The literature on EU integration gives no clear answer as to where real decisionmaking power in the EU is situated. Which stakeholders are the most influential when major decisions are made, for example? An approach held to have considerable explanatory potential for EU policies in general, and potentially for climate and energy policy in particular, is the advocacy coalition framework (ACF). However, few studies have applied ACF together with other theories/frameworks, such as liberal intergovernmentalism (LI) and historical institutionalism (HI), to assess the degree to which various stakeholders involved at the EU level manage to achieve their preferences. Using the EU's new 2030 headline climate and energy policy targets as a case of EU climate and energy policy, this study asks: how can we explain the outcome of negotiations in the EU, as exemplified in the 2030 negotiations? Drawing on more than 30 research interviews with representatives of key stakeholders conducted before and after the final political negotiations, combined with extensive document studies and participation in stakeholder events, this report argues that the result appears to be a genuine compromise for all stakeholders involved. Findings confirm the Commission's importance as an agenda setter (HI) and the crucial role and positions of heavyweight member states like Germany, France, the UK and Poland (LI), which were probably affected by their key energy industries and long-term energy policies. The study also finds large long-term advocacy coalitions within the interest group community (ACF). Moreover, the final decision may be viewed as negotiated compromise between advocacy coalitions at various levels (ACF), but only when the ACF criterion of non-trivial degree of coordination is not very rigorously


We present an efficient ray-tracing algorithm which, for the first time, does not store any data structures when performing spatial subdivisions, and directly computes intersections inside the scene. This new algorithm is often faster than comparable ray-tracing methods at rendering dynamic scenes, and has a similar level of performance when compared to static ray-tracers. Memory management is made minimal and deterministic, which simplifies ray-tracing engineering, as spatial subdivision data structures are no longer considered in the graphics pipeline. This is possible with a modification of Whitted's naive ray-tracing algorithm by using a divide-and-conquer approach, and by having a sufficient collection of rays in order to reduce the complexity of naive ray-tracing. In particular, the algorithm excels at spontaneously solving large Ray/Primitive intersection problems.


During the financial crisis of 2007-08 and the debates on regulatory reform that followed, there was general agreement that the "too-big-to-fail" principle creates unacceptable moral hazard. Policy makers divided, however, on the solutions to this problem. Some argued that the banking behemoths in the United States should be broken up. Others argued that dismantling the big banks would be bad policy because these banks would not be able to compete with universal banks in the global capital markets, and in any event, breaking up the banks would be impossible as a practical matter. Therefore, better regulation was the right solution. This approach was generally followed in the financial reform legislation ("Dodd-Frank") that was passed. Yet voices in favor of a return to the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 wall between commercial and investment banking, or using some other techniques for curtailing risky bank activities, continue to be heard and studied. Therefore, further inquiry concerning the question of whether and how the big financial institutions should be curtailed remains relevant, even after the passage of Dodd-Frank. In the past, the United States has taken a variety of approaches to reining in banks. These include capital constraints, geographical restrictions, activities restrictions and conflict of interest restrictions. The primary techniques for reining in big banks considered by Congress or financial regulators in current regulatory reform efforts are increasing capital requirements, taxing financial transactions and walling off proprietary trading and/or derivatives trading from commercial banking. In addition, the reform legislation will put into place a resolution regime for failed financial institutions. All of these approaches are discussed in this Article.One approach that has not been tried or even seriously discussed with regard to the big banks is the approach that was used to break up the utility pyramids created during the 1920s, that is the antitrust approach utilized in the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. This targeted and highly effective regulatory framework empowered the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") to dismantle and simplify the corporate structures of the utilities without destroying them. This program was so successful that even after it was essentially completed the statute and SEC regulation of utilities remained on the books until quite recently. This article argues that this approach should be considered as a solution to the too-big-to-fail problem since it combines deconcentration, capital limits, activities restrictions and conflict of interest restrictions as an alternative to antitrust regulation, outside of adversarial prosecutorial case development.


Weather surveillance radars are increasingly used for monitoring the movements and abundances of animals in the airspace. However, analysis of weather radar data remains a specialised task that can be technically challenging. Major hurdles are the difficulty of accessing and visualising radar data on a software platform familiar to ecologists and biologists, processing the low-level data into products that are biologically meaningful, and summarizing these results in standardized measures. To overcome these hurdles, we developed the open source R package bioRad, which provides a toolbox for accessing, visualizing and analyzing weather radar data for biological studies. It provides functionality to access low-level radar data, process these data into meaningful biological information on animal speeds and directions at different altitudes in the atmosphere, visualize these biological extractions, and calculate further summary statistics. The package aims to standardize methods for extracting and reporting biological signals from weather radars. Here we describe a roadmap for analyzing weather radar data using bioRad. We also define weather radar equivalents for familiar measures used in the field of migration ecology, such as migration traffic rates, and recommend several good practices for reporting these measures. The bioRad package integrates with low-level data from both the European radar network (OPERA) and the radar network of the United States (NEXRAD). bioRad aims to make weather radar studies in ecology easier and more reproducible, allowing for better inter-comparability of studies.


Bacterial skin and soft tissue infections are disorders commonly encountered and dealt with in family doctor's practice. Typically, some bacteria, such as Staphylococcus, Corynebacterium spp., Acinetobacter, are living on normal skin and do not cause any damage. However, some bacteria invade the affected skin and even normal skin, causing infections. The most common etiologic agents of SSTIs are species of Gram-positive bacteria (Staphylococcus spp. and Streptococcus spp.). Gram-negative bacteria (e.g., Haemophilus influenzae, Pasteurella multocida, Vibrio spp., Mycobacterium spp., Pseudomonas spp.), anaerobic germs (eg. Clostridium spp.) are uncommon. Risk factors for the development of SSTIs include, on one hand, various injuries/damage to the epidermis, and on the other hand, poor personal hygiene, co-morbidities, agglomeration and close contact with a person with such an infection. Skin infections most commonly encountered are impetigo, folliculitis, furuncle, erysipelas and cellulitis. A severe form of infection of the soft tissue with a high percentage of mortality is necrotizing fasciitis. Impetigo is caused by Streptococcus or Staphylococcus, the characteristic lesions being the thin-walled blisters that break, leaving yellow scabs, honey-colored, on the face and extremities. Folliculitis, an inflammation of the hair follicles, which can be superficial or deep, is commonly caused by Staphylococcus. If follicle infection is deeper and involves more follicles, it causes boil. Cellulitis is an infection of the dermis and subcutaneous tissue, with poorly defined edges, and erysipelas is a superficial form of cellulitis, with clearly defined edges, almost exclusively caused by Streptococcus. SSTIs diagnosis is performed mainly on the basis of the clinical characteristics, and the treatment is usually empiric. Laboratory tests are useful, in particular, in the case of severe forms. Minor bacterial skin infections may be solved without treatment. In severe bacterial infection the antibiotics are recommended, initialy empirical - first are selected the antibiotics that are active in gram-positive microorganisms and, after isolation and identification of the etiologic agent, antibiotic therapy will be adjusted according to the results of antibiotic susceptibility testing. Incision and drainage are often sufficient for the management of skin and soft tissue infections, like abscesses or boils.


The increasing amount of renewables generation feeding to the grids is a new challenge to system operators who have to deal with higher unpredictability of net load variability and balance fluctuations. This work focuses on how to stabilize power generation through energy combination of fossil and renewable sources. To avoid an excessive combinatory analysis, the first part of the work explores current technology options to find out what energy sources are the most suitable for the purpose. The second part of the work identifies the most important "factors" that characterize an energy source and its combination. The third part of the work shows the proposed combination model that explains how to combine, evaluate and find the best combination. The application of the model with a specific case study is in the fourth part of the work. The last part analyzes the interdependencies among all the variables of the model to give a better understanding of the dynamics of the model and its results.


The effects of age and gender on the pharmacokinetics of cefepime were examined in 48 volunteers following administration of a single 1,000-mg intravenous dose. Male and female subjects were divided into four groups, each consisting of 12 subjects, according to their age and gender. The young subjects were between 20 and 40 years of age and elderly subjects were between 65 and 81 years of age. Serial blood and urine samples were collected from each subject and were analyzed for cefepime by validated high-pressure liquid chromatographic assays with UV detection. Key pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated by noncompartmental methods. There were no gender-related differences in elimination half-life (t1/2) and weight-normalized total body clearance (CLT), renal clearance (CLR), and steady-state volume of distribution (Vss). Statistically significant age-related effects were found for t1/2, CLT, CLR, and Vss parameters. In different study groups, Vss ranged from 0.21 to 0.24 liter/kg. The values for Vss were significant greater for elderly subjects than they were for young subjects. The cefepime t1/2 was significantly longer in elderly subjects (about 3 h) than that observed in young subjects (about 2.2 h). The mean values for CLT and CLR in the four study groups ranged from 1.11 to 1.56 and 0.99 to 1.44 ml/min/kg, respectively. In elderly subjects, the estimates for CLT and CLR were significantly lower than those observed in young subjects. Linear regression revealed good correlations between clearance values of cefepime and creatinine. The magnitude of age-related changes in the pharmacokinetics of cefepime is not significant enough to recommend dosage adjustment in elderly patients with kidney functions normal for their age.


We present an approach to event coreference resolution by developing a general framework for clustering that uses supervised representation learning. We propose a neural network architecture with novel Clustering-Oriented Regularization (CORE) terms in the objective function. These terms encourage the model to create embeddings of event mentions that are amenable to clustering. We then use agglomerative clustering on these embeddings to build event coreference chains. For both within- and cross-document coreference on the ECB+ corpus, our model obtains better results than models that require significantly more pre-annotated information. This work provides insight and motivating results for a new general approach to solving coreference and clustering problems with representation learning.


Abstract A fusion based actinide destruction system is advantageous because of higher actinide destruction efficiency and higher energy efficiency when compared to other destruction technologies. The unique neutron multiplication capability due to the n,2n reactions in blanket materials with 14 MeV D-T neutrons enhances further the performance efficiency. Investigation of a high performance fusion based actinide destruction system was conducted. A self-cooled, actinide-carrying molten salt blanket can be designed to operate at a high sub-criticality factor of 0.95-0.96, with less than 0.4 wt% actinide concentration dissolved in the molten salt. The corresponding blanket energy multiplication is 160. Lithium-6, which is required for tritium breeding, can be used as a variable to shape the neutron spectrum and control the criticality factor, and thus to maintain a constant fission thermal power output from the actinide destruction plant. Sub-criticality can be maintained in all cases of the actinide destruction plant, during normal operation and abnormal conditions. A fusion device projected from a tokamak experiment can produce 30 MW fusion power, with a plasma amplification factor of 2. It is considered adequate to drive the sub-critical molten salt blanket. The total thermal fission power is about 4000 MW, which is able to destroy 1.6 metric tons of actinides annually when operating at full power.


Objectives: To update the EULAR recommendations for management of knee osteoarthritis (OA) by an evidence based medicine and expert opinion approach. Methods: The literature search and guidelines were restricted to treatments for knee OA pertaining to clinical and/or radiological OA of any compartment of the knee. Papers for combined treatment of knee and other types of OA were excluded. Medline and Embase were searched using a combination of subject headings and key words. Searches for those treatments previously investigated were conducted for January 1999 to February 2002 and for those treatments not previously investigated for 1966 to February 2002. The level of evidence found for each treatment was documented. Quality scores were determined for each paper, an effect size comparing the treatment with placebo was calculated, where possible, and a toxicity profile was determined for each treatment modality. Results: 497 new publications were identified by the search. Of these, 103 were intervention trials and included in the overall analysis, and 33 treatment modalities were identified. Previously identified publications which were not exclusively knee OA in the initial analysis were rejected. In total, 545 publications were included. Based on the results of the literature search and expert opinion, 10 recommendations for the treatment of knee OA were devised using a five stage Delphi technique. Based on expert opinion, a further set of 10 items was identified by a five stage Delphi technique as important for future research. Conclusion: The updated recommendations support some of the previous propositions published in 2000 but also include modified statements and new propositions. Although a large number of treatment options for knee OA exist, the evidence based format of the EULAR Recommendations continues to identify key clinical questions that currently are unanswered.


Leuconostoc carnosum #7-2, L. gelidum #4-2, and L. mesenteroides 8/11-3, which were isolated from fermented plant foods, are lactic acid bacteria. We previously reported that these bacteria are functional lactic acid bacteria whose innate immunity-stimulating activities are high based on a silkworm muscle contraction assay. The concentrations of these three lactic acid bacteria increased to more than 1 × 106 colony forming units (cfu)/mL in various vegetable and fruit juices when the pH values were appropriately adjusted. As the bacteria grew in the vegetable and fruit juices, the pH decreased and the concentrations of total sugars and glucose also decreased. These findings suggest that these functional lactic acid bacteria can be used to produce vegetable and fruit juices with reduced sugar levels, which is expected to be beneficial for human health.


Worldwide, most sea cucumber fisheries are ineffectively managed, leading to declining stocks and potentially eroding the resilience of fisheries. We analyse trends in catches, fishery status, fishing participation and regulatory measures among 77 sea cucumber fisheries through data from recent fishery reports and fishery managers. Critical gaps in fisheries biology knowledge of even commonly targeted species undermine the expected success of management strategies. Most tropical fisheries are small-scale, older and typified by numerous (>8) species, whereas temperate fisheries are often emerging, mono-specific and industrialized. Fisher participation data indicated about 3 million sea cucumber fishers worldwide. Fisher participation rates were significantly related to the average annual yield. permanova analysis showed that over-exploited and depleted fisheries employed different sets of measures than fisheries with healthier stocks, and a non-metric multidimensional scaling ordination illustrated that a broad set of regulatory measures typified sustainable fisheries. SIMPER and regression tree analyses identified that the dissimilarity was most related to enforcement capacity, number of species harvested, fleet (vessel) controls, limited entry controls and rotational closures. The national Human Development Index was significantly lower in countries with over-exploited and depleted fisheries. Where possible, managers should limit the number of fishers and vessel size and establish short lists of permissible commercial species in multispecies fisheries. Our findings emphasize an imperative to support the enforcement capacity in low-income countries, in which risk of biodiversity loss is exceptionally high. Solutions for greater resilience of sea cucumber stocks must be embedded within those for poverty reduction and alternative livelihood options.


MicroRNAs (miRNAs) provide a recently recognized mechanism to control protein abundance. These small RNA molecules bind to mRNAs and inhibit translation or promote degradation of the RNA. Zhao et al. present evidence for an important role of miRNA in heart development. They selected for study two miRNAs known as miR-1-1 and miR-1-2 that are expressed in the developing heart and conserved from flies to humans. Reporter assays in transgenic animals revealed that the miR-1-1 and miR-1-2 enhancer regions were bound by key muscle-related transcription factors, including SRF (serum response factor), and enhanced expression of the miRNAs in certain cells. The authors also developed a method focused on target accessibility rather than primary sequence, which allowed them to detect possible target mRNAs. Along with other factors, predictions of free energy (ΔG) were used to locate unstable sites in 3′ untranslated regions of mRNA targets characteristic of known miRNA binding sites. This allowed identification of the Hand2 gene, a mutation of which causes defects in proliferation of cardiac cells. Commentary by Bruneau raises important questions regarding the benefits and possible weaknesses of the target screen and regarding the role of miRNAs in signaling hierarchies. He wonders whether it would be simpler to regulate expression of the Hand gene itself. The answer seems likely to yield insight into how such regulatory networks permit fine regulation of organ growth and differentiation. Y. Zhao, E. Samal, D. Srivastava, Serum response factor regulates a muscle-specific microRNA that targets Hand2 during cardiogenesis. Nature 436, 214-220 (2005). [PubMed] B. G. Bruneau, Developmental biology: Tiny brakes for a growing heart. Nature 436, 181-182 (2005). [PubMed]


Half a billion years ago, the first four-legged land animal crawled out of the sea onto dry land. How did the limbs that creature crawled on evolve from the fins of its fishy ancestors? This question has long intrigued biologists.

Figure 1

Hox gene expression in bones from tetrapod limbs. Bones in a tetrapod limb, shown here in a human arm (left), are produced following two waves of Hox gene activation during the early development of the limb (red and blue, middle left). At a comparable ...

Fossil records suggest that tetrapod legs evolved step by step from fins, and comparative gene expression studies have provided some insights into how mutation and natural selection derived long limb bones from fin precursors. But the evolutionary path that lies between the structural elements (radials) of fish fins and the toes and fingers of tetrapod digits has remained obscured. Are tetrapod digits homologous to fish radials? Did the genetic capacity for digit differentiation exist in fish ancestors, or is it unique to tetrapods? In their recent PLOS Biology article, Denis Duboule, Joost M. Woltering, and colleagues shed new light on these questions from a comparative analysis of the regulatory mechanisms that control when and where certain members of the Hox gene family are turned on and off in zebrafish fins and mouse limbs.

Two Hox gene clusters, HoxA and HoxD, are known to function in patterning the developing vertebrate limb. In land animals, but not in fish, HoxD has what is known as a "bimodal expression pattern," meaning that one subset of Hoxd genes directs the development of the long bones on the proximal (body) side of the wrist or ankle, while another subset directs the development of the long bones on the distal side (i.e., the digits). This bimodal expression pattern is due to the preferential interaction of the 3′ and 5′ genes in these Hox clusters with flanking regions of DNA on their own side of the cluster. These flanking regions contain non-genic DNA in which are located so-called enhancers—DNA loci that control the transcription of genes. On the 3′ side of the HoxA and Hox D clusters sit the proximal enhancers, which regulate the expression of proximal genes in the cluster in the proximal part of the limb, and on the 5′ side are the distal enhancers, which regulate the expression of distal genes in the cluster, leading to the segregated pattern of 3′ and 5′ genes. Duboule and colleagues decided to find out whether the HoxA cluster shares this regulatory characteristic with HoxD, reasoning that if it does, that the bimodality arose before the Hox clusters duplicated, indicating also that the regulatory capacity to form digits was in place before land animals' evolutionary emergence from the sea. Such a finding would lend strength to the argument for homology between digits and fin radials.

By looking at the expression patterns of Hoxa genes in mouse embryos and by comparing them with the expression patterns of Hoxd genes, the researchers determined that the HoxA gene cluster does indeed exhibit biomodality, with one regulatory module directing the development of the digits and another orchestrating the development of the proximal segment of the limb. Although they noted some differences in the details of the bimodal expression of HoxA and HoxD genes, the researchers concluded that this pattern was common to both these Hox clusters and therefore predated the evolution of tetrapods from their fish ancestors.

If both HoxA and HoxD clusters share the bimodality that is associated with the differential regulation of the proximal and distal development of tetrapod limbs, is the same true of the Hox clusters that direct fin development in fish? By looking at the interaction profiles of Hox genes in zebrafish embryos, the researchers discovered a partitioning pattern similar to that seen in the mouse, in which Hox genes located at the edge of the clusters tended to interact more with their nearest flanking DNA regions while those in the middle of the cluster interacted with the flanking regions on both sides, confirming the existence of this bimodal pattern. Their findings support the idea that the chromatin structure that underlies this regulatory mechanism existed before the evolution of tetrapod limbs and that digits, therefore, may be homologous to distal fin structures in fish.

The team then inserted (in separate experiments) zebrafish HoxA and HoxD clusters, together with their flanking 5′ regions, into mice. Surprisingly, in the resulting transgenic mouse embryos, zebrafish Hox gene expression was specific to the proximal and not distal (digit-associated) developing limb tissues. On the basis of these findings, the authors conclude that the bimodal regulatory landscape that controls HoxA and HoxD expression was indeed in place before fish and tetrapods diverged, and that the subsequent evolution of novel enhancers allowed it to be repurposed to bring about the development of tetrapod digits.

Returning to the original question: does this make fin radials and digits homologous? That, the authors decided, depends on definitions. Their findings clearly demonstrate that fish have both the genes and the regulatory architecture needed to form digits. However, they also show that the development of digits depends on additional genetic alterations occurring in the context of that preexisting regulatory landscape. Duboule and colleagues suggest that although fish radials are not homologous to digits in the classical sense, biologists should consider thinking in terms of regulatory circuitries rather than expression patterns when considering whether traits have arisen from a common ancestral characteristic.

Woltering JM, Noordermeer D, Leleu M, Duboule D (2014) Conservation and Divergence of Regulatory Strategies at Hox Loci and the Origin of Tetrapod Digits doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001773


The paper presents the case of developing, adapting, and implementing an electronic prehospital patient records system in Scandinavia. The system is now fully implemented and it is used by all stakeholders within the prehospital domain. The paper focuses on the participatory design process of adapting the technical solution specified in the call for tender with the complex organizational context of actors with very diverse tasks and objectives and situated in five different regions each with their special geographical and demographical challenges. The paper concludes by discussing a range of lessons learned when using PD within a commercial project (where the starting point is a fixed contract and requirements specification), with a very diverse set of stakeholders (users, customers, and indirect users), and in a very complex domain encompassing a range of highly specialized competencies.


The effect of chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) on epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELOG) of InP is investigated. To this end, silicon wafers with a seed layer of InP has been treated in two ways; by depositing SiO2 mask and polishing it prior to performing ELOG, and by growing additional InP directly on the InP/Si wafer and then polishing the InP layer prior to depositing and patterning SiO2 followed by subsequent ELOG. For InP seed, a two step process with Chemlox™ slurry and sodium hypochlorite mixed with citric acid-based slurry has been used whereas for SiO2 surface polishing, only one slurry was employed. Analysis of the ELOG layers has been carried out with atomic force microscope (AFM) and panchromatic cathodoluminescence (PC-CL) in-situ a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results show that polishing the InP/Si layer has not only a beneficial effect on surface morphology of the ELOG layer but also on reduction of its defect density as a consequence of improved conditions for near-ideal coalescence.


In October, 1987, the U.S. Department of Education issued a call to the field soliciting examples of Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSP) written for infants and toddlers with handicaps and their families. This article describes an analysis of the family dimensions of those plans. Each IFSP was examined to determine the presence of key legislative requirements. Each family goal was coded according to domain of family functioning, structural dimensions, level of parent involvement, and time specifications for goal attainment. Results indicated that most family goals were child-focused. Although statements of who was to achieve the goal and operational specification of behaviors were generally present, conditions and criteria for goal attainment were not generally found. Only 13 % of the goals involved generalized use of problem-solving skills. Issues regarding goal specifications raised by the analysis are discussed. The data are presented in their historical context and offered as a baseline for comparison as Public Law 99-457 reaches full implementation.


Not many studies have been devoted to the issue of cost allocation in general, let alone in the context of third-party funding. The fact that arbitral tribunals enjoy broad discretion in assessing and allocating costs probably explains this relative lack of interest.Yet, third-party funding, be it in the classical sense with a professional funder or when there is a contingency fee arrangement, entails some specificities. One specificity is that there is an element of profit for the funder.This element of profit is the cost of funding itself with a professional funder (quite often a multiple of the initial amount) or, in the case of contingency fee arrangements, the portion of the fees in excess of those based on regular hourly rates. Whether this element of profit is recoverable by way of cost allocation is debated.We would submit that it shifts an abnormal risk onto the losing party and should not, therefore, be recoverable


The wireless revolution prompted by the success of IEEE 802.11 standard has pressed the research community to deal with requirements of new wireless networks. In particular, wireless ad-hoc networks which are, specifically, a collection of wireless mobile nodes dynamically forming a temporary network without the use of any preexisting infrastructure or centralised administration. Routing protocols used in ad-hoc networks must automatically and continually adjust to environments. Most emerging network services require specialised Quality-of-Service (QoS) functionalities that cannot be provided by the current QoS-unaware routing protocols.Despite the large amount of research in these areas, several issues still need further investigation. The following points have become main concerns: i) traditional use of the hop count metric does not capture the very nature of wireless paths, resulting in poor performance of wireless networks; ii) the lack of comprehensive simulation methods to effectively observed performance of networks in various conditions and iii) the complexity of multi-constraint routing decisions, resulting in poor service quality in the end-user's point of view.This study takes an experimental approach to the evaluation of ad-hoc routing protocols and focuses on routing parameters as well as multimedia application QoS performance. In this thesis, we tackle the above mentioned issues and implement an efficient solution for the multi-constraint problem based on network measurements of valid experiments set-up. This study is exclusively based on simulations using NS-2 network simulator. In order to obtain an overview of the limitations of current conventional routing protocols, AODV and DSR protocols are used and their limitations in terms of QoS are measured and discussed. Operating conditions vary greatly from a static, lightly loaded network to constantly moving nodes with up to 10 simultaneous transmission connections. The results show that network performance degrades quickly and that QoS requirement was hardly met by any of these protocols.To evaluate the overall network performance, a new fuzzy logic assessment approach was developed taking into account the QoS parameters requirement of the transmitted application. Critical parameters were obtained through detailed simulation experiments under demanding operating conditions. These parameters were used as input to the fuzzy logic system to allow the computation of a single metric to represent the input variables (i.e. delay, jitter and throughput). The end results show that without a complicated mathematical model, a QoS value can be computed. This study addresses both theoretical aspects of QoS performance and routing progress in ad-hoc networks as well as practical issues in the set-up of simulation based studies.Finally, this study indicated that intelligent techniques can be effective for processing multiple QoS metrics to obtain an overall parameter that represents the application QoS. They can be adapted, not only to QoS routing, but to various aspects of QoS provisioning techniques.


Antiretroviral resistance mutations (ARM) are one of the major obstacles for pharmacological human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) suppression. Plasma HIV-1 RNA from 306 patients on antiretroviral therapy with virological failure was analyzed, most of them (60%) exposed to three or more regimens, and 28% of them have started therapy before 1997. The most common regimens in use at the time of genotype testing were AZT/3TC/nelfinavir, 3TC/D4T/nelfinavir and AZT/3TC/efavirenz. The majority of ARM occurred at protease (PR) gene at residue L90 (41%) and V82 (25%); at reverse transcriptase (RT) gene, mutations at residue M184 (V/I) were observed in 64%. One or more thymidine analogue mutations were detected in 73%. The number of ARM at PR gene increased from a mean of four mutations per patient who showed virological failure at the first ARV regimens to six mutations per patient exposed to six or more regimens; similar trend in RT was also observed. No differences in ARM at principal codon to the three drug classes for HIV-1 clades B or F were observed, but some polymorphisms in secondary codons showed significant differences. Strategies to improve the cost effectiveness of drug therapy and to optimize the sequencing and the rescue therapy are the major health priorities.


Intermittent or acute insomnia is common, and may sometimes require short-term treatment with an approved hypnotic agent. A diagnosis of insomnia disorder, however, indicates that night-time sleep is of poor quality and chronic, and accompanied by significant impairment of daytime functioning. Although insomnia disorder often co-exists with psychiatric and medical conditions, it is viewed as an independent entity with potentially serious sequelae, requiring its own treatment, usually in the form of cognitive behavioural therapy, with or without pharmacotherapy.


The aim of this study was to measure the effects of heparin therapy in patients undergoing vascular surgery, and to monitor the effectiveness of continuous intravenous heparin therapy in ward-based patients. In addition. we compared results from a new portable device with those from the standard laboratory assay. A prospective comparison of the two methods in patients undergoing peripheral vascular surgery, and in ward-based patients who were receiving intravenous heparin infusions was undertaken. Fifty patients who were undergoing vascular surgery and receiving a bolus dose of intravenous heparin, and 22 patients receiving a continuous heparin infusion. were recruited. Blood samples were taken 10 and 40 min following bolus heparin administration or after > 12 h of a continuous heparin infusion. Plasma activated partial thromboplastin times ( A m p ) measured by the haematology laboratory were compared with whole blood (APTT,) ascertained with the CoaguChek Plus Device (Boehringer Mannheim UK Diagnostics and Biochemicals Limited) a t each time point. The results from the two methods were compared using the method of Bland and Altman (Lancet. 1986, 307310). We found a good level of agreement between the two methods (at induction, mean bias was 0.050, limits of agreement 0.46-0.36: heparin infusions. mean bias was 0.283, limits of agreement 1.64-1.07). In addition we discovered that many of our patients appeared to be excessively anticoagulated during surgery (10 min following heparin bolus 47/50 patients had an A m B > 1 50 s. 45/50 had an APTTp > 250 s: a t 40 min 45/50 had an A m , > 1 SO s, 39/50 had an A m p > 250 s). In conclusion. whole blood APTT measurement allows rapid and accurate assessment of the effects of heparin therapy when compared with laboratory Am measurement and may prevent both excessive and suboptimal anticoagulation. O 1998 The International Society for Cardiovascular Surgery. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.


During August 2000, responses of biological communities (invertebrates, fish, and algae), physical habitat, and water chemistry to urban intensity were compared among 30 streams within 80 miles of Boston, Massachusetts. Sites chosen for sampling represented a gradient of the intensity of urban development (urban intensity) among drainage basins that had minimal natural variability. In this study, spatial differences were used as surrogates for temporal changes to represent the effects of urbanization over time. The degree of urban intensity for each drainage basin was characterized with a standardized urban index (0-100, lowest to highest) derived from land cover, infrastructure, and socioeconomic variables. Multivariate and multimetric analyses were used to compare urban index values with biological, physical, and chemical data to determine how the data indicated responses to urbanization. Multivariate ordinations were derived for the invertebrate-, fish-, and algae-community data by use of correspondence analysis, and ordinations were derived for the chemical and physical data by use of principal-component analysis. Site scores from each of the ordinations were plotted in relation to the urban index to test for a response. In all cases, the primary axis scores showed the strongest response to the urban index, indicating that urbanization was a primary factor affecting the data ordination. For the multimetric analyses, each of the biological data sets was used to calculate a series of community metrics. For the sets of chemical and physical data, the individual variables and various combinations of individual variables were used as measured and derived metrics, respectively. Metrics that were generally most responsive to the urban index for each data set included: EPT (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera) taxa for invertebrates; cyprinid taxa for fish; diatom taxa for algae; bicarbonate, conductivity, and nitrogen for chemistry; and water depth and temperature for physical habitat. The slopes of the responses generally were higher between the urban index values of 0 to 35, indicating that the greatest change in aquatic health may occur between low and moderate levels of urban intensity. Additionally, many of the responses showed that at urban index values greater than 35, there was a threshold effect where the response variable no longer changed with respect to urban intensity. Recognizing and understanding this type of response is important in management and monitoring programs that rely on decisive interpretations of variable responses. Any biological, physical, or chemical variable that is used to characterize stream health over a gradient of disturbance would not be a reliable indicator when a level of disturbance is reached where the variable does not respond in a predictable manner.


Caveolin, a 21-24-kDa integral membrane protein, is a principal component of caveolar membranes in vivo. Caveolin interacts directly with heterotrimeric G-proteins and can functionally regulate their activity. Recently, a second caveolin gene has been identified and termed caveolin-2. Here, we report the molecular cloning and expression of a third member of the caveolin gene family, caveolin-3. Caveolin-3 is most closely related to caveolin-1 based on protein sequence homology; caveolin-1 and caveolin-3 are 65% identical and 85% similar. A single stretch of eight amino acids (FEDVIAEP) is identical in caveolin-1, −2, and −3. This conserved region may represent a "caveolin signature sequence" that is characteristic of members of the caveolin gene family. Caveolin-3 mRNA is expressed predominantly in muscle tissue types (skeletal muscle, diaphragm, and heart) and is selectively induced during the differentiation of skeletal C2C12 myoblasts in culture. In many respects, caveolin-3 is similar to caveolin-1: (i) caveolin-3 migrates in velocity gradients as a high molecular mass complex; (ii) caveolin-3 colocalizes with caveolin-1 by immunofluorescence microscopy and cell fractionation studies; and (iii) a caveolin-3-derived polypeptide functionally suppresses the basal GTPase activity of purified heterotrimeric G-proteins. Identification of a muscle-specific member of the caveolin gene family may have implications for understanding the role of caveolin in different muscle cell types (smooth, cardiac, and skeletal) as previous morphological studies have demonstrated that caveolae are abundant in these cells. Our results also suggest that other as yet unknown caveolin family members are likely to exist and may be expressed in a regulated or tissue-specific fashion.


Although we cannot observe them (and they may be forever inaccessible), other universes are a natural expectation from current cosmology. Moreover, many features of our universe that otherwise seem baffling fall into place once we recognize this." Sir Martin Rees, the British Astronomer Royal, gives a vivid, occasionally acid tour of current astrophysics and cosmology, with insights into scientific politics, such as the enormous increase in the cost of the space telescope because of its association with the Space Shuttle. He also offers keen observations on personalities such as Subrahmayan Chandrasekhar and Isaac Newton, Yakov Zeldovich and Albert Einstein. Joseph Silk calls Before the Beginning "an unusual blend of wit, asperity and cosmology ... a combination of clarity and conciseness." ISBN 9780201151428 (This book at Amazon) (print version, hardback) 9780738200330 (This book at Amazon) (print version, paperback) CERN library copies Purchase it for me! This book on WorldCat Info rmat io n Discussio n (0 ) Files Ho ldings Search Submit Help CERN Document Server


We have developed a cellulose nanocrystal-based nanocomposite photonic film with a sandwich structure to mimic the shell structure of the Chrysina genus of beetles. The nanocomposite film was fabricated by embedding a uniaxially oriented polyamide-6 (PA-6) layer as a half-wave retarder layer between two cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs)/polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) layers with a left-handed chiral nematic photonic structure. As a result, the reflectance intensity of the obtained nanocomposite film exceeds 50% (hyper-reflection) at a certain wavelength. More interestingly, asymmetric expansion/shrinkage of the CNCs/PEGDA layer in the nanocomposite film allows for simultaneous and reversible three-dimensional deformation behavior as well as the shift of the Bragg reflection when exposed to a humid environment. The proposed self-assembled photonic material will be attractive to be used as an optical anti-counterfeiting film, a tunable bandpass filter, a reflector or polarizer and a humidity-responsive actuator.


In the UK there is currently a lot of political and media attention on what has become known as anti-social behaviour (ASB). Concerns about ASB appear to be higher in deprived and/or urban areas. In particular, people living in London are more likely to suffer from ASB. There is undoubtedly real ASB in London; however, this article argues that people will have different expectations of urban living and use of public spaces, resulting in contested notions or tolerances of what is acceptable or anti-social behaviour. This has implications for people's acceptance of difference or 'otherness'. With this in mind, evidence is drawn from 10 focus groups with minority and marginalised Londoners. The article argues that our beliefs and expectations of urban living need to be challenged as this is what urban living is all about. Similarly, we should take on board the focus group participants' assertion that all can be anti-social - rather than focusing on certain groups that 'don't fit in' and entrenching their social
exclusion.


The Scottish referendum of 2014 encouraged massive public debate, including on Scotland's scientific performance and ability to harness innovation and increase global competitiveness. The science base in Scotland has traditionally been strong but has not translated well into innovation. This paper uses statistical data, over 30 interviews and two workshops with business and policy leaders, to analyse key scientific and industrial innovation dynamics, using a regional innovation systems approach. It investigates the perceived impact of increased autonomy on the dynamics of the Scottish innovation system. The paper shows the weak relationship between science and innovation and evidences the static nature of Scottish innovation policy geared to bridging a gap rather than improving the dynamics of the various elements in the innovation system. It suggests that an approach which aims to spur evolution in specific elements of the territorial governance system would strengthen Scottish innovation capabilities.


At 10:30 P.M. on April 9, 1954, Nat Peeples, an outfielder for the Atlanta Crackers, made history as he broke the color line in the venerable, tradition-rich, class-AA Southern Association. (1) In the Crackers' opening game of the season against the Mobile Bears in Mobile, Alabama, Peeples batted in the fifth inning as a pinch hitter for pitcher Noel Oquendo. He took the first two offerings for balls and then tapped the third pitch weakly back to the pitcher for an easy out. In the second game of the season, played the next night, Peeples started in left field and batted in the important third spot in the lineup. In four plate appearances Peeples walked once and made routine groundouts in his other three at-bats. He did not play in the third and final game of the series in Mobile. The Crackers then returned to Atlanta to open their home season. Peeples had not played in Atlanta's Ponce de Leon Park when, on April 17, the Crackers optioned him to the Jacksonville Braves of the class-A South Atlantic League. After appearing in only 2 games and without ever hitting the ball out of the infield, Peeples never again played in the Southern Association. He was the first and only Negro to play in the league. (The word Negro was the most commonly used term to refer to African Americans in 1954. It was encountered almost exclusively in the written sources on which this study is based. Thus it is used in this essay to maintain the integrity of those sources and to re-create the atmosphere of the time.) (2) Cracker owner Earl Mann explained that "Peeples was optioned to Jacksonville so that he can play everyday. We feel that we have more experienced outfielders on the roster now who can be of more help to the club than Peeples. There definitely was no other reason for assigning him to Jacksonville." The team, Mann continued, could obtain additional outfielders in a few days from the Milwaukee Braves, with whom the Crackers had had a working agreement since 1950. Ever since Mann uttered these words, a controversy concerning the motives behind the decision to demote Peeples has existed. The Atlanta sportswriters who saw Peeples play in 1954 agreed then and now that the Crackers optioned him to Jacksonville because his baseball skills were deficient and were well below the standards of the Southern Association. On April 19, 1954, Furman Bisher, sports editor of the Atlanta Constitution, wrote: "Peeples was sent out because he wasn't ready for Double A. He got a full trial and lost his job in a battle with [outfield teammates] Bob Montag and Lloyd Gearhart." In several publications and interviews since then, Bisher has insisted that Peeples got a fair chance to make the team and was not good enough for the league. Negro sportswriters believed that Mann optioned Peeples because the Southern Association was not ready for integration. They argued that the association pressured Mann to remove Peeples from the Cracker roster and that he capitulated. (3) The leading proponent of this interpretation is Marion Jackson, sports editor of the Atlanta Daily World in 1954. In a vitriolic column of April 20, he accused Furman Bisher of having waged a malicious campaign of racial discrimination against Peeples. For the next week he fulminated against Earl Mann and the city of Atlanta in his daily column, lashing out at the city for its racial intolerance. Jackson charged Mann with deception and excoriated him for lacking courage and leadership. Mann refused, Jackson concluded, to give Peeples a fair chance on the field and never even seriously intended to integrate his team or the league. He succumbed to outside pressure and sacrificed Peeples to maintain the racial purity of the Association. (4) Peeples's teammates on the 1954 Crackers and others who saw him play are also divided as to the motive for his demotion. Bob Montag, an outfielder on the 1954 Crackers, asserted in a recent interview: "He just wasn't ready for the league is what it amounted to. …


Abstract:  Starting from the premise that the reproductive rights are accomplished by the human right to health, this article aims to study the female sterilization as a form of curtailment of the reproductive rights of women, considering the way it is regulated and implemented in Brazil. Therefore, thus paper starts with a background of the reproductive rights from the feminist struggle to its insertion into the list of human rights. Then, the concept of reproductive rights is developed followed by a debate on feminism. In the second part, the article's principle objective of the dichotomy between sterilization as a voluntary and compulsory measure is analyzed. In order to do so, there is a discussion of how the laws are challenged through looking at how it regulates female sterilization as well as how public sector (judges and prosecutors) legal professionals enforce the law. The Brazilian Family Planning Act and the 2018 Sao Paulo compulsory sterilization case are this article's grounds for analysis. The method is deductive and started from the legal doctrine of the act and the case. The conclusion is that the realization of the reproductive rights agenda debated in Brazil but that reproductive rights are not fully enjoyed by all of its citizens. Women cannot exercise full control over their bodies due to the requirement of their husband's consent and the eugenic action of the Public Prosecutor. Keywords : reproductive rights, voluntary sterilization, compulsory sterilization.


The self-propagating combustion reaction 0.741Mg + 0.247Fe2O3 + 0.188Ni + 0.318Cr → 0.741MgO + Fe0.494Ni0.188Cr0.318 was applied to prepare a nano-MgO reinforced Fe-Cr-Ni composite, by reactive hot pressing (RHP) under a condition of 700°C/30MPa/2h. The densification was enabled by the low temperatures produced by the exothermic reaction. According to TG-DTA and X-ray diffractometry (XRD), the highly-exothermic thermite reaction began at about 600°C and the in-situ formation of composites comprised predominantly of (FCC) Cr0.19Fe0.7Ni0.11, (FCC) Fe-Cr, (BCC) MgO and a small quantity of (BCC) MgFe2O4. The Vickers hardness was 3.67GPa, the three-point bending strength was 112.5±10MPa, and the fracture toughness was 3.28 MPa•m1/2. The microstructure of the composite was observed via scanning electron microscopy. This indicated that the distributions of in-situ-formed (BCC) MgO phases (~800 nanometers) were homogeneous into in a matrix of a fine-grained metallic alloy phases that gather together to form agglomerates in the composite.


We manipulated brood sizes of 132 pairs of the collared flycatcher to investigate whether or not an investment in reproduction was traded against an investment and timing of the post-nuptial moult. Our manipulations did not affect the probability of moult-breeding overlap in males, and there was no effect on their moult scores at fledging time of the young. Males and young birds initiated moult earlier than females and old birds, respectively. Very few females started moulting during the period of nestling care. Reproductive success in terms of recruitment rate of fledglings was independent of parental moult stage during reproduction, which indicates that the manipulation did not induce a trade-off between moult and post-fledging care. Furthermore, the survival probability of adults was independent of brood size manipulations and their moult stage at fledging time. Thus, our brood size manipulations showed no evidence for a trade-off between reproductive and moult investments in the collared flycatcher.


The effects of cocaine on dopaminergic function in the rat were compared with those of other local anesthetics having an esteratic linkage (dimethocaine, procaine) or an amide linkage (lidocaine). By means of reverse-phase HPLC with electrochemical detection and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, levels of dopamine (DA) and its metabolites 3-methoxytyramine (3-MT) and dihydroxyphenylacetic acid were quantified in the striatum, nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex after i.p. injection of the drugs or saline. Time course and dose response studies determined the effects of the drugs on these parameters of dopaminergic function. These studies provide strong evidence that the three esteratic local anesthetics cocaine, dimethocaine and procaine all increase the synaptic presence of DA, as reflected in increased levels of 3-MT and the ratio of 3-MT to DA, in the striatum, nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex. Surprisingly, procaine had an equal or greater effect than cocaine and dimethocaine on 3-MT levels and the ratio 3-MT/DA. The effects of these drugs on dihydroxyphenylacetic acid, an indicator of intraneuronal metabolism of DA, were more variable. However, the amidergic local anesthetic lidocaine did not affect DA metabolism. Although the exact mechanisms behind the dopaminergic activities of procaine and dimethocaine remain unknown, it is clear that these drugs, as well as cocaine, activate dopaminergic systems in the intact animal.


The citrus fruit fly Bactrocera (Tetradacus) minax is a major and devastating agricultural pest in Asian subtropical countries. Previous studies have shown that B. minax interacts with hosts via an efficient chemosensory system. However, knowledge regarding the molecular components of the B. minax chemosensory system has not yet been well established. Herein, based on our newly generated whole-genome dataset for B. minax and by comparison with the characterized genomes of 6 other fruit fly species, we identified, for the first time, a total of 25 putative odorant-binding receptors (OBPs), 4 single-copy chemosensory proteins (CSPs) and 53 candidate odorant receptors (ORs). To further survey the expression of these candidate genes, the transcriptomes from three developmental stages (larvae, pupae and adults) of B. minax and Bactrocera dorsalis were analyzed. We found that 1) at the adult developmental stage, there were 14 highly expressed OBPs (FPKM>100) in B. dorsalis and 7 highly expressed OBPs in B. minax; 2) the expression of CSP3 and CSP4 in adult B. dorsalis was higher than that in B. minax; and 3) most of the OR genes exhibited low expression at the three developmental stages in both species. This study on the identification of the chemosensory system of B. minax not only enriches the existing research on insect olfactory receptors but also provides new targets for preventative control and ecological regulation of B. minax in the future.


An 8-year-old boy seen at a gastroenterology clinic after "accidentally" swallowing 2 coins 4 days earlier. Had difficulty in breathing shortly after swallowing the coins and was taken to emergency department. X-ray films at that time demonstrated coins in his esophagus. Patient was immediately transferred to a tertiary care facility. Repeated x-rays showed the coins in his stomach. Patient was sent home with instructions to follow up with his pediatrician in 1 to 2 days.


Decades of anthropogenic pressure have harmed riverscapes throughout North America by degrading habitats and water quality and can result in the extirpation of sensitive aquatic taxa. Local stream restoration projects have increased in frequency, but monitoring is still infrequent. In 2010, Kickapoo Creek in East Central Illinois was subjected to a stream restoration project that included implementation of artificial riffles, riprap, scouring keys, and riparian vegetation. We monitored the restoration efforts for 6 years after the restoration through annual sampling efforts at restored and reference sites to determine changes in habitat and fish assemblage using standard habitat sampling and electrofishing techniques. We observed distinct temporal and spatial shifts in physico‐chemical parameters along with changes in fish community structure. Although biotic integrity remained moderately low in reference assemblages, restored reaches showed 3‐year delay in response to restoration, with biotic integrity positively linked to additional instream habitat and altered channel morphology. Larger substrate sizes, submerged terrestrial vegetation, and newly formed scour pools along with reduced siltation were found in the restored sites, in contrast to the reference sites. These changes resulted in increased species diversity, reduced number of opportunistic species and consequently an overall increase in health of fish communities. We also observed recruitment of habitat specialists and increase in species with reproductive strategies that rely on complex substrates. The results of this study highlight some of the complex dynamics driving reach‐scale restoration projects. We demonstrate the usefulness of structural restoration as a management tool to increase biotic integrity through long‐term alteration of critical habitat. The delay in the response of species to the restoration efforts emphasizes the need for long‐term continuous temporal and spatial monitoring.


The right to petition is an instrument of popular participation whereby citizens are allowed to apply to an authority for the purpose of representing certain needs or to seek the adoption of specific actions. While widely regarded as obsolete in current legal theory and rarely applied in the national legal system, it is once again gaining momentum thanks to the second "wave" of Regional Statutes and the greater autonomy of regional legislators, providing for a wide range of applications. The analysis of regional regulations indicates that the right to petition has also found new applications that have turned it into an effective instrument to ensure communication between civil society and regional institutions.


Optical coherence tomography (OCT) images are frequently interpreted in terms of layers (for example, of tissue) with the boundary defined by a change in refractive index. Real boundaries are rough compared with the wavelength of light, and in this paper we show that this roughness has to be taken into account in interpreting the images. We give an example of the same OCT image obtained from two quite different objects, one smooth compared to the optical wavelength, and the other rough.


Many bioindicators are developed without attention to the effects on the animals themselves. We examined whether the disruption, handling, and recapturing of northern pine snakes (Pituophis m. melanoleucus), New Jersey Pine Barrens, 1976 to 2008) negatively impacted their behavior and survival, information that is critical to the usefulness of snakes as bioindicators. We found: 1) There was no difference in the rate of re-sighting of pine snakes as a function of whether they were branded or fitted with passive integrated transponder devices (PIT tags) and/or radiotransmitters, 2) Marked females continued to use the same nest site in successive years (65 %), 3) The number of nests that hatched successfully did not differ markedly as a function of remaining intact (72 %) or being opened (62 %), 4) Hatching rate of eggs in the laboratory was higher than for those in the field, 5) Excavated hibernacula that we studied were only abandoned due to predators, land development, and habitat management, 6) Nearly half of the snakes handled while hibernating were found once or more in successive years in the reconstructed hibernacula, and 7) The three snakes that were captured the most in hibernacula were found in 13, 17, and 18 different years. Thus, northern pine snakes can be useful bioindicators because the researchers themselves are not impacting their behavior or survival, and they can be used to indicate overall health of the food chains of which they are part


Authoritative, surprising, evocative and original, "Shakespeare: staging the world" offers a completely new approach to one of the most exceptional creative imaginations in history. While matters of religion, trade and war were being contested, the role of the playwright developed to inform, persuade and provoke debate on the concerns of the day. This richly illustrated book presents an extraordinary collection of objects from the British Museum's unrivalled collection, as well as key pieces from Britain and elsewhere. Simon Forman's diary of 1611 gives a vivid account of attending a contemporary performance of "A Winter's Tale"; a dagger fished from the Thames gives new resonance to the gang violence of "Romeo and Juliet"; while Guy Fawkes' lantern illustrates the Catholic counterculture revealed through the failed Gunpowder Plot, which was later to prove the inspiration for "Macbeth". "Shakespeare: staging the world" is a fascinating view of the early modern world through the eyes of Shakespeare, his players and audiences. "A fascinating account of Shakespeare's cosmopolitan world, illustrated with breathtaking images that bring to life the rich material culture that shaped Shakespeare's writings and his age. This is a superb volume, one that will have pride of place on my bookshelf." (Professor James Shapiro, author of 1599 and Contested Wil).


Interactions of Amyloid-Forming Peptides with Lipid Bilayer Membranes by Chang-Chun Lee Amyloid-proteins are among the most actively researched biological topics today, because they have been associated with many serious human diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and type II diabetes. In particular the deposition of protein aggregates on cell membranes has been suspected as the causes of the diseases, although the proof is still elusive. Studying the interactions of amyloid-forming peptides with lipid-bilayer membranes may clarify the pathway of the ~-aggregate formation and provide new insights into the amyloid hypothesis of diseases. In this thesis, I investigate how three peptides, penetratin, amylin, and LL-37, interact with lipid membranes by using several techniques well-developed in our lab. In the study of penetratin interacting with lipid membranes, we were able to clarify the energy pathway of amyloid formation mediated by membrane-binding. This provides the sole experimental proof for the Jarrett-Lansbury theory of ~amyloid formation. Our investigation on amylin-membrane interaction clarifies how amylin in different forms damage bilayer membranes. Between penetratin and amylin we have clarified the complicated pattern of interactions between amyloidforming peptides and lipid bilayers. The third peptide LL-37 studied in my thesis turned out to a pore forming peptide. I found the mistake made by previous investigators in several different laboratories that made them erroneously conclude that LL-37 was not a pore forming peptide. The results of these three peptides show that methods we used are a comprehensive set of tools that can reveal a broad range of peptide properties. Both the formation of amyloid aggregates and formation of membrane pores can be explained by a two-state model proposed by Huang describing peptidemembrane interactions. For LL-37, the second state is a pore in membrane. But for penetratin and amylin the second state is an aggregation in the J3 form. We found that J3-aggregates have low affinity within a lipid bilayer, and therefore exit from the bilayer structure. However, this exit process extracts lipid molecules from the bilayer and incorporates them in the peptide aggregates. We suggest that this is the molecular process of how amylin might damage of the membranes of J3-cells.


Preserving Optical Confinement in PECVD SiO2 Waveguides by Control of Thin-Film Stress Steven Jay Hammon Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, BYU Master of Science Researchers at Brigham Young University (BYU) have developed an optical biosensor that can quickly analyze a sample to detect any type of nucleic acid based organism, such as viruses or bacteria. The biosensor's reliability over time is compromised due to water absorbing into the SiO2 waveguides of the chip. It was hypothesized that keeping the thin-film stress of the waveguides close to zero would slow or stop water absorption from occurring. Completion of this thin-film study relied upon a new plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) machine and a new 3-D optical profilometer, both of which were installed in the BYU cleanroom. The new PECVD machine was much more capable than previous machines at controlling deposition parameters and was a critical component in accurately controlling the intrinsic stress of deposited films. The 3-D optical profilometer provided us a way to accurately measure the intrinsic stress of the films. Rib waveguides made from different stressed SiO2 films were fabricated over anti-resonant reflecting optical waveguide (ARROW) layers. The wafers were baked out, cleaved, and their initial throughputs recorded. All waveguides were placed in a humid environment and were removed periodically to check their optical throughput. The resulting measurements were normalized to the highest measured throughput to determine how throughput was changing over time. Rib waveguides with the lowest stressed SiO2 had the slowest rate of throughput change, dropping to 50% of the original throughput after 40 days in the humid environment. The +50 MPa stressed waveguides performed next best, dropping to 20% of the original throughput after 40 days. The +100 MPA stressed waveguides dropped to 20% throughput after 16 days while the -50 MPa stressed wafers dropped to 20% optical throughput after 7 days. Keeping the stress of the film as low as possible helped reduce the rate of water absorption, but did not eliminate it completely. A method involving the use of high index difference buried channel waveguides is shown to be effective at stopping the effects of water absorption in our waveguides.


Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) transfer plant photosynthate underground which can stimulate soil microbial growth. In this study, we examined whether there was a potential link between carbon (C) release from an AMF and phosphorus (P) availability via a phosphate-solubilizing bacterium (PSB). We investigated the outcome of the interaction between the AMF and the PSB by conducting a microcosm and two Petri plate experiments. An in vitro culture experiment was also conducted to determine the direct impact of AMF hyphal exudates on growth of the PSB. The AMF released substantial C to the environment, triggering PSB growth and activity. In return, the PSB enhanced mineralization of organic P, increasing P availability for the AMF. When soil available P was low, the PSB competed with the AMF for P, and its activity was not stimulated by the fungus. When additional P was added to increase soil available P, the PSB enhanced AMF hyphal growth, and PSB activity was also stimulated by the fungus. Our results suggest that an AMF and a free-living PSB interacted to the benefit of each other by providing the C or P that the other microorganism required, but these interactions depended upon background P availability.


States reforming marijuana laws should be particularly concerned with remedying the past inequities and burdens of mass criminalization. State marijuana reforms should not only offer robust retroactive ameliorative relief opportunities for prior marijuana offenses, but also dedicate resources generated by marijuana reform to create and fund new institutions to assess and serve the needs of a broad array of offenders looking to remedy the collateral consequences of prior involvement in the criminal justice system. So far, California stands out among reform states for coupling repeal of marijuana prohibition with robust efforts to enable and ensure the erasure of past marijuana convictions. In addition to encouraging marijuana reform states to follow California's lead in enacting broad ameliorative legislation, this essay urges policy makers and reform advocates to see the value of linking and leveraging the commitments and spirit of modern marijuana reform and expungement movements.
Part II begins with a brief review of the history of marijuana prohibition giving particular attention to social and racial dynamics integral to prohibition, its enforcement and now its reform. Part III turns to recent reform activities focused on mitigating the punitive collateral consequences of a criminal conviction with a focus on the (mostly limited) efforts of marijuana reform states to foster the erasure of marijuana convictions. Part IV sketches a novel proposal for connecting modern marijuana reform and expungement movements. This part suggest a new criminal justice institution, a Commission on Justice Restoration, to be funded by the taxes, fees and other revenues generated by marijuana reforms and to be tasked with proactively working on policies and practices designed to minimize and ameliorate undue collateral consequences for people with criminal convictions.


Title of thesis: THE EFFECTS OF INTERTIDAL EXPOSURE ON DISEASE, MORTALITY, AND GROWTH OF THE EASTERN OYSTER, CRASSOSTREA VIRGINICA Jennafer Christine Malek, Master of Science, 2010 Thesis directed by: Adjunct Professor Denise Breitburg Department of Biology Disease, mortality, and growth of benthic organisms can be influenced by and determine spatial distributions. The eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, an economically and ecologically important species in Chesapeake Bay, is found in both the intertidal and subtidal in Virginia, but only in the subtidal in Maryland. I used field experiments and sampling to determine whether disease (Dermo) mortality, and growth of oysters vary among tidal heights during summer in the Maryland and Virginia regions of Chesapeake Bay. Results indicated that Dermo prevalence and mortality decreased and growth increased with decreasing durations of intertidal air-exposure. Dermo prevalence was higher in habitats with long durations of air-exposure than in subtidal habitats but progression of the disease did not differ consistently among tidal heights. Patterns in summer mortality, growth, and disease in combination with recruitment, winter mortality, and predation likely contribute to the variation in tidal distributions of oysters within Chesapeake Bay. THE EFFECTS OF INTERTIDAL EXPOSURE ON DISEASE, MORTALITY, AND GROWTH OF THE EASTERN OYSTER, CRASSOSTREA VRGINICA


When traditional ranking and rating surveys are used to assess dentists' treatment decisions, the patient's source of payment appears to be of little importance. Therefore, this study used the marketing research tool conjoint analysis to investigate the relative impact of source of payment along with the child's age and cooperativeness on pediatric dentists' willingness to use Atraumatic Restorative Treatment (ART) to restore posterior primary teeth. A conjoint survey was completed by 707 pediatric dentists. Three factors (age of the child, cooperativeness, type of insurance) were varied across 3 levels to create 9 patient scenarios. The relative weights that dentists placed on these factors in the restorative treatment decision process were determined by conjoint analysis. "Cooperativeness" (52%) was the most important factor, "age of the child" (26%) the second-most important factor, followed by "insurance status of the child" (22%). For the third factor, insurance, pediatric dentists were least willing to use ART with publicly insured children (−0.082), and this was significantly different from their willingness to use ART with uninsured children (0.010) but not significantly different than their willingness to use ART for children with private insurance (0.073). Unlike traditional ranking and rating tools, conjoint analysis found that the insurance status of the patient appeared to be an important factor in dentists' decisions about different restorative treatment options. When pediatric dentists were forced to make tradeoffs among different patients' factors, they were most willing to use ART technique with young, uncooperative patients when they had no insurance. Knowledge Transfer Statement: The present study suggests the feasibility of using techniques borrowed from marketing research, such as conjoint analysis, to understand dentists' restorative treatment decisions. Results of this study demonstrate pediatric dentists' willingness to use a particular restorative treatment option (Atraumatic Restorative Treatment in this application) when forced to make tradeoffs in a "conjoined," or holistic, context among different factors presented in real-life patient scenarios. A deeper understanding of dentists' treatment decisions is vital to develop valid practice guidelines and interventions that encourage the use of appropriate restorative treatment modalities.


The cost of large scale data collection and annotation often makes the application of machine learning algorithms to new tasks or datasets prohibitively expensive. One approach circumventing this cost is training models on synthetic data where annotations are provided automatically. Despite their appeal, such models often fail to generalize from synthetic to real images, necessitating domain adaptation algorithms to manipulate these models before they can be successfully applied. Existing approaches focus either on mapping representations from one domain to the other, or on learning to extract features that are invariant to the domain from which they were extracted. However, by focusing only on creating a mapping or shared representation between the two domains, they ignore the individual characteristics of each domain. We hypothesize that explicitly modeling what is unique to each domain can improve a model's ability to extract domain-invariant features. Inspired by work on private-shared component analysis, we explicitly learn to extract image representations that are partitioned into two subspaces: one component which is private to each domain and one which is shared across domains. Our model is trained to not only perform the task we care about in the source domain, but also to use the partitioned representation to reconstruct the images from both domains. Our novel architecture results in a model that outperforms the state-of-the-art on a range of unsupervised domain adaptation scenarios and additionally produces visualizations of the private and shared representations enabling interpretation of the domain adaptation process.


To familiarize readers with the main issues in the debate over the veracity of long-hidden memories of childhood sexual abuse, information, arguments and hypotheses from the medical and social-science literature are examined. The author reviews the challenge presented by those who propose that all or most memories of past sexual abuse recovered during therapy are false, the response of those who contend that these memories are valid and could not be manufactured by therapists, and the views of those with a more balanced approach who carefully examine all of the evidence and look for the middle ground. Although research in this area is in its infancy, available information suggests that both recovered and fabricated memories exist. Until further research helps to identify the difference between the two, physicians need to keep an open mind and offer support and understanding to both alleged victims and accused parents. Research is needed on (1) the extent of corroboration of recovered memories of sexual abuse; (2) the identification of memory mechanisms, specific situations and personality factors involved in forgetting and remembering traumatic events; and (3) the factors affecting traumatized patients during therapy, including memory performance and suggestibility.


Among leading organizations in all sectors there is evidence that successful managers possess the capability to deal with contradictory tensions within their "macro" competitive and institutional environments. Furthermore, the strategic thinking and decision-making capabilities expected of managers highlight the importance of "micro" processes within organizations. Although macro and micro perspectives are intuitively linked, the empirical literature often separates these two perspectives into either strategy content or process. This paper demonstrates how an experimental method based on "discrete choice analysis" and "information acceleration" can be used to bridge the divide between "micro" managerial processes and the "macro" environmental contexts framing them. This method is behaviorally sound and provides greater control over alternate explanations. Practically, we unpack the role managers play as orchestrators of exploitation and exploration.


We investigate whether personal information posted by job candidates on social media sites is sought and used by prospective employers. We create profiles for job candidates on popular social networks, manipulating information protected under U.S. laws, and submit job applications on their behalf to over 4,000 employers. We find evidence of employers searching online for the candidates. After comparing interview invitations for a Muslim versus a Christian candidate, and a gay versus a straight candidate, we find no difference in callback rates for the gay candidate compared to the straight candidate, but a 13% lower callback rate for the Muslim candidate compared to the Christian candidate. While the difference is not significant at the national level, it exhibits significant and robust heterogeneity in bias at the local level, compatible with existing theories of discrimination. In particular, employers in Republican areas exhibit significant bias both against the Muslim candidate, and in favor of the Christian candidate. This bias is significantly larger than the bias in Democratic areas. The results are robust to using state- and county-level data, to controlling for firm, job, and geographical characteristics, and to several model specifications. The results suggest that 1) the online disclosure of certain personal traits can influence the hiring decisions of U.S. firms and 2) the likelihood of hiring discrimination via online searches varies across employers. The findings also highlight the surprisingly lasting behavioral influence of traditional, offline networks in processes and scenarios where online interactions are becoming increasingly common.


Purpose Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurological syndrome in which language functions become progressively impaired with relative sparing of memory and other instrumental functions. The pathologic causes of PPA are heterogeneous, but studies suggest that logopenic PPA (LPA) is underpinned by Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology in a high proportion of cases. The purposes of this descriptive and retrospective study were to characterize 18F-florbetapir PET imaging in a group of patients with a clinical syndrome of PPA, to determine the value of clinical characterization based on language phenotype in predicting the underlying pathology of PPA with 18F-florbetapir, and to quantify amyloid load in PPA subjects classified as "positive" 18F-florbetapir scans. Then, we compare the quantification and distribution of 18F-florbetapir uptake with those of typical, predominantly amnestic AD patients. Methods We conducted a PET study with 18F-florbetapir in a cohort of 12 right-handed patients diagnosed with PPA: 3 patients with semantic-variant PPA, 5 with nonfluent PPA, 1 with LPA, and 3 unclassifiable patients. We evaluated amyloid deposition between APP groups and 11 patients with typical amnestic AD. Results Among the 12 patients with PPA syndrome, 8 (66.7%) were considered as amyloid positive. One of the 3 patients with semantic-variant PPA was 18F-florbetapir positive. In contrast, 4 of the 5 nonfluent-variant PPA, 2 of the 3 unclassifiable cases and the single patient with LPA were 18F-florbetapir positive. A significantly higher 18F-florbetapir uptake was observed in PPA 18F-florbetapir–positive patients compared with typical AD patients. This difference was observed in all regions of interest, except in posterior cingulate and temporal cortex. Conclusions These results suggest that 18F-florbetapir PET may be useful in a routine clinical procedure to improve the reliability of identifying AD pathology in patients with PPA syndrome, with different clinical subtypes of the PPA syndrome.


In the paper, first we present the essence of our recent analysis of Hungarian particle verb constructions. The main goal of the paper is to explore the nature, consequences and ramifications of this approach in a detailed comparison with certain salient previous accounts which are directly relevant to the assessment of our account from a general theoretical perspective. We claim that our approach, developed in the framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar, has the following two main advantages: (i) it systematically covers both the productive and the non-productive uses of these constructions by offering explicit, principled and implementationally tested analyses; (ii) it develops a treatment of the notoriously miscreant behaviour of particle verbs exhibiting a special mixture of strongly lexical and strongly syntactic properties which, in addition to its feasibility, requires the least dramatic modification in our general assumptions about the lexical and syntactic components of our grammar.


One emerging benefit of voice assistants is to facilitate product search experience, allowing users to express orally which products they seek, and taking actions on retrieved results such as adding them to their cart or sending the product details to their mobile phone for further examination. Looking at users' behavior in product search, supported by a digital voice assistant, we have observed an interesting phenomenon where users purchase or engage with search results that are objectively judged irrelevant to their queries. In this work, we analyze and characterize this phenomenon. We provide several hypotheses as to the reasons behind it, including users' personalized preferences, the product's popularity, the product's indirect relation with the query, the user's tolerance level, the query intent, and the product price. We address each hypothesis by conducting thorough data analyses and offer some insights with respect to users' purchase and engagement behavior with seemingly irrelevant results. We conclude with a discussion on how this analysis can be used to improve voice product search services.


USDA's recent research shows that meat products are good sources of choline. During cooking, nutrient levels are affected by moisture and fat losses and may be reduced by heating. To determine the impact of cooking on choline retention in meats, four nationwide composite samples of beef, bacon, cured hams, fresh pork, chicken, sausages, and variety meats were prepared from products purchased in 12 U.S. cities using a probability sampling plan. Raw and cooked samples were weighed and analyzed for choline. Cooking yields (CY=cooked weight/raw weight*100) were lowest for bacon (~30%), while meat franks and turkey sausage had the highest yields (100%). CY for pork cuts ranged from 64% to 94%. CY for liver, beef chuck cuts, and franks were in good agreement with published data. Nutrient retention factors (RF) are calculated by multiplying the ratio of choline values in cooked and raw portions by the CY for that product. The lowest choline RFs were reported for roasted chicken and assorted livers (68%–74%), while the highest was in turkey sausage (158%). The choline RF for fresh pork ranged from 72% to 123%. Factors for CY and nutrient retention are critical to the calculation of nutrient intake values for cooked foods when no analytical data are available. These results will be included in the USDA Table of Nutrient Retention Factors to be used in surveys for estimating choline consumption in the U.S.


Recently, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has been facing significant changes in rainstorm patterns (rainstorm intensities, frequencies, distributions) causing many flash flood events. The city of Jeddah is located in a coastal plain area, in the middle of the western side of the KSA, which represents a clear case of changing rainstorm patterns. Jeddah has been hit by many rainstorm events, which increased dramatically since 2009 (e.g., one in 2009, one in 2011, one in 2015, and another one happened in 2017). However, in 2018 about six rainstorms occurred. Two major flash flood events occurred in the city in November 2009 and in January 2011. There were significant impacts of these two events causing severe flooding. During these events, 113 persons were announced dead (in the 2009 event), and infrastructures and properties were damaged (roads and highways, more than 10,000 homes and 17,000 vehicles). In addition to that, dam failure occurred in the 2011 event. This situation gives clear evidence in changing the climate system that could cause more storms in the future across the KSA. Generally, Jeddah city has a lack of short-duration data in rainfall stations. In addition to that, there are a limited number of studies that have been done in determining rainstorm patterns. Consequently, the approach of the current study will focus on understanding and determining rainstorm patterns in the period between 2011 and 2017 depending on some digital rainfall stations that have been installed recently in Jeddah city. Rainstorm pattern and the method of distribution are the most crucial factors affecting peak flow and volume calculations. Our findings showed that there are two pattern types for the rainstorms in Jeddah city. Finally, a comparison with SCS-type II distribution was carried out.


Sulcus Loci Initiated by The University of Queensland's Art Museum as part of a broader program to engage students and academics in a creative nexus of the arts, science and environment, 'Sulcus Loci' brings together seven organisations across the University. This immersive interactive installation was designed and built by students from Interaction Design and Master of Architecture courses at The University of Queensland in collaboration with artist Svenja Kratz. Sound Artist Eve Klein from UQ's School of Music has composed a complimentary soundscape for the work. Inspired by imaging generated by researchers of Queensland Brain Institute's Microscopy Unit, the team has created a structure and experience that highlights the interconnection between neuroplasticity – the ability of the brain to change ¬– and the human environment. Using QBI brain scans, Svenja Kratz developed a conceptual brief for students in UQ's Master of Architecture, Master of Multimedia Design, and Master of Interaction Design programs, challenging them to collaboratively create an immersive exhibition environment. Searching for wonderment in the microscopic, Kratz created a sculptural component that captures the complexity of multi-cellular organisms. Incorporating black-light sensitive materials, the sculpture also references fluorescent imaging techniques employed at QBI that reveal individual cells and cellular components. Through touch and movement, different layers of sound and images are triggered mimicking the connections our brains make continuously as we interact with our immediate environment. Anticipating visitors' curiosity, students from Interaction Design have produced projected visualisations of neural 'nodes' that intensify with repeated and prolonged pressure to the structure's skin. Pathways are generated between each new node that strengthen like synaptic connections that develop through repeated patterns of behaviour or activity. Composer Eve Klein began with a simple question: what does a brain sound like when viewed at the level of neurons firing and connecting? The imaging generated by QBI researchers offers an insight into the minute structures and operations of our brains in real time. Visually abstract and otherworldly, Klein then imposes another layer of abstraction through sonification.


Recent scholarship on the Early Modern domestic interior has brought renewed attention to the social and ideological functions of domestic objects, which grew in number and variety over the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.  The current study focuses on Turkish carpets, which appeared, along with other Oriental luxury goods, with increasing frequency within the homes of the urban elite during this period.  Such carpets were highly valued by merchants and owners as well as by the artists who represented them with exquisite accuracy in their paintings.  Through a close reading of the Turkish carpet in Lorenzo Lotto's Portrait of a Married Couple (Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1523-24), this article argues that the display of Turkish carpets within portraits provides evidence of the complex and layered functions of these cherished exotic items.  Specifically, representations of Turkish carpets within such portraits operated not only as markers of the economic, social, and intellectual status of the sitters, but also, within the context of the home and family, served a deeply spiritual and commemorative role by honouring the deceased and by acting as mediating objects between the physical and mental realms.


ABSTRACT Finding ways to enhance introductory students' understanding of probability ideas and theory is a goal of many first-year probability courses. In this article, we explore the potential of a prototype tool for Markov processes using dynamic visualizations to develop in students a deeper understanding of the equilibrium and hitting times distributions. From the literature and interviews with practitioners, we identified core probability concepts, problematic areas, and possible solutions from which we developed design principles for the tool and accompanying tasks. The tool and tasks were piloted on six introductory probability students using a two-person protocol. The main findings highlight that our tool and tasks seemed to assist students to engage with probability ideas, to develop some intuition for Markov processes, to enhance their distributional ideas, to work between representations, and to see structure within the mathematics representations. The implications for teaching and learning are discussed.


The notion of weak-degradability of quantum channels is introduced by generalizing the degradability definition given by Devetak and Shor. Exploiting the unitary equivalence with beam-splitter/amplifier channels we then prove that a large class of one-mode Bosonic Gaussian channels are either weakly degradable or anti-degradable. In the latter case this implies that their quantum capacity Q is null. In the former case instead, this allows us to establish the additivity of the coherent information for those maps which admit unitary representation with single-mode pure environment.


Development of chromosomal instability (CIN) and consequent phenotypic heterogeneity represent common events during breast cancer progression. Breast carcinomas harboring extensive chromosomal aberrations display a more aggressive behavior characterized by chemoresistance and the propensity to give rise to distant metastases. The tumor suppressor p53 plays a key role in the maintenance of chromosomal stability and tissue homeostasis through activation of cell cycle checkpoints following DNA damage and control of centrosome duplication that ensures equal chromosome segregation during cell division. Furthermore, p53 suppresses CD44 expression and the acquisition of stem cell-like properties responsible for epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and metastasis. In this study we employed MCF-7 breast cancer cells with endogenous wild-type p53, an engineered MCF-7 variant (vMCF-7(DNP53)) overexpressing a dominant negative p53val135 mutant, and cells re-cultured from vMCF-7(DNP53) tumor xenografts. We carried out an integrative transcriptome and cytogenetic analysis to characterize the mechanistic linkage between loss of p53 function, EMT and consequent establishment of invasive gene signatures during breast cancer progression. We demonstrate that abrogation of p53 function drives the early transcriptome changes responsible for cell proliferation, EMT and survival, while further transcriptome changes that occur during in vivo tumor progression are mechanistically linked to the development of CIN leading to a more invasive and metastatic breast cancer phenotype. Here we identified distinct novel non-canonical transcriptome networks involved in cell proliferation, EMT, chemoresistance and invasion that arise following abrogation of p53 function in vitro and development of CIN in vivo. These studies also have important translational implications since some of the nodal genes identified here are 'druggable' making them appropriate molecular targets for the treatment of breast carcinomas displaying mutant p53, EMT, CIN and high metastatic potential.


In Mayan mathematics, zero is supposed to be, in some sense, equal to infinity. At first glance, while this statement may have a deep philosophical meaning, it does not seem to make much mathematical sense. In this paper, we show, that this statement may be made mathematically reasonable. Specifically, on a real line, it is often useful to consider both −∞ and +∞ as a single infinity. When we deal with very small and very large numbers, it makes sense to use floating point representation, i.e., in effect, consider logarithms of the original values. In terms of logarithms, the original value 0 corresponds to −∞, while the original infinite value corresponds to +∞. When we treat both possible values −∞ and +∞ as a single infinity, we thus treat the original values 0 and ∞ as similar.


A Research Project Report Submitted to the Chandaria School of Business in Partial Fulfillment of the Degree of Master of Science in Organizational Development (MOD)


Abstract This note provides descriptive statistics on the work of the Constitutional Court of South Africa (the Court) in 2015, organised in a number of tables. The method of constructing each table is given in the text that follows it. The objectives and methods of this annual set of statistics are more fully laid out in the 1995 edition and subsequent editions of the SAJHR. Part I covers those decisions in which the Court produced a written judgment while Part II covers applications that were considered in chambers and dismissed without a judgment being given.


A simple and easy shape-controllable approach is demonstrated for the fabrication of parabolic-shaped polymer microlenses (μ-lenses), which are widely used in bio-imaging systems such as microfluidic and lab-on-a-chip systems for improving the image quality due to their ability to efficiently focus light into the devices. The μ-lenses were printed directly on micro-structured polymeric SU-8 mesas and they were formed on these mesas using a photo-curable organic–inorganic hybrid material (H-resist) using a drop-on-demand (DOD) ink-jet printing technique. The parabolic-shape μ-lenses with a fixed diameter resulting from the micro-structured SU-8 mesas are controlled by surface wetting conditions (i.e., the comparison between hydrophobic and hydrophilic) that efficiently improve the boundary confinement effect, and by printing different numbers of drops per μ-lens. The influence of the geometrical changes on the optical properties is also investigated. The high numerical aperture (NA) parabolic-shaped μ-lenses controlled by the hydrophobic surface-treated micro-structured polymeric SU-8 mesas, which are able to confine the drops at the edge, can be integrated on a microfluidic system and they allow high resolution image quality.


The purpose of this study was to investigate contribution of nanoclays to the flame retardancy performance of a traditional brominated flame retardant compound with various combinations of antimony trioxide and zinc borate. The matrix polymer acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) was compounded by melt mixing in a laboratory size twin-screw extruder. X-ray diffraction analysis and transmission electron microscopy revealed that nanoclay silicate layers were mainly intercalated with certain level of exfoliation in ABS matrix. Flammability analysis investigated by mass loss calorimeter, limiting oxygen index, and UL-94 tests indicated that use of nanoclays improved all flame retardancy parameters significantly. For instance, the increase in the limiting oxygen index was up to 32% O2, while the suppression in peak heat release rate value was as much as 82%, of course in each specimen the highest rating of V-0 in UL-94 test was obtained. Thermogravimetric and other residue analyses pointed out that these contributions were especially due to the condensed phase flame retardancy mechanism of nanoclay which contributes stronger and carbonaceous char formation acting as a barrier to heat and flammable gases and retarding volatilization via tortuous pathway. POLYM. COMPOS., 2012. © 2012 Society of Plastics Engineers