Abstract: The couriers of revolution: Estonian Bolshevik émigrés in Copenhagen 1918–1921

The history of the early twentieth-century Estonian left-wing radicalism has remained a relatively neglected field in the post-1991 period; not least due to its previous institutional role as the most favoured, but also the most highly politicised subject of historical research in Soviet Estonia. This state of affairs resulted in voluminous scholarship in "party history" produced over the decades following World War II, but its findings and conclusions are almost entirely untrustworthy and thoroughly biased in favour of Soviet-style Communism.
In the last five years, however, the history of the Estonian left has attracted new attention on part of both younger scholars and senior academics – a highly positive development in light of the major role that left-wing ideas and movements have played in Estonian history from the 1905 Russian revolution onwards. Nevertheless, this newer research has the somewhat thankless task of having to re-examine the fundamentals without being able to rely on previous scholarship, which perhaps understandably limits its ability to generalise or to draw overarching conclusions.
The present article is a contribution to this burgeoning field in Estonian historical research, engaging with the little-studied history of Estonian left-wing radicalism in Western Europe (rather than in Estonia or in Soviet Russia). I am particularly focusing on four individuals among émigré Estonians in Copenhagen, Denmark: August Lossmann (1890–?), Oskar Lenk (1890–1919), Johannes Rumessen (1888–?) and Harald Triikman (1892–1964). The primary period of study is 1918–22, although reference will be made to both earlier and later years where appropriate. The study makes use of both Estonian and foreign archival materials, contemporary newspapers and, occasionally, published scholarship.
While my focus is on tracing and contextualising the activities and involvement of these four young men in both Danish and Estonian radical leftist circles, I will also propose some preliminary hypotheses relating to the radicalisation process of left-wing Estonian émigrés more generally, which in the future can hopefully be tested on a broader range of comparable subjects.
Firstly, I would suggest that the Bolshevik Russian revolution (the October Revolution) was likely a pivotal moment in the development of their views: having been the supporters of Socialist Russian revolution, the Estonian émigrés tended to distance themselves from the more sceptical Social Democratic parties of their countries of residence in its aftermath, instead moving closer to Left Socialist or Communist parties that fully embraced the new revolution. Furthermore, their distance from and relative ignorance of Estonian affairs probably left them more open to contemporary Bolshevik propaganda, which among other things depicted the Estonian War of Independence (1918–19) as a struggle between an alliance of foreign capital and the Estonian bourgeoisie on the one hand, and the Estonian proletariat on the other.
In the case of Lossmann, Lenk, Rumessen and Triikman, they were all connected to one Estonian Socialist (or Bolshevik) Group, established in 1918 and affiliated with the Danish Socialist Labour Party – the first openly Bolshevik party in Denmark. This Estonian group was headed by the remarkably well-respected Socialist Oskar Lenk, who in early 1919 was expulsed from Denmark due to his involvement in Bolshevik activities (among other things, working from the Copenhagen bureau of ROSTA, the Soviet Russian news propaganda agency). Later, he was active in Russia as a fairly prominent activist of the Estonian Communist Party, before being killed in a battle against the Whites in the autumn of the same year.
Lenk's influence in 1918 was likely of formative importance for his comrades in Copenhagen, at least one of whom (Johannes Rumessen) also became involved in the underground transport and intelligence network of the Estonian Communist Party in 1919–20.


Oxalis L ,  commonly called sorrel,is a large and cosmopolitan taxon that has undergone spectacular speciation within southern Africa (± 270 taxa). and more specifically within the winter rainfall regions of the western Cape Region (CR). The main objective of this study w as to analyse the geographical distribution of Oxalis in South Africa in relation to currently defined phytogeographic units. The observed patterns of biodiversity and endemism within South African members of the genus show interesting disjunctions and concentrations of species.  Oxalis is one of the few CR taxa that is shared between the core Fynbos and Succulent Karoo Biomes, and this study therefore provides a novel insight into evolutionary trends across, and not only w ithin. these phvtogeographic units. The major centre for diversity for Oxalis is situated on Table Mountain and the northern areas o f the Cape Peninsula (grid square 3318CD). Subsidiary centres are located in the Clanwilliam/Niewoudtville and Kamiesberg regions. The reported patterns in Western Cape suggest that  Oxalis species richness has been generated and retained in areas w hich have been identified as core Fynbos (Table Mountain), Fynbos refugia during interglacials (Kamiesberg). and an ecotonal region which might switch between the two biome types (Clanwilliam/ Niewoudtville). Presumably these three types of areas would provide interesting material for DNA-based phylogenetic work, and a test of the climate change 'species-pump' hypothesis proposed by Midgley et al. (2001).


Dark focal spot shaping is investigated by vector diffraction theory in the focal region of a hyperbolic-cosine beam that contains one on-axis spiral optical vortex. Results show that a dark focal shape can be altered considerably by the decentered parameters in cosh parts of the beam and topological charge of the vortex. Many novel and interesting dark focal shapes may appear, including rhombic, quadrangular, cross-shaped, and foursquare dark foci. Some dark focal spot chains can also occur. In addition, the numerical aperture of the focusing system can also affect dark focal shapes remarkably, which may lead to dark focal spots that disappear or change focal shape due to the depolarization effect for a high numerical aperture. All of the above dark focal shapes can be used in an optical manipulation system to construct alterable optical traps.


Fear of crime as a subject has received increasing levels of attention from scholars over the years. The phenomenon has been explored across diverse crimes and cultures with varying results, the better part of the literature revolving around general fear of overall crime, serious offences and Western, English-speaking countries. Adopting a more focused approach to the subject, the present study considers a lower-level crime, namely personal theft, and its effects on students in Romania as well as the UK. The aims of the project were to explore the differences in fear of crime characteristics such as sensitivity to risk and perceived likelihood of victimisation at a country level, to compare physical and psychological responses to theft, and to assess the influence of external factors such as the media. It was found that Romanian students experience significantly more fear and awareness of possible threats in almost any context. Trust in the police and reporting attitudes were highly similar between the two countries. Romanian students' attitudes towards theft were affected by both media influences and exposure to theft information through the social network, while British students were only sensitive to the latter. Several other relationships between variables are explored throughout the study. Possibilities for future research as an expansion of this topic are proposed.


The modern vision concerning the physiological actions and pathological relevance of endocrine cardiac system is a very complex one. Decreased or increased action of thyroid hormone (hypo‐ or hyperthyroidism) on different cellular and molecular pathways in the heart plays an important role in the development and progression of myocardial remodelling and heart failure. Cardiovascular signs and symptoms that accompany both hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism are presented, highlighting that correction of thyroid dysfunction most often reverses the abnormal cardiovascular hemodynamics.


The purpose of this thesis is to analyze existing machine learning application in the information security field and demonstrate a machine learning malware classifier. At first, we'll make a brief introduction into data science, malware, machine learning and adversarialmachine learning. Moreover, we will concentrate on applications of machine learning systems in the cyber security field and how an attacker can evade such systems and impact the integrity, availability and confidentialityby exploiting the classifiers vulnerabilities. Finally, we present a custom malware classifier as a proof of concept executablefiles.


[4Fe4S] clusters, redox cofactors, have been discovered in DNA processing enzymes ranging from bacterial base excision repair glycosylases to eukaryotic DNA polymerases. Bacterial repair proteins are activated toward redox activity when bound to DNA and can take advantage of DNA-mediated charge transport (DNA CT) to search the genome for lesions. DNA CT involves the rapid transport of charges through the π-stacked base pairs and is sharply attenuated in the presence of lesions, mismatches, or other stacking perturbations. Thus, [4Fe4S] repair proteins use this chemistry to rapidly redistribute to target lesions and communicate with one another over long distances. The general function of [4Fe4S] clusters in bacterial DNA repair has received much attention, but previous efforts have left several critical questions unanswered. First, while the redox potential of these proteins is affected by DNA binding, the relative importance of the negatively-charged DNA, the protein environment surrounding the cluster, and solvent has remained unclear. Second, the importance of [4Fe4S] clusters and DNA CT to human disease has never been directly addressed. The biological consequences of this chemistry are certainly a pressing issue, as numerous disease-relevant mutations in the human homologues of well-studied repair proteins have been recorded. Finally, the existence of [4Fe4S] clusters in eukaryotic DNA replication proteins in general, and in the B-family DNA polymerases in particular, was entirely unexpected. The function of the [4Fe4S] cluster in replication proteins was far from obvious, and the functional differences from repair proteins made them difficult to explain even in the context of CT signaling. Herein, these questions have been addressed using a combination of electrochemical, spectroscopic, and biochemical approaches. First, we describe the use of pyrolytic graphite edge electrodes (PGE) and S K-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) to address the influence of protein environment, DNA, and solvation on the [4Fe4S] cluster redox potential in the bacterial base excision repair glycosylases endonuclease III (EndoIII) and MutY. The PGE surface is rough and favorable for protein binding; electron transfer can be further enhanced in the presence of carbon nanotubes. Electrochemical signals for EndoIII and MutY in the absence of DNA are large and reproducible, and a potential shift upon DNA binding is observed. With respect to studying proteins in the absence of DNA, the PGE electrode represents a significant advance over previously used highly-oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG), which is hydrophobic and difficult to prepare. To test the effect of protein environment on redox potential, a series of EndoIII point mutants were prepared in which the charge within 5 A of the cluster was reversed or added in. None of these mutations induced a significant shift in redox potential relative to wild type, arguing that DNA electrostatics are the dominant factor in potential modulation. In parallel, XAS studies were performed on EndoIII and MutY in the presence and absence of DNA, and in the presence and absence of solvent. Ligating cysteinyl thiols and inorganic S atoms in the [4Fe4S] cluster absorb at different intensities in XAS depending on solvent environment and local electrostatics; these changes, in turn, directly correlate to redox potential. By XAS, DNA was found to induce a significant shift in absorbance, and thus potential; the removal of solvent had a smaller effect. Together, these studies provide new approaches for the study of DNA-binding [4Fe4S] proteins and reveal the critical role of DNA in tuning the redox potential. Second, we report on a novel mutation in human MUTYH identified from a colorectal cancer patient and confirmed to be pathological. MUTYH is responsible for repairing certain lesions induced by oxidative stress and is thus frequently implicated in cancer. This new variant, C306W, contains a mutation in one of the cysteines that ligates the [4Fe4S] cluster. Electrochemistry, activity and DNA binding assays, and spectroscopic analyses were performed for C306W alongside wild type MUTYH and two other disease-relevant mutants, Y179C and G396D, with an unaltered cluster environment. From this work, it is now clear that C306W can still bind a cluster, but it is susceptible to oxidative degradation to the [3Fe4S] + state upon redox signaling in an aerobic environment. Consequently, enzymatic activity is very low, and DNA binding is poor. Overall, this represents the first complete characterization of the [4Fe4S] cluster in a human homologue of MutY, and the first demonstration of pathology resulting from a mutation that primarily affects the [4Fe4S] cluster. Moving into DNA replication proteins, we report on the characterization of the [4Fe4S] cluster in yeast DNA polymerase (Pol) δ, the eukaryotic lagging strand polymerase. Pol δ shows reversible electrochemical signals at a midpoint potential indistinguishable from EndoIII under the same conditions, and EPR spectroscopy confirms use of the [4Fe4S] 3+/2+ couple. The electrochemical signal is attenuated on DNA containing an abasic site or a CA mismatch, confirming that Pol δ is capable of DNA-mediated signaling. Bulk electrolysis and photooxidation were used to oxidize Pol δ under anaerobic conditions, and activity assays were carried out using oxidized or untreated protein. Oxidation stalls replication activity, while electrochemical reduction of oxidized samples restores activity to untreated levels. These results thus reveal that cluster oxidation serves as a reversible switch regulating Pol δ activity, suggesting an in vivo role in responding to replication stress, especially oxidative stress. In an effort to address these possibilities, we have carried out preliminary efforts in the characterization of two potentially CT-deficient mutants, W1053A and Y1078A. Both mutants were found to be too structurally unstable to proceed with in vivo experiments, but they can serve to guide future efforts in this direction. Finally, a strategy to examine charge transport through RPA-bound single-stranded DNA is reported. RPA is the eukaryotic single-stranded binding protein and forms a protective coat around vulnerable unwound DNA at replication forks. Given the importance of redox signaling in replication proteins, we aimed to use photooxidation experiments to determine if CT through RPA is a viable pathway; if so, this would open up a large set of long-range transfer pathways to [4Fe4S] proteins in replication. These efforts are ongoing, but the experimental strategy and initial efforts are discussed.


CASE
A developmental-behavioral pediatrician evaluated a 2-year-old child for developmental delays. He determined that the child had mild expressive language delays; the child had an intelligible vocabulary of 20 words and at least 20 other words that he said unclearly. He said a few contracted 2-word phrases, such as "gimme" and "its ok." He was shy and generally clung to his parents who spoke softly and very little. His development in all other domains was normal. Hearing evaluation and the neurological examination were normal.The pediatrician provided suggestions to the parents in order to stimulate language and scheduled a follow-up appointment in 3 months. The parents asked him to refer the child for early intervention and write a letter to the US Immigration and Naturalization Service. They asked that the letter state that the child had a disabling condition and returning the child and his family to their country of origin would cause permanent harm to the child. The parents then gave the pediatrician a draft of a letter that had been prepared by an immigration lawyer.The physician explained to the parents that the child had a mild expressive language delay and that he would like to see the child again in 3 months before deciding on early intervention. He advised them to obtain a copy of his medical note from the medical records department. The parents insisted that he write the letter and got upset and called him "heartless" when the physician refused to write the letter.


Four articles in Neuron provide insight into the function of Arc (also known as Arg3.1, Arc/Arg3.1), which has long been known as a marker for synaptic activity, after which Arc/Arg3.1 mRNA is synthesized and transported to active synapses or is redistributed from inactive to active synapses. These results, along with a review of the Arc/Arg3.1 literature, are discussed by Tzingounis and Nicoll. Using knockout mice, Plath et al. found that loss of Arc/Arg3.1 disrupted long-term memory formation (spatial learning, fear conditioning, conditioned taste aversion, and object recognition), without impairing short-term memory. Analysis of long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) in the knockout mice in vivo or in cultured cells showed that the initial phase of LTP was enhanced but the late phase of LTP was inhibited and that LTD was diminished at all times. Shepherd et al. investigated the role of Arc/Arg3.1 in another form of plasticity called homeostatic synaptic scaling. One example of this is the reciprocal changes in α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA)-type glutamate receptors in response to chronic synaptic activation or synaptic blockade: Numbers of AMPA receptors at the surface increase under conditions of chronic inhibition and decrease under conditions of chronic stimulation. Shepherd et al. found that Arc/Arg3.1 abundance in cultured cortical neurons was inversely correlated with the activity in the cultures: When activity was blocked with tetrodotoxin (TTX), Arc/Arg3.1 abundance decreased, and when activity was enhanced with bicuculline (Bic), Arc/Arg3.1 abundance was increased. Overexpression of Arc/Arg3.1 decreased the abundance of AMPA receptors at the surface and prevented TTX-induced increase in AMPA receptors, blocked the scaling effect, and reduced the amplitude of miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents (mEPSCs). In neurons from Arc/Arg3.1 knockout mice, synaptic scaling in response to either TTX or Bic was completely absent. Thus, from these two studies it appears that Arc/Arg3.1 plays an essential role in Hebbian forms of synaptic plasticity (LTP and LTD) and homeostatic synaptic plasticity and that the mechanism may be regulation of trafficking of AMPA receptors to or from the surface. Rial Verde et al. show that in organotypic hippocampal slices, the abundance of Arc/Arg3.1 correlates inversely with AMPA-mediated activity. Overexpression of Arc/Arg3.1 promoted the endocytosis of AMPA receptors. Chowdhury et al. show that Arc/Arg3.1 interacts with two components of the endocytosis machinery: endophilin and dynamin. The interaction with these proteins was required for overexpressed Arc/Arg3.1 to affect AMPA receptor endocytosis. Thus, Arc/Arg3.1 appears to connect synaptic activity to AMPA receptor endocytosis, which controls the abundance of AMPA receptors at the surface and the AMPA receptor-mediated activity of the synapse. A. V. Tzingounis, R. A. Nicoll, Arc/Arg3.1: Linking gene expression to synaptic plasticity and memory. Neuron 52, 403-407 (2006). [PubMed] N. Plath, O. Ohana, B. Dammermann, M. L. Errington, D. Schmitz, C. Gross, X. Mao, A. Engelsberg, C. Mahlke, H. Welzl, U. Kobalz, A. Stawrakakis, E. Fernandez, R. Waltereit, A. Bick-Sander, E. Therstappen, S. F. Cooke, V. Blanquet, W. Wurst, B. Salmen, M. R. Bösl, H.-P. Lipp, S. G. N. Grant, T. V. P. Bliss, D. P. Wolfer, D. Kuhl, Arc/Arg3.1 is essential for the consolidation of synaptic plasticity and memories. Neuron 52, 437-444 (2006). [PubMed] J. D. Shepherd, G. Rumbaugh, J. Wu, S. Chowdhury, N. Plath, D. Kuhl, R. L. Huganir, P. F. Worley, Arc/Arg3.1 mediates homeostatic synaptic scaling of AMPA receptors. Neuron 52, 475-484 (2006). [PubMed] E. M. Rial Verde, J. Lee-Osbourne, P. F. Worley, R. Malinow, H. T. Cline, Increased expression of the immediate-early gene Arc/Arg3.1 reduces AMPA receptor-mediated synaptic transmission. Neuron 52, 461-474 (2006). [PubMed] S. Chowdhury, J. D. Shepherd, H. Okuno, G. Lyford, R. S. Petralia, N. Plath, D. Kuhl, R. L. Huganir, P. F. Worley, Arc/Arg3.1 interacts with the endocytic machinery to regulate AMPA receptor trafficking. Neuron 52, 445-459 (2006). [PubMed]


In this paper, we consider the problem of finding feasible solutions to scheduling problems that are complicated by separation constraints on the execution of different operations. Following recent work in constraint-posting scheduling, we formulate this problem as one of establishing ordering relations between pairs of operations requiring synchronization of resource usage. This establishes contact with the recently proposed General Temporal Constraint Network (GTCN) model. Exploiting properties of the general GTCN solution procedure, we are able to directly generalize a high performance solution procedure previously developed for a much more restricted class of scheduling problems. Specifically, shortest path information in the underlying temporal constraint network is first used to establish dominance conditions for early pruning of infeasible solutions. Heuristics are then defined for variable/value ordering in the meta-CSP space of possible resolutions of the disjunctive constraints on resource usage. These heuristics are based on use of shortest path information as an estimation of decision flexibility. Experimental evaluation of the resulting heuristic procedure is carried out on a set of randomly generated problems drawn from a manufacturing scenario. Results indicate extremely effective problem solving performance in relation to both the original scheduling procedure that was adapted and the general GTCN solution procedure.


ABSTRACT This article is based on a recent octocoral survey conducted on the reefs of Reunion Island and on re-examination of part of an older collection (early 1970s) from there. It provides a systematic list of the octocorals and evaluates their abundance. The study describes two new species of the genus Sinularia May, 1898. Sinularia shlagmani n. sp. is characterised by relatively small clubs with a central wart and a colony with densely placed crest-like lobes. It was compared to other species of its clade featuring polyps without sclerites and clubs with distinct central wart, and found to differ from all of them in the shape of the lobes. Sinularia tessieri n. sp. belongs to a clade with collaret, points and tentacle-rods, and clubs with an indistinct central wart, and features an encrusting growth form. It differs from the previously described species featuring similar growth form in having distinctly longer clubs on the surface of the lobules. Based on the description of Sarcophyton subviride Tixier-Durivault, 1958, a discussion is provided on this species. The survey yielded in total 34 species of the families Alcyoniidae Lamouroux, 1812, Subergorgiidae Gray, 1859 and Xeniidae Ehrenberg, 1828, among which 28 are new zoogeographical records for Reunion.


Background: Malnutrition remains a major public health problem in developing countries. In Oromia region prevalence of child malnutrition indicated that 29.1% with 6.6% severe underweight, 14.1% of the children are wasted (3.5% severe wasting) and 53.6% of the children are stunted with 17.1% severe stunting. Primary school age is a dynamic period of physical and mental development. The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) paid due attention to malnutrition, but still constant. Objective: The objective of the research was to determine the prevalence of undernutrition; Wasting and Stunting for children registered in Lutheran project and associated factors. Methods: Project based case studies of 384 children and cross sectional study design were applied to determine the magnitude of malnutrition using Semi-structured questionnaire, anthropometric measurements and clinical examination of 217 samples. Binary logistic regression was carried out, using Odds Ratio to determine the strength of predictors. Results: From socio-demographic characteristics 61.28% of the children moderate while 5.98% of them were extremely strong academically. Clinical examination showed only 9.4% of was moderately malnourished. 70.94 to 100% of the children were not taken the diphtheria tetanus, influenza diseases and hepatitis A vaccination. Based on Weight for Age, Height for Age and Weight for Height; 23%, children were severely undernutrition, 23% severely stunted and 16% severely wasted where 47%, 34% and 19% under a risk of undernutrition, stunting and wasting respectively. 60.68% of children were not received vitamin A regularly. Conclusion: Children who's not completed Vitamin A Versus completed (AOR=1.298), completed vaccination (AOR=0.379), Female/male (AOR=2.533) underweight. The finding indicated that explanation of Z-score is important that explaining the malnutrition status of the children. Maternal/guardians educational status was associated with children's underweight. Prevalence of malnutrition was occurred in less percent than the regional data. Breakfast is widely acknowledged to be the most important meal of the day and awareness creation also very important for the community to not miss breakfast possibly.


Extracted from text ... SA PHARMACIST'S ASSISTANT ? july / august 2005 4
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Recent legislation has legalised electronic
communication of prescriptions.
New technology has also made it easier
to alter or forge prescriptions. It is
therefore important for pharmacists
and pharmacist's assistants to develop
good pharmacy practice habits in
handling, interpreting, authenticating
and recording of prescriptions. It
is equally important for doctors and
patients to understand their rights
and obligations with regard to
prescriptions.
Doctors -
? have an obligation to prescribe
accurately and write their prescriptions
correctly and legibly in
accordance with relevant legislation;
? must keep accurate records of their
prescriptions on their patient profiles;
? must include ICD10 diagnostic codes
on the prescription, if it is to be
submitted to a medical ..


For atmospheric boundary-layer (ABL) studies, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) can provide new information in addition to traditional in-situ measurements, or by ground- or satellite-based remote sensing techniques. The ability of fixed-wing UAS to transect the ABL in short time supplement ground-based measurements and the ability to extent the data horizontally and vertically allows manifold investigations. Thus, the measurements can provide many new possibilities for investigating the ABL. This study presents the new mark of the Multi-Purpose Airborne Sensor Carrier (MASC-3) for wind and turbulence measurements and describes the subsystems designed to improve the wind measurement, to gain endurance and to allow operations under an enlarged range of environmental conditions. The airframe, the capabilities of the autopilot Pixhawk 2.1, the sensor system and the data acquisition software, as well as the post-processing software, provide the basis for flight experiments and are described in detail. Two flights in a stable boundary-layer and a close comparison to a measurement tower and a Sodar system depict the accuracy of the wind speed and direction measurements, as well as the turbulence measurements. Mean values, variances, covariance, turbulent kinetic energy and the integral length scale agree well with measurements from a meteorological measurement tower. MASC-3 performs valuable measurements of stable boundary layers with high temporal resolution and supplements the measurements of meteorological towers and sodar systems.


In this global study, we derived a risk score for escalated care in bronchiolitis that may be used to aid clinicians with management and disposition decisions. BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Early risk stratification of infants with bronchiolitis receiving airway support is critical for focusing appropriate therapies, yet the tools to risk categorize this subpopulation do not exist. Our objective was to identify predictors of "escalated care" in bronchiolitis. We hypothesized there would be a significant association between escalated care and predictors in the emergency department. We subsequently developed a risk score for escalated care. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of previously healthy infants aged <12 months with bronchiolitis. Our primary outcome was escalated care (ie, hospitalization with high-flow nasal cannula, noninvasive or invasive ventilation, or intensive care admission). The predictors evaluated were age, prematurity, day of illness, poor feeding, dehydration, apnea, nasal flaring and/or grunting, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, and retractions. RESULTS: Of 2722 patients, 261 (9.6%) received escalated care. Multivariable predictors of escalated care were oxygen saturation <90% (odds ratio [OR]: 8.9 [95% confidence interval (CI) 5.1–15.7]), nasal flaring and/or grunting (OR: 3.8 [95% CI 2.6–5.4]), apnea (OR: 3.0 [95% CI 1.9–4.8]), retractions (OR: 3.0 [95% CI 1.6–5.7]), age ≤2 months (OR: 2.1 [95% CI 1.5–3.0]), dehydration (OR 2.1 [95% CI 1.4–3.3]), and poor feeding (OR: 1.9 [95% CI 1.3–2.7]). One of 217 (0.5%) infants without predictors received escalated care. The risk score ranged from 0 to 14 points, with the estimated risk of escalated care from 0.46% (0 points) to 96.9% (14 points). The area under the curve was 85%. CONCLUSIONS: We identified variables measured in the emergency department predictive of escalated care in bronchiolitis and derived a risk score to stratify risk of this outcome. This score may be used to aid management and disposition decisions.


In this new political history of the labor movement, Clayton Sinyai examines the relationship between labor activism and the American democratic tradition. Sinyai shows how America's working people and union leaders debated the first questions of democratic theory—and in the process educated themselves about the rights and responsibilities of democratic citizenship. In tracing the course of the American labor movement from the founding of the Knights of Labor in the 1870s to the 1968 presidential election and its aftermath, Sinyai explores the political dimensions of collective bargaining, the structures of unions and businesses, and labor's relationships with political parties and other social movements. Schools of Democracy analyzes how labor activists wrestled with fundamental aspects of political philosophy and the development of American democracy, including majority rule versus individual liberty, the rule of law, and the qualifications required of citizens of a democracy. Offering a balanced assessment of mainstream leaders of American labor, from Samuel Gompers to George Meany, and their radical critics, including the Socialists and the Industrial Workers of the World, Sinyai provides an unusual and refreshing perspective on American labor history.


Phosphogenesis is major sink for phosphorus (P) in the modern ocean, and the deposition of ancient phosphorites appears to have been an important sink for P in past oceans. To evaluate the importance of P burial, we combined published estimates (along with our data for one section of the Monterey Formation, California) of P inventories, areal extents, and time intervals of deposition for three well-studied major phosphorite deposits to calculate P accumulation and burial rates. Phosphorus accumulation and burial rates of major phosphorite deposits are comparable to those of the modern Peru margin. Though phosphorite deposition probably requires favorable sedimentological, tectonic, and/or oceanographic conditions, it does not appear to be a geochemically anomalous phenomenon when compared to modern oceanic conditions.


The Dutch consortium "NoordzeeWind" has built the first offshore wind farm in Dutch North Sea waters, known as "Offshore Wind farm Egmond aan Zee" (OWEZ) Part of the construction works consisted of driving 36 monopiles into the sea floor, during April-June 2006. The noise levels that attended this activity may have been detrimental to marine life forms. Cetaceans in particular are sensitive to very high noise levels and a possible impact on the most abundant cetacean living off the Dutch coast, the harbour porpoise was therefore studied. Direct observations were hard to conduct, given the low (summer) densities of porpoises around the construction site. Pathological observations on stranded specimen failed to produce clear results. Inner ears of freshly stranded porpoises were examined for possible damage, but before necropsies could be conducted the animals had been stored frozen and this had destroyed any visible signs of noise-induced damage to the inner ear. Thus, the spatiotemporal pattern of porpoise strandings was examined. Porpoises did not strand in higher numbers on the coastal stretch directly east of the construction site, or to the north-east of this location (downstream) compared to other parts of the country. Porpoises also did not strand in higher than expected numbers near the construction site, at the time of construction. It was therefore concluded that the construction did not lead to visibly increased mortality of harbour porpoises. In retrospect this might have been expected, given that densities of porpoises are normally very low in summer at the site, that the building process is noisy anyway, scaring porpoises off (to safe distances) before the actual pile driving commences. A ramp-up procedure and usage of a pinger further helped to ward off porpoises from the site, before full-power pile driving started. These factors combined (timing and high before-pile driving noise levels) made it very unlikely that porpoises got in harm's way during the construction of OWEZ.


A fundamental question in learning to classify 3D shapes is how to treat the data in a way that would allow us to construct efficient and accurate geometric processing and analysis procedures. Here, we restrict ourselves to networks that operate on point clouds. There were several attempts to treat point clouds as non-structured data sets by which a neural network is trained to extract discriminative properties. The idea of using 3D coordinates as class identifiers motivated us to extend this line of thought to that of shape classification by comparing attributes that could easily account for the shape moments. Here, we propose to add polynomial functions of the coordinates allowing the network to account for higher order moments of a given shape. Experiments on two benchmarks show that the suggested network is able to provide state of the art results and at the same token learn more efficiently in terms of memory and computational complexity.


This issue of Fontes Artis Musicae is devoted to Special Collections and Private Music Libraries. These collections are often created through the devoted attention of a single collector or assembled by focusing on a single topic. The first article is on the Gerald Coke Handel Collection at the Foundling Hospital. This collection was assembled over 60 years of dedicated work by a non-musician with a keen interest in a composer who was a fundamental part of the development of music in England. The second article is on the Morrill Music Library at Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, which was created to complement the interdisciplinary center for research in Renaissance culture that the connoisseur Bernard Berenson had endowed to Harvard. The Morrill's funding was so generous that the scope of the library could encompass a much wider range of study than just Renais sance music and now covers Western music from Greek and Roman culture to the early Baroque period, with particular emphasis on Italian music before 1640. Other scholars have donated their own collections to supplement and complement the library's holdings. The essay concludes with complete bibliographical descriptions of three recent acquisitions by the library, unique partbooks of music by the Renaissance composers Giovanni Cavaccio, Ascanio Meo, and Giulio Scala. From Italy, we next travel to London and the Royal College of Music's collection of materials on the history of the violin by Edward Heron-Allen. A polymath collector, HeronAllen in his youth assembled an as-yet-unsurpassed collection of books on the violin. The violin bibliography was published by Heron-Allen in 1884 and the collection itself came to the Royal College of Music Library in 1943. Also in the RCM Library are significant collections of early orchestral music, discussed by Angela Escott, with particular reference to the differing ways in which they've been used over the years. Where most of the collections in this issue are in conservatories or private libraries, one public library project has been significant for its value to the local community. The Hong Kong Music Collection at the Hong Kong Central Library was created with the deliberate goal of preserving the local music from all levels of Hong Kong society--although the collection began as a collaboration between the Hong Kong Central Library and the Hong Kong Composer's Guild, it has expanded to collect music manuscripts from the current pop music world, the current and historic Cantonese opera world, and any other musical developments that are uniquely Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Music Collection team has had a number of challenges to overcome, not the least of which was persuading composers who traditionally kept their music as a secret art to donate it to a public collection. …


Because litigation has changed so dramatically in the last half century, scholars tend to view contemporary civil procedure as raising new problems that require new solutions. We have overlooked that many of these problems can be explained, and even resolved, using an age-old judicial role. There are two contexts in particular in which scholars have identified problems with judicial practices, but have been unable to agree on solutions. One is pretrial practice, where controversy abounds over the management strategies judges use to cope with overzealous litigants and overcrowded dockets. The other is class action litigation, where debate focuses on judicial review of proposed settlements and the judge's duty to protect absent class members. Although scholars have explored the tradeoffs posed by current practices and proposed reforms in both areas, they have lacked a framework with which to connect these problems or build a consensus for reform. This Article suggests that the framework we need has been available all along. Our best hope of understanding, and ultimately resolving, these controversies lies in a model of judging that prevailed for centuries and was captured by Lon Fuller in the 1950s. Although scholars rarely invoke tradition expressly, their debates over pretrial practice and class action litigation often boil down to a debate over the value and vitality of the traditional judicial role. Fuller identified two core elements of the traditional judicial role: Judges must rely on parties to frame disputes and on legal standards to help them resolve disputes. Scholars have overlooked that judges today sometimes respect these two characteristics and sometimes do not, and that it is precisely where judges stray furthest from tradition - and proceed without the litigant input or legal criteria to which they are accustomed - that judicial conduct triggers controversy. There are powerful reasons why judges should remain faithful to their traditional role even as they update it to respond to new challenges. Judges should do so not for tradition's sake, but rather because their traditional role reflects their core institutional competence, their place in the constitutional structure, and the considered judgment of two centuries of judges who faced problems surprisingly similar to those that judges confront today. This Article explores the institutional, constitutional, and historical underpinnings of the traditional judicial role, highlighting overlooked parallels between the new problems judges face in pretrial practice and class action litigation today and old ones that judges confronted, and largely overcame, in nineteenth-century trial practice and twentieth-century administrative law.


This paper disseminates from a keynote lecture I delivered at an international conference, Cityscapes in History: Creating the Urban Experience, held at the Centre for Advanced Studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich in July 2010. The theme of the paper, on architecture and ritual, was in response to a specific request by the conference organisers, and is based on my earlier research interests, particularly relating to pilgrimage and conversion during the period of Early Christianity. This chapter, however, brings this background historical knowledge of architecture and ritual to the contemporary situation, arguing that we have much to learn from the ancient and medieval worlds. Highlighting particular contemporary examples, I argue that the absence of conspicuous ritualized spaces in our cities is largely the result of architects no longer being able to understand certain kinds of spatial language that can facilitate mediation between built form and modes of corporate participation – whether formal or informal. At the same time, the chapter highlights how the use of such terms as 'ritualised space' in contemporary architectural discourse is problematic, given that ritual – as an 'obligatory' form of participation - is assumed by many to conflict with the expectations of unhindered freedom that has become the mantra of much contemporary architecture. This chapter challenges this preconception by arguing that notions of ritual space in the contemporary world are at one level materially different from those of the past, given the absence of systems of politico/religious hierarchy and authority. At the same time, however, implicit in the everyday events of contemporary urban life is the raw material of richer forms of repeated action than those simply of routine. The cases presented here reveal how a hermeneutical perspective of the historic past provides a productive and creative channel for reinterpreting ritual in the contemporary city.


Temporal fluctuations of silt mean particle size and foraminiferal indices were used to examine fluctuations in velocity and position of the axis of the Deep Western Boundary Undercurrent (DWBUC) on the North American continental margin. From 25 to 17 ka the DWBUC axis was 500 m shallower and farther inshore than its present position on the lower rise; current speed was high from 25 to 20 ka and then waned until 17 ka. Between 17 and 7 ka the major axis of the DWBUC shallowed to 4000 m; current speed increased from 17 to 11 ka but slowed from H to 7 ka. Since 7 ka the DWBUC axis has deepened to its modern position at 4900 m. The zone of maximum carbonate dissolution remained below the DWBUC; the most intense dissolution was from 22 to 9 ka and 5 to 2 ka. Highest abundance of Uvigerina and highest percent benthic foraminifera were immediately above the DWBUC from 22 to 7 ka, after which values of both parameters fell to near zero.


The reform in teaching and curriculum involves not only in the teaching content, but more so in teachers' methodology, the students' learning strategies and the changed relationship between students and teachers in the classroom setting. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that what is needed for ESP is a different orientation to English study and to outline an approach which departs from that which is generally taken. Broadly, what is involved is a shift of the focus of attention from the grammatical to the communicative properties of language. This view that the difficulties which the students encounter arise not so much from a defective knowledge of the system of language but from unfamiliarity with English use is acceptable but not sufficient.It is suggested that although specification of language needs is necessary for ESP course and it will be useful for selecting and grading materials, in teaching ESP learning strategies should play an important role. Accordingly, autonomous learning and metacognitive strategies are suggested as basic essentials for teaching and learning ESP.


Bacterial cellulose (BC) grown from a culture medium in the presence of water-soluble poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) produced an assemblage that was used as precursor for the synthesis of biocompatible nanocomposites. Physical crosslinking via cyclic freezing and thawing of the formed hydrogel facilitated retention of PVA matrix upon composite separation and purification. The composites displayed a porous architecture within the PVA matrix and an excellent compressive strength as a result of the synergism between BC and PVA. BC largely improved the thermo-mechanical performance as well as moisture and dimensional stability of the systems while PVA imparted optical transparency and extensibility. Compared to the respective reference sample (BC-free material), elastic modulus increments of 40, 98 and 510% were measured for PVA-based nanocomposites loaded with BC at 10, 20 and 30% levels, respectively. Likewise, the corresponding strength at break were 30, 77 and 104% higher. The results indicate an exceptional reinforcing effect endowed by the three-dimensional network structure that was formed in situ upon BC biosynthesis in the presence of PVA and also suggest a large percolation within the matrix. BC is relatively inexpensive, can produce scaffolds of given shapes and with high strength and acts as an excellent reinforcing element that promotes cell proliferation. Taken these properties together, BC and BC/PVA composites are promising materials in biomedical engineering.


Submitted 1 Nov 2016; Accepted 22 Nov 2016; Published 25 Dec 2016 It is crucial to monitor the growth and development of a child in early stage of life to take early corrective action in time to ensure normal growth. Child health card (CHC) is a tool used to maintain records and monitor the under five children. The objective of this study was to find out the maternal awareness on CHC and factor associated with its retention. This was a cross sectional analytical study conducted among 198 mothers having <3 years children in Salyan VDC, Kaski, Nepal. The study found 61.1% retention of CHC. Only about one-fourth (25.8%) of the mothers had adequate level of awareness on different aspect of CHC. Of the 24 different independent variables studied; only nine (age of the child; place of delivery; antenatal and postnatal care services utilized; first choice health institution for treatment; maternal awareness on CHC; place of immunization; taking CHC regular to health facility and health worker ever counseled on CHC) were found positively associated with retention of CHC (P < 0.05). This study showed retention of CHC only in six-out of-ten studied cases. The study also revealed poor level of awareness on CHC in the study area. The study also highlighted on positive association of retention of CHC with counseling by health workers and increased use of health services.


This paper describes a virtual tour through the archeological park Mediana developed by using the Unity3D Game Engine. The main goal of the application is to achieve better promotion of the archeological park through the use of modern information technologies. The solution is implemented as a multi-platform application for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems, as well as a Web application. The paper presents an analysis of basic concepts of Unity3D game engine and discusses the proposed architecture of the application. Special attention is paid to the interaction between the user and the application.


In this paper the existence of unemployment is partly explained as being the result of coordination failures. It is shown that as a result of self-fulfilling pessimistic expectations, even at Walrasian prices, a continuum of equilibria results, among which an equilibrium with approximately no trade and a Walrasian equilibrium. These coordination failures also arise at other price systems, but then unemployment is the result of both a wrong price system and coordination failures. Some properties of the set of equilibria are analyzed. Generically, there exists a continuum of non-indifferent equilibrium allocations. Under a condition implied by gross substitutability, there exists a continuum of equilibrium allocations in the neighborhood of a competitive allocation, when prices are Walrasian. For a specialized economy, a dynamic illustration is offered.


Introduction We aimed to compare the characteristics and vascular outcomes between Asian and non-Asian patients with non-cardioembolic stroke/transient ischaemic attack receiving antiplatelet monotherapy and to identify population-specific predictors for recurrent events. Patients and methods We conducted a post-hoc analysis of data from the PERFORM study, in which 19,100 patients (mean age, 67.2 years; male, 63%; 2178 Asian and 16,922 non-Asian patients) with non-cardioembolic ischaemic stroke/transient ischaemic attack were randomised to aspirin or terutroban and followed for two years. The primary outcome was a composite of major adverse cardiovascular events (non-fatal myocardial infarction, non-fatal stroke and cardiovascular death). Results There was no difference in major adverse cardiovascular events risk between Asian and non-Asian populations (11.1% vs. 10.5%; p = 0.39). However, Asian patients were at significantly higher risk of intracranial haemorrhage (2.4% vs. 1.3%; hazard ratio (HR) 1.87; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.34–2.60; p < 0.001) and major bleeding (5.4% vs. 4.1%; HR 1.30; 95% CI 1.04–1.61; p = 0.02). Stroke risk was significantly higher in Asian than in non-Asian populations among patients with lacunar stroke (7.4% vs. 4.5%; p = 0.02). In multivariable analysis, diastolic blood pressure (HR per 5 mm Hg 1.08; 95% CI 1.01–1.16; p = 0.03) and diabetes (HR 1.36; 95% CI 1.22–1.52; p < 0.001) were independent predictors of major adverse cardiovascular events for Asian and non-Asian patients, respectively. Conclusion: Compared with non-Asian patients, Asian patients had significantly higher risk of haemorrhagic events when given antiplatelet monotherapy for secondary prevention after non-cardioembolic stroke/transient ischaemic attack. Lacunar stroke and elevated diastolic blood pressure were more associated with recurrence risk in Asian patients.


This collection of interdisciplinary essays explores how persons and things - the central elements of the social - are fabricated by legal rituals and institutions. The contributors, legal and anthropological theorists alike, focus on a set of specific institutional and ethnographic contexts, and some unexpected and thought-provoking analogies emerge from this intellectual encounter between law and anthropology. For example, contemporary anxieties about the legal status of the biotechnological body seem to resonate with the questions addressed by ancient Roman law in its treatment of dead bodies. The analogy between copyright and the transmission of intangible designs in Melanesia suddenly makes western images of authorship seem quite unfamiliar. A comparison between law and laboratory science presents the production of legal artefacts in new light. These studies are of particular relevance at a time when law, faced with the inventiveness of biotechnology, finds it increasingly difficult to draw the line between persons and things.


Abstract. This paper aims at exploring neoliberalism where it has been internalised and normalised as "neoliberal subjectivity''. Based on a Foucauldian discourse perspective, it analyses narrative interviews with young Swiss adults focusing on their life plans and their aspirations for the future from a gender perspective. The analysis documents a pronounced discourse of individualisation. The subjectivity of the interviewees is characterised by ideas of difference, free choice and individualised responsibility for biographical decisions and their consequences. The article uses the example of the interviewees' narratives on reconciling work and family to illustrate how the discourse of individualised responsibility works in detail and in which respects it constitutes "neoliberal subjectivity''. This Swiss study reveals how the neoliberal self-concepts of the young adults absolve the state, municipalities and employers of responsibility, transferring it to the individual. Consequently, gendered social inequalities are framed as the sole result of individual preferences and thus privatised.


For human and animal vision, the perception of local visual features can depend on the spatial arrangement of the surrounding visual stimuli. In the earliest stages of visual processing this phenomenon is called surround modulation, where the response of visually selective neurons is influenced by the response of neighboring neurons. Surround modulation has been implicated in numerous important perceptual phenomena, such as contour integration and figure-ground segregation. In cats, one of the major potential neural substrates for surround modulation are lateral connections between cortical neurons in layer 2/3, which typically contains "complex" cells that appear to combine responses from "simple" cells in layer 4C. Interestingly, these lateral connections have also been implicated in the development of functional maps in primary visual cortex, such as smooth, well-organized maps for the preference of oriented lines. Together, this evidence suggests a common underlying substrate the lateral interactions in layer 2/3—as the driving force behind development of orientation maps for both simple and complex cells, and at the same time expression of surround modulation in adult animals. However, previously these phenomena have been studied largely in isolation, and we are not aware of a computational model that can account for all of them simultaneously and show how they are related. In this thesis we resolve this problem by building a single, unified computational model that can explain the development of orientation maps, the development of simple and complex cells, and surround modulation. First we build a simple, single-layer model of orientation map development based on ALISSOM, which has more realistic single cell properties (such as contrast gain control and contrast invariant orientation tuning) than its predecessor. Then we extend this model by adding layer 2/3, and show how the model can explain development of orientation maps of both simple and complex cells. As the last step towards a developmental model of surround modulation, we replace Mexican-hat-like lateral connectivity in layer 2/3 of the model with a more realistic configuration based on long-range excitation and short-range inhibitory cells, extending a simpler model by Judith Law. The resulting unified model of V1 explains how orientation maps of simple and complex cells can develop, while individual neurons in the developed model express realistic orientation tuning and various surround modulation properties. In doing so, we not only offer a consistent explanation behind all these phenomena, but also create a very rich model of V1 in which the interactions between various V1 properties can be studied. The model allows us to formulate several novel predictions that relate the


This essay tries to develop the multidimensional perspective to the investigation of social exclusion using a new version of clustering procedures, based on neural networks techniques. Our central aim is to make a fuzzy map of the Italian Well-Being compressing a certain number of indicators as regards as basic lifestyle, subjective well-being, health conditions, social relations, housing problems, durable lack onto a two-dimensional fuzzy space. More specifically we use the Kohonen Map, an unsupervised clustering procedure, to realise a topological segmentation of Italian families onto a two dimensional display along which it is possible to identify differential groups of families featured by different standards of living. The fuzzy Map is made of prototypical cluster each of which recognise families (and individuals) featured by a particular combination of deprivation and well-being indicators. Families (or individuals) situated in a closeness tend to share similar characteristics, while families (farther) in the fuzzy map show pronounced differences. We make use of the Multiscopo ISTAT dataset (2001) to explore the structure of correlations among the indicators and to recognise different forms and level of vulnerability and social exclusion. With multilevel logistic regression models we will demonstrate how education, employment status and life events continue to be powerful predictors of the multiple deprivation and of the social exclusion in Italy although with significant variations across geographical regions.


Mobility and safety through work zones has become a prominent issue in work zone planning because motorists commonly expect minimal disruption to their normal driving habits. However, work zones can create unacceptable delays and queues if not adequately addressed. State transportation agencies (STAs) are currently working towards meeting the requirements of the Federal Highway Administration's Work Zone Safety and Mobility Rule, 23 CFR, Part 630. This rule requires STAs to systematically manage the impacts of work zones on federal-aid highways and other projects that have significant impact on road users. STAs therefore use various congestion mitigation strategies in their transportation management plans. This synthesis identifies and discusses many frequently used strategies and many strategies that are relatively new to several agencies. When developing transportation management plans, a well-rounded and comprehensive group of strategies can be made to work together to mitigate work zone congestion to levels that are acceptable to motorists. This synthesis thus provides a tool for STAs to use in the work zone planning stages of a project.


Mobile applications are being used to perform a wide variety of tasks in day-to-day life ranging from checking email, to controlling your home heating. Application developers have recognized the potential to transform a smart device into a medical device, by using a mobile medical application i.e. a mobile phone or a tablet. When initially conceived these mobile medical applications performed basic functions e.g. BMI calculator, accessing reference material etc.; however, increasing complexity offers clinicians and patients a range of functionality. As this complexity and functionality increases, so too does the potential risk associated with using such an application. Examples include any applications that provide the ability to inflate and deflate blood pressure cuffs, as well as applications that use patient-specific parameters and calculate dosage or create a dosage, plan for radiation therapy. If an unapproved mobile medical application is marketed by a medical device organization, then they face significant penalties such as receiving an FDA warning letter to cease the prohibited activity, fines and possibly face criminal conviction. Regulatory bodies have finalized guidance intended for mobile application developers to establish if their applications are subject to regulatory scrutiny. However, regulatory controls appear contradictory with the approaches taken by mobile application developers who generally work with short development cycles and very little documentation and as such, there is the potential to stifle further improvements due to these regulations. The research presented as part of this paper details how by adopting development techniques such as agile software development, mobile medical application developers can meet regulatory requirements whilst still fostering innovation. Keywords—Medical, Mobile, Applications, Software Engineering, FDA, Standards, Regulations, Agile.


Purpose: The purpose of this article is to develop a methodology for integration of smart city dimensions in the socialized process of creating city development. Design/Methodology/Approach: For achieving the objective of this study, a foresight research was proposed. The presented methodology consists of five phases. The paper discusses in detail the operationalisation of each phase of the methodology in which the following main methods were used: desk research, factors analysis, (social (S), technological (T), economic (E), ecological (E), political (P), relating to values (V) and legal (L) (STEEPVL)), Delphi, scenarios, mactor method, social impact assessment (SCI). Findings: In the vast majority of publications, the authors attempted to define the concept of "smart city" focus only on the technological aspect. Such approach does not take into account all dimensions of smart city and thus does not consider the multifaceted and multi-variant nature of the smart city. This article presents numerous barriers hindering the implementation of smart city concept. In the contemporary perception of the smart city concept, there is a return to the needs and preferences of the inhabitants. The answer to these needs seems to be urban foresight, the essence of which is to create and build a vision of the future in cooperation with the city authorities and a wide range of stakeholders forming the local community. Practical implications: The proposed methodology would be a practical contribution to the development of smart city implementation. Originality/Value: Foresight research methodology has not been developed yet, taking account the integration of all dimensions of the smart city concept.


This book presents a novel approach to characterizing markets in quantitative terms. The examples cut across the world of interest rates, price of gold, stock market and corporate worlds that the stock market rests on, and the pricing of options on financial instruments. The emphasis is on methods of inquiry, methods that can just as easily be applied to other markets and other economic phenomena as well. The goal is to make the methods available to the widest possible audience of quantitative analysts and to the trading desks and investment plans they feed. Quantitative research and modeling in finance and economics have a long history going back to Frank Ramsey, mathematician, logician, and economist, who pioneered the application of dynamic models in economics in the 1920s, and to his theory of the Ramsey Tax, which is a rule for apportioning tax rates in a way that raises the maximum tax revenues while impacting the decisions of taxpayers as little as possible. The opposite would be a tax so inefficient that it causes people to avoid doing whatever it is that subjects them to the tax. These experiments yield valuable insight into economic affairs, but they are only a stepping-stone for others-a starting point for discovery. Foremost among them is locating usable statistical findings to the investment world. Gibbons' intention is not to provide investment advice, it is to provide education. These data are subject to changing results, but that should not diminish their educational value. This is a proactive fusion of business economics and sound social science methods.


We report a refractive-index matching method to measure nonabsorbing solid ultraviolet (UV) Raman cross-sections that avoids the local field correction and interface scattering of incident light. We used refractiveindex-matched chloroform as an internal standard to determine the solid-state 995 cm−1 Na2SO4 244 nm Raman cross-sections. The pure liquid chloroform 668 cm−1 244 nm Raman cross-section was determined by using acetonitrile as an internal standard and by calculating the local field corrections for the observed Raman intensities. Our measured 244 nm UV Raman cross-section of the solid-state 995 cm−1 SO42– band of 1.97 ± 0.07 × 10−28 cm2/(molc·sr) is about half of its aqueous solution Raman cross-section, indicating interactions between the sulfate species in the solid that decrease the Raman polarizability.


Objective: To evaluate in vivo tissue reaction to the extract of araca ( Psidium cattleianum ) associated with inactivated microorganisms. Material and Methods: A 0.1 mL suspension was used containing Porphyromonas gingivalis, Prevotella intermedia, Fusobacterium nucleatum, Enterococcus faecalis, Peptostreptococcus micros , and Porphyromonas endodontalis, which were inactivated by heat and mixed into a 1.0 mL saline (control group), an aqueous solution, or a hydroalcoholic extract of araca. Eighteen male rats ( Rattus norvegiccus ) under general anesthesia received 0.2 mL of 1% intravenous Evans blue. Thirty minutes later, 0.1 mL of one of the associations was injected into the animals' dorsal region. The animals were euthanized after 3 and 6 hours, and the materials obtained were placed in formamide for 72 hours then analyzed in a spectrophotometer (λ=630 hm). For the morphological analysis, 30 rats received polyethylene tubes implants with the extracts or the saline with the associations in the dorsal region and euthanized after 7 and 30 days to be analyzed according to an inflammation cell score. Results: No significant difference (p>0.05) was observed in the edema among groups. The optical microscopy results showed a repair in the 30-day-period, which was higher when compared to the 7-day-period (p<0.0001). Nevertheless, in the 7-day-period, the hydroalcoholic extract presented a significant response compared to the aqueous extract (p=0.05) and a trend for better results than the control group. Conclusion: The aqueous and hydroalcoholic araca extracts associated with inactivated microorganisms showed similar responses to control, indicating no interference on the toxic effects of the bacterial components in tissue repair. Keywords Anaerobic bacteria; Edema; Inflammation; Plant extracts; Psidium.


The integration of various therapy strategies into a single nanoplatform for synergistic cancer treatment has presented a great prospect. Herein, docetaxel (DTX)-loaded poly lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA)-coated polydopamine modified with d-α-tocopherol polyethylene glycol 1000 succinate (TPGS) was synthesized for chemo-photothermal synergistic therapy against cancer. Firstly, the DTX-loaded PLGA NPs were prepared by a facile and robust nanoprecipitation method. Then, they were coated with dopamine to achieve the photothermal effects and to be further modified with TPGS, which can inhibit the P-glycoprotein-mediated multidrug resistance (MDR). The near-infrared (NIR) laser irradiation triggered DTX release from DTX-loaded PLGA NPs@PDA-TPGS, and then the chemo-photothermal therapy effect could be enhanced. The in vitro experimental results illustrated that DTX-loaded PLGA NPs@PDA-TPGS exhibits excellent photothermal conservation properties and remarkable cell-killing efficiency. In vivo antitumor studies further confirmed that DTX-loaded PLGA NPs@PDA-TPGS could present an outstanding synergistic antitumor efficacy compared with any monotherapy. This work exhibits a novel nanoplatform, which could not only load chemotherapy drugs efficiently, but could also improve the therapeutic effect of chemotherapy drugs by overcoming MDR and light-mediated photothermal cancer therapy.

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We present some recent progress in interpreting the results from the two powerful methods that analyze the magnetic pulsations observed by ground magnetometer arrays. The first method involves an inversion technique that requires the observations from a chain of magnetometer stations located on the same latitude. This method can estimate several factors that affect the pulsation amplitude on the ground, namely the magnitude of the wave "event", the local time distribution, and the ground conductivity effect. By analyzing several months of pulsation data, we present an alternative approach to estimate the statistical values of the ground conductivities. We confirm the conductivity structure obtained by one day of data presented by Chi et al. (1996). We also demonstrated the local time dependence of wave amplitude for different frequency bands using this method. The second technique is the "the gradient method" that calculates the difference in phase or amplitude of the signals measured at two closely separated stations on the same meridian. This technique has been successful in "observing" the eigenfrequencies of magnetospheric field lines. Although most studies to date analyze the phase difference in the H -component, we find that the phase difference was in fact largest in the Z-component. In order to interpret such difference quantitatively, we apply the conventional field line resonance theory to the condition in which the ground signals are induced by the Hall currents in the ionosphere. We also demonstrated that the same formulation can be used to understand the characteristics of field line resonance from the observations of phase differences.


General Introduction The purpose of this article is to discuss some of the influences of the extended family on the professional experiences of black women leaders working within the higher education sector of Zimbabwe, a southern African nation. The article is based on information provided in interviews conducted with thirty female Zimbabwean higher education leaders who revealed their major extended family responsibilities and how those domestic experiences interact with their public professional experiences. The paper examines these women's familial and professional experiences within the context of the interrelated, socially constructed classification systems of race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and class as they operate in Zimbabwe. The paper concludes by suggesting collaborative ways of alleviating burdens imposed by extended family responsibilities to improve the professional experiences of the women leaders. Contexualization The black women leaders in the study live and work within the shared unique contexts of Zimbabwe; therefore, their extended family experiences are analyzed within the appropriate Zimbabwean power hierarchies based on race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation and class. Feminists of African, Asian, and other Third World descent advocate the study of the complex and multiple intersections of the social systems of stratification mentioned above to critically examine any social situation (Gaidzanwa 1997; Mikell 1997; Hill Collins 1991; Harrison 2001; hooks 1984). Reacting to the tendency of early white, middle class and western feminists, especially those in the first wave of feminism, to universalize and essentialize women and their experiences, non-western feminists, womanists of color, (Alice Walker 1983) and Third World feminists highlight the diversity of women's experiences regarding the ways they are influenced by the intersections of their specific social and power differential systems. In other words, they insist that gender hierarchies be analyzed in conjunction with other systems of stratifications based on race, nationality, sexual orientation, and class. Similar analytical frameworks are also called for and used by many critical social scientists and feminist scholars (i.e. Harrison 2000; Weber 2001; Nicholson 1997; Tong 1998; Sleeter and Grant 1999; West and Fenstermaker 1995). One major goal of such critical feminist scholars (including global, African, Third-World, black feminists and womanists) is to examine the lives of women in a more holistic fashion, which takes into consideration the diverse influences and differential factors that shape their experiences, (Anderson and Collins 1992; Harrison 2001; Weber 2001; hooks 1984; West and Fenstermaker 1995). Weber (2001, 19) states: "Every social situation is affected by society-wide historical patterns of [nationality] race, class, gender, and sexuality that are not necessarily apparent to the participants and are experienced differently depending upon the [specific social stratification characteristics] of the people involved." This paper analyzes the impact of the extended family responsibilities on the work lives of the women leaders within the contexts of the systems of social stratification prevalent in Zimbabwe. The analysis examines how multiple systems of oppression and exploitation simultaneously operate to disadvantage, discriminate, disempower, suppress, prejudice, exploit, and oppress women. Bonvillain (2001, 11) writes, "The notion of stratification refers to unequal access to social prestige and power available to and assumed by certain members of a society. It may be linked to unequal access to resources, goods, and political power." The power and privilege embedded within the systems of race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and class are temporal in that the categories gain or lose their meanings and influence in relation to historical epochs (West and Fenstermaker 1995; Weber 2001; Harrison 2001). …


This retrospective study investigated a population of 96 dogs with newly diagnosed malignant lymphosarcoma that were treated with the commonly used University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-M) chemotherapy protocol. Pretreatment characteristics were analyzed to determine prognostic factors. Dogs with higher World Health Organization (WHO) stages (including stage IV) and dogs with hypercalcemia were at significantly higher risk of relapse (P=0.018 and P=0.016, respectively). Dose reduction, treatment delays, and prior therapy with cortico-steroids were not associated with clinical outcome. First remission duration of 270 days was similar to historically reported data. Overall survival time of 218 days was much shorter than historical data.


Although Vincent Scully's subjects as an architectural historian ranged from Greek temples to the pueblos of the American Southwest, from Park Avenue towers to French classical gardens, it is impossible to think of him without talking first about New Haven, Connecticut, the small northeastern city where he was born on 21 August 1920, the only child of a father who sold Chevrolet automobiles and a mother who was an aspiring opera singer. It was in New Haven that Scully received his formal education, first at Hillhouse High School and then at Yale University, where he earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees and would teach for almost all of his career; it was also in New Haven where he formed his notion of what a city was. The city's famous "nine squares" plan led Scully to think about grids as shapers of cities, as its Victorian Gothic city hall by Henry Austin and its classical post office by James Gamble Rogers led him to think about architecture as civic symbol; similarly, its neighborhood parks and central green led him to think about public space, and its enormous rock outcroppings made him aware of the relationship of landscape to urbanism. New Haven was also the place that shaped his views, increasingly vocal as he grew older, about the failings of urban renewal, modern architecture, and autocratic planning; the incursion of highways into the city's central core (which he would always call "connectors," using the local parlance) became his model of how not to treat a city.

Vincent Scully (photo, Michael Marsland/Yale University).

Scully spent almost all of his academic career at Yale, retiring as Sterling Professor of the History of Art in 1991 and continuing to teach as an emeritus professor until 2009, when he was eighty-nine years old. While he …


This study articulates how increasingly pervasive digital information transforms project delivery models. It builds on and extends the literature on innovation and knowledge codification, analyzing London's evolving digital innovation ecosystem across 15 years of industry/government initiatives and infrastructure megaprojects. Findings suggest profound and ongoing changes in digitally enabled project delivery models. Novel contributions are: first, to identify new generations of integrated solutions; second, to articulate changes in supply chains and relationships with owners, operators, and end users; and third, to recognize the growing importance of digital workflows and analytics, rather than documents. There are implications for project management practice and scholarship.


BACKGROUND
The irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a functional bowel disorder characterized by symptoms of abdominal pain that is associated with disturbed defecation. Crohn's disease (CD) and Ulcerative colitis (UC) are collectively referred to as inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). IBD appears to result from dysregulated immune response with contributions from genetic predisposition and environmental factors. Among environmental factors the enteric microflora and the components of food (eg. antigens) may play important role in the pathogenesis of IBD. The aim of the authors' study was to detect IgE type antibodies against the most frequent food allergens in patients with IBD and IBS.

METHODS
Antibodies against food allergens (IgE type) with ELISA method in patients with CD, UC and IBS were quantitatively measured. The figures were compared to the result of a healthy control group contains the same number of participants, and the frequency of food allergy in these patient groups were determined.

RESULTS
On the basis of the study the presence of increased IgE type immune response against any food allergens was 34.5% (p = 0.01) in the group of IBS. In patients with CD or UC the immune response against food allergens was also more frequent than in the control group. The order of frequency of food allergens in IBS was the following: milk protein, soybean, tomato, peanut, egg white.

CONCLUSION
As the occurrence of food allergens was significantly higher in IBS group than in the control group, the role of food allergy in the symptoms of IBS can be come up. The frequency of food allergy in patients with diagnosis of IBS, and the similarity of symptoms of this two diseases give an obvious opportunity for the patients with IBS to use a diet avoiding the most frequent food allergens, or take e.g. Na-cromoglycate which is useful therapy in food allergy.


Critics charge President Donald Trump with racism, but he insists he opposes bigotry and is an American nationalist, not a white nationalist. We use analysis of Trump's campaign rhetoric, his administration's policies, and their reception to assess these rival claims. In his campaign, Trump narrated American identity as a tale of lost greatness in which a once-unblemished America gave way to globalist elites who have victimized many Americans, particularly traditionalist, predominantly white Christian Americans. His policies have systematically expanded protections for such Americans and sought to increase their share of the American electorate and citizenry, while reducing or eliminating initiatives designed to assist and increase the numbers of non-white, non-Christian American voters and citizens. The evidence thus shows that although Trump does not explicitly endorse white nationalism, his rhetoric and policies articulate not a consistent race-blind nationalism, but a vision of white protectionism.


The greatest name in foreign language dictionaries is Cassell, the preeminent publisher of dictionaries for over 120 years. For fast, easy reference and comprehensive coverage, Cassell's is unbeatable. With entries covering daily conversation as well as technical and professional terms, this handy pocket-sized dictionary is the only reference you need while traveling, studying, or working. Cassell's is portable, easy to read and full of helpful usage information that's simple to access. This invaluable volume, backed by the world's foremost language authority, is the best pocket guide available to the French language.


Abstract Objective: The aim was to evaluate whether the activity items of the Children's Assessment of Participation and Enjoyment/Preferences for Activities of Children (CAPE/PAC) were relevant for Swedish children. Subjects: A total of 337 typically developed children aged 6–17 years old. Methods: The CAPE/PAC was translated into Swedish in accordance with accepted translation procedures. By means of 14 group interviews with children with and without disabilities aged 6–15 years old and parents, available leisure activities were listed. These were matched to the items in the CAPE/PAC. Sixteen new potential activities were added and tested on 337 typical developed children from different regions of Sweden. A cutoff level of activities performed by >10% was set to identify relevant activities. Differences between the original and a proposed Swedish version were analysed using paired-samples t-tests of standardized mean scores. Results: Three new activity items were included, for 10 items new activity examples were added, and three not relevant items were excluded. In the Swedish version the outcome of standardized mean diversity score was significantly higher compared with the outcome of the original version. Conclusions:When using instruments in new contexts, it is not enough simply to translate; validation of the item relevance to the new context is essential.


The end of the Middle Bronze Age and its connection with the end of the Second Intermediate Period in Egypt and the alleged expulsion of the Hyksos is of key-importance for understanding the development of the subsequent Late Bronze Age and the rising Egyptian interest in the region. For a long time it was assumed that the destruction levels observed at many Middle Bronze Age sites throughout the southern Levant could be linked to the Hyksos expulsion and the immediate aftermath. The low chronology of Manfred Bietak and others dated the end of the Middle Bronze Age to the early 18th Dynasty, up to the Thutmosid period and implicitly opened the possibility to connect these destructions with the attested military campaigns of the Thutmosid kings. Recent radiocarbon data, however, challenged both the low and the conventional chronology and placed the end of the Middle Bronze Age earlier, probably even before the start of the New Kingdom. This paper reviews both the chronologies and the historical narratives involved and argues for a new model for the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age.


Developing software is both time consuming and expensive. Finding waysfor minimizing development cost is therefore of great interest. One way ofreducing cost in software development is reuse of existing software. Portingsoftware is a type of reuse where an existing piece of software is adapted torun in a di erent environment than originally intended. Successfully portingsoftware requires both good preparations and evaluation of results. Guide-lines for this process are provided in this thesis. In this thesis an existingembedded software platform for automotive telematics was partially portedto a new type of hardware.


A time of flight method is suggested for measuring distances in large manipulator range-finding applications. Light pulses of a SH laser diode are used. Special attention was paid to reducing the pulse amplitude variations in the transit time measurement. Preliminary results with a prototype have proved the method to be highly usable in measuring position, orientation, and shape of the objects within a 1.5–10-m range. The resolution of the distance measurement is ±1 mm with a measuring time of 10 msec.


Theories of presupposition in the tradition associated with Karttunen, Stalnaker and Heim relate presupposition satisfaction to the content of conversational participants' epistemic states, usually modeled as sets of worlds. However, converging evidence from recent work on modality and from other areas of cognitive science suggests that epistemic states are better thought of as having the richer structure of probability distributions. I describe an account of semantic and pragmatic presupposition which combines core ideas from dynamic semantic treatments with a probabilistic model of information states and their dynamics in conversation, and argue that it predicts the core data of the proviso problem (Geurts 1996) without invoking ad hoc mechanisms as conditional strengthening accounts typically do. The frequently cited intuition that (ir)relevance is crucial follows without stipulation, and I present new cases which suggest that irrelevance is too weak to predict all cases of unconditional presuppositions, problematizing strengthening accounts which rely on it. The proposed theory is able to account for this new data and also for semi-conditional presuppositions, a sticking point for previous theories of presupposition projection. I argue that this perspective also gives us a reasonable line on several related issues, including the divergence between presupposed conditionals and conditional presuppositions, instances of the proviso problem in counterfactuals, and the contextual variation in the difficulty of accommodation.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/sp.5.2

 BibTeX info


Deltas are amongst the most environmentally and economically important coastal sedimentary environments. Studies of deltas lag behind research in both fluvial and deep-water depositional systems, as well as more geomorphologically oriented land studies. This knowledge lag reflects both a reorientation of the petroleum industry in the last two decades toward deep-water systems, as well as the difficulty of working across the shoreline with the traditional tools used for oceanographic or land-based work. However, deltaic studies are experiencing a renewed focus, because of their global importance in environmental and other societal concerns. This volume stems from a special session: Deltas: Old and New, held at the Annual Geological Society of America conference in October 2002, that was convened to highlight these new directions in deltaic research.


If the Curiosity rover finds even a part per billion (ppb) of methane in martian air, it could mean there is life on Mars today. So NASA's announcement last week that a press teleconference would "provide an update on Curiosity's studies of the Martian atmosphere" definitely piqued the media's interest. But after two good, long analyses, Curiosity scientists could only say that, with 95% confidence, there is between 0 and 5 ppb of martian methane. So there could be a hefty amount of methane and life on Mars, or there could be none of either.


The Health Office of East Java Province obliges private midwives to report maternal and child health services they've provide to the Public Healthcare Center every month. The report consists of the following indicators : the number of first and fourth visit of pregnant women, number of deliveries, postpartum mothers, live birth and stillbirth, new and previous visits of under-five children, immunization given, mothers and children who were referred, and family planning services. These reports would be used to evaluate the health status of an area. By completing and submitting the report timely, data on maternal and child health status status could be assessed for determining the priority of further actions. Thus, the problems could be early detected and controlled. The objective of this study was to investigate the compliance, knowledge, motivation, procedure, and the available facilities in supporting this program. This study was an observational research with survey method and cross-sectional approach. Structured questionnaires were used as an instrument for data collection. The subjects were seventy-five private midwives. Data were analyzed quantitatively using Logistisc Regression method.
The results of this study showed that most of the respondents were young adults (64%), had worked for more than 5 years (90.7%), complied (56.6%), had a good knowledge in reporting (50.7%), good motivation (52%), good perception on reporting procedure (52%), good perception about supervision (54.7%), and poor perception about the provided facilities (66.7%). Based on bivariate analysis, variables of procedures (p = 0.030), motivation (p = 0.0001), and work length (p = 0.039) had a significant association with the compliance of the private midwives (p < 0.05). The results of multivariate analysis using Logistics Regression showed that motivation (p = 0.0001) and procedures (p = 0.004) together influenced the compliance of the private midwives (p < 0.05).

Sumber Utama : www.mikm.undip.ac.id


Managing innovation as a process is vital for entrepreneurs and businesses. Through our literature review we realized that the innovation measurement in many organizations does not appear to take place routinely within management practice and that, where it does, it tends to focus on output measures. Further, from the relatively small number of empirical studies of measurement in practice, measurement of innovation management appears to be under-taken infrequently as an ad hoc approach, and relies on outdated innovation frameworks due to the accelerated progress of technology and R&D management. The consequence of this is the absence of an updated rigorous and generic framework covering the range of all activities required to generate and manage ideas and turn these ideas into useful added values and new marketable products, services, or business model. In this paper we introducing generic but comprehensive framework that addresses the innovation management at both levels of the firms and projects. We first developed a synthesized framework of the innovation management and activities consisting of nine dimensions. Second, introduced the Innovation Balanced Score Card (IBSC) to measure four categories of innovation Key Performance Indicators (KPI). The paper makes two important contributions. First, it takes the difficult step of incorporating a vastly diverse innovation frameworks into a single framework. Second, it provides a innovation KPI against which managers can evaluate their own innovation activity, explore the extent to which their organization is nominally innovative or whether or not innovation is embedded throughout their organization, and identify areas for improvement. Through the application of this framework to a particular context, practitioners will be able to conduct an evaluation of their own innovation management activity, identify gaps, weaknesses and also improvement potential.


Objectives Despite growing recognition of the importance of staff perceptions of safety culture to the quality of care provided to patients, there is limited published work describing the safety culture within hospital pharmacy practice. The aim of this study was to investigate the patient safety culture within the pharmacy service across a group of publically funded hospitals. Method An anonymous safety-culture assessment tool was made available to all pharmacy staff, measuring respondents' level of agreement with 43 statements relating to seven principle safety 'domains'. Responses were recorded using a five-point Likert scale and reported using percentage-positive agreement and Bayes factor (BF) analysis. Results Based on a response rate of 51% (n=99/195), pharmacy staff report a very strong positive safety culture profile for 'Investigating and learning from incidents' and 'Perceptions of the causes of incidents/reporting' (99.9%, BF>1000(decisive), for both). However, there was decisive evidence toward negative Likert responses for the domains 'Staffing and management' (99.9%, BF>1000 (decisive)) and 'Team working' (99.3%, BF=132 (decisive)). Significant differences also emerged in favour of smaller hospitals for 'Teamwork' (96.2%, BF=26 (very strong)), clinical pharmacists (n=51) versus technicians (n=21) for 'Perceptions of the causes of incidents/reporting', 'Teamwork' and 'Commitment to patient safety and education' (99.9%, BF>1000 (decisive), for all). Also for pharmacists affiliated with a professional association (n=54) compared with all staff without an affiliation (n=43) (99.9%, BF>1000 (decisive)). Conclusions Our findings identify important influences on the patient safety culture of hospital pharmacy, including the role of hospital type, pharmacy staff group and membership with professional-advocacy groups. A better understanding of the factors which drive these differences is necessary for pharmacy services to better embrace safety improvement initiatives.


Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that causes tremor, stiffness, and slowness of movement. The first line of treatment for the disease is the administration of drugs. Over a period of time, these drugs slowly lose their affect to arrest the symptoms associated with Parkinson's disease. Once a patient becomes refractory to drug treatment, one alternative treatment option is Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS). In DBS, a probe is implanted in the basal ganglia area of the brain to administer electric pulses that curb the aforementioned symptoms. Although not fully understood, DBS is becoming a more widely accepted treatment, with various implantable devices currently on the market. These devices, however, require the implantation of a relatively large battery and control pack in the chest with subcutaneous wires threaded up through the neck to the top of the skull. The control pack and wires are a common source of irritation and infection, sometimes necessitating long periods of antibiotics or even removal of the device. Furthermore, the device is susceptible to magnetic interference and has a limited battery life. After the average 3- to 5-year lifespan of an implant's battery, another surgery is required to replace the device. The aim of this research is to design a small remotely powered device capable of driving a DBS probe from directly under the scalp. Successful development and proof of viability will form a basis for the conceptual redesign of currently marketed devices in order to eliminate the intrusive battery pack and wires, as well as the health risks commonly associated with them and the implantation procedure.


The instintive behaviour exhibited by insects in the selecting  food is always a matter of  interests to entomologists, and it is one of the fundamental principles underlining the application of entomology to agriculture, horticulture and forestry. Food seclection is an important characteristic of insects that help them survive in periods with insufficient foods.Three grain types of food, maize grain, long-grain rice and soybean grain, were used in this sudy for detecting food selection behaviours of maize weevil, Sitophilus zeamais. Grains were kept in box traps put in the different stores in Son La during 90 days. The result showed that maize weevil, Sitophilus zeamais, prefered traps with maize grains (71.4%) considerably more than ones with long-grain rice (14.3%) and soybean grain (14.3%). Meanwhile, the cornsap beetle, Carpophilus dimidiatus, was mostly observed in maize grain (98.5%) and to a lesser degree, in soybean grain (1.5%); and the dried-fruit beetle, Carpophilus hemipterus, was abundantly observed in maize grain (93.1%) and less in soybean grain (6.9%). The red flour, Tribolium castaneum, also tended to select all the three food grain, i.e. maize grain: 53.5%, long-rice grain: 35.2%, and soybean grain: 11.3%.Comparing f beetle individuals captured on three types of food grains showed that the maize weevil, Sitophilus zeamais, is the most abundant species. The percentage this store beetle among all beetles observed in maize, soybean grains and long-rice grains were 57.0%, 84.9% and 27.6%, respectively. Interestingly, Ahasverus advena, foreign grain beetle, occurred abundantly on long-rice gain (61.7%), i.e. this grain is a suitable food for the development of this beetle.


The paper analyzes the features of Thai auto industry from the late 1980s to the present. It uses an approach consistent with the Global Value Chain analyses, and focuses on three aspects: the relation between local and foreign capital; the role of the local supply base in the process of value creation; value capture and transfer dynamics among countries. The country is a relevant case as it is the largest ASEAN market and a main regional and global export hub. Thailand represents the centre of the regional production networks of all Japanese automakers and, from the Asian crisis (1997-1998), of the biggest western too. It has also a fundamental role for automakers regional market access strategies. The paper places Thai auto industry origins and development in the context of the expansion of Japanese industrialcapital in Southeast Asia. Hence, it assumes that Japanese production organization has bothshaped the local automotive manufacturing sector and determined its structural weaknesses.Data from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database from 1989 to 2010 are processed in the paper, in order to analyze trade relations between Thailand on one hand and ASEAN selected countries and "Triad" countries on the other and, hence, to assess value transfer dynamics. In sum, the paper underlines two main problems for local auto industry: the first is a substantial technological dependence from foreign assets and the existence of captive linkages between foreign assemblers or first tier suppliers and Thai suppliers; the second is a partial transfer towards the Triad - mainly Japan - of the value created in the country, which happens through technological dependence and trade deficit mechanisms.