A retrospective review of cranial CT scans obtained over a 4 year period in patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and documented central nervous system (CNS) pathology is presented. The spectrum of diseases and the value of CT in detecting new, recurrent, and superimposed disease processes were determined. Fifty-one AIDS patients with confirmed CNS pathology were identified. Six of them had two coexistent diseases. Opportunistic infections predominated, especially Toxoplasma encephalitis and cryptococcal meningitis, while tumor was seen infrequently. Initial CT was positive in 76% of cases. In contrast to meningeal processes, where it was not very effective, CT was very sensitive in detecting most parenchymal disease processes. Characteristic although not pathognomonic CT patterns were found for certain diseases. Improvement or resolution of CT abnormalities in patients on medical therapy for Toxoplasma encephalitis correlated well with clinical improvement. Recurrence of CT abnormalities correlated well with medical noncompliance. The optimal contrast enhancement technique for detecting CNS pathology and for monitoring the effectiveness of medical therapy was also evaluated by a prospective study in which both immediate (IDD) and 1 hr delayed (DDD) double-dose contrast CT scans were compared. The examination found to be diagnostically superior in 30 of the 41 IDD/DDD studies was the delayed scan. It is recommended that CT be used routinely and with the 1 hr DDD scan to evaluate and follow AIDS patients with neurologic symptoms and/or signs.


Objective Acute pancreatitis is an inflammatory process of pancreatic tissue. Its severity can range from mild inflammation to severe, progressive pancreatic necrosis, and it can lead to multiorgan failure that may have a mortality rate as high as 20% to 30%. Materials and Methods The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of acute physiology and chronic health evacuation II (APACHE II) scoring system with neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) level in predicting prognosis of patients with acute pancreatitis. Healthy subjects were included as the control group. According to the Atlanta classification system, patients having an APACHE II score of less than 8 were classified as the mild pancreatitis group, and those with an APACHE II score of equal to or greater than 8 were classified as the severe pancreatitis group. Both groups were compared with each other with respect to admission NLR and RDW. Results The study included a total of 494 patients with a mean age of 59.15 ± 19.46 years, of whom 363 were women and 131 were men. The control group included a total of 47 subjects with a mean age of 57.34 ± 7.17, of whom 18 were men and 29 were women. When we compared the control and patient groups with respect to NLR and RDW values, we found significant differences between both groups. The severe pancreatitis group had a significantly higher mean NLR compared to the mild pancreatitis group. The dead patients had higher NLR and RDW values compared to the surviving ones, although only the NLR difference between the dead and surviving patients reached statistical significance. Conclusion Both NLR and RDW are elevated in acute pancreatitis, although only NLR should be considered as a readily available, inexpensive, and useful marker for predicting disease severity and mortality. Keywords: Neutrophil lymphocyte ratio; APACHE score; Ranson criteria; Imrie scores


When water resource systems are not under control, the consequences can be devastating. In the United States alone, flood damage cost approximately $1.5 billion annually. These losses can be avoided by building more reservoirs to hold the flood waters, but such construction is very expensive, especially because reservoirs have already been built on the best sites. A better and less expensive alternative is the development of more effective management methods for existing water resource systems, which commonly waste approximately 20 percent of their capacities through mismanagement.

Statistical models first appeared in hydrology at the beginning of the 1970s. Hydrologists began to use the techniques of time series analysis and system identification in their models, which seemed to give better results than the earlier, deterministic simulation models. In addition, real-time control of water resources was being developed at the practical level and on-line measurements of rainfall and runoff from a catchment were becoming available. The conceptual models then in use could not take advantage of measurements from the catchment, but on-line measurements now allow an operator to anticipate flood waters upstream or a water shortage downstream.

This book contains selected papers from a workshop devoted to the consolidation of international research on statistically estimated models for real-time forecasting and control of water resource systems. The book is divided into three parts. The first part presents several methods of forecasting for water resource systems: distributed lag models, maximum likelihood identification, nonlinear catchment models, Kalman filtering, and self-tuning predictors. The papers in the second part present methods for controlling stream quality and stream flow, and the third part describes forecasting in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Poland.


In content-based mobile ad hoc networks (CB-MANETs), random linear network coding (NC) can be used to reliably disseminate large files under intermittent connectivity. Conventional NC involves random unrestricted coding at intermediate nodes. This however is vulnerable to pollution attacks. To avoid attacks, a brute force approach is to allow mixing only at the source. However, source restricted NC generally reduces the robustness of the code in the face of errors, losses and mobility induced intermittence. CB-MANETs introduce a new option. Caching is common in CB MANETs and a fully reassembled cached file can be viewed as a new source. Thus, NC packets can be mixed at all sources (including the originator and the intermediate caches) yet still providing protection from pollution. The hypothesis we wish to test in this paper is whether in CB-MANETs with replicated caches of a file, the performance (in terms of robustness) of the coding restricted to full caches equals that of unrestricted coding. In this paper, we examine and compare four options: unrestricted coding, full cache coding, source only coding, and no coding. As expected, we find that full cache coding remains competitive with unrestricted coding while maintaining full protection against pollution attacks.


In this paper, we present results from a field-test of NIMS-PL, a redundantly actuated cable-driven robot for aquatic applications. We describe installation procedures that enable rapid deployability and present results demonstrating precise calibration capabilities. Detection and correction of positional drift, which is critical for long-term autonomous deployments, is demonstrated, and the rate of system drift is quantified. An example actuated sensing experiment is performed that accurately maps the spatiotemporal variation of the intensity of light incident on a swimming pool. Finally, we propose an upcoming, environmentally significant deployment in which we will map variations in aquatic phenomena such as salinity and pH through the confluence region of two rivers.


Cage-based deformation has been one of the main approaches for mesh deformation in recent years, with a lot of interesting and active research. The main advantages of cage-based deformation techniques are their simplicity, relative flexibility and speed. However, to date there has been no widely accepted solution that provides both user control at different levels of detail and high quality deformations. We present *Cages (star-cages), a significant step forward with respect to traditional single-cage coordinate systems, and which allows the usage of multiple cages enclosing the model for easier manipulation while still preserving the smoothness of the mesh in the transitions between them. The proposed deformation scheme is extremely flexible and versatile, allowing the usage of heterogeneous sets of coordinates and different levels of deformation, ranging from a wholemodel deformation to a very localized one. That locality allows faster evaluation and a reduced memory footprint, and as a result outperforms single-cage approaches in flexibility, speed and memory requirements for complex editing operations.


This paper explores how explicit incorporation of human capital affects dynamic general equilibrium analysis of the effects of taxes on capital formation and welfare in a life-cycle growth model. In contrast to the results of partial equilibrium analysis, we find that estimates of the full dynamic welfare costs of capital income taxes are little affected by incorporating human capital. While the short-run impact effects of replacing income taxes with wage or consumption taxes are significantly affected by endogenizing human capital, these effects are short-lived. In the long-run the rate of return on non-human capital falls to approximately its initial net of tax level, and steady-state human capital investment plans are therefore little affected by the tax changes. Although incorporating human capital thus does not greatly alter results in our numerical simulations, a wide range of extensions and modifications of the model are discussed which could in principle modify this conclusion.


DISCOS [1] is a control system developed by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) and currently in use at three radio telescope facilities of Medicina, Noto and the Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT) [2]. DISCOS development is based on the adoption of the ALMA Common Software (ACS) [3] framework. During the last two years, besides assisting the astronomical commissioning of the newly-built SRT and enabling its early science program, the control system has undergone some major upgrades. The long-awaited transition to a recent ACS version was performed, migrating the whole code base to 64 bit operative system and compilers, addressing the obsolescence problem that was causing a major technical debt to the project. This opportunity allowed us to perform some refactoring, in order to implement improved logging and resource management. During this transition the code management platform was migrated to a git-based versioning system and the continuous integration platform was modified to accommodate these changes. Further upgrades included the system completion at Noto and the expansion to handle new digital backends.


This thesis is broken into two parts, both dealing with the role of two-dimensional graphene in electronic and optical applications. The first section develops a phenomenological relationship for the polarizability of the graphene sheet using a hybrid semi-classical and QFT-derived (Quantum Field Theory) model for different energy regimes. Fits are made and our results are compared to data from two distinct experimental setups. The effects of contamination and rippling of the sheet are considered. The second section shows a phenomenological model for the rough surfaces of graphene and its underlying substrate for a sheet grown on a conducting material. Three different perturbative mathematical models are then explored to justify the shift in the plasmon frequency and the energy loss dispersion due to roughness, using input from experimental roughness data. The models are compared and corrected to include physical effects like crumpling.


For the first time, this book reveals the actual roles of the Christian Democratic (CD) parties in postwar Europe from a pan-European perspective. It shows how Christian Democratic parties became the dominant political force in postwar Western Europe, and how the European People's Party is currently the largest group in the European Parliament. CD parties and political leaders like Adenauer, Schuman and De Gasperi played a particularly important role in the evolution of the 'core Europe' of the EEC/EC after 1945. Key chapters address the same questions about the parties' membership and social organization; their economic and social policies; and their European and international policies during the Cold War. The book also includes two survey chapters setting out the international political context for CD parties and comparing their postwar development, and two chapters on their transnational party cooperation after 1945. This is the companion volume to Political Catholicism in Europe 1918-1945.


Terrorism has the potential to affect population health through various pathways. Since the literature mostly analyzes tangible economic costs, there is dearth of evidence on health effects of terrorism. In an effort to address that gap, this article explores the relationship between terrorism and health satisfaction of Turkish citizens by combining province-level and individual-level data sets. In order to quantify determinants of health satisfaction, a multi-level modeling framework is employed. Empirical analysis suggests that individuals with higher exposure to terrorism are more likely to report lower health satisfaction in Turkey. Health satisfaction of individuals is significantly and positively correlated with individual-level covariates such as education level, marital status, employment status, household income, housing floor area per person, interest in health issues and becoming a parent within the past year. Age, being female and utilization of health services display negative associations with health satisfaction of individuals. Finally, province level GDP per capita and schooling ratio exhibit significantly positive associations with individual health satisfaction in Turkey.


PURPOSE
Against the hypothesis that high estrogen levels in utero increase the risk of developing breast cancer in later life are data showing that pregnancy estrogen levels are significantly higher in Asian women who have low breast cancer risk than in Caucasian women. We investigated whether maternal dietary intake of genistein or n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which are typical to Asian but not Caucasian diet, affect pregnancy estrogen levels and susceptibility to mammary tumorigenesis among offspring.

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
For that purpose, pregnant female Sprague Dawley rats were fed isocaloric AIN-93-based diets containing either at 15 mg (low), 150 mg (medium), or 300 mg (high)/kg genistein/diet or low- or high-fat (16 versus 39% energy from fat) diet composed either of n-3 PUFA menhaden oil or n-6 PUFA corn oil. All diets were switched to regular AIN-93 diet when pups were born.

RESULTS
Maternal intake of n-3 PUFA diets significantly increased pregnancy 17 beta-estradiol (E2) levels (48% increase when compared with high n-6 PUFA diet; P < 0.0045). High genistein exposure also increased pregnancy estrogen levels, but the increase did not reach statistical significance (P < 0.14). The offspring of high-fat n-3 PUFA-consuming dams were significantly less likely to develop 7,12-dimethylbenz-[a]anthracene-induced mammary tumors (38% of these rats developed tumors during week 17 versus 64% of high n-6 PUFA offspring; P < 0.003). Maternal genistein intake did not affect offspring's tumor incidence. The mammary glands of high fat n-3 PUFA offspring contained more lobules (P < 0.07) and were thus more differentiated, whereas the glands of high genistein offspring contained more terminal end buds (P < 0.0015), which are the sites of malignant transformation.

CONCLUSIONS
Our findings indicate that the elevated estrogen levels in the n-3 PUFA mothers were linked to reduced rather than increased breast cancer risk among their offspring, suggesting that other effects of n-3 PUFA may counteract the effects of high fetal estrogenicity on the mammary gland. High maternal genistein intake did not reduce offspring's breast cancer risk, and therefore high maternal soy intake in Asian women may not be associated with daughters' low breast cancer risk.


We have revisited the valence band electronic structure of NiO by means of hard x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (HAXPES) together with theoretical calculations using both the GW method and the local density approximation + dynamical mean-field theory (LDA+DMFT) approaches. The effective impurity problem in DMFT is solved through the exact diagonalization (ED) method. We show that the LDA+DMFT method in conjunction with the standard fully localized limit (FLL) and around mean field (AMF) double-counting alone cannot explain all the observed structures in the HAXPES spectra. GW corrections are required for the O bands and Ni-s and p derived states to properly position their binding energies. Our results establish that a combination of the GW and DMFT methods is necessary for correctly describing the electronic structure of NiO in a proper ab initio framework. We also demonstrate that the inclusion of photoionization cross section is crucial to interpret the HAXPES spectra of NiO. We argue that our conclusions are general and that the here suggested approach is appropriate for any complex transition metal oxide.


Many industrial processes have non-linear and time-varying dynamics, for which the control and optimization require further investigations. Adaptive modelling techniques using radial basis function (RBF) networks often provide competitive modelling performances but encounter slow recovery speed when processes operating regions are shifted largely. In addition, RBF networks based model predictive control results as a non-linear programming problem, which restricts the application to fast dynamic systems. To these targets, the thesis presents the development of adaptive and factorized RBF network models. Model predictive control (MPC) based on the factorized RBF model is applied to a non-linear proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack system. The main contents include three parts: RBF model adaptation; model factorization and fast long-range prediction; and MPC for the PEMFC stack system. The adaptive RBF model employs the recursive orthogonal least squares (ROLS) algorithm for both structure and parameter adaptation. In decomposing the regression matrix of the RBF model, the R matrix is obtained. Principles for adding centres and pruning centres are developed based on the manipulation of the R matrix. While the modelling accuracy is remained, the developed structure adaptation algorithm ensures the model size to be kept to the minimum. At the same time, the RBF model parameters are optimized in terms of minimum Frobenius norm of the model prediction error. A simulation example is used to evaluate the developed adaptive RBF model, and the model performance in output prediction is superior over the existing methods. Considering that a model with fast long-range prediction is needed for the MPC of fast dynamic systems, a f-step factorization algorithm is developed for the RBF model. The model structure is re-arranged so that the unknown future process outputs are not required for output prediction. Therefore, the accumulative error caused by recursive calculation in normal neural network model is avoided. Furthermore, as the information for output prediction is explicitly divided into the past information and the future information, the optimization of the control variable in the MPC based on this developed factorized model can be solved much faster than the normal NARX-RBF model. The developed model adaptation algorithm can be applied to this f-step factorized model to achieve fast and adaptive model prediction. Finally, the developed factorized RBF model is applied to the MPC of a PEMFC stack system with a popular industrial benchmark model in Simulink developed at Michigan University. The optimization algorithms for quadratic and non-linear system without and with constraints are presented and discussed for application purpose in the NMPC. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the developed model in both smooth tracking performance and less optimization time used. Conclusions and further work are given at the end of the thesis. Major contributions of the research have been outlined and achievements are checked against the objectives assigned. Further work is also suggested to extend the developed work to industrial applications in real-time simulation. This is to further examine the effectiveness of developed models. Extensive investigations are also recommended on the optimization problems to improve the existing algorithms.


Most economic theory on long-run growth is organized around the concept of balanced growth. On a balanced growth path, all economic variables grow at constant but possibly different rates. The concept of balanced growth paths is usually motivated by the "stylized facts" of growth, which state that for most industrialized countries, certain ratios, in particular the capital-output ratio, have been remarkably stable over long time periods. A review of the evidence on the stability of capital-output ratios for the United States economy finds some support for the "stylized facts," at the aggregate level, but no support for them regarding the equipment and structures components of the aggregate capital stock separately.


Almost ten years after the launch of the SciTech Guideline, between the end of the 12th five-year plan (2011-2015) and the beginning of the 13th (2016-2020), the Chinese government has issued the "Made in China 2025" plan (MiC 2025). It is the first out of three plans being part of a wider initiative having the aim of making China a manufacturing power within 2049, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the People's Republic of China. Even if the Chinese planning have been considering innovation and technology as two pillars since the initial years of the Republic, there is a new pervasiveness in the planning efforts. However, differently from the past, these efforts cannot benefit from a positive juncture. The aim of the present work is to trace a first balance of the innovative activity in China, concomitantly with this turning point in policy, analysing a set of synthetic indicators derived from the qualitative-quantitative objectives included in the SciTech Guideline e in the subsequent five-year plans. More specifically, by means of Chinese and international sources, this article does not aim at evaluating, but at deriving a series of stylised facts on innovation in China and at providing some insights for a further discussion on two decades: the one that has just finished and, most of all, the one that has just begun.


Smallholder plantation accounts for 39% of total oil palm plantation in Indonesia, which is currently estimated at 12 million ha. Limited information on spatial distribution of smallholder oil palm and the growth of plantation pose a great challenge for providing information in scientific based. Therefore, information on smallholder oil palm plantation are necessary and they will give valuable input for policy maker and related stakeholders. This study is aimed to generate smallholder oil palm distribution map using optical satellite data of SPOT 7 and investigate the backscatter values of ALOS PALSAR-2 with height and age of oil palm in mineral soil and peatland. We mapped 46,756 ha of smallholder plantation or about 18% of total oil palm plantation in district of Kotawaringin Barat, Central Kalimantan province and 14% of which is located on peatland area. From the result, height to age mineral soil has a strong relationship with R2 value 0.80 but weak in peatland with R2 value 0.31. Relationship between height and backscatter in mineral soil has R2 value 0.43 for HH and 0.30 for HV and in peatland 0.28 for HH and 0.15. Relationship between age and backscatter in mineral soil has moderately strong correlation with R2 value 0.55 for HH and 0.37 for HV and in peatland 0.36 for HH and 0.28. In all relationship, independent variables are statistically significant with Significance-F value lower than 0.05. In general, height, age, and backscatter relationship in peatland is lower than in mineral soil. Backscatter value can be useful for studying height and age of smallholder oil palm. Further studies are suggested to involve more potential variables and utilize multi temporal datasets in determining height and age of oil palm trees using backscatter values.


We explore how women's narratives of abuse change, including narratives of self as well as narratives of their abusers. We draw on experiences from a photoethnography of people living in rural Alabama who use methamphetamine. The use of photographs taken throughout the project aid in both the representation of the women as well as in data collection (through photo-elicitation interviews). While we draw on the overall experiences from the project, we focus specifically on one key participant— Misty—to illustrate the ways that she made sense of and excused intimate partner violence, and how her narrative eventually changes. Our findings illuminate how the narratives people construct of themselves are intertwined with those they construct with others, and how such narratives change together.


One of the orthodoxies of communication scholarship is that much of the genderbased differences between males and females with regard to experiences in newsrooms can be attributed to demographics. The discussion presented in this paper challenges this claim by comparing the findings of two national surveys that measured the professional progress of Canadian press and television journalists. The first survey was undertaken in 1975, and the second in 1995. While the historical evidence points to reductions in gender-based structural inequalities over time, it also identifies the continued presence of gender-based assumptions about how work and family obligations should be combined. Such assumptions, it is argued, help to foster and reproduce systemic biases in the newsroom culture that still resonate today in the journalism profession and which can be best understood as a manifestation of the meaning of gender at three levels: as a classifying system, as a structuring structure, and as an ideology.


James Ellroy's treatment of race continues to captivate and polarize both popular and academic opinion. Whilst some see the casual racism and often uncomfortable stereotypes in Ellroy's work as a reflection of the author's own political agenda, for others Ellroy's work offers a complex deconstruction of both racial identity and white social power. Focusing on his novel Perfidia , this paper explores these contradictions and paradoxes in Ellroy's representations of race, arguing that whilst the novel depicts and forcefully overemphasizes an historical moment fraught with a brand of physiognomic racism that persecutes individuals on the basis of biological difference, it simultaneously deconstructs such essentialist engenderings by foregrounding the performative dimensions of race as a category of identity. As a result, this paper argues that Ellroy's novel "visibilizes" the socially and institutionally constructed nature of race, deconstructing and destabilizing the integrity and authority of white social power. Yet, this paper also suggests that through such an unyielding portrayal of white power, Perfidia only partly dislodges the authority and power of institutional whiteness, and can in fact be seen to validate the sustainment of such apparatus.


Many infectious diseases lack cheap, fast, and reliable serodiagnostic tools. Recently, glycans coupled to gold nanoparticles (GNPs) have shown potential to fill this void by utilizing them as a coating in ELISA experiments. In this study, we used GNPs functionalized either with galactofuranose (Galf), rhamnose (Rhap) or a mixture of these monosaccharides to detect the presence of IgM and IgG antibodies against these non-human carbohydrates in sera obtained from tuberculosis patients and control groups. Our findings confirm the wide abundance of anti-Rhap antibodies in humans and show for the first time the presence of anti-Galf antibodies in human sera. This study supports further investigation of using GNP-ELISA with microbe-specific carbohydrates for serodiagnosis of infectious diseases.


We report the results of a calculation of the normal boiling points of a representative set of 200 organic molecules through the application of QSPR theory. For this purpose we have used a particular set of flexible molecular descriptors, the so called Correlation Weighting of Atomic Orbitals with Extended Connectivity of Zero- and First-Order Graphs of Atomic Orbitals. Although in general the results show suitable behavior to predict this physical chemistry property, the existence of some deviant behaviors points to a need to complement this index with some other sort of molecular descriptors. Some possible extensions of this study are discussed.


abstract It is observed that the mean slip in large earthquakes is linearly proportional to fault length and does not correlate with fault width. This observation is interpreted in the light of the two possible classes of models for large earthquakes: W models, in which stress drop and slip are determined by fault width, and L models, in which these parameters are fundamentally determined by fault length. In the W model interpretation, stress drop systematically increases with L/W , the aspect ratio, and, as a consequence, seismic moment. The correlation of slip with length means that the rupture length is determined by the dynamic stress drop. This conflicts with the observation that the length of large earthquakes is often controlled by adjacent rupture zones of previous earthquakes or by tectonic obstacles. It also conflicts with the observations for small earthquakes that stress drop is nearly constant and does not correlate with source radius over a broad range. In the L model interpretation, the correlation between slip and length means that stress drop is constant, namely about 7.5, 12, and 60 bars for interplate strike-slip, thrust, and Japanese intraplate earthquakes, respectively. L models require that the fault be mechanically unconstrained at the base. W models predict that mean particle velocity increases with fault length, but rise time is constant. L models predict the opposite.


In 2015 seat belt use in the United States ranged from 69.5 percent in New Hampshire to 97.3 percent in California and Georgia. Nineteen States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and Northern Mariana Islands achieved belt use rates of 90 percent or higher. These results are from probability-based observational surveys conducted by 50 States, the District of Columbia, and U.S. Territories.


The long-term effects of professional exposure to radon are well-known. They result from the combined action on the lung epithelia of α-radiation due to radon inhalation and deposition in the lung of its decay products and external γ-radiation from uranium, thorium and their progeny. According to the guidelines applied by the USEPA and recommended by the ICRP, the maximal exposure in uranium mines may not exceed 4 WLM/y ; this exposure corresponds to an annual dose of 20 mSv. In most western uranium mines, miners' exposure is below this threshold. However, there is no good biological indicator of the early lung toxicity of irradiation. The animal model described in this paper considers exposure levels in the range of the professional exposure of miners that can be observed in some habitations in regions of particularly high natural background. Fifty-one Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed in a highly natural radioactive area in Lodeve (France) to external chronic low dose rate irradiation (16.5 µGy/h) and chronic exposure to radon (1650 Bq/m³). A control group (51 animals) was installed nearby, exposed to a background external radiation field (0.34 µGy/h) and atmospheric radon (64 Bq/m³). The biological effects were assessed on the parents F0 (for 17 months) and first generation F1 (14 months). For the exposed F0 and F1 group, the cumulative external dose was respectively 179 mGy and 175 mGy. The mean estimated dose from radon exposure was 2.74 WLM per year. DNA damage in alveolar macrophages was quantified using alkaline comet assay. Early modifications in DNA of pulmonary macrophages were detected by the comet assay which could be a suitable tool for the monitoring of people occupationally exposed to external low doses rates of irradiation and radon.


We present a fully covariant and gauge-invariant calculation of the evolution of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation. We use the physically appealing covariant approach to cosmological perturbations, which ensures that all variables are gauge-invariant and have a clear physical interpretation. We derive the complete set of frame-independent linearized equations describing the (Boltzmann) evolution of anisotropy and inhomogeneity in an almost Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cold dark matter (CDM) universe. These equations include the contributions of scalar, vector, and tensor modes in a unified manner. Frame-independent equations for scalar and tensor perturbations, which are valid for any value of the background curvature, are obtained straightforwardly from the complete set of equations. We discuss the scalar equations in detail, including the integral solution and relation withthe line-of-sight approach, analytic solutions in the early radiation-dominated era, and the numerical solution in the standard CDM model. Our results confirm those obtained by other groups, who have worked carefully with noncovariant methods in specific gauges, but ours are derived here in a completely transparent fashion.


Since its initial development in 1976, fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) has been one of the most popular tools for studying diffusion and protein dynamics in living cells. Its popularity is derived from the widespread availability of confocal microscopes and the relative ease of the experiment and analysis. FRAP, however, is limited in its ability to resolve spatial heterogeneity. Here, we combine selective plane illumination microscopy (SPIM) and FRAP to create SPIM-FRAP, wherein we use a sheet of light to bleach a 2D plane and subsequently image the recovery of the same image plane. This provides simultaneous quantification of diffusion or protein recovery for every pixel in a given 2D slice, thus moving FRAP measurements beyond these previous limitations. We demonstrate this technique by mapping intranuclear diffusion of NLS-GFP in live MDA-MB-231 cells; SPIM-FRAP proves to be an order of magnitude faster than fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) based techniques for such measurements. We observe large length-scale (> ~500 nm) heterogeneity in the recovery times of NLS-GFP, which is validated against simulated data sets. 2D maps of recovery times were correlated with fluorescence images of H2B to address conflicting literature on the role of chromatin in diffusion of small molecules. We observed no correlation between histone density and diffusion. We developed a diffusion simulation for our SPIM-FRAP experiments to compare across techniques; our measured diffusion coefficients are on the order of previously reported results, thus validating the quantitative accuracy of SPIM-FRAP relative to well-established methods. With the recent rise of accessibility of SPIM systems, SPIM-FRAP is set to provide a simple and quick means of quantifying the spatial distribution of protein recovery or diffusion in living cells. Statement of Significance We developed selective plane illumination microscopy combined with fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (SPIM-FRAP) to perform simultaneous FRAP measurements for each pixel in a 2D slice. This technique has the potential to be implemented on almost any light sheet microscope with minimal software development. FRAP studies were previously unable to resolve spatial heterogeneity and FCS techniques require minute-long acquisition times; SPIM-FRAP remedies both of these issues by generating FRAP-based diffusion maps in 4 seconds. This technique can easily be expanded to 3D by photobleaching a single plane and performing light sheet volumetric imaging, which has the benefits of minimal photobleaching and phototoxicity for studying long-term protein turnover. Furthermore, SPIM-FRAP of slowly-recovering structures enables characterization of spatial distortions to measure intracellular stresses.


The worldwide consumption of footwear is estimated to be in excess of 20 billion pairs of shoes per year. To date very little work has been done to develop material recycling solutions for mixed footwear products. In fact less than 5% of end-of-life shoes are being recycled, with most being disposed of in landfill sites around the globe. One of the primary reasons is that most modern footwear products contain a complex mixture of leather, rubber, textile, polymers and metallic materials, that makes it difficult to perform complete separation and reclamation of material streams in an economically sustainable manner. This ostconsumer waste ootwear products aterial recycling ir separation paper discusses the development of an economically feasible automated material recycling process for mixed postconsumer footwear waste. Central to this process are bespoke air-based separation technologies that separate granulated shoe particles based upon the difference in size and weight. Experimental studies with three different types of postconsumer footwear products show that it is possible to reclaim four usable material streams; leathers, textiles, foams and rubbers. For each of the reclaimed materials there are a variety of applications such as surfacing materials, insulation boards and underlay products. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


The Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N) conducted terrorist attacks in Greece for twenty-seven years (1975-2002), making it the most durable of the militant Leftist revolutionary groups that emerged from the European radical milieu of the 1970s. 17N went to great lengths in its communiques - and eventually in trial testimony - to position itself as the only authentic, progressive political force in post-Junta Greece. In spite of the absence of any demonstrable mass political constituency, 17N's leaders convinced themselves that they represented the vanguard of political change in the country. But 17N was never an authentic revolutionary group. Instead, it was a clandestine band of disillusioned armed militants with a flair for revolutionary rhetoric and symbolism for whom terrorism had become a way of life: a career. Its members lived in a closed, self-referential world where terrorism became a way of life from which it was impossible to walk away or to confront reality. Feeling themselves to be a genuine instrument of history, 17N leaders believed that it did not matter that there could never be a military victory as long as 17N, 'intervened' and 'resisted.' For their operational leader, Dimitris Koufodinas, and many of his comrades what was important was the act of 'resistance' itself and the notion that blood and death, even one's own, would carry the mission forward, ultimately securing 17N a place in history.


EPIE Institute is a nonprofit evaluation agency which specializes in impartial collection and dissemination of in formation on performance and availability of all types of instructional materials, equipment, and systems. General findings of the Institute are reported to EPIE members in EPIE Reports, compilations of decision-focused evaluation information about specific products. Members may obtain in addition specialized information directed at their specific curriculum and materials problems. Members of NASSP (a charter member of EPIE Institute Advisory Board) will find in these columns each month a discussion of some aspect of the principal's responsibility for selecting appropriate educational products for use in the high school. They are encouraged to join the Institute to receive additional selection information and to take advan tage of the Institute's services in connection with training selectors. Membership is $35 a year; applications should be sent to the Institute at Box 245, Kingston, N.J. 08528.


SUMMARY: Computerized image-analysis of epifluorescence preparations is the most accurate and simple method for the estimation of bacterial size. We present a simple and inexpensive image-analysis system used to measure and count planktonic bacteria and presently in operation in our laboratory. We show that there is a wide range of image exposures (brightness) over which the system performs correctly. Even though the procedure involves some steps that depend upon operator intervention, the results obtained are highly reproducible and we have estimated the among-operator variability at 5%. We then discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different algorithms used for the estimation of volume from two-dimensional images and we identify those that perform better for curved and unusual cells. We finally estimate that 4 to 6 images and 200 - 250 cells are the optimal number of images to be processed and cells to be measured to obtain accurate estimates of population values with the minimum effort. These calibrations should be useful to all those laboratories that are implementing image-analysis systems.


Objectives To quantify the risk of overdiagnosis associated with prostate cancer screening in Australia using a novel lifetime risk approach. Design Modelling and validation of the lifetime risk method using publicly available population data. Setting Opportunistic screening for prostate cancer in the Australian population. Participants Australian male population (1982–2012). Interventions Prostate-specific antigen testing for prostate cancer screening. Primary and secondary outcome measures Primary: lifetime risk of overdiagnosis in 2012 (excess lifetime cancer risk adjusted for changing competing mortality); Secondary: lifetime risk of prostate cancer diagnosis (unadjusted and adjusted for competing mortality); Excess lifetime risk of prostate cancer diagnosis (for all years subsequent to 1982). Results The lifetime risk of being diagnosed with prostate cancer increased from 6.1% in 1982 (1 in 17) to 19.6% in 2012 (1 in 5). Using 2012 competing mortality rates, the lifetime risk in 1982 was 11.5% (95% CI 11.0% to 12.0%). The excess lifetime risk of prostate cancer in 2012 (adjusted for changing competing mortality) was 8.2% (95% CI 7.6% to 8.7%) (1 in 13). This corresponds to 41% of prostate cancers being overdiagnosed. Conclusions Our estimated rate of overdiagnosis is in agreement with estimates using other methods. This method may be used without the need to adjust for lead times. If annual (cross-sectional) data are used, then it may give valid estimates of overdiagnosis once screening has been established long enough for the benefits from the early detection of non-overdiagnosed cancer at a younger age to be realised in older age groups.


In 2020 a proposal for a new drug policy in Norway will be considered. The policy transfers the responsibility of handling people with drug-use related challenges from the justice sector to the health sector. This is expected to depenalise drugs for personal consumption to some degree. The shift in attitudes from drug use as crime to drug use as health challenge might open the conversation towards the possibility of legalisation of drugs for recreational use. The topic is inflamed and the two main factions, "for regulation" and "against regulation" act like echo-chambers; making the debate climate hostile and moving slowly. Power imbalances also play a major part. One side is backed by police and the other have traditionally been supporting criminal activity. After prohibition uses a process consisting of futures, design fiction, service design and discursive design methods to work around the echo-chambers and power dynamics. It engages each faction in structured dialogues about difficult questions that might come up under the new policy. The dialogues attempt to create understanding of the opposing factions points of view and intentions. By understanding each other, and engaging in public discussion we can move forward into a Norway, after prohibition.


Objective: The application of ionic liquids as solvent in the microwave assisted extraction (MAE) method has been developed for extraction of secondary metabolites from plants. However, oxyresveratrol extraction from Morus alba roots using IL-MAE method has never been reported. Purpose of this research was to get the optimum condition of imidazoliumbased ionic liquid-microwave assisted extraction (IL-MAE) for oxyresveratrol extraction from M. alba roots. Methods: M. alba roots were extracted with 3 kinds of ionic liquids (1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide ([Bmim]Br), 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide ([Hmim]Br)and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium sulfate ([Bmim]2[SO4]), respectively by microwave with 3 different microwave power (P10%, P30% and P50%) for 10 min. Then, fractionated with ethyl acetate and salted out by additionof 4 different salts (Na2CO3, NaHCO3, K2HPO4, and NaCl). Oxyresveratrol concentration of the extracts was analyzed with TLC-densitometry and HPLC. Results: Based on the results of this study, the most optimum condition of IL-MAE for oxyresveratrol from M. alba roots was using [Bmim]Br concentration 1.5mol/L with microwave power 10% for 10 min. The salt 0.01 mol/L NaHCO3 was optimum for the back extraction of oxyresveratrol from [Bmim]Br solution. Under optimized conditions, oxyresveratrol concentration in M. alba roots extract using IL-MAE method was 735.25 ppm. Conclusion: This IL-MAE method was suitable to be applied as an alternative technique to extract oxyresveratrol from the plants. Key words: Ionic liquid, Microwave-assisted extraction, IL-MAE, Oxyresveratrol, Morus alba, Roots extract.


In the search for new alloys with a great strength-to-weight ratio, magnesium has emerged at the forefront. With a strength rivaling that of steel and aluminum alloys --- materials which are deployed widely in real world applications today --- but only a fraction of the density, magnesium holds great promise in a variety of next-generation applications. Unfortunately, the widespread adoption of magnesium is hindered by the fact that it fails in a brittle fashion, which is undesirable when it comes to plastic deformation mechanisms. Consequently, one must design magnesium alloys to navigate around this shortcoming and fail in a more ductile fashion. However, such designs are not possible without a thorough understanding of the underlying mechanisms of deformation in magnesium, which is somewhat contested at the moment. In addition to slip, which is one of the dominant mechanisms in metallic alloys, a mechanism known as twinning is also present, especially in hexagonal close-packed (HCP) materials such as magnesium. Twinning involves the reorientation of the material lattice about a planar discontinuity and has been shown as one of the preferred mechanisms by which magnesium accommodates out-of-plane deformation. Unfortunately, twinning is not particularly well-understood in magnesium, and needs to be addressed before progress can be made in materials design. In particular, though two specific modes of twinning have been acknowledged, various works in the literature have identified a host of additional modes, many of which have been cast aside as "anomalous" observations. To this end, we introduce a new framework for predicting the modes by which a material can twin, for any given material. Focusing on magnesium, we begin our investigation by introducing a kinematic framework that predicts novel twin configurations, cataloging these twins modes by their planar normal and twinning shear. We then subject the predicted twin modes to a series of atomistic simulations, primarily in molecular statics but with supplementary calculations using density functional theory, giving us insight on both the energy of the twin interface and barriers to formation. We then perform a stress analysis and identify the twin modes which are most likely to be activated, thus finding the ones most likely to affect the yield surface of magnesium. Over the course of our investigation, we show that many different modes actually participate on the yield surface of magnesium; the two classical modes which are accepted by the community are confirmed, but many additional modes --- some of which are close to modes which have been previously regarded as anomalies --- are also observed. We also perform some extensional work, showing the flexibility of our framework in predicting twins in other materials and in other environments and highlighting the complicated nature of twinning, especially in HCP materials.


Background Tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4), a critical endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) cofactor, is an important determinant of endothelial function. Oral BH4 therapy has been proposed as a treatment for vascular disease. We investigated the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of oral BH4 in both plasma and vascular tissue to determine whether oral BH4 therapy would improve vascular function in patients with established atherosclerosis and oxidative stress. Methods In a double-blind, randomised trial, 49 patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) awaiting coronary artery bypass graft surgery received oral BH4 700 mg/d (n=16) or 400 mg/d (n=14), or placebo (n=19), for a mean duration of 30 days prior to surgery. Biopterin levels were measured in plasma at baseline and after the treatment period, and in saphenous vein (SV) and internal mammary artery (IMA) tissue collected at the time of surgery. Vascular superoxide and endothelial function were measured ex vivo. Cardiovascular MRI was used to determine brachial artery flow-mediated dilatation and indices of arterial stiffness before and after treatment. Results Plasma BH4 levels were elevated threefold by both low- and high-dose BH4 treatment compared to placebo (p<0.001), but levels of the oxidised biopterin species 7,8-dihydrobiopterin (BH2), which lacks eNOS cofactor activity and may competitively inhibit BH4, were similarly elevated in plasma (p<0.001), such that BH4:BH2 ratio was unaffected. BH4 and BH2 were elevated twofold in SV tissue (p<0.001), but not significantly elevated in IMA (Abstract B figure 1), with no change in BH4:BH2 ratio in either vessel type. There was no difference in vascular superoxide or endothelial function ex vivo, or in MRI indices of vascular function. Abstract B Figure 1 Vascular biopterins (pmol/g). Conclusion Although absolute BH4 levels in plasma and SV are increased, chronic oral BH4 therapy does not alter biopterin redox status (BH4:BH2 ratio) in either plasma or vascular tissue. Accordingly, oral BH4 does not improve vascular function or oxidative stress in patients with established CAD.


This study reports on an original and efficient way to synthesize iron nanowires and cubic-shaped nanoparticles by electrochemical deposition on a mesoporous silicon host and its impact on magnetic properties. The selective growth of iron nanostructures inside the pores can be achieved, thanks to the presence of a native oxide layer on the pore walls, suggesting a surface-state assisted electrochemical process. Because of hydrogen coevolution, the pH of the solution controls the shape of the iron nanostructures (particles or wires) while the electrodeposition current density can be adjusted to suppress the parasitic deposition on top of the structure. Under optimal conditions, nanowires with lengths up to 2 μm are synthesized after 15 seconds of deposition. Magnetic characterization of the ferromagnetic nanowire composite exhibits an easy axis of magnetization in the pore direction due to shape anisotropy with a remanence ratio of 0.6. The shape anisotropy of the nanoparticle composite is weaker than for the nanowire composite because of the homogeneous dispersion of the particles. The versatility of the mesoporous silicon framework is thus a considerable asset to tune the nanocomposite's magnetic properties.


The fossil record of ladybird beetles is scarce with the first taxa described only very recently. The oldest members come from Eocene the amber deposits of Oise and the Bay of Gdańsk, and represent the tribes Coccidulini and Serangiini respectively. Here, we describe a new genus, Electrolotis, which belongs to the tribe Sticholotidini and is presently distributed in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. The new species from Baltic amber deposits, Electrolotis hoffeinsorum sp. nov., possesses an unusual set of characters not present in the modern fauna: two arcuate lines of large punctures on each elytron (occurring today only in Oriental Sticholotidini) and recurved abdominal postcoxal lines, currently present only in three New World genera. This combination of characters makes the new species an intermediate taxon between modern Old World and New World taxa, which may indicate that during the Eocene northern Europe might have been an important migration route for Sticholotidini.


There are many studies that focus upon the lives and experiences of the children of migrants born in the settlement country, the group known as the second generation. Yet, there are few, if any that explore the experiences of the middle class Sri Lankan Tamil second generation in the UK. This study looks to remedy this by comparing the experiences of the educated middle class second generation in the UK with their contemporaries in Sri Lanka. By focusing on two complimentary research sites the study provides an insight into how the experiences of the first generation in Sri Lanka may have influenced responses and reactions to their children born and brought up in the UK. This empirical research is therefore unique in that it focuses on the Sri Lankan Tamil middle class second generation and presents a comparison of both
ends of the migratory journey.

This study is a qualitative piece of research involving two periods of fieldwork in Sri Lanka and the UK. 3-months were spent in Colombo, Sri Lanka from June 2005 to September 2005
and in the UK, London and Leeds were the fieldwork sites, with interviewing from January 2006 to April 2006. Both in Sri Lanka and the UK, through a process of strategic sampling as a result of snowballing, the participants were educated, middle class Sri Lankan Tamils of both genders and between the ages of 14-34.

The thesis focuses upon three main themes, pre-marital relationships and marriage, traditional practices and migration. Firstly, there has been a clear shift away from the traditional model of arranged marriage both in Sri Lanka and the UK, however there still remains the expectation to marry within caste, class, religious and most importantly ethnic boundaries. The number of individuals choosing to marry out is increasing, yet this appears to be more accepted in Sri Lanka than the UK. Both in Sri Lanka and the UK cultural traits like the coming of age ceremony are gradually declining, however the main concern in the UK amongst the second generation is that the Tamil language is disappearing. For many this has a direct link to ethnic identity and there is a worry that this will continue to erode. Directly related to this is the weakening of practical and emotional ties between the second generation in the UK and Sri Lanka. The tsunami in 2004 encouraged many young Sri Lankan Tamils to fund raise and send financial remittances to family, friends and charities in Sri Lanka. However, four years on there is increasing transnational redundancy and severing of ties with Sri Lanka evident in the responses and experiences of the second generation in the UK.


Natural ventilation (NV) can considerably contribute to reducing the cooling energy consumption of a building and increase occupant productivity, if correctly implemented. Such energy savings depend on the number of hours that NV can maintain the indoor air temperature within comfort levels. CoolVent, currently the only simple multizone simulation tool that can adequately model the physics of NV in buildings, assumes a uniform temperature distribution in each room or zone. This temperature corresponds to the exhaust air temperature of each room using an energy balance. In reality, however, the air in a room is often thermally stratified, and the air temperature at occupant level can be significantly lower than the exhaust temperature. The final goal of this thesis was to develop a set of criteria to predict the vertical temperature profile in naturally ventilated rooms by comparing the strength of buoyant to inertial forces in the space, based on a few critical room airflow and physical parameters. Developing such criteria required conducting a thorough study of the physics of turbulent jets and plumes, their development in room-sized enclosures, and their effect on the airflow and heat transfer dynamics in a room. Additionally, it was necessary to investigate, using Computational Fluid Dynamics, the effect of certain parameters -such as radiative heat transfer, heat source distribution and room geometry, among otherson the physics of room airflow simulations. Results shed light on the complexity of modeling room airflow and thermal physics analytically, particularly when the air is thermally stratified. Thermal stratification predictions indicate that multi-zone models overestimate the air temperature at occupant height by up to 40% of the total room air temperature change. This work enhances the physical understanding of modeling critical elements of room airflow and improves the predictive accuracy of the natural ventilation potential in buildings. These contributions promote a wider use of passive cooling strategies, thereby increasing the energy efficiency of the built environment. Natural ventilation, air thermal stratification, multi-zone models, buoyant plumes, CFD Thesis supervisor: Leon R. Glicksman Title: Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Building Technology


There is a large literature devoted to the problem of finding an optimal (min-cost) prefix-free code with an unequal letter-cost encoding alphabet of size. While there is no known polynomial time algorithm for solving it optimally, there are many good heuristics that all provide additive errors to optimal. The additive error in these algorithms usually depends linearly upon the largest encoding letter size. This paper was motivated by the problem of finding optimal codes when the encoding alphabet is infinite. Because the largest letter cost is infinite, the previous analyses could give infinite error bounds. We provide a new algorithm that works with infinite encoding alphabets. When restricted to the finite alphabet case, our algorithm often provides better error bounds than the best previous ones known.


Organic and biological macromolecules have attracted great interest within nanotechnology research due to properties that can be useful in future devices. Interesting functionalities such as optical activity, host-guest binding and molecular recognition are based on effects at the single molecular level. To study the properties and functions of molecules at submolecular scale, an atomically defined environment with low contamination is of great advantage. This can for instance be provided on a clean surface in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV), where surface sensitive analytical techniques and advanced nanostructure fabrication can be applied. Atoms and small organic molecules are easily transferred to a surface in vacuum by thermal sublimation. Many large, functional molecules, however, are nonvolatile and disintegrate at an elevated temperature, which hinders their application and investigation within the UHV environment. To explore the properties of nonvolatile molecules adsorbed at surface as well as the nanostructure fabricated from such molecules, electrospray ion beam deposition (ES-IBD), a technique capable of transferring nonvolatile molecules intact to surfaces in UHV, and in situ scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) are combined. A home-built ES-IBD setup allows molecular beam deposition with an unprecedented level of control: the ion beam composition is monitored by time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF-MS) prior to the deposition, molecular flux and coverage controlled via the ion beam current and the beam energy can be measured and adjusted. The modified surfaces are characterized in situ by STM, which reveals structural and electronic properties with submolecular resolution. Moreover, ex situ analysis by atomic force microscopy (AFM) allows to access meso-scale structural formation. In addition, Laser Desorption Ionization (LDI), Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization (MALDI) and Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) are performed to check the chemical composition and purity of the adsorbed materials. This work first introduces the principles of our experiments and reviews of the literature on molecular ion beam deposition. In the following, the experimental method is characterized in detail using Rhodamine 6G, an organic dye, as a model system. It is shown that homogeneous layers of adsorbed, intact molecules are formed on the surface and single molecule adsorbates are observed by STM. An investigation by SIMS and LDI reveals that the kinetic energy of the molecular ions upon collision with the surface determines whether intact or fragment ions are deposited. Molecular layer growth was studied using cluster ion beams of the nonvolatile surfactant SDS, resulting in an arrangement of the molecules typical for surfactants in a head-to-head and tail-to-tail manner based on the structural motive. Crystalline structures are observed by AFM resembling inverted bilayer-membranes formed on graphite and SiOx surfaces. A similar structural feature revealed by STM is a flat-laying double row of the molecules on Cu(100) surface showing the robustness of the structural motive. The properties of single molecular functional systems are studied on two types of large functional molecules: macrocycle complexes and proteins. Macrocyclic host-guest complexes of the three cations: Na+, Cs+ and H+ trapped in the cavity of dibenzo-24-crown-8 (DB24C8) are formed in the electrospray solutions and transferred intact to the surface. Characterization by STM and density functional theory calculations shows the structure of the complexes with the alkali ion present in the cavity. The shape of the complex at the surface is also determined. Cytochrome c, an electron transfer protein is deposited on surfaces in UHV as an ion beam of high or low charge-state. STM reveals unfolded strands with distinguishable submolecular structural features after the deposition of high charge states. When low charge states are deposited, two significantly different structures are observed. Folded proteins appear as globular features of 2-3 nm diameter, while unfolded proteins are imaged as at strands. On Au(111) the unfolded strands fold into compact two-dimensional patches. Additionally, the variation in kinetic energy upon deposition and elevated surface temperature are also studied regarding the change in conformation of the adsorbed proteins. The results of this thesis open up new opportunities for the creation of functional nanostructures on surfaces. Both the preparation of layers and thin films as well as the controlled immobilization of single functional molecules were demonstrated with ES-IBD and characterized at submolecular resolution in situ by STM. A great variety of nonvolatile substances from small to large functional molecules with different binding motives like covalent, complex coordination or hydrogen bonds, is compatible with ESI and thus can be used as building blocks to construct new materials in a well-controlled manner.


The problem of improving the contour error in twodimensional CNC machines is considered in this paper. The nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous inputs (NARX) network is a dynamic neural architecture commonly used for input-output modeling of nonlinear dynamic systems. In the work presented here, two sets of off-line trained NARX networks are used to predict the position outputs at the next sampling time instant for the two axes of a CNC machine. From these values, the expected axial components of the contour error for the next instant is computed and used to adjust the reference position inputs to compensate for this error. The inputs to the NARX networks are the original uncompensated reference position inputs and actual axial positions together with corresponding values in past instances, the number of these latter depending upon the complexity of the dynamics of the system. An iterative procedure is used to improve compensation performance. Simulation results using linear, circular and parabolic contours show that this approach can significantly improve contouring accuracy. Although modelbased in its control strategy, this approach does not require an accurate knowledge of the system's dynamic model as the NARX networks are trained using actual input-output data which can be readily obtained from the system during operation.


In this Seal Studies title, author and professor Maythee Rojas offers a look at the intricate crossroads of being a woman of color. Women of Color and Feminism tackles the question of how women of color experience feminism, and how race and socioeconomics can alter this experience. Rojas explores the feminist woman of color's identity and how it relates to mainstream culture and feminism. Featuring profiles of historical women of color (including Hottentot Venus, Josefa Loaiza, and Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash), a discussion of the arts, and a vision for developing a feminist movement built on love and community healing, Rojas examines the intersectional nature of being a woman of color and a feminist. Covering a range of topics, including sexuality, gender politics, violence, stereotypes, and reproductive rights, Women of Color and Feminism offers a far-reaching view of this multilayered identity. This powerful study strives to rewrite race and feminism, encouraging women to "take back the body" in a world of new activism. Women of Color and Feminism encourages a broad conversation about race, class, and gender and creates a discourse that brings together feminism and racial justice movements.


There are stories people can tell you and there are stories that can only be experienced. When she stopped working as a journalist full time, writer and photographer Lynell George re-trained her focus—making the backdrop, the forefront—dusted off her camera and began taking notes, this time visual ones. Her project was to understand how often-used—but often poorly understood—terms like redlining, white flight, outmigration, gentrification, nostalgia, post-riots had shaped the look of Los Angeles landscapes. Her photography shows that some change happens so imperceptibly that we don't yet have language for it.


Creative destruction is an economic theory of innovation popularised by the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter (2006). In this paper, Schumpeter's theories are used to explain how radical technological innovations in information-intensive industries are influencing the erosion of traditional industry and market boundaries leading to the emergence of new competitive business models and strategies.

Developments in digital technology has resulted in new technology shifts and market linkages resulting in dilemmas for the existing incumbents in traditional industries who find themselves increasingly trapped and victims of a new innovation logic (Abernathy et al. 1983, 1984, Kim et al. 1998, 2005).

The new value innovation logic is being driven by entrepreneurs such as Page and Brin (Google) and Jobs (Apple) who are currently in the process of revolutionising the economic structures of many industries and creating new markets and organisational business models in a gale of creative destruction reminiscent of the theories developed by Sombart and Schumpeter (2006, 1975). This creation of new market models and their impact on established industries is explained further in the value chain evolution theory and its corollary sustaining innovation classification-scheme (Christensen et al. 2004). These theories reinforce the view that innovators, thinking in new and radical ways, provide sustainable new market developments and earn above the average revenues compared to incumbents, whose profit pools have eroded.

This paper researches and analyses the impact that Google and Apple are having upon a broad range of information-intensive industries and the strategic options of the incumbent firms in the respective traditional industries in response to this radical change. Its purpose is to provide explanations of why and how radical innovators are able to redefine the rules of the market game leading to economic growth and development.


Developing effective leadership within an academic setting is becoming increasingly important in the UK with the changes in the higher education sector. This is particularly pertinent in relation to the leadership of learning and teaching activities, where, for the first time, there will be more systematic
external review and benchmarking of academic practice through the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). However, ensuring that we are giving our current and future leaders' appropriate development, both in terms of relevance and timeliness, is more challenging. Stefani [1] identifies this as being an under researched area and, anecdotally, the two principal investigators know that many programme leaders and those in head of department roles often have received little or no development for their role. However, leading education is central to the development of high quality programmes and student success and satisfaction. McInnis, Ramsden and Maconachie [2] outline the need for robust leadership if colleagues are to be inspired and influenced. In order to prepare our staff more effectively for the requirements of educational leadership, at City, University of London, we are undertaking research to explore what knowledge, skills, support and preparation staff need for these roles. This project involves a range of data collection from both existing leaders and those either new or aspiring to these roles. This paper discusses our initial data gathered from a survey via an online questionnaire of open questions with 17 education leaders. The paper will outline their views of the knowledge and skills needed to undertake such a role, the support and preparation they had for their role and what support and preparation they believe new leaders need. The paper will then conclude with some recommendations arising from this data and outline the next stages of the research.


Resource-sharing based on network platform is an extremely important platform for utilizing all sorts of resources, and the state has put a lot of efforts into corresponding construction, as is testified by mushrooming resource-sharing platforms of different types belong to major colleges and universities, enterprises and government departments, which, however, are of old design concepts, leading to problems of being closed and uneven distribution etc in most cases of resource-sharing, and utilization rate of resource is affected to a large extent. Cloud computing, which originally attracted worldwide attention as a business mode, whose rapid development proposes new workable solution for existing methods of platform design: platform construction based on cloud computing will realize more resource-sharing to a possible extent, also, with high scalability and good characteristics of remote interaction management. In the mode of cloud computing, storage, access and sharing of resource are extremely stable and reliable, maximizing resource-sharing by means of its powerful computing capacity. This new type of resourcesharing platform can stimulate most effective use on the part of users. Through introducing basic concepts of cloud computing and resource-sharing platform, this paper then analyzed application value and status of cloud computing in constructing resourcesharing platform, laying certain theoretical basis for constructing relatively complete resource-sharing platform by perfecting design ideas and combining with existing cloud computing platform.


Lack of creativity has caused a growing number of graduates to be unemployed in most developing and underdeveloped countries. Institutions have faced problems in enhancing creativity as well as assessing creativity quickly to initiate remedial programs. Most creativity measures require tedious assessment procedures and are time-consuming. A web-based assessment system will facilitate assessment anywhere with Internet connection. This research reports an intelligent web-based Creativity Assessment System (CAS) which provides instant feedback and information for further intervention in enhancing creativity and employability. It measures three most common dimensions of creativity vital for global competitiveness. They are Originality, Fluency and Flexibility. The validity of CAS was tested using university undergraduates. Scores were also hand-scored based on the manual to obtain the actual Fluency, Flexibility and Originality scores. Both sets of scores were correlated for each component to obtain the reliability indices and compared statistically using t-tests. The results show that CAS is a highly reliable and valid measure of these three components. CAS can help educators and curriculum planners design activities and content that will enhance students' creativity and subsequently their global competitiveness.


Lymphomas are one of the few cancers that have been increasing in incidence over the past decades. So far, only a few established risk factors have been identified, including immunosuppression and viral infections. Recent evidence suggests etiologic heterogeneity of different lymphoma subtypes. Smoking may affect risk differently, depending on the lymphoma entity. The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition was used to study the role of smoking in the etiology of lymphomas and individual subtypes within a prospective study. Information on baseline and lifetime tobacco smoking by 478,590 participants was collected between 1992 and 2000. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to calculate multivariate-adjusted hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals. During 3,567,410 person-years of follow-up, 1,371 lymphoma cases (1,304 non-Hodgkin's lymphomas and 67 Hodgkin's lymphomas) were identified. Relative risk for smokers at recruitment was more than twofold higher for Hodgkin's lymphoma (hazard ratio = 2.14, 95% confidence interval: 1.18, 3.87) but was not elevated for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (hazard ratio = 1.06, 95% confidence interval: 0.94, 1.19) and individual B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma subtypes. In this prospective study, smoking appeared to increase Hodgkin's lymphoma risk consistently in both genders, whereas B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma risk was not associated. Future analysis should involve viral biomarkers and genetic susceptibility markers to elucidate potential mechanisms of smoking-induced carcinogenesis, particularly for Hodgkin's lymphoma.


Document Type Article Publication Date 2002 Abstract The War on Drugs has had a devastating effect on African American communities nationwide. The concept of the pool of surplus criminality may explain the drug war's focus on African Americans. Faced with a perceived drug problem, White Americans naturally identified African American people as the source of that threat and targeted them for police harassment and penal control. There are ways in which the drug war may be construed as a race war. The disproportionate impact on the African American community, evidence that policy makers anticipated the drug war would disproportionately harm the African American community, and the historic connection between drugs and racial stereotyping support this construction. The concept of the pool of surplus criminality explains why the drug war targeted African American communities and why, consequently, African Americans will always be treated unfairly by the nation's criminal laws. Recommended Citation Kenneth B. Nunn, Race, Crime and the Pool of Surplus Criminality: Or Why the "War on Drugs" Was a "War on Blacks," 6 J. Gender Race & Just. 381 (2002), available at http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub/107  Download


Gustav Mahler and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra Tour America. By Mary H. Wagner. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2006. [xv, 237 p. ISBN-10 0-8108-5720-0; ISBN-13 978-0-8108-5720-9. $50.] Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. It is rare to find a focused study that serves as a point of departure for further research, but the approach behind Gustav Mahler and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra Tour America by Mary H. Wagner offers such a perspective. In this book, Wagner explores an important aspect of the composer's career that demands the kind of scrutiny the author has undertaken. While Mahler's tours have not escaped the attention of Henry-Louis de La Grange in his multi-volume biography of the composer, the significance of Mahler's tours merits further consideration. La Grange has given due attention to Mahler's work in America (in Gustav Mahler: Chronique d'une vie, 3: Le genie foudroye 1907-1911 [Paris: Fayard, 1984] along with the immanent fourth volume of the English-language edition with Oxford University Press), and Zoltan Roman's Gustav Mahler in America (New York: Pendragon Press, 1988) contains documentary material on the composer's work with the New York Philharmonic. Another useful study is Marvin von Deck's dissertation "Gustav Mahler in New York: His Conducting Activities in New York City, 1908-1911" (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1973), which Wagner cites in her work. In the present study Wagner has gone further in assessing this single aspect of Mahler's work to reveal much about the relationship between the conductor and the orchestra, the programs that were used on the tours, the reception of the New York Philharmonic in various cities on the East Coast and Upper Midwest, and the role of orchestral tours in the music culture of early twentieth-century America. Given the strands of biographical, cultural, and social thought involved, the topic itself is intriguing if only for bringing to light the nature of touring orchestras at the turn of the century. It becomes even more intriguing when the discussion involves one of the foremost conductors of the day leading the outstanding orchestra on the continent. The opportunity to hear some incredible concerts in cities outside New York brought some intensive music making to thousands of Americans who may have been influenced in some way by Mahler's efforts. The author wisely shows, not tells, how critics and audiences responded by selecting appropriate passages from the extensive journalism that she has reviewed (and documented in her annotations). The account of the Hartford tour (February 1911) includes mention of the audience enthusiasm not only for Mahler, but also individual members of the orchestra (p. 196). Justifiably, considerations of Mahler's later years inevitably entail a sense of finality and loss: the composer's last works, his illnesses, and the perceived problems with the management of the New York Philharmonic, all have a taint of fatality. Without taking on a counter-argument, Wagner offers a straightforward account of this dynamic and wholly positive facet of Mahler's last years in the United States. Fully documented in contemporary references and coordinated with the biographical account of Henry-Louis de La Grange, Wagner's study is exemplary in its focus. In light of the amount of details at her disposal, Wagner has wisely chosen to incorporate them judiciously to support her points of reference. To establish a context for her study, Wagner outlines Mahler's career in New York in her first chapter then summarizes the role of touring in American musical culture in the next, before proceeding to discuss the nature of Mahler's programming. In exploring the programming that Mahler pursued with the New York Philharmonic, Wagner describes the conductor's efforts to shape the ensemble's concert programs and repertoire. Beyond referring to the reliance on romantic music for the Philharmonic's programming-and by extension, other, similar orchestras-it would be useful to have a deeper analysis of the kinds of works involved, including the dates of composition, premieres, and first performances in the United States, as well as the nationalities of the composers involved. …


The increase risk and incidence of computer misuse has raised awareness in public and private sectors of the need to develop defensive and offensives responses. Such increase in incidence of criminal, illegal and inappropriate computer behavior has resulted in organizations forming specialist teams to investigate these behaviors. There is now widespread recognition of the importance of specialised forensic computing investigation teams that are able to operate. Forensics analysis is the process of accurately documenting and interpreting information more precisely digital evidence for the presentation to an authoritative group and in most cases that group would be a court of law. At the level of practice these investigative skills extend beyond a methodological approach. The scope of this paper will compare the different methodologies and procedures in place for the gathering and acquisition of digital evidence and thus defining which model will be the most appropriate taxonomy for the electronic evidence in the computer forensics analysis phase.


We present a study of the dust properties of 12 classical and superbubble H ii regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud. We use infrared photometry from Spitzer (8, 24, 70, and 160 μ m bands), obtained as part of the Surveying the Agents of a Galaxy's Evolution (SAGE) program, along with archival spectroscopic classifications of the ionizing stars to examine the role of stellar sources on dust heating and processing. Our infrared observations show surprisingly little correlation between the emission properties of the dust and the effective temperatures or bolometric magnitudes of stars in the H ii regions, suggesting that the H ii region evolutionary timescale is not on the order of the dust processing timescale. We find that the infrared emission of superbubbles and classical H ii regions shows little differentiation between the two classes, despite the significant differences in age and morphology. We do detect a correlation of the 24 μ m emission from hot dust with the ratio of 70–160 μ m flux. This correlation can be modeled as a trend in the temperature of a minority hot dust component, while a majority of the dust remains significantly cooler.


A music analysis and control system for use in live performance is presented and demonstrated. Musical features, such as harmony, rhythmic patterning, or melodic structure, are extracted and automatically placed at appropriate locations in a control space. The control space is of low dimensionality, usually only two dimensions, wherein perceptual dissimilarity is represented as distance. The system can be viewed as a listening assistant that aids a performing computer musician with usable information about the evolving musical context so that the material under control can be adjusted to respond in interesting ways to that context. The method developed to position the points is based on a semidefinite programming relaxation of a nonconvex positioning problem and is both novel and elegant. Another novel feature of our work is an interprocess communication implementation that provides for two-way traffic between Max/MSP and MATLAB in realtime. We demonstrate the system with a harmony space and a melodic process space. The method is robust, rapid, and not plagued by problems with local minima. This successful use of convex optimization suggests that semidefinite programming may have broad application in the computer music field.


ABSTRACT Christensen's and Snyder's neorealist-based theory of buck-passing and chain-ganging uses offence-defence balance to predict state security policy choices under multipolarity. This approach is applicable to the US-led alliance system in the multipolar Indo-Asia-Pacific. Given regional Sino-US rivalry, hedging opportunities for US 'hub-and-spoke' allies will dissipate, increasing the likelihood of allies choosing to buck-pass or chain-gang in the face of conflict. With defence superior in the region, it is more likely that US allies will buck-pass rather than chain-gang. Beyond Indo-Asia-Pacific states, this has implications for global actors – such as the EU – seeking to raise their security profile in the region, as buck-passing behaviour gives greater time to adjust to potential conflict scenarios than chain-ganging.


Recent years have seen the development of a multitude of tools for the security analysis of Android applications. A major deficit of current fully automated security analyses, however, is their inability to drive execution to interesting parts, such as where code is dynamically loaded or certain data is decrypted. In fact, security-critical or downright offensive code may not be reached at all by such analyses when dynamically checked conditions are not met by the analysis environment. To tackle this unsolved problem, we propose a tool combining static call path analysis with byte code instrumentation and a heuristic partial symbolic execution, which aims at executing interesting calls paths. It can systematically locate potentially security-critical code sections and instrument applications such that execution of these sections can be observed in a dynamic analysis. Among other use cases, this can be leveraged to force applications into revealing dynamically loaded code, a simple yet effective way to circumvent detection by security analysis software such as the Google Play Store's Bouncer. We illustrate the functionality of our tool by means of a simple logic bomb example and a real-life security vulnerability which is present in hunderd of apps and can still be actively exploited at this time.


I, Geronimo Stilton, was in love! I went out for a cup of coffee one morning and laid eyes on the most beautiful rodent I'd ever seen. Unfortunately, I immediately tripped over my paws and ended up with my tail in a toaster! I was one mortified mouse. But I was determined to prove that I wasn't a complete stumblemouse. So I decided to join my family on their most daring adventure yet - journey to the eighth wonder of the world! There I made a discoery so truly amazing, I knew I could win the heart of my darling ratlette...


This paper presents a type of visibility data structure for accelerated ray tracing. The visibility field is constructed by choosing a regular point subdivision over a hemisphere to obtain a set of directions. Corresponding to each direction there is then a rectangular grid of parallel beams, with each beam referencing a set of identifiers corresponding to objects that intersect it. Objects lying along a beam are sorted using a 1D BSP along the beam direction. The beam corresponding to any ray can be looked up in small constant time and the set of objects corresponding to the beam can then be searched for intersection with the ray using an optimised traversal strategy. This approach trades off rendering speed for memory usage and pre-processing time. The data structure is also very suitable for hemisphere integration tasks due to its spherical nature and results for one such task - ambient occlusion - are also presented. Results for several scenes with various rendering methods are presented and compare favourably with a well established approach, the single-ray coherent ray tracing approach of Wald and Slusallek et al.


In this paper, a mathematical model of pneumococcal pneumonia with time delays is proposed. The stability theory of delay differential equations is used to analyze the model. The results show that the disease-free equilibrium is asymptotically stable if the control reproduction ratioR0is less than unity and unstable otherwise. The stability of equilibria with delays shows that the endemic equilibrium is locally stable without delays and stable if the delays are under conditions. The existence of Hopf-bifurcation is investigated and transversality conditions are proved. The model results suggest that, as the respective delays exceed some critical value past the endemic equilibrium, the system loses stability through the process of local birth or death of oscillations. Further, a decrease or an increase in the delays leads to asymptotic stability or instability of the endemic equilibrium, respectively. The analytical results are supported by numerical simulations.


The Family Planning Services and Public Research Act of 1970, often called Title X Family Planning Program, is a US federal law that provides federal funding for family planning [3] services to low income or uninsured families. The US federal government passed the law, Public Law 91-572, in 1970 as an amendment to the Public Health Services Act of 1944. The Act created the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) under the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (here called the Secretary). Through the Act, the OPA and the Secretary provide resources and policy advice to the US government on health issues. The OPA also issue grants and formed contracts with public and nonprofit organizations to assist in the establishment and operation of voluntary family planning [3] services. The Act helped to extend reproductive health services to low income individuals and to individuals who otherwise struggle to get such services.


Abstract A modified nodal integral method (MNIM) for two-dimensional, time-dependent Navier-Stokes equations is extended to three dimensions. The nodal integral method is based on local transverse integrations over finite size cells that reduce each partial differential equation to a set of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). Solutions of these ODEs in each cell for the transverse-averaged dependent variables are then utilized to develop the difference schemes. The discrete variables are scalar velocities and pressure, averaged over the faces of bricklike cells. The development of the MNIM is different from the conventional nodal method in two ways: (a) it is Poisson-type pressure equation based and (b) the convection terms are retained on the left side of the transverse-integrated equations and thus contribute to the homogeneous part of the solution. The first feature leads to a set of symmetric transverse-integrated equations for all the velocities, and the second feature yields distributions of constant + linear + exponential form for the transverse-averaged velocities. The scheme is tested on three-dimensional lid-driven cavity problems in cube- and prism-shaped cavities. Results obtained using the MNIM on fairly coarse meshes are comparable with reference solutions obtained using much finer meshes.


This paper considers the performance and quality of apple fruits and seedlings production in Chencha district of southern Ethiopia. The estimated, three-factor (labour, land and capital) production frontier reveals that the technical inefficiency is 60% and 48% for fruits and seedlings production, respectively. Endowments in land, apple plantation and manure are important production factors for both fruits and seedlings, while labour is significant only for seedlings production. We could not reject constant returns to scale, neither for apple fruits nor for seedlings. Apart from capital and labour endowments, producer knowledge on apple cultivation is a positive and significant determinant of the level of output, product quality, and income generated from apples. The insignificance of the education variable for fruits and seedlings production suggests that what matters in the apple business is specific knowledge of apple-growing technology rather than formal education, at least beyond primary education.


Abstract Empirically, a higher frequency of lightning strikes is associated with slower growth in labor productivity across the 48 contiguous U.S. states after 1990; before 1990, there is no correlation between growth and lightning. Other climate variables (e.g., temperature, rainfall, and tornadoes) do not conform to this pattern. A viable explanation is that lightning influences IT diffusion. By causing voltage spikes and dips, a higher frequency of ground strikes leads to damaged digital equipment and thus higher IT user costs. Accordingly, the flash density (strikes per square kilometer per year) should adversely affect the speed of IT diffusion. We find that lightning indeed seems to have slowed IT diffusion, conditional on standard controls. Hence, an increasing macroeconomic sensitivity to lightning may be due to the increasing importance of digital technologies for the growth process.


From the steam turbines which provide most of our electricity to the jet engines which have shrunk our World, turbomachines undoubtedly play a major role in life today. Competition in the turbomachinery industry is fiercely strong [Wisler, 1998], hence good aerodynamic design is vital. However, with efficiency levels already close to their theoretical maxima, companies are increasingly looking to reduce costs and increase reliability through improved design practice. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can make a strong contribution to assisting this process as it has the potential to increase performance while reducing cost. The situation is, however, complicated by an ever decreasing number of engineers with sufficient design experience to reap the full benefits offered by CFD. With the large risks involved, novice designers of today are increasingly confined to refining old designs rather than gaining experience, like their forebears, through 'clean sheet' exercises. Hence it is desirable to capture the knowledge and experience of older designers, before it is lost, to assist the engineers of tomorrow. It is therefore the aim of this project to produce a design support tool which will not only store the appropriate CFD codes, but also provide a dynamic signpost (based on elicited knowledge and experience) to advise the engineer in their use. The signposting methodology developed for the aerospace industry [Clarkson and Hamilton, 1997] will provide the basic framework for the tool. This paper reviews current turbomachinery design practice (including an examination of the relevant CFD) in order to establish the important issues which a support tool must address. Current design support methodologies and their propriety are then reviewed, followed by a detailed description of the signposting concept. It then sets out a clear statement of the objectives for the research and the methods proposed to meet them. The paper concludes with a timetable of the work.


A solution for multifrequency plane waves propagating through a dissipative and nonlinear medium is presented. It originates from the well-known Bessel function series ratio for a pure sinusiodal wave, introduced by Cole and Mendousse. The solution is exact. The only limitation, inherited from the single-frequency solution, is the slow convergence of the series when the nonlinearity is very large compared to the dissipation. Otherwise any frequencies, amplitudes and phases can be introduced in the original wave and the solution is valid for any propagated distance.


Soil water content is an important hydrological parameter, which is difficult to measure at a field scale due to its spatial and temporal heterogeneity. The Cosmic Ray Neutron Sensor (CRNS) is a novel and innovative approach to estimate area-averaged soil water content at an intermediate scale, which has been implemented across the globe. The CRNS is moderated by all hydrogen sources within its measurement footprint. In order to isolate the soil water content signal from the neutron intensity, the other sources of hydrogen need to be accounted for. The CRNS's applications are not only limited to soil water content estimation, as it can potentially be used to monitor biomass. The Two-Streams clear-felling provided the unique opportunity to monitor the cosmic ray neutron intensities before, during, and after the clear-felling. The cadmium-difference method was used to obtain the pure thermal and epithermal neutron intensities from the bare and moderated detectors. The study concluded that the presence of biomass within the site reduced the epithermal neutron intensity by 12.43% and the N0 value by 13.8%. The use of the neutron ratio to monitor biomass was evaluated and changes in the neutron ratio coincided with biomass changes and resulted in a high correlation (R2 of 0.868) with the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and (R2 of 0.817) leaf area index (LAI). The use of the CRNS to simultaneously monitor soil water content and biomass will be beneficial in providing more reliable soil water content estimates, provide biomass estimates at a field scale, and aid in understanding the dynamics between soil water content and vegetation.


Peroxidase, H2O2, and a halide form a powerful antimicrobial system in phagocytes and tissue fluids, and certain microorganisms can serve as the source of H2O2 for this system. H2O2-generating Lactobacillus acidophilus (LB+) is present in the vagina of most normal women and peroxidase has been detected in vaginal fluid. LB+ at high concentration is viricidal to HIV-1, and, at levels where LB+ is ineffective alone, the addition of peroxidase (myeloperoxidase, eosinophil peroxidase) and a halide (chloride, iodide, bromide, thiocyanate) restore viricidal activity. LB+ can be replaced by H2O2, but not by non-H2O2-producing LB, and viricidal activity is inhibited by azide and catalase. The survival of HIV in the female genital tract and thus the likelihood of transmission may be influenced by the activity of the LB(+)-peroxidase-halide system in the vagina.


Communal responsibility, a medieval institution studied by Greif (2006), supported the use of credit among European merchants in the absence of modern enforcement technologies. This paper shows how this mechanism helps to overcome enforcement problems in anonymous buyer/seller transactions. In a village economy version of the Lagos and Wright (2005) model, agents trading anonymously in decentralized markets can be identified by their citizenship and thus be held liable for each other. Enforceability within each village's centralized afternoon market ensures collateralization of credit in decentralized markets. In the resulting equilibrium, money and credit coexist in decentralized markets if the use of credit is costly. Our analysis easily extends itself to other payment systems like credit cards that provide a group identity to otherwise anonymous agents.