is also shown that twice the scalar product of the attenuation vector with the ray-velocity vector in the reference medium yields 1/Q, where Q is the positionand direction-dependent quality factor. Quality factor Q does not depend on the inhomogeneity of the wave under consideration and offers a convenient measure of intrinsic material dissipation.


Aims To quantify retinal vascular bed area (RVBA) in square millimetres on stereographically projected ultra-wide field (UWF) fluorescein angiography (FA) in eyes with diabetic retinopathy (DR). Methods A prospective, observational study. Baseline Optos 200Tx UWF FA images of 80 eyes with DR from the DAVE (NCT01552408) and RECOVERY (NCT02863354) studies were stereographically projected at the Doheny Image Reading Center to adjust for peripheral distortion. The early-phase FA frame was used to extract the retinal vasculature as a mask for calculating RVBA. The pixels of the retinal vasculature were automatically computed in square millimetres using manufacturer-provided software. Results Eighteen of 80 diabetic eyes were excluded because image quality and contrast were insufficient for automatic extraction of the retinal vasculature from the background fluorescence. The remaining 62 eyes were included in the final analysis. In comparison with age-matched and sex-matched normal controls, eyes with DR had a higher global RVBA for the entire retina (p<0.001), and RVBA correlated with DR severity (p<0.001), with a higher RVBA in eyes with proliferative DR (66.1±16.2 mm2) than in those with non-proliferative DR (56.2±16.6 mm2) or in normal controls (37.2±9.9 mm2). This tendency was also present in the posterior retina and mid-periphery but absent in the far-periphery. RVBA did not correlate with retinal ischaemia (p>0.05). Conclusions Eyes with DR harboured a larger global RVBA for the entire retina than normal controls, and RVBA appeared to indicate DR severity. However, this biomarker was not observed to be a good indicator of retinal ischaemia.


Do infants implicitly name visually fixated objects whose names are known, and does this information influence their preference for looking at other objects? We presented 18-month-old infants with a picture-based phonological priming task and examined their recognition of named targets in primed (e.g., dog-door) and unrelated (e.g., dog-boat) trials. Infants showed better recognition of the target object in primed than in unrelated trials across three measures. As the prime image was never explicitly named during the experiment, the only explanation for the systematic influence of the prime image on target recognition is that infants, like adults, can implicitly name visually fixated images and that these implicitly generated names can prime infants' subsequent responses in a paired visual-object spoken-word-recognition task.


Project risks evolve dynamically, so variations in risk influences during the life cycle of an information system development project require analyses to devise risk management strategies cost effectively and at the appropriate stages. This study extends the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory technique, using network theory, to assess the risk interdependencies for distinct project phases. A multiphase observation of a university information system development project in Taiwan provides a more in-depth understanding of the key risk factors. To enhance risk assessments, this study proposes integrating an interdependency indicator with risk exposure measures.


Background In the USA, many states do not pre-empt municipalities from enacting stricter tobacco-control policies than state or federal laws. Several municipalities in Massachusetts have passed progressive local laws aimed at reducing adolescent tobacco use. We exploited this variability to examine the associations between county-level flavoured tobacco product restrictions, tobacco 21 policies and smoke-free laws prohibiting e-cigarettes with adolescent cigarette and e-cigarette use in Massachusetts, and to assess whether policy effects varied by age. Methods We conducted difference-in-differences models to link changes in county-level tobacco-control policies to changes in adolescents' use of cigarettes and e-cigarettes using 2011–2017 biennial Massachusetts Youth Health Surveys. Results Counties with greater implementation of flavoured tobacco product restrictions were associated with a decrease in the level of cigarette use among users (Coefficient −1.56; 95% CI −2.54 to −0.58). A significant interaction (p=0.03) revealed the largest reductions among 14 and 18 year olds. Increasing flavoured tobacco product restrictions were also associated with reductions in the likelihood of e-cigarette use (Coefficient −0.87; 95% CI −1.68 to −0.06). Increasing tobacco 21 restrictions were associated with decreases in cigarette use only among 18 year olds, while there was no evidence of associations between smoke-free laws with use of either tobacco product. Conclusions Adolescents in Massachusetts decreased their use of cigarettes and e-cigarettes in response to local restrictions that limited the sale of flavoured tobacco products to adult-only retail tobacco stores. Local legislation can reduce adolescent tobacco use and municipalities should enact stricter tobacco-control policies when not pre-empted by state law.