BACKGROUND
Tibolone is a synthetic steroid used for the treatment of menopausal symptoms, on the basis of short-term data suggesting its efficacy. We considered the balance between the benefits and risks of tibolone.

OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of tibolone for treatment of postmenopausal and perimenopausal women.

SEARCH METHODS
In October 2015, we searched the Gynaecology and Fertility Group (CGF) Specialised Register, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, Embase and PsycINFO (from inception), the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) and clinicaltrials.gov. We checked the reference lists in articles retrieved.

SELECTION CRITERIA
We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing tibolone versus placebo, oestrogens and/or combined hormone therapy (HT) in postmenopausal and perimenopausal women.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
We used standard methodological procedures of The Cochrane Collaboration. Primary outcomes were vasomotor symptoms, unscheduled vaginal bleeding and long-term adverse events. We evaluated safety outcomes and bleeding in studies including women either with or without menopausal symptoms.

MAIN RESULTS
We included 46 RCTs (19,976 women). Most RCTs evaluated tibolone for treating menopausal vasomotor symptoms. Some had other objectives, such as assessment of bleeding patterns, endometrial safety, bone health, sexuality and safety in women with a history of breast cancer. Two included women with uterine leiomyoma or lupus erythematosus. Tibolone versus placebo Vasomotor symptomsTibolone was more effective than placebo (standard mean difference (SMD) -0.99, 95% confidence interval (CI) -1.10 to -0.89; seven RCTs; 1657 women; moderate-quality evidence), but removing trials at high risk of attrition bias attenuated this effect (SMD -0.61, 95% CI -0.73 to -0.49; odds ratio (OR) 0.33, 85% CI 0.27 to 0.41). This suggests that if 67% of women taking placebo experience vasomotor symptoms, between 35% and 45% of women taking tibolone will do so. Unscheduled bleedingTibolone was associated with greater likelihood of bleeding (OR 2.79, 95% CI 2.10 to 3.70; nine RCTs; 7814 women; I2 = 43%; moderate-quality evidence). This suggests that if 18% of women taking placebo experience unscheduled bleeding, between 31% and 44% of women taking tibolone will do so. Long-term adverse eventsMost of the studies reporting these outcomes provided follow-up of two to three years (range three months to three years). Breast cancerWe found no evidence of differences between groups among women with no history of breast cancer (OR 0.52, 95% CI 0.21 to 1.25; four RCTs; 5500 women; I2= 17%; very low-quality evidence). Among women with a history of breast cancer, tibolone was associated with increased risk (OR 1.5, 95% CI 1.21 to 1.85; two RCTs; 3165 women; moderate-quality evidence). Cerebrovascular eventsWe found no conclusive evidence of differences between groups in cerebrovascular events (OR 1.74, 95% CI 0.99 to 3.04; four RCTs; 7930 women; I2 = 0%; very low-quality evidence). We obtained most data from a single RCT (n = 4506) of osteoporotic women aged 60 to 85 years, which was stopped prematurely for increased risk of stroke. Other outcomesEvidence on other outcomes was of low or very low quality, with no clear evidence of any differences between the groups. Effect estimates were as follows:• Endometrial cancer: OR 2.04, 95% CI 0.79 to 5.24; nine RCTs; 8504 women; I2 = 0%.• Cardiovascular events: OR 1.38, 95% CI 0.84 to 2.27; four RCTs; 8401 women; I2 = 0%.• Venous thromboembolic events: OR 0.85, 95% CI 0.37 to 1.97; 9176 women; I2 = 0%.• Mortality from any cause: OR 1.06, 95% CI 0.79 to 1.41; four RCTs; 8242 women; I2 = 0%. Tibolone versus combined HT Vasomotor symptomsCombined HT was more effective than tibolone (SMD 0.17, 95% CI 0.06 to 0.28; OR 1.36, 95% CI 1.11 to 1.66; nine studies; 1336 women; moderate-quality evidence). This result was robust to a sensitivity analysis that excluded trials with high risk of attrition bias, suggesting a slightly greater disadvantage of tibolone (SMD 0.25, 95% CI 0.09 to 0.41; OR 1.57, 95% CI 1.18 to 2.10). This suggests that if 7% of women taking combined HT experience vasomotor symptoms, between 8% and 14% of women taking tibolone will do so. Unscheduled bleedingTibolone was associated with a lower rate of bleeding (OR 0.32, 95% CI 0.24 to 0.41; 16 RCTs; 6438 women; I2 = 72%; moderate-quality evidence). This suggests that if 47% of women taking combined HT experience unscheduled bleeding, between 18% and 27% of women taking tibolone will do so. Long-term adverse eventsMost studies reporting these outcomes provided follow-up of two to three years (range three months to three years). Evidence was of very low quality, with no clear evidence of any differences between the groups. Effect estimates were as follows:• Endometrial cancer: OR 1.47, 95% CI 0.23 to 9.33; five RCTs; 3689 women; I2 = 0%.• Breast cancer: OR 1.69, 95% CI 0.78 to 3.67; five RCTs; 4835 women; I2 = 0%.• Venous thromboembolic events: OR 0.44, 95% CI 0.09 to 2.14; four RCTs; 4529 women; I2 = 0%.• Cardiovascular events: OR 0.63, 95% CI 0.24 to 1.66; two RCTs; 3794 women; I2 = 0%.• Cerebrovascular events: OR 0.76, 95% CI 0.16 to 3.66; four RCTs; 4562 women; I2 = 0%.• Mortality from any cause: only one event reported (two RCTs; 970 women).

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Moderate-quality evidence suggests that tibolone is more effective than placebo but less effective than HT in reducing menopausal vasomotor symptoms, and that tibolone is associated with a higher rate of unscheduled bleeding than placebo but with a lower rate than HT.Compared with placebo, tibolone increases recurrent breast cancer rates in women with a history of breast cancer, and may increase stroke rates in women over 60 years of age. No evidence indicates that tibolone increases the risk of other long-term adverse events, or that it differs from HT with respect to long-term safety.Much of the evidence was of low or very low quality. Limitations included high risk of bias and imprecision. Most studies were financed by drug manufacturers or failed to disclose their funding source.


Safety-critical software systems need to meet exceptionally strict standards in terms of dependability. Best practice to achieve this is to follow and develop the software according to domain specific standards. These standards give guidelines on development and testing activities. The challenge is that even if you follow the steps of the appropriate standard you have no quantification of the amount of faults potentially still lingering in the system. This paper presents a way to statistically estimate the amount of undetected faults, based on test results.


This paper contributes to the literature on international stock market comovements and contagion. The novelty of our approach lies in the application of wavelet tools to high-frequency financial market data, which allows us to understand the relationship between stock markets in the time-frequency domain. While a major part of economic time series analysis is done in the time or frequency domain separately, wavelet analysis combines these two fundamental approaches. Wavelet techniques uncover interesting dynamics of the correlations between Central and Eastern European (CEE) stock markets and the German DAX at various investment horizons. The results indicate that the connection of the CEE markets to the leading market of the region is significantly lower at higher frequencies than at lower frequencies. Contrary to previous literature, we document significantly lower contagion between the CEE markets and the German DAX after the large 2008 stock market crash.


Objective: To analyze the impact of study selection on the results of a recently published meta-analysis of the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin (AZI) in Covid-19 patients.
Methods: 31 studies were reviewed looking for critical bias. Combined hazard ratios and confidence intervals were calculated for both treatments using a fixed effects size model and a random effects model. Quantitative analysis regarding the toxicity of the association HCQ plus AZI is made.
Results: Meta-analyses performed on the 11 studies we deem critically unbiased show a mortality reduction of 55% for HCQ and 66% for HCQ plus AZI. For both treatments, our meta-analysis indicates a significant efficacy in reducing mortality in hospitalized Covid-19 patients.


In recent years, it has become clear that management education needs to be more effective and relevant for management practice. In order to improve the effectiveness of management education, alternative teaching methods are designed such as case studies and action learning. However, these methods have so far only proved to be useful in an educational setting. Moreover, they can not deal with knowledge that learner can acquire only through a practice in a company. As a result, there is still a gap between management education and management practice.

The gap is especially significant when focusing only on the main purpose of educational organizations and companies, i.e., education and profitable business respectively. It is important to consider secondary functions to close that gap: both organizations have a common function to develop human resource. Recent research on human resource development in companies reported that it is essential to have several stakeholders not only inside a company (e.g. bosses, colleagues and subordinates), but also from other organizations (e.g. personal advisor, family and friends). In management education, educational organizations and companies can be viewed as stakeholders in developing managers. Therefore, it makes sense to link educational organizations and companies from a career development perspective.

In this paper, a novel approach, based on social network theory, is proposed to improve the effectiveness of management education. It incorporates educational organizations and companies into one network. The network allows clarifying the role of educational organizations and companies in the learning process. The advantage of the inter-organizational network is that educational organizations and companies can keep their function in education and business respectively while cooperatively supporting the learner. Therefore, the network enables the learner to simultaneously obtain training in the educational setting and in the managerial environment. In other words, inter-organizational networks can foster relevant and practical managerial knowledge.

To verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach, two concrete management education programs are investigated. One is a management of technology program lead by an academic research institute. The other is a management training program lead by a private educational organization. Both programs are designed by educational organizations, not by companies. In both programs, learners are asked to find solutions for managerial problems in companies that dispatched the learner.
Through those investigations, it was observed that learners who made full use of the program experienced two types of learning: (A) independent learning, directed and conducted by the learner; (B) interactive learning through interactions between learner, educators and people in a company. In independent learning, learners consider solutions for their managerial problem, apply those solutions, and reflect on the obtained results for further improvement. In addition to this trial-and-error process, learners often require appropriate advice and feedback; they acquire the latter by interactive learning, i.e., by discussions with the other partners in the network. Most importantly, the involved educational organizations and companies were fully aware of the necessity of both types of learning and therefore, they supported the learning process each from their own position in the network.

The inter-organizational network supports and enhances both types of learning. Concretely, educational organizations provide educational contents, such as management theory and tools, whereas companies provide opportunities to apply the educational contents in a realistic management environment. The learners benefits from feedback from both organizations. While feedback from educational organization is usually more generalized and abstract, feedback from company is often focused on effectiveness in business. As a consequence, the learner can conveniently customize the educational contents to practical managerial knowledge by learning in inter-organizational network.


A large number of mineral water springs occur in the Pliocene-Pleistocene foredeep of Abruzzo and Molise regions (central-southern Italy). The waters are characterised by sodium-chloride, sulphate-sodium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, sodium sulphate, with no dominant ions. Water has been analysed from 880 wells, 3 mud volcano fields and 28 springs occurring along alluvial valleys (fig. 1). High-salinity water can be found in 50 sites, including 39 wells, 8 springs and 3 small mud volcanoes. Water salinity (fig. 6 and table 1) ranges from 0.8 to 38.6 mS/cm, depending on seasons and on geological setting of the water discharge. Waters from Pliocene-Pleistocene clay outcrops and from springs or wells in complex formations of Varicolor clay, generally show higher salinity than those occurring in the alluvial plains, due to the lower dilution with alluvial aquifers. A preliminary comparative analysis of hydrochemical data (Piper, 1944; D9Amore et alii, 1983), geological setting and isotopic data of 18 O and 2 H suggested 4 main water groups (figs. 6 and 8). Group "A" includes sodium-chloride rich waters with Na/Cl and Br/Cl ratio (figs. 7a and 7c) close to seawater, with low sulphate concentration. These waters usually discharge in correspondence with structural highs and nappes (Desiderio et alii, 2001a) where Pliocene compressive stresses produced brines. In some cases waters reach the surface through outcropping or blind tectonic discontinuities. The Pliocene-Pleistocene sequence is, in fact, characterised by NW-SE (Apennine) and NE-SW faults which may act as preferential pathways of fluid migration (saline waters and gases; Nanni & Vivalda, 1999a; Etiope et alii, 2003). Group "B" includes sodium-chloride water with high sulphate content, generally above the typical concentration of seawater. Sulphate enrichment is due to mixing processes between Pliocene brines and shallower gypsum deposits. Group "C" includes calcium-sulphate waters with no dominant ions. These waters have been detected in wells and springs occurring south of Pescara river and in correspondence with the Alanno structural high (fig. 12), where gypsum deposits either outcrop or occur at shallow depth. The water chemistry results from the mixing of shallow and deep circuits, where the high calcium-sulphate content is related to Messinian evaporites occurring at different depths, also within the complex formation of Varicolor clay. Group "D" includes sodium-bicarbonate waters resulting from the mixing between saline waters and surface calcium-bicarbonate waters, deriving from circulation in eluvial, colluvial and alluvial deposits. All the waters investigated fall along the theoretical curve of seawater evaporation-dilution (fig. 7; Collins, 1970; 1975; Carpenter, 1978). Deviations from the curve can be related to geological and hydrogeological factors, at the discharge sites, facilitating the mixing between deep saline and surface waters. The first isotopic results (table 4 and fig. 14) confirm the recognition of the four groups in terms of different mixing degree. In particular, higher 18 O and 2 H values are related to "A" waters coming from the deep brines. "D" waters show the lowest isotopic values as a result of shallower and surface water input. Isotopic signatures of "B" and "C" are intermediate.


This paper proposes a design for IP multicast routing in hybrid satellite networks. The emergence of IP multicast for Internet group communication has placed focus on communication satellites as an efficient way to extend the multicast services for groups with distributed membership in wide-area networks. This poses interesting challenges for routing. Hybrid satellite networks can have both wired and wireless links and also combine different link-layer technologies like Ethernet and ATM. No proposed IP multicast routing protocol for wired networks offers an integrated solution for such networks. This paper attempts to provide a solution by proposing a design for IP multicast routing in wide-area networks that have terrestrial Ethernet LANs interconnected by A TM-based satellite channels. The paper reviews the multicast services offered by IP and A TM, and proposes a multicast routing framework that combines PIM-SM protocol for terrestrial multicasting with the A TM MARS and VC mesh architecture for multicast routing over the satellite links. Modifications are made to the standard protocols to suit the unique needs of the network being considered. The feasibility of the proposed design is tested by performing simulations. The proposed framework is presented in detail, along with analysis and simulation results.


Many environmental benefits accrue from reducing tillage and increasing crop diversity; however, economic factors often encourage the continued use of intensive tillage and specialized crop production. This study examined crop yields, input costs, and economic returns during the transition to a range of cropping system alternatives in the northern Corn Belt region, including different system (organic, conventional), tillage (conventional, strip-tillage), rotation (corn-soybean, corn-soybean-wheat/alfalfa-alfalfa) [Zea mays L., Glycine max (L.) Merr., Triticum aestivum L., Medicago sativa L.], and fertility (no fertilizer/manure, fertilizer/manure applied at recommended rates) treatments. Increasing crop diversity and reducing tillage intensity reduced total costs by$24-102 ha -1 within conventional treatments, and $16-107 ha -1 within organic treatments. Yields of corn, soybean, and wheat were more than 15% lower when using organic vs. the highest yielding conventional practices. Treatments receiving fertilizer or manure had wheat yields more than 0.3 Mg ha -1 and alfalfa yields 2.7 Mg ha -1 higher than treatments that did not receive fertilizer or manure. Within conventional systems, no significant differences in the 4-yr net present value of net returns were detected for tillage and rotation alternatives. Net present values for the organic systems without organic price premiums were at least $692 ha -1 lower than for the best conventional systems suggesting a barrier to the adoption of these systems should organic price premiums decline. However, when organic price premiums were included, most organic treatments had net present values comparable to or exceeding those from conventional treatments.


To begin to evaluate the influence that proteoglycans may have on the success of Schwann cell (SC) transplants to induce axonal regrowth across a complete transection lesion and beyond, we determined the pattern of expression of inhibitory chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (CSPGs) 3 weeks after transplantation into completely transected adult rat thoracic spinal cord. Using immunohistochemistry, we observed that: (1) CSPGs recognized by CS-56 antibody are present on astrocytes, fibroblasts, and SCs in the distal graft, and at lesion and cystic cavity borders; (2) CS-56 immunoreactivity (IR) is greater at the caudal SC graft-host cord interface than the rostral interface; (3) phosphacan-IR, also greater at the caudal interface, is associated with astrocytes, fibroblasts, as yet unidentified cells, and extracellular matrix; (4) neurocan-IR is present on astrocytes and as yet unidentified cells in grey and white matter; and (5) NG2-IR is associated with matrix near SC grafts, unidentified cells mainly in white matter, and lesion borders and cysts. Neither oligodendrocytes nor activated macrophages/microglia were immunostained. In sum, the CSPGs studied are increased at 3 weeks, especially at the caudal SC graft-cord interface, possibly contributing to an inhibitory molecular barrier that precludes regrowing descending axons from entering the caudal host cord.


Genomic selection (GS) uses genomewide molecular markers to predict breeding values and make selections of individuals or breeding lines prior to phenotyping. Here we show that genotyping‐by‐sequencing (GBS) can be used for de novo genotyping of breeding panels and to develop accurate GS models, even for the large, complex, and polyploid wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genome. With GBS we discovered 41,371 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in a set of 254 advanced breeding lines from CIMMYT's semiarid wheat breeding program. Four different methods were evaluated for imputing missing marker scores in this set of unmapped markers, including random forest regression and a newly developed multivariate‐normal expectation‐maximization algorithm, which gave more accurate imputation than heterozygous or mean imputation at the marker level, although no significant differences were observed in the accuracy of genomic‐estimated breeding values (GEBVs) among imputation methods. Genomic‐estimated breeding value prediction accuracies with GBS were 0.28 to 0.45 for grain yield, an improvement of 0.1 to 0.2 over an established marker platform for wheat. Genotyping‐by‐sequencing combines marker discovery and genotyping of large populations, making it an excellent marker platform for breeding applications even in the absence of a reference genome sequence or previous polymorphism discovery. In addition, the flexibility and low cost of GBS make this an ideal approach for genomics‐assisted breeding.


Ubiquitin ligases with established roles in dictating cell polarity have been identified as components of the planar cell polarity pathway. Planar cell polarity (PCP) orients cells within polarized epithelia, such as the stereocilia of hair cells in the cochlea. Animals with mutations in the PCP pathway also exhibit defects in convergent extension (CE), a process in which cells simultaneously migrate and intercalate to elongate the embryo along the anteroposterior axis. Narimatsu et al. found that the ubiquitin ligases Smurf1 (Smad ubiquitination regulatory factor 1) and Smurf2, which have been previously shown to regulate cell polarity downstream of Par6, have additional roles in PCP. Some mouse embryos lacking both Smurf1 and Smurf2 (Smurf DKO) had open neural tubes and displayed CE defects reminiscent of mutants in the PCP pathway. Mice lacking three of the four Smurf alleles had less severe neural tube and CE defects than Smurf DKO mice; however, the stereocilia in the cochlea of Smurf1–/–;Smurf2+/– and Smurf1+/–;Smurf2+/– mice, unlike those in wild-type mice, were unaligned. The Wnt receptor Frizzled and its intracellular effector Dishevelled (Dvl) are crucial for establishing PCP. Biochemical assays showed that Smurf1 and Smurf2 interacted with phosphorylated, but not unphosphorylated, Dvl2 but that Par6 interacted with both wild-type and a phosphorylation-deficient Dvl2 mutant, suggesting that activated, phosphorylated Dvl2 recruits Smurf1 or Smurf2 to Par6. Accordingly, Wnt5A treatment (which would be expected to activate Dvl2) was required to coprecipitate Par6 with Smurf2 from human mammary carcinoma cells. Prickle 1 (Pk1), which displays a subcellular distribution opposite to that of Dvl and antagonizes Dvl-mediated signaling, associated with both wild-type Par6 and a mutant unable to bind Dvl2 (Par6Δ250-295). In human embryonic kidney cells, proteosomal degradation of Pk1 increased when wild-type, but not catalytically inactive, Smurf2 was cotransfected, whereas it decreased with the cotransfection of Par6Δ250-295, suggesting that Dvl2 binding to Par6 is a prerequisite for Smurf-mediated degradation of Pk1. This degradation appeared to be involved in determining the subcellular localization of Pk1, because the asymmetric distribution of Pk1 in sensory hair and neuroepithelial cells in wild-type mice was lost in Smurf DKO mice. Moreover, mouse embryos expressing the Par6Δ250-295 mutant had CE defects and diffuse Pk1 localization similar to that seen in the Smurf DKO mice. In his commentary, Mlodzik notes that ubiquitination and proteosomal degradation may help to explain the antagonistic nature between signaling modules in the PCP pathway. M. Narimatsu, R. Bose, M. Pye, L. Zhang, B. Miller, P. Ching, R. Sakuma, V. Luga, L. Roncari, L. Attisano, J. L. Wrana, Regulation of planar cell polarity by Smurf ubiquitin ligases. Cell 137, 295–307 (2009). [PubMed] M. Mlodzik, Ubiquitin connects with planar cell polarity. Cell 137, 209–211 (2009). [PubMed]


In recent years the world economy has been subject to large and unsyncronized changes in fiscal policies, high and volatile real rates of tnterest, large fluctuations in real exchange rates, and significant variations in private-sector spending. This paper reviews some of the key facts characterizing the effects of fiscal policies during the first half of the 1980s and provides a simple analytical framework suitable for the interpretation of these facts. The analytical framework builds on a two-country model of the world economy which is applied to the analysis of the transmission and effects of various changes in the time profile of taxes and of government spending. Generally, the predictions of the model concerning the relation among the intercountry patterns of consumption, long and short-term real rates of interest, real exchange rates and fiscal policies are consistent with the stylized facts.


Asset impairment accounting is a procedure that allows an abrupt decrease of a firm's asset value in case of severe damage. When impairment of the asset occurs, the firm has to decrease its value in the balance sheet and recognize a loss in the income statement. In Japan, many policymakers argued that enforcing such an accounting procedure during a period of severe economic downturn would decrease firms' collateral value and further deteriorate their procurement environment. In contrast, a number of theoretical and empirical studies emphasize the positive aspects of this accounting procedure. This paper examines these arguments by investigating the impact of the introduction of fixed asset impairment accounting on their capital investment and land transactions to find the following. first, there exists no significant difference in the capital investment and land purchases between firms that reported impaired asset losses and those that did not. Second, there exists no significant difference in the way unrealized asset losses affect capital investment between both sets of firms. Third, the land sales ratio is higher among firms that reported impaired losses, especially when they have increased their profit. The result is consistent with the firms'motivation to decrease their taxable income by selling land and realizing the capital losses once they have impaired losses in their balance sheets.


Abstract. Fine particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5  µm ( PM2.5 ) has been used as an important atmospheric
environmental parameter mainly because of its impact on human health. PM2.5 is affected by both natural and anthropogenic factors that
usually have strong diurnal variations. Such information helps toward understanding the causes of air pollution, as well as our adaptation to
it. Most existing PM2.5 products have been derived from polar-orbiting satellites. This study exploits the use of the next-generation
geostationary meteorological satellite Himawari-8/AHI (Advanced Himawari Imager) to document the diurnal variation in PM2.5 . Given the huge volume of satellite data,
based on the idea of gradient boosting, a highly efficient tree-based Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM) method by involving the
spatiotemporal characteristics of air pollution, namely the space-time LightGBM (STLG) model, is developed. An hourly PM2.5 dataset for
China (i.e., ChinaHigh PM2.5 ) at a 5  km spatial resolution is derived based on Himawari-8/AHI aerosol products with additional
environmental variables. Hourly PM2.5 estimates (number of data samples  =  1 415 188) are well correlated with ground measurements in
China (cross-validation coefficient of determination, CV- R2 =  0.85), with a root-mean-square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) of
13.62 and 8.49  µg m−3 , respectively. Our model captures well the PM2.5 diurnal variations showing that pollution increases
gradually in the morning, reaching a peak at about 10:00 LT (GMT + 8), then decreases steadily until sunset. The proposed approach outperforms most
traditional statistical regression and tree-based machine-learning models with a much lower computational burden in terms of speed and memory, making
it most suitable for routine pollution monitoring.


This paper presents a design optimization method for concrete slab forms. This procedure was formulated to provide a safe slab form design with minimum cost. The proposed method considers in its design process the cost of each slab form component (sheathing, joist, stringer, and steel shore) as well as all available combinations of slab form components. A case study is presented to show the capabilities of the proposed method and also to illustrate its potential cost savings over the slab form design practice in the State of Qatar. The study showed that the proposed design method has a substantial cost saving over the design practice currently used in the State of Qatar.


Background β-amyloid is regarded as a significant factor in Alzheimer's disease: but inefficient therapies based on this rationale suggests that additional signalling molecules or intermediary mechanisms must be involved in the actual initiation of the characteristic degeneration of neurons. One clue could be that acetylcholinesterase, also present in amyloid plaques, is aberrant in peripheral tissues such as blood and adrenal medulla that can be implicated in Alzheimer's disease. The aim of this study was to assess the bioactivity of a fragment of acetylcholinesterase responsible for its non-enzymatic functions, a thirty amino acid peptide ("T30") which has homologies with β-amyloid. Methods Cell viability was measured by sulforhodamine B assay and also lactate dehydrogenase assay: meanwhile, changes in the status of living cells was monitored by measuring release of acetylcholinesterase in cell perfusates using the Ellman reagent. Findings T30 peptide and β-amyloid each have toxic effects on PC12 cells, comparable to hydrogen peroxide. However only the two peptides selectively then evoke a subsequent, enhanced release in acetylcholinesterase that could only be derived from the extant cells. Moreover, unlike hydrogen peroxide, the T30 peptide selectively shifted a sub-threshold dose of β-amyloid to a toxic effect, which also resulted in a comparable enhanced release of acetylcholinesterase. Interpretation This is the first study comparing directly the bioactivity of β-amyloid with a peptide derived from acetylcholinesterase: the similarity in action suggests that the sequence homology between the two compounds might have a functional and/or pathological relevance. The subsequent enhanced release of acetylcholinesterase from the extant cells could reflect a primary 'compensatory' response of cells prone to degeneration, paradoxically providing further availability of the toxic C-terminal peptide to modulate the potency of β-amyloid. Such a cycle of events may provide new insights into the mechanism of continuing selective cell loss in Alzheimer's disease and related degenerative disorders.


In this paper, we propose an adaptive power distribution algorithm which aims at improving the spectral efficiency in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) under the condition that the target bit error rate (BER) should be maintained and the transmit power threshold should not be exceeded. This algorithm is based on an iterative mechanism. In every iteration, the power and the corresponding number of bits are distributed to the subcarrier at which there is a modulation mode demanding the minimum average incremental transmit power per incremental bit to guarantee the pre-designated bit error rate (BER) performance. The iterative procedure terminates once the transmit power threshold is reached. The performance investigations show the proposed adaptive power distribution algorithm always outperforms the scheme of equal power distribution in a large dynamic range of transmit power threshold. Moreover, the performance improvement is very large when the transmit power threshold is required to be low.


The contamination of waterways by environmental pollutants is of growing global concern. The bio-accumulative properties of these contaminants suggest long-term impacts on many species, even those not directly exposed. There is ample evidence of the presence of environmental contaminants within biological fluids of humans, but their effects on health are largely unknown. Understanding the extent of this problem is hampered by labour-intensive extraction techniques that require expensive instrumentation and highly specialised technical expertise. Due to the prohibitive nature of routine analysis, the occurrence of many of these compounds in New Zealand waterways is unknown. Thus, a robust, portable and sensitive biosensor is urgently needed to guide regulatory agencies worldwide. Aptamers are single-stranded nucleic acid molecules that can bind to a specific target molecule with high affinity. Whilst the use of aptamers presents a novel technology to monitor small molecule environmental contaminants, the generation of high affinity aptamers has been limited. The objectives of this PhD study were to: (1) measure key emerging organic contaminants (EOC's) in a selection of New Zealand waterways covering different land-use types; (2) generate and characterise aptamers that bind three key EOC's, namely glyphosate, nonylphenol and oxybenzone, and; (3) explore the evolutionary pathways that random nucleotide libraries follow when generating aptamers to a small molecule under different stringencies. A novel bioinformatics pipeline for the analysis of high throughput (HT) SELEX data from multiple selection strategies has been developed and implemented.  The conventional method of gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used to analyse water samples from waterways in the North Island of New Zealand. Technical nonylphenol equivalents and oxybenzone were detected above the minimum detection limit (7.5 ng/L and 0.5 ng/L respectively) at all sampled sites. Concentrations of nonylphenol exceeding environmental guidelines were detected in the Waiwhetu Stream, a small stream within an industrial area in Lower Hutt. The pesticide terbuthylazine was detected at all sampled sites with particular high concentrations in the Waiwhetu and Porirua Stream. Carbendazim (a fungicide) and hexazinone (a herbicide) were also highly prevalent being detected at 87.5% and 75% of sites respectively. Glyphosate was detected at 800 ng/L in both the Waiwhetu Stream and the Porirua Stream. In general, contaminant load was much higher in urban areas than rural or forested areas. These results indicate that EOCs are present in NZ waterways and are likely to be having an impact on aquatic species.  The selection of aptamers to three key EOC's was completed using standard (glyphosate and nonylphenol) and high-throughput (HT) (oxybenzone) SELEX methodologies. DNA aptamers for glyphosate and oxybenzone were successfully generated and characterised. The GLY04 (glyphosate) and OXY-ED7-C1 (oxybenzone) aptamers were characterised using micro-scale thermophoresis and exhibited a Kd of 158 and 107.5 nM, respectively. This is the first report of a glyphosate-binding aptamer in the literature. Attempts to generate a DNA aptamer for nonylphenol were unsuccessful. Whilst five aptamer candidates were generated through 20 rounds of selection, they did not show any evidence of binding to the target molecule.   A HT-SELEX approach was utilised to study the effect of different selection parameters on the same starting library during the generation of an oxybenzone aptamer. Six strategies, compared to a standard protocol, were assessed including mutation via error-prone PCR, increased washing volume, increased detergent concentration, higher incubation temperature and negative selection and counter selection. Within each strategy, the frequency and enrichment of candidates at each SELEX round was determined using a novel bioinformatics pipeline. On average, higher frequency candidates were present at the end of SELEX within strategies using higher stringency. Higher enrichment was also observed in the strategy using the most stringent conditions.   In summary, this PhD study presents a number of novel findings. The wide-scale presence of key EOC's in New Zealand waterways was determined. The generation of aptamers that bind to glyphosate and oxybenzone with a nanomolar affinity reveals that aptamers can be generated to such small molecules. This study also resulted in the development of a novel bioinformatics pipeline for HT-SELEX analysis that resulted in a number of recommendations on the design of such experiments. The findings presented herein highlight the possibilities and pitfalls of selecting future aptamers for EOC's and for implementing HT-SELEX experiments.


Abstract. In this work we present an analysis of the occurrence of nucleation events during more than three years of measurements at two different rural altitude sites, the puy de Dome research station (1465 m a.s.l.) and the Opme station (660 m a.s.l.), central France. The collected database is a unique combination of scanning mobility particle sizer (10–400 nm), air ion spectrometers (from 0.8 to 42 nm for NTP-conditions), and, neutral clusters and air ion spectrometers (from 0.8 to 42 nm for NTP-conditions) measurements at these two different altitudes nearly located research stations, from February 2007 to June 2010. The seasonality of the frequency of nucleation events was studied at the puy de Dome station and maximum of events frequency was found during early spring and early autumn. During the measurement period, neither the particle formation rates ( J 2 = 1.382 ± 0.195 s −1 ) nor the growth rates ( GR 1.3−20 nm = 6.20 ± 0.12 nm h −1 ) differ from one site to the other on average. Hovewer, we found that, on 437 sampling days in common to the two sites, the nucleation frequency was higher at the puy de Dome station (35.9 %, 157 days) than at the low elevation station of Opme (20.8 %, 91 days). LIDAR measurements and the evolution of the potential equivalent temperature revealed that the nucleation could be triggered either (i) within the whole low tropospheric column at the same time from the planetary boundary layer to the top of the interface layer (29.2 %, 47 events), (ii) above the planetary boundary layer upper limit (43.5 %, 70 events), and (iii) at low altitude and then transported, conserving dynamic and properties, at high altitude (24.8 %, 40 events). This is the first time that the vertical extent of nucleation can be studied over a long observational period, allowing for a rigorous statistical analysis of the occurrence of nucleation over the whole lower troposphere. This work highlights the fact that nucleation can occur over a large vertical extent, at least the whole low tropospheric column, and also the fact that it occurs twice as frequently as actually detected in the planetary boundary layer. The role of sulfuric acid and ions in the nucleation process was investigated at the altitude station and no correlation was found between nucleation events and the estimated sulfuric acid concentrations. However, the contribution of ion-induced nucleation was found to be relatively high (12.49 ± 2.03 % of the total nucleation rate).


Abstract: Calc-alkaline magmatism in the Grampian Terrane started at c. 430 Ma, after subduction of the edge of continental Avalonia beneath Laurentia, and it then persisted for at least 22 Ma. Isotope dilution thermal ionization mass spectrometry U–Pb zircon dating yields 425.0 ± 0.7 Ma for the Lorn Lava Pile, 422.5 ± 0.5 Ma for Rannoch Moor Pluton, 419.6 ± 5.4 Ma for a fault-intrusion at Glencoe volcano, 417.9 ± 0.9 Ma for Clach Leathad Pluton in Glencoe, and, in the Etive Pluton, 414.9 ± 0.7 Ma for the Cruachan Intrusion and 408.0 ± 0.5 Ma for the Inner Starav Intrusion. The Etive Dyke Swarm was mostly emplaced during 418–414 Ma, forming part of the plumbing of a large volcano (≥2000 km3) that became intruded by the Etive Pluton and was subsequently removed by erosion. During the magmatism large volumes (thousands of km3) of high Ba–Sr andesite and dacite were erupted repeatedly, but were mostly removed by contemporaneous uplift and erosion. This volcanic counterpart to the 'Newer Granite' plutons has not previously been fully recognized. The intermediate magmas forming both plutons and volcanoes originated mainly by partial melting of heterogeneous mafic to intermediate lowermost crust that had high Ba–Sr derived from previous melting of large ion lithophile element (LILE)-enriched mantle, possibly at c. 1.8 Ga. This crustal recycling was induced by heat and volatiles from underplated small-degree melts of LILE- and light REE-enriched lithospheric mantle (appinite–lamprophyre magmas). The post-collision magmatism and uplift resulted from breakoff of subducted oceanic lithosphere and consequent rise of asthenosphere. Supplementary material: Geochronological methods, tabulated data and additional figures are available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18343.


J. Leray defined a local fixed point index for functions defined in what he called convexoid spaces. From the standpoint of analysis, the most important example of a convexoid space is a compact subset C c X, X a locally convex topological vector space, such that C = U ?=1 d, where d are compact, convex subsets of X or a homeomorphic image of such a C. In this paper a simple geometric approach is given (see Lemma 2 below) by means of which a fixed point index can be defined for functions with domain in a class of spaces ^ which contains the spaces C mentioned above and also the compact metric ANR's. The usual properties of the fixed point index are established, and it is shown that they axiomatically determine the index for the class of spaces J^~.


Sustainable construction and development implies investing in the needs of today without compromising the resources of future generations to meet their needs. The components of sustainability are (1) Economic; (2) Social; and (3) Environmental. Reducing user costs by improving fuel economy from pavement type is important to advance sustainable development. An on-going study of fuel consumption by vehicles traveling on rigid versus flexible pavements at Florida International University (FIU) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering indicates that rigid pavements provide better fuel economy for the travelling public and commercial carriers. The FIU study along 28 miles of Interstate 95 in Brevard County indicates that travelers in passenger vehicles on rigid pavements use 3.2% less fuel compared to flexible pavements. In addition, the study shows that loaded tractor-trailers along the same corridor the rigid pavement provides 4.5% better fuel economy than the flexible pavement. These findings are consistent with research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Texas at Arlington. Hypothetically speaking, if all pavements within the Florida State Highway System were rigid construction the annual savings in fuel consumption could be 500 million gallons and the annual savings to the public could be in excess of $2.0 billion. Environmentally, CO2 emissions would be reduced by over 5 million metric tons annually as a result of reducing fuel consumption by 500 million gallons in Florida. While these overall benefits are extrapolated estimates, the findings of this study indicate the potential for real sustainable benefits by increasing rigid pavement lane miles into agency work programs.


This paper explores how conventional teaching and learning strategies can be employed in museum arts activities, and outlines the relationship between museum learning and its impact on individual and community wellbeing. The topic is discussed in relation to key philosophical and pedagogical practices within teaching and learning in the museum sector. Within the paper, the term museum is used to refer to those sites that may also be referred to as galleries or heritage sites.

Specific examples of practice are presented to illustrate how museum participatory arts activities can enhance wellbeing. These demonstrate how educators within this context can consciously integrate strategies into their planning and teaching to support learners' wellbeing in a purposeful manner. Throughout the paper analysis is concerned with the impact of participation on learners and how future experiences can be enhanced, therefore improving practice.


Indian National Centre for Ocean
Information Services (INCOIS),
Hyderabad, India provides fishery
forecast services all along the Indian
coast free of cost, referred to as
'Potential Fishery Zone (PFZ)
Advisories'. These services include georeferenced
maps showing marked regions
where probability of finding sizeable
schools of fishes is high. These advisories
are provided to help the fisher folks to
improve their income from fishing by
saving engine fuel for searching and
locating fish stocks. Based on 124 controlled fishing
experiments carried out in the PFZ and
Non-PFZ zones along the Kerala coast
during 2008-2012 periods, the present
study evidenced that commercially
important fishes were abundant in the
PFZ, forming richer fisheries compared to
the non-PFZ areas. The profit from
controlled experiments showed
consistently higher values in the PFZ than
that in the non-PFZ. The highest profit
during the entire controlled fishing
experiments was obtained when the catch
was dominated by relatively high-priced
fishes such as tunas, carangids, seer
fishes and mackerel. Indian oil sardine
was the major single species obtained
during the Northeast Monsoon
(November-February), whereas, Indian
mackerel dominated during the Southwest
Monsoon (June-October) and Spring
Intermonsoon (March – May) periods.
Anchovies were found to dominate only
in two fishing experiments in the entire
study period. The analyses of catch data of the small
pelagic fishes of interest (Indian oil
sardine, Indian mackerel and
Commerson's anchovy) showed that the
PFZ advisories better predicted the
catches of Indian oil sardine during the
Northeast Monsoon (November-
February) and Indian mackerel during the
rest of the period. Conversely, the catch
data of controlled experiments showed
that PFZ advisory has less efficiency to
support the exploitation of anchovies.
Attempts have been made to outline the
recurrent PFZ along the Kerala coast
based on the advisories generated for the
study period (2008-2012). Altogether
432 PFZ advisories were digitised and
month-wise repeat PFZs have been
demarcated. In general, most of the very
prominent recurrent PFZs were found
within the 50m depth contour. The
highest number of recurrent PFZs was in
December, January and February. On the
other hand, the lowest number of
recurrent PFZs was found in April, May
and June. Plankton components in the diet of
Indian oil sardine, Indian mackerel and
Commerson's anchovy based on
fortnightly fish samples analysed during a
year period are presented. Coscinodiscus,
Nitzschia, Pleurosigma and Thalassiosira
were found in the gut of Indian oil
sardine almost throughout the year,
whereas microzooplankton was mostly
dominant only during the October –
December period. Coscinodiscus and
Tintinids were predominant in the gut of
Indian mackerel throughout the year.
Furthermore, Thalassiosira, Ceratium,
Dinophysis, Protoperidinium, Pyrophacus
and copepods were also found in the gut
of Indian mackerel almost throughout the
year. The dominant value index showed
the dominance of phytoplankton,
microzooplankton and copepods in the
diet of Indian mackerel throughout the
year, indicating their almost equal
preference for both phytoplankton and
zooplankton. The food items in the gut
content of Commerson's anchovy showed
characteristic difference from both Indian
oil sardine and Indian mackerel and found
to be a zooplankton feeder predominantly
feeding on copepods, fish eggs,
ostracods, lucifers and tintinids.
The environmental observations based
on monthly field sampling carried out in
two locations (10m and 20m depth
contours) situated off Kochi are
presented. During seven out of nine
observations, PFZ bands were observed
around 10m location. High values of
chlorophyll (> 3mg m-3) were found in
August, September and October, which
could be attributed to the combined effect
of Cochin backwater influx and
upwelling. The seasonal evolution of
hydrographical parameters showed
significantly higher concentration of
nutrients and chlorophyll during the
Southwest Monsoon period compared to
the rest of the sampling. The chlorophyll
concentration was found to be
significantly higher in 10m location
(PFZ) compared to the 20m location
(non-PFZ). The status of the Length-Weight
Relationship (LWR) and condition factor
of Indian oil sardine, Indian mackerel and
Commerson's anchovy along the Kerala
coast is presented. The LWR of
Commerson's anchovy is the very first
detailed report from this region. LWR
and condition factor of Indian mackerel
and Oil sardine were not significantly
different from the values reported in the
historical studies, indicating that these
parameters are not affected significantly
by the expected long-term environmental
changes. The results of the growth and maturity
studies of the small pelagic fishes of
interest have been discussed. The
analyses were based on a fortnightly
sampling carried out in two major landing
centres during 2010 – 2011 periods.
The maximum life span of Indian oil
sardine was estimated to be 2.63 years.
Two peaks of recruitment of juveniles to
the fishery were observed; a large peak
during July - August and a small peak in
February - March. The length at first
maturity was calculated as 15.7 cm while
the length at first capture was 15 cm,
suggesting that the peak exploitation of
the species occurs before they attain
sexual maturity. Comparison of the length
at first maturity of oil sardine reported in
historical studies with the present study
shows that only minor variation exists
between the two. The life span of Indian
mackerel is estimated to be 2 years. The
recruitment pattern showed the presence
of mature mackerel all year round.
However, two recruitment peaks of
Indian mackerel were evident; June to
August and February to March with the
highest recruitment in July (28%).
Probability of capture of mackerel
showed higher values (22.43 cm) than
the length at first maturity (17.7 cm)
indicating that their peak exploitation
occurs after attaining sexual maturity. Long-term changes in length at first
maturity of Indian mackerel indicated a
prominent decrease in length in the recent
decade, probably indicating a response to
the long-term environmental changes.
The present study on the growth and
maturity parameters of Commerson's
anchovy forms the first such study from
Indian waters and the life span of the
species was found to be 3.06 years. Two
recruitment peaks of Commerson's
anchovy were observed; first during
February – March and a second during
June - July. The probability of capture of
Commerson's anchovy showed that they
get exposed to maximum exploitation
after they attain maturity. Lack of past
data on length at first maturity of
Commerson's anchovy from the Indian
coast hindered a possible comparison
with the present data.


Tissue blood flow is controlled by changes in the diameter of the arteries and arterioles through coordinated contraction and relaxation of smooth muscle cells (SMCs) within the vascular wall. The contraction of SMCs is primarily regulated by the intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i). An increase in [Ca2+]i, in response to stimuli, can propagate from cell to cell, as an intercellular Ca2+ wave along the vessel wall and can activate the process of contraction. The aim of this thesis is to elucidate the mechanisms underlying intercellular Ca2+ wave propagation between SMCs. In the first part of this thesis, we used A7r5 cells, a rat aortic SMC line, loaded with the fluorescent Ca2+ dye Fluo-4 to study intercellular Ca2+ wave propagation. Local mechanical stimulation evoked a Ca2+ wave in the stimulated cell that failed to propagate to neighboring cells. Using primary cultured rat mesenteric smooth muscle cells (pSMCs) instead, intercellular Ca2+ wave propagation was observed. To understand the difference in junctional communication between A7r5 and pSMCs, we investigated the expression of connexin37 (Cx37), Cx40, Cx43 and Cx45. RNA and protein analysis demonstrated that Cx40 – in contrast to A7r5 cells – is not expressed in pSMCs. To confirm that coexpression of Cx40 and Cx43 interfered with junctional communication, we used 6B5N cells, a clone of A7r5 cells with a higher Cx43:Cx40 expression ratio. Junctional communication, assessed by transfer of Lucifer Yellow and propagation of Ca2+ waves, was comparable between 6B5N cells and pSMCs. In addition, Ca2+ wave propagation was inhibited with the connexin-mimetic peptide 43Gap 26, that targets Cx43. Our results demonstrate that Cx43 gap junctions are primarily involved in mediating intercellular Ca2+ waves between pSMCs, and the coexpression of Cx43 with Cx40 may interfere with Cx43 gap junction formation, affecting cell-cell communication. In the second part of this thesis, we applied the microcontact printing technique to culture pSMCs on collagen lines. The aligned arrangement of the cells facilitates the observation of Ca2+ wave progression from one cell to another. To induce a Ca2+ wave, a single pSMC was locally stimulated with a micropipette (transientmechanical stimulation) or by microejection of KCl. Mechanical stimulation evoked two distinct Ca2+ waves: 1) a fast wave (∼2 mm/s) that propagated to all observed neighbouring cells, and 2) a slow wave (∼20 µm/s), that was most often limited in propagation to the first cell. KCl induced only fast Ca2+ waves of the same velocity as the mechanically-induced fast waves. Inhibition of gap junctions, voltage-operated calcium channels, inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3) and ryanodine receptors, showed that the fast wave was due to gap junction mediated membrane depolarization and subsequent Ca2+ influx, whereas, the slow wave was due to Ca2+ release primarily through IP3 receptors. Together, these results suggest a mechanism by which intercellular Ca2+ waves can propagate between SMCs of the arterial wall.


Aging creates new information and communication needs for families who are helping to coordinate care for frail parents. To identify how information and communication needs evolve with the aging process, we created a living laboratory of families, supported by an online private social network with tools for care coordination. Site registrants are invite to participate in a more in-depth survey-based longitudinal study. In year one, we assessed the feasibility of an online living laboratory. During this first year, 155 individuals registered on InfoSAGE, and 26% opted into the more in-depth longitudinal study. The survey response rate for those in the study was 61%. We present here a descriptive analysis of our early participants and networks, as well as barriers to participation that the study team encountered.


With the recent increased popularity and high usage of HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) techniques, various studies have been carried out in this area which generally focused on the technical enhancement of HAS technology and applications. However, a lack of common HAS standard led to multiple proprietary approaches which have been developed by major Internet companies. In the emerging MPEG-DASH standard the packagings of the video content and HTTP syntax have been standardized; but all the details of the adaptation behavior are left to the client implementation. Nevertheless, to design an adaptation algorithm which optimizes the viewing experience of the enduser, the multimedia service providers need to know about the Quality of Experience (QoE) of different adaptation schemes. Taking this into account, the objective of this experiment was to study the QoE of a HAS-based video broadcast model. The experiment has been carried out through a subjective study of the end user response to various possible clients' behavior for changing the video quality taking different QoE-influence factors into account. The experimental conclusions have made a good insight into the QoE of different adaptation schemes which can be exploited by HAS clients for designing the adaptation algorithms.


Precise static analyses are context-, field- and flow-sensitive. Context- and field-sensitivity are both expressible as context-free language (CFL) reachability problems. Solving both CFL problems along the same data-flow path is undecidable, which is why most flow-sensitive data-flow analyses over-approximate field-sensitivity through k-limited access-path, or through access graphs. Unfortunately, as our experience and this paper show, both representations do not scale very well when used to analyze programs with recursive data structures. Any single CFL-reachability problem is efficiently solvable, by means of a pushdown system. This work thus introduces the concept of synchronized pushdown systems (SPDS). SPDS encode both procedure calls/returns and field stores/loads as separate but "synchronized" CFL reachability problems. An SPDS solves both individual problems precisely, and approximation occurs only in corner cases that are apparently rare in practice: at statements where both problems are satisfied but not along the same data-flow path. SPDS are also efficient: formal complexity analysis shows that SPDS shift the complexity from |F|3k under k-limiting to |S||F|2, where F is the set of fields and S the set of statements involved in a data-flow. Our evaluation using DaCapo shows this shift to pay off in practice: SPDS are almost as efficient as k-limiting with k=1 although their precision equals k=∞. For a typestate analysis SPDS accelerate the analysis up to 83× for data-flows of objects that involve many field accesses but span rather few methods. We conclude that SPDS can provide high precision and further improve scalability, in particularly when used in analyses that expose rather local data flows.


Plasmodium falciparum, a protozoan parasite of the human erythrocyte, causes the most severe form of malaria. During its intraerythrocytic development, the parasite synthesizes proteins which are exported into the host cell. The compartments involved in the secretory pathway of P. falciparum are still poorly characterized. A Golgi apparatus has not been identified, owing to the lack of specific protein markers and Golgi-specific post-translational modifications in the parasite. The fungal metabolite brefeldin A (BFA) is known to inhibit protein secretion in higher eukaryotes by disrupting the integrity of the Golgi apparatus. We have used the parasite-encoded glycophorin-binding protein (GBP), a soluble protein found in the host cell cytoplasm, as a marker to investigate the effects of BFA on protein secretion in the intracellular parasite. In the presence of BFA, GBP was not transported into the erythrocyte, but remained inside the parasite cell. The effect caused by BFA was reversible, and the protein could be chased into the host cell cytoplasm within 30 min. Transport of GBP from the BFA-sensitive site into the host cell did not require protein synthesis. Similar observations were made when infected erythrocytes were incubated at 15 degrees C. Incubation at 20 degrees C resulted in a reduction rather than a complete block of protein export. The relevance of our findings to the identification of compartments involved in protein secretion from the parasite cell is discussed.


Globally, evaporation consumes about 25% of solar energy input and is a key hydrologic driver with 60% of terrestrial precipitation returning to the atmosphere via evapotranspiration. Quantifying evaporation is important for assessing changes in hydrologic reservoirs and surface energy balance and for many industrial and engineering applications. Evaporation dynamics from porous media reflect interactions between internal liquid and vapor transport, energy input for phase change, and mass transfer across air boundary layer. We reviewed recent advances on resolving interactions between soil intrinsic properties and evaporation dynamics with emphasis on the roles of capillarity and wettability affecting liquid phase continuity and capillary driving forces that sustain Stage I evaporation. We show that soil water characteristics contain information for predicting the drying front depth and mass loss at the end of Stage I and thus derive predictions for regional‐scale evaporative water losses from soil textural maps. We discuss the formation of secondary drying front at the onset of Stage II evaporation and subsequent diffusion‐controlled dynamics. An important aspect for remote sensing and modeling involves nonlinear interactions between wet evaporating surfaces and air boundary layer above (evaporation rate is not proportional to surface water content). Using pore scale models of evaporating surfaces and vapor transport across air boundary layer, we examined the necessary conditions for maintenance of nearly constant evaporation while the surface gradually dries and the drying front recedes into the soil. These new insights could be used to improve boundary conditions for models that are based on surface water content to quantify evaporation rates.


Due to the continuing under-representation of women in academic positions of higher rank, the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Wollongong tested a mentoring platform for female researchers. This article reviews the first eight months of the platform's lifetime and analyses experiences, achievements and failures in both a qualitative and quantitative manner. The quantitative analysis is based on a benchmark survey at the first research platform meeting and a second follow-up survey after the eight-month test period. The majority of female researchers participating in the Women in Commerce Research Platform (WICRP) were already interested in the research component of their job and had some research output. The platform failed to attract those women who are under pressure to produce research output but struggle to make their first steps into this direction. The results demonstrated that women face specific challenges in academia, in particular being confronted with assumptions/stereotypes, having to balance children and work and the lack senior female mentors. The evaluations of the research conditions in the workplace generally did not differ between senior and junior female researchers, although the more experienced female researchers felt that they had no female role models and that they had more access to inter-faculty collaborations across the university. The follow up survey identified time, gender, network and mentoring and support issues as specific issues for female academics. These results are put in the contest of prior work investigating the challenges female academics face and recommendations are made for other institutions who might be interested to establish a mentoring platform for female researchers.


Water is a primary shared resource that connects all species across the landscape and can facilitate shared exposure to a community of waterborne pathogens. Despite remarkable global progress in sanitation and hygiene development in the past two decades, infectious diarrhea remains a prominent public health threat in sub-Saharan Africa. This thesis identifies and discusses persistent challenges limiting the success of current waterborne disease management strategies and several existing research hurdles that continue to impede characterization of microbial transmission and transport. In this work, the Chobe River watershed in Northern Botswana serves as a target study site for the application of hydrological modeling tools to quantify emergent water quality and health challenges in Southern Africa. A watershed model with extensive data requirements, the Hydrological Simulation Program – Fortran (HSPF), is used to identify primary data gaps and model assumptions that limit the progress of model development, and guide opportunities for data collection, tool development, and research direction. Environmental pathogen exposure risk and epidemiological outbreak dynamics are best described by interactions between the coupled human and environmental processes within a system. The challenge of reducing diarrheal disease incidence strengthens a call for research studies and management plans that join multiple disciplines and consider a range of spatiotemporal scales.


The aim of this thesis is to determine the horse's gait types using the acceleration values measured from the horse. Measurements were taken at a race track in Gävle, Sweden. A total of five Nanotrak sensors were used, four on the different parts of the horse, and one on the hand of the horse's driver; a car was driven parallel to the horse and the motions of the horse was recorded by a camera in order to synchronize with the data measured by the sensors. In total four sets of measurements were recorded. The software to process the data was Matlab, and the main mathematical tool to analyze it was Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT), different windows were evaluated as well as the data length. The method for classification of horse's gaits was categorized as amplitude of the fundamental frequency component. The method shows promising results with a misclassification below one percent. However, higher sampling rate, more measurements and more analysis are needed to be done in the future to find a proper way to automatic determine the horse's gaits.


Visit RAND at www.rand.org Explore RAND Europe View document details For More Information THE ARTS CHILD POLICY CIVIL JUSTICE EDUCATION ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS NATIONAL SECURITY POPULATION AND AGING PUBLIC SAFETY SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY SUBSTANCE ABUSE TERRORISM AND HOMELAND SECURITY TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE WORKFORCE AND WORKPLACE The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world.


Information graphics (such as bar charts and line graphs) play a vital role in many multimodal documents. The majority of information graphics that appear in popular media are intended to convey a message and the graphic designer uses deliberate communicative signals, such as highlighting certain aspects of the graphic, in order to bring that message out. The graphic, whose communicative goal (intended message) is often not captured by the document's accompanying text, contributes to the overall purpose of the document and cannot be ignored. This article presents our approach to providing the high-level content of a non-scientific information graphic via a brief textual summary which includes the intended message and the salient features of the graphic. This work brings together insights obtained from empirical studies in order to determine what should be contained in the summaries of this form of non-linguistic input data, and how the information required for realizing the selected content can be extracted from the visual image and the textual components of the graphic. This work also presents a novel bottom–up generation approach to simultaneously construct the discourse and sentence structures of textual summaries by leveraging different discourse related considerations such as the syntactic complexity of realized sentences and clause embeddings. The effectiveness of our work was validated by different evaluation studies.


To date there has been an absence of cross-country empirical studies on the efficacy of carbon pricing. In this paper we present estimates of the contribution of carbon pricing to reducing national carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fuel combustion, using several econometric modelling approaches that control for other key policies and for structural factors that are relevant for emissions. We use data for 142 countries over a period of two decades, 43 of which had a carbon price in place at the national level or below by the end of the study period. We find evidence that the average annual growth rate of CO2 emissions from fuel combustion has been around two percentage points lower in countries that have had a carbon price compared to countries without. An additional euro per tonne of CO2 in carbon price is associated with a reduction in the subsequent annual emissions growth rate of approximately 0.3 percentage points, all else equal. While it is impossible to fully control for all relevant influences on emissions growth, our estimates suggest that the emissions trajectories of countries with and without carbon prices tend to


This case study examined the dispositions in action of alternatively certified (lateral entry) and traditionally certified elementary teachers in North Carolina and how those dispositions manifest in the classroom as revealed through teacher and administrator interviews, teacher card sorts, analysis of student products, and prolonged classroom observations. Dispositional manifestation was measured using the Dispositions in Action Instrument (Thornton, 2006) which addressed three domains of teaching: classroom management, instruction, and assessment. Research questions focused on the dispositions that both alternatively certified and traditionally certified teachers' possess, how those dispositions manifest themselves in the classroom, and the factors that seem to mediate the development of those dispositions. Lateral entry and traditionally licensed elementary teachers in North Carolina did display different dispositions in terms of classroom management, instruction, and assessment. In regard to management, lateral entry teachers showed a greater amount of empathy towards their students while traditionally licensed teachers focused primarily on established procedures and routines. However, both were effective classroom managers. In terms of instruction, lateral entry teachers displayed a technical disposition in action focusing on worksheets and textbooks. On the other hand, the traditionally licensed teachers displayed more responsive dispositions in action where differentiation and integration were evident in the teaching. However, one lateral entry teacher with a year of experience substitute teaching displayed dispositions in action similar to the traditionally licensed teachers and one traditionally licensed teacher who obtained her degree over twenty years ago did display technical dispositions in action. Student assessment was a common weakness for both groups of teachers. The factors that seemed to mediate the development of dispositions in action of the participants were the presence of a strong instructional leader, experience within an educational setting, ILT meetings, and a profound sense of empathy among those participants who had their own children.


This article advances the scandalous argument that we live in a post-social class modernity, and that the perpetual reinvention of class as the key concept for understanding social inequality is untenable. Class is not only a zombie concept but also an ideology that reflects a set of normative attitudes, beliefs and values that pervade sociology. Its starting point is that, sociology, once adept at imagining new ways to interpret the world, has become a subject field that wants to claim a radical space for itself while simultaneously relying on outworn theoretical frameworks and denying the work radicals do. The article begins by suggesting that the problem of class has its roots in the deep structure of sociology. Taking its cue from Jacques Rancière's classic study The Philosopher and His Poor it develops the argument that if class was once upon a time the fundamental issue in the study of social inequality, today sociology urgently needs an alternative cognitive framework for thinking outside this paradigm which it uses to open up a critical space for its own intellectual claims rather than reflecting society in the round. After arguing that we a living at the 'end of Class', the critique explores the limits of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, who has replaced Marx and Weber as sociology's key theoretician of class. It is argued that in Bourdieu's sociology, contentment is permanently closed to 'the working class' that thumps about like a dinosaur that survived extinction, anachronistic proof of the power and privilege of the theorist and his sociology rather than proof of the usefulness of his ideas. The key to understanding the limits of this interpretation, it is argued, is that it assumes a 'working class' that has little or no agency. It is subsequently argued that sociology and the bourgeois media are coextensive. The specific function of the bourgeois media-sociology hybrid is to provide ideological legitimation of class inequality and of integrating individuals into sociology's interpretation of social and cultural life. Focusing on the work of two self-identified 'working class' journalists who have successfully made the transition into the bourgeoisie and who seek solid validation of their new found status in the bourgeois media it is demonstrated that social inequality is neither expressed nor examined in a convincing way. Framing 'working class' worlds even more 'working class' than 'working class', the bourgeois media, at best, lay them bare for clichéd interpretation. Here the article argues vis-à-vis Quentin Skinner that words are not so much mere 'reflections' of the world, but 'engines' which actively play a role in moulding the worlds to which they refer. Drawing on Rancière's idea of the partage du sensible (distribution of the sensible) it is argued thereafter that here thinking ends up as the very thought of inequality because by posing social inequality as the primary fact that needs to be explained the bourgeois media-sociology hybrid ends up explaining its necessity. The final part of the article offers some suggestions about how to rethink social inequality after class, and it concludes with the observation that the predicament facing sociology derives not just from its theoretical limits but also from its failure to give social inequality human meaning and the people who suffer it the proper respect by acknowledging their own interpretations of their own lives.


Flagella are sophisticated organelles found in many eukaryotic microbes where they perform functions related to motility, signal detection, or cell morphogenesis. In many cases, several flagella are present per cell, and these can have a different composition, length, age, or function, raising the question of how this is managed. When the flagella are equivalent and constructed simultaneously such as in Chlamydomonas or Naegleria, we propose an equal access model where molecular components have free access to each organelle. By contrast, Trypanosoma and Leishmania contain temporally distinct organelles and elongate a new flagellum whilst maintaining the existing one. The equal access model could function providing that the mature flagellum is "locked" so that it can no longer be elongated or shortened. Alternatively, access of flagellar components could be restricted at the level of the basal body, the transition zone, or the loading on intraflagellar transport trains. In organisms that contains flagella of different age and composition such as Giardia, a temporal dimension is necessary, with the production of protein components of flagella spreading over one or more cell cycles. In the future, deciphering the molecular mechanisms involved in these processes should reveal new insights in flagellum assembly and function.


Law in the Courts of Love traces the literary history and diversity of past legal systems. These 'minor jurisprudences' range from the spiritual laws of the courts of conscience to the code and judgements of love handed down by women's courts in medieval France. Professor Goodrich presents the 15th Century Courts of Love in Paris as one instance of an alternative jurisdiction drawn from the diversities of the legal and literary past. Their textual records are correspondingly mixed in genre, being in the form of poems, narratives, plays, treaties and judicial decisions. More broadly, these studies trace certain boundaries of modern law and make up one of many forms of legal knowledge which escape today's vision of a unitary law. The author believes that the unquesionable faith in a unity law and its distance from person and emotion is precisely what makes impossible the attention to the individual that justice ultimately requires. Law in the Courts of Love shows how the historical diversity of forms and procedures of law can competently form the basis for critical revisions of contemporary legal doctrine and professional practice. This book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students of law and literature, critical legal studies and legal history, or anyone wishing to specialise in feminist legal theory.


Security professionals and administrators now have access to one of the most valuable resources for learning best practices for network perimeter security. Inside Network Perimeter Security, Second Edition is your guide to preventing network intrusions and defending against any intrusions that do manage to slip through your perimeter. This acclaimed resource has been updated to reflect changes in the security landscape, both in terms of vulnerabilities and defensive tools. Coverage also includes intrusion prevention systems and wireless security. You will work your way through fortifying the perimeter, designing a secure network, and maintaining and monitoring the security of the network. Additionally, discussion of tools such as firewalls, virtual private networks, routers and intrusion detection systems make Inside Network Perimeter Security, Second Edition a valuable resource for both security professionals and GIAC Certified Firewall Analyst certification exam candidates.


Human skin deformation occurs due to external loading. As a result, blood flow in soft tissue becomes low and also the oxygenation decreases. Tissue under continuous loading results in tissue necrosis and leads to pressure ulcer (PU), also known as bedsore, decubitus ulcer, and ischemia. The amount of external load applied to the body support surface is associated with a subject's BMI (body mass index). Therefore interface pressure (IP) at the skin and the surface is the result of a subject's physical and support surface properties. Interface pressure increases, the blood flow decreases and a subject starts developing stage-1 pressure ulcer. Previous research suggests that interface pressure of 32 mmHg (4.26 kPa) can cause PU, but there is no strong evidence to show at what time that pressure is reached. Also interface pressure changes from subject to subject due to their body compositions. Three risk assessment scales are available to predict overall risk of PU formation. But none of these scales take interaction of body support surface materials into account. Also these do not provide any information at which area a subject is at risk of PU formation. In this work a study is presented where external load at different bony areas are measured using 11 volunteers. By measuring the external load for 11 subjects (age:33 ± 7 yrs and BMI:25.04 ± 3.01 kg/m2) at different bony areas, the relationship with the total body weight was identified. A mathematical model is proposed to predict the risk of PU formation combining the Waterlow risk assessment scales for bony areas and a graphic user interface to predict this is discussed.


Reproducibility of artifacts is a cornerstone of most scientific publications. To improve the current state and strengthen ongoing community efforts towards reproducibility by design, we conducted a survey among the papers published at leading ACM computer networking conferences in 2017: CoNEXT, ICN, IMC, and SIGCOMM.
 The objective of this paper is to assess the current state of artifact availability and reproducibility based on a survey. We hope that it will serve as a starting point for further discussions to encourage researchers to ease the reproduction of scientific work published within the SIGCOMM community. Furthermore, we hope this work will inspire program chairs of future conferences to emphasize reproducibility within the ACM SIGCOMM community as well as will strengthen awareness of researchers.


The Tec kinase Btk holds the production of reactive oxygen species by neutrophils in check. Neutrophils are the earliest responding cells in the innate immune defense against pathogens. They migrate to the site of infection and produce reactive oxygen species (ROS), through the activity of the NADPH oxidase, and antimicrobial peptides to kill invading pathogens. Deficient ROS production leads to life-threatening infections, whereas overproduction of ROS results in tissue damage; thus, the activity of the NADPH oxidase is tightly regulated. Noting that patients with X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA), which is caused by a deficiency in the Tec kinase Btk, have neutropenia (reduced numbers of neutrophils), Honda et al. investigated a role for Btk in neutrophil ROS production and apoptosis. Btk is well characterized in its role in mediating the survival and differentiation of B cells, as well as in signaling downstream of Toll-like receptors (TLRs). Neutrophils from XLA patients activated with the stimulant PMA or with various TLR ligands produced more ROS than did similarly stimulated neutrophils from healthy controls. XLA patient neutrophils were more susceptible than were healthy control neutrophils to induction of apoptosis by various stimuli, including tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and PMA, which was blocked by the antioxidant N-acetyl cysteine and rescued with Btk. Western blotting analysis showed that a component of the NADPH oxidase complex and the guanosine triphosphatase Rac2 were already present at the plasma membrane in resting neutrophils from XLA patients (indicating "priming" of the cells), but not healthy controls. XLA patient neutrophils exhibited enhanced activation of protein tyrosine kinases and the serine and threonine kinase PI3K. In resting XLA patient cells, the TLR adaptor protein Mal was associated with PI3K and TKs at the plasma membrane, which led to PI3K activation, whereas in resting control cells, Mal was confined to the cytoplasm through its physical interaction with Btk. Together, these data suggest that Btk restrains the priming of neutrophils and modulates their production of ROS to prevent death by apoptosis. F. Honda, H. Kano, H. Kanegane, S. Nonoyama, E.-S. Kim, S.-K. Lee, M. Takagi, S. Mizutani, T. Morio, The kinase Btk negatively regulates the production of reactive oxygen species and stimulation-induced apoptosis in human neutrophils. Nat. Immunol. 13, 369–378 (2012). [PubMed]


Scholars, teachers, clinicians, and the general public have puzzled over the nature and consequences of severe reading (decoding) problems for more than a century. With the advances of genetics, neuroscience, and psychology, we know much about the underlying nature of reading disability. However, we still have much to learn, and fierce debate continues about whether there is a subgroup of poor readers who can, or should, be called dyslexic. This issue has become highly contentious, as gaining the label can bring significant benefits in terms of resourcing, various forms of test and classroom accommodation, and more positive and understanding responses from others.
 Many clinicians argue that special cognitive tests are needed to identify and diagnose those with dyslexia. These may take the form of general tests of IQ, or measures of more specific cognitive or executive functioning. Despite their popularity, the evidence for the utility of such measures is low, and many of the processes examined are often problematic for all poor readers, not merely the subgroup deemed to have dyslexia.
 A further difficulty concerns intervention. There is no strong scientific support for the notion that intervention programs designed to improve underlying cognitive processes (e.g., memory processes) can successfully improve the reading accuracy of those who struggle to acquire literacy. Similarly, interventions geared to improve visual or motor functioning have not proven successful, despite often vociferous support from adherents. The only approach that has strong scientific support takes the form of an educational program that utilizes systematic, structured phonics teaching as part of a broader literacy curriculum. This finding applies equally to those who have been diagnosed as dyslexic and those poor readers who haven't. For this reason, it is unclear how a dyslexia diagnosis helps to inform the nature of subsequent intervention.
 In establishing effective forms of intervention that can cater for any child who struggles with their reading, it would appear most efficacious to utilize what is known as a "response to intervention" approach. This requires early identification of, and intervention with, all those who are making limited progress. Intervention should only utilize those approaches that have strong scientific support. The nature and extent of additional educational support should be determined on the basis of the progress that is made when additional help is given. If insufficient progress has resulted, it may well be necessary to increase and intensify the intervention. Such an approach helps to ensure that all struggling children are helped at an early stage, and no one is missed because of an absence of parental advocacy or a lack of family resource that can cover the cost of diagnostic assessment.


Drawing on preliminary results from a massive study conducted by the World Bank to probe the links between stabilization and growth, Cooper examines the experience of developing countries faced by the oil shocks of the 1970s and the debt crisis of the 1980s. He points out that a global slowdown in growth has shifted the main economic concern in developing countries from long-term growth to stabilization and adjustment. Cooper takes into account the cross-country variables that influence the degree to which a country is affected negatively or positively by external shocks and covers such topics as political organization and external debt resolution. The first chapter focuses on countries that experienced adverse shocks from the sharp increase in oil prices beginning in 1974. It also addresses countries that should have benefited from the oil price increase, and from a comparable increase in coffee prices, for which events turned out to be less favorable than they seemed. The second chapter analyzes the "disabsorption" a country faces when it can no longer rely on foreign lending or advantageous terms of trade; it also looks at inflationary pressures and at the role of the International Monetary Fund in designing stabilization programs for its member countries. The third chapter discusses the main influences on a country's economic performance and also discusses the lessons offered for successful stabilization and long-term growth. Moving from individual developing nations to the world economic system, the final two chapters examine the question of external debt and why it has proved to be such an international stumbling block, offering suggestions on how it might be resolved.


The author of The Armenians in Modern Turkey, historian Talin Suciyan, puts the Armenian genocide survivors at the center of her research to provide a new perspective on the history of the Turkish Republic. Suciyan analyzes the experiences and lives of its Armenian population several decades after the genocide. In this interview, Deniz Yonucu speaks with Suciyan on her research and innovative anthrohistorical approach to understanding the paths that led to the annihilation of Armenians, the effects of the genocide in modern Turkey, and the importance of focusing attention on the experiences of survivors after catastrophic experiences of genocides. The survivor as described in this interview is neither a wretched of the earth, who is forced to live a tortured life, nor a subaltern whose voice cannot acquire speech. The survivor instead is an existence whose past, present and future is constantly denied, and therefore robbed from her.


Postsecondary degree attainment for American Indian college students at predominantly White institutions has consistently been the lowest among any ethnic and/or racial group for the past three decades. A plethora of studies have been conducted to examine the experiences of Native students at mainstream institutions within the conceptual framework of Vincent Tinto's interactionalist's theory whether in segments or in its entirety. Tinto's model considers, among other variables, prematriculation characteristics and dispositions of students including the influence of family, postsecondary aspirations, components of informal and formal academic integration, and the phenomenon of transient transition of students through institutional assimilation. Today, the retention and graduation of college students is the bedrock of conversations on quality and accountability in the field of higher education and Tinto's model has served as one of the catalysts for policy and program development in this area of study. In keeping with this model, this study examines the experiences of American Indian college students at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNCP) to determine the applicability of this particular model and its Western paradigm to an examination of Indigenous students.


ZnO nanowire arrays were synthesised for dye-sensitised solar cell applications using the chemical bath deposition technique. To study the effect of the particle size in the seed layer on the growth and resultant photoconversion efficiency, we prepared various seeded FTO substrates by repeating the seed layer sol-gel coating process. It was found that changing the number of coating process merely increases the particle size of the ZnO seeds, and the increase in the seed particle size induces low growth rates. In addition, to enhance the nanowire growth rates, ammonia was added with polyethylenimine. Based on various characterisations such as XRD, SEM, and J-V curves, we discuss the effect of ammonia on the growth rates of ZnO nanowire, and suggest the optimum ammonia concentration for solar cell applications.


The increasing popularity of nonprobate transfers of property at death has created a "revolution" in family wealth transmission. Yet the law on creditors' rights to reach such transfers is badly confused. In some cases, exemptions from creditors' claims are far broader than can be justified. In others, existing creditors' rights are protected but undefined. In still others, it is unclear whether creditors can reach the property at all. There is no procedure for the enforcement of such rights as creditors may have no specified time limit within which claims may be brought. This lack of system invites abuse and is especially hard on involuntary creditors. The Author examines each of the most widely used nonprobate transfer mechanisms: community property agreements, joint property, multi-party bank accounts, United States Savings Bonds, life insurance, deferred compensation benefits, trusts, and other transfers payable on death. Creditors' rights under each mechanism are examined, areas of confusion identified, and specific improvements recommended.The Author proposes that, excepting specific statutory exemptions, both probate and nonprobate property be available to satisfy creditors' claims. He further recommends that a procedure for providing notice to creditors be established in situations where a personal representative is unnecessary and that procedures be established providing for the appointment, when necessary, of a personal representative to handle claims against nonprobate property. Finally, he recommends an extended time period for the bringing of claims against nonprobate property. The Author supplies a draft statute incorporating his recommendations.


April 2006 | Volume 3 | Issue 4 | e133 | e147 Development efforts in rural Africa over the last few decades have achieved improvements in living conditions and in health. It has been argued that when such changes occur, there will be a subsequent reduction in birth rates, and experience in other parts of the developing world has tended to bear out this prediction. However, birth rates in rural Africa remain high and the population continues to grow rapidly. The situation in Ethiopia provides an illustration; spiraling population growth and slow economic growth are widely considered to be the main factors that have fuelled this country's repeated humanitarian crises. On the basis of current trends, it is predicted that Africa's population will double in the next 50 years, but in many countries, the resources are currently not available to sustain such a level of growth, and increased human suffering may be the consequence. An important question, but one that is seldom discussed, is whether development programs in Africa fail to make sustainable improvements over the long term because they lead to unsustainable increases in population growth rate. This concern is addressed, however, in a paper by Gibson and Mace, who studied a rural development program that was intended to improve the lives of Ethiopian women. The researchers measured its impact on the health of women and children in eight villages included within the program, and also on the birth rate. The study involved a rural area where some villages had benefi ted from the provision of a tapped water supply. Previously, women had to walk long distances (up to 30 km) to fetch their families' water in clay pots. The development program reduced the time they spent carrying water each day from about three hours to about 15 minutes. The researchers collected information over a four-year period, including for both villages where tapped water had been introduced and for others where it had not. In total, nearly 2,000 households were included. The nutritional status of the women and children (in terms of body mass index) was also measured. The researchers found that the availability of tapped water improved the survival of young children, although their nutritional status actually declined, and the birth rate increased. All this caused greater scarcity of resources within households. The incremental effects of small changes to energy balance caused by development can increase strain on the household by increasing birth rates. This fi nding highlights the importance of continuing to improve access to contraception, especially in rural areas.


Detecting a newly exploding star or gamma ray burst tends to quicken the pulse of astronomers. Stellar explosions can fade away within hours to days, so the moment of discovery marks the beginning of a race against time to collect data about the phenomenon. Along with the work of dozens of others, the efforts of Peter Nugent, Joshua Bloom, and Weidong Li led to a new understanding of how type Ias originate and unfold. But not all three would be around to celebrate the insights gained from SN 2011fe, which would generate dozens of research papers.


It is well known that the quality of sleep has direct effects on the manifestations of disease. Further, exercise has been shown to enhance the quality of sleep, yet little is known regarding how exercise effects sleep stages. Our laboratory has shown that the timing of exercise is important for cardiovascular benefits which may be derived from the improved quality of sleep. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of aerobic exercise timing on sleep architecture. Thirteen subjects, with no self-reported sleep disorders and not on any medications participated in this study. Visit one consisted of informed consent and a graded exercise test to exhaustion (VO2peak) and equipment familiarization. During visits 2-4 subjects reported for 3 pre-determined exercise times at 7am, 1pm, and 7pm in a random counterbalanced order to perform a 30 minute treadmill protocol at 65% of their predetermined VO2peak. A Zeo™ ambulatory sleep EEG monitoring headband was worn during sleep. This system transmitted brainwave data to a receiver which was analyzed for sleep stage time and quality of sleep. Aerobic exercise at 7am invoked significantly greater time spent in light and deep sleep and the greatest frequency of sleep cycles compared to exercise in the afternoon or evening. However, exercise at 7pm showed less time in Rapid Eye Movement sleep compared to 7am and 1pm exercise times. These data show that engaging in aerobic exercise during the early morning hours may be the most beneficial epoch of time for greater quality of sleep.


In cognitive radio networks, the licensed frequency bands of the primary users (PUs) are available to the secondary user (SU) provided that they do not cause significant interference to the PUs. In this study, the authors analysed the normalised throughput of the SU with multiple PUs coexisting under any frequency division multiple access communication protocol. The authors consider a cognitive radio transmission where the frame structure consists of sensing and data transmission slots. In order to achieve the maximum normalised throughput of the SU and control the interference level to the legal PUs, the optimal frame length of the SU is found via simulation. In this context, a new analytical formula has been expressed for the achievable normalised throughput of SU with multiple PUs under prefect and imperfect spectrum sensing scenarios. Moreover, the impact of imperfect sensing, variable frame length of SU and the variable PU traffic loads, on the normalised throughput has been critically investigated. It has been shown that the analytical and simulation results are in perfect agreement. The authors analytical results are much useful to determine how to select the frame duration length subject to the parameters of cognitive radio network, such as network traffic load, achievable sensing accuracy and number of coexisting PUs.