We study optimal income tax progressivity in an environment where individuals are exposed to idiosyncratic income and health risks over the lifecycle. Our results, based on a calibration for the US economy, indicate that the presence of health risk combined with incomplete insurance markets amplies the social insurance role of progressive income taxes. The government is required to set higher optimal levels of tax progressivity in order to provide more social insurance for unhealthy low income individuals who have limited access to health insurance. The optimal progressive income tax system includes a tax break for income below $36,400 and high marginal tax rates of over 50 percent for income above $200,000: The tax progressivity (Suits) index-a Gini coeffcient for income tax contributions by income-of the optimal tax system is around 0.53, compared to 0.17 in the benchmark tax system. Yet, the optimal tax system in our model is more progressive than the optimal tax systems in models abstracting from health risk (e.g., Conesa and Krueger (2006) and Heathcote, Storesletten and Violante (2017)). Importantly, the optimal level of tax progressivity is strongly affected by the design of the health insurance system. When health expenditure risk is reduced or removed from the model, the optimal tax system becomes less progressive and thus more similar to the optimal progressivity levels reported in the previous literature.


In fire-suppressed oak-chaparral communities, land managers have treated thousands of hectares by mechanical mastication to reduce hazardous fuels in areas of wildland-urban interface. The chipped debris, which decomposes slowly, can be burned to minimize wildfire hazard. The question is whether controlled burning of masticated debris results in loss of native plant species richness and abundance, allowing for gains in non-native species. We examined the response of vegetation to the seasonality of prescribed fire and to postfire seeding in mechanically masticated oak-chaparral communities in the Applegate Valley of southwestern Oregon, USA. At the landscape level, treatments did not differ. At the site level, response of native and non-native species varied by site and treatment. Following prescribed fire, native species decreased in cover and increased in species richness; non-native species increased in cover and in species richness. Seven species that were not observed on pre-treatment plots appeared after burn treatments. Non-native annual grasses and forbs increased following both spring and fall burns. Among native species, annuals declined in cover while perennials increased slightly. Both annual and perennial natives increased in species richness following burn treatments. Community patterns at the site scale changed following all treatments. Seeded bunchgrasses, Lemmon's needlegrass (Achnatherum lemmonii [Vasey] Barkworth), California brome (Bromus carinatus Hook. and Arn.), blue wildrye (Elymus glaucus Buckley), and Roemer's fescue (Festuca idahoensis Elmer ssp. roemeri [Pavlick] S. Aiken), successfully established following fall prescribed fires, but not following spring prescribed fires or in unburned controls. Post-fire seeding and subsequent increased bunchgrass cover correlated with decreased non-native species. Prescribed low severity fire followed by post-fire seeding during the wet, cool season is a viable tool for introducing native bunchgrasses while controlling non-native species in mechanically masticated oak-chaparral in southwestern Oregon.


Intensive care unit (ICU) cost analysis has not been extensively addressed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We have implemented cost analysis (2015–2016) at the largest polyvalent ICU of the Kingdom (King Saud Medical City). Our block model analysis assimilated both modified Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System (TISS) and Omega scoring points to evaluate the overall cost; while, specific utilization elements were included in such as medication, procedural, laboratory, radiology, physiotherapy, nursing/physician, and overhead/other costs. The overall cost (Saudi Riyals [SAR]/ICU patient/day) averaged for TISS/Omega scores and adjusted for 2015–2016 inflation rates was approximately 23.269 (TISS: 167 points; Omega: 173 points generating predictive costs scores which were approximating the aforementioned score [R2 validated 0.91 and 0.90, respectively, all P < 0.005). Thereafter, we have applied effective antibiotic stewardship program and control of procedural supplies, novel administration policies, diversification of the ergonomy and clinical orientation, early mobilization of patients, increase of by-the-bed critical care ultrasound applications and decrease in the length of stay. The cost was reduced to 19.800 SAR (15%) in 2017–2018 that is comparable to international standards. Preliminary follow-up cost analysis (2019) is confirming projections of stabilizing the ICU cost <18.000 SAR (4790 USD)/patient/day. Our budget-cut policy has provided the department with a vital investment space to integrate new therapeutic technologies.


This article follows a humanistic management approach to analyze how indigenous social enterprises contribute to building sustainable rural communities. To this end, I first explore the process of how these entities were formed and developed the necessary capabilities to generate such outcomes. Then, I examine the strategies indigenous social enterprises create to engage in value creation activities with the community and their main outcomes. Such outcomes are finally classified by the problems they addressed according to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), since one of the gaps in the literature indicates a lack of studies that relate specific SDGs with the outcomes of social enterprises in developing countries. This article follows a qualitative approach, a case study research strategy, and uses semi-structured interviews as the main data collection instrument. Evidence from four cases of indigenous social enterprises in Latin America suggests that these entities originate as a result of a major crisis that affects the dignity of the individuals and compromises the socio-economic dynamics of the communities. Second, local leadership urges a response that takes the form of a social enterprise that follows local principles and governance and pursues dignity protection, sustainability, and cultural reaffirmation. As a result, the communities have increased their levels of well-being and sustainability, linked to SDGs such as good health, decent work, reduced inequalities, public infrastructure, sustainable communities, and partnerships for the goals. This article also sheds light on how a humanistic management approach can contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of social enterprises, as these humanistic principles and practices seem to be naturally promoted by social entrepreneurs.


The research focus of the publication is the problem of preserving the blood of the operated patient. The variety of blood preservation methods shows the multidisciplinary nature of the problem and the importance of well-coordinated teamwork of busy doctors. For more than 20 years, surgical, anesthetic, transfusion technologies of blood saving have been used mainly in cardiac surgery patients. The use of a complex of blood-saving technologies allows you to reduce the amount of blood loss and the consumption of donor blood components. Over 7 years in cardiac surgery, the number of recipients of donor hemocomponents decreased by 41% (erythrovesue) and 61% (FFP). Autologous plasma is 68-78% of the total volume transfused to cardiac patients. 50% of patients operated on the ascending aorta do not need a blood transfusion. Blood loss during extensive liver resections has decreased three times in 10 years and does not require allogeneic blood transfusions. An adequate multidisciplinary approach to solving the problem of blood conservation can improve the results of surgical treatment of patients.


Recent advances in biostereometric techniques have led to the quick and easy
acquisition of 3D data for facial and other biological surfaces. This has led facial
surgeons to express dissatisfaction with landmark-based methods for analysing the
shape of the face which use only a small part of the data available, and to seek a method
for analysing the face which maximizes the use of this extensive data set. Scientists
working in the field of computer vision have developed a variety of methods for the
analysis and description of 2D and 3D shape. These methods are reviewed and an
approach, based on differential geometry, is selected for the description of facial shape.
For each data point, the Gaussian and mean curvatures of the surface are calculated.
The performance of three algorithms for computing these curvatures are evaluated for
mathematically generated standard 3D objects and for 3D data obtained from an optical
surface scanner. Using the signs of these curvatures, the face is classified into eight
'fundamental surface types' - each of which has an intuitive perceptual meaning. The
robustness of the resulting surface type description to errors in the data is determined
together with its repeatability.
Three methods for comparing two surface type descriptions are presented and illustrated
for average male and average female faces. Thus a quantitative description of facial
change, or differences between individual's faces, is achieved. The possible application
of artificial intelligence techniques to automate this comparison is discussed. The
sensitivity of the description to global and local changes to the data, made by
mathematical functions, is investigated.
Examples are given of the application of this method for describing facial changes
made by facial reconstructive surgery and implications for defining a basis for facial
aesthetics using shape are discussed. It is also applied to investigate the role played by
the shape of the surface in facial recognition.


The common core state standards in mathematics support the importance of persistence to mathematical problem solving calling it a 21 st century skill (Common Core Initiative, 2010). The nature of true problem solving as outlined by Schoenfeld (1992) requires this element of persistence in mathematics. However, new research (Duckworth et al, 2007; US Department of Education, 2013) has identified multiple ways to be able to measure these non-cognitive skills, such as persistence, using a variety of methods. The purpose of this study is to use these methods to be able to determine whether mathematical persistence is predictive of mathematical performance in problem solving. A 6 th grade class, in an urban setting was used to administer a persistence survey constructed from research (Kloosterman & Stage, 1992) and a mathematical problem derived to require a high amount of persistence. We use a variety of constructs rooted in the persistence survey developed by Kloosterman & Stage (1992) and time spent on a task to determine the predictability of these constructs to actual mathematical performance measures including academic performance on a task and standardized measures. It was seen that the time spent on a mathematical task was predictive of positive mathematical performance on that task. With limitations, this research is used to discuss the importance of developing persistence in students in a mathematical classroom.


Objective We hypothesised that left atrial emptying fraction (LAEF) would predict long-term cardiovascular outcome in the general population and better so than left atrial (LA) volumes. Methods A community-based sample (n=740) in sinus rhythm prospectively underwent clinical evaluation, echocardiography and blood analyses including N-terminal pro B-type natriuretic peptide (NTproBNP). The LA maximum (LAVmax) and minimum volumes (LAVmin) were indexed to body surface area (LAVImax and LAVImin, respectively). LAEF was calculated as LAVmax-LAVmin divided by LAVmax. The participants were followed for a median of 4.9 years regarding incident cardiovascular events (cardiovascular death or hospitalisation because of myocardial infarction, heart failure or stroke). Cox regression models were used to evaluate the associations of LA volumes and LAEF with the outcome. Results In a multivariable beta regression model, including clinical and echocardiographic baseline characteristics, higher plasma levels of NTproBNP, higher E/e′ and left ventricular systolic dysfunction remained as independent determinants of a lower LAEF. After adjustment for baseline characteristics, including NTproBNP levels, LAEF (HR for 1 SD decrease 1.33, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.70, p=0.022), but not LAVImax (HR for 1 SD increase 0.88, 95% CI 0.70 to 1.10, p=0.25) or LAVImin (HR for 1 SD increase 1.02, 95% CI 0.83 to 1.27, p=0.83) remained independently associated with outcome. Conclusions In this community-based cohort, LAEF was a powerful predictor of incident cardiovascular events and its predictive ability was stronger than for LA volumes. Our findings suggest that LA dysfunction may represent a more advanced state of LA remodelling than LA enlargement.


Objective— The aim of this study was to compare peripheral autonomic function in neuropathic diabetic subjects with and without foot ulceration. Research Design and Methods— Measurements were made on 57 diabetic subjects; 35 subjects had evidence of peripheral neuropathy, 14 of these had a history of foot ulceration, and 22 subjects had no evidence of peripheral neuropathy. No patient had peripheral vascular disease. Measurements were made of motor and sensory nerve conduction. Autonomic function was investigated by using standard cardiovascular reflex tests and by measuring blood flow variability in the foot. The vasoconstrictor responses to deep breathing and body cooling were measured by using venous occlusion plethysmography. Results— Peripheral sympathetic function was significantly worse in the DU group. The vasoconstrictor response to deep breathing in the DU group was significantly smaller than the response in the DN group (15.3 ± 2.7 vs. 38 ± 4%, P < 0.001). The response to body cooling in the DU group was significantly smaller than the response in the DN group (6.2 ± 3.1 vs. 20.8 ± 3.5%, P < 0.01). Tests of cardiac autonomic function and measurements of motor and sensory nerve conduction were similar in both neuropathic groups. Conclusions— Peripheral autonomic neuropathy is associated with the development of foot ulceration in diabetic subjects.


This thesis addresses the software maintenance problem of extracting high-level designs from code. The investigated solution is to use a mathematically-based formal program transformation system. The resulting tool, the Maintainer's Assistant, is based on Ward's [177] WSL (wide spectrum language) and method of proving program equivalence. The problems addressed include: how to reverse engineer from code alone (the only reliable source of information about a program [158]), how to express program transformations within the system, what kinds of transformations should be incorporated, how to make the tool simple to use, how to perform abstraction and how to create a tool suitable for use with large programs. Using the Maintainer's Assistant, the program code is automatically translated into WSL and the transformations, although tested for valid applicability by the system, are interactively applied by the user. Notable features include a mathematical simplifier, a large flexible transformation catalogue and, significantly, the use of an extension of WSL, A4etaWSL, for representing the transformations. MetaWSL expands WSL by incorporating a variety of extensions, including: program editing statements, pattern matching and template filling functions, symbolic mathematics and logic functions, statements for moving within the program's syntax tree and statements for repeating an operation at each node of the tree. Using MetaWSL, 80% of the 601 transformations can be expressed in less than 20 program statements. The Maintainer's Assistant has been used on a wide variety of examples of up to several thousand lines, including commercial software written in IBM 370 assembler. It has been possible to transform initially unstructured programs into a hierarchy of procedures, facilitating subsequent design recovery. These results show that program transformation is a viable method of renovating old (370 assembler) code in a cost elective way, and that MetaWSL provides an effective basis for clearly and concisely expressing the required transformations.


Uncertainty. Dealing with it is perhaps the largest problem facing autonomous mobile robotics. While it is commonly held that engineering problems will be solved when enough effort is applied, control systems, though constantly evolving, cannot adequately address many situations autonomous robots encounter or the complexities of defining and achieving goals. If it were possible, it would be optimal to abstract many of the qualities of the human mind, program them into a compact module, and place them in a mobile robot. Current exploration into a more human-like autonomous system may have a positive impact on autonomous mobile robotics. An experimental artificial intelligence model which is well suited for robotics control is a behaviorbased autonomous system, developed over the past few years (Watson 1991). The goal-oriented system specifically designed for real-time interaction with its environment and can adapt to constantly changing situations. This is achieved by modeling the algorithm after human behavioral qualities. The first implementation of the model, IAM-1, was written to demonstrate some of the qualities of the behavior-based autonomous system theory. IAM-2, the latest version of the application is being designed to have the capability to simulate an autonomous robotics control system.


Results and Problems in Cell Differentiation is an up-to-date book series that presents and explores selected questions of cell and developmental biology. Each volume focuses on a single, well-defined topic. Reviews address basic questions and phenomena, but also provide concise information on the most recent advances. Together, the volumes provide a valuable overview of this exciting and dynamically expanding field. This series is indexed in PubMed.


The King Edward River, in the far north of the Kimberley region of Western Australia drains approximately 10,000 km2 and discharges into the Timor Sea near the town of Kalumburu. This study represents an ichthyological survey of the river's freshwaters and revealed that the number of freshwater fishes of the King Edward River is higher than has previously been recorded for a Western Australian river. Twenty-six strictly freshwater fish species were recorded, which is three species higher than the much larger Fitzroy River in the southern Kimberley. The study also identified a number of range extensions, including Butler's Grunter and Shovel-nosed Catfish to the west, and the Slender Gudgeon to the north and east. A possibly undescribed species of glassfish, that differs morphologically from described species in arrangement of head spines, fin rays, as well as relative body measurements, is reported. A considerable proportion of Jenkins' Grunter, which is widespread throughout the system but essentially restricted to main channel sites, had 'blubber-lips'. There were significant differences in the prevailing fish fauna of the different reaches of the King Edward River system. Thus fish associations in the upper King Edward River main channel were significantly different to those in the tributaries and the main channel of the Carson River. Similarly, the fauna of the Carson River, which was much more diverse than the King Edward River main channel and tributary sites, was characterised by many species that were not found in other parts of the river. The presence of natural barriers, such as waterfalls or rock bars do not permit upstream migrations of fishes and are considered to be the main factor in limiting the distribution of some species. For example, many species are restricted to the lower sections of the Carson River, and include Bony Bream, Lesser Salmon Catfish, Shovel-nosed Catfish, Black Catfish, False-spined Catfish, Freshwater Longtom, Prince Regent Hardyhead, Mouth Almighty, Barred Grunter and Butler's Grunter. It is hypothesised that these natural barriers were in place long before many of these latter species colonised the King Edward River. Some species tend to only be found within tributary sites, e.g. Kimberley Mogurnda, while others are most abundant in tributaries rather than main channel sites, e.g. Western Rainbowfish and Spangled Perch. Waterfalls are also seen as limiting the number of migratory marine/estuarine species that enter freshwaters. For example, only three species that require the marine/estuarine environment to complete their life-cycle were captured in the freshwaters of the King Edward River system. This compares to 14 species that utilise the freshwaters of the Fitzroy River.


We investigate a feedback scheme for automatic polarization control suitable for packet and burst transmission on systems using polarization and time-division-multiplexed traffic. A key feature of the control scheme is to make the packet pattern essentially invisible to the controller enabling the use of standard polarization control modules and control algorithms. The scheme is evaluated experimentally in terms of packet loss ratio (PLR) measurements for different burst lengths and patterns covering the entire range of potential traffic loads. In terms of measured PLR the results show a maximum power penalty of only 0.2 dB compared with continuous light transmission.


The first free elections in South Africa's history were held in 1994. Within a year legislation was drafted to create a Truth and Reconcilliation Commission to establish a picture of the gross human rights violations committed between 1960 and 1993. It was to seek the truth and make it known to the public and to prevent these brutal events ever happening again. From 1996 and over the following two years South Africans were exposed almost daily to revelations about their traumatic past. Antije Krog's full account of the Commission's work using the testimonies of the oppressed and oppressors alike is a harrowing and haunting book in which the voices of ordinary people shape the course of history. WINNER OF SOUTH AFRICA'S SUNDAY TIMES ALAN PATON AWARD


Introduction: Previous studies have confirmed the sidelong effects of Doxorubicin (DOX) on healthy tissues, but pretreatment effect of regular Aerobic exercise in restrain of hepatotoxicity induced by doxorubicin is not clear. The aim of this study was to investigate the pretreatment effect of regular aerobic exercise on hepatic oxidative stress induced with doxorubicin of Wistar rats in different age groups. Methods: In the experimental study, 72 male wistar rats divided into three groups of age (three and 30 months) were again randomly separated into subgroups: control+DOX (20 mg/kg, n=8), and Training+DOX (T+DOX20mg/kg, n=8) Training+ Saline (T+S) groups. The training protocol included treadmill running progressively between 25 to 39 min/day and 15 to 17m/min, 5 days/week for 3 weeks. DOX and saline injection was performed 24 h after the last exercise session, and tissue collection was done 24 h after the injections. Results: The results showed that the DOX-induced did not significant effect on HSP70 of liver tissue of rats in different ages (young, middle-aged and elderly) (P=0.272). DOX-induced had a significant effect on MDA (P=0.002), PC (P=0.002) and GPx (P=0.001) of liver tissue of rats in different ages (young, middle-aged and elderly). Pre-treatment with aerobic exercise had a significant effect on changes of HSP70 (P=0.001), MDA (P=0.001), PC (P=0.001) and GPx (P=0.001) in DOX-induced liver in different ages rats (young, middle-aged and elderly. There was any significant difference between the levels of HSP70 (P=0.741), MDA (P=0.539), PC (P=0.075) and GPx (P=0.071) liver tissue in different ages (young, middle-aged and elderly) with pre-treatment and aerobic exercise. Conclusion: Our study suggests that liver protection induced by chronically exercise in DOX treated rats is associated with inhibition of oxidative stress and increase in the efficiency of antioxidant system.


Anthropogenic climate change is a potentially serious ecological problem. The science of climate change is complex, uncertain and contested. This combined with the scale of its potential terrestrial impacts has ensured that the topic remains the focus of debate amongst scientists, politicians and the wider public. The importance of climate science, and of climate scientists as experts informing the policy process, has contributed to the controversy that surrounds the production of scientific knowledge in this field. Previous studies have claimed that climate science has been unduly influenced both by external vested interests and the inappropriate emphasis placed by some climate scientists themselves on securing continued research funding. Against this background the thesis
explores the funding of climate change research in the UK and USA. In this it pays particular attention to the attitudes and experiences of climate change scientists themselves through a study of their accounts of the process of obtaining research funding.

The thesis begins by reviewing the development of climate change science since the start of the 20th century, with particular attention to its progressive politicisation in recent decades. This introduction to the empirical focus of the thesis is complemented by an exploration of previous theoretical expressions of the relationships between science and scientists, and wider society. A neo-Marxist approach is advanced as a potential theoretical foundation for the thesis. The implications of this approach for research methodology are next outlined.

Interviews with US and UK climate change scientists and associated social commentators provide the basis for a more detailed exploration of their perceptions of relationships in practice between climate change science and wider societal forces. These accounts focus in particular on the availability of research funding and its distribution between researchers adopting different scientific positions on climate change. Government and business are highlighted as important influences upon the scale and distribution of financial support for climate change research - and by extension upon the conduct and content of climate change
science.

The interviews also suggest, however, that climate scientists feel at least some degree of freedom from their paymasters; a perception not exclusively confined to a small elite of leading scientists. Processes of bidding for funding, and research review and dissemination allow scientists to engage in strategic behaviour to secure support for research that addresses their own interests. Furthermore, the continuing debate between scientists about
the reality, causes and scale of anthropogenic climate change of itself helps to maintain funding for research in this field.


The negligence of development impacts in recent decades has imposed serious problems to great projects due to inattention to the environment. To this end, a positive movement towards the assessment of strategic development effects has been triggered in recent years. This study aims to identify and prioritize executable development projects in the area of drinking water dam of Ilam with the priority of assessing environmental impacts. It is an applied study in terms of objective and a descriptive-analytical study in terms of method. The study population consists of two qualitative and quantitative sections. Experts who are familiar with related issues, problems and impacts of dam making projects constitute the first section while the second one covers specialists who are familiar with the drainage basin of dam. The samples of both sections were selected using purposive sampling method. Data was collected by questionnaire (both open-ended and close-ended questionnaires) and was analyzed using SPSS and Liserl. Finally, 9 important factors were identified as the main title of projects namely: 1) plant product projects, 2) livestock product projects, 3) water, soil and industrial projects, 4) veterinary medicine projects, 5) forest, pasture and watershed management projects, 6) promotion and exploitation projects, 7) economic association projects, 8) production cooperatives for providing agricultural engineering services and 9) job opportunities of agriculture sector. In addition, 82 development-titled projects were extracted to be studied in Ilam dam site.


Pulse exports from Myanmar have grown into a $1 billion export industry in the 25 years since liberalization. As the first major agricultural sector to be liberalized in 1988, pulses offered uniquely attractive returns to both smallholder farmers and traders in the early years following government decontrol. By 1991, pulses had surpassed rice to become Myanmar's most valuable agricultural export. This paper examines how private sector traders in Myanmar managed this exceptional feat, despite financial sanctions, acute limitations on all forms of communication and information flows and with the weakest rural infrastructure in South East Asia --- all hangovers from Myanmar's three decades of international isolation and underinvestment in agriculture. Yet critical barriers remain that could eventually undermine Myanmar's global competitiveness. Field interviews with key value chain actors in Myanmar between February and August 2014 form the basis for this market diagnostic.


Controlled Auto Ignition (CAI) uses compression heat to
auto ignite a homogeneous air/fuel mixture in an internal
combustion engine. Using internal exhaust gas recirculation
(IEGR) as an indirect control method, CAI
offers superior fuel economy and pollutant emission
reductions. Practically, this can readily be achieved by a
method of early exhaust valve closure and late inlet valve
opening to trap a large quantity of exhaust gas residuals
within the cylinder from one cycle to the next. However, it
has been found that the IEGR promoted CAI combustion
largely depends on the quantity and quality of the IEGR,
which in turn depends upon the combustion quality of
previous cycle, engine speed, load, etc. At low loads,
where the overall engine temperature is low, although an
extra large amount of IEGR has been used, CAI becomes
difficult to achieve. At high loads, the IEGR is much
hotter. The CAI combustion is so strong that it may
potentially be converted into detonation combustion. It is
difficult to control the CAI combustion quality without
external interferences. Engine coolant controls engine heat
transfer performance. By physically adjusting its
temperature, it was found in this research that IEGR promoted CAI combustion can be significantly extended
by increasing engine coolant temperature.


Questions are traditionally interpreted as a universal strategy in human language that invites the addressee to share his/her knowledge with the speaker. Hence, questions are seen as a basic property of human communication. However, from a cognitive point of view, it may be asked whether questions (together with their constructional representations) reflect a specific state of cognition, conceptualized in terms of interrogativity. Referring to the framework of Radical Experientialism (Cognitive Typology in linguistic terms), I will propose a model of interrogativity that concentrates on the meaning of questions as such. It will be argued that interrogativity is the immediate reflex of a memory mismatch that may occur when processing outer world stimuli. Its most prototypical (and embodied) expression is that of pitch variation, frequently accompanied by secondary mismatch echoes that can be grammaticalized as question morphemes, particles, tags and so on. The communicative value of questions is viewed as a secondary cognitive hypothesis on mismatch mapping strategies in an interindividual setting.


The two volumes IFIP AICT 545 and 546 constitute the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 11th IFIP WG 5.14 International Conference on Computer and Computing Technologies in Agriculture, CCTA 2017, held in Jilin, China, in August 2017. The 100 revised papers included in the two volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from 282 submissions. They cover a wide range of interesting theories and applications of information technology in agriculture. The papers focus on four topics: Internet of Things and big data in agriculture, precision agriculture and agricultural robots, agricultural information services, and animal and plant phenotyping for agriculture.


The directionality of light is defined as the balance between the diffuse and directional components of light within an environment. It is an indicator about the spatial distribution of light flow onto an element or into a space. This paper presents a new luminance based metric that quantifies the directionality of light. The diffuse and directional components of the luminous environment are isolated as a unique feature of simulation-based approach. The rationale and methodology of the directional-to-diffuse ratio is discussed through visual demonstrations and quantified metrics.


Written by a legal scholar for the general reader, this book demystifies the institution of the jury and validates its political power, providing valuable insights for the more than 30 million Americans who receive a jury summons each year.
 Jury Duty: Reclaiming Your Political Power and Taking Responsibility presents an accessible account of the origins and development of the jury system as well as a comprehensive, stage-by-stage description of a jury trial and of the sentencing procedure in a criminal trial. The work also provides a unique estimate of the cost of the jury system, which is particularly relevant in this continuing era of budget constraints.
 Rejecting the justifications usually given for the jury system, the work explains how the political roles of the jury constitute the chief value of the jury system. The basis of these political roles is the unquestionable power of the jury to acquit even a guilty criminal defendant, which allows juries to prevent the enforcement of unjust laws and the imposition of unjust punishments. Accordingly, the book challenges a range of practices that the judiciary has developed to obstruct the jury's exercise of this power. Most people—even including many lawyers—remain unaware of these practices, but they undermine the value of the jury system to our society. Finally, the book offers an original, thought-provoking analysis of the responsibilities imposed on criminal trial jurors in cases of compelling injustice.


We give a new interpretation of the $\nu$-Tamari lattice of Préville-Ratelle and Viennot in terms of a rotation lattice of $\nu$-trees. This uncovers the relation with known combinatorial objects such as north-east fillings, \mbox{tree-like} tableaux and subword complexes. We provide a simple description of the lattice property using certain bracket vectors of $\nu$-trees, and show that the Hasse diagram of the $\nu$-Tamari lattice can be obtained as the facet adjacency graph of certain subword complex. Finally, this point of view generalizes to multi $\nu$-Tamari complexes, and gives (conjectural) insight on their geometric realizability via polytopal subdivisions of multiassociahedra.


Mosquito control interventions are more effective when informed by routine entomologic surveillance. Thus, accurate and rapid species identification remains a critical component of operational mosquito control. Current methods to identify adult mosquitoes rely chiefly on microscopic identification by trained personnel. In some larger mosquito control programs, molecular methods may be used for species or pathogen identification and advanced techniques (e.g., age-grading by ovarian dissection) may be used to further assess the mosquito population structure. Each of these methods are labor intensive and subject to a series of operator or laboratory errors. Therefore, there is a need for rapid and non-destructive species identification techniques that can be used on a scale that is ecologically, economically, and epidemiologically meaningful. Our current research aims to develop methods of biochemical discrimination between different mosquito species using infrared spectroscopy. Infrared spectroscopy is a sensitive, information rich technique that is capable of detecting a wide range of molecular signals ranging from subtle changes in protein secondary structure to transmembrane protein-lipid interactions. The resulting spectral data, when coupled with a numerical analysis (chemometrics) method, such as partial least squares discriminant analysis, may be used to classify mosquitoes by species or physiologic status. Herein, we have applied Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) microspectroscopy to identify four container-inhabiting Aedes species (Ae. aegypti, Ae. albopictus, Ae. japonicus, and Ae. triseriatus) obtained from both field and laboratory conditions. At present, our FT-IR classification success rate using partial least squares discriminant analysis, when compared to identification by a trained entomologist, is 94.5-100%. This method, which is rapid and easy to use, has the potential to decrease the labor costs and time associated with mosquito species identification. Further development coupled with process automation may provide operationally useful methods for rapid identification of many mosquito species and their physiologic status.


Magdalena Koziol, a former postdoc at Yale University, was the victim of scientific sabotage. Now, she is suing the alleged perpetrator, who she claims poisoned her zebrafish, as well as her former boss at Yale, who she says became hostile and unsupportive after the sabotage was discovered, and Yale University. The complex case raises a host of questions about research sabotage, a type of misbehavior that some scientists believe is more common than the few known cases suggest.


Competing hypotheses: (1) Large body size confers more efficient energy use (relative efficiency hypothesis). (2) Large body size requires more energy to be sustained, a disadvantage when food is limited (absolute energy demand hypothesis).
Organism: Yellow dung flies, Scathophaga stercoraria (Diptera: Scathophagidae), artificially selected for large and small body size in the laboratory for 11 (24) generations.
Methods: Flies were reared in limited and unlimited larval food conditions and low and stressfully high temperatures, and after adult emergence they were held on water only to study the relationship between energy content (lipids, glucose, glycogen) and (physiological) adult life span under complete starvation (starvation resistance) in the laboratory.
Conclusions: Limited larval food and high temperature decreased life span. Life span increased markedly with body size due to the greater energy content of larger flies. Small selection line flies had relatively more energy and longer life spans under complete starvation, indicating a compensatory correlated genetic response to body size selection. The larger males suffered most under multiple stresses. Our results support the relative efficiency hypothesis, which more than compensates for the greater absolute energy demand of larger individuals.


In this work we describe our approach to efficiently create, handle and organize large-scale Structure-from-Motion reconstructions of urban environments. For acquiring vast amounts of data, we use a Point Grey Ladybug 3 omni directional camera and a custom backpack system with a differential GPS sensor. Sparse point cloud reconstructions are generated and aligned with respect to the world in an offline process. Finally, all the data is stored in a geospatial database. We incorporate additional data from multiple crowd-sourced databases, such as maps from OpenStreetMap or images from Flickr or Instagram. We discuss how our system could be used in potential application scenarios from the area of Augmented Reality.


From the South's pageant queens to the importance of beauty parlors to African American communities, it is easy to see the ways beauty is enmeshed in southern culture. But as Blain Roberts shows in this incisive work, the pursuit of beauty in the South was linked to the tumultuous racial divides of the region, where the Jim Crow-era cosmetics industry came of age selling the idea of makeup that emphasized whiteness, and where, in the 1950s and 1960s, black-owned beauty shops served as crucial sites of resistance for civil rights activists. In these times of strained relations in the South, beauty became a signifier of power and affluence while it reinforced racial strife. Roberts examines a range of beauty products, practices, and rituals--cosmetics, hairdressing, clothing, and beauty contests--in settings that range from tobacco farms of the Great Depression to 1950s and 1960s college campuses. In so doing, she uncovers the role of female beauty in the economic and cultural modernization of the South. By showing how battles over beauty came to a head during the civil rights movement, Roberts sheds new light on the tactics southerners used to resist and achieve desegregation.


Risks, Identities and the Everyday focuses on the individual and the lived experience of everyday risks – a departure from the focus on risk from a macro level. The contributors look at risk and how perceptions of risk, risk taking, and risk assessment increasingly dominate our everyday lives and explore it in a variety of settings not previously associated with risk theory, including: plastic surgery, teenage sub-cultures, ageing and independent travel.

The volume moves risk away from abstract theorising about what people may or may not fear about risks, to focus on how it actually materialises and operates in everyday 'real' social interactions and contexts. It also interrogates the rational self at the heart of macro social theories by thinking through the construction of risk choices and the socio-cultural dynamics that 'present' some risks as acceptable, appropriate and necessary.


One of the main research questions of *systematic musicology* is concerned with how people make sense of their musical environment. It is concerned with signification and meaning-formation and relates musical structures to effects of music. These fundamental aspects can be approached from many different directions. One could take a cultural perspective where music is considered a phenomenon of human expression, firmly embedded in tradition. Another approach would be a cognitive perspective, where music is considered as an acoustical signal of which perception involves categorizations linked to representations and learning. A performance perspective where music is the outcome of human interaction is also an equally valid view. To understand a phenomenon combining multiple perspectives often makes sense. The methods employed within each of these approaches turn questions into
concrete musicological research projects. It is safe to say that today many of these methods draw upon digital data and tools. Some of those general methods are feature extraction from audio and movement signals, machine learning, classification and statistics. However, the problem is that, very often, the *empirical and computational methods require technical solutions* beyond the skills of researchers that typically have a humanities background. At that point, these researchers need access to specialized technical knowledge to advance their research. My PhD-work should be seen within the context of that tradition. In many respects I adopt a problem-solving attitude to problems that are posed by research in systematic musicology. This work *explores solutions that are relevant for systematic musicology*. It does this by engineering solutions for measurement problems in empirical research and developing research software which facilitates computational research. These solutions are placed in an
engineering-humanities plane. The first axis of the plane contrasts *services* with *methods*. Methods *in* systematic musicology propose ways to generate new insights in music related phenomena or contribute to how research can be done. Services *for* systematic musicology, on the other hand, support or automate research tasks which allow to change the scope of research. A shift in scope allows researchers to cope with larger data sets which offers a broader view on the phenomenon. The
second axis indicates how important Music Information Retrieval (MIR) techniques are in a solution. MIR-techniques are contrasted with various techniques to support empirical research. My research resulted in a total of thirteen solutions which are placed in this plane. The description of seven of these are bundled in this dissertation. Three fall into the methods category and four in the services category. For example Tarsos presents a method to compare performance practice with theoretical scales on a large scale. SyncSink is an example of a service.


Linguistic analyses of Mandarin Chinese and English have detailed the differences between the two languages in terms of the devices each makes available for expressing distinctions in the temporal contouring of events — verb aspect and Aktionsart. In this study, adult native speakers of each language were shown a cartoon, a movie, or a series of short action sequences and then videotaped talking about what they had seen. Comparisons revealed systematic within-language covariation of choice of aspect and/or Aktionsart in speech with features of co-occurring iconic gestures. In both languages, the gestures that speakers produced in imperfective aspect-marked speech contexts were more likely to take longer to produce and were more complex than those in perfective aspect speech contexts. Further, imperfective-progressive aspect-marked spoken utterances regularly accompanied iconic gestures in which the speaker's hands engaged in some kind of temporally-extended, repeating or'agitated' movements. Gestures sometimes incorporated this type of motion even when there was nothing corresponding to it in the visual stimulus; for example, when speakers described events of stasis. These facts suggest that such gestural agitation may derive from an abstract level of representation, perhaps linked to aspectual view itself. No significant between-language differences in aspect- or Aktionsart-related gesturing were observed. We conclude that gestural representations of witnessed events, when performed in conjunction with speech, are not simply derived from visual images, stored as perceived in the stimulus, and transposed as faithfully as possible to the hands and body of the speaker (cf. Hadar & Butterworth, 1997). Rather, such gestures are part of a linguistic-conceptual representation (McNeill & Duncan, 2000) in which verb aspect has a role. We further conclude that the noted differences between the systems for marking aspectual distinctions in spoken Mandarin and English are at a level of patterning that has little or no influence on speech-co-occurring imagistic thinking.


This paper assembles detailed information on the market access provisions in trade in goods contained in 192 active regional trade agreements (RTAs) notified to the WTO as of November 2010. Although market access provisions in trade in goods in RTAs have been addressed in a number of studies, much of this work has been limited to subsets of RTAs, particularly plurilateral RTAs involving three or more parties. The goal of the current study is to expand beyond the more commonly studied RTAs and to include all RTAs notified to the WTO for which data are available. This task has been facilitated by the recent Transparency Mechanism for RTAs (TM), adopted in 2006, that provides the basis for the systematic provision of detailed tariff and trade data by WTO Members engaged in RTAs. This information has been supplemented by other public sources of data, where available. A number of trends are evident. While a majority of RTAs result in a reasonably high degree of liberalization overall (with developing countries often liberalizing as much or more than developed countries), liberalization is not uniform across products or RTA parties. In some RTAs the degree of liberalization appears to be a negotiated outcome, depending on the RTA partner. Agricultural goods continue to be subject to lower levels of liberalization, frequent product exclusions and systematic protection in some RTAs, regardless of the RTA partner's comparative advantage. Nonetheless, a lower level of ambition in some RTAs is tempered by a commitment to negotiate further concessions or expand upon the RTA's scope at some future point: more than half the RTAs analysed contain such a commitment. Much has been written about the potential for the multilateralization of commitments undertaken in RTAs. While there may be scope for positive externalities in terms of regulatory convergence particularly with regard to services liberalization undertaken in RTAs, there is less evidence in this study to suggest that increased market access in merchandise goods leads to a more favourable trading environment for third parties. Continuing constructive engagement by WTO Members in the Transparency Mechanism through the provision of data, timely notifications, and submission of implementation reports will increase the availability of tariff and trade liberalization data, thus facilitating further examination of the topics highlighted in the study as worthy of future research.


Accident investigation and risk assessment have for decades focused on the human factor, particularly 'human error'. Countless books and papers have been written about how to identify, classify, eliminate, prevent and compensate for it. This bias towards the study of performance failures, leads to a neglect of normal or 'error-free' performance and the assumption that as failures and successes have different origins there is little to be gained from studying them together. Erik Hollnagel believes this assumption is false and that safety cannot be attained only by eliminating risks and failures. The ETTO Principle looks at the common trait of people at work to adjust what they do to match the conditions – to what has happened, to what happens, and to what may happen. It proposes that this efficiency-thoroughness trade-off (ETTO) – usually sacrificing thoroughness for efficiency – is normal. While in some cases the adjustments may lead to adverse outcomes, these are due to the very same processes that produce successes, rather than to errors and malfunctions. The ETTO Principle removes the need for specialised theories and models of failure and 'human error' and offers a viable basis for effective and just approaches to both reactive and proactive safety management.


Social media is ubiquitous. From Facebook and Twitter to YouTube, the blogosphere, and Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games, people have plugged into numerous online venues for social, intellectual, and leisure activities. The pervasiveness of social media calls for ethical reflection, and one of the most pertinent values at stake is that of truth. Current figures estimate there are more than 1 billion social media users worldwide with the ability to connect with people who share similar interests, to present themselves as experts on anything and everything no matter their qualifications, and to contribute the types of factual information formerly limited to professional communication outlets such as news agencies. Its this wide-ranging definition of truth that demands evaluation of the myriad ways social media affect society. This volume does just that by collecting insights from leading experts in the communication and philosophy disciplines as they examine a variety of issues related to the value of truth in the realm of social media.


Introduction: Esophageal cancer is one of the most common cancers in Iran and has a high mortality rate. The aim of this study was to assess the association between folate and vitamin B12 intake and risk of squamous-cell carcinoma of the esophagus cancer. Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, cases (n=47) were patients diagnosed with squamous-cell carcinoma of the esophagus (SCCE) in main hospital Kurdistan and controls (matched with cases by age and sex) were patients with acute non-cancer diseases at the same hospitals (n=96). Demographic data and physical activity were collected using questionnaires. A semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire used for nutritional information and folate and vitamin B12 intake were calculated with Nutritionst IV (N4). Results: Thirty eight percent of cases and 40% of controls were males. Mean age of cases and controls were 58±18 and 58±17 years respectively. Mean folate intake among cases was 152.1 μg/day, which was less than in the controls. After adjustment for confounders, folate intake was inversely related with SCCE (OR=0.03, 95% CI 0.00, 0.12). The association between vitamin B12 intake and SCCE was not significant (p=0.46). Conclusion: Folate intake was inversely related with SCCE: however, there was not a significant association between vitamin B12 intake and SCCE.


Aims. The ESO SN Ia Progenitor Survey (SPY) aims at finding merging double degenerate binaries as candidates for supernova type Ia (SN Ia) explosions. A white dwarf merger has also been suggested to explain the formation of rare types of stars like R CrB, extreme helium or He sdO stars. Here we present the hot subdwarf B binary GD687, which will merge in less than a Hubble time. Methods. The orbital parameters of the close binary have been determined from time resolved spectroscopy. Since GD687 is a singlelined binary, the spectra contain only information about the subdwarf primary and its orbit. From high resolution spectra the projected rotational velocity was derived. Assuming orbital synchronisation, the inclination of the system and the mass of the unseen companion were constrained. Results. The derived inclination is i = 39.3 +6.2 −5.6 ◦ .T he massM 2 = 0.71 +0.22


Written by Warren Ellis Art by Darick Robertson, Jerome K. Moore, Keith Aiken, Ray Kryssing, Dick Giordano, Kim DeMulder and Rodney Ramos Cover by Darick Robertson DC's new editions of TRANSMETROPOLITAN begin here, with this volume collecting issues #1-6 of the acclaimed Vertigo series from writer Warren Ellis and artist Darick Robertson! After years of selfimposed exile from a civilization rife with degradation and indecency, cynical journalist Spider Jerusalem is forced to return to a job he hates and a city he loathes. Working as an investigative reporter for the newspaper The Word, Spider attacks the injustices of his surreal 23rd century surroundings. In this first volume, Spider ventures into the dangerous Angels 8 district, home of the Transients - humans who have decided to become aliens through cosmetic surgery. But Spider's interview with the Transients' leader gets him a scoop he didn't bargain for. And don't miss Spider's first confrontation with the President of the United States ...in a men's room. Advance-solicited; on sale March 11 - 144 pg, FC, $14.99 US - MATURE READERS


The limited but expanding literature on the history of scientific research and the conquest of livestock and crop diseases in South Africa has hitherto been characterised by a pronounced emphasis on developments in the Cape. Notable exceptions have been some studies focusing on aspects of agricultural activity in the Transvaal, including veterinary training and research undertaken at Onderstepoort. Relatively little attention has been given to what is today the KwaZulu-Natal region, apart from a longstanding interest in the fortunes of the sugar industry, the expansion of wattle production and the conservation of indigenous game. The establishment of faculties of agriculture was an important further step towards the institutionalisation and sophistication of scientific research in that sector of the national economy. The first three of South Africa's university faculties of agriculture experienced long gestation periods. The oldest, at Stellenbosch, had its origins in the Agriculture Department which started in 1887 with five students at the Victoria College. It was removed in 1898 to Elsenburg and formally established in 1918 as a full faculty at the new University of Stellenbosch. The second, in Pretoria, began with the agricultural science courses taught from 1907/08 at the Frankenwald estate north of Johannesburg as part of the Transvaal University College. It began to take shape from 1916 at what, in 1930, formally became the University of Pretoria. The third agricultural faculty, established in 1949 in Pietermaritzburg, was the outcome of a prolonged campaign on the part of educational and other public figures in the Natal-Zululand region.


The aim of this study was to investigate in vitro transdermal delivery of the antiviral drug, acyclovir and the antifungal drug, ketoconazole, with the aid of the novel PheroidTM drug delivery system. Since its appearance in the early 1980's, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection has had a major impact on the field of dermatology. The skin is amongst the organs where HIV disease and immunosuppression usually manifest, and diseases that were once rare have become more common. HIV is associated with a variety of infectious diseases, some of which are of viral and fungal origin. Acyclovir, an antiviral drug is active against numerous viruses of the herpes viridae family including herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), varicella zoster virus, and to a lesser extent against EpsteinBarr virus and cytomegalovirus. Ketoconazole, an antifungal drug, is effective against the majority of pathogenic fungi, including dermatophytes and yeasts and has in vitro activity against a number of gram-positive bacteria. When combined with acyclovir, ketoconazole also displays antiviral activity against HSV-1 and HSV-2 and synergistic antiviral activity. It would be appropriate to design a single topical dosage form containing both an antiviral and antifungal drug, which could be used in the treatment of the cutaneous manifestations commonly seen in HIV and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). The application of transdermal delivery to a wide variety of drugs is however limited due to the significant barrier to penetration across the skin that is associated mainly with the outermost stratum corneum (SC) layer of the epidermis. The systemic absorption of acyclovir and ketoconazole after topical administration is minimal. Acyclovir therapy has insufficient effectiveness due to the failure of the drug to traverse the SC, lack of its reach at the target site; the basal epidermis and diverse distribution of the drug in the skin layers. In contrast to acyclovir, the target site for ketoconazole is the SC. In order to inhibit the growth of fungal pathogens, sufficient concentrations of the drug should be delivered to this layer. A large variety of additives have been tested to enhance transdermal penetration. Usually, penetration enhancers promote drug diffusion by disturbing the structure of the SC and/or deeper layers of the skin. Improved antiviral results have been achieved for acyclovir by using dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), modified aqueous cream (MAC) and the addition of oleic acid and oleyl alcohol in 5% concentrations to propylene glycol bases. Transdermal penetration of ketoconazole has also been enhanced by 10% lauramide-diethanolamine. PheroidTM technology can enhance the absorption and/or efficacy of a selection of active ingredients and other compounds. PheroidsTM contain ethyl esters of the essential fatty acids, linoleic acid and linolenic acid, as well as oleic acid. Penetration enhancement of acyclovir has been achieved by addition of oleic acid to drug formulations, therefore it was hypothesized that it could be possible to achieve at least the same results by using PheroidsTM. Vertical Franz cell diffusion studies were conducted over 12 hours, using female abdominal skin. As donor phase, 5% acyclovir and 2% ketoconazole in phosphate buffered solution was compared with 5% acyclovir and 2% ketoconazole in PheroidsTM. In vitro penetration of acyclovir and ketoconazole was directly assayed by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). The PheroidsTM proved to be advantageous for transdermal diffusion of acyclovir but not for ketoconazole when used as delivery system.


We introduce one instance of a game-based assessment designed to measure students' self-regulated learning choices. We describe our overarching measurement strategy and we present Posterlet, an assessment game in which students design posters and learn graphic design principles from feedback. We designed Posterlet to assess children's choices to seek informative negative feedback and to revise their work. Middle-school students from New York and Illinois played Posterlet and then took a post-test, for an overall average of 17 minutes of interaction time. Results showed that the frequency of choosing negative feedback and revision correlated with learning graphic design principles from the game. Seeking negative feedback, but less so revision, further correlated with standardized achievement tests of reading and mathematics. Our research presents a first-of-kind behavioural measure of students' feedback and revision choices and their relations to learning. Within the design context of creating posters, we found correlational evidence that seeking negative feedback and revising are good behaviours for self-regulated learning, and we devised a way to measure these behaviours. This sets the stage for developing and evaluating models of self-regulated learning instruction that help students choose to seek feedback effectively and revise accordingly.


Children's descriptions of clothing placement and touching with respect to clothing are central to assessing child sexual abuse allegations. This study examined children's ability to answer the types of questions attorneys and interviewers typically ask about clothing, using the most common spatial terms (on/off, outside/inside, over/under). Ninety-seven 3- to 6-year-olds were asked yes/no (e.g., "Is the shirt on?"), forced-choice (e.g., "Is the shirt on or off?"), open-choice (e.g., "Is the shirt on or off or something else?"), or where questions (e.g., "Where is the shirt?") about clothing using a human figurine, clothing, and stickers. Across question types, children generally did well with simple clothing or sticker placement (e.g., pants completely on), except for yes/no questions about "over," suggesting children had an underinclusive understanding of the word. When clothing or sticker placement was intermediate (e.g., pants around ankles, and therefore neither completely on nor off), children performed poorly except when asked where questions. A similar task using only stickers and boxes, analogous to forensic interviewers' assessments of children's understanding, was only weakly predictive of children's ability to describe clothing. The results suggest that common methods of questioning young children about clothing may lead to substantial misinterpretation.


Abstract. As part of the Mediterranean Intensive Oxidant Study (MINOS) performed during August 2001 in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, intensive measurements of chemical and radiative properties of atmospheric aerosols were performed at two remote sites on Crete Island, located in the marine boundary layer (MBL), and in the lower free troposphere (FT), respectively. Gravimetric particulate mass, as well as chemically-derived masses of water soluble ions, organic and elemental carbon, and tracer elements for dust aerosols were measured for fine ( 1.2 µm) particles at the two sampling sites. Although strongly bound water, mainly associated with inorganic species, could have slightly altered our results (10% of the reconstructed mass), chemical mass closure was achieved most of the time for the fine and coarse size fractions and at both sites. Our conversion factor of 2.1 for organic carbon (OC) to particulate organic matter (POM) is at the upper end of those reported in the literature, but fits with the aged smoke particles collected during the campaign. The results indicate that this conversion factor changed during the campaign along with the BC/TC ratio. The particulate mass (PM) concentration for fine aerosols at the MBL and FT sites averaged 17.4±4.7 µg/m3 and 11.2±3.2 µg/m3, respectively, and is among the highest reported in the literature for remote sites; more than 90% of this PM was composed equally of ammonium sulfate and carbonaceous aerosols. Comparison between the MBL and FT sites showed a slight vertical gradient for PM that was not observed for dust aerosols, which averaged 10.5±4.8 and 11.7±5.0 µg/m3 for the MBL and FT sites, respectively. The results were used to reconstruct the ambient light scattering coefficient (σsp) that was measured at ambient Relative Humidity (RH) for fine particles at the MBL site. Reconstruction of σsp was achieved using ratios of wet to dry scattering, f(RH), that depend on RH for ammonium sulfate, but are kept equal to 1 for POM. This results in a low water adsorption for our organic-rich carbonaceous aerosols, although these aged biomass smoke aerosols are supposed to be highly oxidized. Mass scattering efficiencies of the main aerosol components were obtained by multivariate regression analysis, and were 2.66 and 4.19 m2/g (at the 95% confidence level) for dry ammonium sulfate and POM, respectively. The calculations indicate that one third of the reconstructed σsp was due to water uptake by ammonium sulfate aerosols, demonstrating their major role in the radiative aerosol properties in the eastern Mediterranean.


AIMS
Ticagrelor, a direct-acting P2Y12-receptor antagonist, is rapidly absorbed and partly metabolized to the major metabolite AR-C124910XX (ARC). To identify single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with pharmacokinetics of ticagrelor and clinical outcomes, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in patients treated with ticagrelor in the PLATO trial.

METHODS AND RESULTS
A two-stage design was used for the GWAS with discovery (discovery phase: n = 1812) and replication cohorts (replication phase: n = 1941). The steady-state area under the curve (AUCss) values, estimated by the population pharmacokinetic (PK) models, were log transformed and analysed on a genome-wide scale using linear regression. SNPs were analysed against clinical events using Cox-regression in 4990 patients. An SNP (rs113681054) in SLCO1B1 was associated with levels of ticagrelor (P = 1.1 × 10(-6)) and ARC (P = 4.6 × 10(-13)). This SNP is in linkage disequilibrium with a functional variant (rs4149056) that results in decreased OATP1B1 transporter activity. Ticagrelor levels were also associated with two independent SNPs (rs62471956, P = 7.7 × 10(-15) and rs56324128, P = 9.7 × 10(-12)) in the CYP3A4 region. Further, ARC levels were associated with rs61361928 (P = 3.0 × 10(-14)) in UGT2B7. At all loci, the effects were small. None of the identified SNPs that affected ticagrelor PK were associated with the primary composite outcome (cardiovascular death myocardial infarction, and stroke), non-CABG-related bleeds or investigator-reported dyspnoea.

CONCLUSION
In patients with ACS, ticagrelor pharmacokinetics is influenced by three genetic loci (SLCO1B1, UGT2B7, and CYP3A4). However, the modest genetic effects on ticagrelor plasma levels did not translate into any detectable effect on efficacy or safety during ticagrelor treatment.

CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION
NCT00391872.


What is the extent and nature of religious prosociality? If religious prosociality exists, is it parochial and extended selectively to coreligionists or is it generalized regardless of the recipient? Further, is it driven by preferences to help others or by expectations of reciprocity? We examined how much of a US$0.30 bonus Mechanical Turk workers would share with the other player whose religion was prominently displayed during two online resource allocation games. In one game (but not the other), the recipient could choose to reciprocate. Results from both games showed that the more central religion was in participants' lives, the more of the bonus they shared, regardless of whether they were giving to atheists or Christians. Furthermore, this effect was most clearly related to self-reported frequency of "thinking about religious ideas" rather than belief in God or religious practice/experience. Our findings provide evidence of generalized religious prosociality and illuminate its basis.


There has been a notable shift in the scope of negligence liability of public authorities in the Post War period. Notably there was a trend toward restriction of liability in the 1980s. This essay tries to explain why this happened not by focusing on changing legal formulas but by examining the political context of the law in this area. I begin the essay by demonstrating how changes in the attitudes toward the role of the state in Post-War Britain have led to the changes in the law in this area. I then go on to examine the impact of Thatcher's ascent to power. Some commentators have suggested that the restriction in liability that took place during the years of her premiership was the result of the impact of Thatcherite ideology on the courts. I consider why such an ideology might be used to justify restriction of liability on public authorities, but argue that such arguments are quite different from those actually found in court decisions from that period. Though founded on ideas that can be called broadly 'conservative', they do not reflect the distrust of state institutions typical in New Right writings, but are rather based on great respect for them, a view that reflects a different strand of conservatism. I demonstrate this attitude from the cases and offer some explanations for its possible adoption by the courts.


Since research findings for the United States suggest the tantalizing possibility that living arrangements effect a child's likelihood of school enrollment through differences in such factors as expectations, this study begins to examine whether the same might also be the case in part of Latin America. Considering seven different types of living arrangements, it performs a broad statistical sweep regarding children 13-16 years of age in 10 countries. Half the countries were found to have a modest relationship between living arrangements and school attendance. In general, living in households headed by formally married parents (both simple and complex) enhances a child's likelihood of attending school, but one is left to question Latin American definitions of marital status.


Microbial organisms are responsible for most of the metabolic innovations on Earth. Understanding microbial metabolism helps shed the light on questions that are central to biology, biomedicine, energy and the environment. Graph-based modeling is a powerful tool that has been used extensively for elucidating the organising principles of microbial metabolism and the underlying evolutionary forces that act upon it. Nevertheless, various graph-theoretic representations and techniques have been applied to metabolic networks, rendering the modeling aspect ad hoc and highlighting the conflicting conclusions based on the different representations.

The contribution of this dissertation is two-fold. In the first half, I revisit the modeling aspect of metabolic networks, and present novel techniques for their representation and analysis. In particular, I explore the limitations of standard graphs representations, and the utility of the more appropriate model – hypergraphs – for capturing metabolic network properties. Further, I address the task of metabolic pathway inference and the necessity to account for chemical symmetries and alternative tracings in this crucial task.

In the second part of the dissertation, I focus on two evolutionary questions. First, I investigate the evolutionary underpinnings of the formation of communities in metabolic networks – a phenomenon that has been reported in the literature and implicated in an organism's adaptation to its environment. I find that the metabolome size better explains the observed community structures. Second, I correlate evolution at the genome level with emergent properties at the metabolic network level. In particular, I quantify the various evolutionary events (e.g., gene duplication, loss, transfer, fusion, and fission) in a group of proteobacteria, and analyze their role in shaping the metabolic networks and determining the organismal fitness.

As metabolism gains an increasingly prominent role in biomedical, energy, and environmental research, understanding how to model this process and how it came about during evolution become more crucial. My dissertation provides important insights in both directions.


The National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the Federal Government's National Institutes of Health (NIH), investigates ways to support healthy aging and prevent or delay the onset of age-related disease and decline. We have already gained important insights, and what we learn from ongoing and future studies may not only help to increase longevity, but may also promote what is known as "active life expectancy"—the time in late life free of disability. We already know, for example, that healthy eating and exercise and physical activity help promote healthy aging. Are there other interventions that can help? NIA-supported and other studies are taking a look at the possible benefits and risks of a number of approaches, including antioxidants, calorie restriction, and hormone supplements. This tip sheet provides an overview of what we know about these interventions and the research needed to learn more. Until we have a better understanding, it is a good idea to be skeptical of claims that any supplements can solve your age-related problems.


In this paper, we assess the extent to which redistributive trends within Social Security are affected when the Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) program is converted to an OASDI program through the addition of Disability Insurance (DI). Our analysis covers four cohorts spanning 1931-1964, using a preliminary version of the jointly developed Modeling Income in the Near Term (MINT) model, version 3. We present detailed measures of redistribution - before and after accounting for Disability Insurance - based on beneficiaries' own, received, and shared benefits and broken out by gender, race, educational attainment, and lifetime earnings quintile. We then use these measures to comment on the amount of redistribution and progressivity the DI program introduces into the system and the extent to which various groups do or do not benefit.


The hydrogenation (using Raney nickel catalyst at 110 and 170° C) of the conjugated triene system present in methyl elaeostearate (octadeea-9, 11, 13-trienoate) has been compared with that of the pentadiene systems —CH: CH. CH2. CH: CH— present in methyl linolenate and methyl linoleate. The course of the hydrogenation action in methyl elaeostearate itself has been followed spectrophotometrically, and it has been established that, for the most part, the primary action is the simultaneous addition of two molecules of hydrogen to one molecule of elaeostearate and formation of very large proportions of octadeca-11-enoic esters. Production of stearate does not occur to any marked extent until over 80 % of elaeostearate has been converted to mono-ethenoid ester. The selectivity of the hydrogenation process has been studied in the cases of equimolecular binary mixtures of methyl elaeostearate with, respectively, methyl'oleate, linoleate or linolenate. In a mixture of methyl elaeostearate and oleate, hydrogenation of the latter does not set in until nearly all the elaeostearate has been converted to octadecenoate. With a mixture of methyl elaeostearate and linoleate, the diene ester remains almost unattacked until 50% or more of the conjugated triene ester present has been converted into monoethenoid ester, after which it also commences to be transformed into mono-ethenoid esters. In a mixture of methyl elaeostearate and linoleaate, both esters undergo hydrogenation from the outset, but conjugated triene ester disappears about twice as rapidly as the non-conjugated isomer. The activity to hydrogen of the double pentadiene system —CH:CH.CH2.CH:CH.CH2.CH:CH— is thus comparable with that of the conjugated triene group in the elaeostearate molecule. The hydrogenation of methyl linoleate in presence of Raney nickel either at 110 or 170° C is extremely selective, no methyl stearate being produced until over 90 % of the linoleate has been transformed into octadecenoates.


Synthetic routes to 3-substituted imidazo[5,1-d]-1,2,3,5-tetrazines structurally related to temozolomide were explored. Interaction of 4-diazoimidazole-5-carboxamide with an isocyanate afforded high product yields when the isocyanate was available in acceptable purity. Alternatively, alkylation of the nor-temozolomide anion afforded high yields of new imidazotetrazines. Several compounds, evaluated against a panel containing matched MGMT± glioma cell lines, showed equal inhibitory activity irrespective of MGMT status; the N3-propargyl-imidazotetrazine (10m) was prioritised as an alternative to temozolomide able to bypass drug-resistance mechanisms. In Taq polymerase assays 10m, like temozolomide and its ring-opened counterpart MTIC, alkylated DNA at clusters of three and five guanine residues; covalent modification of N-7 sites of guanine were detected in piperidine cleavage assays. Compound 10m did not cross-link DNA but induced double-strand breaks evidenced by γ-H2AX detection. Propargyl-substituted imidazotriazene (13g), showed comparable activity to 10m indicating that ring-opening of the bicyclic nucleus of novel imidazotetrazine is probably required for activity.


Defective insulin secretion from the pancreatic B-cells is a central feature in type 2 diabetes (T2D). There is a strong hereditary component in type T2D, but the underlying pathophysiology remains largely unknown. This thesis uses a combination of gene network analysis and cell-physiological techniques to explore the genetic and cellular basis for impaired insulin secretion in T2D.
We found that genetic variants for type 2 diabetes near TCF7L2 and ADRA2A were associated with reduced glucose-induced insulin secretion. Moreover, susceptibility variants near ADRA2A, KCNJ11, KCNQ1, and TCF7L2 were associated with reduced depolarization-evoked insulin exocytosis. We combined our results to create a novel genetic risk score for B-cell dysfunction that includes aberrant granule docking, decreased Ca2+ sensitivity of exocytosis, and reduced insulin release. Individuals with a high risk score displayed an impaired response to intravenous glucose and deteriorating insulin secretion over time.
To obtain a more global view of the pathophysiology of T2D we next analyzed gene expression from microarray data of human pancreatic islets. A group of coexpressed genes (module), enriched for interleukin-1-related genes, was associated with T2D and reduced insulin secretion. One of the module genes that was highly overexpressed in islets from T2D patients is SFRP4, which encodes secreted frizzled-related protein 4. SFRP4 expression correlated with inflammatory markers, and its release from islets was stimulated by interleukin-1B. Elevated systemic SFRP4 caused reduced glucose tolerance through decreased islet expression of Ca2+ channels and suppressed insulin exocytosis. SFRP4 thus provides the first molecular link between islet inflammation and impaired insulin secretion. Moreover, the protein was increased in serum from diabetic patients several years before the diagnosis, suggesting that SFRP4 could be a potential biomarker for islet dysfunction in T2D.
We have also identified a gene co-expression module in human pancreatic islets that is enriched for genes with islet-specific open chromatin. In individuals with T2D this module displays an expression pattern that is reminiscent of a B-cell dedifferentiation profile. We have studied key transcription factors that may regulate this module.
Taken together, the findings shed new light on the pathophysiology of T2D and show the potential of combining genetics, bioinformatics and cell-physiology to better understand complex polygenic diseases.


There have been numerous studies which evaluate the impact of NAFTA on employment, immigration, the environment and other areas of concern. However, one key area has received little attention: the linkage between the potential effect of growth and change in the Mexican labor force and the presence of a North American Free Trade Zone. The linkage is in both directions. The success or failure of NAFTA will be fundamentally affected by the size, age, education and job skills of the Mexican labor force. Moreover, the Mexican labor force will be affected by NAFTA. In particular, the number, type and location of job opportunities over the next several decades will be determined, at least partially, by the success or failure of NAFTA. This article contains an analysis of projections of the Mexican labor force in relation to the recently enacted NAFTA agreement. We begin with a discussion of the NAFTA agreement, concentrating on its labor force implications in Mexico and the U.S. During this discussion, we pay particular attention to the implications of our analysis on the border region. We then present the projections of the Mexican labor force, looking at alternative assumptions for fertility, international migration and economic activity rates. While our primary focus is on the Mexican labor force, projections of the U.S. labor force need to be considered also. Finally, the policy implications of the projected labor force changes under alternative NAFTA scenarios will be considered.


Recommender systems predict users' preferences over a large number of items by pooling similar information from other users and/or items in the presence of sparse observations. One major challenge is how to utilize user-item specific covariates and networks describing user-item interactions in a high-dimensional situation, for accurate personalized prediction. In this article, we propose a smooth neighborhood recommender in the framework of the latent factor models. A similarity kernel is utilized to borrow neighborhood information from continuous covariates over a user-item specific network, such as a user's social network, where the grouping information defined by discrete covariates is also integrated through the network. Consequently, user-item specific information is built into the recommender to battle the 'cold-start" issue in the absence of observations in collaborative and contentbased filtering. Moreover, we utilize a "divide-and-conquer" version of the alternating least squares algorithm to achieve scalable computation, and establish asymptotic results for the proposed method, demonstrating that it achieves superior prediction accuracy. Finally, we illustrate that the proposed method improves substantially over its competitors in simulated examples and real benchmark data–Last.fm music data.


The range-Doppler algorithm and the chirp-scaling algorithm (CSA) process synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data with approximations to ideal SAR processing. These approximations are invalid for data from systems with wide beamwidths, large bandwidths, and/or low center frequencies. While simple and efficient, these frequency-domain methods are thus limited by the SAR parameters. This paper explores these limits and proposes a generalized chirp-scaling approach for extending the utility of frequency-domain processing. We demonstrate how different order approximations of the SAR signal in the 2-D frequency domain affect image focusing for varying SAR parameters. From these results, a guideline is set forth, which suggests the required order of approximation terms for proper focusing. A proposed generalized frequency-domain processing approach is derived. This method is an efficient arbitrary-order CSA that processes the data using the appropriate number of approximation terms. The new method is demonstrated using simulated data.


Drawdowns on credit commitments by firms reduce a bank's regulatory capital ratio. Using the Austrian Credit Register, we provide novel evidence that during the 2008-09 financial crisis, capital-constrained banks managed this concern by substantially cutting partly or fully unused credit commitments. Controlling for a bank's capital position, we also find that greater liquidity problems induced banks to considerably cut such credit commitments during the crisis. These results suggest that banks actively manage both capital and liquidity risk caused by undrawn credit commitments in periods of financial distress, but thereby reduce liquidity provision to firms exactly when they need it most.


We reanalyzed the 13 April 1949 Olympia, Washington, earthquake by using digitized records and first-motion polarities from long-period seismograms. The moment-tensor mechanism is normal faulting with a down-dip-trending T axis similar in style to other Cascadia intraslab earthquakes. The total seismic moment is 1.3 × 1026 dyne cm ( M w 6.7) and the hypocenter depth is 60 km. Additional inverse modeling for the kinematic rupture process assuming the steeply east-dipping fault plane from the moment tensor resulted in a slightly higher total moment of 1.9 × 1026 dyne cm ( M w 6.8). The earthquake ruptured to the south with at least two subevents.

The combined area of asperities and seismic moment for the 1949 earthquake was compiled with those from the 1965 Seattle-Tacoma and the 2001 Nisqually earthquakes and with those from Japan and Mexico to develop a source-scaling relation separate from shallow global strike-slip earthquakes. We infer that deeper intraslab earthquakes have a significantly smaller combined area of asperities than those compiled for shallower strike-slip earthquakes with the same seismic moment. This difference in rupture area leads to a 3- to 5-fold increase in stress drop for earthquakes with seismic moments between 1024 and 1028 dyne cm.


We have synthesized a new family of metal-organic-frameworks (MOFs) based on a 9,10-anthracenedicarboxylate linker. We report the formation of lanthanide-based MOFs using soft solvothermal routes with dimethylformamide as a solvent. These materials display intense photoluminescence properties in the solid state at room temperature. What is more interesting is, some of them exhibit slow relaxation of magnetization with activation barriers of 22.9, 15.4, 52.7, 13.0 and 16.2 K for Nd(3+), Gd(3+), Dy(3+), Er(3+) and Yb(3+), respectively. To the best of our knowledge, Nd(3+) and Yb(3+) materials are the first examples of 3D- and 2D-MOFs, respectively, that show slow relaxation of magnetization.


Background: In vivo live imaging technology was able to assess dynamically tumor processes and biology throughout the entire experiment period depending on a bioluminescent signal from tumor cells generated from expression of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) or the firefly luciferase gene. Recently, there is scarely reported a comparison of Luc- and GFP-transfected tumors to assess the biological mechanism of miRNAs using identical model systems. Methods: We constructed the SGC-7901 cells which involving stability-enhanced Luc- and GFP-coexpression identified by real time PCR (qPCR) and fluorescence microscope, the constructed cells were injected into the nude mice, then we compared the transfection efficiency and accuracy of GFP and luciferase for miRNAs-relevant oncogenesis after 40 days. Results: We constructed successfully SGC-7901 cell lines coexpressing the stability-enhanced luciferase and GFP. The miR-145 expression of Luc/LV-miR-145 SGC-7901 cells was higher than Luc/LV-ctrl's, and luciferase intensity was consistent with tumor volume and negatively related to miR-145 expression in Luc-transfected SGC-7901 cells, but the phenomenon of GFP was opposite. Conclusion: We believed that luciferase offers distinct advantages over GFP as a transfection and gene expression reporter to assist the studies of miRNAs-relevant oncogenesis in vivo live imaging study.


The present study investigates the frequency of three types of interrogative clauses in 329 semi-formal email messages written by language learners of Finnish and of Swedish spoken in Finland. All the written messages were assessed according to the Common European Framework of Reference by trained language professionals. The study is part of a larger research project, Topling, conducted at the University of Jyvaskyla. For the purpose of the study, the interrogative clauses were divided into three categories: yes/no questions, wh-questions and subordinate interrogative clauses. We examined the frequencies according to the levels of language proficiency. The findings show that, in both languages, the proportion of wh-questions decreased with increasing proficiency, while the proportion of subordinate clauses increased. This finding indicates that the interrogative clauses used at higher proficiency levels are more complex. Furthermore, the interrogative clauses were transformed into more polite requests concerning willingness and ability through the use of subordination as well as through the use of modal verbs (in Swedish) and the conditional mode (in Finnish).


ABSTRACT: Objective structured practical examination (OSPE) is a practical exam system wherein there is a series of stations at which students work through tasks designed to test various skills and are tested using agreed check lists with observers sitting at some of the stations. It has been found to be objective, valid and reliable. It also eliminates examiner bias. The purpose of this study is to introduce OSPE both as an evaluation and a teaching tool and to draw attention to its advantages and disadvantages. We designed an OSPE that tested all the above objectives satisfactorily. The OSPE exam was conducted in the department of pathology during the second internal assessment of the students. This method was the compared with the conventional method of practical exam conducted during the first internal assessment of the same batch of students. The results showed that OSPE tests different desired components of competence better. It is an objective, valid and reliable method and gets rid of variation due to examiner bias. It has a better discrimination index on merit. Interpretative exercises are the most relevant part and deserve the lion's share of total marks. Students feel more comfortable and less stressed to perform the exam. KEYWORDS : Objective structured practical examination; Medical education; Teaching methodology; Pathology Internet Journal of Medical Update 2012 January;7(1):2-7


ABSTRACT The mid to late twentieth century saw dramatic changes in housing tenure structures. In particular, levels of individual home ownership rose as did the scale and scope of urban residential wealth. This accumulation of housing wealth in these early home ownership societies (e.g. UK, USA, Japan) generated considerable research and policy interest. It was anticipated that social relations and social structures would be transformed by this new and pervasive form of personal wealth. As the process of housing wealth accumulation unfolded, however, new factors and policy imperatives emerged associated with demographic ageing, housing wealth divides, asset-based welfare and ideas of neoliberal self-reliance. From the vantage point of the early twenty-first century, how should we now understand the impact of these developments in relation to housing opportunities, social inequalities and urban change? The implicit promise of housing wealth- for- all through an ever-expanding home ownership has become considerably qualified and severely compromised by financial crises, shifting demographics and structural changes in financialised, neoliberal capitalism. This paper explores the changing narratives around housing wealth among those societies which were the first to develop modern, home ownership institutions and markets. The paper is primarily about how the growth of housing wealth has been perceived and theorized at different periods in those older home ownership systems and the relationship between the changing narrative and the changing socio-economic circumstances around home ownership. The paper concludes with a consideration of the relevance of these experiences for other societies such as Mainland China which has seen more recent and dramatic increases in the level of private property ownership.


This experimental study tested the knowledge gap hypothesis at the intersection of audience education levels and news formats (newspaper versus online). The findings reveal a gap in public affairs knowledge acquisition between South Korean citizens (N = 123) from different educational backgrounds. Moreover, the high education group comprehended news with the same level of efficiency across online and newspaper formats while low education participants gained more knowledge from reading a newspaper than using an online news source. Taken together, this study's findings confirm the knowledge gap hypothesis through experimental research and offer evidence of its potential contribution to the digital divide.


Di(ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP), the most widely used plasticizer, was investigated to determine whether an oxidative stress process was one of the underlying mechanisms for its testicular toxicity potential. To evaluate the effects of selenium (Se), status on the toxicity of DEHP was further objective of this study, as Se is known to play a critical role in testis and in the modulation of intracellular redox equilibrium. Se deficiency was produced in 3‐weeks‐old Sprague–Dawley rats feeding them ≤0.05 mg Se /kg diet for 5 weeks, and Se‐supplementation group was on 1 mg Se/kg diet. DEHP‐treated groups received 1000 mg/kg dose by gavage during the last 10 days of the feeding period. Activities of antioxidant selenoenzymes [glutathione peroxidase 1 (GPx1), glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPx4), thioredoxin reductase (TrxR)], catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione S‐transferase (GST); concentrations of reduced glutathione (GSH), oxidized glutathione (GSSG), and thus the GSH/GSSG redox ratio; and thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS) levels were measured. DEHP was found to induce oxidative stress in rat testis, as evidenced by significant decrease in GSH/GSSG redox ratio (>10‐fold) and marked increase in TBARS levels, and its effects were more pronounced in Se‐deficient rats with ∼18.5‐fold decrease in GSH/GSSG redox ratio and a significant decrease in GPx4 activity, whereas Se supplementation was protective by providing substantial elevation of redox ratio and reducing the lipid peroxidation. These findings emphasized the critical role of Se as an effective redox regulator and the importance of Se status in protecting testicular tissue from the oxidant stressor activity of DEHP. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Environ Toxicol 29: 98–107, 2014.


In the late 1980s, a series of legal rulings favorable to tribes and the subsequent passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 legalized gaming operations on reservations in many states. Today, there are over 310 gaming operations run by more than 200 of the nations' 556 federally-recognized tribes. Of these operations, about 220 are Las Vegas' style casinos with slot machines and/or table games. We use a simple difference-in-difference framework where we compare economic outcomes before and after tribes open casinos to outcomes over the same period for tribes that do not adopt or are prohibited from adopting gaming. Four years after tribes open casinos, employment has increased by 26 percent, and tribal population has increased by about 12 percent, resulting in an increase in employment to population ratios of five percentage points or about 12 percent. The fraction of adults who work but are poor has declined by 14 percent. Tribal gaming operations seem to have both positive and negative spillovers in the surrounding communities. In counties where an Indian-owned casino opens, we find that jobs per adult increase by about five percent of the median value. Given the size of tribes relative to their counties, most of this growth in employment is due to growth in non-Native American employment. The increase in economic activity appears to have some health benefits in that four or more years after a casino opens, mortality has fallen by 2 percent in a county with a casino and an amount half that in counties near a casino. Casinos do, however, come at some cost. Four years after a casino opens, bankruptcy rates, violent crime, and auto thefts and larceny are up 10 percent in counties with a casino.


It is often suggested that world food production must increase by 70%-100% or more by the year 2050 if we are to feed the anticipated world population at that time. To evaluate this claim, global crop production from 1961 to 2016 was inventoried using publicly available data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). To determine the adequacy of global crop output for humanity, annual global food crop production data (T y) were converted to energy yield in kilojoules (KJ y). These data were then compared to the annual metabolic energy requirement of the global human population. The resultant figures showed adequate annual agricultural production of kilojoules to sufficiently address global human metabolic demand. However, the diversion of crop energy to livestock through animal feed, and the use of crop energy for biofuels, as well as energy lost to waste creates consistent annual deficits that contribute to world hunger.