Purpose

Mentally Healthy WA developed and implemented the Mentally Healthy Schools Framework in 2010 in response to demand from schools wanting to promote the community-based Act-Belong-Commit mental health promotion message within a school setting. Schools are an important setting for mental health promotion, therefore, the Framework encourages schools to adopt a whole-of-school approach to mental health promotion based on the World Health Organisation's Health Promoting Schools framework. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

A process evaluation was conducted consisting of six-monthly activity reports from 13 participating Western Australian schools. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with key school contacts in November 2011 with nine schools who had signed partner agreements prior to July 2011.

Findings

The schools valued promoting the mentally healthy message and the majority felt the programme was implemented successfully. More intensive implementation was facilitated by a proactive and enthusiastic school "champion" who had influence over other staff, and who did not have too many competing priorities. Factors inhibiting implementation included a lack of effective time management, lack of whole school commitment, and evaluation demands.

Originality/value

Act-Belong-Commit is a positive, proactive message making it easier for teachers to talk about mental health with their students. For schools reporting implementation success, the Mentally Healthy Schools Framework raised the profile of mental health in the school setting and fostered a sense of belonging among students.


Research in humanitarian settings – referred to here as areas affected by disasters and armed conflicts – has shown diverse impacts of such crises on the mental health and psychosocial well-being of populations. These consequences range from resilience (good mental health despite exposure to significant adversity), non-disordered psychological distress, to increased mental disorders, including anxiety (eg, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)), depressive, and substance use disorders.1,–,3 In addition, mental health practitioners in humanitarian settings frequently encounter people with severe pre-existing neuropsychiatric disorders (eg, psychotic disorders and epilepsy).4 Moreover, disasters and armed conflicts have been shown to impact the social conditions that shape mental health, through increased poverty, threats to human rights, domestic and community violence and changed social relations.5

To address negative impacts, mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) programmes are increasingly a standard component of humanitarian response. MHPSS has been defined as 'any type of local or outside support that aims to protect or promote psychosocial well-being and/or prevent or treat mental disorder'.6 There appears to be increasing consensus on best practices, as indicated by the publication of two sets of international guidelines; the 2007 Inter-Agency Standing Committee Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings6 and the 2011 Sphere Handbook.7

In this editorial, we discuss the emerging field of MHPSS from the perspective of evidence-based practice. We describe challenges to evidence-based MHPSS practice, and highlight areas where concerted action may either (A) improve the quality of MHPSS programming (by basing decision-making on research findings) and/or (B) improve MHPSS research efforts (by making the pursuit of reliable and valid knowledge more responsive to needs of affected populations). We structure the discussion in accordance with steps of the programme cycle where empirical evidence may support decision-making, that is needs …


Abstract Objective: Attempts to categorize distinct functional gastrointestinal disorders based on reported symptoms continue but symptoms frequently overlap. The study objective was to use latent class analysis (LCA) which accommodates both continuous and discrete manifest variables to determine mutually exclusive subgroup assignments of a population-based sample using gastrointestinal symptom and patient data. Materials and methods: A validated bowel disease questionnaire and somatic symptom questionnaire were mailed to an age and gender stratified randomly selected community sample. Responses to the symptom questions were dichotomized as frequent vs. infrequent based on Rome IV criteria. A LCA model was developed using a calibration subset and the results applied to the validation subset. Results: There were 3831 total respondents (48%) with 3425 having complete data. The LCA algorithm was run for each of 10 (random) splits of the dataset and 2–6 latent classes were specified. Using the values of Akaike's Information Criterion coefficient c to determine fit of the data, 4 latent classes yielded better values resulting in four subgroups: 'asymptomatic,' 'upper' abdominal symptoms, 'lower' abdominal symptoms, and 'mixed' (upper and lower abdomen). Conclusions: Latent class analysis identified 4 groups based on symptoms. This approach resulted in differentiation by anatomical region rather than the Rome IV classification of symptoms.


Abstract In the late 1940s, Ragnar Frisch published two articles in Norwegian that constitute a pioneering attempt to apply welfare economics to a problem of economic policy. The main contention of the articles is that there exists a fundamental externality in the labour market because the marginal productivity of labour depends both on input in the individual unit and on total labour use in the economy. While inspired by the problems of post-war reconstruction, Frisch came to regard it as a general problem in a decentralized economy, and he explores its consequences for wage and tax policy. While Frisch attached great importance to the analysis, it has received little attention in the subsequent literature.


"Identity" charge (also known as "number" charge) is the fundamental charge of the weak force and the most important of the particle charges. Identity charge is the symmetry debt of light's anonymity, or complete lack of identity. One photon cannot be distinguished from another, but the elementary leptonic particles are distinct from photons and from each other, and hence carry identity charges. Neutrinos are the explicit or "bare" form of identity charge, which is also carried in a "hidden" or implicit form by the massive leptonic elementary particles - electrons and their heavier kin. Single elementary particles cannot enter or leave the 4-dimensional realm of manifest reality without a conserving identity charge - the functional equivalent of a human "soul" or a citizen's passport. The utility of identity charge (in terms of symmetry conservation) is to facilitate particle-antiparticle annihilations by helping particles identify their appropriate "anti-mates" in a timely fashion - ensuring a conserved pathway for elementary particles returning to their original state of symmetry (light). For more on the function of identity charge see: "Identity Charge and the Weak Force", and "The Origin of Matter and Information".


This book celebrates Antonio Pollaiuolo's famous engraving, the Renaissance masterpiece "Battle of the Nudes". Related works in other media reveal the context in which it was created. The study of early Italian engraving has long been a thorny one, dogged by lack of secure dates and documentation for most prints, as well as complicated attribution issues. Shelley Langdale reexamines Pollaiuolo's masterpiece in light of recent research and assembles crucial watermark and collection documentation. Antionio del Pollaiuolo (1431-1498) was a renowned Florentine painter, sculptor, draftsman, and goldsmith who was particularly admired for his dynamic and expressive portrayal of the human figure. He carried out a wide range of projects, but a relatively small number of his works survive, and hs is perhaps most widely known for his magnificent engraving, "Battle of the Nudes". The Cleveland Museum of Art's unique first state of the "Battle of the Nudes" has long been regarded as the exemplary early impression, printed before the plate began to wear and was supposedly re-engraved by another hand. All other known impressions are second states, pulled from the reworked plate.


The British constitutional lawyer A.V. Dicey argued in the nineteenth century that the common law, as administered by superior courts, better ensured government accountability than did written constitutions. Dicey taught us to focus less on constitutional promises and more on the practical effectiveness of judicial remedies. This Essay builds on Dicey by offering a comparative assessment of military encroachments on the rights of the nation's citizens during times of war. Rather than comparing British common-law norms to European constitutionalism, as Dicey did, this Essay compares nineteenth-century common law as applied in the courts of the United States to the constitutionally-inflected rules that those courts apply today.

This Essay focuses its comparison on three common-law remedies: habeas to secure release from military detention; trespass to obtain an award of damages for wrongful or abusive military confinement; and tort and contract-based compensation for the military's destruction or taking of property. The modern Supreme Court has recalibrated each of these common-law regimes and now evaluates the legality of the military's actions almost exclusively in constitutional terms. As Dicey might have predicted, the shift away from hard-edged common-law rules to open-ended constitutional balancing corresponds to a marked loss of relative remedial effectiveness. This Essay examines some of the factors that have shaped the remedial decline, as reflected in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Ziglar v. Abbasi. It then offers suggestions as to how the Court might keep the infrastructure of rights enforcement in better repair.


Natural regeneration is key for large‐scale forest restoration, yet it may lead to different biodiversity outcomes depending on socio‐environmental context. We combined the results of a global meta‐analysis to quantify how biodiversity recovery in naturally regenerating forests deviates from biodiversity values in reference old‐growth forests, with structural equation modeling, to identify direct and indirect associations between socioeconomic, biophysical and ecological factors and deviation in biodiversity recovery at a landscape scale. Low deviation within a landscape means higher chances of multiple sites in naturally regenerating forests successfully recovering biodiversity compared to reference forests. Deviation in biodiversity recovery was directly negatively associated with the percentage of cropland, forest cover, and positively associated with the percentage of urban areas in the surrounding landscape. These three factors mediated the indirect associations with rural population size, recent gross deforestation, time since natural regeneration started, mean annual temperature, mean annual water deficit, road density, land opportunity cost, percentage cover of strictly protected forest areas, and human population variation in the surrounding landscape. We suggest that natural forest restoration should be prioritized in landscapes with both low socioeconomic pressures on land use conversion to pasturelands and urban areas, and high percentage of forest cover.


X-ray analyses have shown that the glucopyranose rings of GlcNAc-Asn [4-N(2-acetamido-2-deoxy-,8-D-glucopyranosyl)-L-asparagine] and Glc-Asn [4-N-(fl-D-glucopyranosyl)-L-asparagine] both have the C-1 chair conformation and also that the glucose-asparagine linkage of each molecule is present in the fl-anomeric configuration. The dimensions (the estimated standard deviations of the last digit are in parentheses) of the glycosidic bond in GlcNAc-Asn and Glc-Asn are, respectively, C(l)-N(l) 0.1441(6)nm, 0.146(2)nm; angle O(5)-C(l)-N(l) 106.8(3)0, 105.7(8)°; angle C(2)-C(l)-N(l) 111.1(4)0, 110.4(9)°; angle C(l)-N(l)-C(9) 121.4(4)0, 120.5(9)°. The glycosidic torsion angle C(g)-N(l)-C(l)-C(2) is 141.0° and 157.60 in GlcNAc-Asn and Glc-Asn respectively. Hydrogen-bonding is extensive in these two crystal structures and does affect one torsion angle in particular. Two very different values of X.(N-C"-C,-C7) occur for the asparagine residue of the two different molecules; the values of X1,-69.0° in GlcNAc-Asn and 61.9° in Glc-Asn, correspond to two different staggered conformations about the C0-C bond as the NH3+ group is adjusted to different hydrogen-bonding patterns. The two transpeptide groups in GlcNAc-Asn show small distortions in planarity whereas that in GlcAsn is more non-planar. The mean plane through the atoms of the amide group at C(2) in GlcNAc-Asn is approximately perpendicular (69°) to the mean plane through the C(2), C(3), C(M) and O(5) atoms of the glucose ring and that at C(1) is less perpendicular (650). The mean plane through the atoms of the amide group in Glc-Asn makes an angle of only 550 with the mean plane through these same four atoms of the glucose ring. The N(1)-H bond of the amide at C(1) is trans to the C(i)-H bond in these two compounds; the N(2)-H bond of the amide at C(2) is trans to the C(2)-H bond in GlcNAc-Asn. The values of the observed and final calculated structure amplitudes have been deposited as Supplementary Publication SUP 50035 (26 pages) at the British Library (Lending Division), (formerly the National Lending Library for Science and Technology), Boston Spa, Yorks. LS23 7BQ, U.K., from whom copies may be obtained on the terms given in Biochem. J. (1973) 131, 5.


The price for a single-family house depends both on the characteristics of the building and on its location. We propose a novel semiparametric method to extract location values from house prices. After splitting house prices into building and land components, location values are estimated with adaptive weight smoothing. The adaptive estimator requires neither strong smoothness assumptions nor local symmetry. We apply the method to house transactions from Berlin, Germany. The estimated surface of location values is highly correlated with expert-based land values and location ratings. The semiparametric method can therefore be used for applications where no other location value information exists or where this information is not reliable.


Recent research into the evolution of higher cognition has piqued an interest in the effect of natural selection on the ability of creatures to respond to their environment (behavioral plasticity). It is believed that environmental variation is required for plasticity to evolve in cases where the ability to be plastic is costly. We investigate one form of environmental variation: frequency dependent selection. Using tools in game theory, we investigate a few models of plasticity and outline the cases where selection would be expected to maintain it. Ultimately we conclude that frequency dependent selection is likely insufficient to maintain plasticity given reasonable assumptions about its costs. This result is very similar to one aspect of the well-discussed Baldwin effect, where plasticity is first selected for and then later selected against. We show how in these models one would expect plasticity to grow in the population and then be later reduced. Ultimately we conclude that if one is to account for the evolution of behavioral plasticity in this way, one must appeal to a very particular sort of external environmental variation.


For a fixed graph $H$ on $k$ vertices, we investigate the graphs, $G$, such that for any partition of the vertices of $G$ into $k$ color classes, there is a transversal of that partition inducing $H$. For every integer $k\geq 1$, we find a family ${\cal F}$ of at most six graphs on $k$ vertices such that the following holds. If $H\notin {\cal F}$, then for any graph $G$ on at least $4k-1$ vertices, there is a $k$-coloring of vertices of $G$ avoiding totally multicolored induced subgraphs isomorphic to $H$. Thus, we provide a vertex-induced anti-Ramsey result, extending the induced-vertex-Ramsey theorems by Deuber, Rodl et al.


The aim of this article is to analyse a powerful competence available to antitrust authorities in Europe in the form of the imposition of fines for the failure to cooperate within antitrust proceedings. While fines of that type are imposed in practice very rarely, the article considers the existing decisional practice of the Polish antitrust authority as well as the European Commission, and presents the way in which their approach has evolved throughout the years. The article analyses also the question of the formal initiation of proceedings concerning procedural violations and the importance of the use of a uniform and fair approach towards the scrutinized undertakings, especially as fine graduation is concerned. For that purpose, the article provides also a comparative analysis of past proceedings conducted by the European Commission and selected judgments of EU Courts.


This article discusses an approach to teaching linear improvisation to beginning jazz guitarists through the function of
voice leading in harmonic progressions. The student may gain a clear understanding of improvising melodies by
establishing clear visual and aural relationships between the chordal and melodic textures. Three dominant 7th chord
voicings are introduced and applied to a twelve bar blues progression in F major. After learning the rhythm guitar
accompaniment, single note guide tones consisting of the flat 7th and 3rd chord tones of each dominant seventh chord
are extracted from the chord voicings and applied in a melodic texture following chromatic voice leading principles
within the harmonic progression. Musicality within the exercises is increased by the addition of a series of rhythmic
variations that are applied to the guide-tone lines. Continuing with the concept, full dominant seventh arpeggios are
introduced in order to expand the available note choices as a way to build a solid foundation for improvising within
harmonic progressions prior to using diatonic scales.


A common strategic initiative of organizations engaged in electronic business (e-business) is the development of synergistic relations with collaborating value-chain partners to deliver their value proposition to customers.* This requires the transparent flow of problem specific knowledge to partner organizations over highly integrated information systems. Transparent exchange of information and knowledge across collaborating organizations requires technological foundations for integrating business processes using software architectures built upon industry standards. The unambiguously interpretable flow of knowledge to inform online business processes is a challenging task with significant competitive benefits for organizations that take technical initiative. Infomediary organizations can serve the e-business need for exchange of knowledge and information through value-added knowledge services to participating firms in the value chain through intelligent software systems integrated with the Web Services Architecture. We define knowledge services as the "exchange of problem domain-specific knowledge to inform decision activities of specific e-business processes, facilitated by an infomediary using intelligent software systems and the Web Services Architecture." This research presents a knowledge services framework, founded on the Web Services Architecture,to enable the transparent exchange of knowledge between intelligent software systems that manage processes of organizations engaged in e-business in the knowledge-based economy. The objective is to enable informed and knowledge-based discovery of business partners from among the multitude online, and to support knowledge-rich e-business processes that cut across the value chain and deliver the value proposition to the customer.


Jennifer Egan's novels, The Invisible Circus, Look At Me, The Keep and A Visit from the Goon Squad are texts populated by a disproportionately high number of, often unfulfilled, postgraduate researchers and academics. In just the last of these novels: "I'm in the PhD program at Berkeley", proclaims Mindy; "Joe, who hailed from Kenya [...] was getting his PhD in robotics at Columbia"; "Bix, who's black, is spending his nights in the electrical-engineering lab where he's doing his PhD research"; while only Rebecca "was an academic star". Indeed, in this text, academia seems a place of misery, of "harried academic slaving", and, ultimately, of "immaturity and disastrous choices".

 In this paper I will examine the way in which Egan's experimental novels sit within a tradition of works that are critical of the university while simultaneously knowingly resting upon the academy's methods. While Egan does not, here, explicitly set her sights on the humanities and academic literary reading practices, the novel seems to anticipate its academic safari observers and warns them of the text's hungry lion, predominantly through parody. This sociological leap from literature to the academy speaks of more than simply the influence of the Program Era that Mark McGurl charts but, instead, I will argue, a new mode for a re-empowered metafiction.


The purpose of this paper was to assess the presence of researchers on two author identifier services (ORCID and ResearcherID) and to compare the results with two academic social networks (Academia.edu and ResearchGate) using the categories of discipline, career advancement, and gender in a medium sized multidisciplinary university in France (University of Caen Normandy). Metrics such as number of publications per researcher, h-indexes, and average number of citations were also assessed. Of the 1,047 researchers studied, 673 (64.3%) had at least one profile on the four sites, and the number of researchers having multiple profiles decreased as more sites were studied. Researchers with only one profile numbered 385 (36.8%), while 204 (19.5%) had two, 68 (6.5%) had three, and only 16 (1.5%) had four. ResearchGate had by far the highest number of researchers present, with 569 (54.3%), whereas presence on the other sites was about 15%. We found that, apart from Academia.edu, researchers in Sciences, Technology, and Medicine (STM) were over-represented. Overall, experienced male researchers were over-represented on the sites studied. Our results show that, because of the numerous profiles lacking publication references (particularly on ORCID) and a low presence of researchers on the four sites studied (except for ResearchGate), assessing the number of publications, h-indexes, or average number of citations per article of individuals or institutions remains challenging. Finally, our data showed that French researchers have not adopted the use of the two author identifier sites (i.e. ORCID and ResearcherID). As long as French researchers remain reticent, these sites will not be able to provide the services for which they were created: addressing the problem of author misidentification, consequently providing exhaustive access to scientific production and bibliometric indicators of individual researchers and their institutions.


Inspired by the self-organization of growing embryos and coordinated movement of multicellular assemblies such as the slime mold Dictyostelium, where each cell is controlled by the same controller (a DNA-encoded gene regulatory network), we evolve distributed gait control mechanisms for soft-bodied animats. The animats are made of compressible material, with each body region capable of independent actuation, controlled by a cell at its center. Each animat consists of hundreds of cells uniformly distributed throughout the body, each sharing the same artificial gene regulatory network and aware of the state of their local neighborhood. We found that one of the most common actuation patterns that emerged relied on cells synchronizing their oscillations in order to produce a rotating, spiral wave spanning throughout the body. We found this type of mechanism to emerge for a wide range of animat morphologies as well as in very different types of initial conditions. We investigate how the evolved controllers produce the pattern through local feedbacks and evaluate spiral stability when imperfect, noisy cells are used.


Purpose: To identify the postoperative surgical outcomes and the changes in deviation in patients treated by bilateral medial rectus (BMR) recession for small to large angle esotropia with a minimum follow-up of two years Methods: In this retrospective and consecutive case series, we reviewed medical records of 130 patients who had recession surgery for correction of esotropia between 2001-2011 in a tertiary center in Tehran. Patients were excluded if neurological abnormalities or developmental delays were documented and if structural eye abnormalities were present. Results: One month after operation (n=109), there were 85 successful cases (orthophoria or deviation less than 10 prism diopter), 18 cases of undercorrection, and six cases of overcorrection. The success rate at two years after surgery (n=82) was 78.2% with 13.3.% undercorrection and 8.5% over correction. The preoperative angle of esodeviation and patients' age are found to significantly influence the response to the surgery. Conclusion: Surgery was effective because of high success rate and acceptable alignment after two years follow-up. Dose response increased in patients with larger angle of preoperative deviation, and was lower for patients who were older at the time of the surgery.


As carotid artery stenting becomes an accepted tool for stroke prevention in appropriate patients, interventional radiologists and neuroradiologists are determining where this procedure fits into their practice. Some have already developed an active carotid artery stenting practice, but others are looking for resources to help them begin to offer this service. Consideration of many elements is required to offer a high-quality service.


Logic bugs in Database Management Systems (DBMSs) are bugs that cause an incorrect result for a given query, for example, by omitting a row that should be fetched. These bugs are critical, since they are likely to go unnoticed by users. We propose Query Partitioning, a general and effective approach for finding logic bugs in DBMSs. The core idea of Query Partitioning is to, starting from a given original query, derive multiple, more complex queries (called partitioning queries), each of which computes a partition of the result. The individual partitions are then composed to compute a result set that must be equivalent to the original query's result set. A bug in the DBMS is detected when these result sets differ. Our intuition is that due to the increased complexity, the partitioning queries are more likely to stress the DBMS and trigger a logic bug than the original query. As a concrete instance of a partitioning strategy, we propose Ternary Logic Partitioning (TLP), which is based on the observation that a boolean predicate p can either evaluate to TRUE, FALSE, or NULL. Accordingly, a query can be decomposed into three partitioning queries, each of which computes its result on rows or intermediate results for which p, NOT p, and p IS NULL hold. This technique is versatile, and can be used to test WHERE, GROUP BY, as well as HAVING clauses, aggregate functions, and DISTINCT queries. As part of an extensive testing campaign, we found 175 bugs in widely-used DBMSs such as MySQL, TiDB, SQLite, and CockroachDB, 125 of which have been fixed. Notably, 77 of these were logic bugs, while the remaining were error and crash bugs. We expect that the effectiveness and wide applicability of Query Partitioning will lead to its broad adoption in practice, and the formulation of additional partitioning strategies.


Gays and lesbians have recently turned to the courts and the law for recognition of their families. Some of the most successful cases are those won by a gay or lesbian "second-parent" of a child whose biological or legally adoptive parent is his or her partner. The court opinions granting these second-parent adoptions have often portrayed these petitioners as similar to an idealized heterosexual family unit, albeit with two same-sex parents. In this study, 20 parents who successfully pursued a second-parent adoption were interviewed to examine their experiences with the legal system. Results indicate that these petitioners did not envision themselves as similar to heterosexual families and resisted attempts by state actors who tried to formulate them as such. The literature on legal consciousness and pragmatism is used to analyze the respondents' experiences. Introduction Gays and lesbians fall in love, have sexual relations, and care for each other and their children without the sanctity of the state. Only recently, in very limited situations and jurisdictions, have gays and lesbians successfully challenged legal restrictions on formal marriage, domestic partnerships, civil unions, adoption, and foster parenting. Some of the most successful petitions have been brought by "second-parents," a term coined by Delaney (1991) to denote the lesbian (or gay) partners of legal parents who wish to have their relationships with their partner's child recognized by the state. Legal parental status is necessary for a second-parent to make legal decisions regarding the child and for the parenting couple to organize family life with choices similar to heterosexual parents and stepparents. Federal policies such as income tax exemptions, intestate succession, and eligibility for entitlement programs require a legally defined family. Most private insurance carriers require a state-sanctioned family for extension of health or life insurance benefits. Doctors-as well as schools, day care centers, prisons, and other institutions-- often require that parents, and only parents, make arrangements for the care of their children (Connolly 1998, 2002). Late in 1991, a New York court was the first to publish an opinion allowing a second-parent adoption. In that case, In the Matter of a Child Whose First Name Is Evan (In re Evan), Judge Preminger carefully evaluated New York adoption law, the social science evidence on gay parents, and the documentation provided by the petitioning lesbian couple. Ultimately, she concluded that nothing prevented the adoption. Immediately after the ruling in the Evan case, numerous couples began similar proceedings in courts around the country.1 My then-partner and I were one of them, and in mid-1992, the chief family court judge in Buffalo, New York, smiled and turned to my 5-year-old son and exclaimed that he was such a lucky boy to be part of a family now. To us, however, Lucas had been part of a family since birth. The adoption was the culmination of our attempts to guarantee both of his mothers the ability to parent legally. I had fought (and lost) the "family" issue with both our attorney and the certified social worker and was not willing to jeopardize the judge's signature on the final forms by repeating "the law did not make us a family." What I had said earlier to the attorney and a social worker was that, until the adoption, the law had denied us the same rights to parent as heterosexuals have had-to enjoy the same duties and obligations to our child as were realized by heterosexual parents. Lucas had enjoyed life with two mothers, only one of whom had the legal ability to make binding decisions. The adoption would expand that number to two; but it did not make us a family. Though I celebrated the event as a victory both for us personally and for other gay and lesbian parents who wished to have their relationships with their children legally recognized, the legal process ignored our reality as both lesbians and parents. …


Molecular and Cellular Physiology of Neurons, Second Edition "is a comprehensive, up-to-date introduction to essential concepts of cellular neuroscience. Emphasizing experimental approaches and recent discoveries, it provides an in-depth look at the structure and function of nerve cells, from protein receptors and synapses to the biochemical processes that drive the mammalian nervous system.Starting with the basics of electrical current flow across cell membranes, Gordon Fain covers voltage gating and receptor activation in the context of channel diversity, excitatory and inhibitory synaptic transmission, neuromodulation, and sensory transduction. Emphasizing long-term processes of synaptic potentiation and depression involved in memory, consciousness, and attention, he demonstrates how cells produce neural signals and regulate signal flow to enhance or impede cell-to-cell communication. Fain also addresses the relation of molecular and cellular mechanisms to evolving theories of neurological disease and addiction.Enhanced by more than two hundred illustrations, Molecular and Cellular Physiology of Neurons, Second Edition "is intended for anyone who seeks to understand the fundamentals of nerve cell function, including undergraduate and graduate students in neuroscience, students of bioengineering and cognitive science, and practicing neuroscientists who want to deepen their knowledge of recent discoveries in molecular and cellular neurophysiology.


Computer graphics are pictures and films created using computers. Usually, the term refers to computer-generated image data created with help from specialized graphical hardware and software. It is a vast and recent area in computer science. The phrase was coined in 1960, by computer graphics researchers Verne Hudson and William Fetter of Boeing. It is often abbreviated as CG, though sometimes erroneously referred to as CGI. Important topics in computer graphics include user interface design, sprite graphics, vector graphics, 3D modeling, shades, GPU design, implicit surface visualization with ray tracing, and computer vision, among others. The overall methodology depends heavily on the underlying sciences of geometry, optics, and physics. Computer graphics is responsible for displaying art and image data effectively and meaningfully to the user. It is also used for processing image data received from the physical world. Computer graphic development has had a significant impact on many types of media and has revolutionized animation, movies, advertising, video games, and graphic design generally.


In the 1960s, the radical youth of Western Europe's New Left rebelled against the democratic welfare state and their parents' antiquated politics of reform. It was not the first time an upstart leftist movement was built on the ruins of the old. This book traces the history of neoleftism from its antifascist roots in the first half of the twentieth century, to its postwar reconstruction in the 1950s, to its explosive reinvention by the 1960s counterculture. The book demonstrates why the left in Europe underwent a series of internal revolts against the organizational forms of established parties and unions. It describes how small groups of militant youth such as New Beginning in Germany tried to sustain grassroots movements without reproducing the bureaucratic, hierarchical, and supposedly obsolete structures of Social Democracy and Communism. Neoleftist militants experimented with alternative modes of organization such as councils, assemblies, and action committees. However, the book reveals that these same militants, decades later, often came to defend the very institutions they had opposed in their youth. The book tells the story of generations of antifascists, left socialists, and anti-authoritarians who tried to build radical democratic alternatives to capitalism and kindle hope in reactionary times.


Ibn Khaldun, the most celebrated thinker of the Muslim Middle Ages, is the subject of this intriguing study. Lacoste opens with a general description of the Maghreb in the later Middle Ages, focusing primarily on mercantile trade, especially in gold, and the social and economic structures of tribal life. He unravels Khaldun's fascinating biography--born of an aristocratic family in Tunis in 1332, he had an extraordinary diplomatic and military career in the turbulent wars and politics of Western Islam in the fourteenth century; withdrew to a desert retreat in 1375, and finally emigrated to Egypt. Lacoste then turns his attention to Ibn Khaldun's majestic Universal History, arguably the greatest single synthesis produced by medieval thought anywhere. His account of Ibn Khaldun's thought is a remarkable, sympathetic work of recovery, not only uncovering its basic categories but exploring its contemporary relevance to an understanding of the Arab world. Thinkers as diverse as Ernest Gellner and Arnold Toynbee have paid tribute to the lasting fertility of Ibn Khaldun's work. English-speaking readers now have an opportunity to appreciate some of the richness and diversity of the Arab intellectual heritage.


Alterations in renal function and structure are found even at the onset of diabetes mellitus. Studies performed over the last decade now allow definition of a series of stages in the development of renal changes in diabetes. Such a classification may be useful both in clinical work and in research activities. Stage 1 is characterized by early hyperfunction and hypertrophy. These changes are found at diagnosis, before insulin treatment. Increased urinary albumin excretion, aggravated during physical exercise, is also a characteristic finding. Changes are at least partly reversible by insulin treatment. Stage 2 develops silently over many years and is characterized by morphologic lesions without signs of clinical disease. However, kidney function tests and morphometry on biopsy specimens reveal changes. The function is characterized by increased GFR. During good diabetes control, abumin excretion is normal; however, physical exercise unmasks changes in albuminuria not demonstrable in the resting situation. During poor diabetes control albumin excretion goes up both at rest and during exercise. A number of patients continue in stage 2 throughout their lives. Stage 3, incipient diabetic nephropathy, is the forerunner of overt diabetic nephropathy. Its main manifestation is abnormally elevated urinary albumin excretion, as measured by radioimmunoassay. A level higher than the values found in normal subjects but lower than in clinical disease is the main characteristic of this stage, which appeared to be between 15 and 300 μg/min in the baseline situation. A slow, gradual increase over the years is a prominent feature in this very decisive phase of renal disease in diabetes when blood pressure is rising. The increased rate in albumin excretion is higher in patients with increased blood pressure. GFR is still supranormal and antihypertensive treatment in this phase is under investigation, using the physical exercise test. Stage 4 is overt diabetic nephropathy, the classic entity characterized by persistent proteinuria (>0.5 g/ 24 h). When the associated high blood pressure is left untreated, renal function (GFR) declines, the mean fall rate being around 1 ml/min/mo. Long-term antihypertensive treatment reduces the fall rate by about 60% 7 and thus postpones uremia considerably. Stage 5 is end-stage renal failure with uremia due to diabetic nephropathy. As many as 25% of the population presently entering the end-stage renal failure programs in the United States are diabetic. Diabetic nephropathy and diabetic vasculopathy constitute a major medical problem in society today.


Protein factors derived from skeletal muscle separately promote neurite elongation and acetylcholine synthesis in cultured rat ventral spinal neurons. Morphologic factor activity (neurite-inducing activity) is specifically found in rat skeletal muscle and cord neuron extracts, decreases with the postnatal age of the rats from which muscle extract is prepared, and increases in rat hindlimb muscle after 5 d of denervation. Cholinergic factor activity (acetylcholine synthesis- stimulating activity) is found in extracts of rat cerebral cortex and cardiac muscle in addition to spinal cord and skeletal muscle, increases with animal age, and decreases following 5 d of denervation. Biochemically, the factors responsible for these activities differ in their lability to denaturing conditions, apparent molecular weights, isoelectric points, and lectin-binding specificities. Under reducing conditions, morphologic activity is isolated in a single acidic glycoprotein with an Mr of 35,000, while acetylcholine synthesis- stimulating activity is found in multiple species of different molecular weights. Thus, acetylcholine synthesis-promoting activities and neurite growth-promoting activity appear to reside in different molecules. Significant purification of several of these factors has been achieved.


OBJECTIVE
Elders (age > or = 65 years) frequently use emergency medical services (EMS) for care. Understanding reasons for EMS use by elders may allow better management of EMS demand. To the best of the authors' knowledge, no studies have identified patient characteristics associated with EMS use by elders. This study aimed to identify patient attributes associated with elder EMS users.

METHODS
This was a prospective cohort study of non-institutionalized elders presenting to an urban university hospital emergency department. Nine hundred thirty elder patients completed the survey. The authors asked patients about access to care, health beliefs, and reasons for requesting EMS assistance. Univariate and logistic regression were used to identify predictors of EMS use.

RESULTS
The sample had a mean age of 76 years; 37% were male; 79% were African American. Thirty percent arrived via EMS. Sixty-five percent of those transported and 46% of those not transported by EMS were admitted to the hospital (p < 0.001). Reported reasons for using EMS transport included immobility (33%), illness (22%), request by others (21%), instruction from health care providers (10%), and lack of transportation (10%). Logistic regression identified symptom onset within four hours of seeking care (OR = 3.1), age > or = 85 years (OR = 1.63), increased deficiencies in activities of daily living (OR = 1.40 per deficiency), worse physical functioning (OR = 1.14/10 points), and worse social functioning (OR = 1.06/10 points) as factors associated with EMS use.

CONCLUSIONS
Elders report using EMS because of immobility, perceived medical needs, or requests by others. Similarly, the presence of acute illness symptoms, older age, and poor social and physical function, rather than health beliefs, predict EMS use among elders. These factors must be considered when managing the demand for EMS services.


The study of evolutionary patterns of cognitive convergence would be greatly helped by a clear demarcation of cognition. Cognition is often used as an equivalent of mind, making it difficult to pin down empirically or to apply it confidently beyond the human condition. Recent developments in embodied cognition and philosophy of biology now suggest an interpretation that dissociates cognition from this mental context. Instead, it anchors cognition in a broad range of biological cases of intelligence, provisionally marked by a basic cognitive toolkit. This conception of cognition as an empirically based phenomenon provides a suitable and greatly expanded domain for studies of evolutionary convergence. This paper first introduces this wide, biologically embodied interpretation of cognition. Second, it discusses examples drawn from studies on bacteria, plants and fungi that all provide cases fulfilling the criteria for this wide interpretation. Third, the field of early nervous system evolution is used to illustrate how biologically embodied cognition raises new fundamental questions for research on animal cognition. Finally, an outline is given of the implications for the evolutionary convergence of cognition.


Marine macroalgae produce a wide variety of biologically-active metabolites that have been developed into commercial products, such as antibiotics, immunosuppressive, anti-inflammatory, cytotoxic agents, and cosmetic products. Many marine algae remain clean over longer periods of time, suggesting their strong antifouling potential. Isolation of biogenic compounds and the determination of their structure could provide leads for the development of environmentally-friendly antifouling paints. Isolated substances with potent antifouling activity belong to fatty acids, lipopeptides, amides, alkaloids, lactones, steroids, terpenoids, and pyrroles. It is unclear as yet to what extent symbiotic microorganisms are involved in the synthesis of these compounds. Algal secondary metabolites have the potential to be produced commercially using genetic and metabolic engineering techniques. This review provides an overview of publications from 2010 to February 2017 about antifouling activity of green, brown, and red algae. Some researchers were focusing on antifouling compounds of brown macroalgae, while metabolites of green algae received less attention. Several studies tested antifouling activity against bacteria, microalgae and invertebrates, but in only a few studies was the quorum sensing inhibitory activity of marine macroalgae tested. Rarely, antifouling compounds from macroalgae were isolated and tested in an ecologically-relevant way.


This illuminating study by Christian Jambet explores the essential elements of the philosophical system of Mulla Sadra Shirazi, an Iranian Shi'ite of the seventeenth century. The writings of Mulla Sadra Shirazi (d. 1640) bear witness to the divine revelation in every act of being, from the most humble to the most celebrated. More generally, Islamic philosophy employs an ontology of the real that is important to the destiny of metaphysics, an ontology that belongs to our own universe of thought. The Act of Being, nourished by the Sufism of Ibn al-'Arabi, the philosophy of classical Islam, the thought inherited from the Greeks, and the esoteric and mystical dimension of Shi'ism, seeks to make sense of this intuition of the real.Mulla Sadra saw the world as moving ceaselessly in an uninterrupted revolution of its substances, in which infinite existence breaks through the successive boundaries of the sensible and the intelligible, the mineral and the angelic. In a flourish of epiphanies, in the multiplied mirror of bodies and souls, Mulla Sadra perceived absolute divine liberty. Revealing freedom in the metamorphosis of the believer and the sage, existence teaches the imitation of the divine that can be seen "in its most beautiful form." Reading Mulla Sadra reveals the nexus of politics, morality, liberty, and order in his universe of thought--a universe, as Christian Jambet shows, that is indispensable to our understanding of Islamic thought and spirituality.


This paper examines the optimal hedging strategies in the Arab Gulf equity markets using a parametric and a nonparametric dynamic approaches in modeling the conditional variances and covariances of equity returns. The parametric approach is based on a multivariate VAR-GARCH model of daily returns, with BEKK specification of Engle and Kroner (1995), and the nonparametric approach adopts a dynamic system based on Filtered Historical Simulation (FHS) of Barone-Adesi et al. (1999) and nonparametric regression. These approaches are then used to calculate optimal portfolio weights and optimal ratios of hedging long and short positions in the Gulf Cooperation Council major sectors, namely, Service, Financial and Industrial. The results show that the nonparametric approach provides higher hedging effectiveness and hence superior hedging strategies.


The Author reviews journalist Silja Talvi's Women Behind Bars: The Growing Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System ("Women Behind Bars") which presents an engaging overview of issues affecting incarcerated women. It succinctly illustrates some of the important connections involving the War on Drugs, racial disparity, and the high rate of substance abuse and physical and sexual abuse among incarcerated women. Each of the chapters could be assigned on its own to a class or reading group. While Talvi states that she is not trying to write a scholarly book, as a contribution to public discourse, Women Behind Bars furthers the goal of increasing awareness about the growing population of women prisoners. Talvi bases her account on interviews with women prisoners: she interviewed one hundred women prisoners over two years and corresponded with about three hundred. She visited prisons and jails in Florida, California, Arizona, Washington,and New Mexico and toured women's institutions in the United Kingdom, Finland, and Canada for comparison.Because it is so accessible, Talvi's project can help focus attention on this growing population of women prisoners. Incarcerated women's stories represent a distillation of the larger forces that affect free women—racism, sexism, and economic pressure. For these reasons, among others, incarcerated women should not be forgotten, despite the stigma of their criminal convictions and their physical removal from the community. Though incarcerated women may be locked up, they should not be overlooked.


By signing letters about the constitutional standards governing impeachment, an issue most of them know very little about, many academics placed partisanship and self-interest above all else. The logic of academic freedom, however, cannot be squared with academics who see celebrity and power as more important than the pursuit of truth. At the least, academic freedom conveys the message that scholars who speak out on public issues know something about those issues. When academics join forces to send a purely political message, their reputation as truth seekers will diminish and, with it, their credibility. That day has not yet arrived. But it is fast approaching. For this very reason academics must hold politically motivated professors accountable for abusing academic freedom. [Note: Cass Sunstein has written a response to this paper, "Professors and Politics," which will appear in the same issue of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review.]


Isolated brain tumors contain cells that exhibit stem cell features and a tissue microenvironment bearing remarkable similarities to the normal neurogenic niche. This supports the idea that neural stem (NSCs) or progenitor cells, and their progeny are the likely tumor cell(s) of origin. This prompted the investigation of the relationship between NSCs/progenitors and the initiation of tumorigenesis. These studies led to the identification of common signaling machineries underlying NSC development and tumor formation, particularly those with known roles in proliferation and cell fate determination. This review will explore the molecular mechanisms that regulate NSC behavior in the neurogenic niche of the forebrain, and how deregulation of the developmental potential of NSCs might contribute to tumorigenesis.


This paper presents Densely Supervised Grasp Detector (DSGD), a deep learning framework which combines CNN structures with layer-wise feature fusion and produces grasps and their confidence scores at different levels of the image hierarchy (i.e., global-, region-, and pixel-levels). Specifically, at the global-level, DSGD uses the entire image information to predict a grasp. At the region-level, DSGD uses a region proposal network to identify salient regions in the image and uses a grasp prediction network to generate segmentations and their corresponding grasp poses of the salient regions. At the pixel-level, DSGD uses a fully convolutional network and predicts a grasp and its confidence at every pixel. During inference, DSGD selects the most confident grasp as the output. This selection from hierarchically generated grasp candidates overcomes limitations of the individual models. DSGD outperforms state-of-the-art methods on the Cornell grasp dataset in terms of grasp accuracy. Evaluation on a multi-object dataset and real-world robotic grasping experiments show that DSGD produces highly stable grasps on a set of unseen objects in new environments. It achieves 97% grasp detection accuracy and 90% robotic grasping success rate with real-time inference speed.


Abstract The northern part of the Lunar Crater Volcanic Field (central Nevada, U.S.A.) contains more than 100 Quaternary basaltic cones and maars and related eruptive products. We focused on four informal units of different ages and locations in the field to test the compositional variability and magma ascent processes within the time span of an individual eruption and the variability between very closely spaced volcanoes with different ages. Based in whole-rock chemistry, mineral chemistry and the calculation of intrinsic properties (pressure, temperature, and oxygen fugacity) we found that individual magma batches were generated in the asthenospheric mantle from a heterogeneous garnet lherzolite/olivine websterite source by ~3-5% partial melting. Each magma batch and temporary deep reservoir was a separate entity rather than part of a continuous long-lived reservoir. Magmas ascended relatively fast, stalled and crystallized in the uppermost several kilometers of the mantle near the base of the crust and some also stalled at mid-crustal levels with minor or no geochemical interaction with surrounding rocks. Our data also suggest that volcanoes erupting within certain time windows had similar source characteristics and ascent processes whether they were located within a few hundred meters of each other or were separated by many kilometers.


This study focussed on two components of the forest ecosystem at a small spatial
scale: coarse woody debris (CWD), defined as fallen dead wood 10cm diameter and
1m length, and the macrofungal assemblages found on wood, soil and litter in
native forest at different times of regeneration since the natural disturbance of
wildfire.
The CWD on the forest floor and standing dead wood (stags) in four 50x50m plots
(=1ha total area) with differing wildfire histories in a Eucalyptus obliqua dominated
native wet sclerophyll forest in southern Tasmania, Australia, were quantified and
mapped. The CWD volumes obtained were amongst the highest in the world.
Analyses showed that although a plot size of 0.25ha was too small to give an
accurate measurement of volume, it was large enough to contain dead wood having
attributes that reflected the stand structure resulting from wildfire disturbance.
Therefore, a plot's wildfire history can be deduced from the CWD and stags of a
0.25ha plot.
The substrates wood (dead wood and standing trees), soil and litter in each plot were
surveyed for macrofungal fruit bodies at approximately fortnightly intervals for 14
months. A total of 849 macrofungal species was recorded from 1ha of native forest.
Wood supported 410 species of which 295 were on CWD but not exclusively, i.e. a
few species were found on CWD and soil or on CWD and litter. The majority of the
remaining species on wood was supported by 'other dead wood' (a category
containing dead wood that did not fit into CWD), which contained many species not
in common with those on CWD.
It was concluded that macrofungal species richness on CWD is not affected by decay
class; however, length or surface area explained between 45-48% of the variation in
species richness.

Of the 495 species found fruiting on soil, 330 were known to be ectomycorrhizal and
165 were considered decomposers. In addition, 146 species of macrofungi were
associated with litter. It was found, using temperature and rainfall data, that the
appearance of fruit bodies is seasonal but not directly attributable to rainfall events.
There was a better correlation using the indigenous peoples' concept of three seasons
than when using the four European-based seasons.
In essence, each plot contained a distinctive mycota, reflecting its chronosequence
history, site characteristics (e.g. soil type, soil pH) or microclimate. To maintain the
macrofungal diversity associated with the differing plots, a mosaic of multi-aged
stands in the managed forest landscape is needed to provide inoculum for the
reestablishment of macrofungal communities in forests at different times of
regeneration. In addition, reserves should be as large as possible (at least 1ha) to
encompass the variability (due to site characteristics, vegetation type, etc.) in the
forest landscape and the associated macrofungal diversity as evidenced by the
appearance of fruit bodies. This has particular implications for the silvicultural
treatment of ARN (aggregated retention) where the retained aggregates provide
refugia for macrofungal assemblages associated with the pre-treatment forest type.
The results of the study also suggest that there should be some coupes assigned to
longer rotations to provide a continuum of dead wood sizes and decay classes in the
forest landscape, thereby maintaining associated macrofungal diversity.


In the last decade, the Internet service model has shifted from sharing resources to distributing content. Certain applications such as large science data, CDNs, VoIP and multimedia applications transfer a significant amount of data over the Internet in a time-constrained manner that requires guaranteed in-network resources. The networking community often achieves this by creating point-to-point guaranteed bandwidth paths. However, the current resource reservation solutions are end-to-end and often initiated by users without the knowledge of the underlying network conditions. As a result, the data flowing through these reserved tunnels are not reusable, and in-network resources are not optimally utilized. On the contrary, Information-Centric Networking architectures such as NDN[16] has several properties that can facilitate resource reservations more intelligently. In this work, we present Strategic Caching And Reservation in ICN (SCARI), a protocol for reserving resources on ICN networks. Similar to RSVP[17] in IP networks, SCARI acts as a signaling mechanism before the actual data transfer. In this work, we focus explicitly on scientific dataflows and not on other types of traffic such as real-time audio/video. We show that SCARI reduces network resource consumption by aggregating reservations and strategically caching content in the network.


Assurance This study examines the associations of controlling shareholders and audit committee effectiveness with earnings quality. A sample of non-financial Thai listed firms is used in the study because Thailand provides a useful setting for the study of ownership concentration. A unique data set on the voting rights of controlling shareholders and audit committee characteristics is used to test the hypotheses of whether controlling shareholders and audit committees with strong governance characteristics affect the quality of earnings. Earnings quality is measured using (1) Basu's (1997) asymmetric timeliness measure of accounting conservatism, and (2) absolute abnormal accruals estimated from the Dechow and Dichev (2002) and the Jones (1991) models and its variations. Audit committee effectiveness is measured using a composite index comprising four audit committee characteristics. The empirical results show that firms with a controlling shareholder, on average, are associated with both lower accounting conservatism (lower earnings quality) and lower absolute abnormal accruals (higher earnings quality) than firms with no controlling shareholder. Further analysis shows that family-and the government-controlled firms and firms whose controlling shareholders have voting rights below 75%, in particular, are associated with lower accounting conservatism and absolute abnormal accruals. Although the results imply both lower and higher earnings quality for firms with a controlling shareholder compared to firms with no controlling shareholder, the lower (higher) absolute abnormal accruals (earnings quality) simply reflects less conservative accounting practice by firms with a controlling shareholder. The results provide no evidence that audit committees with strong governance characteristics are associated with earnings quality.


This paper presents an analysis of the utility of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with whole-chromosome probes for measurement of the genomic frequency of translocations found in the peripheral blood of individuals exposed to ionizing radiation. First, we derive the equation: Fp = 2.05fp(1-fp)FG, relating the translocation frequency, Fp, measured using FISH to the genomic translocation frequency, FG, where fp is the fraction of the genome covered by the composite probe. We demonstrate the validity of this equation by showing that: (a) translocation detection efficiency predicted by the equation is consistent with experimental data as fp is changed; (b) translocation frequency dose-response curves measured in vitro using FISH agree well with dicentric frequency dose-response curves measured in vitro using conventional cytogenetic procedures; and (c) the genomic translocation frequencies estimated from FISH measurements for 20 Hiroshima A-bomb survivors and four workers exposed to ionizing radiation during the Y-12 criticality accident are approximately the same as the translocation frequencies measured using G-banding. We also show that translocation frequency dose response curves estimated using FISH are similar for Hiroshima A-bomb survivors and for first division lymphocytes irradiated in vitro. We conclude with a discussion of the potential utility of translocation frequency analysis for assessment of the level of acute radiation exposure independent of the time between analysis and exposure.


The speedy advancement in computer hardware has caused data encryption to no longer be a 100% safe solution for secure communications. To battle with adversaries, a countermeasure is to avoid message routing through certain insecure areas, e.g., Malicious countries and nodes. To this end, avoidance routing has been proposed over the past few years. However, the existing avoidance protocols are single-path-based, which means that there must be a safe path such that no adversary is in the proximity of the whole path. This condition is difficult to satisfy. As a result, routing opportunities based on the existing avoidance schemes are limited. To tackle this issue, we propose an avoidance routing framework, namely Multi-Path Avoidance Routing (MPAR). In our approach, a source node first encodes a message into k different pieces, and each piece is sent via k different paths. The destination can assemble the original message easily, while an adversary cannot recover the original message unless she obtains all the pieces. We prove that the coding scheme achieves perfect secrecy against eavesdropping under the condition that an adversary has incomplete information regarding the message. The simulation results validate that the proposed MPAR protocol achieves its design goals.


The aim of this work has been to investigate the behaviour of a continuous rotating annular chromatograph (CRAC) under a combined biochemical reaction and separation duty. Two biochemical reactions have been employed, namely the inversion of sucrose to glucose and fructose in the presence of the enzyme invertase and the saccharification of liquefied starch to maltose and dextrin using the enzyme maltogenase. Simultaneous biochemical reaction and separation has been successfully carried out for the first time in a CRAC by inverting sucrose to fructose and glucose using the enzyme invertase and collecting continuously pure fractions of glucose and fructose from the base of the column. The CRAC was made of two concentric cylinders which form an annulus 140 cm long by 1.2 cm wide, giving an annular space of 14.5 dm3. The ion exchange resin used was an industrial grade calcium form Dowex 50W-X4 with a mean diameter of 150 microns. The mobile phase used was deionised and dearated water and contained the appropriate enzyme. The annular column was slowly rotated at speeds of up to 240°h-1 while the sucrose substrate was fed continuously through a stationary feed pipe to the top of the resin bed. A systematic investigation of the factors affecting the performance of the CRAC under simultaneous biochemical reaction and separation conditions was carried out by employing a factorial experimental procedure. The main factors affecting the performance of the system were found to be the feed rate, feed concentrations and eluent rate. Results from the experiments indicated that complete conversion could be achieved for feed concentrations of up to 50% w/v sucrose and at feed throughputs of up to 17.2 kg sucrose per m3 resin/h. The second enzymic reaction, namely the saccharification of liquefied starch to maltose employing the enzyme maltogenase has also been successfully carried out on a CRAC. Results from the experiments using soluble potato starch showed that conversions of up to 79% were obtained for a feed concentration of 15.5% w/v at a feed flowrate of 400 cm3/h. The product maltose obtained was over 95% pure. Mathematical modelling and computer simulation of the sucrose inversion system has been carried out. A finite difference method was used to solve the partial differential equations and the simulation results showed good agreement with the experimental results obtained.


Although Natural Language Processing is at the core of many tools young people use in their everyday life, high school curricula (in Italy) do not include any computational linguistics education. This lack of exposure makes the use of such tools less responsible than it could be, and makes choosing computational linguistics as a university degree unlikely. To raise awareness, curiosity, and longer-term interest in young people, we have developed an interactive workshop designed to illustrate the basic principles of NLP and computational linguistics to high school Italian students aged between 13 and 18 years. The workshop takes the form of a game in which participants play the role of machines needing to solve some of the most common problems a computer faces in understanding language: from voice recognition to Markov chains to syntactic parsing. Participants are guided through the workshop with the help of instructors, who present the activities and explain core concepts from computational linguistics. The workshop was presented at numerous outlets in Italy between 2019 and 2020, both face-to-face and online.


The use of deep boreholes for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste is reassessed, emphasizing key enabling technical features and their strong linkage to national and international fuel cycle policy. Emplacement 2 to 4 km deep in widely available granitic continental bedrock, under a 1-km caprock layer of high-integrity bedrock, is shown in this analysis to have the potential to provide sufficiently low host rock permeability to prevent radionuclide escape by transport in water - the only plausible release mechanism. The modular nature of the concept enables multiregion siting in large user countries and is especially well-suited for small-user nations. Irretrievability can be built-in to better meet safeguards objectives, and the exceptionally high assurance of confinement makes the disposal of minor actinides (and troublesome fission products) an attractive alternative to their destruction by transmutation.


This Article will discuss to what extent fears that debt in a country's national currency will no longer be enforceable under U.S. law after the introduction of the Euro are justified. The article assumes that the European Council, as provided for in the Treaty Establishing the European Community ("EC Treaty") and the European Commission's European Council Regulation, will establish a fixed rate of conversion for the old national currencies of all participating Member States in relation to the Euro. The subject of our inquiry, thus, is whether, following the introduction of the single currency, U.S. courts will acknowledge the abolition of the old national currencies and apply the above-mentioned Council Regulations and relevant legislation of participating Member States, in suits for payment on obligations denominated in these abolished currencies.


Translational research in motor and sensory function of the upper GI tract Niels van Lelyveld Background and aim: Functional dyspepsia (FD) is a common disorder seen in daily clinical practice, characterized by the presence of pain or discomfort in the upper abdomen in the absence of organic, systemic, or metabolic disease. Since reliable markers are not available (anatomic or biochemical abnormalities), the diagnosis is based upon symptoms. It is well established that motoric and sensory abnormalities are highly prevalent in FD patients. The key issue here is, whether gastric (dys)function is related to specific upper abdominal symptoms, and can be regarded as a etiologic factor of FD. The clinical importance of this is evident, since gastric sensory or motor dysfunctions may serve as important therapeutic targets. The aim of the current thesis was to improve the understanding of the aetiology of dyspeptic symptoms. Methods: For that purpose, we have investigated: (1) the relationship between dyspeptic symptoms and gastric motor and sensory function, (2) molecular factors potentially underlying the gastroduodenal motor and sensory abnormalities and/or the generation of upper abdominal symptoms. We investigated the (patho)physiology of upper gastrointestinal motility and the generation of upper abdominal sensations in functional dyspeptic patients using several techniques; three-dimensional ultrasonography (3D-US) to study total and partial gastric volume changes, the C-octanoic breathtest for the measurement of gastric emptying, and the nutrient drinktest to determine maximum drinking capacity. In our attempt to identify molecular factors underlying the gastroduodenal motor and sensory abnormalities and/or symptoms we focused on serotonergic signalling. mRNA expression levels of genes encoding proteins involved in serotonergic signalling were quantified by real-time PCR in mucosal biopsy specimens. Furthermore, the genotype distribution of functional polymorphisms was analyzed. Results and conclusions: Although impaired proximal gastric relaxation and delayed gastric emptying are highly prevalent in this patient group, we were not able to establish a relationship between gastric (dys)function and upper abdominal sensations experienced in daily life. The results of this thesis question the role of these pathophysiologic mechanisms in the generation of dyspeptic symptoms. Therefore, we have concluded that limited effect on symptoms may be expected when targeting these specific mechanisms. Several components of mucosal serotonergic signalling are higher in the duodenum compared to the stomach. Therefore we conclude that serotonin, released by EC cells, predominantly contributes to gastroduodenal function at the level of the duodenum. Examination of serotonergic signalling components in patients with idiopathic gastroparesis revealed that delayed gastric emptying and upper abdominal symptoms do not result from altered mucosal 5-HT biosynthetic and uptake capacity. However, a decreased expression of the 5-HT4(c) splice variant in the duodenum of FD patients may exert a modest effect on 5-HT availability, and be of importance in the pathogenesis of gastroparesis. Interestingly, tertiary referral FD patients have a higher prevalence of the T allele of the GNB3 C825T polymorphism compared to healthy controls. Therefore, a second messenger abnormality may be one of the molecular factors underlying the gastric motor and sensory dysfunction and upper abdominal symptoms observed in FD.


A high-performance mortar (HPM) containing a large amount of industrial by-products such as fly ash, silica fume, and limestone fines was developed for rapid repair of concrete pavements. The HPM development included three major steps: (1) Development of the mortar mixture proportion based on the optimal hydration of binder and particle packing of the mortar system. In this step of the study, all mortar materials were systematically proportioned, and the obtained mixtures were tested for flowability, rate of hydration, set time, and strength development. The optimal mixture proportion was then selected as the HPM, as it displayed good self-consolidating ability and achieved 1-day compressive strengths greater than 6,000 psi. (2) Investigation of the mechanical properties of the new HPM, including compressive and flexural strength, elastic modulus, and slant shear and pull-off strengths of patch-substrate bonds tested at 1, 3, 7, and 28 days. In this step, the properties of the HPM were evaluated in comparison with those of a commercial repair material: the rapid-set concrete (RSC). Two types of substrates representing old concrete were used for patching repair. One was made of a typical pavement mixture (C-3WR-C20), and the other was a high-strength pavement concrete mixture (O-4WR). (3) Investigation of the durability properties of the newly developed HPM compared to those of the RSC. Durability properties included cyclic freeze-thaw (F-T) resistance, permeability, and shrinkage behavior. The results indicated that the newly developed HPM possesses excellent self-consolidating ability: highly flowable and non-segregating. Although there was delayed setting, the compressive strength of the HPM exceeded 6,000 psi at 1 day, approximately 25 percent higher than that of the RSC. At 28 days, the HPM reached 10,000 psi, while the RSC was about 7,000 psi. The HPM also displayed extremely low chloride permeability (18 coulombs) compared to the RSC (2,550 coulombs) and excellent F-T durability without the requirement for air entrainment. The F-T durability factor of HPM was kept around 100% throughout the standard F-T test, while the F-T durability factor of RSC reduced to 80% at the end of the F-T test. However, the HPM exhibited noticeably higher autogenous shrinkage and slightly lower free drying shrinkage than the C-3WR-C20 mixture, while the RSC had a little/no shrinkage during the 56-day test period. Addition of a small amount of micro-steel fibers (70 pcy) slightly reduced the shrinkage of the HPM. Further studies on fatigue and shrinkage cracking behavior of the HPM are recommended.


Autonomous navigation in vegetation is challenging because the vegetation often hides the load-bearing surface, which is used for evaluating the safety of potential actions. It is difficult to design rules for finding the true ground height in vegetation from forward looking sensor data, so we use an online adaptive method to automatically learn this mapping through experience with the world. This approach has been implemented on an autonomous tractor and has been tested in a farm setting. We describe the system and provide examples of finding obstacles and improving roll predictions in the presence of vegetation. We also show that the system can adapt to new vegetation conditions.


The Corsican Painted Frog Discoglossus montalentii has received little research attention since its discovery, which creates uncertainty about its distribution and conservation status. We here use a combination of field surveys, ecological niche modelling (ENM) and niche overlap analyses to (i) update the D. montalentii distribution; (ii) determine its potential range, and (iii) assess if presence of Discoglossus sardus influences that of D. montalentii. Our surveys reveal presence of D. montalentii at low and mid-altitudes throughout Cap Corse and near the north-western coast, while ENMs suggest that similar climatically and topographically suitable habitats occur beyond the confirmed range in northern- and westernmost Corsica. No evidence for competitive exclusion by D. sardus was found, with both species displaying broad niche overlap at macroscale. Whether potential differences between these species do exist at microhabitat level remains worth exploring. We finally review the conservation status of D. montalentii, and assemble practical knowledge to inform future conservation assessments.


In the classic novel, Frankenstein, Doctor Frankenstein creates a living creature in the hope of cheating death. The monster, as the creature is called, horrifies Doctor Frankenstein, turns against him, and kills several people, causing the doctor to regret his decision to make the monster in the first place. When states establish an international organization (IO), they create an institution with a life of its own on the international stage. Though states can, collectively, control the IO, without unanimity among them the organization can often act on its own. The danger for a state, then, is that its creation, like Frankenstein's, will become a monster and act contrary to its interests. In contrast to Frankenstein, however, states are conscious of this risk and are able to guard against it. This Article explains that much of the existing landscape of international organizations has been formed by the state response to this "Frankenstein problem." The effort by states to avoid creating a monster explains, among other things, why there are so many IOs, why they vary so widely in scope, and the manner in which they are permitted (and not permitted) to affect international law and international relations. The Article also identifies the four types of activities that IOs are allowed to undertake and explains how states choose which activities to place within which organizations. More generally, the Article offers a better understand of why and how IOs are designed and their place within the international legal order.


A procedure is described for the radioisotope assay of acetylcholine transferase activity (EC 22.214.171.124), which involved specific synthesis of acetylcholine in vivo. Bromine acetylcholine was used as an inhibitor of the enzyme; 14C-AcCoA was used as a substrate and product of the enzymatic reaction. 14C-acetylcholine was separated from the substrate by means of anion exchange chromatography. The procedure described was 5 times more sensitive than the methods developed by F. Fonnum (1975) and S. Tucek (1983) being similarly reproducible. The assay was tested in experiments with rats under various conditions of hyperbaric oxygenation, in simulation of myocardial infarction as well as in moderate immobilization stress. The findings suggest that estimation of the acetylcholine transferase activity may be involved in complex evaluation of the cholinergic system state in tissues, which is essential for the study of pathogenesis of their dysfunctions and development of respective approaches to eliminate these impairments.


Background Growing evidence indicates that the functional state of microglial cells differs according to the pathological conditions that trigger their activation. In particular, activated microglial cells can express sets of Kv subunits which sustain delayed rectifying potassium currents (Kdr) and modulate differently microglia proliferation and ability to release mediators. We recently reported that hippocampal microglia is in a particular activation state after a status epilepticus (SE) and the present study aimed at identifying which of the Kv channels are functionally expressed by microglia in this model. Methodology/Principal Findings SE was induced by systemic injection of kainate in CX3CR1eGFP/+ mice and whole cell recordings of fluorescent microglia were performed in acute hippocampal slices prepared 48 h after SE. Microglia expressed Kdr currents which were characterized by a potential of half-maximal activation near −25 mV, prominent steady-state and cumulative inactivations. Kdr currents were almost abolished by the broad spectrum antagonist 4-Aminopyridine (1 mM). In contrast, tetraethylammonium (TEA) at a concentration of 1 mM, known to block Kv3.1, Kv1.1 and 1.2 subunits, only weakly reduced Kdr currents. However, at a concentration of 5 mM which should also affect Kv1.3 and 1.6, TEA inhibited about 30% of the Kdr conductance. Alpha-dendrotoxin, which selectively inhibits Kv1.1, 1.2 and 1.6, reduced only weakly Kdr currents, indicating that channels formed by homomeric assemblies of these subunits are not important contributors of Kdr currents. Finally, agitoxin-2 and margatoxin strongly inhibited the current. Conclusions/Significance These results indicate that Kv1.3 containing channels predominantly determined Kdr currents in activated microglia after SE.


The optimization of continuous structures requires careful attention to discretization errors. Compared to ordinary low order formulation (h-elements) in conjunction with an adaptive mesh refinement in each optimization step, the use of high order finite elements (so called p-elements) has several advantages. However, compared to the h-method a higher order finite element analysis program poses higher demands from a software engineering point of view. In this article the basics of an object oriented higher order finite element system especially tailored to the use in structural optimization is presented. Besides the design of the system, aspects related to the employed implementation language Java are discussed.


A two‐dimensional flow cell experiment was conducted to study the removal of the carbon tetrachloride component of a DNAPL mixture from a layered porous medium through soil vapor extraction (SVE) with moist and dry air. A dual‐energy γ radiation system was used at various times to non‐intrusively determine fluid saturations. The mixture, which contained the volatile organic carbon tetrachloride, mimics the DNAPL disposed at the Hanford Site in Washington State. The flow cell, which is 100 cm long, 75 cm high and 5.5 cm wide, was packed with two sloped coarse sand and two sloped silt layers in an otherwise uniform matrix of medium‐grained sand. A V‐shaped fine sand layer was placed at the bottom of the flow cell to prevent DNAPL from exiting the flow cell. The water table was located 2 cm from the bottom, creating variably saturated conditions. A 500‐mL spill was introduced at the top of the flow cell from a small source area. It was observed that the DNAPL largely by‐passed the silt layers but easily moved into the coarse sand layers. Residual DNAPL was formed in the medium‐grained sand matrix. The DNAPL caused a distinct reduction of the capillary fringe. Most of the DNAPL ended up in a pool on top of the V‐shaped fine sand. Through four treatments with moist air soil vapor extraction, most residual carbon tetrachloride was removed from the medium‐grained matrix and the coarse sand layers. However, soil vapor extraction with moist air was not able to remove the carbon tetrachloride from the silt layers and the pool. Through a water table reduction and subsequent soil vapor extraction with dry air, the carbon tetrachloride in the silt layers and the pool was effectively removed. Based on γ measurements and carbon tetrachloride vapor concentration data, it was estimated that after the final remediation treatment, almost 90% of the total mass was removed.


Complex Event Processing (CEP) systems process large streams of data trying to detect events of interest. Traditional CEP systems, such as Esper, lack the required scalability and processing capability to cope with the constantly increasing amount of data that needs to be processed. Furthermore, user defined rules are static so changes in the monitored environment cannot be easily detected. In this paper we investigate the development of a scalable and dynamic traffic management system. Our work makes several contributions: We propose a novel system that combines Esper with a stream processing framework, Storm, in order to parallelize the processing of larger amounts of data. We propose a novel rules' assignment algorithm for distributing Esper rules to the available CEP engines, in a way that maximizes the overall system's throughput. Finally, our system adapts to changes of the environment by processing historical data via Hadoop and dynamically updating the Esper rules based on the generated results. Our work has been evaluated using real data, in several traffic monitoring scenarios for the city of Dublin. Our detailed experimental results indicate the benefits in the working of our approach and the significant increase in the system's throughput when a large number of Esper rules were examined concurrently.


Abstract Objective: To sustainably improve cleaning of high-touch surfaces (HTSs) in acute-care hospitals using a multimodal approach to education, reduction of barriers to cleaning, and culture change for environmental services workers. Design: Prospective, quasi-experimental, before-and-after intervention study. Setting: The study was conducted in 2 academic acute-care hospitals, 2 community hospitals, and an academic pediatric and women's hospital. Participants: Frontline environmental services workers. Intervention: A 5-module educational program, using principles of adult learning theory, was developed and presented to environmental services workers. Audience response system (ARS), videos, demonstrations, role playing, and graphics were used to illustrate concepts of and the rationale for infection prevention strategies. Topics included hand hygiene, isolation precautions, personal protective equipment (PPE), cleaning protocols, and strategies to overcome barriers. Program evaluation included ARS questions, written evaluations, and objective assessments of occupied patient room cleaning. Changes in hospital-onset C. difficile infection (CDI) and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) bacteremia were evaluated. Results: On average, 357 environmental service workers participated in each module. Most (93%) rated the presentations as 'excellent' or 'very good' and agreed that they were useful (95%), reported that they were more comfortable donning/doffing PPE (91%) and performing hand hygiene (96%) and better understood the importance of disinfecting HTSs (96%) after the program. The frequency of cleaning individual HTSs in occupied rooms increased from 26% to 62% (P < .001) following the intervention. Improvement was sustained 1-year post intervention (P < .001). A significant decrease in CDI was associated with the program. Conclusion: A novel program that addressed environmental services workers' knowledge gaps, challenges, and barriers was well received and appeared to result in learning, behavior change, and sustained improvements in cleaning.


In this paper, we propose a new framework for the study of cellular networks called the fluid model and we derive from this model analytical formulas for interference, outage probability, and spatial outage probability. The key idea of the fluid model is to consider the discrete base stations (BS) entities as a continuum of transmitters which are spatially distributed in the network. This allows us to obtain simple analytical expressions of the main characteristics of the network. In this paper, we focus on CDMA systems. This approach is however also applicable to other technologies like OFDMA. A closed-form formula of the downlink other-cell interference factor, f, is provided and compared to simulations performed in a traditional hexagonal network. From f, we are able to derive the global outage probability and the spatial outage probability, which depends on the location of a mobile station (MS) initiating a new call.


The widespread use of biocatalysis in industry will require conversions to achieve high space-time yields. For many next generation bioconversions the low thermodynamic equilibrium constant of reactions currently limits their industrial implementation. This thesis aims to establish a series of generic microscale methods for the rapid evaluation of process options to enhance the yield of such equilibrium-controlled bioconversions. These are evaluated based on the asymmetric synthesis of chiral amino alcohols by the CV2025 ω-transaminase (ω-TAm) from C. violaceum DSM30191. Using 50 mM each of L-Erythrulose (Ery) as substrate and S-α-methylbenzylamine (MBA) as amino donor the standard yield of the product 2−amino−1,3,4−butanetriol (ABT) is just 26 % (mol.mol-1). This reaction produces acetophenone (AP) as a by-product which is also inhibitory to the CV2025 ω-TAm. Microscale methods to evaluate four process options for increasing the bioconversion yield were established each operating at 300 µL volume. The first option involves screening of alternative amino donors to the widely-used MBA. The second couples ω-TAm with an alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) to convert the inhibitory AP by-product into the non-inhibitory (R)-1-phenylethanol (a glucose dehydrogenase (GDH) is also present to facilitate co-factor recycling). The third approach involves physical in-situ product removal (ISPR) of the volatile AP by operation at reduced pressure in a 96-well vacuum manifold. The final approach involves ISPR using polymeric resins, such as the AmberliteTM XAD series, for selective adsorption of AP from the bioconversion medium. For the particular reaction studied here, use of alternative amino donors such as isopropylamine (IPA) enabled a 2.8-fold increase in the reaction yield to 72 % (mol.mol-1) while the second enzyme system, though more expensive to implement, achieved a 3.8-fold increase in yield and almost quantitative conversion (98 % (mol.mol-1)). Each of the microscale methods was subsequently implemented as process options in an automated micro-scale process sequence linking biocatalyst production, bioconversion and product analysis. The high throughput potential of the methods was then illustrated using a focused library of ten novel ω-TAms from various strains. The bioconversion rates and yields of each enzyme were evaluated using a range of alternative amino donors. This highlight one novel ω-TAm, able to utilise L-α-serine as amino donor at improved yield than the CV2025 ω-TAm. This opens up the possibility of engineering whole cell TAm biocatalysts where the normally expensive amino donors are synthesised in vivo by normal amino acid metabolism starting from simple, cheap substrates. The microscale methods also enabled rapid optimisation of bioconversion conditions using the second enzyme system. This identified the possibility of reducing by 40-fold the standard concentrations of the co-factor recycling enzymes thus reducing the contribution of the enzymes to the overall Costs of Goods (CoG). Overall, this work has established an efficient and generic microscale approach to aid bioprocess design and specifically to help increase the yield of equilibrium-controlled bioconversions. The bioconversion rates and yields for the optimised reaction systems were subsequently verified for preparative scale bioconversions.


Deep reinforcement learning has achieved great success in many previously difficult reinforcement learning tasks, yet recent studies show that deep RL agents are also unavoidably susceptible to adversarial perturbations, similar to deep neural networks in classification tasks. Prior works mostly focus on model-free adversarial attacks and agents with discrete actions. In this work, we study the problem of continuous control agents in deep RL with adversarial attacks and propose the first two-step algorithm based on learned model dynamics. Extensive experiments on various MuJoCo domains (Cartpole, Fish, Walker, Humanoid) demonstrate that our proposed framework is much more effective and efficient than model-free based attacks baselines in degrading agent performance as well as driving agents to unsafe states.


The Parent Child Psychological Support Program (PCPS) was established in an area of South West Dublin in 2001. Since then until May 2008 it has offered its services to over 700 children and their parents. This preventative, parenting support service is available to all parents of children aged 3 to 18 months within its catchment area. During periodical visits, the infant's development and growth are measured and parents receive specific information about their child's progress. Parents are empowered in their parenting practices, thus promoting consistency and synchrony in parent-child interaction. Between 2001 and 2006, 538 parents and their infants participated in the Program. Out of these cases, 130 (24.16%) were considered to require additional support and were included in the Monthly Meeting Case Review (MM) based on initial concerns The aims of this study were: 1. to review the first five years of MM cases and to explore the socio-demographic profile of the MM cases in comparison to those not in need of additional support (non-MM) and 2. To illustrate an approach to refining the case review process which will inform practice and provides the service providers with better understanding of the early detection of parent-child relation difficulties. In pursuing this goal the cases screened over five years of practice were analyzed to explore the structure of the different factors by using statistical techniques of data reduction, i.e. factor analysis. The results showed that the MM group differed on several socio-demographic dimensions from the non-MM group and there was a four factor structure underlying the case review decision process. Implications of this research are discussed.


Proliferation of online access to primary literature has provided great opportunities for science libraries. Merging these resources with previously held formats, and negotiating with vendors for this access, remains a challenge at many institutions, regardless of size. This article highlights Haverford College's attempts to integrate these resources in an effort to enhance accessibility and to reduce costs inherent in this duplication of formats. Areas addressed include material formats, faculty and department cultures, consortial arrangements, users' habits, implications for the online catalog, financial imperatives and communication patterns between our main and branch libraries. Initiatives currently underway are highlighted, as well as indications of how they will shape our future behaviors.


Aim/Purpose: This series of papers on Fake News: Bias, Misinformation, and Disinformation examines fake news from an Informing Science perspective. As such, the papers in this special series make novel con-tributions to the field by viewing the issues through the transdisciplinary lens of informing science. This series makes no claim to summarize or review all that has been written on this topic. Rather it provides a glimpse into this immense literature from the perspective of informing science.

Background: It is one small step on the 20+ year quest by the editor to explore better ways to inform from an approach that transcends academic disciplines (Cohen, 1998, 1999) and a 20 year quest to under-stand the issues of how we become misinformed and disinformed (Cohen, 2000). The series pro-vided here gains thrust for two reasons. One reason is that the study has become more popular with academicians due to the blathering of politicians and the attacks by national powers on de-mocracy. The second reason is more mundane; without the deadline that the end-of-year affords, the papers would become richer, fuller, and more detailed.

Recommendation for Researchers: Taken together, the results brought forth across these papers is truly scary. Due to their biases, when presented with information, people can and do generate their own misinformation. People tend to communicate such misinformation that they self-generated with others in groups sharing their beliefs, strengthening the misinformation by some and silencing those do not share these thoughts. This process creates divisions in society. How can humanity seek wise decisions when we cannot agree even upon the facts. We see the results of this syndrome in Operation SIG and cur-rent divisions within politics in the West.


Interested in iPhone development? Want to learn more? Whether youre a self-taught iPhone development genius or have just made your way through the pages of Beginning iPhone 3 Development, we have the perfect book for you. More iPhone 3 Development: Tackling iPhone SDK 3 digs deeper into Apples latest SDK. Best-selling authors Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche explain concepts as only they can, covering topics like Core Data, peer-to-peer networking using GameKit and network streams, working with data from the web, MapKit, in-application e-mail, and more. All the concepts and APIs are clearly presented with code snippets you can customize and use, as you like, in your own apps. If you are going to write a professional iPhone app, youll want to get your arms around Core Data, and theres no better place to do so than in the pages of this book. The book continues right where Beginning iPhone 3 Development left off with a series of chapters devoted to Core Data, the standard for persistence that Apple introduced to iPhone with SDK 3. Jeff and Dave carefully step through each of the Core Data concepts and show you techniques and tips specifically for writing larger applicationsoffering a breadth of coverage you won't find anywhere else. The Core Data coverage alone is worth the price of admission. But there's so much more. This book covers a variety of networking mechanisms, from GameKits relatively simple BlueTooth peer-to-peer model, to the addition of Bonjour discovery and network streams, through the complexity of accessing files via the web. Dave and Jeff will also take you through coverage of concurrent programming and some advanced techniques for debugging your applications. Whether you are a relative newcomer to iPhone development or an old hand looking to expand your horizons, theres something for everyone in More iPhone 3 Development. Note: A few of the apps in this book demonstrate technologies not yet supported by the simulator. To run them on your iPhone or iPod touch, you'll need to join one of Apple's paid iPhone developer programs. What youll learn All about Core Data: key concepts and techniques for writing larger application How to utilize a variety of networking mechanisms, including peer-to-peer connections over Bluetooth using GameKit Details on the addition of Bonjour discovery and network streams How to embed maps with Map Kit and use in-application email How to access a user's iPod library and integrate music into applications Essentials of concurrent programming and advanced debugging techniques Tips on working with data from the web Who this book is for All iPhone and iPod Touch developers, especially developers already familiar with early iPhone SDKs.