The aim of this paper is to expand our knowledge on risk aversion among the poor by conducting experiments that do not only test risk aversion in small and large stakes but also in risky gains and risky losses. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to conduct experiments in poor communities strictly focused on the loss domain. The experiments were conducted with 120 poor rural households in Benin. In contrast to results in industrialized countries, we find that playing lotteries constrained to the loss domain dramatically increases risk aversion. We also find a strong negative relationship between the level of risk aversion (both in gains and losses) and the level of religious faith. Our interpretation of this result is that villagers with strong beliefs tend to rely more on God's goodwill at the expense of a proper risk assessment, resulting in larger risk-taking.


This paper examines the impact of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on the financial performance of the Nigerian market after consolidation. The authors use data from all Nigerian banks that survived the consolidation between 2001 and 2009. Logistic regression models are structured to determine the influence of M&A activities on the financial performance of the Nigerian market. Also, the authors critically evaluate the findings by shedding the light on the lessons other developing nations can learn from the Nigerian market. The results show that M&A have a positive influence on the financial performance of the Nigerian market. Still, M&A are not enough to achieve the wider objectives of banking sector reform. Towards this end, corporate governance reform must take place vis-a-vis consolidation exercises especially when these M&A are regulatory based rather than market based. The investigation uses a novel approach by comparing pre- and post- M&A results performance of merged banks as well as comparing these results with non-merged banks. Finally, the paper puts the results in context of the wider reform context and considers the effectiveness of the M&A as a tool for banking sector reform in developing countries. The investigation offers insights into the policy of banking consolidation which can be useful for policy makers in Nigeria and other similar economies.


At of end his book, John Parascandola writes, "It is my hope that the reader ... acquired a broader appreciation of disease as a social as well as a medical construct and of the way in which social and cultural factors influence our understanding of and reaction to any given disease." The social context of syphilis is nicely summarized by the title, Sex, Sin, and Science: A History of Syphilis in America. Because syphilis is sexually transmitted, it is often considered as a moral issue, and thus people who have syphilis have sinned. This perception is both absurd and insightful.

Parascandola's history of syphilis is compelling from the beginning. "Because many believed that the disease first made its appearance in the French troops besieging Naples, it was often called (especially by the Italians) morbus gallicus ('French disease') ... The French, on the other hand, preferred to call it the 'Neapolitan disease' blaming it on the city of Naples."

Syphilis was so sinful that it could not be discussed by name. "This continued hesitancy to discuss sexual matters is reflected in the terminology used in newspapers and other public media of the early twentieth century." "Social evil" meant prostitution. Syphilis and gonorrhea were "social diseases," and the effort to combat them was the "social hygiene" movement. We learn that in 1911 California became the first state to require physicians to report cases of venereal disease and that, to assure confidentiality, reporting was done by number rather than by name.

Some of those involved in the social hygiene movement were more interested in preventing sex than in preventing disease. A Public Health Service (PHS) advisory committee recommended changing an educational film so that "'some attention be given to the influence of moral standards on the spread of disease' because if no reference was made to moral issues, it might appear to some that the PHS was 'condoning sexual promiscuity.'"

There was fear that penicillin might offer "complete freedom to indulge in licentiousness..." or "if extramarital sex did not lead to significant illness, only a 'few intangibles of the spirit' would remain to guide people into moral paths." Parascandola notes, "Social hygienists had always been at least as interested in moral as in health issues, and so their fight would not end with the defeat of venereal disease."

Parascandola's book informs readers that in 1953, "the Eisenhower administration proposed eliminating the PHS venereal disease program because its job was essentially done." But syphilis came back, along with gonorrhea, herpes, chlamydia, and AIDS.

There is considerable scientific evidence that HIV causes AIDS. Nonetheless, just as with syphilis, others think the cause is sin. Absurd. Yet the social construct Parascandola describes remains so pervasive that it continues to affect us all.


The spread and impact of alien species among freshwater ecosystems has increased with global trade and human movement; therefore, quantifying the role of anthropogenic and ecological factors that increase the risk of invasion is an important conservation goal. Two factors considered as null models when assessing the potential for invasion are colonization pressure (i.e., the number of species introduced) and propagule pressure [i.e., the number (propagule size), and frequency (propagule number), of individuals of each species introduced]. We translate the terminology of species abundance distributions to the invasion terminology of propagule size and colonization size (PS and CS, respectively). We conduct hypothesis testing to determine the underlying statistical species abundance distribution for zooplankton assemblages transported between freshwater ecosystems; and, on the basis of a lognormal distribution, construct four hypothetical assemblages spanning assemblage structure, rank-abundance gradient (e.g., even vs uneven), total abundance (of all species combined), and relative contribution of PS vs CS. For a given CS, many combinations of PS and total abundance can occur when transported assemblages conform to a lognormal species abundance distribution; therefore, for a given transportation event, many combinations of CS and PS are possible with potentially different ecological outcomes. An assemblage exhibiting high PS but low CS (species poor, but highly abundant) may overcome demographic barriers to establishment, but with lower certainty of amenable environmental conditions in the recipient region; whereas, the opposite extreme, high CS and low PS (species rich, but low abundance per species) may provide multiple opportunities for one of n arriving species to circumvent environmental barriers, albeit with lower potential to overcome demographic constraints. Species abundance distributions and the corresponding influence of CS and PS are some of many influential factors (e.g., demographic and genetic stochasticity, environmental variability, composition of recipient ecosystems) that will help refine an understanding of establishment risk following the human-mediated movement of species.


The growing understanding of tumor biology and the identification of tumor specificgenetic and molecular alterations, such as the overexpression of human epidermal growthfactor receptor 2 (HER2), opens up for personalization of patient management using targeted therapies. However, this puts stringent demands on the diagnostic tools usedto identify patients that are likely to respond to a particular treatment. Radionuclide molecular imaging is a promising non-invasive method to visualize and characterize the expression of such targets. This thesis, based on five papers, is focused on the development of radiolabeled Affibody molecules for imaging of HER2-expression in malignant tumors. Affibody molecules, which represent a rather novel class of affinity proteins developed by combinatorial protein engineering of the protein A derived Z-domain, display manyfeatures that make them promising tracers for molecular imaging applications. The aim of the work presented here was to further develop the tracer format for improved in vivo properties and flexibility in the choice of radionuclide. In paper I, the development of an assay that enables quantitative studies of the internalization rate and cellular processing of high affinity Affibody molecules is described. The assay was applied to a HER2-binding Affibody variant that was efficiently retained by HER2-expressing cells, although characterized by a slow internalization rate. This may have implications for the choice of label for Affibody molecules since high affinity to the target may be equally, or more, important for good imaging quality than residualizing properties of the radiolabel. In paper II, a HER2-binding Affibody molecule and the monoclonal antibody trastuzumab were labeled with positron emitting 124I, for a head-to-head in vivocomparison of the two tracer formats. The effects of tracer size and presence of an Fc region on the biodistribution profile were investigated. In paper III, a HER2-binding Affibody molecule was site-specifically labeled with radiocobalt and evaluated in vitro and in vivo.A head-to-head in vivo comparison with the well-studied 111In-labeled counterpart was performed, revealing promising potential for the cobalt-labeled molecule as a PET-tracerfor visualization of HER2. Paper IV describes the in vitro and in vivo evaluation of a panel of Affibody molecules with different C-terminal peptide-based chelators for the coordination of 99mTc. Even small changes in the C-terminal sequence had appreciable impact on the biodistribution of the Affibody molecules and by optimizing the design of the chelator, the kidney uptake of 99mTc could be significantly reduced. Finally, in paper V we describe the development of a HER2-targeting Affibody variant equipped with a Sel-tag for site-specific labeling with the short-lived positron emitter 11C. This novel Affibody tracer could be used to image HER2-expressing tumors in vivo within one hour after injection. Taken together, Affibody molecules show great promise as targeting tracers for radionuclide molecular imaging of HER2. Careful design and optimization of the tracer protein is important and can be used to improve the biodistribution and targeting properties of Affibody molecules.


Background: Non-adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is a strong predictor of progression to AIDS and death. It remains the most important potentially alterable factor that determines treatment outcome.

Aim: The main purpose of this study is to determine the current frequency of adherence to HAART in a major HIV/AIDS treatment center in Nankudu District and to identify the local factors contributing to non-adherence.

Objectives:

To assess and measure the adherence to antiretroviral therapy.

To assess and describe the defaulter rate

To assess and describe the interruption rate

To describe the local barriers to sub-optimal adherence in the sample patients

Methods:The study was a descriptive survey of the below mentioned three methods used to assess adherence to HAART and the determination of local barriers to adherence. The three methods used to measure HAART adherence were: pill counts, pharmacy refill data and self-report. The participants CD4 counts and viral loads were also evaluated. It included a randomly selected sample of 225 adult patients receiving HAART treatment in the Communication for Disease Control (CDC)-HIV clinic of Nankudu district hospital of Namibia.

Results: A total of 90% of the patients had an adherence > 95% comparable to those reported in most sub-Saharan Africa. The major local barriers to adherence included: distance from clinic (100%), lack of food (100%), lack of money (100%), poverty (100%), occupational factors-migration (100%), travel (81%), ran out of medicine (69%), too busy (69%), medication side effects (56%), felt better ( 56%) and too sick (50%). The major reasons given by the treatment defaulters were similar to those given by the treatment interrupters except for stigma (100%), compared to 19% for the treatment interrupter.

Conclusion: The level of HAART adherence in the Communication Diseases Control (CDC)- HIV Clinic, of Nankudu District Hospital in Namibia is comparable to those reported in most sub-Saharan Africa, which is the recommended 95%. The pattern of non-adherence is characterized by treatment defaulters and interrupters. The study revealed that there were more treatment interrupters than defaulters. Financial constraints, travel, running out of ARV medicine, food insecurity, poverty, distance from the clinic, were the major reasons given by the treatment interrupters, while occupational factors, lack of transport, stigma, and long distance of the health facility were the major reasons given by the treatment defaulters.


In this work, we address the task of unconditional head motion generation to animate still human faces in a low-dimensional semantic space from a single reference pose. Different from traditional audio-conditioned talking head generation that seldom puts emphasis on realistic head motions, we devise a GAN-based architecture that learns to synthesize rich head motion sequences over long duration while maintaining low error accumulation levels.In particular, the autoregressive generation of incremental outputs ensures smooth trajectories, while a multi-scale discriminator on input pairs drives generation toward better handling of high- and low-frequency signals and less mode collapse.We experimentally demonstrate the relevance of the proposed method and show its superiority compared to models that attained state-of-the-art performances on similar tasks.


In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, the legal system struggles to effectively regulate forwarding market professionals — broker-dealers and investment advisers who invest client funds with third parties. Defining the fiduciary duties these forwarding market professionals owe their clients when they invest funds with third parties raises complex issues concerning due diligence, postinvestment monitoring of investments, and disclosure of material facts. Weak regulatory standards, advances in technology in the financial-services industry, and changes in the scope of services provided by broker-dealers emphasize both the inadequacies of the system created by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (1934) Act and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (IAA) and the urgent need for a new regulatory standard. This Note contends that agency law provides a clear framework for defining the fiduciary duties that forwarding market professionals owe their clients for third-party investments. It then explains how the SEC is well situated to establish a fiduciary duty for forwarding market professionals based on agency principles under the Dodd-Frank Act.


In this paper, we construct and investigate a hierarchy of spatio-temporal formalisms that result from various combinations of propositional spatial and temporal logics such as the propositional temporal logic PT L, the spatial logics RCC-8, BRCC-8, S4u and their fragments. The obtained results give a clear picture of the trade-off between expressiveness and 'computational realisability' within the hierarchy. We demonstrate how different combining principles as well as spatial and temporal primitives can produce NP-, PSPACE-, EXPSPACE-, 2EXPSPACE-complete, and even undecidable spatio-temporal logics out of components that are at most NP- or PSPACE-complete.


this paper describes the potential of Loran-C for providing precision navigation and time service. It also touches on the improvements required in user equipment to exploit this potential.

With improved transmitters and improved receivers, taken together, a single fix accuracy can be expected to be less than 14 meters, CEP; the 14 meter value occurring at the outer fringes of the service area (about 1400 kilometers from the farthest transmitter). The improvements required of the transmitters are (1) accurate control of the transmitted wave form, and (2) accurate control of the time of occurrence of the zero crossings of the carrier. Improvements required of the receivers involve (1) more thorough rejection of noise, (2) increase in internal precision, (3) lower probability of false cycle identification, and (4) implementation of the group/phase velocity technique of distance measuring.

Loran-C service can include distribution of epoch time to stationary users with an accuracy of 2 microseconds; and to moving users with an accuracy of 5 microseconds (both 3 standard deviations).


Copresence verification based on context can improve usability and strengthen security of many authentication and access control systems. By sensing and comparing their surroundings, two or more devices can tell whether they are copresent and use this information to make access control decisions. To the best of our knowledge, all context-based copresence verification mechanisms to date are susceptible to context-manipulation attacks. In such attacks, a distributed adversary replicates the same context at the (different) locations of the victim devices, and induces them to believe that they are copresent. In this paper we propose DoubleEcho, a context-based copresence verification technique that leverages acoustic Room Impulse Response (RIR) to mitigate context-manipulation attacks. In DoubleEcho, one device emits a wide-band audible chirp and all participating devices record reflections of the chirp from the surrounding environment. Since RIR is, by its very nature, dependent on the physical surroundings, it constitutes a unique location signature that is hard for an adversary to replicate. We evaluate DoubleEcho by collecting RIR data with various mobile devices and in a range of different locations. We show that DoubleEcho mitigates context-manipulation attacks whereas all other approaches to date are entirely vulnerable to such attacks. DoubleEcho detects copresence (or lack thereof) in roughly 2 seconds and works on commodity devices.


Seven potential controversial topics in agroecology are presented and discussed from a European perspective comparing the position of Agroecology Europe (AEEU) obtained from an iterative, participatory approach with members and compared with published literature, including views from other parts of the world. The seven controversial topics as follows: i) use of agrochemicals; ii) small-scale and peasant farming versus larger farms; iii) technological innovations in agriculture and precision farming; iv) biotechnology and genetic engineering in agriculture; v) local and short food circuits; vi) social justice; vii) gender perspective. The analysis shows that there are diverse points of view related to geographical area and sociopolitical contexts. However, there are several convergences in the ambition to redesign farming and food systems, as a lever acting on several topics, and in considering agroecology with a holistic, participatory, multiactor approach for the needed transition.


In this work, we study the suitability of using dead medfly Ceratitis capitata pupae, killed by heat- or cold-shock, for the mass rearing of Spalangia cameroni, a pupal parasitoid of key pests. 100% mortality of medfly pupae could be accomplished with cold-shock at ‐20 ◦ C for 60 min or with heat-shock at 55 ◦ C for 30 min. Neither parasitism percentage nor sex ratio of the offspring differed significantly among heat-shocked, cold-shocked and untreated pupae. In addition, there was no significant difference in the percentage of parasitoids that aborted (♂♂ or ♀♀) among pupal treatments. Some of the pupae were covered with peat because the third larval instar of the medfly buries itself before pupation. However, the buried pupae were not parasitised at a greater or lesser rate than those not covered with peat. The percentage of parasitism was also unaffected by whether the pupae had been killed recently or had been stored at between 4 ◦ Ca nd 6 ◦ C over 15 or 30 days. The use of dead hosts and later storage permitted the following: (a) the use of hosts over long periods of time; (b) a rapid increase in parasitoid numbers and (c) the availability of pupae killed at the most suitable postpupation times for the production of parasitoids. Furthermore, in biological control projects, the use of dead parasitised pupae in the field avoids the risk of enhancing the pest and allows an increase in parasitism in the field through the use of pupae treated with cold- or heat-shock.


Götz Neuneck is a leading German expert on arms control policy. He admits that the formulas and mechanisms of international arms control are not directly transferable to militarization tendencies in cyberspace. But he credibly shows that experiences from the evolutionary process of arms control can provide inspiration for confidence-building measures in cyberspace. Ever greater interconnectedness is not the only factor behind rising vulnerability and a growing threat to international security. Various cybersecurity activities that are supposed to address this phenomenon involve increasingly aggressive operational capabilities, and hold an enormous risk of escalation. The term "cyberwar" is not sufficiently well defined, so every international actor could understand it to mean something different. Enormous uncertainty is the result, since states set different criteria in their military doctrines to determine whether a cyber attack crosses the threshold of war. The United States, for example, has previously referred to North Korean hacking activities as "acts of war". At the same time, according to Neuneck, it seems as though intensifying competition between states is leading to an unstoppable militarization of cyberspace. So is there any way to consolidate peace in cyberspace? There is no shortage of initiatives – both national and international – trying to achieve just that, and positive examples of a policy of détente in cyberspace already exist. But ultimately, it is yet another case of thinking about responsible action with the end goal in mind. What we need is a concept of the very essence of cyber peace that everyone can agree on, regardless of the notions of cyberwar.


The Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) is thought to influence thermohaline circulation dynamics and is important for understanding global climate and the marine ecosystem. The physical and chemical properties of North Pacific Intermediate Water (NPIW) and the underlying deep water incorporated into the ITF appear to be the result of climate-related preconditioning in the North and South Pacific. Thus, these high-latitude source waters play an important role in the Indo-Pacific oceanography. Here, we present the results of down-core faunal analyses of fossil ostracods (Crustacea) that we argue reflect NPIW variability in the central part of the Makassar Strait in the ITF over the past 15 k.y. The results show that the warmwater and low-oxygen–water fauna, and species diversity, rapidly increased at ca. 12 ka, reaching maxima during the Younger Dryas (YD). We interpret the faunal change and the diversity maximum at ca. 12 ka as a response to the stagnation of intermediate water due to the decline in ITF intensity during the YD. After ca. 7 ka, the ostracod faunal composition clearly changed from a relatively shallower, warmer, and low-oxygen fauna to a relatively deeper, colder, and high-oxygen fauna. Our interpretation is that the ostracod fauna was responding to the deglacial–early Holocene sea-level rise and the ventilation variations due to the mixing of the NPIW and the underlying deep water. The intermediate-water environment and the ecosystem in the ITF could have been driven by the intensification of the influence of the underlying deep water, caused by changes in the southern high-latitude source due to the latitudinal displacements of the southwesterly winds.


The spatial distribution of second-order nonlinearity in thermally poled optical fibers was characterized by second-harmonic microscopy. The second-order nonlinearity was found to be confined to a thin layer close to the anode surface and progressed further into the silica as the poling time increased. Position uncertainty of the anode metal wire was observed to have an effect, as the nonlinear layers were found not always symmetrically located around the nearest points between the anode and cathode. Optical microscopy results were obtained on etched poled fiber cross-sections and compared with those from second-harmonic microscopy.


PID control schemes still continue to be widely used for most industrial control systems. This is mainly because PID controllers have simple control structures, and are simple to maintain and tune. However, it is difficult to find a set of suitable control parameters in the case of time-varying and/or nonlinear systems. For such a problem, the robust controller has been proposed. Although it is important to choose the suitable nominal model in designing the robust controller, it is not usually easy. In this paper, a new robust PD controller design scheme is proposed, in which the suitable nominal model is designed using a real-coded genetic algorithm.


Recycled water contains elevated amounts of salt compared with irrigation water originating from surface water sources. As such, recycled water, if used for irrigation over a long period of time may increase the root zone salinity. However, the phenomenon depends on variability of climatic condition and soil characteristics. In this study, a salt transport model, HYDRUS 1D, was used to predict long-term salt accumulation in two paddocks containing loamy sand and loam soil. The paddocks are located within Western Sydney University, Hawkesbury campus. Impact of rainfall on salt accumulation was studied with the data from the Global Climate Model for the years 2021–2040. The long-term (20 years) salt accumulation showed a cyclical pattern because of variation in rainfall and evapotranspiration. It was found that soil water electrical conductivity (ECSW) was 24% higher in loam soil paddock compared with that of loamy sand. Amount of leachate in the loamy sand paddock was 27% more than the amount leached from that of loam, which may pose a salinity risk to the groundwater if there is a perched aquifer in the field at a depth <1 m. Results from this study indicate that salt accumulation depends on soil type which seems to be more pronounced under low rainfall condition.


Identity is an integral part of all but the most trivial economic, social and political transactions. Using transaction cost economics, we determine that identity costs are a distinct and measurable subset of transaction costs. In certain transactions, such as credit arrangements, identity costs are incurred at considerable expense for commercial and compliance based reasons. Vertical integration can be seen through the lens of identity cost economizing, including in the financial sector, due to high costs of complying with KYC regulations as well as commercial risk management. Such organisational structure is also contingent on available identity technologies. The introduction of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies in identity applications may see new models of institutional structures develop.


The need of drinking water keeps rising while the society difficult to get it the best quality. The societywith middle economical consume a lot of drinking water are sold by drinking water refill store cause theprice cheaper than the drinking water in a package. Has not present a tight supervition from the authority side makes the water from the water drinking refill store is still asking about the quality, inaccordance with the condition that come out by Minister of Health No. 907/Menkes/SK/VII/2002 on 29 July 2002. Therefore, the research of model development in filtration and disinfection process that influence to the drinking water refill quality is done. Using four models of drinking water cultivation process. The standart water that was used was taken from the tear in Sukabumi. Because of that water doesn't consist any mikroorganisms, therefore 2400 MPN of Escheria coli and 2400 MPN of Coliform were added. The series of water cultivation process models are consist of filters and disinfectans. The filter are silica sand filter, carbon filter and micro filter 1 µ m, 5 µ m and 10 µ m, whereas the disinfectans are uv and ozon. In cultivation process of the standard water becomes the drinking water was done in three variations of water flowrates, there are 1 litre/minute, 2 litre/minute and 4 litre/minute. The physical and chemical test were done after passed the filtration process, whereas the microbiologycal test was done after passed uv and ozon. Generally, the microbiological result of drinking water cultivation process have completed condition, only 1 (20%) of 5 sampels which was consist Escheriacoli and Coliform 2 MPN of after passed through the with 4 litre/minute of flowrate, where as the one which passed through the ozon with 4 litre/minute of flowrate was 1 (20%) from 5 samples that consistsof 5 MPN of Eschericheria coli and Coliform. According to standard water can be picked a cultivation process with silica sand filter, carbon filter and microfilter with 10 µ m of size , 5 µ m,and 1 µ m and also process using disinfectan uv with 2 litre/minute of flowrate. Keyword: Filtration, disinfection


A core level of basic information for physics is identified, based on an analysis of the characteristics of the parameters space, time, mass and charge. At this level, it is found that certain symmetries operate, which can be used to explain certain physical facts and even to derive new mathematical theorems. Applications are made to classical mechanics, electromagnetic theory and quantum mechanics.


Background
We describe the differential diagnosis of an obese 12-year-old boy of Mexican origin who presented with a 6-year history of abnormal lipid profile and elevated liver transaminase levels.

Methods
The patient underwent routine clinical testing, an abdominal ultrasound and, ultimately, a liver biopsy. Based on the histologic findings, a serum leukocyte lysosomal acid lipase (LAL) assay and DNA sequencing of the lipase A (LIPA) gene were performed.

Results
Liver biopsy revealed diffuse microvesicular steatosis with clusters of foamy histiocytes in the lobules and portal areas. Our differential diagnosis included nonalcoholic fatty liver disease; medication-induced hepatotoxicity; glycogenic hepatopathy; medium-chain acyl coenzyme A dehydrogenase or long-chain acyl coenzyme A dehydrogenase deficiency; and lysosomal storage disorders, including Niemann-Pick disease and lysosomal acid lipase deficiency (LAL-D). Serum LAL activity was absent, and DNA sequencing confirmed homozygous mutation in LIPA.

Conclusions
Although it occurs rarely, LAL-D should be considered in the differential diagnosis of microvesicular steatosis for a timely diagnosis.


Abstract Davis, JK, Wolfe, AS, Basham, SA, Freese, EC, and De Chavez, PJD. Neuromuscular, endocrine, and perceptual recovery after a youth American football game. J Strength Cond Res 35(5): 1317–1325, 2021—American football is a high-intensity intermittent sport consisting of various movements and repeated collisions which highlights the importance of adequate recovery from a game to prepare for the next competition. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the time course of recovery markers after a youth American football game. Thirteen male American football youth players were monitored for 7 days after a single football game. Baseline measures were taken 28 hours pregame for lower-body neuromuscular function by countermovement jumps (CMJs) to determine peak power (PP), jump height (JH), flight time (FT), and takeoff velocity (TOV). Saliva was analyzed for cortisol, testosterone, and C-reactive protein (CRP). Perceptual recovery was assessed by the modified profile of mood states (POMS), perceived recovery status (PRS), and a daily wellness questionnaire. These measures were repeated immediately postgame (30 minutes) and at 20, 44, 68, 92, 116, and 140 hours postgame. Compared with baseline values, there was a significant decrease (p < 0.05) in CMJ PP, JH, and TOV up to 68 hours postgame and FT 44 hours postgame. No significant difference existed among time points for salivary testosterone and CRP. Cortisol levels significantly increased postgame compared with baseline (p < 0.05). Total mood disturbance, assessed by POMS, and daily wellness markers for energy were significantly decreased (p < 0.05), whereas daily wellness markers for soreness were significantly increased (p < 0.05) immediately after the game. Players exhibited a significant decrease in PRS up to 44 hours postgame (p < 0.05), similar to the decrease in neuromuscular function. Neuromuscular function and PRS are impaired for up to 44–68 h postgame.


CO2 fluxes for the Netherlands and surroundings are estimated for the year 2008, from concentration measurements at four towers, using an inverse model. The results are compared to direct CO2 flux measurements by aircraft, for 6 flight tracks over the Netherlands, flown multiple times in each season. We applied the Regional Atmospheric Mesoscale Modeling system (RAMS) coupled to a simple carbon flux scheme (including fossil fuel), which was run at 10 km resolution, and inverted with an Ensemble Kalman Filter. The domain had 6 eco-regions, and inversions were performed for the four seasons separately. Inversion methods with pixel-dependent and -independent parameters for each eco-region were compared. The two inversion methods, in general, yield comparable flux averages for each eco-region and season, whereas the difference from the prior flux may be large. Posterior fluxes co-sampled along the aircraft flight tracks are usually much closer to the observations than the priors, with a comparable performance for both inversion methods, and with best performance for summer and autumn. The inversions showed more negative CO2 fluxes than the priors, though the latter are obtained from a biosphere model optimized using the Fluxnet database, containing observations from more than 200 locations worldwide. The two different crop ecotypes showed very different CO2 uptakes, which was unknown from the priors. The annual-average uptake is practically zero for the grassland class and for one of the cropland classes, whereas the other cropland class had a large net uptake, possibly because of the abundance of maize there.


This Bibliography lists recently published secondary material relating to energy and natural resources law and policy. Authors are invited to send copies of their articles or books for inclusion in the Bibliography to Andreas Gunst at the above address. For further information on the wide range of information services and to acquire a current CEPMLP publications list please contact Rona Carstairs on: Tel: +44 (0)1382 344302 Fax: +44 (0) 1382 322578 E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com www.cepmlp.org


ABSTRACT The relationship between terrorism and mental health has been a scholarly concern for decades. So far, the literature has concentrated on the relationship between terrorism and diagnosable disorders, and the prevalence of certain psychological traits among terrorist offenders. Meanwhile, the incorporation of perspectives regarding mental health in the operational space of counter-terrorism has been largely ignored. This article explores three current approaches to individual mental health in UK counter-terrorism: the use of 'appropriate adults' in terrorism-related cases; the 'mental health hubs' introduced in 2016; and counter-terrorism-related risk and vulnerability assessments. The article argues that in light of the UK's new counter-terrorism strategy, these practices show an increasing merger between conceptualisations of vulnerabilities and risks in how UK counter-terrorism approaches mental health.


The southern part of the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina investigates cosmic rays with energies above about 5·1017 eV. High-energy events which have been recorded with both detector components, surface water Cherenkov tanks and fluorescence telescopes, are crucial for the energy calibration of the entire detector system. Using this method, the energy reconstruction of extensive air showers relies on a proper fluorescence light reconstruction which depends on the knowledge of atmospheric conditions like pressure, temperature and water vapour. These properties of the atmosphere vary with altitude and in time. Therefore, a dedicated monitoring programme has operated since March 2009 to measure an actual atmospheric profile with meteorological radio soundings shortly after the detection of a high-energy air shower with E0 > 2·1019 eV. We will present the technical implementation of this programme as well as a reconstruction analysis using the data obtained. The reconstructed primary energy of air showers and the position of the shower maximum are compared with those results using either monthly models for the local atmospheric conditions or global meteorological models.


ICT-Enabled Social Innovation can help making existing service more efficient and effective, but also produce new services as a result of integration among different policy silos. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can also promote conceptual innovation in the sense of changing the base (empirical and analytical) upon which policy are first designed and later evaluat- ed. Building on extensive literature review and analysis of case studies conduct- ed as part of the research on ICT-Enabled Social Innovation (IESI) conducted by the European Commission s Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (JRC-IPTS), this article discusses, the results of an analy- sis of three selected case studies, exploring the relationship between different ty- pologies of ICT-enabled social innovation implemented and the broader social protection system in which they are embedded in, contributing to determine if a relationship is identified between the nature and type of ICT-enabled social in- novation and the modernization of social policies, considering the broader digital governance space in which they are implemented.


During manned bomb disposal missions, the combination of the protective suit's weight (37 kg), physical activity, high ambient temperatures, and restricted airflow can cause the operative's temperature to rise to dangerous levels during missions, impairing their physical and mental ability. This work proposes to use body sensor networks (BSNs) to increase the safety of operatives in such missions through detailed physiological monitoring, fusion of health information, and remote alerts. Previous trials conducted by the authors have shown no correlation between the suit wearer's temperature at any single skin site and their core temperature, nor between single-point temperature variations and subjective thermal sensation. This paper reports on the development of a wearable, wireless, networked sensing system suitable for integration within the suit and deployment in manned missions. A sensor fusion and modeling approach is proposed that estimates the overall thermal sensation of the suit wearer, in real time, based on the multipoint temperature data. Zhang's thermal sensation model was used in this work. Modeling is performed locally to enable cooling system actuation, provide local feedback, and accommodate application specific constraints. Experimentation with the prototype confirms the importance of multisite skin measurement, timely cooling actuation, and monitoring the operative's thermal state. Evaluation of Zhang's model highlights the need for a bespoke model to account for suit and mission specific factors. The deployed BSN has been evaluated through experimental trials using a number of subjects in mission-like conditions and has been shown to be appropriate for the target application.


Secretomics, the comprehensive study of cell releasates, offers a non-invasive approach to understanding cell heterogeneity. We here propose single cell small molecule secretomics using micro-droplet arrays and mass spectrometry as a new repertoire of omics technologies. The present method revealed the heterogeneity of secreted small molecules from individual single cells without the use of any invasive processes.


We present the results of a 4.75 GHz survey of 33 brown dwarfs and one young exoplanetary system for flaring radio emission, conducted with the 305 m Arecibo radio telescope. The goal of this program was to detect and characterize the magnetic fields of objects cooler than spectral type L3.5, the coolest brown dwarf detected prior to our survey. We have also attempted to detect flaring radio emission from the HR 8799 planetary system, guided by theoretical work indicating that hot, massive exoplanets may have strong magnetic fields capable of generating radio emission at GHz frequencies. We have detected and confirmed radio flares from the T6.5 dwarf 2MASS J10475385+2124234. This detection dramatically extends the temperature range over which brown dwarfs appear to be at least sporadic radio-emitters, from 1900 K (L3.5) down to 900 K (T6.5). It also demonstrates that the utility of radio detection as a unique tool to study the magnetic fields of substellar objects extends to the coolest dwarfs, and, plausibly to hot, massive exoplanets. We have also identified a single, 3.6σ flare from the L1 dwarf, 2MASS J1439284+192915. This detection is tentative and requires confirmation by additional monitoring observations.


Nd:YAG laser welding of high reflectivity metals is difficult because of the highly non-linear light-material interaction yielding a narrow process window and poor reliability. However, achieving high reliability is mandatory for applying this technique in industrial production lines. The welding control can be improved by real-time monitoring of the process evolution with sensors. Such sensor signals are particularly useful for weld classification and for laser power control in off-line or in closed-loop feedback configurations. The latter possibility is difficult to implement in pulsed lasers and requires a careful sensor choice. Here, we report on laser lap micro-spot welding of thin copper sheets using a pulsed Nd:YAG laser. The welding was performed under atmospheric conditions on pure, 50 μm thick, slightly oxidized copper sheets with pulse durations and energies of less than 8 ms and 8 J, respectively. The process was experimentally analyzed by detecting normal laser reflection, heat emission, and instantaneous laser power with high time resolution. The meaningful signal parameters have then been selected for a closed loop feedback control. The variance of top and bottom weld spot diameters could be reduced by more than a factor of 8 in the case of closed loop control.


The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is characterized by its ability to: (a) degrade glucose or fructose to ethanol, even in the presence of oxygen (Crabtree effect); (b) grow in the absence of oxygen; and (c) generate respiratory‐deficient mitochondrial mutants, so‐called petites. How unique are these properties among yeasts in the Saccharomyces clade, and what is their origin? Recent progress in genome sequencing has elucidated the phylogenetic relationships among yeasts in the Saccharomyces complex, providing a framework for the understanding of the evolutionary history of several modern traits. In this study, we analyzed over 40 yeasts that reflect over 150 million years of evolutionary history for their ability to ferment, grow in the absence of oxygen, and generate petites. A great majority of isolates exhibited good fermentation ability, suggesting that this trait could already be an intrinsic property of the progenitor yeast. We found that lineages that underwent the whole‐genome duplication, in general, exhibit a fermentative lifestyle, the Crabtree effect, and the ability to grow without oxygen, and can generate stable petite mutants. Some of the pre‐genome duplication lineages also exhibit some of these traits, but a majority of the tested species are petite‐negative, and show a reduced Crabtree effect and a reduced ability to grow in the absence of oxygen. It could be that the ability to accumulate ethanol in the presence of oxygen, a gradual independence from oxygen and/or the ability to generate petites were developed later in several lineages. However, these traits have been combined and developed to perfection only in the lineage that underwent the whole‐genome duplication and led to the modern Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast.


Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Orthodox Christianity in Russia has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence. Many Russians are now looking to the history of their faith as they try to rebuild a lost way of life. Vera Shevzov has spent ten years researching Orthodoxy as it was lived in the years before the 1917 Revolution. In Russian Orthodoxy on the Eve of Revolution, she draws on a rich variety of previously untapped archival sources and published works unavailable in the West to reconstruct the religious world of lay people. Shevzov traces the means by which men and women shaped their religious lives in an ecclesiastical system that was often dominated by bureaucrats and monastic bishops. She finds vivid displays of resistance to the official system and equally vivid affirmations of faith. Focusing on various "centers" of religious life-the church temple, chapels, feasts, icons, and the Virgin Mary-she traces the rituals, beliefs, and communal dynamics that lent these centers meaning. Shevzov also presents the conflicting voices of ecclesiastical officials. She questions the notion that the only challenge to Orthodoxy at the end of the ancien regime came from outsiders such as Marxist revolutionaries, atheistic intellectuals, and urban factor workers. Instead, she shows that a different but equally great challenge emerged within the faith community itself. Indeed, the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is revealed as one of the most dynamic periods in the history of Russian Orthodoxy, characterized by debates analogous to the Reformation or the era of Vatican II. Russian Orthodoxy on the Eve of Revolution breaks new ground by giving voice to the previously-ignored common people during this period immediately preceding one of the most important events of the twentieth century.


This note is based on research undertaken as part of a Churchill Fellowship, which included field study in Vigan City, the Philippines; Fujian, China; and Central Japan. The research focused on lessons in climate-adaptive vernacular architecture that can be applied to contemporary works of architecture, thus making our built environment better prepared to cope with climate change. The locations visited during the course of research regularly experience monsoons, typhoons and large seasonal variations. They are on the same latitudes (16 to 35 ) as some of the most populous areas of east coast Australia, with Vigan City on approximately the same latitude as Townsville, Fujian on the same latitude as Rockhampton, and Central Japan equivalent to Sydney and southern NSW. With the Australian east coast already experiencing more extreme and variable weather due to climate change (see EDG 66 MSa), designers can draw some valuable lessons in adaptive strategies from the Asia-Pacific region.


Protein catalyzed hydrogen evolution reaction at mercury-containing electrodes controlled by constant-current chronopotentiometric stripping (CPS) is representing a new tool useful in protein research. The resulting CPS peak H is sensitive to changes in the protein structure and its amino acid composition. Besides CPS, cyclic voltammetry appears to be useful for study of poly(amino acids) as an intermediate model system between peptides and macromolecular proteins. Here we show that similarly as arginine in polyarginine and lysine in polylysine also histidine residues in polyhistidine contribute to the catalysis of hydrogen evolution under the given conditions. Peak potentials of individual poly(amino acids) are different and depend on the type of amino acid residues.


ABSTRACT
 To achieve adaptive learning, a dynamic assessment system equipped with a cognitive diagnosis was developed for this study, which adopts a three-stage model of diagnosis-intervention-assessment. To examine how this system influenced spatial geometry learning, the study used a quasi-experimental method to investigate student learning outcomes between different groups. One hundred sixteen junior high school students participating in the experiment were divided into experimental and control groups. Experimental group engaged in adaptive learning as they corrected their misconceptions in the learning intervention stage by using learning content provided according to their cognitive diagnosis results. Control group engaged in nonadaptive learning; they corrected misconceptions using self-selected learning content and thus engaged in learning activities that were not focused on their misconceptions. The results revealed that the adaptive learning students exhibited learning performance and misconception correction ratios superior to those in the control group. Through analysis, we discovered that nearly half of the nonadaptive learning students failed to select appropriate learning content for correcting their misconceptions. In addition, the time spent on learning by the students in the two groups was significantly different; the adaptive learning students spent significantly less time on learning than the nonadaptive students, thus exhibiting higher learning efficiency.


The DRAC, ("Desinfecció i Reutilització d'Agües Residuals a Catalunya", Wastewater disinfection and reuse in Catalonia – Spain), project is included in a RDD (Research, Development, and Demonstration) program. The project arises from the necessity to define reclamation treatments guaranteeing an effluent with enough quality to be reused with a minimal microbiological risk. This paper presents the first results obtained from the combination of a physical–chemical pilot and two disinfection pilot systems: ozone and chlorine dioxide. The combination of physical–chemical and disinfection systems allows the use of lower doses of disinfectants, thus minimising the negative impacts of the whole process and improving the reliability of the reclamation facilities.


Liquefied natural gas (LNG) rollover refers to the sudden mixing of stratified LNG layers, which can cause the generation of significant amounts of boil-off gas. Such events are a significant safety concern in LNG storage but there are no reliable models for its description at industrial scales available in the open literature. In this article, the data and models for LNG rollover existing in the open literature are reviewed and a new framework for quantitatively analyzing the limited available data is presented. We extended the definition of the hydrostatic stability ratio for binary mixtures to allow its estimation for multicomponent mixtures, either from the reported LNG layer compositions or measurements of the LNG layer densities. By analyzing the graphical data of Bates and Morrison (Int J. Heat Mass Transfer. 1997;40:8) the critical value of the stability ratio, Rc, separating the diffusive phase of LNG rollover from the penetrative convection phase was estimated to be 3.8 ± 0.5. This is significantly larger than the critical ratio of 2 reported for saline solutions and is also larger than the initial stability ratio of 1.7 estimated from the best documented LNG rollover incident at La Spezia in 1971. Lumped-parameter models for LNG rollover reported in the literature have successfully described the La Spezia incident by using the Reynolds analogy to estimate mass transfer rates from heat transfer correlations. However, these same models are unsuccessful when applied to other reported LNG rollover incidents, with the predicted rollover time being too short because the mass-transfer coefficient is overestimated. The results presented here suggest that these limitations could be overcome by using a smaller mass-transfer coefficient (estimated, e.g., from the Chilton-Colburn analogy) and by tracking the multicomponent system's stability ratio until the critical value is reached whereupon the mass transfer regime changes. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 60: 362–374, 2014


Icebergs and sea ice rework the sediments of high-latitude shelves, producing modern diamicts (ice-keel turbates) unrelated to glacial proximity. Off Antarctica, sidescan sonar data indicate the presence of ice-gouge features formed by the physical interaction between ice keels and the sea bed. These are recognized as incisions a few metres deep and tens of metres wide, in water depths up to 500 m. On the submarine bank tops and slopes off Wilkes Land and in the Weddell Sea, subcircular depressions 30 to 150 m in diameter, a washboard pattern, and hummocky bed features also represent iceberg-resting sites. The freshness of sea-bed morphology, nearby Holocene sediment ponding, and active hydraulic sedimentary processes indicate that the sea floor is being reworked by iceberg keels. Tabular iceberg drafts in excess of 330 m have been measured, and modeling studies suggest that nontabular iceberg drafts of 500 m are possible. We conclude that a modern ice-keel turbate deposit in the form of a poorly stratified diamicton is probably widespread on that part (54%) of the Antarctic shelf less than 500 m deep.


This paper presents a trifocal Rotman Lens Design approach. The effects of focal ratio and element spacing on the performance of Rotman Lens are described. A three beam prototype feeding 4 element antenna array working in L-band has been simulated using RLD v1.7 software. Simulated results show that the simulated lens has a return loss of – 12.4dB at 1.8GHz. Beam to array port phase error variation with change in the focal ratio and element spacing has also been investigated. Keywords— Rotman Lens, Array Factor, Return Loss, Phase Error, Beam Steering.


Stuttgart/Germany, July 22, 2019 – Modern electric vehicles present complex challenges for efficient thermal management throughout the year. It should place as light a load on the drive train battery as possible, particularly in wintertime. MAHLE has developed a compact and economical system based on a heat pump (Integrated Thermal System—ITS) that can increase the winter cruising range by up to 20 percent. In addition to significantly reducing battery power consumption, it is easy to control and can be readily adapted to future vehicle architectures.


Shortly after graduating with my master's degree in the 1980s, I procured a clinical social work position at a nonprofit, United Way agency in a small town in North Carolina. My job involved counseling children, adults, and families. It was my ideal job and exactly what I wanted to do with my career. One of the first clients I interviewed was a 52-year-old, walk-in client, Jan (a pseudonym), who was a teacher at the local elementary school. She was the mother of two adopted children, ages 9 and 11, and had recently lost her husband to cancer. During the first visit, she was overwrought with grief over the death of her husband, who had been the principal of the school where she taught. She told me that she had married in her late thirties and that, after several years of marriage, she and her husband decided to adopt a brother and sister, ages 1 and 3 at the time. She never imagined that she would be parenting these children alone. Jan had spent the majority of the last two years, when she was not working, caring for her husband at a large medical center 45 minutes away. He had fought the cancer valiantly but, after undergoing multiple treatment regimens, had succumbed to the illness. She described her husband as "the love of her life" and, without him by her side, did not know how she was going to have the strength to raise her children. She spent the hour tearfully relating her struggles during the time that she attempted to care for her husband and children, while holding onto her job teaching 30 fifth-graders. She alluded to the fact that her children had often been "on their own" while she traveled back and forth to the hospital. Although she expressed some guilt about this situation. she also felt she had no choice, given the lack of reliable babysitters, the enormous medical expenses, and the unpredictability of her schedule. Following further expressions of sadness and despair, she ended by saying that she walked into the agency feeling lost, lonely, and more anxious than she ever had in her life and needed my help. As a 25-year-old, novice social worker, I had very little personal experience with death and had received no formal educational training in grief and loss. I remember feeling totally overwhelmed, myself, and quite inadequately prepared to assist this woman who was experiencing so much anguish and despair. I took my anxiety along with my notes from the session to my supervisor, who calmed me down and carefully guided me through my first experience with a grieving client. She handed me Kubler-Ross's (1969) book On Death and Dying and mentored me weekly on how to help this bereaved wife and mother through her grief. Little did I know that this was the beginning of a career in which issues of grief and loss would play a central role in my practice and, later, my research and teaching. As social workers, we will all deal with issues of grief and loss in both our personal and professional lives. The death of a family member or friend can be simultaneously an opportunity for growth and a challenge to a client's mental health. Unattended or complex grief can lead to other emotional problems that may appear to be far removed from the actual source of the discomfort. Regardless of the vulnerable client population with whom we work, social workers will be confronted with a myriad of issues in which grief and loss are at the core. Having the knowledge and skills to assist individuals, families, and groups with their losses is an essential component to being a competent practitioner. Understanding and assisting our clients with grief and loss issues is particularly relevant in today's uncertain environment. Loss, and the grief it produces, occurs in various forms, in a variety of situations, and is not immune to any age group or population. Grief may be defined as a multidimensional experience that results from a significant loss of person or object. It can involve the emotional, cognitive, physical, social, behavioral, and spiritual components of a person's life. …


Sleep disorders are of growing concern and are a major public health problem. The obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the most common among different sleep-related breathing disorders (SRBDs). Obesity is a known associated risk factor for the OSA but is not limited to them. OSA is also recognized in nonobese population. The description of OSA in non obese patients in the literature is sparse. The clinical presentation is similar as in obese but has few differences as far as pathophysiology and polysomnographic features are concerned. The severity of OSA in nonobese has less severe manifestations thus requires early recognition and different treatment strategy to prevent mismanagement of these patients.


Many practical methods for finding maximally sparse coefficient expansions involve solving a regression problem using a particular class of concave penalty functions. From a Bayesian perspective, this process is equivalent to maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation using a sparsity-inducing prior distribution (Type I estimation). Using variational techniques, this distribution can always be conveniently expressed as a maximization over scaled Gaussian distributions modulated by a set of latent variables. Alternative Bayesian algorithms, which operate in latent variable space leveraging this variational representation, lead to sparse estimators reflecting posterior information beyond the mode (Type II estimation). Currently, it is unclear how the underlying cost functions of Type I and Type II relate, nor what relevant theoretical properties exist, especially with regard to Type II. Herein a common set of auxiliary functions is used to conveniently express both Type I and Type II cost functions in either coefficient or latent variable space facilitating direct comparisons. In coefficient space, the analysis reveals that Type II is exactly equivalent to performing standard MAP estimation using a particular class of dictionary- and noise-dependent, nonfactorial coefficient priors. One prior (at least) from this class maintains several desirable advantages over all possible Type I methods and utilizes a novel, nonconvex approximation to the l0 norm with most, and in certain quantifiable conditions all, local minima smoothed away. Importantly, the global minimum is always left unaltered unlike standard l1-norm relaxations. This ensures that any appropriate descent method is guaranteed to locate the maximally sparse solution.


Background Among adipokines and hepatokines, adiponectin and fetuin-A were consistently found to predict the incidence of type 2 diabetes, both by regulating insulin sensitivity. Objective To determine to what extent circulating adiponectin and fetuin-A are independently associated with incident type 2 diabetes in humans, and the major mechanisms involved. Methods Relationships with incident diabetes were tested in two cohort studies: within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Potsdam study (628 cases) and the Nurses' Health Study (NHS; 470 cases). Relationships with body fat compartments, insulin sensitivity and insulin secretion were studied in the Tübingen Lifestyle Intervention Program (TULIP; N = 358). Results Circulating adiponectin and fetuin-A, independently of several confounders and of each other, associated with risk of diabetes in EPIC-Potsdam (RR for 1 SD: adiponectin: 0.45 [95% CI 0.37–0.54], fetuin-A: 1.18 [1.05–1.32]) and the NHS (0.51 [0.42–0.62], 1.35 [1.16–1.58]). Obesity measures considerably attenuated the association of adiponectin, but not of fetuin-A. Subjects with low adiponectin and concomitantly high fetuin-A had the highest risk. Whereas both proteins were independently (both p<1.8×10−7) associated with insulin sensitivity, circulating fetuin-A (r = −0.37, p = 0.0004), but not adiponectin, associated with insulin secretion in subjects with impaired glucose tolerance. Conclusions We provide novel information that adiponectin and fetuin-A independently of each other associate with the diabetes risk. Furthermore, we suggest that they are involved in the development of type 2 diabetes via different mechanisms, possibly by mediating effects of their source tissues, expanded adipose tissue and nonalcoholic fatty liver.


Recent activism concerning the status of persons and non-persons reveals how the legal boundaries of personhood have served as the background for debates in law and politics. While some work to expand the community of legal persons to include not only unborn human beings like fetuses and zygotes but also even human tissue, others focus their efforts on pushing the boundaries of legal personhood to include great apes or whales and orcas. And finally, some activists are concerned with limiting the community of legal persons to exclude collective legal entities like corporations, limited liability companies, and unions. In light of the recent legal and political activity concerning the boundaries of personhood, this article argues that feminist legal theory should engage with the question of legal personhood. To this end, it articulates one possible framework for a feminist legal theory of the person. Drawing on the work of scholars in vulnerability studies and embodiment theory, the article proposes an analytic framework that may aid those who make and interpret the law when faced with the twenty-first century challenges of legal personhood.


Abstract At nearly the same late-1980s moment, two of the most important artists of India's twentieth century, Tyeb Mehta (1925–2009) and K. G. Subramanyan (b. 1924), turned to the goddess as a subject for painting. Although Mehta and Subramanyan represented different strands of Indian modernism, they had both hitherto largely limited themselves to secular subject matter. This essay accounts for the significance of their goddess turn by discussing it as an example of late style, as theorized by Edward Said. It finds in these paintings the intransigence, anachronism, and negative intervention championed by Said, but also a critique of the secularism that he argued was the root of late style. Mehta and Subramanyan's intervention came at a crucial moment in Indian art history, as modernism began to be undermined by a rising group of narrative painters supported by the critic Geeta Kapur. The older artists' embrace of the religious image sits uneasily in Kapur's influential narration of post-colonial Indian art history.


A coupled model is used to study the equilibrium state of the ocean-atmosphere boundary layer in the tropics. The atmospheric model is a one-dimensional thermodynamic model for a partially mixed, partly cloudy convective boundary layer (CBL), including the effects of cloud-top subsidence, surface momentum and heat (latent and sensible) fluxes, and realistic radiative transfer for both shortwaves and longwaves (Betts and Ridgway, 1988; 1989). The oceanic model is a thermodynamic model for a well-mixed layer, with a closure constraint based on a one-dimensional turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) equation following Kraus and Turner (1967). Results of several sets of experiments are reported in this paper. In the first two sets of experiments, with sea surface temperature (SST) specified, we solve the equilibrium state of the coupled system as a function of SST for a given surface wind (case 1) and as a function of surface wind for a given SST (case 2). In both cases the depth of the CBL and the ocean mixed layer (OML) increases and the upwelling below the OML decreases, corresponding to either increasing SST or increasing surface wind. The deepening of the equilibrium CBL is primarily linked to the increase of CBL moisture with increasing SST and surface wind. The increase of OML depth and decrease of upwelling are due to a decrease of net downward heat flux with increasing SST and the generation of TKE by increasing wind. In another two sets of experiments, we solve for the coupled ocean-atmosphere model iteratively as a function of surface wind for a fixed upwelling (case 3) and a fixed OML depth (case 4). SST falls with increasing wind in both cases, but the fall is steeper in case 4, because the OML depth is fixed, whereas in case 3 the depth is allowed to deepen and the cooling is spread over a larger mass of water. The decrease of evaporation with increasing wind in case 4 leads to a very dry and shallow CBL. Results of further experiments with surface wind and SST (upwelling) prescribed as a function of longitude similar to the observed values across the Pacific show that the model gives realistic gradients of mixed-layer depth and upwelling (SST). This work suggests that the equilibrium state of the coupled system is very sensitive to the coupling of the boundary layers. Special efforts are needed to incorporate physical processes in the CBL and OML in coupled models.


Process thought is the foundation for studies in many areas of contemporary philosophy, theology, political theory, educational theory, and the religion-science dialogue. It is derived from Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy, known as process theology, which lays a groundwork for integrating evolutionary biology, physics, philosophy of mind, theology, environmental ethics, religious pluralism, education, economics, and more. In "Process-Relational Philosophy," C. Robert Mesle breaks down Whitehead's complex writings, providing a simple but accurate introduction to the vision that underlies much of contemporary process philosophy and theology. In doing so, he points to a "way beyond both reductive materialism and the traps of Cartesian dualism by showing reality as a relational process in which minds arise from bodies, in which freedom and creativity are foundational to process, in which the relational power of persuasion is more basic than the unilateral power of coercion." Because process-relational philosophy addresses the deep intuitions of a relational world basic to environmental and global thinking, it is being incorporated into undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy, educational theory and practice, environmental ethics, and science and values, among others. "Process-Relational Philosophy: A Basic Introduction" makes Whitehead's creative vision accessible to all students and general readers.


Does water scarcity induce conflict? And who would engage in a water scarcity conflict? In this paper we look for evidence of the relation between water scarcity and conflictive behavior. With a framed field experiment conducted with smallholder irrigators from semi-arid Tanzania that replicates appropriation from an occasionally scarce common water flow we assess what type of water users is more inclined to react in conflictive way to scarcity. On average, water scarcity induces selfish appropriation behavior in the experiment which is regarded conflictive in the Tanzanian irrigator communities where strong noncompetition norms regulate irrigation water distribution. But not all react to water scarcity in the same way. Poor, marginalized, dissocialized irrigators with low human capital and with higher stakes are most likely to react with conflictive appropriation behavior to water scarcity. Viewed a political ecology perspective we conclude that circumstances in Tanzania are conducive to resource scarcity conflicts. Water scarcity and water values are increasing. Water governance institutions entail exclusionary elements. Moreover, a higher likelihood to react in a conflictive way to water scarcity coincides with real economic and political inequalities which could form a basis for mobilization for more violent ways of competing for scarce resources.


In this paper we investigate the properties of Bose gases with Raman-induced spin–orbit (SO) coupling. It is found that the SO coupling can greatly modify the single-particle density of state, and thus leads to the non-monotonic behaviour of the condensate depletion, the Lee–Huang–Yang correction of ground-state energy and the transition temperature of a non-interacting Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC). The presence of the SO coupling also breaks the Galilean invariance, and this gives two different critical velocities, corresponding to the movement of the condensate and the impurity respectively. Finally, we show that with the SO coupling, the interactions modify the BEC transition temperature even at the Hartree–Fock level, in contrast to the ordinary Bose gas without the SO coupling. All results presented here can be directly verified in the current cold atom experiments using the Raman laser-induced gauge field.


In Sri Lanka, the formal rural financial sector comprises a large number of small financial institutions (SFIs) that are highly criticised for weak performance. The weak performance has been attributed to poor governance. Consequently, the sustainability of these institutions is uncertain. This uncertainty adversely affects economic growth as investment in agriculture and small enterprises by poor rural households relies on the provision of microfinance services. Hence, the Sri Lankan Government and Central Bank of Sri Lanka have implemented legislation to strengthen SFIs. Further, attention to the efficiency of SFIs in Sri Lanka is of concern to the general public given the recent malpractice-related collapses of several formal and informal financial institutions.

The cooperative rural banks (CRBs) in Sri Lanka provide a comprehensive network throughout the country and make a substantial contribution to rural credit activities. As formal SFIs, these CRBs have gained an increasing share of financial assets, which has been particularly helpful for satisfying the growing demand for loans and advances from people living in rural areas. This study aims to evaluate the overall efficiency of CRBs in Sri Lanka. The study provides evidence on the accounting practices and financial practices of CRBs and some elements in the corporate governance mechanisms of financial institutions.

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to measure efficiency. A comparative analysis of the efficiency of CRBs operating in Sri Lanka is undertaken. Two main approaches are used to evaluate efficiency. Input and output variables are selected for the intermediation and asset approaches. The results from both approaches show that relatively few CRBs operate efficiently. Further, the efficiency of CRBs in Sri Lanka has declined during the study period. Variables for CRBs specific characteristics are also tested for relationships with CRBs size.

The evaluation of accounting and financial practices reveals that most sample CRBs deviate from the normative benchmarks. Many CRBs provide accounting information only to fulfil legal requirements rather than with the objective of providing information useful for decision-making purposes. With regards to financial practices, performance relative to best practice is below the benchmarks for most sample CRBs. In this context, the level of risk exposure of these CRBs is very high. As a consequence, the possibility of failure to meet the going concern criteria is raised, especially at a time when global financial crises are impacting all financial institutions.

Analysis of the associations of efficiency with accounting and financial practices shows that efficiency in intermediation is correlated with accounting practices and indicators of sound financial practice (assets quality, loan portfolio yield, operating efficiency and operating self-sufficiency). Further, efficiency in asset transformation is associated with capital adequacy, loan portfolio yield and operational self-sufficiency.

The findings of this study contribute to understanding the underlying problems for efficiency in particular CRBs in Sri Lanka. Further, they can assist regulators with the development of policies affecting the small financial institutions generally and CRBs in particular.


Acoustic beam diffraction phenomena for normal beam incidence to a viscoelastic plate, such as resonance frequency downshift, beam narrowing, and axial signal enhancement near certain leaky Lamb modes, have been demonstrated in recent years, as compared to plane-wave analyses. A close correlation between these phenomena and apparantly different guided-wave dispersion phenomena, including negative group velocity, has been shown by [Aanes et al., Proc. IEEE Int. Ultras. Symp., Taipei, Taiwan, 2015]. It was proposed that the beam diffraction phenomena depend on the size of the mode's NGV region being excited. In the present work, such possible connection between the mentioned beam diffraction phenomena in the frequency region of the S1 leaky Lamb mode, and the gradual excitation of this mode's NGV region, is investigated. A detailed study shows a close correlation between these beam diffraction phenomena and the portion of the S1 leaky mode's NGV region being excited.


''The international officials who have run Bosnia as a virtual protectorate since the West forced a peace deal in 1995 are eager to scale back their presence here soon,'' reported the New York Times eight years ago. Sadly, not much has changed since. Bosnia was Europe's first major post—Cold war tragedy. Its bloody collapse attracted global attention and shaped our understanding of the security dilemmas posed by the post—Cold War world. Peace has held since the 1995 Dayton Accords, but in spite of over $15 billion in foreign aid as well as the sustained deployment of thousands of NATO and EU troops, the country still struggles to achieve the political consensus necessary to cement its stability and break free of international tutelage. To make matters worse, the situation has deteriorated, especially over the last four years. Circumstances on the ground are polarized and increasingly tense. Meanwhile, Bosnia's problems are contributing to rifts between the United States and Europe. The fifteenth anniversary of the Dayton Accords arrives this fall, along with the second round of national elections since tensions have begun again. The time is ripe for a reorientation of transatlantic strategy. Revitalizing the stalled reform progress will be crucial to overcome the debilitating dynamics of ethnic nationalism and to allow self-sustaining peace to take hold. To do so, however, both the United States and Europe should reassess their current policies and recover their common perspective.


The genius of a place (genius loci) is known as the presiding deity or spirit; therefore, every place has its own unique physical (tangible) and perceived (intangible) qualities. Kelantan state situated at the North East region of Malaysia is regarded as a "cultural pot of Malay culture." The tangible and intangible heritage of Kelantan is not only known for uniqueness, but also the realistic traditional concept of art in Malay. Many forms of Malaysian heritage are believed to be originated from Kelantan; although they are later recognized as the Malay heritage, however, the uniqueness in Kelantan art makes it a masterpiece concept which cannot be found elsewhere in Malaysia. Among others are; the intricately designed moon-kite known as WauBulan, RebanaUbi and Kertuk drum, the bird singing activities and Mak Yong art drama named by UNESCO in 2004 as a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity. Thus, this paper seeks to highlight and illuminate on the Kelantan traditional arts. The paper also elaborates on the intrinsic values behind these unique heritages; analyzed the current issues and challenges and conclusively proposed how these issues can be addressed. These will guide on how the heritage values can be enhanced and sustained as genius loci.


he term "empire" has recently gained new currency throughout the world. The books of that name by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, and by Niall Ferguson; Andrew Bacevich's American Empire; the full-throated endorsement of "American empire" by the influential Weekly Standard; Michael Ignatieff 's more hesitant embrace of it in the New York Times Magazine; and an extended treatment in the Wilson Quarterly are among its most prominent recent instances in American public and academic discourse. They are also suggestive of the diversity of meanings and associations this term now carries. For some it is a denunciatory word, for others a hortatory one. Some consider empire as an accurate and evocative description of American unipolarity, while for others it describes an emerging global order that no single nation directs. The revival of empire as an organizing idea for evaluating contemporary institutions and policies raises important questions. Some of these are conceptual: What does "empire" mean in terms of social arrangements or relations among political societies? Does it have a unified and coherent meaning, or is it a "blur"––a vague and messy concept that runs together several distinct ideas and often carries misleading associations? Is it purely descriptive, so that we can identify empires without passing judgment on them? Or does the correct application of the term, like coercion, democracy, and liberty, depend on evaluative judgments? Other questions relate to the utility of the concept of empire, such as whether it provides a helpful framework for understanding and evaluating present global institutional arrangements. Does empire help us to understand the foreign policies of powerful states, or does it simply invite confusion and obscure important normative issues? It also raises questions concerning justification, such as whether social practices that are commonly claimed to constitute empire can be justified, the kinds of arguments that could be offered for and against these practices in different social contexts, and whether there are feasible and attractive alternatives to empire. In this special section of Ethics & International Affairs, we aim to broaden and clarify a discussion that has often been parochial, unimaginative, and full of bluster. Our contributors explore the recent historical developments that have made the idea of empire seem perhaps less objectionable after a long period in which it was used as a term of insult or as an argument stopper. They also assess the range of definitions of empire to determine whether the concept is helpful analytically or normatively in approaching practical challenges in today's world. The Revival of Empire


AMC's popular, post-apocalyptic show The Walking Dead follows a clan of survivors as they endure the zombie apocalypse while struggling to maintain their humanity. The characters pursue temporal salvation through four social institutions: family, government, religion, and science/medicine, identified by a preliminary soak. Through content analysis of dialogueic, visual, and nonverbal references to these institutions across seasons 1–3 (N = 35), we find that each respective season proposed, and then rejected to some extent, the redemptive roles of science, religion, and the state—mirroring actual contemporary distrust. Simultaneously, through persistent, underlying storylines, the show reveals a traditional understanding of the centrality of familial relationships to maintaining a liberal society's survival—which we argue redefines the zombie genre away from its leftist roots.


Video adaptation constitutes an important challenge in present day video applications. In many video adaptation scenarios, not only the bandwidth availability, but also the computational power will be limited. One such example is video conferencing. In this case, conferees have different devices at their disposal, and participate under different network circumstances. In order to shape the bitstreams to the varying networks, transcoding is often used as a fast and efficient technique for bitrate reduction. In this paper, we discuss H.264/AVC coding tools, their complexity and influence on rate-distortion performance, and how they are affected by transcoding. We show that by eliminating advanced coding tools, the complexity of the overall architecture is severely reduced, while the quality loss remains limited, in particular for low resolutions and low bitrates.


Sampling is a key operation in point-cloud task and acts to increase computational efficiency and tractability by discarding redundant points. Universal sampling algorithms (e.g., Farthest Point Sampling) work without modification across different tasks, models, and datasets, but by their very nature are agnostic about the downstream task/model. As such, they have no implicit knowledge about which points would be best to keep and which to reject. Recent work has shown how task-specific point cloud sampling (e.g., SampleNet) can be used to outperform traditional sampling approaches by learning which points are more informative. However, these learnable samplers face two inherent issues: i) overfitting to a model rather than a task, and \ii) requiring training of the sampling network from scratch, in addition to the task network, somewhat countering the original objective of down-sampling to increase efficiency. In this work, we propose an almost-universal sampler, in our quest for a sampler that can learn to preserve the most useful points for a particular task, yet be inexpensive to adapt to different tasks, models, or datasets. We first demonstrate how training over multiple models for the same task (e.g., shape reconstruction) significantly outperforms the vanilla SampleNet in terms of accuracy by not overfitting the sample network to a particular task network. Second, we show how we can train an almost-universal meta-sampler across multiple tasks. This meta-sampler can then be rapidly fine-tuned when applied to different datasets, networks, or even different tasks, thus amortizing the initial cost of training.


This thesis explores young people's emotional experiences of fear of crime. It is based on a long-term and in-depth piece of participatory fieldwork in a low-income urban area in Newcastle upon Tyne. I engaged in the use of participatory diagramming, group discussions and individual interviews in order to access the lived experiences and material realities of local residents, to identify and understand how fear works in the neighbourhood. The research includes insights from a variety of groups: the emphasis is mainly on the young, but with a perspective from older people too. It shows that fear is tied to power and has a bearing on people's freedom, including their access to and use of space, their participation in social life and their ability to control their future. The theoretical contribution is to enhance understandings of fear, by showing that it is bound up with a practice of citizenship; and to enhance understandings of what citizenship means, by documenting its entanglement with fear. Methodologically, the work contributes to the development of participatory geographies. In both an empirical and a theoretical sense, the thesis brings to light how participating in research as well as in wider community activities enabled participants to envision ways that fear can be negated through increasing 'confidence' of all kinds. As such, the thesis concludes that participation – in the fullest sense of the word – can be empowering in the face of fear. It enables us to imagine the possibility of a more hopeful future trajectory.


International law pervades the U.S. Code. This will come as a surprise to many members of Congress, as well as to those who accept the common trope that Congress is ignorant about or hostile to international law. It also may be news to foreign affairs scholars who study those areas in which Congress necessarily must interact with international law, such as where the Senate provides advice and consent to treaty ratification or Congress enacts implementing legislation to further U.S. treaty commitments. Even those who have examined these high-profile congressional interactions with international law likely are not attuned to the breadth and depth of Congress's voluntary interactions with international law in a wide variety of situations in which it legislates.
The little-discussed proliferation of international law throughout U.S. statutes – termed here "statutory international law" – is the launching point for the article. Because limited attention is paid to congressional engagement with international law, current legal literature lacks a descriptive and theoretical account of when, why, and how Congress engages with these norms to advance its legislative goals. This article is the first to systematically examine the phenomenon of statutory international law.
Tracking how these norms find their way into statutes reveals the critical but often unseen influence of the Executive on the language of legislation. Further, the presence of statutory international law in the U.S. Code has important implications for the development of customary international law. It accelerates the amount of state practice that the Executive and courts produce and correspondingly empowers the United States to shape customary international law. This, in turn, reduces customary international law's notorious democracy deficit. In the domestic context, statutory international law introduces new factors to inform ongoing debates about the Charming Betsy canon of statutory interpretation, while highlighting confounding effects on the separation of powers in foreign affairs.


A new method of is being developed to estimate the ionosphere's 3-dimensional electron density distribution based on GPS slant TEC data. The goal of this effort is to develop a generalized parametric ionospheric model that is amenable to data assimilation using powerful nonlinear least-squares batch filtering techniques and related techniques. In addition to assimilating GPS TEC data, this method will eventually be targeted at assimilating additional data types in order to implement true data fusion for ionospheric characterization. The parameterized ionosphere model uses a latitude/longitude bi-quintic spline model to characterize the horizontal variations of parameters of a vertical electron density profile. The result is a truly 3-dimensional electron density distribution. It is parameterized by vertical profile parameter values at latitude/longitude spline nodes and by various latitude and longitude partial derivatives of these parameters at the nodes. This electron density distribution is used in conjunction with quadrature numerical integration to determine slant TEC along line-of-sight paths to tracked GPS satellites. A nonlinear batch estimation algorithm compares the modeled GPS slant TEC values predicted by its current parameter estimates with corresponding measured values. It then updates its parameter estimates to improve its fit to the measurements while balancing a need to use parameters that remain relatively near reasonable a priori values, as dictated by an International Reference Ionosphere calculation. A truth-model simulation study shows that the vertical TEC map is observable as part of a latitude/longitude-dependent Chapman profile. The height of peak electron density and the scale height of the Chapman profile are only weakly observable from slant TEC data alone. Tests of this method have also been made with slant TEC data from an array of over 900 dual-frequency GPS receivers distributed over the continental U.S. The method demonstrates an equal or better ability to predict slant TEC at other GPS receivers than that of a traditional thin-shell, fixed-altitude ionosphere data assimilation model like the one used for WAAS.


Deep neural network models trained on large labeled datasets are the state-of-the-art in a large variety of computer vision tasks. In many applications, however, labeled data is expensive to obtain or requires a time consuming manual annotation process. In contrast, unlabeled data is often abundant and available in large quantities. We present a principled framework to capitalize on unlabeled data by training deep generative models on both labeled and unlabeled data. We show that such a combination is beneficial because the unlabeled data acts as a data-driven form of regularization, allowing generative models trained on few labeled samples to reach the performance of fully-supervised generative models trained on much larger datasets. We call our method Hybrid VAE (H-VAE) as it contains both the generative and the discriminative parts. We validate H-VAE on three large-scale datasets of different modalities: two face datasets: (MultiPIE, CelebA) and a hand pose dataset (NYU Hand Pose). Our qualitative visualizations further support improvements achieved by using partial observations.


This thesis describes a cell biological approach to studying lameness in the dairy cow. Lameness has been associated with altered keratinisation of the epidermis of the bovine hoof. Claw tissue was obtained by an in vivo claw biopsy technique. The biopsies were cultured in the presence of L-[35S]-methionine and [3H]-thymidine for measurement of protein synthesis and cell proliferation respectively.

The influence of nutritional and environmental stressors on keratinisation in the claw was investigated. Protein synthesis was found to be significantly higher after challenge with these factors. It was not clear, however, if this was an effect of challenge or the biopsy procedure itself.

Physiological and endocrinological changes associated with pregnancy and lactation also appeared to have an effect on claw keratinisation. In a long-term developmental study of first-calving heifers changes in cell proliferation and protein synthesis were related to reproductive state. A dramatic seasonal effect on claw cell biology was also demonstrated. The keratinocytes were actively proliferating and keratinising during the summer months but were quiescent during the winter.

A final study investigated the cell biological changes which occur in the claw during the onset, development and recovery stages of weight-bearing challenge and the effects of concrete flooring. During challenge cell proliferation increased significantly in claw subjected to weight-bearing. The tissue may have been responding to challenge, however, the biopsy procedure itself could also have had an effect due to the short-time period between samplings.

To conclude, altered keratinisation in the claw may be related to physiological and endocrinological changes associated with season and reproduction. However, changes in management may also be important and further investigation is required.


Tourism is the fourth largest industry in the global economy. In 2009 the industry was described by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) as an industry that helps promote peace and stability in developing countries through its jobs provision, income generation, economy diversification, environment protection and promotion of cross-cultural awareness. However, due to inherent risks in terms of some key issues, in tourism development projects, all efforts made by successive governments in Nigeria to develop this important sector of the economy have yielded few positive results. Although there had been several studies on tourism in developing countries, little is known to exist on managing risk in tourism development projects in Nigeria. The main objective of the paper therefore is to provide better understanding of risk and its management in tourism development in Nigeria. Through a sequential mixed-method approach involving a qualitative/quantitative sequence, this paper reveals that a shortage of infrastructure; poor market demand; immature financial markets; and lack of competent manpower were among the significant risk factors affecting successful development of tourism in Nigeria. The paper also identified effective mitigation measures for these risk factors. It is recommended that every stakeholder involved in tourism development projects must be involved in risk management (i.e. in identifying, analysing, developing responses, and controlling risk). Moreover, risk management should also be integrated with the decision-making processes in managing tourism development projects, as risk management reveals the rationales for making appropriate decisions.


 Abstract—Knowledge exists about water and its relationship with poverty, health and sanitation, as well as ecological integrity. However, little knowledge exists about correlation between safe drinking water and academic achievements in schools. Investigations show little attention on water education in schools, even when international institutions are beating chests about creating and financing principles, declarations and conferences in recognition to importance of water, especially during last two decades in 20 th century and first decade into the 21 st century. The leading aim of study is to understand knowledge about drinking water and academic achievements in schools in Ghana, Sierra Leone and South Africa. Specific objective is to find out knowledge from students' responses during interviews and test scores at various levels of schooling using chi-square (x 2 ) and correlation coefficient (r) for analysis. These models are to help establish the relationship between these variables by testing hypotheses to show directions and strengths of these correlations. The data gathering methods include five ways. First, is testing students before sampling and initial instructions without drinking water. Second, testing after drinking water while participating in schooling exercises. The third method uses personal interactions and interviews to gather qualitative data. Fourth, uses psychologies of drinking water during tests and examinations. Last method uses interviews involving psychologists, psychiatrists, medical doctors, nurses, surgeons, physicians and other medical practitioners. Final results are positive with (x 2 =7.973>5.991) at 95% level of confidence, as r=0.997, and qualitative analysis show r=0.588, suggesting existence of relationship between drinking water and academic achievements. Results show drinking water improves academic achievements in schools. Respondents are in three countries with different latitudes, locations, climates and ecologies. This study shows how this high-prize diet contributes to academic achievements in learners.


Thiyl radicals are formed from one-electron oxidation of thiols. Thiyl radicals participate in a number of reactions including electron transfer, hydrogen abstraction and addition reactions with several biological constituents and xenobiotics. Thiyl radicals can be detected by optical spectroscopy or by electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy. Thiyl radicals appear to play a role in the nitrosylation of thiols and protein thiols. The exact mechanism of thiol-induced enhancement of oxidative modification of low-density lipoprotein remains questionable. The proposed role of thiyl radicals in lipid peroxidation needs to be re-examined. It has been proposed that thiyl radicals are detoxified by superoxide dismutase in mammalian cells and by a thiol-specific enzyme in bacterial systems. We propose that thiols or protein thiols act as potent antioxidants in radicalinduced damage via formation of thiyl radicals.