Background Leafcutter ants depend on the cultivation of symbiotic Attamyces fungi for food, which are thought to be grown by the ants in single-strain, clonal monoculture throughout the hundreds to thousands of gardens within a leafcutter nest. Monoculture eliminates cultivar-cultivar competition that would select for competitive fungal traits that are detrimental to the ants, whereas polyculture of several fungi could increase nutritional diversity and disease resistance of genetically variable gardens. Methodology/Principal Findings Using three experimental approaches, we assessed cultivar diversity within nests of Atta leafcutter ants, which are most likely among all fungus-growing ants to cultivate distinct cultivar genotypes per nest because of the nests' enormous sizes (up to 5000 gardens) and extended lifespans (10–20 years). In Atta texana and in A. cephalotes, we resampled nests over a 5-year period to test for persistence of resident cultivar genotypes within each nest, and we tested for genetic differences between fungi from different nest sectors accessed through excavation. In A. texana, we also determined the number of Attamyces cells carried as a starter inoculum by a dispersing queens (minimally several thousand Attamyces cells), and we tested for genetic differences between Attamyces carried by sister queens dispersing from the same nest. Except for mutational variation arising during clonal Attamyces propagation, DNA fingerprinting revealed no evidence for fungal polyculture and no genotype turnover during the 5-year surveys. Conclusions/Significance Atta leafcutter ants can achieve stable, fungal monoculture over many years. Mutational variation emerging within an Attamyces monoculture could provide genetic diversity for symbiont choice (gardening biases of the ants favoring specific mutational variants), an analog of artificial selection.


The Middle to Late Jurassic age Coast Range ophiolite (CRO) of California contains two geochemically distinct volcanic rock associations that formed in different tectonic settings. Volcanic rocks from the southern CRO (Point Sal, Cuesta Ridge, Stanley Mountain, Llanada, Quinto Creek, and Del Puerto) and parts of the northern CRO (Healdsburg, Elder Creek) are similar to low-K tholeiites and calc-alkaline rocks of the island-arc suite. The thin volcanic sections of these ophiolite remnants suggest formation by intra-arc rifting. In contrast, volcanic rocks from Stonyford seamount and Paskenta in the northern CRO are transitional subalkaline metabasalts with geochemical characteristics similar to enriched mid-ocean ridge basalts or ocean-island tholeiites. These rocks are associated with Tithonian radiolarian cherts and may be part of the Franciscan Complex. Alternatively, they may represent a change in tectonic setting within the CRO during the Late Jurassic. Regardless, the CRO as currently conceived cannot be considered a single terrane with one mode of origin.


The freedom of assembly has been at the heart of some of the most important social movements in American history: antebellum abolitionism, women's suffrage in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the labor movement in the Progressive Era and after the New Deal, and the civil rights movement. Claims of assembly stood against the ideological tyranny that exploded during the first Red Scare in the years surrounding the First World War and the second Red Scare of 1950s McCarthyism. Abraham Lincoln once called 'the right of the people peaceably to assemble' part of 'the Constitutional substitute for revolution'. In 1939, the popular press heralded it as one of the 'four freedoms' at the core of the Bill of Rights. And even as late as 1973, John Rawls characterized it as one of the 'basic liberties'. But in the past thirty years, assembly has been reduced to a historical footnote in American law and political theory. Why has assembly so utterly disappeared from our democratic fabric? This article explores the history of the freedom of assembly and what we may have lost in losing sight of that history.


This study deals with the application of surface-consistent  deconvolution  to the two-dimensional seismic data applied to the Block 11 area within the administrative boundaries of Najaf and Muthanna Governorates with an area of 4822 , the processed seismic data of line (7Gn 21) is 54 km long. The study was conducted within the Processing Department of the Oil Exploration Company. The gap surface- consistent deconvolution was applied using best results of the  parameters  applied  were: The length of the operator 240, the gap operator 24, the white noise 0.01%, the seismic sections of this type showed improvement with the decay of the existing complications and thus give a good continuity of the reflectors at the expense of resolution.Then, spiking surface- consistent deconvolution was applied using the best implementation parameters chosen during the test: operator length 240, gap operator 4, and added white noise 0.01%. This type gave a better estimate of reflectivity in seismic sections with good resolution and loss of continuity compared to gap surface- consistent deconvolution. The application of surface-consistent deconvolution to seismic data showed a significant improvement in data quality by reducing random noise, eliminating variability in emissions due to near-surface irregularities, and improving the estimation of statistics.


Technological innovations over the past decade have expanded the number of news and entertainment options available to consumers, leading to the emergence of partisan news media. We contend that the emergence of partisan media should have decisive effects on the strategic calculations of elected representatives who are chronic consumers of news media. Moreover, we theorize that partisan news media's influence on legislative behavior will be most apparent when elections are near. Exploiting the incremental roll-out of the conservative Fox News Channel in the late 1990s, we find that the emergence of Fox News caused U.S. House members to alter their levels of party support dynamically, responding both to the proximity of elections and changes in the media environment in their district. Fox News caused both Republicans and Democrats in Congress to increase support for the Republican Party on divisive votes in the waning months of the election cycle.


The Impact of Spirituality and Trauma on Appraisals of Psychotic-Like Experiences By: Kathleen S. Isaac Advisor: Deidre Anglin, Ph.D. Background: A substantial portion of the general population (2.5% to 31.4% internationally) reports psychotic-like experiences, which are paranormal, psychic or bizarre perceptual experiences such as voice hearing, or holding strong beliefs (i.e. superstitions) that are neither experienced as pathological nor indicative of a psychotic disorder. Cognitive models of psychosis suggest that the cognitive appraisal (i.e. personal interpretation) of the experience may help distinguish non-clinical psychotic-like experiences from clinical psychotic symptoms. This dissertation attempted to add to cognitive models by assessing whether cultural and personal factors such as spirituality and trauma inform the appraisals of anomalous experiences. This study used a moderated-mediation mediation-moderation model to explore associations between degree of spirituality, appraisals of anomalous experiences, and trauma. This dissertation tested the hypothesis that spirituality informs the content, valence, and emotional valence attributed to psychotic experiences among individuals who endorse such experiences. Trauma was suggested as a moderator of the relationship between spirituality and the valence of appraisals. High spirituality was expected to be associated with positive spiritual appraisals and positive emotional responses, while a history of trauma was expected to modify the relationship between appraisals and valence, such that high spirituality was expected be associated with negative spiritual appraisals and negative emotional responses in the context of a trauma history. Method: In this mixed-methods study, 29 undergraduate students enrolled at the City College of New York who endorsed lifetime anomalous experiences, completed self-report measures assessing psychotic symptoms, appraisal style, spirituality and trauma history. Participants were also interviewed to assess anomalous experiences, their appraisals and their spiritual history. Hypotheses were tested by conducting bivariate correlational analyses to test associations between level of spirituality, number of traumatic events, psychotic symptoms and appraisals of experiences. A qualitative analysis of appraisals of lifetime anomalous experiences was also conducted to test the hypotheses. Results: Overall, participants were more likely to have mixed emotional reactions to their experience, regardless of whether they appraised the experience as positive or negative. Spiritual appraisals were made across all spiritual identity categories. Spiritual individuals were more likely to make negative appraisals. Family spirituality was found to have a significant influence over spiritual appraisals. Distressing psychotic symptoms were positively associated with the number of traumatic events, negative appraisal style and negative emotional responses. The majority of the sample (86%) reported a history of trauma. The moderation effect therefore could not be tested, but this may also explain why spiritual appraisals were positively associated with negative religious coping in this highly traumatized sample. Emotional distress was a significant situational context for the onset of anomalous experiences. Conclusion: Specific aspects of spirituality, such as religious coping and family spirituality should be incorporated into cognitive models of psychosis, as they inform the nature of appraisals of anomalous experiences. The situational context and the type of experience should also be considered as factors that inform the nature of appraisals. Future studies should compare clinical and non-clinical samples to explore the nature of appraisals and emotional responses among individuals who report psychotic experiences.


This paper experimentally documents the behavior of a laser-induced bubble near a convex paraboloidal free surface with different vertical radius of curvatures, generated in a rotating cylindrical water flask. The shape of the free surface plays a key role on bubble behaviors when bubble collapses. Due to the strong influence of the free surface, the bubble forms a microjet outwards the free surface when it collapses. And the nondimensional bubble collapse time, Tc/Tc', is smaller than 1, where Tc is the bubble collapse time and Tc' is the Rayleigh time of bubble collapse with an equivalent maximum radius. As the relative distance between the bubble center and the free surface, h/Rmax, decreases, Tc/Tc' decreases, which is different with the bubble behavior near a flat rigid boundary, where h is the distance between the bubble center and the flat free surface or the convex free surface center, Rmax is bubble equivalent maximum radius. Compared with the bubble dynamics near a flat free surface, the bubble near a convex free surface presents a milder collapse behavior. Tc/Tc' increases with the nondimensional radius of curvature of the free surface center, rs/Rmax, decreases, where rs is the vertical radius of curvature of the free surface, which is different from the bubble behavior near a curved rigid boundary. It implies that the convex shape of free surface reduces the Kelvin impulse, and the strength of the microjet when bubble collapses decreases with a decreasing rs/Rmax. Meanwhile the convex free surface provides a focusing mechanism to the splash on the free surface when bubble collapses. The splash gets a higher velocity when rs/Rmax decreases.


Lead firms, development organisations, donors and governments view value chains and voluntary standards as vital instruments for achieving millennium development goals through trade and market-related interventions. The precise foundations for these development strategies, which suggest positive development outcomes from integration of poor actors into value chains, are as yet underdeveloped. The interdisciplinary work in this volume shows how trade is managed and asks theory-driven questions about how value chains relate to locally-rooted development processes. Policy makers and development practitioners are increasingly using value chain analysis to frame pro-poor development interventions. This book offers multiple conceptualizations of development outcomes of inclusion of small producers, firms and workers in value chains. Processes of inclusion at different scales are unpacked in order to identify the terms of participation of small producers, firms and workers. As value chains are embedded, the book further argues that inclusion can be conceptualized as the degree of alignment between value chain logics and the institutions and capacities in the local business system. The combination of inclusive governance and endogenous development informs a grounded debate on roles of development-oriented partnerships. Chapters in this volume draw on multiple strands of economics, sociology, political science, geography and management studies; and for empirical grounding engage in comparative analysis of cases from Latin America, SubSaharan Africa and East and South East Asia. These are combined with processes taking place at a global level, such as the proliferation of standards and the growth of roundtables and multi-stakeholder partnerships. The contributions explore contrasts – between contexts, between industries or commodities/products, and between conceptual frameworks; and the context dependency of development impact necessitates cross-case investigations.


This study examined cyberbullying in three distinct phases to facilitate a multifaceted understanding of cyberbullying. The phases included (a) a quantitative survey, (b) a qualitative focus group, and (c) development of educational scenarios/simulations (within the Second Life virtual environment). Phase III was based on adolescent feedback about cyberbullying from Phases I and II of this study. In all three phases, adolescent reactions to cyberbullying were examined and reported to raise awareness and to educate others about cyberbullying. Results from scenario development indicate that simulations created in a virtual environment are engaging and have the potential to be powerful tools in helping schools address problems such as cyberbullying education and prevention. (Keywords: cyberbullying, virtual worlds, Second Life, teacher education, counselor education)


The aim of this research are to determine the effect of mycorrhizal biofertilizer, rock phosphate and interaction on growth and yield of sweet corn ( Zea mays saccharata Sturt). This research was conducted experimentally by using Randomized Design Group (RDG) factorial with two factors namely mycorrhizal biofertilizer and rock phosphate with 3 replications. The parameters focus on plant height, the number of leaves, leaf weight, trunk diameter, when the pistil appear, when the pollen arise, harvest age, cob weight per cornhusk/m 2 , cob weight without cornhusk/m 2 , cob diameter, cob length, the number of rows per cob and the percentage of infected mycorrhizal roots.The result of this research shows that the interaction of mycorrhizal biofertilizer and rock phosphate and the main factor rock phosphate there is no real effect to all the parameters, whereas the main factor mycorrhizal biofertilizer significantly effect the parameters of trunk diameter, cob length, and percentage of mycorrhizal infected roots. Fertilizing of mycorrhizal biofertilizer can increase cob weight per cornhusk/m 2 as 17.9% than without fertilizing it. Keywords : Sweet corn, mycorrhizal biofertilizer, rock phosphate


The history of Australian company law has attracted remarkably little attention in academic literature, perhaps because it has been mainly seen as a copy of English law with few if any important features worthy of note. This paper seeks to point out several interesting and significant aspects of the evolution of Australian company law and to consider this evolution in the context of the economic development of colonial Australia. Australian company law represents an example of the transplant of English law. This raises the question whether this transplant of law was successful. The central contention of this paper is that the evolution of company law in colonial Australia was innovative and responsive to the economic needs of the society and in particular, it was instrumental in financing the development of the mining industry which played an important role in the economic success of colonial Australia.


This article explores the jurisprudential and practical feasibility of a "preventive" regime of criminal justice. More specifically, it examines an updated version of the type of government intervention espoused four decades ago by thinkers such as Barbara Wooton, Sheldon Glueck, and Karl Menninger. These individuals, the first a criminologist, the latter two mental health professionals, envisioned a system that is triggered by an antisocial act but that pays no attention to desert or even to general deterrence. Rather, the sole goal of the system they proposed is individual prevention through assessments of dangerousness and the provision of treatment designed to reduce it. The ultimate objective of this article is to present a defense of a prevention system as a replacement for - rather than (as with sexual predator statutes)an addition to - our current criminal justice system. Such a defense of a purely preventive regime has been rare in the legal literature since the 1960s, when just deserts philosophy became popular and preventive approaches fell into disrepute. Since then, a number of conceptual and empirical advances have made the issue even more complex. The case for a preventive regime nonetheless deserves serious consideration in the twenty-first century, as an increasing number of jurisdictions adopt harsh determinate sentencing based on desert principles, and in the wake of the American Law Institute's recent announcement that its planned revision of the Model Penal Code will forsake the original Code's focus on reform of prisoners and instead endorse a just deserts approach to sentencing. The first part of the article looks at jurisprudential objections to a prevention regime, which all center on its perceived failure to do "justice." It contends that such a regime would neither slight human dignity nor undermine the general deterrence and character-shaping goals of the criminal law. The second part examines concerns about the feasibility of a preventive system, including questions about the accuracy of predictions, the efficacy of treatment, and the costs of a reform-oriented justice system. It concludes that these concerns are overstated, and in any event are less serious than the practical problems that afflict the punishment model. The third part describes one further reason for favoring prevention over traditional punishment: a preventive regime is much better at assimilating the proliferation of scientific findings that call into question humans' ability to control their actions, which is the central premise of a punishment system based on desert. The view taken in this article is exploratory, however. For a number of reasons, legal and sociological, one might be ambivalent about instituting a full-blown preventive regime, at least in the immediate future. Accordingly, the conclusion to the article suggests a transitional compromise, which maintains culpability as the threshold for government intervention, and reserves application of the preventive model for disposition, in what amounts to a modern version of indeterminate sentencing.


Cloud IaaS and PaaS tenants rely on cloud providers to provide network infrastructures that make the appropriate tradeoff between cost and performance. This can include mechanisms to help customers understand the performance requirements of their applications. Previous research (e.g., Proteus and Cicada) has shown how to do this for network-bandwidth demands, but cloud tenants may also need to meet latency objectives, which in turn may depend on reliable limits on network latency, and its variance, within the cloud providers infrastructure. On the other hand, if network latency is sufficient for an application, further decreases in latency might add cost without any benefit. Therefore, both tenant and provider have an interest in knowing what network latency is good enough for a given application.

This paper explores several options for a cloud provider to infer a tenants network-latency demands, with varying tradeoffs between requirements for tenant participation, accuracy of inference, and instrumentation overhead. In particular, we explore the feasibility of a hypervisor-only mechanism, which would work without any modifications to tenant code, even in IaaS clouds.


Using Mexico City as a case study, this research proposes an alternative framework for research which, rather than add to the dominant narrative that public relations should become a formalised and recognised profession, seeks to understand the make-up of public relations as an occupational culture. It explores the values and experiences relevant to practitioners and emphasises the need to recognise the role of practitioners as intermediaries in the development of society. In contrast
to the prevalence of quasi-experimental methodology often adopted in public relations research, this thesis advances a subjective, cultural approach to public relations research and practice. This study is based on the premise that methodological approaches in public relations research
need to be flexible enough so as not to suppress the new meaningful insights, which may emerge of practice in other parts of the world. The narrative advances an `in-awareness' cultural approach to public relations research, applying a social constructionism-inspired perspective to the study of public relations as an occupational culture in Mexico City. In-depth interviews were carried out in
Spanish with 32 practitioners working in public and private sector organisations. This data was supported by general observation and follow-up participant observation, in order to explore the potential for practitioners as cultural intermediaries in the development of a culture in transition. The study focuses on the practitioner lifeworlds (or public relations practitioner culture - PRP)
and considers the impact that their habitus, occupational identities, social networks and experiences have on the ways in which they communicate. Influences from the occupational structure and the socio-cultural structure of Mexico were also explored. The data was analysed by way of a `constant comparison' method in order to identify patterns
within the culture. The findings are presented in the form of five semi-biographical composite narratives that bring out the contrasting ways of seeing and acting: the `Young Public Relations Executive Experience', the `Old School Experience', the `Agency Director Experience', the `Inhouse
Practitioner Experience' and the `Social Communicator experience'. The relationships between these patterns were then interpreted by way of analytic generalisation. Three core themes emerged: `Occupational Identity', `Interpersonal Communication and Networks', and `Ethics', each of which were grounded in practitioners' experiences of Mexican culture. The findings suggest that public relations in Mexico City might be regarded as an occupational ethos of relaciones humanas, a Spanish term to mean human-centred approach. This ethos would place
value on human and trusted communication manifested in an authentic occupational `character' in and formal and informal interpersonal communicative practices. Amalgamating these findings with broader sociological and community relations theory and within the context of wider
globalisation theory, a reconceptualisation of community relations was developed in order to explain the potential for public relations practitioners as cultural intermediaries in Mexico City. This thesis suggests that this potential might be at a personal, grass-roots level. By
communicating interpersonally, practitioners would be able to communicate trust and respect and encourage solidarity, and thus help to develop micro-level social capital, which is essential for a culture like Mexico with significant levels of suspicion and class division.


Over the past 15 years, the LGBTQ movement in the United States has vanquished sodomy laws, the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, and laws banning same- sex marriage. Despite these formal legal advances, there remains a disparity between social acceptance of same-sex marriage and persistent aversion to sex between men. Even as the U.S. Supreme Court gradually came to embrace same-sex marriage, it was closeting sex between men. This Article is the first to identify a similar fear of sex between men in several long-standing public-health policies, including those of the avowedly pro-LGBTQ Obama Administration. The fusion of sex between men and HIV risk undergirds long-standing policies that ban many men who have sex with men ("MSM") from donating blood and sperm, and more recent guidelines that encourage even gay men at low risk of HIV infection to take preventative anti-retroviral drugs that had been typically reserved for people who are HIV positive. These policies presume that sexual-minority men have risky sex — and lots of it. The original blood ban imposed what we might call a "one drop" rule: all men who had "sex" with a man "even one time" since 1977 were treated as if their blood was infected with HIV. The Obama Administration revised the policy to allow such men — even those who married under Obergefell v. Hodges — to donate blood only if they have abstained from sex with men for one year. These policies effectively reinstate the long-standing belief that gay and bisexual men are pathological and need medical intervention. Indeed, they serve as government- endorsed "lessons in being gay," teaching gay, bisexual, and questioning youth what it means to be a sexual minority in the post-marriage equality landscape.
We explain this contradiction by illuminating the law's bifurcated vision of sex between men as either inherently dangerous — i.e., public-health policies — or as identical to heterosexuality — i.e., Obergefell. While federal public-health authorities have consistently endorsed the stereotype that sex between men is dangerous, various state and federal courts have increasingly rejected government arguments that sought to fuse such sex and HIV. These undersung precedents, rather than the high-profile marriage-equality victories, provide tools for critiquing laws based on a conception of sex between men as pathological. Moreover, our call for attention to policy-level sexual stereotyping has implications beyond the HIV context. It speaks to the current debate about transgender bathroom policies. Drawing on Kimberle Crenshaw's scholarship on intersectionality and Angela Harris's work on gender essentialism, we show that opposition to policies that would guarantee transgender people access to bathrooms of their choice relies on related gender/sexuality stereotypes.


The empirical saddlepoint distribution provides an approximation to the sampling distributions for the GMM parameter estimates and the statistics that test the overidentifying restrictions. The empirical saddlepoint distribution permits asymmetry, non-normal tails, and multiple modes. If identification assumptions are satisfied, the empirical saddlepoint distribution converges to the familiar asymptotic normal distribution. In small sample Monte Carlo simulations, the empirical saddlepoint performs as well as, and often better than, the bootstrap. The formulas necessary to transform the GMM moment conditions to the estimation equations needed for the saddlepoint approximation are provided. Unlike the absolute errors associated with the asymptotic normal distributions and the bootstrap, the empirical saddlepoint has a relative error. The relative error leads to a more accurate approximation, particularly in the tails.


Novel legal questions raised by the war on terror and the evolving technology of warfare have highlighted the importance of executive branch legal interpretation, in particular how agencies address difficult questions about the scope and application of international law, often without review by Congress or the courts. This Article presents a public choice analysis of how the executive branch in the United States determines questions of compliance with international law. In contrast to theories that treat the state as a unitary entity, the public choice approach examines the different interests and incentives of the executive branch agencies that advise the President. These agencies frequently disagree about the content and application of international law and the executive branch often fails to coordinate these interests consistently. The unpredictability of the process encourages agencies to compete for control over international legal policy. Analyzing domestic inputs as well as coordinating institutions, the public choice approach considers how the "they" of the executive branch seeks to function as an "it."This leads to some distinct conclusions and predictions about international law compliance. First, it demonstrates some of the limitations of unitary state models, but also how public choice can be complementary to rational choice theories. Second, it predicts that competition to control central decision making will encourage agencies to use the indeterminacy of international law strategically. Agency officials benefit by keeping open the widest range of policy options consistent with international law. Finally, if government officials in other countries face similar incentives, this may provide an explanation based on sub-state actors for why international law does not exhibit the clarity and compliance often considered an aspiration for international law.


Samples were collected from the mining area, limestone area, and prospective area proximal to the Kafang copper deposit. The particles were analysed by the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and the soil samples in the mining area were analysed by the X-ray diffraction (XRD). In the mining area and prospective area, metallic elements in the particles are Cu, Pb, Zn, As, Hg, and Co. Particles collected in the limestone area contain few metallic elements that exist in the ore minerals. Based on analysis of these particles, the following conclusions are made: (1) sizes of the collected particles are 20 – 300 nm; (2) the composition of the soil samples and the particulate samples are significantly different because particles in the particulate samples reflect an origin from geogas; (3) geogas particles have different elemental contents because of different physicochemical properties of the elements and physicochemical environment that the geogas particles experienced; and (4) the Kafang stratiform copper deposit is a granite-related hydrothermal deposit. Metallic elements in geogas particles occur in the ore minerals and have similar compositions to those of geogas particles in the sampling sites. The geogas particles most likely originate from concealed deposits. Supplementary material: EDS spectra of particles and coordinates of sampling points in the mining area, limestone area, and prospecting area are available at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3820687


This book presents and evaluates the results of an AHRC funded research project designed to generate a quantitative analysis of the extent to which private enforcement of competition law has taken place across twenty-seven EU Member States over a period of 13 years to 1 May 2012 in order to consider the extent to which the rights provided by competition law in the EU are protected and accorded effectiveness. It fills a major gap in our knowledge of the use of private litigation in Europe, especially in relation to consumer redress in competition-related cases, providing valuable empirical evidence to inform policy debate and developments. Based on extensive work by expert rapporteurs from 27 EU Member States, the study comprehensively identifies, for the period 1999–2012, all competition law cases before the domestic courts of the EU where parties were seeking to exercise rights conferred on them either by EU law (Articles 101 and 102 TFEU) or the domestic competition law equivalents. The general hypothesis that underlies the project is that private enforcement practice may at least partly be explained by the existence or availability of particular institutions, mechanisms and cultural factors in relation to the particular legal system, and, accordingly, the book provides an overview of certain aspects of the legal and institutional background to private enforcement across the Member states.


Victim states occasionally use force to target non-state actors that have allegedly attacked the victim state, on the pretext that the host state is "unwilling or unable" ("ineffective") to act. The international law permissibility of such force is unclear: state responsibility principles do not hold ineffective states liable, the universe of state practice is small and the International Court of Justice and some scholars deny the legality of such force while others disagree. This article is the first dedicated to a critical analysis of the "unwilling or unable" doctrine from both, a law and policy perspective. It argues that, although a right of self-defense in ineffective host states may be desirable in light of contemporary security threats, extant scholarship on the doctrine suffers from blind spots. Not only has debate been almost exclusively doctrinal but, in focusing myopically on the security concerns of victim states vis a vis non-state actors, scholars have paid little attention to security vulnerabilities of host states vis-a-vis victim states. In fact, much of the literature on the "unwilling or unable" doctrine unquestionably assumes that it should be the victim state that should self-determine when another state is ineffective and fails to recognize two conditions that make erroneous determinations particularly likely. First, host states tend to be weak states, susceptible to coercion and unable to retaliate against misbehavior by powerful victim states. Second, even if the international community is willing to punish erroneous uses of force, since host state ineffectiveness may not be observable, detection of misbehavior becomes very difficult. This article argues that any serious analysis of the doctrine must be based on an appreciation of these conditions and suggests that a right of self-defense on grounds of state ineffectiveness must thus be subject to corresponding constraints. It accordingly proposes an alternate framework to induce transparency: victim states seeking to rely on ineffectiveness as grounds for self-defense must disclose claims of host state ineffectiveness to the Security Council which acts as a fact-finder and information transmitter for the benefit of the international community. The host state can challenge the claim of ineffectiveness while the Counter-Terrorism Committee can provide empirical information as to that host state's ability and willingness to comply with anti-terrorism obligations.


Despite the safety improvement drive that has been implemented in the construction industry in Singapore for many years, the industry continues to report the highest number of workplace fatalities, compared to other industries. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the theoretical framework of the safety aspect of a proposed BIM System to determine a Safety Index. An online questionnaire survey was conducted to ascertain the current workplace safety and health situation in the construction industry and explore how BIM can be used to improve safety performance in the industry. A safety hazard library was developed based on the main contributors to fatal accidents in the construction industry, determined from the formal records and existing literature, and a series of discussions with representatives from the Workplace Safety and Health Institute (WSH Institute) in Singapore. The results from the survey suggested that the majority of the firms have implemented the necessary policies, programmes and procedures on Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) practices. However, BIM is still not widely applied or explored beyond the mandatory requirement that building plans should be submitted to the authorities for approval in BIM format. This paper presents a discussion of the safety aspect of the Intelligent Productivity and Safety System (IPASS) developed in the study. IPASS is an intelligent system incorporating the buildable design concept, theory on the detection, prevention and control of hazards, and the Construction Safety Audit Scoring System (ConSASS). The system is based on the premise that safety should be considered at the design stage, and BIM can be an effective tool to facilitate the efforts to enhance safety performance. IPASS allows users to analyse and monitor key aspects of the safety performance of the project before the project starts and as the project progresses.


Abstract Introdouction: The major demand for orthodontic treatment is associated with esthetic complaints rather than with the severity of occlusal irregularities. This study evaluated the relationship between orthodontic treatment need based on index of complexity, outcome, and need (ICON) and orthodontic-specific quality of life (QOL) among high school students in Shiraz. Materials and methods: Based on the correlation between ICON and QOL score (r = 0.254) with α = 0.05 and an estimated power of 80%, 118 high school students (49 girls and 69 boys) aged 15-18 years were selected for this analytical cross-sectional study. The students were randomly selected. The need for orthodontic treatment was determined according to ICON and was compared with QOL, which was assessed using Cunningham's questionnaire. Data analysis was performed by SPSS-21 using Spearman's correlation coefficient and Mann-Whitney tests. (p<0.05) Results: Analysis based on Spearman's correlation coefficient, showed no significant association between QOL score and ICON (r=0.95, p=0.282), Mann-Whitney test did not show a significant difference between boys and girls. QOL score was considerably higher in boys (median = 18.50, mean ± SD = 14.82 ± 18.5) compared with girls (median = 9.00, mean ± SD = 14.3 ± 15.02) (p = 0.58). Conclusion: No significant difference among boys and girls in relation to orthodontic treatment need was observed, although girls had a significantly lower QOL score than boys. Correlation between orthodontic treatment need and its impact on QOL was also not significant. Therefore, dental esthetics has a greater impact on social acceptance and self-concept among girls.


Tolkien readily admitted that the concept of Middle-earth was not his own invention. An Old English term for the Dark Age world, it was always assumed that the importance of magic in this world existed only in Tolkien's works; now Professor Brian Bates reveals the vivid truth about this historical culture. Behind the stories we know of Dark Age king and queens, warriors and battles, lies the hidden history of Middle-earth, a world of magic, mystery and destiny. Fiery dragons were seen to fly across the sky, monsters haunted the marshes, and elves fired poisoned arrows. Wizards cast healing spells, wise trees gave blessings, and omens foretold the deaths of kings. The very landscape itself was enchanted and the world imbued with a life force. Repressed by a millennium of Christianity, this belief system all but disappeared, leaving only faint traces in folk memory and fairy tales. In this remarkable book Professor Brian Bates has drawn on the latest archaeological findings to reconstruct the imaginative world of our past, revealing a culture with insights that may yet help us understand our own place in the world.


Golgi alpha-mannosidase II is essential for the efficient formation of complex-type glycosylation. Here, we demonstrate that the disruption of Golgi alpha-mannosidase II activity by swainsonine in human embryonic kidney cells is capable of inducing a novel class of hybrid-type glycosylation containing a partially processed mannose moiety. The discovery of 'Man(6)-based' hybrid-type glycans reveals a broader in vivo specificity of N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase I, further defines the arm-specific tolerance of core alpha1-6 fucosyltransferase to terminal alpha1-2 mannose residues, and suggests that disruption of Golgi alpha-mannosidase II activity is capable of inducing potentially 'non-self' structures.


Integrated energy carriers in the framework of energy hub system (EHS) have an undeniable role in reducing operating costs and increasing energy efficiency as well as the system's reliability. Nowadays, power-to-gas (P2G), as a novel technology, is a great choice to intensify the interdependency between electricity and natural gas networks. The proposed strategy of this study is divided into two parts: (i) a conditional value-at-risk-based stochastic model is presented to determine the optimal day-ahead scheduling of the EHS with the coordinated operating of P2G storage and tri-state compressed air energy storage (CAES) system. The main objective of the proposed strategy is to indicate the positive impact of P2G storage and tri-state CAES on lessening the system uncertainties including electricity market price, power generation of the wind turbine, and even electrical, gas, and thermal demands. (ii) A demand response program focusing on day-ahead load shifting is applied to the multiple electrical loads according to the load's activity schedule. The proposed strategy is successfully applied to an illustrative example and is solved by general algebraic modeling system software. The obtained results validate the proposed strategy by demonstrating the considerable diminution in the operating cost of the EHS by almost 4.5%.


Introduction: The quality of life is defined as the individual's sense of well-being and their satisfaction with daily work as influenced by dental and oral conditions. Oral diseases are very common and have impacts on the different aspects of individual's life and can change their social performances roles, in other words, they can change the quality of life. The aim of this study was to evaluae the impact of oral problems on quality of life in adults who referred to Babol Faculty of Dentistry during 2009-2011. Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed using a non-randomized sampling method. In this study, 500 patients who referred to Babol Faculty of Dentistry age 20-50 years were selected. Then all the questions in OIDP (Oral Impact on Daily Performance) questionnaire which were translated into persian from english were asked and completed. These questions are valuable and reliable for Iranians based on the previous studies. Finally, the data were analyzed by SPSS statistical software. Results: According to this study, oral problems have effected on (80.6%) of the patients' quality of life. Gender, occupation, level of education and general health have impacted on OIDP score changes. There were significant differences in gender, occupation and level of education. In this study, the general and oral health conditions scores showed a significant association with OIDP score. Most of the patients' complaint was about eating (64.4%), but going outside and shopping were the least (10%). Conclusions: According to the results of this study, tooth pain was the most oral and dental problem and tooth shape and size were the least effective on the oral health related quality of life. This shows that the most needed treatment are tooth restoration، root canal therapy and surgical treatment for pain relief.


The energy dissipated by conventional phase-locked-loop-based transmitters (TXs) during the long startup phase is a major bottleneck that reduces the energy autonomy of duty-cycled ultra-low-power systems. In order to tackle this problem, this paper presents a loop-free TX based on a film-bulk acoustic wave resonator (FBAR) that has a 5- μs startup time and requires just 3- μs for channel switching. The presented TX takes advantage of the high-frequency stability of the FBAR digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) to operate in open loop mode. In order to avoid the problem of the same frequency stability that also hinders addressing multiple channels, the DCO output is mixed with a divided down version (which gives the IF) of itself. By adjusting the division ratio suitably, frequency of the system can then be tuned. To further relax the tuning requirements on the FBAR, the divider for producing the IF is implemented as a phase-switching divider with a step size of 0.2. Integrated in a 65-nm technology node, the TX can address all the bands within the 2.36-2.5-GHz frequency range viz. Medical body area network, industrial, scientific, and medical, and low-power active medical implant bands. Moreover, this TX is able to reach up to 16-Mb/s peak data rate while consuming 9.2 mA at 1.2 V.


The study of the wars of Frederick the Great by Dennis E. Showalter is both fascinating and informative. King Frederick II ruled Prussia from 1740 to 1786. During his reign Prussia was involved in a number of wars (notably the Seven Years War). The reign of Frederick is acknowledged as the era in which Prussia was establish as a first ranking power in Europe. Yet, the Wars of Frederick the Great is more than just a campaign history of Frederick's wars. In this study the author places Frederick's wars, Frederick's reign in Prussia and the art of war and statecraft within the context of the time, which makes this work an important contribution to the study of Military History and power politics in the eighteenth century.


An RNA-binding protein is required for spermatogenesis and enhances translation of specific mRNAs. During meiotic prophase and during differentiation of spermatids, chromatin is not available for transcription. Thus, key elements in regulation of spermatogenesis in mammals occur through posttranscriptional as well as transcriptional regulation. Paronetto et al. describe an essential role for the protein Sam68 (Src-associated substrate in mitosis of 68 kD, also called KH-DRBS1) in spermatogenesis that appears to reflect its regulation of a set of particular mRNAs. Sam68 is a member of a family of RNA binding proteins called STAR (signal transduction and activation of RNA) proteins that regulate a range of processes, including RNA stability, export, and splicing and mRNA translation as well. Mice lacking Sam68 fail to produce mature spermatozoa and are thus infertile, and Paronetto explored the mechanism behind this effect. Array analysis of mRNA from testes of knockout animals identified hundreds of genes that showed increased or decreased expression as compared with similar preparations from control animals. Sam68 was found to be associated with translation initiation complexes in normal male germ cells. The authors looked more closely at two mRNAs that decreased in abundance in Sam68 knockout cells: SPDYA, a cell cycle regulator that functions in meiotic maturation, and SPAG16, which functions in the sperm axoneme and is required for motility. Although translation in general appeared not to be altered in the knockout animals, recruitment to polysomes and translation of Spag16 and Spdya mRNAs were decreased. In spermatocyes stimulated to undergo meiotic divisions, the normal accumulation of SPDYA and SPAG16 proteins was suppressed in spermatocytes from knockout animals. In a heterologous system [human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells], expression of Sam68 enhanced reporter translation driven by the 3′ untranslated region of Spag16 mRNA. A mutant form of Sam68 lacking its phosphorylation site regulated by mitogen-activated protein kinase did not enhance translation. The authors propose that, through its Src and MAPK-dependent phosphorylation, Sam68 may link intracellular signaling pathways to RNA processing, in particular controlling recruitment to polysomes and enhanced translation of a set of mRNAs required for spermatogenesis. M. P. Paronetto, V. Messina, E. Bianchi, M. Barchi, G. Vogel, C. Moretti, F. Palombi, M. Stefanini, R. Geremia, S. Richard, C. Sette, Sam68 regulates translation of target mRNAs in male germ cells, necessary for mouse spermatogenesis. J. Cell Biol. 185, 235–249 (2009). [Abstract] [Full Text]


OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the association between pacifier use and the increased occurrence of acute otitis media (AOM) in an intervention trial.

METHODS
Fourteen well-baby clinics were selected to participate in an open, controlled cohort study. These clinics were paired according to the number of children and the social classes of the parents they served. One clinic in each pair was randomly allocated for an intervention, while the other served as a control. The nurses at the intervention clinics were trained to instruct the parents of children <18 months old to limit pacifier use during their prescheduled visits to the clinic. The intervention consisted of a leaflet explaining the harmful effects of pacifier use and instructions to restrict its use. Two hundred seventy-two children were successfully recruited from the intervention clinics and 212 from the control clinics. The data about pacifier use and the occurrence of respiratory infections and AOM were collected similarly in both groups.

RESULTS
After the intervention, a 21% decrease was achieved in continuous pacifier use at the age of 7 to 18 months (P =.0001), and the occurrence of AOM per person-months at risk was 29% lower among children at the intervention clinics. The children who did not use a pacifier continuously in either of the clinics had 33% fewer AOM episodes than the children who did.

CONCLUSION
Pacifier use appeared to be a preventable risk factor for AOM in children. Its restriction to the moments when the child was falling asleep effectively prevented episodes of AOM.


Electrical engineering is a protean profession. Today the field embraces many disciplines that seem far removed from its roots in the telegraph, telephone, electric lamps, motors, and generators. To a remarkable extent, this chronicle of change and growth at a single institution is a capsule history of the discipline and profession of electrical engineering as it developed worldwide. Even when MIT was not leading the way, the department was usually quick to adapt to changing needs, goals, curricula, and research programs. What has remained constant throughout is the dynamic interaction of teaching and research, flexibility of administration, the interconnections with industrial progress and national priorities. The book's text and many photographs introduce readers to the renowned teachers and researchers who are still well known in engineering circles, among them: Vannevar Bush, Harold Hazen, Edward Bowles, Gordon Brown, Harold Edgerton, Ernst Guillemin, Arthur von Hippel, and Jay Forrester. The book covers the department's major areas of activity -- electrical power systems, servomechanisms, circuit theory, communications theory, radar and microwaves (developed first at the famed Radiation Laboratory during World War II), insulation and dielectrics, electronics, acoustics, and computation. This rich history of accomplishments shows moreover that years before "Computer Science" was added to the department's name such pioneering results in computation and control as Vannevar Bush's Differential Analyzer, early cybernetic devices and numerically controlled servomechanisms, the Whirlwind computer, and the evolution of time-sharing computation had already been achieved.


Thyroid dysgenesis is the major cause of congenital hypothyroidism in humans. The underlying molecular mechanism is in most cases unknown, but the frequent co-incidence of cardiac anomalies suggests that the thyroid morphogenetic process may depend on proper cardiovascular development. The T-box transcription factor TBX1, which is the most probable gene for the 22q11 deletion syndrome (22q11DS/DiGeorge syndrome/velo-cardio-facial syndrome), has emerged as a central player in the coordinated formation of organs and tissues derived from the pharyngeal apparatus and the adjacent secondary heart field from which the cardiac outflow tract derives. Here, we show that Tbx1 impacts greatly on the developing thyroid gland, although it cannot be detected in the thyroid primordium at any embryonic stage. Specifically, in Tbx1-/- mice, the downward translocation of Titf1/Nkx2.1-expressing thyroid progenitor cells is much delayed. In late mutant embryos, the thyroid fails to form symmetric lobes but persists as a single mass approximately one-fourth of the normal size. The hypoplastic gland mostly attains a unilateral position resembling thyroid hemiagenesis. The data further suggest that failure of the thyroid primordium to re-establish contact with the aortic sac is a key abnormality preventing normal growth of the midline anlage along the third pharyngeal arch arteries. In normal development, this interaction may be facilitated by Tbx1-expressing mesenchyme filling the gap between the pharyngeal endoderm and the detached thyroid primordium. The findings indicate that Tbx1 regulates intermediate steps of thyroid development by a non-cell-autonomous mechanism. Thyroid dysgenesis related to Tbx1 inactivation may explain an overrepresentation of hypothyroidism occurring in patients with the 22q11DS.


We present numerical and experimental analyses showing the formation of (2+1)D spatial photorefractive solitons at visible wavelengths in electrically biased lithium niobate crystals for ordinary and extraordinary light polarizations. Similarly sized self-trapped beams are observed for both polarizations, despite the polarization-dependent electro-optic coefficients. The tensorial character of the photovoltaic effect is shown to play a key role. The soliton-induced waveguides are able to properly guide telecommunication wavelengths. Finally, a higher degree of anisotropy is observed for ordinary polarized solitons for specific electro-optic configurations, which reveals the presence of the photorefractive field component perpendicular to the applied field. Experimental results are confirmed by a time-dependent numerical model.


The experience of reading online is different from reading the hard copy of a printed item. This is relevant to librarians and those in the information studies field who need to be aware that the way young people and future generations read and interact with text differs from that of previous generations, especially among individuals who have been immersed in electronic media from a young age. Emerging research shows that the brain of an individual who has been surrounded by digital media from a young age develops differently than the brain of an individual who does not have an extensive history of online participation. Patterns are also beginning to emerge regarding changing brain structure in "late adopters" of online reading -- those of pre-Net Generation age who are now immersing themselves in electronic text. Librarians, teachers, and others involved in managing access to digital text and promoting literacy should be aware of these trends in order to address them effectively in their work.


Asynchronous approval of new GM crops across international jurisdictions is of growing concern due to its potential impact on global trade. Different countries have different authorisation procedures and, even if regulatory dossiers are submitted at the same time, approval is not given simultaneously (in some cases, delays can even amount to years). For instance, by mid-2009 over 40 transgenic events were approved or close to approval elsewhere but not yet approved – or not even submitted – in the EU. Yet, like some other jurisdictions, the EU also operates a zero-tolerance policy to even the smallest traces of nationally unapproved GM crops (so-called low-level presence). The resultant rejection of agricultural imports has already caused high economic losses and threatens to disrupt global agri-food supply chains. The risk that feed supplies could be affected by a low-level presence of non-EU approved GM material could be resolved if the EU allowed a tolerance for this, rather than operating a strict zero tolerance as now. The Commission has undertaken to come forward with a nonlegislative technical solution to address the difficulties created by a strict zero tolerance policy. To what extent this would be helpful will depend on the nature of the proposed solution.


Mucosal HIV-1 transmission is inefficient. However, certain viral and host characteristics may play a role in facilitating HIV acquisition and systemic expansion. Cells expressing high levels of integrin α4β7 have been implicated in favoring the transmission process and the infusion of an anti-α4β7 mAb (RM-Act-1) prior to, and during a repeated low-dose vaginal challenge (RLDC) regimen with SIVmac251 reduced SIV acquisition and protected the gut-associated lymphoid tissues (GALT) in the macaques that acquired SIV. α4β7 expression is required for lymphocyte trafficking to the gut lamina propria and gut inductive sites. Several therapeutic strategies that target α4β7 have been shown to be effective in treating inflammatory conditions of the intestine, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). To determine if blocking α4β7 with ELN, an orally available anti-α4 small molecule, would inhibit SHIV-SF162P3 acquisition, we tested its ability to block MAdCAM-1 (α4β7 natural ligand) and HIV-gp120 binding in vitro. We studied the pharmacokinetic profile of ELN after oral and vaginal delivery in macaques. Twenty-six macaques were divided into 3 groups: 9 animals were treated with ELN orally, 9 orally and vaginally and 8 were used as controls. All animals were challenged intra-vaginally with SHIV-SF162P3 using the RLDC regimen. We found that ELN did not protect macaques from SHIV acquisition although it reduced the SHIV-induced inflammatory status during the acute phase of infection. Notably, integrins can exist in different activation states and, comparing the effect of ELN and the anti-α4β7 mAb RM-Act-1 that reduced susceptibility to SIV infection, we determined that ELN induces the active conformation of α4β7, while RM-Act-1 inhibits its activation through an allosteric mechanism. These results suggest that inhibition of α4β7 activation may be necessary to reduce susceptibility to SIV/SHIV infection and highlight the complexity of anti-integrins therapeutic approach in HIV as well as in IBD and other autoimmune diseases.


Summaries The GAD approach in both concept and practice has been inconsistent in its treatment of men and masculinities. In their work on mainstreaming gender in policy and planning, the authors have tried to confront these inconsistencies in a number of ways. This article reviews the way men and masculinties have been addressed in GAD, drawing primarily on the Development Planning Unit (DPU), University College London's academic, training and advisory work in this field. This article is structured around four main areas. The first places the DPU's approach in the wider WID/GAD debates of the 1990s, and discusses the rationale for incorporating men and masculinties into a transformative view of GAD. The next section discusses the ways in which men and masculinities have been incorporated into the concepts and tools which make up the DPU's gender mainstreaming methodology. Taking the example of training, the third section focuses on men and masculinities through the experience of working with women and men as trainees and trainers. In conclusion the authors summarise their view of the dangers and positive reasons for the incorporation of men and masculinities into gender mainstreaming methodologies.


During the course of development the motor repertoire of animals and humans alike go through dramatic changes. New motor patterns arise; movements become coordinated, improve in precision and are at the same time continuously calibrated to the changing body dimensions. The cerebellum is critical for movement coordination and adaptation in adults. Also, interfering with cerebellar development during early life causes behavioural deficits suggesting an important role of the cerebellum in the formation of motor synergies. Hence, to understand the dramatic change in motor competence that characterizes postnatal development it may be of particular interest to study processes underlying the formation and shaping of the cerebellar neuronal networks. Unfortunately, little is known about how the cerebellum actually contributes to motor development. In order to elucidate the relationships between cerebellar ontogenetic changes and postnatal motor development a suitable animal model for multiple levels of analysis is a prerequisite. In this thesis, we therefore sought to develop and evaluate an experimental model that is suitable for combined behavioural, structural and systems level electrophysiological investigations of cerebellar development. For a number of reasons, the postnatal ferret seemed to be a suitable candidate. Although the ferret is commonly used as an experimental model in developmental studies on sensory systems, the development of its motor systems and motor behaviour had not been previously investigated. As a first step, we characterized the postnatal motor development in ferret kits in daily sessions from postnatal day (P)2 to P63. A battery of motor tests spanning the entire developmental period was used to assess locomotor activity and ability and the maturation of postural dynamic reflexes. Secondly, we characterized the morphological development of the ferret cerebellum. Overall cerebellar size, foliation and thickness of cortical layers were quantified and Purkinje cell morphology was characterized from P1 to P63. Thirdly, we investigated the zonal organization of climbing fibre input to the cerebella of ferret kits; a fundamental and general physiological feature of cerebellar function in the adult animal. These studies provide the first investigations of motor behavioural and cerebellar morphological development in the ferret. The electrophysiological data obtained represent a first important step towards the understanding of cerebellar physiological processes in the course of motor development. We conclude that the ferret in many aspects is a particularly suitable animal model for the study of cerebellar mechanisms underlying motor development. In a parallel approach, we assessed how timescales of motor and cerebellar morphological development can be translated between species with differently long developmental time periods, such as the ferret and rat. Linear regression analyses were performed on time points defining the corresponding levels of motor development and cerebellar maturation in ferrets and rats (rat data from Altman and Bayer, 1997). The derived time-conversion equations describing cerebellar morphological development and motor development in ferret and rat were highly congruent. To extend the comparative analysis to also include humans a model was formulated that takes into consideration comparative time courses of neurogenesis and cerebellar morphogenesis and relative timing of birth. Using behavioural data from rats and ferrets as input, the model predicts corresponding motor developmental dates that fall within 10% of actual mean values for the human population. Such astonishing predictive accuracy indicates that motor development in animals and man is governed by very similar principles and that these principles are successfully captured by our model. (Less)


The paper examines the relationship between the innovator's patenting and patent breadth decisions as well as how these two decisions affect, and are affected by, the innovator's ability to enforce her patent rights. An important feature of the model is that the entrant may be able, by his choice of location in product space, to affect the innovator's decision to defend her patent. An interesting finding of the paper is that the innovator might find it optimal to patent her innovation even when she chooses to not defend her patent by invoking a trial when patent infringement occurs. The paper also shows that, in most cases, the greater is the entrant's R&D effectiveness, the smaller is the innovator's incentive to patent her product. If patenting occurs, however, the greater is R&D effectiveness, the greater is the patent breadth that could be chosen without triggering infringement.


The DARPA Urban Challenge was a competition to develop autonomous vehicles capable of safely, reliably and robustly driving in traffic. In this article we introduce Boss, the autonomous vehicle that won the challenge. Boss is complex artificially intelligent software system embodied in a 2007 Chevy Tahoe. To navigate safely, the vehicle builds a model of the world around it in real time. This model is used to generate safe routes and motion plans in both on roads and in unstructured zones. An essential part of Boss' success stems from its ability to safely handle both abnormal situations and system glitches.


Executive functions are cognitive processes essential for controlling goal-oriented behavior and responding to new and novel situations. Executive function includes the processes of planning, initiation, organization, inhibition, problem solving, self-monitoring, and error correction. It has been estimated that ≈75% of stroke survivors experience impaired executive function (executive dysfunction), resulting in reduced capacity to regain independence in activities of daily living, particularly when new movement strategies are necessary to compensate for limb weakness. A variety of cognitive rehabilitation interventions are implemented within clinical practice in an attempt to improve executive function and, consequently, independence with activities of daily living.1

To determine the effects of cognitive rehabilitation on executive dysfunction for adults with stroke or other nonprogressive acquired brain injuries.

We searched: …


We examine whether financial capability has impacts on psychological health independent of income and financial resources more generally using a nationally representative survey. British Household Panel Survey data are used to construct a measure of financial capability, which we relate to respondents" psychological health using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire. We find that financial capability has significant and substantial effects on psychological health over and above those associated with income and material wellbeing more generally. The sizes of these impacts are considerably larger than those associated with changes in household income. Furthermore having low financial capability exacerbates the psychological costs associated with unemployment and divorce.


News Corp. is currently at the centre of a major corporate crisis, which began in the U.K. with the notorious phone hacking scandals, but is now spreading to the U.S. There have been recent amendments to pleadings in Amalgamated Bank v. Murdoch (CA6285, Delaware Chancery Court), which claim that News Corp. provides an example of "a culture run amuck". Also, Eliot Spitzer has publicly encouraged the Justice Department to prosecute News Corp. under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, on the basis that News Corp is "an American business incorporated in Delaware and listed on American financial exchanges".Until 2004, however, this was not the case. The News Corp. empire had for decades been based in Australia. This Article provides a detailed case study of News Corp's decision to reincorporate in Delaware in 2004. In the light of current events, that decision is one that may ultimately rebound on the corporation like a boomerang. As the Article shows, News Corp.'s move to the United States was both controversial and fundamental to Rupert Murdoch's continuing control of News Corp. The original reincorporation proposal prompted a revolt by a number of institutional investors, who argued that a move to Delaware would strengthen managerial power and reduce shareholder rights. The institutional investors were particularly concerned about the effect of the move on the ability of the board of directors to adopt anti-takeover mechanisms, such as poison pills, which were not permissible under Australian law. The Article demonstrates how News Corp. achieved its ultimate objectives in spite of such strong opposition from institutional investors.This Article uses News Corp.'s reincorporation to highlight a number of significant, but underappreciated, differences between U.S. corporate law and the law of other common law jurisdictions. Specifically, the Article shows how News Corp.'s migration from Australia to Delaware effectively subverted shareholder rights and increased centralized managerial power. The News Corp. reincorporation saga has significant implications for Delaware law, for recent US shareholder empowerment developments, and for the crisis that is currently engulfing the News Corp. media empire.


Clinical research with medical imaging typically involves large-scale data analysis with interdependent software toolsets tied together in a processing workflow. Numerous, complementary platforms are available, but these are not readily compatible in terms of workflows or data formats. Both image scientists and clinical investigators could benefit from using the framework which is a most natural fit to the specific problem at hand, but pragmatic choices often dictate that a compromise platform is used for collaboration. Manual merging of platforms through carefully tuned scripts has been effective, but exceptionally time consuming and is not feasible for large-scale integration efforts. Hence, the benefits of innovation are constrained by platform dependence. Removing this constraint via integration of algorithms from one framework into another is the focus of this work. We propose and demonstrate a light-weight interface system to expose parameters across platforms and provide seamless integration. In this initial effort, we focus on four platforms Medical Image Analysis and Visualization (MIPAV), Java Image Science Toolkit (JIST), command line tools, and 3D Slicer. We explore three case studies: (1) providing a system for MIPAV to expose internal algorithms and utilize these algorithms within JIST, (2) exposing JIST modules through self-documenting command line interface for inclusion in scripting environments, and (3) detecting and using JIST modules in 3D Slicer. We review the challenges and opportunities for light-weight software integration both within development language (e.g., Java in MIPAV and JIST) and across languages (e.g., C/C++ in 3D Slicer and shell in command line tools).


Laws and cultural norms militated against interracial sex in Virginia before the Civil War, and yet it was ubiquitous in cities, towns, and plantation communities throughout the state. In Notorious in the Neighborhood, Joshua Rothman examines the full spectrum of interracial sexual relationships under slavery - from Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and the intertwined interracial families of Monticello and Charlottesville to commercial sex in Richmond, the routinized sexual exploitation of enslaved women, and adultery across the color line. He explores the complex considerations of legal and judicial authorities who handled cases involving illicit sex and describes how the customary toleration of sex across the color line both supported and undermined racism and slavery in the early national and antebellum South. White Virginians allowed for an astonishing degree of flexibility and fluidity within a seemingly rigid system of race and interracial relations, Rothman argues, and the relationship between law and custom regarding racial intermixture was always shifting. As a consequence, even as whites never questioned their own racial supremacy, the meaning and significance of racial boundaries, racial hierarchy, and ultimately of race itself always stood on unstable ground - a reality that whites understood and about which they demonstrated increasing anxiety as the nation's sectional crisis intensified.


What is computable with limited resources? How can we verify the correctness of computations? How to measure computational power with precision? Despite the immense scientific and engineering progress in computing, we still have only partial answers to these questions. In order to make these problems more precise, we describe an abstract algebraic definition of classical computation, generalizing traditional models to semigroups. The mathematical abstraction also allows the investigation of different computing paradigms (e.g. cellular automata, reversible computing) in the same framework. Here we summarize the main questions and recent results of the research of finite computation.


This highly-readable book brings together theory and practice, giving you a better understanding of why and how technology can enhance language learning. It helps you become more familiar with technology tools you can use in class, and gives you a better understanding of how to use them for language learning. Practical tasks help you reflect on their use.


This article proposes a simple and coherent approach to judicial review of class action settlements. Specifically, we propose that for questions going to the adequacy of a settlement, where no warning signals of fraud or collusion are found, the court should act relatively deferentially by employing a lenient standard of scrutiny and approving a settlement if it has a rational basis. An intermediate level of scrutiny should apply when the settlement presents facial issues that implicate the fairness of the settlement. Such facial issues include the allocation of settlement proceeds among subgroups in a class, the presence of coupon-type relief, "shotgun" settlements occurring very early in the litigation, and settlements in overlapping class actions. In settlements with one or more of these characteristics, if the initial inquiry raises concerns, the court should demand a well-reasoned explanation for the choices made. Finally, where the components of a settlement present a direct conflict between the interests of class counsel and those of the class issues, such as issues related to attorneys' fees, courts should employ exacting scrutiny and require convincing evidence that the proposal is reasonable.


Background and Objectives: Calorie restriction (CR) is one of the proven methods of extending lifespan and slowing aging. Leptin is a nutritionally regulated adipokine that has been proposed as a possible key signal in the adaptive responses relevant to CR. Under CR, plasma leptin levels decrease, thus it was hypothesized that leptin administration may counteract CR-induced weight loss. Therefore, the effect of leptin administration on modulating CR-induced alterations in some biomarkers of aging was investigated in a rat model. Materials and Methods: Fifty male Wistar rats were fed either ad libitum (AL) or 40% calorie restricted diet for 11 weeks. Then each group randomly assigned to receive 0.5 mg/kg/day intravenous leptin or saline, for 3 days. Fasting blood glucose, insulin, and leptin levels as well as body temperature were measured at the end of the treatment. Results: After CR, all variables including body weight, BMI, body temperature, serum levels of glucose, insulin and leptin decreased significantly compared to the AL group. After 3 days of leptin treatment, no statistically significant differences were observed in body weight, BMI, serum glucose and insulin levels compared to the saline treatment. Body temperature did not change after leptin administration in CR subgroups, but it was significantly higher in AL-leptin compared to AL-saline group. Conclusions: Based on these findings, administration of recombinant leptin was not effective in modulating the alterations of aging biomarkers induced by calorie restriction.


This paper presents an efficient layout-level synthesis approach for RF planar on-chip spiral inductors. A spiral inductor is modeled using artificial neural networks in which the layout design parameters, namely, spiral outer diameter, number of turns, width of metal traces, and metal spacing, are taken as input. Inductance, quality factor (Q), and self-resonance frequency (SRF) form the output of the neural model. Particle-swarm optimization is used to explore the layout space to achieve a given target inductance meeting the SRF and other constraints. Our synthesis approach provides multiple sets of layout parameters that help a designer in the tradeoff analysis between conflicting objectives, such as area, Q, and SRF for a target-inductance value. We present several synthesis results which show good accuracy with respect to full-wave electromagnetic (EM) simulations. Since the proposed procedure does not require an EM simulation in the synthesis loop, it substantially reduces the cycle time in RF-circuit design optimization.


Cell death can proceed through at least two distinct pathways. Apoptosis is an energy-dependent process characterized morphologically by cell shrinkage, whereas oncosis is a form of cell death induced by energy depletion and initially characterized by cell swelling. We demonstrate in HeLa cells but not in normal diploid fibroblasts that modest increases in the expression level of uncoupling protein 2 (UCP-2) leads to a rapid and dramatic fall in mitochondrial membrane potential and to a reduction of mitochondrial NADH and intracellular ATP. In HeLa cells, increased UCP-2 expression leads to a form of cell death that is not inhibited by the anti-apoptotic gene product Bcl-2 and that morphologically resembles cellular oncosis. We further describe the creation of a dominant interfering mutant of UCP-2 whose expression increases resting mitochondrial membrane potential and selectively increases the resistance to cell death following oncotic but not apoptotic stimuli. These results suggest that distinct genetic programs may regulate the cellular response to either apoptotic or oncotic stimuli.


Purpose: The present article aims to identify the possible line managers' involvement factors in human resource (HR) initiatives and its 'linking pin' to the HR roles. In this regard, few factors have been considered pertinent to line managers' involvement factors in HR initiatives which are desire, self-efficacy, and HR support. Whereas, the considered dimensions of HR roles reviewed are strategic partner, change agent, employee champion, and administrative expert. Design/methodology/ approach : The paper intends to provide a conceptual review of the past literature in the areas of HR roles and line managers and further justify the proposed conceptual framework that will move this work further. Findings: The review also showed that HR devolution to line managers will boost line managers' participation and responsibility to practice HR roles at the workplace. Research limitations/implications: The main limitation of this review is no empirical evidence provided by the authors to support the literature of the article. All the provided literature is written based on the findings gained from the previous studies. Practical implications: Line managers' involvement in HR Initiatives can increase the competency diversity among line manager. This in turn can help the organization to operate at high efficiency. Originality/value: There is a notable lack of research conducted to identify line managers' involvement in HR. Therefore, this article contributes to the literature on the relationship between line managers and HR roles.


For eight Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia & Montenegro, and Slovenia) the welfare cost of tariff protection on imports of goods based on recent years tariff data (2001 to 2003) is computed. The computation is based on a partial equilibrium framework with constant elasticity demands and perfect substitutes with a compilation of 6000 tariff lines. The focus on the import market allows to identify tariff peaks but the welfare loss of protection is concentrated in a small set of products, namely food products, tobacco, textiles and agriculture. With a simulated extrapolation to imports of services and when the administrative cost of tax collection is taken into account, the welfare cost is equal, on average, to 0.7% of GDP, that is $ 0.9 billion ($ 18 per capita). In Romania, the highest protection deals with intermediate goods and capital goods -as in import substitution policies used in the past by developing countries- strengthening the perverse effect of trade policy on economic growth.


Abstract This article explores the recent rise in prominence of for-profit higher education in the United States by examining the historical and social forces including changing social and economic values that favor commercial ventures and marketplace solutions along with shifts in government policy that prompted the current popularity and growth of the for-profit sector. From a theoretical perspective, conflict theory provides the most compelling explanation of the recent popularity of for-profits as pro-business elites mobilized not only to promote these schools but also to change perceptions of higher education itself. The article also examines for-profits in terms of the credentialing system and how for-profit institutions have attempted to mesh with and utilize the system to their advantage, which also helps to explain their growth and popularity. Perhaps the most significant and controversial development in American higher education in the past two decades has been the rise of the for-profit college and university. Approximately 10 percent of post-secondary students now attend a for-profit institution in what has become a $48 billion a year industry (Blumenstyk 2005b). The U.S. Department of Education now lists over 800 for-profits that have received state, regional, or professional accreditation and many grant degrees from the associate to the doctoral level. Although the degree granting/accredited sector is still small accounting for about 2.5 percent of the total college enrollments, its growth rate has been impressive - approximately 8 percent a year compared to 2 percent for higher education as a whole (Blumenstyk 2005a). In addition, they are beginning to provide competition for the traditional non-profit sector in certain student niches. The best known of the for-profits is the University of Phoenix, which claims to be the largest private university in the country with nearly 300,000 students enrolled. These kinds of numbers have certainly caused the traditional academic world and Wall Street to take notice. Indeed, any number of articles and books have appeared that attempt to analyze the growing prominence of for-profits. Much of the research that has been conducted has tended to take an economic, educational, or business approach to understanding the phenomena (Berg 2005; Kelly 2001; Kirp 2003; Ruch 2001; Winston 1999). It is not that this research is not valuable, the problem is that for the most part it has not addressed the larger historical and social forces involved that could provide a more comprehensive understanding. To do so, this article will briefly examine the past history of for-profits and utilize Durkheim's (1977) basic insight that educational systems change and ultimately reflect the dominant values of a society during a given historical period. I will then analyze the contemporary situation paying particular attention to the changing political environment in Washington that has benefited for-profits. Finally, the last section of the paper will examine how for-profits have attempted to fit into the credentialing system of higher education. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES To further enhance our understanding of the current for-profit phenomena, the article will intertwine the historical and more contemporary analysis with the relevant theoretical perspectives. For example, functionalist theorists argue that higher education improves opportunities by providing knowledge and skills, which allows individuals to become more productive and successful members of a society, and, in the process, allows modern societies to operate more smoothly (Parsons 1959). The functionalist position raises an important question which is explored in this article. Specifically, does for-profit higher education improve the opportunities and earnings potential of those students attending these institutions? In contrast to functionalism, cultural and social reproduction theorists believe that the ultimate purpose of education is to reproduce the social class structure. …


Congressional Republicans have called for restructuring Medicaid, reviving a debate that has largely remained dormant for two decades. During the mid-1990s, Congress and President Clinton advanced competing Medicaid reform proposals. Republicans urged that the federal government issue Medicaid block grants to states. The White House and congressional Democrats proposed instead to place per capita limits on federal Medicaid payments to states. The most salient difference between these approaches is that per capita allotments retain the individual entitlement to Medicaid while block grants generally do not. Today, Republicans who once resisted Medicaid per capita allotments support them, and Democrats who backed such allotments oppose them. Given this legislative history, policymakers seeking common ground might look to Medicaid per capita allotments as a point of departure.


We study the problem of aggregation of Dung's abstract argumentation frameworks. Some operators for this aggregation have been proposed, as well as some rationality properties for this process. In this work we study the existing operators and new ones that we propose in light of the proposed properties, highlighting the fact that existing operators do not satisfy a lot of these properties. The conclusions are that on one hand none of the existing operators seem fully satisfactory, but on the other hand some of the properties proposed so far seem also too demanding.


Longitudinal studies on associations between changes in living environment and health are few and focus on movers. Next to causal effects, differences in health between living environments can, however, result due to residential mobility. The present study explored changes in living environment related to (changes in) physical health among movers and non-movers. Causality was reinforced by a novel study design. We obtained longitudinal data on both living environment and physical health covering 4,373 participants with 12,403 health observations aged 50+ from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) between 1999 and 2014. Changing and stable perceived living environmental characteristics from four domains (infrastructure, environmental pollution, housing conditions, contacts to neighbours) were included at household level. Gender-specific linear regressions and generalised estimating equations were performed to predict the Physical Component Summary (PCS) at baseline and changes in PCS over time. We found that worsening of environmental pollution (men: -2.32, p = 0.001; women: -1.68, p = 0.013) and housing conditions were associated with lower PCS at baseline. Improved infrastructure was related to lower women's PCS at baseline (-1.94; p = 0.004) but a positive PCS development (0.62, p = 0.095) thereafter among female and especially among female non-movers (0.812, p = 0.042). Men who experienced stable worst (-0.57, p = 0.021) or worsened environmental pollution (-0.81, p = 0.036) indicated a negative developing PCS. These results were particularly strong among non-movers. We showed that changes in infrastructure and environmental pollution were associated with health developments. Due to our methodological approach – imposing a strict time order between cause and outcome while controlling for time-varying individual characteristics - it appears that these associations are indeed causal.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Cardiovascular (CV) disease causes significant morbidity and mortality among the hemodialysis (HD) population. This meta-analysis was performed to determine whether angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) reduce fatal and nonfatal CV events and left ventricular (LV) mass in patients receiving HD.

DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS
Studies were identified by searching electronic databases, bibliographies, and conference proceedings. Two reviewers independently selected randomized controlled trials using ACEIs or ARBs compared with control among patients receiving HD. Studies were independently assessed for inclusion, quality, and data extraction. Random-effects models were used to estimate the pooled relative risk (RR) for CV outcomes and the weighted mean difference (WMD) for pooled change-from-baseline comparisons for LV mass for ACEI or ARB treated patients compared with control.

RESULTS
Compared with control, the RR of CV events associated with ACEI or ARB use was 0.66 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.35 to 1.25; P = 0.20]. ACEI or ARB use resulted in a statistically significant reduction in LV mass, with a WMD of 15.4 g/m(2) (95% CI 7.4 to 23.3; P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
Treatment with an ACEI or ARB reduced LV mass in patients receiving HD. However, their use was not associated with a statistically significant reduction in the risk of fatal and nonfatal CV events. Larger, high-quality trials in the HD population are required to determine if the effects of ACEI or ARB therapy on LV mass translate into decreased CV morbidity and mortality.


There is increasing evidence that some glutamatergic drugs could have antidepressant effects. Ketamine as a promising prototype for novel glutamatergic antidepressants has a much faster onset of action and is possibly more efficacious than standard antidepressants.1 Two recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses assessed the antidepressant efficacy (including modes of administration, duration of effect and adverse effects) of ketamine and other glutamate receptor modulators in the treatment of unipolar depression (Caddy et al ,2 in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews), and, more generally, in mood disorders (Newport et al ,3 in the American Journal of Psychiatry).

In their review, Caddy et al conducted searches of the Cochrane Depression, Anxiety and Neurosis Review Group's Specialised Register , which includes relevant randomised controlled trials (RCTs) mainly from the Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE and PsycINFO. Additionally, they searched the WHO's trials portal (ICTRP) and ClinicalTrials.gov to identify unpublished or ongoing studies up to January 2015, and contacted authors to request additional trial data. The primary outcomes for this study were response rate and adverse events. Secondary outcomes included remission rate, mean end point scores or mean change scores, suicidality and drop-out rates. They included trials recruiting participants with treatment-resistant unipolar depression (except for one in the trial of Berman et al ) with all interventions as either monotherapy or combined with other treatments. Of note, the review of Caddy et al belongs to one of a pair of Cochrane reviews, which focuses on glutamate receptor modulators in bipolar disorder (BD).3 The authors rigorously assessed each trial for all potential sources of bias, namely, selection bias, performance bias, detection bias, attribution bias, reporting bias and other bias. They considered only data from the first phase of cross-over trials, calculated response rates out of the total number of randomised participants and applied …


A series of laboratory experiments were conducted to examine the optical properties of the marine diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana for a broad range of growth rates (µ from 0.22 to 2 d−1) under temperature‐, nitrogen‐, and light‐limited conditions. The effects of temperature and nitrogen limitation on spectral absorption cross‐sections expressed on a per cell basis, σa(λ), were similar. With the reduction in growth rate, σa at a light wavelength λ = 674 nm showed an equivalent decrease regardless of whether the cells were limited by temperature or nitrogen. The effect of growth irradiance was distinctively different, since σa increased with light limitation. The chlorophyll a (Chl a)—specific absorption coefficient showed the opposite trends than those of σa. These patterns resulted primarily from the acclimative strategies of T. pseudonana involving an increase in Chl a content in response to light limitation and a decrease in Chl a under temperature and nitrogen limitation. The scattering cross‐sections, σb(λ), and carbon‐specific scattering coefficients, b*c(λ), were generally not a strong function of growth rate with the exception of lower values of b*c for light‐limited cells. While T. pseudonana exhibited some changes in cell size, variations in the refractive index had the major influence on cell optical properties. The imaginary part of the refractive index (at λ = 674 nm) showed a strong correlation with intracellular Chl a concentration, and the real part of the refractive index (at λ = 660 nm) was correlated with the intracellular carbon concentration. Our results indicate that integrated studies of the effects of various environmental factors such as light, nutrients, and temperature are needed to adequately describe optical variability in phytoplankton.


This paper tests the Purchasing Power Parity Theory of Exchange Rates dealing with Argentinean data for the period 1900-2006. This is equivalent to testing if the Real Exchange Rate is a stationary variable or if its components (the nominal exchange rate and the relative prices) are cointegrated. Since most works study developed countries or developing countries but with short span data, this paper aims to fill a gap in the wide PPP literature by studding a developing country with a long-run approach. This country is particularly interesting since during 20 th century "Argentine economic performance tells a story of decline unparalleled in modern times" (Taylor 1992). The downfall of this once developed country has probably affected the behavior of its RER and the validity of PPP. To check this, we use a wide set of econometric techniques and found that the PPP theory is not verified in Argentina, since its RER appears as a non-stationary variable, and there is no evidence of cointegration between the nominal exchange rate and the relative prices. In particular, the Argentinean RER appears to be trend-stationary under structural breaks with a continuous real depreciation of the Argentinean currency, especially in the first half of XX century, which is consistent with theories that relate the secular impoverishment of a country with the depreciation of its RER, as the Balassa-Samuelson effect.


A novel conducting polymer-based electrochromic device is proposed with single walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) employment in gel electrolyte. Electrochemical film deposition on indium tin oxide substrates were governed and monitored via cyclic-voltametry. Construction details of the proposed device are presented with its optimized parameters and SWCNT doping caused a noteworthy enhancement in efficiency and stability of the device performance. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2009. © 2009 Society of Plastics Engineers


Stomata, microscopic pores on a leaf flanked with flexible guard cells that open and close the stomatal opening, account for 95% of terrestrial movement of water vapor and carbon essential to the survival of plants. The climate crisis is challenging plants with elevated CO2, drought, varying soil salinity, varying soil acidity, and increasing temperature. While research has been done on how stomata respond to elevated CO2 alone, markedly less research has been done on the effect of elevated CO2 in combination with other environmental factors. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the effects of elevated CO2 in combination with other environmental factors on stomatal density, size, and conductance in radish, barley, tomato, and buckwheat. A controlled experiment with these plants and six conditions (Control, Elevated CO2, Elevated CO2 + Salinity, Elevated CO2 + Acidity, Elevated CO2 + Temperature, and Elevated CO2 + Drought) was conducted, and data was collected. The results trend towards a decrease in stomatal density, stomatal area, and potential conductance index (PCI) in the elevated CO2 conditions compared to the control conditions. Additionally, our results suggest that the other four conditions do not amplify the effect of elevated CO2 levels alone. Overall, results showed variation in data among the tested plants, suggesting that making generalizations about the impact of CO2in combination with other environmental factors is risky. Thus, further research on the effects of multiple environmental conditions on stomatal characteristics is warranted to determine the impact on agriculture adaptation and water management strategies.


Many genes can play a role in multiple biological processes or molecular functions. Identifying multifunctional genes at the genome-wide level and studying their properties can shed light upon the complexity of molecular events that underpin cellular functioning, thereby leading to a better understanding of the functional landscape of the cell. However, to date, genome-wide analysis of multifunctional genes (and the proteins they encode) has been limited. Here we introduce a computational approach that uses known functional annotations to extract genes playing a role in at least two distinct biological processes. We leverage functional genomics data sets for three organisms—H. sapiens, D. melanogaster, and S. cerevisiae—and show that, as compared to other annotated genes, genes involved in multiple biological processes possess distinct physicochemical properties, are more broadly expressed, tend to be more central in protein interaction networks, tend to be more evolutionarily conserved, and are more likely to be essential. We also find that multifunctional genes are significantly more likely to be involved in human disorders. These same features also hold when multifunctionality is defined with respect to molecular functions instead of biological processes. Our analysis uncovers key features about multifunctional genes, and is a step towards a better genome-wide understanding of gene multifunctionality.