Paracetamol is one of the most widely used medications for relieving pain and fever. When taken in the therapeutic doses, paracetamol is predominantly metabolized in the liver via conjugation reaction by phase II drug metabolizing enzymes such as sulfotransferases and glucuronyl transferases, and is removed from the body without liver damage (1). However, when paracetamol is taken in excessive doses, it is bioactivated by phase I enzymes (e.g., CYP3A4 and CYP2E1) to generate a toxic intermediate N-acetyl-p-benzoquinone imine (NAPQI). Rapid generation of NAPQI can lead to the depletion of intrahepatic glutathione and result in hepatocyte death and liver injury (2). Thus, hepatotoxicity elicited by paracetamol overdose is the most common cause of poisoning-related deaths (3). In other studies, overdose of paracetamol accounted for the highest proportion of cases of acute liver failure in many developed countries, resulting in death or liver transplantation (4,5). Currently, N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is the mainstay strategy in treating hepatotoxicity following paracetamol overdose. However, oral and intravenous NAC treatment has limitations because of adverse effects (6,7). Thus, identifying new therapeutic targets would be of help for clinical remedy of paracetamol overdose-related liver injury.


Central banks unexpectedly tightening policy rates often observe the exchange value of their currency depreciate, rather than appreciate as predicted by standard models. We document this for Fed and ECB policy days using eventstudies and ask whether an information effect, where the public attributes the policy surprise to an unobserved state of the economy that the central bank is signaling by its policy may explain the abnormality. It turns out that many informational assumptions make a standard two-country New Keynesian model match this behavior. To identify the particular mechanism, we condition on multiple asset prices in the eventstudy and model implications for these. We find that there is heterogeneity in this dimension in the eventstudy and no model with a single regime can match the evidence. Further, even after conditioning on possible information effects driving longer term interest rates, there appear to be other drivers of exchange rates. Our results show that existing models have a long way to go in reconciling eventstudy analysis with model-based mechanisms of asset pricing.


Five major DFT algorithms were evaluated on seven different computers. The relative performances of these algorithms were related to the architecture of each computer by finding a relationship between the execution time and the instruction counts. The relative performance of these algorithms on other computers is predicted, based on the knowledge of the computer architecture. On certain implementations, data transfers are more important than floating-point additions and multiplications when comparing DFT algorithms. On the average, data transfers account for a greater percentage of the execution time than floating-point operations,


Twenty-six objects from the Delphi archaeological Museum, including nearby museum premises, have been analysed by portable XRF. The aim was their characterization, provenance and archaeological interpretations. Twenty-one miniature Corinthian ceramic vases, a bronze and a ceramic pyxis bearing powder, four pigments on ceramics and six elegant glass vases, were non-destructively measured in situ. The ceramic analysis seems to form one cluster with similar chemical traits. The clay is calcareous with relatively high iron and titanium contents. Slip painted surface was due to increased MgO and Fe2O3. Four elegant glass vases were statistically compared to about 270 published data of similar period for provenance study and investigating the mineral agents for colouring glass. In fact the clustering analysis forms one of the major analytical groups containing the Delphi samples and also samples from Rhodes and Satricum. Of the major findings is the highly toxic mercury as cinnabar (HgS), a red pigment very commonly used since antiquity, mixed with PbO white lead in face powders. Particular elemental variations in all groups are discussed. Multiple statistical analysis was used, such as, various hierarchical cluster versions, PCA, bi-plots. The case study provides a practical aid to archaeological interpretation and emphasizes the valuable use of portable XRF in museum studies on material culture ranging from various types and periods.


The 195 member state parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on December 2015 formally adopted the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. On April 22, 2016 not less than 175 world leaders converged on the United Nations Secretariat in New York and signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and 15 nations ratified it. As of March 1, 2017 133 countries have joined the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement on Climate Change is absolutely critical for Africa, a continent that is susceptible to the influence of climate change. The Paris Agreement on climate change is expected to assist the African continent obtain financial aid and cutting-edge technology to alleviate the impact of climate change. This article examines the Paris Climate Change Agreement in the context of its significance for Africa and asks whether the climate change deal is a worthwhile pact from an African standpoint or just an agreement relating to approaches that are standard and not tailored to the African peculiar needs, in other words, "one size fits all" .


We report on measurements performed on an apparatus aimed to study the Casimir force in the cylinder-plane configuration. The electrostatic calibrations evidence anomalous behaviors in the dependence of the electrostatic force and the minimizing potential upon distance. We discuss analogies and differences of these anomalies with respect to those already observed in the sphere-plane configuration. At the smallest explored distances we observe frequency shifts of non-Coulombian nature preventing the measurement of the Casimir force in the same range. We also report on measurements performed in the parallel-plane configuration, showing that the dependence on distance of the minimizing potential, if present at all, is milder than in the sphere-plane or cylinder-plane geometries. General considerations on the interplay between the distance-dependent minimizing potential and the precision of Casimir force measurements in the range relevant to detect the thermal corrections for all geometries are finally reported.


"Understanding Jill McCorkle" introduces readers to the novels and short story collections of Jill McCorkle's growing canon. Since 1984 McCorkle has written five novels and two books of short stories, entering the publishing world, as one reviewer noted, "with the literary equivalent of a rebel yell". Filling the gap of critical study on McCorkle, Barbara Bennett analyzes the widely read and admired output of this prolific southern woman writer. Bennett identifies and discusses the diverse characters, thematic concerns and keen sense of language that distinguish McCorkle's work. Bennett offers a brief overview of McCorkle's life, traces the influence on her work, and places her decisively in the "third generation" of 20th-century southern writers. While noting McCorkle's links to such prominent southern women writers as Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor, Bennett explains how McCorkle's characterizations, attitude of affirmation and references to popular culture distance her from her predecessors. Bennett devotes individual chapters to each of McCorkle's novels and story collections. She discusses the themes that unify these diverse works, including the tension between independence and dependence, the imbuing presence of strength in femininity, the direct conflict between the nurturing of others and the preservation of self, and the opposition of purity and virginity to sexual freedom and expression. Bennett explores McCorkle's development of characters ranging from a young white girl approaching womanhood to a troubled middle-aged man reviewing his life's choices, from an elderly black woman on the verge of retirement to a yound minister struggling with his career path. She finds that in such rich and varied voices, McCorkle crafts stories of a region no longer burdened by the past but now grappling with ordinary family problems.


Follicular dendritic cells (FDCs) trap Ags and retain them in their native state for many months. Shortly after infection, HIV particles are trapped on FDCs and can be observed until the follicular network is destroyed. We sought to determine whether FDCs could maintain trapped virus in an infectious state for long periods of time. Because virus replication would replenish the HIV reservoir and thus falsely prolong recovery of infectious virus, we used a nonpermissive murine model to examine maintenance of HIV infectivity in vivo. We also examined human FDCs in vitro to determine whether they could maintain HIV infectivity. FDC-trapped virus remained infectious in vivo at all time points examined over a 9-mo period. Remarkably, as few as 100 FDCs were sufficient to transmit infection throughout the 9-mo period. Human FDCs maintained HIV infectivity for at least 25 days in vitro, whereas virus without FDCs lost infectivity after only a few days. These data indicate that HIV retained on FDCs can be long lived even in the absence of viral replication and suggest that FDCs stabilize and protect HIV, thus providing a long-term reservoir of infectious virus. These trapped stores of HIV may be replenished with replicating virus that persists even under highly active antiretroviral therapy and would likely be capable of causing infection on cessation of drug therapy. The Journal of Immunology, 2001, 166: 690–696. of


This is a survey of Hamiltonian field theory in jet bundles with a particular stress on geometric structures associated with Euler–Lagrange and Hamilton equations. Our approach is based on the concept of Lepage manifold, a fibred manifold endowed with a closed Lepage (n + 1)-form where n is the dimension of the base manifold, which serves as a background for formulation of a covariant Hamilton field theory related to an Euler–Lagrange form (representing variational equations), hence to the class of equivalent Lagrangians. Compared with conventional approaches, dependent upon choice of a particular Lagrangian, this is an important distinction which enables us to enlarge substantially the family of field Lagrangians which possess a canonical multisymplectic Hamiltonian formulation on the affine dual of the jet bundle, and can thus be treated without using the Dirac constraint formalism. Within the Hamiltonian theory on Lepage manifolds, the concepts of regularity and Legendre transformation are revisited and extended, and new formulas for the Hamiltonian and momenta are obtained. In this paper we focus on De Donder–Hamilton equations which arise from "short" (at most 2-contact) Lepage (n+ 1)-forms. To illustrate the results we present regular Lepage manifolds (and the corresponding Hamiltonian formulation) for the Einstein and Maxwell equations.


Teaching assistants are represented by unions in the majority of large universities in Ontario and British Columbia (and in one smaller Saskatchewan university). Both traditional economic motivation and social/psychological/political factors appear to have contributed to unionization. The unionized universities tend to be in urban settings, to have large graduate student enrolments and to have faced greater budgetary concerns at the time of unionization. Graduate students in those first unionized had lower incomes than others and a higher proportion enrolled in the humanities and social sciences and the discrepancy was greater between the income of students in these fields and that of students in other fields. The refusal of labour relations boards in Canada to allow the "student" relationship to invalidate an "employee" relationship contrasts with decisions of the (U.S.) National Labour Relations Board. This and the fact that Canadian public policy is generally more supportive of public sector unionization and more protective of unions during the period of organizing and negotiating a first agreement, perhaps account for the greater extent of T.A. unionization in Canada than in the U.S. Although as short-term, part-time employees, T.A. 's would seem to be unlikely candidates for unionization, T.A. bargaining is now an accepted institutional reality with collective agreement achievements to point to and dues income to draw on. Future budgetary, program and priority changes are likely to generate graduate student anxiety and trigger further T.A. unionization.


A brief introduction to solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) is provided and the reasoning behind the use of SLN over other colloidal carriers, such as emulsions and liposomes, are discussed. SLN has many advantageous such as controlled drug release, non-biotoxicity of the carrier, increased bioavailability of drug and lower overall cost. Techniques for the production of SLN, drug incorporation, loading capacity and drug release mechanisms are reviewed. The potential of SLN in anti-cancer drug delivery systems is highlighted.
SLN formulations of two different lipids (tristearin, stearic acid), used as carriers for the encapsulation of the anticancer drug substance curcumin (CRC), have been investigated. The physicochemical characteristics of the CRC-SLNs were investigated by particle size, zeta potential and stability measurements. In addition transmission electron microscopy was used to study the morphology of the SLNs and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) as well as X- ray diffraction (XRD) were used to evaluate the physical state of the drug in the SLN formulations after freeze drying. The release pattern of CRC-SLN showed sustained release over five days, Moreover, encapsulation efficiency at the range of 92-95% indicated the loosely ordered crystal lattice of lipid matrix, which facilitated a higher drug payload.
The anti-cancer effects of CRC encapsulated SLN formulations (both loaded and unloaded) were evaluated using a human prostate cancer cell line (LNCaP). Blank SLN (BL-SLN) did not show any anti-tumour activity; CRC encapsulated SLN (CRC-SLN) displayed anti-tumour activity. Both lipid based CRC loaded SLNs reduced the LNCaP cell viability to almost 0% at a CRC concentration of 100 μg/ml. Cellular uptake studies confirmed the internalisation of CRC-SLN which was found to be localized in the cytoplasm around the nucleus. Flow cytometric studies confirmed the early and late apoptosis inducing ability of CRC-SLNs.
Retinoic acid (RTA) loaded SLN, optimized by tuning the process parameters (pressure and temperature) and using various lipid grades to produce nano-dispersions, displayed enhanced anticancer activity. The RTA-SLN dispersions were produced by high-pressure homogenization and characterized in terms of particle size, zeta potential, drug entrapment efficiency, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and in vitro drug release. Anticancer efficiency was evaluated by incubating RTA-SLN with LNCaP cells, and demonstrated reduced cell viability with increasing drug concentrations (9.5% at 200 ug/ml) while blank SLN showed negligible cytotoxicity. Cellular uptake studies of SLNs showed localization within the cytoplasm of the cell and flow cytometry analysis showed an increase in the fraction of cells expressing early apoptotic markers, suggesting that the RTA-SLN is able to induce apoptosis in LNCaP cells.
Both empty and loaded (curcumin) nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC) were characterized in relation to their size, zeta potential and polydispersity index. The drug entrapment efficiency and in vitro drug release behaviour of these NLC formulations were also investigated. Analysis of the shape and morphology (using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and laser diffraction) revealed spherical shaped NLC with a uniform particle size distribution. Cellular uptake studies revealed the internalisation of CRC-NLC, which appear to be localized in the cytoplasm around the nucleus. Flow cytometry studies were performed to evaluate apoptosis inducing abilities of CRC-NLC, as at a CRC concentration of 100 μg/ml, the CRC-NLC treated cells showed 12.2% (early) and 76.9% (late) apoptotic cells. Nude mice bearing prostate cancer xenografts exhibited significant suppression upon administering CRC loaded NLC formulations, with no significant weight loss. The efficacy of CRC-NLC treatment group with CRC only group in comparison with the CRC group showed 40% tumour volume suppression.
Unconjugated SLN were conjugated with transferrin for specific (active) delivery of CRC into LNCaP prostate cancer cells. SLNs prepared by high-pressure homogenization were characterised for particle size, zeta potential and drug loading. The transferrin conjugated to SLN was quantified by the Bradford assay. In vitro and in vivo studies of SLN for passive and active delivery of CRC to LNCaP prostate cancer cells were evaluated. In vivo studies of tumour regression efficiency showed CRC-SLN formulations to be more effective in suppressing tumour growth compared to the free drug. In addition the transferrin conjugated SLN also demonstrated a higher anti-tumour activity in tumour bearing mice compared to the non-conjugated formulation. The tumour mass was significantly suppressed by 61% and 79% for CRC-SLN and Tf-CRC-SLN, respectively, when compared with the control group.


Open a biology textbook to the table of contents and you will undoubtedly see a chapter devoted to the scientific process. Typically, this is presented as a fouror five-step "scientific method," a recipe that all must follow if scientific experimentation is to generate irrefutable results. These steps may be adequate for a science report, but, explains Judy Scotchmoor at the University of California's Museum of Paleontology, it is not really how scientists do their work. Scotchmoor and a team of natural scientists, social scientists, philosophers, and educators developed a Web site called Understanding Science (www.understandingscience.org) to explain to teachers, students, and the general public "how science really works." The site, launched in Jan uary 2009 and funded by the National Science Foundation, presents an alternative to the scientific method: the science flow chart. The flow chart illustrates how scientific investigations may be inspired by a wide range of inputs, from serendipitous occurrences to practical problems in need of a solution. Next is the gathering and interpretation of data through "testing ideas," which is at the center of the flow chart and at the core of science. From here, the next step may be interactions with the scientific community, further testing, investigation of new questions, or applying scientific knowledge. The chart emphasizes that science is an iterative, dynamic process involving a community of scientists engaged in many different activities. The flow chart itself was developed through an iterative process. Scotchmoor initially asked the advisory board to think about what they wanted to tell people about science. This result, she says, was "masses of arrows going all over the place." Although other projects and Web sites exist that focus on the nature and process of science, the science flow chart and the broad range of additional materials on the Understanding Science Web site are unique. "I haven't found any other site of this breadth or depth that illustrates the dynamic, nonlinear, creative scientific process and that is appropriate for teachers and the general public," Scotchmoor says. The traditional scientific method was formalized in the middle of the 20th century, explains Michael Weisberg, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and an advisory board member of Understanding Science. Part of the attractiveness of the method was its focus on testing and confirmation. But justification, or outcome-based science, is quite different from discovery, states Weisberg. The discovery aspect of science needs equal time. "We, the scientific community, have an opportunity to be proactive and excite people about science," says Weisberg, who is confident that this new way of looking at science will generate interest and enthusiasm. The teacher resources on the Understanding Science Web site explain the need for this paradigm shift. They also include examples of how to introduce the science flow chart to students using case studies and stories about scientists that explicitly describe the variety of paths their research has taken. The goal, says Scotchmoor, is to show that "science really is an adventure. There are certain rules that you need to follow, but really you can't predict where questions will take you." Jennifer Collins, a middle-school science teacher, was part of the development team and an early adopter of the science flow chart: "I had my students look at the chart before I ever told them anything about it and then tell me what they think it shows about how science is done. They were able to recognize that science can happen in many ways, that there are different parts to science investigations. Many were interested in the ways scientists begin their research, that is, what inspires them." Collins provides opportunities for her students to do different things on the flow chart. Natalie Kuldell, advisory board member and instructor of biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has used the science flow chart in her undergraduate orientation lecture. "I use it to stress that science cannot be oversimplified to make a good story," says Kuldell. Data that get in the way of neat conclusions cannot simply be wiped away. The flow chart helps her explain this, as does the site's growing collection of research pathways, which are real examples of the iterative, dynamic process of science. Kuldell recognizes that educators face time constraints but strongly encourages everyone who teaches science to find time to include the process of science in their curricula. It can be as simple as replacing a fact or two with a process of science moment. "I think by demonstrating that science requires creativity and imagination," adds Kuldell, "more students will be attracted to a career that is truly a fun and exciting endeavor."


Mathematical models of human thermoregulation can be used to assess the
habitability of thermal environments prior to human exposure. Work continues to
improve the performance of these models to reduce concerns surrounding the accuracy
of their predictions. The aims of this thesis were to develop an existing
thermoregulatory model (LUT25-node model).
The developments made to the LUT25-node model, now enable it to predict the
thermal responses of heat acclimated subjects of differing size, while its clothing
model was improved to consider the addition and distribution of clothing properties.
Validations of these modifications, confirmed that predictions from the model were
improved.
The thesis also looks at practical applications of the LUT25-node model. This
included a modification to the model enabling backward modelling; predicting how
the thermal stress should be altered to achieve a desired limit of thermal strain.
Several hypothetical scenarios illustrated the practical applications of this
modification. In addition, the LUT25-node model was used to explain the initial drop
in deep body temperature at the onset of exercise. This investigation concluded that
the temperature drop is due to the return of cool blood to the body core from initially
cool working muscles.
Finally, the poor predictions of the LUT25-node model for cold exposures was
investigated. Previous investigators suspected that this was due to the limited number
of thermal layers in the body segments of the model. However, predictions from a
multi-layered LUT25-node model, developed with the finite volume software package
PHOENICS, suggest that increasing the number of thermal layers reduces the
accuracy of the model's predictions for cold exposures.
In conclusion, this thesis has contributed to the continued development of a human
thermoregulatory model and illustrated its practical benefits. It is recommended that
future work centres on addressing additional limitations of the LUT25-node model
identified in this study.


The study was designed to determine the types of Clostridium perfringens and their toxins in sheep with suspected enterotoxemia in Hama province, Syria. For this purpose, 89 bacterial isolates were isolated from 132 samples collected from dead and some slaughtered sheep with suspected enterotoxemia and diagnosed with classical diagnostic tests and by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique to determine the types and toxins of C. perfringens. These isolates appeared as G+ bulged rods with curved ends and were as positive to lecithinase, gelatin hydrolysis and sugar fermented, as where negative to catalase, oxidase, and indole. Based on the ELISA results all isolates were C. perfringens types A 84 isolate (94.38 %), D 3 (3.37 %), and C 2(2.25 %). Clostridium perfringens type A was the dominant type in cases of enterotoxemia in sheep in Hama province detected by ELISA test. The enterotoxaemia causes considerable economic loss to the sheep industry particularly in Hama province and generally in Syria. Therefore, it is recommended that a proper vaccination schedule against enterotoxemia should be implemented for sheep flocks in Hama province. These vaccines should provide adequate protective immunity against all C. perfringens types specially types A and D. Available online at http://www.vetmedmosul.org/ijvs


The Malawi (Nyasa) Rift is a prominent example of immature rifting located along the southern East African Rift System. The SEGMeNT (Study of Extension and maGmatism in Malawi aNd Tanzania) project installed a new network of 12 continuous GPS sites in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia. Using this new data along with data from other existing sites in the region, I examine the present-day deformation along the Malawi Rift and surrounding areas. The GPS data is used to constrain a tectonic block model of the Malawi Rift in order to produce estimates of angular velocities of the blocks, which are then used to derive fault slip rates and linear block velocities. The new data around the Malawi Rift suggests an additional block may be required to explain the observed deformation. My preferred model predicts that extension rates in the area are slower than previous studies suggested (3.8 ± 0.7 mm/yr; Stamps et al., 2008) with a cumulative rate 2.35 ± 0.65 mm/yr in the northern Malawi Rift and 1.26 ± 0.85 mm/yr along the southern Malawi Rift.


This study provides a comprehensive overview of the use of credit default swaps by U.S. corporate bond funds and analyzes in detail whether certain characteristics of managers, in addition to the fundamentals of a fund, determine how their use these credit derivatives. Results suggest that a manager's education, age, experience, and skill are positively correlated with a fund's CDS holdings. In particular, managers holding a master's degree or educated at prestigious universities prefer using CDS. However, funds with older, more experienced managers or these keeping higher assets under their management are more likely to take on credit risk via selling CDS protection. Younger managers or managers that were educated at prestigious universities rather tend to buy CDS protection possibly due to differing concerns about their careers. If considering the Heckman correction for self-selection of funds into CDS use, the aforementioned findings remain stable. JEL Classification: G23, G28


The greenhouse effect concept explains the Earth's elevated temperature. The IPCC endorses the anthropogenic global warming theory, and it assumes that the greenhouse (GH) effect is due to the longwave (LW) absorption by GH gases and clouds. The IPCC's GH definition lets to understand that the LW absorption is responsible for the downward radiation to the surface. According to the energy laws, it is not possible that the LW absorption of 155.6 Wm-2 by the GH gases could re-emit downward LW radiation of 345.6 Wm-2 on the Earth's surface. When the shortwave (SW) absorption is decreased from this total LW radiation, the rest of the radiation is 270.6 Wm-2. This LW radiation downward is the imminent cause for the GH effect increasing the surface temperature by the 33°C. It includes LW absorption by the GH gases and clouds in the atmosphere and the latent and sensible heating effects. Without the latent and sensible heating impacts in the atmosphere, the downward LW radiation could not close the energy balance of the surface. The contribution of CO2 in the GH effect is 7.4% corresponding to 2.5°C in temperature. This result does not only mutilate the image of CO2 as a strong GH gas, but it has further consequences in climate models. It turned out that the IPCC's climate model showing a climate sensitivity (CS) of 1.2°C (caused by CO2 effects only) could not be fitted into the total GH effect of CO2. A climate model showing a CS of 0.6°C matches the CO2 contribution in the GH effect.


Predicting the secondary structure of an RNA sequence with speed and accuracy is useful in many applications such as drug design. The state-of-the-art predictors have a fundamental limitation: they have a run time that scales cubically with the length of the input sequence, which is slow for longer RNAs and limits the use of secondary structure prediction in genome-wide applications. To address this bottleneck, we designed the first linear-time algorithm for this problem. which can be used with both thermodynamic and machine-learned scoring functions. Our algorithm, like previous work, is based on dynamic programming (DP), but with two crucial differences: (a) we incrementally process the sequence in a left-to-right rather than in a bottom-up fashion, and (b) because of this incremental processing, we can further employ beam search pruning to ensure linear run time in practice (with the cost of exact search). Even though our search is approximate, surprisingly, it results in even higher overall accuracy on a diverse database of sequences with known structures. More interestingly, it leads to significantly more accurate predictions on the longest sequence families in that database (16S and 23S Ribosomal RNAs), as well as improved accuracies for long-range base pairs (500+ nucleotides apart).


Objective: To study the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of contraception among semi-urban women. This is a qualitative assessment of knowledge, attitude, and practices for the use of family planning methods in a community. As the various factors which influence the acceptance of family planning methods, this study was conducted to explore and to guide us to have corrective measures for the above. Methods: This study was done among 100 married women between the age group of 18-45 years attending a health facility and was questioned by a preset semi-structured performa during a fixed period. This is a cross-sectional study; the assessment included an assessment by a preset performa. The performa included details of knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding contraceptive use. Results: All women were aware of at least one contraceptive method, 11% never used contraception. The most commonly used contraceptive was condom (55%), followed by 26 CU-T, 13% pills, 6% injectable, 5% tubectomy and 3% emergency contraception. There was a lack of knowledge of modern methods of contraception. Few of them were willing for a permanent method of sterilization. There was a KAP gap of 20% in total subjects and it was more significant among Muslim as compared to Hindu women. Conclusions: Though every woman in the study was aware of at least one contraceptive method the use of the contraceptive method was not 100%. Therefore, there is a strong need for motivational strategies to make people accept the methods. Furthermore, there is a need to organize more educational programs and health camps to increase awareness about the existing contraceptive methods.


When one thinks of African diasporas, it is likely that their mind will automatically drift to locations such as Europe and America. But how much is known about the African diaspora in East Asia and, in particular, within China, where race is such a politically sensitive topic? Based on multi-sited ethnographic research in China and Nigeria, Mapping the New African Diaspora in China explores a new wave of African migration to South China in the context of the expansion of Sino/African trade relations and the global circulation of racial knowledge. Indeed, grassroots perspectives of China/Africa trade relations are foregrounded through the examination of daily interactions between Africans and rural-to-urban Chinese migrants in various informal trade spaces in Guangzhou. These Afro-Chinese encounters have the potential to not only help reveal the negotiated process of mutual racial learning, but also to subvert hegemonic discourses such as Sino/African friendship and white supremacy in subtle ways. However, as Lan demonstrates within this enlightening volume, the transformative power of such cross-cultural interactions is severely limited by language barrier, cultural differences, and the Chinese state's stringent immigration control policies. This book will appeal to scholars and students in the fields of China/Africa relations, race and ethnic studies, globalization and transnational migration, and urban China studies, as well as those from other social science disciplines such as political science, international relations, urban geography, Asian Studies, African studies, sociology, development studies, and cross-cultural communication studies. It may also appeal to policymakers and non-profit organizations involved in providing services and assistance to migrant populations.


Industrial Combination [1938] D H Macgregor 270pp The Tendency Towards Industrial Combination [1913] George R Carter 414pp The Trust Movement in British Industry [1907] Henry W Macrosty 414pp Trusts in British Industry [1922] J Morgan Rees 277pp The Dynamics of Industrial Combination [1931] H A Marquand 214pp American Business Enterprises [1907] Douglas Knoop 123pp International Combines in Modern Industry [1934] Alfred Plummer 200pp The Structure of Competititve Industry [1931] E A G Robinson 189pp


In this paper, a P2P volunteer computing system, PPVC, is presented. Volunteers are organized as a P2P network, i.e. there is no central server and every volunteer has the same function. It uses a decentralized job scheduling method so that each volunteer only need to communicate with its direct neighbors but an application is able to be distributed to all the volunteers. Using this job scheduling method, PPVC can accomplish an application efficiently under the dynamic changes of the P2P network condition, e.g. volunteers joining or disjoining the net occasionally.


The paper intends to study the relationship between firm size and growth, effects of entry-deterrent-strategies (EDS) on firms' size distribution (FSD) and determining factors of inequality of firm sizes. One approach is the 'Law of Proportionate Effect' (LPE) hypothesis by Gibrat (1931), implicitly suggests that increasing concentration and resulting lognormal distribution are due purely to random process. Another approach we propose is due to systematic processes whereby strategic entry deterrents such as advertising expenditure, intangibles, R & D expenditure and excess capacity are expected to have positive impact on inequality of firm sizes. In practice, though the prevalence of lognormal distributions of firm size indicates that there are stochastic forces at work, such stochastic processes operate along with more systematic influences on concentration. Hence, we propose to study systematic effects such as entry deterrent strategies may be seen as either accelerating or decelerating the stochastic process and it is to these systematic influences on inequality of firm size that we direct our analysis on in this paper. The empirical analysis of the present study is for 8 sectors over 1990-2007 using CMIE-PROWESS data base. We model inequality as a function of EDS and other control variables referring to Bloch (1981) and estimated results show strong and statistically significant relationship between inequality of firm size and EDS. Intangibles, R&D expenditure, excess capacity and mean firm size are statistically significant and inequality increasing. Number of firms operating and export openness are statistically significant and inequality decreasing. We presume that the analysis has some use to concerned competition policies.


Catriona Kelly. Russian Literature: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2001. xvii, 165 pp. Illustrations. Maps. $8.95, cloth. Catriona Kelly suggests her book is neither a canonical outline of the lives and creative legacies of Russian writers, nor a sketch of literary movements and cultural traditions. Instead, it presents both classical and contemporary Russian literature through the prism of Alexander Pushkin's writing, which covers a vast range of cultural themes and subjects, and represents an impressive variety of poetic, prose and dramatic genres. Rather than analysing the development of Russian literature, Kelly is attempting to briefly comment on selected issues in the social history of Russian literature and culture with Pushkin as the conduit from which everything flows in various directions. This approach to the poet's legacy and biography, as well as to the mythology surrounding his literary and epistolary works, his personality, private and public life, and his role in the development of Russian language and literature, can serve as a guide for comprehending and assessing the ideological and cultural values and beliefs embedded in the relevant historical period. s such, Kelly's interest in Pushkin's creative work as a viable medium for exploring Russian literature is fully justified. Kelly presents a broad, if superficial panorama of Russian literary praxis from the eighteenth century to the present, while lines of Pushkin's poem "Monument" serve as chapter titles and points of departure for her readers' journey through Russian literature. Selected issues are cursorily touched upon, including nineteenth-century literary salons; Russian Orthodox faith and practice; responses of Russia and the West; Pushkin's cult as part of Russian reverence for writers and their social status; the recent commercialization of culture; and others. In addition, she also comments on the significance of some of the material products of cultural history, such as monuments, statues, wall plaques, graffiti, and selected cultural practices. The book itself has a convenient pocket format. Besides the eight chapters, it also contains twenty annotated illustrations, maps of the Russian Empire and downtown Moscow showing the locations of literary and cultural associations, and an index. The latter is not free from typographical errors and missing entries, for example, Nadezhda Mandelshtam is referred to as Natalya, Nadezhda Durova's name i s absent, as is Kornei Chukovsky's, although he is quoted on p. 50. The text is marked by the author's undisguised subjective perception of Pushkin's legacy, as well as of Russian literature and culture in general. This approach is somewhat reminiscent of Marina Tsvetaeva's essay "My Pushkin", although it is a less emotionally driven and more scholarly interpretation than the latter. It should be noted that Kelly successfully fuses a cursory scholarly analysis with her strong personal touch resulting in the text's appealing readability and provocativeness. Her non-systematic approach to the subject matter allows her to randomly select several major topics for discussion. In particular, she examines the Russian literary canon before and after Pushkin, gender and social issues, the relationship between Russianness and otherness as represented by numerous ethnic minorities, the juxtaposition of the material and spiritual worlds in Russian culture, and evolving societal values, demands and expectations of literary and cultural leaders. It is obvious that within the book's present format, Kelly could not provide a detailed comprehensive study of every topic she broaches, nor support them with extensive background information. Therefore, there are blank spots and missing or too briefly noted names, facts or movements. …


We present new measures of household-specific inflation experiences based on comprehensive information from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX). We match households in the Interview and the Diary Surveys from the CEX to produce both complete and detailed pictures of household expenditures. The resulting household inflation measures are based on a more accurate and detailed description of household expenditures than those previously available. We find that our household-based inflation measures track aggregate measures such as the CPI-U quite well and that the addition of Diary Survey data induces small but significant differences in the measurement of household inflation. The distribution of inflation experiences across households exhibits a large amount of dispersion over the entire sample period. In addition, we uncover a significantly negative relationship between mean inflation and inflation inequality across households.


Students are rarely explicitly taught how to develop their writing within a subject discipline, as there is usually a focus on teaching content. However, academic writing, and in particular Academic Reflective Writing (ARW), is very challenging for most students. In this study, a series of three embedded writing development interventions were trailed with successive cohorts of postgraduate Nursing students writing a summative 4000 word piece of ARW. The interventions included the use of example texts to make task requirements more explicit, formative peer feedback on draft texts and facilitating increased dialogue between staff and students regarding expectations of this task. Overall the interventions represented a shift towards assessment for learning. Quantitative results showed a decrease in the number of students investigated for plagiarism, a rise in pass rates and mean grades, and an increased uptake of academic supervision over the three cohorts. In addition, complementary findings from a self-selected focus group interview indicated that respondents perceived the writing development activities to be very useful. In particular, the formative peer and tutor review of written drafts, was valued. However, a limitation of this pragmatic mixed method study was that the three cohorts were non-equivalent. Despite this, it is argued that, as ARW is so complex, disciplinary academics should embed explicit guidance and scaffolding in their teaching in order to enhance written reflection and learning. Failure to do so may lead ARW to become an exclusive educational practice leading to unintentional plagiarism and poor written reflection on practice. A'Â


Participatory sensing (PS) systems are a new emerging sensing paradigm based on the participation of cellular users in a cooperative way. Due to the spatio-temporal granularity that a PS system can provide, it is now possible to detect and analyze events that occur at different scales, at a low cost. While PS systems present interesting characteristics, they also create new problems. Since the measuring devices are cheaper and they are in the hands of the users, PS systems face several design challenges related to the poor accuracy and high failure rate of the sensors, the possibility of malicious users tampering the data, the violation of the privacy of the users as well as methods to encourage the participation of the users, and the effective visualization of the data. This dissertation presents four main contributions in order to solve some of these challenges.
This dissertation presents a framework to guide the design and implementation of PS applications considering all these aspects. The framework consists of five modules: sample size determination, data collection, data verification, data visualization, and density maps generation modules. The remaining contributions are mapped one-on-one to three of the modules of this framework: data verification, data visualization and density maps.
Data verification, in the context of PS, consists of the process of detecting and removing spatial outliers to properly reconstruct the variables of interest. A new algorithm for spatial outliers detection and removal is proposed, implemented, and tested. This hybrid neighborhood-aware algorithm considers the uneven spatial density of the users, the number of malicious users, the level of conspiracy, and the lack of accuracy and malfunctioning sensors. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm performs as good as the best estimator while reducing the execution time considerably.
The problem of data visualization in the context of PS application is also of special interest. The characteristics of a typical PS application imply the generation of multivariate time-space series with many gaps in time and space. Considering this, a new method is presented based on the kriging technique along with Principal Component Analysis and Independent Component Analysis. Additionally, a new technique to interpolate data in time and space is proposed, which is more appropriate for PS systems. The results indicate that the accuracy of the estimates improves with the amount of data, i.e., one variable, multiple variables, and space and time data. Also, the results clearly show the advantage of a PS system compared with a traditional measuring system in terms of the precision and spatial resolution of the information provided to the users.
One key challenge in PS systems is that of the determination of the locations and number of users where to obtain samples from so that the variables of interest can be accurately represented with a low number of participants. To address this challenge, the use of density maps is proposed, a technique that is based on the current estimations of the variable. The density maps are then utilized by the incentive mechanism in order to encourage the participation of those users indicated in the map. The experimental results show how the density maps greatly improve the quality of the estimations while maintaining a stable and low total number of users in the system. P-Sense, a PS system to monitor pollution levels, has been implemented and tested, and is used as a validation example for all the contributions presented here.
P-Sense integrates gas and environmental sensors with a cell phone, in order to monitor air quality levels.


Nematodes of the genus Trichinella are parasites of mammals, birds and reptiles. Twelve taxa are recognised in this genus. Humans may develop trichinellosis through consumption of undercooked meat from Trichinella-infected wildlife and domestic animals. The severity of the disease depends on the dose and species ingested. Meat originating from wild boar and pigs that were kept under non-controlled housing is the most important source for trichinellosis outbreaks in humans in Europe. The overall aim of this thesis was to study prevalence of Trichinella spp. in wildlife host species in the Netherlands, and to assess the risks for humans by using a quantitative microbial risk analysis (QMRA) approach. A QMRA approach allows quantification of hazards in the meat production chain, including attribution of factors as carcass control, pig husbandry system, types of meat and meat products to support risk-based methods for Trichinella control. We studied three wildlife host species that play a role in the sylvatic lifecycle of Trichinella. We show that the Trichinella prevalence in Dutch red fox (0.27%) decreased significantly in the study area, compared to fifteen years ago (3.9%, p = 0.0006). In contrast, other helminth fauna in Dutch foxes increased in biodiversity over the last three decades. Trichinella seroprevalence in Dutch wild boar during the period 2007 – 2015 (0.16%) was shown to be significantly lower than in 2004 - 2005 (0.61%, p = 0.0311), using a validated in-house ELISA. However, we were not able to demonstrate Trichinella in wild rats using artificial digestion. Using molecular techniques, we demonstrate hybridisation between T. spiralis and T. britovi from wild boar and red fox in a highly endemic area in Europe (Poland), where both Trichinella species co-exist. In view of proven absence of Trichinella from slaughter pigs reared under controlled housing during the last decades, and the large sums that are spent on individual carcass control, a risk-based control approach has been approved for Trichinella control in Europe, but the scientific background is lacking. We developed a QMRA model for Trichinella, which quantifies distribution of Trichinella ML in and among swine, test sensitivity at carcass control, partitioning of edible pork parts, Trichinella ML distribution in edible muscle types, heat inactivation by cooking and portion size. This model was combined with a dose response model for Trichinella species that was previously developed in our lab, to estimate the incidence of human illness after consumption of infected meat. The QMRA model was validated with Polish data and we estimated an average incidence of 1.56 trichinellosis cases per million persons per year (Mpy) from consumption of pigs that were reared under non-controlled housing, and 1.97 cases per Mpy from consumption of wild boar. The total estimated incidence is similar to the observed incidence of human trichinellosis (1.15 Mpy) in Poland. Overall, in the European Union, we estimated less than one predicted case of trichinellosis every 39.4 years from pork produced under controlled housing. Therefore, Trichinella testing of pigs reared under controlled housing is not adding any value to protect human health.


Background and objective: This study, which was conducted at _Imam Hospital, Sari in Iran, aimed to evaluate the morphology of thyroid nodule calcification by ultrasound and its relationship with the type of pathology to determine whether the characteristics of calcifications detected by ultrasound have a predictive value for malignancy of thyroid nodules. Materials and Methods: In the diagnostic study, 390 patients with thyroid nodules underwent ultrasonography. Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy was performed on 413 nodules, and those with calcifications were separated from the study and matched to the type of pathology. Each echogenic particle with or without posterior shadow was considered as calcification; particles with a size of 2 mm were macrocalcification. Other forms of calcification were also identified. Results: Among the 413 nodules examined, 97 cases had calcification, including 70 cases (73.7%) with macrocalcification and 27 (26.3%) with microcalcification. Pathology revealed 80 benign (82.5%) and 17 malignant (17.5%) nodules. A significant difference was observed between macrocalcification and microcalcification pathologically, so that nodules with microcalcification had higher rates of malignancy than those with macrocalcification (P < 0.001). The sensitivity and specificity of microcalcification and macrocalcification were 65%, 80% and 35%, 35%, respectively. However, the difference between central and peripheral calcifications was not significant in relation to malignancy (P = 0.07). Conclusion: Observation of microcalcification in the thyroid nodules is important and the probability of malignancy is higher in these nodules.


Microstegium vimineum is an annual, invasive Asian grass that occurs across the southeastern United States. Research on M. vimineum suggests there is a suite of environmental conditions that contribute to the species' spread. We have synthesized the results of two studies that tested 1) the effects of winter litter disturbance on the spread of M. vimineum under various canopy conditions, and 2) the impacts that establishment and growth of M. vimineum have on woody species density and diversity. Plots with winter litter disturbance experienced M. vimineum expansion rates 4.5 times those measured in undisturbed plots. Native woody species density and diversity both decreased with increasing M. vimineum percent cover. Land managers who have found M. vimineum on the forestland they manage may benefit by removing the species prior to any site manipulation to avoid the plant's spread and a subsequent decline in woody regeneration success.


Abstract:This paper examines populist claims-making in US presidential elections. We define populism as a discursive strategy that juxtaposes the virtuous populace with a corrupt elite and views the former as the sole legitimate source of political power. In contrast to past research, we argue that populism is best operationalized as an attribute of political claims rather than a stable ideological property of political actors. This analytical strategy allows us to systematically measure how the use of populism is affected by a variety of contextual factors. Our empirical case consists of 2,406 speeches given by American presidential candidates between 1952 and 1996, which we code using automated text analysis. Populism is shown to be a common feature of presidential politics among both Democrats and Republicans, but its prevalence varies with candidates' relative positions in the political field. In particular, we demonstrate that the probability of a candidate's reliance on populist claims is directly proportional to his distance from the center of power (in this case, the presidency). This suggests that populism is primarily a strategic tool of political challengers, and particularly those who have legitimate claims to outsider status. By examining temporal changes in populist claims-making on the political left and right, its variation across geographic regions and field positions, and the changing content of populist frames, our paper contributes to the debate on populism in modern democracies, while integrating field theory with the study of institutional politics.


This article first discusses the methodological issues involved in examining the portrayal of Jesus in the missionary speeches of the book of Acts and the nature of these speeches. This is followed by a detailed analysis of the presentation of Jesus, following a chronological line: Jesus' origin, his ministry, suffering, death and burial, his resurrection, exaltation, present ministry and parousia . The analysis is supplemented by the various portrayals of Jesus in the narrative of Acts. Afterwards, a detailed interpretation of this portrayal is offered, that is, its emphases (namely the saving significance of all of Jesus' life, the pervasive motif of the fulfilment of Scripture, Jesus as the agent of God, and the Jewishness of his life and ministry, focussing on Israel), the consequences that are drawn from this portrayal, the impact of the audiences on the presentation of Jesus, and the use of Christological titles. A final section reflects on the implications of the portrayal of Jesus in the missionary speeches of Acts for the witness and proclamation of the church. This comprehensive approach accounts for the length of the article. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Some research has criticised Luke-Acts for its alleged lack of Pauline theology and the 'depth' of Paul's interpretation of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. This article shows that Acts in its own way offers a significant summary and Christological and soteriological interpretation of the life of Jesus and its enduring significance. The article also reflects on the significance of this interpretation for the present day presentation of Jesus and provides some necessary corrections.


Consider the situation where you are given an existing $k$-way clustering $\pi$. A challenge for explainable AI is to find a compact and distinct explanations of each cluster which in this paper is using instance-level descriptors/tags from a common dictionary. Since the descriptors/tags were not given to the clustering method, this is not a semi-supervised learning situation. We show that the \emph{feasibility} problem of just testing whether any distinct description (not the most compact) exists is generally intractable for just two clusters. This means that unless \textbf{P} = \cnp, there cannot exist an efficient algorithm for the cluster description problem. Hence, we explore ILP formulations for smaller problems and a relaxed but restricted setting that leads to a polynomial time algorithm for larger problems. We explore several extension to the basic setting such as the ability to ignore some instances and composition constraints on the descriptions of the clusters. We show our formulation's usefulness on Twitter data where the communities were found using social connectivity (i.e. \texttt{follower} relation) but the explanation of the communities is based on behavioral properties of the nodes (i.e. hashtag usage) not available to the clustering method.


PURPOSE
Tryptase that is released by mast cell degranulation has recently been thought to play a key role in wound healing in allergic bronchitis. Conjunctival fibroblasts secrete mediators and extracellular matrices that could exacerbate inflammation and papillary formation in allergic conjunctivitis. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of tryptase on the proliferation of conjunctival fibroblasts and studied whether this effect was mediated by protease-activated receptor (PAR)-2.

METHODS
Conjunctival fibroblasts were cultured with or without tryptase (0.1 ng/mL to 1.0 microg/mL), and the proliferation rate was assessed after 48 hours. The effects of tryptase inhibitors (leupeptin, benzamidine) and a PAR-2 agonist (SLIGKV) were examined. The existence of PAR-2 mRNA and protein in conjunctival fibroblasts was examined by RT-PCR and Western blot analysis, respectively. The existence of PAR-2 in cultured conjunctival fibroblasts and conjunctival papillae from patients with vernal keratoconjunctivitis, as well as conjunctival tissue from normal subjects was examined by immunohistochemistry.

RESULTS
Conjunctival fibroblast proliferation was upregulated by tryptase in a dose-dependent manner (P < 0.001). Leupeptin and benzamidine inhibited tryptase-induced fibroblast proliferation (P < 0.05), and SLIGKV mimicked tryptase's effect. PAR-2 mRNA and protein were detected in cultured conjunctival fibroblasts using RT-PCR and Western blot analysis. PAR-2 immunoreactivity in both the cultured conjunctival fibroblasts and in stromal cells in excised conjunctival tissues was observed.

CONCLUSIONS
Tryptase increased conjunctival fibroblast proliferation and this response appeared to be mediated by PAR-2. Mast cells are the most likely source of tryptase in the conjunctiva and may play an important role in chronic exacerbations with conjunctival papillary formation in allergic conjunctivitis.


• For 2017, 26 EU/EEA Member States reported 409 646 cases of chlamydia infection. • The crude notification rate was 146 cases per 100 000 population. • Notification rates of chlamydia infection varied considerably across Europe, with the highest country-specific rates more than 5 000 times higher than the lowest rates. This is believed to be mainly a reflection of the differences in chlamydia testing, case finding and reporting rather than indicative of actual differences in chlamydia prevalence. • Notification rates continue to be highest among young adult women and heterosexuals. • The overall trend appears stable over recent years, but there are variations at country level.


Oxytocin (OT) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) exert robust and sexually dimorphic influences on cognition and emotion. How these hormones regulate relevant functional brain systems is not well understood. OT and AVP serum concentrations were assayed in 60 healthy individuals (36 women). Brain functional networks assessed with resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs‐fMRI) were constructed with graph theory–based approaches that characterize brain networks as connected nodes. Sex differences were demonstrated in rs‐fMRI. Men showed higher nodal degree (connectedness) and efficiency (information propagation capacity) in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG) and higher nodal degree in left rolandic operculum. Women showed higher nodal betweenness (being part of paths between nodes) in right putamen and left inferior parietal gyrus (IPG). Higher hormone levels were associated with less intrinsic connectivity. In men, higher AVP was associated with lower nodal degree and efficiency in left IFG (pars orbitalis) and left STG and less efficiency in left IFG (pars triangularis). In women, higher AVP was associated with lower betweenness in left IPG, and higher OT was associated with lower nodal degree in left IFG (pars orbitalis). Hormones differentially correlate with brain networks that are important for emotion processing and cognition in men and women. AVP in men and OT in women may regulate orbital frontal cortex connectivity, which is important in emotion processing. Hormone associations with STG and pars triangularis in men and parietal cortex in women may account for well‐established sex differences in verbal and visuospatial abilities, respectively. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


According to conventional wisdom, the normative source of modern tort law is mysterious. The reasons trace back to the state of nature. In a world without centralized government, individuals protected themselves by exacting talionic revenge — "an eye for an eye" — on their injurers. These customary norms of behavior were the source of the early common law, but tort scholars have assumed that they were merely a barbaric punitive practice without any relevance to the modern tort system. This field of the common law had to be normatively recreated, making it "modern." The resultant body of tort law depends, as Oliver Wendell Holmes famously concluded, on "more or less definitely understood matters of policy." The policies in question, however, have never been clearly identified. Courts and scholars continue to disagree about the norms that generate the behavioral obligations of modern tort law.The normative source of modern tort law has been hidden in plain sight because of this widely held but mistaken understanding of legal history. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the state of nature was governed by a reciprocity norm of equitable balance that has survived the evolving demands of the modern tort system. In cases of accidental harm, the reciprocity norm often took the form of a compensatory obligation requiring "the value of an eye for an eye." This norm was initially adopted and then further developed by the early common law. Courts subsequently invoked the reciprocity norm in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to justify rules of negligence and strict liability. Once one looks, the importance of reciprocity is obvious.Reciprocity, in the basic sense of "treating others like they treat you," is a metanorm that individuals use to identify and enforce more particularized behavioral obligations in a wide variety of social interactions. Reciprocity attains equitable balance in tort cases through a series of behavioral and compensatory obligations corresponding to the modern rules of negligence and strict liability. Given the ongoing, pervasive influence of reciprocity, it readily provides the type of normative judgment that jurors must exercise when determining the behavioral requirements of reasonable care in a negligence case. Reciprocity supplies a normative practice that is distinct to tort law, defining a behavioral paradigm that normatively demarcates torts as a substantive field of the common law.But even though tort law is distinctively defined by the paradigm of compensatory reciprocity, this normative practice does not fully justify tort law. Reciprocity is a behavioral norm. Why should the legal system enforce the norm? Must it always do so? These questions must be resolved with a substantive rationale for tort law, not with a behavioral norm that is enforced by the law.By enforcing the behavioral obligations of reciprocity, the tort system engages in a normative practice that can be justified by the liberal egalitarian principle that each person has an equal right to autonomy or self-determination, making each responsible for the costs of his or her autonomous choices. Liberal egalitarianism is the only principle of substantive equality that can justify the tort rules that give different treatment to different types of nonreciprocal behaviors. Far from being a barbaric relic of the past, the reciprocity norm is enforced by tort law in a manner that clearly reveals the substantive rationale for this field of the common law.


In January 1995, 4200 square kilometers of the northern Larsen Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, broke away. Radar images from the ERS-1 satellite, complemented by field observations, showed that the two northernmost sections of the ice shelf fractured and disintegrated almost completely within a few days. This breakup followed a period of steady retreat that coincided with a regional trend of atmospheric warming. The observations imply that after an ice shelf retreats beyond a critical limit, it may collapse rapidly as a result of perturbated mass balance.


There is a growing need to comprehensively understand how messages and online conversations construct and convey meanings especially when they are likely to be distributed across multiple social media platforms. This paper introduces a framework to address this need, the Social Semiotic Multimodal (SSMM) framework based on multimodal extensions to Systemic Functional Linguistics, a semiotic theory of language. The framework uses a set of expansion resources, to reveal how the meanings of social media messages are chained together to form online conversations. These meanings are frequently distributed across more than one social media platform. This semantic approach is exemplified using a case study, the Fairtrade Fortnight 2012 campaign. The framework is used to identify meanings associated with various social media conversations called Themed Clusters. The findings demonstrate the utility of semantic approaches for IS research and practice to analyse meanings within social media messages and how they form online conversations.


The impact of enterprise systems (ES) on organizational agility (OA) is an under-researched area. Given that most organizations are heavily investing on ES infrastructure and the increasing demand for agility, the lack of research on ES and OA is a critical oversight. This article reviews previous literature on information systems in general and ES in particular and organizational agility. The article offers a comprehensive and deepened perspective toward the existing discourses on ES-enabled organizational agility. Using insights from the dynamic capability theory, we propose a conceptual framework that highlights how organizations can exploit ESs to improve their agility in two significant ways―by creating and constantly developing an ES-enabled sensing and responding capability. We also argue that the quality of the ES competence provides the necessary technical and business platform for deploying and exploiting ES in building and rebuilding sensing and responding capabilities. The proposed framework sheds light on three important missing factors in the realm of IT-enabled organizational agility, namely ES competency, the alignment between ES-enabled sensing and responding capability, and environmental dynamism. Our theorizing makes an original contribution to ES and IS research by extending previous works of IT-enabled organizational agility by introducing the three constructs previously mentioned


Technology, particularly over the past decades, has affected the cities and their components, such as building sectors. Consequently, smart building that has currently utilized various technologies which is incorporated into buildings is the core of the present chapter. It provides a comprehensive overview on smart cities, smart buildings and smart home to address what systems and technologies have been incorporated so far. The aim is to review the smart concepts in built environment with the main focus on smart cities, smart buildings, and smart homes. State-of-the-art and current practices in smart buildings were also reviewed to enlighten a set of directions for future studies. The Chapter is primarily focuses on 51 articles in smart buildings/homes, as per collected from various datasets. It represents a summary of systems utilized and incorporared into smart buildings and homes over the past decade (2010–2020). Additional to different features of smart buildings and homes, is the discussion around various fields and system performances currently utilized in smart buildings/homes. Limitations and future trends and directions is also discussed. In total, such building/home systems were categorized into 6 groups, including: security systems, healthcare systems, energy management systems, building/home management systems, automation systems, and activity/movement recognition systems. Furthermore, there are a number of surveys which investigated the user's acceptance and adoption of the new smart systems in homes and buildings, as presented and summarized thereafter in Tables. The present Chapter is a contribution to a better understanding of the functions and performances of such buildings/homes for further implementation and enhancement so that varying demands of smart citizens are fulfilled and eventually contribute to the development of smart cities.


The acylation of plant natural products is widely observed in nature and this modification often confers novel bioactivities. In nature, each of these acylations is selectively catalysed by a coenzyme A-dependent acyltransferase and biotransformations with these enzymes offer several potential advantages, including pre-disposed regio- and substrate- selectivity, reduced side-reactions and increased yield. The enzymatic introduction of non-natural acyl groups into natural product biosynthesis has the potential to diversify the application of these acylating enzymes, with several examples of unnaturally acylated natural products being reported to have novel bioactivity. To explore the potential for biosynthesising such acylated- derivatives in vivo, feeding studies with both natural and fluorinated phenylpropanoids were carried out in Arabidopsis thaliana and Petunia hybrida. In petunia, feeding with natural phenylpropanoids caused hyper-accumulation of acylated flavonoid products. This enhancement was particularly apparent when spraying the plants with the phenylpropanoyl methyl ester. Using the methyl esters, 4- hydroxycinnamic acid and its 4- fluorocinnamic acid analogue were apparently incorporated into quercetin 3- O- diglycoside biosynthesis in petunia. However, only the endogenous phenylpropanoids were able to be incorporated into acylated- anthocyanin biosynthesis in arabidopsis. In order to understand the factors that govern substrate selectivity in coenzyme A- dependent acyltransfer, the associated enzymic mechanisms were investigated in vitro. Plants utilise a coenzyme A acyl donor substrate formed through the action of an ATP-dependent CoA ligase, and the respective enzyme (At4CLl) from Arabidopsis was cloned and expressed in E. coli. The purified enzyme was shown to form a diverse range of CoA esters with phenylpropanoid derivatives bearing 4- or 3- 4- hydro, hydroxyl, fluoro and / or methoxy groups, in addition to 4- azidocinnamic acid substituents. These aromatic substituents were found to have a strong influence upon acyl substrate selectivity. A CoA-dependent acyltransferase which acylates cyanidin 3- 5- O- diglucoside in Gentiana triflora with phenylpropanoids was also cloned, expressed in E. coli and biochemically characterised. The acyltransferase was able to transfer various 4- and 3- 4- substituted phenylpropanoids. However, in this instance substrate selectivity was not as strongly influenced by phenylpropanoid aromatic substitution, which was indicative of a 'pre-screening' role of the CoA ligase with respect to acyl substrates. The in vitro biosynthesis of acylated flavonoids was optimised to transfer aromatic acids onto natural product acceptors using a one-pot biosynthetic approach, combining 4CL and acyltransferase activities. Consequently, coenzyme A was able to be efficiently re-cycled and was used on a much reduced scale. In addition, new strategies have been developed to isolate interesting acyltransferase biocatalysts based on their inhibition by a biotinylated fluorophosphonate probe. This approach showed that it was possible to identify CoA-dependent acyltransferases from crude protein preparations by recovering affinity labelled enzymes using a streptavidin sepharose solid support. The reactivity of the probe toward BAHD acyltransferases could be enhanced in the presence of UV irradiation, whilst labelling was abolished in the presence of the acyl acceptor. This afforded the ability to isolate enzyme activities according to their substrate recognition.


We investigated the spatial variability of sediment organic matter content and composition in three areas (A, B and C) of the Northwestern Adriatic Sea, subjected to a putative gradient of trophic state ( i.e. , increasing distance from the Po river outflow) in order to determine the appropriate sample size and replication. The analysis of the mesoscale variability was carried out comparing variability on the scale of meters ( i.e. among different deployments) with the variability observed on a scale of several kilometres ( i.e. among different sampling areas). Sediment samples, collected on April 1999, October 1999, April and October 2000, were analysed for chloropigment content (chlorophyll-a and phaeopygments) and protein, carbohydrate and lipid concentrations. Chloropigment, protein, carbohydrate and lipid concentrations were high, indicating that this system shares trophic conditions typical of highly productive environments. All organic matter components displayed a distribution independent from the increasing distance from the Po river outflow and a clear spatial variability, characterised by significant differences among different areas, but not among deployments. Carbohydrates were the biochemical compound displaying the highest spatial variability among the three areas. Chloropigment, protein, carbohydrate and lipid concentrations displayed also significant temporal changes. When spatial and temporal variability were compared, chlorophyll-a, phaeopigment and protein concentrations displayed a higher temporal than spatial variability. Conversely, for carbohydrates and lipids spatial and temporal variability was of the same order of magnitude. Organic matter composition displayed limited changes among areas, but a strong temporal variability. The results from the Adriatic sea suggest that analyses from sediments collected from a single deployment are sufficient for assessing organic matter concentration and composition over areas of several hundreds of square meters. However, for estimating organic matter composition over larger spatial scales ( i.e. miles) the identification of different sampling areas is needed.


Histiocytic necrotizing lymphadenitis, or Kikuchi's disease (KD), is a self-limiting cervical lymphadenitis of unknown origin. The diagnosis of KD is problematic due to the lack of specific laboratory tests. This study reviewed the clinical characteristics of 58 patients with KD. Clinical manifestations were of considerable diversity. The mean age of patients was 24.88 +/- 7.44 years and there was a female predominance (1.76:1). The most frequent clinical findings were enlarged tender lymph nodes (50%), fever (43%), sore throat (21%), non-productive cough (12%), headache (10%), chills (9%) and rhinorrhea (9%). The most common initial laboratory abnormalities were leukopenia (29%), elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (14%), liver function impairment (14%), elevated C-reactive protein level (12%), and anemia (10%). Most patients had unilateral lymph node involvement (79%), which was usually located in the posterior triangle of the cervical lymph nodes (90%). Most patients had no comorbid disease (93%). No recurrence occurred. KD should be included in the differential diagnosis of fever with cervical lymphadenopathy.


Using specific antibody markers and double-label immunofluorescence microscopy, we have followed the fate of progenitor cells in the sympathoadrenal (SA) sublineage of the neural crest in developing rat embryos. Such progenitors are first recognizable in the primordial sympathetic ganglia at embryonic day 11.5 (E11.5), when they express tyrosine hydroxylase. At this stage, the progenitors also coexpress neuronal markers such as SCG 10 and neurofilament, together with a series of chromaffin cell markers called SA 1–5 (Carnhan and Patterson, 1991 a). The observation of such doubly labeled cells is consistent with the hypothesis that these cells represent a common progenitor to sympathetic neurons and adrenal chromaffin cells. Subsequent to E 11.5, expression of the chromaffin markers is extinguished in the sympathetic ganglia but retained by cells within the adrenal gland. Concomitant with the loss of the SA 1-5 immunoreactivity in sympathetic ganglia, a later sympathetic neuron-specific marker, B2, appears. In dissociated cell suspensions, some B2+ cells that coexpress SA 1 are seen. This implies a switch in the antigenic phenotype of developing sympathetic neurons, rather than a replacement of one cell population by another. The SA 1----B2 transition does not occur for the majority of cells within the adrenal primordium. In vitro, most B2+ cells fail to differentiate into chromaffin cells in response to glucocorticoid. Instead, they continue to extend neurites and then die. Taken together, these data imply that the SA 1----B2 transition correlates with a loss of competence to respond to an inducer of chromaffin differentiation. Thus, the development of SA derivatives is controlled both by environmental signals and by changes in the ability of differentiating cells to respond to such signals.


CONTENTS 1. Introduction, systematic survey and page references....... 3 2. Gastropoda and Cephalopoda 8 3. List of corrections of and additions to Part II......... 89 4. References 92 5. Plates 100 1. INTRODUCTION, SYSTEMATIC SURVEY AND PAGE REFERENCES The first part of this work, published in 1969, is a general introduction to the Suriname marine Mollusca; in the second part, published in 1971, the Bivalvia and Scaphopoda were treated; in this third and last part the Gastropoda and Cephalopoda are dealt with. The system adopted in this part is that of Thiele (1929, 1931), but more or less altered at several places, in nomenclature as well as in sequence. The holotypes of the species described by the author (1965, 1966, 1968, 1971a and in this paper) are placed in the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie at Leiden, except the holotype of Solariorbis guianensis Altena which is in the Surinaams Museum at Paramaribo. The Surinaams Museum holds also paratypes of the other new species described by the author and specimens of about all the species found on the shell ridges, washed ashore, or dredged off the coast of Suriname as far as they were mentioned in Part II and III of this publication. Many persons, who here helpful to me by sending specimens or identifying them, were mentioned in Part I and II of this paper. To these the following should be added. Mr. P. G. E. F. Augustinus, who visited Suriname three times studying


ABSTRACT The fate of marriage gifts during a customary law divorce is significant for the interaction of legal orders in sub-Saharan Africa, especially in the context of scholars' fixation with conflict of laws. In analysing this fatet, this article introduces normative intersectionality as a theoretical framework for a nuanced understanding of how laws and socio-economic forces interact in post-colonial settings. Normative intersectionality rejects a legal positivist view of rights, which neglects people's adaptation of indigenous norms to socioeconomic changes. In this sense, normative intersectionality is useful for addressing the traditional Igbo law of matrimonial property, which regards a married woman's property rights as subsumed in her husband's rights. Using the division of marriage gifts in Southern Nigeria as a case study, the article draws attention to how legal orders speak to, rather than against, each other, and in so doing, stresses the adaptive character of indigenous laws. It argues that normative intersectionality illumines the interplay of gender equality, property rights and legal pluralism. Accordingly, it urges judges to use the imitative nature of legal pluralism in post-colonial settings to remedy entrenched systems of injustice and inequality, which often hide under the banner of tradition. Keywords: Adaptive legal pluralism, marriage gifts, African customary law, matrimonial property rights.


Background Several studies have shown a decrease in acute coronary syndrome (ACS) admissions after the implementation of 100% smoke-free legislation. However, no studies have been conducted in developing countries. Methods We conducted a time series analysis of ACS hospital admissions in Santa Fe province and Buenos Aires city, Argentina. In 2006, Santa Fe implemented a 100% smoke-free law and Buenos Aires implemented a partial law with designated smoking areas and exceptions. Age-standardised ACS admissions rates were compared before and after the implementation of the laws in each district. Smoking prevalence, compliance with legislation and exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) was also assessed in both districts. Results In Santa Fe an immediate decrease in ACS admissions was observed after implementation ( (cid:1) 2.5 admissions per 100 000, p ¼ 0.03; 13% reduction), compared with no change in Buenos Aires city (rate ratio Santa Fe vs Buenos Aires: 0.74, 95% CI 0.63 to 0.86, p # 0.001). In Santa Fe, the immediate effect was followed by a persistent decrease in admissions due to ACS ( (cid:1) 0.26 admissions per 100 000 per month). Smoking prevalence did not change significantly in either district during the same period. In both districts, there was a reduction in self-reported SHS exposure, with a trend towards lower exposure in Santa Fe province. No other comprehensive tobacco control interventions were implemented during the study period. Conclusions A 100% smoke-free law was more effective than a partial restriction law in reducing ACS admissions. An immediate effect was followed by a sustained decrease in ACS admissions. Smoke-free initiatives can be also effective in decreasing acute coronary events in developing countries.


OBJECTIVE To examine the predictors of lower extremity amputation in patients with NIDDM. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS At baseline, risk factors for amputation were determined in 1,044 NIDDM patients (571 men, 473 women) aged 45 to 64 years. These patients were followed up to 7 years with respect to amputation. RESULTS The incidence of amputation was 5.6% in men and 5.3% in women. High fasting plasma glucose at baseline examination and the duration of diabetes were associated with a twofold risk for amputation. Similarly, glycemic control measured at baseline by HbA1 was an important predictor of amputation. There was a dose-response relationship between plasma glucose or HbA1 and the risk for amputation. The effect of hyperglycemia on the risk of amputation was seen clearly even after the adjustment for other cardiovascular risk factors. Signs of peripheral neuropathy and bilateral absence of Achilles tendon reflexes and vibration sense were important predictors for amputation. Furthermore, absent peripheral artery pulses and femoral artery bruit on auscultation predicted amputation. CONCLUSIONS Our 7-year follow-up study gives strong evidence that poor glycemic control is an important predictor of amputation in patients with NIDDM in addition to clinically detectable peripheral arterial disease and peripheral neuropathy.


PHREEQC version 2 is a computer program written in the C programming language that is designed to perform a wide variety of low-temperature aqueous geochemical calculations. PHREEQC is based on an ion-association aqueous model and has capabilities for (1) speciation and saturation-index calculations; (2) batch-reaction and onedimensional (1D) transport calculations involving reversible reactions, which include aqueous, mineral, gas, solidsolution, surface-complexation, and ion-exchange equilibria, and irreversible reactions, which include specified mole transfers of reactants, kinetically controlled reactions, mixing of solutions, and temperature changes; and (3) inverse modeling, which finds sets of mineral and gas mole transfers that account for differences in composition between waters, within specified compositional uncertainty limits. New features in PHREEQC version 2 relative to version 1 include capabilities to simulate dispersion (or diffusion) and stagnant zones in 1D-transport calculations, to model kinetic reactions with user-defined rate expressions, to model the formation or dissolution of ideal, multicomponent or nonideal, binary solid solutions, to model fixed-volume gas phases in addition to fixed-pressure gas phases, to allow the number of surface or exchange sites to vary with the dissolution or precipitation of minerals or kinetic reactants, to include isotope mole balances in inverse modeling calculations, to automatically use multiple sets of convergence parameters, to print user-defined quantities to the primary output file and (or) to a file suitable for importation into a spreadsheet, and to define solution compositions in a format more compatible with spreadsheet programs. This report presents the equations that are the basis for chemical equilibrium, kinetic, transport, and inverse modeling calculations in PHREEQC; describes the input for the program; and presents examples that demonstrate most of the program's capabilities.


UniPathway (http://www.unipathway.org) is a fully manually curated resource for the representation and annotation of metabolic pathways. UniPathway provides explicit representations of enzyme-catalyzed and spontaneous chemical reactions, as well as a hierarchical representation of metabolic pathways. This hierarchy uses linear subpathways as the basic building block for the assembly of larger and more complex pathways, including species-specific pathway variants. All of the pathway data in UniPathway has been extensively cross-linked to existing pathway resources such as KEGG and MetaCyc, as well as sequence resources such as the UniProt KnowledgeBase (UniProtKB), for which UniPathway provides a controlled vocabulary for pathway annotation. We introduce here the basic concepts underlying the UniPathway resource, with the aim of allowing users to fully exploit the information provided by UniPathway.


In the 15 years since To Err is Human was published,1 the US healthcare industry has worked diligently to improve patient safety. Although progress has been made in reducing hospital-acquired conditions2 and, in some cases, rates of surgical mortality,3 healthcare has not achieved broad reductions for most patient harms. In recent years, healthcare has borrowed ideas from industries that have strong safety records, including teamwork and error reporting from aviation, and process improvement techniques from manufacturing. Healthcare's latest patient safety push is to encourage hospitals to become a 'high reliability organisation' (HRO).4

HROs have maintained remarkable performance despite complex and risky work. These ultrasafe organisations never set out to be HROs. As Rochlin5 observed: HROs 'seek an ideal of perfection but never expect to achieve it. They demand complete safety but never expect it. They dread surprise but always anticipate it. They deliver reliability but never take it for granted. They live by the book but are unwilling to die by it'. HROs understand that reliability is an endless journey rather than a simple destination.

Evidence suggests that healthcare is starting to organise for higher reliability. Standardised protocols and checklists,6 preprocedural and postprocedural briefings,7 incident reporting and daily huddles,8 although imperfect,9 ,10 may hold promise for enhancing safer care. These types of activities may be part of an institution's master plan to create a comprehensive operating management system—an organisation-wide integrated approach to manage risk and to achieve safe and reliable performance—similar to the systems found in other industries such as oil and gas. Yet, we think it is more likely that these efforts represent piecemeal and fragmented initiatives adopted to solve particular problems. Regardless, high reliability remains elusive. One explanation is that organisations have failed to widely institutionalise high-reliability habits of …


Abstract Modern manufacturing for global markets tends to homogenize material culture through its centralized production and divisive production process. In contrast, craft practices usually have a strong local identity through their application of holistic making practices, context-based knowledge, culturally specific responses and community-centred production. This form of locally-based, customizable and responsive production is discussed here in terms of its relationship to sustainability and as a promising direction for future manufacturing. Despite the potentially strong relationship between craft and sustainability, there is still only limited research exploring this relationship and how craft can more effectively contribute to contemporary industry and life in general. This paper begins by developing an understanding of the relationship between craft and sustainability. From this, we identify: 1) barriers to craft's development for sustainability, and 2) potential directions to which design can contribute. We then provide an analysis of the current state of crafts in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and identify the challenges and potential for design interventions in this region.


Background Hospital pharmacists play an important role in pharmacotherapy. Pharmaceutical care contributes to securing efficacy and safety in the use of medicines. Validation of the prescriptions allows pharmacists to detect, prevent and solve medicines-related problems. Purpose To collect and assess the clinical interventions made by a pharmacist in a general public hospital with 120 beds. Materials and methods Prospective, observational study of hospitalised patients for 2 months. Every day (from July to August 2011) a pharmacist checked the prescriptions electronically. Prescribers were informed of drug-related problems by the electronic prescribing program. Variables collected were: prescriptions written, reason for intervention, the drug involved, acceptance of the intervention by the physicians and response time. Results 140 interventions were recorded. Patients were mainly admitted to internal medicine (57.9%). Common reasons for interventions were: sequential therapy (55.7%), dose adjustment for renal failure (27.9%), inappropriate dosage (5.0%), missing information or clarification (5.0%), drug duplication (2.1%), excessively long treatment (2.1%) and inappropriate route of administration (2.1%). 38.6% of interventions resulted in a change to patients' pharmacotherapy. Mean response time was 1.1 (SD: 0.9) days. In the majority of non-accepted interventions, the patient's oral tolerability worsened or his/her renal function improved, so no change was required. Drugs most involved were paracetamol: 47.1% (especially in 'sequential therapy') and antibiotics: 15.0% (especially in 'dose adjustment for renal failure'). Potential toxicity was avoided by reducing doses of drugs in 17 patients. Conclusions The most common intervention was to promote the oral route. This route is safer and less costly than the intravenous route. Patients with renal failure deserved special attention in pharmaceutical validation to avoid toxicity, as the doses of several drugs needed to be adjusted, especially when an antibiotic was prescribed. The drug charts review identified real and potential medication errors.


How far can energy markets be free as well as competitive? What do low oil prices mean for the oil industry and other energy markets? How can economic efficiency in the energy industries be reconciled with environmental protection? How far is the UK model of liberalising electricity and gas industries being applied elsewhere in the world and how is it faring, at home and abroad? These are typical questions addressed in this collection of articles written by an international group of economists. Edited by the leaders of the two leading UK academic centres of energy economics, the book demonstrates how important the analysis of policy and regulatory frameworks has become for those interested in efficient energy and environmental outcomes.


The fine oolitic hematite ore (<20μm) is easily covered by the ore slime, therefore, it is processed very difficultly with traditional crafts, for example, gravity treatment, magnetic separation, and flotation. The tiny iron ore is unable to recycle effectively, bring about a large of useful minerals running off. It is indicated that the selective flocculation is effective separation craft in many research works. The good dispersion of fine particles is the selective flocculation essential condition, the excessive dispersion will destroy the selective flocculation, at the same time it can be influenced by the water quality, pH, the mixing time, the shear rate and the dispersing agent use level. In this article, to oolitic hematite ore, the chemistry dispersion research is conducted to provide the foundation for further selective flocculation separation.


In order to achieve powered autonomous running robots it is essential to develop efficient actuator systems, especially for generating the radial thrust in the legs. In addition, the control of the radial thrust of the legs can be a simple, effective method for stabilizing the body pitch in a running gait. This paper presents the mechanical systems, models and control strategies employed to generate and control leg thrust in the KOLT quadruped running robot. An analytical model of the electro-pneumatic leg thrusting system is presented and analyzed to evaluate its performance and to facilitate the design of control strategies. Several experiments have been conducted to estimate the energy losses and determine their origins as well as to compute the energetic efficiency of the actuation system. Two thrust control methods are also proposed and tested experimentally. The closed loop method regulates thrust through the control of the hip liftoff speed, a conceptually simple control strategy that stabilizes the body pitch in pronk and trot gaits without the need for central feedback, even on irregular terrain. The open-loop control method regulates the energy added in each hop based on the model of the actuator system. The efficacy of these models and techniques is tested in several planar trot and pronk experiments, and the results are analyzed focusing on the body stabilization, the power consumption and the energetic efficiency.


The changes in KO systems induced by sociocultural influences may include those in both classificatory principles and cultural features. The proposed study will examine the Korean Decimal Classification (KDC)'s adaptation of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) by comparing the two systems. This case manifests the sociocultural influences on KOSs in a cross-cultural context. Therefore, the study aims at an in- depth investigation of sociocultural influences by situating a KOS in a cross-cultural environment and examining the dynamics between two classification systems designed to organize information resources in two distinct sociocultural contexts. As a preceding stage of the comparison, the analysis was conducted on the changes that result from the meeting of different sociocultural feature in a descriptive method. The analysis aims to identify variations between the two schemes in comparison of the knowledge structures of the two classifications, in terms of the quantity of class numbers that represent concepts and their relationships in each of the individual main classes. The most effective analytic strategy to show the patterns of the comparison was visualizations of similarities and differences between the two systems. Increasing or decreasing tendencies in the class through various editions were analyzed. Comparing the compositions of the main classes and distributions of concepts in the KDC and DDC discloses the differences in their knowledge structures empirically. This phase of quantitative analysis and visualizing techniques generates empirical evidence leading to interpretation.


Of the estimated 214 million people who have migrated from poorer to richer countries in search of a better life, between 20 and 30 million have migrated on an unauthorized, or "illegal," basis. All have health needs, or will in the future, yet most are denied health care available to citizens and authorized residents. To many, unauthorized im/migrants' exclusion intuitively "makes sense." As scholars of health, social justice, and human rights, we find this logic deeply flawed and are committed to advancing a constructive program of engaged critique. In this commentary, we call on medical anthropologists to claim an active role in reframing scholarly and public debate about this pressing global health issue. We outline four key theoretical issues and five action steps that will help us sharpen our research agenda and translate ourselves for colleagues in partner disciplines and for broader audiences engaged in policymaking, politics, public health, and clinical practice.