Mobile or cell phones are now a days an integral part of modern telecommunications in every individual life. In many countries, over half of the population use mobile phones and the mobile phone market is growing rapidly. Saudi Arabia rank first among the countries of the gulf region with highest proportion of mobile users, a study conducted by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).  In gulf countries, Oman ranked second, followed by Kuwait and the UAE.As billions of people use mobile phones globally, a small increase in the incidence of adverse effects on health could have major public health implications on long term basis. Besides the number of cell phone calls per day, the length of each call and the amount of time people use cell phones are important factors which enhance the health related risk. (1)      Mobile phones emit radiofrequency energy, a form of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation, which can be absorbed by tissues close to the phone. The amount of radiofrequency energy a mobile phone user is exposed  depend on many factors as the technology of the phone, the distance between the phone and the user, the extent and type of mobile phone use and the user's distance from cell phone towers. (2)      In 2011, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified mobile phone radiation possibly carcinogenic, means that there "could be some risk" of carcinogenicity, so additional research into the long-term, heavy use of mobile phones needs to be conducted. (3)        While an increased risk of brain tumours from the use of mobile phones is not established, the increasing use of mobile phones and the lack of data for mobile phone use over time periods longer than 15 years warrant further research of mobile phone use and brain cancer risk. In particular, with the recent popularity of mobile phone use among younger people, potentially longer lifetime of exposure, WHO has promoted further research on this group and is currently assessing the health impact of RF fields on all studied endpoints. A cohort study in Denmark linked billing information from more than 358,000 cell phone subscribers with brain tumour incidence data from the Danish Cancer Registry. The analyses found no association between cell phone use and the incidence of glioma, meningioma, or acoustic neuroma, even among people who had been cell phone subscribers for 13 or more years. (4)      The American Cancer Society  (ACS) states that the IARC classification means that there could be some risk associated with cancer, but the evidence is not strong enough to be considered causal and needs to be investigated further. Individuals who are concerned about radiofrequency exposure can limit their exposure, including using an ear piece and limiting cell phone use, particularly among children. (5)      Scientists have reported adverse health effects of using mobile phones including changes in brain activity, reaction times, and sleep patterns. More studies are underway to try to confirm these findings. When mobile phones are used very close to some medical devices (including pacemakers, implantable defibrillators, and certain hearing aids) there is the possibility of causing interference with their operation. There is also the potential of interference between mobile phones signals and aircraft electronics. Some countries have licensed mobile phone use on aircraft during flight using systems that control the phone output power.      Research has shown an increased risk of traffic accidents, about 3-4 times greater chance of an accident, when mobile phones (either handheld or with a "hands-free" kit) are used while driving due to distraction. (6)      Children have the potential to be at greater risk than adults for developing brain cancer from cell phones. Their nervous systems are still developing and therefore more vulnerable to factors that may cause cancer.      The FDA (7) have suggested steps to reduce the exposure to radiofrequency energy: Reserve the use of cell phones for shorter conversations or for times when a landline phone is not available. Use a hands-free device, which places more distance between the phone and the head of the user.


The moment magnitude 7.2 El Mayor–Cucapah (EMC) earthquake of 2010 in northern Baja California, Mexico produced a cascading rupture that propagated through a geometrically diverse network of intersecting faults. These faults have been exhumed from depths of 6–10 km since the late Miocene based on low-temperature thermochronology, synkinematic alteration, and deformational fabrics. Coseismic slip of 1–6 m of the EMC event was accommodated by fault zones that displayed the full spectrum of architectural styles, from simple narrow fault zones (< 100 m in width) that have a single high-strain core, to complex wide fault zones (> 100 m in width) that have multiple anastomosing high-strain cores. As fault zone complexity and width increase the full spectrum of observed widths (20–200 m), coseismic slip becomes more broadly distributed on a greater number of scarps that form wider arrays. Thus, the infinitesimal slip of the surface rupture of a single earthquake strongly replicates many of the fabric elements that were developed during the long-term history of slip on the faults at deeper levels of the seismogenic crust. We find that factors such as protolith, normal stress, and displacement, which control gouge production in laboratory experiments, also affect the architectural complexity of natural faults. Fault zones developed in phyllosilicate-rich metasedimentary gneiss are generally wider and more complex than those developed in quartzo-feldspathic granitoid rocks. We hypothesize that the overall weakness and low strength contrast of faults developed in phyllosilicate rich host rocks leads to strain hardening and formation of broad, multi-stranded fault zones. Fault orientation also strongly affects fault zone complexity, which we find to increase with decreasing fault dip. We attribute this to the higher resolved normal stresses on gently dipping faults assuming a uniform stress field compatible with this extensional tectonic setting. The conditions that permit slip on misoriented surfaces with high normal stress should also produce failure of more optimally oriented slip systems in the fault zone, promoting complex branching and development of multiple high-strain cores. Overall, we find that fault zone architecture need not be strongly affected by differences in the amount of cumulative slip and instead is more strongly controlled by protolith and relative normal stress.


ABSTRACT The design trend for future high-speed trains is envisaged to be lightweight, rising the cost of structural vibration due to the extra flexibility. In this context, studies have looked into the suppression of such vibrations via the use of either (conventional actuators) active suspensions or by structural damping via piezoelectric actuators. The addition of extra macro-actuators will highly impact vehicle weight and is subject to location constraints, while the use of only piezo-actuators normally does not reach the required force levels for appropriate suppression. However, piezo-actuators provide appropriate complementary action with conventional active suspension. In this paper, we present a decentralised control scheme for suppressing the vertical vibration of the vehicle body, combining active structural damping via frequency-weighted control and active suspension control using skyhook damping via structured synthesis. A vertical side-view model of a flexible-bodied railway vehicle is used for the control study, with the configuration of piezoelectric actuators and sensors determined via structural norms. Stability robustness of the controller is analysed with respect to parametric and dynamic uncertainties using μ analysis techniques. Results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme for both flexible and rigid modes while guaranteeing robustness to model uncertainty.


For a long time, exporting the Islamic revolution was the Iranian government's ideological priority and, also, a political means of countering Iraq's allies. Nowadays, Iran lacks the political, economic and military means of achieving this ambition. The only fight the 15 year-old Islamic Republic of Iran can undertake is for its own survival. Iran is isolated on the international scene. It has been defeated, or is facing new problems, in the international conflicts which it has faced on almost all its borders, as an actor, victim or witness. It can no longer cope with a staggering debt at the very time when, belatedly, proposals for cultural, social and economic reforms are being carded out. In addition to the internal socio-economical crises, Iran faces the failure of its politico-religious legitimacy. For the first time since 1979, the political elite and the Iranian clergy is openly split between the supporters of the national religious Guide (now Ali Khamene'i) and the traditionnal religious leaders. The Islamic Republic is now concerned about the survival of the national government. With the regime's survival at stake, Iran's foreign policy is now dependant on these internal crises. Nationalism seems today the last way to keep Iran united and traditional Islam safe. Nationalism, as well as the current Islamic ideology, explains the Iranian military build up and Iran's reassertion of its position as a major regional power. THE POLITICAL DEADLOCK AND THE REVIVAL OF NATIONALISM Although the public administration, services and institutions work relatively well, the Islamic Republic is facing a domestic crisis so widespread and serious that it risks bringing down the regime. Popular discontent became evident for the first time in 1992, when spontaneous riots broke out in Meshed, Arak and Shiraz. During the June 1993 presidential elections, discontent led to a high rate of abstention and a strong vote for the opposition in big cities and non-Persian provinces, later in the begining of 1994 terrorist actions were conducted in Tehran and popular riots broke out in Zahedan (Baluchistan). Since the summer of 1993, Iran can no longer keep up on payments for its short-term debt of $30 billion, despite renegotiations on a bilateral basis with Japanese, German and French banks. Following several years when its doors were relatively wide open and programs were launched for economic recovery, the country must now drastically curb imports. Per capita income was cut in half from 1979 to 1989; and President Rafsanjani's policies have not improved things. Basic commodities and spare parts are scarce once again, after five years of artificial abundance. Inflation is rising under the impact of the rial's enormous devaluation. Inadequacies in public housing, health and education are no longer bearable, given the high rate of population growth (1.7 million more people every year): half of Iranians have had no direct experience of Iran under the Shah. Paralyzed by ideological principles, which keep it from taking out medium- or long-term loans, Rafsanjani did little more in his first term as President (1989-1993) than to lift restrictions on imports and begin construction on investment the projects that had been adopted but not yet financed. Just as settlements had been reached with Western firms and nations regarding the economic disputes that had arisen out of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran plunged into economic crisis. The Iranian government knows that there is no economic future if it does not accept becoming part of the international financial system via an agreement with the IMF which is a prerequisite for a comprehensive rescheduling of its loans, going beyond the partial reschedulings with banks. Such a change implies normalizing relations with the United States, but tampering with this founding dogma of the Islamic Republic spurs the opposition of both the Khomeinist clergy and Ali Khamene'i, the Guide of the Revolution. …


The technological capabilities of an online-learning environment allow an instructor to make an online class better than a face-to-face class by providing students with learning activities that are individualized to meet their needs and characteristics. One possible learning activity is an illustrated web lecture, which consists of a text-based presentation, such as PowerPoint, with an audio recording of the instructor presenting the lecture. However, a deficiency exists in the research that identifies the student characteristics, such as motivation, self-efficacy, and critical thinking dispositions, which influence student achievement and attitudes when an illustrated web lecture is used. This study sought to fill that void. Results indicated that motivation and computer proficiency tend to influence attitudes and that motivation and prior knowledge influence achievement. It was concluded that when an illustrated web lecture is used to deliver content, students with higher levels of motivation tend to exhibit higher achievement and more favorable attitudes.


Rotation curves and velocity dispersion profiles have been determined for the major and the minor axes of 22 elliptical galaxies. Rotation was detected in all but one galaxy, even though the sample was biased toward round ellipticals. Minor axis rotation larger than major axis rotation was measured in two galaxies, NGC 4406 and NGC 7507. Roughly 10 percent of ellipticals may show large minor axis velocities relative to those on the major axis. A simple model is used to derive a rotational axis from the observed minor and major axis velocities to a typical accuracy of 6 deg. The rotational and photometric minor axes aligned to better than 10 deg for 60 percent of the sample, implying that the direction of the angular momentum is related to the orientation of the figure of the galaxy. IC 1459 has a kinematically distinct core with its angular momentum opposite to the angular momentum of the outer parts, and NGC 4406 has a core with its angular momentum perpendicular to that of the outer parts. 46 refs.


Culture is gaining increasing importance in the modern tourism industry and represents a significant force of attraction for tourists (both domestic and international). Cultural tourism allows destinations and regions to expand their customer base, diversify their offer, extend the stay of the tourist, and reduce seasonality. Great efforts are made, by national governments and regions, in order to obtain official designation regarding the relevance of their historical/cultural attractions, for example through UNESCO's World Heritage Sites (WHS) list. Such an aspect seems particularly relevant for a country like Italy, which has a high number of entries in the WHS list and where regions take an active role in promoting tourism. Using an 12-year panel of domestic tourism flows, we investigate the importance of the regional endowment in terms of WHS from two perspectives: (a) by separately estimating the effects, on tourism flows, of WHS located in the residence region of tourists and in the destination region; and (b) by taking into account potential spatial substitution/complementarity effects between regions due to their WHS endowment. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is offered to evaluate the spatial extent of the latter.


Apparent biological motion is the perception of plausible movements when two alternating images depicting the initial and final phase of an action are presented at specific stimulus onset asynchronies. Here, we show lower subjective apparent biological motion perception when actions are observed from a first relative to a third visual perspective. These findings are discussed within the context of sensorimotor contributions to body ownership.


"A Reader's Guide to Modern Irish Drama" provides an introduction to one of the great dramatic and theatrical traditions of Western culture. As a comprehensive contemporary study of Irish Drama, the book includes the most recent and youngest playwrights working today at the Abbey, Druid and Lyric Theatres. Beginning with essays on 20th-century Irish history, The Irish Literary Theatre and the development of the Modern Irish Theatre in Dublin, Belfast, Galway and other cities, "A Reader's Guide to Modern Irish Drama" then presents biographies and bibliographies of over 25 major 20th-century Irish dramatists from Lady Gregory, Yeats and Synge through O'Casey, Beckett and Behan; from Friel and McGuinness to Marina Carr and Martin McDonagh. Perhaps most significantly, the guide discusses the important plays of all the playwrights included, and the major themes of Modern Irish Drama including: the struggle for independence, the cruelty of poverty, the pains of emigration and exile, the decline of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy, the power of religion, the longing for land, and the familial and gender conflicts of a people in transition. Finally, a selected bibliography for the study of Modern Irish Drama is included.


This article updates previous Reserve Bank research on how developments in the composition and pricing of banks' funding have affected their overall cost of funding and the setting of lending rates. The main finding is that the spread between the major banks' outstanding funding costs and the cash rate narrowed a little over 2014. This was due to slightly lower costs of deposits combined with a more favourable mix of deposit funding. The contribution of wholesale funding to the narrowing was marginal as more favourable conditions in long-term debt markets were mostly offset by a rise in the cost of short-term debt. Lending rates declined a little more than funding costs, reflecting competitive pressures.


When it comes to City Logistics, the need to innovate comes from multiple directions. Greenhouse gas emissions must be drastically reduced while at the same time maintaining a vibrant and healthy economy, demanding robust action from each and every sector, including transport. At the same time, competition for scarce and precious common resources in a city (open and green space, an attractive and healthy nvironment, safety, clean air and low noise levels) puts political and societal pressure on supply networks to innovate in order to do more with less consumption of these scarce resources. This needs to be achieved not only by means of low-GHG-emission vehicles, but with less noise, less danger, less local pollution harmful to citizens, fewer transport movements and reduced need for roads and parking spaces.


Water resources cover 70% of the world's surface area and provide habitable environments for
all its flora and fauna (USGS, 2013). Additionally human life cannot survive without its water
resources. It is imperative that we look to protect and improve the quality of water upon which
we have an impact.

There have been numerous studies undertaken to investigate the effects of nitrate concentrations
found within watercourses adjacent to agricultural land, particularly where slurry is intensively
used (Zebarth et al, 1988,) or fertilisers regularly applied (Balogh & Anderson, 1992). In
contrast, very few studies have examined nitrate effects upon other land uses in differing
environs; in particular golf courses, and how management practices carried out, may possibly
have an adverse effect upon water quality (Starr & DeRoo, 1981). Golf courses regularly receive
"point source" pollution in the form of inorganic fertilisers in order to promote rapid growth.

Nitrate is a necessity for plant development; however it is highly soluble and easily lost to water
through run-off and leaching, posing issues to water quality within river systems (Addiscott,
1996). Therefore as a result, The Environment Agency now considers nitrate as a potential water
pollutant (Gaines, 1994). Between 1950-1985, the demand for protein and grain amplified as a
result of the rapidly growing world population, leading to alternate management practices of
agricultural land such as regular inorganic fertiliser treatment, as a consequence of rapid nitrate
release after application. Within this thirty five year period, various research studies revealed a
dramatic increase in the global use of fertilisers along with increased levels of nitrate in water
supplies, especially in cultivated areas (Saull, 1990). Due to the similar trend between fertiliser
treatment and nitrate concentrations, Academics often draw conclusion that the two correlate
strongly and the vast majority of nitrate volume found to be present within river systems derives
from fertiliser, as a consequence of their nitrogen base (Addiscott, 1996). However other
atmospheric, environmental and geological sources provide nutrients and are repeatedly recycled
through the soil, indicating fertilisers are not the only source of leached nitrate, combined with
additional variables such as nitrate concentrations within differing fertilisers (Puri, 2002).

Although recent studies reveal an improvement of chemical and biological quality for rivers, a
large percentage still exceed threshold levels established by the EU Directive of 50mg NO3/l
(ADAS, 2007) .
This raises concerns with respect to the impact of nitrate and its potential links with serious
health problems, encouraging more research into sources of contamination as well as looking at
appropriate measures to minimise pollution of potable and recreational waters (Addiscott, 1996).


The overall objective of this discussion paper is to advance the knowledge on rural livelihoods in Stung Treng, Cambodia. In a cluster analysis, five clusters with very different livelihood strategies are identified based on a sample of 600 rural households. Despite the fact that nearly all households are engaged in some form of subsistence farming, especially by growing rice, the richer clusters build on self-employment and higher-skilled wage employment. In contrast the middle income cluster mainly depends on natural resources (fish and firewood). The poorer two clusters are engaged in lowerskilled wage employment. The incidence of poverty is widespread but differences between the clusters are clearly visible. Even the better-off households have consumption poverty headcount ratios of between 37 to 50% at PPP $1.25. For households from the poorest clusters the poverty headcount ratio amounts to even 70% for income and 80% for consumption. Especially the households largely depending on natural resource extraction are characterized by a high incidence of poverty and high vulnerability. In addition, there are a number of pressures which are expected to increase poverty problems in the future. Policies aimed at reducing poverty and improving rural livelihoods need to carefully consider the close linkages between rural livelihoods and natural resources. But also a diversification away from natural resource extraction into higher-skilled jobs is found to be a strategy opening up new opportunities to improve livelihood security and raise the living standards of the poor.


BACKGROUND
With the introduction of surgery and percutaneous balloon valvuloplasty for relieving severe mitral stenosis the natural history of the disease has markedly altered.

OBJECTIVES
To determine the natural history of the disease in patients with moderate mitral valve stenosis.

METHODS
Demographic, clinical and echocardiographic data were evaluated in 36 patients with moderate mitral stenosis during a follow-up of 71 +/- 15 months.

RESULTS
The 36 patients comprised 32 women and 4 men with a mean age of 43.7 +/- 12.2 years; 28 were Jewish and 8 were of Arab origin. During follow-up, there was a significant decrease in mitral valve area, with an increase in mean mitral valve gradient and score. Mean loss of mitral valve area was 0.04 +/- 0.11 cm 2/year. No correlation was found between disease progression and age, past mitral valve commissurotomy, baseline mean gradient or mitral valve score. Larger baseline mitral valve area (P = 0.007) and Arab origin (P = 0.03) had an independent correlation to loss of mitral valve area. Fifteen patients (42%) did not demonstrate any loss in mitral valve area during the follow-up period.

CONCLUSIONS
The rate of mitral valve narrowing in patients with moderate mitral stenosis is variable and cannot be predicted by patient's age, past commissurotomy, valve score or gradient. Secondly, larger baseline mitral valve area and Arab origin showed an independent correlation to loss of mitral valve area; and finally, in many patients valve area did not change over a long observation period.


ICoAC 2011 (Third International Conference on Advanced Computing) seeks to bring together international researchers to present papers and generate discussions on current research and development in latest trends in IT. The conference will feature a range of presentations on latest research as well as stimulating talks and keynote addresses. ICoAC 2011 is an international conference in the field of Computer Science and Communication focusing to address issues and developments in advanced computing. It is hosted by Department of Computer Technology annually during December. The First and Second editions of ICoAC have been held during 13-15 december 2009 (ICAC) and 14-16 December 2010 (ICoAC). Information Society is facing challenges due to the complexity of its structure in terms of networking, middleware, peer to peer applications, ubiquitous computing, pervasive computing with diverse usage in commercial, personal, communal and public domains, posing various critical issues to be addressed and solved. The ICoAC 2011 is to provide a forum for International community to discuss and debate on the developments in the cutting edge technologies of computing.The conference will feature peer-reviewed technical paper presentation with short-papers and posters, tutorial, student paper presentation and stimulating keynote talks. Objective: ICoAC 2011 seeks to bring together international researchers to present papers and generate discussions on current research and developments in latest trends in computing.


Given Pynchon's penchant for popular music, it is appropriate that his V. inspired at least two musical compositions in the sixties. The earlier is an instrumental entitled simply "V." by Pynchon's Cornell friend Richard Farina; it first appeared on Celebrations for a Grey Day (Vanguard), which The New York Times' Robert Shelton chose as one of the ten best folk records of 1965. The song also appears on The Best of Mimi and Richard Farina (1971), a two-record anthology also on Vanguard; both albums are still available. "V." is played on dulcimer with tambourine accompaniment by Bruce Langhorne; the droning dulcimer has a Near Eastern flavor and consequently seems to have been inspired by the Alexandria of V.'s third chapter. In his liner notes to Celebrations for a Grey Day Farina described his composition thus.


Environmental laws and policies influence the direction of environmental science in complex ways. An emphasis on static efficiency in the design and implementation of law and policy creates incentives for scientists to ask questions that are narrowly focused on the most predictable and measurable environmental variables. Policies designed to protect or restore the emergent properties of ecosystems encourage scientists to ask questions about ecosystem dynamics and the relationship between human activities and the loss or degradation of ecosystem services. Answering such questions is essential for the ecological sciences to advance. This essay addresses three manifestations of policies that can improve understanding of ecological dynamics: the precautionary principle, adaptive management, and the ecosystem approach to environmental management.


Introduction: Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infects one third of the world population. Despite advance in therapy, tuberculosis (TB) remains responsible for 2-3 million deaths annually. During TB, cytokines play a role in host defense. Many cytokines are produced during TB with a predominance of Th1 cytokines during the early stage and Th2 cytokines in the later stages of the infection. The present study aims to screen tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interferon gamma (IFN-γ), interleukin (IL)-12p70, IL-4, IL-6, and IL-1β among TB patients and controls. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted at the Department Of Microbiology, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. Different cytokine levels were measured in 65 samples of TB patients of whom 30 (46.1%) were new TB cases and 35 (53.8%) were suspected multidrug-resistant (MDR)-TB cases along with 15 bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccinated healthy controls by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (Diaclone, France). Complete clinical, radiological, and treatment data were collected. Informed consent was taken from all subjects. Study was approved by the Institutional Bioethical Committee, Jawahar Lal Nehru Medical College. Statistical analysis had been performed by using Sigma plot (10.0). Results: The serum concentration of TNF-α, IFN-γ, IL-12p 70 , IL-1β, and IL-6 in patients with active TB and MDR-TB was elevated than in patients after anti-TB treatment (P < 0.001), in contacts (P < 0.001) and in controls (P < 0.001). It was found that IL-6 seems critical in resistance to TB. IL-4 concentration increased only in MDR-TB patients (P < 0.001) as compared to controls. All these cytokines showed no significant variations according to the site of involvement in pulmonary versus extrapulmonary TB cases. Conclusions: Measuring the serum levels of several cytokines may be useful for evaluating the activity of TB disease and monitoring the clinical effects of anti-tubercular treatment (ATT). The serum TNF-α, IFN-γ, IL-12p 70 , IL-1β and IL-6 level can be a useful marker to diagnose the effectiveness of therapy in the patients.


Background and Objectives: The high morbidity and mortality associated with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are closely associated with an elevated incidence of cardiovascular disease. The importance of good glycaemic control for the reduction of risk, notably of microvascular disease, has been emphasised by the results from clinical trials such as the DCCT for type 1 diabetes and UKPDS for type 2 diabetes. Data from clinical studies also indicate that an oral glucose load results in a reduction in the forearm flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) that coordinates and sustains local blood flow. The reduction was greater and more prolonged in patients with diabetes, probably reflecting uncoupling of endothelial nitric oxide synthase secondary to glucose metabolism and elevated oxidative stress. These data suggested that the hyperglycaemia associated with poor glycaemic control may reduce blood flow as a result of an endothelium-dependent reduction in FMD. However, the mechanisms whereby glucose may alter this and other aspects of microvascular function are unknown. In the current study, we designed protocols that allowed us acutely to change glucose concentration and compare endothelium-dependent and endothelium-independent vasodilation in mouse and rat microvessels from the mesenteric and gracilis circulation. Methods: Small mesenteric and rat gracilis arteries with resting lumen diameters of approximately 200-250 µm and 110-120 µm were used in the study. The vessels were mounted in a pressure myograph, pressurised to 60 mmHg and endothelium-dependent vasodilatation (EDV) was assessed against agonist-mediated or myogenic tone. EDV was compared under normoglycaemic (11.0 mM for mouse and 5.5 mM for rat) versus hyperglycaemic conditions (25 or 40 mM - as based on rodent models of diabetes) with mannitol used as the osmotic control. Results: A short (10-15 minute) exposure to hyperglycaemia increased EDV in gracilis but reduced EDV in mesenteric arteries, whereas after 60-120 minutes EDV was reduced in both tissues, as indicated by both a reduced maximal response (EMAX) and reduced sensitivity (EC50) to agonist. Further analysis revealed that a 60-minute exposure to hyperglycaemia reduced both nitric oxide and non-nitric oxide-mediated EDV. Conclusion: These data indicate that an increase in glucose concentration has a biphasic effect on EDV and hence blood flow. Further studies are underway to determine the cellular mechanisms involved as well as the long-term effects hyperglycaemia on the regulation of microvascular function. Supported by NPRP 4-910-3-244


Abstract. The interaction of barotropic tides with Luzon Strait topography generates some of the world's largest internal solitary waves which eventually shoal and dissipate on the western side of the northern South China Sea. Two-dimensional numerical simulations of the shoaling of a single internal solitary wave at the site of the Asian Seas International Acoustic Experiment (ASIAEX) have been undertaken in order to investigate the sensitivity of the shoaling process to the stratification and the underlying bathymetry and to explore the influence of rotation. The bulk of the simulations are inviscid; however, exploratory simulations using a vertical eddy-viscosity confined to a near bottom layer, along with a no-slip boundary condition, suggest that viscous effects may become important in water shallower than about 200 m. A shoaling solitary wave fissions into several waves. At depths of 200–300 m the front of the leading waves become nearly parallel to the bottom and develop a very steep back as has been observed. The leading waves are followed by waves of elevation (pedestals) that are conjugate to the waves of depression ahead and behind them. Horizontal resolutions of at least 50 m are required to simulate these well. Wave breaking was found to occur behind the second or third of the leading solitary waves, never at the back of the leading wave. Comparisons of the shoaling of waves started at depths of 1000 and 3000 m show significant differences and the shoaling waves can be significantly non-adiabatic even at depths greater than 2000 m. When waves reach a depth of 200 m, their amplitudes can be more than 50% larger than the largest possible solitary wave at that depth. The shoaling behaviour is sensitive to the presence of small-scale features in the bathymetry: a 200 m high bump at 700 m depth can result in the generation of many mode-two waves and of higher mode waves. Sensitivity to the stratification is considered by using three stratifications based on summer observations. They primarily differ in the depth of the thermocline. The generation of mode-two waves and the behaviour of the waves in shallow water is sensitive to this depth. Rotation affects the shoaling waves by reducing the amplitude of the leading waves via the radiation of long trailing inertia-gravity waves. The nonlinear-dispersive evolution of these inertia-gravity waves results in the formation of secondary mode-one wave packets.


BACKGROUND
The results of femoropopliteal bypass surgery using various prosthetic materials are frustrated until the expanded polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) was introduced as a vascular prosthesis in 1973. Since then, the techniques of femoropopliteal bypass improved rapidly, but the long-term patency rate, compaired with autogenous saphenous vein graft, remained unsatisfied. The stretch PTFE graft developed in 1991 became available for clinical usage. The objective of this study is to compare the long-term results between stretch and non-stretch PTFE prosthetic conduits in patients who underwent femoropopliteal vascular reconstruction.

METHODS
From Jun. 1993 to Jun. 1998,68 femoropopliteal bypass operations were performed in 59 patients between stretch and non-stretch PTFE conduits. The stretch PTFE group included 34 patients, 40 surgery (above knee 22, below knee 18). The non-stretch PTFE group included 25 patients, 28 surgery (above knee 17, below knee 11). The patency of grafts was followed by Doppler segmental pressure for at least 2 years. The indication for the bypass grafting operation was disabling claudication and critical ischemia. Patients were observed every 3 months for the first year and every 6 months thereafter. All patients were instructed to take aspirin (100 mg) daily in the whole period of study. Doppler-derived ankle-brachial indices (ABIs) were determined preoperatively and serially postoperatively. A bypass graft was considered to be patent when the Doppler-derived postoperative ABI remained significantly improved (more than 0.15 units higher than their preoperative value). Patency rates were compared by using the Kaplan-Meier life table analysis.

RESULTS
Reconstructions above knee had significantly different patency rates (83% vs 66%, p < 0.05): the stretch PTFE group had more acceptable clinical result than the non-stretch PTFE group. Below-knee bypass made no significantly different results between groups, (59% vs 53%, p > 0.10).

CONCLUSIONS
The stretch PTFE stretches farer and makes better long-term patency for femoropopliteal bypass. We suggested that the stretch PTFE prosthetic conduits is a reasonable alternative for the above knee popliteal artery lesions and reserved for patients lacking autogenous tissues for below knee artery reconstruction.


Introduction. The investigations of the United States Geological Survey in the Gold belt of the Sierra Nevada, carried out under the direction of Dr G. F. Becker, with whose consent this paper is published, have included the geologic mapping of the country on topographic contour maps on the scale of 1 : 125,000, or about two miles to the inch. During the course of this mapping much information has been gained concerning the Neocene river channels, now largely covered by deep volcanic flows or cut away by. subsequent erosion. The auriferous character of the accumulated gravels gives, as is well known, great practical importance to these channels. A large number of the productive Neocene gravel deposits occur in the watersheds of the present Yuba and American rivers, which were included in the area assigned to the writer. It has been found that these deposits are parts of two river systems . . .


The early euphoria of biotechnology 20 to 30 years ago was strongly science driven, and its products were largely expected in the health care sector. Maturity in the intervening years has directed attention increasingly toward bringing products to market and to widening the range of sectors within which biotechnology innovation can be applied. Consequently this chapter is intended to illustrate only a few current trends in commercial biotechnology, without laying claim to being comprehensive. One of the many omissions in the chapter—biomaterials and biomimetics—is treated briefly as a comment on how efforts to mimic nature (biodiversity) are leading to biotechnology innovations. Biotechnology is now established as a robust, reliable, and relatively low-risk technology and is capable of being implemented on a large scale and across the full range of industrial sectors. Market contributions of biotechnology products can be categorized as (i) sales of new products directly attributable to the use of modern biotechnology, (ii) sales of products manufactured by improved processes that make direct use of modern biotechnology (direct impact, e.g., recombinant products), and (iii) sales of products manufactured by improved processes using the products of biotechnology arising in other industries (indirect impact, e.g., biocatalysts). Recent estimates of biotechnology markets, expressed as the shares of worldwide and forecasts for 2005 are shown in a table for seven major industrial sectors.


ABSTRACT Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a marine bacterium known to be the leading cause of seafood gastroenteritis worldwide. A 46-kDa homodimer protein secreted by this microorganism, the thermostable direct hemolysin (TDH), is considered a major virulence factor involved in bacterial pathogenesis since a high percentage of strains of clinical origin are positive for TDH production. TDH is a pore-forming toxin, and its most extensively studied effect is the ability to cause hemolysis of erythrocytes from different mammalian species. Moreover, TDH induces in a variety of cells cytotoxic effects consisting mainly of cell degeneration which often leads to loss of viability. In this work, we examined the cellular changes induced by TDH in monolayers of IEC-6 cells (derived from the rat crypt small intestine), which represent a useful cell model for studying toxins from enteric bacteria. In experimental conditions allowing cell survival, TDH induces a rapid transient increase in intracellular calcium as well as a significant though reversible decreased rate of progression through the cell cycle. The morphological changes seem to be dependent on the organization of the microtubular network, which appears to be the preferential cytoskeletal element involved in the cellular response to the toxin.


This report provides new evidence on the increasing dispersion in wages and productivity using novel micro-aggregated firm-level data from 16 countries. First, the report documents an increase in wage and productivity dispersions, for both manufacturing and market services. Second, it shows that these trends are driven by differences within rather than across sectors, and that the increase in dispersion is mainly driven by the bottom of the distribution, while divergence at the top occurs only in the service sector, and only after 2005. Third, it suggests that between-firm wage dispersion is linked to increasing differences between high and low productivity firms. Fourth, it suggests that both globalisation and digitalisation imply higher wage divergence, but strengthen the link between productivity and wage dispersion. Finally, it investigates the impact of minimum wage, employment protection legislation, trade union density, and coordination in wage setting on wage dispersion and its link to productivity dispersion.


The ease of calculating body mass index (BMI)-based body fat percentage (BF%) is appealing in collegiate male soccer player who have limited time availability and strict training regimens. However, research has yet to evaluate whether BMI-based BF% equations are valid when compared to a criterion multicompartment model. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare BMI-based BF% equations with a three-compartment (3C) model in collegiate male soccer players. METHODS: Sixteen NCAA Division II male soccer players (age = 21 ± 2 years; ht = 179.0 ± 8.2 cm; wt = 78.0 ± 8.5 kg) participated in this study. BMI was calculated as weight (kg) divided by height squared (m2). BF% was predicted with the BMI-based equations of Jackson et al. (BMIJA), Deurenberg et al. (BMIDE) Gallagher et al. (BMIGA), and Womersley and Durnin (BMIWO). The criterion 3C model BF% was determined using air displacement plethysmography (BOD POD®) for body volume and bioimpedance spectroscopy for total body water. RESULTS: The BMI-based BF% equations significantly overestimated mean group BF% for all equations when compared to the 3C model (2.78 to 5.18%; all p < 0.05). The standard error of estimate ranged from 4.18 (BMIDE) to 4.29% (BMIWO). Furthermore, the 95% limits of agreement were similar for all comparisons and ranged from ±7.96 (BMIGA) to 8.18% (BMIJA). CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study demonstrate that the selected BMI-based BF% equations produce fairly small SEEs and 95% limits of agreement. However, the equations also revealed systematic error and a tendency to overestimate mean group BF% when compared to the 3C model. BMI-based equations can be used as an alternative for the individual estimation of BF% in collegiate male soccer players when a more advanced 3C model is not available, but practitioners should consider adjusting for the systematic error (e.g., decrease BMIDE by 2.78%).


Interstellar is the first Hollywood movie to attempt depicting a black hole as it would actually be seen by somebody nearby. For this, our team at Double Negative Visual Effects, in collaboration with physicist Kip Thorne, developed a code called Double Negative Gravitational Renderer (DNGR) to solve the equations for ray-bundle (light-beam) propagation through the curved spacetime of a spinning (Kerr) black hole, and to render IMAX-quality, rapidly changing images. Our ray-bundle techniques were crucial for achieving IMAX-quality smoothness without flickering; and they differ from physicists' image-generation techniques (which generally rely on individual light rays rather than ray bundles), and also differ from techniques previously used in the film industry's CGI community. This paper has four purposes: (i) to describe DNGR for physicists and CGI practitioners, who may find interesting and useful some of our unconventional techniques. (ii) To present the equations we use, when the camera is in arbitrary motion at an arbitrary location near a Kerr black hole, for mapping light sources to camera images via elliptical ray bundles. (iii) To describe new insights, from DNGR, into gravitational lensing when the camera is near the spinning black hole, rather than far away as in almost all prior studies; we focus on the shapes, sizes and influence of caustics and critical curves, the creation and annihilation of stellar images, the pattern of multiple images, and the influence of almost-trapped light rays, and we find similar results to the more familiar case of a camera far from the hole. (iv) To describe how the images of the black hole Gargantua and its accretion disk, in the movie Interstellar, were generated with DNGR—including, especially, the influences of (a) colour changes due to doppler and gravitational frequency shifts, (b) intensity changes due to the frequency shifts, (c) simulated camera lens flare, and (d) decisions that the film makers made about these influences and about the Gargantua's spin, with the goal of producing images understandable for a mass audience. There are no new astrophysical insights in this accretion-disk section of the paper, but disk novices may find it pedagogically interesting, and movie buffs may find its discussions of Interstellar interesting.


Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), like the majority of relatively violent sports, has mainly been organized around the capabilities of the male body. However various indices suggest that women's engagement with MMA is growing. The purpose of this paper is to offer an analysis of women's involvement in MMA using a figurational sociological approach. In doing so, we draw on interview data with "elite" female mixed martial artists to explore the extent to which females within MMA experience a specifically gendered "quest for excitement." The paper further illustrates how the notion of "civilized bodies" can be used to interpret the distinctly gendered experiences of shame in relation to fighting in combat sports, the physical markings incurred as a consequence, and perceptions of sexual intimacy in the close physical contact of bodies. In so doing this paper provides the first figurationally-informed study of female sport involvement to focus explicitly on the role of violence in mediating social relations, while refining aspects of the figurational sociological approach to provide a more adequate framework for the analysis of gender relations.


This paper focuses on copyright and critically explores some of the arguments that are used to justify intellectual property law in this digital and networked age and some of the tactics used to protect them. More specifically, this paper explores the theft of creative ideas as a cybercrime and focuses upon the contradictory intellectual property issues raised by the digital and networked technologies of downloading via file sharing. Technologies, which, like each previous new form of communications technology has 'disrupted' predominant business models and challenged the assumptions behind them. In the case of the creative arts, the 'intellectual land grab' for control over the ideas domain remains as contentious as ever. In this case, digital forms of music, film and, for that matter many other expressions of the creative arts. On the one hand, there has been as there still is, a distinct move to restrict and disincentivise downloading via file sharing by criminalizing what was otherwise a civil space - arguably making it even more attractive as a form of deviance. On the other hand technologies are being developed to automatically censor IP content in live streams, reaffirming downloading via file sharing as a form of deviance. Furthermore, there is the simultaneous irony that technologised and legally unstable income stream collection practices, such as 'speculative invoicing' - the sending of invoices to alleged copyright infringers demanding payment else face further legal action - are corrupting the very process that they seek to protect. All, against the background of the curious paradox of circulation and control which appears to demand that successful management of IP has to achieve a critical balance between restricting it enough to prevent it from becoming too diluted and losing its public appeal and value, and letting it roam free enough for consumers to buy into it and creators incorporate the themes into the next generation of popular culture - itself a contradiction to existing intellectual property 'central origin myths'.


The paper investigates empirically the links between the fiscal space, fiscal redistributions, and distributional outcomes for the case of Latin America. It focus on two factors; first, the role of intertemporal restrictions and debt sustainability and, second, the demographic transition's influence on the fiscal redistribution structure. The paper identifies some stylized facts that matter in designing distribution-friendly fiscal consolidation policies. Two findings deserve highlighting. First, the way in which a given fiscal adjustment is implemented matters to income distribution. As a general rule, the downward adjustment of expenditures is regressive, although the importance of the impact varies substantially according to the expenditure item and from one economy to another. Second, the Demographic Window of Opportunity (DWO) is the key stage of the demographic transition regarding the fiscal space in Latin America. Younger countries are entering the DWO and the older ones have to prepare to abandon it and enter the aging stage. The exercises suggest that the DWO will create the fiscal space required to implement progressive policies in younger countries while the opposite will occur in the countries that will age. The simulations indicate that the demographic transition-driven effects on the items of fiscal redistributions are potentially very large and have substantial consequences for income distribution and debt sustainability.


Introduction: Unaesthetic revision of the umbilical scar in vertical abdominoplasty is a common reason for patient dissatisfaction. Case Report: We propose the use of the opposite triangular-flap technique, an omphaloplasty technique that we developed, to treat and prevent recurrence of stenosis by insertion of two triangular flaps on the umbilical stump. After describing our initial use of this technique to treat a case of umbilical stenosis after vertical dermolipectomy, we explain why the positive outcomes that we observed in this case motivate us to recommend further use of this technique, primarily in vertical abdominoplasty.


The decline in the employment-population ratios for men and women over the period 2000-2007 prior to the Great Recession represents an historic turnaround in the evolution of U.S. employment. The decline is disproportionately concentrated among the less educated and younger groups within the male and female populations and, for women, disproportionately concentrated among the unmarried and those without children. About half of men's decline can be explained by declines in wage rates and by changes in nonlabor income and family structure influences, but the decline among women is more difficult to explain and requires distinguishing between married and unmarried women and those with and without children, who have each experienced quite different wage and employment trends. Neither taxes nor transfers appear likely to explain the employment declines, with the possible exception of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Other influences such as the minimum wage or health factors do not appear to play a role, but increases in incarceration could have contributed to the decline among men.


Some months ago, Laura Cabrera wrote 'Visioneering and Our Common Future' a post that many artists and intellectuals of the late 19 and early 20 centuries would have supported as a manifesto that could inspire social movements and establish new ways of understanding political action. Cabrera was warning us: if academics do not intervene in more actively shaping the future, then the future will respond to a very limited set of visions.


Fragmented solid targets made of either fluidised tungsten powder or static pebble bed of tungsten spheres, have been long proposed and are being studied as an alternative configuration towards high-power (>1 MW of beam power) target systems, suitable for a future Super Beam or Neutrino Factory. Such assemblies offer many advantages as better thermal and inertial stress absorption, thermal cooling and, if in the fluidised form, regeneration. We propose to perform a validation test of a tungsten powder target. The proposed feasibility experiment will try on a pulse-by-pulse basis to address the effect of the impact of a high-power pulsed beam in such an assembly using both online diagnostic tools with high-speed cameras, laser vibrometry and acoustic measurements, as well as offline, post-irradiation analysis of the target material.


This article looks at the development of law by the judiciary in the sense of judgments taking the law beyond the point of what was hitherto regarded as ius positivum. Its main perspective, however, is not the creation of law by the courts as such, but rather the ways and means in which the human rights idea has encouraged judges to deliver decisions that imply an overturning of 'settled' law. In the comparative exploration of 'adventurous' judgments that we shall embark on, our focus will be on the political morality of human rights as a driving force in judicial activism. It is assumed, in other words, that where the judiciary is 'active', human rights may play a part as general principles of law as distinct from rules already incorporated in positive law. Notably then, human rights in this way affect positive law in a manner other than through processes of international, regional and national standard setting connected with the establishment of new supervisory institutions and mechanisms. For this reason, the article does not so much consider typical human rights cases; instead the focus is on major decisions by national courts that were not in the first place regarded as human rights cases at all. In this endeavour, the article aims to be no more than an initial comparative exploration, intended to illustrate a function of human rights that is not normally highlighted, namely its function as an inspirational force towards 'adventurous' judgments. Yet, the judicial potential illustrated here is of great significance, as it may lead to law development inspired by the two principal pillars underpinning the international quest for the realization of human rights: universality and human dignity. After reviewing a variety of characteristic cases from such diverse legal backgrounds as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the United States of America, India, South Africa and Nigeria, some conclusions are drawn as to the ways in which human rights may function as a moral-political force in judicial law development. Apparently, notions underlying human rights protection such as inalienability and universality play a part as modern regulae iuris, while interests that relate closely to basic human dignity tend to exert a rather strong appeal in terms of providing judicial protection.


Purpose We evaluated chemical composition, and molecular and rheological properties in 10 commercially available silicone oils (SilOils), focusing on siloxane chains of low molecular weight (LMW components, LMWC) that are known to be "impurities" produced during the SilOil synthesis process. Methods We assessed the type of SilOil polymer and molecular weight distribution (MWD) by spectroscopy and conventional size exclusion chromatography, respectively. From the Cumulative MWD, we calculated the fractions of LMWC with molecular weight (M): ≤2000, ≤5000, and ≤10,000 g/mol. Due to the low MW, the content of LMWC with M ≤1000 g/mol was determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The dynamic viscosity (η) was assessed by rotational rheometry. Results For all SilOils, the polymer was polydimethylsiloxane. The samples differed significantly in terms of MWD and relative LMWC fractions. Specifically, the relative fraction of all LMWC (M ≤10,000 g/mol) ranged from 2.31% to 9.40% and the content of LMWC with M ≤1000 g/mol also varied significantly (range, 51–1151 ppm). The η values were different between the SilOils, and, for many of them, from the declared viscosity. Conclusions Commercially available SilOils differ significantly in molecular and rheologic features. These compounds contain a significant amount of LMWC, "impurities" generated during the synthesis process, acting as emulsifier, potentially inducing ocular inflammation and toxicity. Translational Relevance The amount of impurities in different SilOils may influence significantly their biocompatibility.


Practising ethics has been an important consideration since Aristotle, with particular reference to his Nicomachean Ethics. He based his entire philosophy on understanding the nature of ethical interaction between people. Conversely, nowadays teaching ethics is a more complicated task when basing one's considerations on Aristotelian ethics, because, according to Aristotle, ethics cannot be taught. Virtue can only be practised by means of habituation which is similar to stating that one cultivates virtues. Therefore, by means of habituation ethical character can be developed. Reinterpretation of this in the modern day classroom or lecture hall can be challenging. This is experienced first-hand by the authors of this paper, who are involved in the teaching of an undergraduate module in information ethics. The concern encountered was not due to the lack of content, but rested on the inability of students to internalise the information ethical considerations. As a result, the students found it difficult to critically reflect on and practically apply what they have been taught. In response to this the authors endeavoured to implement a practical component to the module to provide an opportunity for the students to engage more with the information ethical issues of an Information Society. The aim of this article is to discuss the implementation of the practical component, considering the overall theoretical information ethical framework. Thereafter recommendations will be made as to the improvement of this dual structure. The module was presented over a period of one semester and consisted of both practical and theoretical components. The themes covered during the theoretical component ranged from the foundational concepts related to information ethics; ethical issues of an information society such as privacy, access and intellectual property; intercultural information ethics; social justice and social responsibility. Through the use of a practical portfolio to support the practical component, the students were encouraged to select one topic from any of the themes, on which they had to do research for various objectives: 1) writing a conference abstract; 2) presenting the research in a conference setting; 3) compiling a first draft and final conference paper; 4) designing a conference poster, and 5) formally reviewing each other's work. The results of combining the theoretical component with the practical outcomes will be the main focus of this conference paper. The authors have found that the students were more able to engage with the theoretical content as a result of the practical components. In turn, the practical component also enriched the students' understanding of the theoretical content, informing their class discussions and overall quality of work. The authors will recommend a similar approach to any other applied ethics course, but still highlight the extensive resources required.


In light of the detrimental health consequences associated with insufficient physical activity, there is growing concern about the low percentage of adults who are sufficiently active. Given that some researchers have recommended that acquiring a dog should be promoted as a means of increasing physical activity, this longitudinal study examined whether acquiring a dog and walking it leads to an increase in physical activity. Results revealed that participants in the acquired-dog group (
 n
 = 17) increased their moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity in 10-minute bouts from baseline to 8 months, while there was no change in the control group (
 n
 = 28). The present study also examined whether, if dog owners become more physically active, this results in health benefits. Although individuals in the acquired-dog group increased their physical activity, they did not experience any improvements in their physical or psychological health over the course of the study relative to the control group. However, it is noteworthy that the majority of the acquired-dog group perceived that acquiring a dog had positively affected their health. Taken together, these findings suggest that acquiring a dog and walking it merits further attention as a way of increasing physical activity and there is a need for additional research on the possible physical activity-related health benefits from dog walking.


The SOS response is governed by the transcriptional regulator LexA and is elicited in many bacterial species in response to DNA damaging conditions. Induction of the SOS response is mediated by autocleavage of the LexA repressor resulting in a C-terminal dimerization domain (CTD) and an N-terminal DNA-binding domain (NTD) known to retain some DNA-binding activity. The proteases responsible for degrading the LexA domains have been identified in Escherichia coli as ClpXP and Lon. Here, we show that in the human and animal pathogen Staphylococcus aureus, the ClpXP and ClpCP proteases contribute to degradation of the NTD and to a lesser degree the CTD. In the absence of the proteolytic subunit, ClpP, or one or both of the Clp ATPases, ClpX and ClpC, the LexA domains were stabilized after autocleavage. Production of a stabilized variant of the NTD interfered with mitomycin-mediated induction of sosA expression while leaving lexA unaffected, and also significantly reduced SOS-induced mutagenesis. Our results show that sequential proteolysis of LexA is conserved in S. aureus and that the NTD may differentially regulate a subset of genes in the SOS regulon.


The business school business has grown rapidly over recent decades and is now firmly embedded in the top tier recruitment process. But business schools are still unsure of why they teach what gets taught. The curriculum drives the business school's design, and vice versa. Both are fairly standardized around the world but have little connection with management practice or firms' design. Decades of anxiety about this rigor and relevance gap have generated little change. This paper suggests the curriculum's fundamental weakness derives from its implicit theory of the firm, or rather the absence of a viable theory. In spite of most business school members being perfectly comfortable about what they presume a firm to be Ronald Coase's famous questions about the 'nature of the firm', posed in 1937, have yet to be answered. Herbert Simon's 1967 paper on the design of the business school is worthy of close reconsideration and shows today's emphasis on analysis badly needs to be complemented by helping students synthesize the disparate materials they are being fed. The present paper urges that rhetoric be restored to the center of the curriculum and that case teaching be used to develop the students' rhetorical and synthesizing skills.


In preeclampsia, maternal microvascular function is disrupted and angiogenesis is dysfunctional. Insulin resistance that occurs in some pregnancies also pathologically affects microvascular function. We wished to examine the relationship of angiogenic mediators and insulin resistance on microvascular health in pregnancy. We performed a nested, case–control study of 16 women who developed preeclampsia with 17 normal pregnant controls. We hypothesized that the impaired microvascular blood flow in preeclamptic women associated with an increased ratio of the antiangiogenic factors; (s‐endoglin [sEng] and soluble fms‐like tyrosine kinase‐1 [sFlt‐1]) and proangiogenic molecule (placental growth factor [PlGF]) could be influenced by insulin resistance. Serum samples taken after 28 weeks of gestation were measured for the angiogenic factors, insulin, and glucose alongside the inflammatory marker; tumor necrosis factor‐α and endothelial activation, namely; soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule 1, intercellular adhesion molecule‐1, and e‐selectin. Maternal microvascular blood flow, measured by strain gauge plethysmography, correlated with ratios of pro‐ and antiangiogenic mediators independently of preeclampsia. Decreased microvascular function measured in preeclampsia strongly correlated with both the antiangiogenic factor (sFlt‐1 + sEng): PlGF ratio and high levels of insulin resistance, and combining insulin resistance with antiangiogenic factor ratios further strengthened this relationship. In pregnancy, microvascular blood flow is strongly associated with perturbations in pro‐ and antiangiogenic mediators. In preeclampsia, the relationship of maternal microvascular dysfunction with antiangiogenic mediators is strengthened when combined with insulin resistance.


The liquid water content equation at a state of equilibrium for radiation fog was asymptotically solved with the singular perturbation technique. This report presents the detailed solution procedures, sensitivity testing of related parameters and discussions. The asymptotic solution describes the vertical structure of liquid water content which explicitly reveals the balance relationship between various factors in a steady radiation fog. It shows that cooling produces liquid water, which is regulated by droplet gravitational settling, while turbulence consumes the produced liquid water. The asymptotic solution also reveals that there exists a surface turbulence sub-layer, or fog boundary layer (FBL) within a radiation fog. The characteristic FBL depth is thinner for weaker turbulence and a larger cooling rate, whereas, if turbulence increases or the cooling rate decreases the FBL will develop from the ground. Through the FBL, a critical turbulence exchange coefficient for radiation fog was identified. This parameter is most interesting because it defines the upper bound of turbulence that a steady radiation fog can withstand. The deeper a fog is, the stronger a turbulence intensity it can endure, which explains why turbulence hinders or disperses a shallow fog near the ground but promotes a deeper fog at higher altitudes. Furthermore, the conditions for maintaining the state of equilibrium in a radiation fog can be characterized by either the critical turbulence exchange coefficient or the characteristic FBL depth . If turbulence decreases to below the critical turbulence intensity fog will form, while if turbulence exceeds the critical turbulence intensity or if the characteristic FBL depth dominates most of the fog bank, the state of equilibrium will be broken, leading to the dissipation of the radiation fog. The breakdown of the equilibrium condition can be applied to forecasts as a criterion to diagnose the formation or dissipation of radiation fog.


The debate within the Web community over the optimal means by which to organize information often pits formalized classifications against distributed collaborative tagging systems. A number of questions remain unanswered, however, regarding the nature of collaborative tagging systems including whether coherent categorization schemes can emerge from unsupervised tagging by users. This paper uses data from the social bookmarking site delicio. us to examine the dynamics of collaborative tagging systems. In particular, we examine whether the distribution of the frequency of use of tags for "popular" sites with a long history (many tags and many users) can be described by a power law distribution, often characteristic of what are considered complex systems. We produce a generative model of collaborative tagging in order to understand the basic dynamics behind tagging, including how a power law distribution of tags could arise. We empirically examine the tagging history of sites in order to determine how this distribution arises over time and to determine the patterns prior to a stable distribution. Lastly, by focusing on the high-frequency tags of a site where the distribution of tags is a stabilized power law, we show how tag co-occurrence networks for a sample domain of tags can be used to analyze the meaning of particular tags given their relationship to other tags.


In recent times, dentists, as well as patients, have developed greater awareness about the impact of teeth and gingiva in the attractiveness of smile. Short clinical crowns are considered unaesthetic and bring patients' to the dentist to rectify their gummy smile. The gingival complex plays a vital role in the overall beauty of an individual's smile. Altered passive eruption is a clinical situation that occurs due to excessive gum overlapping the enamel, thus contributing to a gummy smile. Many techniques are available to correct the problem of gummy smile due to altered passive eruption. However, there has to be a sound knowledge about the classification and treatment options of altered passive eruption so as to treat patients' accurately. Careful consideration of biologic width and the dentogingival junction is needed to adequately diagnose the true etiology and plan an effective treatment. In the current case report, altered passive eruption was treated with surgical gingivectomy.

Keyword: Altered passive eruption, Esthetic smile, Gingivectomy


Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy has been utilized to classify and identify bacterial specimens on the basis of their atomic composition. We have characterized the effect that the presence of a second bacterial species in the ablated specimen had on the identification of the majority species. Specimens with a reduced number of bacterial cells (approximately 2500) were identified with 100% accuracy when compared to undiluted specimens. In addition, a linear dependence of the total spectral power as a function of cell number was determined. Lastly, a high selectivity was obtained for a LIBS-based analysis of nine separate bacterial strains from four genera.


This work evaluated the use of high-powered ultrasonics to enhance biofuel production in terms of efficiency and costs. A wide range of feed stocks, including switch grass, corn stover, and soft wood, were studied. The effect of ultrasonic pretreatment on the removal of lignin for hydrolysis of starches and cellulose to fermentable sugars was studied. It was found that many of the pretreatments were very successful in enhancing lignin removal. For example, time of dissolution of lingo-cellulosic biomass in ionic liquids was reduced from hours to minutes accompanied by a significant decrease in energy consumption compared to mechanical stirring. In addition, it was found that hydrolysis of corn starch could be greatly accelerated utilizing ultrasonics. Economic models showed that the technology, once implemented, would have a payback period of less than one year. The work also focused on biodiesel production. It was seen that ultrasonics accelerated the transesterification process so that soy bean oil could be converted to biodiesel in less than a minute, compared to 45 min using traditional methods. It was shown that yeast grown from glycerin, a co-product of biodiesel production, could be extracted and simultaneously converted to biodiesel with ultrasonics in less than a minute, compared to traditional techniques that require multiple processes and relatively long cycle times (+1 h).


The purpose of this document is to define a BGP-based auto-discovery
mechanism for Layer-1 VPNs (L1VPNs). The auto-discovery mechanism for
L1VPNs allows the provider network devices to dynamically discover the
set of Provider Edges (PEs) having ports attached to Customer Edge
(CE) members of the same VPN. That information is necessary for
completing the signaling phase of L1VPN connections. One main
objective of a L1VPN auto-discovery mechanism is to support the
"single-end provisioning" model, where addition of a new port to a
given L1VPN would involve configuration changes only on the PE that
has this port and on the CE that is connected to the PE via this port.
[STANDARDS-TRACK]


Much research has recently investigated the measurement of quality answers in Question Answering (Q&A) communities in the form of automatic best answer identification. Previous approaches have focused on manual user annotations and diverse features based on intuition for identifying best answers and proved relatively successful despite considering best answer identification as a general classification problem.

Best answer modelling is generally distanced from community studies about what users regard as important for identifying quality content. In particular, previous research tends to only focus on the automatic aspects of best answers identification model by applying generic learning algorithms.

This thesis introduces the concepts of qualitative and structural design in order to investigate if features derived from community questionnaires can enrich the understanding of best answer identification in Q&A communities and if the thread-like structure of Q&A communities can be exploited for better results. Two different approaches for exploiting the thread structure of Q&A communities are proposed and two new, previously unstudied, features are introduced. First, a measure of question complexity is introduced as a proxy measure of answerer knowledge. Second, different models of contribution effort are proposed for representing the answering reactivity of contributors.

The experiments are systematically conducted on datasets issued from three different communities that vary in size, content and structure. The results show that the newly proposed features allow for better understanding of what constitute best answers. The findings also reveal that the thread-wise algorithms and optimisation techniques created from the structural design methodology correlate with best answers. In general both structural and qualitative design appear to improve best answer identification meaning that structural and qualitative methods may improve unrelated classification tasks.


Context. The abundance ratio N/O is a useful tool to study the interplay of galactic processes, for example star formation efficiency, timescale of infall, and outflow loading factor.
Aims. We aim to trace log(N/O) versus [Fe/H] in the Milky Way and to compare this ratio with a set of chemical evolution models to understand the role of infall, outflow, and star formation efficiency in the building up of the Galactic disc.
Methods. We used the abundances from IDR2-3, IDR4, IDR5 data releases of the Gaia-ESO Survey both for Galactic field and open cluster stars. We determined membership and average composition of open clusters and we separated thin and thick disc field stars. We considered the effect of mixing in the abundance of N in giant stars. We computed a grid of chemical evolution models, suited to reproduce the main features of our Galaxy, exploring the effects of the star formation efficiency, infall timescale, and differential outflow.
Results. With our samples, we map the metallicity range −0.6 ≤ [Fe/H] ≤ 0.3 with a corresponding −1.2 ≤ log(N/O) ≤ −0.2, where the secondary production of N dominates. Thanks to the wide range of Galactocentric distances covered by our samples, we can distinguish the behaviour of log(N/O) in different parts of the Galaxy.
Conclusions. Our spatially resolved results allow us to distinguish differences in the evolution of N/O with Galactocentric radius. Comparing the data with our models, we can characterise the radial regions of our Galaxy. A shorter infall timescale is needed in the inner regions, while the outer regions need a longer infall timescale, coupled with a higher star formation efficiency. We compare our results with nebular abundances obtained in MaNGA galaxies, finding in our Galaxy a much wider range of log(N/O) than in integrated observations of external galaxies of similar stellar mass, but similar to the ranges found in studies of individual H II regions.


Aims: Malaria poses a medical and public health challenge in Nigeria. The burden of the disease has been a major source of concern to tourists in Uyo. Knowledge on the biting behaviour and the Human Biting Rates (HBR) are needed to assess the epidemiology of the disease and in estimating the vector - human contact. Study Design: A six months study was carried out in Uyo, Nigeria where no information exists on the major malaria vectors associated with human malaria. Sample collection was carried out between May and October 2013 using Knockdown and Human Landing Catches (HLC) techniques. Methodology: Adults mosquitoes were collected in two areas in Ewet Offot Community. Nine households were randomly selected in each location using Simple Random Sampling Method. Mosquitoes belonging to the Anopheles gambiae complex were further characterized and identified by a molecular method using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Results: Two anophelines species were collected by the sampling methods consisting of 21(23.3%) Anopheles nili and 69(76.7%) Anophele gambiae complex. A Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) based test on the An. gambiae complex identified 66(96.0%) as An. gambiae sensu stricto . The study also revealed that the resting behaviour of An. gambiae complex species in this area is endophilic whereas the resting behaviour of An. nili i s exophagic/exophilic. The peak biting activity of An. gambiae complex species occurred at 11 pm (indoor) and 7 pm (outdoor) in July whereas that of An. nili occurred at 10 pm (indoor) and 6 pm (outdoor) in June. The Human Biting Rates (HBR) recorded for An. gambiae was higher than An. nili and the total number An. gambiae collected was more than An. nili. Conclusion: Better understanding of the behaviour of the sibling species within the complex is important to help identify their roles in disease transmission and to facilitate vector control.


A main characteristic of current social systems is that they are designed to never-endingly captivate the attention of users, but are rarely designed to give support to those that need it. We describe the development process of Buddy, a social support mobile app for college students. We created a message stream algorithmically designed to give more attention to those with low psychological wellbeing, hidden feedback metrics to discourage competition or social comparison, and bots to deliver automatic one-click feedback in the form of virtual hugs. Across two field studies, we found that these small design changes can facilitate different types of behavior and community norms.


G-quadruplexes are four stranded nucleic acid structures formed around a core of guanines, arranged in squares with mutual hydrogen bonding. Many of these structures are highly thermally stable, especially in the presence of monovalent cations, such as those found under physiological conditions. Understanding of their physiological roles is expanding rapidly, and they have been implicated in regulating gene transcription and translation among other functions. We have built a community-focused website to act as a repository for the information that is now being developed. At its core, this site has a detailed database (QuadDB) of predicted G-quadruplexes in the human and other genomes, together with the predictive algorithm used to identify them. We also provide a QuadPredict server, which predicts thermal stability and acts as a repository for experimental data from all researchers. There are also a number of other data sources with computational predictions. We anticipate that the wide availability of this information will be of use both to researchers already active in this exciting field and to those who wish to investigate a particular gene hypothesis.


Leukocyte telomere length has been shown to correlate to hippocampus volume, but effect estimates differ in magnitude and are not uniformly positive. This study aimed primarily to investigate the relationship between leukocyte telomere length and hippocampus gray matter volume by meta-analysis and secondarily to investigate possible effect moderators. Five studies were included with a total of 2107 participants, of which 1960 were contributed by one single influential study. A random-effects meta-analysis estimated the effect to r = 0.12 [95% CI -0.13, 0.37] in the presence of heterogeneity and a subjectively estimated moderate to high risk of bias. There was no evidence that apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype was an effect moderator, nor that the ratio of leukocyte telomerase activity to telomere length was a better predictor than leukocyte telomere length for hippocampus volume. This meta-analysis, while not proving a positive relationship, also is not able to disprove the earlier finding of a positive correlation in the one large study included in analyses. We propose that a relationship between leukocyte telomere length and hippocamus volume may be mediated by transmigrating monocytes which differentiate into microglia in the brain parenchyma.


Helen Tangires examines the role of the public marketplace - social and architectural - as a key site in the development of civic culture in America. More than simply places for buying and selling food, Tangires explains, municipally owned and operated markets were the common ground where citizens and government struggled to define the shared values of the community. Public markets were vital to civic policy and reflected the profound belief in the moral economy - the effort on the part of the municipality to maintain the social and political health of its community by regulating the ethics of trade in the urban marketplace for food. Tangires begins with the social, architectural and regulatory components of the public market in the early republic, when cities embraced this ancient system of urban food distribution. By mid-century, the legalization of butcher shops in New York City and the incorporation of market house companies in Pennsylvania challenged the system and hastened the deregulation of this public service. Some cities demolished their marketing facilities or loosened restrictions on the food trades in an effort to deal with the privatization movement. However, several decades of experience with dispersed retailers, suburban slaughterhouses and food transported by railroad proved disastrous to the public welfare, prompting cities and federal agencies to reclaim this urban civic space.


The research develops the Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use methods and makes then more appropriate for studying land degradation in arid and semi-arid zones. In this research, three approaches were applied to land degradation assessment in the central southern part of the Jeffara Plain in Libya: remote sensing, Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use (MEDALUS) and Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE).The Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use Method was used to determine the environmentally sensitive areas (ESAs) in the study area. In addition, this model has been developed by adding two parameters: groundwater management and wind speed. These were not directly applied in the original MEDALUS model and their incorporation makes the method more suitable to the arid and semi-arid zones.Landsat images were used for the years 1986, 1996 and 2002 and Spot images for the year 2009. The supervised classification (the enhanced maximum likelihood classification) algorithm was applied to generate land cover maps together with the matrix analysis. They were used to analyse and extract land information covering the changes in the study area; they detected and assessed the changes for the period from 1986 to 2009.In addition to processing the satellite MODIS images, the data were used to identify the relationship between the climate and the vegetation indices (NDVI) for the period from 2001 to 2009.The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) was used with a Geographic Information System (GIS) to determine quantitatively the average annual soil loss in the study area. A GIS file was created for each factor of the USLE: precipitation, soil type, land cover, and slope, combined with the cell-grid modelling procedures in Arc GIS to predict the soil erosion risk.The results obtained from remote sensing demonstrated significant decrease in natural vegetation and significant degradation in most of the land in the study area. About 85% of the study area was 'moderate' or 'severe' in terms of degradation, as defined land cover maps and land degradation maps were produced for the study area. Findings from the Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use method showed that almost 75% of the total study area was sensitive to 'critical' desertification. A map for the environmentally sensitive areas vulnerable to desertification was produced for the study area.In contrast, the results obtained from USLE revealed 'slight' erosion rates in the rangelands and the agricultural lands which together account for 76% of the total land area. A soil erosion map was also produced for the study area.


On 12 May 2008, the M w 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake ruptured two northeast-striking imbricated reverse faults and one northwest-striking reverse fault along the middle Longmen Shan thrust belt, at the eastern margin of the Tibetan plateau. The morphology of the coseismic scarp varies drastically along strike. We distinguish eight different categories: (1) simple thrust scarp, (2) hanging-wall collapse scarp, (3) simple pressure ridge, (4) dextral pressure ridge, (5) fault-related fold scarp, (6) backthrust pressure ridge, (7) local normal fault scarp, and (8) pavement suprathrust scarp. The coseismic surface ruptures confirm that the Wenchuan earthquake is dominated by reverse faulting with some right-lateral component that varies from site to site. The surface rupture can be divided into two parts, the Yingxiu segment and the Beichuan segment. When the earthquake is split into two subevents accordingly, they correspond to an M w 7.8 event and an M w 7.6 event, respectively. These two segments can in turn be divided into four second-order subsegments, which are equivalent to four subevents of M w 7.5, M w 7.7, M w 7.0, and M w 7.5, respectively. The segmentation of the rupture is consistent with a cascading-rupture pattern, responsible for the total 110 s of the earthquake rupture. In addition to surface ruptures, the focal mechanisms determined for the aftershocks recorded by the local seismic network are used to constrain the fault geometry of the subsegments. They show that the dip of the fault responsible for the earthquake varies along strike, and the fault tends to flatten at depth. In addition, the fault plane gets steeper northward, enabling the fault to accommodate a larger strike-slip component along a lateral ramp. This major earthquake confirms that crustal shortening could be the main driving force for the growth of high topography along the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau and that lower crustal flow is not required.


EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE AND THE SEARCH FOR A SCIENCE OF CLINICAL CARE Jeanne Daly Berkeley: University of California Press 2005, HB 276 pp, US 65.00 ISBN. 0 520 24316 1Jeanne Daly documents how evidence-based medicine turned from a subversive set of ideas of single-minded people across the globe, into the latest buzzword in clinical science. In contemporary health care, to be against evidence-based medicine is to be against science, progress, and rationality. Evidence-based medicine stands for practicing medicine with a scientific basis. Medical decision-making should be guided by the best available, carefully evaluated quantitative evidence rather than by the experiences of medical authorities. For supporters, evidence-based medicine is the answer to incompetent physicians, clinicians overwhelmed by an endless stream of research articles, lack of efficient interventions, practice variation, cost-overruns, lingering clinical uncertainties, stale medical education, and health care inequities. For critics, evidence-based medicine 'rips the heart out of medicine' to replace it with an algorithm. Evidence-based medicine, critics further argue, is insufficiently clinical, methodological myopic, and leads to mindless standardisation. Still, in one generation the critics have been put in a defensive position, forced to explain that with all the problems in health care why wouldn't better science improve results.Daly offers the history of evidence-based medicine and clinical epidemiology based on, what can be described methodologically as, intellectual network studies. The core of her book consists of in-depth interviews with leading evidence-based figures in Canada, United States, Britain and South Africa who comprise an international network of like-minded thinkers. She introduces a figure with a short characterisation (e.g. 'The Internationalist: Kerr White' 2005:40), and then sums in a couple of pages the person's career path and achievements based on their published record and interview data.So, how do you become a leading figure in evidence-based medicine? You are a male clinician trained in the sixties. You are deeply frustrated with what you consider wrong-footed medicine, and you question the authority of your teachers. You decide to discover the 'true science' behind medical interventions. You become a strong believer in the randomised clinical trial or in meta-analyses of clinical trials. You do some studies. Besides strong research credentials, you also have a knack for convincing your initially sceptical colleagues. Soon, you are spreading the evidence-based medicine gospel through education, databanks, textbooks, and institutes. You have become mainstream medicine. You ignore those who question your authority. All around the world, the career paths seem remarkably similar.Among the pioneers, the most effective advocate of evidence-based medicine is the charismatic David Sackett. At McMaster University in Canada, Oxford University in Britain, and in hundreds of talks, he links scientific evidence to the bedside. Sackett has a talent for inspiring colleagues to ignore established dogma, drawing in talents foreign to medicine, and building institutions. Sackett was inspired by Alvan Feinstein who had challenged medicine with a broad intellectual, research-based agenda to turn the clock back to a time of diagnostic taxonomies of clinical symptoms, relying on better medical technologies and quantitative principles. Another dominant figure was Archie Cochrane who made the case for randomised clinical trials as a way to eradicate bias in research studies. …


Protein fold recognition is a key step towards inferring the tertiary structures from amino-acid sequences. Complex folds such as those consisting of interacting structural repeats are prevalent in proteins involved in a wide spectrum of biological functions. However, extant approaches often perform inadequately due to their inability to capture long-range interactions between structural units and to handle low sequence similarities across proteins (under 25% identity). In this paper, we propose a chain graph model built on a causally connected series of segmentation conditional random fields (SCRFs) to address these issues. Specifically, the SCRF model captures long-range interactions within recurring structural units and the Bayesian network backbone decomposes cross-repeat interactions into locally computable modules consisting of repeat-specific SCRFs and a model for sequence motifs. We applied this model to predict β-helices and leucine-rich repeats, and found it significantly outperforms extant methods in predictive accuracy and/or computational efficiency.


This study was designed to determine the in vitro fluoride output from controlled-release devices in stimulated, whole human saliva, and to assess changes in the salivary calcium concentration following immersion of the devices. Twenty fluoride (F) controlled-release devices of the hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA)/methyl methacrylate (MMA)-type were employed. Each was designed to release 1-2 mg F per day. All devices were placed individually in 10.0 ml of deionized water for 3 days to assess baseline F output. Seven devices with markedly high or low output were discarded. During days 4-13, three of the remaining 13 devices were placed individually in 10.0 ml of stimulated, whole saliva donated by three volunteers. All devices were returned to deionized water during days 14-17. All solutions were replaced daily with fresh solutions, and each test tube was inverted once every 24 hr. The study was conducted at 19-21 degrees C. Fluoride concentration of the deionized water and human saliva was assessed by ion-specific electrode; calcium concentration of the saliva was assessed pre- and postimmersion by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. The fluoride output of the devices placed in saliva decreased to 36% of their baseline rates (P < 0.001). The calcium concentration of the human saliva decreased from a mean preimmersion value of 3.58 mg/100 ml (+/- 0.63 SD) to a postimmersion value of 2.64 (+/- 1.12 SD; P < 0.001). These results suggest an interaction between the fluoride released by the devices and calcium in the saliva.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Mark So lives in Los Angeles. His work is preoccupied with the materiality of language, exploring situations of ordinary literacy via simple means of recording/transcription/reading and changing experiences of silence. His many pieces (300 alone involve John Ashbery's poems) take form as scores, tapes, performances, and other more obscure manifestations. So recently released New complaints. New rewards, a book/DVD he coauthored with Stuart Krimko, through his DEATH-SPIRAL publishing initiative (DEATH-SPIRAL.net). "The Recital" from Three Poems. © 1972, 1997, 2008, by John Ashbery. All rights reserved. Used by arrangement with Georges Borchardt, Inc., on behalf of John Ashbery.


Magnetron sputter deposition with single target materials was used to produce amorphous and crystalline Ti-A1-(Cr) alloy coatings on a Ti-50Al substrate. The following coatings were studied: Ti-50Al-10Cr, Ti-53Al-15Cr, Ti-50Al-20Cr and Ti-48Al. The microstructures of the coatings were studied in the as deposited condition and after devitrification and heat treatment. A random distribution of nano-precipitates was formed in amorphous as-deposited coatings. Columnar features were present when the as-received deposit had crystallised during sputter deposition. If crystallization occurred during deposition, a columnar microstructure formed with the columnar fibres being parallel to the deposition direction. For the Ti-50Al-10Cr and Ti-53Al-15Cr deposits, the crystalline domains consisted of lamellar gamma // alpha, i.e. the crystalline deposits had a gamma // alpha texture. The alpha → alpha transformation occurred during deposition. Phase competition in the alloys was studied by combining thermodynamic modelling and transformation kinetics. At 1173K, the Ti-50Al-10Cr alloy transformed to a two-phase microstructure, consisting of the gamma and C14 Ti(Al, Cr)2 phases. The Ti-53Al-15Cr alloy transformed to a three-phase microstructure, consisting of the gamma, tau and the C14 Laves phase. The gamma and tau phases were mixed finely, with gamma // tau. The Ti-50Al-20Cr alloy transformed to a two-phase microstructure, consisting of the gamma and the Cl4 Laves phase. No orientation relationship between the gamma and the C14 Laves phase was observed. Phase evolution studies at lower temperatures in the range 773K to 973K indicated that for the amorphous Ti-48Al alloy, the phase transformation path is: the amorphous phase → alpha → gamma + alpha/alpha2. A fine lamellar structure was formed, with gamma being the dominant phase. For the Ti-50Al-20Cr alloy, the phase transformation path was: the amorphous phase → gamma → gamma + Ti(Al, Cr)2. The experimental observations and the modelling results have clearly suggested a tendency of amorphous phase stabilisation via Cr addition. Thermodynamic modelling also indicated that the driving force for amorphous alloy formation is not much less than that for the precipitation of disordered solution phases. Kinetically, the amorphous phase formation during sputter deposition is related to the suppression of surface diffusion at low substrate temperatures. The temperature processing window for ordered phase formation in the Ti-Al(-Cr) alloys during magnetron sputter deposition was evaluated by the effective diffusion distance. Time dependent nucleation calculations showed that in the Ti-48Al amorphous alloy, it would be kinetically easier to precipitate the alpha phase than the gamma phase. In the case of the Ti-50Al-20Cr alloy, the gamma phase forms in preference of alpha, which is consistent with experimental observations. Diffusion phenomena at the coating/substrate interface and the oxidisation of the coatings were also studied. The experimental Cr diffusion profiles and the simulations for the Ti-Al-Cr coatings and the Ti-50Al substrate indicated that diffusion at 1173K is reasonably slow. The Ti-50Al-10Cr, Ti-53Al-15Cr and the Ti-50Al-20Cr coatings could form protective oxide scales at 1173K. When a columnar structure was present in the crystalline deposit, cracking of the coating was observed when the coating was subject to thermal cycling from elevated temperatures. It is concluded that if cracking of the coatings was to be avoided, amorphous deposits should be preferred.