This special edition of Online Learning focuses on research and best practices for serving military personnel. Military students can be found at almost every higher education institution (Ford & Vignare, 2015; Cate & Albright, 2015) in the US. The authors and editors share with the readers a range of articles which commence with a review of literature, and include articles on using technology effectively for online military learners, building a more comprehensive understanding of military students, helping military personnel successfully transfer to the role of students, and building academic programs designed for such students. These articles build a research base for currentgeneration military learners engaged in military service after September 2001. The military personnel increase since 2001 and the current downsizing leading to large veteran population has created a unique opportunity to build the research base and understanding of online military learners, online institutions and military learners in general.


Throughout the ages architects have attempted to capture the essence of living systems as design inspiration. However, practitioners of the built environment have had to deal with a fundamental split between the artificial urban landscape and nature owing to a technological 'gap' that means architects have been unable to make effective use of biological systems in urban environments. Protocell Architecture is an edition of AD that shows for the first time that contemporary architects can create and construct architectures that are bottom up, synthetically biological, green and have no recourse to shallow bio-mimicry. In the next few decades, synthetic biology is set to have as much, if not more, impact on architecture as cyberspace and the digital. The key to these amazing architectural innovations is the Protocell.


We investigate structural change in the PR China during a period of particularly rapid growth 1998-2014. For this, we utilize sectoral data from the World Input-Output Database and firm-level data from the Chinese Industrial Enterprise Database. Starting with correlation laws known from the literature (Fabricant's laws), we investigate which empirical regularities hold at the sectoral level and show that many of these correlations cannot be recovered at the firm level. For a more detailed analysis, we propose a multi-level framework, which is validated with empirically. For this, we perform a robust regression, since various input variables at the firm-level as well as the residuals of exploratory OLS regressions are found to be heavy-tailed. We conclude that Fabricant's laws and other regularities are primarily characteristics of the sectoral level which rely on aspects like infrastructure, technology level, innovation capabilities, and the knowledge base of the relevant labor force. We illustrate our analysis by showing the development of some of the larger sectors in detail and offer some policy implications in the context of development economics, evolutionary economics, and industrial organization.


Self-Reported Mastery: Moving on from Self-Reported Gains in Assessing Learning Outcomes Michael S. Thompson Department of Instructional Psychology and Technology, BYU Doctor of Philosophy As the learning outcomes movement gains strength, the need to effectively measure learning outcomes becomes more important. This study looked at the effectiveness of selfreported mastery in measuring learning outcomes by examining the correlations between (a) selfreported mastery, (b) self-reported gains, and (c) objective measures of learning outcomes. The objective measures of learning outcomes were final exams for two classes, Calculus (consisting of two forms) and Statistics. The self-reported mastery and self-reported gains items were taken from the pilot student ratings form and the old student ratings form. A total of 848 undergraduate students completed the final exam and the two student ratings forms. The summed total of the self-reported mastery items correlated at a medium strength with objective measures of learning outcomes (Calculus Form A: r = .436; Calculus Form B: r = .361; Statistics: r = .416). The relationship between self-reported gains and objective measures of learning outcomes was weaker than that of self-reported mastery and objective measures of learning outcomes (a difference of .276 for Calculus Form A, .138 for Calculus Form B, .110 for Statistics). The relationship between self-reported gains and self-reported mastery was stronger than the other two relationships (Calculus Form A: r = .473, Calculus Form B: r = .500, Statistics: r = .628). A confirmatory factor analysis produced even stronger relationships between the three latent variables, including differences between the two forms of the Calculus exam. Self-reported mastery may be more effective at measuring objective measures of learning outcomes than self-reported gains, but self-reported mastery cannot completely serve as a proxy for objective measures of learning outcomes. Administrators or researchers measuring learning outcomes on a large scale may benefit by administering self-reported mastery items instead of self-reported gains items.


Accurate iFR calculation can provide important clinical information for intracoronary functional assessment without administration of adenosine, which needs to locate object points in the pressure waveforms: peak, the dichrotic notch and the pressure nadir at the end of diastole. We propose a DFENet that is capable of locating object points to calculate iFR accurately. We first design a SFRA into DFENet with the idea of DenseNet. To avoid overfitting when dealing with sparse signals, we set appropriate number of network layers, growth rate of dense blocks and compression rate of transition blocks in 1D DenseNet. Then, we introduce a feature enhancement mechanism named 1D SE block for enhancing inconspicuous but vital features from SFRA, which guides DFENet to focus on these important features via feature recalibration. Finally, we prove an effective interaction mode between SFRA and 1D SE block to locate object points accurately. Adequate experiments demonstrate that DFENet reaches a high accuracy of 94.22%, error of 5.6 on object point localization of 1D pressure waveforms that include 1457 samples from 100 subjects via a cross-validation of Leave-One-Out. Comparison experiment demonstrates that the accuracy of DFENet exceeds other state-of-the-art methods by 3.35%, and ablation experiment demonstrates that the accuracy of SFRA and cSE exceed the other variations by 6.63% and 2.56% respectively. Importantly, we reveal how the DFENet enhance inconspicuous but vital feature by applying gradient-weighted class activation maps. DFENet can locate object points accurately, which is applicable to other signal processing tasks, especially in health sensing.


Four experiments investigated how repetition priming of object recognition is affected by the task performed in the prime and test phases. In Experiment 1 object recognition was tested using both vocal naming and two different semantic decision tasks (whether or not objects were manufactured, and whether or not they would be found inside the house). Some aspects of the data were inconsistent with contemporary models of object recognition. Specifically, object priming was eliminated with some combinations of prime and test tasks, and there was no evidence of perceptual (as opposed to conceptual or response) priming in either semantic classification task, even though perceptual identification of the objects is required for at least one of these tasks. Experiment 2 showed that even when perceptual demands were increased by brief presentation, the inside task showed no perceptual priming. Experiment 3 showed that the inside task did not appear to be based on conceptual priming either, as it was not primed significantly when the prime decisions were made to object labels. Experiment 4 showed that visual sensitivity could be restored to the inside task following practice on the task, supporting the suggestion that a critical factor is whether the semantic category is preformed or must be computed. The results show that the visual representational processes revealed by object priming depend crucially on the task chosen.


Background:Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use is associated with a small but statistically significant decline in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). We investigated the reversibility of eGFR decline among HIV-uninfected adults discontinuing PrEP. Methods:Data were from the Partners PrEP Study, a randomized trial of daily oral TDF and emtricitabine (FTC)-TDF PrEP among African HIV-uninfected men and women with baseline creatinine clearance ≥60 mL/min. Serum creatinine was measured quarterly while on-study medication and at month 1 and 2 after discontinuation. eGFR was calculated using the Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration Equation. Results:A total of 3924 individuals had a poststudy drug serum creatinine measurement after the scheduled drug discontinuation (1271 for TDF, 1308 for FTC-TDF, and 1345 for placebo); 65% were men, median age was 35 (range 18–64) years. Median time on study drug was 33 (interquartile range 25–36) months overall, and 36 months (interquartile range 30–36) for TDF and FTC-TDF. Mean eGFR at the last on-treatment visit was 129 mL·min−1·1.73 m−2 for TDF and 128 mL·min−1·1.73 m−2 for FTC-TDF versus 131 mL·min−1·1.73 m−2 for placebo (2–3 mL·min−1·1.73 m−2 mean decline for PrEP versus placebo, P ⩽ 0.01), and this difference reversed by 4 weeks after drug discontinuation (mean eGFR at the first postdrug visit: 130 mL·min−1 1.73 m−2 in all groups). More than 96% of participants had a confirmed >75% eGFR rebound to baseline level by 8 weeks after drug discontinuation, with similar proportions across treatment groups. Conclusions:In this large, placebo-controlled study of TDF-based PrEP, the small reduction in mean eGFR associated with PrEP reversed within weeks after discontinuation.


GOVERNORS have used their clout in this legislative session to push for some big changes in education. Some have made progress with their proposals, others have found the political terrain rough and unpredictable, and in a few instances the outcome is still in doubt. In all cases, though, the ability to compromise with the state legislature has been an essential part of the mix. There might even be some unspoken competition to be the first governor to reel in a prize policy catch of something as big as a statewide voucher program. Back when this type of strong education policy leadership was rare, a governor who got actively involved in education could pick up the title "Education Governor." Today, a "hands-on" interest in education on the part of the governor is often assumed, and only rarely is it seen as a liability. While it may be a stretch to call all of them Education Governors, there is little doubt that education plays a central role in decisions about managing state government. In at least one state this year, these education issues have intersected with budget and tax concerns and a century or more of political history. Leadership in the Granite State The New Hampshire citizen's traditional loathing of broad-based taxes, coupled with a school finance system tagged as unconstitutional by the state supreme court, has boxed Gov. Jeanne Shaheen into a corner. Like every other gubernatorial candidate in recent memory, she had to take the "no-tax pledge" in her last two campaigns; she won both of those races, a rare event for a Democrat in New Hampshire; and the court gave the state an April 1 deadline to put equity into a funding system that has over 90% of K-12 expenditures coming from local property taxes. All of these pressures form the sides of the box in which the governor finds herself. So far this session, in early March, the 400-member House, which is controlled by Republicans, passed a 3.5% income tax by four votes, with 60 Republicans voting in favor. The first Democratically controlled Senate since 1912 passed its own version of an income tax a few weeks later. But just before the deadline, the House rejected the Senate version. Some say the governor's threat of a veto put pressure on the Democrats in the House to vote no on the second go-round. The state needs, by some estimates, $1 billion of new money to meet the court order, and raising this kind of money can't be done easily without some form of income, sales, or statewide property tax. Since 1972, New Hampshire's largest newspaper, the Manchester Union Leader, has been the conservative voice leading the state's anti-tax forces. Any candidate who wishes to gain the endorsement of the paper must take a pledge to oppose any sales or income tax. In former times, this also would have included a statewide property tax, but Gov. Shaheen has at least tentatively included a statewide property tax in her plan, along with a new 5% capital gains tax, an increase in the cigarette tax, and the introduction of video slot machines in four state racetracks. A counter legislative plan is still trying to revive the 3.5% income tax and couple it with a statewide property tax. Meanwhile, the legislature is looking into every corner for new tax ideas, such as a 2% tax on rental cars. Some political observers feel that the anti-tax mood is shifting in the state and that some Republicans in the House sensed that or else they would not have voted for the income tax back in March. Some even speculate that Gov. Shaheen is popular enough with the voters that she could break the no-tax pledge and get elected again in two years. Meanwhile, the hoopla surrounding New Hampshire's Presidential primary has started, and there is a danger that in the "say anything to get a vote" climate, some out-of-state candidates will demand the right to take the anti-tax pledge just to gather enough support to look good in other state primaries. …


ABSTRACT Less than 30 years after Fukuyama and others declared liberal democracy's eternal dominance, a third wave of autocratization is manifest. Gradual declines of democratic regime attributes characterize contemporary autocratization. Yet, we lack the appropriate conceptual and empirical tools to diagnose and compare such elusive processes. Addressing that gap, this article provides the first comprehensive empirical overview of all autocratization episodes from 1900 to today based on data from the Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem). We demonstrate that a third wave of autocratization is indeed unfolding. It mainly affects democracies with gradual setbacks under a legal façade. While this is a cause for concern, the historical perspective presented in this article shows that panic is not warranted: the current declines are relatively mild and the global share of democratic countries remains close to its all-time high. As it was premature to announce the "end of history" in 1992, it is premature to proclaim the "end of democracy" now.


Background: Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) is an autosomal dominant vascular dysplasia characterized by spontaneous, recurrent epistaxis. Epistaxis ranges from sporadic, low volume bleeds to frequent hemorrhages causing anemia. In moderate-severe cases, KTP laser photocoagulation and/or electrocautery are commonly utilized to control epistaxis. Objective: This observational cohort study aims to evaluate the efficacy of laser therapy combined with cautery as treatment for epistaxis in HHT.
Methods: Chart review and telephone interviews were conducted for all HHT patients at our center who had undergone laser therapy with or without concurrent electrocautery for intranasal lesions from 08/2011 – 12/2014. Data collected from chart included patient demographics, epistaxis severity score (ESS) at time of intervention, and any ESS recorded in the interim. Telephone interviews were conducted at two time points 18 months apart to collect ESS on subjects.
 Results: 35 subjects were included in the final analysis, 10 of which had >1 procedure during the time frame. The average pre-operative ESS was 7.1. Post-operative ESS were an average of 2.93 units lower than the pre-operative scores (p<0.05). On average, for each 1-unit increase in pre-operative ESS, the improvement in postoperative ESS increased by 0.72 units (p<0.05). There was no significant difference when comparing age with time between procedures (p=0.38).
Conclusion: Laser therapy combined with cautery reduces epistaxis severity in HHT and provides greater improvement of symptoms in patients who present with more severe epistaxis.


I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtledove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken to concerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves.1


Determining the metal content of soil collected from small arms training ranges (SARs) is difficult and controversial because the contamination consists of fine particulates abraded from bullets and larger fragments such as intact bullets and spent shell casings. This heterogeneous distribution of materials can be difficult to sample reproducibly and difficult to prepare for analysis. Similar issues are encountered with sampling and analysing solid residues of energetic compounds for which grinding to 75 microns is necessary to achieve excellent precision. Issues to be resolved for SAR metals include the necessity of sieving, the extent of contamination from grinding, and the proper digestion procedure for efficient recovery. The work reported in this manuscript employed field and laboratory sampling approaches developed for energetics and examined a variety of laboratory sample preparation techniques for SAR metals. Application of the sampling approaches used for energetics to metals was straightforward. The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) nitric acid digestion procedure is effective for the recovery of three of the most important SAR metals, copper, lead and zinc, when analysing a 2 g portion of the <2 mm fraction of an unground soil sample. However, sieving the sample ignores a large portion of the total metal load and a total digestion with hydrofluoric acid is necessary to determine the concentration of all naturally-occurring metals in the sample. Finally, the USEPA-approved method for metal analysis is inappropriate for tungsten unless supplemented with phosphoric acid.


We give a framework for dealing with 0-1 laws (for first order logic) such that expanding by further random structure tend to give us another case of the framework. From another perspective we deal with 0-1 laws when the number of solutions of first order formulas with parameters behave dichotomically.


This paper seeks to address some of the problems faced by those archiving an area of musical practice – electroacoustic music and the sonic arts – which is, by definition, involved with technologies which change and develop, and which unsurprisingly is itself in a state of flux and transformation. Drawing on the experience gained from two linked research projects – one looking at the development of the practice, the other seeking to archive it – it is suggested that the two apparently disparate areas of activity can be fruitfully regarded as overlapping in many respects. Both activities involve selection and aesthetic judgement, both strive for an elusive 'completeness' while acknowledging its impossibility, and at a technical level the strategies now emerging for searching and collating information from 'separate' archives look increasingly like the strategies used in some areas of 'real-time' composition and performance practice. It is argued that archivists of material from such a disparate and rapidly developing practice, rather than aiming for spurious 'coverage' of the field, should acknowledge and celebrate their difference from each other, while conforming to simple principles which will allow their archived content to be searched and collated dynamically by individual users, each querying and configuring the material optimally for their own purposes.


In this study, heat transfer performance of micro and nanostructured plates embedded into a rectangular microchannel was experimentally investigated for their potential use in cooling applications. A simple and environmentally friendly technique was proposed to provide the micro and nanostructured plates having superhydrophilic property. Aluminium alloy (Al Alloy) 4041 substrates of 1.5 × 1.5 cm were roughened by sandblasting method using medium size aluminum oxide abrasive to provide microfeatures; followed by hot water treatment (HWT) process in which nanograss structures were developed on the microstructured substrates. The micro and nanostructured plates were placed near the exit of an aluminum (Al) microchannel with a length, width,
and depth of 14 cm, 1.5 cm, and 500 μm, respectively. Four cartridge heaters connected to a DC power supply were utilized to apply heat to the test section. De-ionized (DI) water was used as the working fluid and passed through the microchannel using a micro gear pump at three mass fluxes of 100, 300,
and 500 kg/m2s. The test section dimensions and experimental parameters were selected such that fully developed flow conditions were obtained. The results from the microchannel with untreated Al alloy surfaces were considered as the ba
seline data. Experimental results of the micro and nanostructured plates revealed that there is no significant change in nucleate boiling heat transfer compared to the control sample. The reason is related to wettability and ro
ughness of the micro and nanostructured plates.


Purpose: Approximately 50% of families who initiate a weight management programme (WMP) will not complete. It is fundamental to understand why participants initiate and complete a programme, and to ensure that programmes are effectively designed and delivered. This study examined the reasoning for family (young person and parent) engagement in three different and diverse WMPs. Methods: A multiple instrumental case study approach was employed. Three community-based WMPs participated: MoreLife, SHINE, and Weigh to Go. Clear design and implementation differences existed between WMPs. Multiple WMPs were recruited to examine the generalisability of research findings, and extract key features associated with participant engagement. Thirty families took part (~10 per programme). Data were collected early in the programme (0-2 weeks) and immediately after completion or dropout (within two weeks). Young people took part in a Participatory Action Research (PAR) session (interactive activities to generate meaningful information), and parents completed semi-structured interviews. A deductive line of inquiry was used; questions were based upon participant characteristics, environmental interactions, psychological processes and programme interactions. Interview data was transcribed verbatim and analysed alongside the PAR data using content and thematic analysis (themes presented in italics). Results: Preliminary findings indicate that families often engage in a WMP for non-weight related reasons. Such reasons include: management of mental health, to improve self -esteem, and to create friendships. Families remain in a WMP when: the programme suits their needs, they fit in amongst other participants, strong relationships are fostered with staff, and have strong support networks. Numerous families completing programmes prioritised WMP attendance above other leisure activities, and had plans in place to ensure they could attend each session. Low engagement was due to situational factors (e.g. logistic barriers [transport, timing…]) rather than programme dissatisfaction. Conclusions: Families attend community-based WMPs for reasons beyond weight management. Additionally, the families identified unique WMP features (e.g. maintenance programmes and non-clinical staff) which encourage programme attendance. Such features can be replicated in multiple, diverse settings. Understanding participant engagement is critical to designing and implementing efficacious WMPs.


Perturbations targeting the graph structure have proven to be extremely effective in reducing the performance of Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), and traditional defenses such as adversarial training do not seem to be able to improve robustness. This work is motivated by the observation that adversarially injected edges effectively can be viewed as additional samples to a node's neighborhood aggregation function, which results in distorted aggregations accumulating over the layers. Conventional GNN aggregation functions, such as a sum or mean, can be distorted arbitrarily by a single outlier. We propose a robust aggregation function motivated by the field of robust statistics. Our approach exhibits the largest possible breakdown point of 0.5, which means that the bias of the aggregation is bounded as long as the fraction of adversarial edges of a node is less than 50\%. Our novel aggregation function, Soft Medoid, is a fully differentiable generalization of the Medoid and therefore lends itself well for end-to-end deep learning. Equipping a GNN with our aggregation improves the robustness with respect to structure perturbations on Cora ML by a factor of 3 (and 5.5 on Citeseer) and by a factor of 8 for low-degree nodes.


This study describes the cloning, expression, purification, biophysical characterisation and crystallisation of DR_1146; a putative general stress protein from the extremophilic bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans (R1).
The extraordinary ability of D. radiodurans to resist mutation or apoptosis on exposure to high does of ionising radiation has formed the basis of a structural genomics project underway at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), Grenoble, France. The work presented in this study forms part of the ESRF's D. radiodurans initiative, and was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the ESRF as an Industrial Cooperative Award in Science and Engineering (CASE) PhD studentship. A period of one-year was spent on secondment at the ESRF, working within the Macromolecular Crystallography Group.
Several constructs of the dr_1146 gene have been successfully overexpressed in E. coli cells to give high yields of target protein. Purification by immobilised metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) was facilitated by the incorporation of a 6xHis tag and supplemented by a final gel filtration step. Although high purity levels were achieved, imaging by SDS-PAGE analysis identified that DR_1146 was susceptible to stringent proteolysis. It is thought that initial crystallisation trials were unsuccessful due to inhomogeneity of the sample caused by reported degradation of the target protein.
Biophysical characterisation of DR_1146 by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) and fluorescence spectroscopy (FS) identified a moderate affinity of 4-11 μM for the flavin molecules, riboflavin, flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD). Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and circular dichroism (CD) experiments demonstrated an increase in chemical and thermal stability of the protein on binding to the flavin molecule, FMN.
Analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) and Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy were employed to investigate the solution behaviour of DR_1146 in the presence of FMN. AUC results uncovered a monomer-dimer equilibrium; with DR_1146 self-associating to form a dimer at a concentration of 7.67 μM. NMR spectroscopy depicted that global changes occur within the structure of DR_1146 on binding to FMN. The high quality of spectra obtained showed potential for 3-D structure determination by NMR if ordered crystals could not be obtained for X-ray diffraction. Interestingly, analysis of NMR spectra proved to be integral to identifying a homogenous sample for successful crystallisation of DR_1146. By monitoring chemical shifts it was possible to determine the time needed for degradation of DR_1146 to cease, and the amount of FMN needed to ensure saturation of binding sites. From this particular sample, a stable 28 kDa fragment was isolated by gel filtration. Automated sitting-drop vapour-diffusion experiments resulted in the growth of yellow DR_1146-FMN crystals for which, although poor in quality, X-ray diffraction was obtained. Overall this study reflects the importance and advantage of incorporating information gained from biophysical characterisation into the strategies employed for successful protein crystallisation.
The characterisation of DR_1146 as a flavoprotein points towards a possible role in electron transfer due to the extensive redox capacity of flavin. This could implicate the protein in the production of damaging reactive oxygen species (ROS) as a result of irradiation, contributing to oxidative stress levels. Alternatively, if DR_1146 is identified as a FMN-binding pyridoxine 5'-phosphate oxidase (PNPOx) enzyme, as sequence homology suggests, it could play a role in detoxification and stress response through production of pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP), a known scavenger of ROS. Only further characterisation and elucidation of a 3-D structure would confirm or dispel these functional hypotheses and ultimately provide a greater understanding of how D. radiodurans is able to deal with such oxidising conditions.
Simultaneously, experiments were carried out on other soluble and membrane protein targets from D. radiodurans and their corresponding homologues from Streptococcus pneumoniae (TIGR4). The aim of comparable studies was to identify key structural or functional differences between the two Gram-positive bacterial strains. Identification of features unique to D. radiodurans, but unconserved in S. pneumoniae, could contribute to further understanding of bacterial radioresistance.
SP_1651 is a thiol peroxidase which forms part of the Mn-ABC transport system in S. pneumonia. Its homologue from D. radiodurans, DR_2242 is a putative thiol-specific antioxidant protein, the structure of which has been solved by Dr. Dave Hall as part of the ESRF's structural genomics project (unpublished). The aim of this part of the project was to elucidate the structure of SP_1651 so that a comparison with DR_2242 could be made.
The sp_1651 gene (psaD) was successfully expressed and purified to homogeneity by IMAC and gel filtration. After the proteolytic removal of a 6xHis tag, the purified protein was crystallised by sitting-drop vapour-diffusion. Preliminary diffraction with a resolution limit of 3.2 A was obtained, however data showed high mosaic spread. Unfortunately, attempts to reproduce initial crystals failed and hence, structural comparisons with DR_2242 could not be made.
DR_0463 is a 108 kDa maltooligosyltrehalose synthase (MTSase) which has been shown to catalyse the breakdown of maltooligosaccharide (or starch) into the disaccharide, trehalose. The full length gene was expressed in BL21(DE3)pLysS cells, producing large yields of insoluble target protein. DR_0463 was solubilised with 8 M Urea and then purified by IMAC in the presence of the denaturant. The low affinity of DR_0463 for the Ni2+ matrix of the HisTrap column proved to be problematic when trying to obtain homogeneity. However, by sequentially repeating IMAC purification up to three times with the same protein sample, a large proportion of impurities were removed.
SP_1648 (PsaB) is an ATP-binding protein that forms part of the Mn-ATP transport system in S. pneumoniae and its homologue from D. radiodurans, DR_2284 is predicted to share similar function. Purification of soluble SP_1648, expressed in B834(DE3) cells, was complicated by an inability to bind the protein to the column matrix for IMAC. In the case of DR_2284, expression trials yielded only a minute amount of insoluble protein in BL21-AI competent cells. The bottlenecks in early expression and purification stages provided valuable experience in dealing with problematic proteins.
As an introduction to molecular cloning, two genes predicted to encode integral membrane proteins from D. radiodurans, were cloned for preliminary expression trials. This work was carried out at the ESRF and contributed to an extension of the structural genomics project, to incorporate membrane protein targets from D. radiodurans. Full length forms of the genes thought to encode an undecaprenyl diphosphatase (UDP) and a diacylglycerol kinase (DGKA) were successfully cloned in to pET-28b, with incorporation of separate N- and C- terminal 6xHis tags.


OF DISSERTATION THE ROLE OF PHLPP IN PANCREATIC CANCER Medicine has come a long way in recent years with reliable treatments for many cancers. Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has very few treatment options available. PDAC has a dismal 5 year survival rate of 4% and a median survival span of 6 months from point of diagnosis; with a high rate of chemotherapy and radiation resistance. A better understanding of the molecular events leading to cancer progression is needed in order to improve the treatment and prognosis of PDAC patients. We begin to elucidate the functional importance of PHLPP on suppressing progression and metastasis of PDAC. PHLPP belongs to a novel family of Ser/Thr protein phosphatases. Our previously published studies have demonstrated that PHLPP plays a tumor suppressor role in colon cancer by negatively regulating Akt and inhibiting cell proliferation. To determine the effect of PHLPP on cell migration and invasion, stable cells were generated to knock down or overexpress PHLPP in PDAC cells. The ability of cells to migrate and invade was examined using Transwell assays. We found that increased PHLPP expression significantly reduced the rate of migration and invasion in PDAC cells whereas knockdown of PHLPP had the opposite effect. To begin to elucidate the molecular mechanism underlying PHLPP-mediated inhibition of migration and invasion in PDAC cells, we discovered that the expression level of β4 Integrin was decreased in PHLPP overexpressing cells and increased in PHLPP knockdown cells. The increased expression of β4 Integrin has been shown to promote PDAC development and metastasis, although the mechanism leading to β4 Integrin upregulation is less clear. Interestingly, we found that the expression of β4 Integrin was highly sensitive to PI3K/Akt/mTOR activity in cells in which inhibition of PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling significantly decreased the expression of β4 Integrin. Moreover, the quantitative real-time RT-PCR analysis revealed that the mRNA expression of β4 Integrin was not altered by changes in PHLPP expression or PI3K/Akt/mTOR activity, thus suggesting a post-transcriptional mechanism. Taken together, these results identify a tumor suppressor role of PHLPP in PDAC. Mechanistically, PHLPP suppresses PDAC cell migration and invasion by negatively controlling β4 Integrin expression through its ability to inhibit PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify the key elements of professional identity in service work in order to provide more in-depth theoretical explanations as to why service workers do as they do while co-creating service.

Design/methodology/approach

This study takes a multi-perspective on professional identity, i.e. using both an employee and a customer perspective, arguing that the phenomenon mainly consists of what these interactants jointly do during the service interaction and of the meanings that are attributed to it. The authors draw on a detailed empirical study of professionals working at a customer centre. Methodologically, the study is based on practice theory, which helps us to illuminate and analyse both the micro practices and the meaning attributed to the professional identity of service workers.

Findings

The key elements of professional identity in service work are outlined within a framework that describes and explains three different facets of the service workers' professional identity, i.e. as a core (i.e. individual resources, cognitive understanding, interaction), as conditions (i.e. service prerequisites), and as contour (i.e. demeanour and functions).

Research limitations/implications

The findings are based on an empirical data set from a public transport customer centre. As the results are limited to one context, they do not provide statistical generalizability. Although limited to one service industry, the findings may still be of high relevance to a wide range of service organisations.

Practical implications

The study shows the significance of managers not just talking about the importance of being service-minded; more exactly, a wide range of service prerequisites, beyond cognitive understanding, needs to be in place. It is crucial that service workers are given the time to develop their contextual knowledge of their customers, and of other parts of the service organisation.

Originality/value

This study offers original empirical contributions concerning the key elements of professional identity. An alternative conceptualization of professional identity is provided, through which the paper adds to service research, explaining more specifically what kinds of knowledge and skills are in use during the co-creation of services.


In the early part of the 19th century sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens were removed from the Acropolis under the direction of the Earl of Elgin, then the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which at the time included Greece. The sculptures were brought to Britain, finding their way to the British Museum in London in 1816, where they are viewed by millions of museum visitors annually. A debate long has simmered as to whether these Parthenon Marbles, which date from the 5th century BCE, should be returned to Athens or remain in the United Kingdom. Elements of the debate include questions about: the legitimacy of the initial relocation of the statuary; the quasi-legal impact of more than 200 years of British stewardship; the risk-mitigating role for dispersal of art; and, the influence on other art and museums of any precedent that might be established by return of the Parthenon Marbles.This paper surveys the arguments on both sides of the debate. A Law-and-Economics lens is employed to examine the "property dispute" surrounding the Marbles. Coase-like reasoning is applied to the question of the "highest-valued" location of the Marbles, supplemented with behavioral economics concepts involving cultural identity and endowment effects. The paper concludes by offering some contours for a potentially Pareto-improving agreement that would result in the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles in Greece.


Updated and expanded, Bayesian Artificial Intelligence, Second Edition provides a practical and accessible introduction to the main concepts, foundation, and applications of Bayesian networks. It focuses on both the causal discovery of networks and Bayesian inference procedures. Adopting a causal interpretation of Bayesian networks, the authors discuss the use of Bayesian networks for causal modeling. They also draw on their own applied research to illustrate various applications of the technology. New to the Second Edition New chapter on Bayesian network classifiers New section on object-oriented Bayesian networks New section that addresses foundational problems with causal discovery and Markov blanket discovery New section that covers methods of evaluating causal discovery programs Discussions of many common modeling errors New applications and case studies More coverage on the uses of causal interventions to understand and reason with causal Bayesian networks Illustrated with real case studies, the second edition of this bestseller continues to cover the groundwork of Bayesian networks. It presents the elements of Bayesian network technology, automated causal discovery, and learning probabilities from data and shows how to employ these technologies to develop probabilistic expert systems. Web ResourceThe books website at www.csse.monash.edu.au/bai/book/book.html offers a variety of supplemental materials, including example Bayesian networks and data sets. Instructors can email the authors for sample solutions to many of the problems in the text.


The calibrated ground-based sky imager developed in the Marine Physical Laboratory, the Whole Sky Imager (WSI), has been tested with data from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM) at the Southern Great Plain site (SGP) to determine optical properties of the atmospheric aerosol. Different neural network-based models calculate the aerosol optical depth (AOD) for three wavelengths using the radiance extracted from the principal plane of sky images from the WSI as input parameters. The models use data from a CIMEL CE318 photometer for training and validation and the wavelengths used correspond to the closest wavelengths in both instruments. The spectral dependency of the AOD, characterized by the̊ Angstr̈om exponentα in the interval 440–870 nm, is also derived using the standard AERONET procedure and also with a neural network-based model using the values obtained with a CIMEL CE318. The deviations between the WSI derived AOD and the AOD retrieved by AERONET are within the nominal uncertainty assigned to the AERONET AOD calculation ( ±0.01), in 80% of the cases. The explanation of data variance by the model is over 92% in all cases. In the case of α, the deviation is within the uncertainty assigned to the AERONET α (±0.1) in 50% of the cases for the standard method and 84% for the neural network-based model. The explanation of data variance by the model is 63% for the standard method and 77% for the neural network-based model. Correspondence to: L. Alados-Arboledas (email@example.com)


The aim of this website is to describe cell signalling within its biological context. There has been an explosion in the characterization of signalling components and pathways. The next major challenge is to understand how cells exploit this large signalling toolkit to assemble the specific signalling pathways they require to communicate with each other. The primary focus is the biology of cell signalling. The emerging information on cell signalling pathways is integrated and presented within the context of specific cell types and processes. The beauty of cell signalling is the way different pathways are combined and adapted to control a diverse array of cellular processes in widely different spatial and temporal domains. The first half of the website characterizes the components and properties of the major cell signalling pathways, with special emphasis on how they are switched on and off. Attention is also focused on the spatial and temporal aspects that determine how information is encoded and distributed to precise cellular locations. The second half of the website deals with the way these different signalling pathways are employed to control the life history of cells from their birth during the process of cell proliferation, their differentiation into specific cell types to carry out different cell functions, and finally their death through processes such as apoptosis. Cell signalling orchestrates all these cellular processes. Many of the same signalling systems that control development come into play again to regulate a wide range of specific processes in adult cells, such as contraction, secretion, metabolism, proliferation, information processing in neurons and sensory perception. These examples illustrate how cell signalling pathways are adapted and co-ordinated to regulate many different cellular processes. This intimate relationship between cell signalling and biology is providing valuable insights into the underlying genetic and phenotypic defects responsible for many of the major human diseases.


This publication combines the interpretations of two major sets of data. One is the geophysical data that is used to interpret the position of the tectonic plates through geologic time. The other is based on a long time search of the geological literature to find, record and evaluate the lithologic descriptions of countless reports around the globe; paying careful attention to those lithologies that have climatic implications. The introduction to this volume includes a detailed discussion of the lithologies, mineralogies and biogeographies that are considered to be the most reliable in identifying the climatic conditions existing during their formation and how they are used or not used in this compilation. These include coal, cyclothems, laterite, bauxite, lateritic manganese, oolitic ironstone, kaolin, glendonite, tilites, dropstones, calcretes, evaporites, clay minerals, palms, mangroves, and crocodilians. Additionally, several others are discussed but not used for specified reasons. These include eolian sandstone, silcrete and some specific paleobotanical methodologies.

Global paleoclimatic zones based on the climatically interpreted data points are identified during twenty-eight time periods from Cambrian to Miocene using paleotectonic reconstructed maps. The paleoclimate of each time period is summarized and includes a discussion of the specific referenced data points that have been interpreted to be the most reliable available for that time period and location.


Natural images are often modeled through piecewise-smooth regions. Region edges, which correspond to the contours of the objects, become, in this model, the main information of the signal. Contours have the property of being smooth functions along the direction of the edge, and irregularities on the perpendicular direction. Modeling edges with the minimum possible number of terms is of key importance for numerous applications, such as image coding, segmentation or denoising. Standard separable basis fail to provide sparse enough representation of contours, due to the fact that this kind of basis do not see the regularity of edges. In order to be able to detect this regularity, a new method based on (possibly redundant) sets of basis functions able to capture the geometry of images is needed. This thesis presents, in a first stage, a study about the features that basis functions should have in order to provide sparse representations of a piecewise-smooth image. This study emphasizes the need for edge-adapted basis functions, capable to accurately capture local orientation and anisotropic scaling of image structures. The need of different anisotropy degrees and orientations in the basis function set leads to the use of redundant dictionaries. However, redundant dictionaries have the inconvenience of giving no unique sparse image decompositions, and from all the possible decompositions of a signal in a redundant dictionary, just the sparsest is needed. There are several algorithms that allow to find sparse decompositions over redundant dictionaries, but most of these algorithms do not always guarantee that the optimal approximation has been recovered. To cope with this problem, a mathematical study about the properties of sparse approximations is performed. From this, a test to check whether a given sparse approximation is the sparsest is provided. The second part of this thesis presents a novel image approximation scheme, based on the use of a redundant dictionary. This scheme allows to have a good approximation of an image with a number of terms much smaller than the dimension of the signal. This novel approximation scheme is based on a dictionary formed by a combination of anisotropically refined and rotated wavelet-like mother functions and Gaussians. An efficient Full Search Matching Pursuit algorithm to perform the image decomposition in such a dictionary is designed. Finally, a geometric image coding scheme based on the image approximated over the anisotropic and rotated dictionary of basis functions is designed. The coding performances of this dictionary are studied. Coefficient quantization appears to be of crucial importance in the design of a Matching Pursuit based coding scheme. Thus, a quantization scheme for the MP coefficients has been designed, based on the theoretical energy upper bound of the MP algorithm and the empirical observations of the coefficient distribution and evolution. Thanks to this quantization, our image coder provides low to medium bit-rate image approximations, while it allows for on the fly resolution switching and several other affine image transformations to be performed directly in the transformed domain.


In this paper the performance of extreme learning machine (ELM) training method of radial basis function artificial neural network (RBF-ANN) is evaluated using monthly hydrological data from Ajichai Basin. ELM is a newly introduced fast method and here we show a novel application of this method in monthly streamflow forecasting. ELM may not work well for a large number of input variables. Therefore, an input selection is applied to overcome this problem. The Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) of ANN trained by backpropagation (BP) and ELM algorithm using initial input selection was found to be 0.66 and 0.72, respectively, for the test period. However, when wavelet transform, and then genetic algorithm (GA)-based input selection are applied, the test NSE increase to 0.76 and 0.86, respectively, for ANN-BP and ANN-ELM. Similarly, using singular spectral analysis (SSA) instead, the coefficients are found to be 0.88 and 0.90, respectively, for the test period. These results show the importance of input selection and superiority of ELM and SSA over BP and wavelet transform. Finally, a proposed multistep method shows an outstanding NSE value of 0.97, which is near perfect and well above the performance of the previous methods.


Complex dynamical systems occur on many scales in the natural world, and serve as rich subjects of study. Examples include ecosystems, physiological systems, and financial markets. Simplified versions of these system can be described by dynamical systems. As such, understanding the qualitative behavior of dynamical systems provides an important window into real-world phenomena.
In this manuscript we focus on the qualitative behavior described by the measure concentrated on the attractor of a dynamical system. A common way to study such complicated measures is through their multifractal spectra. We will describe a new method, developed to approximate the Sinai-Bowen-Ruelle measure on an attractor, that is based on the Vietoris-Rips complex. We use it to approximate various measures concentrated on a number of example sets, and demonstrate its efficacy by computing the corresponding multifractal spectra.


Israel faces a new challenge—one the country's leading strategists consider increasingly effective. This does not come mainly from the towns and refugee camps of the West Bank or Gaza, but from an energetic global movement of solidarity with the Palestinians. Since its launch in 2004 the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) has stimulated a host of collective actions across five continents, demanding an end to military rule and to Israel's occupation, and raising important questions about the Zionist movement and imperial power in the Middle East. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 refocused attention on imperialist interests in the region, highlighting the complex web of relationships through which the US and its allies maintain access to oil and strategic territory. With support from Egypt, Turkey and the Gulf States, the US mobilised overwhelming military force against Iraq's Ba'athist regime. At the same time it made enormous efforts to exclude Israel from the confrontation. Even the most strident neoconservatives among advisers of President George W Bush were aware of the danger to US allies of direct Israeli engagement in the Arab world. Bush renewed his commitments to the Israeli government, therefore, supporting its policy of colonisation of the West Bank and increasing military aid that was already at historically high levels. Thequid pro quowas an Israeli assurance to stay out of the war zone, at least publicly.1It nonetheless dramatised the historic links between the US and Israel: one result was that protests over the invasion worldwide made Palestine a central anti-imperialist issue. Everywhere the keffiyeh—the Palestinian headscarf—was worn on demonstrations as a symbol of resistance and as a statement of solidarity with both Iraqis and Palestinians. This support was timely for Palestinian activists, who faced acute difficulties. Successive Israeli governments had ensured there could be no meaningful "peace" agreement in which Palestinians would control even a fraction of the land to which they had a historic claim. At the same time the Israeli government pursued aggressive settlement of the West Bank, the ghettoisation of Gaza and discrimination against Israel's Arab population. It was aided by a Palestinian national leadership determined to contain mass activism and increasingly reliant on a CIA-trained security force.2The national movement was weaker than at any time since the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1964. In 2004, aware of new possibilities on the international scene, a small group of academics and writers launched the Palestinian Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (Pacbi). This enjoyed immediate success and the following year a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign national committee (BNC) was established, calling for aworldwide boycott of Israeli products and firms and for action against companies trading with or investing in Israel. It also called for governments and international bodies to impose economic sanctions directly on Israel. The new movement focused on human rights and international law, pointing to Israel's discrimination against Arab citizens, its illegal settlements, the military regime in the West Bank and the siege of Gaza. It asked governments, including Israel's closest allies, to require the same conduct on the part of Israel as that expected from other states. The BNC has called on trade unions and student unions, NGOs and organisations of civil society to organise boycotts and campaigns for divestment, and to apply pressure for official sanctions. It encourages collective action that can be organised in the workplace, on campuses, in trade union branches and in communities. The movement has mushroomed, providing Palestinian activists with an opportunity to build coalitions of solidarity worldwide. The BNC now embraces almost 200 Palestinian organisations—marking unprecedented unity across a society in which there have been extremes of factionalism and conflict—and has won tangible support in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and North America. This article examines the background to these developments, the lessons from previous campaigns for boycotts and sanctions, and the implications for the Palestinian movement.


A sample of 257 young people aged between eight and 18 who had undertaken individual instrumental tuition were interviewed in depth about their performing history from the start of playing. A subset of 94 of these individuals also kept a practice diary for a 42-week period. The data collected allowed estimates to be calculated of the amount of time devoted to various types of practice and other activities. The sample was selected in order to encompass a wide range of levels of musical achievement, from pupils at a highly selective specialist music school through to individuals who had abandoned instrumental study after less than a year of formal instruction. Data about formal examination successes confirmed the very wide range of achievement in the sample. It was discovered that there was a strong relationship between musical achievement and the amount of formal practice undertaken. Weaker relationships were discovered between achievement and amount of informal playing. There was no evidence that high achievers were able to gain a given level of examination success on less practice than low achievers. High achievers tended to be more consistent in their pattern of practice from week to week, and tended to concentrate technical practice in the mornings. These data lend strong support to the theory that formal effortful practice is a principal determinant of musical achievement.


Abstract Background: Diabetes mellitus is an extremely common endocrine metabolic disorder that results in chronic hyperglycemia. It has effects on various tissues of the body. Due to this increased blood glucose levels considerable cellular changes occur in oral cavity as well. This field has attracted little research. The aim of the study was to analyze the changes in morphology and cytomorphometric measurements in the buccal mucosal cells of type 2 diabetic patients. Objectives: The Objective of this study was to detect the cytological and morphological alterations of oral epithelial cells, in type 2 diabetic patients and healthy control subjects in exfoliated cytology smears, to com-pare the cytoplasmic diameter, nuclear diameter, and nucleus: cytoplasm ratio in type 2 diabetics and heal-thy control subjects and to analyze the above mentioned cellular alterations in patients with controlled and uncontrolled diabetes. Methods: Cross-sectional analysis was performed in three groups on the bases of HbA1c levels. Group 1 was uncontrolled diabetics with HbA1C ≥ 7.0%, Gro-up 2 was well controlled diabetics with HbA1c ≤ 7.0% and Group 3 was Control healthy having HbA1C ≤ 5. 6%. Smears from normal buccal mucosa were obtai-ned from each subject and stained with Papanicolaou method. An eyepiece micrometer was used to take mean values of ND, CyD, and N: C ratio. Fifty (50) clearly defined cells were measured in each case in a step wise manner, to evade quantifying cells once more. Comparison of Nuclear Diameter (ND), Cytoplasmic Diameter (CY D) and ratio of two Diameters (N: C) among three groups was performed by using ANOVA. TUKEY'S test for post –hoc analysis was used where required. Results: The variability in diameter of nucleus among all three sample groups showed significant p-value < 0.001.Whereas the measurement for cytoplasmic diameter between three groups was not significant (p-value 0.178). The ratio of nuclear diameter to cytoplasmic diameter calculated was significant (p-value < 0.001). Hence it proved from the results that considerably exaggerated ND and N: C ratios were seen as the glycemic control (HbA1C) is poorer. Conclusion: The results suggested that nuclear size of buccal mucosal cells increased in type 2 diabetic pati-ents while no change was observed in cytoplasmic dimensions.


As the real policymakers of criminal justice, prosecutors and other criminal-justice professionals resolve many of the complex debates about justice in sentencing by deciding what charges to file, what plea bargains to strike, and what sentences to recommend. But they make those value-laden decisions out of sight, with little public input into or oversight of the tradeoffs involved. This gap between prosecutors as agents and the public as their principal leaves prosecutors free to pursue their own self-interests, risking arbitrary outcomes, endangering the legitimacy of criminal justice, and undercutting public confidence and respect. Administrative law has long grappled with similar issues, seeking to constrain and legitimate agency decisions made in the public interest by soliciting and responding to public input. But criminal justice has no comparable mechanisms for public participation. We propose a system of "notice-and-comment sentencing," modeled loosely on notice-and-comment rulemaking, to review the range of decisions that cash out at sentencing. That approach would provide the public with advance notice, solicit a broad range of views, require responses to significant criticisms, and elicit statements of reasons to ground appellate oversight. Notice and comment would operate at the wholesale level on prosecutors' charging and plea-bargaining policies, as well as sentencing commissions' guidelines and possibly police enforcement policies. It might also operate at the retail level within categories of especially significant crimes, soliciting factual information and possibly policy views about individual cases and creating feedback loops on the application of wholesale policies in concrete contexts. Notice-and-comment sentencing would not only better constrain agents and blend expert and lay perspectives, but also enhance legitimacy and increase public confidence in seeing justice done.


Dreadful Pleasures takes a lively look at the stories that make our hair stand on end. James Twitchell examines the appeal of horror through the centuries--its persistence in our culture, its manifestations in art, literature, and cinema, and our need for the frisson it provides. From the cave paintings at Lascaux to the "slasher" movies of today, Twitchell traces our fascination with horror stories and explores why certain myths and images--vampires and transformational monsters like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde--have had special resonance in our culture, and why others have faded. Whether discussing the engravings of William Hogarth or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Twitchell is consistently insightful and entertaining. Film buffs and scholars, literary critics and Gothic novel devotees will all welcome this study of the horror genre and the immense appeal it has had throughout the centuries.


Part I From the Editor Foreword, D. Relf Introduction, J. Flagler Plants and Human Culture Plants and Human Culture, C.A. Shoemaker American Women and Their Gardens: A Study in Health, Happiness, and Power, 1600-1900, J. Schwartz Are We Afraid of Plants? Exploring Patriarchal Society's Devaluing of Plants, Women, and Nature, R.R. Shearer Consuming a Therapeutic Landscape: A Multicontextual Framework for Assessing the Health Signifance of Human-Plant Interactions, N.L.Etkin Adoption and Abandonment of Southeast Asian Food Plants, L.L.Wester, D. Chuensanguansat Gathered Food and Culture Change: Traditions in Transition in Northeastern Thailand, G. Moreno-Black People, Plants, and Proto-Paysage: A Study of Ornamental Plants in Residential Front Yards in Honolulu, Hawaii, T. Ikagawa The Gardens of Hikone, Japan: Studying People-Plant Relationships in Another Culture, L.M.W. Mock From Open-Mindedness to Naturalism: Garden Design and Ideology in Germany During the Early 20th Century, J. Wolschke-Bulmahn and G. Groning Plants and the Community Cultivating People-Plant Relationships in Community and Cultural Heritage Gardens, San Jose, California (1977-1992), J. Dotter Gardening's Impact on People's Behavior, I.C. Patel Gardening Changes a Community, T. Keller Down to Earth Benefits of People-Plant Interactions in Our Community, J.W. Zampini Human and Plant Ecology: Living Well with Less, R.E. Ulrich Evaluating Horticultural Therapy: The Ecological Context of Urban Jail Inmates, J.S. Rice, L.L.Remy Plants and the Individual Plants and the Individual: A Recent History, V.I.Lohr People-Plant Principles from the Past, J.S. Kavanagh The Evolutionary Importance of People-Plant Relationships, C.A. Lewis Indoor Plants and Pollution Reduction, M. Burchett, R. Wood Growing Fear: Home Horticulture and the Threat of Lyme Disease, W.K. Hallman, D.C. Smith-Fiola Studying the Corporate Garden, M.H. Zadik Part II From the Editor Foreword, D. Relf Horticultural Therapy Corrections and the Green Industry, J. Flagler Use of Sensory Stimulation with Alzheimer Patients in a Garden Setting, RTI, Hawthorne, New York, M.J. Kaplan Measuring the Quality of Treatment in Horticultural Therapy Groups, M.C. Straus Surveying the Therapeutic Landscape: A Quest for Cases of Outdoor Therapy Settings, J.S. Kavanagh and T.A. Musiak Combining Phototherapy with Horticulture Therapy, D. Greenlee Research and Implementation Historical Perspectives on the People-Plant Council, D. Relf and P. Madsen Experimental Approaches to the Study of People-Plant Relationships, R. Parsons, R.S. Ulrich, L.G. Tassinary Nurturing People-Plant Relationships in Order to Foster Environmental and Community Stewardship: The Rutgers Environmental and Community Stewardship (R.E.A.C.S.) Program, W.T. Hlubik and H. Betros A Socio-Economic Impact of New Crops Production on Diverse Groups of People: A Case Study in Northwest Missouri, A. Ching and D. Jewell Encouraging Nurturing Behavior of Two to Seven Year Olds by Introducing Plants and Flowers, K. Green Risk Communication Methods for Newspaper Gardening Columns, C.S. Liptak Creation of A LIVING LIBRARY(TM): A Planetary Network of Interactive LIFE FRAMES(TM), B. Sherk


Kevin Mortensen came to prominence in Australia and internationally as an early and highly regarded practitioner of performance art. He represented Australia at an early Venice Biennale and was a major figure in the Mildura Sculpture Triennials, which helped establish contemporary sculpture in this country in the 1960s and 1970s after a long period in which the art form languished. The new sculpture of this time was strongly related to American performance art, Happenings and Earth Art, and in Australia took on environmental concerns and facets of Australia's landscape, flora and fauna. Mortensen's art is highly environmental. More recently Mortensen has practised as a sculptor and also made prints and drawings. He was Head of Sculpture at RMIT University in the 1980s and early 1990s but, today almost a recluse, continues to exhibit new work at Australian Galleries in Melbourne and Sydney. Author Rob Haysom provides a beautifully written and researched account of Mortensen's entire career and the book is lavishly illustrated.


Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) maintain self-renewal while ensuring a rapid response to differentiation signals, but the exact mechanism of this process remains unknown. PD2 is the human homolog of the RNA polymerase II-associated factor 1 (Paf1). The Paf1/PD2 is a member of the human PAF complex that consists of four other subunits, hCdc73, hLeo1, hCtr9, and hSki8, and is involved in the regulation of transcriptional elongation and further downstream events. Here, we show that Paf1/PD2 is overexpressed in mouse ESCs and is involved in the maintenance of mouse ESCs. The Paf1/PD2 knockdown and knockout ESCs grown under self-renewal conditions express substantially reduced levels of self-renewal regulators, including Oct3/4, SOX2, Nanog, and Shh. We observed that the level of Paf1/PD2 expression is much higher in self-renewing mouse embryonic carcinoma cells than in the differentiating cells. Knockout of Paf1/PD2 altered ESC phenotype by increasing apoptosis and decreasing the percentage of cells in Sphase of the cell cycle. Interestingly, we found that the key genes that regulate endodermal differentiation (Gata4, Gata6, and Fgf8) are induced in the Paf1/PD2 heterozygous knockout ESCs. This suggests that Paf1/PD2 plays a specific role in regulating early commitment of ESCs to endodermal differentiation. Furthermore, for the first time, we showed that Paf1/PD2 protein interacts with Oct3/4 and RNA polymerase II, and through this interaction Paf1/PD2 may regulate Oct3/4-mediated gene expression. Thus, the Paf1/PD2 protein is a newly discovered element of the interconnected regulatory network that maintains the self-renewal of mouse ESCs. STEM CELLS 2009;27:3001–3011 Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest is found at the end of this article.


The titles in this series have been designed to provide medical students with a comprehensive and convenient instrument for self-assessment and review within the basic sciences. Each book contains 500 multiple-choice questions designed to parallel the format and degree of difficulty of the questions contained in Step 1 of the United States Medical Licensure Examination (USMLE). Each question is accompanied by an answer, a paragraph-length explanation, and a specific page reference to either a current journal article, a textbook, or both. Together with the appropriate PreTest examination, these titles provide a review programme for course work and for preparation for the USMLE Step 1, Federation Licensing Examination (FLEX) and the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination in the Medical Sciences (FMGEMS).


Renewable energy is currently considered as the main solution to reduce greenhouse gas emission. This has led to great developments in the use of renewable energy for electricity generation. Among many renewable energy resources, tidal energy has the advantage of being predictable, particularly when compared to wind energy. Currently the UK is the world leader in extracting energy from the tide; an estimation shows a potential of 67 TWh per year. In order to ensure safe operation and prolonged life for tidal turbines, condition monitoring is essential. The technology for power generation using tidal turbines is new therefore the condition monitoring concept for these devices is yet to be established. Also, there is a lack of understanding of techniques suitable for health monitoring of the turbine components and support structure given their unique operating environment. In this paper the condition monitoring of a tidal turbine is investigated. The objective is to highlight the need for condition monitoring and establish procedures to decide the condition monitoring techniques required, in addition to highlighting the impact and benefits of applying condition based maintenance. A model for failure analysis is developed to assess the needs for condition monitoring and identify critical components, after which a 'symptoms analysis' was performed to decide the appropriate condition monitoring techniques. Finally, the impact of condition monitoring on system reliability is considered.


In this report, we present results of an experimental investigation of a near mid-gap trap energy level in InAs10 ML/GaSb10 ML type-II superlattices. Using thermal analysis of dark current, Fourier transform photoluminescence and low-frequency noise spectroscopy, we have examined several wafers and diodes with similar period design and the same macroscopic construction. All characterization techniques gave nearly the same value of about 140 meV independent of substrate type. Additionally, photoluminescence spectra show that the transition related to the trap centre is temperature independent. The presented methodology for thermal analysis of dark current characteristics should be useful to easily estimate the position of deep energy levels in superlattice photodiodes.


To evaluate the safety factor for flight feather shafts, in vivo strains were recorded during free flight from the dorsal surface of a variety of flight feathers of captive pigeons (Columba livia) using metal foil strain gauges. Strains recorded while the birds flew at a slow speed (approximately 5-6 m s-1) were used to calculate functional stresses on the basis of published values for the elastic modulus of feather keratin. These stresses were then compared with measurements of the failure stress obtained from four-point bending tests of whole sections of the rachis at a similar location. Recorded strains followed an oscillatory pattern, changing from tensile strain during the upstroke to compressive strain during the downstroke. Peak compressive strains were 2.2+/-0. 9 times (mean +/- s.d.) greater than peak tensile strains. Tensile strain peaks were generally not as large in more proximal flight feathers. Maximal compressive strains averaged -0.0033+/-0.0012 and occurred late in the downstroke. Bending tests demonstrated that feather shafts are most likely to fail through local buckling of their compact keratin cortex. A comparison of the mean (8.3 MPa) and maximum (15.7 MPa) peak stresses calculated from the in vivo strain recordings with the mean failure stress measured in four-point bending (137 MPa) yields a safety factor of between 9 and 17. Under more strenuous flight conditions, feather stresses are estimated to be 1.4-fold higher, reducing their safety factor to the range 6-12. These values seem high, considering that the safety factor of the humerus of pigeons has been estimated to be between 1.9 and 3.5. Several hypotheses explaining this difference in safety factor are considered, but the most reasonable explanation appears to be that flexural stiffness is more critical than strength to feather shaft performance.


Customize Applications for Maximum Availability in Sun Cluster EnvironmentsThe Sun Cluster 3 environment offers developers and administrators a powerful API for creating custom "data services" that maximize the availability and enhance the horizontal scalability of many enterprise applications. Now, here's an authoritative tutorial and reference to building custom data services with the Sun Cluster 3 API. In Sun Cluster 3 Programming, three leading Sun Cluster experts systematically review the tools, programming interfaces, and features that make custom data services possible. Then, through a series of step-by-step examples, they demonstrate how to ensure that applications can recover smoothly from even the most serious failures.This book Reviews every facet of "availability" and what it takes to make software available Provides extensive easy-to-understand code examples, all available for download Covers all areas of agent development, from quick basics to advanced techniques Covers all the APIs provided with Sun Cluster 3 Walks step-by-step through making existing applications available, scalable, and cluster-awareUntil now, this information has been available only in a three-day Sun training course. Now, with the help of Sun's in-house experts, you have all the information you need to build Sun Cluster 3 custom applications that deliver unprecedented levels of application availability.


It has been widely believed that resource abundant economies grow less than other economies. In a very influential paper, Sachs and Warner (1997), point out that there is a negative relationship between resource abundance and growth. Two important econometric problems are present in the traditional empirical literature: First, the result might depend on factors that are correlated with primary exports but that have been excluded from the regression. Second, total GDP includes the production in the resource sector that has been declining in the last 30 years. We correct for those issues. Our results indicate that the so called 'Natural Resource Curse' might be related to a debt overhang. In the 70's when commodities' prices were high, natural resource abundant countries used them as collateral for debt. The 80's witnessed an important fall in the prices that drove these countries to debt crises. When we estimate the model taking these into account, we found that the effect of resource abundance disappears.


The interaction of single crystals of a zeolite, scolecite (CaAl 2 Si 3 O 10 ·3H 2 O), with NaCl and NaOH solutions of different concentrations and pH values was investigated in autoclaves at temperatures up to 200 °C. Only the experiments with 1 or 2 M NaOH at 200 °C led to significant reactions, namely one or two reaction rims, depending on the reaction time. The products were studied using electron microscopy, electron-microprobe analysis and X-ray diffraction. An inner reaction rim of mesolite (Na 2 Ca 2 Al 6 Si 9 O 30 ·8H 2 O) was only observed in longer-term experiments. At all reaction times, however, a reaction rim consisting of Na,Al-substituted tobermorite 11 A (Ca 4.5 Na 1.3 Si 5.2 Al 1.0 O 16 (OH) 2 ) formed. The reaction interfaces are sharp, and the product phases form porous pseudomorphs of the original scolecite. Some advancements of the tobermorite rim are connected to fractures formed in the scolecite. Additional Cs exchange experiments (2 × 10 −4 M CsCl, 24 °C, 18 h) on the partly reacted samples showed that Cs-Na exchange in the tobermorite did not start simultaneously in the whole reaction rim, but only at the outer part. The results indicate that replacement of scolecite takes place by coupled dissolution-precipitation, independent of the similarity between the structure of scolecite and the reaction product. There is less fluid mobility around separate crystals in a solution than could be expected, which emphasises the importance of interfacial fluids. The infiltration of the fluid into the crystal partially depends on reaction-induced fracturing.


An experiment was conducted to evaluate the mechanical harvesting and processing suitability of four standard strawberry (Fragaria ×ananassa (Duch.)) cultivars ('Kent', 'Glooscap', 'Bounty', and 'Midway') and the recent introductions 'Chambly' and 'Oka'. 'Kent', 'Glooscap', 'Oka', and 'Chambly' had the highest yields and heaviest fruit. Similar percentages of berries of all cultivars were destroyed by the harvester. 'Oka' and 'Midway' were not suitable for this type of mechanical harvesting due to their susceptibil- ity to bruising during harvest. Based on total marketable fruit harvested mechanically, 'Chambly' was the most and 'Oka' was the least adapted cultivars for this particular harvester. 'Chambly' and 'Glooscap' were easiest to decap, followed by 'Bounty', 'Oka', and 'Midway'. None of the cultivars tested were suited ideally for machine harvesting, and further breeding is required to produce well-adapted cultivars.


Abstract. A methodology is presented for generating 360° airfoil polars and aeroacoustic characteristics by means of CFD and CAA. The aerodynamic procedure is validated against experimental data of the well-known airfoils DU-93-W-210 and DU-97-W-300. While a better prediction of the aerodynamic coefficients in the range of −30° and 30° is achieved by a combination of the k-ω SST turbulence model and a C-topology mesh, for the remaining angles of attack more confidence is gained with the SA negative turbulence model in combination with an O-topology mesh. Therefore the two data sets are subsequently fused to one complete data set using a kriging interpolation approach. The result of ten different airfoils using the proposed method is presented. For providing the aeroacoustic characteristics for a wide operation range four computations and a bilinear interpolation are needed, since the aeroacoustic is dependent on the Mach and Reynolds number. The bilinear interpolation approach is verificated by a comparison between the originally simulated and the emulated result at a fifth computational set for six different airfoils. The corresponding overall sound pressure level (OASPL) for four angles of attack for these airfoils is presented and the difference between a fully turbulent computation and simulations with fixed transition is assessed. The aeroacoustic results further include high-fidelity directivity functions.


This paper analyzes 12,596 wagering decisions of 6,064 contestants in the US game show Jeopardy!, focusing on the anchoring phenomenon in financial decision-making. We find that contestants anchor heavily on the initial dollar value of a clue in their wagering decision, even though there exists no rational reason to do so. More than half of all wagers occur within $500 of the initial dollar value, although the maximum possible wagering value averages $5,914. This anchoring phenomenon remains statistically significant on the one percent level, even after controlling for scores, clue category, time trends, and player-fixed effects. When exploiting within-player variation only and implicitly controlling for a host of individual behavioral attitudes and preferences, raising the anchoring amount by 10 percent translates to an increase of 3.1 percent in the wager. In terms of magnitude, anchoring is marginally more pronounced for women with an elasticity of 0.34 versus 0.28 for males. Finally, this paper is among the first to investigate anchoring among children and teenagers. We find little evidence for anchoring among children under the age of 13, but the effect begins to emerge for teenagers and further manifests itself among college students. Overall, our findings suggest anchoring plays a substantial role in financial decision-making under pressure.


This thesis (1) characterizes the gender and skin type distribution of IJB-A, a government facial recognition benchmark, and Adience, a gender classification benchmark, (2) outlines an approach for capturing images with more diverse skin types which is then applied to develop the Pilot Parliaments Benchmark (PPB), and (3) uses PPB to assess the classification accuracy of Adience, IBM, Microsoft, and Face++ gender classifiers with respect to gender, skin type, and the intersection of skin type and gender. The datasets evaluated are overwhelming lighter skinned: 79.6% 86.24%. IJB-A includes only 24.6% female and 4.4% darker female, and features 59.4% lighter males. By construction, Adience achieves rough gender parity at 52.0% female but has only 13.76% darker skin. The Parliaments method for creating a more skin-type-balanced benchmark resulted in a dataset that is 44.39% female and 47% darker skin. An evaluation of four gender classifiers revealed a significant gap exists when comparing gender classification accuracies of females vs males (9 20%) and darker skin vs lighter skin (10 21%). Lighter males were in general the best classified group, and darker females were the worst classified group. 37% 83% of classification errors resulted from the misclassification of darker females. Lighter males contributed the least to overall classification error (.4% 3%). For the best performing classifier, darker females were 32 times more likely to be misclassified than lighter males. To increase the accuracy of these systems, more phenotypically diverse datasets need to be developed. Benchmark performance metrics need to be disaggregated not just by gender or skin type but by the intersection of gender and skin type. At a minimum, human-focused computer vision models should report accuracy on four subgroups: darker females, lighter females, darker males, and lighter males. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the implications of misclassification and the importance of building inclusive training sets and benchmarks. Thesis supervisor: Ethan Zuckerman Title: Associate Professor of the Practice in Media Arts and Sciences Director, Center for Civic Media 4 Gender Shades: Intersectional Phenotypic and Demographic Evaluation of Face Datasets and Gender Classifiers Author: Joy Adowaa Buolamwini


We present a model-based mutation testing approach, for evaluating the authentication and authorization of web services in a multi-user context. Model of a web service and its security requirements are designed using UPPAAL Timed Automata. The model is mutated to create invalid behavior which is used for test generation to reveal faults in the system under test. The approach is supported by a model-based mutation testing tool, µUTA, that automatically generates mutants, selects a collection of suitable mutants for testing and generates test cases from them. We modify a previously defined mutation operator and introduce three new operators for additional mutants. We define criteria for the mutation-selection and demonstrate the approach on a blog web service. Results show that the approach can discover authorization faults that were not detected by traditional methods.


Sunday Times Science Book of the Year 2011. We are poised on the edge of discovery in particle physics (the study of the smallest objects we know of) and cosmology (the study of the largest), and when these breakthroughs come, they will revolutionise what we think we know about the universe, and the modern world. Lisa Randall guides us through the latest ideas, charting the thrilling progress we have made in understanding the universe - from Galileo and Newton to Einstein and the Large Hadron Collider and the search for the Higgs boson. Yet it's about more than just physics - Randall explains how we decide what questions to ask; how risk, beauty, creativity and truth play a role in scientific thinking; and how answering the big questions will ultimately tell us who we are and where we came from.


Intelligent agents offer a new and exciting way of understanding the world of work. In this paper we apply agentbased modeling and simulation to investigate a set of problems in a retail context. Specifically, we are working to understand the relationship between human resource management practices and retail productivity. Despite the fact we are working within a relatively novel and complex domain, it is clear that intelligent agents could offer potential for fostering sustainable organizational capabilities in the future. The project is still at an early stage. So far we have conducted a case study in a UK department store to collect data and capture impressions about operations and actors within departments. Furthermore, based on our case study we have built and tested our first version of a retail branch simulator which we will present in this paper.


Research Summary: We examine the internationalization decisions made by one of Africa's most successful companies, South African Breweries, as it underwent a period of aggressive expansion. We see processes of both institutional complementarity and substitution at different phases and with different motives. At first it sought countries that played to its strength, namely the knowledge of doing business in environments of institutional uncertainty, but later it pursued an institutional diversification strategy whereby it attempted to minimize its institutional risk exposure. As it became larger, its aspirations increased too, and its over-exposure to emerging market institutional risk saw it engage in institutional substitution into advanced countries. Through this phased international process, it was able to develop its internal assets, and this enabled the moves into developed markets.

Managerial summary: We demonstrate that firms can exploit their knowledge of 'weak' institutional settings and turn it into a source of advantage as they internationalize into locations with similar institutional 'weaknesses.' Using the case of one of Africa's most successful multinational enterprises, we illustrate the value gained from initially capitalizing upon institutional complementarity (utilizing the comparative advantage linked to institutional know-how) by exploiting the experience of the home country's environment into similar settings. Over time and through learning-by-doing, pressure arose to diversify the risk linked with over-exposure to institutional uncertainty and country risk, and this was associated with the process of institutional substitution into more advanced countries. We see emerging multinational learning and building its capabilities by leveraging its understanding of its home country institutional environment.


Oil and natural gas, water, food, and minerals are critical to ensuring our wellbeing and prosperity. The mismatch between future demand and supply is crystallizing into one of the most complex and urgent issues policymakers will face in the 21st Century. Unless the challenges arising from these scarcities are confronted in a comprehensive and proactive manner, our economies will stagnate and political power will diminish in the international system. To that end, this report examines the implications of these resource scarcities for EU Member States and offers seven recommendations for addressing them. While resource scarcity is a global challenge, as no single country is self-sufficient in resources needed to power one's economy, its effects are not equal across countries/regions. This is attributed to the uneven distribution of and variations in demand for resources by countries/regions. Thus, given that countries do not suffer or benefit from resource scarcity in equal terms, asymmetric dependence across resources can be an important driver for cooperation or conflict in the international system. Under conditions of resource scarcity, the realist thinking renders the future of world politics as conflict prone and raises the likelihood of wars among major powers. This gloomy interpretation of international relations is particularly worrisome, given that major powers are all resource hungry. These states regard access to resources as vital to their national security and do not exclude the use of military force to protect their interests. After all, it is widely claimed that dependence on the Middle East was a primary factor that united the United States and Europe against Iraq in the 1990-91 war to liberate Kuwait. In the future, similar events could recur, given the increasing dependence of industrialized countries, as well as emerging economies, on energy supplies from producers inside and outside the Persian Gulf. On the other hand, scarcity can also fuel greater cooperation between states as asymmetry in resource distribution does not always translate into a power resource. Therefore, we do not take it for granted that the impact of scarcity will necessarily lead to either conflict or cooperation. Instead, the degree of dependence and the type of resource are important variables in understanding when resource scarcity leads to cooperation or conflict. Thus, the rest of this report is organized into six sections. The first four sections examine oil and gas, water, food, and mineral, respectively. For each resource we examine global trends of consumption and production, identifying major consumers and producers. Although projection data is speculative, it provides insight into the potential demand and supply scenarios for these resources in the future. Next, we analyze the political dynamics of scarcity, zooming in on the role of the state and exploring the possibilities of cooperation or conflict. Against this backdrop, we analyze the implications for EU Member States, taking into account stratetic, economic, and political considerations. Section six offers a glimpse into the complex interrelations among the four resources, describing the effects of changes in one system (e.g., price hikes or shortages) have on the others. The final section provides seven recommendations for tackling the challenges arising from these four resource scarcities.


Jastrzebska, M., M. k. kostrzewska, M. wanic and k. treder, 2015. the effect of water deficit and interspecific competition on selected physiological parameters of spring barley and italian ryegrass. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 21: 78–88 stomatal conductance, transpiration and photosynthetic rates of spring barley and italian ryegrass plants subjected and not subjected to interspecific competition at different water supply levels were compared in a pot experiment. the experimental factors were: water supply – optimal for the analyzed species and reduced by 50%, sowing regime – single species sowing (pure-sown barley, pure-sown ryegrass) and mixed species sowing (barley mixed-sown with ryegrass, ryegrass mixed-sown with barley). Gas exchange was analyzed during five bbcH growth stages for pure-sown barley under optimal soil moisture conditions: leaf development (10-13), tillering (22-25), stem elongation (33-37), heading (52-22) and ripening (87-91). the measurements for barley were completed at the heading stage. the photosynthesis/transpiration ratio was used to determine water use efficiency (WUE) in plants. water deficit generally decreased stomatal conductance, transpiration and photosynthetic rates of spring barley and italian ryegrass. in water-deficient treatments, ryegrass was characterized by higher water use efficiency throughout the growing period, and spring barley – only during the tillering stage. interspecific competition had little effect on stomatal conductance and transpiration rates of both species as well as the photosynthetic rate of barley, but it increased the photosynthetic rate of ryegrass. Under optimal soil moisture conditions, interspecific competition reduced stomatal conductance and increased photosynthetic rate in ryegrass. water stress alone and in combination with interspecific competition produced similar results. a combination of water deficit and interspecific competition lowered the photosynthetic rate of spring barley, in particular at the tillering stage. in treatments with optimal water conditions, ryegrass mixed-sown with spring barley was characterized by higher WUE than puresown ryegrass. water stress increased WUE of ryegrass in all sowing regimes. spring barley from water-deficient treatments was generally characterized by higher WUE in pure-sown stands, in particular at the tillering stage. competition from ryegrass did not induce significant changes in WUE of barley plants in water-deficient or optimal water treatments.


This paper presents insights and action proposals to better harness technological innovation for sustainable development. We begin with three key insights from scholarship and practice. First, technological innovation processes do not follow a set sequence but rather emerge from complex adaptive systems involving many actors and institutions operating simultaneously from local to global scales. Barriers arise at all stages of innovation, from the invention of a technology through its selection, production, adaptation, adoption, and retirement. Second, learning from past efforts to mobilize innovation for sustainable development can be greatly improved through structured cross-sectoral comparisons that recognize the socio-technical nature of innovation systems. Third, current institutions (rules, norms, and incentives) shaping technological innovation are often not aligned toward the goals of sustainable development because impoverished, marginalized, and unborn populations too often lack the economic and political power to shape innovation systems to meet their needs. However, these institutions can be reformed, and many actors have the power to do so through research, advocacy, training, convening, policymaking, and financing. We conclude with three practice-oriented recommendations to further realize the potential of innovation for sustainable development: (i) channels for regularized learning across domains of practice should be established; (ii) measures that systematically take into account the interests of underserved populations throughout the innovation process should be developed; and (iii) institutions should be reformed to reorient innovation systems toward sustainable development and ensure that all innovation stages and scales are considered at the outset.


The most extensive and severe bleaching of coral ever recorded occurred in 1997 and 1998 as a result of anomalously high sea-surface temperatures. In the Ryukyu Islands, extensive bleaching occurred from late July to early October in 1998. A time-series transect study on a reef flat revealed the different responses of coral populations among species to this event. Coral cover was monitored just before, during, and 6 times after the bleaching occurred, along 5 fixed transects, 710 to 800 m long, across the reef flat of Shiraho Reef, Ishigaki Island, in the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. The dominant corals were Heliopora coerulea, massive Porites, and branching Porites, Montipora, Acropora, and Pavona (these latter 4 genera could not always be distinguished to species level, and are thus grouped by genus and ecoform). H. coerulea was the least susceptible to bleaching and maintained almost constant coverage before and after the bleaching. Massive Porites were suscepti- ble to bleaching, but regained their algae after the bleaching and sustained their coverage. On the other hand, the branching Porites, Montipora, and Acropora were susceptible to bleaching and mortality was high. Coverage by branching Montipora was initially reduced by 66%, but by 2 yr after the bleaching it had recovered to pre-bleaching coverage. However, only large patches of more than 70 m along a transect, with coverage of 10 to 40%, recovered. Small patches of less than 30 m along a transect, with coverage of less than 10%, died and did not recover. The response of corals to bleach- ing differs according to the strategy the coral uses against bleaching; moderately frequent and severe bleaching might permit the coexistence of both types of corals on the same reef flat, as in the case of Shiraho Reef.


Associative learning studies have shown that the anticipation of reward and punishment shapes the representation of sensory stimuli, which is further modulated by dopamine. Less is known about whether and how reward delivery activates sensory cortices and the role of dopamine at that time point of learning. We used an appetitive instrumental learning task in which participants had to learn that a specific class of frequency-modulated tones predicted a monetary reward following fast and correct responses in a succeeding reaction time task. These fMRI data were previously analyzed regarding the effect of reward anticipation, but here we focused on neural activity to the reward outcome relative to the reward expectation and tested whether such activation in the reward reception phase is modulated by L-DOPA. We analyzed neural responses at the time point of reward outcome under three different conditions: 1) when a reward was expected and received, 2) when a reward was expected but not received, and 3) when a reward was not expected and not received. Neural activity in auditory cortex was enhanced during feedback delivery either when an expected reward was received or when the expectation of obtaining no reward was correct. This differential neural activity in auditory cortex was only seen in subjects who learned the reward association and not under dopaminergic modulation. Our data provide evidence that auditory cortices are active at the time point of reward outcome. However, responses are not dependent on the reward itself but on whether the outcome confirmed the subject's expectations.