One of the most firmly established principles of constitutional law is "one person, one vote,"(1) meaning that legislative districts within each state must be equal in population. There are no dissenters from that proposition on the Supreme Court, and there have been none for decades. Legislatures, litigants, judges, and academics all accept the proposition. Yet as a matter of text and history, that proposition is almost certainly incorrect, and judicial enforcement of it has produced unintended results that are perverse from many different points of view. In order to bring legislative districts as close to "precise mathematical equality" as possible, states must disregard preexisting political boundaries such as cities, townships, and counties. Adherence to these traditional boundaries was, historically, the principal constraint on creative districting, popularly known as "gerrymandering." Once freed from these traditional constraints by the Supreme Court's "precise mathematical equality rule," legislative line-drawers were able to draw maps to produce the results they desired, rendering elections less a reflection of popular opinion than of legislative craftsmanship. The problem has become particularly acute with modern computer districting software, which allows mapmakers to create imaginative districts with the precision of a surgeon. The results? Protection for incumbents, a tendency toward homogeneous -- and hence more partisan -- districts, racial and partisan gerrymandering, and ultimately, a widespread sense that elections do not matter. Needless to say, these were not the objectives the Supreme Court thought it was pursuing when it embarked on its great adventure of solving the malapportionment problem. It behooves students of the political process to understand the mistakes that were made, and their results, if only as an object lesson that departure from the actual text and meaning of the Constitution, even in service of well-intentioned goals, can have unintended consequences. This is not to say that the old system of grossly malapportioned legislatures was constitutionally proper, or that the courts were wrong to take steps to dismantle it. My point, instead, is that the Court adopted a legal theory for addressing the issue that was wrong in principle and mischievous in its consequences. More careful attention to constitutional text and history would have produced a better solution. I. THE REDISTRICTING PROBLEM BEFORE BAKER V. CARR Until the early 1960s, the federal courts played no role in legislative districting. By almost any measure of democratic legitimacy, however, the districting process was a disaster. Take the example of Tennessee, which was at issue in Baker v. Carr.(2) The Tennessee Constitution theoretically required the legislature to draw district lines in accordance with population, but there was no mechanism for judicial enforcement in state court.(3) From 1901 until Baker in 1963, the legislature simply left existing district boundaries in place.(4) Yet enormous population shifts had occurred during that time. In 1901, a majority of the American public still lived on the farm. Cities were small; suburbs, in that pre-automobile age, were nonexistent. But Tennessee employed the same district lines in 1960 that had been established in 1901. As a result, the suburbs and cities were grossly underrepresented. For example, rural Moore County, Tennessee, had a single representative(5) for 2,340 voters,(6) whereas urban Shelby County was allotted only eight representatives(7) for its over 312,000 voters(8) -- meaning about 44,000 voters per representative as compared to the 2,300 in Moore County. That is an astonishing disparity. These disparities were not random; they were systematic. This style of malapportionment in Tennessee and elsewhere gave rural and agrarian interests a lock on legislative power, despite their minority status. Voters in rural districts having only 40% of the voting population elected 63 of the 99 members of the state House of Representatives(9) -- almost a two-thirds majority. …


The effect of Sn for Ti substitution on the crystal structure of a perovskite, barium titanate stannate (BTS), BaTi1−xSnxO3 for x = 0, 0.025, 0.05, 0.07, 0.10, 0.12, 0.15 and 0.20, was investigated. The powders were prepared by the conventional solid-state reaction technique. The structural investigations of the BTS powders were done at room temperature by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution TEM (HRTEM), selected-area electron diffraction (SAED) and Raman spectroscopy analyses. Rietveld refinement of XRD data indicates that gradual replacement of titanium by tin in BaTiO3 provokes a phase transition from tetragonal for 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.07 to cubic for x = 0.12, 0.15 and 0.20. The coexistence of tetragonal (P4mm) and cubic (Pm\overline 3m) crystal phases was established in powder with nominal composition BaTi0.9Sn0.1O3. The crystal phases determined by Rietveld refinement were confirmed by HRTEM and SAED analyses. The crystal structures of the BTS powders at short-range scale were studied by Raman spectroscopy, which shows tetragonal (P4mm) and a small fraction of orthorhombic (Pmm2) crystal phases for all the examined BTS powders, implying a lower local ordering when compared to the average symmetry.


Copper overload can cause sperm cell damage by inducing oxidative stress. On the other hand, cumin has a good antioxidant potential. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of cumin on sperm quality and testicular tissue following experimentally induced copper poisoning in mice. Forty‐eight mature male mice were divided into four equal groups as follows: group Cu which received 0.1 ml copper sulphate at dose of 100 mg kg−1, group Cc which received Cuminum cyminum at dose of 1 mg kg−1, treatment group which received copper sulphate (100 mg kg−1) and treated with Cuminum cyminum (1 mg kg−1), and control group which received the same volume of normal saline. Six mice in each group were sacrificed at week 4 and week 6. The results showed that sperm concentration, motility and viability in group Cu were significantly decreased at weeks 4 and 6, and severe degenerative changes were observed in testicular tissues in comparison with the control group. In treatment group, significant improvement in the sperm count, motility and viability, and normal architecture in most seminiferous tubules with organised epithelium was observed compared to the group Cu. The sperm quality parameters in the treatment group approached those of the control group.


In this paper we report the study of tryptophan metabolism via serotonin in ventricular CSF in HIV-1 infection in order to investigate the origin of tryptophan metabolites in the human brain. The patients (n=4) were affected with non-communicating hydrocephalus. One of these also was suffering from HIV-1 infection. The CSF was withdrawn from different sites of the cerebral cavity with a neuroendoscopic procedure which allows an accurate exploration of all the cerebral ventricles. The measurement of tryptophan, 5-hydroxytryptophan, serotonin, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, and melatonin was carried out by HPLC with fluorometric detection. In HIV-1 infection the highest concentration of tryptophan is present in the CSF of the choroid plexus; however, the levels are markedly lower than those in hydrocephalic individuals (control group). 5-Hydroxytryptophan CSF content is higher in HIV-1 infection than in hydrocephalic controls in all districts examined. Regarding serotonin, a great difference appears in the choroid plexus and in the pituitary recess between the HIV-1 infected patient and the control group. The values of 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid are much lower in the CSF of the HIV-1 infected patient than in hydrocephalic controls. Melatonin levels appear to fluctuate largely but, in the HIV-1 infection, a great variability is present among the sites of CSF withdrawal. The third ventricle contains the highest concentration of melatonin and the choroid plexus and the pituitary recess the lowest. All the melatonin concentrations in HIV-1 infection are largely different than in hydrocephalic controls. This is the first report on the measurement of tryptophan metabolites via serotonin in ventricular CSF in HIV-1 infection.


Over the past years, the European Journal of Engineering Education (EJEE), the journal of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) developed as a more research oriented journal. Bibliometric analyses show that EJEE keeps pace with other leading journals in the field of Engineering Education in most respects. EJEE serves a worldwide audience with about as many contributions from Europe as from other parts of the world. Yet, the impact factor of the journal calculated according to the formula of Thomson's ISI Web of Science seems to be lagging behind. As an explanation for this phenomenon, it is argued that EJEE keeps on publishing papers that are appreciated by practitioners in the field, even if they do not generate a lot of citations in scientific journals.


Distant-talking voice-based HCI system suffers from performance degradation due to mismatch between the acoustic speech (runtime) and the acoustic model (training). Mismatch is caused by the change in the power of the speech signal as observed at the microphones. This change is greatly influenced by the change in distance, affecting speech dynamics inside the room before reaching the microphones. Moreover, as the speech signal is reflected, its acoustical characteristic is also altered by the room properties. In general, power mismatch due to distance is a complex problem. This paper presents a novel approach in dealing with distance-induced mismatch by intelligently sensing instantaneous voice power variation and compensating model parameters. First, the distant-talking speech signal is processed through microphone array processing, and the corresponding distance information is extracted. Distance-sensitive Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs), pre-trained to capture both speech power and room property are used to predict the optimal distance of the speech source. Consequently, pre-computed statistic priors corresponding to the optimal distance is selected to correct the statistics of the generic model which was frozen during training. Thus, model combinatorics are post-conditioned to match the power of instantaneous speech acoustics at runtime. This results to an improved likelihood in predicting the correct speech command at farther distances. We experiment using real data recorded inside two rooms. Experimental evaluation shows voice recognition performance using our method is more robust to the change in distance compared to the conventional approach. In our experiment, under the most acoustically challenging environment (i.e., Room 2: 2.5 meters), our method achieved 24.2% improvement in recognition performance against the best-performing conventional method. Keywords—Human Machine Interaction, Human Computer Interaction, Voice Recognition, Acoustic Model Compensation, Acoustic


Assumption-based offline analysis tools may not be able to provide sufficient and accurate information for the corrective decision making to mitigate solar photovoltaic (PV) impacts in the future distribution grids. This is mainly due to the increasing penetration level of intermittent power generation resources and also the fluctuating behavior of consumer demand. Online assessment tools can assist to manage PV impacts and aid to mitigate those on a real-time basis. This paper proposes an approach for online assessment of rooftop PV impacts on low-voltage (LV) networks using real-time network data. A variable-width sliding window will be used to provide the analysis an outcome-based online data. The width of the sliding window can be varied according to user input so that the changes in network behavior caused by PV integration can be investigated conveniently. Several numerical indices are proposed in this paper to assess solar PV impacts on the LV networks. This approach also uses the online data to develop real-time distribution network models for a dynamic "what-if" analysis. The usefulness of the proposed online assessment approach is verified using an Australian LV distribution feeder.


This paper, drafted as an adjudicator's opinion in a recent case of nearly first impression, explores an approach to aligning the strengths and opportunities available through the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) by considering how more ordinary antitrust issues can be adjudicated through the Section 337 portion of the ITC's docket. This might be done using existing law. The basic theme is that there are several significant reasons why even a skeptic of the ITC's Anti-dumping, Countervailing Duty, and Safeguards docket (collectively, the "Title VII" docket) – as well as an antitrust skeptic – should be significantly less worried when cases normally expected to be brought in the Title VII portion of the ITC's docket as petitions are instead brought in the Section 337 portion of the ITC docket as complaints alleging ordinary violations of the antitrust laws. Private antitrust litigation fits well within the ITC's Section 337 docket for several reasons. It squarely fits with the plain meaning of the ITC's statute. It also squarely fits the well-established antitrust case law. In addition, it offers some practical benefits. Unlike the relatively easy-to-satisfy legal requirement for assessing injury in the Title VII portion of the docket, a 337 investigation involving established antitrust law would turn on the substantive legal standards within that body of established antitrust law that are seen by a broad consensus to be focused on a middle of the road attempt to represent true public interest in avoiding actual economic harm to a market as a whole. In addition, a 337 investigation, which involves initial inter-partes adversarial litigation before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), implicates less reliance on administrative deference than an action in the Title VII portion of the docket, and more reliance than in the Title VII portion of the docket on a detailed factual record involving the full panoply of procedural devices ordinarily available in federal court for truth-testing of evidence including cross examination of testimony, all in a timeframe likely to be significantly shorter (around 18 months) than the many years typically required for antitrust litigation in federal court. Nevertheless, at least one recent high-profile dispute involving steel imported from China shows there is at least one significant barrier that may stand as a practical obstacle to a private litigant bringing an antitrust claim under the Section 337 portion of the ITC's docket: the doctrine that federal courts developed called "antitrust injury," During the initial phases of such a case recently brought against Chinese importers of steel by the domestic US steel industry, with support from both companies and unions, the ALJ dismissed the antitrust complaint for lack of antitrust injury in an initial determination that was then reviewed by the Commission. The ITC affirmed. This paper explores some reasons why the antitrust injury doctrine from federal court may not be a good fit for investigations brought under Section 337 at the ITC.


In this paper, we present an automatic web image and video mining framework with the ultimate goal of building a universal human age estimator based on facial information, which is applicable to all ethnic groups and various image qualities. On one hand, a large (391 k) yet noisy human aging image database is collected from Flickr and Google Image using a set of human age-related text queries. Multiple human face detectors based on distinctive techniques are adopted for noise-prune face detection. For each image, the detected faces with high detection confidences constitute a bag of face instances. We further remove the outliers via principal component analysis (PCA), which results in a condensed image database with about 175 k face instances. A robust multi-instance regressor learning algorithm is then developed to learn the kernel regression-based human age estimator in the presence of bag label noises. On the other hand, about 10 k video clips are downloaded from YouTube. We extract tracked face sequences from these video clips. Although their age labels are unknown, the tracked faces within a sequence are naturally with identical ages. This age-consistence constraint for face pairs is used as an extra regularizer to enhance the robustness of the age estimator. The derived human age estimator is extensively evaluated on three benchmark human aging databases, and without taking any images from these benchmark databases as training samples, comparable age estimation accuracies with the state-of-the-art results are achieved.


There is a need to better measure and improve the quality of oncology care and improve communication with patients and other providers. The American Society of Clinical Oncology Breast Cancer Registry (BCR) pilot evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of prospective data collection for quality assessment in daily clinical practice. Data were used to create and share treatment plans/summaries (TPSs) at the point of care.


This report presents modeling of temperature profiles for application of microwaves to pothole patching and roadway deicing. Values of key parameters are estimated and presented for asphalt-aggregate composites containing varying magnetite content (compacted and with voids), ice, and water. The key parameters are: microwave absorption coefficient at 2.45 GHz, density, heat capacity, and thermal conductivity. This report summarizes the work the authors were able to complete, including a large number of equations characterizing key parameters and an extensive list of references. The natural magnetite in taconite is an outstanding microwave absorber. Consequently, when a truck-mounted microwave generator is driven over an ice-covered roadway constructed with crushed taconite as the aggregate, the microwaves should pass through the ice and be absorbed as heat at the road-ice interface, allowing the ice to be easily detached and scraped away. This energy-efficient process is the only non-chemical method of deicing practical for many miles of roadway. Adoption of this deicing method could lead to a significant demand for taconite aggregate. The same microwave equipment used for deicing could be used year-round for pothole patching applications, with the microwave energy used to generate just the required amount of hot mix on-site for permanent repairs.


Demand-side financing approaches have been introduced in a number of low and middle-income countries, with a particular emphasis on sexual and reproductive health. This paper aims to bring together the global evidence on demand-side financing mechanisms, their impact on the delivery of sexual and reproductive health services, and the conditions under which they have been effective. The paper begins with a discussion of modalities for demand-side financing. It then examines 13 existing schemes, including cash incentives, vouchers, and longer term social protection policies. Based on the available literature, it collates evidence of their impact on utilization of services, access for the poor, financial protection, quality of care, and health outcomes. Evidence on costs and cost-effectiveness are examined, along with analysis of funding and sustainability of policies. Finally, the paper discusses the preconditions for effectiveness of demand-side financing schemes and the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches. It also highlights the extent to which results for sexual and reproductive health services are likely to be generalizable to other types of health care. It is clear that some of these policies can produce impressive results, if the preconditions for effectiveness outlined are met. However, relatively few demand-side financing schemes have benefited from robust evaluation. Investigation of the impact on financial protection, equity, and health outcomes has been limited. Most importantly, cost effectiveness and the relative cost effectiveness of demand-side financing in relation to other strategies for achieving similar goals have not been assessed.


Tucker and Ren (see page 34) describe the plight of female sex workers incarcerated in China's female re-education through labor (RTL) centres for moral education and vocational training, and in particular those with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS.1

This raises several major issues about public health, ethics and human rights. From the earliest times, public and social policy on sex work has been based on social exclusion and the control of "loose women".2 3 Part of the moral panic driving these policies has centred around a medical model in which sex workers are seen not only as reservoirs of contagion but also as women in need of mandatory rehabilitation. One of the most notorious manifestations of these gender and class structural inequalities was the mid-nineteenth century Contagious Diseases Acts in the UK and UK colonies. However, they are never far from the surface, as has been evident in the recent Home Office Co-ordinated Strategy on Prostitution and the proposals contained in the current Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill for compulsory rehabilitation orders. East and West are perhaps more convergent in their thinking than might appear prima facie. This essentialist conception of women who sell sex contradicts that of cultural citizenship—the right to visibility and presence rather than marginalisation.4

Probably one of the most significant factors shaping policy on sex work has been the emergence of HIV/AIDs in …


It is crucial to understand the role that labor market positions might play in creating gender differences in work–life balance. One theoretical approach to understanding this relationship is the spillover theory. The spillover theory argues that an individual's life domains are integrated; meaning that well-being can be transmitted between life domains. Based on data collected in Hungary in 2014, this paper shows that work-to-family spillover does not affect both genders the same way. The effect of work on family life tends to be more negative for women than for men. Two explanations have been formulated in order to understand this gender inequality. According to the findings of the analysis, gender is conditionally independent of spillover if financial status and flexibility of work are also incorporated into the analysis. This means that the relative disadvantage for women in terms of spillover can be attributed to their lower financial status and their relatively low access to flexible jobs. In other words, the gender inequalities in work-to-family spillover are deeply affected by individual labor market positions. The observation of the labor market's effect on work–life balance is especially important in Hungary since Hungary has one of the least flexible labor arrangements in Europe. A marginal log-linear model, which is a method for categorical multivariate analysis, has been applied in this analysis.


Pancreatic cancer (PC) remains a complex malignancy with the worst prognosis, lack of early diagnostic symptoms and resistance to conventional chemo- and radiotherapies. A better understanding of the etiology and early developmental events of PC requires profound attention. The evolution of fully blown PC from initial pancreatic injury is a multi-factorial phenomenon with a series of sequential events. The initial acute infection or tissue damage triggers inflammation that, in conjunction with innate immunity, establishes a state of homeostasis to limit harm to the body. Recurrent pancreatic injuries due to genetic susceptibility, smoking, unhealthy diet, and alcohol abuse induces a pro-inflammatory milieu, consisting of various types of immune cells, cytokines, chemokines, growth factors and restructured extracellular matrix, leading to prolonged inflammatory/chronic conditions. Cells having sustained DNA damage and/or mutagenic assault take advantage of this prolonged inflammatory response and aid in the initiation and development of neoplastic/fibrotic events. Eventually, many tumor-stromal interactions result in a chaotic environment accompanied by a loss of immune surveillance and repair response, thereby leading to PC. A better understanding of the inflammatory markers defining this "injury-inflammation-cancer" pathway would help to identify novel molecular targets for early screening and therapeutic intervention for this lethal malignancy.


Abstract The mass–dimensional relationship put forth by Brown and Francis has been widely used for developing parameterizations for representing ice cloud microphysical properties. This relationship forms the cornerstone for past and forthcoming retrievals of ice cloud properties from ground-based and spaceborne active and passive sensors but has yet to be rigorously evaluated. This study uses data from six field campaigns to evaluate this mass–dimensional relationship in a variety of ice cloud types and temperatures and to account for the deviations observed with temperature and size, based on properties of the ice particle ensembles. Although the Brown and Francis relationship provides a good match to the observations in a mean sense, it fails to capture dependences on temperature and particle size that are a result of the complex microphysical processes operative within most ice cloud layers. Mass–dimensional relationships that provide a better fit to the observations are developed.


This paper argues that municipal public parks in Manchester provided the citizens with the space not solely for recreation and sporting facilities but for a whole range of often transgressive behaviours. Despite the efforts of the civic authorities, parks had always attracted convention-breaching activities such as drinking and gambling. However, the failures of attempts to impose middle class norms on parks users during the Victorian era ('rational recreation') led to Edwardian parks becoming more intensely contested spaces in which different users struggled for supremacy. This paper is especially mindful of Mumford's dictum that 'mind 'takes form' in the city and, in turn, urban forms condition the mind'. Parks as an urban form sought to condition the minds not only of their creators but their users.
The paper examines the actions of Manchester City Council and its Parks and Cemeteries committee (often in conflict with each other over matters of park policy) in attempting to enforce their vision of the role of the park in the modern city. This will be set against the actions of both individual and group users of the parks who sought to pursue their own agendas. Examples to be discussed include the uses of urban parks for political meetings by groups such as suffragettes and members of the co-operative movement, attempts by the Parks and Cemeteries committee to regulate park user behaviour and user resistance to this and acceptance of and challenges to the provision of paid-for sporting amenities in the parks.
These struggles were the crucible in which various definitions of the urban public park emerged – the park as recreational space, the park as a symbol of civic pride and authority and the park as theatre in which various social and political movements asserted their dominance. It was in this era, not the Victorian, that the full flowering of the municipal public park took place.
The role of other tangential commentators will also be studied – for instance, local newspaper reports, the influence of prominent businessmen, vested interests on Manchester City Council and the former parkland owners – all of whom tried to exert both overt and covert control over the directions taken in the development of open space in the city.
The tensions and contraventions of these actors reveal municipal public parks to be truly theatres of transgression in which various alternatives to the prevailing social order were explored and debated. Such parks thus became political playgrounds of competing and contrasting ideologies about citizenship, social responsibility and self-help – all hallmarks of the Edwardian period and of the modern city.


To the Editor: Plague, caused by Yersinia pestis, is now largely controlled by improved sanitation and the use of antimicrobial drugs. However, before the widespread availability of antimicrobial drugs, an estimated >200 million persons died during pandemics (1). Today, if Y. pestis were to acquire antimicrobial drug resistance determinants, plague could again be a deadly disease.

Antimicrobial drug resistance in Y. pestis has been documented for only a few strains. The best available information is for 2 strains isolated in Madagascar in 1995 (2), in which resistance was conferred by plasmids not typically found in Y. pestis. Strain 16/95 was resistant to streptomycin only; this resistance was mediated by plasmid pIP1203 (3). Strain 17/95 was resistant to 8 antimicrobial drugs, including some commonly used to treat plague, such as streptomycin, tetracyclines, and sulfonamides (2). Multidrug resistance in 17/95 was mediated by plasmid pIP1202 (4). Both plasmids could be transferred by conjugation from the source Y. pestis strains to other Y. pestis strains and Escherichia coli (3,4). pIP1203 could be transferred from E. coli to Y. pestis in the midgut of co-infected rat fleas (Xenopsylla cheopis), common vectors of plague (5).

Comparative sequence analysis has indicated that pIP1202 shares an almost identical IncA/C backbone with multidrug-resistant (MDR) plasmids from Salmonella enterica serotype Newport SL254 and Yersinia ruckeri YR71, suggesting recent acquisition from a common ancestor (6). In this study, this backbone was detected in numerous MDR enterobacterial pathogens (e.g., E. coli, Klebsiella spp., and multiple Salmonella serotypes) isolated from retail meat products. Many of these plasmids transferred at high rates to a plasmid-free Y. ruckeri strain, indicating the ability to efficiently transfer among species. Meat products examined in that study originated from 9 US states, including western plague-endemic states such as California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oregon.

To determine whether the IncA/C plasmid backbone previously found in MDR Y. pestis and other species exists in Y. pestis isolates from western U.S. states, we screened Y. pestis DNA. The 713 isolates were collected from from humans, small mammals, and fleas in 14 of the 17 western plague-endemic states (Table), including all states that reported human cases during 1970–2002 (7). We used Primer Express software (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA) to design a TaqMan-MGB single-probe assay to detect repA, a plasmid replication gene present in the IncA/C plasmid backbone. We based this assay on the repA assay described by Carrattoli et al. (8) and used the same forward primer but a different reverse primer and an additional probe to facilitate screening on a real-time PCR platform.

Table

Yersinia pestis isolates collected from humans, small mammals, and fleas, United States

Real-time PCRs were conducted in 10-μL reaction mixtures that contained 900 nmol/L of forward (5′-GAGAACCAAAGACAAAGACCTGGA-3′) and reverse (5′-TGGCCGGAGATTCAATGATC-3′) primers, 200 nmol/L of the repA-specific probe (5′-6FAM-AGACTCACCGCAAATG-3′), 1× AB TaqMan Universal PCR Master Mix with AmpErase UNG (uracil N-glycosylase) (Applied Biosytems), and 1 μL of template. Thermal cycling was performed on an Applied Biosystems 7900 HT sequence detection system under the following conditions: 50°C for 2 min, 95°C for 10 min, and 40 cycles of 95°C for 15 s and 60°C for 1 min. DNA extracts from Y. pestis strain 17/95 (4) and Salmonella enterica serotype Newport strain SL254 (6) were used as positive controls.

Of the 713 Y. pestis isolates screened, none was positive for the IncA/C plasmid backbone, indicating that MDR as mediated by pIP1202-like MDR plasmids described by Welch et al. (6) was not in these samples. This finding is encouraging with regard to public health. However, we screened only for the plasmid backbone; MDR genes may have been in some of these samples but not carried by pIP1202-like MDR plasmids, especially considering that plasmids can be readily integrated into the Y. pestis chromosome (1).

Could MDR Y. pestis arise in North America by acquisition of an MDR plasmid, such as pIP1202, from food-animal production activities in plague-endemic regions? If so, Salmonella spp. would be a likely MDR plasmid donor for several reasons. First, Y. pestis has several plasmids that are highly similar to those in Salmonella spp., indicating active transfer of plasmids between these 2 bacterial groups (6). Second, fleas that are common vectors of plague have been shown to be naturally co-infected with Salmonella spp. and Y. pestis and capable of transmitting both organisms to rodent hosts (9). Third, MDR plasmids are readily transferred to Y. pestis in the flea gut (5). Fourth, transferable MDR plasmids are common among Salmonella spp. isolates in US food animals (10). Given these linkages, the transfer of an MDR plasmid from Salmonella spp. to Y. pestis seems possible. However, we emphasize that to date no evidence supports this type of event.


Multi-view clustering aims to take advantage of multiple views information to improve the performance of clustering. Many existing methods compute the affinity matrix by low-rank representation (LRR) and pairwise investigate the relationship between views. However, LRR suffers from the high computational cost in self-representation optimization. Besides, compared with pairwise views, tensor form of all views' representation is more suitable for capturing the high-order correlations among all views. Towards these two issues, in this paper, we propose the unified graph and low-rank tensor learning (UGLTL) for multi-view clustering. Specifically, on the one hand, we learn the view-specific affinity matrix based on projected graph learning. On the other hand, we reorganize the affinity matrices into tensor form and learn its intrinsic tensor based on low-rank tensor approximation. Finally, we unify these two terms together and jointly learn the optimal projection matrices, affinity matrices and intrinsic low-rank tensor. We also propose an efficient algorithm to iteratively optimize the proposed model. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, we conduct extensive experiments on multiple benchmarks across different scenarios and sizes. Compared with the state-of-the-art approaches, our method achieves much better performance.


A minimally invasive method allows remote neuronal excitation through the activation of a heat-sensitive receptor by magnetic nanoparticles. Current techniques to stimulate regions inside the brain need a permanently implanted wire or an optical fiber. Working in mice, Chen et al. developed a method to overcome this problem (see the Perspective by Temel and Jahanshahi). They introduced heat-sensitive capsaicin receptors into nerve cells and then injected magnetic nanoparticles into specific brain regions. The nanoparticles could be heated by external alternating magnetic fields, which activated the ion channel–expressing neurons. Thus, cellular signaling deep inside the brain can be controlled remotely without permanent implants. R. Chen, G. Romero, M. G. Christiansen, A. Mohr, P. Anikeeva, Wireless magnetothermal deep brain stimulation. Science 347, 1477–1480 (2015). [Abstract] [Full Text] Y. Temel, A. Jahanshahi, Treating brain disorders with neuromodulation. Science 347, 1418–1419 (2015). [Abstract] [Full Text]


In the relay placement problem, the input is a set of sensors and a number r ⩾ 1, the communication range of a relay. In the one-tier version of the problem, the objective is to place a minimum number of relays so that between every pair of sensors there is a path through sensors and/or relays such that the consecutive vertices of the path are within distance r if both vertices are relays and within distance 1 otherwise. The two-tier version adds the restrictions that the path must go through relays, and not through sensors. We present a 3.11-approximation algorithm for the one-tier version and a polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) for the two-tier version. We also show that the one-tier version admits no PTAS, assuming P ≠ NP.


Poland has become an interesting outlier in Europe in terms of employment flexibility, with an extremely high incidence of fixed-term contracts, particularly at labour market entry. In this article, detailed retrospective data from the Polish School Leavers Survey are used to analyse the dynamics of entry and exit from fixed-term contracts. The results show that neither firm-based vocational training nor diplomas from more selective tertiary education institutions provide graduates better access to secure entry positions. Regarding exit dynamics, transition patterns from fixed-term contracts into unemployment suggest that the timing of exits often coincides with the date of becoming eligible to collect unemployment benefits. The results also imply that, in Poland, fixed-term contracts might serve employers by helping them to identify the best workers.


We envision Artificial Intelligence marketplaces to be platforms where consumers, with very less data for a target task, can obtain a relevant model by accessing many private data sources with vast number of data samples. One of the key challenges is to construct a training dataset that matches a target task without compromising on privacy of the data sources. To this end, we consider the following distributed data summarizataion problem. Given K private source datasets denoted by $[D_i]_{i\in [K]}$ and a small target validation set $D_v$, which may involve a considerable covariate shift with respect to the sources, compute a summary dataset $D_s\subseteq \bigcup_{i\in [K]} D_i$ such that its statistical distance from the validation dataset $D_v$ is minimized. We use the popular Maximum Mean Discrepancy as the measure of statistical distance. The non-private problem has received considerable attention in prior art, for example in prototype selection (Kim et al., NIPS 2016). Our work is the first to obtain strong differential privacy guarantees while ensuring the quality guarantees of the non-private version. We study this problem in a Parsimonious Curator Privacy Model, where a trusted curator coordinates the summarization process while minimizing the amount of private information accessed. Our central result is a novel protocol that (a) ensures the curator does not access more than $O(K^{\frac{1}{3}}|D_s| + |D_v|)$ points (b) has formal privacy guarantees on the leakage of information between the data owners and (c) closely matches the best known non-private greedy algorithm. Our protocol uses two hash functions, one inspired by the Rahimi-Recht random features method and the second leverages state of the art differential privacy mechanisms. We introduce a novel ``noiseless'' differentially private auctioning protocol, which may be of independent interest. Apart from theoretical guarantees, we demonstrate the efficacy of our protocol using real-world datasets.


Background: Experimental studies indicate the chemopreventive properties of green tea extract (GTE) on colorectal cancer. Epidemiologically, green tea consumption of >10 cups daily reduced colorectal cancer risk in Japanese. Because colorectal adenomas are the precursors to most sporadic colorectal cancers, we conducted a randomized trial to determine the preventive effect of GTE supplements on metachronous colorectal adenomas by raising green tea consumption in the target population from an average of 6 cups (1.5 g GTE) daily to ≥10 cups equivalent (2.5 g GTE) by supplemental GTE tablets. Methods: We recruited 136 patients, removed their colorectal adenomas by endoscopic polypectomy, and 1 year later confirmed the clean colon (i.e., no polyp) at the second colonoscopy. The patients were then randomized into two groups while maintaining their lifestyle on green tea drinking: 71 patients supplemented with 1.5 g GTE per day for 12 months and 65 control patients without supplementation. Follow-up colonoscopy was conducted 12 months later in 125 patients (65 in the control group and 60 in the GTE group). Results: The incidence of metachronous adenomas at the end-point colonoscopy was 31% (20 of 65) in the control group and 15% (9 of 60) in the GTE group (relative risk, 0.49; 95% confidence interval, 0.24-0.99; P < 0.05). The size of relapsed adenomas was also smaller in the GTE group than in the control group (P < 0.001). No serious adverse events occurred in the GTE group. Conclusion: GTE is an effective supplement for the chemoprevention of metachronous colorectal adenomas. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2008;17(11):3020–5)


The intent of this statement is to substantiate the existence of homelessness in virtually every community, illustrate the pervasive health and psychosocial problems facing the growing population of children who are homeless, and encourage practitioners to include homeless children in their health care delivery practices, social services, and advocacy efforts. The recommendations will guide practitioners in taking actions to diminish the severe negative impact that living in temporary shelters has on the health and well-being of developing children. In this statement the American Academy of Pediatrics reaffirms its stance that homeless children need permanent dwellings in order to thrive.


Summary There are several reports of reduced levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), particularly arachidonic acid (AA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), in membrane phospholipid from various tissues including red blood cells (RBC) taken from schizophrenic patients. However, reports have not been entirely consistent and most studies have been confounded by the potential effects of environmental factors including antipsychotic medication and diet. We measured PUFA levels in RBC from two separate groups of unmedicated patients and control subjects from India and Malaysia, populations which have substantial differences in diet. We found no significant difference in levels of AA between patients and control subjects in either population. Levels of adrenic acid were significantly reduced, and levels of DHA significantly increased in both clinical populations. However, diet-related differences in DHA between the populations from India and Malaysia were much greater than differences between schizophrenic patients and controls. It is concluded that reduced RBC membrane levels of AA and DHA are not pathognomic of schizophrenia but that variations in cell membrane fatty acid levels are an epiphenomenon which may reflect underlying abnormalities of phospholipid and fatty acid metabolism and their interaction with environmental factors including medication and diet.


Background Preptin and amylin are pancreatic hormones which participate in glucose homeostasis. This study aimed to evaluate how serum preptin and amylin levels are altered in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) patients and healthy women based on BMI groups (<25 kg/m2 and ≥25 kg/m2). Material/Methods This was a prospective randomized control study of 40 PCOS patients and 40 healthy women who were matched with respect to BMI (<25 kg/m2 and ≥25 kg/m2). Results When compared to the healthy women, PCOS patients had significantly higher ovarian volumes, Ferriman-Gallwey scores, and free and total testosterone levels, but significantly lower amylin concentrations (p=0.001, p=0.001, p=0.049, p=0.021, and p<0.001, respectively). Both the normal-weight and overweight PCOS patients had significantly lower amylin levels than the normal-weight and overweight controls (p<0.001, p=0.009, p=0.001, and p=0.001, respectively). Amylin levels were negatively and significantly correlated with the Ferriman-Gallwey scores (r=−0.272, p=0.001) and ovarian volume (r=−0.206, p=0.007). Serum preptin levels were not elevated in either group. Conclusions Serum preptin levels are statistically similar in PCOS patients and BMI-matched healthy controls. Serum amylin levels are significantly higher in healthy controls than PCOS patients whether they are slim or overweight. These findings suggest the presence of mechanisms that can prevent the elevation in serum amylin concentrations that can occur in response to the impaired glucose metabolism in PCOS patients.


A molecular model of the swine influenza A/H1N1 ( also called H1N1pdm) type-I neuraminidase was built using the pathogenic avian H5N1 type-I neuraminidase as a basis, due to the higher sequence identity between A/H1N1 and H5N1 (91.47%) compared to Spanish H1N1 (88.37%) neuraminidase. All-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of all three neuraminidases were performed, either as apo-structures or with commercial antiviral drugs Tamiflu or Relenza separately bound; the simulations allowed for the identification of both conserved and unique drug-protein interactions across all three proteins. Specifically, conserved networks of hydrogen bonds stabilizing the drugs in the sialic acid binding site of the simulated neuraminidases are analyzed, providing insight into how disruption due to mutations may lead to increased drug resistance. In addition, a possible mechanism through which the residue 294 mutation acquires drug resistance is proposed by mapping the mutation site onto an electrostatic pathway which may play a role in controlling drug access to the binding pocket of neuraminidase, establishing a starting point for further investigations of neuraminidase drug resistance.


Modern critics of French Classicism in the visual arts were indebted to a formalism derived from the natural sciences. A nineteenth-century biological discourse identified hidden analogies rather than visual similarities among different specimens, whether animals or paintings. An ambivalence to the use of biological metaphors in North American art history may be traced back to this theoretical genealogy.


While copyright law may not have caused the precipitous end of jazz ... it will not stop jazz's descent with its ill-fitting doctrines ... copyright's inability to fully comprehend and incorporate its own sine qua non-originality--lies at the heart of all these problems. Harvard Law Review, 2005 (1) "[W]e throw our hands up in the air and exclaim what a mess the field is ... unscholarly behavior, not to mention ugly and unethical behavior, has long been a part of jazz, blues and gospel literature." (2) With this dubious eulogy, the era of the ink-on-paper comprehensive jazz discography drew to a close in the late 1990s as the first searchable CD-ROM products were announced. (3) Discography, the systematic listing, description and verification of sound recordings, began shortly before World War II with European jazz aficionados who wanted accurate and complete guides to the unreliably labeled 78-rpm records of the era. While classical music scholars quickly came to appreciate its advantages, for them the practice was essentially an exercise in large-scale cataloging. Western classical music relies primarily on written scores, so recordings are usually secondary material and discographies are likewise ancillary to bibliographies of musical texts. (4) But in jazz, recordings are paramount. Jazz has always emphasized the importance of spontaneous improvisation, and successive studio recordings of the same tune can sound remarkably different. The written score of a jazz song, when it exists at all, may provide only enough information to perform it in a rudimentary manner. The rest is up to the skill, experience and inspiration of the artist. To study jazz one must rely upon sound recordings. (5) The problem is that detailed information about these recordings has always been hard to come by. Rudi Blesh, one of the first serious jazz historians, recalled that "The record labels told you nothing. The companies' specialty was to document as little as possible, get it on the market as soon as possible, and as soon as sales started to slow to a walk, lose the masters, let them deteriorate, or even destroy them." (6) The record companies' neglect was slowly and painfully repaired by a group of ardent collector-scholars who began to publish annotated record lists that eventually became known as "discographies." These compilers uncovered the date, time, and place of individual recording sessions; their participants and the songs played; and a list of each session's master recordings by matrix, take or studio control number. (7) Their more recent works may also list modifications to the studio recording such as dubbing, tape splicing, or digital sampling. Finally, they acted as catalogers, listing the various records, albums, tapes, CDs, DVDs, films, digital media or other means by which each recording can be accessed. Once discographers went beyond the role of list-makers to become investigators and compilers of recording data, their work started to attract the attention of jazz scholars who looked to their products to trace the evolution of jazz musicians and jazz music as a whole through its primary source -phonograph records. (8) After World War II, this dual emphasis on discography as a record catalog and as a historical reference tool created a growing internal tension. Previously, jazz tunes led largely individual lives, each taking up one side of a three-minute, 78-rpm single. As late as 1953, 78s still accounted for 80 percent of the output of American firms. (9) But with the advent of the microgroove long-playing record (LP) and its 23-minute per side capacity, record companies could now release new songs nine or ten at a time - or re-release as many as fourteen of the old 78 tunes. The result was what one discographer called "The Flood." (10) By 1955 the major firms turned to LPs and small independent labels switched to RCA's new 45-rpm single, a mating of the 78's three-minute format with the LP's microgroove technology. …


The Agnew-Wiluna greenstone belt of Western Australia is the largest komatiite-hosted nickel sulfide belt in the world and contains two world-class Ni-Cu-(PGE) deposits and a host of smaller deposits. This study focuses on the broader scale geology of this greenstone belt in order to understand the key controls on the genesis of the komatiite-hosted Ni-Cu-(PGE) deposits, with specific focus on camp to district controls. We apply multiple sulfur isotopes to this geologic framework and conclude not only that the addition of crustal sulfur is a prerequisite for ore genesis in komatiite systems, but above all that the sulfur required to generate world-class deposits is most likely derived from barren volcanic massive sulfide lenses, which are spatially and genetically associated with felsic volcanic and volcaniclastic sequences that were emplaced coevally with large komatiitic sills and channelized lava flows. Multiple sulfur isotope data can be utilized in exploration at the deposit to district scales. At the deposit scale, the spatial pattern of mass-independent S isotope values (Δ 33 S) provides crucial insight into the identification of proximal high-grade and high-tenor ores in mineralized systems. In fact, sulfur data reflect the assimilation process that occurred upon komatiite emplacement, whereby hot turbulent magma thermomechanically eroded and assimilated exhalative sulfides spatially located close to vent with negative to near zero Δ 33 S values, whereas less turbulent flows interacted with distal sulfidic shales having Δ 33 S values above 0 per mil. Accordingly, the spatial variation of multiple sulfur isotope values in magmatic sulfides and associated host rocks may be utilized as a vector towards high-grade ores of poorly known systems. At the district scale, rather than ascertaining what controls the distribution of komatiite-hosted Ni-Cu-(PGE) deposits, the appropriate question to ask is what controls the distribution of country rock sulfides, considering that exhalative sulfides may be crucial to ore genesis in komatiite systems. We propose that felsic lava domes unambiguously mark their vents and can be directly mapped or inferred from gravity data. This work provides the first step in identifying district-scale control on komatiite-hosted Ni-Cu-(PGE) deposits. This is the scale that has high impact on exploration for new komatiite-hosted nickel sulfide belts globally.


Background: The lecture as a means of teaching has been criticized by many experts in the field of education for being too passivating and not contributing to retention of learning content. On the other hand, there are few alternatives when an expert on a field meets a group of students with very little previous knowledge only once. This assignment describes how some techniques that can ease the one way communication of a traditional lecture were tried out. Methods: A lecture given for master students in Health Science. The teacher tries to apply pedagogical techniques for activating students based on the University Pedagogics course and educational literature. The teacher assesses student participation based on subjective impressions and the frequency of participation from students during the lecture and comments from students afterwards. Results: A two way communication between students and teacher several times during the lecture could be established. The students asked questions and many participated in short discussions. From the teacher's perspective were the techniques applied partly effective in increasing student participation. However, there is a lot of room for improvement. Conclusions: Strategies to stimulate active participation of students during a lecture can be successfully applied. The systematic implementation of these strategies requires training and eagerness to experiment.


Since human development is a key input to the goal of inclusive and shared economic growth and poverty alleviation, we need to put considerable emphasis on human development. Human capital, in a broad sense, includes education, skills, training, health and other related factors of work forces that determine their overall productivity and capacity to seize opportunities created by economic progress. In  this globalized  world,  the  idea and thoughts  of  internationalization  of  higher  education  especially  in  developing countries like Bangladesh has been deduced from globalization of education process.


Developing nations like Namibia are aiming to industrialize much like developed nations and use the gross domestic product to measure their progress. However, this development path has been largely unsustainable. For Namibia to develop into a sustainable society, a different approach is needed. This study aimed to find entry points toward such an approach. Surveys were conducted in Windhoek, Namibia's capital, to measure human well-being. Generally, as is expected in a developing country, well-being correlated positively along the income line. However, the indicators did illustrate that a more holistic measure would go a long way toward more effective development planning in Namibia. This study provided an entry point from which further work will be undertaken.


The movements of the oceans, and the liminal margins of sea, land, and fresh water have profound implications for human/nonhuman life. Those movements and margins are rhythmically affected by tides which are thus a key means by which the forceful materiality of water is animated. Where salt water meets land and river mouths, ceaseless, varying, daily, monthly, and seasonal rhythms of sea level rise and fall occur. Complex patterns and rhythms of intertidal areas, currents, mixing of salt and fresh water, erosion, transportation, and deposition, and many impacts on human systems are created. Due to location, orientation, and sea/land topography, coastal areas around the world are subject to microtides, mesotides, or macrotides (4 m and higher). Particularly in the case of the last, the rhythms of the tides extend out into a range of intersecting ecosocial assemblages. This paper discusses tides and their rhythms, sets them in debates about temporality/nature, and introduces the idea of rhythmpattern which is timespace animated. It also considers dissonance and consonance within and between tidal rhythmpatterns and their overwriting by development.


The increased range and quality of China's exports is a major ongoing development in the international economy with potentially far-reaching effects. In this paper, on top of the direct effects of increased imports from China studied in previous research, we also measure the indirect labour market effects stemming from increased export competition in third markets. Our findings, based on matched employer-employee data of Portugal covering the 1991-2008 period, indicate that workers' earnings and employment are significantly negatively affected by China's competition, but only through the indirect 'market-stealing' channel. In contrast to evidence for other countries, the direct effects of Chinese import competition are mostly non-significant. The results are robust to a number of checks and also highlight particular groups more affected by indirect competition, including women, older and less educated workers, and workers in domestic firms.


The paper outlines the results of a survey, by the EBONI project, of lecturers' use of and attitudes to electronic teaching and learning material, providing a snapshot of the current situation in UK higher education. Differences in the extent and type of e-content usage between academic disciplines, and lecturers' intentions for the future, are discussed. Based on an analysis of their hopes and concerns, recommendations are made for increasing the development, usage and effectiveness of electronic content.


Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ideas about society, culture and government are pivotal in the history of political thought. His works are as controversial as they are relevant today. This volume brings together three of Rousseau's most important political writings - "The Social Contract" and "The First Discourse (Discourse on the Sciences and Arts)" and "The Second Discourse (Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality)" - and presents essays by major scholars that shed light on the dimensions and implications of these texts. Susan Dunn's introductory essay underlines the unity of Rousseau's political thought and explains why his ideas influenced Jacobin revolutionaries in France but repelled American revolutionaries across the ocean. Gita May's essay discusses Rousseau as cultural critic. Robert Bellah explores Rousseau's attempt to resolve the tension between the individual's desire for freedom and the obligations that society imposes. David Bromwich analyzes Rousseau as a psychologist of the human self. And Conor Cruise O'Brien takes on the "noxious", "deranged" Rousseau, excoriated by Edmund Burke but admired by Robespierre and Thomas Jefferson. Written from different, even opposing perspectives, these essays should convey a sense of the vital and contentious debate surrounding Rousseau and his legacy. For this edition Susan Dunn has provided a new translation of the "Discourse on the Sciences and Arts" and has revised a previously published translation of "The Social Contract".


A middleaged woman with a four year history of behavioural change including episodes of catatonia is described. Despite a persistently abnormal electroencephalogram, the patient was diagnosed repeatedly as suffering from a primary psychiatric disorder. Neurological examination and psychological testing suggested frontal lobe dysfunction, which was confirmed by the finding of isolated frontal lobe atrophy on computed axial tomography.


Clarithromycin is a potent macrolide that has been used for treating infections with nontuberculous mycobacteria. Pairs of susceptible and resistant Mycobacterium intracellulare strains were obtained from patients with chronic pulmonary M. intracellulare infections undergoing monotherapy with clarithromycin. Nucleotide sequence comparisons of the peptidyltransferase region in 23S rRNAs from parental and resistant strains revealed that in three of six resistant strains, for which the MIC was > 32 micrograms/ml, a single base was mutated (Escherichia coli equivalent, A-2058-->G, C, or U). As the modification of adenine 2058 by dimethylation is a frequent cause of macrolide resistance in a variety of different bacteria, we suggest that mutation of A-2058 confers acquired resistance to clarithromycin in M. intracellulare.


Forensic chemistry is the application of analytical chemistry to forensic analysis and is today one of the hot topics in the scientific literature as it can provide valuable information regarding crimes that have been committed and assist in their resolution. The literature in the field of forensic chemistry has been exponentially growing and covers several different subjects. This review discusses works published between 2013 and 2017 regarding portable or potentially portable devices (such as electrochemical sensors), field tests and intelligent devices that can be used in different areas of forensic chemistry and covers the following subjects: explosives, gunshot residues (GSR), liquid fuels, illicit drugs, beverages, alternative biological fluids and agrochemicals.


Groundwater regime has an important role in coastal sediment transport near the coast and beach profile changes. Hitherto, accurate and complete nature of the interaction between wave motions, underground water and beach sediment transport is not yet known. Most existing numerical models for studying the beach groundwater are related to the tidal forces. In this study, interaction of fresh groundwater, salt transport and wave motion was investigated via the process-based model. The hydrodynamic part is computed using the Navier-Stockes equations in conjunction with a k-e closure turbulence model and Volume of Fluid (VOF) technique. The bed deformation is calculated using empirical sediment transport formula according the influence of watertable changes. Furthermore, the wave-induced watertable fluctuations and effects of infiltration/exfiltration on the nearshore sediment transport are discussed. The groundwater flow and salt transport are considered based on density-variable model. The results reveal that in the surf zone, the sediment transport rate increases towards the shore until the wave breaks whereas in the swash zone it decreases and the greatest erosion takes place in the vicinity of the wave breaking point.


Kaur Alttoa: Urvaste Church and the Question of the Riga School of Construction in the 13th Century Keywords: Urvaste Church, medieval ecc lesiastical architecture in Estonia, thirteenth century Riga School of Construction, patronage rights, pilgrimage churches Summary: Although Urvaste Church is the only basilica parish church in Estonia it has received little to no attention in the literature of architecture. In most cases it has been considered an instance of the reputedly coherent thirteenth century school of construction of Riga that among others includes St Jacob's Church in Riga, St Nicholas Church in Parnu, and Church of Saint Bartholomew in Rujiena. Based on this assumption, it is often claimed that Urvaste Church was built in entirety during the thirteenth century. In Urvaste Church, an exceptional construction method is seen: below the roof of the aisles there are abutments that support the walls of the nave. In the diocese of Tartu, the same construction type is found in two more cases: it is used in the Tartu Dome Church, and in St John's Church, Tartu. Based on these  buildings, it is reasonable to believe that the central nave of Urvaste basilica Church is not built before the last third of the fourteenth century. In addition, St Jacob's Church in Riga, St Nicholas Church in Parnu, and Church of Saint Bartholomew in Rujiena attained basilica form in the course of later  reconstruction work and therefore the hypothesis about a homogeneous thirteenth century school of construction in Riga is incorrect. It is argued that it may be the case that the basilica plan of Urvaste Church expresses the aspirations for a certain kind of representation by the church patrons of the high nobility. CV: Kaur Alttoa is a long-time scholar and teacher of art history at the University of Tartu as well as one of the foremost specialists of the history of medieval architecture in the Baltic region. His objects of interest have included both medieval fortresses and sacral buildings. Among his major contributions stands out the restoration and study of the St. John's Church in Tartu, which was also published as a monograph in 2011.


There is a need for sensitive measures of disease progression in multiple sclerosis (MS) to
monitor treatment effects and understand disease evolution. MRI measures of brain
atrophy have been proposed for this purpose. This thesis investigates a number of
measurement techniques to assess their relative ability to monitor disease progression in
clinically isolated syndromes (CIS) and early relapsing remitting MS (RRMS).
Presented, is work demonstrating that measurement techniques and MR acquisitions can
be optimised to give small but significant improvements in measurement sensitivity and
precision, which provided greater statistical power. Direct comparison of numerous
techniques demonstrated significant differences between them. Atrophy measurements
from SIENA and the BBSI (registration-based techniques) were significantly more
precise than segmentation and subtraction of brain volumes, although larger percentage
losses were observed in grey matter fraction. Ventricular enlargement (VE) gave similar
statistical power and these techniques were robust and reliable; scan-rescan measurement
error was <0.01% of brain volume for BBSI and SIENA and <0.04ml for VE.
Annual atrophy rates (using SIENA) were -0.78% in RRMS and -0.52% in CIS patients
who progressed to MS, which were significantly greater than the rate observed in controls
(-0.07%). Sample size calculations for future trials of disease-modifying treatments in
RRMS, using brain atrophy as an outcome measure, are described. For SIENA, the BBSI
and VE respectively, an estimated 123, 157 and 140 patients per treatment arm
respectively would be required to show a 30% slowing of atrophy rate over two years. In
CIS subjects brain atrophy rate was a significant prognostic factor, independent of T2
MRI lesions at baseline, for development of MS by five year follow-up. It was also the
most significant MR predictor of disability in RRMS subjects. Cognitive assessment of
RRMS patients at five year follow-up is described, and brain atrophy rate was a
significant predictor of overall cognitive performance, and more specifically, of
performance in tests of memory.
The work in this thesis has identified methods for sensitively measuring progressive brain
atrophy in MS. It has shown that brain atrophy changes in early MS are related to early
clinical evolution, providing complementary information to clinical assessment that could
be utilised to monitor disease progression.


Bitcoin has received much investor attention in recent years and following this, there has been an explosion of academic studies examining this new financial asset. We contribute to the growing literature of Bitcoin by examining the intraday variables of the leading Bitcoin exchange with the highest information share over 4 years' worth of data to reveal the intraday stylized facts of Bitcoin and how they have developed over time. Employing GMT-timestamped tick data aggregated to the 5-mintuely frequency, we find that Bitcoin returns have increased over time, while trading volume, volatility and liquidity varied substantially over time. We also find that volume increases throughout the day and falls from around 4 pm until midnight, which is consistent with the intraday patterns found in currency markets. Realised volatility is fairly consistent throughout the day although it is highest during the opening times of the three major global stock markets. Also liquidity is highest during the opening times of the major global exchanges and the markets tend to be illiquid during the early morning. Finally, we show evidence of the mixture of distribution hypothesis of Clark (1973).


IMF forecasts and the EU's Fiscal Compact foresee Europe's heavily indebted countries running primary budget surpluses of as much as 5 percent of GDP for as long as 10 years in order to maintain debt sustainability and bring their debt/GDP ratios down to the Compact's 60 percent target. We show that primary surpluses this large and persistent are rare. In an extensive sample of high- and middle-income countries there are just 3 (nonoverlapping) episodes where countries ran primary surpluses of at least 5 per cent of GDP for 10 years. Analyzing a less restrictive definition of persistent surplus episodes (primary surpluses averaging at least 3 percent of GDP for 5 years), we find that surplus episodes are more likely when growth is strong, when the current account of the balance of payments is in surplus (savings rates are high), when the debt-to-GDP ratio is high (heightening the urgency of fiscal adjustment), and when the governing party controls all houses of parliament or congress (its bargaining position is strong). Left wing governments, strikingly, are more likely to run large, persistent primary surpluses. In advanced countries, proportional representation electoral systems that give rise to encompassing coalitions are associated with surplus episodes. The point estimates do not provide much encouragement for the view that a country like Italy will be able to run a primary budget surplus as large and persistent as officially projected.


This paper primarily focuses on Entine's assertion that SRI research is hopelessly flawed. Although SRI researchers have primarily chosen to pluck the low-hanging fruit in this line of inquiry, it is possible to obtain unbiased higher level insight. SRI research best functions as a means of helping firms and investors identify what the market wants. As Entine points out, the definition of what is and is not moral behavior for a firm is a quagmire, and the ability to measure whether socially responsible investors have forced firms to become moral is suspect. The paper also agrees with Waddock that socially responsible investors have caused firms to take certain actions that, without such pressure, they would have taken much later or not at all. However, whether these actions have made firms moral is not a debate that SRI researchers should enter. Certainly, events of late would suggest that although firms, by and large, are now more responsive to a variety of social issues, they are not moral entities, and should not be viewed as such.


Nowadays, Nonlinear Least-Squares embodies the foundation of many Robotics and Computer Vision systems. The research community deeply investigated this topic in the last few years, and this resulted in the development of several open-source solvers to approach constantly increasing classes of problems. In this work, we propose a unified methodology to design and develop efficient Least-Squares Optimization algorithms, focusing on the structures and patterns of each specific domain. Furthermore, we present a novel open-source optimization system that addresses problems transparently with a different structure and designed to be easy to extend. The system is written in modern C++ and runs efficiently on embedded systemsWe validated our approach by conducting comparative experiments on several problems using standard datasets. The results show that our system achieves state-of-the-art performances in all tested scenarios.


China's relationship with the developing world is a fundamental part of its larger foreign policy strategy. Sweeping changes both within and outside of China and the transformation of geopolitics since the end of the cold war have prompted Beijing to reevaluate its strategies and objectives in regard to emerging nations.Featuring contributions by recognized experts, this is the first full-length treatment of China's relationship with the developing world in nearly two decades. Section one provides a general overview and framework of analysis for this important aspect of Chinese policy. The chapters in the second part of the book systematically examine China's relationships with Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Latin America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The book concludes with a look into the future of Chinese foreign policy.


Ohio can be a land of weather extremes. There are droughts followed by flood, arctic cold and soaring heat in one year, a Christmas warmed to 70 degrees and a Christmas white with thirty inches of snow. Ice jams on the Sandusky River and tornadoes across its southern counties, wind storms in Cleveland and floods in the Ohio River Valley inspire Ohioans to 'remember when.' Thomas and Jeanne Schmidlin, native Ohioans, have brought together data from government records, scientific studies, memoirs, diaries, and newspapers in the first comprehensive book on Ohio weather. They highlight 200 weather events from 1790 to the present; extremes of rain, snow, storms, and temperature. Anecdotal, often first person, accounts are enhanced by statistics, photographs, and maps. They describe the place of weather in popular history and folklore and how forces of nature compelled the construction of extensive flood control and weather warning systems in Ohio. Thunder in the Heartland will be of interest to climatologist, cultural historians, and all who live the weather of the Oho Country.


ABSTRACT One reason for increased pertussis incidence is the adaptation of Bordetella pertussis to vaccine-induced immunity by modulating its genomic structure. This study, EUpert IV, includes 265 isolates collected from nine European countries during 2012 to 2015 (n = 265) and compares the results to previous EUpert I to III studies (1998 to 2009). The analyses included genotyping, serotyping, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), and multilocus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis (MLVA). Genotyping results showed only small variations among the common virulence genes of B. pertussis. The frequencies of serotypes Fim2 and Fim3 varied among the four collections. Genomic analyses showed that MLVA type 27 increased to 80% between the periods of 1998 to 2001 and 2012 to 2015. Two PFGE profiles, BpSR3 (29.4%) and BpSR10 (27.2%), constituted more than 50% of the circulating isolates in the present collection. Our study indicates that the European B. pertussis population is changing and became more homogenous after the introduction of acellular pertussis vaccines.


When one reads about the challenges facing humanity this century, it becomes clear we must do more with less. A growing population must be provided with welfare while using fewer resources, particularly water, land (working surface) and energy. An aging population, chronic degenerative diseases, addictions, healthcare costs and the integration of health systems all entail challenges in the health department. However, we must not forget the presence of old and new infections that "threaten" to become pandemics. Here I will address the subject of global epidemiology and, in particular, the risk of what can be termed "global" pandemics, as was the case, a century ago, of Spanish influenza. By conservative estimates, this killed 50 million people (some sources estimate double the number of deaths).


Introduction: Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic inflammatory disease with extraarticular involvement. Approximately 2%-10% of AS patients have cardiac involvement. These patients have an increased risk of cardiovascular mortality compared to normal individuals. This study aimed to evaluate subclinical cardiac involvement in AS patients using the current strain (S) and strain rate (SR) echocardiography (echo) techniques. Patients and Methods: Our study was conducted between January 2017 and February 2018 involving 29 asymptomatic patients with AS and 26 healthy controls. Systolic and diastolic functions, tissue Doppler measurements, and left ventricular S and SR values were obtained by 2D echo and compared between groups. Results: Demographic variability was similar between AS and control groups. Echo results showed statistically higher right ventricular end-diastolic and left atrial diameter in the AS group. Mean basal anterolateral, midanterolateral, basal inferoseptum, basal anterior, and left ventricular S values were significantly lower in the AS group. Mean anterolateral, basal inferoseptum, basal inferior, and mean left ventricular SR values were significantly lower in the AS group. Conclusion: We found that left ventricular functions were impaired at the subclinical level by strain imaging technique in AS patients. We believe that the investigation of subclinical myocardial dysfunction in AS by more sensitive and novel methods such as strain imaging technique will be useful in determining myocardial functions of patients.


One of the most prospective directions of study of C.G. Jung's synchronicity phenomenon is reviewed considering the latest achievements of modern science. The attention is focused mainly on the quantum entanglement and related phenomena – quantum coherence and quantum superposition. It is shown that the quantum non-locality capable of solving the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox represents one of the most adequate physical mechanisms in terms of conformity with the Jung's synchronicity hypothesis. An attempt is made on psychophysiological substantiation of synchronicity within the context of molecular biology. An original concept is proposed, stating that biological molecules involved in cell division during mitosis and meiosis, particularly DNA may be considered material carriers of consciousness. This assumption may be formulated on the basis of phenomenology of Jung's analytical psychology.


Over the past 20 years there has been an upsurge of interest proper cause of abnormal angiogenesis of DUB. This study particularly focused on the association of serum copper and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF-A) in patients with Dysfunctional Uterine Bleeding (DUB). Blood samples were collected from female patients suffering with DUB (n = 50) as well as healthy females as controls (n = 50). Serum copper levels were estimated by spectrophotometric method and serum VEGF-A by ELISA technique and compared with ultrasonographic measurement of endometrial thickness in both patients and controls. A significant increase in serum copper levels and an almost two fold increase in serum VEGF-A was observed in DUB patients when compared with controls. Correlation(r) between serum VEGF-A levels and endometrial thickness was 0.97. Odd Ratio for copper, VEGF-A and combination of copper and VEGF-A was 0.0426, 0.0947 and 0.0313, respectively, in all these cases odds ratio was less than one. The abnormal angiogenesis in DUB could be due to increased serum copper levels, which in turn stimulates factors like VEGF-A, thereby causing an increase in endometrial growth.


The implications of the persona theory pose a problem for the interpretation of Juvenal's early satires, because it presents the satirist as intent on nullifying his didactic stances. This leaves us with an unsatisfactory conclusion that excises Juvenal's persistent treatment of themes consistent with contemporaneous authors who were similarly engaged in blackening the reputations of the famous dead. This article argues that a strict application of persona theory isolates Juvenal's satirist from his volatile contemporary climate by excluding him from the reality that these authors—similarly directing their works to the past—were unabashedly writing only after the tyrant was safely dead. Tacitus and Pliny had lamented the servility and silence that predominated during Domitian's reign, in which the Roman world endured fifteen years of terror without uttering a word. Into this literary milieu Juvenal announces his satirist, who begins with an echo of that silence: semper ego auditor tantum? With the death of Domitian and a new atmosphere that permitted the defamation of the deceased, Juvenal injects his venomous voice into the mix, taking advantage of contemporary literary appetites that allowed for the punishment, no matter how belated, if not of the person then of the guilty one's memory. Any evaluation of Juvenal's satiric project must be firmly rooted in this, his most immediate, context.


Given audio of President Barack Obama, we synthesize a high quality video of him speaking with accurate lip sync, composited into a target video clip. Trained on many hours of his weekly address footage, a recurrent neural network learns the mapping from raw audio features to mouth shapes. Given the mouth shape at each time instant, we synthesize high quality mouth texture, and composite it with proper 3D pose matching to change what he appears to be saying in a target video to match the input audio track. Our approach produces photorealistic results.


Welcome to the fourth issue of volume 43 of the IASSIST Quarterly (IQ 43:4, 2019).
The first article is authored by Jessica Mozersky, Heidi Walsh, Meredith Parsons, Tristan McIntosh, Kari Baldwin, and James M. DuBois – all located at the Bioethics Research Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri in USA. They ask the question "Are we ready to share qualitative research data?", with the subtitle "Knowledge and preparedness among qualitative researchers, IRB Members, and data repository curators." The subtitle indicates that their research includes a survey of key personnel related to scientific data sharing. The report is obtained through semi-structured in-depth interviews with 30 data repository curators, 30 qualitative researchers, and 30 IRB staff members in the USA. IRB stands for Institutional Review Board, which in other countries might be called research ethics committee or similar. There is generally an increasing trend towards data sharing and open science, but qualitative data are rarely shared. The dilemma behind this reluctance to share is exemplified by health data where qualitative methods explore sensitive topics. The sensitivity leads to protection of confidentiality, which hinders keeping sufficient contextual detail for secondary analyses. You could add that protection of confidentiality is a much bigger task in qualitative data, where sensitive information can be hidden in every corner of the data, that consequently must be fine-combed, while with quantitative data most decisions concerning confidentiality can be made at the level of variables. The reporting in the article gives insights into the differences between the three stakeholder groups. An often-found answer among researchers is that data sharing is associated with quantitative data, while IRB members have little practice with qualitative. Among curators, about half had curated qualitative data, but many only worked with quantitative data. In general, qualitative data sharing lacks guidance and standards.

The second article also raises a question: "How many ways can we teach data literacy?" We are now in Asia with a connection to the USA. The author Yun Dai is working at the Library of New York University Shanghai, where they have explored many ways to teach data literacy to undergraduate students. These initiatives, described in the article, included workshops and in-class instruction - which tempted students by offering up-to-date technology, through online casebooks of topics in the data lifecycle, to event series with appealing names like "Lying with Data." The event series had a marketing mascot - a "Lying with Data" Pinocchio - and sessions on being fooled by advertisements and getting the truth out of opinion surveys. Data literacy has a resemblance to information literacy and in that perspective, data literacy is defined as "critical thinking applied to evaluating data sources and formats, and interpreting and communicating findings," while statistical literacy is "the ability to evaluate statistical information as evidence." The article presents the approaches and does not conclude on the question, "How many?" No readers will be surprised by the missing answer, and I am certain readers will enjoy the ideas of the article and the marketing focus.

With the last article "Examining barriers for establishing a national data service," the author Janez Štebe takes us to Europe. Janez Štebe is head of the social science data archives (Arhiv Družboslovnih Podatkov) at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA) is a distributed European social science data infrastructure for access to research data. CESSDA has many - but not all - European countries as members. The focus is on the situation in 20 non-CESSDA member European countries, with emerging and immature data archive services being developed through such projects as the CESSDA Strengthening and Widening (SaW 2016 and 2017) and CESSDA Widening Activities (WA 2018). By identifying and comparing gaps and differences, a group of countries at a similar level may consider following similar best practice examples to achieve a more mature and supportive open scientific data ecosystem. Like the earlier articles, this article provides good references to earlier literature and description of previous studies in the area. In this project 22 countries were selected, all CESSDA non-members, and interviewees among social science researchers and data librarians were contacted with an e-mail template between October 2018 and January 2019. The article brings results and discussion of the national data sharing culture and data infrastructure. Yes, there is a lack of money! However, it is the process of gradually establishing a robust data infrastructure that is believed to impact the growth of a data sharing culture and improve the excellence and the efficiency of research in general.

Submissions of papers for the IASSIST Quarterly are always very welcome. We welcome input from IASSIST conferences or other conferences and workshops, from local presentations or papers especially written for the IQ. When you are preparing such a presentation, give a thought to turning your one-time presentation into a lasting contribution. Doing that after the event also gives you the opportunity of improving your work after feedback. We encourage you to login or create an author login to https://www.iassistquarterly.com (our Open Journal System application). We permit authors to "deep link" into the IQ as well as to deposit the paper in your local repository. Chairing a conference session with the purpose of aggregating and integrating papers for a special issue IQ is also much appreciated as the information reaches many more people than the limited number of session participants and will be readily available on the IASSIST Quarterly website at https://www.iassistquarterly.com.  Authors are very welcome to take a look at the instructions and layout:
https://www.iassistquarterly.com/index.php/iassist/about/submissions
Authors can also contact me directly via e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com. Should you be interested in compiling a special issue for the IQ as guest editor(s) I will also be delighted to hear from you.
Karsten Boye Rasmussen - December 2019


Painters Robert Duncanson (ca. 1821–1872) and Edward Bannister (1828–1901) and sculptor Mary Edmonia Lewis (ca. 1844–1907) each became accomplished African American artists. But as emerging art makers of color during the antebellum period, they experienced numerous incidents of racism that severely hampered their pursuits of a profession that many in the mainstream considered the highest form of social cultivation. Despite barriers imposed upon them due to their racial inheritance, these artists shared a common cause in demanding acceptance alongside their white contemporaries as capable painters and sculptors on local, regional, and international levels.
Author Naurice Frank Woods Jr. provides an in-depth examination of the strategies deployed by Duncanson, Bannister, and Lewis that enabled them not only to overcome prevailing race and gender inequality, but also to achieve a measure of success that eventually placed them in the top rank of nineteenth-century American art.
Unfortunately, the racism that hampered these three artists throughout their careers ultimately denied them their rightful place as significant contributors to the development of American art. Dominant art historians and art critics excluded them in their accounts of the period. In this volume, Woods restores their artistic legacies and redeems their memories, introducing these significant artists to rightful, new audiences.


This paper discusses three types of PP extraposition, namely, extraposition in focus-neutral contexts and extraposition of defocused and prosodically deficient PPs. The focus of the paper lies on prosodic properties of defocused and clitical PPs. I argue and discuss evidence that extraposition is phonologically conditioned and occurs at PF. Particularly, extraposition in neutral contexts is a consequence of the interaction of phonological interface constraints that are independently needed for prosodic phrasing. The account of extraposition of defocused PPs exploits the relation between accentuation and focus structure, with the result that defocused constituents are moved into the postnuclear stretch, where they can be completely deaccented. Finally, a constraint requiring exhaustive parsing of postlexical material forces prosodically deficient PPs to either cliticise onto an adjacent prosodic word or move away from it.


A new microcapsule containing ammonium polyphosphate (APP) and glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) as core and shell material was synthesized by in situ polymerization technology. The structure and performance of microencapsulated ammonium polyphosphate (MCAPP) were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and water contact angle (WCA). The flame retardation of MCAPP and APP flame retarded epoxy resin (EP) composites were studied by limiting oxygen index (LOI), UL-94 test, and cone calorimeter. The results indicated that the microencapsulation of APP with the GMA led to an improvement of the hydrophobicity. Results also revealed that the flame retardancy of the EP/MCAPP composite was better than that of the EP/APP composite at the same additive loading. Moreover, the EP/MCAPP demonstrated better thermal stability, due to the stable char forming by APP and GMA shell and the better dispersion of MCAPP in the EP matrix.


As societal development continues to increase in floodplains it is important to quantify the vulnerabilities associated with flooding. Using northeastern North Carolina as the study area this thesis estimates the hazards of place model of vulnerability for sixteen counties in Northeastern North Carolina. The hazards of place model of vulnerability is developed from the combination of two quantitative indicators: the Geophysical Risk Index (GPRI) which incorporates two types of geophysical risk factors (percent of block group within the floodplain and the percent of human development within the floodplain); the Social Vulnerability for Evacuation Assistance Index (SVEAI) which examines four evacuation dimensions of U.S. census data (population and building structures differential access to resources special evacuation needs and a combination of every dimension). Using the hazards of place model of vulnerability this thesis prioritizes low medium and high risk block groups into a matrix classification. The results from the matrix classification are validated by a sub-block group analysis of parcel data and an interview with one emergency official. Results reveal that the inclusion of human development land cover data and the combination of census data are important factors for estimating the hazards of place model of vulnerability. However the interview suggests that there are a few geophysical and social systems that could not be identified by quantitative indicators. Overall the matrix classification of the hazards of place model of vulnerability was successful at prioritizing levels of risk in the study area.


Aged skeletal muscle has an attenuated and delayed ability to proliferate satellite cells in response to resistance exercise. The mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) signaling pathway is a focal point for cell growth, however, the effect of postexercise mTORC1 activation on human skeletal muscle satellite cell (SC) proliferation is unknown. To test the proliferative capacity of skeletal muscle SC in aging muscle to a potent mTORC1 activator (i.e., EAA; essential amino acids) we recruited older (~72y) men to conduct leg resistance exercise (8setsx10reps) without (−EAA; n = 8) and with (+EAA: n = 11) ingestion of 10 g of EAA 1 h postexercise. Muscle biopsies were taken before exercise (Pre) and 24 h postexercise (Post) for assessment of expression and fiber type‐specific Pax7+ SC, Ki67+Pax7+ SC and MyoD+ SC. −EAA did not show an increase in Pax7+ satellite cells at Post(P > 0.82). Although statistical significance for an increase in Pax7 + SC at 24 h post‐RE was not observed in +EAA versus −EAA, we observed trends for a treatment difference (P < 0.1). When examining the change from Pre to Post trends were demonstrated (#/myofiber: P = 0.076; and %/myonuclei: P = 0.065) for a greater increase in +EAA versus −EAA. Notably, we found an increase SC proliferation in +EAA, but not −EAA with increase in Ki67+ SC and MyoD+ cells (P < 0.05). Ki67+ SC also exhibited a significant group difference Post (P < 0.010). Pax7+ SC in fast twitch myofibers did not change and were not different between groups (P > 0.10). CDK2, MEF2C, RB1 mRNA only increased in +EAA (P < 0.05). Acute muscle satellite cell proliferative capacity may be partially rescued with postexercise EAA ingestion in older men.


Gentamicin nephrotoxicity is one of the most common causes of acute kidney injury (AKI). Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) is effective in protecting the kidney from ischemic and toxic injury. Increased expression of HIF-1α mRNA has been reported in rats with gentamicin-induced renal injury. We hypothesizd that we could study the role of HIF in gentamicin-induced AKI by modulating HIF activity. In this study, we investigated whether HIF activation had protective effects on gentamicin-induced renal tubule cell injury. Gentamicin-induced AKI was established in male Sprague-Dawley rats. Cobalt was continuously infused into the rats to activate HIF. HK-2 cells were pre-treated with cobalt or dimethyloxalylglycine (DMOG) to activate HIF and were then exposed to gentamicin. Cobalt or DMOG significantly increased HIF-1α expression in rat kidneys and HK-2 cells. In HK-2 cells, HIF inhibited gentamicin-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation. HIF also protected these cells from apoptosis by reducing caspase-3 activity and the amount of cleaved caspase-3, and -9 proteins. Increased expression of HIF-1α reduced the number of gentamicin-induced apoptotic cells in rat kidneys and HK-2 cells. HIF activation improved the creatinine clearance and proteinuria in gentamicin-induced AKI. HIF activation also ameliorated the extent of histologic injury and reduced macrophage infiltration into the tubulointerstitium. In gentamicin-induced AKI, the activation of HIF by cobalt or DMOG attenuated renal dysfunction, proteinuria, and structural damage through a reduction of oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis in renal tubular epithelial cells.


The probability of large-fire (≥1000 ha) ignition days, in the Sydney region, was examined using historical records. Relative influences of the ambient and drought components of the Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) on large fire ignition probability were explored using Bayesian logistic regression. The preferred models for two areas (Blue Mountains and Central Coast) were composed of the sum of FFDI (Drought Factor, DF = 1) (ambient component) and DF as predictors. Both drought and ambient weather positively affected the chance of large fire ignitions, with large fires more probable on the Central Coast than in the Blue Mountains. The preferred, additive combination of drought and ambient weather had a marked threshold effect on large-fire ignition and total area burned in both localities. This may be due to a landscape-scale increase in the connectivity of available fuel at high values of the index. Higher probability of large fires on the Central Coast may be due to more subdued terrain or higher population density and ignitions. Climate scenarios for 2050 yielded predictions of a 20–84% increase in potential large-fire ignitions days, using the preferred model.


As Uganda prepares for the construction of an oil refinery, there is a need to acquire land both for the building of the refinery and for associated supporting infrastructure like roads. Alongside this lies the Constitutional right not to be deprived of one's property. Yet the law and policy is flawed; it does not comprehensively provide the procedure and process to follow and does not conform to the Constitution of Uganda of 1995. Worse still, most affected property owners do not understand their rights and the remedial process involved. This policy briefing argues for a fitting legal framework.


Graphene exhibits exceptional mechanical, optical and electrical properties that are unfortunately accompanied by poor processability and tunability of its properties. The controlled interaction of graphene with tailor-made organic semiconductors (OSs) can offer a solution to solve these two problems simultaneously. The use of well-chosen organic semiconducting molecules interacting with graphene enables optimal control over the molecular self-assembly process forming low-dimensional graphene–organic architectures. Moreover, OSs allow modulation of numerous physical and chemical properties of graphene, including controlled electrical doping, ultimately making it possible to boost the performance of conventional organic electronic devices. Significantly, the interaction of organic molecules with graphene is strong not only at short distances but it is relevant also at longer distances, up to 30 nm. This feature article reviews some of the most enlightening results in the field, giving an overview of the interaction between graphene and organic molecules, starting from the simplest systems at the molecular scale, single molecules on single layer graphene in UHV, up to mesoscopic, more complex systems i.e., thick interpenetrated layers of graphene–organic composites embedded in working electronic or photovoltaic devices.