Liquid-liquid extraction offers an alternative separation technique, other than distillation, that uses a solvent for the separation of liquid constituents (Pratt, 1983). The vibrating plate extractor (VPE) is a mechanically agitated column that offers many advantages to conventional extraction equipment. Besides the dimensions of the column (diameter and height) and plate design, the VPE has many variables that may be appropriately adjusted to achieve the desired results viz. amplitude and frequency of vibrations, tray spacing, individual flow rates and the final throughput. The first part of the paper investigates the difference in hydrodynamics of the column due to the mass transfer process showing that the hydrodynamics (dispersed phase holdup, droplet size and size distribution) cannot be investigated without mass transfer in order to predict the behaviour during mass transfer. The second part of this paper is devoted to the investigation of the effect of agitation level on the extent of mass transfer.


Treating large bone defects represents a major challenge in traumatic and orthopedic surgery. Bone tissue engineering provides a promising therapeutic option to improve the local bone healing response. In the present study tissue biocompatibility, systemic toxicity and tumorigenicity of a newly developed composite material consisting of polylactic acid (PLA) and 20% or 40% bioglass (BG20 and BG40), respectively, were analyzed. These materials were seeded with mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) and endothelial progenitor cells (EPC) and tested in a rat calvarial critical size defect model for 3 months and compared to a scaffold consisting only of PLA. Serum was analyzed for organ damage markers such as GOT and creatinine. Leukocyte count, temperature and free radical indicators were measured to determine the degree of systemic inflammation. Possible tumor occurrence was assessed macroscopically and histologically in slides of liver, kidney and spleen. Furthermore, the concentrations of serum malondialdehyde (MDA) and sodium oxide dismutase (SOD) were assessed as indicators of tumor progression. Qualitative tissue response towards the implants and new bone mass formation was histologically investigated. BG20 and BG40, with or without progenitor cells, did not cause organ damage, long-term systemic inflammatory reactions or tumor formation. BG20 and BG40 supported bone formation, which was further enhanced in the presence of EPCs and MSCs. This investigation reflects good biocompatibility of the biomaterials BG20 and BG40 and provides evidence that additionally seeding EPCs and MSCs onto the scaffold does not induce tumor formation.


These recommendations provide a data-supported approach. They are based on the following: (1) formal review and analysis of the recently published world literature on the topic (Medline search); (2) American College of Physicians Manual for Assessing Health Practices and Designing Practice Guidelines1; (3) guideline policies, including the AASLD Policy on the development and use of Practice Guidelines and the American Gastroenterological Association Policy Statement on Guidelines2; and (4) the experience of the authors in the specified topic. Intended for use by physicians, these recommendations suggest preferred approaches to the diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventive aspects of care. They are intended to be flexible, in contrast to standards of care, which are inflexible policies to be followed in every case. Specific recommendations are based on relevant published information. To more fully characterize the quality of evidence supporting recommendations, the Practice Guideline Committee of the AASLD requires a Class (reflecting benefit versus risk) and Level (assessing strength or certainty) of Evidence to be assigned and reported with each recommendation (Table 1, adapted from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association Practice Guidelines).3,4


Hands-on intermediate-to-advanced coverage of the leading 3D softwareAutodesk Maya is the industry-leading 3D animation and effects software used in movies, visual effects, games, and other genres. If you already know the basics of Maya and are ready to elevate your skills, then this book is for you. Nearly 1,000 pages are packed with organized, professional, and valuable insight on the leading 3D application on the market, enabling you to unlock the software's more complex features. Ideal as both a tutorial and study guide for the Autodesk Maya exam, this Autodesk Official Press book gets you up to speed on Maya's latest features and expands your skills with advanced instruction on cloth, fur, and fluids. Features challenging tutorials and real-world scenarios from some of the leading professionals in the industryProvides you with valuable insight into the entire CG production pipelineCovers the very latest Maya 2014 tools and features, including updates to dynamics, Maya muscle, stereo cameras, assets, rendering with mental ray, and moreHelps you gain proficiency in high-level techniques for film, television, game development, and moreIf you've been looking for a complete, professional quality Maya resource to turn to again and again, look no further than Mastering Autodesk Maya 2104.


Abstract. The SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) imagery are largely used for the environmental, structures and infrastructures monitoring. In particular, Differential SAR Interferometry (DInSAR) is a well known technique that allows producing spatially dense displacement maps with centimetre to millimetre accuracy. The SAR signal is characterized by phase and amplitude value and the DInSAR remote sensing technique allows to analyse deformation phenomena affecting both extended natural areas and localized man-made structures, by exploiting the phase difference of SAR image pairs. New SAR satellite sensors such as COSMO-SkyMed, TerraSAR-X and PAZ offer the capability to achieve positioning in a global reference frame accuracies in the meter range and even better, thanks to the higher image resolution (up to 0.20 m pixel resolution in the Staring SpotLight mode for TerraSAR-X and PAZ) and to the use of on board dual frequency GPS receivers, which allows to determine the satellite orbit with an accuracy at few centimetres level. The goal of this work is to exploit the slant-range measurements reaching centimetre accuracies using only the amplitude information of SAR images acquired by TerraSAR-X satellite sensor. The leading idea is to evaluate the positioning accuracy of well identifiable and stable natural and man-made Persistent Scatterers (PS's) along the SAR line of sight. The preliminary results, obtained on the Berlin area (Germany), shown that it is possible achieve a slant-range positioning accuracy with a bias well below 10 cm and a standard deviation of about 3 cm; the results are encouraging for applications of high resolution SAR imagery amplitude data in land and infrastructures monitoring.


Abstract. As sediment loads impact freshwater systems and infrastructure, their origin in complex landscape systems is of crucial importance for sustainable management of agricultural catchments. We differentiated the sediment source contribution to a lowland river in central Switzerland by using compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA). We found a clear distinction of sediment sources originating from forest and agricultural land use. Our results demonstrate that it is possible to reduce the uncertainty of sediment source attribution in: (i) using compound content (in our case, long-chain fatty acids; FAs) rather than soil organic matter content to transfer δ13C signal of FAs to soil contribution and (ii) restricting the investigation to the long-chain FAs (> C22 : 0) not to introduce errors due to aquatic contributions from algae and microorganisms. Results showed unambiguously that during base flow, agricultural land contributed up to 65 % of the suspended sediments, while forest was the dominant sediment source during high flow. This indicates that connectivity of sediment source areas within the river changes between base and high flow conditions. Uncertainty, which might occur in complex, large-scale studies due to undetected source attribution and/or CSSI signature degradation, is low because of limited data complexity in our study (i.e., two–three sources and two tracers). Our findings are the first published results highlighting (i) significant differences in compound-specific stable isotope (CSSI) signature of sediment sources from land uses dominated by C3 plant cultivation and (ii) the use of these differences to quantify sediment contribution to a small river.


Purpose. To analyze optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) findings in eyes with central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC) and to compare them with those obtained with multimodal imaging. Methods. A series of consecutive patients diagnosed with CSC, underwent OCTA and multimodal imaging, including spectral domain OCT, fluorescein, and indocyanine green angiography. OCTA images were performed at three main depth intervals: automatically segmented outer retina, manually adjusted outer retina, and automatically segmented choriocapillaris. Results. Thirty-three eyes of 32 consecutive patients were analyzed. OCTA showed 3 main anomalies at the choriocapillaris: the presence of dark areas (19/33 eyes) which were frequently associated with serous retinal detachment, presence of dark spots (7/33 eyes) which were frequently associated with retinal pigment epithelium detachment, and presence of abnormal vessels (12/33 eyes) which were frequently, but not systematically, associated with choroidal neovascularization, as confirmed by multimodal imaging. Conclusions. OCTA revealed dark areas and dark spots, which were commonly observed. An abnormal choroidal pattern was also observed in one-third of cases, even when multimodal imaging did not evidence any choroidal neovascularization. Abnormal choroidal vessels should be interpreted with caution, and we could assume that this pathological choroidal vascular pattern observed in many CSC cases could be distinct from CNV.


In Western Australia, the fungicide phosphite is being applied to selected native plant communities in order to reduce the impact of the root and collar rot pathogen, Phytophthora cinnamomi. The effect of this fungicide on the growth and function of ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi and their mycorrhizas was unknown. Taking the hypothesis that phosphite has a deleterious effect on mycorrhizal fungi, this study explored potential detrimental effects of phosphite on early colonising ectomycorrhizal fungi.

Ten isolates of Scleroderma and Pisolithus from Western Australia, isolated from a range of host plants. These isolates were partnered with Agonis flexuosa, Melaleuca scabra, Eucalyptus globulus, E. sieberi and four clonal lines of E. marginata (jarrah) in vitro. The isolates that formed a mantle, Hartig net and epidermal cell elongation characteristic of a successful symbiosis, were chosen for further studies on two contrasting E. marginata clonal lines, that were resistant or susceptible to P. cinnamomi. Foliar drenching with phosphite induced different responses in the two clonal lines when they were non-mycorrhizal. Phosphite decreased root production in the resistant clone, and increased the number of plantlets that produced roots in the susceptible clonal line. Generally, 3 g phosphite/L reduced the host response to mycorrhizal infection, and mycorrhizas reduced root responses to phosphite compared to those seen in non-mycorrhizal plants.

To determine if phosphite could have a direct inhibitory effect on the hyphae of ECM fungi, three isolates of Laccaria, Scleroderma and Pisolithus were grown in pure culture, on media containing a range of phosphite and phosphate concentrations. The biomass of Laccaria generally decreased as phosphite concentration increased at low phosphate concentrations. As phosphate concentration increased, the biomass of each Laccaria isolate generally increased irrespective of phosphite concentration. In hyphae of the three isolates of Laccaria, the increasing concentrations of phosphate in the media resulted in significant accumulation of phosphate. In two isolates, external phosphite supply had no effect on phosphate uptake. Scleroderma and Pisolithus tolerated the same concentration of phosphite as phosphate, while Laccaria was more sensitive to phosphite. There was a significant difference in growth between Laccaria isolates, while there was less variation between isolates of Scleroderma and Pisolithus. Scleroderma was most sensitive with two isolates being killed by 40 mM and the third being killed by 100 mM phosphite, while 120 – 140 mM phosphite was fungicidal to Laccaria and Pisolithus isolates.

In the glasshouse, non-mycorrhizal seedlings of E. marginata, E. globulus and A. flexuosa were sprayed to run-off with 0 to 10 g phosphite/L, and then planted into soil naturally infested with early colonising mycorrhizal species. Phosphite had no effect on the percentage of roots infected with mycorrhizal fungi. In another experiment, E. globulus seedlings ectomycorrhizal with Scleroderma, Pisolithus and Descolea were treated with 0 to 10 g phosphite/L and infection of new roots by ectomycorrhizal fungi was assessed. At the recommended rate (5 g phosphite/L), phosphite had no effect on ectomycorrhizal formation, while at 10 g/L phosphite decreased infection by Descolea by 15%.

An in vitro study was undertaken on a clonal line of E. marginata to determine if the foliar application of 3 g phosphite/L had any effect on the ability of Scleroderma and Pisolithus spores to germinate and infect roots. There was no significant difference in the percentage of infected primary and lateral root tips in phosphite and control plants inoculated with Scleroderma or Pisolithus spores.

To determine if the soluble and cell wall bound peroxidases and phenolics involved in host defence responses are affected by phosphite treatment of the host, a series of interactions with E. marginata, ECM fungi and P. cinnamomi were examined. Phosphite significantly reduced P. cinnamomi lesion length in all mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal treatments and altered static peroxidase activity and phenolic concentrations in the roots of all non-mycorrhizal plants.

Phosphite did not induce changes in peroxidase activity or phenolic concentration in roots of the susceptible clone when in indirect contact with Pisolithus. However, there was a general increase in peroxidase activity and phenolic concentration in roots of the resistant clone in the presence of Pisolithus and P. cinnamomi. In contrast, phosphite decreased peroxidase activity in the susceptible clone in the presence of Scleroderma and had no effect on soluble or cell wall bound phenolics. Phosphite did not alter peroxidase activity or phenolic concentration in roots of the resistant clone challenged by P. cinnamomi in the presence of either Scleroderma or Pisolithus. In contrast, phosphite significantly increased peroxidase activity, and decreased soluble phenolic concentration in the roots of the susceptible clone in the presence of Pisolithus.

A glasshouse trial examined the effect of foliar applied phosphite (3 g/L) on P. cinnamomi infection of roots of mycorrhizal E. marginata plants. Laccaria, Scleroderma and Pisolithus mycorrhiza were established with seedlings and a P. cinnamomi susceptible clonal line of E. marginata prior to phosphite treatment. P. cinnamomi zoospores were inoculated to the root zone 10 days after phosphite application. P. cinnamomi was recovered from 84% and 52% of the untreated seedlings and clonal plants respectively, whether they were ectomycorrhizal or not. By contrast, in phosphite treated plants, P. cinnamomi was recovered in 10% of seedlings and 6% of clonal plants. There was no difference in P. cinnamomi recovery between mycorrhizal types in seedlings and clonal plants. More P. cinnamomi was recovered from mycorrhizal than non-mycorrhizal clonal plants. There was no correlation between the extent of mycorrhizal fungal colonisation and the percentage of P. cinnamomi infected roots in clonal plants or seedlings.

Overall conclusions
Although only a few ECM fungi and host species were examined in this study, it appears that phosphite, when used at the recommended rate (5 g/L), may not have a detrimental effect on ECM formation. The concentration of phosphite that is fungicidal to ECM fungi in vitro is generally in excess of levels that would be found in treated plant tissues. However, when the recommended rate was exceeded it was shown that phosphite significantly decreased infection by Descolea.

This study has shown that there is variation between genera of ECM fungi, host plants, type of plant (clonal material or seedlings) in response to phosphite. However, this study did not take into account differing phosphate concentrations and its effect on phosphite and mycorrhizal interactions, which would further increase these variations. This demonstrates that generalisations cannot be made on the effect of phosphite on ECM fungi and ECM plants.


The broadband parametric upconverted conical emission (CE) has been investigated in a β-barium borate crystal with phase matching angles away from second harmonic generation. A broad range of CE from 340 to 800 nm has been observed by varying the crystal thickness and the incident energy of the pump beam. It has been found that the tunability range can be increased with the thickness of the medium. The CE spectra and their angular positions have been measured and found to match with those calculated from recent theoretical models.


This study deals with the Swedish cultural heritage in the United States and aims to examine how and why individuals living in the U.S. select and affirm certain concepts and phenomena as particularly Swedish. The focus is on Lindsborg, Kansas, a town of some 3,000 inhabitants who identify themselves as Swedish Americans, Swedes, and non-Swedes, and on how they organize, prepare and enact parades in which they display notions of Swedishness to audiences of 10,000 visitors or more. These parades are enacted during the Svensk Hyllningsfest, an event which townspeople have arranged biennially since 1941 in honor of the Swedish settlers of Lindsborg and their descendants. The study is based on four periods of fieldwork, of which one (1997-1998) follows the planning, organization and the final enactment of the Hyllningsfest. The ethnographic fieldwork is discussed, especially ethical issues and the processes of converting Weld experiences into written texts. In addition, the study is based on newspaper reports and festival publicity material, some of which dates back to the 1910s. Thus the contemporary focus is given historical depth. Based on theories of events, performances, heritage making, and public memory, and touching upon the development of the heritage industry and small town economics, the study draws on the premise that repeated performances allow participants to negotiate, motivate and articulate issues that are important to them. In particular, the analyses highlight the relationship between heritage, commercialization and dedication, between heritage as ceremony and heritage as humor, and between heritage as choice and heritage as lineage. Today, Lindsborg prides itself on its voluntary heritage making, a perception that is part of the town leadership's strategy. The analyses show how organizers and other inhabitants communicate different visions of the town heritage through the Svensk Hyllningsfest Parade. While the organizers praise recognized stock images of "Swedishness," participants are more likely to express individual visions of things Swedish. By enacting parades that occur before the official event parade, some groups challenge the official parade, thereby adding complexity to the simplified image of Swedishness that the official organizers advocate. The contest between organizers and participants is a battle over the concept of heritage, and over the appropriateness of the professional heritage industry, including tourism and commercial event makers. Through the parade, Lindsborgians express deep values and existential issues at the same time as they focus on ideals linked to ethnic hierarchy and class, contesting simplified notions of heritage. The study illustrates how Sweden and Swedish America have developed in separate cultural directions. But it also demonstrates that the two are now moving closer together through collaboration in heritage tourism. While Lindsborg looks toward Sweden to renew its expressions of Swedishness, community leaders in Sweden show interest in Lindsborg's competence in managing cultural performance. This collaboration involves selected rural communities in Sweden with which Lindsborgians share values, friendships and commitments.


1. Total phosphorus (TP) and chlorophyll a (Chl a) chironomid inference models (Brodersen & Lindegaard, 1999; Brooks, Bennion & Birks, 2001) were used in an attempt to reconstruct changes in nutrients from three very different lake types. Both training sets were expanded, particularly at the low end of the nutrient gradient, using contemporary chironomid assemblages and environmental parameters from 12 British lakes, although this had little improvement on the model performances. 2. Dissimilarity analyses showed that the historic chironomid assemblages did not have good analogues in the original calibration or extended datasets. However, since the transfer functions are based on weighted averages of the trophic optima for the taxa present and not on community similarities, reasonable downcore inferences were produced. Ordination analyses also showed that the lakes retain their 'identity' over time, as the sample dissimilarities within lakes were less than the dissimilarities between lakes. 3. Analysis of the three historic lake profiles showed a range of chironomid community responses to lake development. Chironomids from a shallow lake, Slapton Ley, responded indirectly to nutrient enrichment (TP), probably through altered substrate, macrophyte and fish conditions, rather than directly to primary productivity (Chl a). A stratified lake, Old Mill Reservoir, showed a loss of the profundal chironomid fauna due to increasing primary productivity (Chl a) coupled with increasing hypoxia. A response to nutrients (TP or total nitrogen (TN)) at this site is also indirect, and the TP reconstruction therefore cannot be reliably interpreted. The third lake, March Ghyll Reservoir has little change in historic chironomid communities, suggesting that this well mixed, relatively unproductive lake has changed less than the other lakes. 4. Using chironomids to reconstruct nutrient histories does not follow a simple scheme. The response to changes in nutrients may be direct, but mediated through other ecosystem components. As alternative stable states are possible at a given level of TP it is also likely that alternative chironomid communities exist under similar nutrient conditions. Changes in biological communities can thus occur over thresholds, and it is only biological proxies that can reflect such ecosystem switches within palaeoenvironmental investigations.


To adapt to many different objects and tasks, hands are very complex systems with many degrees of freedom (DoFs), sensors, and actuators. In robotics, such complexity comes at the cost of size and weight of the hardware of devices, but it strongly affects also the ease of their programming. A possible approach to simplification consists in coupling some of the DOFs, thus affording a reduction of the number of effective inputs, and eventually leading to more efficient, simpler, and reliable designs. Such coupling can be at the software level, to achieve faster, more intuitive programmability or at the hardware level, through either rigid or compliant physical couplings between joints. Physical coupling between actuators and simplification of control through the reduction of independent inputs is also an often-reported interpretation of human hand movement data, where studies have demonstrated that few "postural synergies" explain most of the variance in hand configurations used to grasp different objects. Together with beneficial simplifications, the reduction of the number of independent inputs to a few coupled motions or "synergies" has also an impact on the ability of the hand to dexterously control grasp forces and in-hand manipulation. This paper aims to develop tools that establish how many synergies should be involved in a grasp to guarantee stability and efficiency, depending on the task and on the hand embodiment. Through the analysis of a quasi-static model, grasp structural properties related to contact force and object motion controllability are defined. Different compliant sources are considered, for a generalization of the discussion. In particular, a compliant model for synergies assumed, referred to as "soft synergies," is discussed. The controllable internal forces and motions of the grasped object are related to the actuated inputs. This paper investigates to what extent a hand with many joints can exploit postural synergies to control force and motion of the grasped object.


2 The UK Department for International Development (DFID) supports policies, programmes and projects to promote poverty reduction globally. DFID provided funds for this study as part of that goal but the views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) alone. This paper may be reproduced free of charge in any format provided the source is acknowledged. 3 Executive Summary The expansion of export production for global supermarkets has generated new employment channels for internal rural-rural migrant workers in Africa. Yet analysis of migrant labour in the global economy tends to focus on rural-urban migration or the movement of workers across international borders. Internal migrant labourers work at the interface of the advancing commercialisation of global agriculture and of more traditional forms of rural livelihood generation. Agro-export production involves inherent risks, particularly from commercial shocks as consumer trends change. How the benefits and risks affect migrant workers is little understood. To what extent do migrant workers gain from incorporation into agro-exports? What are the avenues for protection of migrant workers in a rapidly changing global economy? How can strategies be enhanced to reduce the impact of negative shocks on migrant labour? This paper examines these questions based on a study of the pineapple export sector in Ghana. This is a new and growing export crop, contributing to the role of agro-exports in reducing poverty within Ghana. Ghana " s pineapple export sector has grown rapidly between 1986 and 2002, with production increasing from 2,600 to 42,000 metric tons. Production for export is based mainly in the Eastern Region, in locations north of Accra. The main export destinations are in Europe (particularly Germany and the UK), where supermarket retailing is becoming the dominant retail outlet. Supermarkets have increasingly required compliance with standards relating to agricultural practice (eg. Eurep-gap) and social compliance. More recently there has been a move by some producer and exporter groups to become Fairtrade and Organic accredited. Pineapple production is labour intensive, and case studies indicate that approximately one third of workers are migrants from other regions within Ghana, particularly the Volta and Central Regions. The aim of the project was to assess the comparative risks and vulnerabilities faced by internal migrant workers in pineapple exports, what channels for social protection are open to them, and how they can be made more effective for migrant workers. The risks these workers face were highlighted in 2002-4 when a sudden …


This book chronicles the struggle among non-Communist leftists and liberals over American relations with the Soviet Union from 1939 through the 1950s. Few now care as passionately and as violently as people did then about Soviet-American relations. It was a time when friends became enemies, and others forged strange alliances, all in the name of commitments that today seem remote. A Better World evokes those times and their choices, and explains why these long-ago battles still arouse such deep feelings today--and should. Americans who were pro-Soviet without being members of the Communist party--"progressives" as they called themselves--had a large emotional investment in the Soviet Union. From 1935 to 1939 literally millions joined the "Popular Front" of pro-Soviet organizations. O'Neill takes us through the shock of the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939, through the revival of the Popular Front spurred by government and business support after Russia entered the war against Hitler. He traces the isolation of the anti-Stalinists, the rise and fall of Henry Wallace, and the eclipse of progressivism. And he explores the shifting allegiances of intellectuals as they struggled, often with each other, to influence the course of public debate, with long-lasting consequences for American intellect, culture, and morals. As O'Neill observes in his introduction, "More than any of my other books A Better World inspired correspondents to send me probing or reflective letters." It was this response, along with the extraordinary critical debate spurred by initial publication of this volume, that makes the book's continuing importance clear. The dream of achieving a better world through radical violence never dies, and the willingness of apologists to cling to utopian visions persists. As long as it does, the lessons of this book need to be available to us.


Context: Evidence of an association between dietary patterns derived a posteriori and risk of cancer has not been reviewed comprehensively. Objective: The aim of this review was to investigate the relation between a posteriori‐derived dietary patterns, grouped as healthy or unhealthy, and cancer risk. The relation between cancer risk and background characteristics associated with adherence to dietary patterns was also examined. Data Sources: PubMed and Embase electronic databases were searched. Study Selection: A total of 93 studies including over 85 000 cases, 100 000 controls, and 2 000 000 exposed individuals were selected. Data Extraction: Data were extracted from each identified study using a standardized form by two independent authors. Results: The most convincing evidence (significant results from prospective cohort studies) supported an association between healthy dietary patterns and decreased risk of colon and breast cancer, especially in postmenopausal, hormone receptor‐negative women, and an association between unhealthy dietary patterns and increased risk of colon cancer. Limited evidence of a relation between an unhealthy dietary pattern and risk of upper aerodigestive tract, pancreatic, ovarian, endometrial, and prostatic cancers relied only on case‐control studies. Unhealthy dietary patterns were associated with higher body mass index and energy intake, while healthy patterns were associated with higher education, physical activity, and less smoking. Potential differences across geographical regions require further evaluation. Conclusions: The results suggest a potential role of diet in certain cancers, but the evidence is not conclusive and may be driven or mediated by lifestyle factors.


Abstract. Weekly PM2.5 samples were collected for one year (1999-2000) in Beijing and Shanghai and the carbonaceous species analyzed to investigate and compare their time series patterns and possible sources in the two biggest cities of China. Weekly carbonaceous concentrations varied in wide ranges with 8.6-59µg m-3 for OC and 1.5-25.4µg m-3 for EC in Beijing, and with 5.1-38.4µg m-3 for OC and 2.3-13.0µg m-3 for EC in Shanghai. Similar weekly and seasonal variations of OC and EC concentrations were found in each city though major combustion sources presented source-dependent emission characteristics and seasonal differences in emission amount for carbonaceous species. Both OC and EC maintained much higher concentrations in late fall through winter, probably due to enhanced emissions coupled with unfavorable meteorological conditions. In Beijing, the 14C analysis of limited samples suggested there was a significant contribution (33-48%) of modern carbon to the total fine carbonaceous PM burden with higher fractions in the harvest seasons. The high mass ratios of excessive potassium to EC in both Beijing and Shanghai also indicated that biomass burning had important contribution to fine carbonaceous particles.


This paper, presented at a symposium on Constitution-Making and Constitutional Design held at the Clough Center for the study of Constitutional Democracy at Boston College Law School on October 31, 2014, tackles a significant gap in constitutional theory -- the legal regulation of constitutional replacement. Recent work has recognized the risks posed by constitutional amendment to democracy and has developed a series of tools to mitigate those risks. In particular, would be authoritarian actors can engage in abusive forms of constitutional change that perpetuate their power and marginalize minority groups. In response, courts around the world have recognized that amendment can be limited in ways that go beyond the standard textual regulation of procedure to encompass both substantive ex ante controls (eternity clauses) and substantive ex post controls (the unconstitutional constitutional amendment doctrine). Constitutional replacement is usually seen as fundamentally different from constitutional amendment, but the two are often used jointly in projects of abusive constitutional change. Scholars and courts should thus consider ways in which constitutional replacement might be limited. The same list of possibilities utilized to constrain constitutional amendment -- substantive as well as procedural limits, and ex post as well as ex ante controls -- exists to constrain constitutional replacement. Moreover, each of these possibilities has actually been used, with varying degrees of success, in constitution-making processes in contexts like Venezuela, Bolivia, and South Africa. The key question is under which political conditions these tools might be effective. Based on the case studies, we suggest that those conditions are demanding but not impossible to meet in real-world constitution-making.


Cost-benefit analysis does not age well. As scientific understanding of health, safety, and environmental risks accumulates over time — and as the technology to mitigate those risks becomes more affordable — the assumptions underlying a rule's cost-benefit analysis obsolesce. Yet because of agency inaction, rulemaking ossification, and inattention to priority setting, outdated rules persist. In order to combat obsolescence, agencies should use cost-benefit analysis as a commitment device. When an agency analyzes a rule, it should precommit to subsequently adopting a more stringent rule than the one it initially promulgates, if and when a private actor credibly demonstrates that the stricter rule has become cost-benefit justified. Using cost-benefit analysis as a commitment device would (1) more accurately calibrate rules over time, (2) induce innovation in risk-mitigating technologies by signaling to investors that future regulation would create demand, (3) improve the adversarial dynamic of the rulemaking process by encouraging innovator firms to defect from entrenched anti-regulatory coalitions, and (4) reorient the way administrations and agencies set regulatory priorities. Cost-benefit analysis has been used to constrain regulation, but it can — and should — be used to compel regulation and expedite the regulatory state's reduction of risks over time.


Abstract. To provide a theoretical framework towards a better understanding of ozone depletion events (ODEs) and atmospheric mercury depletion events (AMDEs) in the polar boundary layer, we have developed a one-dimensional model that simulates multiphase chemistry and transport of trace constituents from porous snowpack and through the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) as a unified system. This paper constitutes Part 1 of the study, describing a general configuration of the model and the results of simulations related to reactive bromine release from the snowpack and ODEs during the Arctic spring. A common set of aqueous-phase reactions describes chemistry both within the liquid-like layer (LLL) on the grain surface of the snowpack and within deliquesced "haze" aerosols mainly composed of sulfate in the atmosphere. Gas-phase reactions are also represented by the same mechanism in the atmosphere and in the snowpack interstitial air (SIA). Consequently, the model attains the capacity of simulating interactions between chemistry and mass transfer that become particularly intricate near the interface between the atmosphere and the snowpack. In the SIA, reactive uptake on LLL-coated snow grains and vertical mass transfer act simultaneously on gaseous HOBr, a fraction of which enters from the atmosphere while another fraction is formed via gas-phase chemistry in the SIA itself. A "bromine explosion", by which HOBr formed in the ambient air is deposited and then converted heterogeneously to Br2, is found to be a dominant process of reactive bromine formation in the top 1 mm layer of the snowpack. Deeper in the snowpack, HOBr formed within the SIA leads to an in-snow bromine explosion, but a significant fraction of Br2 is also produced via aqueous radical chemistry in the LLL on the surface of the snow grains. These top- and deeper-layer productions of Br2 both contribute to the release of Br2 to the atmosphere, but the deeper-layer production is found to be more important for the net outflux of reactive bromine. Although ozone is removed via bromine chemistry, it is also among the key species that control both the conventional and in-snow bromine explosions. On the other hand, aqueous-phase radical chemistry initiated by photolytic OH formation in the LLL is also a significant contributor to the in-snow source of Br2 and can operate without ozone, whereas the delivery of Br2 to the atmosphere becomes much smaller after ozone is depleted. Catalytic ozone loss via bromine radical chemistry occurs more rapidly in the SIA than in the ambient air, giving rise to apparent dry deposition velocities for ozone from the air to the snow on the order of 10−3 cm s−1 during daytime. Overall, however, the depletion of ozone in the system is caused predominantly by ozone loss in the ambient air. Increasing depth of the turbulent ABL under windy conditions will delay the buildup of reactive bromine and the resultant loss of ozone, while leading to the higher column amount of BrO in the atmosphere. During the Arctic spring, if moderately saline and acidic snowpack is as prevalent as assumed in our model runs on sea ice, the shallow, stable ABL under calm weather conditions may undergo persistent ODEs without substantial contributions from blowing/drifting snow and wind-pumping mechanisms, whereas the column densities of BrO in the ABL will likely remain too low in the course of such events to be detected unambiguously by satellite nadir measurements.


Salmonella is the cause of millions of food- and water-borne infections
worldwide. Systemic infection and gastroenteritis are the main diseases and
often prove fatal to immunocompromised patients.
Key to Salmonella's pathogenicity is the survival of several components of the
innate immune system encountered during infection. Reactive oxygen and
nitrogen species (ROS and RNS) are an integral part of this antibacterial
defence of the immune system. Exposure to ROS and RNS occurs within
phagocytic immune cells such as macrophages, where such generation of
radicals is used to combat pathogens. NO is a radical belonging to the group of
RNS that damages bacterial DNA and proteins. Detoxification of NO is essential
during infection to allow Salmonella to survive and replicate within
macrophages. Three enzymes are currently known to help Salmonella to
detoxify NO, but their deletion, however, does not eliminate Salmonella's
survival. Therefore, it is predicted that further mechanisms for NO detoxification
exist.
In this study, the core NO regulon has been identified: Expression of nine genes
is significantly increased during endogenous and exogenous NO exposure of S.
Typhimurium. Their functions range from carbon starvation, cytochrome
oxidation, iron-sulphur repair and NO reduction to putative proteins with
unknown function, some of which contain domains for tellurite resistance. Single
and combination deletion strains have shown that these genes are important to
decrease anaerobic NO sensitivity of S. Typhimurium and for intracellular
survival in murine macrophages. Furthermore, we have shown for the first time
that the core NO regulon also provides protection against tellurite. Tellurite is
toxic and requires detoxification when encountered. Reducing tellurite to yield
the elemental tellurium results in the release of ROS, which then need to be
detoxified further. Deletion strains sensitive to tellurite have also shown
increased sensitivity to NO. Concurrently, tellurite resistance genes also
facilitate the defence against NO.


We develop dynamic binary probit models and apply them for predicting U.S. recessions using the interest rate spread as the driving predictor. The new models use lags of the binary response (a recession dummy) to forecast its future values and allow for the potential forecast power of lags of the underlying conditional probability. We show how multiperiod-ahead forecasts are computed iteratively using the same one-period-ahead model. Iterated forecasts that apply specific lags supported by statistical model selection procedures turn out to be more accurate than previously used direct forecasts based on horizon-specific model specifications.


Abstract The primary objectives of control are somewhat different from those of much of fusion plasma physics. Magnetic fusion physics has historically focused on understanding the physics of plasmas in magnetic confinement devices, whereas fusion plasma control seeks to capitalize on the understanding already gained to cause the system (fusion device plus plasma) to behave in certain desirable ways. For example, early uses of plasma control in fusion devices had simple goals such as extending the survival of discharges by minimizing plasma-wall interaction or by regulating density. Present applications are primarily aimed at achieving conditions with better potential fusion performance or conditions under which fusion plasmas can be more easily studied. The demanding performance requirements and significant constraints expected on control of future fusion reactors suggest that plasma control is a critical enabling technology for progress toward commercial fusion power. A greater understanding of control techniques for fusion plasmas and a more widespread use of these techniques in existing devices are required in order to develop the solutions needed.


The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a private charitable organization dedicated to helping build better futures for disadvantaged children in the United States. It was established in 1948 by Jim Casey, one of the founders of United Parcel Service, and his siblings, who named the Foundation in honor of their mother. The primary mission of the Foundation is to foster public policies, human-service reforms, and community supports that more effectively meet the needs of today's vulnerable children and families. In pursuit of this goal, the Foundation makes grants that help states, cities, and neighborhoods fashion more innovative, cost-effective responses to these needs. For more information, visit the Foundation's website at www.aecf.org.


This paper presents four research projects on organizational innovation in the Netherlands. These projects are still in a design and theoretical investigation stage, but the authors find it useful to share their findings and insights with the research community in order to inspire them with their ideas and research agenda. In the paper four constructs are explored that focus on the human factor in organizations and that may have a positive influence on organizational innovation.
Shared leadership: It is often thought that, for innovation, only one brilliant mind with a break-through idea in a single flash of enlightenment is needed. Recent research, however, shows that most innovations are the result of team-flow and sharing and alternating leadership tasks.
Social Capital: through leadership and decision making, by influencing trust, respect and commitment, the organization's social capital and thus its innovative power is increased.
External consultancy: deployment of external consultants will add to knowledge and skills necessary for innovation.
IT and workflow management: if handled correctly, the human factor can add substantial quality to the design and use of IT in organizations.
The paper shows that the way these constructs are managed is crucial in influencing and motivating members of an organization to attribute to innovation and make use of the facilities that are offered to them.


A new dry-process recording material using photopolymerization in the crystalline state is proposed as an ideal material for holographic interferometry, especially for real-time holographic interferometry. The performance of the complex recording material comprising m-PDA as a photopolymerizing reactant and picramide as a spectral sensitizer were evaluated. The development of this complex recording material is accomplished simply by heating it; fixation occurs at room temperature. We were able to make a holographic grating with resolution up to 1930 lines per millimeter using this material with a He-Cd laser oscillating at 442 nm. The maximum diffraction efficiency and the sensitivity corresponding to a 30% diffraction efficiency as a volume phase hologram were estimated as 36.3% and 5.6 mJ/cm2, respectively.


This paper examines a much overlooked link between credit markets and formalization: since access to bank credit typically requires compliance with tax and employment legislation, firms are more likely to incur such formalization costs once bank credit is more widely available at lower cost. The relevance of this credit channel is gauged using the Rajan-Zingales measure of financial dependence and a difference-in-differences approach applied to household survey data from Brazil. It is found that formalization rates increase with financial deepening, especially in sectors where firms are typically more dependent on external finance. Also found is that, decomposing shifts in formalization rates into those within each firm size category and those between firm sizes, financial deepening significantly explains the former but not so much the latter. Some key policy implications are derived.


Perhaps no two poems of Propertius have together exerted more fascination on modern readers than Elegy 4.7 (the visitation of Cynthia's ghost to a sleeping Propertius: sunt aliquid manes) and Elegy 4.11 (the so-called Queen of Elegies: the monologue of the aristocratic Cornelia's ghost to her living husband, L. Aemilius Paullus Lepidus).(1) Despite the considerable scholarship on the poems' place within the ancient literary tradition and their relation to Book 4, we have yet to appreciate them fully as features of Roman culture--to appreciate, that is, all that these two poems can tell us about Propertian elegy as a catalyst for the cultural transformation between the Roman Republic and the Augustan principate. As I shall argue, our appreciation of the poems' cultural role can be enhanced by focusing afresh on their adaptations of oratorical conventions, a feature of Elegies 4.7 and 4.11 that has long intrigued scholars. Propertius's adaptation here of the rhetorical topos of mortuos ab inferis excitare (calling up the dead from the underworld) enables him to signal the similarities between elegy and the judicio-political oratory of the Republic, as well as their differences. Oratory, the dominant form of verbal performance in the Republic and so worthy of emulation by the Augustan poets, was also a tool of Republican political infighting and clan-based competition, both ruinous aspects of late Republican life that Augustus himself took pains to quell. Adapting a rhetorical topos helped Propertius use the dead Cynthia and Cornelia as exempla in a manner more appropriate to Augustan elegy than the way the exemplary dead had traditionally been evoked in Republican oratory, and called attention to the fact that he was doing so. Propertius's use, however, of the mortuos ab inferis excitare topos was not merely advantageous to him as an Augustan poet; it was culturally transformative. That is to say, Propertius transformed the public, oratorical evocation of dead family members and ancestors--exploited to great effect by Republican speakers for politically charged invective and self-promotion--into a feature of his elegiac performance, with its complex, ambivalent embedding of the public in the private, and its focus on erotic rather than on genealogical ties. A full understanding of Propertius 4.7 and 4.11 in cultural terms, therefore, entails reconsidering the poems as performance (little emphasized until recently in Propertian criticism (2) and, specifically, allowing ourselves to become more sensitive to a particular aspect of performance fore-grounded by modern theory, namely, its nature as "restored behavior." This kind of performance is not strictly reproductive of past actions, but is strongly predicated on some understanding, conscious or unconscious, of repeated, customary, or habitual types of actions--"behaviors"--which it transforms according to the concerns of performer and audience. (3) Such a perspective seems particularly opportune as a complement to recent work on Augustan elegy as performance, the focus of which has primarily been on the implications of performance for isolating the meaning(s) of the text rather than on the poetry's interaction with a broader field of Roman performance-types. (4) In the case of Propertius 4.7 and 4.11, we can perceive this wider cultural interaction best by reading the poems closely with the textbook example in antiquity of the mortuos ab inferis excitare topos: Cicero's prosopopoeia of Appius Claudius Caecus in Pro Caelio 33-34. (5) Cicero's text provides a rich basis for comparison by illustrating the similarities-and the profound differences--between Propertius's version of the topos and its original use in Republican oratory. The comparison suggests, too, Cicero's speech as a subtext of Cornelia's monologue in Propertius 4.11, insofar as the speech and poem share striking similarities in form and content. When we read Propertius 4.7 and 4.11 with Cicero's Pro Caelio, however, we do far more than enhance our understanding of the poems' (un)conventionality or literary allusiveness. …


In 2016, the Internet Research Agency (IRA) deployed thousands of Twitter bots that released hundreds of thousands of English language tweets. It has been hypothesized this affected public opinion during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Here we test that hypothesis using vector autoregression (VAR) comparing time series of election opinion polling during 2016 versus numbers of re-tweets or 'likes' of IRA tweets. We find that changes in opinion poll numbers for one of the candidates were consistently preceded by corresponding changes in IRA re-tweet volume, at an optimum interval of one week before. In contrast, the opinion poll numbers did not correlate with future re-tweets or 'likes' of the IRA tweets. We find that the release of these tweets parallel significant political events of 2016 and that approximately every 25,000 additional IRA re-tweets predicted a one percent increase in election opinion polls for one candidate. As these tweets were part of a larger, multimedia campaign, it is plausible that the IRA was successful in influencing U.S. public opinion in 2016.


From time to time, the AICPAs Office of General Counsel files amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs in matters that could affect the profession. I would like to inform you of two such recent filings. The first was to the U.S. Supreme Court; the other was to the New York Court of Appeals, that state's highest court. In January 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case out of the Seventh Circuit, Tellabs v Makor & Rights, Ltd., 437 F.3d 588 (7th Cir., 2006), to address an important and recurring issue in securities litigation: Whether, and to what extent, a court must consider or weigh competing inferences in determining whether a complaint asserting a claim of securities fraud has alleged facts sufficient to establish a "strong reference" that the defendant acted with scienter (knowing fraud or recklessness), as required under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While the various circuits have adopted somewhat different views of the proper standard, all but the Seventh Circuit required the trial court to consider all inferences that could arise from the facts pleaded by plaintiffs--that is, those that are supportive of a finding of scienter and those that support benign explanations of the allegedly fraudulent conduct and tend to negate scienter. Indeed, some courts have held, for example, that the inference of fraudulent conduct had to be the "most plausible" reference from the facts in order for such inference to be "strong." Although this case did not involve an accounting firm, the AICPA, along with six accounting firms, realized the potential importance of the issue to the profession, and collectively filed a friend of the court brief. The brief argues that the plain language of the law requires that facts be pleaded in the complaint that are sufficient to give rise to a strong inference that the defendant acted with the required state of mind, and it follows that when the facts pleaded can give rise to an inference of innocent or even negligent conduct, those same facts cannot constitute a strong inference of scienter. Numerous amicus briefs have been filed in support of the position advanced by the profession, including a brief filed by the United States which, like our brief, urged rejection of the standard adopted by the Seventh Circuit and the adoption of a very high pleading standard. The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments on March 28 and a decision is anticipated by the end of June. This brief was drafted on our behalf by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP--Theodore B. Olson, counsel of record, Scott A. Fink, Douglas R. Cox, Mark A. Perry and Minodora D. Vancea on the brief. On Feb. 5, the AICPA and the New York State Society of CPAs moved the New York Court of Appeals for permission to file a friend of the court brief in Williamson v. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (Index No. 602106/04). We wanted to participate in this case because it involved applying the continuous representation doctrine to toll the three-year statute of limitations governing audit malpractice claims. …


Abstract In this paper, in situ tritium measurements and control by laser techniques are presented. It is proposed to use Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) as an efficient technique to measure the tritium concentration in ablated material. However, LIBS could be limited due to material melting observed during ablation possibly leading to hydrogen losses. Laser ablation is shown to be an efficient process to recover the in vessel tritium if the dust produced during ablation is collected. This could be forbidden if ITER cannot be operated at high pressure. To overcome this difficulty and detritiate remote surfaces, laser heating could be applied since it generates gaseous compounds. However, inward diffusion could be expected leading to burry tritium in bulk material which is a counterproductive action. Finally, all these techniques must be embarked on remote handling system in order to explore and treat large surfaces. Obviously, this carrier is needed for a reliable and an efficient operation of the ITER nuclear facility.


Previous studies, grounded on the resource based view, have already explored the relationship between the business value that Big Data Analytics (BDA) can bring to firm performance. However, the role played by the environmental characteristics in which companies operate has not been investigated in the literature. We inform the theory, in that direction, via the integration of the contingency theory to the resource based view theory of the firm. This original and integrative model examines the moderating influence of environmental features on the relationship between BDA business value and firm performance. The combination of survey data and secondary financial data on a representative sample of medium and large companies makes possible the statistical validation of our research model. The results offer evidence that BDA business value leads to higher firm performance, namely financial performance, market performance and customer satisfaction. More original is the demonstration that this relationship is stronger in munificent environments, while the dynamism of the environment does not have any moderating effect on the performance of BDA solutions. It means that managers working for firms in markets with a growing demand are in the best position to profit from BDA.


Floods and typhoons are two of the greatest water disasters affecting South East Asia, causing misery and death to people, damaging properties, infrastructure and crops, and causing disruption to commerce and industry. In many cases the impact can be widespread, affecting not only individual households but also large parts of a country including agriculture areas, towns and cities, and sometimes even beyond national borders. The rapid pace of development has resulted in a disproportionate increase in runoff and a many-fold increase in river discharges leading to more frequent and more intense flooding. This situation is expected to be further aggravated due to the impact of global warming and climate change. To cope with such challenges, countries in South East Asia are developing their policy responses tailored to suit their local conditions and environment. This paper looks at the water disaster situation and the policy responses in three cities in South East Asia: Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Metro Manila, the capital cities of the Kingdom of Thailand, the Federation of Malaysia and the Republic of the Philippines, respectively. Although all three countries are in the same climatic zone, due to their geographical locations, water disasters impact differently on them and the remedial measures also differ.


In this paper, we propose a novel approach for solving the reliable broadcast problem in a probabilistic model, i.e., where links lose messages and where processes crash and recover probabilistically. Our approach consists in flrst deflning the optimality of probabilistic reliable broadcast algorithms and the adaptiveness of algorithms that aim at converging toward such optimality. Then, we propose an algorithm that precisely converges toward the optimal behavior, thanks to an adaptive strategy based on Bayesian statistical inference. Our adaptive algorithm is modular and consists of two activities. The flrst activity is responsible for solving the reliable broadcast, given information about the failure probability of each link and of each process. This activity relies on the notion of Maximum Reliability Tree, which we derive from the notion of Maximum Spanning Tree. The other activity is responsible for approximating failure probabilities of links and processes, using Bayesian networks. We compare the performance of our algorithm with that of a typical gossip algorithm through simulation. Our results show, for example, that our adaptive algorithm quickly converges toward such exact knowledge.


The pressure dependence of the resonance frequency of several RUS modes in samples of fused silica and KCl has been measured at UCLA in atmospheres of air, He, and Ar near ambient temperature. For both compressional and torsional modes the radiation resistance appears to be linearly dependent upon pressure and increases with the molecular mass of the surrounding gas. The effects are larger for breathing modes than for torsional modes. A model will be presented which will attempt to fit some of these data both qualitatively and quantitatively. [Work supported by the Office of Naval Research.]


Concentration of Hg, Pb, Cd, Cr and As in liver Carcharhinus limbatus (Carcharhiniformes: Carcharhinidae) captured in Veracruz, Mexico. Pollution by heavy metals in marine ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico is one of the hardest conservation issues to solve. Sharks as top predators are bioindicators of the marine ecosystem health, since they tend to bioaccumulate and biomagnify contaminants; they also represent a food source for local consumption. Thus, the objective of this study was to study the possible presence of heavy metals and a metalloid in livers of Carcharhinus limbatus. For this, a total of 19 shark livers were taken from animals captured nearby Tamihua, Veracruz, Mexico from December 2007 to April 2008. 12 out of the 19 cap- tured sharks were males, one was an adult female, three were juvenile males, and three juvenile females. Four heavy metals (Hg, Pb, Cd, and Cr) and one metaloid (As) were analyzed in shark livers using an atomic absorp- tion spectrophotometry with flame and hydride generator. Our results showed that the maximum concentrations found were: Hg=0.69mg/kg, Cd=0.43mg/kg, As=27.37mg/kg, Cr=0.70mg/kg. The minimum concentrations found were: As=14.91mg/kg, Cr=0.35mg/kg. The Pb could not be determined because the samples did not have the spectrophotometer minimum detectable amount (0.1mg/kg). None of the 19 samples analyzed showed above the permissible limits established by Mexican and American laws. There was a correlation between shark size and Cr and As concentration (Pearson test). The concentration of Cr and As was observed to be higher in big- ger animals. There was not a significant difference in heavy metals concentration between juveniles and adults; however, there was a difference between males and females. A higher Cr concentration was found in females when compared to males. None of the samples exceed the maximum limit established by the laws of Mexico and the United States of America. Much longer studies are needed with C. limbatus and other species caught in the region, in order to determine the degree of contaminants exposure in aquatic ecosystems and to identify potential health risks to consumers. Rev. Biol. Trop. 61 (2): 821-828. Epub 2013 June 01.


Malignant melanoma is a highly aggressive cancer, and the incidence of this disease is increasing worldwide at an alarming rate. Despite advances in the treatment of melanoma, patients with metastatic disease still have a poor prognosis and low survival rate. New strategies, including targeted radiotherapy, would provide options for patients who become resistant to therapies such as BRAF inhibitors. Very late antigen-4 (VLA-4) is expressed on melanoma tumor cells in higher levels in more aggressive and metastatic disease and may provide an ideal target for drug delivery and targeted radiotherapy. In this study, we evaluated (177)Lu- and (68)Ga-labeled DOTA-PEG4-LLP2A as a VLA-4-targeted radiotherapeutic with a companion PET agent for diagnosis and monitoring metastatic melanoma treatment. DOTA-PEG4-LLP2A was synthesized by solid-phase synthesis. The affinity of (177)Lu- and (68)Ga-labeled DOTA-PEG4-LLP2A to VLA-4 was determined in B16F10 melanoma cells by saturation binding and competitive binding assays, respectively. Biodistribution of the LLP2A conjugates was determined in C57BL/6 mice bearing B16F10 subcutaneous tumors, while PET/CT imaging was performed in subcutaneous and metastatic models. (177)Lu-DOTA-PEG4-LLP2A showed high affinity to VLA-4 with a Kd of 4.1 ± 1.5 nM and demonstrated significant accumulation in the B16F10 melanoma tumor after 4 h (31.5 ± 7.8%ID/g). The tumor/blood ratio of (177)Lu-DOTA-PEG4-LLP2A was highest at 24 h (185 ± 26). PET imaging of metastatic melanoma with (68)Ga-DOTA-PEG4-LLP2A showed high uptake in sites of metastases and correlated with bioluminescence imaging of the tumors. These data demonstrate that (177)Lu-DOTA-PEG4-LLP2A has potential as a targeted therapeutic for treating melanoma as well as other VLA-4-expressing tumors. In addition, (68)Ga-DOTA-PEG4-LLP2A is a readily translatable companion PET tracer for imaging of metastatic melanoma.


Law enforcement officers in the U. S. are granted the legal authority to issue commands to citizens and to compel citizen compliance through legal sanction, arrest, and even physical force. This research examines compliance interactions between police officers and citizens to examine the factors that are influential in producing voluntary compliance from citizens to officer commands. Findings are based on content analyses of 250 officer/citizen interactions captured by police cruiser mounted video systems used by police departments in two North Carolina cities. The influence of 31 factors on citizen compliance, suggested primarily by the theories of Social Interactionism and Judgmental Heuristics, were analyzed using Ordinal Logistic Regression. Six factors were shown to have a significant effect upon citizen's degree of compliance, including: citizen emotionality, initiation of the interaction, officer use of threats, citizen initial compliance, officer respect for citizen, and department-type of the officer involved. The implications for further research are discussed, as well as the potential usefulness of "dash cam" footage from police cruiser mounted video systems for further sociological research.


TREATY COMPLIANCECAMBRIDGE, U.K.-- A quarter-century after entering into force, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) still has no mechanism for checking on whether states parties are obeying the ban on developing biological weapons and is little more than an agreement based on trust. On 23 July, the Ad Hoc Group of the States Parties to the BWC will meet in Geneva for a 4-week session to hammer out rules that BWC state parties must abide by. The measures would include mandatory investigations of facilities suspected of contravening the treaty as well as visits to declared facilities that are not under suspicion, plus export controls on organisms and technologies that might be used to develop biological weapons. The challenge will be to win over U.S. policy-makers.


There are a number of well-established methods such as principal components analysis (PCA) for automatically capturing systematic variation due to latent variables in large-scale genomic data. PCA and related methods may directly provide a quantitative characterization of a complex biological variable that is otherwise difficult to precisely define or model. An unsolved problem in this context is how to systematically identify the genomic variables that are drivers of systematic variation captured by PCA. Principal components (and other estimates of systematic variation) are directly constructed from the genomic variables themselves, making measures of statistical significance artificially inflated when using conventional methods due to over-fitting. We introduce a new approach called the jackstraw that allows one to accurately identify genomic variables that are statistically significantly associated with any subset or linear combination of principal components (PCs). The proposed method can greatly simplify complex significance testing problems encountered in genomics and can be utilized to identify the genomic variables significantly associated with latent variables. Using simulation, we demonstrate that our method attains accurate measures of statistical significance over a range of relevant scenarios. We consider yeast cell-cycle gene expression data, and show that the proposed method can be used to straightforwardly identify genes that are cell-cycle regulated with an accurate measure of statistical significance. We also analyze gene expression data from post-trauma patients, allowing the gene expression data to provide a molecularly-driven phenotype. Using our method, we find a greater enrichment for inflammatory-related gene sets compared to the original analysis that utilizes a clinically defined, although likely imprecise, phenotype. The proposed method provides a useful bridge between large-scale quantifications of systematic variation and gene-level significance analyses. Abbreviations: KS test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test; PCA, principal components analysis; PC, principal component


Critically exploring the ways in which men and masculinities are commonly theorized, this multidisciplinary text opens up a discussion around such relationships, and shows that, as with feminisms, there is a diversity of theoretical traditions. It draws on a variety of examples, and explores new directions in the complexities of diverse male identities and emotional lives across different histories, cultures and traditions. This book:

 considers the experiences of different generations
 explores connections between masculinity and drugs
 investigates men and masculinities in a post-9/11 world
 considers new ways of thinking about male violence
 recognizes the importance of culture and provides spaces to explore different class, 'race' and ethnic masculinities.

Written in a practical, versatile manner by an established author in this field, it points to new directions in thinking, and makes essential reading for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in the fields of sociology, gender studies, politics, philosophy and psychology


Abstract In the 1990s, the economic performance of the Latin American and Caribbean economies was highly dependent on capital inflows into the region. Access to external financing coupled with better macroeconomic management, boosted growth and brought inflation down considerably. However, the processes of expansion and contraction on international financial markets led to volatility in international capital movements, which resulted in an unstable growth path. The paper discusses the composition and volatility of financial flows into Latin American and Caribbean countries. Indicators of external vulnerability and macroeconomic performance are also analysed. The study also points out the role of multilateral banking in financing development in Latin American and Caribbean economies. Multilateral banking has played a significant role in support of public and private investments projects in the region, and by providing contra-cyclical financing when the private capital flows were volatile. To date, such banks have concentrated mainly on financing investment projects in different sectors. Indeed, in recent years, much emphasis has been placed on financing for the support of State and social sector management reforms. In the near future multilateral banks should assume a leading role in improving access to private and public international resources. In this regard, the Andean Development Corporation (Corporacion Andina de Fomento (CAF)), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank have already achieved positive results.


The lymphatic vasculature is involved in the transportation of tissue fluids, extravasated plasma proteins and cello back into blood circulation. Formation of lymphatic vessels by lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs) occurs both in normal tissues as well as in pathological processes including inflammation, lymphedema and tumor metastasis. Recent reports demonstrated that lymphatic vasculature is not just a major conduit for immune cell transport. It seems to be directly involved in both the induction and the resolution of inflammation. However, little is known about how lymphatic vessels themselves respond to inflammation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the molecular mechanism by which intcrleukin-6 release in LECs exposure to lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a component of the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria. LPS was shown to cause an increase in IL-6 release in LECs. Pharmacological inhibitors of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), including extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), p38MAPK or c-jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), significantly abrogated the LPS-induced IL-h release. In addition, LPS was shown to activate ERK, p38MAPK and JNK in LECs, suggesting functional crosstalk. The results of reporter assay farther indicated that LPS increased the transcriptional activity of NF-κB a critical transcription factor in inducing IL-h expression. Our data suggest that MAPKs and NT-κB activation may contribute to LPS-induced IL-6 release in LECs. Interventions of MAPKs and NV-κB signaling may be beneficial in the treatment of lymphatic-associated inflammation.


A review of past work in the field of prosthetics hand is made to illustrate the advantages and shortcomings of the devices presently available and under development. This thesis analysis the functionality of natural and artificial arm and suggests ways of improving the prosthesis.
Issues of why there is a need for sensory feedback are addressed. Accuracy of human sensors has been examined. This thesis also looks into slip detection and discrimination in order to improve grip.
Manufacturing techniques are investigated by investigating three major technologies - thick film hybrid, surface mounting and semi-custom. Also the sensitivity of manufacturing has been discussed.
Issues of human interface are discussed and different types of stimuli and modulation are investigated for transfer of information from prosthesis sensors to the wearer. This thesis also looks into possible overall design strategies to implement dynamic intelligence for prostheses.
In the light of these investigations, suggestions are made for further improvements and for promising lines for future work.


Relying on Article I Presidential War Powers, the Bush administration has employed many detention and law enforcement strategies in fighting the War on Terrorism that seemingly give short shrift to traditional constitutional protections. The first of these strategies will be subject to Supreme Court resolution by the end of this Term and concerns the Bush Administration tactic of unilaterally declaring U.S. citizens to be "enemy combatants," thereby subjecting them to incarceration in military prisons without any right to counsel, prior judicial process, or judicial review of this status. Another strategy employed on a widespread basis by the DOJ after September 11 (and recently sanctioned by the Second Circuit) is the imprisonment of individuals without probable cause that a crime has been committed for the purpose of securing their testimony as a material witness before a grand jury at some indefinite future date. The final DOJ practice addressed here, which is presently being considered by the Fourth Circuit, is whether the president, acting pursuant to his War Powers, may deprive an alleged terrorist accused of capital crimes of access to exculpatory evidence from other detained terrorists to which the defendant would otherwise be entitled under the Sixth Amendment. It is the thesis of this article that each of these government actions exceeds the President's powers under Article I.


OBJECTIVE
To provide a single source for the best available estimates of the US prevalence of and number of individuals affected by arthritis overall, rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile arthritis, the spondylarthritides, systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic sclerosis, and Sjögren's syndrome. A companion article (part II) addresses additional conditions.

METHODS
The National Arthritis Data Workgroup reviewed published analyses from available national surveys, such as the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). For analysis of overall arthritis, we used the NHIS. Because data based on national population samples are unavailable for most specific rheumatic conditions, we derived estimates from published studies of smaller, defined populations. For specific conditions, the best available prevalence estimates were applied to the corresponding 2005 US population estimates from the Census Bureau, to estimate the number affected with each condition.

RESULTS
More than 21% of US adults (46.4 million persons) were found to have self-reported doctor-diagnosed arthritis. We estimated that rheumatoid arthritis affects 1.3 million adults (down from the estimate of 2.1 million for 1995), juvenile arthritis affects 294,000 children, spondylarthritides affect from 0.6 million to 2.4 million adults, systemic lupus erythematosus affects from 161,000 to 322,000 adults, systemic sclerosis affects 49,000 adults, and primary Sjögren's syndrome affects from 0.4 million to 3.1 million adults.

CONCLUSION
Arthritis and other rheumatic conditions continue to be a large and growing public health problem. Estimates for many specific rheumatic conditions rely on a few, small studies of uncertain generalizability to the US population. This report provides the best available prevalence estimates for the US, but for most specific conditions, more studies generalizable to the US or addressing understudied populations are needed.


Historians have generally tended to represent the pioneering Catholic mission in Western Australia as an homogenous ecclesiastical entity with little cultural diversity. With a few notable exceptions the nature of the Western Australian colonial Catholic mission is portrayed as a 'hibernised' form of Catholicism with an Irish clergy taking care of the pastoral needs of a predominantly working class Irish Catholic constituency. This thesis challenges the traditional paradigm as restrictive, and argues that it ignores significant contextual influences and veils the wider cultural tapestry in which the Western Australian pioneering Catholic mission proceeded.

The traditional analysis of the internal dynamics of the Catholic mission implies that there was a beneficial, almost symbiotic relationship between sympathetic bishops and their 'valiant helpers.' Internal conflicts concerning administrative issues have been represented as little more than mere personality clashes.

The thesis takes a more critical contextual approach and argues that the manifestation of internal dissension during this period can only be fully explained by taking account of external influences rather than local conditions. These influences include both Gallican and Ultramontane ecclesiastical perspectives as well as the individual community cultures that were transported from Europe to the Perth diocese by missionary personnel.

This new perspective corrects the more traditional approach which overlooked the different ecclesiastical approaches, orientations and community cultures that were represented within the colonial Catholic mission. This expansion of the existing interpretative paradigm through which historians view the West Australian Catholic mission in general and the development of the school system in particular marks a significant shifi in the existing historiography. As a consequence, scholars will in future take a more critical approach to the study of not only the Catholic education system but also the Western Australian Catholic mission in general. Rather than representing the definitive closing chapter it is intended that this work will invigorate renewed historical interest in the development of the Australian Catholic mission.


We consider the problem of designing low-complexity digital receivers for CDMA systems operating over channels with single or multiple propagation paths. We specifically exploit a finite rate of innovation property of CDMA signals and develop a method that leads to an efficient solution of the combined problem of multipath channel estimation and signal detection from a low-dimensional subspace of a received signal. Unlike existing schemes that typically resort to chip rate sampling and manipulate with large correlation matrices, our framework allows for digital CDMA receivers to operate at a significantly lower sampling rate, chosen to be close to a rate of innovation of a received signal. Our approach, therefore, can considerably reduce computational requirements compared to existing solutions while providing similar performances, and allows to use slower A/D converters, thus reducing power consumption.


Origami-inspired structures and material systems have been used in many engineering applications because of their unique kinematic and mechanical properties induced by folding. However, accurately modeling and analyzing origami folding and the associated mechanical properties are challenging, especially when large deformation and dynamic responses need to be considered. In this paper, we formulate a high-fidelity model — based on the iso-parametric Absolute Nodal Coordinate Formulation (ANCF) — for simulating the dynamic folding behaviors of origami involving large deformation. The center piece of this new model is the characterization of crease deformation. To this end, we model the crease using rotational spring at the nodes. The corresponding folding angle is calculated based on the local surface normal vectors. Compared to the currently popular analytical methods for analyzing origami, such as the rigid-facet and equivalent bar-hinge approach, this new model is more accurate in that it can describe the large crease and facet deformation without imposing many assumptions. Meanwhile, the ANCF based origami model can be more efficient computationally compared to the traditional finite element simulations. Therefore, this new model can lay down the foundation for high-fidelity origami analysis and design that involve mechanics and dynamics.


Understanding the different methods of paying for medical services takes some time. Social workers or case workers can be helpful in explaining some of your options, especially with Medicaid and Social Security. Your first step is to understand your private insurance. Children with disabilities can also be eligible for Medicaid or Social Security on top of your private insurance. Typically, Medicaid and Social Security are based on family income. But there are government programs that do supplement private insurance that are not based on income. These programs vary state to state. Ask your social worker, or case worker, or other families with children with special needs, if they know of any programs. These programs can be very helpful, but they sometimes have a long waiting list, so it is best to start looking now. The most common waiver through Social Security, not based on income, is the Katie Beckett waiver, however not every state offers it, and the exact details vary state to state. Be patient figuring out the ropes, it will be frustrating at times, but diligence and many questions typically pays off.


In the 13th century an Italian mathematician Fibonacci, also known as Leonardo da Pisa, identified a sequence of numbers that seemed to be repeating and be residing in nature (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci) (Kalman, D. et al. 2003: 167). Later a golden ratio was encountered in nature, art and music. This ratio can be seen in the distances in simple geometric figures. It is linked to the Fibonacci numbers by dividing a bigger Fibonacci value by the one just smaller of it. This ratio seems to be settling down to a particular value of 1.618 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci) (He, C. et al. 2002:533) (Cooper, C et al 2002:115) (Kalman, D. et al. 2003: 167) (Sendegeya, A. et al. 2007). Artificial Intelligence or neural networks is the science and engineering of using computers to understand human intelligence (Callan R. 2003:2) but humans and most things in nature abide to Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio. Since Neural Networks uses the same algorithms as the human brain does, the aim is to experimentally proof that using Fibonacci numbers as weights, and the golden rule as a learning rate, that this might improve learning curve performance. If the performance is improved it should prove that the algorithm for neural network's do represent its nature counterpart. Two identical Neural Networks was coded in LabVIEW with the only difference being that one had random weights and the other (the adapted one) Fibonacci weights. The results were that the Fibonacci neural network had a steeper learning curve. This improved performance with the neural algorithm, under these conditions, suggests that this formula is a true representation of its natural counterpart or visa versa that if the formula is the simulation of its natural counterpart, then the weights in nature is Fibonacci values.


Objective: Estimate the effects of electronic health records (EHRs) on physician productivity in day-to-day practice by including the combinations of EHRs with nonelectronic records that typify current practice.
Study Design: Cross section of 7,725 physicians representing 70% of physicians who provided patient care in 2012-2014 in Arizona. The sample was divided into office based (OFB) and non-office based (NOFB) physicians.
Methods: Information from licensing applications was combined with a survey of the uses of electronic and nonelectronic health records. Productivity was measured as patient visits per hour in a typical work week. The effects of EHRs on productivity were estimated from a regression model that compared users to non-users and an model that included combinations of electronic, paper and scanned records. The results are compared to the physicians' rankings of the effect of each combination of records on staff and physician productivity.
Results: The productivity of OFB physicians is increased by the use of e-prescribing (+17.4%, p<0.001) and intervention reminders (+5.7%, p=0.03). There are no significant effects of the different mixes of health records. Among NOFB physicians, e-prescribing is the only contributor to productivity (+7.7%, p=0.069). Physicians rank EHR-only as more productive than any combinations of EHRs with non-electronic records.
Conclusion: The potential productivity of EHRs is severly limited by the typical practice of combining EHRs with non-electronic records. Reducing the number of different types of records used in a practice will increase the positive effects of EHRs on productivity. One requirement for such reductions is an increased availability of health information exchanges.


Abstract Post-secondary institutions around the world use various methods to evaluate the teaching performance of faculty members. Effective evaluations identify areas of instructional strength, provide faculty with opportunities for growth, and allow for reflective inquiry. While there is an extensive body of research related to the evaluation of faculty in traditional settings, there have been few studies examining online faculty members' perceptions of evaluation processes. The present study involved dissemination of an e-survey to online full-time faculty at a large university in the Southwest United States, as well as qualitative content analysis of survey data. Findings suggest that online full-time faculty expressed interest in improvement as instructors, distinct from modality, and preferred descriptive, qualitative, and holistic feedback rather than quantitative or punitive feedback. Further, participants articulated a desire to be evaluated by those with content-specific knowledge rather than teaching expertise in the online environment. This study has implications for online distance administrators and those stakeholders involved in online faculty evaluation. Additional research is needed to continue to establish a baseline for how online faculty members conceptualize ideal evaluation processes.


Background Searching for studies to include in a systematic review (SR) is a time- and labor-intensive process with searches of multiple databases recommended. To reduce the time spent translating search strings across databases, a tool called the Polyglot Search Translator (PST) was developed. The authors evaluated whether using the PST as a search translation aid reduces the time required to translate search strings without increasing errors. Methods In a randomized trial, twenty participants were randomly allocated ten database search strings and then randomly assigned to translate five with the assistance of the PST (PST-A method) and five without the assistance of the PST (manual method). We compared the time taken to translate search strings, the number of errors made, and how close the number of references retrieved by a translated search was to the number retrieved by a reference standard translation. Results Sixteen participants performed 174 translations using the PST-A method and 192 translations using the manual method. The mean time taken to translate a search string with the PST-A method was 31 minutes versus 45 minutes by the manual method (mean difference: 14 minutes). The mean number of errors made per translation by the PST-A method was 8.6 versus 14.6 by the manual method. Large variation in the number of references retrieved makes results for this outcome inconclusive, although the number of references retrieved by the PST-A method was closer to the reference standard translation than the manual method. Conclusion When used to assist with translating search strings across databases, the PST can increase the speed of translation without increasing errors. Errors in search translations can still be a problem, and search specialists should be aware of this.


Gradient-index ray-tracing techniques are used to evaluate performance of inhomogeneous optical waveguide lenses. Using the thin-film waveguide parameters including the lens thickness profile, the phase error and diffraction pattern are derived. The procedure is applied to a classical Luneburg index profile for which exact results are known. The results indicate that better than diffraction-limited accuracy can be achieved with reasonable computer running times. A second example demonstrates the procedure on lens profiles approximating generalized Luneburg lenses (image surface is outside the lens).


Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard University--Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Program in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics, 1989.


As viewers of the "Colbert Report" know, we are living in an age of "truthiness" - where things we wish to be true are preferred to things that are known to be true. More Real? features an international contingent of contemporary artists whose work most aptly represents this modern conundrum in a variety of ways, from trompe l'oeil to digital manipulation. A series of scholarly, entertaining and generously illustrated essays approach the concept of reality from a variety of perspectives: science and technology; the role of the cinema; the "parafictional" in art; diaspora artists from the Middle East; and historical trends from the Age of Reason to our current state. In an age when the relationship between truth and fiction has never been murkier, More Real? explores our constantly changing sense of what is real, and the consequences of not understanding the difference.


Abstract The film, I, Daniel Blake, has received critical acclaim for its portrayal of the experiences of those attempting to navigate the bureaucracy of the British welfare state system. In this article, I use the depiction of literacy in the film as a lens through which I examine both the role of literacy in compounding the challenge for those already made vulnerable by their circumstances, as well as the creative, collaborative and resourceful ways in which individuals use literacy practices to navigate everyday lives. The release of I, Daniel Blake comes at a time when the threat to social justice posed by austerity politics is becoming an acute reality for many in Britain, and across the globe. I argue for the continued importance, therefore, of the critical examination of the relationship between literacy, inequalities and justice.


Most biological processes are temperature dependent. To quantify the temperature dependence of biotic interactions and evaluate predictions of metabolic theory, we: 1) compiled a database of 81 studies that provided 112 measures of rates of herbivory, predation, parasitism, parasitoidy, or competition between two species at two or more temperatures; and 2) analyzed the temperature dependence of these rates in the framework of metabolic ecology to test our prediction that the "activation energy,"E, centers around 0.65 eV. We focused on studies that assessed rates or associated times of entire biotic interactions, such as time to consumption of all prey, rather than rates of components of these interactions, such as prey encounter rate. Results were: 1) the frequency distribution of E for each interaction type was typically peaked and right skewed; 2) the overall mean is E= 0.96 eV and median E= 0.78 eV; 3) there was significant variation in E within but not across interaction types; but 4) average values of E were not significantly different from 0.65 eV by interaction type and 5) studies with measurements at more temperatures were more consistent with E= 0.65 eV. These synthetic findings suggest that, despite the many complicating factors, the temperature-dependence of rates of biotic interactions broadly reflect of rates of metabolism, a relationship with important implications for a warming world.


One of the outstanding voices of his generation, David Foster Wallace has won a large and devoted following for the intellectual ambition and bravura style of his fiction and essays. Now he brings his considerable talents to the history of one of math's most enduring puzzles: the seemingly paradoxical nature of infinity. Is infinity a valid mathematical property or a meaningless abstraction? The nineteenth-century mathematical genius Georg Cantor's answer to this question not only surprised him but also shook the very foundations upon which math had been built. Cantor's counterintuitive discovery of a progression of larger and larger infinities created controversy in his time and may have hastened his mental breakdown, but it also helped lead to the development of set theory, analytic philosophy, and even computer technology. Smart, challenging, and thoroughly rewarding, Wallace's tour de force brings immediate and high-profile recognition to the bizarre and fascinating world of higher mathematics.


From the beginning of the 1990s there has been an increase in number of unmarried men and women in over-35 age group in Croatia. Moreover, very low total fertility rate (below 1, 5) persists more than a decade with no sign of recovery. However due to the fact that in recent years only 10 percent of all births was out of wedlock, lower nuptiality rates unquestionably contribute to nowadays low fertility rates. In this paper we will investigate factors that can influence a men and woman' s choice to marry and have a child. We will analyze something we defined as so called societal childlessness, i.e. the one that is not a consequence of a biological infertility, as one of the causes of low fertility. Although it is not the main cause of low fertility rates, it is becoming more important among other numerous factors that contribute to very low period fertility rates in Croatia. This paper makes use of data from the survey conducted in 2005-6 by Ministry of Family, Veterans' Affairs and Intergenerational Solidarity in Croatia which showed, on the sample of 714 unmarried and childless men and women aged 35 to 44, main past and present obstacles that discourage men and women from entering into marriage and having children. Based on the survey question whether the respondents plan to have children we were able to identify three groups of childless men and women. Applying multivariate statistics we will investigate existence of difference between their attitudes toward marriage and child bearing. One of the important issues will be to determine to what extent previously mentioned trends were a consequence of voluntarily decision, and more importantly, how much they were caused by the social, economic, sociological, psychological and other factors.


Addition of EGF to human carcinoma A-431 cells is known to induce membrane ruffling after approximately 2 min (Chinkers, M., J. A. McKanna, and S. Cohen. 1979. J. Cell Biol. 83:260-265) and the phosphorylation of a protein referred to as p81, a known substrate for various protein-tyrosine kinases (Cooper, J. A., D. F. Bowen-Pope, E. Raines, R. Ross, and T. Hunter. 1982. Cell. 31:263-273). Ezrin, a Mr approximately 80,000 cytoskeletal protein of the isolated chicken microvillar core, is present in actin-containing cell surface structures of a wide variety of cells (Bretscher, A. 1983. J. Cell Biol. 97:425-432). Ezrin was then found to be homologous to p81 and to be phosphorylated on tyrosine in response to EGF (Gould, K. L., J. A. Cooper, A. Bretscher, and T. Hunter. 1986. J. Cell Biol. 102:660-669). Here, the purification of ezrin from human placenta is described. Antibodies to human ezrin, together with antibodies to other microfilament-associated proteins, were used to follow the distribution and phosphorylation of these proteins in A-431 cells after EGF treatment. EGF induces the formation of microvillar-like surface structures on these cells within 30 s and these give way to membrane ruffles at approximately 2-5 min after EGF addition; the cells then round up after approximately 10-20 min. Ezrin is recruited into the microvillar-like structures and the membrane ruffles, and is phosphorylated on tyrosine and serine in a time course that parallels the formation and disappearance of these surface structures. Spectrin is recruited into the membrane ruffles and shows a similar rapid kinetics of phosphorylation, but only on serine residues, and remains phosphorylated through the rounding up of the cells. The microvillar- like structures and membrane ruffles are also enriched in fimbrin and alpha-actinin. Myosin becomes rapidly reorganized into a striated pattern that is consistent with it playing a role in cell rounding. These results show that two cortical proteins, ezrin and spectrin, become phosphorylated in a time course coincident with remodeling of the cell surface. The results are consistent with the notion that ezrin phosphorylation may play a role in the formation of cell surface projections whereas spectrin phosphorylation may be involved in remodelling of more planar areas of the cell surface.