Clinicians have long observed an association between excessive alcohol consumption and adverse immune-related health effects such as susceptibility to pneumonia. In recent decades, this association has been expanded to a greater likelihood of acute respiratory stress syndromes (ARDS), sepsis, alcoholic liver disease (ALD), and certain cancers; a higher incidence of postoperative complications; and slower and less complete recovery from infection and physical trauma, including poor wound healing.

This issue of Alcohol Research: Current Reviews (ARCR) summarizes the evidence that alcohol disrupts immune pathways in complex and seemingly paradoxical ways. These disruptions can impair the body's ability to defend against infection, contribute to organ damage associated with alcohol consumption, and impede recovery from tissue injury. It is our hope that a greater understanding of the specific mechanisms through which alcohol exerts its effects on the immune system may lead to development of interventions to prevent, or at least mitigate, the negative health consequences of alcohol misuse.

Contributors to this issue of ARCR lay the groundwork for understanding the multilayered interactions between alcohol and immune function by presenting an overview of the immune system (see the article by Spiering) and by reviewing current research on the effects of alcohol on innate immunity (see the article by Nagy) and on adaptive immunity (see the article by Pasala and colleagues). As reviewed by Szabo and Saha, alcohol's combined effects on both innate and adaptive immunity significantly weaken host defenses, predisposing chronic drinkers to a wide range of health problems, including infections and systemic inflammation. Alcohol's widespread effects on immune function also are underscored in the article by Gauthier, which examines how in utero alcohol exposure interferes with the developing immune system in the fetus. This exposure increases a newborn's risk of infection and disease; additional evidence suggests that alcohol's deleterious effects on immune development last into adulthood.

The gastrointestinal (GI) system is typically the first point of contact for alcohol as it passes through the body and is where alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream. One of the most significant immediate effects of alcohol is that it affects the structure and integrity of the GI tract. For example, alcohol alters the numbers and relative abundances of microbes in the gut microbiome (see the article by Engen and colleagues), an extensive community of microorganisms in the intestine that aid in normal gut function. These organisms affect the maturation and function of the immune system. Alcohol disrupts communication between these organisms and the intestinal immune system. Alcohol consumption also damages epithelial cells, T cells, and neutrophils in the GI system, disrupting gut barrier function and facilitating leakage of microbes into the circulation (see the article by Hammer and colleagues).

These disruptions to the composition of the gut microbiota and to gut barrier function have important implications beyond the intestinal system. For example, Nagy discusses how the leakage of bacterial products from the gut activate the innate immune system in the liver, triggering inflammation that underlies ALD, a condition that affects more than 2 million Americans and which eventually may lead to liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. Infection with viral hepatitis accelerates the progression of ALD, and end-stage liver disease from viral hepatitis, together with ALD, is the main reason for liver transplantations in the United States. The article by Dolganiuc in this issue explores the synergistic effects of alcohol and hepatitis viruses on the progression of liver disease as well as alcohol consumption's injurious effect on liver antiviral immunity. Mandrekar and Ju contribute an article that homes in on the role of macrophages in ALD development, including recent insights into the origin, heterogeneity, and plasticity of macrophages in liver disease and the signaling mediators involved in their activation and accumulation.

In addition to pneumonia, alcohol consumption has been linked to pulmonary diseases, including tuberculosis, respiratory syncytial virus, and ARDS. Alcohol disrupts ciliary function in the upper airways, impairs the function of immune cells (i.e., alveolar macrophages and neutrophils), and weakens the barrier function of the epithelia in the lower airways (see the article by Simet and Sisson). Often, the alcohol-provoked lung damage goes undetected until a second insult, such as a respiratory infection, leads to more severe lung diseases than those seen in nondrinkers.

In a clinical case study reviewed in this issue, Trevejo-Nunez and colleagues report on systemic and organ-specific immune pathologies often seen in chronic drinkers. In such patients, alcohol impairs mucosal immunity in the gut and lower respiratory system. This impairment can lead to sepsis and pneumonia and also increases the incidence and extent of postoperative complications, including delay in wound closure. HIV/AIDS is a disease in which mucosal immunity already is under attack. Bagby and colleagues review substantial evidence that alcohol further disrupts the immune system, significantly increasing the likelihood of HIV transmission and progression.

Alcohol–immune interactions also may affect the development and progression of certain cancers. Meadows and Zhang discuss specific mechanisms through which alcohol interferes with the body's immune defense against cancer. They note, too, that a fully functioning immune system is vital to the success of conventional chemotherapy. The clinical management of all of these conditions may be more challenging in individuals who misuse alcohol because of coexisting immune impairment.

Alcohol consumption does not have to be chronic to have negative health consequences. In fact, research shows that acute binge drinking also affects the immune system. There is evidence in a number of physiological systems that binge alcohol intake complicates recovery from physical trauma (see the article by Hammer and colleagues). Molina and colleagues review research showing that alcohol impairs recovery from three types of physical trauma—burn, hemorrhagic shock, and traumatic brain injury—by affecting immune homeostasis. Their article also highlights how the combined effect of alcohol and injury causes greater disruption to immune function than either challenge alone.

Not only does the immune system mediate alcohol-related injury and illness, but a growing body of literature also indicates that immune signaling in the brain may contribute to alcohol use disorder. The article by Crews, Sarkar, and colleagues presents evidence that alcohol results in neuroimmune activation. This may increase alcohol consumption and risky decisionmaking and decrease behavioral flexibility, thereby promoting and sustaining high levels of drinking. They also offer evidence that alcohol-induced neuroimmune activation plays a significant role in neural degeneration and that the neuroendocrine system is involved in controlling alcohol's effects on peripheral immunity.

Much progress has been made in elucidating the relationship between alcohol consumption and immune function and how this interaction affects human health. Continued advances in this field face several challenges, however. The regulation of immune function is exceedingly complex. Normal immune function hinges on bidirectional communication of immune cells with nonimmune cells at the local level, as well as crosstalk between the brain and the periphery. These different layers of interaction make validation of the mechanisms by which alcohol affects immune function challenging. Significant differences between the immune system of the mouse—the primary model organism used in immune studies—and that of humans also complicate the translation of experimental results from these animals to humans. Moreover, the wide-ranging roles of the immune system present significant challenges for designing interventions that target immune pathways without producing undesirable side effects.

By illuminating the key events and mechanisms of alcohol-induced immune activation or suppression, research is yielding deeper insights into alcohol's highly variable and sometimes paradoxical influences on immune function. The insights summarized in this issue of ARCR present researchers and clinicians with opportunities to devise new interventions or refine existing ones to target the immune system and better manage alcohol-related diseases.


There are important practical and ethical considerations for organizations in conducting their own, or commissioning external, evaluations and for both practitioners and evaluators, when assessing programs built on strongly held ideological or philosophical approaches. Assessing whether programs "work" has strong political, financial, and/or moral implications, particularly when expending public dollars, and may challenge objectivity about a particular program or approach. Using a case study of the evaluation of a school-based abstinence-until-marriage program, this article discusses the challenges, lessons learned, and ethical responsibilities regarding decisions about evaluation, specifically associated with ideologically driven programs. Organizations should consider various stakeholders and views associated with their program to help identify potential pitfalls in evaluation. Once identified, the program or agency needs to carefully consider its answers to two key questions: Do they want the answer and are they willing to modify the program? Having decided to evaluate, the choice of evaluator is critical to assuring that ethical principles are maintained and potential skepticism or criticism of findings can be addressed appropriately. The relationship between program and evaluator, including agreements about ownership and eventual publication and/or promotion of data, should be addressed at the outset. Programs and organizations should consider, at the outset, their ethical responsibility when findings are not expected or desired. Ultimately, agencies, organizations, and programs have an ethical responsibility to use their data to provide health promotion programs, whether ideologically founded or not, that appropriately and effectively address the problems they seek to solve.


Many European nations recognize a right to hike, hunt or engage in other recreation on private land without the owner's consent.  Some American states once recognized variants of this right, but today all states recognize the landowner's right to exclude outdoor enthusiasts.  Most states insist that landowners post signs or physically mark their property to exercise their right.  This essay argues that states should allow landowners to "post" their property by checking a box when they pay their property taxes.  States should then provide this information to the public in a form that can be accessed on the internet and stored on telephones or handheld GPS devices.  This system would reduce the landowner's cost of posting, and improve the notice given to the public, law enforcement and zoning regulations.  This system could also enhance the government's ability to serve as an intermediary between landowners and outdoor enthusiasts by negotiating public access rights to private land.  By playing the role of intermediary, the government substantially reduces bargaining costs and changes the analysis of the optimal allocation of property rights.  Modern technology makes it much harder to argue for a general public right to access private land


Reasoning about objects, relations, and physics is central to human intelligence, and a key goal of artificial intelligence. Here we introduce the interaction network, a model which can reason about how objects in complex systems interact, supporting dynamical predictions, as well as inferences about the abstract properties of the system. Our model takes graphs as input, performs object- and relation-centric reasoning in a way that is analogous to a simulation, and is implemented using deep neural networks. We evaluate its ability to reason about several challenging physical domains: n-body problems, rigid-body collision, and non-rigid dynamics. Our results show it can be trained to accurately simulate the physical trajectories of dozens of objects over thousands of time steps, estimate abstract quantities such as energy, and generalize automatically to systems with different numbers and configurations of objects and relations. Our interaction network implementation is the first general-purpose, learnable physics engine, and a powerful general framework for reasoning about object and relations in a wide variety of complex real-world domains.


In Fourth Amendment decisions, different concepts, facts and assumptions about reality are often tethered together in judicial decisions, creating a Stickiness Principle. In particular, form and function historically were viewed as an identity, not a dichotomy. For example, containers carried things, watches told time, and telephones were used to make voice calls. Advancing technology, though, began to fracture this identity and the broader Stickiness Principle. In June 2014, Riley v. California and its companion case, United States v. Wurie, offered the Supreme Court an opportunity to begin untethering form and function and dismantling the Stickiness Principle. Riley presented the question of whether cell phone searches incident to a lawful arrest were constitutional. The Court, which had clung to pre-digital concepts such as physical trespass well into the 21st Century, appeared ready to explore how technology is reshaping historically understood conceptions of privacy. From a broader perspective, the case offers an initial step in reconciling pre-digital rules based on outdated spatial conceptions of physical things with the changing realities of a technology driven world.


This paper discusses a time-domain technique for synthesizing acoustic impedance at the diaphragm of a loudspeaker using a proportional-plus-derivative output feedback. The dynamics of electroacoustic transducers such as moving-coil loudspeakers can be readily controlled either by direct feedback principle on acoustic quantities, or by plugging a shunt network at the electrical terminals. Any conventional loudspeaker first intended to be a sound transmitter may then become a versatile electroacoustic resonator capable of absorbing (or of reflecting as much) the incident sound energy in a frequency-dependent way by simple electronic controls. Instead of counteracting some unwanted sound by using superposition principle, as is the case for conventional active noise control, such actuator-based strategy aims at monitoring the reaction of a loudspeaker embedded into walls so as to control the proportion of reflected sound waves on this boundary. After a short description of the dynamics of moving-coil loudspeakers giving emphasis on the advantage of electromechanical coupling reversibility, a proportional plus derivative output feedback combined to a feed-forward action is proposed for synthesizing of desired acoustic impedance. As a conclusion, the overall performance of the proposed method is presented along with computed results and general discussions on practical implementation.


Maya Angelou's poetry - lyrical and dramatic, exuberant and playful - speaks of love, longing, partings; of Saturday night partying, and the smells and sounds of Southern cities; of freedom and shattered dreams. 'The caged bird sings/ with a fearful trill/ of things unknown/ but longed for still/ and his tune is heard/ on the distant hill/ for the caged bird/ sings of freedom.' Of her poetry, KIRKUS REVIEWS has written, 'It is just as much a part of her biography as I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, GATHER TOGETHER in MY NAME, SINGIN' AND SWINGIN' AND GETTING MERRY LIKE CHRISTMAS, and HEART OF A WOMAN.


In June of 2014, geologists reported that, for the first time, more earthquakes greater than magnitude 3.0 occurred in Oklahoma than in California [Terry-Cobo, 2014]. In Oklahoma, the frequency of earthquakes that are strong enough to be felt has increased 44 times in recent years and this has been correlated to a dramatic increase in high-volume, horizontal hydraulic fracturing (HVHHF) operations [Hume, 2014]. The aims of this study are: (1) to determine how hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, and Oklahoma earthquakes are framed by print-based media at the local, national, and international levels; (2) to understand how the association between these factors has evolved over time; and (3) to further analyze the differences between experts on the subjects of causality and threat characterization (e.g., severity). A total of 169 print news reports were included for analysis: 48 local/Oklahoma reports (28% of total sample), 72 national reports (42% of total sample) and 49 international news reports (30% of total sample). The findings reveal significant differences in the frame techniques, sources of information, and the foci of subject matter between three different media scales in print based media. Results, discussion and implications are provided. Abstract


Abstract A comprehensive revision of 981 specimens of fossil cockroaches from the Lower Cretaceous laminated limestones of the Crato Formation of Northeast Brazil shows that they belong to eleven taxa, including Piniblattella limai, P. magna sp. n., Perlucipecta santanensis. sp. n., Raptoblatta waddingtonae; Ocelloblattula santanensis sp. n., Elisama brevis (= E. americana, syn.n.), E. hindwingnii sp. n., Ponopterix axelrodi (= P. maxima syn.n.), Umenopterix burkhardi comb. n., and Cratovitisma oldreadi (Umenocoleidae = Cratovitismidae syn.n. = Ponopterixidae syn.n.). The family Ectobiidae is numerically most abundant in the assemblage of cockroaches of the Crato Formation (83 % of cockroaches), followed by Blattulidae (13 %) and Umenocoleidae (4 %). 79.2 % of specimens are complete and fully articulated. Members of the family Alienopteridae are probably also present. Representatives of a relatively common Mesozoic superfamily Caloblattinoidea are missing. With the exception of the endemic genera Cratovitisma and Raptoblatta and the exclusively Gondwanan genus Ocelloblattula, all other genera were cosmopolitan. Taxonomic richness of cockroaches of the Crato Formation is thus rather low, and consists of geologically long-ranging and geographically-widespread genera, genera restricted to Gondwana, and short-ranging endemic genera found in the Crato Formation only.


Excerpt] Legislative proposals for vouchers for K-12 schooling have come before many legislatures and are a regular part of election year debates. Public support for vouchers is growing. When a representative sample of the population was recently asked "Do you favor or oppose allowing students and parents to choose a private school to attend at public expense?" 44 percent said yes up from 24 percent in 1993. A tax credit has even more support. When asked "Proposals are being made in a number of states to provide a tax credit that would allow parents who send their children to private or church related schools to recover part of the tuition paid. Would you favor or oppose this proposal in your state?", 73 percent of public school parents said they favored it. Only 24 percent opposed it (Rose and Gallup 1998). This is a policy idea whose time may soon come.


This article explores the similarities and differences concerning the extent to which electoral politics addresses the concerns of Basque and Moro nationalism.  These demands mainly focus on the factors that have brought about their political, cultural and, for the Moros, also economic marginalization.  In terms of similarities, electoral politics in the form of plebiscites and referendums are used to gauge the sentiments of the Basques and the Moros with regards to approving a national constitution with provisions affecting them as well as the establishment of an autonomous region for the Moros and the strengthening of a federal form of government in the case of the Basques.  Elections are also used to choose their leaders at the local, provincial, regional and national levels.  As for the differences, among the major ones are the following:   One is that electoral politics in the Basque region mirrors the class divide in society and reflects the interests of the constituencies.  This is not the case in Muslim Mindanao whereby patronage politics rules and electoral results are generally dictated by the Muslim elites who have close ties with the national elites. And secondly, the ideological bias of the elected leader and his political power in Spain has a direct impact on Basque nationalism. In the case of the Philippines, it is the personality of the elected leader that determines whether peace negotiations will be pursued or not.  But this does not impact on national or local electoral politics as in the case of Spain.


Pro Drupal 7 Development updates the most popular development reference for the newest major release of Drupal. With several new and completely-rewritten essential APIs and improvements in Drupal 7, this book will not only teach developers how to write modules ranging from simple to complex, but also how Drupal itself works. Learn the Drupal APIs and major changes in Drupal 7 Learn how to write Drupal modules using the APIs Learn proper development practices and how to become a contributing community member What youll learn How to get started with writing basic modules The flexible Drupal APIs and how they interact with modules How new features in Drupal 7 make modules even more powerful and sophisticated Best practices when developing in Drupal (coding standards, help developer modules) How to write safe, secure, and tested code How to contribute modules back to the Drupal community and maintain their modules using CVS Who this book is for This book is for existing Drupal module developers wanting to learn about Drupal 7 and people already knowledgeable in PHP who are interested in developing for Drupal. Simply put, if you are working with Drupal, then you need this book. Table of Contents How Drupal Works Writing a Module Hooks, Actions, and Triggers The Menu System Working with Databases Working with Users Working with Nodes Working with Fields The Theme System Working with Blocks The Form API Manipulating User Input: The Filter System Searching and Indexing Content Working with Files Working with Taxonomy Caching Sessions Using jQuery Localization and Translation XML-RPC Writing Secure Code Development Best Practices Optimizing Drupal Installation Profiles Testing Database Table Reference Resources


J Ebbert

Dr J Ebbert, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA; email@example.com

Do behavioural and pharmacological interventions promote tobacco cessation in users of smokeless tobacco?

Studies selected compared a behavioural or pharmacological intervention with a control intervention (usual care, placebo, or a less intensive intervention) or a different intervention for promoting tobacco abstinence in adolescent or adult users of smokeless tobacco (tobacco placed in the mouth and not burned, including moist snuff, chewing tobacco, and betel quid). Outcomes were tobacco abstinence ⩾6 months after the intervention began. Preferred outcomes were total tobacco abstinence (rather than abstinence from smokeless tobacco alone), biochemical validation (rather …


Extreme learning machines (ELMs) have drawn increasing attention due to their characteristics of simple structure, high learning speed and excellent performance. However, a single ELM tends to low predictive accuracy and instability in dealing with quantitative analysis of complex samples. To further improve the predictive accuracy and stability of ELMs, a new quantitative model, called the boosting ELM is proposed. In this approach, a large number of ELM sub-models are sequentially built by selecting a certain number of samples from the original training set according to the distribution of the sampling weights, and then their predictions are aggregated using the weighted median. The activation function and the number of hidden nodes of ELM sub-models are determined simultaneously by the ratio of mean value and standard deviation of correlation coefficients (MSR). The performance of the proposed method is tested with diesel fuel and blended edible oil samples. Compared with partial least squares (PLS) and ELMs, our results demonstrate that the boosting ELM is an efficient ensemble model and has obvious superiorities in predictive accuracy and stability. Therefore, the proposed method may be an alternative for near-infrared (NIR) spectral quantitative analysis of complex samples.


When initially published in 1972, Foundations of Political Sociology was acknowledged to be the first unified study of the field. It still provides a cross-fertilization of knowledge concerning the interrelation of social class and political power. Taking into account new specializations in social theory, the book covers all major social systems on a comparative international basis. The opening remarks prepared for this new printing provide an estimate of how the field has changed during the past quarter century, and what unexpected challenges have arisen in areas of public trust and personal privacy. This book examines fascism, communism, anarchism, conservatism, and liberalism as systems of rule as well as domains of theory. It is thus a unique effort at linking problems of history with problems of policy. The six sections of the book detail the historical and theoretical antecedents of this relatively new hybrid area in social research: policy coordinates of political sociology, types of social systems, forms of political ideologies, polarities of revolution and counter-revolution, civil-military relations, mass vs. elite contradictions, and threads of consensus and conflict running through these themes. "Horowitz presents as his central thesis that in today's world no economic determinism can do justice to social reality. Foundations is the work of a politically sensitive and knowledgeable scholar."--Louis Schneider, Social Forces "Foundations of Political Sociology reflects extensive teaching and research in the area of political sociology. The book combines analytical insight with a provocative cutting edge and represents the best of Professor Horowitz."--Thomas R. McFaul, The Annals "Horowitz's political stance is interesting. Though he knows the radical literature, he distances himself from it. He sympathizes with everyone and strives to be provocative and yet elusive--a personal voice in a dogmatic discipline."--W.J.M. Mackenzie, Political Studies


OBJECTIVE
To assess defects in expression of critical cell cycle checkpoint genes and proteins in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) relative to presence or absence of methotrexate (MTX) treatment, and to investigate the role of JNK in induction of these genes by MTX.

METHODS
Flow cytometric analysis was used to quantify changes in levels of intracellular proteins, measure reactive oxygen species (ROS), and determine apoptosis in different lymphoid populations. Quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction was used to identify changes in cell cycle checkpoint target genes.

RESULTS
RA patients expressed reduced baseline levels of MAPK9, TP53, CDKN1A, CDKN1B, CHEK2, and RANGAP1 messenger RNA (mRNA) and JNK total protein. The reduction in expression of mRNA for MAPK9, TP53, CDKN1A, and CDKN1B was greater in patients not receiving MTX than in those receiving low-dose MTX, with no difference in expression levels of CHEK2 and RANGAP1 mRNA between MTX-treated and non-MTX-treated patients. Further, JNK levels were inversely correlated with C-reactive protein levels in RA patients. In tissue culture, MTX induced expression of both p53 and p21 by JNK-2- and JNK-1-dependent mechanisms, respectively, while CHEK2 and RANGAP1 were not induced by MTX. MTX also induced ROS production, JNK activation, and sensitivity to apoptosis in activated T cells. Supplementation with tetrahydrobiopterin blocked these MTX-mediated effects.

CONCLUSION
Our findings support the notion that MTX restores some, but not all, of the proteins contributing to cell cycle checkpoint deficiencies in RA T cells, via a JNK-dependent pathway.


This study has developed and tested an approach and a methodology for identifying persuasive communication appeals that have the best chances of influencing people's attitudes and behaviour in the area of social marketing, specifically, family planning. It can be used by social marketers for designing communication campaigns. Social psychologists and sociologists have emphasized that people's value systems and their perceptions of how these values are related to an object (behaviour or person), have an important influence on their attitudes and behavior towards that object. In designing a family planning communication, the choice of its two most important elements – 'message appeal' and 'source' – requires an understanding of the value system and perceived value-instrumentalities of the target population. Research in family planning has neglected the problem of 'appeal' determination. A methodology for generating relevant information about the target population, for the purpose of designing communications, should elicit their value systems, and perceived value-instrumentalities, in addition to measures of communication effects, media demographic and socio-economic variables. The instruments used for ascertaining values should allow for unconstrained, 'value-free' responses. The methodology should have cross-cultural applicability, and should allow for the use of standard sampling procedures. The methods used in commercial advertising field involve preselection of dimensions and/or objects on which responses are sought, thus, restricting observation to target population's views about our concerns rather than their concerns and values. The methodology tested in this study uses a relatively new method, called ECHO technique, for generating value hierarchies of target populations as well as perceived patterns of influences operating on their lives. The method combines the advantages of a survey method with those of a phenomenological approach. It preselects valence-good or bad-but allows for the dimensions or objects to be empirically generated. The value responses as well as sources of influence are classified into categories by indigenous classifiers. A measure of value-instrumentality that uses the values generated in the same interview has been developed and tested in this study. The fieldwork for the test was conducted in North India. The results confirm the postulated relationships among subsets of values and the criteria variables-practice, attitude, intention and awareness concerning family planning. Similarly, strong and consistent relationships emerge between criteria variables and value-instrumentalities of family size and family planning. Among the more important values of the sample concern: health, children's welfare and children turning out to be 'worthy', family harmony, community disputes and occupation. The users of family planning have a more positive outlook and perceive a greater control over events in their lives than do non-users. The values provide content for messages. A framework for developing communication strategies that segments target population on the basis of: usage, intention, and attitude, is used in the study. Among current users and those who intend to use family planning in future, favorable value-instrumentalities should be emphasized in communications, particularly those between family planning and good health, family harmony, children's welfare and chances of their turning out to be used with nonusers who do not intend to practice in the future, however, favorable instrumentalities will have to be promoted as such perceptions are not widespread, and are sometimes unfavorable. Communications designed to counter widespread beliefs about anti-God nature and adverse effects of birth control methods, particularly sterilization, are needed. Communications promoting appreciation of reduced infant-and child-mortality and negative economic value of having many children are also recommended. The results indicate that influential people of a community with whom the audience can identify, and religious leaders and holy men are more likely to be effective 'sources' of communication than urbanized change agents. Use of local dais-midwives-is recommended for promoting family planning acceptance. A product-mix that allows for more alternative methods -–including the pill – is also recommended in view of the widespread anti-God and negative-health connotations of sterilization.


Very clever bees use tools One hallmark of cognitive complexity is the ability to manipulate objects with a specific goal in mind. Such "tool use" at one time was ascribed to humans alone, but then to primates, next to marine mammals, and later to birds. Now we recognize that many species have the capacity to envision how a particular object might be used to achieve an end. Loukola et al. extend this insight to invertebrates. Bumblebees were trained to see that a ball could be used to produce a reward. These bees then spontaneously rolled the ball when given the chance. Science, this issue p. 833 Bumblebees will use a ball as a tool to obtain a reward. We explored bees' behavioral flexibility in a task that required transporting a small ball to a defined location to gain a reward. Bees were pretrained to know the correct location of the ball. Subsequently, to obtain a reward, bees had to move a displaced ball to the defined location. Bees that observed demonstration of the technique from a live or model demonstrator learned the task more efficiently than did bees observing a "ghost" demonstration (ball moved via magnet) or without demonstration. Instead of copying demonstrators moving balls over long distances, observers solved the task more efficiently, using the ball positioned closest to the target, even if it was of a different color than the one previously observed. Such unprecedented cognitive flexibility hints that entirely novel behaviors could emerge relatively swiftly in species whose lifestyle demands advanced learning abilities, should relevant ecological pressures arise.


SUMMARY. In this research, birefringent emulsions stabilized with Steareth-2 and Steareth-21 were studied. Some authors attributed to them a liquid-crystalline structure, although the microphotographs presented by them as an evidence of such structure actually suggest the presence of solid crystals instead of liquid crystals. The purposes of this paper are to determine the true cause of the birefringence of this type of emulsions and to study how the composition of the oily phase influences the stability and the birefringence. Six emulsions stabilized with a mixture of Steareth-2 and Steareth-21 were prepared, each one with a different emollient. Four of them were birefringent while two were isotropic. The observed birefringence would be due to the presence of solid crystals and not of liquid-crystals. These solid crystals could be originated by the interaction between both emulsifiers, either between themselves, with stearic acid or cetyl alcohol presents in the formulations, or even because of the insolubility of stearic acid or cetyl alcohol in emollient oil. Moreover, the isotropic emulsions showed greater viscosity than the birefringent ones. This result is accorded to the fact that the birefringence is not related to the presence of a liquid-crystalline interphase, because this type of interphase leads to an increase of viscosity.


The structure and performance of ultrasonic motors have gradually improved with the emergence of new materials, techniques, and structural forms. Therefore, the application scope of this technology is also expanding, especially in the field of high-end equipment. This paper conducts a review of research on the application status and progress at the frontier of research on ultrasonic motors. A summary and classification of both the status of application and cutting-edge research progress are presented, including the use of ultrasonic motors in aerospace, precision, biomedical and optical engineering and the influence on ultrasonic motor design resulting from the breakthrough in advanced processing and preparation technology, structural and functional integration technology, low voltage drives and open-loop control systems. Moreover, the performance of products developed with the aid of ultrasonic motors and representative devices are compared; and state of the art ultrasonic motor designs are discussed and summarized. Finally, potential future research efforts and prospects are highlighted.


I was in "the room where it happens" when Kentucky enacted a new photo ID law for voting. And I lived to tell the tale.

This Article recounts the evolution of Kentucky's voter ID law, which could have been one of the strictest ID laws in the country but ultimately became one of the mildest. The inside story of how that occurred is itself interesting, but the Article also relates it to a theory of deliberative democracy, or a legislative process that benefits from debate, negotiation, and compromise from various voices, making the final enactment more legitimate. The Article traces the history of the voter ID law, explaining the significant substantive changes that occurred during the legislative process. Next, the Article analyzes the litigation over the bill, which was focused on its implementation during the pandemic and not about the substance of the new law—showing that even opponents accepted its main substantive components. Finally, the Article relates the Kentucky story to a legislative theory of deliberative democracy. The Kentucky process mostly worked because, even though Republicans had the votes to pass the most stringent law possible, they instead moderated in response to opposition from Democrats and advocacy organizations. That moderation made the process more legitimate and created a better substantive outcome. The Article suggests that, to encourage a stronger legislative process, courts could give slightly more deference to a state that passes an election law with indicia of deliberative democracy.

Voter ID laws are unnecessary: they do not root out any fraud that exists and can disenfranchise voters. But the Kentucky experience shows that not all voter ID laws are created equal. If the political reality meant that a new voter ID law was inevitable, the Kentucky version—with its various exceptions and fail-safe protections—is about as good as one can expect. Further, its passage opened the door to other pro-voter reforms. Perhaps the Kentucky model—and the deliberative democracy process it exhibits—can lower the temperature in other states.


We investigated the effects of the dopamine (DA) precursor L-dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-DOPA) on electrically evoked acetylcholine (ACh) overflow from rat striatal slices. Some animals were pretreated 1 to 2 months earlier with 6-hydroxydopamine, (6-OHDA), a catecholamine neurotoxin, so as to selectively destroy DA terminals (98.6% striatal DA depletion). Although the addition of L-DOPA (10 microM) produced a 37% inhibition of ACh overflow in slices from lesioned rats, it failed to affect ACh overflow in slices from intact animals. In contrast, ACh overflow from intact slices exposed to L-DOPA and to the DA uptake inhibitor nomifensine (1 microM) was 22% greater than in the presence of nomifensine without L-DOPA. ACh overflow from slices prepared from lesioned rats was 45% greater with both drugs than in the presence of nomifensine by itself. Superfusion with the aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC) inhibitor NSD-1055 (250 microM) abolished the inhibitory effects of L-DOPA, as did L-sulpiride (1 microM), an inhibitor of DA receptors of the D2 subtype. These results suggest that inhibition of ACh overflow by L-DOPA is mediated by DA formed from exogenous L-DOPA which then acts on D2 receptors. They further indicate that the net impact of the loss of nigrostriatal terminals is an increased dopaminergic inhibition of striatal cholinergic interneurons in response to exogenous L-DOPA. This appears to result in large part from a lesion-induced reduction in high-affinity reuptake of DA formed from exogenous L-DOPA.


Colloidal synthesis is a powerful bottom-up approach for programmed self-assembly which holds promise for both research and industry. While diverse, each synthetic process is typically restricted to a specific chemistry. Many applications however require composite materials, whereas a chemical equilibrium can typically only match one material but not the other. Here, a scalable general approach is presented, alleviating the dependency on a specific chemical reaction, by resorting to a mechanical equilibrium; an isopycnic density-gradient-step is tailored to form clusters with prescribed composition. Valence control is demonstrated, making dimers, trimers, and tetramers with purity as high as 96%. The measured kinetics shows a scaleable throughput. The density gradient step plays a dual role of both filtering out undesired products and concentrating the target structures. The "Mix-and-Match" approach is general, and applies to a broad range of colloidal matter: diverse material compositions (plastics, glasses, and emulsions); a range of colloidal interactions (van der Waals, Coulomb, and DNA hybridization); and a spectrum of sizes (nanoscale to multiple micrometers). Finally, the strength of the method is displayed by producing a monodisperse suspension from a highly polydisperse emulsion. The ability to combine colloids into architectures of hybrid materials has applications in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and photonics.


A digital system can be described at several levels. 1) The highest level is the algorithmic level which specifies only the algorithm to be used for solving a design problem. 2) The second level is the PMS (Processor, Memory, Switch) level which describes a system by processors, memory components, peripheral units, and switching networks. 3) The instruction level describes the instructions of a computer. 4) The register transfer or microinstruction level describes operations among registers. 5) The logic level expresses network in terms of gates and flip-flops. 6) The lowest level is the circuit level which implements gates and flip-flops by circuit elements such as transistors, resistors, etc.


To capture a system's uncertainty, a participatory, integrated approach is a prerequisite of many scenario development projects. Increasingly, a toolbox of methods is employed to facilitate stakeholder input. In this paper we evaluate four potential added values of using a toolbox of methods and the effect on the quality of resulting scenarios. Ten case studies within a large project (SCENES), that set out to develop participatory scenarios for Europe's freshwaters, are used to test our hypotheses. We analysed a first series of scenario workshops, evaluating (dis)advantages of the toolbox and the quality of scenarios as perceived by stakeholders and local organisers. As can be deduced from the resulting scenarios, results indicate that all hypothesised added values materialised to some extent. Using a toolbox enlarges the possibilities to: (1) adapt to local circumstances; (2) adapt to a variety of stakeholders; (3) compare results across scales and across case studies; and (4) facilitate a link of models and stories. However, a careful balance has to be found between the length of workshop, number and type of tools employed, and previous experience of stakeholders and local organisers. The results have implications for practitioners setting out to develop water or climate adaptation scenarios that could benefit from all the added values tested here. Finally, employing a toolbox can positively influence scenario quality, although more structured tests are needed.


Budgetary constraints are placing increasing pressure on project managers to effectively estimate development effort requirements at the earliest opportunity. With the rising impact of automation on commercial software development, the attention of researchers developing effort estimation models has recently been focused on functional representations of systems, in response to the assertion that development effort is a function of specification content. A number of such models exist; several, however, have received almost no research or industry attention. Project managers wishing to implement a functional assessment and estimation programme are therefore unlikely to be aware of the various methods or how they compare. This paper therefore provides this information, as well as forming a basis for the development and improvement of new methods. >


In this paper we discuss some of the monetary policy issues that have involved major central banks worldwide since the 2008 financial crisis, and which remain open. We provide an ex-cursus of the unconventional monetary policies adopted by central banks in the last decade, focusing on the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve, and we discuss the rationale and efficacy of some unconventional monetary instruments, of inflation targeting and of central bank independence. We also provide a perspective on possible future developments of monetary policy. We argue that while unconventional monetary policy was useful, there is still ample space for improvement: in the recessions to come, unconventional monetary policy will need to be better coordinated with fiscal, micro- and macro-prudential policies to provide more inclusive results that might positively affect the real economy beyond the financial system.


Cytochrome P450s (CYPs) are a superfamily of enzymes involved in the phase I metabolism of endogenous and exogenous substances. They are present in almost all forms of life and have been studied extensively, particularly in relation to human medicine, where knowledge of their activities is essential for predicting drug-drug interactions. In the horse, little is currently known about CYP-specific drug metabolism, which holds importance for animal welfare and for doping control within the horseracing industry where drug-specific metabolites are tested for on race days. Recently the first recombinant equine CYPs have been produced, allowing specific data on equine P450 activity to be gathered for the first time. During the current study,46 full-length P450 sequences were identified from the equine genome. RT-PCR analysis was then carried out on equine liver in order to detect hepatic expression of P450s across various families. After this, cold-induction (pCold) E. coli were used for production of recombinant P450 proteins for subsquent functional testing. Four recombinant equine P450s were successfully expressed (CYP1A1, CYP2A13, CYP2C92 and CYP2D50). Due to being the isoforms most likely to be involved in drug metabolism, rCYP2D50 and rCYP2C92 were selected to be screened against ten of the most commonly used horse drugs to identify potential substrates. rCYP2C92 appeared to metabolise all four NSAIDs tested (flunixin, ketoprofen, phenylbutazone and diclofenac), however presence of the known hydroxylated metabolites of diclofenac and phenylbutazone (4-hydroxydiclofenac and oxyphenbutazone, respectively) could not be confirmed despite being present within equine liver microsome and human recombinant CYP2C9 samples. In spite of the apparant acivity displayed by rCYP2C92 towards all four NSAIDs, no conclussions can be made about this enzyme's role in NSAID metabolism due to a lack of known hydroxylated metabolite production.


Title of dissertation: CHILDREN'S STORYTELLING TECHNOLOGIES: DIFFERENCES IN ELABORATION AND RECALL Angela Boltman, Doctor of Philosophy, 2001 Dissertation directed by: Professor Allison Druin College of Education, Human Development Institute of Advanced Computer Studies This study examined the elaboration and recall of children's stories through analysis of the content and structure of children's retelling of a well-known wordless story book, Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969). This picture book, which has been used in many international studies, (e.g., Berman, 1988; Trabasso et al., 1992), was presented to 72 children (ages 6-7) in England and Sweden. The technology that was utilized in this study was KidPad (Druin et al., 1997), a children's spatial storytelling application. Each child was presented with one of three conditions: (a) a paper version of a picture book, (b) a non-spatial computer presentation of this book with traditional hyperlinks, or (c) a spatial computer presentation of this book with animated panning and zooming between pictures. The study participants were asked to retell the story first with the story technology in front of them, and then without the story technology. Children's story elaboration and recall were coded for structure and content using two previously developed instruments (Berman, 1988; Trabasso et al., 1992). For structure, evidence was provided by text length, number of references to plot advancing events and of plot summations, types of connectivity markers, and the use of verb tense. For content, evidence was offered by relationships, initiating events, attempts, purposeful attempts, failures, and subordinate and superordinate goals. Multivariate analyses of variance were performed focusing on media type, gender, and language. Results revealed that media type was statistically significant in every major category of measure, while language was significant only in the structure measures. There were no significant gender differences and there were no interaction effects. Results illustrated that the spatial computer presentation assisted in many storytelling areas, with greater benefits in elaboration than in recall. Children's stories showed more complex story structure and a greater understanding of initiating events and goals. This study was a part of KidStory, a European Union-funded, 3-year international research initiative (i3, ESE project # 29310) creating innovative technologies for and with young


Concrete is the building material with the greatest potential for meeting the increasing housing demand in developing countries. Locally available materials should be considered as cement replacement in order to lower the costs and the environmental impact associated with the production of cement. Hence, this study investigated the potential use of calcined clayey soils to be used as reactive mineral admixtures in concrete, with special emphasis on a Cuban clayey soil. The study of the thermal behaviour of common clay types such as kaolinite, illite and montmorillonite was of key importance for the understanding of more complex locally available soils generally composed of a mixture of clays with companion minerals and impurities. Clays were calcined at temperatures ranging from 500°C to 1000°C. The characterization of the raw and calcined clays included XRD, TGA, DTA, NMR, PSD, BET and SEM. The study of the pozzolanic activity was done in cement pastes by replacing 30% of cement by calcined clays at a water/binder ratio of 0.4. Curing was done in water at 30°C to simulate the Cuban climate. CH depletion was monitored using XRD and TGA up to 90 days. The degree of hydration of the clinker component was assessed by BSE-image analysis. The identification of the hydrated phases in pastes was done by XRD, NMR and SEM. Long-term Isothermal Calorimetry as well as chemical shrinkage allowed the chemical contribution of the pozzolans to be identified independently of the filler effect and the hydration of cement.. To see how did the different reactivities of calcined clays translate into mechanical properties, standard mortar bars (w/b 0.5) were prepared and cured under the same conditions as the pastes for testing in compressive strength at 1, 7, 28 and 90 days. Sorptivity measurements were also performed to assess the durability properties. Kaolinite was found to have the highest potential for activation when calcined in the range of 600°C to 800°C. Locally available clays with only around 40% of kaolinite showed good pozzolanic properties in pastes. The time at which the pozzolanic activity starts to be significant varied between 1 and 7 days. Calcined clays in cement tend to favour the formation of AFm phases such as hemicarboaluminate or monocarboaluminate. Stratlingite was also detected by 27Al NMR. The Compressive strength of mortars incorporating kaolinite-based calcined clays was systematically similar or higher than the 100% OPC mortar from around 7 days and the sorptivity of the blended systems was reduced. These studies indicate that locally available calcined clayey soils have significant potential for replacing cement in concrete.


© 2018 European Academy of Management This article examines the potentially damaging role that gender beliefs can play in hindering women's equal representation in leadership positions. Based on a secondary analysis of a large-scale EU-wide survey (Eurobarometer 76.1), the article shows that essentialist gender beliefs lower support for equality interventions such as quotas or targets, particularly among men as leaders. The results show that discriminatory gender beliefs partially mediate this relationship and produce a more negative effect among men leaders. The paper contributes to understanding the role essentialist gender beliefs often lay the groundwork for gender discriminatory beliefs. Those in turn hinder support for effective gender equality measures. Gender essentialist beliefs can be held by everyone but are more prevalent among men leaders. We conclude that greater gender balance in leadership cannot be achieved without tackling underlying gender beliefs, particularly among men leaders since they are called upon to enact change. We thereby argue that simply asking for men to become change agents for gender equality is not an effective strategy if underlying gender beliefs are left unchallenged.


The licentiate thesis consists of three papers with the particular topic in public housing. They discuss how the public housing companies manage the transition to higher economic demands meeting increased customer and market requirements. These studies focus specifically on how the public housing company deal with market challenges associated with the decision to demolish, maintain and/or new construction. Market-oriented perspective can be a tool for the public housing companies to achieve better customer value and enhance economic development. Although the market orientation concept has contributed to valuable improvements in research, the thesis assumes that it is necessary to distinguish between that the public housing companies operate market-oriented to meet customer requirements and their focus on innovation.Paper I develops market/innovation types and then investigates how public housing companies adapt to these types. It was found that economic conditions in the municipality have a major impact on the housing companies, causing them to act innovatively and create superior customer value by innovations. The study confirms that the implementation of market and innovation orientation contributes to competitive advantages in growing markets, while weak economic conditions impair implementation in declining markets.Paper II addresses how public housing companies in declining markets act based on the concept of market intelligence. This study suggested and tested whether there is a positive link between collecting customer information, disseminating it in the organization, and responding to customer needs, and whether this link has an impact on strategic performance. The result shows that weak links exist in the process; the efficiency of intelligence distribution in public housing companies is affected mainly by their responsiveness to customer needs.Paper III also addresses the public housing companies' market strategies in declining markets. This study, based on a market-strategic perspective, compares how public housing companies act in relation to customer wants compared to the private housing market. The result shows that public housing companies are more engaged in carrying out new construction, renovation, and reconstruction, as well as taking more social responsibility compared to the private sector. In particular, their concern for the customers' social needs is evident.


Thalassaemia is an inherited blood disorder in which there is a reduction or
absence in the synthesis of the globin chains of human Hb. Thalassaemia
remains a public health problem in Malaysia, with many not knowing they
carry the gene for thalassaemia. Individuals may be carriers of both a and Pthalassaemia.
Concurrent a-thalassaemia 1 ( (~a / - -~~an*d) (3-thalassaemia
(PA/POc) arriers are potential parents to offspring with Hb Bart's hydrops
foetalis (--SEA/--SEaAn)d Fthalassaemia major (PO/PO)H. b Bart's hydrops
foetalis results from homozygous state of a-thalassaemia 1 and Pthalassaemia
major from homozygous Po.
This study determines the frequency of concurrent carriers of alpha and betathalassaemia.
The information gathered from this study will aid government
agencies in policy-making, specifically on whether concurrent athalassaemia
1 identification needs to be done in any national screening
programme for thalassaemia. Currently, most national screening
programmes for thalassaemia including that in Malaysia concentrates on Pthalassaemia.
Blood samples were analyzed using conventional haematological methods.
These include full blood counts/red cell indices followed by Hb analysis to
quantify Hb subtypes by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).
A thalassaemia carrier is presumptively identified by a cut-off value of
MCV40fL and MCHc27pg. On HPLC, those with HbA2>4.0% are identified
as P-thalassaemia carriers. DNA was extracted from blood samples of the Pthalassaemia
carriers and Gap-polymerase chain reaction (Gap-PCR) was
done to identify the a-thalassaemia 1 molecular defect. The amplified
product was run on 1.5% agarose gel by electrophoresis. The separated PCR
product was then viewed under UV transillumination to identify the
characteristic 570bp band for the a-thalassaemia 1 determinant.
A total of 231 P-thalassaemia samples were studied. Eight were found to
have concurrently inherited the a-thalassaemia 1 (-SEA) deletion, representing
a carrier rate of 3.5%. The high carrier rate for a-thalassaemia 1 indicates the
need for the implementation of DNA analysis to complement thalassaemia
diagnosis in a population screening programme. The relative risk of Chinese
Malaysian to a non-Chinese being a concurrent carrier of a-thalassaemia 1
(--SEA) and P-thalassaemia is 2.8 fold.


Low-cost, high-precision patterning of flexible electrical components have gained special attention in many applications where multi-functional materials fuse structural support with electrical sensing. In particular, a number of structural health monitoring (SHM) applications call for the development of "sensing skin" technologies. One application that uses these technologies includes the development of next-generation tamper-evident seals (TES) that are capable of being read remotely. In our design, the state of the TES's physical structure is monitored through an electrical circuit based on a conductive material. Electrical changes in the TES's circuit correspond to material property changes induced by humidity, temperature, or chemical changes. Intrinsically unifying material and electrical properties, graphene and graphite derivatives promote simplistic manufacturing of flexible materials with unique electrical properties that are attractive for sensing skin applications. In addition to developing a functional graphenebased material, an encryption scheme to transmit the state of the material is devised utilizing compressive sensing. Our work focuses on the production of printable graphene-based materials and graphene-based/polymeric composites proficient for sensing environmental changes. Printing of functional complex graphene-based materials requires specific formulation while balancing electrical conductivity, formulation simplicity, solution viscosity, and printing compatibility. Production of electrically stable components on flexible substrates with programmable electrical properties will be key to using printed graphene-based materials in sensing skin applications. doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/269


ABSTRACT The fungal pathogen Candida albicans produces dark-pigmented melanin after 3 to 4 days of incubation in medium containing l-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (l-DOPA) as a substrate. Expression profiling of C. albicans revealed very few genes significantly up- or downregulated by growth in l-DOPA. We were unable to determine a possible role for melanin in the virulence of C. albicans. However, we showed that melanin was externalized from the fungal cells in the form of electron-dense melanosomes that were free or often loosely bound to the cell wall exterior. Melanin production was boosted by the addition of N-acetylglucosamine to the medium, indicating a possible association between melanin production and chitin synthesis. Melanin externalization was blocked in a mutant specifically disrupted in the chitin synthase-encoding gene CHS2. Melanosomes remained within the outermost cell wall layers in chs3Δ and chs2Δ chs3Δ mutants but were fully externalized in chs8Δ and chs2Δ chs8Δ mutants. All the CHS mutants synthesized dark pigment at equivalent rates from mixed membrane fractions in vitro, suggesting it was the form of chitin structure produced by the enzymes, not the enzymes themselves, that was involved in the melanin externalization process. Mutants with single and double disruptions of the chitinase genes CHT2 and CHT3 and the chitin pathway regulator ECM33 also showed impaired melanin externalization. We hypothesize that the chitin product of Chs3 forms a scaffold essential for normal externalization of melanosomes, while the Chs8 chitin product, probably produced in cell walls in greater quantity in the absence of CHS2, impedes externalization.


Justice Antonin Scalia was a transformational jurist for many reasons: his skills as a writer and rhetorician, his charisma, and his bold attacks on the conventional interpretive methodologies of his day. Many of his ideas and arguments have brought lasting change in the way courts behave, particularly in the field of statutory construction. Today there is far less judicial reliance on legislative history than there was when Justice Scalia joined the Supreme Court, and fewer facile invocations of "legislative intent." But it also seems fair to say that Justice Scalia's impact was less transformative in the field of constitutional law. While text and structure have become paramount in resolving disputed questions of statutory meaning, Obergefell v. Hodges shows that a majority of the Supreme Court still subscribes to the living-constitution philosophy that Justice Scalia so vigorously denounced.
This essay considers why Justice Scalia—who so profoundly changed the way the Supreme Court interprets statutes—was less successful in changing the Court's approach to constitutional interpretation. And it contends that Justice Scalia's most powerful critique of modern constitutional interpretation was not his attack on the idea of a living Constitution, but his challenge to the assumption that the judiciary (of all institutions) should hold the prerogative to impose its preferred interpretations of an evolving Constitution on the rest of us.


Hierarchical hollow porous architectures with intriguing hetero-interfaces are currently of particular interest in emerging energy-related fields. In this investigation, we report a smart template-free methodology to purposefully fabricate high-quality uniform hollow hetero-NiCo2S4/Co9S8 (NCCS) submicro-spindles with well-dispersed hetero-nanodomains at the nanoscale. High-yield hollow mesocrystal nickel cobalt carbonate spindles are first solvothermally synthesized as the intermediate, and a subsequent shape-preserving conversion into hetero-NCCS submicro-spindles via a hydrothermal anion-exchange reaction occurs. The underlying template-free formation mechanism of the hollow structures is tentatively proposed. When evaluated as a promising electrode for supercapacitors, the resultant hollow mesoporous hetero-NCCS electrode with a mass loading of 5 mg cm−2 delivers a good pseudocapacitance of ∼749 F g−1 at a current rate of 4 A g−1, and holds at approximately 620 F g−1 at 15 A g−1 as a result of intrinsic synergetic contributions from structural/compositional/componental merits. Furthermore, an asymmetric device based on hollow mesoporous hetero-NCCS achieves an encouraging energy density of around 33.5 W h kg−1 at a power density of 150 W kg−1, and exceptional cycling behavior with capacitance degradation of ∼0.007% per cycle over 5000 consecutive cycles at 5 A g−1. Comprehensive investigations unambiguously highlight that the unique hollow mesoporous hetero-NCCS submicro-spindles would be a powerful electrode platform for advanced next-generation supercapacitors.


The first experiments on sex determination in bees began with Dzierzon, Meves, Nachtsheim, Paulcke, Petrunkewitsch, Manning. Whiting, (1943) found multiple alleles in Bracon xo that are the Rosetta stone of sex determination in Hymenoptera. Whiting also discovered that some species of microhymenoptera do not possess xo sex alleles. Therefore, Hymenoptera apparently presents two types of sex determination superimposed on haplodiploidy. In the panmictic groups hemizygous (xo1, xo2,... xon) and homozygous (xo1xo1, xo2xo2... xonxon) are males while heterozygous (xo1xo2, ... xon-1xon) are females. There is no such series of xon in endogamous Hymenoptera, since the constant elimination of diploid males would be damaging to the population and the mutation of xo to xon would be quickly eliminated. Besides the Whiting hypothesis, four others are discussed. The new hypothesis of genomic imprinting, of Beukeboom, is eliminated since: a) spermatozoa that develop within the egg produce male tissue; b) telitokous parthenogenesis due to the fusion of two haploid cells develop into females; c) last instar larvae treated with juvenile hormone become queens. The Cunha and Kerr hypothesis (female determining genes are totally or partially additive and male determination is totally or partially nonadditive) explains all known cases. The xo is a female determining gene. Sex determination in social bees led to the gradual evolution of two systems of caste determination: one in which queens and workers are similar and males are very different (Apinae), and another in which workers and males are very similar and both very different from the queens (Meliponinae). This second system in stingless bees implies that many of the mutations that improve worker capacities also affect the males that will carry out some activities that in Apis are clearly female ones. Ten of these activities are described.


The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between the skills that constitute school readiness, such as linguistic, phonological, logical-mathematical and psychomotor skills, and mental imagery processes in preschool children. The participants were 100 healthy children (50 boys and 50 girls) aged four to five. Two batteries of tests were used to assess school readiness and different aspects of the mental imagery processes. The mental imagery battery measured mental imagery generation, inspection, and rotation of images. The results showed a relationship between the generation and inspection processes and the level of skills that constitute school readiness. These findings emphasize the potential usefulness of screening all preschoolers and kindergarteners for imagery ability, with the aim of adopting effective measures to increase their mental imagery abilities.


The area-wide distribution of permafrost is sparsely known in mountainous terrain (e.g. Alps). Permafrost monitoring can only be based on point or small scale measurements such as boreholes, active rock glaciers, BTS measurements or geophysical measurements. To get a better understanding of permafrost distribution, it is necessary to focus on modeling permafrost temperatures and permafrost distribution patterns. A lot of effort on these topics has been already expended using different kinds of models. In this study, the evolution of subsurface temperatures over successive years has been modeled at the location Ritigraben borehole (Mattertal, Switzerland) by using the one-dimensional snow cover model SNOWPACK. The model needs meteorological input and in our case information on subsurface properties. We used meteorological input variables of the automatic weather station Ritigraben (2630 m) in combination with the automatic weather station Saas Seetal (2480 m). Meteorological data between 2006 and 2011 on an hourly basis were used to drive the model. As former studies showed, the snow amount and the snow cover duration have a great influence on the thermal regime. Low snow heights allow for deeper penetration of low winter temperatures into the ground, strong winters with a high amount of snow attenuate this effect. In addition, variations in subsurface conditions highly influence the temperature regime. Therefore, we conducted sensitivity runs by defining a series of different subsurface properties. The modeled subsurface temperature profiles of Ritigraben were then compared to the measured temperatures in the Ritigraben borehole. This allows a validation of the influence of subsurface properties on the temperature regime. As expected, the influence of the snow cover is stronger than the influence of sub-surface material properties, which are significant, however. The validation presented here serves to prepare a larger spatial simulation with the complex hydro-meteorological 3-dimensional model Alpine 3D, which is based on a distributed application of SNOWPACK.


This research explores coping strategies used by American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters who work in mental health settings. Due to the highly emotional nature of such assignments, interpreters are at an increased risk for experiencing vicarious trauma. This study also investigates the available training regarding vicarious trauma in current interpreter education. Previous research has typically recognized the need for self-care and focused on general suggestions for coping; the present work uses firsthand accounts from practicing interpreters. To uncover interpreters' personal experiences, the researcher created an online survey that resulted in 222 qualifying responses. Of the total number of respondents, 83% expressed that they have experienced vicarious trauma as the result of interpreting in mental health settings. However, 58% reported that they have not received any training related to managing the emotional impact of such interpreting assignments. Debriefing was chosen as the most utilized strategy (80%), but was also identified by some interpreters as a potential breach of confidentiality. While some interpreters have refined their own self-care routines, there is still a significant gap in educating interpreters about managing the adverse effects of vicarious trauma. to approach the critical practice of self-care in interpreter education programs. The findings may be significant to the profession as they document firsthand accounts of interpreters' experiences in dealing with vicarious trauma in mental health settings, while also providing potential guidelines for future generations of interpreters.


The paper addresses the Markovian queueing problem for stochastic environments wherein repair jobs of failed machines arrive according to FCFS order. The repair facility consists of two heterogeneous repairmen who facilitate the repair of the failed machines with different repair rates. In case if the queue size is less than or equal to a control limit 'L', each failed machine is repaired by the both servers with effective at rates 1 + 2 , where 1 > 2 .When the queue size becomes greater than L and less than K, the machines are recovered with a faster rate f. If the size of queue exceeds K, all the machines are repaired together in a batch at rate b. To determine the steady-state probabilities and other key performance indices, a recursive technique is applied. To find the optimal value of the threshold parameter K, a cost function is also facilitated. The effects of system descriptors on the performance indices are visually depicted by graphs.


What are we to make of the Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration outlining the future relationship between the EU and the UK? This European Policy Brief explores the current state of the Brexit debate from a Belgian perspective. While the Brexit deal deserves to be welcomed, domestic politics continue to act as a bottleneck. Whether or not the Withdrawal Agreement obtains parliamentary approval, Belgian authorities would do well to stay alert and prepare for multiple potential outcomes


We report on a colossal negative magnetoresistance (MR) in a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well which, at low temperatures, is manifested by a drop of the resistivity by more than an order of magnitude at a magnetic field B ≈ 1 kG. In contrast to MR effects discussed earlier, the MR reported here is not parabolic, even at small B, and persists to much higher in-plane magnetic fields and temperatures. Remarkably, the temperature dependence of the resistivity at B ≈ 1k G islinear over the entire temperature range studied (from 1 to 30 K) and appears to coincide with the high-temperature limit of the zero-field resistivity, hinting on the important role of acoustic phonons.


Established collaboration practices in the construction industry are document centric and are challenged by the introduction of Building Information Modelling (BIM). Document management collaboration systems (e.g. Extranets) have significantly improved the document collaboration in recent years; however their capabilities for model collaboration are limited and do not support the complex requirements of BIM collaboration. The construction industry is responding to this situation by adopting emerging model collaboration systems (MCS), such as model servers, with the ability to exploit and reuse information directly from the models to extend the current intra-disciplinary collaboration towards integrated multi-disciplinary collaboration on models. The functions of existing MCSs have evolved from the manufacturing industry and there is no concrete study on how these functions correspond to the requirements of the construction industry, especially with BIM requirements. This research has conducted focus group sessions with major industry disciplines to explore the user requirements for BIM collaboration. The research results have been used to categorise and express the features of existing MCS which are then analysed in selected MCS from a user's perspective. The potential of MCS and the match or gap in user requirements and available model collaboration features is discussed. This study concludes that model collaborative solutions for construction industry users are available in different capacities; however a comprehensive custom built solution is yet to be realized. The research results are useful for construction industry professionals, software developers and researchers involved in exploring collaborative solutions for the construction industry.


All types of wetlands around the world are heavily threatened. According to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, they comprise "areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish, or salt." While they are estimated still to cover 1,280 million hectares worldwide, large shares of wetlands were destroyed during the 20th century, mainly as a result of land use changes. According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), this applies above all to North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, but wetlands were also heavily degraded in other parts of the world. Moreover, degradation is expected to accelerate in the future due to global environmental change. These developments are alarming because wetlands deliver a broad range of ecosystem services to societies, contributing significantly to human well-being. Among those services are water supply and purification, flood regulation, climate regulation, and opportunities for recreation, to name only a few. The benefits humans derive from those services, however, often are not reflected in markets as they are public goods in nature. Thus, arguing in favor of the preservation of wetlands requires, inter alia, to make the non-marketed economic benefits more visible and comparable to those from alternative—generally private—uses of converted wetlands, which are often much smaller. The significance of the non-market value of wetland services has been demonstrated in the literature: the benefits derived from wetlands have been one of the most frequently investigated topics in environmental economics and are integrated in meta-analyses devoted to synthesizing the present knowledge about the value of wetlands. The meta-analyses that cover both different types of wetlands in different landscapes as well as different geographical regions are supplemented by recent primary studies on topics of increasing importance such as floodplains and peatlands, as they bear, for example, a large flood regulation and climate change mitigation potential, respectively. The results underpin that the conversion of wetlands is accompanied by significant losses in benefits. Moreover, wetland preservation is economically beneficial given the large number of ecosystem services provided by wetland ecosystems. Thus, decision-making that might affect the status and amount of wetlands directly or indirectly should consider the full range of benefits of wetland ecosystems.


Purpose

The Lattice Boltzmann (LB) method offers an alternative to conventional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods. However, its practical use for complex turbulent flows of engineering interest is still at an early stage. This paper aims to outline an LB wall-modeled large-eddy simulation (WMLES) solver.

Design/methodology/approach

The solver is dedicated to complex high-Reynolds flows in the context of WMLES. It relies on an improved LB scheme and can handle complex geometries on multi-resolution block structured grids.

Findings

Dynamic and acoustic characteristics of a turbulent airflow past a rod-airfoil tandem are examined to test the capabilities of this solver. Detailed direct comparisons are made with both experimental and numerical reference data.

Originality/value

This study allows assessing the potential of an LB approach for industrial CFD applications.


The Northern Long-eared Myotis (Myotis septentrionalis) occurs across eastern North America, and its range extends west into the Great Plains of the United States. Summer roosts of M. septentrionalis in the Great Plains are not well documented. Herein we describe a maternity colony of M. septentrionalis using small, elevated structures (i.e., cabins) in southeastern Nebraska. Cabins were in a small parcel of upland deciduous forest about 1.6 km from the Missouri River. The maternity colony was observed roosting in a space between the outer and inner walls of three different cabins from 21 June to 8 October 2014. Counts of individuals using the cabins suggest that the colony started to disband after mid-August. Identifying and monitoring maternity roosts of M. septentrionalis in the Great Plains will be important to effectively manage this federally threatened species, especially as the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome spreads into the region.


In 2007, the Supreme Court's decision in KSR v. Teleflex echoed earlier vicissitudes in the history of patent law when the Court considerably expanded the circumstances in which a patent could be found obvious. Here, we conduct the first comprehensive empirical study of pre- and post-KSR district court and Federal Circuit decisions. Not surprisingly, following KSR, we find a substantial increase in findings of obviousness as well as a major shift in doctrine supporting these decisions. Although we find that the Federal Circuit substantially altered course following KSR, its shift was less robust than in the district courts. We speculate that these differences between the Federal Circuit and district courts, as well as the vacillating historical meanings of the nonobviousness requirement, reflect divergent views among judges regarding the appropriate role nonobviousness should play in promoting patent law's fundamental aim of incentivizing innovation. As such, we predict continued shifts and cycles of this critical component of patentability.


The effect of nonlinear propagation on the shape of the focal volume has been assessed by in situ plasma emission imaging during the subsurface processing of a commercial phosphate glass. The sample was processed with an elliptically shaped femtosecond-laser beam at 1 kHz repetition rate and scanned transversely with respect to the writing beam axis. As a consequence, optimal conditions for minimizing undesirable nonlinear propagation effects during the production of optical waveguides by direct laser writing have been determined. Under these conditions, it is possible to induce structural transformations and still preserve the focal volume shape associated with the linear propagation regime. While at low pulse energy a single scan laser-written structure does not support a guided mode, the use of multiple scans with minimized nonlinear propagation effects enables the production of optical waveguides. The latter show a significantly improved performance in terms of the refractive index change and propagation losses when compared to single scan waveguides.


Microorganism cells movement in the fluid is universal and affects many ecological and biological processes, including infection, reproduction, and marine life ecosystem. There are many biological and medical applications that require an understanding of the transport process in nanofluids containing a suspension of microorganism. The present problem deals with the bioconvection of Casson nanofluid containing a suspension of motile gyrotactic microorganisms over an inclined stretching sheet in the presence of thermal radiation, viscous dissipation, and chemical reaction and magnetic field. At the surface, the influence of the thermosolutal Marangoni convection and suction/injection impact are considered. The governing equations are solved numerically by using fourth-order Runge–Kutta–Fehlberg method with shooting technique. The impact of the major pertinent parameters on the velocity, temperature, nanoparticles concentration, and density of the motile microorganism is illustrated graphically. Finally, the correlations of various crucial parameters on skin friction, local Nusselt number, Sherwood number, and local motile microorganism density number are displayed through the graphs and tables.


Background: Throughout the last century mergers and acquisitions have been categorized by changes in the global economy. Globalization and changes in legislations has brought forward so called waves that are rooted in the market for the United States. Where the act of acquisitions can be divided into both friendly and hostile takeovers, history shows that hostile takeovers are frequent in the US but less evident in the Swedish market. As for Sweden the existence of control enhancing mechanisms are utilized to enable control of a firm without owning a proportionate share of equity. While the trend of takeover activity is replicated elsewhere, the hostile aspect finds another route. The market for corporate control governs the hostile aspect where firms should be replaced with new managers if agency problems arise between the management and the shareholders. Thus looking at Sweden, corporate governance issues and the establishment of national laws are of certain importance. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the ownership structure in Swedish listed companies impacts on the occurrence of hostile takeovers and what implications a potential change in the corporate governance structure would have on it. Moreover we intend to map Sweden internationally to give a broad picture of the research area. Methodology: We have made use of a quantitative method for the empirical section and thereafter derived conclusions through the hypothetico-deductive approach. For testing the outcome of hostile bids in Sweden, chi-square tests for independence have been conducted and in regards of an international comparison we have implemented a correlation analysis. Conclusions: With the result at hand we concluded that the theory was partially aligned with the empirical data. The market for corporate control is not fully efficient in Sweden. The reason for that is the multiple voting rights implemented in the target firms which impede the successfulness in replacing a management. The hostile bid frequency has increased over the years, mainly due to potential agency problems among target firms. But parallel to this, which in some regards contradicts theory, is that firms neglects the prevalent ownership structure in Sweden and acquires a foothold as to make their hostile acquisition. In regards of the empirical data, concentrated ownership solely does not harm the market for corporate control in Sweden. Internationally, the correlation between ownership concentration and hostile bid frequencies proved to be negative where Sweden despite this attracts hostile acquirers.


The 3D printers widely used in the world are produced in different mechanical and electronic designs. The 3D printers which have various mechanical structures such as cartesian, delta and core (xy, xz) already are used open source code software such as Sprinter, Marlin, Cura 3D and Teacup. The control of the 3D printers is usually done by the classical Propotional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control algorithm. In this study, we have developed for the designed 3D printer a new software by using adaptive PID control algorithm instead of classical PID. Five step motors of the designed 3D printer are controlled by the adaptive PID. In addition, there are both heating and cooling processes in the extruder system and these processes are controlled by the adaptive PID. The mechanical design uses a belt and pulley drive system which is suitable for accelerated movements. In the system software, 3D Printing Software Pipeline (input model, orientation and positioning, support structures, slicing, path planning, machine instructions) is applied. The control algorithms for extruder and step motors are prepared as separate function files in software implemented in C. It has been observed that the designed software is particularly successful in eliminating errors on the surface of the products. Anahtar Kelimeler: Adaptive PID, 3D printer, step motor, algorithm. 3 Boyutlu Yazıcılar için Uyarlamalı PID Kontrol Tabanlı Algoritma Geliştirilmesi ve Gerçeklenmesi


Cosmological perturbation theory is the theory of fluctuations (scalar as well as tensor) around the inflationary cosmological background solution. It is important to understand the details of the process of renormalization in this theory. In more familiar applications of quantum field theory, the dependence on the external momenta of the dimensionally regulated expression of the one-loop contribution to a correlator determines the number of counter terms (and their forms) required to renormalize it. In this work, it is pointed out that in cosmological perturbation theory, though this still happens, it happens in a completely different way such that in the late time limit, the information about the number and forms of counter terms required gets erased. This is to be compared with what happens in spontaneous symmetry breaking where the use of fluctuation fields around a chosen vacuum seems to suggest that more counter terms shall be needed to renormalize the theory than are actually required. We also comment on how the field strength of curvature perturbation, $\zeta$, could get renormalized.


In many applications oftemporal reasoning is necessary to express metric and symbolic temporal constraints among temporal objects whether they are points or intervals. In order to cope with these requirements different formalisms have been issued., those that allow to express symbolic temporal constraints by one hand, and others involvingmetric temporal constraints. AJthough this formalism are suitable to represent just sorne kind of problems, in many cases, it is necessary to handle and represent in the same framework both metric and symbolic constraints among temporal objects, whether they are point or interval. . Starting from the previous schemes, different formalisms to integrate metric and symbolic temporal constraints have been issued. A common limitation of these proposals is that none of them allows to represent disjunctive constraints involving a metric component and a symbolic one. This type of eonstraints arises for example in scheduling problems, where an activity must be performed beforé or after another activity, but considering the setting time of the used resources [lbáñez,92b]. Besides in.many planning applications, the formulation ofthe problem itself, must be expressed as logic formulas with a periQd of time associated. Therefore, a temporal reasoning system oriented to planning should be able to express both the logic and the temporal part in a same frame. Unfortunately, none of the approaches to integrate symbolic and tnetric temporal constraints allows to express the logic part of the problem. The main aim of this paper is to de.fine a temporal tool which allows to express and unify metric and symbolic temporal constraints among temporal objects (intervals and points). The temporal model proposed in this paper is based on intervals. However, as opposed to other formalisms, the duration of the intervals may be zero, and therefore temporal points are incIuded. In other words, the concept of temporal interval used in the literature (where the duration is strictly greater than zero), is generalized. Starting from the temporal model, a new operational framework oriented to the resolution oí the problems rather than focused to the representation oftemporal reasoning problems is defined. TIte proposed . operational frarn.ework was designed as a new instance oí the CLP(X) scheme [lbáñez,93] in which the computational domain is formed from temporal objects. Conceptually, the variables of the CLP(Temp) language have associated a finite set of pairs of value5 representing temporal intervals. 639 3er. Worlcshop sobre Aspectos Teóricos de la InteligeneÑT Artificial


Each academic year, hundreds of students receive performance degrees from the nation's universities and conservatories. A growing number of students who complete such degrees choose to pursue performance opportunities offered by the military organizations. While the inclusion of orchestral excerpts has been a staple of wind pedagogy for decades, band literature has not been given the same attention. This author believes the inclusion of band excerpt study would improve the level of preparedness for auditions and performance in these professional ensembles.
No source exists containing information on the preparation of horn excerpts with which to study the style and literature of the concert band. Although the audition lists differ slightly for each of the premier military bands, the twenty-seven compositions included in this document are recognized as staples of the literature, considered to be works of substantive and high artistic merit, distinguished by historical importance, or are contemporary works which have been well-received. The information collected for each of the works includes biographical information for the composer, a brief history of the composition, suggestions for preparation including technical and stylistic elements, and a selected discography.
Audition announcements for the premier organizations are separate from the Armed Forces band recruitment program. These groups often advertise their openings in respective professional journals published by organizations such as the International Trumpet Guild, International Horn Society, International Trombone Association, and the International Tuba and Euphonium Association, as well as union magazines, including the International Musician.
Requirements often include performance of a standard concerto and works from the excerpt list (orchestral and band), as well as sight-reading and ensemble playing. In some cases, such as the Navy Band, fifty percent of the audition is based on the candidate's sight-reading ability, an area that consists of transcriptions of standard orchestral literature and original compositions for band. Reading/performance sessions with the ensemble can vary from the full concert band to smaller chamber ensembles (brass quintets, woodwind quintets, and horn sections). Well-prepared candidates should be equally comfortable with the orchestral and band literature.


Morphological aspects of the placenta of paca (Agouti paca, L., 1766) were studied by means of analysis with light microscopy and transmission electron microscopy of tissue samples corresponding to the portion of greatest placental connection of nine placentas in different pregnant females, in intermediary and final phases of pregnancy. We performed this study because there was, associated with the necessity of searching new specimen that might act as fine experimental models, the availability of this rodent in our environment. In the other hand, an improved knowledge of the reproductive aspects of these animals offers subsidizes to the establishment of rational raising centers of this species, since its preservation is necessary, besides the big commercial interest on its meat. The results showed that this rodent presents one vitelline and one chorio-allantoic placenta, which is a hemochorial and labyrinthine organ, histologically composed by lobules divided into three different portions: lobule center, labyrinth, and interlobule. In the lobule center portion the presence of arteries and veins was noticed, and in its peripheral portion there were two tubular systems set in a parallel way, where blood lacunas and capillaries were in close contact, constituting the labyrinth portion. Arteries and veins composed the interlobule. The main component of the placenta was the trophoblast, which independently from its site, presented a syncytio origin. Regarding the ultrastructure, the placenta barrier of paca was classified as hemomonochorial.


Due to limitations posed by the restrictive blood–brain barrier, conventional drug delivery systems do not provide adequate cyto‐architecture restoration and connection patterns that are essential for functional recovery in neurodegenerative disorders (NDs). Nanotechnology employs engineered materials or devices that interact with biological systems at a molecular level and could revolutionize the treatment of NDs by stimulating, responding to, and interacting with target sites to induce physiological responses while minimizing side effects. This review provides a concise discussion of the current applications of nano‐enabled drug‐delivery systems for the treatment of NDs, in particular Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and explores the future applications of nanotechnology in clinical neuroscience to develop innovative therapeutic modalities for the treatment of NDs.


Object-relational mapping libraries are a popular way for applications to interact with databases because they provide transparent access to the database using the same language as the application. Unfortunately, using such frameworks often leads to poor performance, as modularity concerns encourage developers to implement relational operations in application code. Such application code does not take advantage of the optimized relational implementations that database systems provide, such as efficient implementations of joins or push down of selection predicates. In this paper we present QBS, a system that automatically transforms fragments of application logic into SQL queries. QBS differs from traditional compiler optimizations as it relies on synthesis technology to generate invariants and postconditions for a code fragment. The postconditions and invariants are expressed using a new theory of ordered relations that allows us to reason precisely about both the contents and order of the records produced complex code fragments that compute joins and aggregates. The theory is close in expressiveness to SQL, so the synthesized postconditions can be readily translated to SQL queries. Using 75 code fragments automatically extracted from over 120k lines of open-source code written using the Java Hibernate ORM, we demonstrate that our approach can convert a variety of imperative constructs into relational specifications and significantly improve application performance asymptotically by orders of magnitude.


The occasional role played in Ovidian poetry by noble Roman families and their contemporary representatives has naturally received much less attention than the recurring and often ambivalent presence of Augustus. A case of special interest is that of the Fabii, whose antiquity and military prowess are accorded special attention in the Fasti, while the penultimate consul the gens produced was a correspondent of Ovid's from Pontus. I propose to examine the ways in which the fortunes of this house become a complex theme in Fasti 2, partly to justify a sophisticated reading of the poem and partly to encourage a similar approach to the theme of the princeps himself.