By increasing the half-lives of peptide-MHC complexes on dendritic cells, TLR ligands lead to increased T cell receptor activation in CD8+ T cells. Engagement of T cell receptors (TCRs) on CD8+ T cells by antigenic peptide-bound class I major histocompatability complexes (MHCs) on dendritic cells leads to T cell activation, which is important for the immune response to viral infections. Serial engagement of multiple TCRs on a T cell by the same peptide-MHC complex (pMHC) is thought to trigger the accumulation of sufficient downstream signals to lead to T cell activation. Maturation of DCs in response to microbial products such as lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or unmethylated CpG oligonucleotides, which stimulate Toll-like receptors (TLRs), is required for optimal activation of T cells. Rudd et al. investigated how pretreatment of antigen-pulsed mouse bone marrow-derived DCs with CpG oligonucleotides affected activation of TCR transgenic CD8+ T cells in vitro. More CD8+ T cells were activated when cocultured with CpG-treated antigen-pulsed DCs than were activated when exposed to untreated antigen-pulsed DCs. Although treatment of DCs with CpGs increased the abundance of MHC complexes on the DCs, the authors showed that, when normalized for the abundance of pMHC complexes, CpG-treated DCs still resulted in increased activation of CD8+ T cells compared with that by untreated DCs. Other TLR ligands resulted in the same outcome. Treatment of DCs with CpG oligonucleotides increased the half-life of their pMHC complexes compared with those of untreated DCs, which then enabled the triggering of increased numbers of TCRs on the CD8+ T cells. These data suggest that stabilization of pMHC complexes is another mechanism by which TLR ligands modulate T cell activation, which is relevant to their roles as adjuvants for vaccines. B. D. Rudd, J. D. Brien, M. P. Davenport, J. Nikolich-Žugich, Cutting edge: TLR ligands increase TCR triggering by slowing peptide-MHC class I decay rates. J. Immunol. 181, 5199-5203 (2008). [PubMed]


The dual-purpose Palmiet Pumped Storage Scheme near Cape Town came into full operation in mid-1988, the third such scheme in South Africa after the Steenbras and Drakensberg stations. Palmiet contributes 400 MW of peaking power to the national electricity grid and has the capacity to transfer 140 million m3 of water annually to the adjacent Steenbras water supply scheme for the Cape Metropolitan Area. The scheme was developed jointly by Eskom and the Department of Water Affairs (DWA) over a period of seven and a half years and involved the usual elements of dam construction (both concrete and rockfill), underground works pertaining to the water transfer and power generation systems and surface structures for the control, operation and administration of the scheme.


"Francis Jeffrey is celebrated as the editor of the Edinburgh Review, but little is known of his remarkable visit to America and his enthusiastic reception by American readers. Elliott and Hook have produced a marvellous edition of Jeffrey's record of his journey between New York and Washington during the second Anglo-American War. Historians will be fascinated by Jeffrey's account of his discussion of British-American differences with President James Madison and Secretary of State James Monroe, which furnish remarkable first hand accounts of these men's beliefs about the origins and nature of the conflict. Literary scholars will be intrigued by the unsuspected romantic sensibilities evident in Jeffrey's descriptions of the American environment. This is an excellent edition of Jeffrey's engaging account of the new American republic." -- Simon P. Newman, Sir Denis Brogan Professor of American Studies, University of Glasgow.

Clare Elliott is Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature at Northumbria University and has taught at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, recently completing a post at Teesside University. Her research interests lie in Transatlantic Literary Studies, Transnationalism and Transatlantic Romanticisms. Clare has published on William Blake, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman and is reviewer of American literature to 1900 for the Year`s Work in English Studies. The long eighteenth century in Scotland is increasingly recognized as a period of outstanding cultural achievement. In these years both the Scottish Enlightenment and Scottish Romanticism made lasting contributions to Western intellectual and cultural life. This series is designed to further our understanding of this crucial era in a range of ways: by reprinting less familiar but important works by writers in the period itself; by producing new editions of key out-of-print books by modern scholars; and by publishing new research and criticism by contemporary scholars.


The usefulness of haploid plants in basic research in cytogenetics, genetics, evolution, and practical plant breeding is well known. Haploid plants provide an effi cient research tool for studies on induced mutagenesis and genetic transformation. They also help elucidate the genetic control of chromosome pairing inherently present in allopolyploids such as bread wheat, durum wheat, and oats. Genetic control of chromosome pairing in haploid nuclei has helped in assessing intergenomic relationships. By analyzing the degree and specifi city of chromosome pairing in the Ph1- and ph1b-euhaploids (2n = 3x = 21; ABD), we demonstrated that the A and D genomes of wheat are more closely related to each other than either one is to the B genome. It is signifi cant that the totipotent nature of a haploid cell is being exploited in several facets of biological research. In addition to its numerous applications in basic research, the haploidy approach provides an effi cient means of producing truly homozygous lines, thereby accelerating the breeding process. Wheat cultivars developed from doubled haploids (DHs) have been released for cultivation in Canada, China, Europe, and Brazil. General characteristics and classifi cation of haploids derived from diploid and polyploid species are provided in this article. Methods of extracting haploids of polyploid wheats are described, and applications of haploidy in basic and applied research are discussed.


Federal tax policies such as the mortgage interest deduction do not generally encourage anyone to become a homeowner, yet they do increase the cost of housing. Low-income homeowners regardless of race are least likely to be able to take advantage of the mortgage interest deduction. They pay for a benefit that they cannot receive. Middle- and upper-income black homeowners are less likely than middle- and upper-income white homeowners to benefit from federal tax laws supporting homeownership in different ways. The appreciation of most middle- and upper-income black homes is significantly less than the appreciation of middle- and upper-income white homes. As a result, those black homeowners will not benefit as much as white homeowners from the tax provisions that exclude from income gain on the sale of their homes. This Article suggests three solutions which, if enacted, would cause the tax benefits to be more equitably distributed and no longer concentrated in the hands of higher income, white taxpayers.


Surveys often contain sensitive questions, that is, questions about private, illegal, or socially undesirable behavior. When asked directly in standard survey modes, respondents tend to underreport these behaviors, yielding biased results. One method that promises more valid estimates than direct questioning (DQ) is the item count technique (ICT). In this paper, methodological benefits and disadvantages of the ICT, as compared to DQ, are empirically evaluated with regard to questions on self-reported delinquency. We present findings from a face-to-face survey of 552 respondents who had been convicted under criminal law prior to the survey. The results show that, first, subjective measures of survey quality such as trust in anonymity or willingness to respond are not affected positively by the ICT with the exception that interviewers feel less uncomfortable asking sensitive questions in ICT mode than in DQ mode. Second, all prevalence estimates of self-reported delinquent behaviors are significantly higher in ICT than in DQ mode. Third, a regression model on determinants of response behavior indicates that the effect of the ICT on response validity varies by gender. All in all, our results are in favor of the ICT. This technique is a promising alternative to other special questioning techniques such as the much more complicated randomized response technique (RRT).


Much of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's work on the Supreme Court embodies a commitment to judicial minimalism, understood as a preference for narrow rulings, closely attuned to particular facts. This preference reflects a belief that at least in adjudication, standards ought to be preferred to rules. In many contexts, however, that belief is hard to justify, simply because it imposes severe decision-making burdens on others and may well create more, rather than fewer, errors. For this reason, a general preference for minimalism is no more defensible than a general preference for rules. The choice between narrow and wide rulings cannot itself be made by rules or even presumptions; it requires a case-by-case inquiry. The argument is illustrated throughout with reference to the problem of affirmative action, where Justice O'Connor's preference for particularity resulted in the imposition of a constitutional mandate on admissions offices that is not simple to defend in principle. In some contexts, however, narrow rulings are indeed preferable, in large part because they give flexibility to politically accountable officials. Justice O'Connor's minimalism is best understood as reflecting a belief that in difficult cases, at the frontiers of constitutional law, judges do best to avoid firm rules that they might come to regret.


The crystalline structure of ground-state orthorhombic SrRuO3 is reproduced by applying the hybrid density functional theory scheme to the functionals based on the revised generalized-gradient approximations for solidstate calculations. The amount of Hartree–Fock (HF) exchange energy is varied in the range of 5–20% in order to systematically ascertain the optimum value of HF mixing which in turn ensures the best correspondence to the experimental measurements. Such investigation allows one to expand the set of tools that could be used for the efficient theoretical modelling of, for example, only recently stabilized phases of SrRuO3, helping to resolve issues emerging for the experimentalists.


The state-owned enterprise managers have a great feature, the operator is appointed by the superior government, the operators' attention the relationship with administrative organization, the managers of state-owned enterprise have a strong consideration of reputation. The operator's retention and promotion depends on the operator's market reputation and political reputation. In the dual reputation, the operator behavior is divided into the normal behavior and the behavior of rent-seeking efforts, the operators maximize their expected utility through choosing their conduct. We analysis which factors influence the managers' behavior, and study how to stimulate normal effort, reduce the rent-seeking behavior.


Psychological factors play an important role in the development of dizziness. Even if they are not the cause of the initial onset of dizziness, psychological factors often contribute to the continuation or aggravation of symptoms.This study sought to clarify the personality and psychosocial backgrounds of 17 patients with dizziness, in whom psychological factors were considered to be the primary cause of their symptoms. Psychotherapists at our dizziness clinic counseled all of these patients.The Cornell Medical Index (CMI) revealed a strong neurotic inclination, psychosomatic ataxia, and obsession in these patients. In addition, the Personality Inventory (INV) showed that 8 patients had a strong epilepsy temperament. The results of the Stress Coping Inventory (SCI) suggested that a low ability to cope with stress was a personality trait common among these patients. Various psychosocial backgrounds were also identified as the causes of the stress contributing to the initial onset, continuation, and aggravation of the symptoms.Our experience with these patients showed that the most appropriate method of psychotherapy for treating psychogenic dizziness or dizziness closely related to psychological factors should be based on precise knowledge of a patient's personality and psychological background


The high dimensionality of images presents architecture and sampling-efficiency challenges for likelihood-based generative models. Previous approaches such as VQ-VAE use deep autoencoders to obtain compact representations, which are more practical as inputs for likelihood-based models. We present an alternative approach, inspired by common image compression methods like JPEG, and convert images to quantized discrete cosine transform (DCT) blocks, which are represented sparsely as a sequence of DCT channel, spatial location, and DCT coefficient triples. We propose a Transformer-based autoregressive architecture, which is trained to sequentially predict the conditional distribution of the next element in such sequences, and which scales effectively to high resolution images. On a range of image datasets, we demonstrate that our approach can generate high quality, diverse images, with sample metric scores competitive with state of the art methods. We additionally show that simple modifications to our method yield effective image colorization and super-resolution models.


Humans have a fundamental need to belong, and being rejected or devalued elicits strong emotional reactions such as stress and anxiety (Leary, 2001). Low perceived relational evaluation (PRE), as a type of rejection, occurs when one person in a relationship believes his or her significant other does not regard his or her bond with the other person as valuable, close, or important (Leary, 2001). The goal of the research was to examine the interrelations among PRE, cortisol (biological stress), relationship quality, and physical and psychological within dating couples. Undergraduate female students (N = 109) who were involved in dating relationships completed computer-based questionnaires assessing various aspects of their current relationship as well as measures of psychological and physical health symptoms. Immediately prior to and after completing the questionnaires, participants provided saliva samples that were subsequently analyzed for cortisol levels. PRE was expected to be positively correlated with satisfaction and commitment and negatively correlated with physical and psychological health. Relationship stress was expected to be positively correlated with physical health symptoms. Neuroticism was expected to be negatively correlated with cortisol and positively correlated with psychological health and physical health symptoms. Additionally, cortisol was expected to mediate the relationship between PRE and satisfaction, commitment, psychological health, and physical health symptoms. This mediational effect was further predicted to be moderated by neuroticism. PRE was positively correlated with satisfaction and commitment and negatively correlated with psychological distress. Contrary to expectations, PRE was not significantly correlated with physical health symptoms. In addition, cortisol was not significantly related to any of the criterion variables. Therefore, neuroticism was examined as a moderator variable between PRE and the criterion variables. However, no moderation results were significant. Strengths of the research include assessing PRE for its influence on physical and psychological health and obtaining self-report and biological indicators of stress. However, the research was limited by a small sample size and small effect sizes. Future research may benefit from utilizing a longitudinal design as well as including a measure of self-esteem. PERCEIVED RELATIONAL EVALUATION: BIOLOGICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, AND PHYSICAL HEALTH CORRELATES A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Emily Christina Banitt University of Northern Iowa July 2015


This submission contains theories that lead to a formalization of the proof of the Jordan-Hölder theorem about composition series of finite groups. The theories formalize the notions of isomorphism classes of groups, simple groups, normal series, composition series, maximal normal subgroups. Furthermore, they provide proofs of the second isomorphism theorem for groups, the characterization theorem for maximal normal subgroups as well as many useful lemmas about normal subgroups and factor groups. The formalization is based on the work work in my first AFP submission [vR14] while the proof of the Jordan-Hölder theorem itself is inspired by course notes of Stuart Rankin [Ran05].


Following the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the re-introduction of Sharica law relating to gender and the family, women's rights in Iran suffered a major setback. However, as the implementers of the law have faced the social realities of women's lives and aspirations, positive changes have gradually come about. Here Ziba Mir-Hosseini takes us to the heart of the growing debates concerning the ways in which justice for women should be achieved. Through a series of lively interviews with clerics in the Iranian religious center of Qom, she seeks to understand the varying notions of gender that inform Islamic jurisprudence and to explore how clerics today perpetuate and modify these notions.Mir-Hosseini finds three main approaches to the issue: insistence on "traditional" patriarchal interpretations based on "complementarity" but "inequality" between women and men; attempts to introduce "balance" into traditional interpretations; or a radical rethinking of the jurisprudential constructions of gender. She introduces the debates among the commentators by examining key passages in both written and oral texts and by narrating her meetings and discussions with the authors. Unique in its approach and its subject matter, the book relates Mir-Hosseini's engagement, as a Muslim woman and a social anthropologist educated and working in the West, with Shii'i Muslim thinkers of various backgrounds and views. In the literature on women in Islam, there is no account of such a face-to-face encounter, either between religion and gender politics or between the two genders.


Abstract Numerous studies focus on the relationships between chemical composition and OH-band positions in the infrared (IR) spectra of micaceous minerals. These studies are based on the coexistence, in dioctahedral micas or smectites, of several cationic pairs around the hydroxyl group which each produce a characteristic band in the IR spectrum. The aim of this work is to obtain the wavenumber values of the IR OH vibration bands of the (Al-Fe3+)-OH and (Fe3+-Fe3+)-OH local cationic environments of 'pyrophyllite type' in order to prove, disprove or modify a model of dioctahedral phyllosilicate OH-stretching band decomposition. Natural samples are characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopies and electron microprobe; the hydrothermal synthesis products are also analysed by powder XRD and FTIR after inductively coupled plasma measurements to obtain the chemical compositions of starting gel phases. Natural samples contain some impurities which were eliminated after acid treatment; nevertheless, a small Fe content is found in the pyrophyllite structure. The amount of Fe which is incorporated within the pyrophyllite structure is much more important for the synthetic samples than for the natural ones. The IR OH bands were clearly observed in both natural and synthetic pyrophyllites and assigned to hydroxides bonded to (Al-Al), (Al-Fe) and (Fe-Fe) cationic pairs. During this study, three samples were analysed by DTG to check the cis- or trans-vacant character of the layers and to determine the influence of this structural character on the OH-stretching band position in IR spectroscopy.


To prevail on a claim of common law fraud, the plaintiff must prove reliance on the defendant's misrepresentation. This requirement is puzzling, given that, under many modern formulations of the tort, the plaintiff must also prove that the misrepresentation was a factual and proximate cause of the plaintiff's detriment. One standard view of reliance emphasizes its role as the mechanism by which defendant's misrepresentation generates harm to the plaintiff. But, cast as such, it seems redundant with factual causation. Another way reliance is understood is as setting a practical limit on the amount of liability that a misrepresentation can generate. So regarded, it seems redundant with proximate cause. In this Article, we explain why reliance forms a distinct element of fraud. Conceptually, we argue, the wrong of fraud is not an interference with the victim's interest in avoiding certain types of harm, such as economic loss, but instead an interference with her interest in being able to make certain kinds of decisions free of misinformation generated by others. Thus, a knowing misrepresentation that foreseeably causes harm to another does not defraud that other unless and until she is induced by that misrepresentation to make a decision she would not have otherwise made. Structurally, we argue that the requirement of reliance is linked to a more general feature of tort law, namely, the relational structure of tort duties. To commit a tort is to breach a duty that is owed by an actor to a class of potential victims. Therefore, to prevail, a tort plaintiff must establish not merely that wrongful conduct has caused harm to her, but that the conduct was wrongful as to a person in her position. When it comes to fraud, plaintiff's reliance is essential to establishing that the defendant's conduct was wrongful as to her, and hence to establishing her right to recover. Having explained the place of reliance within fraud, we next explain why reliance need not be central to other wrongs that bear some resemblance to fraud, including, for example, private enforcement actions brought under consumer protection statutes. Likewise, we demonstrate that some claimants who have been injured by misrepresentations without relying on them will have valid claims for other torts, such as negligence and tortious interference with contract. The take-away point is this: An understanding of why reliance functions (or doesn't function) as a component of a legal wrong that involves misrepresentation must be sensitive to the institutional source of the legal prohibition that defines the wrong and, relatedly, the interests that are meant to be served by that prohibition.


Anyone reading this editorial, I would argue, is living in the mental world of, not postmodernism, but modernity (which many date from the eighteenth-century Aufkarung onward). I understand modernity as a world that cherishes (1) freedom at the core of being human; (2) critical-thinking reason (not limited to discursive thought) as the arbiter of what to affirm or not; (3) history-evolution, process, dynamism seen at the heart of human life and society, and, indeed, all reality; and (4) the conscious recognition of cultural/religious pluralism--and, hence, the consequent need to engage in dialogue. Said otherwise, I understand modernity to have four main characteristics: (1) a sense of radical freedom; (2) a sense of automatically asking whether something makes rational sense; (3) a sense of perceiving all human experience in its specific historical-evolutionary context; and, because of the relationality of all knowledge, (4) the need to engage persons with different views and experiences in deep-dialogue so as to learn more. We cannot avoid modernity, even if we do not allude to it and are not consciously aware of it. Modernity is all around us. It is the very air that we breathe, even when we might be vigorously trying to reject some part of it. In our bones we feel free and feel outraged when we learn of others being robbed of their freedom. We cannot help but involuntarily ask of every new or old idea or bit of information that comes along whether it makes sense, whether we "buy" it. We are increasingly aware that reality around us is constantly changing, that old givens do not necessarily hold anymore, and that, consequently, we constantly ask whether old saws are still valid or are something from a past context. Also increasingly we do not automatically discount those who are different from us but are more and more inclined at first to tolerate them, then to open out to them, and then even to seek them out. Modernity makes up our mental world just as water is where fish live, or the air is for us mammals. We do not even notice it, unless it is severely damaged and we start to choke and even die. We automatically resist when our freedom is threatened and protest when something unreasonable is being forced down our throats. We would do the same if our radios and TV's--or now increasingly our cell phones or computers--were taken from us and we were forced to go back to living in the older context or if we no longer could learn new things from those elsewhere in the world. This is all true even if we do not think about it--until part of it might be taken away. Consequently, if a hoary tradition is to find a helpful, creative place in our life, we must undertake two important steps. First, we need to reflect more intensely and consciously on what our mental world of modernity is. We need to learn in greater depth what its elements are and how they intertwine to constitute the atmosphere in which we "live, move, and have our being," as St. Paul wrote in quoting an ancient Greek poet. Contemporary philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) put it thus: "History does not belong to us; but we belong to it." At the same time, as an intellectual/cultural historian I am constantly astonished that so many of my colleagues in academe are still describing their thinking as "postmodern," or "postmodernism." Any "movement" that cannot articulate what it is about, but can only say what it is not about, strikes me as intellectually suspect or, perhaps more kindly, "adolescent," immature, not very well thought through. More importantly, as it slowly began to become clear what most "postmodern" writers seemed to be talking about when they used the term "postmodernity," it appeared to refer to: (1) hermeneutics of suspicion and the resultant sense of pluralism and consequent need for dialogue, (2) a stress on particularity, and (3) an a priori rejection of any "over-all" understanding of anything. …


This article is concerned with evaluating Value-at-Risk estimates. It is well known that using only binary variables, such as whether or not there was an exception, sacrifices too much information. However, most of the specification tests (also called backtests) available in the literature, such as Christoffersen (1998) and Engle and Manganelli (2004) are based on such variables. In this article we propose a new backtest that does not rely solely on binary variables. It is shown that the new backtest provides a sufficient condition to assess the finite sample performance of a quantile model whereas the existing ones do not. The proposed methodology allows us to identify periods of an increased risk exposure based on a quantile regression model (Koenker and Xiao 2002). Our theoretical findings are corroborated through a Monte Carlo simulation and an empirical exercise with daily S&P500 time series.


The New York Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) waiver was viewed as a prototype for Medicaid and safety net redesign waivers in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) era. After the insurance expansions of the ACA were implemented, it was apparent that accountability, value, and quality improvement would be priorities in future waivers in many states. Despite New York's distinct provider relationships, previous coverage expansions, and local and state politics, it is important to understand the key characteristics of the waiver so that other states can learn how to better incorporate value-based arrangements into future waivers or attempts to limit spending under proposed Medicaid per-capita caps or block grants. In this article, we examine the New York DSRIP waiver by drawing on its design, early experiences, and evolution to inform recommendations for the future renewal, implementation, and expansion of redesigned or transformational Medicaid waivers.


In seeking fresh ideas for twenty-first century WMD arms control and disarmament, there is value in looking at other regimes for tools and approaches that could be adapted and developed to enhance compliance and enforcement in contemporary WMD-related regimes. To this end, this report comprises a series of short essays that outline tools for treaty compliance or enforcement from regimes dealing with the environment, public health, small arms, international trade, and core international crimes.


We present a novel object-centered formalization of action which allows us to define an interesting class of tasks, called cooking tasks, which can be performed without backtracking. Since backtracking is unnecessary, actions can be selected incrementally using a greedy method without having to precompute a plan. Such an approach is efficient and rapidly adjusts to unforeseen circumstances. Our argument is that cooking tasks are widely encountered in everyday life because of the special properties of a given culture's artifacts. In other words, culture has structured the world so as to make it easier to live in. We present an implementation of these ideas, experimental results, and control experiments using a standard nonlinear planner.


Background Fatigue, pain, stiffness and impaired physical function are some of the most pronounced symptoms in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) that may affect quality of life. Quality of life is an individual experience composed of a wide range of factors, including physical health, psychological state, level of independence, social relationships, and the patients' relationship to salient features of their environment. There is a need to describe and assess quality of life in chronic diseases like established RA. Previous research has mainly focused on disease-specific instruments for assessing quality of life. A deeper understanding of patients' experience of quality of life in established RA is important in both clinical research and daily clinical practice. Objectives To describe variations in patients' experiences of quality of life in established RA Methods The study had a qualitative design with a phenomenographic approach, including 22 interviews with patients from the Swedish BARFOT (Better Anti-Rheumatic FarmacoTherapy) cohort, BARFOT, a long time follow up study of early RA. Patients were strategically selected by gender (14 women and 8 men), age (30 to 84 years old), disease duration (8–23 years), function as measured by HAQ (0–1.38), and quality of life as measured by EQ5D (0.52–1.00). The interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and coded into categories. Results Four categories emerged from the patients' experiences of quality of life in established RA: well-being, freedom, empowerment, and participation. Quality of life as well-being meant pleasure and being physical active. Quality of life as freedom meant dependence or independence in the ability to manage daily life activities. Quality of life as empowerment meant different coping strategies, such as positive thinking and resources to manage fatigue, pain and physical function. Quality of life as participation meant togetherness in different contexts with other people. Conclusions Quality of life in established RA could be understood by the patients in different ways. The patients experienced quality of life as well-being, freedom, empowerment, and participation. This is important knowledge when evaluating the concept of quality of life in RA research, and for health professionals when promoting quality of life in patients with RA. Disclosure of Interest None declared


Abstract Andrew Bearpark is the Director General of the British Association of Private Security Companies (BAPSC), an independent trade association representing the leading companies in the specialist private security and risk management sector in the United Kingdom. The association aims to raise the standards of its members and the emergent industry as a whole and ensure compliance with the rules and principles of international humanitarian law and human rights. Prior to taking up his position, Mr. Bearpark served as Director of Operations and Infrastructure for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. From 1998 to 2003, he was Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General in charge of the European Union Pillar of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and was previously Deputy High Representative based in Sarajevo and responsible for the Reconstruction and Return Task Force, a grouping of international organizations facilitating minority return in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Before taking up his positions in Bosnia and Kosovo, Mr. Bearpark held a series of senior positions in the UK, such as Head of the Information and Emergency Aid Departments of the Overseas Development Administration (ODA) and Private Secretary to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.


Possibilities of advancement for sweet packing industry in Serbia are focused through disscusion of following questions: Possibilities and forms of vertical produced connection of manufecturers of raw material and sweet packing industry. Need for introduction of new and export product. Request for growth of food products and scientific-technical progress stir whole development of food industry, division of labour in the production of final food products on numerous branches, so some firms on the basis of the same raw material develop various lines of final products. Economic importance of sweet packing industry results from the fact that it lessens the season's character of agriculture, offers equally sweet packing products during the year and very effectively in the export of sweet packing products, performs the valorization of Serbian agricultural products on world market. Sweet packing firms introduce new products wishing to increase the efficiency of their distibutive systems and so they influence on potential competition.Attaing suitable renown on Serbian market, sweet packing industry creates possibility for futher development by the export of new product on the international market.


To study the etiological profile of non traumatic coma patients and identify the clinical factors those are predictive of the outcome Prospective observational hospital based study where non traumatic comatose patients of age more than 13 with GCS ≤8 over a period of 12 months were studied. Patients were examined with detailed history, systemic examination and necessary investigations. Initial and 24 hour GCS scores recorded and patients were followed up for 2 weeks to record Glasgow outcome score. Data was analysed using necessary statistical tools Commonest cause for non traumatic coma is cerebrovascular accident followed by metabolic encephalopathy and infections. Total mortality was 58.75% with highest mortality among cerebrovascular accident cases (69.44%). Total duration of coma had significant negative correlation with outcome score(r=-0.2604). Initial and 24 hr GCS score have significant positive correlation with the outcome score. Multivariate regression analysis showed that out of GCS parameters only motor response had significant predictive contribution to outcome. Low GCS≤5, abnormal pupillary response and absent dolls eye response had high positive predictive value for mortality of comatose patients. CVA is the commonest cause of Non traumatic coma in tertiary care centre and it has the worst prognosis among its causes. Prolonged duration of coma, initial and 24 hr GCS score, motor response and brain stem reflexes have high predictive value in the functional outcome of comatose patient.


This report discusses recent legislative and regulatory efforts to protect the privacy of customer telephone records, and efforts to prevent the unauthorized use, disclosure, or sale of such records by data brokers. In addition, it provides a brief overview of the confidentiality protections for customer information established by the Communications Act of 1934.


Combing the useful information of multisensor or multifocus images is important for producing effective optical images. To extract and combine the image features of the original images for image fusion well, an algorithm through feature extraction by using the sequentially combined toggle and top-hat based contrast operator is proposed in this paper. Sequentially combining toggle contrast operator and top-hat based contrast operator could be used to identify well the effective bright and dark image features. Furthermore, through multiscale extension, the effective bright and dark image features at multiscales of an image are extracted. After the final bright and dark fusion features are constructed by using the pixel-wise maximum operation on the multiscale image features from different images, the final fusion result is obtained by importing the final bright and dark fusion features into the base image. Experimental results on different types of images show that the proposed algorithm performs well for image fusion, which may be widely used in different applications, such as security surveillance, object recognition, and so on.


Background Malaria is a major public health problem in Bangladesh, frequently occurring as epidemics since the 1990s. Many factors affect increases in malaria cases, including changes in land use, drug resistance, malaria control programs, socioeconomic issues, and climatic factors. No study has examined the relationship between malaria epidemics and climatic factors in Bangladesh. Here, we investigate the relationship between climatic parameters [rainfall, temperature, humidity, sea surface temperature (SST), El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)], and malaria cases over the last 20 years in the malaria endemic district of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). Methods and Principal Findings Monthly malaria case data from January 1989 to December 2008, monthly rainfall, temperature, humidity sea surface temperature in the Bay of Bengal and ENSO index at the Niño Region 3 (NIÑO3) were used. A generalized linear negative binomial regression model was developed using the number of monthly malaria cases and each of the climatic parameters. After adjusting for potential mutual confounding between climatic factors there was no evidence for any association between the number of malaria cases and temperature, rainfall and humidity. Only a low NDVI was associated with an increase in the number of malaria cases. There was no evidence of an association between malaria cases and SST in the Bay of Bengal and NIÑO3. Conclusion and Significance It seems counterintuitive that a low NDVI, an indicator of low vegetation greenness, is associated with increases in malaria cases, since the primary vectors in Bangladesh, such as An. dirus, are associated with forests. This relationship can be explained by the drying up of rivers and streams creating suitable breeding sites for the vector fauna. Bangladesh has very high vector species diversity and vectors suited to these habitats may be responsible for the observed results.


Techniques for computing discharge are developed for Brandon Road Dam on the Des Plaines River and for Dresden Island, Marseilles, and Starved Rock Dams on the Illinois River. At Brandon Road Dam, streamflow is regulated by the operation of Tainter gates and headgates. At Dresden Island, Marseilles, and Starved Rock Dams, only Tainter gates are operated to regulate streamflow. The locks at all dams are equipped with culvert valves that are used to fill and empty the lock. The techniques facilitate determination of discharge at locations along the upper Illinois Waterway where no streamflow-gaging stations exist. The techniques are also useful for computing low flows when the water-surface slope between control structures on the river approaches zero and traditional methods of determining discharge based on slope are unsatisfactory. Two techniques can be used to compute discharge at the dams gate ratings and tailwater ratings. A gate rating describes the relation between discharge, gate opening, tailwater stage, and headwater stage. A tailwater rating describes the relation between tailwater stage and discharge. Gate ratings for Tainter gates at Dresden Island, Marseilles, and Starved Rock Dams are based on a total of 78 measurements of discharge that range from 569 to 86,400 cubic feet per second. Flood hydrographs developed from the gate ratings and Lockmaster records of gate opening and stage compare closely with streamflow records published for nearby streamflow-gaging stations. Additional measurements are needed to verify gate ratings for Tainter gates and headgates at Brandon Road Dam after the dam rehabilitation is completed. Extensive leakage past deteriorated headgates and sluice gates contributed to uncertainty in the ratings developed for this dam. A useful tailwater rating is developed for Marseilles Dam. Tailwater ratings for Dresden Island Dam and Starved Rock Dam are of limited use because of varying downstream channel-storage conditions. A tailwater rating could not be developed for Brandon Road Dam because its tailwater pool is substantially affected by the headwater pool of Dresden Island Dam.


Matching logic is a logic for specifying and reasoning about structure by means of patterns and pattern matching. This paper makes two contributions. First, it proposes a sound and complete proof system for matching logic in its full generality. Previously, sound and complete deduction for matching logic was known only for particular theories providing equality and membership. Second, it proposes matching $\mu$ -Iogic, an extension of matching logic with a least fixpoint $\mu$ -binder, It is shown that matching $\mu$ -Iogic captures as special instances many important logics in mathematics and computer science, including first-order logic with least fixpoints, modal $\mu$ -Iogic as well as dynamic logic and various temporal logics such as infinite/finite-trace linear temporal logic and computation tree logic, and notably reachability logic, the underlying logic of the $\mathbb{k}$ framework for programming language semantics and formal analysis. Matching $\mu$ -logic therefore serves as a unifying foundation for specifying and reasoning about fixpoints and induction, programming languages and program specification and verification.


The first working Mg rechargeable battery prototypes were ready for presentation about 13 years ago after two breakthroughs. The first was the development of non-Grignard Mg complex electrolyte solutions with reasonably wide electrochemical windows in which Mg electrodes are fully reversible. The second breakthrough was attained by demonstrating high-rate Mg cathodes based on Chevrel phases. These prototypes could compete with lead–acid or Ni–Cd batteries in terms of energy density, very low self-discharge, a wide temperature range of operation, and an impressive prolonged cycle life. However, the energy density and rate capability of these Mg battery prototypes were not attractive enough to commercialize them. Since then we have seen gradual progress in the development of better electrolyte solutions, as well as suggestions of new cathodes. In this article we review the recent accumulated experience, understandings, new strategies and materials, in the continuous R&D process of non-aqueous Mg batteries. This paper provides a road-map of this field during the last decade.


Politicians and pundits alike have complained that the divided governments of the last decades have led to a legislative gridlock. The author argues against this, advancing the theory that divided government actually has little effect on legislative productivity. Gridlock is in fact the order of the day, occurring even when the same party controls the legislative and executive branches. Anchored to real politics, the author argues that the pivotal vote on a piece of legislation is not the one that gives a bill simple majority, but the vote that allows its supporters to override a possible presidential veto. This theory of pivots also explains why, when bills are passed, winning coalitions usually are bipartisan and supermajority sized. Offering an account of when gridlock is overcome and showing that political parties are less important in legislative-executive politics than previously thought, this text offers a perspective on American lawmaking.


The fields of pharmaceutical economics and health economics/policy are reaching a point of convergence. This is due to both the widespread availability of pharmaceutical treatments, accompanied by broader insurance coverage, and the regulation of prescription drugs in both private and government plans. This book will bridge the gap. We will explore developments in both U.S. and International setting. The system of the U.S. is characterized by a mix of private and government insurance for prescription drugs with the expansion of Medicare Part D. Most other developed countries are characterized by social insurance with either the government as a single payer such as in Canada or Australia, or a national health service as in many other European countries.


The 2021 Amazon Last Mile Routing Research Challenge, hosted by Amazon.com's Last Mile Research team, and scientifically supported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Transportation and Logistics, prompted participants to leverage real operational data to find new and better ways to solve a real-world routing problem. In this article, we describe the data set released for the research challenge, which includes route-, stop-, and package-level features for 9,184 historical routes performed by Amazon drivers in 2018 in five metropolitan areas in the United States. This real-world data set excludes any personally identifiable information: all route and package identifiers have been randomly regenerated and related location data have been obfuscated to ensure anonymity. Although multiple synthetic benchmark data sets are available in the literature, the data set of the 2021 Amazon Last Mile Routing Research Challenge is the first large and publicly available data set to include instances based on real-world operational routing data.


A new technique for seed-injection locking of single-axial-mode (SAM) Q-switched Nd:YAG laser is reported. The technique called energy reduction (ER) is utilized when SAM operation is locked to design its feedback scheme. This method ensures long-term 100% seed-injection locking performance and the pulsed SAM output energy can reach as high as 200 mJ. Both temporal and spatial interferometric experiments have been executed to confirm the SAM oscillation.


Lack of employment and the deterioration of labor income are critical issues for the development of Latin American countries. The persistence of high incidence of poverty and inequality may be largely explained by the poor performance of labor markets. The motivation of this paper is the idea that poverty reduction is sustainable when labor markets provide expanding opportunities to the poor. In that sense, the links between economic growth, employment creation and the distribution of labor earnings are central to the discussion.


A number of experimental studies have evaluated the potential of
hydrophobic high-silica zeolites for the adsorptive removal of emerging organic
contaminants, such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products, from water.
Despite the widespread use of molecular modelling techniques in various other fields
of zeolite science, the adsorption of pharmaceuticals and related pollutants
has hardly been studied computationally. In this work, inexpensive molecular
simulations using a literature force field (DREIDING) were performed to study
the interaction of 21 emerging contaminants with two all-silica zeolites,
mordenite (MOR topology) and zeolite Y (FAU topology). The selection of adsorbents
and adsorbates was based on a previous experimental investigation of organic
contaminant removal using high-silica zeolites (Rossner et al., Water Res.
2009, 43, 3787–3796). An analysis of the lowest-energy configurations revealed a good correspondence
between calculated interaction energies and experimentally measured removal
efficiencies (strong interaction – high removal), despite a number of inherent
simplifications. This indicates that such simulations could be used as a
screening tool to identify promising zeolites for adsorption-based pollutant
removal prior to experimental investigations. To illustrate the predictive
capabilities of the method, additional calculations were performed for
acetaminophen adsorption in 11 other zeolite frameworks, as neither mordenite
nor zeolite Y remove this pharmaceutical efficiently. Furthermore, the
lowest-energy configurations were analysed for selected adsorbent-adsorbate
combinations in order to explain the observed differences in affinity.


Genetic improvements in the mechanical properties of wood are important in forestry species used for lumber, such as Picea. The within-tree radial and among-family variations for the modulus of elasticity (MOE), modulus of rupture (MOR), and their related traits [i.e., microfibril angle (MFA) of the S2 layer in latewood tracheid and air-dry density (AD)] were evaluated in nine open-pollinated families of Picea glehnii (F. Schmidt) Mast. The radial variation in MOR was mainly affected by AD, whereas MOE was affected by MFA and AD. Higher F-values obtained by analysis of variance and coefficient of variation were observed for all properties at the 6th–15th annual ring, except for AD at the 6th–10th annual ring. This result suggests that the contribution of genetic effect is larger in these highly variable regions. In addition, positive correlation coefficients were obtained between wood properties at the 6th–15th annual ring and mean values of these properties. Therefore, genetic improvements for MOE, MOR, and their related traits in P. glehnii is likely to be more effective in juvenile wood, specifically at the 6th–15th annual ring from the pith.


We give a concrete presentation for the general linear group defined over a ring which is a finitely generated free $\mathbb{Z}$-module or the integral Clifford group $\Gamma_n(\mathbb{Z})$ of invertible elements in the Clifford algebra with integral coefficients. We then use this presentation to prove that the elementary linear group over $\Gamma_n(\mathbb{Z})$ has a non-trivial decomposition as a free product with amalgamated subgroup the elementary linear group over $\Gamma_{n-1}(\mathbb{Z})$. This allows to obtain applications to the unit group $\mathcal{U}(\mathbb{Z} G)$ of an integral group ring $\mathbb{Z} G$ of a finite group $G$. In particular, we prove that $\mathcal{U} (\mathbb{Z} G)$ is either hereditary (FA), i.e. every subgroup of finite index has property (FA), or commensurable with a non-trivial amalgamated product for a huge class of groups. In the case $\mathcal{U}(\mathbb{Z} G)$ is not hereditary (FA), we investigate subgroups of finite index in $\mathcal{U}(\mathbb{Z} G)$ that have a non-trivial decomposition as an amalgamated product.


Electron microscopic and semi-quantitative morphologjcal methods were employed to determine the effect of torbafylline, a new methylxanthine derivative, on the response of capillaries to ischaemia and subsequent reperfusion Sixteen vervet monkeys under general anaesthesia were studied. A pneumatic tourniquet was applied to a hind limb for 3 hours. Eight animals received torbafylline (20 mglkg) by intravenous infusion prior to tourniquet application. Open muscle biopsies were taken from the tibialis anterior before tourniquet application, just before tourniquet release and after 6, 12 and 24 hours of reperfusion. All specimens were prepared for transmission electron microscopy. The capillaries in all pre-tourniquet specimens were normal. Endothelial cell oedema, abnormal cytoplasmic organelles and altered levels of pinocytosis occurred in various numbers of capillaries in each experimental specimen. A numeric Index was created to descriptionbe the seventy of capillary pathomorphology. Torbafylline was shown significantly to reduce the severity of capillary pathomorphology during reperfusion.


Previous research has indicated that although children from divorced families on average are not as well adjusted as children from intact families, there is a great deal of variability in how these children adjust to the divorce oftheir parents. In an effort to investigate the within-group variability of children of divorced families the generalizability of clusters of adjustment found by E. M. Hetherington (1989, 1993) was investigated. Data were gathered from 137 boys and girls primarily between the ages of 12-14 years. Participants came from both divorced and intact families. Measures included the Child Behavior Checklist Youth Self-Report (YSR), the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory: Youth Version (EQ-I: YV), a measure of students' sense of school values and competence (SSVC), and an interview focusing on parents' marital histories. Data for the main sample were submitted to a squared Euclidean cluster analysis using Ward's method of agglomeration. The stability and validity of the derived clusters was investigated via internal replication and a double-cross validation using multiple discriminant analysis. The clusters obtained from the main sample did not evidence a high level of consistency across different subsets of the sample and the correct classification rates were low thus indicating a lack of homogeneity within clusters and discreteness between clusters. No evidence was found for distinct patterns of adjustment within the sample. Possible explanations for the findings are discussed along with the issue of obtaining an adequate sample of children from divorced families.


Introduction Neurological disorders, particularly diabetic neuropathy, have been treated with vitamin B1 (thiamine) for decades; however, the bioavailability of orally administered, water-soluble thiamine salts is low compared to fat-soluble analogs. For treatment to be successful, high levels of thiamine are needed in both blood and tissues. In 1954, Fujiwara discovered a group of lipid-soluble thiamine derivatives, subsequently named allithiamines because they occur naturally in Allium family vegetables – roasted, crushed garlic, onions, leeks, shallots, etc. Of these, benfotiamine is the most effective and has an excellent safety profile. Oral administration of benfotiamine raises thiamine levels in blood and tissues to a much higher degree than the water-soluble salts. Benfotiamine also inhibits three major biochemical pathways implicated in diabetes-induced vascular damage and neuropathy. In addition to diabetic neuropathy, benfotiamine appears to be of value in treating diabetic retinopathy and nephropathy. It has also been shown to have beneficial effects in patients with end-stage renal disease and alcoholic neuropathy.


Abstract Objective To obtain an estimate of the size of, and human immunodeficiency (HIV) prevalence among, young people and children living on the streets of Eldoret, Kenya. Methods We counted young people and children using a point-in-time approach, ensuring we reached our target population by engaging relevant community leaders during the planning of the study. We acquired point-in-time count data over a period of 1 week between the hours of 08:00 and 23:00, from both a stationary site and by mobile teams. Participants provided demographic data and a fingerprint (to avoid double-counting) and were encouraged to speak with an HIV counsellor and undergo HIV testing. We used a logistic regression model to test for an association between age or sex and uptake of HIV testing and seropositivity. Findings Of the 1419 eligible participants counted, 1049 (73.9%) were male with a median age of 18 years. Of the 1029 who spoke with a counsellor, 1004 individuals accepted HIV counselling and 947 agreed to undergo an HIV test. Combining those who were already aware of their HIV-positive status with those who were tested during our study resulted in an overall HIV seroprevalence of 4.1%. The seroprevalence was 2.7% (19/698) for males and 8.9% (23/259) for females. We observed an increase in seroprevalence with increasing age for both sexes, but of much greater magnitude for females. Conclusion By counting young people and children living on the streets and offering them HIV counselling and testing, we could obtain population-based estimates of HIV prevalence.


Currently, the increasing prevalence of drug abuse can be seen among teenagers around the world. Thus, this study was conducted to investigate the tendencyin drug abuse among students in Zabol. This study is a descriptivecorrelational study. In this study, 363 students were studied. The demographic characteristics questionnaire and the drug abuse tendency questionnaire were applied in this research. The data were collected and they were imported to SPSS21 software.Then, they were analyzed using the methods of descriptive statistics, correlation, independent ttest, ANOVA, andScheffe post hoc test. According to the results of surveying four dimensions of the tendency to the drug, social dimension (15.60±3.44) and individual dimension (6.30±2.41) have allocated respectively the highest and the least average score in the tendency to the drug. In addition, the total score anddimensions of drug abuse tendency had no significant difference based onage and gender. The mean and standard deviation towards drug abuse among students in the city of Zabol show that the tendency score toward drug is in lower-middle-level (35/38 ± 4/89).


This study evaluates the implementation of a performance management system within a division of a company operating in the pulp and paper manufacturing industry. The research has been carried out in order to establish the perceived effectiveness of a performance management system as well as to identify areas where the system can be improved upon. An empirical study was carried out in the form of an e-mailed questionnaire to approximately 350 employees at Paterson grading level Upper C to Upper 0 across all mills, covering all aspects of the performance management system which included the process of establishing individual performance agreements, performance feedback as well as performance rewards. An analysis on the relationship between salary, salary increase percentage and performance positioning was also carried out. The survey data showed an overall positive level of satisfaction with the performance management system. A shortcoming, however, was found in the link between performance and pay, which very few of the employees surveyed were satisfied with .


The long-term reduction of hunger and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the great challenges for the international development community. Eliminating hunger and promoting widespread growth in the region inevitably involves agriculture, given its central role in the region's economies. Over the past 20 years, most African governments have carried out reforms to deregulate agricultural markets and reduce the role of state enterprises. How much has the state actually withdrawn from agricultural markets? Have well-functioning private markets emerged? How successful were these reforms in boosting agricultural production, economic growth, and the incomes of the rural poor? What lessons can we learn from the reform process? The authors of this book address these questions through an analysis based on an extensive review of experiences with reform, focusing on three major agricultural markets: fertilizer, food crops, and export crops. They examine the historical rationales for intervention, the factors contributing to reform, the process of implementation, and the impact of the reforms on farmers and consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa. The authors find that reforms have had many favorable results, but that the impact has been muted by partial implementation and structural constraints. They propose a new agenda for promoting the development of agricultural markets in Sub-Saharan Africa, identifying areas where governments can play a supportive role. They argue that appropriate agricultural marketing policies and investments can improve livelihoods and the economic health of the region.


Making eye-movements provides us with visual samples of the world that must be integrated to produce a coherent percept of the visual world. Transsaccadic Memory (TSM) is necessary for storing samples from previous fixations so they can be integrated with the current one. Visual search tasks place greater demands on TSM than change-detection since visual search often requires integration of multiple samples. Our goal was to estimate TSM capacity and investigate its relationship to visual short-term memory (VSTM) using two visual search tasks. Prior to the main experiment, participants completed a forced-choice detection task designed to estimate their psychometric function at each potential target location. Participants then completed a simulated or real saccade search task, requiring the localization of a target signal (Gabor) embedded in a field of 1/f filtered noise. Participants were presented with one, two or four fixation intervals and the target was present in each interval (redundancy condition) or only one (uncertainty condition). Trials were blocked by the number of intervals and target presence condition. In the real saccade task participants made a 5° saccade following each stimulus sample; in the simulated saccade task they maintained fixation while we simulated the dynamic transient produced by saccades. Performance was measured as target localization accuracy. We developed an ideal observer model of transsaccadic integration that takes into account the critical role of TSM. Our ideal observer model allowed us to place a lower bound on TSM capacity for each subject, quantified in terms of bits, a task independent unit of information. We found median capacity estimates of 7 bits for the simulated saccade task and 9.5 bits for the real saccade task. These estimates are somewhat higher than those previously found for VSTM, but they indicate that TSM capacity may play a limiting role in multiple fixation visual search. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


Top income inequality rose sharply in the United States over the last 40 years but increased only slightly in France and Japan. Why? We explore a model in which heterogeneous entrepreneurs, broadly interpreted, exert effort to generate exponential growth in their incomes, which tends to raise inequality. Creative destruction by outside innovators restrains this expansion and induces top incomes to obey a Pareto distribution. Economic forces that affect these two mechanisms—including information technology, taxes, and policies related to innovation blocking—may explain the varied patterns of top income inequality that we see in the data.


In cognitive science, conceptual content is frequently understood as the "meaning" of a mental representation. This position raises largely empirical questions about what concepts are, what form they take in mental processes, and how they connect to the world they are about. In Minds without Meaning, Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn review some of the proposals put forward to answer these questions and find that none of them is remotely defensible. Fodor and Pylyshyn determine that all of these proposals share a commitment to a two-factor theory of conceptual content, which holds that the content of a concept consists of its sense together with its reference. Fodor and Pylyshyn argue instead that there is no conclusive case against the possibility of a theory of concepts that takes reference as their sole semantic property. Such a theory, if correct, would provide for the naturalistic account of content that cognitive science lacks -- and badly needs. Fodor and Pylyshyn offer a sketch of how this theory might be developed into an account of perceptual reference that is broadly compatible with empirical findings and with the view that the mental processes effecting perceptual reference are largely preconceptual, modular, and encapsulated.


High incidence of white muscle disease in captive nyala has lead to speculation that they have high vitamin E requirements. Maintenance of nyala is often achieved through high vitamin E supplementation. Injectable vitamin E has been administered monthly (750 IU/injection) at Denver Zoological Gardens for years as an effective method of preventing vitamin E deficiency related deaths, yet, was evaluated to be effective in raising plasma vitamin E levels for only ten days postinjection. Four adult female, two juvenile females and one juvenile male nyala were trained to be bled in a handling crate designed to reduce stress. Animals were trained, using food rewards as positive reinforcement, to be bled biweekly. Baseline plasma vitamin E values were determined to be similar between individuals. Animals were supplemented with oral forms including: liquid water miscible vitamin E plus rice-hull powder (RHE) (1000 IU/d/group) in Protocol 1, liquid alone (500 IU/d/group) in Protocol 2, and caramelized vitamin E powder (CBE) (50 IU/d/animal) in Protocol 3. Preliminary results of liquid oral supplementation, show an increase in blood plasma vitamin E four fold higher than baseline. Protocol1 had lower response than either protocol 2 or 3. Protocols 2 and 3 stimulated peak blood responses greater than injections and longer in duration due to daily administration. Orals are easier to administer than injections which require labor, personnel and stress to the animals. Oral supplementation was intended to reduce labor involved in vitamin E administration and was determined to be most effectively accomplished utilizing WM sprayed on the food items.


Suit (jacket and skirt) of dark brown wool consisting of:

Jacket. Single breasted with notched lapel. The center front opening is slightly angled from top left to lower right and has three circular, dark brown, plastic buttons and tailored buttonholes. Long, set-in sleeves have three nonfunctional, smaller, matching buttons with tailored buttonholes at hem. Torso tapers to fitted, natural waist and flares to hips. Vertical, double welt, very shallow side pockets. Lapel, center front opening and hem of sleeves trimmed in thin, black piping. Princess seaming. Lightly padded shoulders. Lined in black silk jacquard with repeated "Jean Desses" pattern.

Skirt. Street length; slightly A-lined. Designed to appear as a wrapped skirt with diagonal opening from left hip to right side hem with five nonfunctional buttons matching jacket, and tailored buttonholes. At center front, from knee height to left side hem, is simulated opening backed by same fabric. Opening has black piping matching jacket. Left side zipper with two hook & eyes on narrow waistband. Lined in black silk, with exception of front panel.


Between 1983 and 1987, an estimated 20,000 people from Matabeleland and parts of Midlands Province in Zimbabwe were killed by government forces in an operation code-named Gukurahundi. Since that time, no official apology, justice, reparations or any form of healing process has been offered by the government which was responsible for these atrocities. Many people still suffer trauma from the events of this time. The overall question that this research project sought to answer was whether a small group of survivors of Gukurahundi could heal via participation over time in a group action research project directed at their healing. This article assesses the effectiveness of the Tree of Life healing approach, which was one of the methodologies tried during the course of the research with a small group of survivors of the 1980s atrocities. We found that while the approach was very helpful to the participants, it was difficult to talk about "total healing" due to the fact that the perpetrators are still in power. In addition, no effort had been made to even acknowledge the harm done, and the participants still felt marginalized politically and economically, while the perpetrators appeared to be care-free and enjoying life. Participants agreed that, given the circumstance, this approach offered them a measure of relief and that it was still necessary to address healing holistically. It was however acknowledged that some form of relief was better than a lifetime of painful memories even if systemic change remains to be seen.


In recent decay, composite materials have widely applied to important load-bearing structures of advanced aircrafts. On-line damage monitoring of composite structure is an important research topic in the field of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM). Among the existing SHM techniques for composite structures, Lamb wave and Piezoelectric Transducer (PZT) array based damage imaging methods have been widely studied because they have the advantages of high signal-to-noise ratio and high damage sensitivity, and they can be applied to large scale structure monitoring. In this paper, a new on-line damage imaging method of composite structure which is based on Lamb wave wavenumber response and PZT 2D cross-shaped array is proposed. In this method, the PZT 2D cross-shaped array constructed by two linear PZT arrays is placed on composite structure to acquire Lamb wave damage scattering signal in spatial domain on-line. For each linear PZT array, a wavenumber-time image of the damage scattering signal can be obtained by using spatial Fourier transform and a time scanning process. Based on the two wavenumber-time images, the wavenumbers of the damage scattering signal projecting at the two arrays can be obtained. By combining with the two projection wavenumbers, the damage can be localized without blind angle. The method validation performed on a carbon fiber composite laminate plate shows a good damage localization accuracy. This method is simple but efficiency and it can be applied to on-line damage monitoring of composite structure easily.


The purpose of this data set was to compile body mass information for all mammals on Earth so that we could investigate the patterns of body mass seen across geographic and taxonomic space and evolutionary time. We were interested in the heritability of body size across taxonomic groups (How conserved is body mass within a genus, family, and order?), in the overall pattern of body mass across continents (Do the moments and other descriptive statistics remain the same across geographic space?), and over evolutionary time (How quickly did body mass patterns iterate on the patterns seen today? Were the Pleistocene extinctions size specific on each continent, and did these events coincide with the arrival of man?). These data are also part of a larger project that seeks to integrate body mass patterns across very diverse taxa (NCEAS Working Group on Body Size in Ecology and Paleoecology: linking pattern and process across space, time, and taxonomic scales). We began with the updated version of D. E. Wilson and D. M. Reeder's taxonomic list of all known Recent mammals of the world (N 5 4629 species) to which we added status, distribution, and body mass estimates compiled from the primary and secondary literature. Whenever possible, we used an average of male and female body mass, which was in turn averaged over multiple localities to arrive at our species body mass values. The sources are line referenced in the main data set, with the actual references appearing in a table within the metadata. Mammals have individual records for each continent they occur on. Note that our data set is more than an amalgamation of smaller compilations. Although we relied heavily on a data set for Chiroptera by K. E. Jones (N 5 905), the CRC handbook of Mammalian Body Mass (N 5 688), and a data set compiled for South America by P. Marquet (N 5 505), these represent less than half the records in the current database. The remainder are derived from more than 150 other sources. Furthermore, we include a comprehensive late Pleistocene species assemblage for Africa, North and South America, and Australia (an additional 230 species). ''Late Pleistocene'' is defined as approximately 11 ka for Africa, North and South America, and as 50 ka for Australia, because these times predate anthropogenic impacts on mammalian fauna. Estimates contained within this data set represent a generalized species value, averaged across sexes and geographic space. Consequently, these data are not appropriate for asking population-level questions where the integration of body mass with specific environmental conditions is important. All extant orders of mammals are included, as well as several archaic groups (N 5 4859 species). Because some species are found on more than one continent (particularly Chiroptera), there are 5731 entries. We have body masses for the following: Artiodactyla (280 records), Bibymalagasia (2 records), Carnivora (393 records), Cetacea (75 records), Chiroptera (1071 records), Dasyuromorphia (67 records), Dermoptera (3 records), Didelphimorphia (68 records), Diprotodontia (127 records), Hydracoidea (5 records), Insectivora (234 records), Lagomorpha (53 records), Litopterna (2 records), Macroscelidea (14 records), Microbiotheria (1 record), Monotremata (7 records), Notoryctemorphia (1 record), Notoungulata (5 records), Paucituberculata (5 records), Peramelemorphia (24 records), Perissodactyla (47 records), Pholidota (8 records), Primates (276 records), Proboscidea (14 records), Rodentia (1425 records), Scandentia (15 records), Sirenia (6 records), Tubulidentata (1 record), and Xenarthra (75 records).


We study incentive compatible mechanisms for Combinatorial Auctions where the bidders have submodular (or XOS) valuations and are budget-constrained. Our objective is to maximize the liquid welfare, a notion of efficiency for budgetconstrained bidders introduced by Dobzinski and Paes Leme (2014). We show that some of the known truthful mechanisms that best-approximate the social welfare for Combinatorial Auctions with submodular bidders through demand query oracles can be adapted, so that they retain truthfulness and achieve asymptotically the same approximation guarantees for the liquid welfare. More specifically, for the problem of optimizing the liquid welfare in Combinatorial Auctions with submodular bidders, we obtain a universally truthful randomized O(log m)-approximate mechanism, where m is the number of items, by adapting the mechanism of Krysta and Vöcking (2012).Additionally, motivated by large market assumptions often used in mechanism design, we introduce a notion of competitive markets and show that in such markets, liquid welfare can be approximated within a constant factor by a randomized universally truthful mechanism. Finally, in the Bayesian setting, we obtain a truthful O(1)-approximate mechanism for the case where bidder valuations are generated as independent samples from a known distribution, by adapting the results of Feldman, Gravin and Lucier (2014).


This article, which forms part of the 'New Voices' series and is hence drafted as an essay rather than a proper academic article, examines the principle of subsidiarity in its application to local and regional authorities as they exist within the various Member States. While subnational authorities ('SNAs') have been studied extensively within the respective domestic contexts, their relation with other levels of public authority, such as the European Union, is less well-defined. Subsidiarity is often cast as the principle capable of recognising the existence of subnational autonomies by the EU, and guiding their interaction with the latter. This is so in particular after Article 5(3) TEU has been amended on the occasion of the Lisbon Treaty revision to include an express reference to local and regional authorities. This short essay challenges this perception of subsidiarity, putting forward that the core legal provisions that deal with subsidiarity in EU law do not allocate any meaningful role for SNAs. This is so, it is argued, because subsidiarity remains anchored in an understanding of the European Union and its legal order as composed of and shaped by the EU and the Member States to the exclusion of any other actor.


At lunch one day a colleague and I had a friendly argument over occupational licensing. I attacked it for being anticompetitive, arguing that licensing boards raise occupational incomes by restricting entry, advertising, and commercialization. My colleague, while acknowledging anticompetitive aspects, affirmed the need for licensing on the grounds of protecting the consumer from frauds and quacks. In many areas of infrequent and specialized dealing, consumers are not able, ex ante or even ex post, to evaluate competence. I countered by suggesting voluntary means by which reputational problems might be handled and by returning to the offensive. I said that in fact the impetus for licensing usually comes from the practitioners, not their customers, and that licensing boards seldom devote their time to ferreting out incompetence but rather simply to prosecuting unlicensed practitioners. I mentioned cross-sectional findings, such as those on state licensure, prices, and occupational incomes. Overall, I characterized the professional establishment as a group of dastardly operators, who set the standards, write the codes, and enforce behavior to enhance their own material wellbeing - in brief, as venal rent-seekers.


Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling has been linked to the development of pulmonary hypertension (PH). Inhibitors of differentiation (ID) proteins (ID1-4) are a family of basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors that are downstream targets of the BMP signaling pathway, but the role that ID proteins play in the development of PH is unknown. To address this, we evaluated pulmonary expression of ID proteins in a mouse model of hypoxia-induced PH. There is selective induction of ID1 and ID3 expression in hypoxic pulmonary vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) in vivo, and ID1 and ID3 expression are increased by hypoxia in cultured pulmonary VSMCs in a BMP-dependent fashion. ID4 protein is barely detectable in the mouse lung, and while ID2 is induced in hypoxic peripheral VSMCs in vivo, it is not increased by hypoxia or BMP signaling in cultured pulmonary VSMCs. In addition, the PH response to chronic hypoxia is indistinguishable between wild type and Id1 null mice. This is associated with a compensatory increase in ID3 but not ID2 expression in pulmonary VSMCs of Id1 null mice. These findings indicate that ID1 is dispensable for mounting a normal pulmonary vascular response to hypoxia, but suggest that ID3 may compensate for loss of ID1 expression in pulmonary VSMCs. Taken together, these findings indicate that ID1 and ID3 expression are regulated in a BMP-dependent fashion in hypoxic pulmonary VSMCs, and that ID1 and ID3 may play a cooperative role in regulating BMP-dependent VSMC responses to chronic hypoxia.


The article explores Edward Lear's contribution to the Victorian aesthetic debate, characterized by a marked resistance to the literary use of sensation (epitomised in Wilkie Collins' fiction), and in which, according to Bourdieau and to many critics after him, the so-called cultural divide between high art and mass culture originated. In particular, the analysis verifies the degree of 'impureness' of Lear's nonsense, a hybrid genre that has often been apprehended as literarily and socially subversive. After a brief discussion of the main features of this genre and its acknowledged 'parodic' quality, the study examines Lear's engagement with 'high' and 'low' literary conventions in «Growling Eclogue» and «Mr. and Mrs. Discobbolos» (whose second part was expressly written at Wilkie Collins' suggestion), with the aim of investigating if and to what extent Lear's crossing of genres and use of bizarre and at times grotesque literary images blur (and question) the boundaries between élite and popular culture. Summary


Instrumental variables are widely used in applied econometrics to achieve identification and carry out estimation and inference in models that contain endogenous explanatory variables. In most applications, the function of interest (e.g., an Engel curve or demand function) is assumed to be known up to finitely many parameters (e.g., a linear model), and instrumental variables are used identify and estimate these parameters. However, linear and other finite-dimensional parametric models make strong assumptions about the population being modeled that are rarely if ever justified by economic theory or other a priori reasoning and can lead to seriously erroneous conclusions if they are incorrect. This paper explores what can be learned when the function of interest is identified through an instrumental variable but is not assumed to be known up to finitely many parameters. The paper explains the differences between parametric and nonparametric estimators that are important for applied research, describes an easily implemented nonparametric instrumental variables estimator, and presents empirical examples in which nonparametric methods lead to substantive conclusions that are quite different from those obtained using standard, parametric estimators.


Process models are widely used tools, both for studying fundamental processes themselves and as elements of larger system studies. A radiative transfer model (RTM) simulates the interaction of light with a medium. We are interested in RTMs that model light reflected from a vegetated region. Such an RTM takes as input various biospheric and illumination parameters and computes the upwelling radiation at the top of the canopy. The question we address is as follows: Which of the inputs to the RTM has the greatest impact on the computed observation? We study the leaf canopy model (LCM) RTM, which was designed to study the feasibility of observing leaf chemistry remotely. Its inputs are leaf chemistry variables (chlorophyll, water, lignin, and cellulose) and canopy structural parameters (leaf area index, leaf angle distribution, soil reflectance, and sun angle). We present a statistical approach to the sensitivity analysis of RTMs to answer the question previously posed. The focus is on global sensitivity analysis, studying how the RTM output changes as the inputs vary continuously according to a probability distribution over the input space. The influence of each input variable is captured through the ldquomain effectsrdquo and ldquosensitivity indices.rdquo Direct computation requires extensive computationally expensive runs of the RTM. We develop a Gaussian process approximation to the RTM output to enable efficient computation. We illustrate how the approach can effectively determine the inputs that are vital for accurate prediction. The methods are applied to the LCM with seven inputs and output obtained at eight wavelengths associated with Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer bands that are sensitive to vegetation.


New models for modeling the material properties for aluminium alloys that can take into consideration the geometry of the needle shaped precipitates, that can be found in 6xxx alloys are being developed. The background for this thesis is to help find needed experimental data to calibrate and develop these model further. In this thesis the chosen material to study was from an extruded plate of AA6082 aluminium, which is a relevant material in for example the automobile industry. Three different tempered cases has been studied in depth with Transmission Electron Microscopy, tensile tests and hardness curves. A hardness curve was made to find T6 which is the first case. The second case was weakly over aged at 185 ◦C after reaching T6 until it reached ≈ 70% of peak hardness. The third case was over aged at 200 ◦C after reaching T6 until it also reached ≈ 70% peak hardness. It has been made cross section area and length distributions of the precipitates for the three cases using a TEM. The tensile tests were done to relate the contributions of the different particle parameters such as length, cross section area and density to the mechanical properties of the material. It was found in the tensile tests that the over aged materials experienced increased initial work hardening rate as compared to T6. The distributions showed that the material over aged at 200 ◦C had wider and shorter precipitates compared to the material over aged at 185 ◦C. It was also found that the over aged materials has a significantly lower particle density compared to T6.


As university endowments face pressure to divest stocks of companies contributing the most to climate change, much of the public discussion has focused on the looming math of the environmental impact of a carbon-based economy. As endowments decide whether or not to divest or implement screens, another kind of math is needed as part of the process: the math of portfolio analysis.


This article aims to uncover the ways that our understanding of bullying at work has become institutionalized. We argue that this institutionalization has limited our understanding of the ways that bullying is defined, constructed, experienced, resisted, and accounted for in organizations. The research draws on Phillips, Lawrence, and Hardy's Discursive Model of Institutionalization (DMI) when considering various texts about bullying at work and their role in institutionalizing bullying. As a result of doing this, we draw attention away from the dominant perspectives conceptualizing workplace bullying as an individual or interpersonal issue to explore the wider disputes over definitions and the discursive negotiation of what is and is not bullying at work within organizations. We investigate how, through the discursive effects of action, texts of bullying are created, legitimized, embedded in discourse, and institutionalized. However, we highlight that resistance challenges the rights to speak, undermines the rationality of claims, and challenges moral evaluation. We demonstrate that DMI is a useful concept for exploring the processes involved in institutionalizing. We show that bullying at work is a highly complex area where polyphony is important, and we highlight how, through the anchoring in a dominant, individualizing discourse (that usually is taken for granted), workers are produced and reproduced to fit the dominant discourse. We argue that analyzing the texts and discourses of bullying deployed by a broad range of participants at work allows us to observe the processes by which concepts may become institutionalized as well the processes by which they may resist institutionalization.


The exact Cagniard-de Hoop solutions for a point dislocation in half-space are used to construct models of the strong ground motion observed during the February 9, 1971 San Fernando earthquake (M_L = 6.4). By summing point dislocations distributed over the fault plane, three-dimensional models of a finite fault located in a half-space are constructed to study the ground motions observed at JPL (Pasadena), Palmdale, Lake Hughes, and Pacoima Dam. Since the duration of faulting is comparable to the travel times for various wave types, very complex interference of these arrivals makes a detailed interpretation of these wave forms difficult. By investigating the motion due to small sections of the fault, it is possible to understand how various wave types interfere to produce the motion due to the total fault. Rayleigh waves as well as S to P head waves are shown to be important effects of the free surface. Near-field source effects are also quite dramatic. Strong directivity is required to explain the difference in amplitudes seen between stations to the north and stations to the south. Faulting appears to have begun north of Pacoima at a depth of 13 km. The rupture velocity, which is near 2.8 km/sec in the hypocentral region, appears to slow to 1.8 km/sec at a depth of 5 km. Displacements on the deeper sections of the fault are about 2.5 m. Fault offsets become very small at depths near 4 km and then grow again to 5 m near the surface rupture. The large velocity pulse seen at Pacoima is a far-field shear wave which is enhanced by directivity. Peak accelerations at Pacoima are probably associated with the large shallow faulting. The total moment is 1.4 × 10^(26) ergs.


The Andean region of Northern South America is widely recognized as a hotspot with extreme levels of diversity, endemism, and threat. In a taxonomic study on jumping spiders from Colombia, nineteen new species of Amphidraus Simon, 1900 were found, all of which with small-scale endemic distributional patterns. Sixteen of these new species are described from the Andean region, eight of which being restricted to the Cundiboyacense high-Andean plateau ( A. bochica sp. nov., A. guatavita sp. nov., A. mae sp. nov., A. pae sp. nov., A. sie sp. nov., A. sotairensis sp. nov., A. tisquesusa sp. nov. and A. tundama sp. nov.), in the Boyaca and Cundinamarca departments. The eight remaining Andean species are distributed out of this high-Andean plateau, in the Eastern Mountain Range of Boyaca ( A. chie sp. nov., A. somondoco sp. nov. and A. sua sp. nov.), Cundinamarca ( A. quinini sp. nov. and A. zaque sp. nov.), Huila ( A. guaitipan sp. nov.) and Santander ( A. zipa sp. nov.) departments, and in the Central Mountain Range of Risaralda department ( A. quimbaya sp. nov.). Additionally, A. sikuani sp. nov. is described from the Eastern department of Meta, and A. colombianus sp. nov. and A. tanimuca sp. nov. from the Amazonian department of Vaupes. Finally, a map with these new records is included, along with a short comment about conservation of biota in the Andean region.


Lumor, Truth Towards the Design of an Agile Enterprise Architecture Management Method Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2016, 158p. Information Systems, Master's Thesis Pulkkinen, Mirja and Hirvonen, P. Ari Enterprises engage in dynamic environments and do need capabilities that will enable them to (re)configure and integrate existing capabilities or create new capabilities in order to remain viable and competitive in such environments. Enterprise Architecture (EA) by definition has the propensity to contribute to the agility of the enterprise in turbulent environments provided it is managed and guided by a methodic approach in a way that strengthens the capabilities with which the enterprise senses and responds to changes in its environment. However, the agility of the Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) function and its relation with the agility of the enterprise as a whole has been sparingly studies in the EA literature. This thesis contributes to the EA literature by designing an agile EAM method that supports the agility of the EAM function and the agility of the enterprise as a whole. A number of steps were taken to this end. First, the factors that influence the agility of the enterprise, namely; agility drivers, agility providers and agility capabilities, were identified. Second, literature on enterprise architecture, lean and agile principles and values, and a set of proposed theories were reviewed to form the theoretical foundation for the method design effort. Third, the lean and agile principles and values were adapted for EAM work. Fourth, the adapted lean and agile principles and values were consolidated into eight essential elements (EEs) that an agile EAM should possess in order to support the agility of the EAM function and the agility of the enterprise. Finally, an agile EAM method (Agile EAMM) was constructed to embody the EEs. The proposed Agile EAMM acts as a dynamic capability that provides the sensing capabilities, the leaning capabilities and the coordinating capabilities needed to effectively carry out enterprise architecting as an integrating capability in transforming as-is architecture (existing operational capabilities) into to-be architecture (reconfigured operational capabilities). The compatibility of the Agile EAMM with existing methods was demonstrated using TOGAF's ADM, and its efficacy was evaluated by means of an illustrative scenario. Conceptually, the Agile EAMM has the propensity to support the agility of the EAM function and the agility of the enterprise as a whole. Aside the Agile EAMM, the thesis contributes lean and agile principles and values applicable to EAM, the eight EEs, and areas for further research to the EA literature.


Spoken dialogue frameworks have traditionally been designed to handle a single stream of data - the speech signal. Research on human-human communication has been providing large evidence and quantifying the effects and the importance of a multitude of other multimodal nonverbal signals that people use in their communication, that shape and regulate their interaction. Driven by findings from multimodal human spoken interaction, and the advancements of capture devices and robotics and animation technologies, new possibilities are rising for the development of multimodal human-machine interaction that is more affective, social, and engaging. In such face-to-face interaction scenarios, dialogue systems can have a large set of signals at their disposal to infer context and enhance and regulate the interaction through the generation of verbal and nonverbal facial signals. This paper summarizes several design decision, and experiments that we have followed in attempts to build rich and fluent multimodal interactive systems using a newly developed hybrid robotic head called Furhat, and discuss issues and challenges that this effort is facing.


We offer an economic model of the policymaker's site- or time-specific benefit estimate extrapolation problem when she must weigh the potential gains from an increase in the accuracy and the precision of her agents' estimates against the costs of conducting their assessments. If Bayesian exchangeability is treated as a maintained hypothesis, we suggest that empirical Bayes estimators offer a powerful way to increase the economic efficiency of extrapolation. Finally, we employ a hedonic study of pollution control benefits to illustrate a Bayesian diagnostic that allows the hypothesis of exchangeability to be tested rather than taken as maintained. The power of the diagnostic arises from its ability to identify those sources of parameter variability most likely to discourage extrapolations.


Integrating manifold existing and new data on sources and sinks of nutrients in coastal and shelf ecosystems into budget models can assist in developing ecological management scenarios that provide tools to coastal managers for decision support. Those budgets are even more helpful when different conditions of an ecosystem are considered, e.g. time spans that reflect certain states of an ecosystem.The north western Black Sea shelf, for example, experienced severe changes in the ecosystem structure and functioning during the past decades; suffering from pollution, eutrophication and overfishing from the 1960s to the end of 1980s. After the collapse of the centrally planned economies in the beginning of the 1990s in eastern European countries, the ecosystem now starts to respond to the decrease in anthropogenic pressures.We present here a simple nutrient budget for the north-western Black Sea shelf for the end-nineties, and a strategy towards more detailed budgets for the pre-eutrophication period (before 1960s), the eutrophication period (1960 to 1990) and the post-eutrophication period (1990 to recent). The purpose for developing past budgets is to undertake a causative analysis and to identify key moments levels of pressure, ecosystem state changes in the development of the eutrophication problem.The nutrient budget for the pre-eutrophication period is thought to reflect the sources and sinks during the pristine state of the ecosystem as baseline for management decisions. The budget for the eutrophied period should reflect sources, sinks and pathways during the time of ecosystem collapse and provide information on critical nutrient loads. It may also reflect the future if regulations on both sources and quantities of nutrient discharges fail to reduce them to pristine levels. The nutrient budget for the post-eutrophication period will also provide information on timescales until certain components of the system started to respond to decreasing external pressures.The nutrient budget presented for the mid-nineties; the beginning of the post-eutrophication period, is based on field data of river input, atmospheric fluxes, benthic fluxes and sediment studies during the mid 1990s, and on modeling results of primary production, water column mineralization and transport of nutrients from a GHER 3D eddy-resolving coupled hydro-dynamical-biogeochemical model. According to the estimate about 65% of the shelf primary production is remineralised within the euphotic layer. 2% of the material is transported off the shelf. 33% of the primary production reaches the sediment. Benthic nutrient recycling is a significant internal nutrient source for the pelagic system, sustaining high productivity by the release of phosphorus and nitrogen from the sediment in the same range as river inputs. The shelf sediments release about twice as much silicic acid than is discharged by the Danube. However, the shelf acts also as a sink for nutrients. After benthic decomposition 3% of the model primary production remains buried in the sediment. Model estimated atmospheric nutrient deposition seems to be of minor importance as it amounts to only 4-8% of the river inputs.The International Study Group within the Black Sea Ecosystem Recovery Group, jointly with the Eutrophication Task Team of the EU FP6 project ELME (European Lifestyles and Marine Ecosystems), agreed to focus part of their work on detailed nutrient budgets for the different ecosystem states of the north western Black Sea shelf. The outcome of this work will provide valuable information for the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River and Black Sea Commission in their joint efforts to control eutrophication through adaptive management. The work is a contribution to LOICZ II theme 4: Biogeochemical cycles in coastal and shelf waters.