Access to essential medicines, vaccines and medical technologies is the anchor pillar in this study. Medical products must be of assured quality, safety, effective, scientifically sound and cost effective. Rational use of medicines requires that a patient receives appropriate medications to their clinical needs, in doses that meet their own individual requirements, for an adequate period of time and at the lowest cost to them. It is concerned with how commodities are selected, procured, used and stored to ensure that the patients receive quality and efficacious products appropriate to their medical needs. There are a number of challenges that have been encountered in the rational use of drugs. These include lack of essential drugs, gaps in training and weak implementation of policy guidelines. The broad objective of this study was to assess the factors that influence rational drug use among doctors and pharmacists in public hospitals in Meru County. Specifically the study sought to determine how staff awareness on policy guidelines, management practices, product selection and inventory management influence rational drug use among doctors and pharmacists. A cross sectional study design was adopted having quantitative approaches. The sample size was 102 doctors and pharmacists who work in the public hospitals in Meru County. Both stratified and simple random samplings were used to sample the staff. A five point Likert scale based questionnaire was used to collect data. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS Version 23. Correlations were done between the dependent variable RDU and independent variables Staff awareness, inventory management, production selection and management practices. Significance levels were done at both 5% and 1%. There was a significant relationship between RDU and staff awareness (r=.232*, p=0.019) and inventory management (r=.324**, p=0.001). Coefficient of determination (R) of 0.402 was obtained compared to overall R2 of 0.162 and this explains 40.2% of total variations that explained factors that influence rational drug use among the healthcare workers in Meru County. The ANOVA findings (F (4,97)=4.68, p=0.002) shows that there is correlation between the predictors variables Staff awareness, management practices product selection , Inventory Management, and the dependent variable Rational drug use. This study recommends: i)The hospitals develop training manuals on rational drug use that will be used to create awareness on importance of Rational drug use among doctors and pharmacists to enhance knowledge and build capacity, ii) departmental heads to offer support supervision, quarterly assessment, appraisals and implement RDU in collaboration with doctors and pharmacists, iii) All the hospitals to constitute active Drugs and Therapeutics Committees in all the facilities to ensure that formularies are developed, policies are communicated and SOPs implemented, to enhance uniformity and build capacity, iv) to constitute procurement committee with all stakeholders including the doctors and pharmacists to ensure they are involved in the budgeting, selection and monitoring of Essential drugs.


Numerical models have been highly successful in simulating global carbon and nutrient cycles in today's ocean, together with observed spatial and temporal patterns of chlorophyll and plankton biomass at the surface. With this success has come some confidence in projecting the century‐scale response to continuing anthropogenic warming. There is also increasing interest in using such models to understand the role of plankton ecosystems in past oceans. However, today's marine environment is the product of billions of years of continual evolution—a process that continues today. In this paper, we address the questions of whether an assumption of species invariance is sufficient, and if not, under what circumstances current model projections might break down. To do this, we first identify the key timescales and questions asked of models. We then review how current marine ecosystem models work and what alternative approaches are available to account for evolution. We argue that for timescales of climate change overlapping with evolutionary timescales, accounting for evolution may to lead to very different projected outcomes regarding the timescales of ecosystem response and associated global biogeochemical cycling. This is particularly the case for past extinction events but may also be true in the future, depending on the eventual degree of anthropogenic disruption. The discipline of building new numerical models that incorporate evolution is also hugely beneficial in itself, as it forces us to question what we know about adaptive evolution, irrespective of its quantitative role in any specific event or environmental changes.


OBJECTIVES
The objective of this study was to review and illustrate the sometimes diagnostically challenging features of cardiac sarcoidosis. We emphasize variable phenotypes presented at explant and biopsy evaluation and review literature regarding ancillary clinical and pathologic studies to enhance diagnostic accuracy.

METHODS
A literature review was performed and two cardiac sarcoidosis cases were illustrated.

RESULTS
Our cases and literature review demonstrate the pathologic spectrum of cardiac sarcoidosis. Irregular left ventricular free wall involvement is most common, followed by the interventricular septum and right ventricle. Although granulomas are often composed of tight epithelioid macrophage aggregates, early granulomas comprise loosely associated macrophages with lymphocyte predominance. Chronic disease leads to fibrosis and end-stage heart failure. Sampling errors and variable histology cause low endomyocardial biopsy sensitivity.

CONCLUSIONS
Current guidelines use clinical, radiologic, and immunohistologic criteria for diagnosing cardiac sarcoidosis. Knowledge of these guidelines will assist pathologists in making accurate diagnosis of this disease.


This study aims to increase the understanding on the strategic logic behind the un-led military non-force missions. Six out of 25 missions are evaluated to determine how strategy is elaborated within the un-system. The cases include observer missions, liaison missions and advisory missions. The analysis illuminates the interaction between the political and military strategic levels as well as the strategic awareness displayed by the un regarding non-force missions. Also the potential added value of non-force missions in peacekeeping is discussed. The authors conclude that there is an imbalance between the strategic preferences of the unsc and the unsg. The strategic awareness as well as the mission character is shown to differ between types of non-force missions. Their purpose seems to be keeping peace by observing war. It is up to the unsc and the unsg to judge whether passive oversight of the ongoing crisis is sufficient or if more active measures are justified.


In this dissertation project, three studies of socialisation in music are presented. In study one, two groups of musicians, one from a University College of Music and the other, a rock group from the non- university music scene, were asked to arrange and record a finished version of a 'rock song', especially created for this project. The second study treated how music students in teacher training programs, and students without formal music education experienced and interpreted the diverse versions of the songs created. The third, a interview study, focused more exclusively on the informants early musical socialisation and how their different learning strategies and experiences of music correlated with their wish to start and maintain studies in music education programmes. The theoretical background for the project as a whole reached across several research fields, for example Music pedagogy, Psychology and Social psychology. In study one, information concerning thinking and acting before and during the studio recordings was collected. Results showed that the final versions of the songs created, belonged to stylistically different genres of composition. The College Group made a jazzy pop song and the Rock Group's version was within the style of hardcore music. The two versions not only sounded completely different, they were also within a musical province, which the other group felt strong antipathy for. The observation data and information from the interviews showed very separate attitudes to music making and to learning strategies when playing in an ensemble. Listeners' comments in study two, clearly showed that the populations differed in experience of tempos, intensity, variation and focus on the lyrical material. The students with formal training in music preferred other styles of music than other undergraduates, and showed more diffuse knowledge of music styles within the rock genre. Study three indicated that students at music colleges are socialised with a specific set of values, which exclusively prevail within colleges of music. The final stage in a long process of development is their time at the music college. The study also shed light on the relationship between formal and non-formal learning amongst pop- and rock musicians. Results would suggest that in the way one is performing music and which genre that is to be favoured, is motivated by the way one has played and learned music. Early musical influences, formal musical training and musical preferences – the musical socialisation – is influencing people's interpretation of both institutional and non- institutional learning environments. The students are educated within a school context with its associated set of values and norms regarding musical, tastes in music, musical form and performance, as well as gaining musical competence. Future music teachers must be prepared for meeting an audience with a broad range of different music experiences and expectations. It is reasonable to expect that what is to be demanded of music teachers, is to be open minded and have understanding which is to be emphasized in multicultural societies. Music teachers, and the music teacher education in music colleges, must thus learn to understand and cope with many different learning situations. The question is whether music colleges have the "right stuff" for providing this competence during the student's years at school?


Positional games are a well-studied class of combinatorial games. In their usual form, two players take turns to play moves in a set ('the board'), and certain subsets are designated as 'winning': the first person to occupy such a set wins the game. For these games, it is well known that (with correct play) the game cannot be a second-player win. In the avoidance (or mis e re) form, the first person to occupy such a set loses the game. Here it would be natural to expect that the game cannot be a first-player win, at least if the game is transitive, meaning that all points of the board look the same. Our main result is that, contrary to this expectation, there are transitive games that are first-player wins, for all board sizes which are not prime or a power of 2. Further, we show that such games can have additional properties such as stronger transitivity conditions, fast winning times, and 'small' winning sets.


There are two views about morphology, the aspect of language concerned with the internal structure of words. One view holds that morphology is a domain of knowledge with a specific type of neurocognitive representation supported by specific brain mechanisms lateralized to left fronto-temporal cortex. The alternate view characterizes morphological effects as being a by-product of the correlation between form and meaning and where no brain area is predicted to subserve morphological processing per se. Here we provided evidence from Arabic that morphemes do have specific memory traces, which differ as a function of their functional properties. In an MMN study, we showed that the abstract consonantal root, which conveys semantic meaning (similarly to monomorphemic content words in English), elicits an MMN starting from 160 msec after the deviation point, whereas the abstract vocalic word pattern, which plays a range of grammatical roles, elicits an MMN response starting from 250 msec after the deviation point. Topographically, the root MMN has a symmetric fronto-central distribution, whereas the word pattern MMN lateralizes significantly to the left, indicating stronger involvement of left peri-sylvian areas. In languages with rich morphologies, morphemic processing seems to be supported by distinct neural networks, thereby providing evidence for a specific neuronal basis for morphology as part of the cerebral language machinery.


In the present study an attempt has been made to study the economic analysis of tomato cultivation in Kandi block, Murshidabad district, West Bengal. For this 60 tomato growers selected from the study area. The primary data for the agriculture year 2016-17 were collected by personal interviews of the selected farmer, using a multistage sampling method with the help of pre-tested survey schedule. The main objectives were to analyze the cost and return structure of tomato cultivation and to identify the major constraints faced by the farmers in tomato cultivation. The total sample size was 60. Simple statistical tools like Averages, percentages, cost concepts and garrett ranking were used to interpret the results properly. The overall findings of the study reveal that the cost of cultivation of tomato was ` 50879.94 out of which total variable cost was ` 40456.52. The net income of the farmers per acre.was ` 83385.80. Output in the study area found to be 8853 kg per acre and cost of production was estimated ` 5.74 per kg. The major constraints identified in tomato cultivation were Non availability of institutional support, disease and pest attack, high cost of seeds, high cost of pesticides and high cost of labours during peak season etc. during peak season.


Considerable attention has been paid to the benefits that urban trees provide and recent research has focused on how the distribution of trees in the urban landscape is affected by socioeconomic processes like social stratification, as indicated by associations with income, race, ethnicity, and education. These studies have found marked disparity in urban canopy cover, with primarily low income and minority neighborhoods commonly being underserved. However, few studies have investigated the potential to overcome urban canopy inequities through urban planning and reforestation. This question becomes even more important as many U.S. cities pledge to increase urban canopy cover as part of larger climate change mitigation strategies. Can today's heavily developed U.S. cities use these tree planting initiatives to increase equity in urban canopy cover while still providing the infrastructure and housing necessary for expected population growth? This case study characterizes the socioeconomic drivers of the current urban canopy cover in Boston, Massachusetts, and further explores the possibility of distributing trees to increase equitable access to environmental justice and ecosystem services, while meeting housing and infrastructure needs. Results suggest that even when tree planting initiatives focus specifically on increasing canopy cover for environmental justice communities, equitable distribution of urban trees is difficult to achieve. Our findings indicate that difficulties arise not only from the expected policy and funding aspects, but also from ecological ones, including the physical availability of tree planting sites in environmental justice communities.


Abstract. The Secchi depth and its relationships to other properties of the sea water in the Oslofjord–Skagerrak area have been investigated. White and black disks of different sizes have been applied, and the Secchi depth has been observed with the naked eye, through colour filters and with a water telescope. Spectral luminances and illuminances have been calculated from recordings of radiance and irradiance, and attenuation coefficients have been determined. A theoretical expression for the Secchi depth based on luminances has been tested against field observations, and it is found that the field results for the product of Secchi depth and attenuation coefficients are on average only 4% less than the predicted value for the white disk. For the Secchi depths observed through colour filters or for the black disk, the average field results are more than 30% smaller than the theoretical estimates. The reduction in the disk diameter from 30 to 10 cm should theoretically reduce the Secchi depths by 13–22%, while the field observations show an average reduction of 10–20%. Similarly we find from theory that the removal of sun glitter should increase the Secchi depth by 12%, while the observed increase is 14% on average for the white disk. Our overall conclusion is that the theoretical expression works well for the white disk, but less so for the colour filter observations and the black disk. Statistical relationships between Secchi depths and attenuation coefficients have been determined, and it is found that the root-mean-square errors relative to the mean value are smaller for the beam attenuation coefficients (12–24%, white disk) than for the vertical attenuation coefficients (16–65%, white disk). The depth of the 1% level of surface quanta irradiance (PAR) can be estimated with a relative root-mean-square error of 23% from observations of the white Secchi depth. Similar estimates of chlorophyll a and total suspended material will have rms errors in the range 40–90%. Our conclusion becomes that the Secchi depth observation is a very useful tool for checking the value and order of magnitude of other related quantities in the Oslofjord–Skagerrak area.


As a medical anthropologist who has worked in primary healthcare research and medical education for many years, I was delighted to come across a recent article by Lamba et al ,1 entitled 'Identifying patient safety problems during team rounds: an ethnographic study.' I am currently working on several research projects that involve observing healthcare practitioners in various settings—the clinic, wards, surgical theatres—with a view to applying anthropological methods to understanding the phenomena under observation. It is the term 'ethnography' in the title that first captured my attention. Eager to see how other social scientists in the clinical setting had applied ethnographic methods and appropriate theoretical positionings, I began to read. Having reached the end of this short article, I was perplexed. The data collection was observational. The data analysis was descriptive statistics. What is it that makes this piece of research ethnographic? On …


Mathematical modeling uncovers how macrophages use the JAK-STAT pathway to fine-tune their responses to different Toll-like receptor stimuli. Modeling immune responses During the course of an infection, the host is often exposed to numerous pathogen-derived stimuli at different times. Macrophages are activated through Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3) by double-stranded viral RNA, whereas single-stranded viral RNA stimulates TLR7. Stimulation of TLR3 before TLR7 leads to the synergistically increased production of cytokines as part of the immune response. Liu et al. analyzed cytokine mRNA abundances in macrophages exposed to TLR3 and TLR7 stimuli in different orders and after different time intervals. Mathematical modeling of these data predicted and experiments validated that crosstalk occurred between both pathways and showed how the JAK-STAT pathway was required for TLR3 signaling to induce synergistic responses to subsequent TLR7 stimulation. This computational modeling approach may be applied to study other immune signaling pathways to uncover potential crosstalk mechanisms. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) recognize pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) and stimulate the innate immune response through the production of cytokines. The innate immune response depends on the timing of encountering PAMPs, suggesting a short-term "memory." In particular, activation of TLR3 appears to prime macrophages for the subsequent activation of TLR7, which leads to synergistically increased production of cytokines. By developing a calibrated mathematical model for the kinetics of TLR3 and TLR7 pathway crosstalk and providing experimental validation, we demonstrated the involvement of the Janus-activated kinase (JAK)–signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) pathway in controlling the synergistic production of cytokines. Signaling through this pathway played a dual role: It mediated the synergistic production of cytokines, thus boosting the immune response, and it also maintained homeostasis to avoid an excessive inflammatory response. Thus, we propose that the JAK-STAT pathway provides a cytokine rheostat mechanism, which enables macrophages to fine-tune their responses to multiple, temporally separated infection events involving the TLR3 and TLR7 pathways.


IMPORTANCE
Secretory phospholipase A2 (sPLA2) generates bioactive phospholipid products implicated in atherosclerosis. The sPLA2 inhibitor varespladib has favorable effects on lipid and inflammatory markers; however, its effect on cardiovascular outcomes is unknown.

OBJECTIVE
To determine the effects of sPLA2 inhibition with varespladib on cardiovascular outcomes.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
A double-blind, randomized, multicenter trial at 362 academic and community hospitals in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, India, and North America of 5145 patients randomized within 96 hours of presentation of an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) to either varespladib (n = 2572) or placebo (n = 2573) with enrollment between June 1, 2010, and March 7, 2012 (study termination on March 9, 2012).

INTERVENTIONS
Participants were randomized to receive varespladib (500 mg) or placebo daily for 16 weeks, in addition to atorvastatin and other established therapies.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES
The primary efficacy measure was a composite of cardiovascular mortality, nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI), nonfatal stroke, or unstable angina with evidence of ischemia requiring hospitalization at 16 weeks. Six-month survival status was also evaluated.

RESULTS
At a prespecified interim analysis, including 212 primary end point events, the independent data and safety monitoring board recommended termination of the trial for futility and possible harm. The primary end point occurred in 136 patients (6.1%) treated with varespladib compared with 109 patients (5.1%) treated with placebo (hazard ratio [HR], 1.25; 95% CI, 0.97-1.61; log-rank P = .08). Varespladib was associated with a greater risk of MI (78 [3.4%] vs 47 [2.2%]; HR, 1.66; 95% CI, 1.16-2.39; log-rank P = .005). The composite secondary end point of cardiovascular mortality, MI, and stroke was observed in 107 patients (4.6%) in the varespladib group and 79 patients (3.8%) in the placebo group (HR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.02-1.82; P = .04).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
In patients with recent ACS, varespladib did not reduce the risk of recurrent cardiovascular events and significantly increased the risk of MI. The sPLA2 inhibition with varespladib may be harmful and is not a useful strategy to reduce adverse cardiovascular outcomes after ACS.

TRIAL REGISTRATION
clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01130246.


The description of the conditions under which generic definite articles appear in the sentences of French is a real issue. We present here a simple syntactic rule, based on the theory of support verbs (Z. Harris 1968, M. Gross 1975), which accounts for the appearance of these articles in a particular set of sentences. In these sentences, the generic article is followed by a noun which can be associated with a support verb, and be replaced by a sentential complement of the type que S (that S).We first briefly describe a transformation which relates this sentential complement to its reduced form of simple noun. We then indicate a rule which consists in erasing the preposition de while applying this transformation. Various examples of sentences are shown in order to illustrate the wide range of application of the proposed rule. We also extend this rule to the case of sentences in which a generic definite article precedes a noun non linked with a support verb, and discuss the additional conditions required.


The experiment was conducted in the Center for Livestock and Agriculture Development (CelAgrid) in Cambodia. Four crossbred castrated male pigs, weighing on average 20 kg, were allotted at random to 4 diets, in a 2*2 factorial within a 4*4 Latin square, to study the effect of ensiled and sun-dried Taro leaves on intake, digestibility and N retention. The basal diets were rice bran + broken rice or rice bran + cassava root meal (1:1 ratio). The basal diets were offered at 2% of live weight (DM basis) and the dried or ensiled leaves ad libitum. Almost twice the quantity as DM was consumed as leaves when these were dried compared with the ensiled form. The taro leaves provided from 38 (ensiled) to 43% (sun-dried) of the dietary DM and from 75 (ensiled) to 82% (sun-dried) of the dietary protein. Apparent digestibility of DM and OM tended to be higher for the diets with dried versus ensiled Taro leaves. Coefficients for crude protein were lower, and for crude fiber, were higher for dried versus ensiled leaves. There were significant effects of N intake on urine N, faecal N and N retention. After adjusting these variables by covariance for N intake, there were significant effects of processing the Taro leaves on urine N (decreased in dried leaves) and faecal N (increased in dried leaves) but not on N retention. N retained as percentage of N intake was not affected by processing of the Taro leaves or by energy source . N retained as percentage of N digested was higher for dried versus ensiled Taro leaves and was not affected by differences in N intake. The apparently higher nutritive value of sun-dried compared with ensiled Taro leaves may have been caused by inadequacies in the ensiling process, resulting in excessive breakdown of the protein and poor palatability. The relatively high values of N retention (equivalent to about 250 g/day of live weight gain) and of retained N as a proportion of digested N in the diet with sun-dried Taro leaves, are indicative of a high biological value of the Taro leaf protein, especially as it represented over 80% of the dietary crude protein in these diets.


Real world applications of artificial intelligence often require agents to sequentially choose actions from continuous action spaces with execution uncertainty. When good actions are sparse, domain knowledge is often used to identify a discrete set of promising actions. These actions and their uncertain effects are typically evaluated using a recursive search procedure. The reduction of the problem to a discrete search problem causes severe limitations, notably, not exploiting all of the sampled outcomes when evaluating actions, and not using outcomes to help find new actions outside the original set. We propose a new Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) algorithm specifically designed for exploiting an execution model in this setting. Using kernel regression, it generalizes the information about action quality between actions and to unexplored parts of the action space. In a high fidelity simulator of the Olympic sport of curling, we show that this approach significantly outperforms existing MCTS methods.


Most scholarly research into the concept of military innovation tend to focus on the nature of military innovation and how it comes about, but rarely investigate the reasons why these innovations come about in the first place. Artificial Intelligence (AI), which forms the basis for many new technological advancements today, can compel military innovation. AI does not constitute military innovation, but the technological advancements produced based on AI can inspire senior officers to innovate in their military establishment. This paper seeks to conceptualize military innovation by considering various definitions and schools of thought on the subject and to examine the potential reasons for innovation as identified by Rosen, highlighting the role of AI within each of them.


In the near future, the federal government creates a committee to rid society of books it deems unsuitable. The libraries vow to protect their collections, and with the help of local governments, form a military group to defend themselves--the Library Forces! The Library Forces have decided that a censored author, Toma, must defect. But as he and the LF attempt to leave the courthouse, the roads are blocked by Media Betterment Committee troops! Library Forces member Iku Kasahara and her sergeant (and secret crush) Dojo make off in another direction with Toma. But when Dojo is injured in the escape attempt, Iku is charged with protecting both the endangered author and the man she loves!


We have reviewed the scientific literature regarding mechanisms behind, and preventive measures against, the occurrence of Scandinavian large carnivores (lynx, wolves and brown bears) near human settlements, and evaluated its management implications for Scandinavia. The occurrence of lynx close to settlement depends on the distribution of roe deer, its main wild prey in Scandinavia. Male lynx are generally closer to settlements than females, but during winter all categories may approach settlements to exploit the aggregation of roe deer near agricultural lands. Young wolves exhibiting exploratory movements, especially during dispersal from natal areas, may have an increased potential for occurring near settlements. In brown bears, subadults and females with dependent offspring are more often occurring near settlements than adult males, but not because of searching for food, but because of dispersal and avoidance of dominant conspecifics by predation-vulnerable individuals. In contrast to lynx and wolves, omnivorous bears can readily exploit human derived foods and have thus a potential for becoming food conditioned. We found no study evaluating the effectiveness of preventive measures when dealing with large carnivores near settlements. Several studies deal with livestock depredation and preventing large carnivore access to human derived food sources. Some of these studies might be relevant when preventing large carnivore occurrence near settlements. However, the general pattern among large carnivores to avoid settlements indicates that human habituation and food conditioning are uncommon behaviors in Scandinavia. The occasional occurrence of large carnivores near settlements is in general a consequence of intrinsic processes like dispersal in young animals, seeking prey or shelter from conspecifics, and should not be seen as un-natural behavior.


Purpose – This paper argues that usual key indicators used in real estate management only show differences to a planned level. For this reason we consider the construction of behavioural key indicators supporting the human decision-making and learning process to improve decision-making in real estate management.Design / methodology / approach – We draw on findings in the area of dynamic decision-making. This viewpoint implicates the existence of a dynamic system on the property level thus employing an analytical case for showing the dynamics in the rental cash flow pattern. Findings – The dynamics in real estate cash flow pattern are driven by interdependencies and feedback processes between a set of variables. Thus, traditional instruments of managing the rental process are prone to erroneous perception about the 'real-world'. Furthermore classical key indicators neither support the human decision-making process as well as the learning process for understanding such dynamic systems. A computational system is proposed to address support for both the dynamic decision-making and learning process.Research limitations / implications – (1) More research is needed on the validation of dynamic behaviour in cash flow pattern. (2) Validation on the performance of decision-making in the specific context of the rental process is needed. For this paper it is intended to raise questions for future research rather than delivering answers to this difficult and complex topic. Originality / value – The paper provides a new viewpoint on decision-making in real estate management by means of transforming task methodology in real estate management.Paper type – Viewpoint, Case studyArticle Classification: R10, G02, G17, C58


A fundamental difference between application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) is that the wires in ASICs are designed to match the requirements of a particular design. Conversely, in an FPGA, the area is fixed and the routing resources exist whether or not they are used. In this paper, we investigate how well several common network topologies map onto a modern FPGA routing fabric. Different multiprocessor network topologies with between 8 and 64 nodes are mapped to a single large FPGA. Except for the fully-connected networks, it is observed that the difference in logic resources used and routing overhead among these topologies is insignificant for the systems tested. Fully-connected networks up to about 22 nodes are also feasible on the same FPGA although the logic and routing utilization clearly grows much faster. The conclusion is that a modern FPGA fabric is very rich in resources and capable of supporting highly interconnected topologies. For systems with a modest number of nodes implemented on current large FPGAs, it is not necessary to use the connectivity-limited topologies typically used for networks-on-chip. Rather, direct point-to-point connections between all communicating nodes can be considered.


In general relativity, the picture of spacetime assigns an ideal clock to each spacetime point. Being ideal, gravitational effects due to these clocks are ignored and the flow of time according to one clock is not affected by the presence of surrounding clocks. However, if time is defined operationally, as a pointer position of a physical clock that obeys the laws of quantum mechanics and general relativity, such a picture is at most a convenient fiction. We show that the mass-energy equivalence implies gravitational interaction between the clocks, while the superposition of energy eigenstates leads to a non-fixed metric background. Based only on the assumption that both quantum mechanics and general relativity are valid in this situation, we show that the clocks necessarily get entangled through time dilation effect, which eventually leads to a loss of coherence of a single clock. Hence, the time as measured by a single clock is not well-defined. However, the general relativistic notion of time is recovered in the classical limit of clocks.


A series of experiments were conducted to evaluate the use of tropical
fodder legume, Gliricidia sepium leaf as a potential source of protein in the
diet of Mozambique tilapia, Oreochromis mossambicus. The effect of leaf
age (plant leaf harvesting time) on crude protein (CP) and crude fiber (CF)
contents of Gliricidia sepium were determined. G. sepium trees were pruned
and leaf samples were taken monthly for five months. Results from chemical
analyses of leaves revealed that in terms of its crude protein content, G.
iv
sepium leaves need to be harvested within 1-3 months after cutting. Leaves
harvested from older trees tend to contain less protein.
The chemical composition and apparent protein digestibility (APD) of
Gliricidia sepium leaves by tilapia, O. mossambicus, were also investigated.
G. sepium leaf meal was found to contain high (26.0%) crude protein but low
in essential amino acids such as histidine, isoleucine, leucine, phenylalanine,
valine and methionine. The apparent protein digestibility was found to be
about 56%. In addition, G. sepium has the high crude fiber content.
The optimum inclusion level of G. sepium leaf meal in tilapia (O.
mossambicus) diet was also determined. Six diets containing 0%, 10%, 25%,
40%, 50% and 88% G. sepium leaf meal were prepared and fed at 4% per
body weight per day for 27 g tilapia for 70 days. Growth performances data
obtained revealed that the optimum inclusion level of G. sepium leaf meal is
40% of the total diet. Inclusion of G. sepium leaf meal above this level
resulted in lower growth of O. mossambicus.
The effect of different feeding rate on the performance of G. sepium leaf
meal as O. mossambicus diet was also evaluated. Fish were fed diet
containing 40% G. sepium leaf meal at 2%, 3%, 4% and 5% per fresh body
weight per day. Data on growth and feed utilization performances showed
v
that O. mossambicus can be fed diet containing 40% G. sepium leaf meal at
two percent of wet body weight per day. This feeding rate resulted in
statistically comparative growth and feed utilization performance by the
tilapia with 3%, 4% and 5% feeding rates.
In addition to these, two processing methods of G. sepium leaf meal were
compared. Three diets were prepared: 1) a control diet (using fishmeal as
sole protein source), 2) oven-dried and 3) presoaked and dried G. sepium
leaf meal. The diets were fed to O. mossambicus fingerlings for 70 days.
Growth and feed utilization performances of O. mossambicus showed that
the three diets resulted in similar performances. It was therefore concluded
that G. sepium leaf meal can be used as oven-dried (unsoaked) meal. This
might be due to the fact that the major anti-nutritional factors found in this
legume are so low in the leaf part of the plant.


The research presented in this thesis aims to extend the capabilities of human interaction proofs in order to improve security in web applications and services. The research focuses on developing a more robust and efficient Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Human Apart (CAPTCHA) to increase the gap between human recognition and machine recognition. Two main novel approaches are presented, each one of them targeting a different area of human and machine recognition: a character recognition test, and an image recognition test. Along with the novel approaches, a categorisation for the available CAPTCHA methods is also introduced. The character recognition CAPTCHA is based on the creation of depth perception by using shadows to represent characters. The characters are created by the imaginary shadows produced by a light source, using as a basis the gestalt principle that human beings can perceive whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves. This approach was developed in two stages: firstly, two dimensional characters, and secondly three-dimensional character models. The image recognition CAPTCHA is based on the creation of cartoons out of faces. The faces used belong to people in the entertainment business, politicians, and sportsmen. The principal basis of this approach is that face perception is a cognitive process that humans perform easily and with a high rate of success. The process involves the use of face morphing techniques to distort the faces into cartoons, allowing the resulting image to be more robust against machine recognition. Exhaustive tests on both approaches using OCR software, SIFT image recognition, and face recognition software show an improvement in human recognition rate, whilst preventing robots break through the tests.


Over the past decade, 3C-related methods, complemented by increasingly detailed microscopic views of the nucleus, have provided unprecedented insights into chromosome folding in vivo. Here, to overcome the resolution limits inherent to the majority of genome-wide chromosome architecture mapping studies, we extend a recently-developed Hi-C variant, Micro-C, to map chromosome architecture at nucleosome resolution in human embryonic stem cells and fibroblasts. Micro-C maps robustly capture well-described features of mammalian chromosome folding including A/B compartment organization, topologically associating domains (TADs), and cis interaction peaks anchored at CTCF binding sites, while also providing a detailed 1-dimensional map of nucleosome positioning and phasing genome-wide. Compared to high-resolution in situ Hi-C, Micro-C exhibits substantially improved signal-to-noise with an order of magnitude greater dynamic range, enabling not only localization of domain boundaries with single-nucleosome accuracy, but also resolving more than 20,000 additional looping interaction peaks in each cell type. Intriguingly, many of these newly-identified peaks are localized along stripe patterns and form transitive grids, consistent with their anchors being pause sites impeding the process of cohesin-dependent loop extrusion. Together, our analyses provide the highest resolution maps of chromosome folding in human cells to date, and provide a valuable resource for studies of chromosome folding mechanisms.


Spiritually Oriented Psychotherapy is the first book to critically and coherently survey how spirituality can be incorporated into a range of psychotherapeutic approaches, including psychoanalytic, cognitive-behavioral, humanistic, interpersonal, transpersonal, and others. Volume editors Sperry and Shafranske, both well-recognized and outstanding scholars, bring together a stellar group of contributors to describe the theoretical and clinical basis for their approaches and to illustrate their clinical application. A uniform structure across chapters and an integrative final chapter allow for easy comparison of the approaches. The volume editors examine current and future issues as well as the legacy of the psychoanalytic and Jungian foundations of spiritually oriented psychotherapy. This volume demonstrates the utility and accessibility of examining the spiritual dimension in therapy. It is likely to become a vital resource for the experienced clinician and the standard text for graduate programs in clinical, counseling and consulting psychology, and clinical social work.


Quartz veins in the south of Santiago del Estero. A study of the mineralogy, textural features and geometry of large quartz deposits, in Ambargasta and Sumampa ranges, allow us to divide them into two different groups: small pegmatites and large hydrothermal veins. The former were related to wall-rock emplacement, whereas the latter were controlled by regional lineaments that affected the Proterozoic basement. Hydrothermal veins are mainly composed of quartz with minor amount of opal, chalcedony and iron oxides. The most important hydrothermal vein, called Cantamampa, is approximately 3 km long, up to 8 m wide and 70 m high. The limited alteration produced by the hydrothermal fluids suggests that their precipitation temperatures must have been low. Only epidote, sericite and chlorite occur as wall-rock alteration. Pegmatites bodies are smaller and, although quartz and alkaline feldspars are the main components, muscovite is also present in minor amounts. Quartz from the most important pegmatite (Piedra Blanca) contains about 99.9% of SiO2. However, in the hydrothermal veins, where Si is partially replaced by Al, the SiO2 amount in the quartz decreases to 93%. Key word: Quartz, pegmatite, hydrothermal veins, Sumampa, Ambargasta.


There are many different classes of decision made during the development of a model. If models are to be shown to be appropriate for the specifed task, the information and assumptions upon which these decisions are based must be made xplicit. This paper describes AIM, an automated modeller that makes all its decisions with explicit knowledge. AIM separates different types of modelling knowledge in its knowledge base to prevent he embedding of assumptions in the structure of the modelling knowledge. It also uses a novel modelling algorithm that does not rely on either external sources of information or the structure of the knowledge base to generate models. We show that AIM generates parsimonious models and discuss some of the constraints on this approach.


Although the conspicuous epifauna of reducing environments are known to exhibit strong morphological, physiological, and nutritional adaptations for life in these habitats, it is less clear whether infaunal organisms do so as well. We examined metazoan macrofauna from methane-seep sediments on the northern California slope (500 to 525 m depth) and from seep and non-seep sediments at 3 locations on the shelf (31 to 53 m depth) to determine whether the community structure and nutritional sources of seep infauna were distinct from those in non-seep, margin sediments. Seep macrofauna consisted mainly of normal slope and shelf species found in productive settings. Several macrofaunal taxa, such as Capitella sp., Diastylopsis dawsoni, and Synidotea angulata, exhibited a preference for seeps. Other taxa, such as the amphipods Rhepoxynius abronius and R. daboius, avoided seeps. Species richness of shelf macrofauna, evaluated by rarefaction and diversity indices (H ' and J '), generally did not differ in seep and non-seep sediments. Similarly, stable isotopic composition (δ 13 C, δ 15 N) of active seep and non-seep macrofauna did not differ at the 3 shelf sites. Stable isotopic analyses of calcareous material confirmed the presence of methane-influenced pore waters at the slope study site. At one slope clam bed, macrofaunal δ 13 C signatures were lower and δ 15 N values were higher than at another clam bed, inactive slope sediments and shelf sites. However, only 1 of 14 macrofaunal taxa (a dorvilleid polychaete) exhibited isotopic evidence of chemosynthetic nutritional sources. At these sites, seep influence on the ecology of continental margin infauna appears spatially limited and relatively subtle. At their current level of activity, the northern California slope and shelf seeps appear to function as ephemeral, small- scale disturbances that are not sufficiently persistent to allow chemosynthesis-based trophic special- ization by most infauna. Rather, we suggest that many of the infauna inhabiting these seep sediments are shelf and slope species preadapted to organic-rich, reducing environments.


BACKGROUND
Interfering antibodies in human serum and plasma are known to react with mammalian antibodies in immunoassays and cause false-positive test results. Although this phenomenon was recently shown in companion animals, knowledge regarding immunoassay interference in veterinary medicine is very limited.

OBJECTIVES
The aims of this study were to set up a species-independent immunoassay procedure to detect interference in serum samples, to screen for interference in a cross-section of canine and feline patient samples from an animal hospital, and to determine if the detected interference could be neutralized using an immunoassay based on nonmammalian reagents.

METHODS
A 2-site sandwich-type interference assay was set up using commercially available mouse reagents. A total of 369 serum samples from 320 dogs and 263 samples from 218 cats were analyzed using the interference assay. Multiple samples were submitted from 36 dogs and 39 cats. Nineteen samples identified as interference-positive were analyzed in an assay using chicken antibodies.

RESULTS
Interference was detected in samples from 28 dogs (9%) and 10 cats (5%) screened with the interference assay. Except for 1 cat, consistent results were obtained for all 75 dogs and cats that submitted more than 1 sample. The interference was eliminated when analyzed in the chicken-based assay (P < .001).

CONCLUSIONS
Substances with reactivity toward mouse IgG can be detected in serum samples from dog and cat patients using a 2-site interference assay. The detected substances are most likely interfering antibodies, possibly originating from immunization with other mammalian species.


Nickel oxide doped Fe2O3 thin films have been prepared by spray pyrolysis technique on glass substrate temperature 400 oC. The initial solution was including a 0.1 M/L for both NiCl2 and FeCl3 diluted with redistilled water and a few drops of HCl. The effect of NiO-doping on Urbach energy and dispersion parameters was studied. UV-Visible spectrophotometer in the range of (300-900) nm used to determine absorption spectra. The Urbach energy decreased with increasing NiO content that inversely proportion to the energy gap, which increased from 2.53 eV before doping to 2.88 eV after 3% NiO-doping, also the same behavior of absorbance and the optical conductivity.While the real and imaginary dielectric constants and dispersion parameters such as Ed, Ei'µ, M-1, and M-3 are decreased with increasing NiO content in Fe2O3 thin films.


BACKGROUND A study was undertaken to assess the interactions between prenatal exposures, early life infections, atopic predisposition, and allergen exposures in the development of wheezing up to the age of 4 years in a tropical region of Africa. METHODS The study subjects comprised children born at the district hospital in Ifakara, Tanzania during a 1 year period who were participating in a trial of iron supplementation and malaria chemoprophylaxis during the first year of life and followed for up to 4 years. From this group of subjects, 658 (79%) participated in the interview at 18 months and 528 (64%) in a second interview at 4 years. Wheezing was measured with the ISAAC questionnaire. A hospital based inpatient and outpatient surveillance system was set up to document all attendance by study children for any cause, including episodes of clinical malaria and lower respiratory tract infections. Total IgE levels and malaria parasites were measured in maternal and cord blood. Total IgE was also measured at 18 months of age. Indoor environmental levels of Der p I and Fel d I were determined using an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay at the same time as the interview at the age of 18 months. RESULTS The prevalence of wheezing at 4 years is common in Ifakara (14%, range 13–15%). The presence of malaria parasites in cord blood (odds ratio, OR = 6.84, 95% CI 1.84 to 24.0) and maternal asthma (OR = 8.47, 95% CI 2.72 to 26.2) were positively associated with wheezing at the age of 4 years, and cord blood total IgE was negatively associated (OR = 0.24, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.85) (all p<0.05). Parasitaemia at birth was not related to total IgE levels in cord blood (p=0.6). Clinical episodes of malaria during infancy were not associated with wheezing, and nor were levels of indoor aeroallergens. CONCLUSION These findings suggest that events occurring during pregnancy may play a role in the future appearance of wheezing, although the results must be interpreted with caution because of the small numbers studied.


Resistance to standard cisplatin‐based chemotherapies leads to worse survival outcomes for patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Therefore, there is an urgent need to understand the aberrant mechanisms driving resistance in ESCC tumors. We hypothesized that ubiquilin‐4 (UBQLN4), a protein that targets ubiquitinated proteins to the proteasome, regulates the expression of Meiotic Recombination 11 Homolog A (MRE11A), a critical component of the MRN complex and DNA damage repair pathways. Initially, immunohistochemistry analysis was conducted in specimens from patients with ESCC (n = 120). In endoscopic core ESCC biopsies taken from 61 patients who underwent neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) (5‐fluorouracil and cisplatin), low MRE11A and high UBQLN4 protein levels were associated with reduced pathological response to NAC (P < 0.001 and P < 0.001, respectively). Multivariable analysis of surgically resected ESCC tissues from 59 patients revealed low MRE11A and high UBLQN4 expression as independent factors that can predict shorter overall survival [P = 0.01, hazard ratio (HR) = 5.11, 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.45–18.03; P = 0.02, HR = 3.74, 95% CI, 1.19–11.76, respectively]. Suppression of MRE11A expression was associated with cisplatin resistance in ESCC cell lines. Additionally, MRE11A was found to be ubiquitinated after cisplatin treatment. We observed an amplification of UBQLN4 gene copy numbers and an increase in UBQLN4 protein levels in ESCC tissues. Binding of UBQLN4 to ubiquitinated‐MRE11A increased MRE11A degradation, thereby regulating MRE11A protein levels following DNA damage and promoting cisplatin resistance. In summary, MRE11A and UBQLN4 protein levels can serve as predictors for NAC response and as prognostic markers in ESCC patients.


Many contemporary forms of oppression are not primarily the result of formally organized collective action nor are they an unintended outcome of a combination of individual actions. This raises the question of collective responsibility. I argue that we can only determine who is responsible for oppression if we understand oppression as a matter of social practices that create obstacles for social change. This social practice view of oppression enables two insights: First, that there is an unproblematic sense in which groups can bear irreducible collective responsibility for oppression. Second, that there are derived forms of individual responsibility for members of dominant groups.


The well-known classical pulse radar has several disadvantages. The high transmitted peak power can be easily detected and warn an enemy, and the ambiguities in both range and Doppler measurements lead to problems with unambiguous localization and tracking. For a long time researchers have tended to overcome these problems and find waveforms that will free the radar from the aforementioned issues. The design of the frequency modulated continuous wave radar with linear frequency modulation was an important step; the mean power is equal to the peak power and it is much harder to detect such radar, but range and Doppler ambiguities remain due to periodicity in the waveform repetition. The next step was the introduction of the noise radar concept. At first glance it is hard to believe that a noise signal, without any clear internal structure and well-defined instantaneous frequency, can be used for radar purposes. But thanks to the development of digital correlators which are able to compute the ambiguity function in real time, it is now possible to unambiguously estimate the range and radial velocity of the target using noise illumination. But of course one must pay a price: noise radar is limited not only by ambiguities in range and Doppler, but also in dynamic range. The strong return signal from nearby targets, or clutter, can entirely mask a weak and distant target's echoes. The second drawback is that signal processing is much more complex than in classical radars and thus the radar signal processing unit for a noise radar must have much higher computational power, which is achievable only by using modern computers equipped with graphical processing (GPU) units. The potential applications for noise radar can be vast; it is possible to use it for surveillance, traffic monitoring, and early warning and imaging (SAR, ISAR) purposes as the time on target is usually very long (hundreds of milliseconds to seconds).


Multi-item rating scales are the accepted solution for achieving reliable and valid measures in the social sciences. Issues not fully resolved include the optimal number of response categories, choice of semantic rating versus Likert form, and the appropriateness of mixing positively and negatively expressed items. While there is considerable empirical research on these issues, it addresses the scaling of respondents and is yet to produce consensus as to the most appropriate practice. In marketing, multi-item scales are not only used to scale consumer respondents, they are used to scale marketing stimuli. This article examines these response format issues when the primary objective is to scale marketing stimuli rather than consumers using generalisability theory criteria for data quality. G-study website assessment data using different response formats are used to compare their effects on the observed variance components and G-coefficients for websites. Conclusions are drawn for the most appropriate response format to use in marketing studies that scale marketing stimuli.


America's curiosity about elite military units is greater than ever in today's crisis-ridden world. And while numerous books have examined the various elite forces, Bunker Hill to Bastogne goes much further to show the relationship between these special units and the societies that gave birth to them. Though America in general has often regarded its military establishment as an unfortunate necessity, elite formations have nearly always emerged in moments of crisis. And while their exploits have fostered the cherished image of the individualistic but loyal rifleman-ranger, these legends have not always corresponded to reality. America's roster of heroic images has long included esteemed elite units, running the gamut from Roger's Rangers at Fort Ticonderoga during the American Revolution to Berdan's Sharpshooters during the Civil War and the paratroopers of Normandy in World War II. But despite Americans'reverent regard for, and patriotic depiction of, elite units, they initially distrusted the idea of a standing army given such abuses as the quartering of soldiers in citizens' homes. Indeed, the egalitarian American spirit caused the Founding Fathers to discourage a class of emperor-making military elites. And yet, elite units did emerge during every major American conflict. But the evolution of such forces has taken place in fits and starts, with units often demobilizing after a particular crisis had passed. Only since World War II have elite units become a consistently relied-upon arm of the military for dealing with constantly erupting global crises. Bunker Hill to Bastogne is a unique and timely chronicle of the birth and evolution of elite forces and the American public's reactions to them. It shows that despite Americans'wariness of a possible military elite, their love of the fabled rifleman-ranger has seldom dwindled, though in the twenty-first century their hero might wear a green beret rather than a coonskin cap.


Foundations of American Political Thought: Readings and Commentary explains American historical concepts and key political ideas from 1620 to 1910. In this primer for democracy, all verbatim passages and original documents point to their original intentions and ideological movements. Key terms and basic terminology are incisive and essential for a thorough understanding of democracy. This book represents the setting and trends that produced sound progress in American political growth.


Abstract Organo-bentonites were prepared using a bentonite and an aqueous cetyltrimethylammonium hydroxide solution. The ratio of the surfactant (in mmoles) to the cation exchange capacity varied from 0.5 to 20, with 20 being the highest ratio ever reported in the literature. At high surfactant to cation exchange capacity ratios, the interlayer spacing increased to 3.75 nm due to the formation of a paraffin-type bilayer of surfactant cations, which was shown to be mainly in gauche conformations using solid state 13C CP/NMR. When the exchange reaction was carried out in a methanol-water mixture, the expansion of the organo-bentonites depended on the concentration of methanol (% by volume). The decomposition temperatures of the organic cations depended on the basal spacing of the organo-bentonites, and in situ X-ray diffraction revealed that the basal spacing of our organo-bentonites was stable up to 210°C. Above this temperature, the basal spacing shrunk to 1.47 nm due to decomposition of the surfactants.


In this project we address the numerical approximation of hyperbolic equations and systems using the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method in combination with higher order polynomial degrees. In short, this is called Spectral Discontinuous Galerkin (SDG) method. Our interest is to review the theoretical properties of the SDG-method, particularly for what concerns stability, convergence, dissipation and dispersion. Special emphases will be shed on the role of the two parameters,(the grid-size) and (the local polynomial degree). In this respect, we will carefully analyse the available theoretical results from the literature, then we extend some of them and implement several test cases with the purpose of assessing quantitatively the predicted theoretical properties.


Abstract There are at least four unexplained anomalies connected with astrometric data. Perhaps the most disturbing is the fact that when a spacecraft on a flyby trajectory approaches the Earth within 2000 km or less, it often experiences a change in total orbital energy per unit mass. Next, a secular change in the astronomical unit AU is definitely a concern. It is reportedly increasing by about 15 cm yr−1. The other two anomalies are perhaps less disturbing because of known sources of nongravitational acceleration. The first is an apparent slowing of the two Pioneer spacecraft as they exit the solar system in opposite directions. Some astronomers and physicists, including us, are convinced this effect is of concern, but many others are convinced it is produced by a nearly identical thermal emission from both spacecraft, in a direction away from the Sun, thereby producing acceleration toward the Sun. The fourth anomaly is a measured increase in the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit. Here again, an increase is expected from tidal friction in both the Earth and Moon. However, there is a reported unexplained increase that is significant at the three-sigma level. It is prudent to suspect that all four anomalies have mundane explanations, or that one or more anomalies are a result of systematic error. Yet they might eventually be explained by new physics. For example, a slightly modified theory of gravitation is not ruled out, perhaps analogous to Einstein's 1916 explanation for the excess precession of Mercury's perihelion.


That our true stories may be violent, distasteful, painful, stunning, and haunting, I do not doubt. But our true stories will be literature. --Dorothy Allison, "Believing in Literature" Incest has had a long literary career, marking the intersection of kinship, narrative, and nation in the United States. From Charles Brockton Brown's Wieland (1798) to William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (1929), the specter of incest has been used across literary genres and periods to bespeak a crisis in the changing symbolic romance joining that ever unenviable couple, family and nation. But, according to Katie Roiphe in her 1995 Harper's article "Making the Incest Scene," at the end of the twentieth century the role of incest in United States literature suddenly and dramatically changed. Whereas once the specter of incest was used to symbolize a crisis in national family life, it is now the reality of incest that seems to hold the nation captive. As Roiphe quotes from Sapphire's incest novel Push (1996), "We is a nation of raped children." "Whatever the truth of that," Roiphe quips in response, "we are certainly a nation that wants to read about them" (68). This revelation that the United States is a "nation of raped children" is, in Roiphe's snide synopsis, accurate only if reading about something makes it a reality. Incest narratives exemplify a new national trend for critics such as James Kincaid and Laura Miller, who argue that sexually shocking, tabloid-style revelations were the stock-in-trade of the publishing and popular culture industry of the 1990s. According to critics of this 1990s boom, a new cultural market in incest conflates the literary scene with the social real, producing a transformation in the traditional referents of the American family romance. In place of a literature symbolizing the link between family and nation as a prohibition against incest, in the late twentieth century it is the presumed social reality of incest that drives national literary markets. These new family romances share a singular drive toward what Roiphe calls "a bargain-basement epiphany" or a kind of "psychological lightning" (68). Such a formal repetitiveness trains readers to experience realism as contemporaneous "reality," seducing them into a shared experiential reading that uses the literal and literalizing trope of incest to translate revelatory shock into comforting predictability. As Roiphe summarizes the telos of these new family romances: "the entire story is reduced to a riddle, and incest is the answer" (68). Roiphe's claim that the United States is experiencing a boom in realist incest literature bears an odd relation to the history of literary writing on incest in one particular variety of American literature: that of the U.S. South. Roiphe's genealogy of the incest novel begins with a great English tradition such as the sibling incest in Daniel Defoe's Mall Flanders (1722), transmuted by the "gothic imaginations" (68) of southern writers such as William Faulkner and Erskine Caldwell, literalized in the 1970s by emerging black women writers such as Toni Morrison (The Bluest Eye 1970) and Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 1971), and then popularized by a wide range of mainstream authors in the 1990s. That this genealogy somehow now becomes "national" marks an interesting turning point in the significance--or signification--of incest. Once, incest contributed to romantic aesthetics and ideologies, taken up and transmuted to fit the "horrors" of U.S. racism and its haunting of the American South. (1) Now it has become part of "everybody's family romance," a form of realist narrative that joins together the multicultural nation through the traumatic survival of incest, creating a form I call survivor realism. Here I will turn to Dorothy Allison's 1992 novel Bastard Out of Carolina to make this point, asking how literary genealogies of incest are used to constitute new realist--and nationalist--formations of family romance. …


The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) engaged an extraordinary number of exceptional artists and writers: Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Martha Gellhorn, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, John Dos Passos, to name only a few. The idealism of the cause - defending democracy from fascism at a time when Europe was darkening toward another world war - and the brutality of the conflict drew from them some of their best work: Guernica, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Homage to Catalonia. Paralleling the outpouring of writing and art, the war spurred breakthroughs in military and medical technology. So many different countries participated directly or indirectly in the war that Time magazine called it the 'Little World War'; Spain served in those years as a proving ground for the devastating technologies of World War II, and for the entire 20th century.


Purpose: Activating PIK3CA genomic alterations are frequent in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), and there is an association between phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling and radioresistance. Hence, we investigated the therapeutic efficacy of inhibiting PI3K with GDC-0032, a PI3K inhibitor with potent activity against p110α, in combination with radiation in HNSCC. Experimental Design: The efficacy of GDC-0032 was assessed in vitro in 26 HNSCC cell lines with crystal violet proliferation assays, and changes in PI3K signaling were measured by Western blot analysis. Cytotoxicity and radiosensitization were assessed with Annexin V staining via flow cytometry and clonogenic survival assays, respectively. DNA damage repair was assessed with immunofluorescence for γH2AX foci, and cell cycle analysis was performed with flow cytometry. In vivo efficacy of GDC-0032 and radiation was assessed in xenografts implanted into nude mice. Results: GDC-0032 inhibited potently PI3K signaling and displayed greater antiproliferative activity in HNSCC cell lines with PIK3CA mutations or amplification, whereas cell lines with PTEN alterations were relatively resistant to its effects. Pretreatment with GDC-0032 radiosensitized PIK3CA-mutant HNSCC cells, enhanced radiation-induced apoptosis, impaired DNA damage repair, and prolonged G2–M arrest following irradiation. Furthermore, combined GDC-0032 and radiation was more effective than either treatment alone in vivo in subcutaneous xenograft models. Conclusions: GDC-0032 has increased potency in HNSCC cell lines harboring PIK3CA-activating aberrations. Further, combined GDC-0032 and radiotherapy was more efficacious than either treatment alone in PIK3CA-altered HNSCC in vitro and in vivo. This strategy warrants further clinical investigation. Clin Cancer Res; 22(8); 2009–19. ©2015 AACR.


Changes in δ-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) synthetase activity, endogenous nuclear RNA polymerase activities (nucleolar and nucleoplasmic), and the availability of chromatin DNA to serve as template for RNA synthesis in rat liver in response to treatment with two porphyria-producing compounds, allylisopropylacetamide (AIA) and 3,5-dicarbethoxy-1,4-dihydrocollidine (DDC), were determined. The alterations observed were compared with changes produced by two compounds that do not cause porphyria, phenobarbital (PB) and 3-methylcholanthrene (MC). Only AIA and DDC caused marked induction of ALA synthetase activity; PB caused a slight increase, and MC, no increase, in ALA synthetase. All four compounds caused some change in nuclear RNA synthesis in comparison with results in control animals given vehicle alone. AlA, DDC, and PB caused increased levels of RNA polymerase I (nucleolar) activity at time points later than 2 hr after injection, whereas MC resulted in a decreased level of RNA polymerase I activity at 8 and 12 hr. DDC, PB, and MC also caused prominent modulations in RNA polymerase II (nucleoplasmic) activity, the values 8 hr after injection being considerably greater than in control livers. An elevation in endogenous polymerase II activity persisted at 12 hr only in the DDC- and MC-treated animals. These alterations in polymerase II activity for the most part can be explained by changes in chromatin template capacity. DNA-dependent RNA synthesis using excess bacterial polymerase roughly paralleled the changes in polymerase II activity caused by DDC, PB, and MC treatment. Conversely, AIA caused only minimal changes in either polymerase II or chromatin template capacity. These data and those from other laboratories suggest that AIA and DDC may have different primary sites of action in the induction of excessive quantities of ALA synthetase, the first and rate-limiting enzyme in heme biosynthesis.


The use of celebrities as endorser of product in advertisements is a very popular strategy in marketing communications. Empirical evidences from western samples justify the hiring of celebrities in advertisements. While the strategy has spread across other countries around the world, there is a lack of studies done to determine the effectiveness of this strategy in other markets especially the Asian markets. Moreover, a new phenomenon has emerged where celebrities become entrepreneurs by starting ventures and endorsing their own brand in advertisement. As the strategy becomes more prevalent across many media, there is a need to assess the value added by celebrities in advertisements. In this regard, the credibility of the celebrity as the source in the communication process becomes the primary focus of this study. The main objective of this study was to determine the effects of three aspects of credibility in celebrity entrepreneur endorser advertisement on advertising effectiveness. Source Credibility Theory, Hierarchy of Effects Models and Tripartite Attitude Theory were employed as theoretical foundations for developing the present conceptual model. More significantly, this study investigated the perceived credibility of the company that sponsors the advertisement and the credibility of the advertising message in addition to the credibility of the celebrity entrepreneur endorser on advertising effectiveness as antecedents. The three traditional variables to measure advertising effectiveness were attitude toward the advertisement, attitude toward the brand and purchase intention. The methodology adopted for the study was survey method using quota sampling technique. A printed, real celebrity entrepreneur endorsed advertisement was attached to the questionnaire as the stimulus. The celebrity selected was Dato' Siti Nurhaliza and her brand of skincare product, SimplySiti, based on a pretest conducted with 30 respondents. The drop-and collect data collection technique utilized produced 542 usable questionnaires. Using structural equation modeling, the data analyzed provides the empirical findings for the thesis. The results from hypothesis testing show that nine hypothesized links were supported and three were not supported. With some minor modification, a plausible model that has a statistical and explanatory power for interpretation of results was confidently established. The findings from this study could offer several major contributions to the marketing and advertising theory as well as marketing communications practitioners. Firstly, it identified celebrity decorum as the key determinant of celebrity entrepreneur endorser credibility. Secondly, all the three aspects of credibility related to the celebrity, company and advertisement message, had a direct effect on attitude toward the advertisement and attitude toward the brand. However, their impact on purchase intention was indirect and mediated by attitude toward the advertisement or attitude toward the brand or both. Additionally, both attitude constructs had a positive and significant effect on purchase intention for brand of skincare products endorsed by a celebrity entrepreneur with brand attitude appears to be the key determinant of purchase intention. The findings from this study form part of the strategic recommendations to marketing communicators in the face of advertising/media clutter and competition. Apart from providing empirical results to understand Malaysian advertising industry and celebrity culture, this study's findings also established an empirical foundation for future research.


The transcriptional response in Vero cells (ATCC® CCL-81) infected with the coronavirus Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus (PEDV) was measured by RNAseq analysis 4 and 6 hours after infection. Differential expressed genes (DEGs) in PEDV infected cells were compared to DEGs responding in Vero cells infected with Mammalian Orthoreovirus (MRV). Functional analysis of MRV and PEDV DEGs showed that MRV increased the expression level of several cytokines and chemokines (e.g. IL6, CXCL10, IL1A, CXCL8 [alias IL8]) and antiviral genes (e.g. IFI44, IFIT1, MX1, OASL), whereas for PEDV no enhanced expression was observed for these "hallmark" antiviral and immune effector genes. Pathway and Gene Ontology "enrichment analysis" revealed that PEDV infection did not stimulate expression of genes able to activate an acquired immune response, whereas MRV did so within 6h. Instead, PEDV down-regulated the expression of a set of zinc finger proteins with putative antiviral activity and enhanced the expression of the transmembrane serine protease gene TMPRSS13 (alias MSPL) to support its own infection by virus-cell membrane fusion (Shi et al, 2017, Viruses, 9(5):114). PEDV also down-regulated expression of Ectodysplasin A, a cytokine of the TNF-family able to activate the canonical NFKB-pathway responsible for transcription of inflammatory genes like IL1B, TNF, CXCL8 and PTGS2. The only 2 cytokine genes found up-regulated by PEDV were Cardiotrophin-1, an IL6-type cytokine with pleiotropic functions on different tissues and types of cells, and Endothelin 2, a neuroactive peptide with vasoconstrictive properties. Furthermore, by comprehensive datamining in biological and chemical databases and consulting related literature we identified sets of PEDV-response genes with potential to influence i) the metabolism of biogenic amines (e.g. histamine), ii) the formation of cilia and "synaptic clefts" between cells, iii) epithelial mucus production, iv) platelets activation, and v) physiological processes in the body regulated by androgenic hormones (like blood pressure, salt/water balance and energy homeostasis). The information in this study describing a "very early" response of epithelial cells to an infection with a coronavirus may provide pharmacologists, immunological and medical specialists additional insights in the underlying mechanisms of coronavirus associated severe clinical symptoms including those induced by SARS-CoV-2. This may help them to fine-tune therapeutic treatments and apply specific approved drugs to treat COVID-19 patients.


Abstract:This article discusses the changing nature of art history when it comes to black British artists and suggests that such history has perhaps moved away from existing to instead correcting or addressing the systemic absences of such artists from British art. This is typified by Rasheed Araeen's 1989 exhibition The Other Story, the first major attempt to create a broad black British art history, and several other not dissimilar, exhibitions. The article also considers what changes to the fortunes of a small number of black British artists might be deduced from the awarding of honors by the queen and the extension of membership in the Royal Academy to a handful. The article draws attention to the ways in which major London galleries such as the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Serpentine, and the Whitechapel have, over the course of the past two decades, hosted the first main-space solo shows of black British artists' work. With so much having happened to limited numbers of black British artists, this introduction suggests that burgeoning scholarship on these and other artists is timely, and that the articles assembled for this issue of Nka are a reflection of this increased attention. Among its concluding considerations are the ways in which much of this new scholarship emanates from US rather than from British universities. Finally, the article urges a "rescuing from obscurity" of important pioneering texts on black British artists.


Abstract: The U.S. Bureau of Mines established a wire rope research laboratory to examine the factors that affect the safety and the useful life of wire rope. In the most recent work, two 32-mm 6x27H flattened strand ropes were degraded on a bending fatigue machine. The two tests were run at constant loads of 285 and 347 kN or safety factors of 2.5 and 2. Nondestructive and tensile strength tests were performed on samples of the ropes to determine the relationship between rope deterioration and rope breaking strength. Neither the area loss nor the number of broken wires measured from nondestructive tests could be used as clear indicators of the loss of strength. However, it was found from the tensile tests for both rope specimens that the strength loss was associated with the reduction of breaking strain. This suggests that measuring the strain of many short sections of a rope in the elastic region may locate the high stress sections and thus determine the condition of the rope.


Application-layer multicast (ALM), as alternative to IP multicast, provides group communication without the need for network infrastructure support. To improve the reliability of ALM service, path diversity has been studied and two schemes to construct diverse paths for hosts are proposed. One is the random multicast forest (RMF) and the other is topology-aware hierarchical arrangement graph (THAG). RMF makes the paths from the media source to a participating host diverse by selecting parents for each host randomly, while THAG makes the paths node-disjoint by constructing multiple independent multicast trees, where any interior node in a multicast tree will be leaf node in all the other multicast trees. Topology-awareness is implemented in both schemes to make them efficient for media delivery. We compare the reliability and efficiency of THAG and RMF through extensive simulation. The results show that the reliability of THAG has been improved up to 20% compared with RMF. The efficiency metrics, such as relative delay penalty, link stress, and delay variation among different trees in THAG, are also smaller than or almost the same as that in RMF. The results indicate that THAG is a reliable and efficient ALM scheme for streaming media service.


Episodic memory exercises such as reminiscing and storytelling have been shown to provide therapeutic benefits for older adults by prolonging their ability to lead an independent lifestyle. In this paper, we describe a mobile reminiscence tool called Memory Karaoke, which facilitates episodic memory exercise through contextualized storytelling of meaningful experiences by using contextual cues such as location, time, and photos. We present results from two studies we conducted with Memory Karaoke to explore which contextual cues contribute to best exercising a person's episodic memory. Our findings suggest that while viewing photos do exercise episodic memory to some extent, additional contextual cues (e.g. location and time) can solicit a greater amount of episodic memory exercise. This suggests that Memory Karaoke's selective capture process and its ability to contextualize memories while users retell stories are two effective features which help it to support episodic memory use. These results, together with positive qualitative feedback, provide promising evidence for Memory Karaoke as a viable mobile alternative for helping older adults to exercise their episodic memory and, in turn, assist them in successfully "aging in place".


For our second annual study of the law review business, we added circulation data for four flagship law reviews (UCLA, Texas, USC, and Washington University) and two specialty journals (NYU's Tax Law Review and Duke's Law and Contemporary Problems). We also corrected a few errors in the tables in our first study and filled-in a few blanks. And, finally, we noticed something that might be worth thinking about: the possibility that the law school combover culture has infected law reviews.


Several web browsers, including Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, use malware warnings to stop people from visiting infectious websites. However, users can choose to click through (i.e., ignore) these malware warnings. In Google Chrome, users click through a fifth of malware warnings on average. We investigate factors that may contribute to why people ignore such warnings. First, we examine field data to see how browsing history affects click-through rates. We find that users consistently heed warnings about websites that they have not visited before. However, users respond unpredictably to warnings about websites that they have previously visited. On some days, users ignore more than half of warnings about websites they've visited in the past. Next, we present results of an online, survey-based experiment that we ran to gain more insight into the effects of reputation on warning adherence. Participants said that they trusted high-reputation websites more than the warnings; however, their responses suggest that a notable minority of people could be swayed by providing more information. We provide recommendations for warning designers and pose open questions about the design of malware warnings.


Shortest path problems are among the most fundamental combinatorial optimization problems with many applications, both direct and as subroutines. They arise naturally in a remarkable number of real-world settings. A limited list includes transportation planning, network optimization, packet routing, image segmentation, speech recognition, document formatting, robotics, compilers, traffic information systems, and dataflow analysis. Shortest path algorithms have been studied since the 1950's and still remain an active area of research. This volume reports on the research carried out by participants during the Ninth DIMACS Implementation Challenge, which led to several improvements of the state of the art in shortest path algorithms. The infrastructure developed during the Challenge facilitated further research in the area, leading to substantial follow-up work as well as to better and more uniform experimental standards. The results of the Challenge included new cutting-edge techniques for emerging applications such as GPS navigation systems, providing experimental evidence of the most effective algorithms in several real-world settings.


Accounts of privacy law have focused on legislation, federal agencies, and the self-regulation of privacy professionals. Crucial agents of regulatory change, however, have been ignored: the state attorneys general. This article is the first in-depth study of the privacy norm entrepreneurship of state attorneys general. Because so little has been written about this phenomenon, I engaged with primary sources — first interviewing state attorneys general and current and former career staff, and then examining documentary evidence received through FOIA requests submitted to AG offices around the country. Much as Justice Louis Brandeis imagined states as laboratories of the law, offices of state attorneys general have been laboratories of privacy enforcement. State attorneys general have been nimble privacy enforcement pioneers where federal agencies have been more conservative or constrained by politics. Their local knowledge, specialization, multi-state coordination, and broad legal authority have allowed them to experiment in ways that federal agencies cannot. These characteristics have enabled them to establish baseline fair information protections; expand the frontiers of privacy law to cover sexual intimacy and youth; and pursue enforcement actions that have harmonized privacy policy. Although certain systemic practices enhance AG privacy policy making, others blunt its impact, including an over reliance on informal agreements that lack law's influence and a reluctance to issue closing letters identifying data practices that comply with the law. This article offers ways state attorneys general can function more effectively through informal and formal proceedings. It addresses concerns about the potential pile-up of enforcement activity, federal preemption, and the dormant Commerce Clause. It urges state enforcers to act more boldly in the face of certain shadowy data practices.


Cooperation is ubiquitous in biological and social systems. Previous studies revealed that a preference toward similar appearance promotes cooperation, a phenomenon called tag-mediated cooperation or communitarian cooperation. This effect is enhanced when a spatial structure is incorporated, because space allows agents sharing an identical tag to regroup to form locally cooperative clusters. In spatially distributed settings, one can also consider migration of organisms, which has a potential to further promote evolution of cooperation by facilitating spatial clustering. However, it has not yet been considered in spatial tag-mediated cooperation models. Here we show, using computer simulations of a spatial model of evolutionary games with organismal migration, that tag-based segregation and homophilic cooperation arise for a wide range of parameters. In the meantime, our results also show another evolutionarily stable outcome, where a high level of heterophilic cooperation is maintained in spatially well-mixed patterns. We found that these two different forms of tag-mediated cooperation appear alternately as the parameter for temptation to defect is increased.


This Article describes the rise of a new form of regulatory havens. Jurisdictions that have traditionally been characterized as "tax havens" are gradually becoming hubs for blockchain-based ventures. These jurisdictions attract blockchain entrepreneurs by offering refuge from regulatory and tax burdens imposed by developed economies. These new "Blockchain Havens" create a regulatory "race to the bottom" that is traditionally associated with the world of international tax evasion and avoidance. Over the past several years, developed economies have put to use—mostly through coordinated efforts—several regulatory frameworks aimed to address some of the negative effects of tax havens. These regulatory instruments are aimed against the haven jurisdictions themselves, or the private institutions operating in such jurisdictions. However, this Article argues that the unique nature of blockchain-based technology—most importantly, decentralization and temper resistance—makes such traditional anti-tax haven policies ineffective in the blockchain context. This Article argues that coordinated international regulatory policies must be quickly developed to address certain important aspects of blockchain technology. Such coordination is necessary to prevent an uncontrolled regulatory race to the bottom, while at the same time preserving the benefits of blockchain-based applications.


Attention is increasing in academia towards the governance of adaptation, specifically how state and non-state actors are defining the adaptation 'problematique' and crafting public policies to address it. Adaptation is the 'adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities'. The challenge for governments is taking this rather vague concept and turning it into viable and implementable public policies. This implies that they have to make choices as to the types of polices to create, the sectors they should cover, ministerial jurisdictions and funding. This article contributes to the discussion on the adaptation governance by presenting a conceptual framework that outlines policy choices governors need to make, by applying this framework to a number of countries, and starting the debate on which choice or choices were particularly instrumental in shaping adaptation policy in particular countries as a whole. It focuses on four countries traditionally seen to be adaptation leaders: Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom.


The importance of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) for bone regeneration is growing. Among MSC the bone marrow-derived stem cells (BMSC) are considered the gold standard in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine; however, the adipose-derived stem cells (ASC) have very similar properties and some advantages to be considered a good alternative to BMSC. The molecular mechanisms driving adipogenesis are relatively well-known but mechanisms driving osteogenesis are poorly known, particularly in pig. In the present study we have used transcriptome analysis to unravel pathways and biological functions driving in vitro adipogenesis and osteogenesis in BMSC and ASC. The analysis was performed using the novel Dynamic Impact Approach and functional enrichment analysis. In addition, a k-mean cluster analysis in association with enrichment analysis, networks reconstruction, and transcription factors overlapping analysis were performed in order to uncover the coordination of biological functions underlining differentiations. Analysis indicated a larger and more coordinated transcriptomic adaptation during adipogenesis compared to osteogenesis, with a larger induction of metabolism, particularly lipid synthesis (mostly triglycerides), and a larger use of amino acids for synthesis of feed-forward adipogenic compounds, larger cell signaling, lower cell-to-cell interactions, particularly for the cytoskeleton organization and cell junctions, and lower cell proliferation. The coordination of adipogenesis was mostly driven by Peroxisome Proliferator-activated Receptors together with other known adipogenic transcription factors. Only a few pathways and functions were more induced during osteogenesis compared to adipogenesis and some were more inhibited during osteogenesis, such as cholesterol and protein synthesis. Up-stream transcription factor analysis indicated activation of several lipid-related transcription regulators (e.g., PPARs and CEBPα) during adipogenesis but osteogenesis was driven by inhibition of several up-stream regulators, such as MYC. Between MSCs the data indicated an 'adipocyte memory' in ASC with also an apparent lower immunogenicity compared to BMSC during differentiations. Overall the analysis allowed proposing a dynamic model for the adipogenic and osteogenic differentiation in porcine ASC and BMSC.


In the eastern US seismicity is low, hazard is moderate, and risk is quite high, especially in metropolitan regions with vulnerable transportation systems typically not designed to resist earthquake loads. Seismic load ratios for earthquakes with 2,500-year vs. 500-year average recurrence periods measure from 2 to 4; hence, they are about 2-times higher in the eastern than in the western US. To account for these higher load ratios we suggest that for the design and retrofit of ordinary bridges, a recurrence period of about 1,000 years be chosen. For essential and critical bridges recurrence periods of about 2,500 and 5,000 years, respectively, are proposed (subject to further review). Ideally, design strategies should be fully risk-based (i.e. based on societal loss/cost/benefit relations), rather than mostly hazard-based as is essentially the case now. Site or soil factors in current seismic bridge design codes (e.g. AASHTO) do not serve well to account for the higher ground motion amplification on soft soils, nor reduction on hard rock, typical for the eastern US and for periods ≥.3sec. The site factors urgently need revisions for which models exist as exemplified by the newly drafted New York City seismic code provisions. Quantitative methods need to be codified for screening soil profiles for their liquefaction potential. In the eastern US, soil liquefaction and slope instabilities have been observed to much larger distances than in the western US. In short: the seismic risk to bridges and transportation lifelines in the eastern US is higher than the low level of seismicity alone would suggest. This higher risk needs to be addressed for the design of new, and retrofit of existing systems. Risk-rather than purely hazard-based design/retrofit strategies could be cost-effectively applied to gauge the seismic safety requirements of essential and critical transportation systems which society expects to function even after significant earthquakes.


Pancreatic islet cells provide the major source of counteractive endocrine hormones required for maintaining glucose homeostasis; severe health problems result when these cell types are insufficiently active or reduced in number. Therefore, the process of islet endocrine cell lineage allocation is critical to ensure there is a correct balance of islet cell types. There are four endocrine cell types within the adult islet, including the glucagon-producing alpha cells, insulin-producing beta cells, somatostatin-producing delta cells and pancreatic polypeptide-producing PP cells. A fifth islet cell type, the ghrelin-producing epsilon cells, is primarily found during gestational development. Although hormone expression is generally assumed to mark the final entry to a determined cell state, we demonstrate in this study that ghrelin-expressing epsilon cells within the mouse pancreas do not represent a terminally differentiated endocrine population. Ghrelin cells give rise to significant numbers of alpha and PP cells and rare beta cells in the adult islet. Furthermore, pancreatic ghrelin-producing cells are maintained in pancreata lacking the essential endocrine lineage regulator Neurogenin3, and retain the ability to contribute to cells within the pancreatic ductal and exocrine lineages. These results demonstrate that the islet ghrelin-expressing epsilon cells represent a multi-potent progenitor cell population that delineates a major subgrouping of the islet endocrine cell populations. These studies also provide evidence that many of hormone-producing cells within the adult islet represent heterogeneous populations based on their ontogeny, which could have broader implications on the regulation of islet cell ratios and their ability to effectively respond to fluctuations in the metabolic environment during development.


An analysis of Jamaica's agriculture support policies and programs shows that Jamaican consumers are financing the bulk of supports to the agriculture sector. This report estimates the agriculture public support policies and programs of Jamaica between 2006 and 2011. This analysis of the agriculture programs and policies provides an understanding of the level and composition by type of support for different crops and livestock producers during 2010-2011. The estimate of total agriculture supports (measured as the total support estimate, TSE) in Jamaica in 2011 was approximately United States (U.S.) 675 million dollars (J$58.071 million), representing 4.7 percent of total gross domestic product (GDP) and 22.7 percent of agriculture GDP. Jamaica has been facing significant development challenges over the last three decades. It is in this context of fiscal restrictions and potential further economic and social stagnation, that the Government of Jamaica and the World Bank have been prompted to take action to better understand the degree and type of support Jamaican farmers are receiving. Once the level of support is understood within Jamaica's economic context, policy and program recommendations can be made to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the support structure, addressing agriculture sector competitiveness issues and constraints. In this context, the report presents introduction; supports to agriculture; and summary and conclusions.