Calretinin (CR), calbindin D-28k (CB) and parvalbumin (PV) belong to the large family of EF-hand calcium-binding proteins, which comprises more than 200 members in man. Structurally these proteins are characterized by the presence of a variable number of evolutionary well-conserved helix-loop-helix motives, which bind Ca2+ ions with high affinity. Functionally, they fall into two groups: by interaction with target proteins, calcium sensors translate calcium concentrations into signaling cascades, whereas calcium buffers are thought to modify the spatiotemporal aspects of calcium transients. Although CR, CB and PV are currently being considered calcium buffers, this may change as we learn more about their biology. Remarkable differences in their biophysical properties have led to the distinction of fast and slow buffers and suggested functional specificity of individual calcium buffers. Evaluation of the physiological roles of CR, CB and PV has been facilitated by the recent generation of mouse strains deficient in these proteins. Here, we review the biology of these calcium-binding proteins with distinct reference to the cerebellum, since they are particularly enriched in specific cerebellar neurons. CR is principally expressed in granule cells and their parallel fibres, while PV and CB are present throughout the axon, soma, dendrites and spines of Purkinje cells. PV is additionally found in a subpopulation of inhibitory interneurons, the stellate and basket cells. Studies on deficient mice together within vitro work and their unique cell type-specific distribution in the cerebellum suggest that these calcium-binding proteins have evolved as functionally distinct, physiologically relevant modulators of intracellular calcium transients. Analysis of different brain regions suggests that these proteins are involved in regulating calcium pools critical for synaptic plasticity. Surprisingly, a major role of any of these three calcium-binding proteins as an endogenous neuroprotectant is not generally supported.


Many inoculation methods have been used to evaluate resistance of different crops to Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary. Only a few of these methods have been used to evaluate more than one crop. This study compared disease evaluations of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.], dry bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), and sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) inoculated in the greenhouse (cut stem inoculation method) to field evaluations. In one experiment, stems of two soybean cultivars, Williams 82 (susceptible) and NKS19-90 (partially resistant), were severed and inoculated with a colonized mycelial plug of S. sclerotiorum placed on top of the plant at the cut point of the stem. Stem lesion lengths on these two cultivars were used to determine what effect plant age and post-infection temperature had on disease development. There was a significant (P < 0.05) difference in lesion lengths between inoculated 5-wk-old plants compared with 6- or 7-wk-old plants within each cultivar. At different post-infection temperatures, lesions developed at 25 degrees C but not at 30 degrees C. In another experiment, disease rating of 15 soybean cultivars evaluated in the greenhouse and field had significant (P < 0.05) correlation coefficients from 0.53 to 0.79. In addition to soybean, two experiments were completed on dry bean and sunflower. There were significant (P < 0.05) differences in lesion lengths among 14 genotypes within dry bean and sunflower. The correlation between greenhouse and field evaluations of dry bean and sunflower were 0.74 and 0.50 (P < 0.05), respectively. In summary, disease assessments from the cut stem inoculation compared favorably with disease assessments in the field for soybean, dry bean, and sunflower.


We show how directly transmitted microparasites, broadly defined to include viruses, bacteria, protozoans and fungi, may regulate natural populations of invertebrate hosts. The study combines elements of conventional epidemiology (where the host population is assumed constant) with elements of prey-predator studies (which conventionally emphasize how prey and predator populations may be regulated by their interaction). To this end, we construct simple models embodying the essentials of the dynamical interaction between invertebrate hosts and their directly transmitted microparasites. In successive refinements, these models include the effects of recovery and disease-induced mortality, castration or diminished reproduction of infected hosts, vertical transmission, latent periods of infection, stress-related pathogenicity, the interplay between disease and other density-dependent constraints on host population growth, and free-living infective stages. In analysing the dynamical behaviour of these models, we focus on: the possible regulation of the host population by the parasite; the basic reproductive rate of the parasite, and the way in which it affects the dynamics and the evolution of the host-parasite association; and the threshold host density and its implications for endemic or epidemic maintenance of the infection. These are examined in the light of synoptic compilations of field and laboratory data on: birth rates (and disease-induced reduction thereof), natural death rates and disease-induced death rates of hosts; latent periods and efficiencies of vertical transmission of pathogens; the rate of production and lifetime of free-living infective stages; and some characteristics of long-term cycles and of epidemic outbreaks of disease in forest insects. In particular, our models suggest that the baculovirus and microsporidian infections of many temperate forest insects will tend to produce stable cycles in host abundance and in prevalence of infection, with periods in the range 5-12 years. Enough is known about the European larch budmoth and an associated granulosis virus for us to undertake a detailed comparison between theory and data that strongly suggests that the observed 9-10 year cycles are driven by the host-parasite interaction. We also discuss the possible control of invertebrate pest species by pathogens, showing how our models could guide laboratory or field studies, to help estimate whether a given pathogen is capable of regulating the target pest population, and, if so, roughly what quantity is needed to effect a specific level of (local) control. Throughout, the emphasis is on the biological ingredients of the models, and on the biological conclusions to be drawn; mathematical details are given in appendixes.


Human rights advocates seek to find, interpret, and communicate facts about rights violations amidst some of the most complex social, economic, and political circumstances. To meet these challenges, fact-finders have developed research procedures that increasingly draw on a wide range of interdisciplinary tools and perspectives — with a notable expansion in the use of qualitative and quantitative methods from social science during recent years. Yet there is little discussion of investigative principles, research components, and methodological standards in the human rights field — a reality that often fuels tension and uncertainty over the extent to which social scientific research standards can and should inform evolving fact-finding conventions. As a result, fundamental questions about such standards remain unaddressed. To fill this gap, this chapter offers three core contributions. First, this chapter contextualizes the discussion by presenting data concerning the methods and conventions used by researchers at Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in the years 2000 and 2010. Second, this chapter interrogates the nature of social scientific inquiry and the degree of overlap between social science research and human rights fact-finding by comparing investigative principles, research components, and methodological standards. These comparisons reveal that social scientific research and human rights fact-finding share many common foundations and suggest that there is great potential for further convergence — especially in relation to methodological transparency. Third, drawing on some of the key distinctions between social science research and human rights fact-finding, this chapter highlights some of the methodological trade-offs that human rights investigators will likely confront when more directly considering social scientific strategies. This chapter ultimately cautions against the creation of a social science of human rights fact-finding, given the unique challenges and irreducible ethical commitments of human rights fact-finding. It instead calls for open and inclusive conversations about the most promising and appropriate standards for the evolving practice of human rights fact-finding.


In recent years there has been a strong effort to reduce the size and power consumption of vapour cell atomic clocks [1,2]. The progress in this direction is driven by several factors such as the use low power laser diodes (VCSEL), Coherent Population Trapping resonances (CPT), and micro-fabricated (MEMS) alkali-vapour cells. Here the micro-fabrication of vapour cells has proven a challenging task. All results reported on this task use anodic bonding at high-temperatures (>300°C) to seal the cell [3]. However, the low melting point and high vapour pressure of the alkali-metal combined with long bonding-times (>1hour) complicate this process. We have recently developed a low temperature ( 150°C) sealing technique with fast process time (<1min) based on soldering [4]. We report here on the measurement of 85Rb σ+ CPT resonance in low temperature sealed MEMS-fabricated vapour cells containing natural rubidium and buffer gas. The resonance is recorded on the rubidium D1-line (795nm) using a circular polarized and current-modulated VCSEL. We record the resonance shift, linewidth and amplitude as function of several experimental parameters such as light intensity, cell-temperature, and buffer gas pressure- and mixture. In addition we perform noise measurements on the resonance signal to characterize the cell for clock-applications. Preliminary results show a contrast of 1.7% and linewidth of 900Hz for a 4mm long cell with 70mbar of nitrogen buffer gas. Finally we present and characterize two problems related to the application of 85Rb resonance in clock-applications. First, the low modulation frequency of the VCSEL (1.5GHz) leads to a strong asymmetry in the first order sideband spectrum due to the combined effect of AM- and FM modulation. Second, the buffer gas broadening of the absorption spectrum combined with the small separation between VCSEL carrier and sideband reduces the CPT contrast due to off-resonant absorption. We demonstrate that the impact of both these effects can be reduced by modulating the VCSEL at 3GHz and probing the CPT resonance with the carrier and first order sideband. We acknowledge support from the European Space Agency ESA (ESTEC contract number 20794/07/NL/GLC), the Conference Universitaire Suisse CUS (project CIMENT), the Swiss Space Office SSO, and SpectraTime SA (Neuchâtel, Switzerland).


Taddy (2013) proposed multinomial inverse regression (MNIR) as a new model of annotated text based on the influence of metadata and response variables on the distribution of words in a document. While effective, MNIR has no way to exploit structure in the corpus to improve its predictions or facilitate exploratory data analysis. On the other hand, traditional probabilistic topic models (like latent Dirichlet allocation) capture natural heterogeneity in a collection but do not account for external variables. In this paper, we introduce the inverse regression topic model (IRTM), a mixed-membership extension of MNIR that combines the strengths of both methodologies. We present two inference algorithms for the IRTM: an efficient batch estimation algorithm and an online variant, which is suitable for large corpora. We apply these methods to a corpus of 73K Congressional press releases and another of 150K Yelp reviews, demonstrating that the IRTM outperforms both MNIR and supervised topic models on the prediction task. Further, we give examples showing that the IRTM enables systematic discovery of in-topic lexical variation, which is not possible with previous supervised topic models.


Earlier studies have reported on the toxicity and related oxidative stress of different forms of Se, including seleno‐ D,L‐methionine, in mallards (Anas platyrhynchos). This study compares the effects of Se (seleno‐D,L‐methionine) and Hg (methylmercury chloride) separately and in combination. Mallard drakes received one of the following diets: untreated feed (controls), or feed containing 10 ppm Se, 10 ppm Hg, or 10 ppm Se in combination with 10 ppm Hg. After 10 weeks, blood, liver, and brain samples were collected for biochemical assays. The following clinical and biochemical alterations occurred in response to Hg exposure: hematocrit and hemoglobin concentrations decreased; activities of the enzymes glutathione (GSH) peroxidase (plasma and liver), glutathione‐S‐transferase (liver), and glucose‐6‐phosphate dehydrogenase (G‐6‐PDH) (liver and brain) decreased; hepatic oxidized glutathione (GSSG) concentration increased relative to reduced glutathione (GSH); and lipid peroxidation in the brain was detected by increased thiobarbituric reactive substances (TBARS). Effects of Se alone included increased hepatic GSSG reductase activity and brain TBARS concentration. Selenium in combination with Hg partially or totally alleviated effects of Hg on GSH peroxidase, G‐6‐PDH, and GSSG. These findings are compared in relation to field observations for diving ducks and other aquatic birds. It is concluded that since both Hg and excess Se can affect thiol status, measurement of associated enzymes in conjunction with thiol status may be a useful bioindicator to discriminate between Hg and Se effects. The ability of Se to restore the activities of G‐6‐PDH, GSH peroxidase, and glutathione status involved in antioxidative defense mechanisms may be crucial to biological protection from the toxic effects of methylmercury.


ABSTRACT Rhinocladiella mackenziei is a recognized cause of endemic cerebral phaeohyphomycosis in the Middle East area. Surgical resection of the abscesses and posaconazole treatment have improved the ominous prognosis of this disease. We describe the case of a native Afghan woman living in France who presented with brain abscesses due to R. mackenziei.


Examining the way in which natural systems have arisen through the sun's influence, how humans have adapted to them and what today's urban planners can do to respond to the challenge of a sustainable world, this book outlines the need to reconsider how we organise our lives in terms of energy, technology and architecture. It goes on to illustrate the various natural cycles of which the sun is part. As the book explains, these include sustainable ecosystems, wind patterns, ocean currents, fossil fuels and the life cycles of animals. The various ways in which people have harnessed the sun's power in different parts of the world since neolithic times, the ancient civilization of Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas is explained as well as to the present with those living in the tundras, the rainforests, savannas, deserts and in earth's comfort zones. It finally sets out exciting ways in which solar-oriented architecture can lead to energy-conscious buildings.


Background: Reducing the time taken to seek help for symptoms is important in improving prognosis for cancer patients. Delay in help-seeking refers to the period between first noticing symptoms and initial medical consultation. The aim of this study was to investigate if psychological factors were associated with the time taken to seek help for individuals with colorectal or breast cancer.
Method: Participants with colorectal (47) and breast cancer (24) recalled the length of time from first recognising symptoms until seeking medical help. This was calculated in days for two sequential time periods: symptom appraisal (from recognising symptoms until appraising they may be serious) and action appraisal (from recognition of symptoms as serious until organising a medical consultation). Six measures assessing dispositional traits, illness beliefs and current symptomatology were completed, and relevant demographic information recorded.
Result: Symptom appraisal accounted for the largest proportion of time in seeking help for both groups. Initial correlational analysis followed by further Cox regression analysis indicated that age was significantly associated with action appraisal time for the breast cancer group. There were no significant associations between predictor variables and symptom appraisal time for this group. Time-to-event analysis could not be completed for participants with colorectal cancer.
Conclusion: Results are discussed in light of previous research findings and the limitations of the present study.


The interplay between sea ice concentration, sea ice roughness, ocean stratification, and momentum transfer to the ice and ocean is subject to seasonal and decadal variations that are crucial to understanding the present and future air-ice-ocean system in the Arctic. In this study, continuous observations in the Canada Basin from March through December 2014 were used to investigate spatial differences and temporal changes in under-ice roughness and momentum transfer as the ice cover evolved seasonally. Observations of wind, ice, and ocean properties from four clusters of drifting instrument systems were complemented by direct drill-hole measurements and instrumented overhead flights by NASA operation IceBridge in March, as well as satellite remote sensing imagery about the instrument clusters. Spatially, directly estimated ice-ocean drag coefficients varied by a factor of three with rougher ice associated with smaller multi-year ice floe sizes embedded within the first-year-ice/multi-year-ice conglomerate. Temporal differences in the ice-ocean drag coefficient of 20–30% were observed prior to the mixed layer shoaling in summer and were associated with ice concentrations falling below 100%. The ice-ocean drag coefficient parameterization was found to be invalid in September with low ice concentrations and small ice floe sizes. Maximum momentum transfer to the ice occurred for moderate ice concentrations, and transfer to the ocean for the lowest ice concentrations and shallowest stratification. Wind work and ocean work on the ice were the dominant terms in the kinetic energy budget of the ice throughout the melt season, consistent with free drift conditions. Overall, ice topography, ice concentration, and the shallow summer mixed layer all influenced mixed layer currents and the transfer of momentum within the air-ice-ocean system. The observed changes in momentum transfer show that care must be taken to determine appropriate parameterizations of momentum transfer, and imply that the future Arctic system could become increasingly seasonal.


Powdery mildew occurs annually on melons in Arizona. Podosphaera xanthii (Sphaerotheca fuliginea) is the plant pathogenic fungus that causes powdery mildew on cucurbits, such as cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, cucumber and squash. Development of powdery mildew on melons is favored by moderate temperatures and relative humidity, succulent plant growth and reduced light intensity brought about by a dense plant canopy. Existing products as well as materials under development were evaluated and compared for efficacy in management of powdery mildew on cantaloupe in a field trial conducted during the spring of 2006 at the Yuma Valley Agricultural Center. A high level of disease had developed when disease severity data was recorded at crop maturity (Jun 15). Among treatments, the degree of powdery mildew control ranged from 0 to 100%. Among tested products, several are registered for use in Arizona for control of powdery mildew on melons. Using a mixture of products or rotating among efficacious fungicides with different modes of action is important to minimize the development of insensitivity in the pathogen population to one or more of these active ingredients.


There is an ongoing move toward payment models that hold providers increasingly accountable for the care of their patients. The success of these new models depends in part on the stability of patient populations. We investigated the amount of population turnover in a large Medicare Pioneer accountable care organization (ACO) in the period 2012-14. We found that substantial numbers of beneficiaries became part of or left the ACO population during that period. For example, nearly one-third of beneficiaries who entered in 2012 left before 2014. Some of this turnover reflected that of ACO physicians-that is, beneficiaries whose physicians left the ACO were more likely to leave than those whose physicians remained. Some of the turnover also reflected changes in care delivery. For example, beneficiaries who were active in a care management program were less likely to leave the ACO than similar beneficiaries who had not yet started such a program. We recommend policy changes to increase the stability of ACO beneficiary populations, such as permitting lower cost sharing for care received within an ACO and requiring all beneficiaries to identify their primary care physician before being linked to an ACO.


This paper presents the results of a small-scale research study examining the professional practice of Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) faculty, who are encouraged to network and learn, establish on-going relationships with both their fellow faculty and those in other institutions, share knowledge, experience, resources and foster good practice for continuing professional development (CPD). It considers whether the group of faculty would benefit from the establishment of a networked learning community, supported by their educational institution for continuing professional development. Using an integrative literature review, it provides a review of existing research literature related to professional development of VLE faculty within networked learning communities. Findings indicate that although networked learning communities have positive influences for CPD including enhanced social learning processes, greater use of formal and informal learning, learning across barriers in time and space and increased levels of interaction, challenges remain that can hinder continuing professional development. It concludes that a networked learning community could be piloted with a sub-group of VLE faculty at a chosen HEI and that further qualitative and quantitative research could be conducted.


Background: Public health surveillance has traditionally relied on manual processes including paper-based reporting by clinicians. The introduction of electronic laboratory reporting increased the efficiency and completeness of infectious disease surveillance but clinical and risk factor data are often still collected manually. The use of electronic health records (EHR) has significant promise to enrich surveillance by collecting these data automatically and by expanding surveillance to chronic diseases (e.g., diabetes, hypertension, obesity). However, the extent of the use of EHRs for public surveillance is not well studied. Evidence Acquisition: The peer-reviewed medical literature was searched for descriptions of the use of EHRs for public health surveillance. Evidence Synthesis: This literature is very limited. The largest body of work describes the experience of the Electronic Medical Record Support for Public Health system (ESPnet) currently being used in Massachusetts, Ohio, and Texas. It shows both the potential and challenges of using EHRs for surveillance. Discussion: Routine incorporation of EHR data into surveillance provides a unique opportunity to expand the breadth, quality, and efficiency of surveillance efforts. However, more research is needed to document the potential benefits and limitations of EHRs. Implications: Surveillance practitioners should work with health systems and EHR vendors to explore the use of EHRs. Policymakers should increase financial support for EHR-based surveillance by building requirements into Meaningful Use and other initiatives. In addition, clinical medicine and public health should work together to develop meaningful surveillance measures that can simultaneously improve the care of individuals and populations.


Background: We have taken a standpoint that the scope of the platelet count or its variance is significantly higher in pregnancy; 50,000-6,00, 000 compared to the white blood cells(WBC) 9,000-11,000. Hence, their ratio may be a useful marker in predicting preeclampsia. Aim of the Study: The aim of this study was to verify that placental weight (PW ratio) or platelet/WBC count might be a useful screening ratio for preeclampsia and its related complications. Patients and Methods: We have taken a total of 104 primigravida patients, each one is corresponding to the gestational ages (GA) 20–34 weeks, and seven patients per each week for initial PW ratio assessment. In addition, all women were told to come again at 34 weeks of gestation for reassessment of PW ratio (platelet/WBC) count, and a meticulous ultrasound examination for intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) as well as biophysical profile. Results: At the end of the study, we subdivided the 104 initial sample into three subgroups; normal women (n = 76); women with preeclampsia but no IUGR (n = 16); and women with preeclampsia and IUGR (n = 12). There was a statistically significant difference between the three groups with regard to systolic, diastolic, and PW ratio. In addition, the PW ratio was significantly different among the three subgroups using the analysis of variance test. Nonlinear polynomial of the third degree between PW ratio and GA has shown a significant correlation between PW ratio and GA. The correlation between them was statistically significant, yet the distribution of PW was normal in distribution P = 0.16. In addition, since all screening test should be subject to Weibull distribution, we challenged the PW ratio against this distribution and was found to be positive P = 0.3 by using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test. At last, logistic regression was constructed to evaluate the correlation between PW ratio and the number of infants with IUGR, and a highly positive correlation was found P = 0.0001. Moreover, PW was significant with all the items of the biophysical profile which includes body posture, gross body movement, respiratory fetal movement, oligohydramnios, and NST. At last, we have constructed easily used chart and reference tables for PW ratio between 20 and 34 weeks; hence, they can be used in clinical practice to verify this ratio among women with preeclampsia. Conclusion: A simple easily to calculate ratio has been constructed which has been shown in this paper to be significantly correlated to preeclampsia and IUGR, and from this ratio, easy reference table and figure have been constructed. Yet, by no mean, we call that this ratio or table is used as a substitute for clinical methods to screen or to diagnose preeclampsia until its significance is evaluated by further trials. However, it may be of value as an adjuvant test to other standard tests used for preeclampsia screening or monitoring.


In this proof of concept study we demonstrate direct utilization of limonene containing waste product orange peel as starting material for a biocatalytic cascade reaction. The product of this cascade is chiral carvolactone, a promising building block for thermoplastic polymers. Four different concepts were applied to augment limonene availability based on either water extraction solely, addition of extraction enhancers or biomass dissolution.


Developing nations are emerging from food poverty and overcoming associated externalities such as malnutrition. However, there is a growing possibility that due to the globalization of food markets and widespread use of different marketing approaches, children immediately then become exposed to a new set of externalities associated with unhealthy food choices, such as obesity. In this article, we explore the relatively under-researched area of the influence that marketing and packaging may have on parents' food purchasing behaviour in developing countries. We present the results of a multivariate analysis of a survey of parents in Nigeria as a case study, exploring the characteristics and attitudes of parents to develop a typology of consumers whose young children may be at risk from eating unhealthy food. In addition, we consider the role that social marketing could play in encouraging segments of parents to purchase more healthy food for their children and changing children's purchasing behaviour. While older parents appear to be more susceptible to children's food purchasing requests, younger households appear to be vulnerable to forming unhealthy consumption habits, which could create further economic, social, and humanitarian development issues as countries try to raise national incomes. The importance of segmented social marketing and globalized versus local marketing differentiation is emphasized A social marketing approach may not only reduce worrying trends relating to childhood obesity but also play a role in reducing malnutrition, as it is important that corporations and governments ensure that developing nations do not emerge from one food-health crisis only to encounter another.


Topic. The focus of this study was the actions, policies, and procedures used in the successful implementation of an inclusion program in three elementary schools participating in Project Homecoming within the Dallas Independent School District. I was interested in how these actions, policies, and procedures affected the different groups within the schools--students, parents, certified staff, and non-certified staff as well. The data gathered in this study should be useful to other school districts in the process of developing an inclusion program in the elementary school. Purpose. The purpose of this study was to identify the actions, policies, and procedures needed to implement a successful inclusion program. General Methodology. This study is a descriptive multiple case study of three of the elementary schools that are a part of the Project Homecoming in the Dallas Independent School District, Dallas, Texas. I reviewed documents associated with the "Homecoming" Project and conducted interviews and observations. The school administrators and program administrators were interviewed. "Homecoming" teachers and support personnel within the participating schools were interviewed, as well as students and their parents. An interview guide was formulated. The case study was piloted at a private school involved in the implementation of an inclusion program. Results. After the first year of implementing the program there were very few actions, policies, and procedures at the District level. The schools participating in the program did not implement any specific actions, policies, and procedures relative to Project Homecoming other than establishing school planning teams and including special-needs children in theregular classroom. The attitude of the staff and the commitment of the local schoolbuilding administrator were contributors to the success of this program after the initial implementation. The District was unable to carry through with extensive training and support services from the central office. Conclusions. Before implementing an inclusion program, school districts should be sure that all populations of the school community are committed to inclusion. The district should also be sure that funding is provided for staff development and support staff.


The costs of linking customers with the public switched telephone network have been ill-defined as costs common to all telecommunications services, argued Alfred E. Kahn and William B. Shew here in 1987. Now as the pace of change in telecommunications accelerates, Steve Parsons argues that the proper assignment of these so-called loop costs is increasingly important, since it affects many areas of public network law and policy, including rate-setting, cross-subsidy tests, and franchise obligations. Parsons argues in favor of Kahn and Shew's position and poses eight additional arguments for attributing loop costs directly to the provision of access to the network. He traces the misclassification of loop costs to careless nomenclature, misapplied microeconomics, and the merging of inconsistent concepts and arguments. He suggests how and why telecommunications policy, as it evolves, must embrace loop costs as attributable to their own service rather than allocated to other network-using services.


Query substitution is an important problem in information retrieval. Much work focuses on how to find substitutes for any given query. In this paper, we study how to efficiently process a keyword query whose substitutes are defined by a given taxonomy. This problem is challenging because each term in a query can have a large number of substitutes, and the original query can be rewritten into any of their combinations. We propose to build an additional index (besides inverted index) to efficiently process queries. For a query workload, we formulate an optimization problem which chooses the additional index structure, aiming at minimizing the query evaluation cost, under given index space constraints. We show the NP-hardness of the problem, and propose a pseudo-polynomial time algorithm using dynamic programming, as well as an 1 over 4(1-1/e)-approximation algorithm to solve the problem. Experimental results show that, with only 10% additional index space, our approach can greatly reduce the query evaluation cost.


Primordial black holes (PBHs) can form in the early Universe from the collapse of rare, large density fluctuations. They have never been observed, but this fact is enough to constrain the amplitude of fluctuations on very small scales which cannot be otherwise probed. Because PBHs form only in very rare large fluctuations, the number of PBHs formed is extremely sensitive to changes in the shape of the tail of the fluctuation distribution - which depends on the amount of non-Gaussianity present. We first study how local non-Gaussianity of arbitrary size up to fifth order affects the abundance and constraints from PBHs, finding that they depend strongly on even small amounts of non-Gaussianity and the upper bound on the allowed amplitude of the power spectrum can vary by several orders of magnitude. The sign of the non-linearity parameters (f_{NL}, g_{NL}, etc) are particularly important. We also study the abundance and constraints from PBHs in the curvaton scenario, in which case the complete non-linear probability distribution is known, and find that truncating to any given order (i.e. to order f_{NL} or g_{NL}, etc) does not give accurate results.


The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development finds that worst case housing needs decreased during the 2011-to-2013 period but persist at high levels across demographic groups, household types, and regions. Substantial unmet needs for affordable rental housing remain even as economic conditions are improving. The unmet need for decent, safe, and affordable rental housing continues to outpace the ability of federal, state, and local governments to supply housing assistance.


Early spring (March - April) rainfall in Taiwan exhibits evident and distinct inter-annual and inter-decadal variability. The inter-annual varibility has a positive correlation with the El Nino/Southern Oscillation while the inter-decadal variability features a phase change beginning in the late 1970s, coherent with the major phase change in the Pacific decadal oscillation. Rainfall variability in both timescales is regulated by large-scale processes showing consistent dynamic features. Rainfall increases are associated with positive sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the tropical eastern Pacific and negative SST anomalies in the tropical central Pacific. An anomalous lower-level divergent center appears in the tropical central Pacific. Via a Rossby-wave-like response, an anomalous lower-level anticyclone appears to the southeast of Taiwan over the Philippine Sea-tropical western Pacific region, which is accompanied by an anomalous cyclone to the north-northeast of Taiwan. Both circulation anomalies induce anomalous southwesterly flows to enhance moisture flux from the South China Sea onto Taiwan, resulting in significant moisture convergence nearby Taiwan. With enhanced moisture supplied by anomalous southwesterly flows, significant rainfall increases occur in both inter-annual and inter-decadal timescales in early spring rainfall on Taiwan.


This research is set in the context of tourism marketing and refers specifically to tourist roles. A representative sample of 1675 tourists brings to light the tourist role preference in Greece, and allows us to examine the possible differences between men and women of varying ages. The Tourist Role Preference Scale (TRPS) was used for this research. The findings of this study support the existence of Yiannakis and Gibson's 15 leisure tourist roles in Greece. Sun lover, anthropologist, archaeologist, independent mass tourist and escapist were found to be the most prevalent tourist roles in Greece. A comparison between gender and age revealed more similarities than differences. TRPS was proven reliable and valid for the sample used in this study and the questions of the scale represented significantly the tourist roles measured.


Introduction: Trauma and emergencies contribute to the quadruple burden of disease in South Africa and being prepared for an emergency requires rapid access to emergency equipment, drugs and emergency trolleys to optimally manage an emergency. This is the first descriptive study looking specifically at essential emergency equipment, drugs and the emergency trolley required for the provision of optimal emergency care at Community Health Centres (CHCs) in the Western Cape Metropole.

Aims and Objectives: The aim of the study was to evaluate whether eight 24 hour emergency units at CHCs in the Western Cape Metropole had the appropriate and essential emergency equipment, drugs and emergency trolleys necessary for the delivery of optimal emergency care, using the Emergency Medicine Society of South Africa (EMSSA) guidelines as the audit tool.

Objectives included:

1. To assess availability of essential emergency equipment
2. To assess availability of essential emergency drugs
3. To assess the functionality of existing emergency trolleys

Methodology: EMSSA guidelines were used as the evaluation audit tool to perform a survey of emergency equipment, drugs and emergency trolleys at eight 24 hour CHCs in the Western Cape Metro pole. Data collection for the study was conducted at the eight 24 hour CHCs over a 3 month period during the months of June 2012 to August 2012. The data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Health Sciences (Statistica, version 10 of 2012) and Microsoft Excel.

Results: A total of 81 emergency equipment items, 43 emergency drug items (37 emergency drugs, 6 intravenous fluids) and 78 emergency trolley items were required to be in each emergency unit. An average of 62% of all recommended emergency equipment items, 80% of all emergency drugs and 52.4% of all emergency trolley items were found to be present in this survey. Essential emergency paediatric equipment including bag ventilation devices, Magill's forceps, masks, intraosseous needles and appropriate blood pressure cuffs were found to be absent at 2 CHCs. All CHCs had access to a defibrillator and ECG machine but these were found to be dysfunctional at 2 CHCs due to expired batteries and no tracing paper being available. Expired first line emergency drugs (adrenaline and atropine) were found at certain CHCs. The recording of emergency trolley checklists and stocking of essential emergency items were found to be incongruent, inconsistent and not up to the recommended standard.

Conclusion: Essential emergency equipment and drugs and the functionality of emergency trolleys were found to be generally inadequate. Considerable deficiencies of essential emergency items were found, particularly paediatric equipment and drugs and this may negatively impact on resuscitative efforts and outcome in both paediatric and adult emergency care at CHCs in the Western Cape Metropole.


America and Europe differ with regard to what economics is understood to be, how it is practiced, and how professional academic economists behave. Specifically, 1) American (U.S. and Canadian) economists contribute by far the largest share of journal publications and are cited much more often than European economists, while (West-) European economists consider other aspects of their professional activities more relevant, in particular participating in local and national affairs; 2) economic research by Americans tends to focus on abstract issues defined within the profession itself and involves fads, while the activities of European economists (though not necessarily their research) are more concerned with practical issues and follow a more steady course: and 3) American academics are geared to postgraduate teaching, while in Europe they are mostly engaged in undergraduate teaching. These differences can be explained by the different market conditions faced by American and European economists: in America, the academic market is much larger, and the degree of government intervention is typically much smaller. This paper explores how this leads to different focuses for European and American economists. In addition, it asks whether the ongoing economic unification in Europe may not alter these patterns.


Detailed measurements of scattering parameters have been made on a precision rotary vane attenuator (RVA) with high-resolution, direct angular readout. The aim of the measurements has been to test if the RVA can be used as a primary standard of attenuation by taking advantage of a precision model described recently by one of the authors (T. Guldbrandsen). Precision attenuation measurements have been made versus angle of rotation by means of a modulated subcarrier system. Within the uncertainty, the attenuation measurements agree with the functional dependence predicted by the model. Reflection coefficients have been measured versus angle of rotation by means of a computer-corrected automatic network analyzer and, within the uncertainty, they agree with the model. From the reflection measurements, corrections to the attenuation were calculated using relations derived from the model. The corrections were compared with the measured attenuation values. So far the agreement is not quite satisfactory and additional diagnostic measurements are planned.


Aerospace industry demands for significantly reduced development and operating costs. Reduction of structural weight at safe design is one avenue to achieve this objective. The running ESA (European Space Agency) study Probabilistic Aspects of Buckling Knock Down Factor acts on this route. It concentrates on thin-walled circular cylindrical CFRP shells subjected to axial compression. It is well known that such structures exhibit not only a high load carrying capacity but also are prone to buckling which is highly imperfection sensitive. Imperfections are defined as deviations from perfect parameters like shape, thickness, material properties and loading distributions, they can reduce the buckling load drastically compared to a perfect shell. In order to account for these imperfections the theoretical buckling load of a perfect cylinder must be multiplied, and therefore reduced, by a knock-down factor (the ratio of buckling loads of imperfect and perfect cylindrical shell). Thus the closer the knock-down factor reflects the effect of imperfections the better is the prediction of the real buckling load.
In the still used NASA SP-8007 design guideline from 1968 a lower bound curve for the knock-down factor is proposed. The factor depends on the slenderness (the ratio of radius and wall thickness) and decreases with increasing slenderness. This factor is rather conservative and the structural behaviour of composite material is not considered adequately. Advanced thin-walled cylindrical shell structures under compression are therefore penalized if the knock-down factor based on this early NASA report must be applied.
The current ESA study started in May 2006 and will run for 18 months. Its main objective is to achieve a better buckling knock-down factor for unstiffened CFRP cylindrical shells and to validate the linear and non-linear buckling simulations by test results. The main results will comprise an experimental data base (material properties, measured thicknesses, full scale shape imperfections, load-shortening curves, strains, and deformations) obtained by testing of 10 nominally identical axially compressed CFRP cylindrical shells, sensitivity analyses using Monte-Carlo simulation, validation with tests and a design guideline for that type of structure with a less conservative knock-down factor than taken from NASA SP-8007. All tasks of the ESA study are performed at the Institute of Composite Structures and Adaptive Systems of DLR Braunschweig, which has a rich body of experience in design, manufacturing, testing and analysis of shells prone to buckling.
The paper outlines the objectives and expected results of the running ESA study and presents the results achieved so far.


Cold Atmospheric Plasma (CAP) has been shown to influence tissue wound healing but little is known about the impact of CAP on healthy corneal tissues and their ability to respond to injuries. The objective of this study is to examine the effect of CAP on wound healing after corneal epithelial and basement membrane ablation in New Zealand white rabbits. The rabbits were assigned into three groups. Ten Rabbits from two groups underwent a 6 mm corneal ablation to the right eyes. After ablation, five rabbits in group (A) received 2 minutes of CAP whereas the other five rabbits (B) were not treated with CAP. A third group (C) included two rabbits and received CAP without ablation. Eyes monitored for corneal haze,
epithelial healing, lens clarity and any signs of inflammation. At 24 hours, two rabbits from group A and two from group B were sacrificed to harvest the corneas. Twenty days, all remaining rabbits in groups A, B, and C were sacrificed and corneas were harvested. Corneas were fixed in formalin and stained with H&E or used for immunofluorescence microscopy to assess scar formation using antibodies against fibronectin and a-smooth muscle actin. At 24 hours, corneas from group A had average epithelial defect
of 9.25 mm2 on day 1 whereas those from group B had average defect of 12.05 mm2, a difference of 2.8 mm2 (P=0.57). H & E stained corneal sections didn't show abnormal responses to injury at 24 hours and 20 days. Epithelial thickness and stromal cell counts 20 days after injury showed no significant differences. Analysis of immunofluorescence microscopy images showed no differences between all groups. In conclusion, CAP application to cornea doesn't appear to have obvious adverse effects. CAP
does not interfere with rate of wound closure or induce increased inflammation. CAP did not have an effect on corneal wound healing or lead to scar formation.


Wireless communication is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not directly connected by an electrical conductor. There is one of most common wireless technologies uses radio waves. With radio waves distances can be short, such as a few meters for television or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications. Wireless communications use other electromagnetic wireless technologies, such as light, magnetic, or electric fields or the use of sound. In this paper we will show the evolution and development of various generations of mobile wireless technology along with their significance and advantages of one over the other. In the past few decades, mobile wireless technologies have experience 4 or 5 generations of technology revolution and evolution, namely from 1G to 4G. Current research in mobile wireless technology concentrates on advance implementation of 4G technology and 5G technology. Index Term : 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G


The purpose of the present study was to examine goal setting strategies, locus of control beliefs and personality characteristics of swimmers (108 males and 111 females) from top twenty 1999 NCAA Division IA programs. Three questionnaires were completed: (a) Goal Setting in Sport Questionnaire (GSISQ: Weinberg, Burton, Yukelson, & Weigand, 1993), (b) the Internal, Powerful Others, Chance Scale (IPC: Levenson, 1973), and (c) the compliance subscale and six conscientiousness subscales from the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R: Costa & McCrae, 1985). Descriptive statistics from the GSISQ indicated that most of the swimmers set goals to improve overall performance (51%) and set moderately difficult goals (58%). Results associated with the IPC scale revealed that most of the swimmers attributed their sport performance to internal factors. Results pertaining to the NEO-PI-R indicated that most swimmers were highly conscientious, disciplined, purposeful, and determined.


The purpose of this thesis is to examine soliton-like solutions of various 2 + 1 dimensional models, including the Ginzburg-Landau theory of superconductivity [1]. Among the models studied are also some with a Chern-Simons term, which may play a role in high temperature superconductivity [2], Our study is relevant to planar physics and phenomena with cylindrical symmetry. Different models are studied to find generic features and pinpoint the differences. The most important property of the models we study is that there are extended structures in each of them. The models share many other properties which are investigated in this thesis.

The study of extended objects in gauge theories goes back to t 'Hooft [3] and Polyakov [4] and their work on magnetic monopoles. Since then numerous papers have been written on static extended objects in gauge theories. In recent years the dynamics of soliton-like objects in (2 + 1) and (3 + 1) dimensions has also been studied. The analytic studies were mainly based on the geodesic approximation [5], whose validity has recently been proved for vortices [6] and monopoles [7], and were mainly concerned with the scattering of two objects. There are, however, some interesting analytic results for the scattering of more than two extended objects, (see for example Refs [8] [9] [10] ). Our work will add to this body of knowledge.

In Chapters two to four various time independent solutions are exhibited and their interaction energies studied as a function of the relative strength of matter self coupling and electromagnetic coupling. The result is that the vortices have phases of attraction and repulsion. There is no interaction between the vortices when the topological lower bound on the energy is saturated. Then vortices satisfy the corresponding first order partial differential
equations. It will be shown that for the critical value of the coupling constant in the potential a lower bound on the energy of an n—vortex configuration can be attained. Since the vortex number is a topological invariant, any configuration which achieves this bound will be a minimum of the energy and thus a solution of the Euler-Lagrange equations.

Several models will be studied analytically and numerically in this way. In particular, in Chapter 3 the gauged 0(3) sigma model with Maxwell term and in Chapter 4 the gauged 0(3) sigma model with Chern-Simons term are studied. In Chapters 5 and 6 the Abelian Chern-Simons-Higgs vortices and the Abelian Yang-Mills-Higgs vortices are studied respectively. To find the static solutions a similar approach is taken, thus highlighting the generic features of the models.

The scattering properties of the vortices in the Abelian Yang-Mills-Higgs model are examined in the second half of this thesis. Given suitable initial data we prove that a global time dependent solution exists for the Abelian Higgs model. We show, using a formal method of solution to the equations, that symmetry properties of the initial data are retained by the solution. Considering transformations of the initial data which leave the energy density invariant, it is shown that the vortices scatter at a tt/ n angle.

When the vortices attain their minimal energy, the vortices do not interact and the diagonal components of the stress tensor vanish. Then the vortices can be placed at arbitrary positions in the plane. We exploit this fact to set up an initial value problem with initial boosts which does not cost any potential energy. The scattering properties can be examined for these processes.

Our aim is to study generic features of a whole range of vortex models, and to demonstrate how to progress from the statics to the dynamics of vortices in one of the models.


From the Publisher:
If asked, most people would agree that there are deep connections between technology and the modern world, and even that technology is the truly distinctive feature of modernity. Until recently, however, there has been surprisingly little overlap between technology studies and modernity theory. The goal of this ambitious book is to lay the foundations for a new interdisciplinary field by closely examining the co-construction of technology and modernity.
The book is divided into three parts. Part I lays the methodological groundwork for combining studies of technology and modernity, while integrating ideas drawn from feminism, critical theory, philosophy, sociology, and socioeconomics. Part II continues the methodological discussion, focusing on specific sociotechnical systems or technologies with prominent relations to modernity, such as the Internet, surveillance, infrastructures, and the western technologies adopted in China and Japan. Part III introduces practical and political issues by considering alternative modes of technology development and offering critiques of modern medicine, environmental technology, international development, and technology policy. The book as a whole suggests a broad research program that is both academic and applied and that will help us understand how contemporary societies can govern technologies instead of being governed by them.


Racial disparity in prison and jail populations, measured by the ratio of black to white per capita incarceration rates, varies substantially from state to state. To understand these variations, researchers must examine disparity at earlier stages of the criminal process and also racial differences in socioeconomic status that help explain disparity in cases entering the system. Researchers must adjust disparity ratios to correct for limitations in available data and in studies of prior incarceration rates. Minnesota has one of the highest black/white incarceration ratios. Disparities at the earliest measurable stages of Minnesota's criminal process—arrest and felony conviction—are as great as the disparity in total custody (prison plus jail) populations. Disparities are substantially greater in prison sentences imposed and prison populations than at arrest and conviction. The primary reason is the heavy weight sentencing guidelines give to offenders' prior conviction records. Highly disparate arrest rates appear to reflect unusually high rates of socioeconomic disparity between black and white residents.


Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages. By Saskia Sassen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 502p. $35.00. The globalization literature has now reached a level of maturity that allows one to distinguish between different schools of thought. Whereas the first two stages broadly dealt with the process at large (its development and manifestation), the latest generation of scholarship seems mostly concerned with its current and future governance. Saskia Sassen's latest contribution to this dialogue is similar to Andrew Drainville's recent volume (Contesting Globalization, 2004) for which she wrote the introduction. Both defend the need to situate the globalization discourse in concrete locations to gain a fuller understanding of it. More specifically, in Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, Sassen presents an extensively developed criticism of the globalization literature. Sassen argues that both critics and proponents of the globalization concept in its latest iteration miss crucial developments of the transformative processes captured by the term "globalization" in their focus on established actors and institutional forms. She argues for the need to situate globalization more concretely and broadly, in terms of both space and place (i.e., territory), and for the establishment of new organizing logics, which manifest themselves in new combinations of authority and rights. Even though Sassen builds on her previous scholarship, this is a novel work—and a most welcome and important contribution to this field, as she not only points out the shortcomings of existing approaches, but provides a well-theorized proposition on how to remedy them.


We examine the Paris Bourse, whose electronic limit order market closely resembles the downstairs markets envisioned by theorists, to test several theoretical predictions regarding upstairs trading. We present direct evidence in support of the Grossman (1992) prediction that upstairs brokers lower execution costs by tapping into unexpressed liquidity, as actual execution costs upstairs are on average only 20% (35%) as large as they would be if block trades were executed against displayed (displayed and hidden) liquidity in the downstairs limit order book. Consistent with prior analyses, the Paris data also support the Seppi (1990) hypothesis that upstairs brokers certify trades as uninformed. We also find that participants in stocks with less restrictive crossing rules agree to outside-the-quote executions for more difficult trades and at times when downstairs liquidity is lacking. These likely represent trades that could not have been otherwise completed, suggesting that market quality can be enhanced by allowing participants more flexibility to execute blocks at prices outside the quotes.


The increasing scale and distribution of modern pervasive computing and service-based platforms makes manual maintenance and evolution difficult and too slow. Systems should therefore be designed to self-adapt in response to environment changes, which requires the use of on-line models and analysis. Although there has been a considerable amount of work on architectural modelling and behavioural analysis of component-based systems, there is a need for approaches that integrate the architectural, behavioural and management aspects of a system. In particular, the lack of support for composability in probabilisitic behavioural models prevents their systematic use for adapting systems based on changes in their non-functional properties. Of these non-functional properties, this thesis focuses on reliability. We introduce Probabilistic Component Automata (PCA) for describing the probabilistic behaviour of those systems. Our formalism simultaneously overcomes three of the main limitations of existing work: it preserves a close correspondence between the behavioural and architectural views of a system in both abstractions and semantics; it is composable as behavioural models of composite components are automatically obtained by combining the models of their constituent parts; and lastly it is probabilistic thereby enabling analysis of non-functional properties. PCA also provide constructs for representing failure, failure propagation and failure handling in component-based systems in a manner that closely corresponds to the use of exceptions in programming languages. Although PCA is used throughout this thesis for reliability analysis, the model can also be seen as an abstract process algebra that may be applicable for analysis of other system properties. We further show how reliability analysis based on PCA models can be used to perform architectural adaptation on distributed component-based systems and evaluate the computational cost of decentralised adaptation decisions. To mitigate the state-explosion problem associated with composite models, we further introduce an algorithm to reduce a component's PCA model to one that only represents its interface behaviour. We formally show that such model preserves the properties of the original representation. By experiment, we show that the reduced models are significantly smaller than the original, achieving a reduction of more than 80% on both the number of states and transitions. A further benefit of the approach is that it allows component profiling and probabilistic interface behaviour to be extracted independently for each component, thereby enabling its exchange between different organisations without revealing commercially sensitive aspects of the components' implementations.


dependence on information technology became critical and IT infrastructure, critical data, intangible intellectual property are vulnerable to threats and attacks. Organizations install Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) to alert suspicious traffic or activity. IDS generate a large number of alerts and most of them are false positive as the behavior construe for partial attack pattern or lack of environment knowledge. Monitoring and identifying risky alerts is a major concern to security administrator. The present work is to design an operational model for minimization of false positive alarms, including recurring alarms by security administrator. The architecture, design and performance of model in minimization of false positives in IDS are explored and the experimental results are presented with reference to lab environment.


Actin interacts with a large number of different proteins that modulate its assembly and mediate its functions. One such protein is the yeast actin-binding protein Sac6p, which is homologous to vertebrate fimbrin (Adams, A. E. M., D. Botstein, and D. G. Drubin. 1991. Nature (Lond.). 354:404-408.). Sac6p was originally identified both genetically (Adams, A. E. M., and D. Botstein. 1989. Genetics. 121:675-683.) by dominant, reciprocal suppression of a temperature-sensitive yeast actin mutation (act1-1), as well as biochemically (Drubin, D. G., K. G. Miller, and D. Botstein. 1988. J. Cell Biol. 107: 2551-2561.). To identify the region on actin that interacts with Sac6p, we have analyzed eight different act1 mutations that show suppression with sac6 mutant alleles, and have asked whether (a) these mutations occur in a small defined region on the crystal structure of actin; and (b) the mutant actins are defective in their interaction with Sac6p in vitro. Sequence analysis indicates that all of these mutations change residues that cluster in the small domain of the actin crystal structure, suggesting that this region is an important part of the Sac6p-binding domain. Biochemical analysis reveals defects in the ability of several of the mutant actins to bind Sac6p, and a reduction in Sac6p-induced cross-linking of mutant actin filaments. Together, these observations identify a likely site of interaction of fimbrin on actin.


Many scientific investigations of photometric galaxy surveys require redshift estimates, whose uncertainty properties are best encapsulated by photometric redshift (photo-z) posterior probability density functions (PDFs). A plethora of photo-z PDF estimation methodologies abound, producing discrepant results with no consensus on a preferred approach. We present the results of a comprehensive experiment comparing 12 photo-z algorithms applied to mock data produced for The Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time Dark Energy Science Collaboration. By supplying perfect prior information, in the form of the complete template library and a representative training set as inputs to each code, we demonstrate the impact of the assumptions underlying each technique on the output photo-z PDFs. In the absence of a notion of true, unbiased photo-z PDFs, we evaluate and interpret multiple metrics of the ensemble properties of the derived photo-z PDFs as well as traditional reductions to photo-z point estimates. We report systematic biases and overall over/underbreadth of the photo-z PDFs of many popular codes, which may indicate avenues for improvement in the algorithms or implementations. Furthermore, we raise attention to the limitations of established metrics for assessing photo-z PDF accuracy; though we identify the conditional density estimate loss as a promising metric of photo-z PDF performance in the case where true redshifts are available but true photo-z PDFs are not, we emphasize the need for science-specific performance metrics.


type="main" xml:id="twec12242-abs-0001"> The existence of large border effects is one of the main puzzles of international macroeconomics. The seminal paper by McCallum found that trade between any two Canadian provinces was (on average) 22 times greater than trade between any Canadian province and any US state. Although various authors have estimated internal and external border effects for the whole European Union and some specific European countries, none has done so in the manner that McCallum's seminal paper, stymied by lack of data on region-to-region international trade flows. This study uses a novel data set that captures intra and international truck shipments between Spanish regions and regions in seven European countries during the period 2004–11. It computes internal and external border effects, offering novel results for aggregate flows and the importing countries, and estimates several specifications of the gravity equation, so as to tackle such issues as the multilateral resistance term, heteroscedasticity, and zero flows and non-linear relation between trade and distance. The paper also adds a detailed analysis on the external border effect for each Spanish exporting region and each of the seven European countries considered. By means of this analysis, we shed new light on the relative integration between regions of these seven countries and Spanish exporting regions. Finally, we conduct an extrapolation exercise, computing the 'trade potentials' that would be expected in a fully integrated Europe and estimating how long full integration would take to achieve between each Spanish exporting region and each European importing country. To this regard, two alternative scenarios are considered: one using the growth rates of the Spanish exports before the crisis (2001–08) and other considering the post-crisis growth rates (2011–13).


The propagation of monochromatic electromagnetic TM waves in the Goubau line (conducting cylinder covered by a concentric dielectric layer) filled with nonlinear inhomogeneous medium is considered. Two types of nonlinearity are studied. A physical problem is reduced to solving a nonlinear transmission eigenvalue problem for a system of ordinary differential equations. Eigenvalues of the problem correspond to propagation constants of the waveguide. A method is proposed for finding approximate eigenvalues of the nonlinear problem based on solving an auxiliary Cauchy problem (by the shooting method). The existence of eigenvalues that correspond to a new propagation regime is predicted. A comparison with the linear case is given.


We present an analysis of broad emission lines observed in moderate-luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGNs), typical of those found in X-ray surveys of deep fields, with the goal of testing the validity of single-epoch virial black hole mass estimates. We have acquired near-infrared spectra of AGNs up to z ∼ 1.8 in the COSMOS and Extended Chandra Deep Field-South Survey, with the Fiber Multi-Object Spectrograph mounted on the Subaru telescope. These near-infrared spectra provide a significant detection of the broad Hα line, shown to be a reliable probe of black hole mass at low redshift. Our sample has existing optical spectroscopy that provides a detection of Mg ii, typically used for black hole mass estimation at z ≳ 1. We carry out a spectral-line fitting procedure using both Hα and Mg ii to determine the virial velocity of gas in the broad-line region, the continuum luminosity at 3000 Å, and the total Hα line luminosity. With a sample of 43 AGNs spanning a range of two decades in luminosity, we find a tight correlation between the ultraviolet and emission-line luminosity. There is also a close one-to-one relationship between the full width at half-maximum of Hα and Mg ii. Both of these then lead to there being very good agreement between Hα- and Mg ii-based masses over a wide range in black hole mass, i.e., MBH ∼ 107–9 M☉. In general, these results demonstrate that local scaling relations, using Mg ii or Hα, are applicable for AGNs at moderate luminosities and up to z ∼ 2.


This article examines the contending redefinitions of national identity in contemporary Germany's memorial culture, focusing particularly on the ensemble of monuments and parade fields known as the former Nazi Party rally grounds in Nuremberg. In a detailed case study, I analyse the recent conversion of one of the physical remnants of National Socialism – Albert Speer's transformer station – into a fast-food restaurant and interpret this conversion as a novel contribution to the discourse on German nationhood. I argue that the provocative commercial reutilisation of the former Nazi monument gives expression to a renewed self-confidence that Germany has gained from displaying a willingness to face up to its past as perpetrator nation. While the intervention thus deviates from the self-indicting spirit that had been characteristic for Germany's memorial culture after World War II, an ironic note is conspicuous in this act of commemorative politics that indicates a way of dealing with the fascist legacy that is, surprisingly in some respects, superior to more conventional memory strategies.


Fullerenes (C60 and C70) in the Sudbury impact structure contain trapped helium with a 3He/4He ratio of 5.5 × 10−4 to 5.9 × 10−4. The 3He/4He ratio exceeds the accepted solar wind value by 20 to 30 percent and is higher by an order of magnitude than the maximum reported mantle value. Terrestrial nuclear reactions or cosmic-ray bombardment are not sufficient to generate such a high ratio. The 3He/4He ratios in the Sudbury fullerenes are similar to those found in meteorites and in some interplanetary dust particles. The implication is that the helium within the C60 molecules at Sudbury is of extraterrestrial origin.


The notion of having an Arab university in the State of Israel
is exceedingly controversial, but also of great value and political and cultural
significance. Can such a dream become a reality in a state that defines
itself as Jewish, as well as democratic? This article discusses the vision of
establishing an Arab university, including the previous attempts to establish
one, the barriers and obstacles encountered, the reality of inequality
of academic rights, and how this dream might actually be brought to fruition.
The creation of an Arab university could represent an important step
in serving the needs of Israel's Arab citizens, promoting their status in the
state, and protecting their identity, culture, and even existence.


The conditional probability density function (pdf) is the most complete statistical representation of the state from which optimal inferences may be drawn. The transient pdf is usually infinite-dimensional and impossible to obtain except for linear Gaussian systems. In this paper, a novel density-based filter is proposed for nonlinear Bayesian estimation. The approach is fundamentally different from optimization- and linearization-based methods. Unlike typical density-based methods such as probability grid filters (PGF) and sequential Monte Carlo (SMC), the cell filter poses an off-line probabilistic modeling task and an on-line estimation task. The probabilistic behavior is described by the Foias or Frobenius-Perron operators. Monte Carlo simulations are used for computing these transition operators, which represent approximate aggregate Markov chains. The approach places no restrictions on system model or noise processes. The cell filter is shown to achieve the performance of PGF and SMC filters at a fraction of the computational cost for recursive state estimation.


In this paper, as far as we know, for the first time the complete strategies to design and sample an efficient diffractive optical lens (DOL) with an phase addressed spatial light modulator (SLM) are proposed. Experimental results demonstrate that DOLs defined and generated this way can have optimum optical performance.


REVIEW AIM: The aim of this systematic review is to appraise the quality of existing reviews in the English dental literature in regard to general review methodology, as well as specifically to the comparison method applied, during the last 20 years concerning the compared longevity of different types of direct restorations placed in permanent posterior teeth and subsequently the validity of such reviews' conclusions. SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE SEARCH: Databases: MEDLINE accessed via PubMed; CENTRAL accessed via Cochrane Library; Open access sources: Biomed Central, Database of Open Access Journals (DOAJ); Regional databases: IndMed, Sabinet, Scielo; Grey-Literature sources: Scirus (Medicine), OpenSIGLE, Google Scholar. Journals, identified as not being fully indexed in any of the above electronic databases, will be hand-searched. Searching of reference lists of included articles. SEARCH TERM DEVELOPMENT: Strings of search terms (containing MeSH and text search terms) together with Boolean operators will be developed and utilized for searching the databases. ARTICLE SELECTION CRITERIA: (i) Reports of systematic or non-systematic reviews and meta-analyses concerning clinical trials; (ii) Publication language in English; (iii) Review topic related to the comparative longevity (failure- and/or survival rate) of direct posterior restorations in vital permanent teeth (premolar and/or molar teeth); (iv) Publication period 01.01.1992 – present. Exclusion will be based on the following criteria: (i) The review constitutes in essence either a: Clinical practice guideline; audit; survey; technical report; review commentary; historical overview; (ii) Focus on adhesive bonding systems, only; (iii) Focus on endodontic treated teeth; (iv) Expert opinion with narrow focus without some form of comprehensive overview of the current trial literature; (v) Lack of some explicit comparison of longevity data between at least two different tooth restoration types. DATA EXTRACTION: Both authors (SM and VY) will evaluate the quality of the accepted reviews independently using the 11-item AMSTAR tool; without being blinded to authors, institutions, journal names and review results. In addition, the type of longevity comparison utilized in each review will be recorded. The three types of comparisons: naive – indirect; adjusted indirect; and direct comparison, as well as the comparison result between the compared restoration types, i.e. the longevity of Type A being larger or equal to Type B, will be recorded. DATA ANALYSIS AND REPORTING: The unit of investigation is the review report. A ratio of the obtained AMSTAR score (achieved score/total number of assessed items) will be calculated for each accepted review. Log transformation will be utilized, to meet assumptions of linearity by computing the natural logarithm of each AMSTAR score ratio. Simple linear regression analysis will be conducted in order to quantify the relationships between: (i) year of review publication and general review quality (as expressed by the AMSTAR score ratio); (ii) general review quality and type of applied comparison. The trend lines of the regression results will be plotted in separate scatter graphs. The difference in conclusions drawn from naive-indirect comparison and adjusted indirect/direct comparison will be quantified and discussed in light of review recommendations for clinical practice.


This article reports the ongoing work on an environment for hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and software-in-the-loop (SIL) tests of CubeSats and the benefits gained from using such an environment for low-cost satellite development. The satellite tested for these reported efforts was the MOVE-II CubeSat, developed at the Technical University of Munich since April 2015. The HIL environment has supported the development and verification of MOVE-II's flight software and continues to aid the MOVE-II mission after its launch on 3 December 2018. The HIL environment allows the satellite to interact with a simulated space environment in real-time during on-ground tests. Simulated models are used to replace the satellite's sensors and actuators, providing the interaction between the satellite and the HIL simulation. This approach allows for high hardware coverage and requires relatively low development effort and equipment cost compared to other simulation approaches. One key distinction from other simulation environments is the inclusion of the electrical domain of the satellite, which enables accurate power budget verification. The presented results include the verification of MOVE-II's attitude determination and control algorithms, the verification of the power budget, and the training of the operator team with realistic simulated failures prior to launch. This report additionally presents how the simulation environment was used to analyze issues detected after launch and to verify the performance of new software developed to address the in-flight anomalies prior to software deployment.


This paper studies the statistical and computational limits of high-order clustering with planted structures. We focus on two clustering models, constant high-order clustering (CHC) and rank-one higher-order clustering (ROHC), and study the methods and theory for testing whether a cluster exists (detection) and identifying the support of cluster (recovery).
Specifically, we identify the sharp boundaries of signal-to-noise ratio for which CHC and ROHC detection/recovery are statistically possible. We also develop the tight computational thresholds: when the signal-to-noise ratio is below these thresholds, we prove that polynomial-time algorithms cannot solve these problems under the computational hardness conjectures of hypergraphic planted clique (HPC) detection and hypergraphic planted dense subgraph (HPDS) recovery. We also propose polynomial-time tensor algorithms that achieve reliable detection and recovery when the signal-to-noise ratio is above these thresholds. Both sparsity and tensor structures yield the computational barriers in high-order tensor clustering. The interplay between them results in significant differences between high-order tensor clustering and matrix clustering in literature in aspects of statistical and computational phase transition diagrams, algorithmic approaches, hardness conjecture, and proof techniques. To our best knowledge, we are the first to give a thorough characterization of the statistical and computational trade-off for such a double computational-barrier problem. Finally, we provide evidence for the computational hardness conjectures of HPC detection and HPDS recovery.


Simulating crowds in real time is a challenging problem that touches many different aspects of Computer Graphics: rendering, animation, path planning, behavior, etc. Our work has mainly focused on two particular aspects of real-time crowds: motion planning and behavior. Real-time crowd motion planning requires fast, realistic methods for path planning as well as obstacle avoidance. The difficulty to find a satisfying trade-off between efficiency and believability is particularly challenging, and prior techniques tend to focus on a single approach. We have developed two approaches to completely solve crowd motion planning in real time. The first one is a hybrid architecture able to handle the path planning of thousands of pedestrians in real time, while ensuring dynamic collision avoidance. The scalability of this architecture allows to interactively create and distribute regions of varied interest, where motion planning is ruled by different algorithms. Practically, regions of high interest are governed by a long-term potential field-based approach, while other zones exploit a graph of the environment and short-term avoidance techniques. Our architecture also ensures pedestrian motion continuity when switching between motion planning algorithms. Tests and comparisons show that our architecture is able to realistically plan motion for thousands of characters in real time, and in varied environments. Our second approach is based on the concept of motion patches [Lee et al., 2006], that we extend to densely populate large environments. We build a population from a set of blocks containing a pre-computed local crowd simulation. Each block is called a crowd patch. We address the problem of computing patches, assembling them to create virtual environments (VEs), and controlling their content to answer designers' needs. Our major contribution is to provide a drastic lowering of computation needs for simulating a virtual crowd at runtime. We can thus handle dense populations in large-scale environments with performances never reached so far. Our results illustrate the real-time population of a potentially infinite city with realistic and varied crowds interacting with each other and their environment. Enforcing intelligent autonomous behaviors in crowds is a difficult problem, for most algorithms are too computationally expensive to be exploited on large crowds. Our work has been focused on finding solutions that can simulate intelligent behaviors of characters, while remaining computationally inexpensive. We contribute to crowd behaviors by developing situation-based behaviors, i.e., behaviors triggered depending on the position of a pedestrian. We have also extended our crowd motion planning architecture with an algorithm able to simulate group behaviors, which much enhances the user perception of the watched scene.


Although originally characterized as a protein involved in promoting tumor cell growth, transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) also has cytostatic activities that lead to cell growth arrest in G2. Amounts of p15Ink4b, a cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitor, increase in response to TGF-β, and concomitantly, amounts of Myc decrease, but the mechanism behind the control of p15Ink4b expression has remained a mystery. Staller et al. found that Miz-1, a transcription factor that can associate with Myc, binds to an initiator element in the p15Ink4b promoter, and induces the expression of p15Ink4b. However, when bound to Myc, Miz-1 could not associate with the histone N-acetyltransferase transcriptional coactivator p300, which resulted in greatly decreased p15Ink4b expression. Expression of Myc mutants that do not bind Miz-1 failed to repress p15Ink4b expression. Seoane et al. demonstrated that TGF-β treatment removed Myc-dependent repression of Miz-1-directed p15Ink4b expression. Additionally Seoane et al. found that Smad proteins, transcription factors in the TGF-β signaling pathway, bound to Miz-1, suggesting that Smads and Miz-1 may cooperate in promoting p15Ink4b expression. The data also suggest that the interaction of Myc and Miz-1 could become a clinically relevant target for cancer drug design. P. Staller, K. Peukert, A. Kiermaier, J. Seoane, J. Lukas, H. Karsunky, T. Möröy, J. Bartek, J. Massagué, F. Hänel, M. Eilers, Repression of p15INK4b expression by Myc through association with Miz-1. Nature Cell Biol. 3, 392-399 (2001). [Online Journal] J. Seoane, C. Pouponnot, P. Staller, M. Schader, M. Eilers, J. Massagué, TGF-β influences Myc, Miz-1 and Smad to control the CDK inhibitor p15INK4b. Nature Cell Biol. 3, 400-408 (2001). [Online Journal]


Abstract This article looks at the Australian capitalist class (ACC) and its fit into global capitalism; is it a special tyranny-of-distance case isolated from the European-US core? Or are Australian capitalists in the process of being consumed by the transnational capitalist class (TCC); or has the ACC settled for a subordinate but comfortable role with the hegemonic TCC as their local conduit to the Australian state? Data to test these hypotheses comes from annual financial reports and studies of top Australian interlocking directors and their major shareholders drawn from the 2007 Australian Stock Exchange plus author interviews with top company personnel 1992-2009. (100 words)


James W. Paulsen What I am going to do is talk about the new Texas alimony statute.' To out-of-staters, it is kind of odd to think of alimony as being an emerging issue in family law. But, folks, this is Texas! It is the fiftieth state in the Union, a century and a half or so after most other states, to adopt alimony. For us, it is an emerging issue. It is new. What I am going to do, first of all, is explore why it took Texas so long to adopt the idea of permanent alimony. Basically, it is because alimony has been considered to be against public policy. I am going to dissect that for a few minutes and see exactly how that came about, and you are going to see that it is not history; it is folklore. Secondly, I am going to talk about the history of the legislative attempts to get alimony into existence. Third, I will discuss the finally successful legislative attempt. Fourth, I am going to explore a couple of constitutional issues that arise with the new legislation. Then, at the very end, I am going to suggest something completely different-an end run around the entire statute, whereby practitioners can try and get themselves into the law books. It has been suggested that alimony is against public policy in Texas, and we really do not have to engage in much speculation as to why. The Texas Supreme Court has told us exactly why. Alimony has been against the public policy of Texas since 1841. The basic reason behind it is that alimony is incompatible with the community property system. Now, you do not have to be much of an historian to figure out that some of that does not sound very sensible. After all, there are a number of other community property jurisdictions in the country, and they all have alimony. We are the only state that has found alimony incompatible with the community property system. But 1841, which is the year picked by the Texas Supreme Court for saying when the prohibition started, does give a clue as to how the whole problem came about. In that year, the second divorce statute was passed in the state of Texas. What happened is this: The Texas legislature provided for permanent divorce and it provided for alimony pending divorce, but there was a blank spot in the statute. It did not say anything about alimony after divorce. Therefore, the reasoning of the courts has been that what is not expressed in the legislation is, by implication, prohibited. In the process of preparing for this speech, I was up in Austin, and, actually by happenstance, I found the bill, the original December 1840 alimony bill, that became law in 1841. I also found the original draft of that law, and what it shows is something a whole lot different than what we have been assuming. What the original bill had was two kinds of divorce-what we would call today permanent separation or separation from bed and board, and permanent divorce. In the process of legislative redrafting, they decided to take out permanent separation, making it just a permanent divorce statute. The trick is this: Neither the provision for permanent separation in the original bill nor the provision for permanent divorce in the original bill said a word about alimony. It was a very liberal women's rights oriented bill, at least as women's rights liberalism was thought of at that time. We would consider it at the far right end today, but it was far left then. Neither of them provided for alimony. It would have been insane for the legislature to say that you can be separated for the rest of your life-legally married, still as husband and wife-but there is no continuing duty to support. Continuing support is what permanent separation is all about. It is the main distinction between permanent separation and divorce. The Texas legislature had to be assuming that courts, in cases of permanent separation, would read the legislation and realize that a provision for permanent separation carried with it a provision for permanent maintenance. Likewise, since alimony accompanying the grant of power for permanent divorce was well established in 1840, we should also be reading the provision for permanent divorce as having, by implication, carried with it the power to grant permanent alimony. …


This paper explores the processes which were followed to review and revise a syllabus designed before the attainment of Independence to come up with a post independence one. The former was referenced as syllabus 2222 and the latter as syllabus 2248. The paper argues that syllabus design and development should follow logical steps such as rationale; needs assessment through consultation with teachers and other interested parties; selection of content using an acceptable paradigm; evaluation procedures; and provision of teaching and learning resources. Above all, the procedures followed should be grounded in literaure on curriculum design and development.


The introduction to Part 1 of this double volume traced the institutional history of ecocriticism by referring predominantly to the initiatives of Anglo-American ecocritics as frontrunners in the field. A common denominator shared by the collection of essays in the first volume was the focus on human behaviour and attitudes towards the environment with specific reference to the human/animal relationship in a South African context. In the second volume the focus shifts slightly to consider the nature of ecocritical writing/reading, the representation of landscape(s) and the potential of literary texts to promote an ecological culture. Marshall (1994) states that, despite the relative novelty of ecocriticism as a critical approach, there has always been a strong ecocritical heritage in most national literatures. Texts such as Walden (Henry David Thoreau), A Sand County Almanac (Aldo Leopold), Silent Spring (Rachel Carson), Desert Solitaire (Edward Abbey) and works by the Romantic poets have all acquired classic status as part of a green canon. In his taxonomy of green literature, Murphy (2000: 11) maintains the distinction between writing (non-fiction) and literature (fiction) when he identifies four modes and genres, each with its own idiosyncratic structural characteristics: nature writing, nature literature, environmental writing and environmental literature. Buell (1995: 6-8) suggests the following criteria for determining the ecocritical status of a text: * The non-human environment is present not merely as a framing device, but as a presence that begins to suggest that human history is implicated in natural history. * The human interest is not understood to be the only legitimate interest. * Human accountability towards the environment is part of the text's ethical orientation. * Some sense of the environment as a process rather than as a constant or a given is at least implicit in the text. Glotfelty (1996: xix) proposes a set of helpful questions to be asked when attempting an ecocritical reading of a text: How can green literature be typified as a genre? How is the environment/environmental crisis portrayed in the text? Are the values portrayed in the text consistent with basic ecological principles? How do our metaphors of the land influence the way we treat it? Should place be regarded as a separate critical category? How has the concept of nature and literature changed over time and within different cultures? What role does the physical setting play in the plot of a novel? How is landscape represented in the text? What cross-fertilisation is possible between literary studies and environmental discourse in related disciplines such as art, etc.? A critical engagement with the above-mentioned theoretical parameters set by Murphy, Buell and Glotfelty underpins, to some extent or another, each of the essays by Larsen, Sewlall, Yhurman, Keuris, Labuschagne and Swanepoel in this issue. In his essay "To See Things for the First Time: Before and After Ecocriticism" Larsen devises and introduces the imaginative concept of the boundary marker to illuminate his progressive definition of ecocriticism as essentially a critique of the basic boundary, namely that between culture and nature; human and non-human. For Larsen, the "fostering and growing awareness of our collective denial of a shared responsibility for the relocation of the boundary between culture and nature" constitutes the ultimate goal of ecocriticism. Subsections 2.1 and 2.2 of his essay specifically deal with the core concepts of place, space and (-)scapes. He finally presents the boundary marker as methodological support for the analysis of travel narratives by Chatwin and White set in the Australian outback. Like Larsen, Sewlall explores the culture/nature dialectic in Mda's Heart of Redness, a bioregionalist novel dealing primarily with society and its relationship with the land--a particularly forceful symbol in the South African literary imagination. …


Abstract—This paper presents hierarchical operation strategies which are minimizing operation error between day ahead operation plan and real time operation. Operating power systems between centralized and decentralized approaches can be represented as hierarchical control scheme, featured as primary control, secondary control and tertiary control. Primary control is known as local control, featuring fast response. Secondary control is referred to as microgrid Energy Management System (EMS). Tertiary control is responsible of coordinating the operations of multi-microgrids. In this paper, we formulated 3 stage microgrid operation strategies which are similar to hierarchical control scheme. First stage is to set a day ahead scheduled output power of Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) which is only controllable source in microgrid and it is optimized to minimize cost of exchanged power with main grid using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) method. Second stage is to control the active and reactive power of BESS to be operated in day ahead scheduled plan in case that State of Charge (SOC) error occurs between real time and scheduled plan. The third is rescheduling the system when the predicted error is over the limited value. The first stage can be compared with the secondary control in that it adjusts the active power. The second stage is comparable to the primary control in that it controls the error in local manner. The third stage is compared with the secondary control in that it manages power balancing. The proposed strategies will be applied to one of the buildings in Electronics and Telecommunication Research Institute (ETRI). The building microgrid is composed of Photovoltaic (PV) generation, BESS and load and it will be interconnected with the main grid. Main purpose of that is minimizing operation cost and to be operated in scheduled plan. Simulation results support validation of proposed strategies.


A series of thiophene oligomers bearing core phenylene and fluorinated phenylene units has been synthesized as potential semiconductor materials for organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). Polymerization of these compounds has been achieved using Stille and oxidative Coupling methods. Functionalization of the phenylene unit with fluorine atoms has a marked effect on the self-assembly and electronic properties of the parent materials: the optical band gaps and highest occupied molecular orbital levels are affected with the introduction Of fluorine atoms as a result of a combination of inductive effects and rigidification of the main chain. The design of these materials has focused on the self-assembly and solution processability of the materials. All the polymers are readily Soluble in common organic solvents. Self-assembly and planarization of the fluorinated materials in the solid state are identified by a combination of X-ray diffraction studies, absorption spectroscopy, and cyclic voltammetry. The organizational behavior of the films is in contrast to the conformational freedom observed in solution (absorption spectroscopy) and in the gas phase (computational Studies). Thin-film OFETs have been fabricated for the entire polymer series. Hole mobilities have been measured Lip to 10(-3) cm(2)/(V(.)s), with high current modulation (on/off ratios up to 10(5)) and low turn-on voltages (down to 2 V). For the Stille Coupled polymers, replacement of the bridging thiophene unit with selenophene generally increases the hole mobility of the polymers.


Abstract. The increase in gull (Laridae) populations through the 20th century, largely due to an upsurge in anthropogenic food sources, has raised concerns about the effects of gulls on sympatric populations of other seabirds. In Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, a reduction in fisheries discards due to the collapse of cod (Gadus morhua) populations and a phenological delay in the early 1990s and early 2000s in spawning capelin (Mallotus villosus) has supposedly resulted in increased seabird predation by gulls. Accordingly, the diet of Great Black-backed Gulls (Larus marinus) was quantified at two colonies (Gull Island, Witless Bay, Newfoundland, and Gannet Islands, Labrador), and the total mortality on sympatric breeding seabirds at each site was extrapolated. At the Gannet Islands, Great Black-backed Gulls primarily kleptoparasitized Atlantic Puffins (Fratercula arctica) bringing sandlance (Ammodytes sp.) to their chicks, whereas at Gull Island, seabirds formed the bulk of the gulls' diet. Great Blackbacked Gulls preferred murre (Uria spp.) eggs at both sites, selecting them in far greater proportion than their abundance, consuming up to 40% of Common Murre (U. aalge) eggs laid on Gull Island. Great Black-backed Gulls also targeted Black-legged Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) eggs, chicks, and adults at Gull Island. Great Black-backed Gulls clearly selected certain seabird prey disproportionately to their availability, but likely have not had significant effects on the populations of other sympatric seabirds, with the possible exception of Black-legged Kittiwakes, which declined significantly from the 1970s to the early 2000s.