By photographers for photographers, Magic Lantern Guides will help you take great photos with yourD3100:Cut through the clutter - this guide is written specifically for your Nikon D3100, not watered down with general how-to text like some other camera guides. Throw away the perplexing manual that comes with your camera - every single feature and menu option is thoroughlyexplained here in easy-to-understand language. Learn how to use special camera functions such as Picture Styles, Live View, Custom White Balance, and more - expert advice that will improve your results. Unravel the mysteries of flash with simple tips you can apply every time you shoot. Keep the handy Quick Reference Wallet Card with you at all times for a "cheat sheet" on the D3100's most commonly used functions.


This paper presents an analysis of the residential relocations that followed the New Jersey Transit Midtown Direct rail improvement. The increased transit accessibility provided by the Midtown Direct connection reduced one-way commuting travel times by 15-20 minutes between New Jersey and New York. The analysis examines the residential decision-making process of travelers before and after the rail improvement. It is based on revealed preference surveys mailed by City College of New York (CCNY) to 1242 riders in 2001. The decision-making of those who actually moved because of the rail investment are compared with those who said they did not move. In a previous survey by New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit), 8% from 6,000 commuters stated they moved because of the initiation of Midtown Direct. Accessibility to work, school, and services, neighborhood security, real estate values and other attributes were assessed for their likelihood in determining the propensity of people to relocate their residences. The study shows that fifteen percent (15%) of the respondents stated they would relocate if they could have a travel time saving of 31-45minutes.


The creation of engineered 3D microtissues has attracted prodigious interest because of the fact that this microtissue structure is able to mimic in vivo environments. Such microtissues can be applied extensively in the fields of regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, as well as in drug and toxicity screening. Here, we develop a novel method of fabricating a large number of dense honeycomb concave microwells via surface tension-mediated self-construction. More specifically, in order to control the curvature and shape of the concavity in a precise and reproducible manner, a custom-made jig system was designed and fabricated. By applying a pre-set force using the jig system, the shape of the honeycomb concave well was precisely and uniformly controlled, despite the fact that wells were densely packed. The thin wall between the honeycomb wells enables the minimization of cell loss during the cell-seeding process. To evaluate the performance of the honeycomb microwell array, rat hepatocytes were seeded, and spheroids were successfully formed with uniform shape and size. Liver-specific functions such as albumin secretion and cytochrome P450 were subsequently analyzed. The proposed method of fabricating honeycomb concave wells is cost-effective, simple, and reproducible. The honeycomb well array can produce multiple spheroids with minimal cell loss, and can lead to significant contributions in tissue engineering and organ regeneration.


Suicide is the third major killer of young people in the Western world, and in the closing decades of the twentieth century it reached epidemic proportions: around the world there has been a frightening surge in suicides committed by children, adolescents and young adults. Kay Redfield Jamison is herself a survivor of a nearly lethal suicide attempt which came after years of battling manic depression. Her survival marked the beginning of a life's work to investigate mental illness and self-inflicted death, and she is now an internationally recognized authority on the depressive illnesses. In "Night Falls Fast" Dr. Jamison dispels the silence and shame that surround the subject of suicide and provides a better understanding of the suicidal mind and a chance to recognize the person at risk. She brings to the book not only wide scientific knowledge and clinical experience but also great compassion. In tracing the network of reasons underlying the phenomenon, she gives us astonishing examples and a startling look at the journals, drawings and farewell notes of people who have chosen to kill themselves. She also provides vivid insight into the most recent findings from hospitals and laboratories across the world; the critical biological and psychological factors that interact to cause suicide; and the new strategies being evolved to combat them. "Night Falls Fast" is a sensitive and penetrating analysis that helps us to comprehend the profound and disturbing sense of loss created in those left behind. It is the first major book on the subject in a quarter of a century and stands to become a classic account of one of the most devastating and destructive causes of death of our time. 'An important, moving and informative book' - "Guardian". 'For anyone in any way connected with a potential suicide this book is essential reading: that means all of us' - "The Times". 'This is a lyrical, beautifully argued, deep and deeply troubling book' - "Evening Standard". 'A profound and impassioned book which will stand as the authoritative study of suicide for many years' - William Styron.


Double page spread and statement in major US bi-monthly journal.

Statement by Kennardphillipps:

"American ideals are in tatters, with the rich living in policed penthouses and the poor against a backdrop of drought, disease, and poisoned water. Donald Trump was elected on a post-fact wave of anger to sort it all out, but he only aims to divide and profit from the scrapheap that Earth is fast becoming. His simplistic, violent rhetoric originates in his self-perception as a king.

He believes that corporate might is an absolute right—no matter the destructive impact corporations have on the planet and its people. Will such an outrageous, belligerent soul ever compromise or embrace cooperation? Because he likely won't, resistance is required. As Walt Whitman, the great American poet of democracy, wrote: "Unscrew the locks from the doors!/ Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!/Whoever degrades another degrades me."


This report, released by the Southwest Institute for Research on Women and the Bacon Immigration Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona, describes harsh conditions of confinement for the roughly three hundred women housed in immigration detention facilities in Arizona. It is based on over a year of research, including over 40 interviews with detainees, their family members, attorneys, and service providers. The report's findings highlight the impact of detention on families, including U.S. citizen children, the severe penal conditions imposed on women who are not serving criminal sentences, the aggressive government prosecution and detention of women who pose no security threat or flight risk, and the provision of inadequate medical care, particularly gynecological and obstetrical care, in response to women's health needs. The report contains detailed recommendations for Congress, the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the individual facilities researched. Recommendations range from broad policy changes, including the need for increased consideration of the impact of immigration detention on families, to specific facility-level concerns, such as the lack of outdoor recreation in Pinal County Jail.


Niccolo Gaddi (1527-1552), Florentine Cardinal, archbishop of Cosenza from 1528 to 1535 and administrator of the diocese of Calabria until 1549, commissioned Bartolomeo della Scala of Pietrasanta with the construction of a wooden coffered ceiling for the Cathedral of Cosenza. An 18thcentury manuscript chronicle and some notarial acts of 1545 and 1546 document that he was already active in Calabria in those years. The coffered ceiling no longer exists, but this paper proposes a possible reconstructed configuration, based on the description contained in the assignment document. It was to be based on some famous Florentine and Roman examples, dating back to the second half of the 15th century, which were certainly known to the stonemasons and workers involved. The wooden coffered ceiling of Cosenza is the first known in Calabria, and thus it can be considered as the local reference for subsequent regional applications. It is also witness to the spread of the forms and architectural languages of the Renaissance in Calabria, introduced by a sophisticated commission and expert Tuscan craftsmen, whose presence was due to the widespread phenomenon of migratory flows of workers.


We have developed a new coarsening theory that more completely describes grain growth of a system of anisotropic particles such as completely faceted crystals by Ostwald ripening. Our model takes the anisotropy of surface energies on dissimilar facets into account, and the particle sizes are described by a distribution function. The theory is applied to study the coarsening of ,B-silicon nitride in a liquid medium due to the anisotropic growth of grains in different crystallographic directions. A model of the growth of silicon nitride grains is obtained based on the numerical solution of the equations of the new theory. Computer experiments are performed to determine how the distribution function evolves, to investigate the influence of various parameters such as diffusion and interfacial reaction constants on grain growth and to extract grain growth exponents from this model in order to determine the growth mechanisms that are responsible for the anisotropic growth behaviour. Only preliminary numerical results are available thus far due to 1/r instabilities that occur in the theory as r ---t O.


We show that resonant scattering signals at the Bragg forbidden positions in YVO3 originate from the anisotropic nature of the atomic scattering factor. The E1-E1 scattering from the electric-quadrupole moment is explained entirely through the crystal structure and does not require sensitivity to 3d orbital order. Simulations of the resonance using the FDMNES code suggest that the Jahn-Teller distortion provides an insignificant contribution to the intensity of the forbidden reflection. Thus we show that resonant x-ray diffraction at the vanadium K-edge in YVO3 is largely insensitive, even indirectly, to 3d orbital order through Jahn-Teller distortions.


Scarcely any legal question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, through arbitration. If Alexis de Tocqueville could survey contemporary American legal culture, he would rub his eyes with amazement at the privatization of adjudication across a wide swath of issues previously committed to judicial resolution. From trade disputes posing serious questions of economic diplomacy to consumer contracts adhering to cell phones and credit cards, mandatory arbitration has displaced conventional adjudication. In the country that de Tocqueville characterized as driven by its dedication to constitutional lawmaking through litigation, arbitration has become a dominant form of dispute resolution with little if any direct doctrinal influence by federal constitutional law. This is the overriding theme of Peter B. Rutledge's book, Arbitration and the Constitution (Cambridge, 2012).


Microclimate is one factor that can affect the performance of cattle. The aim of this research was to analyze the physiological responses of bali cow and heifer that kept under oil palm integrated farming system based on microclimate environment. This study was conducted in Rimba Beringin, Tapung Hulu, Kampar, Riau. Total 13 head of female Bali cattle consist of 5 head of heifer and 8 head of cow were used in the research. Microclimate parameters were ambient temperature, relative humidity, wind velocity. Whereas, physiological responses parameters were rectal temperature, heart rate, respiration rate, and body surface temperature. The result showed that Bali cattle has mild to severe heat stress (THI 76-84). However physiological responses of Bali cattle were normal, therefore Bali cattle can adaptated in the environment. Orbital area, top of shoulder and back have coefficent of correlation 0.58, 0.46, dan 0.45 repectively with the rectal temperature.


We present a method to control the detection events in quantum key distribution systems that use gated single-photon detectors. We employ bright pulses as faked states, timed to arrive at the avalanche photodiodes outside the activation time. The attack can remain unnoticed, since the faked states do not increase the error rate per se. This allows for an intercept–resend attack, where an eavesdropper transfers her detection events to the legitimate receiver without causing any errors. As a side effect, afterpulses, originating from accumulated charge carriers in the detectors, increase the error rate. We have experimentally tested detectors of the system id3110 (Clavis2) from ID Quantique. We identify the parameter regime in which the attack is feasible despite the side effect. Furthermore, we outline how simple modifications in the implementation can make the device immune to this attack.


The paper extends the research program of modeling the Schumpeterian vision of innovative development in the framework of the Arrow-Debreu theory of general equilibrium. To study changes in the production sector, as well as in the whole economy, the concept of extension of the systems under study is introduced. It enables us to model the mechanisms of Schumpeterian evolution in the conceptual apparatus of Hurwicz's theory of economic mechanisms. The paper is aimed at expanding our previous studies into two new directions. First, we establish the conditions sufficient for improving positions of various groups of agents such as producers, innovators, consumers, etc., under the price or qualitative mechanism regime. Second, to compare mechanisms of Schumpeterian evolution, we respect the logic of this process which is determined by innovative, as well as adaptive, equilibrium changes in the evolving economy under consideration. Consequently, we formulate two different criteria in our comparative analysis based, on the one hand, on the index of the distance between two innovative extensions of the given economic system and, on the other hand, on the increase in wealth of the given set of agents. The motivations of innovators, and the reason for which innovations are adopted into the producers' and consumers' plans of action, are also precisely explained in the paper. The results of our theoretical research can be useful in economic analyses, among others, in the case of the lack of the sufficient access to statistical data. Due to both the formal conceptual apparatus of the general equilibrium theory and Hurwicz's approach to the problem of designing economic mechanisms, the paper takes the form of an axiomatic deductive system of mathematical theorems interpreted in the language of economics.


The inductive approach [1] has been successfully used for verifying a number of security protocols, uncovering hidden assumptions and even attacks. Yet it requires a high level of skill to use: a user must guide the proof process, selecting the tactic to be applied, inventing a key lemma, etc. Proofs are both onerous and cumbersome. To compound the problem, security guarantees are not built into the logic but proven within it, making it difficult to give an account of proof discovery. We introduce a method, which, given a protocol, automatically formulates most of the properties that the protocol should enjoy in order to ensure security. If proven, these guarantees can be combined to provide a story as to why the protocol achieves security. Otherwise, the unproven goals may be used to uncover hidden assumptions or attacks.


Background and Problem: One of the questions of debate before to the election of the Swedish parliament in 2006 was whether independent schools should be prioritized or not. The right wing of the Swedish parliament was more positive to the topic than the left wing. This subject has many aspects, one of them considers motivation; motivation both among students and teachers. This thesis is focusing on the latter and the research questions treated are: "How does the ownership affect the motivation of the employees within the organization?" and "Are the employees in a private organisation more motivated than the employees of a public organisation?"Purpose: The purpose of this study is to show which factors that affect the motivation among the teachers within two types of schools; independent and publicly owned. Moreover the aim is to recognize whether there are any differences in motivation among the teachers within these types of schools.Frame of reference: The empirical part of the thesis is built on different theories concerning motivation. Amongst others are theories concerning extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, fairness and the meaning of goals treated.Empirical Findings: The result shows no clear difference between all motivation variables measured when the two types of schools was compared. The teachers in the public schools were according to the theories more motivated when it came to goal setting; they participated more when the goals was set and the goals was anticipated more clearly than in the independent schools. These teachers did also feel that their salaries were set according to the result of their work to a greater extent. The teachers in the independent schools did on the other hand feel that the communication with the closest manager work better, that they reach the preset goals and they value interesting work tasks to a greater extent. The other tested variables showed no significant difference between the means.Analysis and Conclusion: The goal setting process seems to work better within the public schools in general compared to the independent schools, which might be explained by the relative ages of the schools. The other side of the coin when it comes to clear goals could be that the way of doing things in the public school has been the same for a long time. This might explain why more teachers within independent schools found exciting working tasks important when choosing place of work. The aggregated result of this study did not show that the teachers in independent schools are more motivated than those in public schools; the study does therefore not support the arguments from the right wing of the parliament.


The ChemCam laser-induced breakdown spectrometer on the rover Curiosity has provided more than 200,000 spectra from over 5000 different locations on Mars. This instrument is the first chemical microprobe on Mars and has an analytical footprint 0.3–0.6 mm in diameter. ChemCam has observed a measure of hydration in all the sedimentary materials encountered along the rover traverse in Gale Crater, indicating the ubiquity of phyllosilicates as a constituent of the analyzed sandstones, mudstones, and conglomerates. Diagenetic features, including calcium sulfate veins, millimeter-thick magnesium-rich diagenetic ridges, and manganese-rich rock surfaces, provide clues to water–rock interactions. Float clasts of coarse-grained igneous rocks are rich in alkali feldspars and some are enriched in fluorine, indicating greater magmatic evolution than expected on Mars. The identification of individual soil components has contributed to our understanding of the evolution of Martian soil. These observations have broadened our understanding of Mars as an active and once habitable planet.


The world is witnessing a massive and generalized effort to improve the practices within the board of directors. However, there is still little understanding of the processes by which these new practices or models are adopted. Moreover, there is a growing consensus that the most important challenge is improving not only the more structural and visible attributes of the board but the internal dynamics that are much harder to monitor by a third party. This work seeks to bring some light into this discussion by analyzing the role of the environment in the adoption of specific board features. We propose a model that relates the different institutional pressures to the key observable (body) and non-observable (soul) attributes of a board of directors. A number of practical and research recommendations are derived from the model.


BACKGROUND
Clinical relevance of donor-specific antibodies (DSAs) detected by a single antigen Luminex virtual crossmatch in pre-transplant serum samples from patients with a negative cytotoxicity-dependent complement crossmatch is controversial. The aim of this study was to analyse the influence of a pre-transplant positive virtual crossmatch in the outcome of kidney transplantation.

METHODS
A total of 892 patients who received a graft from deceased donors after a negative cytotoxicity crossmatch were included. Presence of anti-human leucocyte antigen (HLA) antibodies was investigated using a Luminex screening assay and anti-HLA specificities were assigned performing a Luminex single antigen assay.

RESULTS
Graft survival was significantly worse among patients with anti-HLA DSA compared to both patients with anti-HLA with no DSA (P = 0.001) and patients without HLA antibodies (P < 0.001) using a log-rank test. No graft survival differences between anti-HLA with no DSA and no HLA antibodies patient groups were observed (P = 0.595). Influence of both anti-Class I and anti-Class II DSA was detected (P < 0.0001 in both cases). When the fluorescence values were stratified in four groups, no significant differences in graft survival were observed among the groups with fluorescence levels >1500 (global P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
The presence of preformed HLA DSA in transplanted patients with a negative cytotoxicity crossmatch is associated with a lower allograft survival. The detection of anti-HLA with no DSA has no influence in the graft outcome. Finally, there were no demonstrable effects of mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) values >1500 on graft survival.


Salix oritrepha is one of the most adaptable perennial woody plants found to date in the Maqu alpine regions. We use the cutting reproduction technique with the S. oritrepha and apply the straw checkerboard technique (SCT) to restore degraded alpine grasslands. Cuttings of S. oritrepha with different cutting positions (hardwood 0.5 to 1 [0.2 to 0.4 in] and 1 to 1.5 cm [0.4 to 0.8 in]; softwood 0.3 to 0.5 cm [0.12 to 0.2 in]; and root 0.5 to 1 cm [0.2 to 0.4 in] in diameter) and lengths (15 and 20 cm [5.9 to 7.8 in]) were treated with different cultivating methods in field and potted culture experiments (April of 2005 to October of 2007). One year old plants were transplanted to sand dunes with no precautions and sand dunes with SCT in April of 2008, and harvested in October of 2012. The results indicate that the hardwood cuttings (1 to 1.5 cm [0.2 to 0.4 in] in diameter and 20 cm [7.8 in] in length) which were potted in a vinyl house, cut in a vinyl house, and covered with a plastic membrane in the field, were the best cutting cultivation methods. However, it is noteworthy that the plants potted in a vinyl house show better growth performance in sand dunes with SCT than plants cut in a vinyl house and covered with a plastic membrane in the field cultivated. The vinyl-house potted method (1 to 1.5 cm [0.4 to 0.8 in] in diameter and 20 cm [7.8 in] in length,) promoted plant height, total dry weight, survival rate of cuttings, and preservation rate, and, concomitantly, increased the soil's organic carbon (C), available nitrogen (N), and soil microbial biomass C and N, resulting in a significant improvement in both the microenvironment and the stability of the dune surface (0 to 30 cm [0 to 11.8 in]). The contribution of the soil's organic C and available N to soil fertility (compared with sand dunes with no precautions) ranged from 43% and 54% in the sand dunes with SCT, and increased to 83% and 86% in vinyl-house potted method cultivated plants grown in the sand dunes with SCT. The microbial biomass C and N varied from 18% and 38% in the sand dunes with SCT and increased to 40% and 85% in vinyl-house potted method cultivated plants grown in sand dunes with SCT (0 to 10 cm [0 to 3.9 in], similar to that of 10 to 20 cm [3.9 to 7.8 in] and 20 to 30 cm [7.8 to 11.8 in] in soil depths). These findings suggest that the sand dune fixation of vinyl-house potted method cultivated S. oritrepha (hardwood 1 to 1.5 cm [0.4 to 0.8 in]; length 20 cm [7.8 in]) with the SCT is considered an effective strategy to restore degraded grasslands in the alpine regions of China.


A review of recent advances in power electronic packaging is presented based on the development of power device integration. The presentation will cover in more detail how advances in both semiconductor content and power advanced package design and materials have co-enabled significant advances in power device capability during recent years. Extrapolating the same trends in representative areas for the remainder of the decade serves to highlight where further improvement in materials and techniques can drive continued enhancements in usability, efficiency, reliability and overall cost of power semiconductor solutions. Along with new power packaging development, the role of modeling is key to assure successful package design. An overview of the power package modeling is presented. Challenges of power semiconductor packaging and modeling in both next generation design and assembly processes are presented and discussed.


Insulating existing buildings offers great potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and meeting Germany's climate protection targets. Previous research suggests that, since homeowners' decision-making processes are inadequately understood as yet, today's incentives aiming at increasing insulation activity lead to unsatisfactory results. We developed an agent-based model to foster the understanding of homeowners' decision-making processes regarding insulation and to explore how situational factors, such as the structural condition of houses and social interaction, influence their insulation activity. Simulation experiments allow us furthermore to study the influence of socio-spatial structures such as residential segregation and population density on the diffusion of renovation behavior among homeowners. Based on the insights gained, we derive recommendations for designing innovative policy instruments. We conclude that the success of particular policy instruments aiming at increasing homeowners' insulation activity in a specific region depends on the socio-spatial structure at hand, and that reducing financial constraints only has a relatively low potential for increasing Germany's insulation rate. Policy instruments should also target the fact that specific renovation occasions are used to undertake additional insulation activities, e.g. by incentivizing lenders and craftsmen to advise homeowners to have insulation installed.


Background. Community health workers (CHWs) were trained in Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Uganda to diagnose febrile children using malaria rapid diagnostic tests, and treat positive malaria cases with artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) and those who could not take oral medicines with rectal artesunate. We quantified the impact of this intervention on private household costs for childhood febrile illness. Methods. Households with recent febrile illness in a young child in previous 2 weeks were selected randomly before and during the intervention and data obtained on household costs for the illness episode. Household costs included consultation fees, registration costs, user fees, diagnosis, bed, drugs, food, and transport costs. Private household costs per episode before and during the intervention were compared. The intervention's impact on household costs per episode was calculated and projected to districtwide impacts on household costs. Results. Use of CHWs increased from 35% of illness episodes before the intervention to 50% during the intervention (P < .0001), and total household costs per episode decreased significantly in each country: from US Dollars (USD) $4.36 to USD $1.54 in Burkina Faso, from USD $3.90 to USD $2.04 in Nigeria, and from USD $4.46 to USD $1.42 in Uganda (all P < .0001). There was no difference in the time used by the child's caregiver to care for a sick child (59% before intervention vs 51% during intervention spent ≤2 days). Using the most recent population figures for each study district, we estimate that the intervention could save households a total of USD $29 965, USD $254 268, and USD $303 467, respectively, in the study districts in Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Uganda. Conclusions. Improving access to malaria diagnostics and treatments in malaria-endemic areas substantially reduces private household costs. The key challenge is to develop and strengthen community human resources to deliver the intervention, and ensure adequate supplies of commodities and supervision. We demonstrate feasibility and benefit to populations living in difficult circumstances. Clinical Trials Registration. ISRCTN13858170.


This paper analyzes the criminalization and medicalization of homosexuality during the early twentieth century in Canada. Through court records and medical texts the discourse of homosexuality as a threat to the family unit and to the nation is contextualized within Cold War rhetoric. A Foucaultian conceptualization of power and discipline helps frame questions regarding homosexuality as a criminal offense and as a mental illness. It is argued that both state control and societal pressures constructed the homosexual as criminal, the homosexual as mental patient and, as a result, the homosexual as Communist threat.


This paper, written for a Clifford Symposium Festschrift for Robert Rabin, comments on his lovely, widely admired, and yet still underappreciated paper The Historical Development of the Fault Principle: A Reinterpretation. Rabin's paper teaches us something essential about the character and structure of modern tort law at the moment of its genesis, and it reminds us of the even more general truth that what the law does not cover is at least as important as what it does cover. The Historical Development of the Fault Principle is constructed around a simple, but powerful, distinction between fault as a breach of duty and fault as a cause of action. Negligence as a cause of action is an institution, a system of related rules, concepts, principles and policies. This simple but penetrating observation transforms the question of just what is at stake in the conventional thesis that the late nineteenth century was the heyday of "universal fault liability."Whether or not fault liability was "universal" at the end of the nineteenth century turns, Rabin teaches, not on whether tort liability for accidental injury is constructed around fault or strict liability. The "universality" of fault liability is, rather, a question about the percentage of the legal landscape for unintentional harm that the institution of negligence liability governs. Building on this point, The Historical Development of the Fault Principle shows that the age of "universal fault liability" is better described as an age where "no duty" predominated. Tort liability – fault liability retreated whenever contract was capable of taking hold of a domain of accidental injury. It retreated both in the presence of contractual relations (in the workplace context) and in the absence of contractual relations (in the product context). Property, contract, and "no duty" all trumped tort. This insight not only changes our understanding of the rise of fault liability; it also provides a powerful rebuttal of the still influential, if waning, view that the common law of torts circa 1870-1905 was economically efficient.Rabin's critique leaves intact the thesis that negligence liability itself emerged as a freestanding form of tort liability at the end of the nineteenth century. Prior to that time, negligence was merely the mental element of a number of discrete, nominate torts. Late in the nineteenth century, negligence transforms into a norm of conduct and thereby emerges as a distinctive form of tort liability. This development sets the stage for the expansion of fault liability into the domains of product accidents, landowner liability, and some forms of pure economic and emotional harm. The late nineteenth century thus sets the stage for the "universal fault liability" that it so conspicuously fails to achieve.Recovering Rylands argues that Rylands v. Fletcher represents a parallel development with respect to strict liability. Rylands generalizes ancient forms of liability in nuisance and trespass into a coherent, general alternative to fault liability. The opinions in the case both articulate strict liability as a general principle of responsibility for harm done and clarify the fundamental perception on which strict liability rests, namely, that harm justifiability inflicted – harm which is unavoidable in the sense that it should be inflicted – can trigger responsibilities of repair. The idea that the justified infliction of harm gives rise to responsibilities of repair stands in sharp contrast to the root premise of fault liability, and accounts for the enduring significance of strict liability as form of legal responsibility for harm done.After excavating the basis and nature of strict liability in Rylands, the paper traces the ebb and flow of the strand of strict liability that it inspired over the past century and a half. On the one hand, that history shows that fault liability is never universal, though generally dominant. On the other hand, that history suggests that the difficulty of attributing harms to activities without deploying a fault criterion may be a permanent, insurmountable barrier to universal, common law strict liability. Last, but surely not least, Rylands' articulation of strict liability as a general idea is an essential part of the formative moment of modern tort law that Bob Rabin did so much to help us understand. Adding an account of Rylands is a way of building on his seminal contribution.


Abstract. Introduced plant pathogens can devastate susceptible plant communities, and consequently impact on animal communities reliant on plants for food and habitat. Specifically, plant pathogens change the floristic diversity of vegetation communities, thereby reducing availability of food sources for fauna (e.g. pollen and nectar) and result in major changes to habitat structure when canopy and understorey plant species succumb to disease. Phytophthora cinnamomi poses a threat to flowering plant species (e.g. Banksia species) which are important food sources for nectarivorous fauna. The honey possum (Tarsipes rostratus) is the only obligate nectarivorous non-flying mammal living on a restrictive diet of nectar and pollen; consequently, these tiny mammals are likely to be particularly vulnerable to the landscape-wide devastation caused by P. cinnamomi. We investigated habitat selection by honey possums in a vegetation community infested with P. cinnamomi to determine how these mammals respond to habitat affected by this pathogen. Over four seasons, 18 honey possums were fitted with radio-transmitters and tracked to identify habitat preferences. Vegetation surveys were compared for locations selected by honey possums (as determined from tracking) and randomly selected sites. Radio-tracking revealed that sites selected by honey possums were significantly taller, denser, and more floristically diverse than their paired random locations. The presence of P. cinnamomi influences habitat use by honey possums, but animals show resilience in terms of using the best of what is available in both P. cinnamomi–affected and unaffected locations. Habitat patches comprising less susceptible species, or plants that have yet to succumb to infection, provide refuge and food resources for honey possums. Management to reduce the spread of existing P. cinnamomi infestations and prevent contamination of new locations will benefit vegetation communities and associated faunal communities, while identifying honey possum food plant species that are resilient to the pathogen may support revegetation attempts.


Summary
1. Assessing spatial distributions of threatened large carnivores at landscape scales poses formidable challenges because of their rarity and elusiveness. As a consequence of logistical constraints, investigators typically rely on sign surveys. Most survey methods, however, do not explicitly address the central problem of imperfect detections of animal signs in the field, leading to underestimates of true habitat occupancy and distribution.

2. We assessed habitat occupancy for a tiger Panthera tigris metapopulation across a c. 38 000-km2 landscape in India, employing a spatially replicated survey to explicitly address imperfect detections. Ecological predictions about tiger presence were confronted with sign detection data generated from occupancy sampling of 205 sites, each of 188 km2.

3. A recent occupancy model that considers Markovian dependency among sign detections on spatial replicates performed better than the standard occupancy model (ΔAIC = 184·9). A formulation of this model that fitted the data best showed that density of ungulate prey and levels of human disturbance were key determinants of local tiger presence. Model averaging resulted in a replicate-level detection probability  = 0·17 (0·17) for signs and a tiger habitat occupancy estimate of  = 0·665 (0·0857) or 14 076 (1814) km2 of potential habitat of 21 167 km2. In contrast, a traditional presence-versus-absence approach underestimated occupancy by 47%. Maps of probabilities of local site occupancy clearly identified tiger source populations at higher densities and matched observed tiger density variations, suggesting their potential utility for population assessments at landscape scales.

4. Synthesis and applications. Landscape-scale sign surveys can efficiently assess large carnivore spatial distributions and elucidate the factors governing their local presence, provided ecological and observation processes are both explicitly modelled. Occupancy sampling using spatial replicates can be used to reliably and efficiently identify tiger population sources and help monitor metapopulations. Our results reinforce earlier findings that prey depletion and human disturbance are key drivers of local tiger extinctions and tigers can persist even in human-dominated landscapes through effective protection of source populations. Our approach facilitates efficient targeting of tiger conservation interventions and, more generally, provides a basis for the reliable integration of large carnivore monitoring data between local and landscape scales.


A large number of scientific articles have been published regarding impact of COVID-19 infection on dental practice, dental professionals, and the mode of spread of infection via dental procedures. The present systematic review was planned with an aim of evidence mapping and quality analysis of published research on the dental aspects of COVID-19 infection. The protocol was registered at https://share. osf.io/registration/46221-C87-BA8. The search was performed in Scopus, PubMed, Cochrane, and Embase databases till 15th July 2020. There was no restriction of year of publication and language. All types of published articles related to Dentistry, Dentist, Dental practice, and Oral health education on COVID-19 were included. The Joanna Briggs Institute's (JBI) Critical Appraisal Tools were used for the risk of bias analysis of included studies. A total of 393 articles were short-listed and were checked for eligibility and finally, 380 articles were included. Among the 380 research articles published (till July 15, 2020), the majority of the included articles belonged to the lowermost strata of the evidence pyramid. There were 54 original research articles with no randomized clinical trial, systematic review or, meta-analysis pertaining to the dental perspective of COVID-19 infection. The level of available evidence about dentistry and COVID-19 infection is very low with a lack of researches of highest quality. The guidelines/recommendations for dental professionals, proposed by the different scientific organizations/societies regarding COVID-19 infection are only consensus-based necessitating the need to formulate evidence-based guidelines. There is a need to identify essential research questions and strengthen the study designs in most of the aspects related to the dentistry and COVID-19 pandemic.


Over the last two decades, software development has moved away from centralized, plan-based management toward agile methodologies such as Scrum. Agile methodologies are founded on a shared set of core principles, including self-organizing software development teams. Such teams are promoted as a way to increase both developer productivity and team morale, which is echoed by academic research. However, recent works on agile neglect to consider strategic behavior among developers, particularly during task assignment–one of the primary functions of a self-organizing team. This paper argues that self-organizing software teams could be readily modeled using game theory, providing insight into how agile developers may act when behaving strategically. We support our argument by presenting a general model for self-assignment of development tasks based on and extending concepts drawn from established game theory research. We further introduce the software engineering community to two metrics drawn from game theory—the price-of-stability and price-of-anarchy—which can be used to gauge the efficiencies of self-organizing teams compared to centralized management. We demonstrate how these metrics can be used in a case study evaluating the hypothesis that smaller teams self-organize more efficiently than larger teams, with conditional support for that hypothesis. Our game-theoretic framework provides new perspective for the software engineering community, opening many avenues for future research.


In spite of its hydraulic and morphologic importance, the conditions of occurrence of flow separation at the inner bank of open channel bends are still not known. In a series of 23 experiments in a laboratory open channel bend with flat sand bed, it was investigated how the process of inner-bank flow separation depends on two control parameters: the ratio of flow depth H to minimum radius of curvature R, and the Froude number Fr. The Froude numbers investigated were 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 and the H/R values investigated were 0.038, 0.053, 0.077, 0.112 and 0.153. All flow conditions concerned strongly curved subcritical flow. Flow did separate from the inner bank in all experiments, but recirculation zones with reversed velocities did not develop. Surprisingly, the flow separation did not show any dependence on Fr. The point of flow separation moved farther downstream in the bend with increasing H/R.


Ascorbic acid (AsA), vitamin C, is an important molecule that is vital for both human and plant health, because it aids in the detoxification of reactive oxygen species (ROS) caused by various abiotic and biotic stresses including UV, salinity, ozone, and attack from pathogens. In order to understand the role of AsA in the plant-herbivore interaction, we looked at the effects of the wound-responsive hormones, jasmonate, wounding, and herbivory on AsA content. Our study is the first to directly compare the effects of wounding and jasmonates on AsA levels in plants. We looked at the effects of wounding and methyl jasmonate (MeJA) on JA-deficient and JAinsensitive genotypes of tomato to further determine if JA mediates the effects of wounding on AsA in plants, because JA is involved in many other wound responses. Wounding in two cultivars of tomato lowered AsA content as did exogenous MeJA application, suggesting a link between these two. Wounding of mutant lines impaired in JA signaling showed a decrease in AsA content similar to wild type, indicating AsA response to wounding does not require JAs. These results show a complicated relationship between AsA, JA, and wounding, in which both JA and wounding appear to but may act independently. Few studies explore ascorbate's role in actual plant systems with associated herbivores. We evaluated the effects of multiple types of herbivores on AsA of both tomato and Arabidopsis, providing the first comparison of different types of herbivore damage on AsA content among plant types. Tomato and Arabidopsis responded differently to herbivory. Ascorbate decreased significantly in response to caterpillar feeding in tomato foliar tissue with no significant difference in systemic or root tissue. Whereas, Arabidopsis saw no significant difference in treated tissue but saw significant decrease in AsA of systemic tissue of aphid and caterpillar treated plants. We were, also, able to determine high AsA content of a MIOX4 overexpression line and use it in determining the effects of AsA on caterpillars in conjunction with WT, moderate AsA, and vtc1 mutant, low AsA. The MIOX4 overexpression line supported caterpillars of a greater weight than either WT or vtc1. This thesis is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council


Despite the central importance of transcriptional regulation in systems biology, it has proven difficult to determine the regulatory mechanisms of individual genes, let alone entire gene networks. It is particularly difficult to analyze a promoter sequence and identify the locations, regulatory roles, and energetic properties of binding sites for transcription factors and RNA polymerase. In this work, we present a strategy for interpreting transcriptional regulatory sequences using in vivo methods (i.e. the massively parallel reporter assay Sort-Seq) to formulate quantitative models that map a transcription factor binding site's DNA sequence to transcription factor-DNA binding energy. We use these models to predict the binding energies of transcription factor binding sites to within 1 kBT of their measured values. We further explore how such a sequence-energy mapping relates to the mechanisms of trancriptional regulation in various promoter contexts. Specifically, we show that our models can be used to design specific induction responses, analyze the effects of amino acid mutations on DNA sequence preference, and determine how regulatory context affects a transcription factor's sequence specificity.


Studies show that the use of writing in recognition of prior learning (RPL) measures can repel some adults, especially those without a diploma. For those who are moving forward, how is the use of reading and writing experienced? Is it a lever or a barrier? This article presents results from a research led in Quebec including semi-structured interviews and data from archival records. It describes the use of reading and writing in two RPL measures at the secondary education level. The first one is offered in adult general education and is called Spheres of generic competencies. The second one is the recognition of prior learning and competencies in vocational training. The article also identifies reading and writing's levers and barriers. A discussion draws attention to the challenges faced by adults when they have to read and write in RPL process


There is evidence that unicellular organisms, yeast in particular, can undergo programmed cell death through a biochemical pathway with similarities to the apoptosis machinery of multicellular organisms. However, the evolutionary advantage of programmed cell death to a unicellular organism is not obvious (to say the least), leading some investigators to question the validity of a yeast programmed cell death pathway. Ivanovska and Hardwick provide an argument in favor of the biological relevance of such a death pathway in the context of cells infected with killer viruses, where the death program may benefit the community rather than a single cell. Most yeast strains are infected with viruses. One common group of double-stranded RNA virus, the M viruses, cause death of uninfected cells but provide immunity to infected cells (through an unknown mechanism). Ivanovska and Hardwick found that such killing appears to rely on components similar to those of apoptotic pathways in higher organisms. In particular, loss of the Fis1 protein, a protein that is thought to function in control of mitochondrial permeability, as do mammalian Bcl-2 family proteins, made cells more susceptible to cell death in an assay of uninfected cells cultured with cells infected with the M1 killer virus. Other components also proposed to mediate a yeast cell death pathway--Yca1, a metacaspase with similarity to mammalian caspases, and Tok1, a plasma membrane potassium channel--were shown to mediate cell death caused by the M1 virus. The M1 virus encodes a toxin, K1. Under proper culture conditions, K1 itself could cause programmed cell death, but through a separate pathway independent of the Yca1 metacaspase. In experiments with long culture conditions designed to simulate competition for survival in the wild, killer virus-infected cells overran cultures with noninfected cells. The authors propose that a primitive mechanism that distinguishes "self" (infected) and "nonself" (uninfected) cells may be evolutionarily advantageous in providing nutrients from the dying cells that enhance survival of the population of cells harboring the killer virus. I. Ivanovska, J. M. Hardwick, Viruses activate a genetically conserved cell death pathway in a unicellular organism. J. Cell Biol. 170, 391-399 (2005). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) lays the foundation for a general system of morals, and is a text of central importance in the history of moral and political thought. It presents a theory of the imagination which Smith derived from David Hume but which encompasses an idea of sympathy that in some ways is more sophisticated than anything in Hume's philosophy. By means of sympathy and the mental construct of an impartial spectator, Smith formulated highly original theories of conscience, moral judgment and the virtues. The enduring legacy of his work is its reconstruction of the Enlightenment idea of a moral, or social, science encompassing both political economy and the theory of law and government. This 2002 volume offers a new edition of the text with clear and helpful notes for the student reader, together with a substantial introduction that sets the work in its philosophical and historical context.


There are 260,000 children killed each year (and 10 million injured) as a result of crashes in all countries, and young drivers are over-represented in crashes across developed countries. There is therefore increasing interest in the potential for parents to play an active role in risk-reduction strategies and in the possibility of using parental involvement as an adjunct to other interventions, but little information available about how parents are currently involved in safety related activities with their children. This paper summarises key results from a survey of that aimed to assess their current role in relation to road safety issues. The on-line survey collected data from a sample of 328 parents with children in four situations: young children, pre-learner teenagers, learner drivers, and probationary drivers. The results indicated that it was possible to identify groups of parents who were low-level and high-level users of road safety information and materials, and that low-level users of information and other material were generally disconnected from involvement in road safety issues of concern to their children. The paper discusses the implications of the results for future interventions.


This paper addresses the consumption-real exchange rate anomaly. International real business cycle models based on complete financial markets predict a unitary correlation between the real exchange rate and the ratio of home to foreign consumption when subjected to supply side shocks. In the data, this correlation is usually small and often negative. This paper shows that this anomaly can be successfully addressed by models that have an incomplete financial market structure and a non-traded as well as traded goods production sector.


We present the first spatially resolved observations of molecular gas in a sample of cluster galaxies beyond z > 0.1. Using ALMA, we detect CO (2–1) in eight z ∼ 1.6 cluster galaxies, all within a single 70″ primary beam. The cluster, SpARCS-J0225, was discovered by the Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-sequence Cluster Survey, and is replete with gas-rich galaxies in close proximity, thus affording an efficient multiplexing strategy to amass the first sample of resolved CO in distant clusters. Mapping out the kinematic structure and morphology of molecular gas on ∼3.5 kpc scales reveals rotating gas disks in the majority of the galaxies, and some kinematic peculiarities, including a central gas void, a merger, and one-sided gas tails. We find that the extent of the molecular gas is slightly smaller than that of the optical HST stellar component; this is even more pronounced in low-redshift Virgo cluster galaxies. However, limited by small sample sizes of spatially resolved CO, we are unable to differentiate the distribution of stellar-to-gas radii between cluster and field environments at high redshift. Thus, at first glance, while the cluster galaxies generally look like galaxies infalling from the field, with typical main-sequence star formation rates and massive molecular gas reservoirs situated in rotating disks, they have potentially remarkable attributes, including elevated gas fractions, slightly smaller CO disks, and asymmetric gas tails. Taken in tandem, these signatures are tentative evidence for gas stripping in the z ∼ 1.6 cluster, though verification of these trends will require larger samples.


States want their people to follow the law. They can either persuade them, sanction law-breakers, or both. But sanctions do not only alter people s perception of risks and costs; they also affect how people view their state and its legitimacy, unleashing a series of non-economic factors that determine compliance with the law. In fact, when a sanction is perceived as unjust it may be inefficient in reducing law violations and could crowd-out legality in other aspects of life. Law scholars warn against violating the principle of proportionality by exerting extreme punishment in comparison with the magnitude of the crime, as it may result in the loss of citizen cooperation with the law. I take one of Colombia s drug-reducing policies, aerial spraying of coca crops and study the effect of its disproportionate use on legal crops. My results point to a non-linear effect of punishment on legality: spraying shocks or extreme spraying in relation to the amount of illegal crops found reduce engagement in legal crops, where as proportional levels of spraying induce legality. I use four different sources of data to test this relationship: macro data on all coca growing municipalities in Colombia, and micro data of three very different sets of farmers, namely coca growers surveyed by the UNODC, farmers that are beneficiaries of Colombia s biggest alternative development Program (Forest Warden Families) and coffee growers in municipalities that have had coca. I find the same results in all four samples and conclude that when the state overdoes its coercive actions, these can backfire and crowd out legality.


Formation of disinfection by-products (DBPs), including dichloroacetonitrile (DCAN), trichloroacetonitrile (TCAN), chloroform (TCM), dichloroacetic acid (DCAA), trichloroacetic acid (TCAA), chloropicrin (TCNM) and chloral hydrate (CH), from monochloramination of chironomid larvae was investigated at different contact times, pH levels and temperatures. Increased monochloramine dosage and prolonged reaction time resulted in an increase in most DBPs. Furthermore, the concentrations of TCAN, DCAN and CH initially increased over time before reaching a plateau. This is because of the hydrolysis of functional groups and the function of NH 2 Cl. The concentrations of DCAA, TCAA and TCM decreased as pH was increased from 5 to 10, and TCAN, DCAN and CH were not detected when the pH exceeded 8. As for TCNM, their concentration increased as the pH increased from 5 to 7, following a subsequent decrease at higher pH values. High temperatures led to higher DCAN and TCAN concentrations, while low temperatures resulted in higher TCNM and DCAA concentrations. Both high and low temperatures reduced the concentrations of TCAN and CH. Finally, concentrations of the four predominant DBPs (TCM, DCAN of DCAA and TCAA) all decreased as Cl/N ratio declined.


SOMMARIO: 1. La religione c'entra? Una premessa culturalista - 2. La violenza organizzata nel mondo e la centralita della guerra siriana - 3. L'ISIS: dall'Iraq alla Siria e recenti sviluppi - 4. Potere o religione? - 5. Chi sono i militanti jihadisti occidentali - 6. Attratti dall'ISIS - 7. Conclusioni. Organized violence and religious affiliation: the case of Isis ABSTRACT: This paper seeks to address the crucial issue of organized violence from a cultural perspective analyzing the case of ISIS, tipically considered as religious group. It intends to elaborate some of the key questions of the debate on the links between religion and violence. The religious nature of ISIS will be disputed throughout its birth and expansion during the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Syrian conflict: more specifically, the paper aims to shed some lights on the grounds underlying the decision of western foreign fighters and Jihadists to join with or refer to a group of fanatics fighting in the faraway land of Syria. The research methodology is based on an interactionist approach on violence in order to avoid focusing on psychopathological ('they are violent because they are mad') or ethical-religious aspects ('they are violent because they are driven by a bad religion'): on the contrary this paper aims to investigate Jihadist violence in its relational and symbolic aspects, as part of a socio-cultural way of life. In the end, the impact of this approach on possible prevention programs will be touched on briefly.


Smart play-out is a method for executing declarative scenario-based requirements, which utilizes powerful model-checking or planning algorithms to run the scenarios and avoid some of the violations that can be caused by naive execution. In this paper, we investigate the complexity of smart play-out. Specifically, we use a reduction from QBF in order to show that smart play-out for a most basic subset of the scenario-based language of LSC is PSPACE-hard. The main advantage of our proof compared to a previous one by Bontemps and Schobbens is that ours is explicit, and takes advantage of the visual features of the LSC language. We also show that for a subset of the language, in which no multiple running copies are allowed, the problem is NP-hard.


Abstract To answer tantalizing questions such as whether animals are moral or how morality evolved, I propose starting with a somewhat less fraught question: do animals have normative cognition? Recent psychological research suggests that normative thinking, or ought-thought, begins early in human development. Recent philosophical research suggests that folk psychology is grounded in normative thought. Recent primatology research finds evidence of sophisticated cultural and social learning capacities in great apes. Drawing on these three literatures, I argue that the human variety of social cognition and moral cognition encompass the same cognitive capacities and that the nonhuman great apes may also be normative beings. To make this argument, I develop an account of animal social norms that shares key properties with Cristina Bicchieri's account of social norms but which lowers the cognitive requirements for having a social norm. I propose a set of four early developing prerequisites implicated in social cognition that make up what I call naïve normativity: (1) the ability to identify agents, (2) sensitivity to in-group/out-group differences, (3) the capacity for social learning of group traditions, and (4) responsiveness to appropriateness. I review the ape cognition literature and present preliminary empirical evidence supporting the existence of social norms and naïve normativity in great apes. While there is more empirical work to be done, I hope to have offered a framework for studying normativity in other species, and I conclude that we should be open to the possibility that normative cognition is yet another ancient cognitive endowment that is not human-unique.


This thesis investigates the challenges facing local government in South Africa by developing a means of exploring to what extent the problems of providing basic services currently experienced by municipalities are influenced by the political, administrative and financial configuration of the decentralized system of governance. It is argued here that the design of the intergovernmental governance system does not promote the constitutional objectives of decentralisation. The current system of governance does not empower local government to become more distinctive and autonomous. The problem in many cases is not what to decentralize or whether a basic service should be provided by national, provincial or local government, but rather how to align shared rule or concurrency of the particular service with the various levels of government. One of the key questions posed in this thesis is to what extent the system of decentralized governance in South Africa enables or hinders municipalities. abilities to provide basic services in an autonomous and sustainable manner. It focuses particularly on their authority to make and implement autonomous political, administrative and financial decisions pertaining to the provision of basic services. While this study cannot conclusively report on the impact of decentralisation on basic service delivery in South Africa, it does identify some of the systemic and structural aspects that impact on the manner or way in which local municipalities provide basic services. It raises concerns that the basic service delivery obligations of local municipalities are strenuous and financially challenging, and will continue to be as long as local municipalities rely on or are controlled by other spheres of government in meeting their constitutional mandate, especially with regard to the intergovernmental transfers of fiscal resources. URI http://hdl.handle.net/10413/623 Collections Doctoral Degrees (Development Studies) [41] DSpace software copyright © 2002-2013 Duraspace Contact Us | Send Feedback Theme by Decentralisation and municipalities in South Africa: an analysis of the mandate to deliver basic services 


The pupil-teacher communication and the teacher communication skills seem to be key concepts to reach the objectives of the educational act. Recent studies highlight the link between the teacher communication skills, their efficiency, and the fact that these skills could play a more important role for the education that the teaching staff training, his intelligence level and teaching methods. The research goal was the investigation of the aspects specific to the educational communication, that constitute facilitator factors and barriers in the learning process and in the relation teacher-pupil. The quantitative analysis was based on a questionnaire for pupils and teachers, that aimed the investigation of the respondents perception on what it is a good teacher in order to identify those skills that make the difference, from the pupils point of view, and also from the teachers point of view, between a competent teacher and an ineffective one. The research used a double approach, quantitative and qualitative one. The quantitative study allowed the inclusion of a number of 151 subjects and the survey of some dimensions of teacherpupil communication. The qualitative research used a number of 47 subjects, but it allowed the consolidation of the approached topics. The results obtained were interpreted based on the differences that appear in the pupils and teaching staff opinions, but also through the investigation of those dimensions that make the difference, in the case of a model teaching staff, between the pupils and teachers perceptions.


We show by computer simulation that high beam quality can be achieved in high-energy, nanosecond optical parametric oscillators by use of image-rotating resonators. Lateral walk-off between the signal and the idler beams in a nonlinear crystal creates correlations across the beams in the walk off direction, or equivalently, creates a restricted acceptance angle. These correlations can improve the beam quality in the walk-off plane. We show that image rotation or reflection can be used to improve beam quality in both planes. The lateral walk-off can be due to birefringent walk-off in type II mixing or to noncollinear mixing in type I or type II mixing.


mRNAs for the neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) α6 and β3 subunits are abundantly expressed and colocalized in dopaminergic cells of the substantia nigra and ventral tegmental area. Studies using subunit-null mutant mice have shown that α6- or β3-dependent nAChRs bind α-conotoxin MII (α-CtxMII) with high affinity and modulate striatal dopamine release. This study explores the effects of β3 subunit-null mutation on striatal and midbrain nAChR expression, composition, and pharmacology. Ligand binding and immunoprecipitation experiments using subunit-specific antibodies indicated that β3-null mutation selectively reduced striatal α6* nAChR expression by 76% versus β3+/+ control. Parallel experiments showed a smaller reduction in both midbrain α3* and α6* nAChRs (34 and 42% versus β3+/+ control, respectively). Sedimentation coefficient determinations indicated that residual α6* nAChRs in β3–/– striatum were pentameric, like their wild-type counterparts. Immunoprecipitation experiments on immunopurified β3* nAChRs demonstrated that almost all wild-type striatal β3* nAChRs also contain α4, α6, and β2 subunits, although a small population of non-β3 α6* nAChRs is also expressed. β3 subunit incorporation seemed to increase α4 participation in α6β2* complexes. 125I-Epibatidine competition binding studies showed that the α-CtxMII affinity of α6* nAChRs from the striata of β3–/– mice was similar to those isolated from β3+/+ animals. Together, the results of these experiments show that the β3 subunit is important for the correct assembly, stability and/or transport of α6* nAChRs in dopaminergic neurons and influences their subunit composition. However, β3 subunit expression is not essential for the expression of α6*, high-affinity α-CtxMII binding nAChRs.


Cells and tissues are constantly exposed to mechanical forces. Understanding how these forces act on cells to regulate essential processes like development, differentiation, tissue homeostasis and how their alteration is related to disease requires the characterization of their mechanical properties. Several methods have been developed to study mechanical properties of cells and nuclei. However, most of the established methods are not com- patible with culturing of cells in 3D substrates, a factor which plays an essential role in defining the structural and mechanical behavior of cells naturally existing in 3D environ- ments. In this work, image and model based methods have been developed to approach this problem and enable the characterization of the cells mechanical phenotype in 3D.

On a first step, a previously developed method to measure the compressibility of the nuclear interior was enhanced to enable statistical significant measurements of nuclei to perform comparative analyses between phenotypes. Optimization of both the experi- mental, as well as the image processing methods led to a robust framework that served to measure an increase in nuclear compressibility in nuclei of LMNA−/− mouse embryonic fibroblasts. This study served as a proof of principle for this contact free method, which in a subsequent step was adapted to work for cells embedded in 3D substrates.

Aiming to develop a method, in which specific forces could be applied and relate to cellular deformations, the second part of this work was centered in the development of the 3D substrate stretcher. This involved identifying and implementing the needs of the experimental and image analysis framework to ensure the required environment for the cells, while at the same time enabling the acquisition of suitable data for the mechanical analysis. The resulting experimental and analysis framework enables for the first time application and quantification of strains on cells embedded in 3D substrates.

Motivation of the 3D-culture based methods was the analysis of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in hepatocytes. These epithelial cells undergoing dedifferentiation upon treatment with TGF-β serve not only as a preeminent example of the need of 3D cell cultures in the characterization of mechanical properties, but also as a model of malignant transformation in fibrotic diseases and cancer. Quantification of previously unobserved morphological and structural properties led to the mechanical phenotyping of these cells, where a decrease in the compressibility of the nuclear interior, an enhanced resistance to deformation and a better anchorage of the nuclei inside the cells was observed after EMT.


The trend in higher education is to develop electronic delivery of courses and even entire academic degree programs through the Internet by using a web-based form of distance education. To be successful in the delivery of online, or web-based, education, faculty must break away from the old paradigm of teaching and learning, and adopt new techniques suitable to the new environment. This paper provides some recommendations for an educator who is interested in developing an online course or enhancing a traditional course with an online component. These recommendations are based on several years of practical experience in developing and delivering online courses.


Six vibration–rotation bands of DCN between 2 and 6 μ have been analyzed. All the rotational constants have been obtained through the terms quadratic in vibrational quantum numbers. Two quadratic and seven cubic vibrational anharmonic constants have been obtained explicitly. Seven combinations of quadratic and cubic vibrational constants have also been obtained. Data are given on the analysis of the two parallel fundamental bands of D13CN, as well as the ν3 bands of DC15N, HI3CN, and HC15N. Δ–Δ transitions of both DCN and HCN in the ν3 fundamental regions have been analyzed. The splitting of the Δ levels was clearly observed for the first time and is in agreement with the l-type resonance calculations. The line structure of the Q branches of both Π–Π and Δ–Δ "hot bands" has also been resolved. By means of the Ritz principle the levels 2ν20, 2ν22, and ν21 of DCN and 2ν22 of HCN have been determined.


The ![Formula][1] Leogâne fan delta in southwestern Haiti borders the epicentral region of the devastating magnitude 7.0 Haiti earthquake of 12 January 2010. The flat plain of the Leogâne area experienced some of the worst shaking, destruction of buildings, and loss of life caused by the Haiti earthquake. This intense shaking was attributed by previous workers to either activation of a blind (no surface expression) thrust fault some 4 km beneath the Leogâne fan delta or to strike-slip motion along a shallow, ground-breaking fault that ruptured the uppermost part of the fan delta. Our research team from the University of Houston and the Haiti Bureau of Mines and Energy collected shallow seismic and gravity data in the fan delta where previous studies of earthquake aftershocks, coastal uplift of coral reefs, and radar interferometry all indicated a maximum amount of coseismic uplift. Our objective was to acquire geophysical information on the subsurface stratigraphy, structure, and material properties of the fan. S-wave seismic studies revealed an average velocity of ![Formula][2] for the first 30 m. These velocity values suggest that the near-surface sediments at Leogâne are a seismically hazardous class D sediment type (National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program). Interpretation of our various seismic data sets has indicated prolonged sedimentary environments of fluvial channeling and channel migration to a depth of approximately 350 m as expected in this fan delta setting. There was no clear evidence on our seismic reflection lines for substantial faulting in the seismically slow, shallow fan delta sediments. Integrated geophysical data analyses indicated south-dipping seismically slow layers on the southern end of the Leogâne fan with a less well defined northward dip with the broad, anticlinal axis aligned with the area of maximum coseismic uplift at the coast. The sudden, coseismic upheaval of the ground surface above the proposed blind thrust combined with extreme shaking of the seismically weak sediments contributed to the destructiveness of the earthquake on the Leogâne fan delta.

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The South African endemic bee genus Redivivoides Michener, 1981 is revised and redefined. The genus comprises seven species, six of which are described here as new: Redivivoides capensis sp. nov. ♀♂, R. eardleyi sp. nov. ♀, R. kamieskroonensis sp. nov. ♀, R. karooensis sp. nov. ♀♂, R. namaquaensis sp. nov. ♀♂ and R. variabilis sp. nov. ♀♂. A key to species is provided.


To investigate if the units of the Sao Carlos Ecological Pole (Sao Carlos, Sao Paulo, Brazil) are educating spaces that may contribute to the understanding of the complexity of environmental issues and stimulate a sense of belonging and social responsibility, we interviewed primary school teachers who had accompanied visits to these places and members involved with environmental education in these spaces, and followed guided tours in all units of the Ecological Pole. We have identified that the activities can address issues that espouse the three dimensions of educational practice: cognitive (knowledge), subjective (feelings, principles, ethics) and political. No site alone is able to espouse all parameters considered essential in a valid environmental education work, but considering their sum, we identified that all of them are taken into account. Therefore, we reinforce the idea that the integration of these units would yield a more thorough EE work.


Moine semi-pelitic metasediments near the base of the Kirtomy and Naver nappes, northern Scotland, were partially melted syn-tectonically under low T, high aH2O conditions. Migmatites from the Kirtomy and Naver nappes have been dated using SHRIMP U-Pb geochronology. Zircon rims which grew during migmatization have mean 206Pb/238U ages of 461 ± 13 Ma (2σ) (Kirtomy) and 467 ± 10 Ma (2σ) (Naver). These ages demonstrate the reality of a Middle Ordovician (Taconic) tectonothermal event in the Caledonides of northern Scotland. Monazites from the Kirtomy migmatite have a younger mean 206Pb/238U age of 431 ±10 Ma (2σ). This may date either a late, low amphibolite facies overprint associated with steepening of part of the nappe pile, cooling through the closure temperature of monazite for radiogenic Pb, or cessation of fluid flow along the Kirtomy Thrust. Original detrital zircons from the sedimentary precursors of both migmatites fall mostly into the age range: 1850–1000 Ma, demonstrating that deposition of the Moine sediments in Sutherland occurred after c. 1000 Ma, following the culmination of Grenvillian orogenic activity in the North Atlantic region. Only two Archaean grains were found, demonstrating that Lewisian gneisses of the foreland to the Caledonian were not the source.


This book delivers a proactive approach to building an effective Web site that is search engine friendly and will result in better search rankings. It outlines the steps needed to bridge the gap between a Google search and a Web site, and also improve the users' experience once they get to the site. By understanding the wide variety of information-seeking strategies and the individual behaviors associated with them, this book helps information architects, Web designers/developers, SEOs/SEMs, and usability professionals build better interfaces and functionality into Web sites. Creating a satisfying user experience is the key to maximizing search effectiveness and getting conversions.


Children themselves rarely engage directly with the child protection system unless they are already referred into the system by a third party adult. New technologies have enabled children to communicate in different ways than previously. A guiding question for this thesis is whether one type of technology access, that of an application or 'app', could also facilitate children's direct access for advice, help and response from the child protection system in the UK. The current UK policy emphasis on child-focused systems and outcomes (Munro, 2011) forms a background to this thesis, which aims to identify the work required to co-produce new ways of working at the front door of child protection to extend the current socio-technical framework to improve outcomes for children. Past and present social and political developments in UK child protection and early help, a data review of smart phone apps relating to managing risk and safeguarding, and a comparison of the use of technology in related settings provide an overview of the context within which socio-technical change can occur. The underpinning methodology recognises a crucial factor in the successful design and implementation of socio-technical change: that any proposed alteration to existing ways of working must also be adopted by a range of gatekeepers to the system, including practitioners in social work, the police, health and education, who may identify barriers and present challenges to implementation. Two separate weeks of ethnographic observation were focused on the use of technology in information management in a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH). Data on the child's perspective on technology and app design for safeguarding was collected through school-based workshops. A co-produced design of an application is proposed as a way of sharing information and communication pathways for multi-agency professionals and children/young people. The project offers new ideas for promoting a child-centred approach to safeguarding. In doing so, it proposes the design principles of a digital platform consisting of a smart phone application. The proposed application is an extension of the traditional early intervention child protection discourse that will capture children's social media conversations and stories connected to keeping themselves safe. It will also include educational 'stay safe' age-appropriate games and twenty-four/seven access to multi-agency advice and guidance. Challenges for app adoption are changes to the police communication departments and the creation of a localised children's MASH to provide digital responses for self-referrals.


INTRODUCTION AND AIMS
Australia, like several other countries, has a self-regulatory approach to advertising. However, in recent years the effectiveness of the regulatory system has been questioned, and there have been increasing public calls for an overhaul of the system. Following a formal review in 2003, the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy proposed a revised Alcoholic Beverages Advertising Code (ABAC), which came into operation in 2004.

DESIGN AND METHODS
The purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of this revised system. From May 2004 until March 2005 television and magazine advertising campaigns were monitored for alcohol products. Over this period 14 complaints against alcohol advertisements were lodged with the self-regulatory board, and the authors recruited an independent expert panel to assess the advertisements and complaints.

RESULTS
In eight of the 14 cases a majority of the judges perceived the advertisement to be in breach of the code, and in no cases did a majority perceive no breach. Conversely, however, none of the complaints were upheld by the Advertising Standards Board (ASB) and only one by the ABAC Panel.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study suggest that the decisions made by the ASB in relation to complaints against alcohol advertisements are not in harmony with the judgement of independent experts, and that the ASB may not be performing an adequate job of representing community standards or protecting the community from offensive or inappropriate advertisements. Further, it appears that the revisions to the ABAC code, and associated processes, have not reduced the problems associated with alcohol advertising in Australia.


The number of Christians in the Middle East and especially in Turkey has declined systematically. The majority of Middle Eastern countries are known for their authoritarian leaders and whose oppressive regimes are not tolerant of their Christian citizens. But what about Turkey which is known as a secular country? Why has the number of Christians in Turkey declined more in Turkey than in authoritarian regimes of the Middle East? Does Turkey pursue a deliberate policy or social engineering project to decrease its Christian population? This article will try to answer these questions.


In 2000 the UK House of Lords held that claims made by South African asbestosis victims against Cape plc should be heard in the UK, and not in South Africa. One of the reasons for this decision was the absence of developed procedures for handling class actions in South Africa and the procedural novelty of such actions in this country. Another reason was the difficulty of funding of this type of potentially protracted and expensive litigation in South Africa.


Star King Of Day was commissioned by the percussionist Alonzo Mendoza for the Latidos festival intended to celebrate the Mexican Day Of The Dead but the origins of the music go further back to my interest in shamanism and its practice. Star King of day is the latest in a series of compositions inspired by shamanic ritual, which has strong musical elements and require great expenditure of energy. The instrumentalist and the wizard have something in common, not least in their power to induce physical and emotional responses in the people they serve. In my compositions, the performer is often a wizard communing with the spirits in a kind of celestial dance. Star King of Day starts with a song of peace and an invocation and as the spirits enter the body of the shaman we hear their dialogue through the instruments.


A 55-year-old woman presented with a progressive psychomotor impairment. She spoke slowly and her motor retardation interfered with activities of daily living. The patient reported that 5 months earlier, she had experienced blunt force trauma of vertex with a progressive swelling of the head. At the time of presentation, a painful, fixed and hard lesion was detected at palpation. Encephalic CT and MRI revealed an osteolytic mass of the skull of 10 cm in maximum diameter, infiltrating the left frontoparietal bones with calcifications (figure 1A, B). The lesion caused a mass effect, without infiltration of the brain parenchyma. A whole-body …


The ability of musically talented and trained subjects (124 non- absolutepitch- possessors, 11 AP possessors), was tested to determine whether or not brief musical stimuli were in the nominal (i. e., correct) key; no pitch reference was given. As test stimuli, excerpts of J. S. Bach9s major preludes of the Well- Tempered Clavier, Vol. 1 (duration 4- 5 sec), were employed. Three categories of test were carried out, i. e., pilot, main, and control experiments. In the pilot and main experiments, test stimuli were generated on a piano, while in the control experiments modified piano sounds and electronic sounds were used. The pilot experiments yielded good replicability of previous findings (Terhardt & Ward, 1982), and showed insensitivity of key- identification performance to the type of experimental paradigm employed. In the main experiment, 78% of the subjects (only 11 being AP possessors) achieved significant identification performance with transpositions of up to 4 semitones. Forty-five percent of subjects were significantly able to tell the nominal key from ± 1-semitone transpositions. The distribution of identification rates (normalized for guessing) extends from 0 to 100% and shows a pronounced minimum at around 75%. This suggests two different modes of key identification, one used by non-AP-possessors, and the other by AP possessors. The control experiments reveal that key- identification performance is not piano-specific. Results of all three test categories indicate that no perceptual cues other than pitch were involved. It is thus concluded that both AP possessors and non-AP-possessors depend on absolute pitch information when identifying musical key; however, they employ different perceptual modes: AP possessors primarily identify individual notes, while non-AP-possessors unconsciously deduce from a series of notes a feeling of key.


Traditional colonoscopy requires highly trained personnel to be performed. Additionally, current devices may cause discomfort and carry the risk of perforating the bowel wall. In this paper, a soft three modular section robot is designed, modeled, controlled and tested. Each of the robotic sections has three degrees of freedom, one translation and two rotations. The robot uses a peristaltic motion to translate, inspired by the motion generated by the bowel. The robot uses nine independently controlled Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) springs as its actuators and a novel silicone rubber skin provides the passive recovery force to expand the springs to their original state. It also incorporates three air tubes, one for each section, to provide forced convection reducing the cooling time of the SMA springs. A parametric study on the skin curvature and thickness using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is performed to maximize traction while providing enough recovery force. A multi-input multi-output (MIMO) controller based on fuzzy control is designed and implemented for each of the sections allowing the robot to achieve any orientation between −90◦ and +90◦ in both pitch and roll in less than 4 seconds with near zero steady state error. Both the peristaltic motion and the orientability of the robot are tested. The robot is able to perform a peristaltic motion with maximum speed of 4mm/s (24 cm/min) and an average speed of 2.2 cm/min. Each section is also able to follow, with less than 2% overshoot and near zero steady-state error, periodic multi-input squared signals of 25◦ of amplitude.


Field-collected seeds were incubated in a germination cabinet at three temperature regimes and germination percentage was determined after incubation. Species such as Arctotheca calendula, Avena fatua, Bromus diandrus and Raphanus raphanistrum germinated best when subjected to a diurnal temperature regime of 12h/12h at 10/15 °C, which correlates with late autumn to early winter temperatures in the Western Cape. Among the germinated weed species, A. fatua germinated most with a cumulative value of 90% as compared to R. raphanistrum which germinated least with a cumulative value of 12%.


The highly evolved hydrogenase enzymes efficiently catalyze the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) from water. Detailed structural studies of these enzymes have triggered many research efforts to synthesize their structural mimics based on metal complexes. However, the hydrogen production rates catalyzed by these molecular complexes are still too low to be technologically viable. Here, we report that a tailored PtAu24 nanocluster containing proton relays can efficiently catalyze the HER from water. We compared the electrocatalytic HER activities of Au25 nanoclusters protected with three different ligands, namely, 1-hexanethiolate, 3-mercaptopropionic acid and 3-mercapto-1-propanesulfonic acid, and found that the electrocatalytic activity is closely related with the proton-relaying abilities of the ligands. The core-engineered PtAu24 protected with efficient proton-relaying ligands exhibits unprecedented catalytic activity with a turnover frequency of 127 per second from water at a moderate overpotential of 0.7 V, greatly exceeding the performance of the best molecular catalyst. The atomically precise metal nanoclusters provide a platform for the design and optimization of finely tailored catalysts.


Pateamine (1) is a natural product from the marine sponge Mycale hentscheli that exhibits potent anticancer properties, and has potential as an antiviral agent, and in preventing the muscle wasting disorder cachexia. This biological activity of pateamine is due to its ability to inhibit the eukaryotic initiation factor eIF4A, which leads to the formation of stress granules, the inhibition of protein synthesis, and ultimately cell death. Unfortunately, pateamine is obtained in very small amounts from Mycale hentscheli; thus, it is necessary to synthesise pateamine and novel structural analogues in the laboratory. Previously a separate binding and scaffolding domain of pateamine was proposed, which led to the synthesis of a simplified des-methyl des- amino analogue that reduced the number of synthetic steps compared to pateamine while retaining its biological activity. This was followed by the synthesis of a simplified triazole- containing analogue 9 6 ; unfortunately, this exhibited substantially reduced bioactivity compared to pateamine, and it is therefore necessary to determine if the reduction in bioactivity was due to the replacement of the thiazole ring with a triazole ring, or due to the removal of key methyl groups of pateamine. Thus, the thiazole-containing analogue of 96 is deemed to be an important synthetic target.  In this Master's project a highly simplified side chain-free analogue 130 was synthesised, which laid the groundwork for future synthesis of a thiazole-containing analogue of 96. The synthesis of 130 was achieved through a convergent synthesis with one commercially available and two prepared fragments. Particular attention was paid to the development of an efficient thiazole formation methodology, as well as optimising fragment synthesis and coupling reactions. Determination of the binding of analogue 130 with eIF4A using a competitive bioactivity assay in the presence of pateamine was then undertaken, which showed that either 130 does not bind to eIF4A or that it binds non-covalently and is then displaced by pateamine.


The EU Habitats Directive provides in Annexes II and IV a list of species needing to be conserved. Member States have implemented a variety of conservation measures in response to this obligation. These measures include the rejection, modification or delay of land development plans, payments for landowners to perform conservation measures and management actions such as breeding programmes. The costs of the various conservation measures are not always apparent. There may be an underestimation of the resulting costs when land development plans are altered, because there is no visible flow of financial resources. Such a biased perception may result in selecting conservation measures with high but less visible costs, whereas conservation measures with low but more visible costs are neglected. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to avoiding a biased selection of conservation measures by presenting a framework which captures a broad variety of costs relevant to the conservation of species protected by the Habitats Directive. We also demonstrate the relevance of a biased selection of conservation measures by using the framework to empirically estimate the costs of protecting the common hamster (Cricetus cricetus) in the region of Mannheim, Germany. We find that the less visible costs of changes in development plans are significantly higher than the more visible costs of payments to landowners and management actions. This result suggests that measures with visible costs should be given more attention in the future.


Weeds are responsible for heavy yield losses in rice, to the extent of complete crop failure under severe infestation conditions. They occur in every field of rice (Oryza sativa) in the world which is the vital food for more than two billion people in Asia. A systematic field study was conducted in paddy field of Devarapalli Mandal, West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, India. Infested weeds were collected in paddy field crops for plants identification, observation, and collection. The random quadrant method was adopted for this study. The collected diseased weed plants were carried out for the extensive study on symptoms, isolation and pathogenicity of the organisms that involved in leaf spot diseases. The causal agents of diseased weed plants were isolated. The inoculated fungal pathogens are incubated on PDA for pure cultures. After harvesting of spores they were observed under the microscope. The study is used to know host specificity of isolated fungal pathogens on test plants and also used to identify bio control agents for crop development. Investigator hopes that diseased weeds of rice fields in study area provide good source of information of technical and taxonomic data to the academic institutes and research organizations like Agricultural colleges, Universities, Agricultural Universities and other agricultural agencies


We present an approach for unsupervised segmentation of natural and textural images based on active contour, differential geometry and information theoretical concept. More precisely, we propose a new texture descriptor which intrinsically defines the geometry of textural regions using the shape operator borrowed from differential geometry. Then, we use the popular Kullback-Leibler distance to define an active contour model which distinguishes the background and textural objects of interest represented by the probability density functions of our new texture descriptor. We prove the existence of a solution to the proposed segmentation model. Finally, a fast and easy to implement texture segmentation algorithm is introduced to extract meaningful objects. We present promising synthetic and real-world results and compare our algorithm to other state-of-the-art techniques.


BACKGROUND
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) in biofluids are potential biomarkers of disease. To explore the clinical relevance of EVs, a specific generic EV marker would be useful, one that does not require antibodies and binds to all EVs. Here we evaluated 5 commonly used generic markers for flow cytometry.

METHODS
Flow cytometry (A60-Micro, Apogee) was used to evaluate the ability of the generic EV markers calcein acetoxymethyl ester, calcein acetoxymethyl ester violet, carboxyfluorescein succinimidyl ester (CFSE), 4-(2-[6-(dioctylamino)-2-naphthalenyl]ethenyl)-1-(3-sulfopropyl)pyridinium (di-8-ANEPPS), and lactadherin to stain EVs from MCF7 human breast adenocarcinoma cell line-conditioned culture medium [epithelial cell adhesion molecule positive (EpCAM+)] or platelet EVs from human plasma [integrin β3 positive (CD61+)]. Side scatter triggering was applied as a reference, and the influence of non-EV components (proteins and lipoproteins) was evaluated.

RESULTS
Di-8-ANEPPS, lactadherin, and side scatter detected 100% of EpCAM+ MCF7 EVs. Lactadherin and side scatter detected 33% and 61% of CD61+ EVs, respectively. Di-8-ANEPPS detected platelet EVs only if soluble protein was first removed. Because all generic markers stained proteins, at best 33% of platelet EVs in plasma were detected. The calcein markers and CFSE were either insensitive to EVs in both samples or associated with swarm detection.

CONCLUSIONS
None of the generic markers detected all and only EVs in plasma. Side scatter triggering detected the highest concentration of plasma EVs on our A60-Micro, followed by lactadherin. The choice between scatter or lactadherin primarily depends on the analytical sensitivity of the flow cytometer used.


Dimethyl heptalene-4,5-dicarboxylates† undergo preferentially a Michael addition reaction at C(3) with α-lithiated alkyl phenyl sulfones at temperatures below −50°, leading to corresponding cis-configured 3,4-dihydroheptalene-4,5-dicarboxylates (cf. Table 1, Schemes 3 and 4). The corresponding heptalenofuran-1-one-type pseudoesters of dimethyl heptalene-4,5-dicarboxylates (Scheme 5) react with [(phenylsulfonyl)methyl]lithium almost exclusively at C(1) of the furanone group (Scheme 6). In contrast to this expected behavior, the uptake of 1-[phenylsulfonyl)ethyl]lithium occurs at C(5) of the heptalenofuran-1-ones as long as they carry a Me group at C(11) (Schemes 6 and 7). The 1,4- as well as the 1,6-addition products eliminate, on treatment with MeONa/MeOH in THF, benzenesulfinate, thus leading to 3- and 4-alkylated dimethyl heptalene-4,5-dicarboxylates, respectively (Schemes 8–13). The configuration of the addition reaction of the nucleophiles to the inherently chiral heptalenes is discussed in detail (cf. Schemes 14–19) on the basis of a number of X-ray crystal-structure determinations as well as by studies of the temperature-dependence of the 1H-NMR spectra of the addition products.


Vin Mariani was an alleged miracle cure for, among others, the overworked upper class intellectuals suffering from nervous troubles, loss of sleep, indigestion, anaemia, general debility, tardy convalescence, melancholia and it was claimed specifically to benefit lawyers and others devoted to extreme mental exertion. In fact, all diseases believed to have been brought on by urbanisation during the late 1800s and an increasingly competitive business environment could, apparently, easily be cured by this bright liquid which wine expert, Robert Parker, probably would have scored 110 points.


When used with a comprehensive HIV prevention strategy, emtricitabine/tenofovir effectively prevents HIV-1 infection in high-risk patients. Adherence to daily dosing is important to maintain protection. The cost of therapy may limit access, and not all insurance companies currently cover its use for HIV prophylaxis.