The objective of the challenge for the unsupervised segmentation of words into morphemes, or shorter the Morpho Challenge, was to design a statistical machine learning algorithm that segments words into the smallest meaning-bearing units of language, morphemes. Ideally, these are basic vocabulary units suitable for different tasks, such as speech and text understanding, machine translation, information retrieval, and statistical language modeling. The segmentations were evaluated in two complementary ways: Competition 1: The proposed morpheme segmentation were compared to a linguistic morpheme segmentation gold standard. Competition 2: Speech recognition experiments were performed, where statistical n-gram language models utilized the proposed word segments instead of entire words. Data sets were provided for three languages: Finnish, English, and Turkish. Participants were encouraged to apply their algorithm to all of these test languages.


Soil depth and texture exert strong controls on the spatial distribution of water and energy fluxes and states in semiarid watersheds. As a result, realistic representations of the spatial soil characteristics within watersheds are important for the improvement of process-based distributed hydrologic modeling applications. In this study, we evaluated the effects of combinations of soil thickness and soil texture products with varying spatial distributions to assess their effects on the simulated hydrologic response in the semiarid Sierra Los Locos watershed in Sonora, Mexico. The main findings of the hydrological simulations show that soil texture exerted a strong control on evapotranspiration and soil moisture patterns, while soil thickness was directly related with the magnitude and range of the simulated values. Furthermore, soil texture patterns were an important factor controlling the spatial and temporal persistence of soil moisture which is highly evident during the transition from dry to wet conditions in the North American monsoon region. Once vegetation cover increases in the watershed in response to seasonal rainfall, the influence of soil texture decreases for determining the spatial distribution of the simulated hydrologic response and soil thickness becomes more important. Spatially-variable soil thickness tends to create soil depressions that store and transmit subsurface water, leading to large spatial variations in soil moisture, evapotranspiration and runoff generation. The results of this study highlight the sensitivity of estimated water fluxes and states with respect to the spatial distribution of soil depth and texture as obtained in a distributed hydrologic model representative of modern approaches. Finally, this research work offers insight into the importance of field studies and remote sensing approaches to better characterize these watershed properties.


Tomato consumption is considered fundamental for human health for its high nutritional value, mainly ascribed to antioxidant metabolites. In the last few years, we have focused our research on deciphering the genetic control of antioxidant compounds in tomato fruits and to produce superior genetic materials with an increased amount of bioactive compounds in the red ripe berry. For this purpose, we used introgression lines (ILs) obtained from the wild species Solanum pennellii, and we selected lines IL7-3 and IL12-4 for their high content of hydrophilic antioxidants in the fruit. These lines were crossed to combine the identified quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and obtain superior hybrids. A set of species-specific molecular markers was used to clearly distinguish the wild S. pennellii from the cultivated Solanum lycopersicum genome. In the present work, we describe the selection of one double homozygous hybrid (DHO22) and its multilevel characterization in comparison with its parental genotypes and with the cultivated genotype M82. The selected hybrid DHO22 exhibits high contents of ascorbic acid and phenolics, combined with good performances in terms of yield and other fruit quality traits, and clearly resembles the cultivated genotype M82. In future, this line could be used as pre-breeding material to obtain a new cultivar improved for nutritional traits.


Bottomhole data availability is important for managing reservoir and well deliverability. Adequate knowledge on key well/reservoir parameters assists in both production planning and reserves recovery. However, continuous data acquisition is often where we stumbled, due to a combination of economic, operational/logistical constraints such as economically unjustifiable downhole monitoring devices, risk of fishing/well downtime via well intervention measurement. An alternative to direct bottomhole data acquisition through well intervention is to employ advanced PVT model where surface data and established correlations are used to estimate these downhole data, with reasonable accuracy. To enable an accurate downhole data determination, understanding of wellbore dynamic behavior is crucial in shut-in well performance modeling. However, the major assumption in current PVT equations is instantaneous transformation of one phase (gas) into another phase (oil). During shut-in, this assumption leads to inaccuracy in gas/liquid distribution in the well and hence, an incorrect prediction of interphase level, in-situ density and pressure distribution in the well. This inaccurate PVT characteristic leads to unreliable estimated downhole data, particularly the reservoir pressure. Our research aims to improve the current estimation method by incorporating the time dimension, mass transfer rate, into well performance modeling. The strategy is to develop a novel PVT incorporating mass transfer rate model by employing the basic model of black oil PVT, EoS and mass transfer rate equations. A mathematical correlation which incorporates the time dimension as inherited in the mass transfer theory is devised. Therefore, the model is able to determine an accurate volume of each fluid phase at any node in the wellbore by incorporating the fluid segregation, mass transfer rate and fluid ingress in the reservoir during shut-in. This better description of wellbore dynamic behavior improves the accuracy of well performance modeling ensuring a reliable downhole data determination.


Using a combination of field, laboratory and micromorphological evidence, this study examines tafoni (singular, tafone) in the El Chorro area of Andalucia, southern Spain, and makes inferences concerning the processes responsible for their formation. Twenty-five tafoni were randomly selected for field examination. The morphology of these cavernous rock domes is characterized by a helmet-shaped outer roof and an arched-shaped cavern, often with a partially overhanging visor; measurements of height, width and depth of the caverns revealed marked variations in size. The presence or absence of lichen cover, surface varnish, overhanging visor, cavern backwall stripes, rock flaking, weathering pits and cavern floor sediments was also noted.

Surface hardness values, obtained using a Schmidt hammer, are relatively low but significantly higher on the outer roof of the tafoni than on the inner cavern walls. Analysis of sediment samples collected from the cavern backwalls and floors indicates predominantly sandy textures, alkaline pH values and some base cation enrichment. Micromorphological analysis of thin sections, prepared from undisturbed blocks, reveals large quantities of pore-filling cement, consisting mainly of calcite, mineral grains affected by weathering and pseudomorphic replacement, and dark, rounded nodules with a metallic appearance.

In terms of their formation, different processes appear to act on different parts of the landform. On the outer roof surfaces, case hardening, resulting from near-surface cementation and surface varnish development, is dominant. On the inner cavern surfaces, however, core softening, resulting from granular disintegration and flaking, dominates. Exfoliation weathering, running water and wind deflation also appear to play an important role in tafone formation. A phased model of tafone evolution is proposed whereby the features pass through four phases of development–initiation, enlargement, amalgamation and degradation; in the study area there are examples of tafoni in each of these phases. Much of the evidence suggests that the tafoni are actively developing under current environmental conditions.


Waves with exceptional height and periods caused severe damage along the coast of California in 1982-83. Because these large wave events coincided with a strong El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climatic anomaly, which occurs 20-25 times per century, there was interest in determining if the extreme waves resulted from the ENSO or its related features. The meteorological setting featured a very large and intense low pressure zone over the north-central Pacific. Associated with this Pacific-wide pattern, a series of large mid-latitude storms developed at about weekly intervals and produced exceptionally long fetchs directed at the California Coast. Two time series of extreme wave events, using buoy data after 1981 and hindcasts before, were used covering the period from 1900 to 1984. One series considered waves with significant heights greater than 3 m (10 ft) and the second for those greater than 6 m (20 ft.) These were compared with a time history of ENSOs for the same period. A strong association was established between northern hemisphere winters during ENSO years and large wave events in Southern California. Strong ENSO winters had the largest storm waves, moderate ENSOs less intense waves, and weak ENSOs tended not to have storm waves greater than the threshold value used in this study. The correlation between large waves and ENSO years is significant at the 1% level. The correlation between lack of large waves and non-ENSO years is significant at the 0.5% level. Because of the great southerly extent of the most energetic storms, a large number of energetic wave trains approach the coast from the west, rather than the northwest, as previously assumed by many. ENSO winters are responsible for producing all of the wave events in this study with both heights greater than 6 m and periods of peak energy longer than 19 seconds. Five out of nine eastern Pacific tropical storms making landfalls on California in the 85 year period occurred during the late northern summer of ENSO years.


Toft, J. E., Punt, A. E., and Little, L. R. 2011. Modelling the economic and ecological impacts of the transition to individual transferable quotas in the multispecies US west coast groundfish trawl fleet. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 68: 1566–1579.There is a need to understand the potential impacts on ecosystems and economies from shifting fisheries management towards individual transferable quota (ITQ) programmes. Multispecies fisheries present the challenge of understanding spatial patterns in fisher behaviour as they strive to balance profitable target catches while avoiding species with low catch limits. A spatially explicit model of biological and fleet dynamics was constructed to evaluate how the limited-entry groundfish trawl fleet off the US west coast and selected groundfish species (targeted Dover sole, and overfished darkblotched rockfish) were affected by two approaches to management: trip limits and ITQs. The model includes regional populations for both species, provides biological and socio-economic outputs, and determines quota price endogenously when applied for ITQs. Under ITQ management, effort and the total landings of the overfished species, darkblotched rockfish, were lower, coastwide profits higher, and the centre of fishing activity shifted south to areas with lower landing rates of darkblotched rockfish. The framework presented holds promise for obtaining insight about how new, untested management alternatives affect coastal and marine resources and those who rely on them.


ABSTRACT Charlotte Gould and Paul Sermon developed and presented this collaborative new artwork entitled All the World's a Screen, a live interactive telecommunications performance, to link public audiences in Manchester and Barcelona. On the evening of Saturday 28 May 2011 participants at MadLab in Manchester's Northern Quarter and Hangar Artist Studios in Poblenou, Barcelona were joined together on-screen for the first time to create their very own interactive generative cinema experience, complete with sets, costumes and props. The artists created a miniature film set in which the remote audiences acted and directed their own movie, transporting participants into animated environments and sets where they created personalized unique narratives. All the World's a Screen was a site-specific work allowing the public audiences to engage and interact directly within the installation, merging urban environments with networked audiences, and creating an otherworldly space on-screen where people could interact with others across the two cities, allowing the participants to explore alternative networked spaces. For Charlotte Gould and Paul Sermon this immersive interactive installation represented an exciting new departure from their existing practice. Pushing the boundaries of telematic art and generative cinema, All the World's a Screen combined the possibilities of telepresent performance with miniature scale-models and animated scenes; through audience participation it explored the way narratives may be revealed through the interplay between artist, audience and environment. With key features of the telematic stage, user generated performances and the dramaturgy of networked communication this project referenced Shakespeare's infamous line 'All the world's a stage' with seven rooms of a model film set (relating to the seven ages of man in Shakespeare's As You Like It), thus providing a metaphysical backdrop to steer the unfolding plot. This project was co-hosted by the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona MACBA Study Centre and on-going research and community building took place throughout the project to generate growing public attention around the research and the final development of the installation.


There was a time when curiosity was condemned. Through curiosity, our innocence was said to be lost. Yet this hasn't deterred us. Today we spend vast sums trying to recreate the first instants of creation in particle accelerators, out of pure desire to know. There seems now to be no question too vast or too trivial. No longer reviled, curiosity is now celebrated. By examining the rise of curiosity from the dawn of modern science to today, we can examine how it functions in science, how it is spun, packaged and sold, and how the changing shape of science influences the kinds of questions it may ask.


Zonation of potential of geological hazards in open pit mines gives us the opportunity to prediction and make conter measures for stablization of hazardous areas befor occurance of any incident. Sungun copper mine is located in the East Azerbaijan province, 45 km north of Varzaqan County. In this research, in order to zonation of potentially unstable areas, slope mass rating (SMR), kinematical analysis and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methods by using of Dips 6.0, Expert Choice and ArcGIS softwares were accomplished. In the study by using Analytical Hierarchy Process method, the effective general criterias on the failure of rock slopes and extraction benches including structural geology, geomechanics, groundwater condition of joints, morphology and degree of alteration were selected and ranked by forming a pairwise comparison matrix. Then the sub-criterias and alternatives are wheighted by using of overall row wheight method on the basis of their importance. Finally, by integration of obtained data layers in the ArcGIS system, the studied mine area was zoned in low, medium and higth category in terms of failure potentially. According to the results, the western, southern, southeast and scattered parts of the north area of the studied mine specially in mining benchs are more likely to rock slope failurs, which is in good agreement with field observations. The results showed that there is a fairly good agreement between the results of the methods used in this research. But due to the fact that in the hierarchical analysis method, other criteria involved in the failure are considered, and the result is more reliable.


The research herein presents an approach to stabilising reactive materials by engineering and designing strategies for forming multi-component materials containing the reactive molecules by use of their non-covalent intermolecular interactions. These interactions may be utilised as part of a design approach to create new materials of more beneficial physical and chemical properties for the desired application. The reactive materials focussed on in this research are organic peroxyacids, in particular peroxyacetic acid, meta-chloroperbenzoic acid and 6-phthalimidoperoxyhexanoic acid. The stabilities of these target materials under different conditions are probed to find a suitable environment for crystallisation experiments. Crystal structures of the materials were isolated and characterised and the peroxyacids were subsequently cocrystallised with materials chosen to interact with the target molecules to form new molecular complexes, including carboxylic acids, π stacking materials and metal salts. A hosting approach was also employed to form multi-component systems containing these materials, crystallising them with larger, stable, structure-generating compounds with the aim of intercalating the reactive molecules in their stable structure. To this end, urea based compounds, cyclodextrins and Montmorillonite clay were investigated as hosting materials. Candidate multi-component materials were synthesised which successfully retain peroxyacid reactivity. A second set of materials studied was agrichemicals, which also frequently have reactive character, in which a change in physical properties was pursued by the method of forming new crystalline complexes. Five new crystalline agrochemical molecular complexes were synthesised and tested for thermal stability in comparison to the original materials to assess for changes in properties of the multi-component materials.


: In order to achieve adequate time for emergency control against transient instability, a scheme to predict the post- fault rotor angle trajectory based on the grey Verhulst self-memory model is provided. The proposed scheme is model free and only uses wide-area measurement system data to provide timely, reliable information about the transient rotor angle stability. Moreover, the scheme is model-parameter-adaptive and takes full consideration of the non-linearity as well as uncertainty of power systems. Firstly, the grey Verhulst self-memory prediction model is presented to cope with the strong non-linear and non- autonomous nature of the power system. Secondly, the equal dimension and new information data model as well as the rolling prediction method are adopted to improve adaptability and robustness of prediction. Investigations with the IEEE-39 bus system and NCE China power system indicate that the proposed prediction scheme gives better prediction performance compared with the other two prediction methods, i.e. grey Verhulst prediction and auto-regressive prediction. Furthermore, combined with equal area criterion based on the severely disturbed generator pair, the proposed prediction scheme is conducted to detect transient instability. Simulation results indicate that the proposed prediction scheme is effective for prediction of transient stability.


Modern tactics for carrying out military and antiterrorist operations calls for the development of a new generation of enhanced portable infrared imagers. The high performance of these imagers relies on the focal plane arrays, which are maintained at cryogenic temperatures using rotary Stirling cryogenic engines. These engines are known as powerful sources of wideband vibration export. For the sake of weight and compactness, the enclosure of the above imager is usually designed in the form of a light metal thin-walled shell, accommodating a directly mounted Infrared Detector Dewar Cooler Assembly. The operation of the device typically leads to an excitation of the inherently lightly damped structural resonances and therefore, to a radiation of the specific acoustic signature capable of compromising the aural stealth of the IR imager. Such a noisy IR imager may be detected from quite a long distance using enhanced sniper detection equipment or even aurally spotted when used in a close proximity to the target. Numerous efforts were taken towards achieving the desired inaudibility level, apparently becoming one of a crucial figure of merit characterizing the portable IR imager. However, even the best examples of modern should-be silent imagers are quite audible from as far as 50 meters. The presented research intends to improve the aural stealth of the portable IR imager by using three different approaches: First, by compliantly mounting the Infrared Detector Dewar Cooler Assembly where the stiffness and damping of the vibration protective pad are optimized for the best acoustical performance without developing excessive line of sight jitter. Secondly, by using the concept of the weak radiator to reshape the enclosure mode shapes, and finally developing a multi-modal distributed dynamic absorber (MMDA) to enhance the absorption of the vibrating structure. The multi-modal characteristic of such a dynamic absorber makes it highly dynamically reactive through a wide frequency range (20 kHz) of excitation. It will be shown that incorporating a MMDA into the vibrating structure will result in ultra range vibration attenuation, making the IR aurally silent.


The use of roll-formed products in automotive, furniture, buildings etc. increases every year due to the low part-production cost and the complicated cross-sections that can be produced. The limitation with roll-forming until recent years is that one could only produce profiles with a constant cross-section in the longitudinal direction. About eight years ago ORTIC AB [1] developed a machine in which it was possible to produce profiles with a variable width ("3D roll-forming") for the building industry. Experimental equipment was recently built for research and prototyping of profiles with variable cross-section in both width and depth for the automotive industry. The objective with the current study is to investigate the new tooling concept that makes it possible to roll-form hat-profiles, made of ultra high strength steel, with variable cross-section in depth and width. The result shows that it is possible to produce 3D roll-formed profiles with close tolerances.


Cell junctions have both structural and morphogenetic roles, and contain complex mixtures of proteins whose interdependencies are still largely unknown. Junctions are also major signaling centers that signify correct integration into a tissue, and modulate cell survival. During Drosophila eye development, the activity of the immunoglobulin cell adhesion molecule Roughest (also known as Irregular chiasm C-roughest protein) mediates interommatidial cell (IOC) reorganization, leading to an apoptotic event that refines the retinal lattice. Roughest and the cadherin-based zonula adherens (ZA) are interdependent and both are modulated by the apical polarity determinant, Crumbs. Here we describe a novel relationship between the Crumbs partner βHeavy-spectrin (βH), the ZA and Roughest. Ectopic expression of the C-terminal segment 33 of βH (βH33) induces defects in retinal morphogenesis, resulting the preferential loss of IOC. This effect is associated with ZA disruption and Roughest displacement. In addition, loss-of-function karst and roughest mutations interact to cause a synergistic and catastrophic effect on retinal development. Finally, we show that βH coimmunoprecipitates with Roughest and that the distribution of Roughest protein is disrupted in karst mutant tissue. These results suggest that the apical spectrin membrane skeleton helps to coordinate the Cadherin-based ZA with Roughest-based morphogenesis.


The periodic transmission spectrum of a solid etalon for wide-band capability is analyzed both theoretically and experimentally. In the transmission spectrum with an incident area of a photodetector, the peak wavelength and transmittance are deeply dependent on the incident angle and the divergence angle of the input laser beam. A thermal adjustment for a solid etalon is an optional way to control the transmission spectrum instead of the inefficient fine-angle alignment. In the result, we present the deviations of free spectral range (FSR) by the change in angle and temperature over wide wavelength range.


Several Actinidia spp. genotypes exhibit crown gall-like symptoms in both roots and canes. Galls form on roots and pruning wounds of canes. Investigations were undertaken to determine if an Agrobacterium species was responsible for gall formation in the Actinidia spp. material. Macerated galls were plated onto King's B and various selective Agrobacterium agars, e.g. 1A and Roy & Sasser media. Bacterial isolates were tested by PCR for the presence of tumour-inducing (Ti) plasmids. Isolates that tested positive for the Ti plasmid were subsequently tested for pathogenicity by inoculation onto cut carrot discs, Nicotiana glutinosa and Solanum lycopersicum, and assessed for gall formation. Bacterial isolates that tested positive by PCR for the Ti plasmid were an orange tan colour on selective medium 1A, and clear with a red centre on the Roy & Sasser medium. Galls formed on cut carrots, S. lycopersicum and N. glutinosa after inoculation of Ti-positive bacterial isolates. Initial results indicate that an Agrobacterium species is associated with the formation of galls in Actinidia seedlings. However, biochemical characterisation and confirmation of Koch's postulates using Actinidia species are needed for verification of this result.


A quantitative study of 130 individuals arrested in Spain between June 2013 and August 2016 for terrorist activities related to the Islamic State (IS) shows that the vast majority of them were involved in jihadist activities together with others and not as lone actors. They were typically part of cells, groups or networks (CGN) of varied size and composition. These CGN were more often new, transnational and IS-linked than regenerated, national and only IS-inspired. Detainees who participated in CGN occupied various positions in the centre (or first-tier), in the intermediate circle (or second-tier), and the periphery, depending on their social characteristics and functions. Nearly all of them belonged to jihadist aggregates engaging in radicalisation and recruitment efforts, usually dispatching foreign fighters, raising money and distributing propaganda on behalf of IS. In addition, the majority of these individuals had either travelled to Syria and Iraq, had tried (but failed) to travel, or had the intention of doing so. About one third of the 130 individuals belonged to CGN with operational capabilities and manifested willingness to carry out attacks inside Spain. Our research on the Spanish situation shows that the threat posed by IS is highly networked and organized.


The essays in this collection address the current preoccupation with neurological conditions and disorders in contemporary literature by British and American writers. The book places these fictional treatments within a broader cultural and historical context, exploring such topics as the two cultures debate, the neurological turn, postmodernism and the post-postmodern, and responses to September 11th. Considering a variety of materials including mainstream literary fiction, the graphic novel, popular fiction, autobiographical writing, film, and television, contributors consider the contemporary dimensions of the interface between the sciences and humanities, developing the debate about the post-postmodern as a new humanism or a return to realism and investigating questions of form and genre, and of literary continuities and discontinuities. Further, the essays discuss contemporary writers' attempts to engage the relation between the individual and the social, looking at the relation between the "syndrome syndrome" (referring to the prevalence in contemporary literature of neurological phenomena evident at the biological level) and existing work in the field of trauma studies (where explanations tend to have taken a psychoanalytical form), allowing for perspectives that question some of the assumptions that have marked both these fields. The current literary preoccupation with neurological conditions presents us with a new and distinctive form of trauma literature, one concerned less with psychoanalysis than with the physical and evolutionary status of human beings.


The Cu Lao Cham natural reserve is  the house of one population of edible-nest swiftlet species, Aerodramus fuciphagus , which nested in the caves of islands with thousands of individuals. The nest exploitation of  edible-nest swiftlet species is the one of economic sectors that gives the high income for Quang Nam province. However, the nest exploitation has some effects on reproductiion of edible-nest swiftlet species. Our research on the effect of nest exploitation on  reproduction of Swiftlet was carried out during  2012 and 2013 years. The  result of our research showed that, in the condition without nest exploitation, Aerodramus fuciphagus nested two times per year, i,e. about 53.9% total of females repeatedly nested in the second time in a year The rate of immature birds left nests made in the second time is lower than that made in the first time. In the condition with nest exploitation of  two times per year, rate of immature birds left nests made in the first time, and adult birds repeatedly nested in the second time depended on the first time nest exploitation. Generally, the measure and weight of nests made in the  second time are  lesser than that made in the first time.


The historical patterns of opiate use show that sources and methods of access greatly influence who is at risk. Today, there is evidence that an enormous increase in the availability of prescription opiates is fuelling a rise in addiction nationally, drawing in new initiates to these drugs and changing the geography of opiate overdoses. Recent efforts at supply-based reductions in prescription opiates may reduce harm, but addicted individuals may switch to other opiates such as heroin. In this analysis, we test the hypothesis that changes in the rates of Prescription Opiate Overdoses (POD) are correlated with changes in the rate of heroin overdoses (HOD). ICD9 codes from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample and population data from the Census were used to estimate overall and demographic specific rates of POD and HOD hospital admissions between 1993 and 2009. Regression models were used to test for linear trends and lagged negative binomial regression models were used to model the interrelationship between POD and HOD hospital admissions. Findings show that whites, women, and middle-aged individuals had the largest increase in POD and HOD rates over the study period and that HOD rates have increased in since 2007. The lagged models show that increases in a hospitals POD predict an increase in the subsequent years HOD admissions by a factor of 1.26 (p<0.001) and that each increase in HOD admissions increase the subsequent years POD by a factor of 1.57 (p<0.001). Our hypothesis of fungibility between prescription opiates and heroin was supported by these analyses. These findings suggest that focusing on supply-based interventions may simply lead to a shift in use to heroin rather minimizing the reduction in harm. The alternative approach of using drug abuse prevention resources on treatment and demand-side reduction is likely to be more productive at reducing opiate abuse related harm.


Male broiler breeders were photostimulated at different ages (56, 77, 98, 119, 147 and 161 d) during the period of growth prior to achieving sexual maturity to observe their response to photoperiod stimulation. Birds were sampled at regular intervals to measure the average testis weight - these values responding curvilinearly to the age at photostimulation, similar to the attainment of sexual maturity observed previously in females. However, males reached sexual maturity at an earlier age than females, as measured by the start of semen production. Based on the age at first semen production, no differences in the mean age at sexual maturity (ranging from 164 to 172 d) resulted from the different ages at photostimulation. Testis weights from males on different photostimulation treatments showed that some males respond to early stimulation, but from 189 d of age some of these early photostimulated males still had an average testis weight of less than 10 g, while males photostimulated 98 d and later all had an average testis weight over 10 g. Serum testosterone concentration measured at 351 d also showed that early photostimulation resulted in two groups of birds that either responded or not. At 351 d the serum testosterone concentration was more evenly distributed in males photostimulated after 98 d, while males photostimulated before 98 d had either high or low serum testosterone concentrations. Directional asymmetry was observed in testis weights, with the left testis being bigger than the right. Other bilateral traits measured also showed directional asymmetry, an indication of developmental instability. However, the degree of relative asymmetry was not related to treatment. All males should respond to photostimulation by 98 d but some respond earlier, and these could be used by broiler breeding companies to eliminate seasonality in these birds.


Background: Positron emission tomography (PET) is a non-invasive imaging modality used in the diagnosis and staging of breast cancer. However, several factors can affect fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG) uptake by a tumor. To clarify the parameters that most affect FDG accumulation in tumors, the relationship between standardized uptake values (SUVs) and clinicopathological factors and immunohistopatho-logical analysis was investigated in breast cancer.Material and Methods: PET studies were performed preoperatively on 37 patients with breast carcinoma. SUVs were counted at one hour (early phase) and at two hours (delayed phase) after FDG injection. The relationships between SUVs and 13 clinical, pathological and immunohistchemical factors were studied.Results: A significant association was found between FDG accumulation and early and delayed phase mitotic counts (p = 0.0018 and 0.0010, respectively), Ki67 positive cell percentage (p = 0.0098 and 0.0062, respectively), and nuclear grade (p = 0.0232 and 0.0195, respectively). On the other hand, nodal status weakly correlated with the delayed phase (p = 0.0907). However, other clinicopathological parameters and immunohistopathological status, which included tumor size, age, histology, estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and Her2/neu overexpression, did not correlate significantly with FDG uptake.Conclusion: Mitotic count and Ki67 reflect cellular aggressiveness. These parameters were strongly correlated with tracer uptake. Thus our data suggested that the biological behavior of breast cancer is reflected in the variation of FDG uptake by the tumor. However, whether FDG uptake is a true prognostic and predictive factor remains to be confirmed in larger studies over an extended period of time.


Growing international and national focus on quantitatively measuring and improving ocean health has increased the need for comprehensive, scientific, and repeated indicators to track progress towards achieving policy and societal goals. The Ocean Health Index (OHI) is one of the few indicators available for this purpose. Here we present results from five years of annual global assessment for 220 countries and territories, evaluating potential drivers and consequences of changes and presenting lessons learned about the challenges of using composite indicators to measure sustainability goals. Globally scores have shown little change, as would be expected. However, individual countries have seen notable increases or declines due in particular to improvements in the harvest and management of wild-caught fisheries, the creation of marine protected areas (MPAs), and decreases in natural product harvest. Rapid loss of sea ice and the consequent reduction of coastal protection from that sea ice was also responsible for declines in overall ocean health in many Arctic and sub-Arctic countries. The OHI performed reasonably well at predicting near-term future scores for many of the ten goals measured, but data gaps and limitations hindered these predictions for many other goals. Ultimately, all indicators face the substantial challenge of informing policy for progress toward broad goals and objectives with insufficient monitoring and assessment data. If countries and the global community hope to achieve and maintain healthy oceans, we will need to dedicate significant resources to measuring what we are trying to manage.


Darren Hughff teaches history in a comprehensive school in Hartlepool. He studied in Glasgow but has worked in the North East since finishing his degree. He recalls the inspirational history teachers at his secondary school and in sixth form and his own experience of learning to teach history by drawing on their example. Darren characterises his teaching style as 'tough but jokey' - he loves story-telling and brings in actions to make the point. Darren discusses the challenges of teaching in an area that has few remnants of its great industrial past in evidence today. He reflects on some of the challenges facing his subject on the school curriculum where it is often seen as harder than other GCSEs. Finally, he shares his favourite lesson - teaching the Battle of Hastings to Year 7. Interviewed by Nicola Sheldon.


The structural and electronic properties of isolated neutral ZnmCdn clusters for m+n £ 3 have been investigated by performing density functional theory calculations at B3LYP level. The optimum geometries, vibrational frequencies, electronic structures, and the possible dissosiation channels of the clusters considered have been obtained. An empirical many-body potential energy function (PEF), which comprices two- and three-body atomic interactions, has been developed to investigate the structural features and energetics of ZnmCdn (m+n=3,4) microclusters. The most stable structures were found to be triangular for the three-atom clusters and tetrahedral for the four-atom clusters. On the other hand, the structural features and energetics of Znn-mCdm (n=7,8) microclusters, and Zn50, Cd50, Zn25Cd25, Zn12Cd38, and Zn38Cd12 nanoparticles have been investigated by performing molecular-dynamics computer simulations using the developed PEF. The most stable structures were found to be compact and three-dimensional for all elemental and mixed clusters. An interesting structural feature of the mixed clusters is that Zn and Cd atoms do not mix in mixed clusters, they come together almost without mixing. Surface and bulk properties of Zn, Cd, and ZnCd systems have been investigated too by performing molecular-dynamics simulations using the developed PEF. Surface reconstruction and multilayer relaxation on clean surfaces, adatom on surface, substitutional atom on surface and bulk materials, and vacancy on surface and bulk materials have been studied extensively.


With the vector plane-wave spectrum and stationary phase method, a rigorous vector diffraction model of an aplanatic system when the polarized point source is at an arbitrary location on the optical axis is presented. The computer simulation is used to discuss in detail the effects of various angular semiapertures on the object and image sides on the resolution. Results show that angular semiapertures on the object and image sides have an obvious effect on the resolution and image fields, which indicates that the classical Wolf theory [Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A253, 358 (1959)] cannot be applied to the study of imaging properties of an aplanatic system when the point source is not located at infinity in the direction of the axis.


The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our lives in unprecedented ways. In the face of the projected catastrophic consequences, most countries have enacted social distancing measures in an attempt to limit the spread of the virus. Under these conditions, the Web has become an indispensable medium for information acquisition, communication, and entertainment. At the same time, unfortunately, the Web is being exploited for the dissemination of potentially harmful and disturbing content, such as the spread of conspiracy theories and hateful speech towards specific ethnic groups, in particular towards Chinese people and people of Asian descent since COVID-19 is believed to have originated from China. In this paper, we make a first attempt to study the emergence of Sinophobic behavior on the Web during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. We collect two large datasets from Twitter and 4chan's Politically Incorrect board (/pol/) over a time period of approximately five months and analyze them to investigate whether there is a rise or important differences with regard to the dissemination of Sinophobic content. We find that COVID-19 indeed drives the rise of Sinophobia on the Web and that the dissemination of Sinophobic content is a cross-platform phenomenon: it exists on fringe Web communities like /pol/, and to a lesser extent on mainstream ones like Twitter. Using word embeddings over time, we characterize the evolution of Sinophobic slurs on both Twitter and /pol/. Finally, we find interesting differences in the context in which words related to Chinese people are used on the Web before and after the COVID-19 outbreak: on Twitter we observe a shift towards blaming China for the situation, while on /pol/ we find a shift towards using more (and new) Sinophobic slurs.


In this issue of the Paper Trail, an arising and established researcher connect on the topic of host–pathogen associations in disease ecology and predicting their occurrence using machine learning. The former, a postdoctoral scholar at UC Davis, has set his sights on developing tools for surveillance of emerging viruses that pose pandemic threats, like Zika, West Nile, and Dengue. The latter, a scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, has already blazed a trail through research and the publication of two seminal papers. In an interview with PT, Pranav and Barbara discuss their career trajectories that led them to macroecology and machine learning, and the importance of iterating between model predictions and empirical data collection. —Stephen L. Young, Paper Trail editor


We introduce a new and increasingly relevant setting for distributed optimization in machine learning, where the data defining the optimization are distributed (unevenly) over an extremely large number of \nodes, but the goal remains to train a high-quality centralized model. We refer to this setting as Federated Optimization. In this setting, communication efficiency is of utmost importance.
A motivating example for federated optimization arises when we keep the training data locally on users' mobile devices rather than logging it to a data center for training. Instead, the mobile devices are used as nodes performing computation on their local data in order to update a global model. We suppose that we have an extremely large number of devices in our network, each of which has only a tiny fraction of data available totally; in particular, we expect the number of data points available locally to be much smaller than the number of devices. Additionally, since different users generate data with different patterns, we assume that no device has a representative sample of the overall distribution.
We show that existing algorithms are not suitable for this setting, and propose a new algorithm which shows encouraging experimental results. This work also sets a path for future research needed in the context of federated optimization.


Here, the effect of loop size in a series of G-quadruplex ((G3T2A)3G3, (G3T2)3G3 and (G3T)3G3) sensors on sensing ability for potassium ions (K+) was evaluated. Fluorescence spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, circular dichroism and isothermal titration calorimetry were applied to investigate their different performances. The results demonstrated that the saturation concentration and the response range of K+ changed to higher concentration as the loop size of the G-quadruplex sensor increased. The association constants decreased along with the increase of loop size, hence more potassium ions were needed for the equilibrium which agreed with their different sensing ranges. In brief, varying loop sizes of the G-quadruplex can efficiently tune the stability of the G-quadruplex and the sensing range of potassium ions. This may guide the design of a new G-quadruplex sensor.


Over the past decade, it has been observed that anaemia is not just a symptom but also a risk factor for heart failure, first all-cause hospitalisation, cognitive impairment and mortality. Existing research recognised the prevalence to be increasing with age, while a high rate of anaemia could not be allocated to a specific cause. In previous studies on unexplained anaemia, low testosterone has been found to play a potential role in the pathogenesis of anaemia in the elderly.
The present study sets out with the aim of quantifying anaemia in the elderly in Germany and of assessing whether low testosterone is a risk factor for developing anaemia. For this cause, a population-based cohort study with men and women between the ages 45 and 85 years was used. The criteria for the definition and classification of anaemia were aligned to the World Health Organisation guidelines and to previous research.The prevalence of anaemia was found to be rising with age to over 10% in the oldest age group which identified elderly men and women as a group vulnerable to anaemia. Furthermore, the prevalence of older men was higher than of older women. Among all anaemia cases, 46.95% remained unexplained. Anaemic people had on average lower iron stores, were older and had worse kidney function than non-anaemic people. Testosterone levels were lower in anaemic than in non-anaemic people and while the testosterone in men declined with age, it rose with age in women.
Independent of age and body mass index, low testosterone was found to be a risk factor for developing anaemia and unexplained anaemia in the future for men and women. Moreover, the relationship between testosterone and anaemia was stronger for women than for men. The findings suggest that low testosterone might be a potential cause or co-cause in the development of unexplained anaemia, a disease that particularly rises with older age and has shown severe consequences on cognition, overall health and mortality.


Left to fight alone after France signed the armistice on the 22nd of June 1940, Great Britain became enemy number one in the eyes of the German occupying forces and the Vichy government. This hostility found expression in a considerable quantity of propaganda in the guise of posters, tracts, booklets and brochures meant to denounce British responsibility for the conflict in the eyes of French public opinion. Propaganda was particularly intense from June to December 1940 and from January to June 1944 but the German and French propaganda services waged this psychological warfare against Great Britain throughout the war. In 1940, the anti-British brainwashing campaigns aimed at ridding the defeated French of their guilt by accusing the ex-ally of being the cause of the conflict and of deceit during the Battle of France. In 1941-1942, the Allies' military setbacks were the subject of tracts and brochures that ridiculed British strategic skills. Propaganda was also based on the painful history of France and Great Britain so as to convince the French that England had always tried to deprive France of her colonies and that it was what she was trying to do by maintaining her presence in Africa. The major part of this propaganda was promoted by the German authorities, only to a lesser degree by the French collaboration parties. Till 1942, the Information Secretariat of the Vichy government distributed few anti-British tracts, concentrating its efforts on the promotion of the National Revolution. On the other hand, the first Anglo-American bombings in the Paris area provoked strong reactions in the Vichy government which then relied on the French population's confusion and anxiety to denounce British policy. What was the impact of these anti-British speeches on the French population? The prefects' reports on public opinion show that the plugging of Anglophobic sentiment had little influence on the French who were globally in complete support of the British even if they experienced doubt during short periods after the deadly bombings and at the approach of the Normandy landings.


Purpose: Bayesian multilevel models are increasingly used to overcome the limitations of frequentist approaches in the analysis of complex structured data. This tutorial introduces Bayesian multilevel modeling for the specific analysis of speech data, using the brms package developed in R.Method: In this tutorial, we provide a practical introduction to Bayesian multilevel modeling by reanalyzing a phonetic data set containing formant (F1 and F2) values for 5 vowels of standard Indonesian (ISO 639-3:ind), as spoken by 8 speakers (4 females and 4 males), with several repetitions of each vowel.Results: We first give an introductory overview of the Bayesian framework and multilevel modeling. We then show how Bayesian multilevel models can be fitted using the probabilistic programming language Stan and the R package brms, which provides an intuitive formula syntax.Conclusions: Through this tutorial, we demonstrate some of the advantages of the Bayesian framework for statistical modeling and provide a detailed case study, with complete source code for full reproducibility of the analyses (https://osf.io/dpzcb/).Supplemental Material S1. Moderation analysis; lognormal and skew-normal models; session information. Nalborczyk, L., Batailler, C., Loevenbruck, H., Vilain, A., & Burkner, P.-C. (2019). An introduction to Bayesian multilevel models using brms: A case study of gender effects on vowel variability in standard Indonesian. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 62, 1225–1242. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_JSLHR-S-18-0006


Given a set of data, recorded by observing the decisions of an expert player, we present a case-based framework that allows the successful generalisation of those decisions in the game of no limit Texas Hold'em. We address the problems of determining a suitable action abstraction and the resulting state translation that is required to map real-value bet amounts into a discrete set of abstract actions. We also detail the similarity metrics used in order to identify similar scenarios, without which no generalisation of playing decisions would be possible. We show that we were able to successfully generalise no limit betting decisions from recorded data via our agent, SartreNL, which achieved a 5th place finish out of 11 opponents at the 2012 Annual Computer Poker Competition.


The acute effects of smoked 2 per cent natural marijuana (7 mg per kg) and 15 mg of oral ~9-tetra hydrocannabinol (THC) on plethysmographically determined airway resistance (Raw) and specific airway conductance (SGaw) were compared with those of placebo in 10 subjects with stable bron chial asthma using a double-blind crossover technique. After smoked marijuana, SGaw increased immediately and remained significantly elevated (33 to 48 per cent above initial control values) for at least 2 hours, whereas SGaw did not change after placebo. The peak bronchodilator effect of 1,250 I'g of isoproterenol was more pronounced than that of marijuana, but the effect of marijuana lasted longer. After ingestion of 15 mg of THC, SGaw was elevated significantly at 1 and 2 bours, and Raw was reduced significantly at 1 to 4 hours, whereas no changes were noted after placebo. These findings indicated that in the asthmatic subjects, both smoked marijuana and oral THC caused significant bronchodilation of at least 2 hours' duration.


Appendix 1 – PVC Applicator 22.PVCapplicator.doc Appendix 2 – Spot-burning 23.Spotburn.doc Appendix 3 – How to read a pesticide label 24.PesticideLabel.doc Appendix 4 – How pesticides are regulated in the U.S. Invasive non-native plants are a serious threat to native species, communities, and ecosystems in many areas around the world. They can compete with and displace native plants, animals, and other organisms that depend on them, alter ecosystem functions and cycles significantly, hybridize with native species, and promote other invaders. The good news is that many plant invasions can be reversed, halted or slowed, and in certain situations, even badly infested areas can be restored to healthy systems dominated by native species. In most instances this requires taking action to control and manage those invasive plants. This handbook provides you with detailed information about the tools and techniques available for controlling invasive plants, or weeds, in natural areas. Whenever possible, language familiar to natural area managers is used, and unfamiliar terms and jargon borrowed from other fields are defined. Before embarking on a weed management program, it is important to develop a straightforward rationale for the actions you plan to take. We believe this is best accomplished using an adaptive management approach as follows (see Figure 1): (1) establish management goals and objectives for the site; (2) determine which plant species or populations, if any, block or have potential to block attainment of the management goals and objectives; (3) determine which methods are available to control the weed(s); (4) develop and implement a management plan designed to move conditions toward management goals and objectives; (5) monitor and assess the impacts of management actions in terms of their effectiveness in moving conditions toward these goals and objectives; and (6) reevaluate, modify, and start the cycle again. Note that control activities are not begun until the first three steps have been taken. A weed control program is best viewed as part of an overall restoration program, so focus on what you want in place of the weed, rather than simply eliminating the weed. When selecting control methods, keep in mind that the ultimate purpose of the work is to preserve native species, communities, and/or functioning ecosystems.


Purpose: This phase I trial was undertaken to determine the maximum tolerated dose (MTD), dose-limiting toxicities (DLT), safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and preliminary antitumor activity of the novel smoothened inhibitor sonidegib (LDE225), a potent inhibitor of hedgehog signaling, in patients with advanced solid tumors. Experimental Design: Oral sonidegib was administered to 103 patients with advanced solid tumors, including medulloblastoma and basal cell carcinoma (BCC), at doses ranging from 100 to 3,000 mg daily and 250 to 750 mg twice daily, continuously, with a single-dose pharmacokinetics run-in period. Dose escalations were guided by a Bayesian logistic regression model. Safety, tolerability, efficacy, pharmacokinetics, and biomarkers in skin and tumor biopsies were assessed. Results: The MTDs of sonidegib were 800 mg daily and 250 mg twice daily. The main DLT of reversible grade 3/4 elevated serum creatine kinase (18% of patients) was observed at doses ≥ the MTD in an exposure-dependent manner. Common grade 1/2 adverse events included muscle spasm, myalgia, gastrointestinal toxicities, increased liver enzymes, fatigue, dysgeusia, and alopecia. Sonidegib exposure increased dose proportionally up to 400 mg daily, and displayed nonlinear pharmacokinetics at higher doses. Sonidegib exhibited exposure-dependent reduction in GLI1 mRNA expression. Tumor responses observed in patients with medulloblastoma and BCC were associated with evidence of hedgehog pathway activation. Conclusions: Sonidegib has an acceptable safety profile in patients with advanced solid tumors and exhibits antitumor activity in advanced BCC and relapsed medulloblastoma, both of which are strongly associated with activated hedgehog pathway, as determined by gene expression. Clin Cancer Res; 20(7); 1900–9. ©2014 AACR.


A method for calculating the power demand of the hoist motor in rubber-tired gantry (RTG) cranes with nonparallel cables has been developed to measure the energy consumption in a typical lift cycle. From measurements taken at the Port of Felixstowe, it has been observed that the peculiar geometrical characteristics of the hoisting mechanism cause the power demand to increase with the container height in constant rotor speed conditions. The change in the angle of the hoisting ropes causes an increase in torque load and power consumption. By using information extracted from the crane's geometry, it has been possible to calculate the potential energy increase given the weight and vertical position of the container. The load torque on the hoist motor and the vertical speed of the mass have also been calculated, allowing for the modeling of the hoist motor power consumption when lifting containers with constant rotational speed. The proposed model has been compared to a constant power demand approximation, showing a higher accuracy for masses below 40 t.


In Defective Coloring we are given a graph $G$ and two integers $\chi_d$,
$\Delta^*$ and are asked if we can $\chi_d$-color $G$ so that the maximum
degree induced by any color class is at most $\Delta^*$. We show that this
natural generalization of Coloring is much harder on several basic graph
classes. In particular, we show that it is NP-hard on split graphs, even when
one of the two parameters $\chi_d$, $\Delta^*$ is set to the smallest possible
fixed value that does not trivialize the problem ($\chi_d = 2$ or $\Delta^* =
1$). Together with a simple treewidth-based DP algorithm this completely
determines the complexity of the problem also on chordal graphs. We then
consider the case of cographs and show that, somewhat surprisingly, Defective
Coloring turns out to be one of the few natural problems which are NP-hard on
this class. We complement this negative result by showing that Defective
Coloring is in P for cographs if either $\chi_d$ or $\Delta^*$ is fixed; that
it is in P for trivially perfect graphs; and that it admits a sub-exponential
time algorithm for cographs when both $\chi_d$ and $\Delta^*$ are unbounded.


There is an important distinction to be drawn in the way different kinds of motivic relationships are perceived. Some relationships are detected quickly and automatically; other kinds are detected (if at all) only slowly and deliberately. There is a phenomenological difference here as well. These differences are nicely accounted for by Jerry Fodor's theory of modularity. It is argued that certain relationships are perceived in a "modular" fashion, and others are not. It is hypothesized that the relationships perceived in a modular way are those between segments that are (a) related by tonal transposition and (b) parallel relative to the metrical structure. This view accounts for the differences between perception of different kinds of relationships and also sheds light on metrical structure in general, the "rehearing" problem, and the issue of "mandatoriness" in musical perception.


Gadolinium-Based Contrast Agents (GBCA) are intravenous drugs used in diagnostic imaging procedures to enhance the quality of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or magnetic resonance angiography (MRA). Recent FDA alerts concerning potential side effects increased patient and medical concerns. We checked if gadolinium remains in the body system longer than pharmaceutical information states and since a growing number of chelation therapists uses chelating agents to remove gadolinium that may have been stored in the body, we checked how effective chelation agents are. Our studies indicate that in the case of gadolinium, chelation does not seem to be an option.


Kozlowski, Michal. Louis the Tiger Who Came from the Sea . Illus. Sholto Walker. Toronto: Annick Press, 2011. Print. If you are a logical thinker, as many adults are, this book just does not make sense. How could a tiger be mistaken for a carrot or a pumpkin? What do white chin-patches and nose-tickling whiskers have to do with the name Louis? Why would you put on swimsuits and snorkeling gear to nudge a bucket of breakfast cereal into a sleeping tiger's belly with a push-broom? And, above all, what self-respecting parents would parade their family dressed up as a narwhal, dolphin, blowfish, and 6-tentacled octopus to lure a tiger back to the ocean so it can swim into the orange sunset? On the other hand, if you can appreciate whacky logic and enjoy engaging illustrations with thoughtful background details and telling facial expressions, you will find yourself reading this story over and over until it eventually almost makes sense. If you figure out why 24 words are printed in larger type and bright colours, let me know!  Recommended age from press release: 4-7 years. Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: David Sulz David is a librarian at the University of Alberta working mostly with scholars in Economics, Religious Studies, and Social Work. His university studies included: Library Studies, History, Elementary Education, Japanese, and Economics. On the education front, he taught various grades and subjects for several years in schools as well as museums. His interest in Japan and things Japanese stands above his other diverse interests.


Maintaining neuroplasticity is an important goal that can be stimulated through training. The Quadrato Motor Training (QMT) is a new sensorimotor training which has recently been reported to increase functional connectivity and cerebellar activity. QMT was further found to improve cognitive functions, including creativity, spatial cognition and reading. Here we report the effects of a pilot diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) tractography study related to the effects of 12-weeks of daily QMT. White matter (WM) changes were evaluated from a healthy female volunteer, using Fractional Anisotropy (FA) values computed from DTI [1,2]. We found post-QMT FA increments of a complex WM projection system, including the cerebellar and corona radiata tracts, in comparison to pre-QMT (total fibers volume form 135745 mm3 to 140611 mm3; total number of fibers from 2809 to 3272). This complex projection system is closely related to sensorimotor and higher cognitive functions [3,4]. Although preliminary in their nature, the present exploratory work strengthens previous findings related to the effects of sensorimotor training. More specifically, the cerebellar reorganization support previous results regarding the effects of QMT [5] and may point to a causal relationship between sensorimotor training and plasticity. Pre- and post-QMT (left and right columns, respectively) DTI fiber tracts superimposed on T1-Weighted MR image. The color-coded indicates the local mean direction of the tracks: red, left–right; green, anterior–posterior; blue, superior–inferior. Post-QMT FA values of the cerebellar and of the corona radiata tracts show an higher frequency in comparison to pre-QMT, as illustrated in the two diagrams.
*Corresponding author: Ayman Karkar, Department of Nephrology, Kanoo Kidney Center, Dammam Medical Complex, PO Box 11825, Dammam 31463, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Tel: 00966-3-815- 5740; Fax: 00966-3-815-5625; E-Mail:firstname.lastname@example.com


Hoyt and Kennedy (2008) asserted that women deal with messages related to appearance, behavior, and leadership identity that promote a loss of voice starting at a young age. More specifically, these societal messages and expectations convey constructs of effective leadership that are often associated with men (Eagly & Carli, 2003; Eagly & Karau, 2002; Koenig, Eagly, Mitchell, & Ristikari, 2011). In a meta-analysis on leadership perceptions, men were perceived as more agentic and women were perceived as more communal. Further, agentic qualities were perceived to be leadership qualities and communal qualities were not (Koenig et al., 2011). While these perceptions of "think manager, think male" (Schein, 2001) have evolved, women still hold only 29% of executive or senior level positions among private industry (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2012), which is disproportional to the general population. What underlies the problem of disproportional representation among women leaders is that women are judged differently as leaders. Progress has been made, but overall discrimination for women leaders still exists (Duehr & Bono, 2006; Eagly, 2007; Schein, 2001).


This Round Robin Test program aims to establish the influence of the combined wave and current effect on the power capture and performance of a generic tidal turbine prototype. Three facilities offering similar range of experimental conditions have been selected on the basis that their dimensions along with the rotor diameter of the turbine translate into low blockage ratio conditions. The performance of the turbine shows differences between the facilities up to 25% in terms of average power coefficient, depending on the wave and current cases. To prevent the flow velocity increasing these differences, the turbine performance coefficients have been systematically normalized using a time-average disc-integrated velocity, accounting for vertical gradients over the turbine swept area. Differences linked to blockage effects and turbulence characteristics between facilities are both responsible for 5 to 10% of the power coefficient gaps. The intrinsic differences between the tanks play a significant role as well. A first attempt is given to show how the wave-current interaction effects can be responsible for differences in the turbine performance. In these tanks, the simultaneous generation of wave and current is a key part often producing disruptions in both of these flow characteristics.


Recent developments in students" assessment have required change in teachers" understanding and practices of assessment. Assessing student learning is an important skill that all teachers need to develop for effective teaching. However, it is a complex and difficult task to achieve because of the difficulties in changing teachers" traditional conceptions and practices related to assessment. Thus the study aims to investigate changes in prospective teachers" conceptions of assessment and their preference of assessment tasks after they completed an assessment course designed based on assessment for learning approach. The "Teachers" Conceptions of Assessment Scale" developed by Brown (2008) was used as pre/post-tests and an additional task was employed to elicit participants" preference of assessment tasks. Data collected from 118 prospective teachers, data of 89 prospective teachers, who completely responded to data collection tool, were analyzed to present findings. Results indicated that teachers" conceptions of assessment (school accountability, student accountability, improvement and irrelevance) did not significantly change while teachers" choices of assessment tasks significantly changed towards more use of alternative assessment tasks. The results showed that changing teachers" conceptions of assessment is complex and requires considering other factors such as experience and culture. The results also showed that assessment courses that were organized around assessment for learning approach encourage prospective teachers to choose and use more alternative assessment tasks.


Biological motion processing is crucial for survival, social interaction, and communication. Since ecologically important stimuli can be prioritized in visual processing even when they do not reach awareness, we hypothesized biological motion would also receive preferential processing even when rendered unconscious. In three experiments, we used a stereoscope and the breaking continuous flash suppression (CFS) paradigm, where we gradually increased the contrast of masked point light walker (PLW) stimuli, and measured the time (i.e., contrast) at which the stimuli reached awareness. In Experiment 1, PLWs were presented either intact or spatially scrambled, a manipulation that disrupts the coherent form of the stimuli. We found that intact PLWs reached awareness significantly earlier (i.e., at lower contrast) than their scrambled counterparts. In Experiment 2, we added a speed manipulation. We replicated the results of Experiment 1, intact PLWs reaching awareness earlier. We also observed that faster PLWs broke through significantly earlier than slower PLWs, likely driven by differences in motion energy. There was no interaction between PLW coherence and speed. In Experiment 3, investigated whether the characteristics of the CFS mask would modulate the effect. The mask consisted either of rectangular or circular Mondrians (congruent shape with the dots of the PLW). We again found that intact PLWs broke through suppression earlier. There was also a significant main effect of mask type: circular Mondrians led to significantly greater suppression. There was no interaction with mask type and PLW coherence. Overall, we present evidence that biological information is processed below the threshold of awareness. Specifically, we showed (and twice replicated) an effect of PLW coherence: Intact PLWs reach awareness earlier (at lower contrast) compared with spatially scrambled ones. This coherence advantage was maintained across different levels of PLW speed and for both mask types, demonstrating the importance of biological form during unconscious processing. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


Abstract. Livestock numbers are increasing to supply the growing demand for meat-rich diets. The sustainability of this trend has been questioned, and future environmental changes, such as climate change, may cause some regions to become less suitable for livestock. Livestock and wild herbivores are strongly dependent on the nutritional chemistry of forage plants. Nutrition is positively linked to weight gains, milk production and reproductive success, and nutrition is also a key determinant of enteric methane production. In this meta-analysis, we assessed the effects of growing conditions on forage quality by compiling published measurements of grass nutritive value and combining these data with climatic, edaphic and management information. We found that forage nutritive value was reduced at higher temperatures and increased by nitrogen fertiliser addition, likely driven by a combination of changes to species identity and changes to physiology and phenology. These relationships were combined with multiple published empirical models to estimate forage- and temperature-driven changes to cattle enteric methane production. This suggested a previously undescribed positive climate change feedback, where elevated temperatures reduce grass nutritive value and correspondingly may increase methane production by 0.9 % with a 1 °C temperature rise and 4.5 % with a 5 °C rise (model average), thus creating an additional climate forcing effect. Future methane production increases are expected to be largest in parts of North America, central and eastern Europe and Asia, with the geographical extent of hotspots increasing under a high emissions scenario. These estimates require refinement and a greater knowledge of the abundance, size, feeding regime and location of cattle, and the representation of heat stress should be included in future modelling work. However, our results indicate that the cultivation of more nutritious forage plants and reduced livestock farming in warming regions may reduce this additional source of pastoral greenhouse gas emissions.


This brief introduces the methodological series Conducting Research with Adolescents from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), outlining key research themes, intervention types, and their associated methodological implications. It highlights adolescence as a critical phase within the life course and a period of biological and social transition that is itself undergoing change. It makes the case that new understandings from neuroscience have important implications for programming; addressing social and structural determinants is crucial to improving adolescent well-being; inter-sectoral and comprehensive multi-component action is required, as is matching action to need; and gender and equity should always be considered in research, programmes and policy.The brief is one of seven on research methodologies, designed to expand and improve the conduct and interpretation of research on adolescent health and well-being in LMICs. Building on the recent Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing, these briefs provide an overview of the methodological quality of research on adolescents. They cover topics including: indicators and data sources; research ethics; research with disadvantaged, vulnerable and/or marginalized populations; participatory research; measuring enabling and protective systems for adolescent health; and economic strengthening interventions for improving adolescent well-being.


European higher education institutions have realized that today's society requires elearning systems that are flexible, have lifelong educational accessibility and which are cost effective. Since Europe cannot stand graduates' high unemployment rates, higher education institutions have to equip people with the skills for life long learning offering them a greater choice of learning paths. The Knowledge commercialization generates opportunities for new markets and poses a threat for new competitors to universities. We focus on integrating a set of interoperable network services based on a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach according to appropriate standards to succeed a flexible and powerful content management. A platform is proposed to support the interoperability between the proposed and delivery platforms according to the specification of the services. Towards an open system the necessary components are interfaces to content repositories, reuse of existing metadata descriptors and a flexible data model for learning resource descriptors. The main objective of this platform is to analyze, search and present information retrieved from the web. It also touches on some important developments, such as Open Educational Resource movement, open research archives and global elibraries such as Europeana. Digital Libraries as information economies have a major influence on the design of future e-learning systems.


We propose a method for automatically answering questions about images by bringing together recent advances from natural language processing and computer vision. We combine discrete reasoning with uncertain predictions by a multi-world approach that represents uncertainty about the perceived world in a bayesian framework. Our approach can handle human questions of high complexity about realistic scenes and replies with range of answer like counts, object classes, instances and lists of them. The system is directly trained from question-answer pairs. We establish a first benchmark for this task that can be seen as a modern attempt at a visual turing test.


Ticks are obligate haematophagous arthropods that represent a major economic drain upon the world's livestock as well being a significant medical and veterinary risk through the transmission of tick-borne pathogens such as Borrelia burgdorferi , the causative agent of Lyme disease. The tick-host relationship is a function of both ecological and physiological factors. Successful feeding requires the effective acquisition and digestion of a bloodmeal by the tick. Acquisition relies upon the ability of the tick to counteract host immune responses induced by the extended feeding periods of ixodid ticks (up to 2 weeks). The host response to tick infestation and the consequent countermeasures employed by the tick, constitute the tick-host interface. The immune response of hosts to Ixodes ricinus infestations was examined through antigenic profiling. The antigens exposed to the host were shown to vary throughout the feeding period and differed between the different development stages of I. ricinus . It was also shown that different host species infested with I. ricinus recognised different antigens. This was true of both natural and non-natural hosts, and even closely related species. Anti-complement activity was investigated in the salivary glands of Ixodes ticks. This activity was shown to inhibit some host species but not others. The pattern of inhibitory activity varied between the tick species tested in a way that was consistent with known tick host-preferences. The mechanisms of anti-complement activity in I. ricinus salivary glands were explored. The alternative but not the classical pathway of complement was inhibited. Activity was present in unfed ticks and throughout the feeding period. Three targets of the complement system were identified as being modulated by the tick. Digestion of the bloodmeal was explored and a haemolytic activity was associated with the salivary glands of I. ricinus ticks. The activity was demonstrated to be Mg 2+ - dependent. In addition, a subtractive cDNA library enriched for saliva-associated transcripts was successfully produced. Random sampling identified putative differentially expressed genes. The results of this thesis illustrate the complexity of tick-host interactions at the molecular level. It is apparent that the research described poses many more questions than answers.


The structuring of the labour market based on the formal/informal duality is becoming a major characteristic of developing countries, especially Cameroon. Demographic pressure leads to an increase in the number of graduates, which contrasts with the decline in the demand for labour in the formal sector and the growth of the informal sector may suggest that this sector is beneficial for graduates. This study shows, in the sight of the insecure nature of jobs and the low wages of the workers, that the informal sector serves only asameans of survival of the individuals who engage into it and that women are victims of wage discrimination in this sector.


In order to learn quickly with few samples, meta-learning utilizes prior knowledge learned from previous tasks. However, a critical challenge in meta-learning is task uncertainty and heterogeneity, which can not be handled via globally sharing knowledge among tasks. In this paper, based on gradient-based meta-learning, we propose a hierarchically structured meta-learning (HSML) algorithm that explicitly tailors the transferable knowledge to different clusters of tasks. Inspired by the way human beings organize knowledge, we resort to a hierarchical task clustering structure to cluster tasks. As a result, the proposed approach not only addresses the challenge via the knowledge customization to different clusters of tasks, but also preserves knowledge generalization among a cluster of similar tasks. To tackle the changing of task relationship, in addition, we extend the hierarchical structure to a continual learning environment. The experimental results show that our approach can achieve state-of-the-art performance in both toy-regression and few-shot image classification problems.


Within applied linguistics, understanding of motivation and cognition has benefitted from substantial attention for decades, but the attention received by language learner emotions has not been comparable until recently when interest in emotions and the role they can play in language learning has increased. Emotions are at the core of human experience, so a greater understanding of their impact on language learners is critical. In particular, the role and impact of positive emotions on learners and their learning experience has been overlooked in favour of a focus on issues of confidence and anxiety. One particular positive emotion that has a meaningful connection with the learning experience is that of pride. Drawing on qualitative interview data from tertiary English language learners in Australian universities, this article singles out pride as a means of confirming the critical role of positive emotions in language learning. The interviews revealed that pride had a significant impact on the experiences of learners. It was also discovered that within the notion of pride there exists a degree of dimensionality. Pride is felt in communicative contexts whereas a feeling of 'non-pride' can occur in learning contexts. The article also presents implications arising from the study concerning the place of emotions in language teaching and learning.


According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the number of people suffering from Alzheimer's disease (AD) worldwide is around 18 million. The prevalence of AD doubles every five years between 65 and 85 years of age and it is estimated that due to the ageing population, 34 million people will suffer from AD by 2025. The WHO has also stated that if AD onset were delayed by 5 years, the number of cases worldwide could be halved. Currently there are no curative or disease-stalling treatments for AD and a major research effort is underway in order to better understand the molecular and cellular details of the pathways that result in this devastating neurodegenerative disorder. This research is critical if effective therapeutics are to be developed.


This thesis describes an investigation of retinal directional selectivity. We show intracellular (whole-cell patch) recordings in turtle retina which indicate that this computation occurs prior to the ganglion cell, and we describe a pre-ganglionic circuit model to account for this and other findings which places the non-linear spatio-temporal filter at individual, oriented amacrine cell dendrites. The key non-linearity is provided by interactions between excitatory and inhibitory synaptic inputs onto the dendrites, and their distal tips provide directionally selective excitatory outputs onto ganglion cells. Detailed simulations of putative cells support this model, given reasonable parameter constraints. The performance of the model also suggests that this computational substructure may be relevant within the dendritic trees of CNS neurons in general.


Performance evaluation for a free space optical (FSO) link with latest wireless optical communications (WOC) vendor's networks specifications is presented. Analysis is performed for non return to zero (NRZ)-return to zero (RZ) line codes with various operating wavelengths using APD and PIN photodiodes receivers. The study includes the effect of atmospheric attenuation due to scattering effects for different weather conditions in the presence of pointing error. Maximum pointing error, received signal's power and bit error rate (BER) levels are indicators for performance evaluation. NRZ line code with 1550 nm operating wavelength and an APD receiver shows the best performance for the proposed FSO link. In the presence of moderate fog weather condition, 11.85 rad is the maximum pointing error and-41.09 dBm is achieved for NRZ-APD at 1550 nm in order to maintain BER < 10-9 .


Previous studies report that final nasals often labialize to [m] in Yucatan Spanish. The present study details a rapid and anonymous survey undertaken to explore the change [n] > [m] in this dialect. The researcher walked along Avenida Coln in Merida, Mexico, and asked passers-by the name of the street. He then asked them to repeat the name, indicating that he did not understand. The first instance was taken to represent normal speech, the second, careful speech. Results showed a strong preference for final [m], which accounted for 74% of the tokens of Coln. This frequency is much higher than that found previously, suggesting that [m] may be partially lexicalized. In Coln, [m] appeared more often in normal speech, and was produced more frequently by men, contra other studies. Reasons for the gender discrepancy with earlier studies, along with further conclusions, including the role of contact with Mayan, are discussed.


Purpose: Sexual assault is a violent crime against both the individual and society but is largely underreported. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence and nature of sexual assault among female students in the University of Maiduguri. Methods: A crossectional descriptive study using a close ended, self –administered questionnaire administered to female students of a tertiary institution in Maiduguri was used to survey 400 female students in University of Maiduguri. Results: Most of the respondents were single 349 (87.3%) and in the age range of 20-24 {202 (50.5%)}. 205 (51.3%) of them reported to have been sexually assaulted. In 154 (87.2%) of the cases, the respondents had a close relationship with the assailant. The commonest location of the assault was in a party 101 (49.3%), which was followed by classroom 45 (22%). Most of the sexual assault reported (57.6%) occurred in the evenings and nights. In 35.6% of the cases, the respondents sustained extra-genital trauma, while others had psychological (24.9%) and genital trauma (15.6%). Conclusion: Sexual assault rate among female students in the University of Maiduguri is high and is associated with physical and psychological traumas. Keywords: Sexual assault, Physical trauma, Psychological trauma, Maiduguri.


As fight against antibiotic resistance must be strengthened, improving old drugs that have fallen in reduced clinical use because of toxic side effects and/or frequently reported resistance, like chloramphenicol (CAM), is of special interest. Chloramphenicol (CAM), a prototypical wide-spectrum antibiotic has been shown to obstruct protein synthesis via binding to the bacterial ribosome. In this study we sought to identify features intensifying the bacteriostatic action of CAM. Accordingly, we synthesized a series of CAM-dimers with various linker lengths and functionalities and compared their efficiency in inhibiting peptide-bond formation in an Escherichia coli cell-free system. Several CAM-dimers exhibited higher activity, when compared to CAM. The most potent of them, compound 5, containing two CAM bases conjugated via a dicarboxyl aromatic linker of six successive carbon-bonds, was found to simultaneously bind both the ribosomal catalytic center and the exit-tunnel, thus revealing a second, kinetically cryptic binding site for CAM. Compared to CAM, compound 5 exhibited comparable antibacterial activity against MRSA or wild-type strains of Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecium and E. coli, but intriguingly superior activity against some CAM-resistant E. coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains. Furthermore, it was almost twice as active in inhibiting the growth of T-leukemic cells, without affecting the viability of normal human lymphocytes. The observed effects were rationalized by footprinting tests, crosslinking analysis, and MD-simulations.


Transgenic mice expressing either the mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV) superantigen gene (sag) alone or in combination with the viral envelope genes (env) (LEL), or all of the viral genes (gag, pol, env, and sag) (HYB PRO), deleted V beta 14+ T cells from their immune repertoire. However, only LEL or HYB PRO transgenic antigen-presenting cells were capable of stimulating a proliferative response from nontransgenic primary T cells or interleukin 2 production from a V beta 15-bearing T cell hybridoma. These T cell responses could be inhibited by a monospecific antibody directed against the MMTV gp52 cell surface glycoprotein. These results indicate that the MMTV gp52 gene product participates in the presentation of superantigen to T cells, resulting in their stimulation, a requisite step in the MMTV infection pathway. Thus, gp52 could play a role in the transfer of virus between different subsets of lymphocytes.


Current thinking in evolutionary biology holds that competition among individuals is the key to understanding natural selection. When competition exists, it is obvious that conflict arises; the emergence of cooperation, however, is less straightforward and calls for in-depth analysis. Much research is now focused on defining and expanding the evolutionary models of cooperation. Understanding the mechanisms of cooperation has relevance for fields other than biology. Anthropology, economics, mathematics, political science, primatology, and psychology are adopting the evolutionary approach and developing analogies based on it. Similarly, biologists use elements of economic game theory and analyze cooperation in "evolutionary games." Despite this, exchanges between researchers in these different disciplines have been limited. Seeking to fill this gap, the 90th Dahlem Workshop was convened. This book, which grew out of that meeting, addresses such topics as emotions in human cooperation, reciprocity, biological markets, cooperation and conflict in multicellularity, genomic and intercellular cooperation, the origins of human cooperation, and the cultural evolution of cooperation; the emphasis is on open questions and future research areas. The book makes a significant contribution to a growing process of interdisciplinary cross-fertilization on this issue.


Metabarcoding is a promising DNA-based method for identifying airborne pollen from environmental samples with advantages over microscopic methods. This method requires several preparatory steps of the samples, with the extraction protocol being of fundamental importance to obtain an optimal DNA yield. Currently, there is no consensus in sample preparation and DNA extraction, especially for gravimetric pollen samplers. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop protocols to process environmental samples for pollen DNA extraction and further metabarcoding analysis, and to assess the efficacy of these protocols for the taxonomic assignment of airborne pollen, collected by gravimetric (Tauber trap) and volumetric samplers (Burkard spore trap). Protocols were tested across an increasing complexity of samples, from single-species pure pollen to environmental samples. A short fragment (about 150 base pair) of chloroplast DNA was amplified by universal primers for plants (trnL). After PCR amplification, amplicons were Sanger-sequenced and taxonomic assignment was accomplished by comparison to a custom-made reference database including chloroplast DNA sequences of 46 plant families, including most of the anemophilous taxa occurring in the study area (Trentino, Italy, Eastern Italian Alps). Using as a benchmark the classical morphological pollen analysis, it emerged that DNA metabarcoding is applicable efficiently across a complexity of samples, provided that sample preparation, DNA extraction and amplification protocols are specifically optimized.


Purpose: The purpose of our study was to explore how foreign-born Chinese women living in California engage in various traditional and American birth practices. Study Design and Methods: A descriptive qualitative study was conducted using a grounded theory approach. Chinese women from Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan who had childbirth experiences in the United States were purposively sampled. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 13 women, with follow-up interviews with 5 women. Interview data were analyzed using grounded theory according to the method of Strauss and Corbin. Results: There are many traditional practices for pregnancy and childbirth. Women investigated the traditions through various means, and built their own perspective on each tradition by integrating an evaluation of the Chinese perspective and an evaluation of the American perspective. Women considered several factors in the process of evaluating the Chinese and American perspectives to reach their own integrated perspective on each tradition. These factors included whether or not the tradition made sense to them, how the traditional practice affected their comfort, nature of available options, attitudes of female elders, previous experiences of their peers and themselves, and outcomes of temporary trials of traditional or nontraditional practices. Clinical Implications: Healthcare providers should respect women's diverse perspectives on traditional practices and encourage flexible arrangements. Including the elder generation in health education may be useful in helping women manage conflicts and to support their decisions.


While the synthesis of natural sounding, neutral style speech can be achieved using today's technology, fast adaptation of speech synthesis to different contexts and situations still poses a challenge. In the context of variety modeling (dialects, sociolects) we have to cope with the problem that no standardized orthographic form is available and that existing speech resources for these varieties are rare. We present recent approaches in the field of cross-lingual speaker transformation for HMM-based speech synthesis and propose a method for transforming an arbitrary speaker's voice from one variety to another one. We apply Kullback-Leibler divergence for data mapping of HMM-states, transfer probability density functions to the decision tree of the other variety and perform speaker adaptation. A method to integrate structural information in the mapping is also presented and analyzed. Subjective listening tests show that the proposed method produces speech of significantly higher quality than standard speaker adaptation techniques.


This paper presents an empirical study addressing current tendencies in corporate environmental reporting released to the public. On the one hand, we survey British and German environmental statements according to the "European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme". On the other hand, we explore why companies desist from participating in EMAS and thereby from publishing environmental statements. For this purpose, we have conducted a telephone survey with those companies in Northrhine–Westfalia, Germany, which have participated in EMAS twice but have dropped out afterwards. In doing so, the survey also intends to explore whether other types of corporate environmental reporting are increasingly employed in place of environmental statements. All in all, the goal of our study is to derive assumptions about future developments of corporate environmental reporting.


The online environment has been influential in building corporate brands. This study explores green brand positioning in the online environment via content analysis and network analysis approaches. Using the techniques of centrality measure and structural equivalence, the study offers a network perspective on content and structural relationships of green brand positioning in corporate websites. This study extends brand positioning knowledge to online green branding contexts and offers researchers a new approach to explore the structural relationships among positioning elements. The results have significant implications for green brands' development of e-business positioning strategies.


Abstract A 70-GHz electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) system has been constructed in a helical-axis heliotron device, Heliotron J, in order to realize localized heating and current drive experiments. Since the Heliotron J plasma has a three-dimensional complex shape, the ECRH system is designed to satisfy the requirement of wide steering capability in both the toroidal and poloidal directions. The low-power transmission test shows that the beam radius of the focused Gaussian beam is 22 mm at the magnetic axis, which is small enough compared to the averaged minor plasma radius (170 mm), and the launching system covers a wide toroidal steering range from perpendicular to tangential injection by replacing the steering plane mirror. Since these characteristics satisfy the condition for controlling the power localization in the three-dimensional helical-axis configuration, it is possible to explore the on- and off-axis heating over most of the plasma radius (0 < r/a < 0.7) and the electron cyclotron current drive. In the high-power transmission test, the transmission efficiency of the 20-m corrugated waveguide is 92%, and the available output power to the vacuum vessel is up to 0.4 MW. Plasma production and heating are successfully performed using this ECRH system.


A technique for measuring the alkaline phosphatase activity of serum protein fractions separated by electrophoresis on cellulose acetate strips is described. Alkaline phosphatase activity in alpha 2, alpha 1, and beta globulins and in albumin is present in varying proportions in normal and pathological sera. In normal sera peak activity is in the alpha 2 globulins and beta globulins have a little more than half the alpha 2 activity. Albumin activity is often more than 10% of the total, but alpha 1 and gamma globulin activity is less than this. In bone disorders with a high serum alkaline phosphatase a large, and sometimes predominant, part of the increase is due to raised beta globulin phosphatase activity, and alpha 2 activity is also raised. Alpha 1 activity, though usually low, may be increased. In hepatobiliary disorders with a high phosphatase concentration the increase is due mainly to raised alpha 2 phosphatase activity, and there is also an increase in alpha 1 phosphatase. Beta activity is usually, but not always, low, and albumin activity may be somewhat increased in obstructive jaundice and liver metastases. There is some overlap between these two patterns of alkaline phosphatase distribution. The findings are consistent with the possibility that alkaline phosphatases in different protein fractions are derived from different tissues.