During the period 1965-1987 Spain was an emerging market in full transition from developing to developed status. During the same period the Spanish banking system underwent an unprecedented episode of expansion growing from 5,000 to over 30,000 bank branches. We examine whether the latter process partly caused the former by focusing on the relationship between branch expansion and entrepreneurship in the wholesale and retail trade industries. To address the non-random allocation of bank branches we exploit changes in branching policies that induced a plausibly exogenous time-varying pattern in the relationship between a municipality's initial financial development and branch expansion. Our estimates, based on a panel data-set of over 2,000 Spanish municipalities, reveal that branch expansion had a strong positive impact on entrepreneurship. This effect was essentially driven by the savings banks, which have stronger regional development objectives than those held by the commercial banks, and which expanded more intensely into municipalities with more precarious financial services.


Blogging has become one of the key ingredients of the so-called socials networks.
This phenomenon has indeed invaded the world of education. Connections between people,
comments on each other posts, and assessment of innovation are usually interesting
characteristics of blogs related to students and scholars. Blogs have become a kind of new
form of authority, bringing about (divergent) discussions which lead to creation of knowledge.
The use of blogs as an innovative, educational tool is not at all new. However, their use in universities is not very widespread yet. Blogging for personal affairs is rather commonplace, but blogging for professional affairs – teaching, research and service, is scarce, despite the availability of ready-to-use, free tools. Unfortunately, Information Society has not reached yet enough some universities: not only are (student) blogs scarcely used as
an educational tool, but it is quite rare to find a blog written by University professors.
The Institute of Computational Chemistry of the University of Girona and the Department of Chemistry of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona has joined forces to create "InnoCiencia", a new Group on Digital Science Communitation. This group, formed by ca. ten researchers, has promoted the use of blogs, twitters. wikis and other tools of Web 2.0 in activities in Catalonia concerning the dissemination of Science, like Science Week, Open Day or Researchers' Night. Likewise, its members promote use of social networking tools in chemistry- and communication-related courses.
This communication explains the outcome of social-network experiences with teaching undergraduate students and organizing research communication events. We provide live, hands-on examples and interactive ground to show how blogs and twitters can
be used to enhance the yield of teaching and research.
Impact of blogging and other social networking tools on the outcome of the learning process is very depending on the target audience and the environmental conditions. A few examples are provided and some proposals to use these techniques efficiently to help students are hinted


This thesis describes the construction and implementation of a microprocessor controlled recursive adaptive filter applied as a noise canceller. It describes the concept of the adaptive noise canceller, a method of estimating the received signal corrupted with additive interference (noise). This canceller has two inputs, the primary input containing the corrupted signal and the reference input consisting of the additive noise correlated in some unknown way to the primary noise. The reference input is filtered and subtracted from the primary input without degrading the desired components of the signal. This filtering process is adaptive and based on Widrow-Hoff Least-Mean-Square algorithm. Adaptive filters are programmable and have the capability to adjust their own parameters in situations where minimum piori knowledge is available about the inputs. For recursive filters, these parameters include feed-forward (non-recursive) as well as feedback (recursive) coefficients. A new design and implementation of the adaptive filter is suggested which uses a high speed 68000 microprocessor to accomplish the coefficients updating operation. Many practical problems arising in the hardware implementation are investigated. Simulation results illustrate the ability of the adaptive noise canceller to have an acceptable performance when the coefficients updating operation is carried out once every N sampling periods. Both simulation and hardware experimental results are in agreement.


Increasing demand for mass screenings and current possibilities of automated image acquisition lead to an accumulation of large amounts of image data in diverse fields of biology, so that the manual measurement and handling of such image data sets is often no longer feasible. The authors' work in diatom analysis represents one of the areas that are impacted by this trend.
The newly developed tool SHERPA offers a versatile image processing workflow focused on the identification and measurement of diatom outlines, handling all steps from image segmentation over object identification to feature extraction, and providing interactive functions for reviewing and revising results. Special attention was given to the ease of use, applicability to a broad range of data and problems, and the minimization of manual intervention by extensive automating and internal quality control of the results. Though it was developed for analyzing images of diatom valves originating from automated slide scanning microscopy, SHERPA can also be useful for other object detection, segmentation and identification problems.
Tested with several datasets from different sources and of various compositions, SHERPA proved its ability to successfully analyze large amounts of diatom micrographs depicting a broad range of species. It identifies relevant valve shapes and extracts features suitable for detailed morphometric analysis and classification. Ranking of results by template matching and quality criteria helps focusing manual inspection upon difficult cases, allowing for minimum user intervention as well as for maximum output, providing a helpful tool for high-throughput analyses of image data. By applying a workflow using digital imaging and automated diatom analysis large amounts of data can be processed, and morphometric trends can be detected easily.


Phosphatidylinositolpolyphosphates (PIPs) are centrally involved in many biological processes, ranging from cell growth and organization of the actin cytoskeleton to endo- and exocytosis. Phosphorylation of phosphatidylinositol at the D-4 position, an essential step in the biosynthesis of PIPs, appears to be catalyzed by two biochemically distinct enzymes. However, only one of these two enzymes has been molecularly characterized. We now describe a novel class of phosphatidylinositol 4-kinases that probably corresponds to the missing element in phosphatidylinositol metabolism. These kinases are highly conserved evolutionarily, but unrelated to previously characterized phosphatidylinositol kinases, and thus represent the founding members of a new family. The novel phosphatidylinositol 4-kinases, which are widely expressed in cells, only phosphorylate phosphatidylinositol, are potently inhibited by adenosine, but are insensitive to wortmannin or phenylarsine oxide. Although they lack an obvious transmembrane domain, they are strongly attached to membranes by palmitoylation. Our data suggest that independent pathways for phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate synthesis emerged during evolution, possibly to allow tight temporal and spatial control over the production of this key signaling molecule.


Background:

This review examines the clinical effectiveness and
cost-effectiveness of hand-held inhalers to deliver
medication for the routine management of chronic
asthma in children aged between 5 and 15 years.
Asthma is a common disease of the airways, with a
prevalence of treated asthma in 5–15-year-olds of
around 12% and an actual prevalence in the community
as high as 23%. Treatment for the condition
is predominantly by inhalation of medication. There
are three main types of inhaler device, pressurised
metered dose, breath actuated, and dry powder, with
the option of the attachment of a spacer to the first
two devices under some prescribed circumstances.
Two recent reviews have examined the clinical and
cost-effectiveness evidence on inhaler devices, but
one was for children aged under 5 years and the
comparison in the second was made between pressurised
metered dose inhalers and other types only.

Objectives:

This review examines the clinical effectiveness and
cost-effectiveness of manual pressurised metered
dose inhalers, breath-actuated metered dose
inhalers, and breath-actuated dry powder inhalers,
with and without spacers as appropriate, to deliver
medication for the routine management of chronic
asthma in children aged between 5 and 15 years.

Methods:

Two previous HTA reviews have compared the
effectiveness of inhaler devices, one focusing on
asthma in children aged under 5 years and the
other on asthma and chronic obstructive airways
disease in all age groups. For the current review, a
literature search was carried out to identify all
evidence relating to the use of inhalers in older
children with chronic asthma. A search of in-vitro
studies undertaken for one of the previous reviews
was also updated.

The data sources used were: 15 electronic bibliographic
databases; the reference lists of one of the
previous HTA reports and other relevant articles;
health services research-related internet resources;
and all sponsor submissions.

Studies were selected according to strict inclusion
and exclusion criteria, and relevant information
concerning effectiveness and patient compliance
and preference was extracted directly on to an
extraction/evidence table. Quality assurance
was monitored.

Economic evaluation was undertaken by reviewing
existing cost-effective evidence. Further economic
modelling was carried out, and tables constructed
to determine device cost-minimisation and
incremental quality-adjusted life-year (QALY)
thresholds between devices.

Results:

Number and quality of studies, and
direction of evidence:

Fourteen randomised controlled studies were
identified relating to the clinical effectiveness of
inhaler devices for delivering β2-agonists. A further
five were on devices delivering corticosteroids and
one concerned the delivery of cromoglicate.
Overall, there were no differences in clinical
efficacy between inhaler devices, but a pressurised
metered dose inhaler with a spacer would appear
to be more effective than one without. These
findings endorse those of a previous HTA review
but extend them to other inhaler devices.
Seven randomised controlled trials examined the
impact on clinical effectiveness of using a nonchlorofluorocarbon
(CFC) propellant in place of
a CFC propellant in metered dose inhalers, both
pressurised and breath activated, although only one
study considered the latter type. No differences were
found between inhalers containing either propellant.
A further 30 studies of varying quality, from 12 randomised
controlled trials to non-controlled studies,
were identified that concerned the impact of use
by, and preference for, inhaler type, and treatment
adherence in children. Differences between the
studies, and limitations in comparative data between
various inhaler device types, make it difficult to draw
any firm conclusions from this evidence.

Summary of benefits:

No obvious benefits for one inhaler device type
over another for use in children aged 5–15 years
were identified.

Costs and cost per quality-adjusted
life-year:

Two approaches have been taken: cost-minimisation
and QALY threshold. In the QALY threshold
approach, additional QALYs that each device must
produce compared with a cheaper device to achieve
an acceptable cost per QALY were calculated. Using
the cheapest and most expensive devices for delivering
200 μg of beclometasone per day, assuming no
cost offset for any device, and a threshold of £5000,
the largest QALY needed was 0.00807. With such
a small QALY increase, no intervention can be
categorically rejected as not cost-effective.

Conclusions:

Generalisability of findings:

On the available evidence there are no obvious
benefits for one inhaler device over another
when used by children aged 5–15 years with
chronic asthma. However, the evidence, in the
majority of cases, was compiled on children
with mild to moderate asthma and restricted
to a limited number of drugs. Therefore the
findings may not be generalisable to those at
the more severe end of the spectrum of the
disease or to inhaler devices delivering some
of the drugs used in the management of asthma.

Need for further research:

Many of the previous studies are likely to
have been underpowered. Further clinical
trials with a robust methodology, sufficient
power and qualitative components are needed
to demonstrate any differences in clinical
resource use and patients' asthma symptoms.
Further studies should also include the
behavioural aspects of patients towards their
medication and its delivery mechanisms.
It is acknowledged that sufficient power may
prove impractical owing to the large numbers
of patients required.


This study questioned whether participants feel one person committing a crime alone is more, less, or equally responsible for his or her actions than two people committing a crime together; whether participants react differently to two equally culpable coconspirators than they do to a perpetrator who was coerced by a companion to commit the crime; and whether these factors affect the amount of responsibility attributed to the perpetrator or the length of sentence recommended. The study found that less responsibility was attributed to a coerced perpetrator; however, all perpetrators received sentences of similar lengths. Also, White respondents attributed more responsibility to the perpetrator than Black or ―other‖ respondents, and females gave longer sentences than males. It appears that the differing circumstances of the perpetrators and the backgrounds of the respondents are more influential factors than the number of perpetrators. Possible implications of these findings, methodological improvements, and suggestions for future research are discussed.


There are times when it is necessary to use impressed current cathodic protection (ICCP) in urban areas, in spite of concerns about extensive interference. This article describes three ICCP systems that can be used safely in urban environments. They are distributed anode (parallel) groundbeds, deep anode groundbeds, and low-output surface groundbeds.


Vass, M. 2020. Bound to the past: Historical contingency in aquatic microbial metacommunities. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 1887. 50 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-513-0834-0. The composition of ecological communities differs due to a combination of different processes, which includes selection by local environmental conditions, dispersal from the regional species pool and random events. Additionally, historical processes such as past dispersal events may leave their imprint on communities as well, resulting in historically contingent communities. However, in most ecological studies the existence and the effect of historical processes remained hidden, even though they could be important predictors of contemporary variations in ecological communities. This thesis focuses on how historical processes could influence aquatic microbial metacommunities by investigating when and where history matters, and which factors may regulate historical contingency. Using null model approaches, evidence for historical contingency was found in natural ecosystems, more specifically rock pool metacommunities, and appeared to be more likely to influence bacterial than microeukaryotic communities. The thesis further used an outdoor mesocosm experiment to test how ecosystem-sized induced differences in environmental fluctuations influenced community assembly processes along a disturbance gradient. This study did, however, not provide strong and clear evidence for the importance of historical contingency. In the face of climate change, results from a laboratory experiment showed that historical contingencies might be strengthened with warming. Specifically, warming increased the resistance of local communities against invasion by decreasing the establishment success of migrant species. Hence, temperature-dependent historical contingency was found in aquatic bacterial communities, although its persistence differed between local communities and the degree of invasion they were exposed to. Taken together, this thesis suggests that historical processes can leave their imprint on aquatic microbial communities, even though their importance is highly context dependent. Future studies, should therefore consider historical contingency, or in other words, the legacy of the past as a potentially important mechanism that can contribute to the spatial diversity of microbial communities.


ABSTRACT The Aguille Formation (Coniacian-Santonian) of North of Gabonese coastal basin has been analysed from the 'Cap Esterias' section. Palaeoecologic and paleogeographic aspects of the bivalves were taken into account. Twelve bivalve species representing 9 genera have been identified from 'Cap Esterias' section. Among these Acanthocardia cf. denticula (Baily, 1855), Aphrodina dutrugei (Coquand, 1862) and Protocardia cf. pauli (Coquand, 1862) are found for the first time in the 'Cap Esterias' region. A large part (66.67%) of the identified bivalve species occur over a wide geographical area: from Brazil to Central Africa, eastern Mediterranean region, Madagascar, Nigeria, northwestern Africa, South Africa, southern India and southern Europe. The fauna is composed only of suspension-feeders indicating that food resources were dominantly in suspension. The assemblage of bivalves is dominated by shallow burrowing infaunal bivalves and indicates the existence of an unstable and soft substrate. This assemblage can be regarded as parautochthonous.


In this paper, mechano-physiological damage evolution equations are developed to capture the disruption of neuronal membrane integrity and quantify neuronal cell death in the brain during mechanical insult. Traumatic brain injury involves multiscale structure-property relations where the mechanical behavior of the brain is phenomenologically characterized at the macroscale. However, damage largely occurs at the cellular level (microscale and nanoscale) due to the loss of ion homeostasis. To measure this neuronal death mechanism, molecular dynamics simulations were performed on a representative neuronal membrane, a 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-phosphatidylcholine (POPC) bilayer structures. Pore density and pore growth due to membrane deformation were then quantified. The results showed that the pore growth and pore density rates were a function of stress state, but only the pore growth rate was a function of the strain rate. Mechano-physiological damage evolution equations were developed to capture the damage biomechanics of the POPC bilayer based on the pore density and growth rate responses. The proposed damage evolution equations were combined with the Nernst–Planck diffusion equation to produce a criterion based on the change of intracellular calcium ion concentration.


Traditional query processing involves a search for plans formed by applying algebraic operators on top of primitives representing access to relations in the input query. But many querying scenarios involve two interacting issues that complicate the search. On the one hand, the search space may be limited by access restrictions associated with the interfaces to datasources, which require certain parameters to be given as inputs. On the other hand, the search space may be extended through the presence of integrity constraints that relate sources to each other, allowing for plans that do not match the structure of the user query.

In this paper we present the first optimization approach that attacks both these difficulties within a single framework, presenting a system in which classical cost-based join optimization is extended to support both access-restrictions and constraints. Instead of iteratively exploring subqueries of the input query, our optimizer explores a space of proofs that witness the answering of the query, where each proof has a direct correspondence with a query plan.


We develop measures of firm-level human capital creation from publicly disclosed personnel expenses (PE) and examine the stock market valuation of these characteristics. Separately measuring human capital creation efficacy and opportunity, we first show that efficacy is positively associated with characteristics of human-capital-intensive firms and employee productivity growth. Next, we find that efficacy has a positive pricing coefficient, implying that the market recognizes some of its variation. In our main analysis, long-short portfolios based on the human capital creation efficacy (opportunity) produce annualized abnormal returns of 4.0 to 5.4% (6.0 to 7.5%). Portfolios formed on the combination of efficacy and opportunities produce the strongest abnormal returns of 6.3 to 9.3% in annualized terms. Our results provide evidence of the importance to valuation of accurate human capital measurement.


In recent years the Markov Random Field (MRF) has become the de facto probabilistic model for low-level vision applications. However, in a maximum a posteriori (MAP) framework, MRFs inherently encourage delta function marginal statistics. By contrast, many low-level vision problems have heavy tailed marginal statistics, making the MRF model unsuitable. In this paper we introduce a more general Marginal Probability Field (MPF), of which the MRF is a special, linear case, and show that convex energy MPFs can be used to encourage arbitrary marginal statistics. We introduce a flexible, extensible framework for effectively optimizing the resulting NP-hard MAP problem, based around dual-decomposition and a modified min-cost flow algorithm, and which achieves global optimality in some instances. We use a range of applications, including image denoising and texture synthesis, to demonstrate the benefits of this class of MPF over MRFs.


Ensemble learning constitutes one of the main directions in machine learning and data mining. Ensembles allow us to achieve higher accuracy, which is often not achievable with single models. One technique, which proved to be effective for constructing an ensemble of diverse classifiers, is the use of feature subsets. Among different approaches to ensemble feature selection, genetic search was shown to perform best in many domains. In this paper, a new strategy GAS-SEFS, Genetic Algorithmbased Sequential Search for Ensemble Feature Selection, is introduced. Instead of one genetic process, it employs a series of processes, the goal of each of which is to build one base classifier. Experiments on 21 data sets are conducted, comparing the new strategy with a previously considered genetic strategy for different ensemble sizes and for five different ensemble integration methods. The experiments show that GAS-SEFS, although being more time-consuming, often builds better ensembles, especially on data sets with larger numbers of features.


The broad-scale tree of eukaryotes is constantly improving, but the evolutionary origin of several major groups remains unknown. Resolving the phylogenetic position of these 'orphan' groups is important, especially those that originated early in evolution, because they represent missing evolutionary links between established groups. Telonemia is one such orphan taxon for which little is known. The group is composed of molecularly diverse biflagellated protists, often prevalent although not abundant in aquatic environments. Telonemia has been hypothesized to represent a deeply diverging eukaryotic phylum but no consensus exists as to where it is placed in the tree. Here, we established cultures and report the phylogenomic analyses of three new transcriptome datasets for divergent telonemid lineages. All our phylogenetic reconstructions, based on 248 genes and using site-heterogeneous mixture models, robustly resolve the evolutionary origin of Telonemia as sister to the Sar supergroup. This grouping remains well supported when as few as 60% of the genes are randomly subsampled, thus is not sensitive to the sets of genes used but requires a minimal alignment length to recover enough phylogenetic signal. Telonemia occupies a crucial position in the tree to examine the origin of Sar, one of the most lineage-rich eukaryote supergroups. We propose the moniker 'TSAR' to accommodate this new mega-assemblage in the phylogeny of eukaryotes.


The present paper is based on field work conducted in village Mana in Joshimath subdivision of the District Chamoli, Uttarakhand, among Bhotias. The group of Bhotias residing in this village belongs to the Marcha Bhotia category and is transhumant in nature. The paper gives an ethnographic background of the Bhotias and then focuses on the major ethno-medicines which are used by these people. These medicines have been in use through the ages. This traditional knowledge is of significance since the health services in this region are limited and these medicines are effective in curing patients. The intellectual property right of these medicines belongs to these people and they must be given the credit for it.

 Key words: Mana village, Bhotias, ethno-medicine, traditional knowledge.


At the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, Britain had acquired a vast empire that included territories in Asia, Africa, North America, and Europe that numbered more than a quarter of the earth's population. Britain also possessed the largest army that the state had ever fielded, employing nearly 250,000 troops on station throughout this empire and on fighting fronts in Spain, southern France, the Low Countries, and North America. However, the peace of 1815 and the end of nearly twenty-five years of war with France brought with it significant problems for Britain. Years of war had saddled the state with a massive debt of nearly £745,000; a threefold increase from its total debt in 1793, the year war with the French began. Furthermore, the rapid economic changes brought on by a the state that had transitioned from a wartime economy to one of peacetime caused widespread unemployment and financial dislocation among the British population including the thousands of officers and soldiers who had fought in the Napoleonic Wars and were now demobilized and back into the civilian sector. Lastly, the significant imperial growth had stretched the colonial administrative and bureaucratic infrastructure to the breaking point prompting the Colonial Office and the ruling elites to adopt short-term measures in running its empire. The solution adopted by the Colonial Office in the twenty-five years that followed the Napoleonic Wars was the employment of proconsular despotism. Proconsular despotism is the practice of governing distant territories and provinces by politically safe individuals, most often military men, who identified with and were sympathetic to the aims of the parent state and the ruling elites. The employment of this form of colonial governance helped to alleviate a number of problems that plagued the Crown and Parliament. First, the practice found suitable employment for deserving military officers during a period of army demobilization and sizeable reduction of armed forces. The appointment of military officers to high colonial administrative positions was viewed by Parliament as a reward for distinguished service to the state. Second, the practice enabled Colonial Office to employ officials who had both previous administrative and military experience and who were accustomed to make critical decisions that they believed coincided with British strategic and national interests. Third, the employment of knowledgeable and experienced army officers in colonial posts fulfilled the Parliamentary mandates of curtailing military spending while maintaining security for the colonies. Military officers of all ranks clamored for the opportunities of serving in the colonies. General and field grade officers viewed service in the colonies as a means of maintaining their status and financially supporting their lifestyles. Company grade officers, who primarily came from the emerging middle class, saw colonial service as a means of swift promotion in a peacetime army and of rising socially. Competition for overseas administrative positions was intense and officers frequently employed an intricate and complex pattern of patronage networking. The proconsular system of governing Britain's vast network of colonies flourished in the quarter century following the Battle of Waterloo. In the immediate aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars the British officer corps contributed men who became the principal source for trained colonial administrators enabling Britain to effectively manage its immense empire. JOHN BULL'S PROCONSULS: MILITARY OFFICERS WHO ADMINISTERED THE BRITISH EMPIRE, 1815-1840 by ROBERT J. SMITH B.A., Kansas State University, 1973 M.A., Kansas State University, 2002 A DISSERTATION submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History College of Arts and Sciences KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 2008


Business-information systems (IS) alignment has become an important strategic imperative for organizations competing in the global economy. Recent research (Reich and Benbasat [56]) indicates that building a shared understanding between business and IS executives is one way of strengthening this alignment. This paper describes a study that examines the cognitive basis of shared understanding between business and IS executives. Using Personal Construct Theory (Kelly [36]), this study uses cognitive mapping techniques to explore the commonalities and individualities in the cognition between these executives. Eighty business and IS executives in six companies participated in this study. The results indicate that a higher level of cognitive commonality is positively related to a higher level of business-IS alignment. This is supported by findings that greater diversity in cognitive structure and cognitive content of business and IS executives coincide with a lower level of alignment. Implications for practitioners and researchers are discussed.


By modifying the design of an existing two-input nanophotonic AND gate, whose operation is based on optical near-field (ONF) interactions among three neighboring quantum dots (QDs), we have improved the gate ON/OFF ratio by up to about 9 dB. To do this, we have eliminated the possibility of direct ONF interaction between the input and output dots. Then, by adding another QD, as the second control dot to both existing and the modified two-input architectures, we have proposed two new three-input nanophotonic AND gate schemes—one with direct ONF interaction between its input and output dots, and the other without such interaction. Although, the former gate turns on relatively faster, one of its three possible ON/OFF ratios are shown to be about 7.3 dB lower than the latter. The differences in two other possible ON/OFF ratios of the two new gates are insignificant.


BACKGROUND
Oral malodor (halitosis or bad breath) might be an important motivation tool for improving oral health in adolescents. There are few studies that report the epidemiology of oral malodor in high school students and the relationships with lifestyle and oral health status. This research was conducted to obtain underlying data for introducing an oral health education program which targeted prevention of oral malodor as a motivation tool for changing oral health behavior in high school students.

METHODS
A questionnaire, school oral examination, and oral malodor measurement were conducted on senior high school students in a Tokyo metropolitan school in 2007. A total of 474 students (male: 219, female: 255) were used for the analysis.

RESULTS
Over 42% of subjects reported that they had experienced anxiety, or were conscious of oral malodor, on at least 1 occasion. The students who had detectable oral malodor comprised 39.6% of subjects. The binary logistic regression analyses showed that whether or not subjects ate breakfast before the oral examination (p < .05), the presence of plaque (p < .01), and presence of a substantive tongue coating (p < .01) were related to the presence of detectable oral malodor.

CONCLUSIONS
Cleaning the oral cavity and eating breakfast are important to prevent oral malodor in high school students. This study indicated that school health education incorporating prevention of oral malodor as a motivation tool for oral health promotion could be a valuable procedure to include in high school dental health education programs.


In the first chapter I calculate unemployment multipliers of fiscal policies. As an innovation, I include family firms in a New Keynesian model with search and matching frictions; they behave differently in the labor market and are differently managed. Based on European data I find that both at peak and cumulatively, unemployment reacts least when consolidation is done by increasing the value-added tax. However, this policy results in the steepest decline in consumption. Also, ignoring sectoral heterogeneity might lead to incorrect conclusions. Next, with Magnus Saxegaard we investigate the macroeconomic impacts of deregulating the labor and product markets. The novelty of the model, which was jointly developed with Rahul Anand and Purva Khera, is the inclusion of an underground sector in an openeconomy model. It is a major determinant of the sign and the magnitude of reactions. We show that in South Africa both reforms increase long-run output, although labor market reforms are more successful in decreasing unemployment. Nevertheless, there are short-term costs; which can be mitigated reform packages. Finally, we find that it is usually better to start with a labor market reform. The last chapter focuses on southern Europe where high levels of government debt are coupled with rapid population aging. With Daniel Baksa we examine the macroeconomic effects of public old-age pension reforms and other policies under conditions of aging. As a novelty, we incorporate a shadow economy into an overlapping generations model. We find that a retirement age increase implies the lowest reduction in long-run GDP, although there are doubts about its feasibility. Impacts, in general, depend on the type of pension plan. Furthermore, when moving away from the PAYG towards a fully funded regime the pension-wage replacement rate temporarily sharply drops. The presence of informality and unemployment are important, in particular for responses of labor income tax hikes.


Z. Alexander Looby (1899-1972) and Avon N. Williams, Jr. (1921-1994) were the most prominent civil rights attorneys working in Tennessee during the post-World War II period. They filed dozens of lawsuits pertaining to school desegregation, racial discrimination in employment and public accommodations, and other areas. Looby and Williams's work in school desegregation cases alone encompassed every major case in the state (with the exception of Northcross v. Board of Education), and entered the highest realms of legal activity. Federal judges at the circuit, appeals, and U.S. Supreme Court levels cited and considered many of their cases as the post-Brown v. Board of Education (1954) litigation world unfolded. Looby and Williams also followed their civil rights work into the political world--Looby as Nashville city councilman and Williams as state senator--where they became part of the first major resurgence of black lawmakers in Tennessee since Reconstruction. As Professor Bobby L. Lovett argued, electoral poli tics became the next arena in the fight for equal rights, despite suggestions in the mass media from the early 1970s that the Civil Rights Movement ended when sit-ins, mass marches, and freedom rides were no longer the dominant strategy. (1) In this sense, Looby and Williams set important examples by extending their legal skills beyond the courtroom and into legislative bodies. But more fundamentally, Looby and Williams's civil rights work in the legal and political arenas made them among the most important and widely recognized leaders in Nashville's African American community, and beyond. In addition to legal and political activities, they served their community in numerous other ways that included the churches, schools, and civic organizations. (2) Looby and Williams countered a deeply imbedded tradition in this regard, for prior to their work, many (perhaps most) whites and African Americans alike held little respect for black attorneys in general. For Looby and Williams to emerge as prominent community l eaders presented a impressive example to the contrary, to say the least. AFRICAN AMERICAN ATTORNEYS AND LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT Many historians have tended to neglect the legal aspects of the Civil Rights Movement, when in fact, litigation and other matters related to the law were often crucial determinants of success or failure. For example, the legendary Montgomery, Alabama, Bus Boycott (1955-56) involved absolutely indispensable legal work that fundamentally influenced the final outcome of that historic and symbolic event. (3) In contrast, an absence of legal help often proved disastrous for civil rights activists, particularly when local and state authorities passed discriminatory laws, issued injunctions against activists, sanctioned massive arrests, and otherwise attempted to enforce segregation or disrupt organized protests. (4) As legal scholars Donald Barnett King and Charles W. Quick observed in 1965, "Both positively and negatively, [law] has been instrumental in defining the rights of the Negro in almost every realm of life. (5) Many scholars have almost completely ignored the leadership role of African American attorneys within their immediate communities. The scholarship has also tended to remain rooted in an earlier, disparaging view of black lawyers, who were unfairly caught in a vicious cycle during the Jim Crow era. Before the mid-1940s, these attorneys struggled for respect against the odds of discriminatory legal education, lack of esteem in the black community, inadmissibility to bar associations, shortage of honorable clients, and mistreatment at the hands of racist judges and court officials. African Americans also suffered discrimination in law school admissions. If they managed to earn a law degree, they immediately encountered further discrimination in the legal system. Since a racist and predominantly white society favored white lawyers in the courtroom, many African Americans were disinclined to hire lawyers of their own race. …


Stanford historian Walter Scheidel's The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century (Princeton Univ. Press, 2017), is, in some respects, the anti-Piketty. Scheidel accepts Piketty's view that inequality tends to grow over time, but adds a crucial caveat than runs directly opposite to Piketty's optimistic proposals. Scheidel argues that the historical record demonstrates that inequality can only be reduced by violent means. Therefore, the Piketty proposals to reduce inequality peacefully are unrealistic, and Scheidel concludes his book by arguing that we should accept inequality as the price of peace: "All of us who prize greater economic equality would do well to remember that with the rarest of exceptions, it was only ever brought forth in sorrow. Be careful what you wish for."
This review will first summarize Scheidel's thesis and the evidence for it (part 2). It will then argue that the twentieth century history of the United States shows that in fact inequality can be reduced by peaceful means, even though such reductions are not easy to achieve and usually require bipartisan consensus (part 3). Next, the review will address why the Great Recession of 2008-9 did not lead to a reduction in inequality, unlike the Great Depression (part 4). Finally, the review will ask what can be done, and propose certain steps that may be more achievable than Piketty's proposals (part 5).


There is a problematic overlap between bona fide humanitarian intervention and the crime of aggression. Under international law, the crime of aggression is defined so vaguely that it potentially could be applied to try leaders who seek to stop documented mass atrocities with armed force. This Note seeks a resolution to that overlap: a path that would allow those who would plan and engage in bona fide humanitarian intervention to be exempt from prosecution for aggression. The Note first examines the genealogy of the crime of aggression. It then analyzes several possible solutions to policing aggression without unduly deterring humanitarian intervention. Finally, this Note concludes that the existing imbalance can be corrected by: (1) granting the International Criminal Court exclusive jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute the crime of aggression, (2) modifying the current regulations to bar the U.N. Security Council in prosecuting the crime of aggression, and (3) developing an affirmative defense to the crime of aggression that would allow indicted leaders to use either a high or low evidentiary standard depending on whether their state acted alone or through a multilateral organization.


The 1999 Yale Forestry Forum, sponsored by Yale University and the USDA Forest Service, brought together a number of experts in an academic setting to discuss the future of silviculture research in the next century. Four participants in the plenary session outlined three areas that will characterize the future of silviculture research-sustainability, flexibility, and rigor. Sustainability includes two elements-sustainability of practices at different scales of management, and striking the appropriate balance of conditions across the landscape. Flexibility has three elements-feasible 'silvicultural pathways' for species of interest, research within and among a wide scale of intensities of management, and silviculture for a variety of 'at risk' situations. Rigor has two elements-silviculture research as a subset of a larger array of response variables, and maintenance of high standards of statistical design for silvicultural research. The implications of these and other elements raised for future funding of silviculture research remains unclear, but will give the silviculture research community an opportunity for enhanced discussion of priorities in the immediate future.


Annotated by: Jeffrey A Green. 24k USGS topo map containing dye input points, dye vectors and spring where dye was detected. May also contain spring survey information. Names and phone numbers of property owners have been redacted.


Abstract. The paper extends the Representative Elementary Watershed (REW) theory for cold regions through explicit treatment of energy balance equations to include associated processes and process descriptions. A new definition of REW is presented which subdivides the REW into six surface sub-regions and two subsurface sub-regions. Vegetation, snow, soil ice, and glacier ice are included in the system so that such phenomena as evaporation/transpiration, melting, freezing, and thawing can be modeled in a physically reasonable way. The sub-stream-network is separated from other sub-regions so that the sub-REW-scale runoff routing function can be modeled explicitly. The final system of 24 ordinary differential equations (ODEs) can meet the requirements of most hydrological modeling applications, and the formulation procedure is re-arranged so that further inclusion of sub-regions and substances could be done more easily. The number of unknowns is more than the number of equations, which leads to the indeterminate system. Complementary equations are provided based on geometric relationships and constitutive relationships that represent geomorphological and hydrological characteristics of a watershed. Reggiani et al. (1999, 2000, 2001) and Lee et al. (2005b) have previously proposed sets of closure relationships for unknown mass and momentum exchange fluxes. Tian (2006) has applied Lee's procedures and formulas and Monte Carlo simulation method, and has come up with a determinate system based on the equations, though precluding energy balance ones, proposed in this paper. The additional geometric and constitutive relationships required to close the new set of balance equations will be pursued in a subsequent paper.


Joe Bushkin Quartet featuring Stuff Smith: Live Embers 1964 ~Plus Stuff Smith c. 1966 Copenhagen Solos. AB Fable ABCD1-022. Let's Listen to Lucidin Presents: Stuff Smith And His Lucidin Orchestra featuring Ella Fitzgerald. AB Fable ABCD1-024. (Both available through North Country, Cadence Building, Redwood, NY 13679-3194. (www.cadencebuilding.com) Anthony Barnett never ceases to amaze. Just when you think he could not possibly find any more previously unreleased recorded material by violinist Stuff Smith, he comes up with these two CDs. ABCD1-022 features Smith with pianist/trumpeter Joe Bushkin in a "live" 1964 performance from the Embers in NYC, and a tape from 1966 of solo violin, ABCD1-024 finds Smith leading a big hand in 1937 and taking part in a series of radio broadcasts hawking an eye lotion product. The Embers was a nightclub on 54th Street in Manhattan. It flourished as a venue for soloists and small groups from the late 1940s into the 1960s. Bushkin was no stranger to the club, since he served as its house pianist in the early 1950s. The quartet of Smith, Bushkin, bassist Whitey Mitchell (subbing for Milt Hinton) and drummer Jo Jones was in residency in 1964. The sets consist of medleys and are showcases primarily for Bushkin's excellent piano work. In fact, you don't hear one note of Smith's violin until a little over 18 minutes into the CD, when he is featured on "Chicago." Smith can then be heard playing obbligatos on "California, Here I Come" (a splendid feature for the remarkable Jo Jones) and "Manhattan," where Bushkin switches to trumpet (sounding very much like Ruby Braff). The violinist's nest featured number is "My Blue Heaven" followed by another medley consisting of a Smith original (titled "Play" on this CD but also known as "Timme's Blues") and "Pennies from Heaven," Smith plays on both numbers, with Bushkin laying out on the first and switching to trumpet on the second. The piano trio performs on the final medley with Smith making one last appearance on Charlie Shavers' "Undecided," which is actually a feature for Mitchell. Overall, I found the Embers material interesting but disappointing for the paucity of Smith. According to Smith's wife, as Barnett points out in his liner notes, the Embers residency was difficult for the violinist, but she wouldn't elaborate. What rescues this CD for the Smith fans disappointed by the Embers material is the 1966 tape from Copenhagen that has Smith playing solo violin on what is titled "Sketches for a Symphony," and described by Barnett as "a thematically linked suite of several of his compositions, including a co-composition with [Robert] Crum, 'Waltz With Me,' and what may conceivably he a variation or two on classical studies," The pieces are 3hort and some, like "Skip It," will be very familiar to fans of the violinist, I found this to be over 14 minutes of pure bliss that ended too soon. …


This paper presents new results from Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating on a sediment core raised from the crest of the Lomonosov Ridge in the central Arctic Ocean. There has been much debate about dating sediment cores from the central Arctic Ocean and by using an independent absolute dating technique we aim to test whether or not relatively fast, cm‐scale/ka, sedimentation rates were typical of Arctic's Pleistocene depositional mode. On the basis of mainly paleomagnetic reversal stratigraphy, many previous studies suggest mm‐scale/ka sedimentation rates. A common feature in these studies is that the first down core paleomagnetic negative inclination is consistently interpreted as the Brunhes/Matuyama boundary at about 780 ka. Our OSL dating results indicate that this assumption is not generally valid, and that the first encountered negative inclination represents younger age excursions within the Brunhes Chron, implying reinterpretation of many published core studies where paleoenvironmental reconstructions have been made for the central Arctic Ocean. Our dating results furthermore corroborates a correlation of the uppermost 2–3 m of the Lomonosov Ridge cores to a well‐dated core located off the Barents‐Kara Sea margin that in turn is correlated to cores in the Fram Strait. Valuable information on the paleoceanographical evolution in the Arctic Ocean from MIS 6 to the Holocene is given through this correlation of records from the central Arctic Ocean to records off the Eurasian continental margin.


Abstract—This note describes the application of sensitivity analysis techniques for the design of closed loop nonlinear systems with specific inputs. The optimization of the gains and the time constants of the various linear plants of the system as well as the design of nonlinear compensators are discussed. Sensitivity functions, which indicate the effect of variation of these parameters on the system response, are derived and the analog mechanization is shown. As an example, a position servosystem is considered and the design of a nonlinear compensator is attempted. A reference model is chosen and the system response is compared to this reference in the minimum-integral-error-square sense. Use is made of the sensitivity functions of parameters of the compensator and the optimization of these parameters is carried out on an iterative analog computer. The gradient technique is used for finding the optimum point in the parameter space.


Attached Sargassum muticum (Yendo) Fensholt was first observed in the westernmost part of Limfjorden (Denmark) in 1984, and it has since colonized Limfjorden from west to east at a rate of 15 to 17 km yr -1 . By 1997, S. muticum had become the most dominant macroalga, covering more than 6% of the bottom between 0 and 6 m depth, corresponding to ca 35% cover of the hard sub- strate. In 1990, the cover of S. muticum was strongly correlated with distance from the original source area in the westernmost part of the estuary, suggesting that colonization was still in progress. By 1997, the cover of S. muticum was less correlated with distance from the original source area and more strongly correlated with the amount of hard substrate, indicating that colonization was reach- ing its climax. The absence of S. muticum from certain parts of Limfjorden by 1997 is therefore best explained by lack of hard substrate in these areas, and not by insufficient colonization time. The increased abundance of S. muticum between 1990 and 1997 affected species richness and diversity of the macroalgal community only marginally. However, multivariate community analysis revealed significant changes in the macroalgal community structure that were closely related to the increased abundance of S. muticum. Not only did the dominance of S. muticum increase significantly from 1990 to 1997, but the cover of several indigenous species belonging to the genera Laminaria, Fucus, and Codium decreased during the same period, indicating competitive displacement through competition for hard substrate and light.


A recent investigation of the EU's pharmaceutical market carried out by the European Commission has been shedding new light on the question of abuse of a dominant position pursuant to Article 102 TFEU by holding, acquisition or exploitation of IP rights. This so-called 'sector inquiry' identified practices and strategies which 'originator companies' exert on a large scale in order to target competitors, and found that such behavior results in significantly higher costs for buyers and competitors, in delay in the entry of generic medicine as well as in the access to innovative medicine, and in obstruction of innovation. This article investigates recent antitrust proceedings by the Commission and the decision practice of the European Courts - within and beyond the pharmaceutical sector - and argues that the practices revealed by the sector inquiry can be predominantly assumed to lack objective justification, lead to foreclosure of competitors and therefore constitute infringements of Article 102 TFEU. Towards the end, the article shows that the Commission's proactive policy in IP-related antitrust matters and its sensitivity to issues of abusive acquisition of intellectual property and abuse of public procedures by misleading representations establish a new quality in the application of European antitrust law, and serve as a guidance how to draw the line between IP protection, lawful business strategies and anti-competitive behavior under EU law.


Abstract
Chapter 1 provides an introduction to stroke including its current prevalence both
nationally and globally, aetiology, global importance and social & financial burden. We
also describe here current acute stroke management practices, the role of clinical trials
in the development of therapies, the richness of data within clinical trials and changes
in regulatory thinking regarding data access. We provide recommendations for the use
of trial data for novel exploratory investigations of clinical trial design and
epidemiological studies.
In Chapter 2 we describe the establishment of the Virtual International Stroke Trials
Archive (VISTA) to address the need for reliable data on which to plan future clinical
trials. This chapter details the methodology and logistics of establishing the resource,
including details of regulatory policy for data collection and use, establishment of a
Steering Committee and development of a constitution to safeguard data access and
use.
As of June 2008, VISTA contains 28 acute stroke clinical trials and one acute stroke
registry. We collated data on over 27,500 patients with either ischaemic or
haemorrhagic stroke. Patient age ranges from 18 to 103 years and outcome measures
include Barthel Index, Scandinavian Stroke Scale, National Institutes of Health Stroke
Scale, Orgogozo Scale, and modified Rankin Scale. Medical history and onset to
treatment times are readily available and computed tomography (CT) lesion data are
available for selected trials. We discuss the establishment and potential uses of this
resource in the context of existing stroke resources.
Chapter 3 demonstrates how we utilised VISTA to investigate natural history patterns in
acute stroke. There are prominent differences in stroke incidence and outcome across
different geographical locations; these are not confined to the Eastern- Western axis.
We aimed to examine whether there were any differences in index stroke severity,
stroke risk factors, and stroke outcome between geographical locations, after adjusting
for case-mix.
We found that patients who were enrolled in the USA and Canada had the worst index
strokes, whilst patients enrolled in Austria and Switzerland had the mildest index
stroke, and better functional (p=0.023) and neurological outcome (p=0.034) at 90 days.
90 –day survival was greater in patients who were enrolled in Spain and Portugal
(p<0.0001).
Chapter 4 demonstrates the use of VISTA to inform stroke clinical trial design by
examining the impact of early follow up on adverse event and functional outcome
profiles. We aimed to assess the contribution of adverse complications unrelated to
stroke, to 30 and 90- day functional outcome. If fewer 'stroke-unrelated' adverse
events were seen at later time points, and if the absence of these events appeared to
influence functional outcome, then further investigation into shortening the follow up
period of clinical trials with a view to minimizing complications may be warranted.
We identified idiopathic post-stroke complications (deemed to be 'stroke- unrelated')
but their absence did not beneficially alter outcome at either 30 days (p<0.0001,
adjusted OR for good outcome =0.47, 95% CI [0.26, 0.67]), or 90 days (p=0.002, adjusted
OR for good outcome =0.38, 95% CI [0.14, 0.61]). We concluded that shortening the
follow up period with the aim of minimizing 'stroke-unrelated' complications did not
benefit functional outcome, however further investigation is required.
Chapter 5 illustrates the use of VISTA to investigate the natural history of complications
after intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH). Treatments available for ICH remain limited.
The use of haemostatic agents to promote local coagulation has had no significant
benefit on outcome. However promising results from a subgroup analysis of patients
from the FAST trial has raised the possibility of treatment with recombinant factor VIIa
(rFVIIa) in patients with ICH. We sought to document the natural history of
complications after ICH in order to inform safety in future trials of haemostatic agents
for ICH.
We found that the risk of thromboembolic complications after ICH was low (4 events
affecting 2% of patients). The absence of these thromboembolic complications did not
significantly affect the attainment of good functional outcome (p>0.05). The occurrence
of haemorrhagic expansion was common, affecting 14% of patients, and significantly
influenced attainment of good functional outcome at 90 days (p= p<0.0001, adjusted
odds ratio for good functional outcome=21.9, 95% confidence interval [5.5, 88.3]).
Although infection occurred in 11% of patients, this did not significantly influence
attainment of good functional outcome at 90 days (p=0.8). The complications
encountered in this investigation and their time to onset will serve to inform
prophylaxis in future ICH clinical trials.
Chapter 6 describes the processes involved in drug development from phase I, first- in –
man studies to phase III efficacy trials and identifies a key area in the drug development
process where use of VISTA as a historical comparator resource could be of benefit:
phase II studies. We detail here the types of conventional comparator groups available
for use in a phase II investigation, advantages and disadvantages of using each of these
comparator groups, the potential for use of historical comparators in some scenarios
where use of conventional comparator groups is infeasible, and possible solutions to
address the limitations associated with use of historical comparators.
Chapter 7 illustrates the use of VISTA as a resource for historical comparators in the
context of an acute stroke device trial conducted by a small company with limited
resources. BrainsGate, the manufacturers of the NeuroPath™ Device for treatment of
ischaemic stroke, sought to collaborate with the VISTA group to examine initial efficacy
of their device against outcomes derived from VISTA historical comparators. We discuss
the example of this device in early phase testing, where VISTA was primed for use as a
resource for historical comparators. We also describe the limitations associated with the
use of historical comparators, how these limitations could be overcome in practice
through use of matched patients, implementation of strict eligibility criteria and use of
similar follow up periods and stroke scales, as well as the measures taken to ensure the
validity of results.
Chapter 8 describes a collaboration with the DESTINY trial group to investigate stroke
outcomes after malignant middle cerebral artery occlusion (mMCAO). The DESTINY trial
examined the impact of decompressive hemicraniectomy on outcome after mMCAO,
compared with randomised controls. We compared the outcomes of operated patients
from the DESTINY trial with historical comparators from VISTA to determine whether
the findings could be replicated and if historical comparators could be used as an
alternative in a situation where a randomised controlled trial (RCT) is infeasible or
unethical.
We found that fewer patients in the VISTA comparator group achieved a good functional
outcome by mRS at final follow up (19%), when compared with the DESTINY surgical
group (47%, Chi- Square test p=0.04). This difference persisted after adjusting for
baseline NIHSS (logistic regression p=0.04). Analysis of Barthel Index at final follow up
revealed no significant difference between the two groups and we also found no
difference in 6 month survival rates between the surgical and VISTA comparator groups
(Cox Proportional Hazards model p>0.05). We concluded that for effective replication of
results, the database from which historical comparators are to be drawn should cover a
similar or broader spectrum of patient prognostic factors.
Chapter 9 discusses the implications of the investigations described in this thesis,
outlines the scope for expanding the resource and proposes areas for future research.


This dissertation investigates individuals' privacy concerns about commercial actors online, where commercial actors are private organisations that profit through the collection and on-sale of, and/or targeted advertising using, the information individuals disclose online. My purpose is to demonstrate the affect that low privacy concerns for commercial actors can have on individuals' privacy online, and to establish how and why these low privacy concerns are common among most individuals. I argue that individuals' online privacy is inadequately protected from commercial actors' information gathering practices, and that this will remain the case as long individuals do not harbour concerns for commercial actors. My argument is separated into three chapters. In the first chapter I illustrate the inadequate protections individuals have against commercial actors, who employ technologies to implicitly collect individuals' personal information. In Chapter Two I establish the impact that individuals heightened privacy concerns can have on commercial actors. Cases of this are rare however, as I argue that commercial actors' use privacy controls and strategic deployment of privacy related changes to successfully lower individuals' privacy concerns. In Chapter Three I seek to understand why commercial actors' privacy concern reducing techniques are effective by inspecting a particular online demographic – young adults. I conduct a long answer survey of 25 young adults to complement the scholarly research in the field. I argue that young adults do not harbour privacy concerns for commercial actors as they perceive more immediate privacy threats elsewhere online, specifically those that exist within their online network. I ultimately conclude that individuals' privacy has inadequate protections against commercial actors, but that any attempt to improve these protections will have to clearly communicate to individuals both the commercial actors' practices and why their actions justify concern.


One hundred sixty-eight hair samples recovered from two Christian era Nubian cemeteries (550-1450) were subjected to analysis of major and trace elements. Concentrations of magnesium, calcium, strontium, iron, zinc, copper, and manganese were determined using inductively coupled plasma spectrometry. Mean levels of each element determined from the Nubian hair compare closely to those documented for modern samples and likely reflect a number of important environmental and biological factors affecting the population. Specifically, the present results provide a quantitative method for assessing the nutritional and disease factors contributing to cribra orbitalia (porotic hyperostosis), a frequent pathology in Nubian remains attributed to iron deficiency anemia. A comparison of iron levels between infants and children with and without cribra orbitalia demonstrates a significantly lower iron level for the affected group. In addition, concentrations of magnesium are also significantly lower for the Nubian subadults with cribra orbitalia. This new finding is consistent with clinical observations in which anemia has been produced in magnesium deficient animals, including humans. A reduction in magnesium lends further support to the hypothesis that age-specific stress stemming from weaning practices, parasitic infection, and inadequate diet contributed to cribra orbitalia and its associated anemia in ancient Nubia. -- AATA


The tyrosine kinase anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) is normally found in neural cells, but chromosomal translocations involving ALK and the nucleophosmin gene, NPM1, occur in T cell lymphomas (NPM1-ALK+ TCLs). Zhang et al. investigated a role for signal transducer and activator of transcription 5A (STAT5A) in the transformation of NPM1-ALK+ TCLs. Western blotting showed the presence of STAT5A in T cells from healthy donors, but not in NPM1-ALK+ TCLs and T cell lines. STAT5A mRNA was not detectable in NPM1-ALK+ T cell lines as measured by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays. DNA sequencing revealed the methylation of almost all of the CpG sites in the STAT5A promoter of NPM1-ALK+ TCL cells obtained from patients, but no methylation in T cells from healthy donors. DNA methylation of gene promoters inhibits their transcription. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays showed that SP1, an activator of STAT5A transcription, could not bind to the methylated STAT5A promoter in NPM1-ALK+ T cells. Treatment of NPM1-ALK+ T cells with the DNA methyltransferase inhibitor 5′-aza-2′-deoxycytidine (5′-aza) led to a time-dependent increase in the expression of STAT5A and the abundance of STAT5A protein. This was associated with a gradual decrease in the abundance of NPM1-ALK protein. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays showed that STAT5A bound directly to the enhancer region of NPM1-ALK. Transfection of an NPM1-ALK+ T cell line with a small inhibitor RNA specific for NPM1-ALK resulted in the induction of STAT5A expression. Finally, treatment of NPM1-ALK+ T cells with 5′-aza suppressed their growth in vitro. These results suggest that STAT5A acts as a tumor suppressor and that inhibiting ALK activity, which would prevent the silencing of STAT5A, might be therapeutically beneficial. Q. Zhang, H. Y. Wang, X. Liu, M. A. Wasik, STAT5A is epigenetically silenced by the tyrosine kinase NPM1-ALK and acts as a tumor suppressor by reciprocally inhibiting NPM1-ALK expression. Nat. Med. 13, 1341-1348 (2007). [PubMed]


Abiotic and biotic factors play an essential role in the structuring of natural communities. Aquatic ecosystems have complex interaction networks, encompassing predator/prey relationships and structural support. Among aquatic organisms, the order Odonata is a model group for understanding those relationships since they can be both predators and prey. Our hypotheses were that Zygoptera are (i) influenced positively by Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera (EPT) and the Habitat Integrity Index (HII), and negatively by fish and macrophytes; and (ii) Anisoptera are affected positively by EPT and macrophytes, and negatively by fish and HII. We found that Zygoptera were affected by the fish functional trophic groups, while Anisoptera were affected by macrophytes, EPT, fish and HII. Macrophytes affected anisopterans positively because they provide perching sites for adults. The results for EPT and HII may be related since these organisms are also sensitive to environmental changes. More open areas have lower HII values and the negative relationship with Anisoptera may be explained by physiological constraints. The negative relationship between EPT and Anisoptera could be explained by the low occurrence of EPT in open sites, which are the sites that were highly rich in Anisoptera. Finally, the dominance of specific functional trophic groups of fish influences Odonata suborders in different ways. In conclusion, the results show the importance of ecological interactions for Odonata in Amazonian streams in both direct and indirect ways.


: In his latest statements, Roland Barthes imagines a becoming-art of his thinking. But rather than switching from a theoretical to a literary form he reflects his desire of a new writing as the beginning of a new thinking, which leads him to another knowledge. His intended new form is ambivalent. It results from indecision between essay and novel, critique and narration and thereby detects a hidden dynamic of thinking: Its phantas-matic sources and emotional conditions reveal an affective knowledge, in which the pathos leads to the truth and gains the significance of a philosophem .


Eosinophils (Eos) accumulate in airways and lung parenchyma of active asthmatics. GM-CSF is a potent inhibitor of Eos apoptosis both in vitro and in vivo and is produced by activated fibroblasts, mast cells, T lymphocytes as well as Eos. Cytokine release by Eos is preceded by GM-CSF mRNA stabilization induced by TNF-α plus fibronectin. Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a major extracellular matrix proteoglycan, which also accumulates in the lung during asthma exacerbations. In this study we have analyzed the effects of HA on Eos survival and GM-CSF expression. We demonstrate that like TNF-α plus fibronectin, HA stabilizes GM-CSF mRNA, increases GM-CSF secretion, and prolongs in vitro Eos survival. GM-CSF mRNA stabilization accounts for most of the observed GM-CSF mRNA accumulation and protein production. Unlike TNF-α plus fibronectin, GM-CSF mRNA stabilization induction by HA requires continuous extracellular signal-regulated kinase phosphorylation. Finally, to identify potential protein regulators responsible for GM-CSF mRNA stabilization, immunoprecipitation-RT-PCR studies revealed increased GM-CSF mRNA associated with YB-1, HuR, and heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein (hnRNP) C after TNF-α plus fibronectin but only hnRNP C after HA. Thus, our data suggest that both TNF-α plus fibronectin and HA, which are relevant physiological effectors in asthma, contributes to long-term Eos survival in vivo by enhancing GM-CSF production through two different posttranscriptional regulatory pathways involving extracellular signal-regulated kinase phosphorylation and RNA binding proteins YB-1, HuR, and hnRNP C.


Sumoylation is a downstream effector of aging/oxidative stress; excess oxidative stress leads to dysregulation of a specificity protein1 (Sp1) and its target genes, such as Peroxiredoxin 6 (Prdx6), resulting in cellular damage. To cope with oxidative stress, cells rely on a signaling pathway involving redox-sensitive genes. Herein, we examined the therapeutic efficacy of the small molecule Ginkgolic acid (GA), a Sumoylation antagonist, to disrupt aberrant Sumoylation signaling in human and mouse lens epithelial cells (LECs) facing oxidative stress or aberrantly expressing Sumo1 (small ubiquitin-like modifier). We found that GA globally reduced aberrant Sumoylation of proteins. In contrast, Betulinic acid (BA), a Sumoylation agonist, augmented the process. GA increased Sp1 and Prdx6 expression by disrupting the Sumoylation signaling, while BA repressed the expression of both molecules. In vitro DNA binding, transactivation, Sumoylation and expression assays revealed that GA enhanced Sp1 binding to GC-boxes in the Prdx6 promoter and upregulated its transcription. Cell viability and intracellular redox status assays showed that LECs pretreated with GA gained resistance against oxidative stress-driven aberrant Sumoylation signaling. Overall, our study revealed an unprecedented role for GA in LECs and provided new mechanistic insights into the use of GA in rescuing LECs from aging/oxidative stress-evoked dysregulation of Sp1/Prdx6 protective molecules.


We employ hydrodynamical simulations to study the effects of dissipational gas physics on the vertical heating and thickening of disc galaxies during minor mergers. For the first time we present a suite of simulations that includes a diffuse, rotating, cooling, hot gaseous halo, as predicted by cosmological hydrodynamical simulations as well as models of galaxy formation. We study the effect of this new gaseous component on the vertical structure of a Milky Way-like stellar disc during 1:10 and 1:5 mergers. For 1:10 mergers, we find no increased final thin disc scale height compared to the isolated simulation, leading to the conclusion that thin discs can be present even after a 1:10 merger if a reasonable amount of hot gas is present. The reason for this is the accretion of new cold gas, leading to the formation of a massive new thin stellar disc that dominates the surface brightness profile. In a previous study, in which we included only cold gas in the disc, we showed that the presence of cold gas decreased the thickening by a minor merger relative to the no-gas case. Here, we show that the evolution of the scale height in the presence of a cooling hot halo is dominated by the formation of the new stellar disc. In this scenario, the thick disc is the old stellar disc that has been thickened in a minor merger at z≳ 1, while the thin disc is the new stellar disc that reforms after this merger. When galactic winds are also considered, the final scale height is larger due to two effects. First, the winds reduce the star formation rate, leading to a less massive new stellar disc, such that the thickened old disc still dominates. Secondly, the winds exert a pressure force on the gas in the disc, leading to a shallower gas profile and thus to a thicker new stellar disc. In addition, we study the evolution of the scale height during a 1:5 merger and find that a thin disc can be present even after this merger, provided enough hot gas is available. The final scale height in our simulations depends on the mass of the hot gaseous halo, the efficiency of the winds and the merger mass ratio. We find post-merger values in the range 0.5 ≲z0≲ 1.0 kpc in good agreement with observational constraints by local galaxies.


Abstract Nanomedicine, a young and innovative field, offers interesting approaches for diagnosis and treatment in personalized medicine. Myocardial infarction and stroke belong to the most important challenges in this context because an improved early diagnosis of individuals well before fatal clinical endpoints occur is urgently needed. The underlying cause of myocardial infarction and stroke is atherosclerosis, a chronic immune-mediated inflammation of the vascular wall involving monocytes, macrophages, T-lymphocytes, and arterial wall cells. Hence, an immense number of pro-inflammatory mediators have been investigated in the context of nanomedicine and atherosclerosis but, interestingly, only few anti-inflammatory biomarkers. Nevertheless, the anti-inflammatory axis is always present as a negative feedback if a critical inflammatory perpetuation destabilizes atherosclerotic lesions. Hence, we could show that the immune-modulating, anti-inflammatory molecules, adiponectin and interleukin-10, are useful for molecular imaging of AS plaques. Based on recent publications in animal models of atherosclerosis, we strongly assume that the inflammatory "brake" mechanisms may represent an interesting new tool to specifically target the scenario of culprit AS-lesions. In this review article we discuss the potential of adiponectin, interleukin-10 and other anti-inflammatory active molecules like targeted liposomes and high dense lipoproteins towards this.


Significance The future of world population growth matters for future human well-being and interactions with the natural environment. We show the extent to which world population growth could be reduced by fully implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) whose health and education targets have direct and indirect consequences on future mortality and fertility trends. Although this assessment is consistent with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change context, it is inconsistent with the prediction range of the United Nations projections for which we present sensitivity analyses and suggests that their range is likely too narrow. Given our assumptions, the SDGs have a sizable effect on global population growth, providing an additional rationale for vigorously pursuing their implementation. Here we show the extent to which the expected world population growth could be lowered by successfully implementing the recently agreed-upon Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs include specific quantitative targets on mortality, reproductive health, and education for all girls by 2030, measures that will directly and indirectly affect future demographic trends. Based on a multidimensional model of population dynamics that stratifies national populations by age, sex, and level of education with educational fertility and mortality differentials, we translate these goals into SDG population scenarios, resulting in population sizes between 8.2 and 8.7 billion in 2100. Because these results lie outside the 95% prediction range given by the 2015 United Nations probabilistic population projections, we complement the study with sensitivity analyses of these projections that suggest that those prediction intervals are too narrow because of uncertainty in baseline data, conservative assumptions on correlations, and the possibility of new policies influencing these trends. Although the analysis presented here rests on several assumptions about the implementation of the SDGs and the persistence of educational, fertility, and mortality differentials, it quantitatively illustrates the view that demography is not destiny and that policies can make a decisive difference. In particular, advances in female education and reproductive health can contribute greatly to reducing world population growth.


In his famous work on vagueness, Russell named 'fallacy of verbalism' the fallacy that consists in mistaking the properties of words for the properties of things. In this paper, I examine two (clusters of) mainstream paraconsistent logical theories - the non-adjunctive and relevant approaches -, and show that, if they are given a strongly paraconsistent or dialetheic reading, the charge of committing the Russellian Fallacy can be raised against them in a sophisticated way, by appealing to the intuitive reading of their underlying semantics. The meaning of 'intuitive reading' is clarified by exploiting a well-established distinction between pure and applied semantics. If the proposed arguments go through, the dialetheist or strong paraconsistentist faces the following Dilemma: either she must withdraw her claim to have exhibited true contradictions in a metaphysically robust sense - therefore, inconsistent objects and/or states of affairs that make those contradictions true; or she has to give up realism on truth, and embrace some form of anti-realistic (idealistic, or broadly constructivist) metaphysics. Sticking to the second horn of the Dilemma, though, appears to be promising: it could lead to a collapse of the very distinction, commonly held in the literature, between a weak and a strong form of paraconsistency - and this could be a welcome result for a dialetheist.


Through original and incisive contributions from leading scholars, this book applies economics and other rational choice methods to understanding public international law. The chapters cover a range of topics, from the sources of international law to means of enforcement. The application of economic analysis to public international law is still in its early stages, and Economic Analysis of International Law provides a useful overview, as well as setting directions for new research.


The idea for this article came from a study of the relationship with storytelling and narrativity in adolescence. Starting with an analysis of the narrative forms of a group of adolescents who are having serious problems at school, the author will show the non-normative grammar of these stories seems to stage mimetically a new contemporary grammar of the image proper to the reality show television genre.


The scarcity of buffering within all-optical routers poses a significant challenge to their potential deployment in the Internet backbone. We present a thorough investigation into the performance of the integrated router interconnected spectrally (IRIS), an all-optical router, using network and traffic models representative of the Internet backbone. When exposed to the burstiness of Internet traffic, optical routers are susceptible to significant losses, even under light load conditions. We evaluate a rate control framework that uses electronics-based edge routers to control the rate and to shape the traffic entering the all-optical core. Our results from simulations show that IRIS can operate loss free at utilizations as high as 90% and that the severity of such losses beyond the 90% threshold can be greatly reduced with a slight increase in buffer size. Finally, we show that the reordering introduced by the load-balanced architecture of IRIS has almost no effect on the end-to-end packet ordering.


This paper introduces various applications regarding the VANET (Vehicular Ad- hoc Network).The goal is to study the various applications both available & possible of VANET. It's main feature is to provide car safety and passenger comfort, field trip planning & Traffic prediction with real-time traffic information. For this VANET requires Vehicle-to- vehicle communication & that too is totally wireless & with moving vehicles. The existence of such networks opens the way for a wide range of applications . In this chapter we will look at some of these applications of VANET.


An international bottom trawl survey was designed from a European Commission´s initiative to produce biological data on the demersal resources in the Mediterranean Sea. Nine Mediterranean countries are associated in the programme, which covers all the trawlable areas along their coasts from 10 to 800 m depth. From 1994 to 2000, one survey was carried out each year, applying common standardized protocols. Seven yearly surveys have therefore been done, with a total of 7,500 stations prospected. This paper presents the methods adopted to carry out the surveys.


This paper attempts to unpack the teaching and learning experiences of academics and students when a new way of teaching radiation physics was introduced. In an attempt to articulate the University of Wollongong's commitment to the enhancement of the teaching/research nexus and to the development of learning communities, staff of the School of Physics in the Faculty of Engineering at University of Wollongong (UOW) implemented an action research project teaching scientific computing methodologies used in radiation physics to a combined laboratory class of postgraduates and undergraduates. The design of the practical laboratory classes took account of the expected heterogeneous computing skills and different knowledge of radiation physics of undergraduate and postgraduate students. Based on an earlier study, it was presumed that postgraduate students would be in a good position to support undergraduates. We illustrate how broad-based conceptions of the value of learning communities and their role in fostering the teaching/research nexus may be challenged by an internationalised student body. In this case, the previous patterns of undergraduate and postgraduate enrolments, which the pilot study had canvassed, did not hold true; almost all of the postgraduate students were international students, only recently arrived in Australia. This, along with other factors, meant that learning outcomes and students' responses to the innovation were not what were expected. We suggest a path forward, both for the specific subject in which the innovation occurred, and for other similar attempts to bring together academics, postgraduate and undergraduate students in a nascent learning community, in the light of ongoing trends towards internationalisation.


Most of fishing ports in Hokkaido, Japan are located in the surf zone on the sandy beach. As a result, channel sedimentation has become a serious problem in many fishing ports. As an example, when planning a coastal structure to control littoral drift and nearshore current, annual maximum wave heights (wind waves) is used as the external forces condition in many cases. However, the effect as expected is not obtained on channel sedimentation at fishing ports in Hokkaido. To solve such a problem, it is necessary to understand the relationships between channel sedimentation and external force, and be able to reveal the developmental process of channel sedimentation. Then, field observation and theoretical approach (wave-to-wave analysis, spectral analysis, EOF analysis, et al) become important tools.


It was about two hundred years ago when Sir Humphrey Davy, a brilliant English scientist and poet whose fame is acknowledged for the discovery of alkaline metals (potassium, sodium, magnesium, barium), observed a surprising phenomenon: potassium metal exposed to ammonia vapours forms gold-blue coloured materials. About one hundred years later the American chemist Charles Kraus claimed, as possible explanation of this phenomenon, that potassium (K) atoms ionise (lose electrons) in liquid ammonia to form a cation K+ species, while the freed electrons are solvated (surrounded) by the ammonia (NH3) molecules. Several other alkaline metals such as lithium and sodium show similar behaviour when dissolved in amines and in ether solvents. The two phenomena of "electron solvation" and "cation complexation" linked to Davy"s observation, are behind one of the most investigated and promising fields of chemical and materials science research in the last ten years: 'electrides'.


We present the rationale, design, and implementation of Relaxed MultiJava (RMJ), a backward-compatible extension of Java that allows programmers to add new methods to existing classes and to write multimethods. Previous languages supporting these forms of extensibility either restrict their usage to a limited set of programming idioms that can be modularly typechecked (and modularly compiled) or simply forego modular typechecking altogether. In contrast, RMJ supports the new language features in a virtually unrestricted form while still providing mostly-modular static typechecking and fully-modular compilation. In some cases, the RMJ compiler will warn that the potential for a type error exists, but it will still complete compilation. In those cases, a custom class loader transparently performs load-time checking to verify that the potential error is never realized. RMJ's compiler and custom loader cooperate to keep load-time checking costs low. We report on qualitative and quantitative experience with our implementation of RMJ.


Background: Parkinsonism is known to be associated with clinically significant impairments on an array of cognitive deficits. The degree of impairment is dependent not only on the course of the disease, but also on other bio-social factors. The objective of the present study was to examine the cognitive dysfunction in non-demented idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD) in relation to age, stage of disease, and educational level in a sample in Kolkata, India. Materials and Methods: The sample consisted of 51 (42 males, 9 females) right-handed patients suffering from non-demented IPD, of age between 40 and 82 years. Data were collected during on-phase medication by using the Kolkata Cognitive Screening Battery. Data were analyzed using means, standard deviations, and multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA). Results and Conclusion: The patients with IPD were impaired in comparison to the available normative data in almost all aspects of cognitive functioning and higher order mental processes. With increasing age, the patients showed greater impairment in delayed memory and recognition task. Patients of more severe stage showed greater impairment in MMSE, delayed recall, and information. Those with lower education had more impaired visuoconstructional ability, information, comprehension, similarities, and arithmetic.


Welfare measures under threats of environmental catastrophes are studied using the "parable" apparatus of Weitzman and Löfgren [28]. The occurrence probability of the catastrophic events is driven (at least partly) by anthropogenic activities such as natural resource exploitation. Without external effects, the green NNP is a genuine welfare measure vis-à-vis a particular parable economy. Often, however, the occurrence hazard constitutes a public bad, treated as an externality by agents who ignore their own contribution to its accumulation. In such cases the green NNP, although accounting for the event hazard rate per se, fails to properly internalize future effects on the hazard rate of current economic activities and as a result overestimates welfare. The bias term associated with the green NNP is derived and expressed in a simple and interpretable form.


Plethysmographic variability index (PVI) is a dynamic index used for the purpose of fluid responsiveness in patients, and the effect of pneumoperitoneum on PVI is still unclear. We therefore attempted to determine whether PVI and perfusion index (PI) change before/after pneumoperitoneum in patients receiving combined epidural and general anesthesia, which is a common anesthesia method with intravenous remifentanil. Twenty patients underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy or colectomy. Immediately before pneumoperitoneum, variables were measured at baseline I and were then measured every min for 5 min after pneumoperitoneum start. Immediately before pneumoperitoneum release, variables were measured at baseline II and were measured every min for 5 min after pneumoperitoneum release. Compared with baseline I values, after pneumoperitoneum start, significant increases occurred in stroke volume variation (SVV) at 1-5 min, and significant decreases occurred in PI at 1-5 min. PVI did not change. Compared with baseline II values, after pneumoperitoneum release, significant increases occurred in PI at 1-5 min, and significant decreases occurred in PVI at 4-5 min and SVV at 1-5 min. In patients receiving combined epidural and general anesthesia, we newly found that PI decreased but PVI remained unchanged with a sufficient dose of remifentanil and epidural anesthesia that can block noxious stimuli and also most sympathetic activity. Furthermore, we reconfirmed that PI increased and PVI decreased upon release of pneumoperitoneum. PI and PVI values must be estimated cautiously during and after pneumoperitoneum.


Whether to assess the functionality of equipment or as a determinate for the accuracy of assays, reference standards are essential for the purposes of standardisation and validation. The ELISPOT assay, developed over thirty years ago, has emerged as a leading immunological assay in the development of novel vaccines for the assessment of efficacy. However, with its widespread use, there is a growing demand for a greater level of standardisation across different laboratories. One of the major difficulties in achieving this goal has been the lack of definitive reference standards. This is partly due to the ex vivo nature of the assay, which relies on cells being placed directly into the wells. Thus, the aim of this thesis was to produce an artificial reference standard using liposomes, for use within the assay. Liposomes are spherical bilayer vesicles with an enclosed aqueous compartment and therefore are models for biological membranes. Initial work examined pre-design considerations in order to produce an optimal formulation that would closely mimic the action of the cells ordinarily placed on the assay. Recognition of the structural differences between liposomes and cells led to the formulation of liposomes with increased density. This was achieved by using a synthesised cholesterol analogue. By incorporating this cholesterol analogue in liposomes, increased sedimentation rates were observed within the first few hours. The optimal liposome formulation from these studies was composed of 2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC), cholesterol (Chol) and brominated cholesterol (Brchol) at a 16:4:12 µMol ratio, based on a significantly higher (p<0.01) sedimentation (as determined by a percentage transmission of 59 ± 5.9 % compared to the control formulation at 29 ± 12 % after four hours). By considering a range of liposome formulations 'proof of principle' for using liposomes as ELISPOT reference standards was shown; recombinant IFN? cytokine was successfully entrapped within vesicles of different lipid compositions, which were able to promote spot formation within the ELISPOT assay. Using optimised liposome formulations composed of phosphatidylcholine with or without cholesterol (16 µMol total lipid) further development was undertaken to produce an optimised, scalable protocol for the production of liposomes as reference standards. A linear increase in spot number by the manipulation of cytokine concentration and/or lipid concentrations was not possible, potentially due to the saturation that occurred within the base of wells. Investigations into storage of the formulations demonstrated the feasibility of freezing and lyophilisation with disaccharide cryoprotectants, but also highlighted the need for further protocol optimisation to achieve a robust reference standard upon storage. Finally, the transfer of small-scale production to a medium lab-scale batch (40 mL) demonstrated this was feasible within the laboratory using the optimised protocol.


Since ancient times, metaphysical theories have been shaped by the dialectical relations between metaphysical positions. The present book offers a new account of the role of controversies in the evolution of ideas in current metaphysics of mind. Part One develops a pragmatic theory of metaphysical controversies that combines Kantian themes and themes from current argumentation theory. The theory developed in this book underscores the role of a unique type of dialectical arguments which establish metaphysical positions as controversial relevant alternatives in the evolution of chains of debates in metaphysics. In Part Two and Part Three, this theory is applied to chains of debates in present day metaphysics of mind which address the problems of consciousness and personal identity. One of the contentions defended in this book is that the intellectual history of metaphysics is not a process in which positions are replaced by opposite positions, but rather, a history of their status as relevant alternatives . The book analyzes in detail and demonstrates how progress in contemporary metaphysics of mind consists in a dialectical process through which challenges to extant positions lead to innovative alternatives that are intrinsically relevant to advancing the understanding of the issues under discussion.


Singing is a universal form of music expression. However, the extent of skill in carrying a tune and maintaining correct timing varies across people. Differences have been reported between professional singers and non-singers; however, whether singing accuracy depends on specialized vocal training or more general types of music training has not been investigated before. In this study, singers, instrumentalists, and nonmusicians sang Happy Birthday under conditions where they could or could not hear themselves singing. The main purpose of the study was to determine the influence of vocal versus instrumental training on pitch and timing accuracy when singing with and without auditory feedback. The results for pitch and tempo showed that singers depended on auditory feedback less than nonmusicians and instrumentalists alike, and were better able to use kinesthetic feedback in the absence of auditory feedback. Instrumentalists have had considerable ear and instrumental practice with feedback, but this did not transfer to pitch control when singing without auditory feedback, suggesting the ability to use kinesthesia for singing is enhanced through the kinds of practice/training singers receive. Rhythmic stability across all conditions and groups suggested that rhythmic calculations do not depend on music training or on use of auditory feedback.


ABSTRACT The Colombian Constitutional Court is widely known for being one of the emblematic and activist Courts representing the New-constitutionalism of the Global South, and also for the judicial review of the constitutional amendments under the 'constitutional replacement doctrine' (substitution doctrine). The Court adopted the substitution doctrine since its decision C-551/2003, in a time that coincides with the global expansion of the judicial review of constitutional amendments. However, it is far less known that, in Colombia, the debate about the judicial review of the constitutional amendments commenced several decades before that global expansion. This article intends to reconstruct the judicial review path of the constitutional amendments, and to show the interdependence between the political context and the doctrines of both the Supreme Court (1955–1991) and the Constitutional Court (1992–2016). The article examines this interdependence to contribute to a better understanding of the role of the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary in the construction of legal doctrines, such as the supremacy of the Constitution, the principle of separation of powers, the intangibility of constitutional clauses or the power of constitutional reform in the complex political context of a South American country. In sum, this article seeks to present how the judicial review path of the constitutional amendments in Colombia began long before the 'expansion' of that phenomenon at a global level, to show the interdependence between Law and Politics on that path, and to highlight the different Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court judicial activism in this topic since 1955 to the present.