Patrick French's "India: A Portrait" tells the story of how India emerged from a turbulent struggle for independence to become a vibrant democracy with one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. India is the biggest democracy on earth, a country of dynamic change, huge divisions and countless identities. Is there any way to discover the 'real' India? In this intimate biography of 1.2 billion people, Patrick French travels all over the country talking to everyone from political leaders to mafia dons, from chained quarry workers to self-made billionaire entrepreneurs, to tell the story of post-independence India as never before. "Patrick French brings one of the globe's most dynamic nations springing to life ...he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the country, sensitivity to its subtler nuances and a wealth of research". ("Sunday Times"). "It's gripping...If you're Indian, reading the book is like learning the history of your country in four days". ("New Indian Express"). "Fizzing with wit, insight and infectious curiosity ...a thoroughly enjoyable romp through six momentous decades". ("Wall Street Journal Asia"). "Wide-ranging, clear-sighted, warm-hearted and immensely readable...The human tales that French finds are engrossing". ("Evening Standard"). "A rich colouring of contemporary characters and events, many of them sharply observed at first hand. Crammed with elegant portraits". ("Economist"). Patrick French is the author of "Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer", which won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Royal Society of Literature W. H. Heinemann Prize, "Liberty or Death: India's Journey to Independence and Division", which won the "Sunday Times" Young Writer of the Year Award, "Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land", "The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul", which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Hawthornden Prize, and "India: A Portrait".


Abstract QemSCAN is a scanning electron microscope (SEM) system, initially designed to support the mining industry by providing rapid automated quantitative mineral analyses. The system is based upon Carl Zeiss SEMs fitted with up to four light-element energy dispersive X-ray spectrometers. Representative subsamples are mounted into either resin or wax blocks and polished prior to analysis, or can be mounted onto carbon tape. During analysis, X-ray spectra are collected at a user-defined pixel spacing and are acquired very rapidly (c. 10 ms per pixel). The measured spectra are automatically compared against a database of known spectra and a mineral or phase name is assigned to each measurement point by the QemSCAN computer software programs. In this way the near-surface qualitative elemental composition of each particle is systematically mapped, assigned to a mineral name or chemical compound/species, and digital pixel maps of each particle are created. Depending upon a range of parameters, including the particle size and the user-defined pixel spacing (which can vary between 0.20 μm and 25 μm), approximately 1000 particles, each 1–10 μm in size, can be measured per hour using a 1 μm pixel spacing. In addition to providing a qualitative elemental analysis and mineralogical or phase assignment for each particle, data relating to particle size, shape and calculated specific density are also generated. In this study, the potential application of this automated SEM system in forensic geoscience was evaluated by the analysis of: (1) a series of soil samples, and (2) a series of dust samples from an industrial complex. In both case studies, the mine-ralogy/phase composition of each sample analysed was found to be distinctive. In addition, textural data for the soil samples and particle shape data for the dust samples show that they can be clearly distinguished. Automated SEM using QemSCAN has clear potential application in the analysis of soil or other trace evidence in forensic case work.


Close collaboration with other scientific fields is an important goal for the visualization community. Yet engaging in a scientific collaboration can be challenging. The physical sciences, namely astronomy, chemistry, earth sciences and physics, exhibit an extensive range of research directions, providing exciting challenges for visualization scientists and creating ample possibilities for collaboration. We present the first survey of its kind that provides a comprehensive view of existing work on visualization for the physical sciences. We introduce novel classification schemes based on application area, data dimensionality and main challenge addressed, and apply these classifications to each contribution from the literature. Our survey helps in understanding the status of current research and serves as a useful starting point for those interested in visualization for the physical sciences.


In the early 1980s, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) initiated an ecosystem analysis of Gouldsboro Bay in eastern Maine as part of a planned marine sanctuary. The original report to NOAA by Walter H. Adey was not published after the sanctuary concept for Maine was abandoned. Because significant human-related climatic and ecosystem changes are underway in the Gulf of Maine, that report provides valuable baseline data and is included as the Appendix to this volume. After qualitatively describing the geological, physical, chemical, and biogeographical features of Gouldsboro Bay and adjacent Dyer Bay, we quantitatively describe the principal bay ecological communities with data collected during the 1981–1983 ecosystem assessment as well as additional measurements taken within the past decade. We then undertake a comparison of the primary productivity of these bays with the Google Earth Pro polygon tool to determine component areas.Benthic taxa are the dominant primary producers in both bays: rockweeds (primarily Ascophyllum nodosum, with Fucus vesiculosus secondary) in the intertidal; Irish moss (Chondrus crispus, with Fucus distichus secondary) as a near monoculture in the lowest intertidal (infralittoral); kelps (primarily Saccharina latissima, Laminaria digitata, and Agarum clathratum) in the rocky subtidal; and the angiosperm Zostera marina (seagrass) in soft bottom substrate. The rocky intertidal, dominated by Ascophyllum with a specific productivity of 10.6 kg/m2/year, provides nearly one-third of all bay productivity. Because of the proportionally greater shore length relative to area of Dyer Bay, it has 45% greater productivity for its surface area than Gouldsboro Bay. Kelp has a specific productivity value of 7.2 kg/m2/year, and Zostera of 1.2 kg/m2/year. The kelps provide approximately 20% of Gouldsboro Bay's primary productivity and 35% of that of Dyer Bay. Zostera provides roughly 20% of total primary productivity in Gouldsboro Bay and 12% in Dyer Bay. With a primary productivity of 1.73 kg/m2/year, salt marshes provide only 3.7% (Gouldsboro) and 2.6% (Dyer) of total primary productivity. With a primary productivity of 0.06 kg/m2/year, plankton account for 23.8% of Gouldsboro Bay and 16% of Dyer Bay primary productivity.


Community networks offer a shared communication infrastructure where communities of citizens build and own open networks. While the IP connectivity of the networking devices is successfully achieved, the number of services and applications available from within the community network is typically small and the usage of the community network is often limited to providing Internet access to remote areas through wireless links. In this paper we propose to apply the principle of resource sharing of community networks, currently limited to the network bandwidth, to other computing resources, which leads to cloud computing in community networks. Towards this vision, we review some characteristics of community networks and identify potential scenarios for community clouds. We simulate a cloud computing infrastructure service and discuss different aspects of its performance in comparison to a commercial centralized cloud system. We note that in community clouds the computing resources are heterogeneous and less powerful, which affects the time needed to assign resources. Response time of the infrastructure service is high in community clouds even for a small number of resources since resources are distributed, but tends to get closer to that of a centralized cloud when the number of resources requested increases. Our initial results suggest that the performance of the community clouds highly depends on the community network conditions, but has some potential for improvement with network-aware cloud services. The main strength compared to commercial cloud services, however, is that community cloud services hosted on community-owned resources will follow the principles of community network and will be neutral and open.


Background: Despite the utmost development and arousal of new techniques as TEVAR in the management of lethal aortic aneurysms and dissecting aortic aneurysms using, we still need to optimize the results through better spinal cord protection for the possible intercostal arteries especially the Adamqiewckz artery. Here we are focusing on the impact of spinal cord protection on the outcome in cases of TEVAR.Materials and methods: Between May 2007 and May 2017; in Saudi German Hospital (SGH); Madina Munawarah, KSA and central clinic in Bad Berka; Germany. 41 TEVAR procedures were performed. Medtronic Valiant device with the Captiva delivery system was recently used to manage variety of cases of aortic dissection (6 trauma cases, 27 cases of hypertension induced nonaneurysmal dissection , 6 cases of dissecting aortic aneurysms due to hypertension and 2 cases of descending aortic aneurysm and tortuousity). Some of the cases required vascular intervention for de-branching of the great vessels. All patients were submitted to CT angio (CTA) for whole aorta from the ascending to the pelvic part, trans-sternal 2D echocardiography, abdominal ultrasonography; coagulation profile, kidney and liver profiles. Lumbar drainage was used in all the cases. Medtronic devices were used in all the cases.Results: All patients were males. Age ranged from 24 to 57 years old. All patients were operated under general anesthesia. There were two mortalities one due to major endoleak and multi-organ failure and the other was due to massive Intracranial Hemorrhage (ICH). Three cases of permanent paraplegia early after the procedure. Three cases of renal failure and one impaired kidney functions. One patient had CSF leak. One case had local infection at the lumbar catheter site and one case of meningitis.Conclusions: Lumbar drainage procedure is an easy but not complications-free procedure. Because of the seriousness of its complications, it is recommended to avoid in TEVAR procedures, as the paraplegia complication due to cord ischemia for which we used the lumbar drainage was unavoidable by the lumbar drainage as it was related mainly to the anatomical site of the aortic injury and its extent or to the area covered by the endograft. There was a mortality of ICH (mostly related to the lumbar drainage).


Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) synthesis modulates the response to radiation injury in the mouse intestinal epithelium through effects on crypt survival and apoptosis; however, the downstream signaling events have not been elucidated. WT mice receiving 16,16-dimethyl PGE2 (dmPGE2) had fewer apoptotic cells per crypt than untreated mice. Apoptosis in Bax(-/-) mice receiving 12 Gy was approximately 50% less than in WT mice, and the ability of dmPGE2 to attenuate apoptosis was lost in Bax(-/-) mice. Positional analysis revealed that apoptosis in the Bax(-/-) mice was diminished only in the bax-expressing cells of the lower crypts and that in WT mice, dmPGE2 decreased apoptosis only in the bax-expressing cells. The HCT-116 intestinal cell line and Bax(-/-) HCT-116 recapitulated the apoptotic response of the mouse small intestine with regard to irradiation and dmPGE2. Irradiation of HCT-116 cells resulted in phosphorylation of AKT that was enhanced by dmPGE2 through transactivation of the EGFR. Inhibition of AKT phosphorylation prevented the reduction of apoptosis by dmPGE2 following radiation. Transfection of HCT-116 cells with a constitutively active AKT reduced apoptosis in irradiated cells to the same extent as in nontransfected cells treated with dmPGE2. Treatment with dmPGE2 did not alter bax or bcl-x expression but suppressed bax translocation to the mitochondrial membrane. Our in vivo studies indicate that there are bax-dependent and bax-independent radiation-induced apoptosis in the intestine but that only the bax-dependent apoptosis is reduced by dmPGE2. The in vitro studies indicate that dmPGE2, most likely by signaling through the E prostaglandin receptor EP2, reduces radiation-induced apoptosis through transactivation of the EGFR and enhanced activation of AKT and that this results in reduced bax translocation to the mitochondria.


The structure of a structural genomics target protein, Tbru020260AAA from Trypanosoma brucei, has been determined to a resolution of 2.2 A using multiple-wavelength anomalous diffraction at the Se K edge. This protein belongs to Pfam sequence family PF08538 and is only distantly related to previously studied members of the alpha/beta-hydrolase fold family. Structural superposition onto representative alpha/beta-hydrolase fold proteins of known function indicates that a possible catalytic nucleophile, Ser116 in the T. brucei protein, lies at the expected location. However, the present structure and by extension the other trypanosomatid members of this sequence family have neither sequence nor structural similarity at the location of other active-site residues typical for proteins with this fold. Together with the presence of an additional domain between strands beta6 and beta7 that is conserved in trypanosomatid genomes, this suggests that the function of these homologs has diverged from other members of the fold family.


In this study, nanomaterials prepared via laser ablation of tin in water are systematically studied and compared. Tin targets were ablated by both millisecond and nanosecond pulsed lasers, resulting in core@shell product nanostructures with different chemistries and morphologies. Depending on laser fluence, the obtained core@shell nanoparticles had either Sn or SnO cores and SnOx shells with varied surface hydration degree. Optical emission spectra of laser-generated plasmas were taken, giving additional support to nanoparticle formation mechanisms. Finally, gas sensing at room temperature is demonstrated as one of the potential applications for such nanostructures.


In this paper we prove a sub-Riemannian version of the classical Santalo formula: a result in integral geometry that describes the intrinsic Liouville measure on the unit cotangent bundle in terms of the geodesic flow. Our construction works under quite general assumptions, satisfied by any sub-Riemannian structure associated with a Riemannian foliation with totally geodesic leaves (e.g. CR and QC manifolds with symmetries), any Carnot group, and some non-equiregular structures such as the Martinet one. A key ingredient is a "reduction procedure" that allows to consider only a simple subset of sub-Riemannian geodesics.
As an application, we derive isoperimetric-type and (p-)Hardy-type inequalities for a compact domain $M$ with piecewise $C^{1,1}$ boundary, and a universal lower bound for the first Dirichlet eigenvalue $\lambda_1(M)$ of the sub-Laplacian, \[ \lambda_1(M) \geq \frac{k \pi^2}{L^2}, \] in terms of the rank $k$ of the distribution and the length $L$ of the longest reduced sub-Riemannian geodesic contained in $M$. All our results are sharp for the sub-Riemannian structures on the hemispheres of the complex and quaternionic Hopf fibrations: \[ \mathbb{S}^1\hookrightarrow \mathbb{S}^{2d+1} \xrightarrow{p} \mathbb{CP}^d, \qquad \mathbb{S}^3\hookrightarrow \mathbb{S}^{4d+3} \xrightarrow{p} \mathbb{HP}^d, \qquad d \geq 1, \] where the sub-Laplacian is the standard hypoelliptic operator of CR and QC geometries, $L = \pi$ and $k=2d$ or $4d$, respectively.


Oil palm biomass (OPB) is a by-product derived from the oil palm industry; periodically available in the field during the replanting and pruning activities; and from the milling processes of palm oil. The biomass includes oil palm trunk (OPT), oil palm frond (OPF), kernel shell, oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB), oil palm mesocarp fibre (OPMF), and palm oil mill effluent (POME). OPB is classified as lignocellulosic residues that typically contain cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin in their cell wall that can be converted into fine chemicals. These lignocellulosic chemicals have significant potential applications in food, chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries. A number of different types of extraction technologies have been developed; namely chemicals, physico-chemicals, biochemicals or the combinations of these processes. But as the methods that are environmental-friendly are the current trend, this article has its focus entirely on green technologies. This article comprehensively reviews the conversion of OPB into lignocellulosic chemicals with special attention on various extraction processes, followed by discussion on their special merits as well as their weaknesses. Sustainability for each of the process is also considered in detail in the discussion.


In multivariate regression, interest lies on how the response vector depends on a set of covariates. A multivariate regression model is proposed where the covariates explain variation in the response only in the direction of the first principal component axis. This model is not only parsimonious, but it provides an easy interpretation in allometric growth studies where the first principal component of the log-transformed data corresponds to constants of allometric growth. The proposed model naturally generalizes the two–group allometric extension model to the situation where groups differ according to a set of covariates. A bootstrap test for the model is proposed and a study on plant growth in the Florida Everglades is used to illustrate the model.


The trend towards development of More Electric Aircraft (MEA) has been driven by increased fuel fossil prices and stricter environmental policies. This is supported by breakthroughs in power electronic systems and electrical machines. The application of MEA is expected to reduce the aircraft mass and drag, thereby increasing fuel efficiency and reduced environmental impact. The starter-generator (S/G) scheme is one of the solutions from the MEA concept that brings the most significant improvement to the electrical power generation system. A S/G system is proposed from the possible solutions brought by the MEA concept in the area of electrical power generation and distribution. Due to the wide operating speed range, limited controller stability may be present. This thesis contributes to the control plant analysis and controller design of this MEA S/G system. The general control requirements are outlined based on the S/G system operation and the control structure is presented. The control plants are derived specifically to design the controllers for the S/G control scheme. Detailed small signal analysis is performed on the derived plant while taking into consideration the aircraft operating speed and load range. A safe range for the controller gains can then be determined to ensure stable operation throughout the S/G operation. Adaptive gain and a novel current limit modifier are proposed which improves the controller stability during S/G operation. Model predictive control is considered as an alternative control strategy for potential control performance improvements with the S/G system. The technical results and simulations are supported by Matlab®/Simulink® based models and validated by experimental work on a small scaled drive system.


The five largest southeastern Indian groups - the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles - were forced to emigrate west to the Indian territory (now Oklahoma) in the 1830s. Here, from WPA interviews, are those Indians' own stories of the troubled years between the Civil War and Oklahoma statehood - a period of extraordinary turmoil. During this period, Oklahoma Indians functioned autonomously, holding their own elections, enforcing their own laws, and creating their own society from a mixture of old Indian customs and the new ways of the whites. The WPA informants describe the economic realities of the era: a few wealthy Indians, the rest scraping a living out of subsistence farming, hunting, and fishing. They talk about education and religion - Native American and Christian - as well as diversions of the time: horse races, fairs, ball games, cornstalk shooting, and traditional ceremonies such as the Green Corn Dance.


Abstract Sudden unexpected changes in tritium-in-air concentrations in workplace air can result in significant unplanned exposures. Although fixed area monitors are used to monitor areas where there is a potential for elevated tritium in air concentrations, they do not monitor personnel air space and may require some time for acute tritium releases to be detected. There is a need for a small instrument that will quickly alert staff of changing tritium hazards. A moderately sensitive tritium instrument that workers could wear would bring attention to any rise in tritium levels that were above predetermined limits and help in assessing the potential hazard therefore minimizing absorbed dose. Handheld instruments currently available can be used but require the assistance of a fellow worker or restrict the user to using only one hand to perform some duties.


Strengthening the role of the general practitioner in the conduction and coordination of specialized, inpatient and social care to ensure the continuity is a trend observed in recent health reforms in European countries. In Germany, from the second half of the 1990s, driven by economic pressures, a specific legislation and initiatives of the providers themselves have developed new organizational structures and care models for the purpose of the integration of the health care system and the coordination of health care in the form of: physicians networks, practitioner coordinator model, diseases management programs and integrated care. From a literature review, document analysis, visits to services and interviews with key informants, this paper analyzes the dynamics of these organizational changes in the German outpatient sector. The mechanisms of integration and coordination proposed are examined, and the potential impacts on the efficiency and quality of new organizational arrangements are discussed. Also it is analyzed the reasons and interests involved that point out the obstacles to the implementation. It was observed the process of an incremental reform with a tendency of diversification of the healthcare panorama in Germany with the presence of integrated models of care and strengthening the role of general practitioners in the coordination of patient care.


With recent advances of modern medicine more people reach the 'elderly age' around the globe and the number of dementia cases are ever increasing. This book is about various aspects of dementia and provides its readers with a wide range of thought-provoking sub-topics in the field of dementia. The ultimate goal of this monograph is to stimulate other physicians' and neuroscientists' interest to carry out more research projects into pathogenesis of this devastating group of diseases.


The C. acetobutylicum genome annotation has been markedly improved by integrating bioinformatic predictions with RNA sequencing(RNA-seq) data. Samples were acquired under butanol, butyrate, and unstressed treatments across various growth stages to sample the transcriptome from a range of physiologically relevant conditions. Analysis of an initial assembly revealed errors due to technical and biological background signals, challenges with few solutions. Hurdles for RNA-seq transcriptome mapping research include optimizing library complexity and sequencing depth, yet most studies in bacteria report low depth and ignore the effect of ribosomal RNA abundance and other sources on the effective sequencing depth. In this work, workflows were established to address type I and II errors associated with these challenges. An integrative analysis method was developed to combine motif predictions, single-nucleotide resolution sequencing depth, and library complexity to resolve these errors during assembly curation. This contextualization minimized false positive error and determined gene boundaries, in some cases, to the exact basepair of prior studies. Curation of the pSOL1 megaplasmid reconciled transcriptome assembly statistics with findings from E. coli. The resulting annotation can be readily explored and downloaded through a customized genome browser, enabling future genomic and transcriptomic research in this organism. This work demonstrates the first strand-specific transcriptome assembly in a Clostridium organism. This method can improve the precision of transcript boundary estimates in bacterial transcriptome mapping studies.


Understanding the factors driving dispersal behaviour and habitat selection in reintroduced populations can be critical to reintroduction success. Social factors in particular can influence habitat selection, for example through conspecific attraction, and this can have both positive and negative effects on reintroduction success, particularly where multiple releases occur. In addition, little is known about how habitat selection differs between natal and post‐release dispersal within species. Often it is assumed that information from a species' natal dispersal preferences and patterns can act as a guide for predicting post‐release dispersal behaviour, but no studies to date have examined this. We examine the factors influencing habitat selection during both natal and post‐release dispersal in a reintroduced hihi (stitchbird, Notiomystis cincta) population using species distribution models. We demonstrate a strong social effect in habitat selection of natal dispersers bred at the release area (largely the offspring of founders), yet find no social effect in habitat selection of juveniles translocated 2 years after the first releases occurred. In addition, we establish that environmental variables are important in habitat selection in both groups. We suggest (1) that consideration of social effects and conspecific attraction should play a role in planning reintroduction release strategies, especially if reinforcement releases are considered necessary, and (2) that it may not always be appropriate to assume post‐release dispersal in reintroduced populations will be driven by the same factors that influence natal dispersal.


Plants are amazing synthetic chemists that create diversified secondary metabolites which play myriad ecological roles for their survival and reproductive fitness in nature. The structural complexity of secondary metabolism has severely hampered its functional analysis. The potential of MS-based metabolomics and of the large-scale acquisition of tandem MS (MS/MS) spectra is limited by the absence of straightforward classification and visualization pipelines so that secondary metabolite and the underlying pathway interpretations can be easily made. From a mechanistic standpoint, secondary metabolism diversity attributes to the occurrence of multiplicity of genes in plant genomes. Yet the majorities of metabolic gene functions remain however unknown. In this thesis, I developed a workflow to systematically explore the diversity of secondary metabolism in Nicotiana attenuata – a metabolically rich ecological model plant. I first characterize the metabolic space of this model plant using the large-scale acquisition of MS/MS spectral information in a data-independent manner and the computational re-assembly of non-redundant MS/MS spectra. The resulting MS signatures were then aligned and visualized to rapidly formulate structural hypotheses. Using natural variation, I examined the correlations among jasmonate signaling and large-scale defense metabolism. The resulting correlation maps uncovered new metabolic layers in a plant's jasmonate-mediated defensive arsenal. In the tissue-level exploration of secondary metabolite diversity, Transciptomic and metabolomic information and their variance as analyzed by information theory were used for the predictions of tissue-specific function of genes responsible for the metabolic signatures.


While organisations regularly claim that data is one of their most important assets, they regularly fail to articulate or fully leverage its value. This leads to impacts such as missed opportunities, a reactive nature to data issues, and poorly defined/failed data projects. Framing this problem as a lack of shared understanding and misalignment between data stakeholders, this paper documents the development of the Data Value Map, an artefact designed to remedy this disconnect. Following a Practitioner Design Science Research approach, the Data Value Map is currently in its fourth iteration and has been rigorously evaluated with: (i) 96 practitioners in the field, (ii) a 12-month case-study, (iii) feedback from six workshops, and (iv) a survey on the effectiveness of the framework. Developed over the course of 4 years the Data Value Map has demonstrated its ability to facilitate a shared understanding on data initiatives and is linked to the success of data projects with an estimated value over €40 million. While, the Data Value Map is itself a contribution to the body of knowledge, further contributions were made in the form of: insights on how to overcome barriers in developing a shared understanding, namely: a lack of an organisational mental model, (ii) lack of a shared language, and (iii) an over-emphasis on technology.


Many approaches in machine learning rely on a weighted graph to encode the similarities between samples in a dataset. Entropic affinities (EAs), which are notably used in the popular Dimensionality Reduction (DR) algorithm t-SNE, are particular instances of such graphs. To ensure robustness to heterogeneous sampling densities, EAs assign a kernel bandwidth parameter to every sample in such a way that the entropy of each row in the affinity matrix is kept constant at a specific value, whose exponential is known as perplexity. EAs are inherently asymmetric and row-wise stochastic, but they are used in DR approaches after undergoing heuristic symmetrization methods that violate both the row-wise constant entropy and stochasticity properties. In this work, we uncover a novel characterization of EA as an optimal transport problem, allowing a natural symmetrization that can be computed efficiently using dual ascent. The corresponding novel affinity matrix derives advantages from symmetric doubly stochastic normalization in terms of clustering performance, while also effectively controlling the entropy of each row thus making it particularly robust to varying noise levels. Following, we present a new DR algorithm, SNEkhorn, that leverages this new affinity matrix. We show its clear superiority to state-of-the-art approaches with several indicators on both synthetic and real-world datasets.


Using well established metabolic parameters, this study aimed to substantiate differences in protein and energy metabolism between Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) positive and negative dairy cows tested by faecal culture. A total of 227 MAP-positive and 239 MAP-negative German Holstein cows kept in 13 MAP-positive dairy herds were selected for metabolic testing. The serum concentrations of total protein (TP), bilirubin, cholesterol and betahydroxybutyrate were measured as well as the activities of Glutamate-Dehydrogenase (GLDH) and Aspartate-Aminotransferase. MAP-positive cows were characterised by a decreased mean TP (66.5 g/l) compared to the MAP-negative controls (73.2 g/l). Mean log10 GLDH activities tended to be higher in MAP-positive than MAP-negative cows. Concerning TP, there was a significant interaction between MAP status and farm. Within four farms, the difference between MAP-positive and MAP-negative animals differed significantly, while in the other farms this difference was not significant. It is concluded that a decreased TP and an increased GLDH indicate alterations in protein metabolism. These findings suggest an enhanced liver cell turnover in MAP-positive cows. The results contribute to an understanding of the metabolic alterations in MAP-positive dairy cows.


The thesis focuses on the problem of Oromo Christianity's lack of indigenous character with special focus on the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY). It examines the methods of mission used by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC) that introduced Christianity to the Oromo people for the first time. It also examines the methods of mission used by three Protestant mission societies who followed the EOC, evangelised the Wollaga Oromo and established the EECMY. These mission bodies were, the Swedish Evangelical Mission (SEM), the United Presbyterian Mission (UPCNAM) and the Hermannsburg Mission (HM). The Study seeks to investigate whether the four above mentioned Christian mission bodies'
methods of mission contributed to the Oromo Christianity's lack of indigenous character. Moreover, the study examines whether the apparent language of worship problem within the EECMY has historical root linked to the mission methods. It is the emphasis of the researcher of this study that the Christian mission methods used to evangelise the Wollaga Oromos were generally inadequate due to missionaries' lack of sensitivity to the culture. The study calls the EECMY to revise her traditional methods of mission that she inherited from the missionaries and root her message within the culture of the Oromo people. Christianity must identify with certain norms and values of Oromo culture. This can be done through contextual model of evangelism. Out of different sub models of contextual theology, this study suggests inculturation model as a method for incarnating the Church in the culture of the Oromo people. It is the writer's belief that inculturation model may be answer to the Oromo Christianity's lack of indigenous character and the apparent problem within the EECMY. Also inculturation can be helpful method in reaching out the non-Christian Oromos with the Gospel. Though the study focuses on the Oromo Christianity and the EECMY, the question and the problems concerning Christianity's being foreign to the culture might be similar in many Churches in the entire Ethiopia and also in Africa. Unless otherwise indicated the Scriptural quotations are taken from the GOOD NEWS BIBLE: The Bible in Today's English version, copyright Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1978,1986.
Printed in the United States of America.


The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance (PMQR) determinants in Escherichia coli isolated from food-producing animals and to characterize the PMQR-positive isolates. A total of 365 E. coli isolates which were either nalidixic acid resistant and ciprofloxacin susceptible (NAL(R)-CIP(S); n=185), or nalidixic acid and ciprofloxacin resistant (NAL(R)-CIP(R); n=180) were assessed for the presence of PMQR determinants by polymerase chain reaction. PMQR-positive isolates were further characterized by mutation analysis within the quinolone resistance-determining region (QRDR) of gyrA, gyrB, parC, and parE, phylogenetic group analysis, and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Fourteen NAL(R)-CIP(S) (n=8) and NAL(R)-CIP(R) (n=6) E. coli isolates were positive for PMQR genes. Among them, qnrB4, qnrS1, and aac(6')-Ib-cr genes were detected in two (0.5%), eight (2.2%), and four (1.1%) isolates, respectively. None of the isolates harbored qnrA, qnrC, qnrD, and qepA genes. All but one PMQR-positive isolates harbored one or more point mutations in the QRDR of gyrA, and five of these isolates had additional mutations in the parC gene. Furthermore, one isolate each had additional substitutions in gyrB and parE genes, respectively. The most prevalent mutation was Ser83-Leu within the QRDR of gyrA. Phylogenetic analysis identified three major phylogenetic lineages, with phylogroups A (n=7) and D (n=4) being the most common phylogroups. None of the isolates belonged to virulent phylogroup B2. PFGE demonstrated that a combination of clonal and horizontal gene transmission is disseminating PMQR genes among the veterinary E. coli isolates in Korea. To our knowledge, this is the first report of occurrence of qnrB, qnrS, and aac(6')-Ib-cr genes in E. coli isolated from food-producing animals in Korea. Isolation of PMQR genes from food animals is a matter of concern since they could be transmitted to humans via food animals.


Several jurisdictions around the world have passed medical aid-in-dying laws that allow a physician, or, in some areas, a nurse practitioner to legally prescribe lifeending medications to individuals faced with a serious illness. There are some individuals receiving hospice services that also die by suicide without legal lethal means. Little is known, however, about deaths that are identified as suicide by professionals working with hospice patients in home settings in areas where medical aid in dying is allowed. This qualitative study undertaken in Washington State, where the Death with Dignity Act was implemented in 2009, investigates suicide and hastened death through the experiences of hospice professionals working with patients in their homes. Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with seven nurses, seven social workers, four physicians, and three chaplains. Analysis of these data indicates participants' interpretation of suicide is often blurry, but there are some patients receiving home hospice services who take power into their own hands and die by suicide because they are not eligible for, have no knowledge of, or lack access to legalised medical aid in dying. Power is a factor shaping roles and beliefs among hospice professionals and those they serve. Participants in this study work with patients who utilise medical aid in dying despite personal or organisational challenges and conflicts. Many deaths by suicide may be interpreted as rational but a perceived taboo about suicide limits open conversations among professionals and within organisations. Culture, location, socioeconomic disparities, and organisational policy impact how patients perceive, accept, or afford legal options. Palliative care professionals need open communication with patients and each other about suicide and hastened death in homecare.


To evaluate the prevalence of laparoscopic features of endometriosis in women complaining of unexplained infertility. 500 women complaining of unexplained infertility and presented at the infertility outpatient clinic of the hospital. Women were scheduled for diagnostic laparoscopy to evaluate their condition. Data was collected with a pre-designed proforma which included the socio-demographic characteristics and laparoscopic findings in various abdomino-pelvic organs. Participants' ages ranged from 20 to 35. During the study period, 92 cases of endometriosis were diagnosed out of the 500 infertile women seen. This gave the prevalence rate of 18.4%. The mean age of the women was 31.1±2.4 years and the body mass index was 30.2 ± 3.4. 296 (59.2%) patients presented with primary infertility, while 204 (40.8%) had secondary infertility and were all primiparous. Chocolate cysts were found to be bilateral in 34 (6.8%) patients and unilateral in 58 (11.6%). 34 (6.8%) patients had unilateral tubal adhesions, while 22 (4.4%) had bilateral adhesions. 452 (90.4%) patients had bilateral patent tubes while 27 (5.4%) and 21 (4.2%) patients had unilateral and bilateral tubal blockade respectively on dye test. 52 (10.4%) patients had adhesions at the cul-de-sac while 20 (4%) patients had adhesions to bowel.


A new LWD ultrasonic imager for use in both water- and oil-based muds uses acoustic impedance contrast and ultrasonic amplitude measurements to obtain high-resolution structural, stratigraphic and borehole geometry information. Following extensive testing in the Middle East and the US, this paper presents results from the first European deployment of the new 4.75-in. high-resolution ultrasonic imaging tool.
 An ultrasonic transducer, which operates at high frequency, scans the borehole at a high sampling rate to provide detailed measurements of amplitude and traveltime. A borehole caliper measurement is made, based on the time of arrival of the first reflection from the borehole wall. A second measurement detects formation features and tectonic stress indicators from the change in signal amplitude. The amplitude of the reflected wave is a function of the acoustic impedance of the medium. Resulting impedance maps have sufficient resolution to detect sinusoidal, non-sinusoidal and discontinuous features on the borehole wall.
 Breakouts, drilling-induced fractures, and tensile zones were used for stress direction determination. Breakout identification was obtained both from amplitude images and oriented potato plot cross sections derived from traveltime measurements.
 The orientation of natural fractures is parallel at the maximum stress direction, indicated by drilling-induced fractures and tensile zones. The World Stress Map confirms the maximum stress direction determination.
 It was also possible to detect certain key-seat zones and investigate borehole conditions to prevent issues during the subsequent casing job.
 The new LWD ultrasonic imaging technique represents an important alternative to density and water-based mud resistivity imaging, which has several limitations. Unlike the resistive imaging LWD tool that is very sensitive to standoff, the higher tolerance of the ultrasonic imaging tool enables the amplitude and traveltime ultrasonic images to contain fewer unwanted artifacts.


Earthquake in a Maze The 11 April 2012 magnitude 8.6 earthquake offshore of Sumatra was the largest measured earthquake along a strike-slip boundary that modern seismological instruments have ever recorded. Despite its size and proximity to a large population, there was no subsequent tsunami and there were no reported fatalities. Meng et al. (p. 724, published online 19 July) used teleseismic data from seismological networks in Japan and Europe to image the source of high-frequency radiation generated by the earthquake to understand the mechanics of this unique event. The resultant back projections showed that the earthquake slowly ruptured along a complex series of faults. The deeper-than-usual rupture path and large stress drop are both features that may not be unique to this earthquake, suggesting that regions in a similar tectonic environment may have the potential for more complex—or larger—intraplate earthquakes than might have been expected. The mechanics of the largest strike-slip earthquake ever recorded give clues about how intraplate earthquakes rupture. Seismological observations of the 2012 moment magnitude 8.6 Sumatra earthquake reveal unprecedented complexity of dynamic rupture. The surprisingly large magnitude results from the combination of deep extent, high stress drop, and rupture of multiple faults. Back-projection source imaging indicates that the rupture occurred on distinct planes in an orthogonal conjugate fault system, with relatively slow rupture speed. The east-southeast–west-northwest ruptures add a new dimension to the seismotectonics of the Wharton Basin, which was previously thought to be controlled by north-south strike-slip faulting. The rupture turned twice into the compressive quadrant, against the preferred branching direction predicted by dynamic Coulomb stress calculations. Orthogonal faulting and compressional branching indicate that rupture was controlled by a pressure-insensitive strength of the deep oceanic lithosphere.


Bronchopulmonary dysplasia, or chronic lung disease (CLD), of premature infants involves injury from hyperoxia and mechanical ventilation to an immature lung. We examined surfactant and nitric oxide (NO), which are developmentally deficient in premature infants, in the baboon model of developing CLD. Fetuses were delivered at 125 d gestation and were managed for 14 d with ventilation and oxygen prn without (controls) or with inhaled NO at 5 ppm. Compared with term infants, premature control infants had reduced maximal lung volume, decreased tissue content of surfactant proteins SP-A, -B, and -C, abnormal lavage surfactant as assessed by pulsating bubble surfactometer, and a low concentration of SP-B/phospholipid. NO treatment significantly increased maximal lung volume and tissue SP-A and SP-C, reduced recovery of lavage surfactant by 33%, decreased the total protein:phospholipid ratio of surfactant by 50%, and had no effect on phospholipid composition or SP content except for SP-C (50%). In both treatment groups, levels of SP-B and SP-C in surfactant were negatively correlated with STmin, with a 5-fold greater SP efficiency for NO versus control animals. By contrast, lung volume and compliance were not correlated with surfactant function. We conclude that surfactant is often dysfunctional in developing CLD secondary to SP-B deficiency. NO treatment improves the apparent ability of hydrophobic SP to promote low surface tension, perhaps secondary to less protein inactivation of surfactant, and improves lung volume by a process unrelated to surfactant function.


This article looks at choice of law rules from an economic perspective . The aim is to understand whether particular choice of law norms are wealth creating or wealth destroying and which of different norms should be preferred from this point of view. In this article we do not try to understand the forces that generate and sustain particular choice of law rules. We restrict ourselves to an efficiency analysis of existing or proposed choice of law rules. In the first part of the paper we argue that a free choice of law should be granted, whenever the choice causes no third party effects. We show that this criterion would extend free choice beyond the present scope. Free menu choice of law increases the wealth of the parties and creates institutional competition. It should be extended to fields of the law other than contract and tort law. In the second part we proceed with choice of law rules if the choice leads to positive or negative third party effects. To take care of these effects mandatory choice rules are sometimes but not always necessary. Methodologically choice of law rules should be market-mimicking rules, which reflect the interests of a grand coalition of the parties and all third parties affected by the choice rule. In the third part of the paper we discuss existing rules for the choice of tort law and refer to the discussion on a draft proposal for a European Council regulation of the law applicable to non-contractual obligations . In the fourth part we discuss whether the German or the US approach of international comparative law is preferable from an economic perspective. The US approach gives more judicial discretion for the choice of law than the German approach. We argue that the choice of law rules should lead to precise and clear legal commands with escape clauses for the judiciary only in exceptional and obvious cases. As Guzman pointed out it is striking that choice of law scholars have paid virtually no attention on how choice of law rules affect individual behaviour. But any economic analysis has to focus on this aspect as otherwise the social consequences of legal norms remain unknown and consequently little can be said about whether the consequences of one rule are socially better than those of another rule.


One feature of the European patent system that is h eavily criticized nowadays is related to its complex fragmentation and the induced cost burden f or applicants. Once a patent is granted by the EPO, the assignee must validate (and often tran slate) it and pay the renewal fees to keep it in force in each country in which the applicant see ks protection. The objective of this paper is to assess to what extent validation and renewal fee s as well as translation costs affect the validation behavior of applicants. We rely on a gra vity model that aims at explaining patent flows between inventor and target countries within the European patent system. The results show that the size of countries, their wealth and t he distance between their capital cities are significant determinants of patent flows. Validatio n fees and renewal fees further affect the validation behavior of applicants. Translation cost s eem to have an impact as well. The important role played by fees suggests that the imp le entation of cost-reducing policy interventions like the London Protocol would induce a significant increase in the number of patents validated in each European country. JEL Classification: O30, O31, O38, O57


Transnational governance is expanding rapidly. From a political education perspective, an important question is to what extent and how this is included in the political universe that adolescents are being prepared for at school. Of particular interest is social science, which is part of social studies in primary and lower secondary school, before it develops into a variety of social science courses in upper secondary school. Including the transnational level in political education may mean critical thinking about current transnational issues as well as understanding how to participate politically with a transnational aim. Are these elements included in Norwegian political education in social science at school? And if so, is such participation related to notions of influence, power and conflicting interests? Or are notions of participation based on classical idealism? The research method is an analysis of selected social science textbooks in Norwegian upper secondary education. Textbooks are not assumed to determine teaching, but they are assumed to frame the field within which teachers develop their practice. The analysis shows that in the textbooks political education is expanded to a transnational level, where both political judgement of issues as well as participation are elaborated upon.


The step of intravasation (lymphovascular invasion), a rate-limiting step in metastasis, is greatly exaggerated in inflammatory breast carcinoma (IBC). Because nearly all human breast carcinoma cell lines grow as solitary nodules in nude/severe combined immunodeficient mice without manifesting lymphovascular invasion, this step has been difficult to study. We captured the essence of the IBC phenotype by establishing a unique human transplantable IBC xenograft, MARY-X, which manifests florid lymphovascular emboli in severe combined immunodeficient/nude mice. Comparing MARY-X with common non-IBC cell lines/xenografts, we discovered an overexpressed and overfunctioning E-cadherin/a,b-catenin axis. In MARY-X, the E-cadherin and catenins were part of a structurally and functionally intact adhesion axis involving the actin cytoskeleton. In vitro, MARY-X grew as round compact spheroids with a cell density 5–10-fold higher than that of other lines. The spheroids of MARY-X completely disadhered when placed in media containing absent Ca or anti-E-cadherin antibodies or when retrovirally transfected with a dominant-negative E-cadherin mutant (H-2K-E-cad). Anti-E-cadherin antibodies injected i.v. immunolocalized to the pulmonary lymphovascular emboli of MARY-X and caused their dissolution. H-2K-E-cad-transfected MARY-X spheroids were only weakly tumorigenic and did not form lymphovascular emboli. A total of 90% of human IBCs showed increased membrane E-cadherin/a,b-catenin immunoreactivity. These findings indicate that it is the gain and not the loss of the E-cadherin axis that contributes to the IBC phenotype.


The paper presents experimental studies of the dynamics of color afterimages and the main visual functions after de-adapting light acts on the human visual system. Five series were carried out with monochromatic (laser) radiations in various regimes under mesopic and photopic conditions, as well as one series in which the field of view is acted on by broad-spectrum polychromatic radiation under scotopic conditions. A common pattern in all the series was the appearance of color afterimages, although their dynamics depended on the adaptation background and the stimulus regime.


Rating agencies' track record is good in developed countries but poor in emerging economies. Why? Given the almost-monopolistic structure of the industry, we conjecture that agencies might underinvest in information gathering. We propose an indicator quantifying the agencies' effort to gather information and assess whether greater effort affects rating levels. We detect: (i) absolute underinvestment for non-OECD sovereigns (less effort in spite of greater opaqueness); (ii) relative underinvestment for non-OECD firms compared with OECD ones (though the former receive a larger effort, more intense effort boosts firm ratings in non-OECD countries while depressing them in OECD countries).


Cause Celebre, the French aphorism for famous lawsuit or surprising legal victory, is the best way to describe the June 2004 ruling of one of the World's most respected courts. As a matter of great social and political importance, the international community owes a great debt to Caroline Von Hannover, Princess of Monaco. Her longstanding determination prompted Europe's high court, in Case of Von Hannover v. Germany, to radically alter the extent to which the media can arbitrarily disrupt the private lives of the rich and famous. Barnes highlights the seeming widespread immunity from liability granted to tabloid publishers in celebrity defamation cases, utilizing traditional press guarantees. This book chronicles the world of entertainment, the constitutional goals of a free press, and the legal battles of celebrities in the U.S. and EU against an entertainment press corps over invasion of their private lives. Barnes draws upon Constitutional theory to demonstrate that the validity of our code of civility is under attack. We outlaw the behaviors commonly attributed to journalists, editors and photographers under rules designed to enforce communal norms and responsibilities. Ignoring their destruction of the substance and boundaries of community life is a violation that strikes at the heart of constitutional democracy. Celebrity citizens are routinely subjected to stalking, harassment, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress and defamation, in clear violation of their constitutional rights. Specific cases are introduced for analyzing the avowed purpose of a free press, and the nature of privacy in a democracy. The evolution of the entertainment press and the emergence of infotainment as a news format have prompted the Court to expand the legal categories that subject individuals to a lower standard of protection in actions for defamation.Barnes assists the reader in identifying the universally recognized values that serve to distinguish public from private realms of authority, and how such conditions enable democracies to flourish. The process of erecting institutional democracy requires legal enforcement of certain prerequisites, especially as they pertain to the social and psychological conditions secured by individual rights. As a matter of human right, every individual is entitled to protection for that sphere of privacy that guards familial dignity and shelters development of personal and political consciousness. This guarantee blunts the force of current legal trends toward elevating such loosely-defined concepts as the "public's right to know." Legal developments in the EU effectively secure personal power to shape the public images that represent who we are as free individuals. Barnes analyzes the doctrinal developments in cases comparing jurisprudence in the United States with ruling issued by the High Courts of Europe to demonstrate that American celebrities are entitled to, but not receiving the same protections as their European counterparts. Through this work, Barnes invites debate about the role of the press, and the importance of preserving long-cherished rights of privacy for the future of western democracy from an etymological, ethical and practical perspective.


This thesis grew out of my own experience as an Australian Christian Brother. After nearly thirty years of living and teaching as a Brother in Australia, I was appointed for the next twenty-six years to the Fiji Islands. For most of that time there was no Brothers' community near to my assigned work for me to live in and, in isolation from the Brothers, I continued to follow the spiritual practices and customs of the Brothers' tradition. When I left Australia, the Brothers' expression of their spirituality was defined by a highly prescriptive routine of daily prayer and exact observance of many external practices. On my return to Australia and on my re-joining a Brothers' community, I observed, to my confusion, that this traditional form of spirituality had been radically transformed into a variety of individual expressions, freely chosen by the Brothers to suit their personal needs and relevant to the changed conditions of society. Community life, as it had been once lived, had virtually ceased to exist. The thesis has been generated by my efforts to understand the new ways in which my confreres perceive spirituality, to explore the contemporary ways in which they express it and to consider how the traditional structures of the Religious Life might need to be changed to accommodate these contemporary expressions of spirituality. To begin with, an examination is undertaken of spirituality as it has been conceptualised from the Christian medieval mystics to contemporary times and a clear distinction is made between spirituality and religion. Further, the research study examines how the different social milieus in which the Brothers have lived in Australia over the last one hundred and fifty years have influenced the manner in which they express their spirituality. It attempts to determine the effect on the Brothers' developing spirituality of the initial formation they received in the Religious life. This was a qualitative research study where interviews were used to collect data. Seventeen Australian Christian Brothers across Australia, ranging in age from their forties to their late eighties, agreed to participate in the project to share their stories. The focus of the interviews was to discover the participant's understanding and expression of spirituality through their years as Christian Brothers. It was found that various social and religious influences brought about a transformation in these expressions of their spirituality from traditional forms to more contemporary forms. Given the age range of the participants, the researcher was able to compare and contrast different aspects of spirituality manifested by the Australian Christian Brothers in the times before and after the Second Vatican Council, a time when much change was happening within the Catholic Church. It became clear that if the traditional form of life of living in community is continued, respecting the individual member's ways of relating to God will need accommodation and some adaptation both in structure and practice.


Shown as part of a collective exhibition from the work of the University of Ulster's drawing group. Drawing a Line - Visual Thinking as Drawing19th September until 15th October 2011Mark Ainsworth - Majella Clancy - Paul Clarke – Colin Darke - Lydia Holmes - Adriana Ionascu - Fiona Larkin - Sinead McKeever - Helen O'Hare - Joanne Proctor - Doris Rohr - Louise WallaceThe group brings together artists, designers and architects whose work is concerned with drawing as a conceptual tool. The work shown forms a triptych around the theme of the architect's approach to drawing: Marks on a wall; a numerical quote turned into a drawing related to 'The Modular' by Le Corbusier and then the open pages of a notebook kept while visiting China. A series of inter related works that explore different perceptions and themes on the notion of drawing in architecture- Notebooks, paint and walls.


Small flexible bodies are observed to hover in an oscillating air column. The air is driven by a large speaker at frequencies in the range 10–65Hz at amplitudes 1–5cm. The bodies are made of stiffened tissue paper, bent to form an array of four wings, symmetric about a vertical axis. The flapping of the wings, driven by the oscillating flow, leads to stable hovering. The hovering position of the body is unstable under free fall in the absence of the airflow. Measurements of the minimum flow amplitude as a function of flow frequency were performed for a range of self-similar bodies of the same material. The optimal frequency for hovering is found to vary inversely with the size. We suggest, on the basis of flow visualization, that hovering of such bodies in an oscillating flow depends upon a process of vortex shedding closely analogous to that of an active flapper in otherwise still air. A simple inviscid model is developed illustrating some of the observed properties of flexible passive hoverers at high R...


At the middle Doce river , between 1930 and 1960, the forest lands had been occupied by agriculture and cattle raising. First, the agricultural cultures had found favorable conditions to enlargement, but not enough for consolidating itself, before giving place to cattle, as it is common in the history of Brazilian agriculture. The lands covered by the forest had been invaded by the capim-coloniao (Panicum maximum Jacq. var. maximum) in a bigger rhythm than the advance of the human activity. The African grassy found very good conditions to spreading (the relief, the climate and the practices of the farmers. Its biological characteristics had favored the advance of the grass. The capim-coloniao does not diminished the force of the socioeconomics elements, marked for power relations where the farmer took clear advantage, but understand its biological aspects contributes for the understanding of the configuration of the territory of the river Doce.


River water was pumped into a brine plant by a battery of vertical pumps, each operating at 3600 rpm and at a discharge pressure of 827 kPa (120 psi). The pumps were lubricated by means of controlled leakage. The 3.8 cm (1 in.) OD pump sleeves were made of an austenitic stainless steel and were hard faced with a fused nickel-base hardfacing alloy (approximately 58 HRC). Packing for the pumps consisted of a braided PTFE-asbestos material. After several weeks of operation, the pumps began to leak and to spray water over the platforms on which they were mounted at the edge of the river. Analysis supported the conclusions that the leaks were caused by excessive sleeve wear that resulted from the presence of fine, abrasive silt in the river water. The silt, which contained hard particles of silica, could not be filtered out of the inlet water effectively.


Some of the most important - and most interesting - recent work in the area of corporate and sovereign bankruptcy is rooted in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the golden age of the railroad receivership. Yet we know very little about railroad or equity receiverships beyond how they worked in theory. This paper remedies the existing gap in the literature by looking at a sample comprised of the largest railroads in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, approximately half of which went through a receivership between 1890 and this country's entry into World War I. By examining the fate of these two groups of railroads after the World War, I am able to shed some light on the long-term effectiveness of receiverships. The results are striking. The data shows that having undergone a receivership before World War I made a railroad more than two and a half times (i.e., 150%) more likely to undergo another receivership or bankruptcy after the War. The average railroad that reorganized under a receivership subsequently failed at a rate more than twice as high as railroads that had never gone through a receivership and almost three times as high as modern chapter 11 debtors. And the data shows that Morgan's involvement with a road had little effect on the road's ability to avoid financial distress.


The project titled "Rural Development Monitoring" is a multiannual research endeavor, implemented within the European Fund for the Development of Polish Villages and the Institute of Rural and Agricultural Development at the Polish Academy of Sciences. The aim of the project is constant observation of socio-economic changes taking place in rural areas in Poland. The first stage of the research identifies the spatial differentiation of economic and social phenomena in Poland as well as defines their structures and levels as of 2010. The socio-economic development here is understood as a certain shape of economic structures which allows generating satisfactory income and meeting rising community development needs at the very local level. Community participation, better access to education and public services or higher standards of living, etc. are of the same importance. Meeting both social and economic needs makes rural areas a good place of living. The level of meeting the needs can be identified with the certain level of reached development. The data set consists of over 120 thousand information obtained from state institutions, as well as from surveys conducted in 2173 municipal offices.


Touted as the buffer overflows of the age, Spectre and Meltdown have created significant interest around microarchitectural vulnerabilities and have been instrumental for the discovery of new classes of attacks. Yet, todate, real-world exploits are rare since they often either require gadgets that are difficult to locate, or they require the ability of the attacker to inject code. In this work, we uncover two new classes of gadgets with very few restrictions on their structure, making them suitable for real-world exploitation. We demonstrate – through PoCs – their suitability to leak one bit and one byte respectively per successful attack, achieving high success rates and low noise on the constructed side-channel. We test our attack PoC on various kernels with default mitigations enabled, showing how they are insufficient to protect against them. We also show that hardening the configuration of mitigations successfully prevents exploitation, making a case for their wider adoption.


Over the last few years, transaction cost analysis has been one of the biggest areas of investment for both the buy and sell side of the equity industry. This increased focus has led to intensification of research in this field. At the same time, there has been an enormous leap in the provision of tools to aid measuring and predicting costs. As a precursor to modeling transaction costs, we felt it would be useful to the reader to compile a literature review that takes the reader from the very early attempts of modeling market microstructure through to some techniques used today. Although many of the early (classical) studies may seem inappropriate to today's electronic order books, many of the concepts developed are still relevant at present. Until recently, the focus of the investment community has been on commissions, taxes, and spreads. In this article, we have not gone into any detail regarding these fixed costs, but we have focused on the so-called "hidden" costs of trading.


This paper presents a mathematical model as a new approach to object mapping, the system is proscribed to indoor and applied to approach a landmark. The contribution of this paper is to propose a new mathematical model for object mapping, the landmark is captured at varying distant points, the Scale invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) to extract object options, at the side of their uncertainty, from camera sensors. The (SIFT) features are invariant to image scaling, translation, and rotation, and partially invariant to illumination changes and affine or 3D projection, which is suitable for our application. As image options do not seem to be noise-free, the error analysis of the landmark positions and a preprocessing to obtained information which is incorporated into a model, using curve fitting techniques. Predictions created by our model square measure well and correlate with experimental knowledge. This has eliminated correspondence Problem also known as a data association problem.


Our survey results demonstrate that targeted screening of airline passengers raises conflicting concerns of efficiency and equity. Support for profiling increases if there is a substantial reduction in avoided delays to other passengers. The time cost and benefit components of targeting affect support for targeted screening in an efficiency-oriented manner. Nonwhite respondents are more reluctant than whites to support targeting or to be targeted. Terrorism risk assessments are highly diffuse, reflecting considerable risk ambiguity. People fear highly severe worst case terrorism outcomes, but their best estimates of the risk are more closely related to their lower bound estimates than their upper bound estimates. Anomalies evident in other risk perception contexts, such as hindsight biases and embeddedness effects, are particularly evident for terrorism risk beliefs.


The recent discovery that the ultraviolet (UV) dust extinction in starburst galaxies is similar to that found in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) motivated us to reinvestigate the UV extinction found in the SMC. We have been able to improve significantly on previous studies by carefully choosing pairs of well-matched reddened and unreddened stars. In addition, we benefited from the improved signal-to-noise ratio of the NEWSIPS International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) data and the larger sample of SMC stars now available. Searching the IUE Final Archive, we found only four suitable early-type stars that were significantly reddened and had well-matched comparison stars. The extinction for three of these stars is remarkably similar. The curves are roughly linear with λ-1 and have no measurable 2175 Å bump. The fourth star has an extinction curve with a significant 2175 Å bump and weaker far-UV extinction. The dust along all four sight lines is thought to be local to the SMC. There is no significant Galactic foreground component. The first three stars lie in the SMC bar, and the line of sight for each of them passes through regions of recent star formation. The fourth star belongs to the SMC wing, and its line of sight passes through a much more quiescent region. Thus, the behavior of the dust extinction in the SMC supports a dependence of dust properties on star formation activity. However, other environmental factors (such as galactic metallicity) must also be important. Dust in the 30 Dor region of the LMC, where much more active star formation is present, does not share the extreme extinction properties seen in SMC dust.


The lowland temperate grasslands and grassy woodlands of Tasmania have become fragmented and degraded since European settlement. Conservation efforts need to be directed towards both representative vegetation remnants that are of high integrity, and those that contain rare and threatened species. Land clearance or conversion to other land uses are the most serious threats to these remnants. This paper reports on a survey of grassland landholder attitudes and how they relate to the threats to grasslands. The owners and managers of grasslands have attitudes that fall into four groups. The first group are from state and municipal agencies who saw that ignorance of the conservation values of grasslands posed a threat to their long term survival. The second group were graziers who highly prized their grasslands and saw themselves as the best managers in the long term to ensure conservation. They required extension services and management advice. A third group of farmers were not willing to be involved in off reserve conservation schemes; they retained native grasslands because the areas were too rocky or too marginal to warrant conversion to other land uses. The fourth group were willing to covenant their land or sign management agreeements. These groups need to be treated separately in actions directed towards conservation. Suggestions are made on strategies for conservation on land which is primarily managed for agriculture.


Estate duty in South Africa is levied in terms of the Estate Duty Act since 1955. Estate duty is currently calculated at a flat rate of 20% on the amount of which the net worth of an estate exceeds a primary rebate of R3,5 million. Statistics show that only a small percentage of estates in South Africa is taxable. Furthermore, many estate owners – particularly those whose estates are liable for estate duty – have the financial means to afford estate planning services to reduce estate duty. This reality has the effect that estate duty is paid by a very insignificant number of estates. Similar to estate duty, capital gains tax has the tax incentive of constituting vertical equity – creating the outcome that taxpayers with greater capability to pay taxes should be taxed more severely. Capital gains tax is also a tax payable (among other instances) at the death of an estate owner. This gives rise to double taxation. Further matters that need to be considered are constitutional justification of estate duty and the question whether the categories of current taxable estates correlate with the taxable estates envisaged by the legislator in 1955. In amending fiscal policy, it is useful to consider international trends. In countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada estate duty has been abolished. This phenomenon demonstrates that estate duty is not an essential element of a tax system. The aim of this study is to investigate the contribution of the abolishment of estate duty to South African tax law. Key terms: estate duty, estate planning, tax avoidance, capital gains tax, tax abolishment


The purpose of this project was to create a literature review on Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS), Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT) and the possible use of MIT as a treatment method for CAS. Included within this literature review is also a plan for a future study. The purpose of this study is to further examine the effectiveness of MIT for the treatment of CAS. In this study, three groups will be created, each consisting of 10 children with CAS. Each group will be exposed to a different therapy method that is used in the treatment of CAS. The three groups being; Touch Cue Method, Non-Speech Oral Motor Exercises (NSOMEs) and MIT. The phonetic inventory of each participant will be taken into account as a list of 30 stimulus words will be created that will be implemented into each therapy session. During the halfway point of the study, five new stimulus words will be introduced to test generalization skills for each treatment method. At the end of the study, five more new stimulus words will be introduced to again test generalization skills and to examine further if there is an improvement of these skills. There will be a total of 6 sessions in this study. Each session will be 60 minutes with a total of 360 minutes of exposure to each therapy method.


Migrants, ethnic minorities and people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities are often more vulnerable to natural disasters due to cultural barriers and limited proficiency in the dominant language, which sometimes undermine their ability to access, interpret and respond to warnings. Technology can assist in engendering culturally and linguistically appropriate communication with CALD communities if key challenges are identified. This study contributes by reviewing relevant literature with the aim of ascertaining the most pressing challenges requiring technological interventions. Three broad issues (i.e., trust, message tailoring, and message translation) are identified and discussed, and potential solutions for addressing these issues are recommended.


Summary

1
The European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires that member states establish type-specific reference conditions for all waterbodies, including freshwater lakes. This presents a problem in those locations where human activity has resulted in significant changes to the biological, chemical and physical characteristics of waterbodies.

2
Seventy-six oligotrophic and meso-oligotrophic [0–19 µg total phosphorus (TP) L−1] lakes thought to be relatively unimpacted by human activity have been nominated as candidate reference lakes (CRL) by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency. This research has used palaeolimnological (lake sediment-based) techniques to test the actual and historical ecological site-specific status of a representative selection of these CRL. Where the temporal record of sedimentation was sufficiently long, the study adopted c. 1850 ad as the primary baseline date for reference conditions.

3
Short sediment cores were obtained from the deepest parts of 35 CRL, and chronologies were established from profiles of spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCP). Twenty-two cores of sediment appeared to date back to c. 1850 on the basis of SCP concentrations. Unless the SCP chronologies suggested otherwise, diatom assemblages present in top and bottom samples from the cores were used as proxies of, respectively, present-day and reference conditions. Past lake water pH (DI-pH) and TP concentration (DI-TP) were inferred from the diatom data. Higher resolution sampling (up to five sediment samples per core) was adopted at seven sites where the SCP-based chronology was more robust and for at least one core from each of the most common types of CRL. Sediment chemistry data were determined to identify possible anthropogenic drivers of the observed changes in the diatom assemblages.

4
Ordination and dissimilarity measures identified the main patterns of variation in the diatom data. Eleven of 34 CRL for which diatom data were available showed little or no change in biological status between core top and bottom samples. Core bottom samples in six of these dated back to pre- or c. 1850 and reference (and high ecological) status could therefore be confirmed in these cases. The estimated age of core bottom samples in the remaining five cores was in the period just after c. 1850 to c. 1950 ad (four cores) or was impossible to determine (one core). Twenty-three (68%) of the CRL sampled showed biologically important deviation from the reference condition, with acidification and nutrient enrichment seemingly the main causes of change. Catchment disturbance, notably peat erosion possibly linked to recent afforestation, also appeared to have been a factor in some cases.

5
Synthesis and applications. This study provides the first systematic examination of changes to water quality in (perceived) pristine lakes over the last c. 150 years for Ireland, and demonstrates the potential of palaeolimnology to support the implementation of the WFD. The results indicate that diatom communities in low alkalinity lakes have been particularly altered, and acidification and nutrient enrichment appear to have been important drivers for some lakes. Furthermore, higher resolution results call into question the validity of applying c. 1850 as the date for reference conditions across Ireland.


Thesis (Ph.D.)--Georgetown University, 2008.; Includes bibliographical
 references. Nations usually go to war to defend against a threat (balancing) or gain some
 profit (bandwagoning). However, they sometimes join war coalitions without such motivations -
 or refuse to join them despite great pressure from the coalition leader. For example, the
 US-led coalition against Iraq in 2003 was largely composed of states that were not traditional
 US allies, were not threatened by Iraq, and had little to gain from the invasion. Furthermore,
 the US surprisingly failed to enlist key allies in the coalition. Are coalition formation
 dynamics different now than during the Cold War? This is an important question because such
 war coalitions may be more common in the future.; This dissertation examines the impact of
 asymmetric security interdependence between minor states and a superpower vis-a-vis their war
 coalition choices. Shifts in the global balance of power, such as from bipolarity to
 unipolarity, can lead to shifts in security interdependence because the security motivations
 for the superpower and minor states can become 'delinked' from each other. Some minor states
 become less concerned about their relationship with the unipole (because they are no longer
 threatened by the other bipole) while others become more concerned with it because of
 long-term regional threats (they can no longer rely upon a bipolar ally to protect them). This
 shift, when combined with the fact that the superpower-as-coalition leader values the
 contributions of some minor states more than others (due to its warplans) can lead to
 situations of asymmetric security interdependence.; Such interdependence is a source of power
 - thus it can determine which state is more likely to have greater bargaining leverage, which
 one pays for a coalition contribution, and how that contribution comes about. This explains
 many notable puzzles of coalition formation, including the failure of the US to enlist a
 Turkish contribution in 2003 and why states like Poland went to great lengths to contribute to
 US-led coalitions in 1990-91 and 2003. To test this, I examine three war coalitions (Operation
 Iraqi Freedom, The Korean War, and Desert Storm) and US efforts to enlist the support of four
 minor states (Turkey, Japan, Germany and Poland).


Virtual Williamsburg --a 3D model of Williamsburg, Virginia in 1776 currently in development--will serve as a backdrop for a range of engaging educational media for a public audience. Today Colonial Williamsburg is the United States' largest outdoor living history and is dedicated to interpreting the key events that led to American independence and the founding of a new republic. Eighty-eight original eighteenth-century buildings survive and hundreds more reconstructed ones form the core of the Historic Area where guests can interact with costumed interpreters and immerse themselves in this revolutionary city. The new virtual environment being developed is intended to complement the visit experience: technological applications will be developed to support and enhance onsite programming and online presentation formats will be used to engage new and distant audiences. This paper will discuss both our current outreach efforts through blogging and our future plans for releasing an interactive virtual environment using Unity 3D. In 1776, Virginia's capital city was comprised of more than five-hundred buildings. Many of those buildings are represented in the landscape today and can be used as the starting point for creating the virtual versions. Others, however, have never been reconstructed and are being modeled based on a synthesizing a range of evidence, from archaeological data to documentary sources. To make the modeling process manageable, we have divided the town into neighborhoods and prioritized the order in which they will be virtually reconstructed. The first neighborhood, the east end of town around the Capitol, will be finished by the end of 2012 and a second, the Public Armoury, is already in progress. Rather than wait to complete a neighborhood before making it available online, we have begun using blogging to engage online audiences with the project and provide updates as buildings evolve. This has been an effective approach for providing our audience with an understanding of the normally transparent research process that is happening "behind-the-scenes" as we continually strive to further our understanding of this eighteenth-century town. We are also currently developing an interactive virtual environment using the gaming engine, Unity 3D. The interface will enable users to explore the model through a variety of modes and to access information about the sites, historical residents, and objects. Virtual Williamsburg will be made available online at first, but in the future it will be converted into onsite applications to enrich the guest experience.


Recently, administrative agencies around the world have engaged in a grand experiment to regulate new technologies: regulatory sandboxes. Regulatory sandboxes allow developers, in cooperation with an agency, to conduct limited tests of new technologies in real-world settings for the purpose of generating and sharing information about them. Thus far, however, "regulatory sandboxes"—as named— appear almost exclusively in the context of financial technologies, or FinTech. Whether regulatory sandboxes, in fact, exist elsewhere in administrative law would be a significant finding for both regulators and scholars; it would blunt criticisms that agencies are slow to respond to new technologies, provide regulators with an additional tool for governing new technologies, and suggest that lessons learned from current regulatory sandboxes are applicable elsewhere. This Article is the first to explore this broader view of regulatory sandboxes and develop a synoptic theory of them. To do so, it uses one of the most radical programs to introduce new technologies in US history: the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) program for COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. EUAs—like regulatory sandboxes but in stark contrast to typical FDA approval processes—focus on real-world deployment as a means for information gathering. EUAs are also technologically flexible and crafted with close input from the developer, among other features. Generalizing FDA's experience with EUAs also provides lessons about the intersection of regulatory sandboxes with public trust in the agency, political interference, and the maintenance of regulatory standards. At the same time, FDA's COVID–19 EUAs are exceptional in two senses: they touch upon the public health, widely considered to be exceptional subject matter in administrative law; and arose in the context of unprecedented global pandemic. Nonetheless, FDA's experience with EUAs suggest regulatory sandboxes may be an underexplored and undertheorized feature of administrative governance of new technologies. Future work in the area should assess whether regulatory sandboxes exist under the rubric identified here, which technologies they regulate, and how those sandboxes operate.


Heltzel, Anne. Circle Nine. Somerville, Mass.: Candlewick Press, 2011. Print. Why are hapless females in YA novels always named Abby? I don't know , the amnesiac narrator of Circle Nine would reply. That's just what it says on my necklace .  So begins Anne Heltzel's debut thriller: a teenaged girl awakens on the pavement outside a burning building with no memories and no name, save the one she wears in gold around her neck. With her is a mysterious, charismatic youth named Sam, who claims to be her friend. Sam persuades Abby to retreat from the fire and into the woods, where they hide in the safety of his "cave-palace": a glittering subterranean paradise full of shimmering fabrics and sumptuous furniture. There, the two of them sip pomegranate wine, discuss fine literature, and forswear all contact with the outside world, which Sam likens to an Aleghierian hell (hence the book's title). We suspect this a fantasy, invented by Abby to protect herself from an uglier cave and an uglier Sam, to say nothing of the ugly events occluded by her smoke-kippered memory. The question is: whose fantasy is it? What sixteen-year-old with cheap bling on her neck would retreat into a happy place wrought with literary allusion, Platonic cave metaphors, and Oriental carpets? This is clearly the reverie of the author herself, still in love with her various muses. Abby's fantasyland, though out of character, is not necessarily a detriment to the novel itself. Indeed, we could do without the predictable combination of flashbacks and sleuthing by which Abby reconstructs her true identity, and abide instead within her doomed and darkly luminous otherworld. For it is there that Heltzel's storytelling is at its boldest, her writing most sensuous and wild, and it is here that the novel promises—if only briefly—to be something other than the dreary chestnut about a naive girl brought low by bad luck and sly men. Recommended with reservations: 2 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Sarah Mead-Willis Sarah is the Rare Book Cataloguer at the University of Alberta's Bruce Peel Special Collections Library. She holds a BA and an MLIS from the University of Alberta and an MA in English Literature from the University of Victoria.


Because of the high volume and unpredictable arrival rate, stream processing systems may not always be able to keep up with the input data streams - resulting in buffer overflow and uncontrolled loss of data. Load shedding, the prevalent strategy for solving this overflow problem, has so far only been considered for relational stream processing, but not for XML. Shedding applied to XML stream processing brings new opportunities and challenges due to complex nested nature of XML structures. In this paper, we tackle this unsolved XML shedding problem using a three-pronged approach. First, we develop an XQuery preference model that enables users to specify the relative importance of preserving different subpatterns in the XML result structure. This transforms shedding into the problem of rewriting the user query into shed queries that return approximate query answers with utility as measured by the given user preference model. Second, we develop a cost model to compare the performance of alternate shed queries. Third, we develop two shedding algorithms, OptShed and FastShed. OptShed guarantees to find an optimal solution however at the cost of exponential complexity. FastShed, as confirmed by our experiments, achieves a close-to-optimal result in a wide range of test cases. Finally we describe the in-automaton shedding mechanism for XQuery stream engines. The experiments show that our proposed utility-driven shedding solutions consistently achieve higher utility results compared to the existing relational shedding techniques.


This paper describes the development of a very simple micro-flow pneumatic ICPMS nebulizing solution based on a commercial glass concentric slurry nebulizer and a fused-silica capillary. It appears as a well-performing, low cost system able to nebulize efficiently at a low liquid flow rate (40000 cps for a 1 ppb 238U solution at 1 μL min−1). Experimentally, it provides a practical set-up for studying the influence of not only operating conditions (liquid and gas flow rates, temperature) but also nebulizer design (nozzle configuration, capillary tip shape, capillary inner diameter). More precisely it allows the study of liquid-capillary-tip to gas-exit stick-out, i.e. recessed position (e 0) in combination with various liquid capillary inner diameters or tip shapes. This investigation brings out several practical results even if the relation between the primary aerosol characteristics (studied by three complementary techniques (PIV, shadowgraphy and ILIDS)) and the ICPMS signal measured on a tertiary aerosol is not easy to establish precisely. These results are systematically compared to the literature data, replacing them in a more global perspective. It highlights the prime importance of the nozzle configuration i.e. stick-out and liquid capillary inner diameter. The stick-out (e) parameter is of crucial importance both for the primary spray homogeneity in terms of droplet velocity distribution and for tertiary signal intensity and stability but shows no influence on the oxide ratio or on the droplet size distribution. This last characteristic may not be the most relevant criterion for low liquid uptake nebulizers, contrary to millilitre flow-rate ones. The authors hypothesize that this may be linked to the evaporation capacity of the nebulising gas largely exceeding the liquid uptake, creating a fundamentally different situation for the two types of nebulizers. This study also displays the interest of using a flat-end capillary instead of a tapered end which is the solution most commonly employed, and it highlights the existence of an optimum nozzle configuration (e > 0) in terms of sensitivity and stability, that is dependent on the capillary inner diameter.


Number 3 Prescription (WD-3) is an herbal remedy used in traditional Chinese medicine that has been shown to improve the outcomes of patients with advanced colon and gastric cancers. This study aimed to investigate the effect of WD-3 on proliferation, glycolysis, and hexokinase 2 expression in breast cancer cells. Four breast cancer cell lines (MDA-MB-231, BT-549, MCF-7, and MCF-7/ADR-RES) were treated with different concentrations of WD-3 compared with blank control (phosphate-buffered saline). Each of the breast cancer cell lines was also divided into WD-3, paclitaxel, and blank control group. Cell proliferation and morphology were assessed by MTT assay, nuclear Hoechst 33258 staining, or immunofluorescence. Apoptosis was analyzed by flow cytometry. High performance liquid chromatography was used for measurement of ATP, ADP, and AMP. Hexokinase 2 expression was analyzed by Western blot and quantitative reverse transcription PCR. WD-3 inhibited proliferation and increased apoptosis in all four breast cancer cell lines, in a dose-dependent manner. ATP and EC (energy charge) were significantly decreased in WD-3-treated BT-549 and MDA-MB-231 cells. WD-3 significantly downregulated the protein and mRNA expression of hexokinase II in BT-549 cells, however, not in the other three breast cancer cell lines. Our findings indicate that WD-3 targets the glycolytic pathway in breast cancer cells to exert its antitumor activity.


Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) was one of the leading British landscape painters of the 19th century. Inspired by his mentor, the artist and poet William Blake, Palmer brought a new spiritual intensity to his interpretation of nature, producing works of unprecedented boldness and fervency. Pre-eminent scholar William Vaughan-who organized the Palmer retrospective at the British Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2005-draws on unpublished diaries and letters, offering a fresh interpretation of one of the most attractive and sympathetic, yet idiosyncratic, figures of the 19th century. Far from being a recluse, as he is often presented, Palmer was actively engaged in Victorian cultural life and sought to exert a moral power through his artwork. Beautifully illustrated with Palmer's visionary and enchanted landscapes, the book contains rich studies of his work, influences, and resources. Vaughan also shows how later, enthralled by the Pre-Raphaelite movement, Palmer manipulated his own artistic image to harmonize with it. Little appreciated in his lifetime, Palmer is now hailed as a precursor of modernism in the 20th century.


High and volatile food prices pose a significant policy challenge around the world, and an understanding of the dynamics of food price inflation and volatility is essential in designing appropriate policy responses. Using the panel data for 72 countries from 2000 to 2011, the paper assesses the international transmission of food price inflation and volatilities as well as the effects of various internal and external factors on domestic food price inflation and volatility. The paper offers evidence in support of the international transmission of food price inflation and volatility. Specifically, the paper finds that the domestic food price inflation in Asia is strongly associated with the lagged value of global food price inflation (using the FAO food price index), while volatility spillovers from global to domestic food prices are rather contemporaneous. The paper also finds that both national food price inflation rates and volatilities are strongly associated with both intra- and extra- regional food price inflation rates and volatilities, respectively. The findings also suggest that higher economic growth rates, greater shares of food in merchandise imports, and smaller increases in the share of food in merchandise imports lead to lower domestic food price inflation. An appreciation of local currency, greater political stability, and higher income level are also found to lower domestic food price inflation. On the other hand, higher economic growth rates lead to lower volatilities of food prices.