Antihydrogen, the simplest pure-antimatter atomic system, holds the promise of direct tests of matter-antimatter equivalence and CPT invariance, two of the outstanding unanswered questions in modern physics. Antihydrogen is now routinely produced in charged-particle traps through the combination of plasmas of antiprotons and positrons, but the atoms escape and are destroyed in a minuscule fraction of a second.
The focus of this work is the production of a sample of cold antihydrogen atoms in a magnetic atom trap. This poses an extreme challenge, because the state-of-the-art atom traps are only approximately 0.5 K deep for ground-state antihydrogen atoms, much shallower than the energies of particles stored in the plasmas. This thesis will outline the main parts of the ALPHA experiment, with an overview of the important physical processes at work. Antihydrogen production techniques will be described, and an analysis of the spatial annihilation distribution to give indications of the temperature and binding energy distribution of the atoms will be presented. Finally, we describe the techniques needed to demonstrate confinement of antihydrogen atoms, apply them to a data taking run and present the results, making a definitive identification of trapped antihydrogen atoms.


Long-term progressive changes of the Leeuwin Current are linked to plate and ocean basin 'geography' and Cenozoic global climates and palaeoceanography. Suggestions of the presence of a proto-Leeuwin Current as early as late Middle to Late Eocene times (c. 35‐42 Ma) cannot be verified by the fossil record of the western margin of Australia. "Leeuwin Current style" circulation around Australia was certainly established by the early Oligocene, in response to palaeogeographic changes in the Tasman Strait. This, followed by tectonic reorganisation of the Indonesian Archipelago throughout the Miocene, provided a palaeogeographic setting, which by the Pliocene was essentially that of today. The subsequent history of the Leeuwin Current comprises climatically-induced changes operating over orbital and sub-orbital temporal scales. Specifically, the advent of Pleistocene-style climates, especially over the last 800 000 years, and their associated interglacial ‐ glacial states provide the two end-member climate-ocean states that have characterised Leeuwin Current activity during that time. Indications of the nature of these contrasting states is provided by: (i) the Last Interglacial (c. 125 Ka) during which sea level was higher by some +4 m, and with higher sea surface temperatures (SSTs) clearly indicating a more 'active' Leeuwin Current; and (ii) the Last Glacial Maximum (21 Ka), during which sea level was some 130 m lower than today, resulting in massive shelf extensions along the coast of Western Australia, accompanied by reduced Indonesian Throughflow, lower low latitude SSTs and changes in the Western Pacific Warm Water Pool, and with these changes, possibly reduced Leeuwin Current activity. Sub-orbital scale fluctuations in current strength are driven by global climate change associated with El Nino ‐ La Nina events as well as regional climatic changes driven by volcanism. These forcing mechanisms operate at time scales well within the reach of human experience, and provide important comparative data for predicting the response of the Leeuwin Current to climate change predicted for this century. Studies of the impact of changes in the vigour of the Leeuwin Current on shallow marine communities are in their infancy. Coupling climate models with geological analogues provide important research agenda for predicting the trajectory of future changes to the Leeuwin Current and their impacts on the marine biota of coastal Western Australia.


The main thrust of the study was to explore the relationship between learning styles and learning idioms among Iranian ELT students with a gender-based focus. To this end, 63 ELT BA students majoring English Translation (ET) were selected as the participants of the study out of 70 through the proficiency test, i.e. Edwards' (2007) Solutions Placement Test: Elementary to Intermediate. The 63 participants took the Kolb's (2006) Learning Style Inventory questionnaire, and the Idioms Test. the test and questionnaire answered by the participants were scored, the data were extracted and put into the SPSS22. Using the descriptive statistics, correlation, regression and t-test, the data were analyzed. The results of the study indicated that the Abstract Conceptualization (AC), followed by the Active Experimentation (AE) is the most dominant learning styles among the participants. In terms of the descriptive statistics, the both genders were found to have similar performances on the both idiom test and the Kolb's (2006) Learning Style Inventory questionnaire with partial differences. The results of the correlation demonstrated the positive, significant and high correlation between the Kolb's (2006) learning style and idiom learning. Likewise, the study proved the highest correlation between the experiential learning style (Concrete Experience (CE) and the idiom learning. meanwhile, the study showed non-significant correlation either between gender and idiom learning or between gender and learning styles.


This article examines how service-learning provides undergraduate teacher candidates opportunities to cultivate deeper understandings of diversity, social justice, and themselves. Participants were from a mid-Atlantic university and a rural southeastern university. Although from different regions, the teacher candidates shared predominantly White, middle-class backgrounds. Three themes framed the discussion—preconceived notions about teaching in diverse settings, how preconceived notions were overcome (or reinforced), and "learning about myself as a teacher." Findings suggest that service-learning, emphasizing multiculturalism and social justice, has the potential for empowering prospective teachers to confront injustices and to begin deconstructing lifelong attitudes and constructing socially just practices.


Throughout Laudato Si', Pope Francis decries what he calls the "throwaway culture." At first blush, given the over-arching ecological theme of Laudato Si, this may seem to be solely a critique of wasteful consumerism. However, it is far more than that. It is a critique of a mindset and world view that discards people, promises, values and community bonds when they seem to lack immediately obvious or quantifiable value in the eyes of the world. Although this is a profoundly personal moral critique, it also provides a lens through which all laws and public policies might be viewed. Laudato Si' asks readers to contemplate whether public attitudes toward utilitarianism shape laws and public policies in dangerous, even tragic, ways, as treasure may be blithely discarded. This essay begins by addressing Pope Francis' explication of the many facets of the "throwaway" culture – both in and beyond Laudato Si' – as he sees this problem as a pervasive one. It also explores what it may mean for law and policy-making if the "throwaway" culture is rejected – and what might replace it.


The first comprehensive account of Diels-Alder reactions occurring by a simultaneous self-assembly of the components and catalysis of the reaction via a Lewis Acid (LA) is presented in this study. The synthetic usefulness of the intramolecularity achieved by temporary connection of DA reaction components has been combined with the benefits of LA catalysis to overcome the regio- and stereochemical diversities associated with DA reactions of unsymmetrically substituted dienes and dienophiles. LA's employed in this study act both as temporary connectors (by binding to LB sites of the diene and dienophile) and as catalysts (by complexation to oxygen of carbonyl moieties of the dienophiles). Formation of the tether, cycloaddition; and removal of the transient linker all occurs in a single operation.* To illustrate the high selectivity accomplished in this approach, an experimental model system consisting of unsymmetrically substituted dienol 6 and methoxy diene 397 and an unsymmetrically substituted dienophile (methyl acrylate, MAC) was designed. Thermal combination of either of these two dienes with MAC produces nearly equimolar mixtures of all four possible adducts illustrating the unselective nature of the reactions. Use of LA's to mediate the reaction between dienol 6 and MAC results in exclusive regio- and stereoselective formation of a single adduct. In contrast, application of the same LA's for the reaction between the methoxy diene and MAC either results in the formation of two 'endo' regioisomers in low yield or no reaction at all.* Exclusive formation of a single adduct for the reactions of 6 is attributed to a process in which the LA both pre-organizes the reactants and catalyzes the cycloaddition. This phenomenon is not expected to be observed in the reactions of the methoxy diene. The difference in the behavior of the two dienes is ascribed to the difference in their interactions with the LA's. Dienol 6 is able to bind covalently and irreversibly to the LA's while methoxy diene 397 is only able to co-ordinate to the LA's in a reversible manner. Mechanistic studies strongly support the self-assembled pathway and exclude other potential routes. Reactions of dienol 6 with other structurally suitable dienophiles under similar LA mediated conditions exhibit higher selectivities and reactivities in comparison with their uncatalyzed counterparts. Use of a structurally similar chiral dienol induces a highly diastereoselective cycloadditions with different dienophiles, whereas the thermal versions of the reactions again produce all possible adducts. The strategy has also been used for DA reactions of ' 2H'-thiopyran dienols with dienophiles 'N'-acroyl-2-oxazolidinone (NAO), ('E')-3-[3-(methoxycarbonyl)propenoyl]-1,3-oxazolidin-2 -one (MCPO), and 'N'-phenylmaleimide (NPM). Use of MgII is demonstrated to be effective to stereoselectively catalyze reactions which are unselective thermally or do not proceed at all. *Please refer to dissertation for diagrams.


Lung branching morphogenesis depends on mesenchymal-epithelial tissue interactions. Keratinocyte growth factor (KGF) has been implicated to be a regulator of these tissue interactions. In the present study, we investigated the role of KGF in early rat lung organogenesis. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis revealed KGF mRNA expression in the mesenchymal component of the 13-day embryonic lung, while message for KGF receptor (KGFR) was expressed in the epithelium, confirming the paracrine nature of KGF/KGFR axis. Antisense KGF oligonucleotides inhibited DNA synthesis of embryonic lung explants. This inhibitory effect of antisense KGF was partially reversed by the addition of exogenous KGF. Recombinant KGF was mitogenic for 13-day isolated embryonic lung epithelial cells. Medium conditioned by 13-day lung mesenchymal cells also stimulated DNA synthesis of 13-day embryonic lung epithelial cells. This stimulatory effect was partially abrogated by a neutralizing KGF antibody. The number of terminal buds of lung explants cultured in the presence of antisense KGF oligonucleotides was significantly reduced compared to control explants. Exogenous KGF partially abrogated the inhibitory effect of antisense KGF on early lung branching. Sense or scrambled KGF oligonucleotides had no inhibitory effect on lung growth and branching. Addition of neutralizing KGF antibodies to the explants also reduced the degree of branching, while non-immune IgG and neutralizing acidic FGF antibodies had no effect. Explants incubated with antisense oligonucleotides targeted to the initiation site of translation of both the splice variants of the fibroblast growth factor receptor-2 (FGFR2) gene, KGFR and bek, exhibited a similar reduction in lung branching as observed with antisense KGF oligonucleotides. Antisense KGFR-specific oligonucleotides dramatically inhibited lung branching, while exposure of explants to antisense bek-specific oligonucleotides resulted in reduced branching albeit to a lesser degree than that observed with antisense KGFR-specific oligonucleotides. Neither sense nor scrambled KGFR-specific oligonucleotides had any effect on early lung branching. These results suggest that the KGF/KGFR system has a critical role in early lung organogenesis.


This study examines the impact on export sales of various promotional strategies for branded food products in foreign markets. It is an empirical analysis using data obtained from organizations that administer the High Value Export Incentive Program (HVEIP) for branded food products, part of USDA's Targeted Export Assistance (TEA) program and its successor, the Marketing Assistance Program (MAP). To respect the proprietary nature of the data, the identity of individual firms and brand names has been deleted and products have been combined into two groups: (1) consumer ready and (2) intermediate. Economic analysis reveals positive and statistically significant impacts of expenditures on television advertising and advertising in consumer-orientated print media on export sales of consumer ready products, the effect of the latter being somewhat larger. No other promotional strategy reveals a consistent and statistically significant relationship to exports. Channel-orientated strategies seldom showed positive results on export levels for consumer ready products, and consumer-orientated strategies bear no detectable relationship to export levels of intermediate products.


Management Summary After a period of operation, high-speed turbo gears may exhibit a change in longitudinal tooth contact pattern, reducing full face width contact and thereby increasing risk of tooth distress due to the decreased loaded area of the teeth. But this can be tricky—the phenomenon may or may not occur. Or, in some units the shift is more severe than others, with documented cases in which shifting occurred after as little as 16,000 hours of operation. In other cases, there is no evidence of any change for units in operation for more than 170,000 hours. This condition exists primarily in helical gears. All recorded observations here have been with case-carburized and ground gear sets. This presentation describes phenomena observed in a limited sampling of the countless high-speed gear units in field operation. While the authors found no existing literature describing this behavior, further investigation suggests a possible cause. Left unchecked and without corrective action, this occurrence may result in tooth breakage.


In the 1970s, New York City hit rock bottom. Crime was at its highest, the middle class exodus was in high gear, and bankruptcy loomed. Many people credit New Yorks master builder Robert Moses with turning Gotham around, despite his brutal, undemocratic. and demolition-heavy ways. Urban critic and journalist Roberta Brandes Gratz contradicts this conventional view. New York City, Gratz argues, recovered precisely because of the waning power of Moses. His decline in the late 1960s and the drying up of big government funding for urban renewal projects allowed New York to organically regenerate according to the precepts defined by Jane Jacobs in her classic, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and in contradiction to Mosess urban philosophy. As American cities face a devastating economic crisis, Jacobss philosophy is again vital for the redevelopment of metropolitan life. Gratz who was named as one of Planetizens Top 100 Urban Thinkers gives an on-the-ground account of urban renewal and community success.


Strategies using HDAC inhibitors—and overcoming resistance to them—may improve clinical outcome for some cancer patients. Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors have been approved for clinical treatment of various hematological cancers and are being explored for their utility in solid tumors. Two articles now reveal greater insight into the mechanistic basis of their efficacy in a subset of lymphoma patients and a possible mechanism for their failure in breast cancer patients. Using CD4+ T cells from the peripheral blood of cutaneous T cell lymphoma (CTCL) patients and control donors, Mishra et al. found that cells from CTCL patients had greater DNA methylation in the promoter of IL15, which encodes the cytokine interleukin 15 (IL-15) and is overexpressed in CTCL. DNA methylation can block the binding of transcription factors. Indeed, binding of the transcriptional repressor ZEB1 to the IL15 promoter was decreased in cells from CTCL patients compared with the binding at this promoter in cells from normal donors. Consequently, increased IL-15 production and autocrine signaling in CTCL cells reduced the binding of HDAC1 to its own promoter, as well as to the promoters of the genes encoding HDAC6 and miR-21, a microRNA associated with oncogenesis. The abundance of HDAC1, HDAC6, and miR-21 was increased in CTCL patient samples. Overexpression of Il15 in transgenic mice recapitulated CTCL development, the progression of which was suppressed by HDAC1 or HDAC6 inhibitors. The findings may explain why pan-HDAC inhibitors are effective and approved for use in CTCL patients and indicate that isotype-specific inhibitors could be a more targeted strategy with fewer side effects. In contrast to the success with lymphoma, solid tumors have shown limited response to HDAC inhibitors. Zeng et al. revealed how HDAC inhibitor therapy might be improved through a combination strategy, at least for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients. In cultured TNBC cells, HDAC inhibition with vorinostat, the drug approved for CTCL, increased the expression of genes encoding proteins involved in cytokine signaling, including leukemia inhibitory factor receptor (LIFR) and anti-apoptotic proteins, particularly BCL-2 and MCL-1. BCL-2 and MCL-1 are encoded by genes stimulated by the Janus kinase (JAK)–signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT3) cascade downstream of LIFR and other cytokine receptors. Various experiments indicated that the LIF-LIFR-STAT3 anti-apoptotic pathway is a drug-induced feedback resistance mechanism mediated by increased histone acetylation of the LIFR promoter and its transcriptional activation by the acetyllysine reader BRD4. Knocking down BRD4 prevented vorinostat-induced STAT3 phosphorylation, but BRD4 inhibitors are not yet approved for clinical use. Instead, blocking the resistance mechanism downstream using the approved JAK inhibitor INCB018424 sensitized various TNBC cell lines and patient-derived xenografts to vorinostat, suggesting that this combination therapy may improve the clinical utility of HDAC inhibitors in TNBC patients. A. Mishra, K. La Perle, S. Kwiatkowski, L. A. Sullivan, G. H. Sams, J. Johns, D. P. Curphey, J. Wen, K. McConnell, J. Qi, H. Wong, G. Russo, J. Zhang, G. Marcucci, J. E. Bradner, P. Porcu, M. A. Caligiuri, Mechanism, consequences, and therapeutic targeting of abnormal IL15 signaling in cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Cancer Discov. 6, 986–1005 (2016). [PubMed] H. Zeng, J. Qu, N. Jin, J. Xu, C. Lin, Y. Chen, X. Yang, X. He, S. Tang, X. Lan, X. Yang, Z. Chen, M. Huang, J. Ding, M. Geng, Feedback activation of leukemia inhibitory factor receptor limits response to histone deacetylase inhibitors in breast cancer. Cancer Cell 30, 459–473 (2016). [PubMed]


Background Protecting Health Care Workers (HCWs) during routine care of suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients is of paramount importance to halt the SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2) pandemic. The WHO, ECDC and CDC have issued conflicting guidelines on the use of respiratory filters (N95) by HCWs. Methods We searched PubMed, Embase and The Cochrane Library from the inception to March 21, 2020 to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing N95 respirators versus surgical masks for prevention of COVID-19 or any other respiratory infection among HCWs. The grading of recommendations, assessment, development, and evaluation (GRADE) was used to evaluate the quality of evidence. Findings Four RCTs involving 8736 HCWs were included. We did not find any trial specifically on prevention of COVID-19. However, wearing N95 respirators can prevent 73 more (95% CI 46-91) clinical respiratory infections per 1000 HCWs compared to surgical masks (2 RCTs; 2594 patients; low quality of evidence). A protective effect of N95 respirators in laboratory-confirmed bacterial colonization (RR= 0.41; 95%CI 0.28-0.61) was also found. A trend in favour of N95 respirators was observed in preventing laboratory-confirmed respiratory viral infections, laboratory-confirmed respiratory infection, and influenza like illness. Interpretation We found no direct high quality evidence on whether N95 respirators are better than surgical masks for HCWs protection from SARS-CoV-2. However, low quality evidence suggests that N95 respirators protect HCWs from clinical respiratory infections. This finding should be contemplated to decide the best strategy to support the resilience of healthcare systems facing the potentially catastrophic SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.


Despite the recent flood of scholarly work investigating the interrelated issues of race, gender, and representation, little has been written about black women's depictions of their own bodies. Both past and present-day American cultural discourse has attempted either to hypereroticize the black female body or make it a site of impropriety and crime. The essays in this volume focus on how African American women, from the nineteenth century to the present, have represented their physical selves in opposition to the distorted vision of others. Contributors attempt to "recover" the black female body in two ways: they explore how dominant historical images have mediated black female identity, and they analyze how black women have resisted often demeaning popular cultural perceptions in favor of more diverse, subtle presentations of self. The pieces in this book-all of them published here for the first time-address a wide range of topics, from antebellum American poetry to nineteenth-century African American actors, and twentieth-century pulp fiction. Recovering the Black Female Body recognizes the pressing need to highlight through scholarship the vibrant energy of African American women's attempts to wrest control of the physical and symbolic construction of their bodies away from the distortions of others. Contributors are Margaret Bass, Dorri Rabung Beam, Michael Bennett, Jacqueline E. Brady, Daphne A. Brooks, Vanessa D. Dickerson, Meredith Goldsmith, Yvette Louis, Ajuan Maria Mance, Noliwe Rooks, Mark Winokur, and Doris Witt. This book also contains a foreword by Carla L. Peterson and an afterword by Deborah E. McDowell.


The five alpha‐reductase inhibitors are a newly developed family of compounds that block the intracellular conversion of testosterone (T) to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). 17‐β‐N, N‐Diethylcarbamoyl‐4‐methyl‐4‐aza‐5‐alpha‐androstan‐3‐one (4MA), the most widely studied of these compounds, has been shown to inhibit the androgen‐dependent growth of both normal animal tissues and of the Noble tumor, an experimental, hormone‐responsive rat neoplasm. 4MA has been found to inhibit androgen‐dependent growth without altering plasma levels of T or DHT. In the present study, we assessed the efficacy of 4MA in inhibiting the growth of PC‐82 and R198, human androgen‐responsive genitourinary malignancies. In the first experiment, 4MA was administered subcutaneously at a dose of 6 mg/kg/day to castrated and hormonally replaced groups of PC‐82‐bearing male athymic nude mice. 4MA therapy when compared to control therapy caused significant PC‐82 growth inhibition in three different groups of hormonally replaced castrated mice: 1) physiologic T‐replaced (P<.001), 2) supraphysiologic T replaced (P<.001), and 3) supraphysiologic T and DHT replaced (P<.001). There was no difference between the post therapy plasma levels of T or DHT in the control‐treated and 4MA‐treated mice. In the second experiment, the effect of 4MA (6 mg/kg/day S.Q.) was compared to that of castration and control therapy on the growth of R198. Both castration and 4MA therapy effectively inhibited R198 growth when compared to control therapy (P = .01 and .02, respectively), but there was no difference in the degree of growth inhibition seen with 4MA or castration (P = .45). Castration and 4MA‐therapy significantly lowered plasma T levels when compared to control therapy; castration also significantly lowered plasma DHT levels, while 4MA and control therapy did not. These studies suggest that 4MA is effective in inhibiting the growth of human androgen‐responsive tumors grown in athymic nude mice and that further studies with other 5 alpha‐reductase inhibitors are indicated.


Long-term information needs are increasingly important as more people are diagnosed with cancer and living well beyond initial diagnosis and treatment. Consequently, cancer is joining the ranks of chronic conditions (e.g., asthma, diabetes) for which ongoing, long-term surveillance and management should be the model of care. However, the post-treatment period is fraught with uncertainty for patients and care providers. The "who, what, and when" of follow-up care, in particular, can be complex and confusing. Therefore, survivorship care plans (SCPs) are recommended. The Minnesota Cancer Alliance, a coalition working to improve quality of life for cancer survivors, developed a patient-focused SCP. This user-friendly SCP could be considered for use in patient care--particularly by nurses, who are well suited and positioned to implement SCPs.


From the 1950s to the early 1970s, Sri Lankan governments pursued controls on the financial sector and have further reduced controls since 1977. This article links those financial sector reforms (falling controls) and the financial sector performance of Sri Lanka by testing hypotheses estimating cointegration with the ordinary least square (OLS)-based auto regressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach. Results show limited support for the liberalization and efficiency hypotheses that falling controls are associated with widening the financial sector and motivating investments. Results provide no support for the hypotheses that falling control is associated with deepening and improving the financial sector.


Rationale: Creatine is thought to be involved in the spatial and temporal buffering of ATP in energetic organs such as heart and skeletal muscle. Creatine depletion affects force generation during maximal stimulation, while reduced levels of myocardial creatine are a hallmark of the failing heart, leading to the widely held view that creatine is important at high workloads and under conditions of pathological stress. Objective: We therefore hypothesised that the consequences of creatine-deficiency in mice would be impaired running capacity, and exacerbation of heart failure following myocardial infarction. Methods and Results: Surprisingly, mice with whole-body creatine deficiency due to knockout of the biosynthetic enzyme (guanidinoacetate N-methyltransferase [GAMT]) voluntarily ran just as fast and as far as controls (>10 km/night) and performed the same level of work when tested to exhaustion on a treadmill. Furthermore, survival following myocardial infarction was not altered, nor was subsequent left ventricular (LV) remodelling and development of chronic heart failure exacerbated, as measured by 3D-echocardiography and invasive hemodynamics. These findings could not be accounted for by compensatory adaptations, with no differences detected between WT and GAMT−/− proteomes. Alternative phosphotransfer mechanisms were explored; adenylate kinase activity was unaltered, and although GAMT−/− hearts accumulated the creatine precursor guanidinoacetate, this had negligible energy-transfer activity, while mitochondria retained near normal function. Conclusions: Creatine-deficient mice show unaltered maximal exercise capacity and response to chronic myocardial infarction, and no obvious metabolic adaptations. Our results question the paradigm that creatine is essential for high workload and chronic stress responses in heart and skeletal muscle.


The outline of an answer. This article is a response to J A Loader's evaluation of my book, "A story of two ways". It is argued that neither Loader nor any other scholar referred to in the book were deliberately belittled or degraded. Every Old Testament scholar mentioned in "Story" was depicted with the greatest respect and a sincere attempt was made to understand each one. Loader is therefore accused of a one-sided Loader-centric reading. To illustrate my point some important aspects with regard to "Story" are highlighted: the intention of the book, the way in which the book received its name, the problems attached to contemporary history writing, etcetera. The main part of the paper consists of an investigation into Loader's historical approach to the Old Testament.


Margaret Thatcher's government was, she says, about the application of a philosophy, not the implementation of an administrative programme. These ideas and beliefs were propelled throughout her time in office by a forcefulness and conviction, particularly in critical moments in her premiership - the Falklands War, the miner's strike, the Brighton bomb and her three election victories. In the second volume of her memoirs, following "The Downing Street Years", she reveals the inspiration behind many of her philosophies. She discusses the formative years of her childhood in Grantham, the values she learnt at home, the profound influence of her shopkeeeping father, and of her own schooling on future Conservative education policies. She recounts her days at Oxford, her academic work as a scientist, marriage to Dennis, and the beginning of her career as a politician when in 1959 she was selected to stand at Finchley. She gives her views on the governments of Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath and Jim Callaghan, and sets out the development of her ideas during her time in opposition.


The globalized advancements of the business and technological markets in Asia continue to have an international and interdisciplinary effect on economies around the world. Business, Technology, and Knowledge Management in Asia: Trends and Innovations highlights the efforts and developments in the fields of Asian studies as well as its potential role in IT and management within the constant growing business market. This book is a comprehensive collection of research that is useful for policymakers, government officials, academicians, and students alike.


Raccoons are the reservoir for the raccoon rabies virus variant in the United States. To combat this threat, oral rabies vaccination (ORV) programs are conducted in many eastern states. To aid in these efforts, the genetic structure of raccoons (Procyon lotor) was assessed in southwestern Pennsylvania to determine if select geographic features (i.e., ridges and valleys) serve as corridors or hindrances to raccoon gene flow (e.g., movement) and, therefore, rabies virus trafficking in this physiographic region. Raccoon DNA samples (n = 185) were collected from one ridge site and two adjacent valleys in southwestern Pennsylvania (Westmoreland, Cambria, Fayette, and Somerset counties). Raccoon genetic structure within and among these study sites was characterized at nine microsatellite loci. Results indicated that there was little population subdivision among any sites sampled. Furthermore, analyses using a model-based clustering approach indicated one essentially panmictic population was present among all the raccoons sampled over a reasonably broad geographic area (e.g., sites up to 36 km apart). However, a signature of isolation by distance was detected, suggesting that widths of ORV zones are critical for success. Combined, these data indicate that geographic features within this landscape influence raccoon gene flow only to a limited extent, suggesting that ridges of this physiographic system will not provide substantial long-term natural barriers to rabies virus trafficking. These results may be of value for future ORV efforts in Pennsylvania and other eastern states with similar landscapes.


PURPOSE: Chronic renal insufficiency (CRI) is the last stage of a chronic renal condition in which the kidney loses its filtration and endocrine functions. Chronic endocrine hypofunction causes generalized damage to the body known as Uremic Syndrome, which affects the central nervous system as well as the cardiovascular, hematologic, dermatologic, ophthalmic, endocrine, respiratory, gastrointestinal and skeletal systems. The present study reports the case of a female patient with CRI who presented facial osteodystrophy of the osteitis fibrosa type, and highlights the main features of this condition. CASE DESCRIPTION: A 24-year old, female, Caucasian patient presented chronic glomerulonephritis recurrence and lost the transplanted kidney five years before, undergoing arteriovenous fistula hemodialysis three times a week. She presented swelling of the left masseter area with a hard consistency on palpation, covered by intact skin, swelling at the bottom of the left atrium, with a hard consistency on palpation, a mucosa-like color and absence of inflammation signs, suggesting expansive bone lesions on the face. These features were compatible with hyperparathyroidism brown tumor and/or osteodystrophy. The CT scan showed expansive bone lesions of heterogeneous appearance on the left jaw, maxilla/nasal floor, and right frontotemporal suture areas. The clinical and histopathological characteristics of the lesion, in association with PHT hormone high serum levels led to renal osteodystrophy diagnosis. The patient was referred to the nephrology services. CONCLUSION: Osteodystrophic bone alterations have a high prevalence in renal disease patients, and the dentist must take these alterations into consideration in bone lesion diagnosis for this specific group of patients.


We propose a new primal-dual algorithmic framework for a prototypical constrained convex optimization template. The algorithmic instances of our framework are universal since they can automatically adapt to the unknown Holder continuity degree and constant within the dual formulation. They are also guaranteed to have optimal convergence rates in the objective residual and the feasibility gap for each Holder smoothness degree. In contrast to existing primal-dual algorithms, our framework avoids the proximity operator of the objective function. We instead leverage computationally cheaper, Fenchel-type operators, which are the main workhorses of the generalized conditional gradient (GCG)-type methods. In contrast to the GCG-type methods, our framework does not require the objective function to be differentiable, and can also process additional general linear inclusion constraints, while guarantees the convergence rate on the primal problem.


The purposes of this study were: (1) to draw up a scale of priority in programs (objects) for the development of maritime economy in Konawe Islands district. (2) to determine the best strategies for utilizing and increasing the carrying capacity of maritime economy so that it can contribute to revenue increase. (3) to provide stakeholders in maritime sector with a variety of data and information about maritime potentials in Konawe Islands. The study was conducted in Konawe Islands. The analytical methods used were Delphi method and SWOT analysis. Results of the study showed that: (a) To develop the maritime economy of Konawe Islands, four programs need to be given priorities, including: (i) establishment of cooperative units; (ii) empowerment of fishermen domestic economy, (iii) development of Kampadan beach as a tourism object; and (vi) development of Langara beach, (b) These programs for improving the welfare of fishermen households need to be given a special attention since fisherman is a dominant community in Konawe Islands, (c) The development of Langara Beach can become a very interesting program, for several reasons: (i) as a district capital, Langara is naturally given a priority in the development of land and coastal infrastructures; (ii) Langara beach is beautiful because it directly faces the ocean; (iii) Langara beach can be developed into an amusement site for the public, as well as a source of local people's income and the local government's revenue. (4) Konawe Islands has many interesting coastal tourism objects, including Tengkera Beach, Polara Beach, Lamongupa Beach, Tumbi Tumbi Beach, Kampa Beach, Tekonea Beach and Tourism Dugong. The study revealed that the government of Konawe Islands has been constrained by limited budget, so the development of maritime economy in the region needs to be done gradually.


In a society marked by information technology, local territories are subject to development that is increasingly shaped by top-down mechanisms, such as the global economy and sustainable development paradigms. The question then is to determine how, in such a context, these territories can also promote endogenous development that makes sense for local communities. By developing our research in the field of territorial intelligence, we explore the possible roles of the geographic dimension within Socio-Technical Information and Communication Arrangements (STICA) at the scale of inter-municipal authorities, especially to support mediation between heterogeneous actors. Our paper demonstrates that spatial representations, as STICA media products, offer a range and variety of functionalities which to date have been largely underutilized. We present an example of STICA implemented in the Thau territory (France) in order to produce a new territorial understanding and group dynamic based on local ecological knowledge.


In recent years, researches on recognizing daily behavior and psychological/physiological states have been actively conducted to change the behavior of workers working in companies. In this paper, we analyzed Occupational Health questionnaire named DAMS for waking-up time and daily sleep data that are acquired from wearable devices in 2–3 weeks experiment of 60 office workers working in five general companies. By using a machine learning method, our binary Balanced Random Forest model predicts depression, positive, and anxiety moods in two levels, high and low. As a result of Leave One Person Out cross validation, it was confirmed that our model estimated with the F1 values of depression mood: 0.776, positive mood: 0.610, anxiety mood: 0.756. Moreover, we evaluated the variance of the three estimations among subjects by referencing the box chart. As a result, it was confirmed that there is variance in estimation accuracy for each subject.


This article uses constitutional discourses on the legality of security certificates to shed light on darker, neglected corners of the security and migration nexus in Canada. I explore how procedures and practices used in the certificate regime have evolved and migrated to analogous adjudicative and discretionary decision-making contexts. I argue, on the one hand, that the executive's ability to label persons security risks has been subjected to meaningful constraints in the certificate regime and other functionally equivalent adjudicative proceedings. On the other hand, the ability of discretionary decision-makers to deport individuals who pose de jure security risks to face torture or similar abuses remains effectively unconstrained — so much so that it is doubtful that Canada has complied with Suresh v. Canada. If the Supreme Court of Canada takes its own rationale in the certificate trilogy seriously, it must either revise its position in Suresh or encourage the extension of the procedures and practices used in the certificate regime to the entire security and migration nexus, including the removal process.


This thesis focuses on measurement errors that could be ascribed to the interviewers. To study interviewer variability a measurement error model is formulated which makes a clear distinction between three sources of randomness: the sample selection, interviewer assignment, and interviewing. In the first paper the variance of the observed sample mean is derived, and it is seen how this variance depends on parameters of the measurement error model and on the number of interviewers. An estimator of the interviewer variance, which is seen to be unbiased, and a biased intra-interviewer correlation estimator are suggested. In a simulation study it is seen that the simulation variance of the interviewer variance estimator increases for both high and low interviewer assignments and seems to have a minimum somewhere in between. The second paper presents an expression of the variance of the observed sample mean under stratified random sampling. Two possible estimators of the variance of the mean are considered, one of which has a slight positive bias, the other a negative bias, which can be large. Two different estimators of the interviewer variance are studied. Only one of them makes it possible to find a reasonable estimate of the intra-interviewer correlation. In the third paper an expression for the variance of the interviewer variance estimator is derived. This result may prove useful in designing future studies of interviewer variance. For a large population it will be possible to use an approximate variance, irrespective of the underlying distribution of the unknown true values.The fourth paper deals with some issues in planning and analyzing an interviewer variance study. Three problems are considered: (i) Determining the number of interviewers and the appropriate size of the interviewer assignments; (ii) Finding the probability of negative estimates of the interviewer variance; (iii) Testing for interviewer variance.


Computational methods have been extended recently to allow for the presence of moving contact lines in simulated two-phase flows. The predictive capability offered by these methods is potentially large, joining theoretical and experimental methods. Several challenges rather unique to this area need to be overcome, however, notably regarding the conditions near a moving contact line and the very large separation of length scales in these flows. We first summarize the main models for moving contact lines and follow with an overview of computational methods that includes direct continuum approaches and macroscale models that resolve only the large-scale flow by modeling the effects of the conditions near the contact line using theory. Results are presented for contact-line motion on ideal as well as patterned and grooved surfaces and for extensions to account for complexities such as thermocapillarity and phase change.


Dear Reader! The 2016 Special Issue of Experimental Oncology is dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster, medical and biological consequences of which still have a negative impact on the health of the population of Ukraine and other affected countries. In the XX century it became apparent that anthropogenic activities lead to environmental pollution, causing the man-made environmental problems on a planetary scale. Radiation accidents at Chornobyl and Fukushima-I (Japan, Honshu isl.) showed that nuclear reactors, more than 400 in the world, have no guarantee of absolutely safe operation. Analysis of international experience shows that the consequences of the major nuclear accidents are not confined to one country or region, sharply aggravating the environmental situation. Radionuclides ejected from the reactor migrate in water, soil, air, become included in the food chain and accumulate predominantly in parenchymal organs of human body, irradia ting it from the inside. In addition, intensive extraction of gas, oil, and other minerals from the bowels of the earth, is accompanied by radionuclide contamination of the biosphere. All this leads to a steady rise in the Earth's radiation background. It is increasing the likelihood of human exposure to ionizing radiation, which is a causative factor in the development of stochastic effects, including carcinogenic [1–3]. With the end of the period of influence of the shortlived radionuclides on the health of the population of the affected countries, currently there dominate metastable transuranic elements, the negative impact of which will grow into an even more remote postChornobyl period. Oncological diseases pose the greatest risk among long-term medical consequences of the Chornobyl disaster [4]. If deterministic effects of the Chornobyl disaster (general somatic diseases) are implemented to the level of decompensation in 25 years postaccident period, the stochastic ones, including carcinogens, have no time constraints [5]. Today is accumulated unique epidemiological, clinical and experimental material, partly presented in this issue, which applies to both cleanup workers and populations of contaminated areas. In the articles of this issue of the journal "Experimental Oncology" are presented the results of epidemiological studies of hematologic consequences of the accident at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in the adult population of Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian Federation; results of cytogenetic monitoring of the somatic cells of cleanup workers and population who had contact with ionizing radiation; the peculiarities (in particular "bystender" effect) of the emergence of genetically irreversible changes. In the reviews, the carcinogenic effects of excessive radiation doses and their modification, and the molecular markers of apoptosis during radiation carcinogenesis are analyzed and discussed. Especially noteworthy is the work on the cytogenetic effects in children who were in the womb at the time of the accident, with calculated cancer risks in the postnatal period. Radio-ecological, medical and biological consequences of the Chornobyl accident, including presented in this issue of the journal "Experimental Oncology", clearly shows the underestimation of primary prevention of radiogenic diseases and above all cancer. Given the continuing chronic exposure of inhabitants of radiation polluted territories, modification (synergy, comutagenesis) of the effects of excess radiation dose, exactly this level of prophylaxis is a priority in reducing cancer incidence of these population groups [6]. Finally, I am grateful to all the authors for their generous contributions to this issue. Prof. V.F. Chekhun, Editor-in-Chief


In this study, a novel group and region based parallel compression approach is proposed for hyperspectral imagery. The proposed approach contains two algorithms, which are clustering signal subspace projection (CSSP) and the maximum correlation band clustering (MCBC). The CSSP first divides the image into proper regions by transforming the high dimensional image data into one dimensional projection length. The MCBC partitions the spectral bands into several groups according to their associated band correlation for each image region. The image data with high degree correlations in spatial/spectral domains are then gathered in groups. Then, the grouped image data is further compressed by Principal Components Analysis (PCA)-based spectral/spatial hyper-spectral image compression techniques. Furthermore, to accelerate the computing efficiency, we present a parallel architecture of the proposed compression approach by using parallel cluster computing techniques. Simulation results performed on AVIRIS images have shown that the proposed group and region based approach performs better than standard 3D hyperspectral image compression. Moreover, the proposed approach achieves better computation efficiency than the direct combination of PCA and JPEG2000 under the same compression ratio.


To combat institutional corruption, we need to distinguish it clearly from individual corruption. Individual corruption occurs when an institution or its officials receive a benefit that does not serve the institution and provides a service through relationships external to the institution under conditions that reveal a quid pro quo motive. Institutional corruption occurs when an institution or its officials receive a benefit that is directly useful to performing an institutional purpose, and systematically provides a service to the benefactor under conditions that tend to undermine procedures that support the primary purposes of the institution. Institutional corruption does not receive the attention it deserves partly because it is so closely (and often unavoidably) related to conduct that is part of the job of a responsible official, the perpetrators are often seen as (and are) respectable officials just trying to do their job, and the legal system and public opinion are more comfortable with condemning wrongdoing that has a corrupt motive. Yet institutional corruption, which is usually built into the routines and practices of organizations, is usually more damaging to the institution and society than individual corruption, which in advanced societies typically consists of isolated acts of misconduct with effects limited in time and scope.


This overview of Chinese trade in northern Vietnam explores the role of the Chinese rice traders there, especially in Hải Phong, and their connections with Hong Kong and southern China, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It shows they were never mere colonial middlemen but economic actors with ties to German and English business interests as well as to the French. The article traces what various primary sources can tell us of their community and business history, as well as revealing the intricate business ties of Chinese rice exporters in colonial Hải Phong with German shipping companies, up until World War One.


The holy grail of medical education is to discover the formula that will predict, with reasonable accuracy, which students will become caring and compassionate doctors. In pursuit of this ideal, medical courses have embraced the humanities in an attempt to produce empathic and reflective doctors. At the other end of the spectrum, medical education has concurrently promoted evidence-based medicine — or EBM. But, interestingly, we now find there may well be another kind of "EBM" to confound us. Michael Kahn, a Boston psychiatrist writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, has proposed that "etiquette-based medicine" may be important.* It was his experience as a patient of a European-born surgeon, whose manners were imbued with the distinctive formality of the Old World, that impressed him. This encounter confirmed Kahn's suspicion that "patients may care less about whether their doctors are reflective and empathic than whether they are respectful and attentive". Kahn's recipe for etiquette-based medicine, especially in hospital practice, is:


The main objective behind this thesis is to examine how existing vision-based detection and tracking algorithms perform in thermal imagery-based video surveillance. While color-based surveillance has been extensively studied, these techniques can not be used during low illumination, at night, or with lighting changes and shadows which limits their applicability. The main contributions in this thesis are (1) the creation of a new color-thermal dataset, (2) a detailed performance comparison of different color-based detection and tracking algorithms on thermal data and (3) the proposal of an adaptive neural network for false detection rejection. Since there are not many publicly available datasets for thermal-video surveillance, a new UNLV Thermal Color Pedestrian Dataset was collected to evaluate the performance of popular color-based detection and tracking in thermal images. The dataset provides an overhead view of humans walking through a courtyard and it appropriate for aerial surveillance scenarios such as unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Three popular detection schemes are studied for thermal pedestrian detection: 1) Haar-like features, 2) local binary pattern (LBP) and 3) background subtraction motion detection. A i) Kalman filter predictor and iii) optical flow are used for tracking. Results show that combining Haar and LBP detections with a 50% overlap rule and tracking using Kalman filters can improve the true positive rate (TPR) of detection by 20%. However, motion-based methods are better at rejecting false positive in non-moving camera scenarios. The Kalman filter with LBP detection is the most efficient tracker but optical flow better rejects false noise detections. This thesis also presents a technique for learning and characterizing pedestrian detections with "heat maps" and an object-centric motion compensation method for UAS. Finally, an adaptive method to reject false detections using error back propagation using a neural network. The adaptive rejection scheme is able to successfully learn to identify static false detections for improved detection performance.


The standard Byzantine attack model assumes no more than some fixed fraction of the participants are faulty. This assumption does not accurately apply to peer-to-peer settings, where Sybil attacks and botnets are realistic threats. We propose an attack model that permits an arbitrary number of malicious nodes under the assumption that each node can be classified based on some of its attributes, such as autonomous system number or operating system, and that the number of classes with malicious nodes is bounded (e.g., an attacker may exploit at most a few operating systems at a time). In this model, we present a secure DHT, evilTwin, which replaces a single, large DHT with sufficiently many smaller instances such that it is impossible for an adversary to corrupt every instance. Our system ensures high availability and low-latency lookups, is easy to implement, does not require a complex Byzantine agreement protocol, and its proof of security is a straightforward application of the pigeonhole principle. The cost of security comes in the form of increased storage and bandwidth overhead; we show how to reduce these costs by replicating data and adaptively querying participants who historically perform well. We use implementation and simulation to show that evilTwin imposes a relatively small additional cost compared to conventional DHTs.


This paper considers the problem of routing in a wide area mobile ad-hoc network called terminode network. Our routing scheme is a combination of two protocols called terminode local routing (TLR) and terminode remote routing (TRR). TRR is activated when the destination is remote and uses location of the destination obtained either via location management or by location tracking. TLR acts when the packet gets close to the destination. The use of TRR results in a scalable solution that reduces dependence on the intermediate systems, while TLR allows us to reduce problems due to location inaccuracy. The paper describes TLR and TRR protocols and presents some simulation results.


The classical form of a scholarly edition—a text, with an accompanying set of annotations that is expressed in the stylized form of a critical apparatus—can easily be seen as text encoding in its own right. Semantic information is encoded in a particular rarefied syntax, which expresses to the philologically literate the editor's interpretation of, and occasional intervention in, the text. From this perspective, digital text encoding is a natural step: the same expression of editorial interpretation and intervention, already regarded as a formalised language, is translated to a syntax meant to be parsed by a machine. Yet there remains considerable resistance within philology to the adoption of digital editorial methods that move beyond what is essentially an Internet-enabled facsimile of a print edition, and our aim in this paper is to explore why that is the case. One explanation is rooted in the primacy given in machine languages to syntax, compared to the emphasis laid in human language on semantics. Abuse the grammar or rely on a double entendre in a critical apparatus, and your reader will attempt nonetheless to make sense out of what was written. To attempt the same in a computational encoding will almost inevitably produce a parsing error—an immediate and total refusal by the machine to attempt to understand what was meant—which itself removes from the digital user the possibility that the reader of a print edition would have: to perform a re-interpretation, or a second intervention, on the text. In this paper we will discuss how the shift from analogue to digital editing thus also entails a shift in the nature of, and the constraints placed upon, interventions performed by editor and by reader.


The recent increase of interest in the graph invariant called tree-depth and in its applications in algorithms and logic on graphs led to a natural question: is there an analogously useful "depth" notion also for dense graphs (say; one which is stable under graph complementation)? To this end, in a 2012 conference paper, a new notion of shrub-depth has been introduced, such that it is related to the established notion of clique-width in a similar way as tree-depth is related to tree-width. Since then shrub-depth has been successfully used in several research papers. Here we provide an in-depth review of the definition and basic properties of shrub-depth, and we focus on its logical aspects which turned out to be most useful. In particular, we use shrub-depth to give a characterization of the lower ${\omega}$ levels of the MSO1 transduction hierarchy of simple graphs.


Since October 2020, novel strains of SARS-CoV-2 including B.1.1.7, have been identified to be of global significance from an infection and surveillance perspective. While this strain (B.1.1.7) may play an important role in increased COVID rates in the UK, there are still no reported strains to account for the spike of cases in Los Angeles (LA) and California as a whole, which currently has some of the highest absolute and per-capita COVID transmission rates in the country. From the early days of the pandemic when LA only had a single viral genome uploaded onto GISAID we have been at the forefront of generating and analyzing the SARS-CoV-2 sequencing data from the LA region. We report a novel strain emerging in Southern California. Most current cases in the catchment population in LA fall into two distinct subclades: 1) 20G (24% of total) is the predominant subclade currently in the United States 2) a relatively novel strain in clade 20C, CAL.20C strain (~36% of total) is defined by five concurrent mutations. After an analysis of all of the publicly available data and a comparison to our recent sequences, we see a dramatic growth in the relative percentage of the CAL.20C strain beginning in November of 2020. The predominance of this strain coincides with the increased positivity rate seen in this region. Unlike 20G, this novel strain CAL.20C is defined by multiple mutations in the S protein, a characteristic it shares with both the UK and South African strains, both of which are of significant clinical and scientific interest.


Some algorithms require a large array, but only operate on a small fraction of its indices. Examples include adjacency matrices for sparse graphs, hash tables, and van Emde Boas trees. For such algorithms, array initialization can be the most time-consuming operation. Fast arrays were invented to avoid this costly initialization. A fast array is a software implementation of an array, such that the entire array can be initialized in just constant time. While algorithms for sequential fast arrays have been known for a long time, to the best of our knowledge, there are no previous algorithms for concurrent fast arrays. We present the first such algorithms in this paper. Our first algorithm is linearizable and wait-free, uses only linear space, and supports all operations – initialize, read, and write – in constant time. Our second algorithm enhances the first to additionally support all the read-modify-write operations available in hardware (such as compare-and-swap) in constant time. 2012 ACM Subject Classification Theory of computation → Concurrent algorithms; Theory of computation → Data structures design and analysis


Surface heat flux is the required input for the Great Lakes Forecasting System (GLFS) in order to predict three dimensional temperature structure of the Great Lakes. Since the flux is not operationally measured in the Great Lakes, GLFS utilizes a surface heat flux model based upon energy balance concept which requires cloud cover information in order to estimate radiation transfer terms and net surface heat flux. Currently, cloud fields are objectively analyzed using Great Lakes MARine OBServation Network (MAROBS) data obtained from surface station observations around the lake. The purpose of this paper is to test the sensitivity of cloud cover on surface heat flux, to explore the possibility of using satellite data to obtain better cloud cover, and to evaluate the impact of GOES data on surface heat flux predictions. Two weeks of surface heat flux calculations on a hourly basis based on different cloud data sources were made for this comparison.


Prior determination of the vowels instantiated by tokens is needed to be able to reliably to plot those vowels. Consequently, investigation of variation and change involving the New York City English (NYCE) low-back vowel system encounters an obstacle in the difficulty in assigning some words to the LOT versus PALM classes given reports of interspeaker variation between them (see e.g., Labov, Ash and Boberg 2006) and their proximity in vowel space. It is sometimes unclear which vowel class tokens should be assigned to. This study addresses that problem by the employment of hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) to propose the needed token vowel assignments. This statistical technique was applied to the low back vowels derived from a read-aloud task given to eleven White New Yorkers, the group for whom the greatest variation has been reported. HCA appears ideally suited to the task because it groups items by similarity defined in terms of proximity in Euclidean distance just as in a vowel chart. When applied to this data set, HCAs provided convincing distributions of tokens for all participants. Two were shown as having intact 3-vowel systems of LOT, PALM and THOUGHT (called 3-D) with all words distributed as expected from Kaye's (2012) criteria for traditional NYCE LOT-PALM assignments; three presented weakened 3-D systems, in which some Kaye-defined PALM words had defected to LOT; and six had two-vowel systems (called MAIN) with LOT and PALM fully merged. THOUGHT remained separate for all participants. Furthermore, the age distribution of participants with intact 3-D, weakened 3-D, and MAIN systems tended to follow in that order from older to younger. Consequently, the results suggest that NYCE low-back variation is symptomatic of merger by transfer (Trudgill and Foxcroft 1978) of words from PALM to LOT. In sum, the findings provide evidence not only that this form of merger is taking place in NYCE (which lags in a larger regional pattern of low-back simplification). They also suggest that cluster analysis can be a useful tool in determining token distribution in other cases in which variant assignment is uncertain, particularly although potentially not only vowels. This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol22/iss2/15


This is a brief note on the original meaning of the term "metaeconomics" that was coined in 1936, in Vienna, by the mathematician Karl Menger. He was involved in the Viennese debate on the relation between mathematics and logics. As he was a strong supporter of Hilbert's program, he applied it to social sciences (economics and ethics in particular) in order to find their logical structure. From the point of view of the history of economic theory, Hilbertism was the philosophical framework of the following economic mainstream, i.e. the neoclassical approach. In neoclassical economic theory, there is no place for moral considerations and ethics remained strictly separated from economics. Contemporary behavioural economics considers metaeconomics as a tool for re-embedding ethics into economics, this is an example of the so-called "heterogenesis of the aims"


Living organisms contain thousands of interacting complex networks of macromolecules, and there are very few tools to understand them.
The present thesis is an attempt to elucidate some aspects of two interacting networks which are responsible for the coordinated
chemotactic locomotion of a cell.

One of the networks, the directional sensing network, is responsible for the reception of external molecular signals to which the cell is
exposed.
This network also transforms the external signal into an internal one (`response'), which is amplified and used by the
the second network, the polarization network, to tune and to guide the cellular motor which propells the cell using its polymerizing cytoskeleton.
A stochastic model, a type of cellular automata model, has been developed and employed in order to address various questions. For example,
how an external signal with a weak spatial gradient can be translated by molecules into a strongly amplified and localized response, and how this
response regulates the local activity and the spatial distribution of the actin cytoskeleton which controls the velocity and the direction of the cell's movements.

By using a stochastic model, which includes explicit particles, the investigations provide a link to known approaches in theoretical physics, as there are, e.g.,
cooperative phenomena in many-body problems and space-time correlations in nonlinear dynamics.

Since the present study is the first attempt employing a stochastic model, as compared to previous kinetic and deterministic models for chemotaxis,
the achieved results contain new and important information.
It is shown, among others, that the amplification of the response exhibits a transition as function of the gradient of the signal.
The spatial localization of the response, represented by the distribution of activated PIP molecules along the cell membrane, depends on the
gradient and the maximum of the signal.

Using the `Local Exciter and Global Inhibitor' (LEGI) model, proposed recently by other researchers for the directional sensing network, it is shown how
the spacial-temporal distributions of the two types of inhibitor and exciter molecules are correlated to the amplification of the response in terms of activated PIP molecules.

The major advantage of the present approach, however, is the combination of a particle-based LEGI network with a particle-based
polarization network, where the latter includes explicitly linear and branching polymerization of actin filaments.

Taking the two regulatory networks, including their signaling molecules and the actin molecules together,
a minimal cell model has been developed, where the cell membrane is represented by a two-dimensional flexible ring polymer.

During Monte Carlo simulations of this model, the chemotactic motion of the cell could be monitored.
The analysis of the trajectories shows that the magnitude of the drift velocity can be
tuned by the combination of the signal gradient, the signal maximum and the signal-mediated polymerization of the filaments.
This explains the experimentally known high sensitivity of chemotactic cell to weak external signal gradients.


Introduction: Aging is related to a gradual decline in skeletal muscle mass, which is associated with morphological modifications such as reduced muscle fiber cross-sectional area and satellite cell content. Data also suggest that a short-term strength training period can be an effective instrument to rejuvenate these morphological parameters and to restore muscle mass. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the effects of one year progressive strength training on fiber type-specific morphological parameters (fiber type composition, fiber area, satellite cell content, myonuclear number and domain) in skeletal muscle of elderly men. Methods: Thirteen healthy elderly men (age range, 66-77 years) were randomly assigned into training (T) (n=7) and control (C) (n=6) groups. 52 weeks of progressive strength training was performed. Before and after the training, muscles biopsies were collected from the middle part of the vastus lateralis by percutaneous needle biopsy technique. Muscle biopsies were examined for muscle fiber type composition, fiber type-specific hypertrophy and alterations in satellite cell content, myonuclear content and domain using immuno-histochemistry. Results: At baseline, myonuclear content and mean fiber area was larger in type I fibers compared to type II fibers (p<0.05). No statistically significant differences were found in fiber type composition, mean fiber area, satellite cell content and myonuclear domain between T and C groups at baseline. By the end of the training period, fiber area was increased by 59% (p<0.05) in type I and 71% (p<0.05) in type II. Satellite cell content, myonuclear content and myonuclear domain were increased after training in type I by 58% (p<0.05), 33% (p<0.05), and 20% (p<0.05), respectively. Similar increases in satellite cell content (+65%; p <0.05), myonuclear content (+36%; p <0.05) and myonuclear domain (+25%; p<0.05) were seen in type II fibers.Conclusion: The current study reported that long-term strength training is an excellent tool to prevent sarcopenia. It is demonstrated that skeletal muscle in elderly is capable to enhance satellite cell and myonuclear content, which contributed to muscle hypertrophy.


The aim of this thesis is to propose suitable mathematical models for the analysis of sexually transmitted disease epidemics. We are interested in a closed population, where infections are only transmitted through heterosexual contacts. The population is hence divided into two groups: male and female. Individuals are classified according to gender, relationship and disease status. Both stochastic and deterministic SIS models are employed. The stochastic models are formulated in terms of a Markov process with a finite state space. Two main models are constructed and quantities of interest such as the basic reproduction number and endemic level of the sexually transmitted disease (STD) are obtained. The first model is formulated to describe dynamics of STDs, where the sexual behaviour is considered "faithful". By being faithful, we mean individuals are monogamous, and there are no casual sexual contacts (one-night stands). The early stages of the epidemic are approximated by a 2-type branching process. This allows us to compute the following quantities of interest, the threshold parameter (R0) and the probability of extinction. In order to study the endemic level, it is helpful to use the deterministic (ODE) approximation of the stochastic SIS epidemic. The behaviour about the endemic equilibrium is studied using an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. Stochastic simulations are utilised to obtain the mean time to extinction. The second model is an extension of the first model, where casual sexual contacts (one - night stands) are included in the model. The model is again a Markov process but its analysis is more involved. A key difference is now a 5 type branching process is used to approximate the initial stages of the epidemic, to determine the threshold parameter (R0) and the probability of extinction. Other quantities of interest are studied through similar approaches. Medication use is studied as a control measure in this thesis. We introduce a new parameter (v) governing the medication use into both models. Throughout we study the effect of the control strategies on the key quantities of interest highlighted above.


Formation of arterio-venous-fistulae (AVF) may exacerbate cardiac failure in the ever increasing, elderly population on haemodialysis. Brain Natriuretic Peptide (BNP) may prove a useful marker of cardiac failure in this population. We aimed to determine effect of creation of an AVF and flow in AVF on BNP levels. Ten patients undergoing primary formation of an upper limb autologous AVF (pre-dialysis), were recruited. Serum BNP (pg/ml) and flow in AVF (cm 3 /s) were documented pre-operatively, and then 2, 6 and 12 weeks post-operatively. The relationship between flow and BNP levels was assessed. Ten patients (6 male), mean age of 66yrs were recruited. Five patients had a radio-cephalic and 5 had a brachio-cephalic AVF formed. There was no correlation between BNP levels and flow within the AVF (r=0.34, p=0.28) at any time point. There was a general trend towards increased flow in the AVF over time, with only the change between flow at 2-weeks and 3-months postoperatively reaching significance, p=0.043. There was a general trend for BNP to fall over time in the postoperative period, with no significant change between the postoperative sampling time points. BNP levels do not correlate with flow across an AVF.


Low back pain is the leading cause of years lived with disability and the second most common reason for a physician visit.1 Although its prevalence has not changed, imaging for low back pain and the cost of its management have continued to increase. For example, in a US study 9.6% of all patients with low back pain had a CT or MRI in 2006 compared with 3.2% in 2002.1

Lumbar imaging is of low yield in the general population presenting with low back pain, as the majority of cases are self-limited and benign. In a previous editorial,2 we discussed the negative effects of inappropriate imaging such as subsequent additional downstream testing, additional imaging, invasive diagnostic procedures and unwarranted patient fear and anxiety leading to poorer outcomes, with concomitant cost and radiation exposure.

Lumbar imaging is indicated when serious pathology is suspected and red flags are an accepted method for identifying when such pathology …


After a long, bitter fight against El Paso Electric Company, the city of Las Cruces decided not to municipalize. Deregulation of the electricity industry offers customers in many states the chance to get a better deal. No longer bound to incumbent generators of electricity, which are typically investor-owned utilities, customers are free to shop the power market in search of lower rates. Deregulation, however, is not the only path available to get rid of the incumbent. Across the nation, municipalities are going a step further and forming their own electric utilities by acquiring distribution systems and securing alternative generation sources. Las Cruces, New Mexico, was almost one of them. Rising costs, unexpected obligations, and changes in the regulatory environment, however, ultimately prompted Las Cruces to settle its fight with the local incumbent utility and cease its efforts. For cities and towns contemplating municipalization, the experience of Las Cruces is highly instructive. The Impetus The conflict between Las Cruces and El Paso Electric Company--the investor-owned utility that serves the Las Cruces area--began nearly 30 years ago, long before deregulation. In the mid-1970s, EPE--along with six other utilities from New Mexico, Arizona, and California--decided to invest in the Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Station, which was to be built near Phoenix. EPE reasoned that it had little or no excess electricity generation capacity, it faced increasing demand for electricity in its service area, and it projected a continuation of high prices for oil and natural gas, which were the fuel sources for alternative electric generation technologies. The pro-nuclear sentiment of the 1970s, of course, was not limited to EPE. Across the nation, utilities in dire need of new generation capacity at that time viewed nuclear as the best investment. A national desire to be independent from Mid-east oil producers while addressing environmental concerns about coal-burning generation plants also bolstered the wave of nuclear investment proposals. [1] Nonetheless, the city of Las Cruces opposed the Palo Verde investment, believing that EPE's estimate of future demand for electricity was high, as was its future price estimates of oil and natural gas. City officials were also concerned that EPE had not recognized future energy-conservation technologies that could reduce electricity consumption, and that rate increases would be required to cover the costs. As it turned out, the city was largely correct. Demand did nor increase dramatically because population growth in the area did not reach EPE's projections. Moreover, uranium mines in the area that had boomed during Palo Verde's planning stage--and were themselves enormous consumers of electricity--shut down as the uranium industry collapsed, and conservation efforts by homeowners and businesses reduced the need for generation capacity. Nevertheless, construction proceeded--albeit with delays and unexpected surges in interest rates that led to cost overruns--and Palo Verde came online in 1988. In the end, however, the huge cost, coupled with lack of demand, meant that EPE was unable to sell enough electricity to cover its investment. Consequently, electricity rates began to soar. Because Las Cruces' contract with EPE was to expire in 1993, city officials began investigating alternative sources. The Las Cruces city council subsequently passed an ordinance in 1991 to establish a municipal electric utility. [2] As with most municipal electric utilities, the city's plan called for Las Cruces to own the local distribution system--which it would purchase from EPE--but not an electric-generation plant. Consequently, the city would have to buy wholesale power and arrange for its transmission from the wholesaler's generation plant to the city's distribution system. In 1994, the city signed with Southwestern Public Service Company to supply power and to operate and maintain the distribution system. …


In this thesis, I explore several avenues for learning about fundamental physics from gravitational-wave (GW) observations. In particular, I focus on the phenomenological study of basic properties of GWs in ways that require minimal assumptions about the underlying nature of gravity. I place a special emphasis on GW polarizations, but also consider their speed and possible dispersion. To constrain possible modifications to general relativity, I develop data-analysis frameworks to measure these properties with both transient and persistent signals detected by ground-based detectors. This includes, among other results, the analysis of two LIGO and Virgo compact-binary detections, GW170814 and GW170817, to produce the first direct observational statements about the local geometry of GW polarizations. I also present constraints on the potential amplitude of nontensorial monochromatic signals from 200 known pulsars in the Milky Way and describe in detail the methods used to obtain them. Because stochastic signals will be a great resource for studying GW properties, I also carefully review the assumptions that go into standard stochastic analyses and explore their applicability beyond general relativity, concluding that those measurements will have to be interpreted carefully to make meaningful statements about corrections to Einstein's theory. Besides the properties of the waves themselves, I also study the prospect for using GWs as a means to uncover signatures of new ultralight bosons—an exciting possibility that could bring particle physics into the reach of GW astronomy. I explore the potential of current and future detectors to detect these conjectured particles, concluding that third-generation instruments are certain to place theoretically interesting constraints. Because little can be done in the absence of signals, I also propose data-analysis methods to improve LIGO and Virgo's chances of detecting both transient and continuous signals. The latter have now been used to diagnose real detection candidates on several occasions.


The use of hydrogen as a fuel for power generation applications has been suggested as an additive to, or replacement of, hydrocarbon fuels. The safety of hydrogen combustion has also received recent attention due to nuclear power plant disasters and the rise of hydrogen refuelling stations. In these uses and scenarios, lean hydrogen--air flames are prone to thermo-diffusive instabilities which can be dangerous to equipment and personnel. These instabilities are heavily influenced by two mechanisms: transport properties (e.g., diffusion) and chemical species production rates. This thesis investigates lean premixed hydrogen combustion using direct numerical simulations. A wide range of flame configurations are considered, spanning one-dimensional steady configurations to three-dimensional unsteady laminar and turbulent flames with high curvature. In particular, the two controlling mechanisms of thermo-diffusive instabilities are carefully investigated. The effects of transport properties, in particular the importance of thermal diffusion in these mixtures, are quantified through global and local evaluations. Thermal diffusion is found to change flame speeds in one-dimensional flat flames, and also modify species profiles due to the increased diffusivity of light reactants. The impact of thermal diffusion is greatly enhanced in the presence of flame curvature, resulting in higher flame speeds (20% to 30% for two- and three-dimensional laminar and turbulent flames), fuel consumption, and flame surface area relative to simulations neglecting thermal diffusion. The mixture-averaged thermal diffusion model proposed by Chapman and Cowling (1970) is found to accurately reproduce global and local flame statistics (including enhanced burning and local extinction) computed using multicomponent transport at significantly reduced costs. Further cost reductions of the mixture-averaged thermal diffusion method are undertaken, and a new model is developed with constant computational requirements for large (~100 species) chemical models. The resulting reduced thermal diffusion model additionally improves upon the accuracy of the mixture-averaged thermal diffusion technique. The effects of fluctuating chemical source terms on flame instabilities are then investigated using tabulated chemistry. One-dimensional unstretched flames including non-equal diffusion and thermal diffusion are incorporated into a chemistry table. This table successfully captures the interaction of differential diffusion and flame curvature. The chemistry tabulation approach is applied to a similar set of flame configurations, and accurate predictions of global and local statistics are found. The tabulated chemistry method reproduces flame curvature, local enhanced burning, and local extinction of unstable flames using one-dimensional, flat, burning flames in its construction. The proposed reduced-order thermal diffusion and chemistry tabulation models significantly reduce computational costs while simultaneously including physical properties necessary to predict lean premixed hydrogen--air flame instabilities.


Gravitational wave observations have been used to test Lorentz symmetry by looking for dispersive effects that are caused by higher order corrections to the dispersion relation. In this Letter I argue on general grounds that, when such corrections are present, there will also be a scalar excitation. Hence, a smoking-gun observation of Lorentz symmetry breaking would be the direct detection of scalar waves that travel at a speed other than the speed of the standard gravitational wave polarizations or the speed of light. Interestingly, in known Lorentz-breaking gravity theories the difference between the speeds of scalar and tensor waves is virtually unconstrained, whereas the difference between the latter and the speed of light is already severely constrained by the coincident detection of gravitational waves and gamma rays from a binary neutron star merger.


Extracted from text ... I
Leading managers:
what do they think about the future?
16 Management Today April 2005
Prof Tersia Brevis is research editor of Management Today and professor of management
in the College of Economic and Business Science at Unisa.
It is almost two years since the Corporate
Research Foundation published the first
edition of South Africa's Leading Managers.
Since then, the country's business leaders
faced as many challenges as they did
then, but they have either evolved to become
different hurdles or completely new
one's have arisen.
Two years ago the international environment
dominated the thinking of local
business. The ..


In an increasingly connected age, information technology can be argued to have become more politicized. The attempts to establish network technologies to promote the development of an information society are tokens of an increasingly vested interest that politics has in information technologies. Recognition of the entanglement of politics and technology is crucial in understanding contemporary organizational change. Instead of taking organizational stability for granted, we assume organizational change to be the norm. In this paper, we point to the many organizing efforts needed to prevent technologies from drifting away into non‐existence. We present two cases of IT ventures – one seemingly failed and one seemingly successful. Together, they illustrate the point that technological networks, as stable as they may seem, can only survive as long as they permanently fascinate actors from other techno‐economic networks and thereby attract their unconditional love, affection and commitment.


The allotropes of carbon make its solid phases amongst the most diverse of any element. It can occur naturally as graphite and diamond, which have very different properties that make them suitable for a wide range of technological and commercial purposes. Recent developments in synthetic carbon include Highly Oriented Pyrolytic Graphite (HOPG) and nano-carbons, such as fullerenes, nanotubes and graphene. The main industrial application of bulk graphite is as an electrode material in steel production, but in purified nuclear graphite form, it is also used as a moderator in Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors across the United Kingdom. Both graphene and graphite are damaged over time when subjected to bombardment by electrons, neutrons or ions, and these have a wide range of effects on their physical and electrical properties, depending on the radiation flux and temperature. This research focuses on intrinsic defects in graphene and dimensional change in nuclear graphite. The method used here is computational chemistry, which complements physical experiments. Techniques used comprise of density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics (MD), which are discussed in chapter 2 and chapter 3, respectively. The succeeding chapters describe the results of simulations performed to model defects in graphene and graphite.

Chapter 4 presents the results of ab initio DFT calculations performed to investigate vacancy complexes that are formed in AA stacked bilayer graphene. In AB stacking, carbon atoms surrounding the lattice vacancies can form interlayer structures with sp2 bonding that are lower in energy compared to in-plane reconstructions. From the investigation of AA stacking, sp2 interlayer bonding of adjacent multivacancy defects in registry creates a type of stable sp2 bonded wormhole between the layers. Also, a new class of mezzanine structure characterised by sp3 interlayer bonding, resembling a prismatic vacancy loop has also been identified. The mezzanine, which is a V6 hexavacancy variant, where six sp3 carbon atoms sit midway between two carbon layers and bond to both, is substantially more stable than any other vacancy aggregate in AA stacked layers.

Chapter 5 presents the results of ab initio DFT calculations performed to investigate the wormhole and mezzanine defect that were identified in chapter 4 and the ramp defect discovered by Trevethan et al.. DFT calculations were performed on these defects in twisted bilayer graphene. From the investigation of vacancy complexes in twisted bilayer graphene, it is found that vacancy complexes are unstable in the twisted region and are more favourable in formation energy when the stacking arrangement is close to AA or AB stacking. It has also been discovered that the ramp defect is more stable in the twisted bilayer graphene compared to the mezzanine defect.

Chapter 6 presents the results of ab initio DFT calculations performed to investigate a form of extending defect, prismatic edge dislocation. Suarez-Martinez et al.'s research suggest the armchair core is disconnected from any other layer, whilst the zigzag core is connected. In the investigation here, the curvature of the mezzanine defect allows it to swing between the armchair, zigzag and Klein in the AA stacking. For the AB stacking configuration, the armchair and zigzag core are connected from any other layer.

Chapter 7 present results of MD simulations using the adaptive intermolecular reactive empirical bond order (AIREBO) potential to investigate the dimensional change of graphite due to the formation of vacancies present in a single crystal. It has been identified that there is an expansion along the c-axis, whilst a contraction along the a- and b- axes due to the coalescence of vacancy forming in-plane and between the layers. The results here are in good agreement with experimental studies of low temperature irradiation.

The final chapter gives conclusions to this work.


Aim: The current study was done to study the therapeutic effect of natural prostaglandin in treatment of canine pyometra. Materials and Methods: Seven bitches were treated with natural PGF · i.e. dinoprost tromethamine at the dose rate of 100 2 µg/kg body weight subcutaneously once daily for 7 days with supportive therapies. The physiological, haematological and th th biochemical parameters were studied before (0 day) and after treatment (8 day). Therapeutic efficacy was assessed in terms of return of abnormal parameters to either normal or near normal value as compared to the untreated control group, intensity of side effects and post treatment reproductive status. Results: All physiological, haematological and biochemical parameters in the seven treated bitches returned to normal range at the end of treatment. The intensity of side effects was quite severe in the treatment group. Six bitches came to estrus within 2 months of treatment and out of them four conceived on subsequent mating. In rest three bitches there was recurrence of pyometra within 4 months of treatment. Conclusion: Though conception rate of recovered bitches is decreased when compared with that of normal healthy bitches still this treatment protocol can be used successfully in treatment of canine pyometra to conserve the breeding capability of bitches.


Wire robots (also called Tendon-based parallel manipulators) use a movable end-effector which is connected to a machine frame by motor driven tendons. Since tendons can transmit only pulling forces, at least m = n + 1 cables are needed to tense a system having n degrees-of-freedom. The resulting redundancy gives m − n degrees-of-freedom in the wire force distribution, making workspace analysis a complex and computationally expensive task. Discrete methods are widely used to solve this problem, but their drawback is that intermediate points on the discrete calculation grid are neglected which may lead to false results. This paper provides detailed algorithms for continuous workspace analysis for wire robots which avoid the discretization and have additional advantages. Especially, it is easy to extend the analysis methods to methods usable for the workspace synthesis.Copyright © 2008 by ASME


A study of police custody records highlighted variations between police stations both in the take-up of legal advice and also in the average length of time people were held in custody. To further explore unobserved factors which might impact on such variations a qualitative study has been undertaken of four large police stations. While there were found to be factors in common between police stations which related to delays, there were other factors which were specific to one or two stations only. There were also found to be implications for delays creating potential barriers to legal advice. Such factors raise questions about the extent to which PACE continues to provide sufficient legal safeguards for those held in police custody.


Abstract In recent years, several multi-user virtual environments (VEs) have been developed to promote motivation and exercise intensity in motor rehabilitation. While competitive VEs have been extensively evaluated, collaborative and competitive rehabilitation VEs have seen relatively little study. Therefore, this article presents an evaluation of a VE for post-stroke arm rehabilitation that mimics everyday kitchen tasks and can be used either solo or collaboratively. Twenty subacute stroke survivors exercised with the VE for four sessions, with the first and third sessions involving solo exercise and the other two involving collaborative exercise. Exercise intensity was measured using inertial sensors while motivation was measured with questionnaires. Results showed high motivation and exercise intensity over all four sessions, and 11 of 20 participants preferred collaborative over solo exercise while only 4 preferred solo exercise. However, there were no differences in motivation, exercise duration, or exercise intensity between solo and collaborative sessions. Thus, we cannot currently claim that collaborative exercises are beneficial for upper limb rehabilitation. Future studies should evaluate other collaborative VE designs in different settings (e.g., at home) and with different participant pairs (e.g., patient-unimpaired) to find effective ways to utilize collaborative exercises in motor rehabilitation.


Exposure is often cited as an explanation for campaign success or failure. A lack of validation evidence for typical exposure measures, however, suggests the possibility of either misdirected measurement or incomplete conceptualization of the idea. If whether people engage campaign content in a basic, rudimentary manner is what matters when we talk about exposure, a recognition-based task should provide a useful measure of exposure, or what we might call encoded exposure, that we can validate. Data from two independent sources, the National Survey of Parents and Youth (NSPY) and purchase data from a national antidrug campaign, offer such validation. Both youth and their parents were much more likely to recognize actual campaign advertisements than to claim recognition of bogus advertisements. Also, gross rating points (GRPs) for a campaign advertisement correlated strikingly with average encoded exposure for an advertisement among both youth (r = 0.82 ) and their parents (r = 0.53 ).


Ordini religiosi e societa politica in Italia e Germania nei secoli XIV e XV. Edited by Giorgio Chittolini e Kaspar Elm. Atti della XL Settimana di studio dell'Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, 8-12 settembre 1997, Trento. [Annali dell'Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento. Quaderni, 56.] (Bologna: Societa editrice il Mulino. 2001. Pp. 504. euro28,92 paperback.) The history of the engagement of the mendicant orders in the life and history of the reviving cities and towns of Italy has been fairly well served by historians, particularly since the late 1960's with the appearance of the ground-breaking studies by Jacques Le Goff on the "implantatton/insediamento " of the friars in Western Europe. Up to now, most systematic attention, however, has primarily been given to the developments occurring in Italy, especially during the thirteenth century, and with a particular focus on the Franciscans. The 1997 congress held in Trent, whose acts are now published in this volume, aimed to broaden this focus considerably by expanding the geographic terrain of inquiry to include (to some extent) the area of Germany, the chronological spectrum to encompass the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the number of mendicant actors in these events in order to examine the roles played by the Dominicans, Augustinians, and Carmelites. As is to be expected from such an ambitious and wide-ranging undertaking, not all of these goals were fully attained in the congress; nevertheless, it did result in a much richer, diversified, and nuanced picture of the interplay between the mendicant orders and European society in the Late Middle Ages. The volume begins with two broad presentations sketching out previous historiographical achievements, present problems, and potential future avenues for research. Giorgio Chittolini opens with a broad panoramic view of the scholarly problems associated with the study of the intersection of the mendicant orders with the social and political life of the communes in the later Middle Ages. Appropriately for the congress, he raises far more questions than he answers. In particular, he asks why the members of the various mendicant orders had certain political leanings or biases; why-especially during the period of the Observant reforms of the mendicant communities-they came to be so highly respected and involved in the life of the cities; and how this association with power resulted in the loss of a certain evangelical vitality and consequent esteem in the eyes of their contemporaries. This final datum, he contends, would set the stage for the need for new forms of religious life that would make their appearance in the sixteenth century in order to address new spiritual conditions of the laity. Andre Vauchez takes as his starting point the landmark 1977 conference on the mendicant orders in the cities of Italy, noting two significant changes in scholarship since that time: the expansion of research from the cities of central Italy to the North and finally to the more difficult terrain of the South; and a renewed appreciation for the roles also played by the monastic orders with respect to the cities. Vauchez sees the increasingly political role played by the two great mendicant orders on behalf of the papacy as a two-edged sword: developing firmer ties with both the civil and ecclesiastical hierarchies in the cities while prompting concerns (e.g., at the Dominican General Chapter of 1234) that the friars remain super partes. The dilemma is that they were in fact almost always working for the pars ecclesiae. He points out that by the end of the thirteenth and into the fourteenth centuries, the mendicants were able to exercise a certain influence on the social and political life of the communes through two new innovations: working through lay figures in the expanding confraternities of the communes and innovating a style of preaching that was genuinely holistic, encompassing all aspects (moral, social, political, and spiritual) of the human person. …