Orbital observational studies and investigations carried out on returned lunar samples have inferred the presence of a significant reservoir of volatile compounds, in particular water. It seems very likely that these volatile compounds will be concentrated at the poles and other locations, such as at depth, where low temperatures exist to provide cryogenic traps. However, the full inventory of these species, their concentration and their sources are unknown

To address some of these issues a volatile analysis instrument is required that is specifically designed for identification and quantification of volatiles. The Lunar Volatile Resources Analysis Package is part of the provisional payload for the ESA European Lander and aims to measure the chemical abundance, chemical and isotopic composition of volatiles from regolith samples and the lunar exosphere. It is important to understand, and limit where possible the contamination of the lunar surface by external volatiles in order that measurements are scientifically meaningful. Any controlled soft landing sequence will contaminate the locality of the lander with rocket propellant by-products. Therefore, to allow meaningful scientific return careful considerations must be given to the sampling campaign, i.e. sampling from below or outside of the contamination zone. To this end, it is considered that the use of a sub-surface penetrating mole offers the possibility of accessing material from within the contamination layer and then at increasing depth into pristine sub-surface material.

We report on the design and characterisation of an instrumented sub-surface penetrating mole device with an integrated miniaturised ion trap mass spectrometer capable of performing in-situ volatile detection and characterisation at the moon and any other airless body. The design uses the heritage gained from the Ptolemy Mass Spectrometer and the Beagle 2 sub-surface penetrating mole device.

We have aimed for a very highly integrated package with technology which is capable of flight readiness within this decade. Major drivers used in instrument design are science capability, and technology elements which include resources (mass, power, volume), maturity (heritage, TRL), ruggedness, contamination, radiation and telemetry and commanding issues.


Create your own Arduino-based designs, gain in-depth knowledge of the architecture of Arduino, and learn the user-friendly Arduino language all in the context of practical projects that you can build yourself at home. Get hands-on experience using a variety of projects and recipes for everything from home automation to test equipment. Arduino has taken off as an incredibly popular building block among ubicomp (ubiquitous computing) enthusiasts, robotics hobbyists, and DIY home automation developers. Authors Jonathan Oxer and Hugh Blemings provide detailed instructions for building a wide range of both practical and fun Arduino-related projects, covering areas such as hobbies, automotive, communications, home automation, and instrumentation. Take Arduino beyond "blink" to a wide variety of projects from simple to challenging Hands-on recipes for everything from home automation to interfacing with your car engine management system Explanations of techniques and references to handy resources for ubiquitous computing projects Supplementary material includes a circuit schematic reference, introductions to a range of electronic engineering principles and general hints & tips. These combine with the projects themselves to make Practical Arduino: Cool Projects for Open Source Hardware an invaluable reference for Arduino users of all levels. You'll learn a wide variety of techniques that can be applied to your own projects. What you'll learn Communication with serial devices including RFID readers, temperature sensors, and GPS modules Connecting Arduino to Ethernet and WiFi networks Adding synthesized speech to Arduino Linking Arduino to web services Decoding data streams from commercial wireless devices How to make DIY prototyping shields for only a couple of dollars Who is this book for? This book is for hobbyists and developers interested in physical computing using a low-cost, easy-to-learn platform.


Three terrestrial climate proxies are used to investigate the evolution of Holocene palaeoenvironments in southern central Australia, all of which present a coherent record of palaeohydrology. Single-grain optically stimulated luminescence from sediments supplemented by 14C from charcoal and lacustrine shells was obtained to date shoreline deposits (Lake Callabonna) and the adjacent Mt Chambers Creek alluvial fan. Our findings are complemented by a U/Th-based record of speleothem growth in the Mt Chambers Creek catchment, which we interpret to reflect increased precipitation. Together, these archives shed light on the timing of, and possible sources of water for, Holocene pluvial intervals. We identified several phases of elevated lake levels dated at ~5.8–5.2, 4.5, 3.5–2.7 and 1 kyr, most of which correspond to fluvial activity resulting from increased precipitation in the adjacent ranges. The enhanced hydrology during phases of the late Holocene likely increased the reliability of resources for regional human populations during a time of reduced winter rainfall. When considered within the framework of the current understanding of Holocene palaeoclimate in central Australia, our data suggest that the pattern of landscape response was broadly synchronous with larger scale climatic variability and punctuated by pluvial periods greater than today.


To the Editor: Early identification of zoonotic disease occurrence through simultaneous monitoring of human and animal disease surveillance systems is critical to protect health in both populations. We assessed the surveillance and reporting needs of a small but diverse group of Michigan veterinarians by examining their perspective of the current animal disease reporting system, the system enhancements desired, and their computer and Internet accessibility.

Developing systems that link human and animal disease reporting systems can help identify and facilitate a response to known and emerging zoonotic diseases. A system that allows simultaneous electronic capture and assessment of human and animal disease reports is being implemented in Michigan. The system will be based on the Michigan Disease Surveillance System platform, a Web-based human disease reporting system implemented by the Michigan Department of Community Health (1,2).

To ensure an integrated system that meets both human and veterinary public health needs, we developed a questionnaire for veterinarians to collect information on the current animal disease reporting system, system enhancements that are desired, and computer and Internet access capabilities (University Human Research Committee approved). In July 2003, a total of 112 questionnaires was sent to a convenience sample of Michigan veterinarians who represent a variety of practice types and sizes, participate in organized veterinary medicine and academia, and would be motivated to participate in system development. Of the 112 questionnaires, 84 (75%) were completed. Of 79 practices represented, 19 (24%) treated companion animals, 15 (19%) treated equids, 4 (5%) treated food animals (dairy, beef, small ruminant, poultry, or swine), 32 (41%) treated a variety of animals (no patient type >75%), 4 (5%) treated zoo animals, and 5 (6%) veterinarians were not in clinical practice.

Of 81 respondents, 75 (93%) indicated that they were aware of the Michigan reportable animal disease list. Yet, 37 (47%) of 79 respondents have reported no cases and 32 (41%) of 79 have reported 1 to 5 cases annually. Furthermore, only 19 (25%) of 76 respondents reported that their clients might have confidentiality issues that could impede disease reporting. Therefore, it will be important to continue educating veterinarians to ensure that suspected disease cases are reported as well as confirmed cases, which may have been reported by the laboratory also.

Positive feedback was received regarding the current animal disease reporting system. Respondents evaluated the availability of a published list of reportable diseases (68 [89%] of 76) and the availability and quality of laboratory testing and disease confirmation (57 [75%] of 76) as Strongly Like/Like (Scale = Strongly Dislike, Dislike, No Opinion, Like, Strongly Like). However, case submission feedback may need to be assessed as only 34 (45%) of 76 respondents evaluated this service as Strongly Like/Like and 13 (17%) of 76 evaluated it as Strongly Dislike/Dislike.

Of 73 respondents, 68 (93%) reported that routinely published animal disease surveillance data would be beneficial for themselves or their clients. Of 55 respondents, 24 (44%) indicated that these data would be used to increase disease awareness and 23 (42%) indicated the data would be used for risk assessment and prevention planning. Outbreak alert information, easy access to regulatory requirements, and animal disease information were also desired.

Virtually all practices had a computer (79 [99%] of 80), Internet access (70 [88%] of 80), and email (53 [75%] of 71). Most (68 [91%] of 75) were comfortable using a Web-based application to submit case reports. However, because Internet access and email may not be universal, multiple modes of communication must be utilized. Furthermore, of 81 respondents, 29 (36%) indicated lack of time, and 24 (30%) indicated lack of staff as a barrier to online reporting. Therefore, the reporting system should be efficient.

Rabies, bovine tuberculosis, and West Nile virus, all zoonotic diseases, were listed by >50% of the 79 respondents as 1 of the 6 diseases they felt were most important in Michigan. Simultaneous tracking of human and animal diseases was considered useful by 32 (84%) of 38 respondents because animals are sentinels of human (zoonotic) disease and by 7 (18%) respondents because of the threat of agroterrorism. In general, respondents are aware of the importance of animal disease reporting to public health.

In Michigan, the human and animal disease reporting systems are similarly structured, although there is no local level animal health agency (Figure). These similarities can provide the basis for a system that is functionally appropriate to track diseases in humans and multiple animal species and meet multiple agency surveillance objectives.

Figure

Comparison of Michigan human and animal disease reporting system structures. LHJ, Local Health Jurisdiction; MDCH, Michigan Department of Community Health; CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; WHO, World Health Organization; MDA, Michigan ...

Overall, this group of Michigan veterinarians considers developing a Web-based disease reporting system as useful as long as the following issues are addressed: 1) quality case report feedback; 2) access to correct and coordinated human and animal disease information; and 3) computer system reliability and efficiency. Based on the results of this study, the second phase of this project, construction of the animal disease surveillance portion of Michigan's reporting system, will be implemented with continued input from local, state, and federal stakeholders.


Since 1992, the annual decline in the undernourished fraction of the world's population has been minimal (0.3%) making undernourishment one of the most pressing and alarming global issues. The FAO annually publishes a list of best and worst performing countries that respectively significantly decreased or increased the proportion of the population that was undernourished. Strikingly, seven out of ten global best performers and four out of ten global worst performers are located in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study therefore seeks to explore the variables affecting undernourishment rates, in an attempt to explain this variance. Six case studies hence explored three best performers (Angola, Chad and Ghana) and three worst performers (Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia) as the unit of analysis. Three clusters of variables were studied; natural shocks, agricultural production and economy. Changes in these variables were examined between 1992-2000 and Ragin's qualitative case study research strategy was applied to facilitate the analysis. The data indicated that the most influential variable was agricultural production. Furthermore, good governance leads to improvements in all three clusters of variables, whereas a civil war negatively affects all three clusters. Undernourishment proved to be a very complex and intertwined problem and similar research on a larger scale was recommended. Undernourishment in Africa Marlies Overbeeke iii Table of


Confocal microscopy is known for its capability to produce exceptional 3D images, even in living tissue. At the same time, it is a powerful spectroscopic tool, facilitating fluores- cence methods such as Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS) or single-molecule Forster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET). It is heavily used to investigate a wide range of biological problems. This holds true especially for protein properties such as ligand binding, complex formation, conformational changes, or the intracellular distribution of the species in question.
In this work, I will describe the assembly of two instruments: The first is a multi- parameter fluorescence detection (MFD) setup. It is a purely spectroscopic tool that offers the capability to characterize a fluorescent molecule, delivering information like fluorescence lifetime, anisotropy or the speed of its diffusion in free solution. When the molecule of interest is labelled with two fluorophores, additional information, like the energy transfer in-between them, becomes accessible and the correct distance between these two fluorophores can be calculated. If the two fluorophores are attached to different molecules, the MFD setup can detect interactions of these molecules in the range from pM up to μM with the help of Fluorescence Cross-Correlation Spectroscopy (FCCS).
The second instrument, a stimulated emission depletion setup, combines some of the mentioned techniques, like FCS, with the superior image capability of a confocal micro- scope. One particular problem of fluorescent microscopes, though, is that image resolution is always restricted to the diffraction limit of the wavelength of the laser light. The STED setup utilizes the effect of stimulated emission in order to circumvent the diffraction bar- rier and allows images with a three-fold resolution increase, down to 75nm.
These two setups will be used for several applications: The first will be centered around the molecular conformation of proteins, which are sensitive to the nature of the aqueous environment. In particular, the presence of ions can stabilize or destabilize (denature) protein secondary structure. The underlying mechanisms of these actions are still not fully understood. I will apply single-pair FRET to a small 29 amino acid long model peptide to investigate unfolding mechanisms of different unfolding reagents from the Hofmeister series, like sodium perchlorate or guanidinium chloride. The results show that certain salts, which are commonly summarized as denaturing agents, achieve the unfolding by either collapsing the molecule to a compressed state or swelling it to a denatured state.
7
The second application of the MFD setup is the investigation of the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP). Although highly used in biochemistry and biophysics, for example to read out the expression level of genes, it is still not fully known what percentage of EGFP is fluorescent. This lack of knowledge makes it nearly impossible to make quantitative statements. With the help of FCCS, it is shown that the folding efficiencies range from 40 − 90%, depending on the environment of the fluorescent protein and which particular mutant is used.
In the third application, the focus will be shifted to nucleation- and polymerization- behavior of actin. The actin cytoskeleton is a central mediator of cellular morphogenesis, and rapid actin reorganization drives essential processes such as cell migration and cell di- vision. In order to compare results of confocal spectroscopy methods with well-established bulk essays, we successfully ported the standard bulk essay to the confocal microscope, allowing for the first time to follow the decrease of monomer concentration and appear- ance of small filaments. Also, the formation of dimers or other small oligomers below the critical concentration is proven for the first time, using FCCS.
The last application will utilize the STED setup in order to carry out the first steps towards the investigation of the nucleation and branching behavior of actin in cooperation with the actin related protein 2/3 (ARP2/3). This protein complex preferentially attaches to actin filaments that are located at the leading edge of a cell and forms branched filamentous structures. The exact conditions under which this process occurs are not well characterized. This part of the work will deal with the steps that are necessary to follow the polymerization process on the STED setup.


The quality and comprehensiveness of the FDA's National Drug Code Directory (NDCD) in magnetic tape form was evaluated. The internal quality of the tape was measured by performing cross-checks of the four record types found on the tape and by checking for the presence of "illegal" characters. The comprehensiveness of the tape was evaluated by determining the extent to which a sample of items from nine community and hospital pharmacies could be matched with code numbers on the NDCD tape. A second test of comprehensiveness measured the match rate between the shelf stock sample and National Drug Code (NDC) numbers in a magnetic tape supplied by a regional wholesaler. External quality was measured by comparing the NDC numbers on the containers of items from the shelf sample with the corresponding information in the NDCD tape. More than 300 discrepancies among the four types of records were discovered, and more than 100 "illegal" characters were present in each of the four record types. Matches on the NDCD tape could be found for 80% of the items in the shelf stock sample and 69.5% of the items in the tape supplied by the wholesaler. A total of 156 errors were discovered when the codes on containers in the shelf sample were matched with the NDCD tape information, yielding an error rate of 6.5%. Because of the 6.5% error rate, the usefulness of the NDCD tape is questionable. Since only 80% of an off-the-shelf sample of drugs had matches on the NDCD tape, about 20% of drug products would have to be matched with some other information source. How these figures for the NDCD tape compare with figures for proprietary tapes is not known.


We consider Reed-Solomon (RS) codes whose evaluation points belong to a subfield, and give a linear-algebraic list decoding algorithm that can correct a fraction of errors approaching the code distance, while pinning down the candidate messages to a well-structured affine space of dimension a constant factor smaller than the code dimension. By pre-coding the message polynomials into a subspace-evasive set, we get a Monte Carlo construction of a subcode of Reed-Solomon codes that can be list decoded from a fraction (1-R-ε) of errors in polynomial time (for any fixed ε > 0) with a list size of O(1/ε). Our methods extend to algebraic-geometric (AG) codes, leading to a similar claim over constant-sized alphabets. This matches parameters of recent results based on folded variants of RS and AG codes. but our construction here gives subcodes of Reed-Solomon and AG codes themselves (albeit with restrictions on the evaluation points).
 Further, the underlying algebraic idea also extends nicely to Gabidulin's construction of rank-metric codes based on linearized polynomials. This gives the first construction of positive rate rank-metric codes list decodable beyond half the distance, and in fact gives codes of rate R list decodable up to the optimal (1-R-ε) fraction of rank errors. A similar claim holds for the closely related subspace codes studied by Koetter and Kschischang.
 We introduce a new notion called subspace designs as another way to pre-code messages and prune the subspace of candidate solutions. Using these, we also get a deterministic construction of a polynomial time list decodable subcode of RS codes. By using a cascade of several subspace designs, we extend our approach to AG codes, which gives the first deterministic construction of an algebraic code family of rate R with efficient list decoding from 1-R-ε fraction of errors over an alphabet of constant size (that depends only on ε). The list size bound is almost a constant (governed by log* (block length)), and the code can be constructed in quasi-polynomial time.


A little more than a year ago, the world was anticipating the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City. The Winter Games were making their triumphant return to US mountains for the first time in 22 years. The winter sports season was producing great competition around the globe, promising high level of play at the Games. The lure of winning Olympic gold on the home ice and snow had drawn together the most promising Winter Olympic team the US Olympic Committee had ever fielded, and the organizing committee had overcome some daunting challenges to assemble a first-rate organization that promised to produce fantastic Games. Everything was unfolding as it had been envisioned seven years earlier when the International Olympic Committee (JOG) gave its nod to Salt Lake City to host the 2002 Games. What was unforeseen, and what was impossible to imagine, was the backdrop against which these Games would be held--the September 11 terrorist attacks and the growing threat to global security. I watched the tragedy of September 11 unfold on the television set in my office, as did many of my colleagues around the world. We were not US citizens, but we were seized by the same emotions. The events of that day may have happened in lower Manhattan, but their impact was felt across the globe by people of all nationalities. We were all brought together by the emotional bonds of fear, sadness, and uncertainty. As a result, in the ensuing months, the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City were looked to as a demonstration that the world could indeed come together in peace. While the central purpose of the Games is to celebrate the achievements of the best athletes in the world, every particular edition of the Games has brought people together and transcended conflicts raging at the time. The Olympic Games embody the world's desire to celebrate that which is most basic and traditional in our lives, that which signifies our humanity: the pursuit of excellence through athletic competition. As the Olympic Games return to the place of their birth in August 2004, the Athens organizers will emphasize the traditional values upon which Olympic competition has been built. If we take time to reflect upon this ethic, we moderns can learn some rather important lessons from these very ancient Games. The Games' Modern Rebirth In 1894 Pierre de Coubertin, a man devoted to classical education, established the IOC in Paris to revive the spirit of the Olympic Games of ancient Greece. He called his idea Olympism, and while he realized it would be considered utopian, he strove to use sport to teach the world's youth basic human values that would enable them to lead better lives and build better communities. Coubertin dedicated his life to developing a movement that would support his ideas of using sport to advance culture and education and then bring the world's youth together every four years in peaceful competition to celebrate the dynamic between sport, education, and culture. While much has changed in the years since Coubertin revived the Olympic Games, the TOC's role has remained the same: to lead the Olympic movement in its mission to advance Olympic values worldwide and to ensure the regular celebration of the Olympic Games. The Olympic movement does nor hold any grandiose visions of changing the world, but it does maintain hope that it can contribute to the improvement of the world by promoting the role of sport and its historic premier event, the Olympic Games. While the Games highlight the thrill of participation and the glory of victory; they also demonstrate the core Olympic values: fair play, respect for others, the balance between a strong body and mind, and the joy of taking part in the pursuit of excellence. Sport, properly taught, instills important social values and plays an important role in teaching values to youth, enabling them to improve themselves and their community. …


During the Great Recession of 2007 and 2008, liquidity and credit dried up, threatening the stability of financial institutions, particularly the banking firms. Traditional source of funds from the last resort, the Discount Window of the Federal Reserve System, failed to remedy the liquidity problem. To assuage the liquidity and credit problem, the Federal Reserve System established several emergency lending facilities and provided unprecedented amount of loans to the banking industry. Using a dataset published by Bloomberg LLP in the aftermaths of the financial crisis, which contains daily loan balances from the Fed, I conduct an event study to test whether financial markets are efficient in reflecting all public, anticipated and classified information in security prices. The most important contribution of this dissertation to the finance discipline and literature is the investigation and analysis of the Fed's unprecedented loans to the banking industry during the Great Recession and the market reaction to it. The second major contribution of this study is the empirical test of strong form efficient market hypothesis, which has not been feasible due to legal data challenges. This dissertation has other contributions to the finance discipline and banking research. First, I develop an algorithm for measuring the amount of borrowing by banks. Second, I introduce a new "loan balance" ratio to traditional list of bank financial ratios. Third, I use event study methodologies to allow for cross-correlation, heteroscedasticity and event induced-variance change in studying US banks' performance during the Great Recession.


The mucosal immune system is constantly exposed to challenges from the antigenic substances found in food and released from the body's own microbial flora. The body's normal tolerance to friendly antigenic substances can be disrupted by a number of factors, such as disease, injury, shock, trauma, surgery, drugs, blood transfusion, environmental triggers, etc. When this disruption happens, the ingestion of foods containing antigenic substances that have compositions similar to those of the body's autoantigens can result in the production of antibodies that react not only against the food antigens but also the body's own tissues. This response is known as food autoimmune reactivity. Between 7% and 10% of the world's population suffers from some form of autoimmune disease. Each patient's antibodies, both immunoglobulin A (IgA) + immunoglobulin M (IgM) in the saliva and immunoglobulin G (IgG) and IgA in the blood must be examined to give a complete picture of food immune reactivity. A host of health problems and autoimmune disorders have increasingly become associated with some of the most commonly consumed foods in the world, such as wheat and milk. Many of these problems can be traced to molecular mimicry. The peptide sequences of foods such as milk and wheat are similar to those of human molecules, such as myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein, human islet cell tissue, and human aquaporin 4 (AQP4). This similarity can result in cross-reactivity that leads to food autoimmunity and even autoimmune disorders, such as multiple sclerosis (MS), celiac disease (CD), and neuromyelitis optica. Further research is needed to determine what other foods have dangerous sequence similarities to human tissues and what methods are available to test for the autoantibodies resulting from these molecular, mimicry-induced misfires of the immune system. The identification and removal of corresponding food triggers can then be used as the basis of therapy.


Study Design. A case report. Objective. To report the occurrence of a herniated cervical disc following a high-impact activity in a pediatric Klippel-Feil patient who presented with spinal cord compression, myelopathy, and myelomalacia requiring posterior instrumented fusion followed by an anterior discectomy and fusion at the hypermobile nonfused segment. Summary of Background Data. The primary hallmark of Klippel-Feil syndrome (KFS) is the presence of at least one congenitally fused cervical segment. Studies have reported the potential risk of cervical injury from hypermobility associated with the nonfused cervical segment in KFS. The manifestation of a cervical disc herniation in the pediatric KFS patient is rare. To the authors' knowledge, the development of a symptomatic cervical herniated disc attributed to mechanical fatigue following a high-impact activity has not been addressed in the literature with respect to the pediatric KFS patient having extensive cervical fusion and a hypermobile segment. Methods. A 16.8-year-old KFS boy with occipitalization of C1 and fusion of C2–C3 and C4–T1 presented with myelopathy, severe cord compression, and myelomalacia stemming from a left-sided herniated cervical disc at C3–C4 with onset following an 8-foot high rooftop jump. On radiographic evaluation, the patient's C3–C4 segment was hypermobile. Results. The patient was operatively managed via a same-day combined posterior-anterior procedure. The posterior aspect of the procedure entailed a posterior lateral mass plate-screw fixation at C3–C4 with autologous iliac crest bone fusion. Anteriorly, a discectomy was performed at C3–C4 with application of an interbody tricortical autograft. After surgery, the patient wore a halo vest for 3 months, followed by a soft collar for an additional 3 months. On final follow-up at 39 months, the patient was asymptomatic with no instrumentation-related complications, fusion of the posterior graft-bed and anterior interbody graft was noted, and cervical alignment was maintained. Conclusions. A hypermobile segment in the pediatric KFS patient is a risk factor that may lead to cord compression. A symptomatic herniated cervical disc may develop from an excessive mechanical load stress in a pediatric KFS patient with multiple fused segments. In such a patient, a same-day combined posterior-anterior procedure provides cord decompression and stabilizes the spine with a favorable outcome.


Despite the Commission's efforts to highlight the positive impact of migration and the demographic and social pressures facing Europe in the future, migration issues continue to be approached through the traditional perspectives of security, control and restrictiveness. Echoing the fashionable discourse on contractual relations, the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum illustrates the Member States' hegemony over the framing of migration-related issues and their resurgent power to control legal entry, combat irregular migration and to dictate the terms of migrants' integration. There exists little reflection on normative considerations and on the negative impact of restrictive and law enforcement approaches on the formation of a European identity and the values underpinning the European project. National executives have shown their preference for traditional frames and old tools and the similarities between the French Presidency's European Pact on Immigration and Asylum and the 1998 Strategy Paper adopted by the European Council attest this. The only difference is that, due to demographic pressures, the MS would be prepared to admit certain categories of migrants because they need them. Yet, in so doing, they will continue to place hurdles on their path to temporary or permanent residence and to citizenship, which is now framed as a privilege or a status that has to be earned. An alternative approach to migration governance would have to reflect critically on the concepts, legal initiatives and policies that have characterised the last thirty years of Member State co-operation in this area and to rethink, and reframe, the area of freedom, security and justice.


Children have legal rights. Yet, children typically lack the legal capacity to represent their inte rests in courts. When federal courts are presented with children's claims, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require courts to ensure that children's legal interests are adequately protected. To do so, courts decide who can speak and make decisions for the child within the litigation. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 17(c) maps out a loose process for addressing these concerns but fails to fully account for a critical factor in protecting child litigants: the decisionmaking rights of parents.

Because parents have constitutionally protected authority to make important decisions for their children, litigation brought on a child's behalf presents a collision of rights and obligations between parents, children, and "the state," here, the federal courts. Court doctrine interpreting Rule 17(c) is tangled and inconsistent and fails to offer clear guidance regarding what preference, if any, parents should have to represent their children's interests in litigation. This Article proposes for the first time that constitutional doctrine establishing parents' protected decisionmaking authority should make parents the default representatives for their children in federal civil litigation. The Article presents an empirical account of court practices and an analytical framework to guide courts' application of Rule 17(c), which implements the general constitutional rule of parent priority while upholding the courts' responsibility to protect children's interests.


Predictive analytics embraces an extensive range of techniques including statistical modeling, machine learning, and data mining and is applied in business intelligence, public health, disaster management and response, and many other fields. To date, visualization has been broadly used to support tasks in the predictive analytics pipeline. Primary uses have been in data cleaning, exploratory analysis, and diagnostics. For example, scatterplots and bar charts are used to illustrate class distributions and responses. More recently, extensive visual analytics systems for feature selection, incremental learning, and various prediction tasks have been proposed to support the growing use of complex models, agent‐specific optimization, and comprehensive model comparison and result exploration. Such work is being driven by advances in interactive machine learning and the desire of end‐users to understand and engage with the modeling process. In this state‐of‐the‐art report, we catalogue recent advances in the visualization community for supporting predictive analytics. First, we define the scope of predictive analytics discussed in this article and describe how visual analytics can support predictive analytics tasks in a predictive visual analytics (PVA) pipeline. We then survey the literature and categorize the research with respect to the proposed PVA pipeline. Systems and techniques are evaluated in terms of their supported interactions, and interactions specific to predictive analytics are discussed. We end this report with a discussion of challenges and opportunities for future research in predictive visual analytics.


Alpine accentors and dunnocks bred in polygynandrous groups in which two or more unrelated males shared two or more females. In both species, a female solicited actively to both alpha and subordinate males whereas an alpha male attempted to guard the female to monopolize paternity. Females combated the restrictions imposed by alpha male guarding by increasing their solicitation rate to males who had gained less mating access. Males increased their copulation rate in response, but alpha males ignored more of the offers. In both species, even when a female mated with both alpha and beta males she often gained just one male's help with chick feeding. Under these conditions, alpha male alpine accentors reduced their amount of help with a decreased mating share, whereas beta males did not. In dunnocks, however, neither alpha nor beta males reduced their help provided a critical share of the matings was exceeded. As predicted if females attempted to maximize male help, female alpine accentors preferred to give more matings to the alpha male while female dunnocks preferred alpha and beta equally. There was no evidence for either species that alpha males sired fitter offspring; within broods of mixed paternity, there was no difference in the weights of chicks sired by alpha versus subordinate males. Female dunnocks competed with other females by territory defence whereas female alpine accentors had overlapping ranges and competed directly for male attention, increasing their solicitation rate to the alpha male if other females in the group were fertile. We suggest that the extraordinarily high rates of solicitation by females, refusal by males and copulation rates (up to a thousand per clutch) in the two species are the outcome of sexual conflict over the control of mating.


Scientific and grey literature on invasive alien species (IAS) is conditioned by social, economic and political priorities, editorial preferences and species and ecosystem characteristics. This leads to knowledge gaps and mismatches between scientific research interests and management needs. We reviewed the literature on IAS management in Spain found in Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar and Dialnet to identify key deficiencies and priority research areas. The collected literature was classified, employing features describing formal aspects and content. We used bibliometric and keyword co-occurrence network analyses to assess the relationship between features and reveal the existence of additional topics. Most of the compiled documents (n = 388) were focused on terrestrial ecosystems and inland waters, whereas marine and urban ecosystems were under-represented. The literature was largely generic and not species-specific, focusing on raising awareness and proposing changes on current regulation as prominent approaches to prevent further introductions. The compiled authors exhibited many clear publishing preferences (e.g. language or document type), but less regarding target taxa. In addition, there was a strong association between species and the different features considered, especially between the methodological approach (e.g. review, field experiment) and the primary emphasis of study (i.e. basic/theoretical, applied or interdisciplinary). This indicates that research on IAS has had a strong species-specific focus. References about terrestrial species focused mainly on vascular plants, whereas references about inland waters were mostly on fishes and the giant reed (Arundo donax), which has been managed with partial success. Animal culling and plant removal were the most frequent eradication and small-scale control treatments, whereas the documents addressing wider spatial scales were largely theoretical. Consequently, the success of described treatments was largely uncertain. Spanish invasion science research has been occasionally innovative, incorporating novel technologies (e.g. species distribution modelling) and engaging society with citizen-science approaches. However, the ratio between basic/theoretical and applied studies indicates that more applied research/management is needed, especially in inland waters and marine ecosystems. We call for increasing effort in the effective dissemination of experience in IAS management to enhance current practical knowledge, including that of schemes undertaken by public agencies.


The dire state of coral reefs demands a rapid increase in the scale and efficiency of coral restoration methods in addition to mitigating local and global stressors. Larval propagation can provide vast numbers of coral propagules from an individual spawning event and increased genetic diversity in restored populations. The conversion of embryos collected from wild, broadcast‐spawning populations to settlers that can be outplanted to the reef is a key component of this production process. We present preliminary results on settlement yield (i.e. % embryos converted to settled polyps on outplantable substrates) following in situ mass culture in floating mesocosms (Coral Rearing In‐situ Basins, or CRIBs; 5.6 m3 volume, 5.4 m2 surface area) that can be implemented independent of land‐based facilities. Ten trials over 2 years were conducted in three locations using five Caribbean broadcast‐spawning species. Embryos were added at different stocking densities and settlement was scored 2–4 weeks after fertilization. Two trials failed, resulting in no effective settlement, but the remaining eight trials resulted in between 1% and 11% settlement yield (overall mean 5.3%) and 77–100% of substrates exposed to larvae acquired settlers (average production: 700 substrates trial−1). Parallel land‐based trials showed a similar range (<1–14%) and mean (3.6%) settlement yield over nine trials. These values are also similar to the previously published lab and field‐based trials using Pacific Acropora spp. Continued optimization of CRIB design and execution is expected to improve consistency, overall yield, and efficiency in the production of sexual propagules for restoration.


Abstract The formation of sulphide and cassiterite-bearing chlorite-rich greisens in the Navalcubilla granite has been modelled theoretically. Numerical simulation on the reaction of a hydrothermal fluid with a granitic rock predicts assemblages very similar to those found in nature, with progressive formation of muscovite, quartz, chlorite, microcline and plagioclase zones. The hydrothermal alteration of the rock produces a neutralization of the inflowing acid fluid, a drop in the fS₂ and, to a lesser degree, an increment in fO₂. During hydrothermal alteration, fS₂ and fO₂ change abruptly between metasomatic zones, but chlorite seems to control their major changes. Scheelite and cassiterite are concentrated in the internal zones, while sulphides are related to the more external zones. Fluid-rock reactions seem to be very effective for precipitating cassiterite and scheelite, even from very Sn and W-poor fluids. Appreciable amounts of sulphides are only expected in systems with high concentrations of base metals. Boiling and simple cooling of the fluids acidifies and oxidizes them but chemical changes are not strong enough to induce significant precipitation of ore minerals, at least when the temperature changes are small. Continued circulation of fluids along fractures with previously precipitated quartz + wolframite produces replacement of wolframite by scheelite and sulphides.


Background: Fish have been at high risk of atrazine toxicity. Comparative atrazine toxicity on the tissues of Clarias gariepinus is scanty. Therefore, acute and chronic effects of atrazine on some biochemical parameters in Clarias gariepinus were investigated in this study. Methods: Atrazine toxicity was determined by assessing the responses of glucose, protein, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), superoxide dismutase (SOD), acetylcholinestarase (AChE) and malondialdehyde (MDA) in blood, gill and liver of fish exposed to both acute (0.00, 28.00, 30.00, 32.00 and 34.00 μg/l) and chronic (0.00, 7.00, 7.50, 8.00 and 8.50 μg/l) concentrations for 96 h and 28 d, respectively. Results: In acute exposure, glucose and MDA levels showed significant (P<0.05) variations in all tissues. Protein and LDH decreased in all tissues except the latter slightly increased at 32.00μg/l in blood and liver compared to control. ALT and AChE were induced in blood but inhibited in gill and liver. SOD significantly decreased in blood but increased in gill and liver. AST was activated in blood and liver but reduced in gill. In chronic exposure, glucose, protein, SOD and AChE were inhibited in all tissues, while MDA level was induced. ALT, AST, and LDH activities were induced in blood but inhibited in gill and liver except 22.90% induction noted in liver at 8.00 μg/l atrazine. Conclusion: Exposure to varying concentrations of atrazine induced enzymatic/metabolic alterations in C. gariepinus. These alterations can be used as biomarkers of atrazine toxicity in fish.


Details of the Late Cretaceous–Cenozoic migration of the Australian continent have been sources of contention since the 1960s. Two types of apparent polar wander paths (APWPs) have emerged from previous paleomagnetic studies: one group based on sedimentary and lateritic data that includes relatively linear northward motion of Australia away from Antarctica, and a second group, based on basaltic and lateritic data, that includes significant longitudinal movement of the Australian continent. This study compares the migration and evolution of the Australian plate over the past 100 m.y. using these two competing paths. Our animated reconstructions illustrate the relative motion of the Australian plate, the formation of Cenozoic volcanic provinces in eastern Australia, the opening of the Coral and Tasman Seas, and the docking of the Ontong Java Plateau with the Solomon Islands. The reconstructions incorporate new 40 Ar/ 39 Ar and previously published geochronology data from Late Cretaceous to Cenozoic east Australian mafic to felsic volcanism in order to evaluate potential relationships between volcanism, changes in the motion of the Australian plate, and the opening of the Tasman and Coral Seas. We conclude that the APWP that includes significant longitudinal movement is more compatible than the linear path with both observable geological features (such as volcanic tracks) and the global moving hotspot reference frame. Our reconstructions reveal little correspondence between opening of the Tasman and Coral Seas and eruption of east Australian lava fields. However, the reconstructions and new 40 Ar/ 39 Ar geochronology illustrate that the formation of east Australian Late Cretaceous to Cenozoic central volcanoes and lava fields were closely linked, both temporally and spatially, and we suggest that edge-driven convection was an important process in the generation of both types of east Australian volcanic provinces.


Renal artery aneurysm is a rare condition, the incidence being ~0.01 - 1%. In pregnancy this condition is rare but carries a significant mortality. Predisposing factors in pregnancy are thought to be physiological, hormonal and haemodynamic. Clinical diagnosis requires a high level of suspicion, as patients are usually asymptomatic prior to rupture. The clinical presentation often mimics other common obstetric conditions such as labour, uterine rupture or placental abruption. It is essential at laparotomy in cases of intra-abdominal bleeding that a thorough search is made for the source of blood loss when no obvious obstetric cause is found. We report a case of a maternal death that was due to rupture of a renal artery aneurysm in the immediate peripartum period in a patient with chronic hypertension.


This paper examines the accuracy of design equations specified in the North American, European, and Australasian codes for cold-formed steel structures in determining the ultimate tilt-bearing capacity of singleshear bolted connections without washers in flat steel sheets. It points out that all the code equations do not properly distinguish the tilt-bearing failure mode from the conventional bearing failure mode. While the latter takes place downstream of the bolt, the former takes place upstream. Unlike the conventional bearing capacity, the tilt-bearing capacity is affected by the width of the connected sheet and does not vary linearly with either the sheet thickness or the bolt diameter. Furthermore, it is not affected by material ductility. Based on the test results of 156 specimens composed of G2 and G450 sheet steels having various dimensional configurations, this paper proposes a design equation that is dimensionally consistent and that is considerably more accurate than all the code equations. The proposed equation was also verified against single-shear single-row bolted connections tested by independent researchers which failed in the tilt-bearing mode. The verified thicknesses ranged from 0.92 to 3.0 mm, and the bolt diameters ranged from 6.4 to 16 mm. An additional finding is that the tilt-bearing capacity is not significantly affected by the orientation of the bolt head or nut. A resistance factor of 0.75 is recommended for use with the proposed equation for determining the tilt-bearing capacity of single shear single-row bolted connections in cold-reduced steel sheets. Disciplines Engineering | Science and Technology Studies Publication Details Teh, L. H. & Uz, M. E. (2017). Ultimate Tilt-Bearing Capacity of Bolted Connections in Cold-Reduced Steel Sheets. Journal Of Structural Engineering, 143 (4), 04016206-1-04016206-12. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/eispapers1/118 Ultimate Tilt Bearing Capacity of Bolted Connections in Cold-Reduced 1


Repeated prescribed fire is a valuable tool for the management of longleaf and loblolly pine. When applied every two to ten years, for example, prescribed fire perpetuates existing longleaf pine ecosystems (Outcalt 1997). Furthermore, the acceptance of fire as a management tool, together with recent improvements in longleaf pine regeneration methods have aided efforts to restore longleaf pine to its natural range (Outcalt 1997, Landers et al. 1995). Low-intensity, prescribed fire every two to five years is also commonly used to manage loblolly pine on public and non-industrial, private land to reduce understory fuel and stimulate the development of wildlife browse.


This paper is about low-income neighbourhoods, their organisation and management. It is not a study in deprivation, but is about problem-solving, about the reforms in delivery underway in Britain, about long run attempts to change neighbourhood conditions and environments, about the central role of local government and housing organisations in tackling ground-level problems. It addresses environmental and social problems within neighbourhoods as part of a wider understanding of social exclusion, sustainable development and the need for greater care of our urban communities. Although its perspective is shaped by British examples, many of the issues are relevant to other countries. Although its focus is on low-income urban neighbourhoods of predominantly rented housing, the ideas can be applied to any neighbourhood of whatever tenure, size or location. This revised up-dated edition takes account of the ODPM's Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, and the Neighbourhood Management and Neighbourhood Warden Schemes they are supporting.


Ours is said to be a settlement culture. Litigation is a wasteful exercise to be avoided. Ours is also a market culture, where nearly all decisions are ultimately tested by the logic of the marketplace. There is a small, but enormously interesting area where these two cultures have unevenly coalesced: a public policy of subsidizing settlement is being undermined by the very market forces the policy was partly designed to circumvent. At this point, it appears that the market has triumphed again, as it repeatedly has at the border of public policy and individual choice. But the policy continues, even as it feeds the market logic that has resulted in its undoing. This article details the new life cycle of a tort claim. Barely twenty years ago, this cycle was, conceptually speaking, a short one. A successful legal claim was reduced to a settlement or judgment against a tortfeasor. Insurance exerted a gravitational influence on whether and against whom claims might be brought, the willingness of courts to entertain novel claims, and the promptness of payment to the tort victim. From the tort-law perspective, this is important, but secondary. Tax law was likewise a shadowy presence; while its impact was substantial (and not altogether salutory from a tort-law perspective), it was hardly a prime mover of settlement it would become. Through a combination of increased financial sophistication, changing views about the moral basis of tort law, and an uneven political commitment to undo the revolution in tort liability, the tort claim life cycle has evolved. A newly-generous tax code permitted tort litigants to turn less into more, and thereby improve the benefits of settlement to both parties. Moreover, this innovation spurred the creation (or more precisely the novel adoption) of insurance products designed to protect successful plaintiffs from themselves, while not coincidentally limiting the costs to their injurers. A tort claim, after being reduced to settlement, might be incorporated into a series of periodic payments. At this point, the expressed policy of facilitating such settlements, whatever its merits, was working to perfection. But public policy, whatever its merits, cannot endure unscathed in a market culture. That culture has creatively assimilated these tort, tax and insurance-based arrangements into the universe of commodities such as pork belly futures, delinquent auto loans, and other generic receivables. We might question whether our society's general commitment to alienability of property extends to those rights initially conferred by the State as a matter of corrective justice, and then subsidized by the State in the name of other goals. This, then, is the story of how a tort claim winds up on Wall Street.


ABSTRACT:Many households in underdeveloped and developing countries still suffer from food insecurity, which is unreliable access to a sufficient quantity of nutritious food. It is a major cause of malnutrition and undernourishment. Thailand is a food surplus country but food accessibility, particularly among rice-farming households, is often problematical. Consequently, their energy consumption is often lower than national minimum dietary energy requirements and they suffer from undernourishment. To provide policy recommendations to support rice-farming households, this study identifies the determinants of their food security using a logit model. Household food security is a binary variable: it is classified as food-secure or food-insecure using a minimum dietary energy requirement threshold of 2,100 kcal/adult equivalent/day. The analysis draws on 2,871 households from Thailand's SocioEconomic Survey (SES) data in 2011. It finds that 57% of total households are food-secure, while 43% are food-insecure. Key findings are as follows. First, those households with relatively better educated heads are more likely to be food-secure than those with lower educational levels. Second, increases in household income or food expenditure lead to higher probabilities of food security. Third, households that produce more food for own consumption are more likely to be food-secure than those which sell a higher proportion of what they produce. Fourth, livestock ownership or increases in farm inputs, such as family labor, farm size and fertilizer, improve the probability of food security. However, increases in household size, the dependency ratio, and total household expenditure result in a lower probability of households being food security. The findings therefore suggest that food insecurity can be alleviated by the extension of provisions towards integrated farming and self-sufficiency, better family planning programs and child care, better education, and managing household income and expenditure for food consumption. In addition, increases in farm size, use of family labor and use of fertilizer can further enhance food security.


One of the current challenges for the additive manufacturing (AM) industry lies in providing component designs compatible with the AM manufacturability and constraints without compromising the component structural functionalities. To address this challenge, we present an automated correction system that provides geometrically feasible designs for additive processes by applying locally effective modifications while avoiding substantial changes in the current designs. Considering a minimum printable feature size from the process parameters, this system identifies the problematic features in an infeasible part's design using a holistic geometric assessment algorithm. Based on the obtained manufacturability feedback, the system then corrects the detected problematic regions using a set of appropriate redesign solutions through an automated procedure. In addition, to reduce the difference between the current and modified part geometries, a novel optimization model for build orientation is presented. By using this model, one can identify appropriate orientations for obtaining a feasible design with a minimal amount of corrections while also reducing the postprocessing effort by minimizing the area of contact with the support structure. The functionalities of the presented correction system and the optimization model are illustrated using a number of case studies with varying geometries. The computational performance of the system and an experimental validation are also presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the implemented detection and modification approaches.


Firstly, dismissing justice as a non-issue in the European context means being guilty of knowingly building a justice-blind (read: unjust) legal system, which cannot possibly be a legitimate aspiration and should thus be avoided at any cost. Secondly, the students of integration seem to be guilty of overlooking or downplaying justice concerns citing merely rhetorical, often sui generis-inspired arguments and displaying statist views of justice ignoring the EU's obvious far-reaching potential as an actor of justice and injustice shaping our lives – a view which is bound to change as the EU legal system matures. This contribution restates the normative importance of justice and makes an attempt to find its reflection in the main-stream literature on EU law, only to uncover three deficient approaches to justice: Presumed justice, Rhetorical justice and Silence about justice. All the three fall short of reflecting the EU's nature as a justice actor. Building on these normative and empirical observations it is possible to add one more element to the list of the deficits the EU suffers from.


Objective Identifying risk factors is important in adolescent sports concussions. This study aimed to explore the relationship between affective symptoms and physical symptoms in youth concussions. Design Athletes were split into two groups: self-reported emotional symptoms (irritability/aggression, anxiety, depression, apathy, and/or labile mood; EMO, n=22) and a control group without emotional symptoms (CON, n=15). Groups were examined for differences between post-concussive symptoms and peri-concussive factors. Setting Outpatient clinic. Participants 37 concussed adolescents age 12–17 with persisting concussion symptoms were assessed. Concussion diagnoses were indicated by traumatically induced alterations in mental status (with or without LOC), disruption in brain functioning (memory loss/neurological deficits), and other physiologic symptoms post-concussion. Those with baseline psychiatric history and/or special education were excluded. Assessment of risk factors Post-concussive symptom variable relationships were assessed. Outcome measures group differences were analysed using ANOVAs. Results No differences between positive LOC, positive amnesia, or post-concussive criteria existed, indicating likely comparable severity. While there were no group differences for number of concussions, headaches, or nausea, those in EMO were significantly more likely to endorse photo-sensitivity (p=0.003, F=10.155) and phono-sensitivity (p=0.007, F=8.108). Both anxiety and irritability/aggression were significantly (p<0.05) correlated with endorsement of attention difficulties (r=0.332, r=0.474, respectively). Family psychiatric history was not correlated with emotional difficulties post-concussion. Conclusions Results indicate that adolescents who self-report emotional difficulties following sports concussion are more likely to endorse some physical symptoms, particularly photo-sensitivity and phono-sensitivity. Those experiencing anxiety or irritability are also more likely to experience increased attentional difficulties. Competing interests None.


OBJECTIVE
To determine whether specific psychological factors characterize adolescents who take overdoses.

METHOD
Measures of problem-solving, depression, anger, impulsivity, and self-esteem were investigated in 33 adolescents after an overdose, 30 psychiatric controls, and 30 community controls, the groups being matched for age and sex. All subjects were interviewed twice, 6 weeks apart. The first interview in the overdose group followed an overdose.

RESULTS
Significant differences were found between the 3 groups on all of the variables at both interviews. However, when depressive affect (Beck Depression Inventory) was controlled for, all of these differences disappeared, except for impulsivity at the second interview. Here the overdose group remained more impulsive than the other groups even when depression was considered.

CONCLUSIONS
Depression is the most important factor in the presentation of a range of psychological characteristics of adolescents who take overdoses, and this remains true at 6-week follow-up. Impulsivity is apparently an important factor, independent of depression, in adolescent self-poisoning. Further research is required to determine the mediating role of impulsivity in this behavior and to identify treatment strategies for it.


Background: The choice between unit-of-use versus traditional bulk packaging in the US has long been a continuous debate for drug manufacturers and pharmacies in order to have the most efficient and safest practices. Understanding the benefits of using unit-ofuse packaging over bulk packaging by US drug manufacturers in terms of workflow efficiency, economical costs and medication safety in the pharmacy is sometimes challenging. Methods: A time-saving study comparing the time saved using unit-of-use packaging versus bulk packaging, was examined. Prices between unit-of-use versus bulk packages were compared by using the Red Book: Pharmacy's Fundamental Reference. Other articles were reviewed on the topics of counterfeiting, safe labeling, and implementation of unit-of-use packaging. Lastly, a cost-saving study was reviewed showing how medication adherence, due to improved packaging, could be cost-effective for patients. Results: When examining time, costs, medication adherence, and counterfeiting arguments, unit-of-use packaging proved to be beneficial for patients in all these terms.


An extensive study of the Leitz Hektor or type
121 triplet lens has revealed fairly simple relationships
between the aberrations and the design parameters at large
apertures. These relationships, although more complicated
than the direct well known relationships for small apertures
of triplet systems, nevertheless, are simple enough to
allow the designer to systematically correct the zonal
spherical between f/3.5 and f/2.5 in both the monochromatic
and chromatic stages of design. The design principles
developed for the type 121 triplet have been applied
successfully to the type 122 triplet: they have been found
by interpolative rather than extrapolative design techniques.
Interpolative designis a feature of this work. Initially the 3rd, 5th and 7th order Buchdahl
aberration coefficients of the "3rd order type 121 triplets"
have been mapped with respect to all the monochromatic
design parameters. This "limited interpolative study" has
revealed that most of these coefficients approach zero in
a small region. In particular, in this "optimum region"
the first three orders of spherical aberration are near
zero or pass through zero. This property enables the
"optimum region" to be located accurately and rapidly with
a comparatively small amount of calculation. The spherical aberration (to 7th order) of some
systems in the "optimum region" is predicted to be zero at
two zones (the 0.707 and the marginal zone). This two-zone
correction, however, fails to hold at apertures between
1/3.5 and 1/2.5 due to the presence of 9th order and higher
order spherical aberration. However, it has been found
that these outer zones of the monochromatic system are
controlled by the Petzval sum and the spherical aberration
residual;thus allowing two zone correction for an aperture
of f/2.5 in the presence of higher order aberrations.
When correcting the chromatic aberrations of the
type 121 a similar situation has been found with the large
apertures C. > 1/3.5). The longitudinal chromatic aberration
residual, in particular, is linked to the Petzval sum's
influence on the spherical aberration of the zones beyond
1/3.5 and, the transverse chromatic aberration residual
has a smaller but still significant effect also. Thus it
has been found that adjustment of the chromatic aberration
leads to a system with a smaller Petzval sum. On the basis of this property, it was predicted
that the 3rd, 5th and 7th order spherical coefficients
must converge to a minimum with a small Petzval sum when
the chromatic aberration is optimized for all zones.
This has been confirmed by repeating the maps of the 3rd,
5th and 7th order spherical aberration coefficients with respect to the monochromatic and chromatic design parameters.
The aberration coefficients are found to converge to an
optimum set in a single region of the entire design space.
This model of the system's behaviour explains many published
properties of triplets.
It has also been predicted from the study of the
spherical aberration that the 9th and higher orders of
spherical aberration must converge to a minimum in step
with the 3rd, 5th and 7th orders. This has been confirmed
by mapping the 9th and 11th order Buchdahl spherical aberration
coefficientswith respect to the design parameters.
Thus in the "optimum region" the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th
order spherical aberration coefficients are near to, or pass
through, zero.'
The type 121 with optimum zonal spherical aberration
for f/2.5 has been developed and compared with published
Pentac f/2.5 designs.
Finally the principles developed for correcting
the zonal aberrations beyond f/3.5 have been applied to the
systematic development of the type 122 triplet. This has
resulted in the easy location of two zone correction.


Anaerobic digestion has been widely employed in waste treatment for its ability to capture methane gas released as a product during the digestion. Certain wastes, however, cannot be easily digested due to their low nutrient level insufficient for anaerobic digestion, thus co-digestion is a viable option. Numerous studies have shown that using co-substrates in anaerobic digestion systems improve methane yields as positive synergisms are established in the digestion medium, and the supply of missing nutrients are introduced by the co-substrates. Nevertheless, large-scale implementation of co-digestion technology is limited by inherent process limitations and operational concerns. This review summarizes the results from numerous laboratory, pilot, and full-scale anaerobic co-digestion (ACD) studies of wastewater sludge with the co-substrates of organic fraction of municipal solid waste, food waste, crude glycerol, agricultural waste, and fat, oil and grease. The critical factors that influence the ACD operation are also discussed. The ultimate aim of this review is to identify the best potential co-substrate for wastewater sludge anaerobic co-digestion and provide a recommendation for future reference. By adding co-substrates, a gain ranging from 13 to 176% in the methane yield was accomplished compared to the mono-digestions.


Fluvial systems are strongly responsive to changes in climate and land use — but take their time to show it. Accurate prediction of the timing and degree of future fluvial response requires comprehensive understanding of fluvial response in the past. This PhD-thesis studied the response of the river Rhine over the last 20,000 years, as recorded in the morphology, composition and volumes of its sediment. Borehole data and various dating techniques were combined to time-slice cross-sections and to construct a series of palaeogeographic maps. A method to calculate amounts of sediment carried both in suspension and as bed load during millennia-long time slices was developed. This research shows that only climate changes during the glacial-interglacial transition and the strong rise of human land use during the late Holocene were large enough to trigger response and overwhelm ongoing autogenic behaviour of the river and the buffering capacities of the Rhine catchment. The climatic changes at the glacial-interglacial transition triggered incision and abandonment of the Pleniglacial braidplain terrace along the entire Rhine valley. This was accompanied by a shift from a braided to a meandering fluvial style, but it took several millennia to complete the transition to a single meandering channel. As a result, the Rhine was a multi-channel river during the Late Glacial and most of early Holocene. The last phase of fluvial response to the glacial-interglacial transition consists of increased delivery of fine sediment during the first half of the Holocene (until ~ 6000 years ago). This sediment had been stored in the upstream tributary valleys since the full glacial, and was released by incision of the Rhine and its tributaries when they adapted to the interglacial climate conditions. Overall, this study shows that sizable fluvial catchments adapted slowly to large scale climatic changes, in both spatially and temporally complex ways. During the Holocene other external factors than climate change became important for the development of the Rhine system. In the Rhine delta, the combination of eustatic sea level rise and subsidence provided in large accommodation space for sediment delivered from upstream. Release of bed load by the meandering and incising Rhine in the trunk valley forms the source for bed load delivery to the delta. Both the Rhine trunk valley and delta are sinks for suspended sediment, and the amount of stored sediment in these areas was used to reconstruct fine sediment transfer through the lower Rhine. Following the aforementioned increased delivery of fine sediment during the first part of the Holocene, sediment transfer stabilised during the middle Holocene. During the last 2000 years the delivery of fine sediments to the sinks is up to 150 % higher compared to the directly preceding millennia. This can only be explained as the result of progressive deforestations for agricultural land use since the late-Neolithic (6300 years ago). The timing of the increased delivery of fine sediments suggests that pre-Roman land use was already extensive. Hence, prehistoric land use should be regarded as a drainage basin-wide forcing factor for fluvial systems.


Aiming at quantifying the impacts of soil properties on rainfall–runoff processes, the soil saturated hydraulic conductivity ( K s ) and the soil erodibility factor ( K ) were selected and incorporated into the classical topographic index ln(α/tanβ) ( TI ) to construct a modified topographic index ( TI′ ). Stream network extractions and performance evaluations of topography-based hydrological models based on TI and TI′ were carried out in three watersheds with different climate conditions. The investigations indicated that: (1) the changes of stream networks caused by the incorporation of K s ·K could correctly present the phenomenon that the points would show greater potential to be saturated to become contributing areas if their underlying soils possess higher hydraulic conductivities and stronger erodibility; and (2) the performances of the topography-based hydrological models TOPMODEL and TOPX were improved when simulating the daily rainfall–runoff processes with the input of ln(α/(tanβ·Ks·K) ( TI3 ). TI3 was suitable for rainfall–runoff simulation in arid and semi-arid, humid and semi-humid, and humid regions. The performance improvements increased as the spatial heterogeneity of Ks·K enlarged. Based on these investigations, TI3 was recommended for the modified form of TI′ .


The highly branched mammalian lung relies on surfactant, a mixture of phospholipids, cholesterol, and hydrophobic proteins, to reduce intraalveolar surface tension and prevent lung collapse. Human mutations in the ABCA3 transporter have been associated with childhood respiratory disease of variable severity and onset. Here, we report the generation of Abca3 null mice, which became lethargic and cyanotic and died within 1 h of birth. Tissue blots found ABCA3 expression was highest in lung but was also detectable in other tissues, including the kidney. Gross development of kidney and lung was normal in neonatal Abca3−/− pups, but the mice failed to inflate their lungs, leading to death from atelectatic respiratory failure. Ultrastructural analysis of the Abca3−/− lungs revealed an absence of surfactant from the alveolar space and a profound loss of mature lamellar bodies, the intracellular storage organelle for surfactant. Mass spectrometry measurement of >300 phospholipids in lung tissue taken from Abca3−/− mice showed a dramatic reduction of phosphatidylglycerol (PG) levels as well as selective reductions in phosphatidylcholine species containing short acyl chains. These results establish a requirement of ABCA3 for lamellar body formation and pulmonary surfactant secretion and suggest a unique and critical role for the transporter in the metabolism of pulmonary PG. They also demonstrate the utility of the Abca3 null mouse as a model for a devastating human disease.


David Bach is a former Navy SEAL, a commissioned officer in the Naval Reserve, an experienced firearms instructor, and an attorney. He is now employed by the Department of Defense, where he holds a Top Secret security clearance. This model citizen resides in the Commonwealth of Virginia, where he is licensed to carry a concealed weapon. Bach periodically takes his wife and three young children to upstate New York by car in order to visit his parents. This lengthy journey goes through several high-crime areas in New York, and he wants to carry a defensive firearm on his person, either openly or concealed, in case of a criminal assault during one of these trips. New York issues licenses to carry firearms to its own citizens who meet certain statutory criteria, and to nonresidents who have their principal place of employment or business in the state, but not to visitors like Bach. If he carried his personal weapon with him, he would be committing a felony. The Second Circuit rejected Bach's claim that New York law violates the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV. This brief essay argues that Bach's Privileges and Immunities claim is valid, and that the nature of the claim throws an interesting light on a provision of the Constitution whose importance exceeds the amount of attention it has received from the Supreme Court.


Plantation-grown wood species are becoming more important. Their anatomical, physical, and mechanical properties are different and generally more variable than wood grown in natural stands. The objective of this study was to investigate the wettability and surface roughness (SR) of natural and plantation-grown narrow-leaved ash (Fraxinus angustifolia Vahl.) wood. The logs were cut from a natural stand versus three different spacings of plantation-grown narrow-leaved ash wood stands. Plantation spacings were 3 x 2 m, 3 x 2.5 m, and 4 x 4 m. The wetting behavior of the wood samples was characterized by the contact angle (CA) method (goniometer technique). A stylus type profilometer was used for the SR measurement according to the DIN 4768 (1990) standard. The SR and CA measurements were done on both the radial and tangential surfaces of the samples. Individual values of both SR and CA of ash wood showed statistically significant differences. Based on the findings, it appears that the natural-grown ash wood have higher (less favorable) SR and lower (more favorable) CA values compared to all the plantation-grown ash wood on both radial and tangential surfaces. Tangential surfaces had lower SR values and higher CA values than the radial surfaces for all groups. In conclusion, plantation-grown narrow-leaved ash wood can be utilized for bonded wood products such as plywood, laminated veneer lumber, and glulam.


Anomalous mole–fraction effects (AMFE) were studied, using the inside–out configuration of the patchclamp technique, in both recombinant wild–type α–homomeric rat olfactory adenosine 3′,5′–cyclic monophosphate (cAMP)–gated channels (rOCNC1) expressed in human embryonic kidney cells (HEK 293) and native cyclic nucleotide–gated (CNG) channels in acutely isolated rat olfactory receptor neurons. Single–channel and macroscopic currents were activated by 200 μM and 500 μM cAMP, respectively. Macroscopic currents, measured with mixtures of Na+–NH4+ or Cs+–Li+ in the cytoplasmic bathing solution, displayed AMFE in the rOCNC1 channels at both positive and negative membrane potentials. The rOCNC1 single–channel conductance showed a distinct minimum (or maximum) in an 80% Na+–20% NH4+ mixture (or a 60% Cs+–40% Li+ mixture), but only at positive membrane potentials. Macroscopic measurements in native olfactory CNG channels with mixtures of Na+–NH4+ indicated similar AMFE. These results suggest that both native CNG channels and recombinant α–homomeric channels allow several ions to be present simultaneously within the channel pore. They also further validate the dominant role of the α–subunit in permeation through these channels, provide the first evidence to suggest that rOCNC1 channels have multi–ion properties and further justify the use of the rOCNC1 channel as an effective model for structure–function studies of ion permeation and selectivity in olfactory CNG channels.


We evaluate the importance of spillover effects of national migration policies by estimating the effect of stricter rules on family reunification in Denmark in 2002 on migration to neighboring countries. We reach two main conclusions. First, we show that stricter rules for reunification lead to a clear and significant increase in emigration of Danish citizens with immigrant background. Most of the emigrants left Denmark for Sweden, a neighboring country in which reunification was possible. Second, we demonstrate that a significant fraction of the individuals that came to Sweden to reunite with a partner left the country again; within two (eight) years around 20% (50%) had left, with the absolute majority leaving for Denmark. Our results indicate that potential spillover effects from national migration policies should be taken into account when forming migration policy.


Despite attempts to reform the law to eliminate hierarchies that subordinate groups of people, the law usually ends up reinstantiating those hierarchies. This "preservation through transformation" phenomenon occurs consistently, over time and across legal disciplines. Karl Llewellyn's efforts at drafting Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code are no different. Llewellyn attempted a paradigm shift in contract formation when he sought to decouple contract law from its formalistic roots and bring it back in touch with reality on the ground. But in so doing, the law-in-action strand of Legal Realism ended up working at cross purposes with the other, critical strand of Realism. As a result, Llewellyn's paradigm shift only served to exacerbate structural problems built into the contract law system. This Essay attempts to explain why Llewellyn's efforts to reform contract law have had such serious, long-term but unintended consequences for the modern contract law system. It does so in an unorthodox way. Instead of drawing from traditional contract-law scholarship, the Essay imports insights from two seemingly unrelated fields – civil rights law and social philosophy. The Essay's central thesis is that revising existing doctrine will rarely if ever result in meaningful change in the modern contract law system. In fact, doctrinal reform will almost always be counter-productive, as reforms from within will only rebuild power, advancing and further protecting the interests of the privileged. Understanding and revealing this trap is essential to finding a path forward to lasting change. Contrary to traditional contract-law critiques, meaningful reform will only occur by understanding power-who has it, why they have it, and how they keep it. INTRODUCTION 1 I. LEGAL REALISM AND KARL LLEWELLLYN 1 II. CROSS PURPOSES AND UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES 6 III. THE LIMITS OF SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION 9 A. "Preservation Through Transformation" 9 B. Some Thoughts on Law, Social Structures and Agency 15 CONCLUSION--USING THE MASTER'S TOOLS 22


We describe the automated spectral classification, redshift determination, and parameter measurement pipeline in use for the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) as of the survey's ninth data release (DR9), encompassing 831,000 moderate-resolution optical spectra. We give a review of the algorithms employed, and describe the changes to the pipeline that have been implemented for BOSS relative to previous SDSS-I/II versions, including new sets of stellar, galaxy, and quasar redshift templates. For the color-selected "CMASS" sample of massive galaxies at redshift 0.4 ≲ z ≲ 0.8 targeted by BOSS for the purposes of large-scale cosmological measurements, the pipeline achieves an automated classification success rate of 98.7% and confirms 95.4% of unique CMASS targets as galaxies (with the balance being mostly M stars). Based on visual inspections of a subset of BOSS galaxies, we find that approximately 0.2% of confidently reported CMASS sample classifications and redshifts are incorrect, and about 0.4% of all CMASS spectra are objects unclassified by the current algorithm which are potentially recoverable. The BOSS pipeline confirms that ∼51.5% of the quasar targets have quasar spectra, with the balance mainly consisting of stars and low signal-to-noise spectra. Statistical (as opposed to systematic) redshift errors propagated from photon noise are typically a few tens of km s−1 for both galaxies and quasars, with a significant tail to a few hundreds of km s−1 for quasars. We test the accuracy of these statistical redshift error estimates using repeat observations, finding them underestimated by a factor of 1.19–1.34 for galaxies and by a factor of two for quasars. We assess the impact of sky-subtraction quality, signal-to-noise ratio, and other factors on galaxy redshift success. Finally, we document known issues with the BOSS DR9 spectroscopic data set and describe directions of ongoing development.


The electronic structure and chemical bonding of three differently prepared samples of graphene oxide paper‐like sheets are studied. Two are created by water filtration of fully oxidized graphene sheets, although one is later intercalated with dodecylamine. The third is created by reducing graphene oxide with hydrazine hydrate. The spectroscopic fingerprints of the aligned epoxide functional groups that unzip the carbon basal plane are found. This unzipping appears to be a result of aging, and the extent to which the basal plane is unzipped can be controlled via the preparation method. In particular, reduction with hydrazine enhances line defect formation, whereas intercalation inhibits the process.The hydroxyl functional group also has a tendency to gather in zones of dense oxidation on the carbon basal plane, a predilection that is not shared by the other prominent functional group species. Finally, the non‐functionalized carbon sites exhibit very similar bonding despite the increase in the sp2/sp3 ratio, confirming that reduction alone is insufficient for producing pristine graphene from graphene oxide. These results are obtained by directly probing the electronic structure of the graphene oxide samples via X‐ray absorption near‐edge structure spectroscopy (XANES) and resonant X‐ray emission spectroscopy (RXES). This work has important significance for the development of graphene oxide as a band gap‐engineered electronic material, as preparation methodology strongly affects not only the initial condition of the sample, but how the electronic structure evolves over time.


The rivers and canals of the northeastern United States were early transportation networks that settled interior "wildlands" and opened the subsistence farm economy to eastern markets. Industries and cities grew along these water courses, and although canals were replaced by railroads, it was the canal-river infrastructure of the early 1800s that transformed occupations, markets, and settlement patterns of the new country (Kalabon et al. 2013). Growing urbanization modified rivers and their watersheds to achieve new uses and goals. The processes of population growth and settlement create massive changes in the social-ecological dynamics of river uses, habitats, and landscapes (Grove 2009). About 3% of the world population in the 1800s lived in urban areas; by the 1900s urban populations grew to 14% (Grove 2009), and today over half (55%) of the world population lives in urban environments with a United Nations projection of 68% by 2050. The spatial changes in settlement patterns and spider-like intrusions into "wildlands" along river landscapes are historic and modern, and are present and future challenges to water conservation and management at the rural-urban interface. These changes are concurrent with the growth in scientific knowledge about water ecologies and shifts in human perspectives and values about the…


INTERFACE is a Matlab©.tool for simplifying and automating many of the operations needed for building a talking head. INTERFACE consists of set of processing tools, focusing on dynamic articulatory data physically extracted by an automatic optotracking 3D movement analyzer. The final aim of INTERFACE is that of building up the animation engine of LUCIA our emotive/expressive Italian talking head. LUCIA can be directly driven by an emotional XML tagged input text, thus realizing a true audio visual expressive synthesis. LUCIA's voice is based on an Italian version of FESTIVAL-MBROLA packages, modified for expressive synthesis by means of an appropriate APML/VSML tagged language. Moreover, by using INTERFACE, it is possible to copy a real human talking by recreating the correct WAV and FAP files needed for the animation by reproducing the movements of some markers positioned on his face and recorded by an optoelectronic device. In this work the latest improvements of INTERFACE will be described and few examples of their application to real cases will be illustrated.


Malaysia is committed to fostering the development of a clean and efficient economy; that is, a "green" economy. This means encouraging the development of green businesses and green products, which in turn will create "green jobs." The current economic and environmental crises have accelerated during the last two decades: Global warming in climate; fuel, food, water and the economy as a whole. At the fundamental level, there exists a misallocation of resources. Relatively little capital was invested in energy efficiency, sustainable agriculture, ecosystem, land and water conservation. This pattern of development and growth has had detrimental impacts on the well-being of current generations and presents risk and challenges for future generations. As Malaysia promotes greater environmental awareness, it is important to establish national benchmarks by which to measure progress toward a greener economy. This study seeks to advance the state of knowledge in Malaysia on the green economy. To achieve this we need to be able to measure resources, economic activity and progress, accurately and appropriately. The result also indicates that an increase in the prioritizing green economy projected by the companies operating in Malaysia will lead to increase in green economic sustainability. This implies that the progress towards the green economy in Malaysia is also influenced by the perception of its importance in the future. The analysis reveals that increase in green economy awareness among the firms will lead to increase in the level of environmental sustainability, thereby improving the current state of green economy in Malaysia. Moreover, an increase in the green economy priority by the companies increases its sustainability in the economy


Discovery of regularities in data involves search in many spaces, for instance in the space of equations, boolean expressions, statistical patterns, and the like. If data do not fit any hypothesis in a particular space, much time could be saved if that space was not searched at all and the search effort was directed to other spaces. A test which determines the non-existence of a solution in a particular space can prevent unneeded search. We concentrate on construction of a test which detects the existence of a functional relationship between two variables in a set of numerical data. The test is passed when the data satisfy the functionality definition. The test is general and computationally simple. It works on data which include error, limited number of outliers, and background noise. Our algorithm detects the functional dependence, but it does not recognize a particular form of that dependence. That task is left to an equation finder, which is called when the data pass the functionality test. We show, how our functionality test works in database exploration within the 49er (read: Forty-Niner) system, as a trigger for the computationally expensive search in the space of equations. Results of tests show the time saved when the test has been applied. Then we discuss how the functionality test, in conjunction with a continuity test can be used to recognize multifunctions, and to split the data so that each part includes a single functional dependency and can be searched for a single equation.


The cycle from one release of a software product to the next is becoming shorter and shorter. Especially for custom software products (nonstandard software), implementation productivity needs to be increased. The reuse of prefabricated software components and the implementation of reusable and extensible software are of great importance. The object-oriented programming paradigm has already proven to fulfill these demands in the area of graphical user interfaces or visualization in general, but its applicability undoubtedly extends beyond user interfaces. Thus we initiated a project with the aim to examine the impact object-oriented programming can have on the design and implementation of automation software. In this paper we present a framework for process automation software which was implemented on SUN SPARC stations using ET++ (a user interface application framework) and C++. In addition to the design of the framework, we describe the implementation of a process control software for a ladle furnace (part of a steel plant) using our framework.


This paper examines the inductive inference of a complex grammar with neural networks and specifically, the task considered is that of training a network to classify natural language sentences as grammatical or ungrammatical, thereby exhibiting the same kind of discriminatory power provided by the Principles and Parameters linguistic framework, or Government-and-Binding theory. Neural networks are trained, without the division into learned vs. innate components assumed by Chomsky (1956), in an attempt to produce the same judgments as native speakers on sharply grammatical/ungrammatical data. How a recurrent neural network could possess linguistic capability and the properties of various common recurrent neural network architectures are discussed. The problem exhibits training behavior which is often not present with smaller grammars and training was initially difficult. However, after implementing several techniques aimed at improving the convergence of the gradient descent backpropagation-through-time training algorithm, significant learning was possible. It was found that certain architectures are better able to learn an appropriate grammar. The operation of the networks and their training is analyzed. Finally, the extraction of rules in the form of deterministic finite state automata is investigated.


Abstract: At the landscape level, the four-horned antelope is confined to tropical dry deciduous forests and within these, their distribution is patchy. Various factors have been proposed as determinants for their patchy distribution within landscapes, but none provided an adequate explanation. We hypothesized that availability of a constant supply of forage influenced the species distribution. We found that the four-horned antelope mainly fed on fruits and flowers, and that a total of 60% of the tree species in Panna Tiger Reserve bore fruits at different times of the year. High tree species richness in habitat patches was considered a surrogate for constant supply of forage for the four-horned antelope. Data from 547 sighting locations between 2002 and 2006 and six spatial layers were analysed using maximum entropy to produce a probability distribution model for the four-horned antelope in Panna Tiger Reserve. Our model predicted that habitat patches summing up to only 9.5% of the 543 km2 of Panna Tiger Reserve had high probability of distribution (>0.5) of four-horned antelope. Although all variables contributed to the distribution model of the four-horned antelope, explanatory power was highest for tree species richness within habitat patches. The distribution of four-horned antelope within tropical dry deciduous forests can be treated as an indicator of high tree diversity and hence habitat quality.


Stressful life events cause a variety of conditions affecting cerebral and neuroendocrine functions. Repeated stressful events also may determine sensitization leading to an increase in responsiveness to stress stimuli. Recent findings suggest that cognitive and emotional dysregulation related to traumatic stress likely is linked to defective inhibitory functions that may also lead to temporo-limbic seizure-like activity, increased vulnerability to stressors, and dysregulated asymmetry in neural activity patterns that may influence interhemispheric dissociation. Together recent data show that dysregulation in the brain asymmetry and mental functioning may be caused by stress-related activation that can influence also the peripheral endocrine glands through the HPA axis and other pathways connecting the CNS and the target endocrine glands.


A monitoring mission to map and characterize the Point Loma Ocean Outfall (PLOO) wastewater plume using an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) was performed on 3 March 2011. The mobility of an AUV provides a significant advantage in surveying discharge plumes over traditional cast-based methods, and when combined with optical and oceanographic sensors, provides a capability for both detecting plumes and assessing their mixing in the near and far-fields. Unique to this study is the measurement of Colored Dissolved Organic Matter (CDOM) in the discharge plume and its application for quantitative estimates of the plume's dilution. AUV mission planning methodologies for discharge plume sampling, plume characterization using onboard optical sensors, and comparison of observational data to model results are presented. The results suggest that even under variable oceanic conditions, properly planned missions for AUVs equipped with an optical CDOM sensor in addition to traditional oceanographic sensors, can accurately characterize and track ocean outfall plumes at higher resolutions than cast-based techniques.


PURPOSE
To evaluate the role of in vivo laser scanning confocal microscopy (Heidelberg Retina Tomograph II, Rostock Cornea Module, HRTII-RCM) in the management of Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK).

METHODS
Four eyes of four patients with AK seen at Keio University Hospital at the Department of Ophthalmology were studied in this single-center, prospective, interventional case series. All patients were routinely examined by slit-lamp microscopy including corneal fluorescein staining. Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was also measured before and after the treatment for AK. Both the scraped corneal epithelium and soft contact lens (SCL) storage solution in each patient's SCL case were cultured. Patient corneas were examined regularly using the HRTII-RCM before treatment and after commencement of medications including azoles, echinocandins, and chlorhexidine.

RESULTS
All patients had various degrees of conjunctival injection, corneal edema, stromal opacity with radial keratoneuritis with slit-lamp examination. Cultures for AK were positive in three out of four cases by corneal scraping. Contact lens storage solutions were also positive in three of four cases. HRTII-RCM examination could detect Acanthamoeba cysts or trophozoites in all eyes before corneal scraping. No organisms were detectable in any of the cases in any of the corneal layers four to six weeks after treatment. The BCVA improved with treatment in three of four eyes.

CONCLUSIONS
HRTII-RCM could effectively demonstrate cysts and trophozoites and the nature of the inflammatory process in AK. In vivo laser scanning confocal microscopy employing HRTII-RCM could provide an end-point for treatment, saving the patient from additional invasive diagnostic procedures and unneeded exposure to long term topical or systemic medications.


We propose the development of a "population" of high-quality assessment tasks that cover the performance goals set out in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. The population will be published. Tests are drawn from this population as a structured random sample guided by a "balancing algorithm."