In "What the Sorcerer Said," Carolyn Abbate proposed a reading of Dukas9s Sorcerer9s Apprentice (1897) focused on the possibility of musical narration. The present essay shifts that focus to the question of the work9s uncanniness and excess. In particular, where Abbate finds that the slow part of the epilogue resonates with her understanding of the work as an instance of narration, I begin with the final two measures of the work, which suddenly revert to the fast tempo of the central scherzo. These final measures, which Abbate does not mention, produce a disturbing regression that suggests another reanimation of the broom. This "third beginning" (thus heard in relation to the two preceding moments of animation) marks the broom as an agent of the uncanny ( heimlich and unheimlich ) in the sense identified by Freud in his essay "Das Unheimliche" (1919). Indeed, Dukas9s work as a whole is haunted by motives Freud later identified as uncanny: magic, the omnipotence of thought, animism, and involuntary repetition. The essay works backward from the final noise of the piece into a re-reading founded on musical details such as the representation of the brooms through minor- and major-third dyads, the role of the pitch-class Ab, the structure of the central "reanimation scene," and the dismal interplay of motives associated with the broom and the Apprentice. Close attention is given to Dukas9s immediate literary source, Goethe9s ballad "Der Zauberlehrling," whose use of assonance and repeating rhymes provides subtle structural cues echoed in Dukas9s music; I argue that the relationship between the ballad and Dukas9s score is more homologous than Abbate was willing to allow. A number of revisions to Abbate9s account also emerge through reference to a descriptive note on The Sorcerer9s Apprentice left by Dukas in manuscript (Paris B.N.F. Musique MS 1037). Finally, I suggest that this "symphonic scherzo after Goethe" conflates literary and musical logics into a peculiar kind of fiction that points to the uncanny nature of narrative itself. Dukas9s work ultimately engages the issue of mastery by focusing the listener9s attention on the failure of authority and the contingency of animation or de-animation. In this Lacanian "overflow" into the unknown, the musical work goes beyond its literary sources, for the broom, not the human figure of the Apprentice, becomes the true protagonist of Dukas9s work.


Imagine a world without eBay...unthinkable! How would you get that Farrah Fawcett poster, retired Beanie Baby, or first-edition pet rock? Handling over a gazillion (OK, we exaggerate--it's actually only 1 billion) page views each day, server-side Java makes eBay work. Isn't it time you learned the latest (J2EE 1.4) versions of Servlets & JSPs? This book will get you way up to speed on the technology you'll know it so well, in fact, that you can pass the Sun Certified Web Component Developer (SCWCD) 1.4 exam. If that's what you want to do, that is. Maybe you don't care about the exam, but need to use Servlets & JSPs in your next project. You're working on a deadline. You're over the legal limit for caffeine. You can't waste your time with a book that makes sense only AFTER you're an expert (or worse one that puts you to sleep). No problem. Head First Servlets and JSP's brain-friendly approach drives the knowledge straight into your head (without sharp instruments). You'll interact with servlets and JSPs in ways that help you learn quickly and deeply. It may not be The Da Vinci Code, but quickly see why so many reviewers call it "a page turner". Most importantly, this book will help you use what you learn. It won't get you through the exam only to have you forget everything the next day. Learn to write servlets and JSPs, what makes the Container tick (and what ticks it off), how to use the new JSP Expression Language (EL), what you should NOT write in a JSP, how to write deployment descriptors, secure applications, and even use some server-side design patterns. Can't talk about Struts at a cocktail party? That'll change. You won't just pass the exam, you will truly understand this stuff, and you'll be able to put it to work right away. This new exam is tough--much tougher than the previous version of the SCWCD. The authors of Head First Servlets and JSP know: they created it. (Not that it EVER occurred to them that if they made the exam really hard you'd have to buy a study guide to pass it.) The least they could do is give you a stimulating, fun way to pass the thing. If you're one of the thousands who used Head First EJB to pass the SCWCD exam, you know what to expect!


Any understanding of John Shelton Reed's legacy to the study of southern history should begin with an appreciation of his pivotal position within modern southern intellectual history itself. Reed burst on the southern scene in 1972 as a contrarian, and he has remained very much a contrarian to this day, both his scholarly interests and his temperament steering him far away from the academic mainstream. Yet his heterodoxies have not prevented him from gaining enormous influence both inside and outside of the academy. This is attributable in part to a personal style that is both witty and accessible; in my experience, few assignments are more effective than a Reed essay in getting students to learn how to think about their world. But Reed's influence is also due to one great service: at a time when traditional ways of thinking about region--especially the South--had reached a dead end, Reed introduced us to a new way--an approach that understands region as a historical and cultural product, but one with a life of its own, and a stubborn persistence born of the basic needs of those who identify with it. To appreciate Reed's contribution, it is necessary to recall the impasse that the study of the American South was approaching in the early 1970s. At that time, when I was setting forth as a southern historian, the dominant way of thinking about the region and its history drew heavily upon "modernization" theory. Most thinking about the American South took the classic dichotomy between traditional and modern societies and applied them to, respectively, the South and the larger "America" of which it was a part. In large part this line of thinking drew upon the "objective" delineation of the "southern regions of the United States" developed in the 1930s by Howard W. Odum and his "regionalist" colleagues at the University of North Carolina's Institute for Research in Social Science (which Reed would later direct). Odum delineated his regions by examining the geographic distribution of numerous social indicators; the resulting maps and tables persistently showed the region he termed the "Southeast" (essentially the Confederate South excluding Texas) as a cohesive zone of, by American standards, deep deprivation. Thus the Southeast had the densest rural population and the least impressive cities and industry; of all American regions, it was clearly the poorest, the least educated, the unhealthiest, and at once the most demographically fertile and the stingiest in providing opportunity to its children.(1) In the post-World War II years, these deficiencies, in turn, fed into a larger perception of the South as backward, a laggard in the progressive American parade. Flushed with postwar triumphalism and eager to define their society as a superior alternative to Soviet Communism, Americans had come to think of their country as the pinnacle of modernity. Not only was it urban and industrial, it was dynamic, innovative, forward-looking, and tolerant; its rewards were open to individual ambition without regard to irrelevancies of birth or creed; and its politics were democratic and pluralistic. Alongside this paragon, the South appeared to be the epitome of tradition; indeed, its economic and human deficiencies were rooted in its retrograde social character. The region was slack and unimaginative, steeped in religious passions that smothered free thought and suspicious of outside people and ideas. It cherished ascribed status over achieved status, family and class over individual merit. A narrowly based oligarchy lorded over its poor, thanks in large part to a political system devoted not to the reasonable pursuit of social equity but to the perpetuation of tribal enmities. And, of course, there was white supremacy--the old "central theme of southern history," the epitome of "traditional" backwardness not only in its refusal to reward its black citizens according to their merit, but in its repression of the human aspirations of African Americans and its intolerance of all challenges to the dominion of Jim Crow. …


Safety, local and systemic immunomodulation, and tumor response to treatment with aerosolized natural interleukin 2 (nIL-2) applied five times a day were studied in a Phase I trial in 16 patients with pulmonary malignancies refractory to conventional therapy. The toxicity of inhaled nIL-2 was different from that observed after systemic administration. Reversible airway irritation causing a nonproductive cough represented the dose-limiting toxicity. Mild to moderate reduction of the vital capacity and forced expiratory volume (FEV1) with minor effects on relative FEV1, peak expiratory flow, airway resistance, and PaO2 was experienced by individual patients. In 14 patients suffering from pulmonary metastases due to renal cell cancer, one durable complete response, one partial response, and one mixed response were observed. Inhalation of nIL-2 aerosol resulted in a dose-dependent expansion of pulmonary immunocompetent cells in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. Posttreatment bronchoalveolar lavage showed an activated lymphocyte phenotype with increased HLA-DR expression. The only systemic biological effect detectable in peripheral blood was a marked increase of soluble interleukin 2 receptor serum levels. We conclude that treatment with aerosolized nIL-2 is an effective means for site-specific immunomodulation and deserves further investigation for the treatment of malignant and inflammatory lung disease.


Relatively low crop prices over the past two years, as well as regional weather adversity, has been the catalyst for the passage of "ad hoc" emergency relief. This paper examines the economic and financial status of 41 representative panel farms over the 1999-2002 period. When forecasting through the life of the 1996 Farm Bill, the representative crop farms are assessed by Texas A&M's Agricultural and Food Policy Center to be in the weakest condition observed over the last decade for liquidity and the related need to refinance.


In this paper, I compare the segmental inventories of Haitian and St. Lucian with those of their contributing languages, in order to evaluate the impact of the substrate languages on the development of these systems. I show that the segmental inventories of the creoles display many features that were inherited from the Gbe languages through transfer, which suggests a massive impact of the substrate in the development of the segmental inventories of the creoles. In a nutshell, the phonological systems of Haitian and St. Lucian appear as a compromise between those of their contributing languages, Fongbe and other Gbe languages (the substrate), and French (the superstrate). While both creoles have essentially the same vowel inventory as the substrate, their consonantal inventory is closer to the superstrate. This hybrid character of the creoles is similar to what is found in an interlanguage, in the more canonical cases of second language acquisition. I propose scenarios where the differences between the two creoles and their superstrate result from phonological and phonetic processes that are typical of interlanguages – e.g., segmental substitution under phonological equivalence, transfer of L1 allophonic rules. The scenarios assume that the emergence of a creole is a particular case of second language acquisition (Andersen 1983). They also assume the Full Transfer/Full Access model of Second Language Acquisition (Schwartz & Sprouse 1996; White 2000), according to which second language learners assume the grammar of L1 as a starting point – Full Transfer – and progressively restructure this initial grammar using principles and parameters of Universal Grammar – Full Access. It is shown that the features of the substrates have guided the acquisition (or non acquisition) of the segmental inventories of French, even in cases where Universal Grammar may have been at play.


Autonomous guidance of micro-air vehicles (MAVs) in unknown environments is a challenging task because these artificial creatures have small aeromechanical time constants, which make them prone to be disturbed by gusts of wind. Flying insects are subject to quite similar kinds of disturbances, yet they navigate swiftly and deftly. Flying insects display high- performance visuo-motor control systems that have stood the test of time. They can therefore teach us how vision can be used for immediate and vital actions. We built a 50-gram tethered aerial demonstrator, called OSCAR II, which manages to keep its gaze steadily fixating a target (a dark edge), in spite of nasty thumps that we deliberately gave to its body with a custom-made "slapping machine". The robot's agile yaw reactions are based on: (1) a mechanical decoupling of the eye from the body, (2) an active coupling of the robot's heading with its gaze, (3) a Visual Fixation Reflex (VFR), (4) a Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex (VOR), (5) an accurate and fast actuator (voice coil motor, VCM). The actuator is a 2.4-gram voice coil motor that is able to rotate the eye with a rise time as small as 12 ms, that is, much shorter than the rise time of human oculo-motor saccades. In connection with a micro-rate gyro, this actuator endows the robot with a high performance "vestibulo ocular reflex" that keeps the gaze locked onto the target whatever perturbations in yaw affect the robot's body. Whenever the robot is destabilized (e.g., by a slap applied on one side), the gaze keeps fixating the target, while being the reference to which the robot's heading is servoed. It then takes the robot only 0.6 s to realign its heading with its gaze.


The household biosand filter (BSF) is a highly utilized point-of-use water treatment tool. The effect of ambient temperature on the ability of the BSF to remove microbes from water is unclear. Model filters were distributed among different temperature-controlled laboratories and dosed daily with surface water amended with sewage. Comparison of the total coliform and Escherichia coli counts in the influent versus effluent revealed an immediate drop in the removal efficiencies of filters held in colder rooms. This performance difference, however, became less pronounced over the course of the experiment until no significant performance difference was detected between filters regardless of their ambient temperature, perhaps due to microbial adaptation within the BSFs. Subsequently, two-thirds of the filters were exposed to freezing temperatures, thawed, and re-tested for microbial removal. All filters exposed to freezing temperatures showed significant drops in microbial removal compared to control filters. Filters exposed to the most extreme temperatures showed the greatest drop in performance.


Interorganization systems, as an element of electronic commerce, are rapidly becoming an essential resource for competitive success. At the same time, the capabilities of such systems are evolving themselves, coincident with augmented trading partner responsibilities and new organization strategies. This paper reports the results of a field study conducted to understand the way in which interorganization systems are advancing. Four stages of systems were identified. While each encompasses the capabilities of the preceding stage, their characteristics and the manner in which they are deployed are highly distinctive.


The "Aligning National Approaches to Digital Preservation" (ANADP) conference was held at the National Library of Estonia, from May 23-25, 2011. More than 125 delegates from more than 20 countries were gathered in Tallinn, Estonia and explored how to create and sustain international collaborations to support the preservation of digital cultural memory. This publication contains a collection of peer-reviewed essays that were developed by conference panels and attendees in the months following ANADP.


In this paper I deal with the question of how it is that we have emotional responses to things that we do not believe in the reality of, specifically things like characters and events in literature and film (the paradox of fiction). The direction in which I wish to take this query is not the traditional philosophical approach to this question, however. There has been much written on this particular approach, and because of this I think that it is becoming, in philosophical effect, stuck. What I wish to do in what follows is to approach this question from a different set of assumptions and from a different paradigm, with the hope that I will be able to produce a more constructive and perhaps even more accurate resolution to the problem.


ABSTRACT
 Here we describe a new partial sauropod skeleton from the late Kimmeridgian (Late Jurassic) of the Lourinhã Formation, central west Portugal. The closely associated specimen comprises a complete tooth (with root), a fragment of cervical neural arch, an anterior chevron, and an almost complete right pectoral girdle and forelimb. The new sauropod, Zby atlanticus, n. gen. et sp., can be diagnosed on the basis of four autapomorphies, including a prominent posteriorly projecting ridge on the humerus at the level of the deltopectoral crest. Nearly all anatomical features indicate that Zby is a non-neosauropod eusauropod. On the basis of several characters, including tooth morphology, extreme anteroposterior compression of the proximal end of the radius, and strong beveling of the lateral half of the distal end of the radius, Zby appears to be closely related to Turiasaurus riodevensis from approximately contemporaneous deposits in eastern Spain. However, these two genera can be distinguished from each other by a number of features pertaining to the forelimb. Whereas previously described Late Jurassic Portuguese sauropods show close relationships with taxa from the contemporaneous Morrison Formation of North America, it appears that turiasaurians were restricted to Europe. All adult sauropods recovered in the Late Jurassic of Portugal thus far are very large individuals: it is possible that the apparent absence of small- or medium-sized adult sauropods might be related to the occupation of lower-browsing niches by non-sauropods such as the long-necked stegosaur Miragaia longicollum.


A balance between energy supply and demand is one of the challenges faced by policy makers. In fact, the main objective of energy planning is to achieve this balance. Energy models can be used for supply and demand future planning of a country or region. In most situations, these methods focus on economic development, energy policy, selection of appropriate resources and technologies for the future and investing in these technologies. This paper discusses the definitions of energy planning and classifies models of energy systems according to various approaches. The paper concludes that overall energy planning requires a balance between supply and demand of energy. However, achieving this balance is possible with the coordination of all energy sectors, proper development and implementation of energy policies and finally guidance and help to the consumer to select the best sources.


Community and conference interpreters are concerned by misunderstanding and for the preservation of linguistic diversity. Rather than emphasizing differences in context or mode, this chapter seeks to deepen parallels and similarities across the spectrum of professional simultaneous interpretation by describing a discourse of simultaneous interpreters within "the largest professional interpreting community in the world" (Interpreter #2). The multilingual and democratic institution of the European Parliament (EP) provides a unique venue to explore shared responsibility between interpreters and interlocutors. As policy makers who regularly use interpreters, the effectiveness of interpreted communication in the EP is of imminent interest to all participants in interpreted interaction. Because codes of ethics typically constrain interpreters' ability to provide coherent feedback to the interlocutors with whom we work; this paper summarizes one specific and situated interpreter concern. A contrast between the ritual and transmission views for conceptualizing the purpose of communication is used to illuminate the struggle in Interpreting Studies to clearly distinguish linguistic meaning from socially-emergent meaningfulness.


Whilst in recent times there has been an increasing
interest in the popular media in families with gender variant children, there is still a paucity of
academic research into the experience of parenting
a pre-pubescent child with gender identity issues. Gender dysphoria in young children engenders
powerful reactions in adults, involving the recognition of childhood sexuality, a subject matter considered taboo in Western society. As such, this research
explores highly sensitive and intimate aspects of
family life, requiring parents to talk and think about difficult issues. This small scale study adopts a case
study design in order to explore how it might feel
for families attending the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock Clinic, London to
parent such a child.

Through acting as a 'bricoleur' (Denzin & Lincoln: 2000: p3) different and contrasting research methods and theories of gender identity
development are explored in order to shed light on
this under-researched and hidden area of parental experience. Eight parents were interviewed and their
narratives are presented as case studies which can
both stand-alone as individual pieces of research, and be understood as a cogent group with over-
arching themes. Psychosocial research methods of Free Association Narrative Interviews and photo elicitation were used in order to gather the data which was then coded and analysed drawing on the principles of Charmaz' (2001) constructivist version of grounded theory.
Particular
attention is also given to unconscious processes that might have been at play between researcher and interviewee such as transference, counter-
transference and containment. Five key themes relating to the process of
mourning emerged from the data: loss, uncertainty,
ambivalence, being
unable to think and acceptance. Recommendations for
 both social work and
clinical practice and further research are also offered.


Despite the availability of static analysis methods to achieve a correct-by-construction design for different systems in terms of timing behavior, violations of timing constraints can still occur at run-time due to different reasons. The aim of monitoring of system performance with respect to the timing constraints is to detect the violations of timing specifications, or to predict them based on the current system performance data. Considerable work has been dedicated to suggesting efficient performance monitoring approaches during the past years. This paper presents a survey and classification of those approaches in order to help researchers gain a better view over different methods and developments in monitoring of timing behavior of systems. Classifications of the mentioned approaches are given based on different items that are seen as important in developing a monitoring system, i.e., the use of additional hardware, the data collection approach, etc. Moreover, a description of how these different methods work is presented in this paper along with the advantages and downsides of each of them. Index Terms—Runtime Monitoring; Extra-Functional Proper- ties; Real-Time; Timing; Survey.


The aim of this literature review is to bring to the forefront knowledge about the suitability of videoconferencing in nursing for patients and their families living at home. A systematic literature review that included studies of videoconferencing in nursing care. Inclusion criteria were original studies relevant to concept of study. Computerized bibliographic databases (PubMed, CINAHL and PsycINFO) were searched from January 2008 to October 2016. In total, 325 articles were identified. Eight articles (1539 participants) met the inclusion criteria, and were finally included. The eight articles covered videoconferencing used in follow-up care for patients living in their homes after surgery, postpartum, chronic illnesses, families with premature infants, and children with cancer. A conventional content analysis was conducted. The results show that the success of videoconferencing depends on satisfying network access. Nurses as well as patients thought videoconferencing was similar to meeting in person. Videoconferencing seems to support person-centred nursing, promote selfmanagement and motivate patients and families to engage in their health. The use of videoconferencing requires further organization of the nursing practice. The study indicates that videoconferencing can be a suitable alternative to traditional nursing follow-up when network access and technology function properly and the nursing service is well organized. Videoconferencing seems to underpin person-centred nursing. Knowledge gaps identified, more research needed as bases for assessment of videoconferencing suitability in nursing for individual persons in different treatment situations.


Atherosclerosis results from chronic inflammatory processes involving a huge number of risk factor, such as lipid profile, glycated hemoglobin and oxidative stress. Signaling pathways are not enough to explain the holistic interactions. The combined use of principal component analysis and structural equation modeling is a good choice to investigate the causality between risk factors so as to complement the missing links and information in the published pathways. The result of demonstrates the combined use of these two methods in clustering of interacting risk factors and modeling their interactions. The clustered risk factors represent related features with causality. The most dominant cluster is the group of antioxidant, consisting of the essential substances responsible for eliminating harmful reactive oxygen species (ROS) and preventing atherosclerosis. The path model also uncovers the underlying interaction and balance between ascorbic acid and uric acid in human body.


Provisional Table of Contents. Abbreviations . General Introduction . Introduction . Hypertension Syndrome. Vascular Biology. Functional Endothelium. Endothelial Dysfunction. New Treatment Approach. Hypothesis: Essential Hypertension and End-Organ Damage . Hypertension Classification and Guidelines Wordwide . Hypertension in the US. JNC-7. NHANES III and IV. CHS. ESH-ESC. ISHIB. AHA. BHS/NICE(RCP). JBS 2. Global Cardiovascular Risk Calculation. Secondary Hypertension. Measurement of Blood Pressure . Indirect measurement of blood pressure. Korotkoff Sounds. Common Mistakes in Blood Pressure Measurement. Hypertension-Atherosclerotic Syndrome. Normotensive Hypertension. Pre-hypertension. Nonpharmacologic Treatment of Hypertension. Nutrition. Nutraceuticals, Vitamins, Minerals and Antioxidants. DASH I and II Trials. Specific Recommendations. Obesity. Exercise. Approaches to Selection of Antihypertensive Therapy . Stepped Care. Demographics. Subsets of Hypertension. Renin Profiling: The Laragh Method. Hemodynamics in Hypertension. Hemodynamics: Logical and Preferred Method to Reduce Blood Pressure. Hemodynamic Effects of Antihypertensive Drugs. Hypertension-Related End-Organ Damage. Life Expectancy and Blood Pressure. Systolic, Diastolic and Pulse Pressure Concepts. Isolated Systolic Hypertension. Clinical Hypertension Trials and Antihypertensive . Drug Therapy . Completed Trials and Trials in Progress. Diuretic and Beta-Blocker Trials. Summary of Clinical Trials with Diuretics. Summary of Clinical Trials with Beta-Blockers. Meta-Analysis of Various Clinical Trials. Comparisons of ACE-Inhibitor therapy with Placebo. Comparisons of Calcium-antagonist therapy with Placebo. Comparisons of More Intensive Blood Pressure Lowering Strategies with Less. Intensive Strategies. Comparisons of Ace-Inhibitor based Therapy with Diuretic-based or Beta-Blocker Therapy. Comparisons of Calcium-antagonist-based Therapy with Diuretic or Beta-BlockerTherapy. Comparisons of Ace-Inhibitor Therapy with Calcium-antagonist Therapy. Summary of Clinical Trials in Hypertension and Clinical Outcomes. Health Outcomes Meta-Analysis. Comparing the CCBs to other Antihypertensive Therapy. ALLHAT Trial. ALLHAT: Conclusions. ASCOT Trial. Summary of Published Trials Involving CCBs. Angiotensin Converting Enzyme Inhibitors (ACEI) Trials. Summary of ACEI Trials. Angiotensin Receptor Blockers (ARBs) Trials. ARBs Trials Summary. Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factor and Effects of Anti-hypertensive Drug Therapy . Coronary Heart Disease: Risk Factors. Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors: More potential risk factors. Influence of Diuretic and Beta-Blocker Therapy on CHD Risk Factors. Antihypertensive Drugs and Serum Lipids. Summary of Serum Lipids and Antihypertensive Therapy with Diuretics and. Beta Blockers. Effects of Antihypertensive Drugs on Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors. Antihypertensive Drugs and Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors: Summary. Calcium Channel Blockers and Atherosclerosis (CHD Reduction Trials). Hypertension and Renal Disease . Classification of Chronic Kidney Disease. Hypertension and Renal Damage. Hypertension-Related Renal Damage:. Postulated Mechanisms. Is Thiazide Diuretic-Based Antihypertensive Therapy Associated with Increased. Risk of Renal Injury. Major Clinical Trials Showing Renoprotection. Effects of Antihypertensive Drugs on Renal Function. Hypertension and Diabetes Mellitus . Hypertensive Diabetics: Mortality, Coronary Heart Disease and Antihypertensive. Therapy. BP Level Effects on Type II-DM Nephropathy. RENAAL TRIAL. Diabetes Mellitus and Hypertension Summary. Selection of Therapy Based on Subsets of Hypertension. Demographics and Antihypertensive Drugs. Resistant Hypertension. Isolated Systolic Hypertension in the Elderly. Hypertensive Urgencies and Emergencies. Treatment General Principles. Treatment Choice of Drug. Treatment of Specific Hypertensive Disorders. Hypertension in Pregnancy. General Review of Antihypertensive Drug Therapy. Quality of Life and Antihypertensive Therapy (Selected Trials). Antihypertensive Drug Compliance. Total Cost of Antihypertensive Therapy. Characteristics of the Ideal Antihypertensive Drug. Combination Antihypertensive Therapy: Selected Drugs. Combination Antihypertensive Therapy: Selected Drugs: Summary. Antihypertensive Therapy: Efficacy of Monotherapy. Selected Drug Interactions with Antihypertensive Therapy. Maximum Recommended Doses of Antihypertensive Drugs with Best Treatment Characteristics. Specific Review of all Antihypertensive Drug Classes . Diuretics. Diuretics Highlights. Central Alpha-Agonists. Central Alpha-Agonists: Similarities. Central Alpha-Agonists: Highlights. Comparison of Commonly Used Oral Central Alpha-Agonists. Postganglionic Neuron Inhibitors. Postganglionic Neuron Inhibitors Highlights. Beta-Blockers-General. Side Effects and Contraindications of Beta-Blockers. Drug Interactions with Beta-Blockers. Beta-Blockers Highlights. Direct Vasodilators. Direct Vasodilators Highlights. Alpha1-Blockers. Alpha1-Blockers: Highlights. Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme (ACE) Inhibitors. Renin-Angiotensin System (RAAS). ACE Inhibitors: Highlights. Non Hypertensive Treatment Effects of ACEIs. Calcium Channel Blockers. Calcium Channel Blockers: Highlights. Treatment: Non Hypertensive Effects of CCBs. Angiotensin II Receptor Blockers (ARBs). Ang-II Receptor Blockers (ARBs): Highlights. Non Hypertensive Treatment effects of ARB's. Renin Inhibitors. Serum Aldosterone Receptor Antagonists (SARA's). Combination of Anti-hypertensive Drug with Statin ( Amlodipine with Atorvastatin). Arterial Compliance: Structure/Function: Treatment. Selected Combination Antihypertensive Drugs. Hypertension Drug Selection: Summary. New Antihypertensive Drug Classes. Subset Selection of Antihypertensive Therapy. Conclusions 383. References 385. Index 400.


Community is an ambiguous concept, and the meanings of community as a subject of study have received a great deal of attention across various disciplines. This paper discusses how children's diverse meanings of community shape and are shaped by the social, cultural, and physical environments of their everyday lives. To explore these meanings I combine principles of child-centered research and qualitative geovisualization into a research methodology. I demonstrate that this integration displays the transformative nature of qualitative analysis and visualization to support interpretive analysis of various forms of qualitative and spatial data together, and offers us a hybrid methodological framework for gaining insights into the diverse meanings of community held by the children. The main case study is drawn from a multi-year research collaboration called the Children's Urban Geography (ChUG), in which I participated along with children who lived in a relatively poor but emerging multi-cultural Hispanic neighborhood in Buffalo, NY.


Are plants always immune to their endogenous toxic secondary metabolites? Without disturbance, fast-growing Camptotheca plants can avoid poison by its endogenous camptothecin (DNA topoisomerase I inhibitor) at more than 10 times higher than the fatal concentration of exogenous application to the plant. Pruning has been long known to promote lateral growth; however, here we report that auxin-reducing pruning can induce endogenous autotoxicity in Camptotheca: dramatic deviations from normal morphogenesis, including serrated or lobed leaves, disturbed phyllotaxis, and fasciated stems. The abnormal morphogenesis appears correlatively with the elevated camptothecin contents following decapitation pruning. Plants resume their normal morphogenesis when camptothecin is reduced to natural levels after stress discontinuation. Exogenously applied auxin restores a dwarf mutant of high camptothecin yield to its parent type of lower yield, suggesting that auxin may be a triggering factor for the observed autotoxicity. Autotoxicity induced by endogenous compounds has not been reported before.


Background: Challenges to effective pharmacologic management of symptomatic diabetic peripheral neuropathy include the limited effectiveness of available medicines, frequent side effects, and the need for ongoing symptom assessment and treatment titration for maximal effectiveness. We present here the rationale and implementation challenges of the Diabetes Telephone Study, a randomized trial designed to improve medication treatment, titration, and quality of life among patients with symptomatic diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Methods: We implemented a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of an automated interactive voice response tool designed to provide physicians with real-time patient-reported data about responses to newly prescribed diabetic peripheral neuropathy medicines. A total of 1834 primary care physicians treating patients in the diabetes registry at Kaiser Permanente Northern California were randomized into the intervention or control arm. In September 2014, we began identification and recruitment of patients assigned to physicians in the intervention group who receive three brief interactive calls every 2 months after a medication is prescribed to alleviate diabetic peripheral neuropathy symptoms. These calls provide patients with the opportunity to report on symptoms, side effects, self-titration of medication dose and overall satisfaction with treatment. We plan to compare changes in self-reported quality of life between the intervention group and patients in the control group who receive three non-interactive automated educational phone calls. Results: Successful implementation of this clinical trial required robust stakeholder engagement to help tailor the intervention and to address pragmatic concerns such as provider time constraints. As of 27 October 2015, we had screened 2078 patients, 1447 of whom were eligible for participation. We consented and enrolled 1206 or 83% of those eligible. Among those enrolled, 53% are women and the mean age is 67 (standard deviation = 12) years. The racial ethnic make-up is 56% White, 8% Asian, 13% Black or African American, and 19% Hispanic or Latino. Conclusion: Innovative strategies are needed to guide improvements in healthcare delivery for patients with symptomatic diabetic peripheral neuropathy. This trial aims to assess whether real-time collection and clinical feedback of patient treatment experiences can reduce patient symptom burden. Implementation of a clinical trial closely involving clinical care required researchers to partner with clinicians. If successful, this intervention provides a critical information feedback loop that would optimize diabetic peripheral neuropathy medication titration through widely available interactive voice response technology.


Southern Africa is home to over 64 million cattle, of which 75% are raised on natural pasture in smallholder farming areas. Indigenous cattle breeds Bos indicus (zebu), B. taurus africanus (Sanga type) and their crosses with B. taurus (European and British) are the most dominant. Despite their dominance, indigenous cattle breeds in smallholder farming areas are commonly marketed through informal markets, and their contribution to formal national economies is therefore limited. This is partly because the current beef carcass grading and classification systems used in the region value inappropriately carcasses from slow-maturing indigenous cattle breeds that are ideally suited to being marketed offnatural pasture. The existing systems use carcass yield and quality attributes, but do not predict eating quality at consumer level. Moreover, the principal criteria used to estimate carcass yield and quality, namely age, fat cover and conformation, are assessed indirectly and subjectively. The objective of the current review is to provide an overview of beef carcass grading and classification systems in Southern Africa and analyse their shortcomings in valuing carcasses from indigenous breeds and local production systems. In addition, the review highlights opportunities for improving these systems in Southern Africa and makes suggestions towards developing a regional beef carcass classification system.


Negri's political direction—from workerism in the 1960s, through Autonomia in the 1970s, to the notion of "Empire" with Hardt in the 1990s—is an important path in Italian Marxism. Since the 1960s, the search for a critical Marxism, beyond Leninism and outside the communist party structure, has led a generation of Italian scholars to new conceptualizations. These have followed from several seasons of struggle by the Italian antagonistic movements. Over the past twenty years, new actors have stepped on stage within the composite Italian antineoliberal movement, including Social Centres, grassroots union organizations (COBAS), Disobbedienti (Dissenters), environmentalists and anarchists. The individual members of these groups propose different interpretations of Negri's work or, specifically, his notion of "multitude". Many of them reject Negri's approach, while others have directly adopted his language and suggestions. This paper provides a short analysis of Negri's political action and main writings, focusing on the potential and limits of the concept of multitude when applied to the situation in Italy. The multitude, described by Hardt and Negri as an open network, is embedded in an open spatiality. How can we analyze and link a real network to a deterritorialised space? Hardt and Negri's proposal remains problematically undertheorized and significantly removed from the real practices of Italian movements, when considering, for example, the Genoa 2001 demonstrations.


Abstract A new mineral species, scottyite, ideally BaCu2Si2O7, has been found in the Wessels mine, Kalahari Manganese Fields, Northern Cape Province, South Africa. The mineral appears to have formed as a result of a hydrothermal event and is associated with wesselsite, pectolite, richterite, sugilite, and lavinskyite. Scottyite forms blocky grains with striations parallel to the c axis. Crystals are found up to 0.4 × 0.3 × 0.3 mm. No twinning is observed. The mineral is dark-blue in transmitted and under incident lights, transparent with pale blue streak and vitreous luster. It is brittle and has a Mohs hardness of 4-5; cleavage is perfect on {100} and {010} and no parting was observed. The calculated density is 4.654 g/cm3. Optically, scottyite is biaxial (-), with α = 1.750(1), β = 1.761(1), and γ = 1.765(1), 2Vmeas = 66(2)°. It is insoluble in water, acetone, or hydrochloric acid. An electron microprobe analysis produced an average composition (wt%) (8 points) of CuO 36.98(31), BaO 35.12(16), SiO2 27.01(61), SrO 0.28(5), and Na2O 0.06(2), and total = 99.45(65), yielding an empirical formula (based on 7 O apfu) Ba1.00Sr0.01Na0.01Cu2.04Si1.97O7. Scottyite is the natural analog of synthetic BaCu2(Si,Ge)2O7, which exhibits novel one-dimensional quantum spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic properties with tunable super-exchange interactions. It is orthorhombic, with space group Pnma and unit-cell parameters a = 6.8556(2), b = 13.1725(2), c = 6.8901(1) Å, and V = 622.21(6) Å3. The structure of scottyite is characterized by flattened CuO4 tetrahedra sharing corners with one another to form chains parallel to the c axis. These chains are interlinked by Si2O7 tetrahedral dimers and Ba2+. The Ba2+ cations are bonded to seven O atoms in an irregular coordination. The average Si-O, Cu-O, and Ba-O bond lengths are 1.630, 1.941, and 2.825 Å, respectively. Scottyite is topologically related to a group of compounds with the general formula BaM2+ 2 Si2O7, where M = Be (barylite and clinobarylite), Fe (andrémeyerite), Mg, Mn, Co, and Zn.


For remote, semi-arid areas, brackish groundwater (BW) desalination powered by solar energy may serve as the most technically and economically viable means to alleviate the water stresses. For such systems, high recovery ratio is desired because of the technical and economical difficulties of concentrate management. It has been demonstrated that the current, conventional solar reverse osmosis (RO) desalination can be improved by 40–200 times by eliminating unnecessary energy losses. In this work, a batch-RO system that can be powered by a thermal Rankine cycle has been developed. By directly recycling high pressure concentrates and by using a linkage connection to provide increasing feed pressures, the batch-RO has been shown to achieve a 70% saving in energy consumption compared to a continuous single-stage RO system. Theoretical investigations on the mass transfer phenomena, including dispersion and concentration polarization, have been carried out to complement and to guide experimental efforts. The performance evaluation of the batch-RO system, named DesaLink, has been based on extensive experimental tests performed upon it. Operating DesaLink using compressed air as power supply under laboratory conditions, a freshwater production of approximately 300 litres per day was recorded with a concentration of around 350 ppm, whilst the feed water had a concentration range of 2500–4500 ppm; the corresponding linkage efficiency was around 40%. In the computational aspect, simulation models have been developed and validated for each of the subsystems of DesaLink, upon which an integrated model has been realised for the whole system. The models, both the subsystem ones and the integrated one, have been demonstrated to predict accurately the system performance under specific operational conditions. A simulation case study has been performed using the developed model. Simulation results indicate that the system can be expected to achieve a water production of 200 m3 per year by using a widely available evacuated tube solar collector having an area of only 2 m2. This freshwater production would satisfy the drinking water needs of 163 habitants in the Rajasthan region, the area for which the case study was performed.


Background: Hip arthroscopy has emerged as a successful option for the treatment of femoroacetabular impingement and related hip disorders, but the procedure is technically challenging. Purpose: To define the learning curve through which surgeons become proficient at hip arthroscopy. Study Design: Cohort study; level of evidence, 3. Methods: The authors identified hip arthroscopy procedures performed by surgeons through a New York State database (Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System) and followed those cases for additional hip surgery (total hip arthroplasty, hip resurfacing, or ipsilateral hip arthroscopy) within 5 years of the original procedure. Career volume for each case was calculated as the number of hip arthroscopy procedures that the surgeon had performed. Volume strata were identified via the stratum-specific likelihood ratio method. A Cox proportional hazards model was used to measure the effect of surgeon career volume on risk of additional hip surgery, adjusting for the following patient characteristics: age, sex, race/ethnicity, insurance type, and concurrent diagnosis of hip osteoarthritis. Results: Among 8041 hip arthroscopies performed by 251 surgeons, 989 (12.3%) cases underwent additional hip surgery within 5 years. Four strata of surgeon career volume associated with distinct frequencies of reoperation were identified: cases in the lowest stratum (0-97) had the highest frequency of additional surgery (15.4%). Frequencies declined for cases in the medium (98-388), high (389-518), and highest (≥519) strata (13.8%, 10.1%, and 2.6%, respectively). There was an increased risk of subsequent surgery in each stratum when compared with the highest stratum (hazard ratio [95% CI]: low volume, 3.22 [2.29-4.54]; medium, 3.40 [2.41-4.82]; high, 2.81 [1.86-4.25]; P < .0001 for all). Patients with a diagnosis of hip osteoarthritis had increased risk of subsequent hip arthroplasty or resurfacing (2.46 [2.09-2.89], P < .0001) . Risk also increased with age: 30 to 39 vs ≤29 years (5.12 [3.29-8.00], P < .0001), 40 to 49 vs ≤29 years (11.30 [7.43-17.190], P < .0001), ≥50 vs ≤29 years (18.39 [12.10-27.96], P < .0001). Increased age and osteoarthritis were not risk factors for revision hip arthroscopy. Conclusion: The learning curve for hip arthroscopy was unexpectedly demanding. Cases performed by surgeons with career volumes ≥519 had significantly lower risk of subsequent hip surgery than those performed by lower-volume surgeons.


Physical transport processes such as the circulation and mixing of waters largely determine the spatial distribution of materials in the ocean. They also establish the physical environment within which biogeochemical and other processes transform materials, including naturally occurring nutrients and human-made contaminants that may sustain or harm the region's living resources. Thus, understanding and modeling the transport and distribution of materials provides a crucial substrate for determining the effects of biological, geological, and chemical processes. The wide range of scales in which these physical processes operate includes microscale droplets and bubbles; small-scale turbulence in buoyant plumes and the near-surface "mixed" layer; submesoscale fronts, convergent and divergent flows, and small eddies; larger mesoscale quasi-geostrophic eddies; and the overall large-scale circulation of the Gulf of Mexico and its interaction with the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea; along with air-sea interaction on longer timescales. The circulation and mixing processes that operate near the Gulf of Mexico coasts, where most human activities occur, are strongly affected by wind- and river-induced currents and are further modified by the area's complex topography. Gulf of Mexico physical processes are also characterized by strong linkages between coastal/shelf and deeper offshore waters that determine connectivity to the basin's interior. This physical connectivity influences the transport of materials among different coastal areas within the Gulf of Mexico and can extend to adjacent basins. Major advances enabled by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative in the observation, understanding, and modeling of all of these aspects of the Gulf's physical environment are summarized in this article, and key priorities for future work are also identified.


Hydrogen has potential for preventive and therapeutic applications as an antioxidant. However, micro- and macroparticles of hydrogen in water disappear easily over time. In order to eliminate reactive oxygen species (ROS) related with the aging process, we used functional water containing nanoparticle hydrogen. Nanoparticle hydrogen does not disappear easily and collapse under water after long periods of time. We used murine embryonic fibroblasts that were isolated from 12.5-day embryos of C57BL/6 mice. We investigated the ability of nanoparticle hydrogen in water to suppress hydroxyurea-induced ROS production, cytotoxicity, and the accumulation of β-galactosidase (an indicator of aging), and promote cell proliferation. The accumulation of β-galactosidase in the cytoplasm and the appearance of abnormal nuclei were inhibited by daily treatment of cells with hydrogen water. When the aging process was accelerated by hydroxyurea-induced oxidative stress, the effect of hydrogen water was even more remarkable. Thus, this study showed the antioxidant and anti-senescence effects of hydrogen water. Nanoparticle hydrogen water is potentially a potent anti-aging agent.


Summary. Introduction (p. 8) -- Preface (p. 10) -- 1. Island Biogeography -- The importance of windows of opportunity for long-distance dispersal to or from oceanic islands: examples from the Macaronesian archipelago / by Jose Maria Fernandez Palacios et al. (p. 16) -- Integrative phylogenetic evidence on the origin of island endemics in the Mediterranean region: Comparisons between oceanic and
continental fragment islands / by Elena Conti (p. 24) -- Bayesian biogeography finds its roots: Statistical models in island biogeography / by Isabel Sanmartin (p. 38) -- A comparison of bryophyte diversity in the Macaronesian Islands. Island versus habitat approach / by Juana Maria Gonzalez-Mancebo et al. (p. 52) -- Macaronesia: a refugium and obligate custom office for Atlantic bryophyte species in transit from and towards Europe / by Alain Vanderpoorten et al. (p. 68) -- 2. Genetic Diversity and Ecology in the Canaries -- Sexual systems in canarian flora. Evolutionary pathways to gender dimorphism and dioecy / by Julia Perez de Paz et al. (p. 78) -- Islands within islands: historical and ecological constraints explain disjunct distribution between Navaea phoenicea populations / by Javier Fuertes Aguilar et al. (p. 92) -- Genetic diversity of Canarian endemisms revealed by microsatellites: knowledge after one decade of analysis / by Pedro A. Sosa et al. (p. 94) -- A "Tree of Life" for the Canarian endemic trees: a first step toward
the Phylogenetic Diversity of the archipelago's flora / by Ruth Jaen-Molina et al. (p. 104) -- 3. Evolutionary Processes -- Contribution of natural hybridization to plant evolution in oceanic
islands (and elsewhere). Is a conceptual synthesis possible? / by Gonzalo Nieto Feliner (p. 124) -- Long-distance dispersal by wind / by Jesus Munoz (p. 134) -- The surfing syngameon hypothesis: implications for the genetic and taxonomic diversities of the present Canarian flora / by Juli Caujape-Castells (p. 136) -- Preliminary investigations of correlated diversification between plants and their associated arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in Macaronesia / by Bob Jansen et al. (p. 146) -- Does the Linnean shortfall explain the Azores diversity enigma? / by Mark A. Carine (p. 156) -- 4. Plant Life Out of Macaronesia – The Reproductive Biology of Island Plants: the Juan Fernandez and Canary Islands / by Dan Crawford et al. (p. 166) -- Genetic diversity and phylogeography in Western Mediterranean islands: what we do know and what we should know / by Josep A. Rossello et al. (p. 178) -- What can tell us genome organization about plant evolution in Mediterranean continental islands? / by Marcela Rosato et al. (p. 180) -- Contrasting patterns of plant evolution in the Canarian and Galapagos islands: the origin of dispersal and colonization / by Pablo Vargas et al. (p. 182) -- Floristic relationships between Macaronesia, mainly Canary Islands, and East Africa / by Arnoldo Santos-Guerra (p. 192) -- 5. Macaronesian Floras -- Taxonomy of island plants: a proposal for a Flora of Macaronesia / by David Bramwell (p. 204) -- SW Morocco: An obvious step for understanding the Canary Islands Flora / by Jorge Alfredo Reyes-Betancort & Arnoldo Santos-Guerra (p. 206) -- Conservation strategies for the Azorean priority taxa: what are the
molecules telling us? / by Monica Moura (p. 218) -- A phylogeny for the Macaronesian flora and how we can use it to predict potential invaders and identify hotspots of genetic diversity / by Hanno Schaefer (p. 220) -- Present and emerging knowledge on the evolution, diversity and conservation of the canarian flora. / by Maria Romeiras & Maria Cristina Duarte (p. 238)


Petersson, Bodil. 2009. Travels to Identity: Viking Rune Carvers of Today. Lund Archaeological Review 15 (2009), pp. 71–86. This text deals with the phenomenon of today's rune carvers in the Nordic area. By using symbols of antiquity in their craftsmanship, the rune carvers revive an act that is historically significant and bears aspects of identity in the past as well as today. Why do people carve and erect runes stones today? When and where is it done? What are the explicit or implicit purposes? The text tries to answer these questions by elucidating the role of a past society in today's world. It is obvious that the rune carving is mainly done in the Nordic area, but the ideas emanating from the Viking Age are also spread all over the world, as the rune stones are also erected in other countries, for example in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Canada. The identity project is mainly about creating an individual lifestyle. It is concluded that the past plays an important role in connecting people and supporting small-scale perspectives, crafts and sustainable development in harmony with the past. The act of carving and erecting rune stones today is a form of travel to identity.


Professional female comedians frequently face harassment from male fellow performers and from male audience members who take a sexist attitude, essentializing women as psychologically and temperamentally unsuited to the profession of comedy. This paper examines a strategy that African American female comedians employ to overcome the obstacles they face in performing before mixed gender African American audiences. While implementing features that emphasize their African American and female identity, the comedians direct their performances toward women in the audience, employing features and practices comparable to those researchers associate with close female friends in conversation. Intensive use of a strategy that includes taking stances such as confidence sharing and using gendered terms to directly address female audience members establishes solidarity with the women who are listening. Having a large portion of the audience as allies discourages the occurrence of sexist harassment.


The C‐terminal segment (residues 218–289) of the HET‐s protein of the filamentous fungus Podosporina anserina is a prion‐forming domain. The structural model of the HET‐s(218–289) amyloid fibril based on solid‐state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) restraints shows a β solenoid topology which is comprised of a β‐sheet core and interconnecting loops. For the single‐point mutants Phe286Ala and Trp287Ala, slower aggregation rates in vitro and loss of prionic infectivity have been reported recently. Here we have used molecular dynamics to compare the flexibility of the mutants and wild type. The simulations, initiated from a trimeric aggregate extracted from the NMR structural model, show structural stability on a 100‐ns time scale for wild type and mutants. Analysis of the fluctuations along the simulations reveals that the mutants are less flexible than the wild type in the C‐terminal segment at only one of the two external monomers. Analysis of interaction energy and buried accessible surface indicates that residue Phe286 in particular is stabilized in the Trp287Ala mutant. The simulation results provide an atomistic explanation of the suggestion (based on indirect experimental evidence) that flexibility at the protofibril end(s) is required for fibril elongation. Moreover, they provide further evidence that the growth of the HET‐s amyloid fibril is directional. Proteins 2014; 82:399–404. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


This paper reviews the theoretical literature on bank capital regulation and analyses some of the approaches to redesigning the 1988 Basle Accord on capital standards. The paper starts with a review of the literature on the design of the financial system and the existence of banks. It proceeds with a presentation of the market failures that justify banking regulation and an analysis of the mechanisms that have been suggested to deal with these failures. The paper then reviews the theoretical literature on bank capital regulation. This is followed by a brief history of capital regulation since the 1988 Basle Capital Accord and a presentation of both the alternative approaches that have been put forward on setting capital standards and the Basel Committee's proposal for a new capital adequacy framework.


Blood of both humans and mice contains 2 main monocyte subsets. Here, we investigated the extent of their similarity using a microarray approach. Approximately 270 genes in humans and 550 genes in mice were differentially expressed between subsets by 2-fold or more. More than 130 of these gene expression differences were conserved between mouse and human monocyte subsets. We confirmed numerous of these differences at the cell surface protein level. Despite overall conservation, some molecules were conversely expressed between the 2 species' subsets, including CD36, CD9, and TREM-1. Other differences included a prominent peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARgamma) signature in mouse monocytes, which is absent in humans, and strikingly opposed patterns of receptors involved in uptake of apoptotic cells and other phagocytic cargo between human and mouse monocyte subsets. Thus, whereas human and mouse monocyte subsets are far more broadly conserved than currently recognized, important differences between the species deserve consideration when models of human disease are studied in mice.


In 1980, Ernesto Ippolito and Ignacio Ponseti published their results on a histological study they performed on congenital club foot in human fetuses. The researchers examined the feet of four aborted fetuses and compared the skeletal tissues from healthy feet to those affected by congenital club foot. Infants born with club foot are born with one or both feet rigidly twisted inwards and upwards, making typical movement painful and challenging. Ippolito and Ponseti studied how the connective tissues, such as the ligaments and tendons stretching across the foot and ankle, function to pull the affected foot out of place as the fetus [3] develops. Their findings helped researchers determine club foot's potential causes and possible treatments by focusing on connective tissues.


Granulosa cells (GCs) are somatic cells essential for establishing and maintaining bi-directional communication with the oocytes. This connection has a profound importance for the delivery of energy substrates, structural components and ions to the maturing oocyte through gap junctions. Cumulus cells, group of closely associated GCs, surround the oocyte and can diminished the effect of harmful environmental insults. Both GCs and oocytes prefer different energy substrates in their cellular metabolism: GCs are more glycolytic, whereas oocytes rely more on oxidative phosphorylation pathway. The interconnection of these cells is emphasized by the fact that GCs supply oocytes with intermediates produced in glycolysis. The number of GCs surrounding the oocyte and their age affect the energy status of oocytes. This review summarises available studies collaboration of cellular types in the ovarian follicle from the point of view of energy metabolism, signaling and protection of toxic insults. A deeper knowledge of the underlying mechanisms is crucial for better methods to prevent and treat infertility and to improve the technology of in vitro fertilization.


In this paper, we propose a new method in estimating transition matrices of high dimensional vector autoregressive (VAR) models. Here the data are assumed to come from a stationary Gaussian VAR time series. By formulating the problem as a linear program, we provide a new approach to conduct inference on such models. In theory, under a doubly asymptotic framework in which both the sample size T and dimensionality d of the time series can increase (with possibly d ≫ T), we provide explicit rates of convergence between the estimator and the population transition matrix under different matrix norms. Our results show that the spectral norm of the transition matrix plays a pivotal role in determining the final rates of convergence. This is the first work analyzing the estimation of transition matrices under a high dimensional doubly asymptotic framework. Experiments are conducted on both synthetic and real-world stock data to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method compared with the existing methods. The results of this paper have broad impact on different applications, including finance, genomics, and brain imaging.


Water splitting producing hydrogen and oxygen gases appears promising in view of the increasing need of renewable energy sources and storage strategies. Investigation of stable and highly efficient electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is targeted in this study at cobalt oxide nanoparticle modified glassy carbon (nano-CoOx/GC) electrodes. The effect of the preparation (Tp) and measuring temperature (Tm) on the electrocatalytic activity of nano-CoOx/GC towards the OER is investigated under various operating conditions. Linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), cyclic voltammetry (CV) as well as SEM and XRD techniques were used to probe the electrocatalytic and morphological characteristics of nano-CoOx prepared under various conditions. Increasing Tp and/or Tm results in improving the kinetics and electrocatalytic activity of the proposed anodes towards the OER as demonstrated in the value of the the onset potential of the OER and the OER currents recorded at a fixed potential. The morphology as well as the surface characterization of the prepared catalyst are reported herein and evaluated.


Objectives: To examine whether the mix of community and institutional long-term care (ILTC) for people with dementia (PwD) in Europe could be improved; assess the economic consequences of providing alternative services for particular groups of ILTC entrants and explore the transnational application of the 'Balance of Care' (BoC) approach. Method: A BoC study was undertaken in Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the UK as part of the RightTimePlaceCare project. Drawing on information about 2014 PwD on the margins of ILTC admission, this strategic planning framework identified people whose needs could be met in more than one setting, and compared the relative costs of the possible alternatives. Results: The findings suggest a noteworthy minority of ILTC entrants could be more appropriately supported in the community if enhanced services were available. This would not necessarily require innovative services, but more standard care (including personal and day care), assuming quality was ensured. Potential cost savings were identified in all countries, but community care was not always cheaper than ILTC and the ability to release resources varied between nations. Conclusions: This is believed to be the first transnational application of the BoC approach, and demonstrates its potential to provide a consistent approach to planning across different health and social care systems. Better comparative information is needed on the number of ILTC entrants with dementia, unit costs and outcomes. Nevertheless, the findings offer important evidence on the appropriateness of current provision, and the opportunity to learn from different countries' experience.


An advanced large-scale sodium-cooled fast reactor named JSFR adopts an innovative two-loop cooling system. This cooling system design raises major technological issues: hydraulic and structural integrity due to the increase in one-loop coolant flow rate, safety design against the break or failure in one-loop piping, and ensuring the reliability of the decay heat removal system (DHRS). The present paper describes the investigation of the piping structural integrity due to flow-induced vibration using a 1/3-scale hot-leg piping test. The structural integrity of the hot-leg piping in the JSFR design has been confirmed by a flow-induced vibration analytical methodology, verified with the experimental data. Additional experimental results have revealed that hydraulic issues including gas entrainment and vortex cavitation could be prevented by some design measures. By applying appropriate safety design, the two-loop system has been confirmed to be valid against the break or failure in one-loop piping by a safety evaluation in this study. The DHRS with natural circulation is designed in conformity with the two-loop system by introducing adequate safety designs. In this paper, the validity of this DHRS is given by a probabilistic safety assessment and safety evaluation.


We investigate the design of Orthogonal Latin Squares (OLS) by means of Genetic Algorithms (GA) and Genetic Programming (GP). Since we focus on Latin squares generated by Cellular Automata (CA), the problem can be reduced to the search of pairs of Boolean functions that give rise to OLS when used as CA local rules. As it is already known how to design CA-based OLS with linear Boolean functions, we adopt the evolutionary approach to address the nonlinear case, experimenting with different encodings for the candidate solutions. In particular, for GA we consider single bitstring, double bitstring and quaternary string encodings, while for GP we adopt a double tree representation. We test the two metaheuristics on the spaces of local rules pairs with n = 7 and n = 8 variables, using two fitness functions. The results show that GP is always able to generate OLS, even if the optimal solutions found with the first fitness function are mostly linear. On the other hand, GA achieves a remarkably lower success rate than GP in evolving OLS, but the corresponding Boolean functions are always nonlinear.


Historians have long indulged in the exercise of categorizing U.S. presidents into groupings such as "great," "near great," "average," and "failures." Given the expanded profiles now enjoyed by retired chief executives, it is perhaps time to subject ex-presidents to similar scrutiny and classification. To date, there have been forty-two presidents, counting the ever-pesky Grover Cleveland twice. Excluding the incumbents, the eight presidents who died in office, and James Polk and Chester Arthur (who lived too brief a time after leaving office to be considered here), thirty-one presidents remain for our study. Each can appropriately be placed into one of the following six categories: Still Ambitious, Exhausted Volcanoes, Political Dabblers, First Citizens, Embracers of a Cause, and Seekers of Vindication. This article first describes these categories and the ex-presidents included within them. It then concludes with some summary observations and assessments about the ex-presidency. Still Ambitious The Still Ambitious ex-presidents are those whose appetites for power remained unsated even after serving in the nation's highest political office. Surely, William Herndon's famous description of his law partner's ambition as "a little engine that knew no rest"(1) applies at least as much to the five ex-presidents in this group as it did to Abraham Lincoln. Few men have left the presidency with as much unfulfilled ambition as did Martin Van Buren. After suffering defeat in his 1840 reelection bid against William Henry Harrison, Van Buren retired to New York. He longed for a comeback. As the 1844 Democratic Convention approached, Van Buren seemed the near certain nominee. Then, he and his Whig rival Henry Clay issued simultaneous letters opposing the immediate annexation of slaveholding Texas, a ploy to keep this issue out of the upcoming campaign. The maneuver enraged southern Democrats and expansionists, and Van Buren lost the nomination to dark horse candidate Polk. Although Van Buren now claimed he was "sincerely and heartily desirous to wear the honors and enjoyments of private life uninterruptedly to the end,"(2) his ambition resurfaced in 1848, just as the slavery issue was intensifying sectionalist tensions. That year, his opposition to slavery and support of the Wilmot Proviso secured him the presidential nomination of the Free Soil party. Defeated yet again, Van Buren retired for good. He died in July 1862. After two scandal-ridden terms, Ulysses Grant should have retired from politics in 1877. But he missed the glory and acclaim of the presidency, and in 1880 he allowed his name to go before the Republican Convention. He led on the first thirty-five tallies but ultimately lost the nomination to James Garfield. More misfortune plagued Grant's final years. Bankrupt and diagnosed with terminal throat cancer, he hurriedly completed his memoirs to earn money for his wife. He died in July 1885. "I want you to take good care of all the furniture and ornaments in the house, for I want to find everything just as it is now when we come back again." So instructed Frances Cleveland to a White House servant as the First Lady and her husband, Grover, left to attend the inauguration of Benjamin Harrison, who had defeated Cleveland in 1888. "We are coming back just four years from today,"(3) Mrs. Cleveland promised. Her husband had won more popular votes than Harrison (but lost in the electoral college), he had been the only Democrat since the Civil War to win the presidency, and no one else of stature was available. Thus, Cleveland's renomination in 1892 was ensured, and this time he won, attaining an unprecedented second, nonconsecutive term. After winning the presidential election of 1904, Theodore Roosevelt pledged never to "be a candidate for or accept another nomination."(4) Later, he admitted that he would have willingly cut off his right hand not to have uttered that promise. …


Condition indices, sex ratio, length at sexual maturity, fecundity and gonadosomatic indices of Sarotherodon melanotheron in the Dominli lagoon were investigated with the aim of providing basic information on the reproductive biology of the species for fisheries management and considerable aquaculture development in the study area. Condition indices which varied from 3.42 to 4.53 indicated that the fish were in good conditions. Sex ratio of 1:1.5 in favour of the females and length at first sexual maturity (Lm) of 13.4 cm SL were determined for the fish. The fecundity ranged from 97 to 379 eggs with a mean of 206 eggs suggesting the less-fecund nature of the fish in the lagoon. The presence of mature gonads encountered throughout the study is a suggestive continuous recruitment into the population. S. melanotheron which sexually matures at a larger size necessitates an upward review of the current minimum mesh size (5.1 cm) of fishing nets used in the lagoon so as to allow the fish to spawn at least once in its lifetime prior to exploitation.


Pose SLAM is the variant of simultaneous localization and map building (SLAM) is the variant of SLAM, in which only the robot trajectory is estimated and where landmarks are only used to produce relative constraints between robot poses. To reduce the computational cost of the information filter form of Pose SLAM and, at the same time, to delay inconsistency as much as possible, we introduce an approach that takes into account only highly informative loop-closure links and nonredundant poses. This approach includes constant time procedures to compute the distance between poses, the expected information gain for each potential link, and the exact marginal covariances while moving in open loop, as well as a procedure to recover the state after a loop closure that, in practical situations, scales linearly in terms of both time and memory. Using these procedures, the robot operates most of the time in open loop, and the cost of the loop closure is amortized over long trajectories. This way, the computational bottleneck shifts to data association, which is the search over the set of previously visited poses to determine good candidates for sensor registration. To speed up data association, we introduce a method to search for neighboring poses whose complexity ranges from logarithmic in the usual case to linear in degenerate situations. The method is based on organizing the pose information in a balanced tree whose internal levels are defined using interval arithmetic. The proposed Pose-SLAM approach is validated through simulations, real mapping sessions, and experiments using standard SLAM data sets.


Abstract The Laser Inertial Fusion Energy (LIFE) power plant is being designed to deliver a transformative source of safe, secure, sustainable electricity, in a time scale that is consistent with the global energy market needs. The LIFE market entry plant will demonstrate the feasibility of a closed fusion fuel cycle, including tritium breeding, extraction, processing, re-fueling, accountability and safety, in a steady-state power-producing device. While many fusion plant designs require large quantities of tritium for startup and operations, a range of design choices made for the LIFE fuel cycle act to reduce the inprocess tritium inventory. The high fractional burn-up (~30%) in an Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) capsule relaxes the tritium breeding requirements, while the use of only milligram quantities of fuel per shot and choice of a pure lithium heat transfer fluid substantially reduce the amount of material entrained in the facility. Additionally, the high solubility of tritium in the lithium breeder is expected to mitigate the need for development of permeation barriers in the engine systems, normally required to control routine releases within the allowable regulatory limits. The present paper offers an overview of the design of the LIFE fuel cycle, including a summary of the technology development plan consistent with the delivery schedule of the LIFE market entry plant.


Abstract
 Two species, Tortula brevissima Schiffn. and Grimmia indica (Dixon & P. de la Varde) Goffinet & Greven are added to the Chinese moss flora. The former is newly reported for China and East Asia. The latter has been found in Tibet for the first time. Brief morphological descriptions, distribution details, and digital photographs of the two species are provided.


Book description: What does it mean to know something - scientifically, anthropologically, socially? What is the relationship between different forms of knowledge and ways of knowing? How is knowledge mobilised in society and to what ends?

Drawing on ethnographic examples from across the world, and from the virtual and global 'places' created by new information technologies, Anthropology and Science presents examples of living and dynamic epistemologies and practices, and of how scientific ways of knowing operate in the world.

Authors address the nature of both scientific and experiential knowledge, and look at competing and alternative ideas about what it means to be human. The essays analyze the politics and ethics of positioning 'science', 'culture' or 'society' as authoritative. They explore how certain modes of knowing are made authoritative and command allegiance (or not), and look at scientific and other rationalities - whether these challenge or are compatible with science.


Legal star power is being deployed in the form of the very well-known London barristers, Geoffrey Robertson QC and Amal Alamuddin, in Greece's latest attempt to have the Elgin or Parthenon Marbles returned to Greece. Housed in the British Museum in London since 1816, these sculptures have been the subject of contentious legal to-ings and fro-ings since the early 1980s. Under English law, the Museum owns the Marbles, and says it cannot lawfully return them to Greece. Greece contends they were removed unlawfully all those years ago and should be returned. The dispute over the Marbles is one of the most high-profile, and fraught, of the many contested cultural objects and national treasures sitting in museums around the world.


The current outcome is two sketchbooks included in a national peer reviewed exhibition of contemporary British Artists' sketchbooks (38 artists, 42 sketchbooks selected) including full colour illustrated catalogue. My work is used on the website ( see URL above). This output comes from research in artists working processes and the documentation, discussion and dissemination of these. The sketchbooks explore the nature of the book structure and the possibilities for drawing within that. The work has developed from research with scientists and inquiry into shared working procedures in certain sciences and art. This has resulted in new forms of drawing and new approaches to discussing it (e.g. from the perspective of the scientific experiment). One of four artists to have 2 books shortlisted for the only national prize for sketchbook drawing in the UK. Selected by high profile, internationally esteemed panel (i.e. Petherbridge). Rabley Drawing centre is engaged with disseminating and promoting contemporary drawing through projects such as the Sketch Drawing Prize which is to be a biannual event. It also hosts residencies and represents internationally renown artists: (e.g. Gillian Ayres, Humphrey Ocean, Emma Stibbon..) http://www.rableydrawingcentre.com/drawingsandprints/artists.php The Exhibition and Conference at Lincoln was an international forum to explore innovative approaches to using or contextualising the sketchbook in contemporary practice. The work leading to these outputs has been developed and tested through earlier iterations in other national and international forums. This includes exhibition (The Moment of Privacy has Passed, Usher Gallery Lincoln 11Dec 2010 – 6 March 2011) http://web.me.com/barbara.griffin/sketchlincoln/exhibition_photos/Pages/exhibition_opening_night.html#0 ; and international conference papers : Recto Verso, Redefining the Sketchbook (The Collection, Lincoln, UK 10-11 Feb 2011) ; The European Association for Science Studies annual conference (Trento University, Italy 2-4th Sept 2010). The works were also presented at the Experimental Society International conference at Lancaster: this included exhibition and verbal presentation. http://www.lancs.ac.uk/experimentality/event/international-conference-experimental-society http://www.lancs.ac.uk/experimentality/event/experimentality-exhibition The latter two examples were dissemination of this material to broader interdisciplinary audience , predominantly from the sciences and social sciences. This works LICA cluster of Languages of process, exploring creative decision making process and how this may be documented and communicated.


This paper approaches the incremental view maintenance problem from an algebraic perspective. We construct the algebraic structure of a ring of databases and use it as the foundation of the design of a query calculus that allows to express powerful aggregate queries. The query calculus inherits key properties of the ring, such as having a normal form of polynomials and being closed under computing inverses and delta queries. The k-th delta of a polynomial query of degree k without nesting is purely a function of the update, not of the database. This gives rise to a method of eliminating expensive query operators such as joins from programs that perform incremental view maintenance. The main result is that, for non-nested queries, each individual aggregate value can be incrementally maintained using a constant amount of work. This is not possible for nonincremental evaluation.


Ultrahigh-resolution three-dimensional images of a microscopic test object were made with soft x-rays collected with a scanning transmission x-ray microscope. The test object consisted of two different patterns of gold bars on silicon nitride windows that were separated by ∼5 micrometers. Depth resolution comparable to the transverse resolution was achieved by recording nine two-dimensional images of the object at angles between –50 and +55 degrees with respect to the beam axis. The projections were then combined tomographically to form a three-dimensional image by means of an algorithm using an algebraic reconstruction technique. A transverse resolution of ∼1000 angstroms was observed. Artifacts in the reconstruction limited the overall depth resolution to ∼6000 angstroms; however, some features were clearly reconstructed with a depth resolution of ∼1000 angstroms.


This article examines how middle-class residents of an inner-London neighbourhood draw up socio-spatial and symbolic boundaries between themselves and their 'others'. Through a discussion of accounts of two very different boundaries — the boundary of a multi-ethnic high street and a less clearly defined boundary of a neighbouring middle-class area — we argue that the production of middle-class identities is bound up with processes of disaffiliation not only from proximate stigmatized areas, but also from more upmarket areas and the people who populate them. Against this background it becomes clear that middle-class claims to belonging are made through (1) the asymmetric processes by which the middle classes create and maintain spatial boundaries between themselves and racialized/classed others, and (2) the subtle processes of distinction that go on within the middle classes. Nevertheless, relationships to place remain ambivalent, and as neighbourhoods undergo change, physical boundaries separating one area from another refuse to stay put. We argue that the re-inscription of such boundaries in the accounts of middle-class respondents are attempts to create a stable identity on the shifting ground of the contemporary global city.


This chapter describes those items that are included in the true costs of a laboratory procedure. Careful systematic consideration of all of types of direct and indirect costs will allow a laboratory to make reasonable decisions regarding price structure for fee-for-service testing services. To determine true costs and revenues, and assess profitability and efficiency, it is necessary to measure resources actually expended, including through amortization, and compare that measurement to amounts actually collected. To assess laboratory profitability, the balance sheet, the income statement, and the cash flow statement are the three primary tools used in the laboratory setting. In addition to these, most laboratories employ the use of key indicators to assess profitability and overall operational efficiency. Key indicators can assess both sides of doing business: income and expenses. Each individual laboratory must be able to operate efficiently within a defined budget and each laboratory manager must continue to seek ways to operate more effectively to decrease overall costs. Decisions regarding whether to implement costly new technologies in a laboratory will have to take into consideration the financial impact on healthcare in a more comprehensive sense as well as the immediate financial impact on a given laboratory. The role of the laboratory is to provide data used for effective management of patients. In doing so, laboratory professionals feel a sense of pride and accomplishment in assisting in patient care that cannot easily be measured in financial terms.


The Niger-Congo noun class system has resisted historical reconstruction due to the advanced stage of grammaticalisation its markers present. Yet, incipient systems of alternative nominal classification such as numeral classifiers and class-terms found across various branches of Niger-Congo provide, by virtue of their cognitive transparency, a key to the identification of both the ultimate lexical sources and the syntactic structures from which the ancient Niger-Congo noun class system must have developed. After an overview of the properties of the Niger-Congo noun class system (Section 2), Section 3 examines alternative systems of nominal classification such as numeral classifiers (3.1) and class-terms (3.2). The synthesis (Section 4) provides a model of the emergence of the Niger-Congo noun class system and its morphological exponents from nouns for basic level concepts, body parts and social functions which were used as head nouns in associative constructions or as class-terms in compounds.


New Zealand's energy market is an interplay between various forms of non-renewable fossil fuels and renewable energies. Market share patterns before and after deregulation are observed to ascertain any changes in behaviour over this period of political and economic development of society. Forecasts were made for each form of energy, and showed primary energy supply for other renewable energies to surpass hydroelectricity and geothermal by 2020. World energy data were also collected to show how New Zealand's energy market is related to the more global situation. The forecasts show hydroelectricity and nuclear energy only increases in a small share by 2020.


In many ion exchanges that involve zeolites, more than two types of exchanging ions are involved. Most work to date has been concerned with equilibria involving two different types of ion only. In this paper, a recently devised thermodynamic treatment for exchange equilibria involving three ions is tested experimentally. In § 1 the most important aspects of this thermodynamic model are discussed, and after this the experimental techniques necessary to obtain a ternary exchange isotherm are summarized. Data for three binary exchanges in synthetic mordenite are presented in §3 (the ion pairs Na-NH4, NA-K and K-NH4) together with a ternary isotherm obtained for the simultaneous exchange of Na+, NH+4 and K+ ions in the same zeolite, all data being measured at a temperature of 25 °C. After some general considerations in §4 on the nature of non-ideality in the zeolite phase and its effects on the variation of observed ion selectivities as a function of exchanger composition, the experimental data are next used to test, first, the validity, and secondly the range of applicability of numerous models found in the literature, all of which attempt to predict multicomponent exchange equilibria from binary exchange data alone. In §5 models that were developed primarily with ion exchange resins in mind are discussed (Soldatov & Bychkova 1980). In §6 approaches that attempt to predict, from binary activity data, the coefficients of ternary exchanger systems are considered, especially those that have been used with some success on clays (Elprince & Babcock 1975; Chu & Sposito 1981). All of these models are shown to be, at best, only partially successful in predicting experimental data for the comparatively simple Na-NH4-K-mordenite exchange system. The use of zeolites seems, therefore, to introduce additional complications. The recently developed model of Fletcher & Townsend (1981b is next used to determine directly the exchanger phase activity coefficients 0 Na, 0 NH4 and 0 K, and these are indeed found to vary with the exchanger phase composition in a complicated manner. Finally, in §8, the observed non-ideality of the ternary exchange system is rationalized in terms of site heterogeneity within the zeolite framework, and the consequences of this phenomenon are discussed, particularly with respect to the problems this presents in the successful prediction of multicomponent exchange phenomena, when only a limited quantity of data are available.


Sketch-photo synthesis plays an important role in sketch-based face photo retrieval and photo-based face sketch retrieval systems. In this paper, we propose an automatic sketch-photo synthesis and retrieval algorithm based on sparse representation. The proposed sketch-photo synthesis method works at patch level and is composed of two steps: sparse neighbor selection (SNS) for an initial estimate of the pseudoimage (pseudosketch or pseudophoto) and sparse-representation-based enhancement (SRE) for further improving the quality of the synthesized image. SNS can find closely related neighbors adaptively and then generate an initial estimate for the pseudoimage. In SRE, a coupled sparse representation model is first constructed to learn the mapping between sketch patches and photo patches, and a patch-derivative-based sparse representation method is subsequently applied to enhance the quality of the synthesized photos and sketches. Finally, four retrieval modes, namely, sketch-based, photo-based, pseudosketch-based, and pseudophoto-based retrieval are proposed, and a retrieval algorithm is developed by using sparse representation. Extensive experimental results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed face sketch-photo synthesis and retrieval algorithms.


There are various influences and obstacles when planning an educational curriculum. However, it is imperative that we overcome these barriers and arm our future doctors with the knowledge and skills to serve the needs of the 21 st Century patient. As we will discuss, the imprint of globalisation on the landscape of Irish medicine highlights the importance of delivering a diverse curriculum with international dimensions so that knowledge and skills can transfer across borders. We will also explore how medical emigration has a negative impact on the delivery of services in Ireland and in maintaining a sustainable workforce. In addition, financial constraints will always play a role in the logistics of Medical education and it is important that we try to get the best value for money by adding more cost effective virtual learning modules to the traditional classroom based approach. Further research is needed into career satisfaction within Medicine. If we can begin to understand what motivates doctors to stay within the Irish Medical system, then we can design a curriculum with retention of graduates in mind. We believe that if we foster a culture of education, guidance and support in our universities and hospitals, we will ensure that a strong, competent and resilient breed of doctors emerge to serves future generation.


Nanosystems - based on the systematic application of nano-technologies - will create a large market of applications and a renewed perspective for electronic design and manufacturing companies. Such systems will be the fundamental building blocks of wearable and ambient systems, to gather and integrate heretogeneous data in real time and to operate and communicate in a wireless and ultra low power mode. The design of these systems will be enabled by the hybridization of manufacturing technologies to attain unprecedented levels performance as well as to diversify applications by means of integrated circuits and sensors. To accomplish this ambitious goal, new technologies and architectures must be matched and tailored to the operational environment by solving novel challenging design and optimization problems, through the creation of novel design methodologies and tools.


Communications surveillance in the UK has been an increasingly contentious issue since the early 2000s. The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 is the result of a long series of attempts by the UK government to reform communications surveillance legislation. The consultations on this legislation—and on its precursor, the Draft Communications Data Bill 2012—offer unique insight into how such efforts generate resistance to surveillance. This article draws attention to the role of communications service providers (CSPs)—who are increasingly being responsibilised to collect and retain communications data—within a multi-actor network of resistance. It also identifies the reasons CSPs gave for resisting these proposed reforms. Content analysis of the consultation documents reveals three themes that were central to the CSPs' arguments: technology, territory, and trust. The article concludes by considering the implications for understanding resistance to contemporary digital surveillance.


Aim: The purpose of this study is to review the indications, techniques, advantages, and outcomes of perichondrial cutaneous grafts (PCCG). Background: The PCCG is a composite graft utilized in the reconstruction of select head and neck defects. This graft, much studied and popularized by Dr Frederick Stucker, has several intrinsic benefits due to its size, thickness, contour, and unique perichondrial layer. Results: The PCCG is primarily utilized in the reconstruction of nasal and lower eyelid defects. This graft has been demonstrated to yield superior results to a full-thickness skin graft (FTSG) in these cosmetically sensitive locations and has the convenience of a single-stage procedure that may be performed under local anesthesia in contrast to a paramedian forehead flap (PMFF). Animal studies have shown less contraction in comparison to FTSGs. Large case series have reported low rates of graft loss and good esthetic outcomes. Conclusion: The PCCG is an option to consider in the reconstruction of select head and neck defects, as it tends to offer excellent cosmetic results and minimal morbidity. Clinical significance: The PCCG has several advantages over a FTSG for moderate to large defects of the face, and is an excellent reconstructive option for nasal defects in which a PMFF may not be a viable option.


Context: Vocational education and training enables young people to quickly and effectively enter the labour market. To advance their careers and to develop their professional expertise even more, they must then further their education through higher vocational or higher academic education. In this study, we looked at young people at work: What motivates them to move on towards higher education? As they are engaged in their jobs, their work situations will affect their further educational engagement. We hypothesised that individuals will more likely move towards higher education if their workplaces offer learning opportunities and social support. Human capacities, attitudes, and goals at work develop mainly in informal or non-formal learning situations and in their interactions with their teams. We tested the effect of these workplace factors by taking into account additional important predictors of educational pathways, such as sociodemographic factors (social background, nationality, gender) and motivational factors (values). Methods: Data stemmed from a multi-cohort longitudinal survey on educational decisions and educational pathways in the German part of Switzerland (BEN), running from 2012 to 2016. The selected sample consisted of 601 working individuals who were not engaged in higher education in 2014. Multinomial logistic regressions were run to test the hypothesis.Findings: First, we found that only 35% of the individuals who wanted to become engaged in higher vocational education in 2012 became engaged up to 2016 compared with those intending to become involved in higher academic education, where the rate varied by age—from younger to older—between 45% and 70%. Second, we found distinctive predictors for becoming engaged in higher vocational or academic education. Workplace factors predict engagement in higher vocational education but not sociodemographic factors, whereas sociodemographic and not workplace factors predict engagement in higher academic education. A significant predictor for both groups is the value attributed to higher education.Conclusions: The unique contribution of this paper is to show that distinct patterns of becoming engaged in higher vocational or higher academic education exist. These results confirmed the persistent effect of sociodemographic factors that shape the pathway to higher academic education. Moreover, the results indicated that an individual's value and workplace factors contribute to enabling paths to higher vocational education, as this depends not on sociodemographic factors but on shaping the work environment that supports learning at work.


Obesity is associated with a chronic low-grade inflammatory state that drives the development of obesity-related co-morbidities such as insulin resistance/type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and cardiovascular disease. This metabolic inflammation is thought to originate in the adipose tissue, which becomes inflamed and insulin resistant when it is no longer able to expand in response to excess caloric and nutrient intake. The production of inflammatory mediators by dysfunctional adipose tissue is thought to drive the development of more complex forms of disease such as type 2 diabetes and NAFLD. An important factor that may contribute to metabolic inflammation is the cytokine macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF). Increasing evidence suggests that MIF is released by adipose tissue in obesity and that it is also involved in metabolic and inflammatory processes that underlie the development of obesity-related pathologies. This review provides a comprehensive summary of our current knowledge on the role of MIF in obesity, its production by adipose tissue, and its involvement in the development of insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and NAFLD. We discuss the main findings from recent clinical studies in obese subjects and weight-loss intervention studies as well as results from clinical studies in patients with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Furthermore, we summarize findings from experimental disease models studying the contribution of MIF in obesity and insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and hepatic lipid accumulation and fibrosis. Although many of the findings support a pro-inflammatory role of MIF in disease development, recent reports also provide indications that MIF may exert protective effects under certain conditions.