Sexual conflict can lead to antagonistic coevolution between the sexes, but empirical examples are few. In this thesis secondary sexual characters in diving beetles are interpreted in the light of sexual conflict theory. Whether the male tarsal suction cups and female dorsal modifications are involved in a coevolutionary arms race is tested in two ways. First eight populations of a species with dimorphic females that varied in frequency of the morphs were investigated and male tarsal characteristics quantified. The frequency of female morphs is shown to be significantly correlated to the average number and size of male tarsal suction cups in the population, a prediction of the arms race hypothesis. Second, the hypothesis is tested in a phylogenetic perspective by optimizing the secondary sexual characters on a phylogeny. A full taxonomic revision of the genus Acilius is presented, including new synonyms, lectotype designations, geographic distributions based on more than five thousand examined museum specimens and the description of a new species from northeastern USA. Specimens of all species (except one possibly extinct that failed to be found in Yunnan, China 2000), were field collected between 2000 and 2003 in Sardinia, Sweden, Russia, Honshu and Hokkaido in Japan, New York, Maryland, California and Alberta. Three genes (CO1, H3 and Wingless) were sequenced from the fresh material as well as scoring a morphological character matrix all of which was used to derive a robust and complete hypothesis of the phylogenetic relationship in the group. The phylogeny was derived using Bayesian phylogenetics with Markov Chain Monte Carlo techniques and received a posterior probability of 0.85. Changes in male and female characters turned out to be perfectly correlated across the phylogeny, providing one of the best empirical examples to date of an antagonistic arms race between the sexes in a group of organisms. Finally, a review of a pitfall to phylogenetic analysis known under the name long-branch attraction (LBA), is provided. The problem is well known theoretically but has been questioned to occur in real data, and LBA has been in the core center of the hard debate between parsimony and likelihood advocates since different inference methods vary in sensitivity to the phenomenon. Most important conclusions from the review are; LBA is very common in real data, and is most often introduced with the inclusion of outgroups that almost always provide long branches, pulling down long terminal ingroup branches towards the root. Therefore it is recommended to always run analyses with and without outgroups. Taxon sampling is very important to avoid the pitfall as well as including different kind of data, especially morphological data, i.e. many LBA-affected conclusions have recently been reached by analyses of few taxa with complete genomes. Long-branch extraction (incl. outgroup exclusion), methodological disconcordance (parsimony vs modelbased), separate partition analyses (morphology vs molecules, codon positions, genes, etc), parametric simulation (incl. random outgroups), and split graphs are available relevant methods for the detection of LBA that should be used in combinations, because none alone is enough to stipulate LBA.


Abstract We report two newly identified Ordovician ophiolite belts in west Junggar, NW China: Tajin–Tarbahatai–Kujibai–Honguleleng (TTKH) and Tangbale–Baijiantan–Baikouquan (TBB) ophiolitic belts. These two ophiolitic belts provide constraints for the Palaeozoic reconstruction of Central Asia and the geological evolution of this region. The TTKH and TBB ophiolitic belts are dismembered parts of different ophiolitic belts which represent relics of Ordovician oceanic floor; they subducted to the north under the Chingiz–Tarbahatai arc and to the south under the Junggar plate, respectively. The Baijiantan–Baikouquan ophiolite mélanges comprise the major part of the TBB. Flat rare Earth element (REE) patterns with positive Eu anomalies and insignificant depletion of high-field-strength elements (HFSE) relative to melts of primitive mantle suggest a mid-ocean-ridge basalt (MORB) origin for the metagabbro. Lherzolite samples define a Sm–Nd isotopic isochron with age of 474 Ma and ɛ Nd(t) of +8.9. Lherzolite samples with positive ɛ Nd(t) values of +8.8 to +9.1 and initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios of 0.7037–0.7040 are rather homogeneous in Sr–Nd isotopic composition, whereas metagabbro samples show wider Sr–Nd isotopic compositional ranges with ɛ Nd(t) of +5.9 to +11.0. The Sm–Nd isotopic isochron age (c. 380 Ma) for garnet amphibolite samples, consistent with a zircon U–Pb age (c. 385 Ma) for metagabbro, represents a magmatic event prior to subduction. Thermodynamic calculations for garnet amphibolite yield a clockwise pressure–temperature path with peak metamorphic condition of c. 15 kbar and 520–560°C at 342 Ma, indicating a subduction-channel setting. The Rb–Sr isochron ages (335 Ma, 333 Ma) for metagabbro represent a metamorphic event during exhumation.


"Isotope harvesting" is a technique that offers access to exotic radionuclides created as by-products during nuclear science research. Ongoing exploratory work at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) is directed towards the production and extraction of rare radionuclides from a flowing-water target and intends to pave the way for future harvesting efforts at the upcoming Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). Here we present the collection of 62Zn from an aqueous matrix irradiated with a 150 MeV per nucleon 78Kr beam, while synergistically capturing other gaseous reaction products. In addition to the production rate for 62Zn (9.08(30) × 10−5 62Zn per incoming 78Kr), the rates of formation for several other radionuclides were determined as well. The purification of 62Zn from a large number of co-produced radionuclides was performed by anion exchange chromatography, allowing the isolation of 80.5(5.2)% of the generated 62Zn. With the decay of 62Zn the radioactive daughter 62Cu is generated, and with the isolation of pure 62Cu eluate, the principle of a medical radionuclide generator could be demonstrated. To illustrate the applicability of the obtained 62Zn, the isolated product was used in free and DTPA-labelled form in a proof of principle plant uptake study with garden cress employing phosphor imaging for visualization.


Interleaving, a surface configuration in some languages in which the parts of two adjacent words are interspersed with each other, has been argued to be a phonological phenomenon. In this paper, I investigate interleaving in Vietnamese and a related language, Pacoh (Katuic, Mon-Khmer), and argue that it is the result of morphosyntactic operations and structures and not a phonological operation. I present three pieces of evidence that interleaving is morphosyntactic in nature: (i) interleaving cannot apply to all syllables, only those in certain morphosyntactic environments; (ii) interleaving manipulates polysyllabic units and can apply to 3-part compounds, showing that it is manipulating morphosyntactic structure and not phonological structure; and (iii) interleaving creates extra syntactic-semantic force, suggesting a change in the syntax. I propose an analysis in which interleaving is the result of the structure of coordinate compounds, whose members have no precedence relation with each other, in combination with an alternate traversal of the syntactic tree during linearization. This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol23/iss1/29 Morphosyntactic Interleaving in Vietnamese and Pacoh


How likely is trade liberalization to produce efficiency gains in the presence of imperfect competition, scale economies, and higher-than-average wages in the modern sectors -- all common features of developing economies? These features create a potential conflict to the extent that traditional notions of comparative advantage would lead us to expect that the modern sectors will be squeezed with liberalization. In this paper we investigate the issue by using an applied general equilibrium model calibrated to Cameroonian data. Under perfect competition, the traditional expectations are borne out: manufacturing sectors on the whole contract, and the cash crops sector (mainly coffee and cocoa) is the main beneficiary; the welfare effect is a wash since the beneficial consequence of expanded imports is offset by labor being pulled away from the modern, high-wage sectors. By contrast, under imperfect competition (in the modern sectors only), trade liberalization produces welfare gains of the order of 1 to 2 percent of real income. The key is the pro-competitive effect of liberalization: domestic firms now perceive themselves as facing a higher elasticity of demand, which spurs them to increase production. Therefore, the modern sectors do much better in terms of output than in the perfectly competitive benchmark. The introduction of scale economies amplifies these results. Under reasonable circumstances imperfect competition will make liberalization more desirable, even in the absence of firm entry and exit.


The beach and the naked body are a casualty of the idealism that dominates social sciences. Despite the resurgence of work on embodiment, very few accounts have actually explored the centrality of the body on the beach. Drawing on ethnographic research on the island of Menorca (Spain), this article focuses on practices of nudity on the beach. Instead of giving priority to the representation and meaning of nudity, I am primarily concerned with how it feels to be nude and how nudity is experienced. I want to produce a lively account of the nude beach that makes space for sensuality and enchantment. To this end, I affirm the primacy of the haptic sense on the beach, thus balancing touch and sight, the proximal and the distal, the performative and the representational. Touch offers the opportunity to develop insights into the elusive experience of the beach, the expressive and ethical character of nudism and the interlacing of the body and the environment. The aims of this article are inspired by non-representational approaches in geography. This article attempts to develop this multivarious way of thinking and working in empirically orientated research.


The availability of location data increases every day and brings the opportunity to mine these data and extract valuable knowledge about human behaviour. More specifically, these data may contain information about users' activities, which can enable, for example, services to improve advertising campaigns or enhance the user experience of a mobile application. However, several techniques ignore the fact that users' context other than location and time, such as weather conditions, influences their behaviour. Moreover, several studies focus only on a single data source, addressing either data collected without any type of user interaction, such as GPS data, or data spontaneously shared by the user, for instance, from location-based social networks (LBSNs), but not both. This thesis proposes a framework that aims to predict users' current activity preferences (UCAP). UCAP handles data gathered from different sources. It takes into account users' historical data, their current context, and other external contexts such as weather conditions. The framework was evaluated on five real-world datasets. The results demonstrated the accuracy of the proposed solution, which was on average 12.3% more accurate than a state-ofthe-art technique. Moreover, the experiments evaluated the impact of the main components on the prediction results and showed that UCAP is not constrained by dataset size.


Lack of security mechanisms expose the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to a wide range of threats that are constantly undermining security of the Internet. Most prominent attacks include prefix hijacking and announcement of false routes to maliciously attract or divert traffic. A number of cryptographic solutions to prevent both attacks have been proposed but have not been adopted due to involved operations and considerable overhead. Most of them rely on digital signatures to authorize Autonomous Systems to propagate route announcements. Surprisingly, the scientific community has devoted only little interest to the problem of revocation in BGP. In particular, BGP systems based on Public Key Infrastructure allow to revoke an Autonomous System by revoking its public key certificate. However, there seem to be no solution for selective revocation of AS-path announcements. This paper introduces reBGP, an enhanced version of BGP that leverages Identity Based Cryptography to secure BGP with minimal overhead. reBGP prevents prefix hijacking and false route announcement through Aggregate Identity Based Signatures and provides an effective revocation means to invalidate AS-path announcements. reBGP enjoys a constant overhead to verify authenticity of routes and does not require a Public Key Infrastructure. Extensive testing of our implementation, show that our proposal represents a practical solution to secure BGP.


Aerospace structures often contain multi-layered metallic components where hidden defects such as localized disbonds can develop, necessitating non-destructive testing. Model structures consisting of two adhesively bonded aluminium plates and artificial defects in the bond layer were manufactured. Immersion ultrasonic C- scans were used to check the uniformity of the bond layer and the manufactured defects. Employing standard wedge transducers, high frequency guided ultrasonic waves that penetrate through the complete specimen thickness were generated. Interference occurs between the wave modes during propagation along the structure, resulting in a frequency dependent variation of the energy through the thickness with distance. Significant propagation distance with a strong, non-dispersive main wave pulse was achieved. The interaction of the high frequency guided ultrasonic waves with small disbonds in the sealant layer and lack of sealant in the multilayer structure was investigated. Guided wave pulse-echo measurements were conducted to verify the detection sensitivity and the influence of the stand-off distance predicted from the finite element simulations. The results demonstrated the potential of high frequency guided waves for hidden defect detection at critical and difficult to access locations in aerospace structures from a stand-off distance.


The high entropy alloys (HEA) have emerged as a new class of alloy with many attractive properties. Initially, alloy consists of a solid solution of five or more principal elements with almost equiatomic ratio are called HEA, but lately, several alloys with a solid solution of four elements were also included in this class. Composition, mixing enthalpy, configurational entropy, and several other factors affect the formation of a solid solution. Though initially four core effects were proposed to affect the behavior of HEA, such as configurational entropy sluggish diffusion, lattice distortion, and cocktail effect; however, all these are still debatable. It was started with the discovery of Cantor alloy (CoCrFeNiMn) with a single solid solution; since then several alloys were reported, and it has taken huge attention worldwide. The increasing popularity is mainly due to its ultra-high strength, considerable ductility, slow grain growth, good oxidation, and corrosion resistance, etc. Apart from melting route (i.e., induction melting or arc-melting), mechanical alloying followed by sintering, has been one of the widely used methods for producing HEAs. While synthesizing, achieving a fully single phase solid solution, had been a major challenge. Formation of a single-phase solid solution exits in a very narrow zone in the multicomponent alloy system. Sintering studies on a variety of HEA powders are available in the literature; however, these studies have focused mostly on densification process or phase evolutions. Sintering kinetics of high entropy alloy powders have not been fully understood so far. It had been earlier reported that diffusivity on a given system, may be affected by its configurational entropy. This leads to another question, whether the sintering process, which depends on diffusion behavior, could also be affected by increasing entropy or not. The present investigation aims: i) To synthesize the high entropy alloy powders of Face Centered Cubic (FCC) based (CoCrFeNi, and CoCrFeNiMn) and Body Centered Cubic (BCC) based (TiCrFeNi and AlCoCrFeNi) alloys through mechanical alloying. ii) To study the effect of increasing number of elements and configurational entropy, on sintering kinetics of HEA powders. iii) To study the effect of initial conditions of CoCrFeNi and CoCrFeNiMn HEA powders (i.e., as-milled state and phase stabilized powders (through heat treatment) on sintering kinetics, and iv) To determine the sintering mechanisms of CoCrFeNi and CoCrFeNiMn HEA powders through employing existing sintering models. Nanocrystalline powders of two FCC HEAs (equiatomic CoCrFeNi and CoCrFeNiMn alloys, designated as 4F and 5F respectively) and two BCC HEAs (equiatomic TiCrFeNi and AlCoCrFeNi alloys, designated as 4B and 5B respectively) were synthesized through mechanical alloying. For a given phase, crystallite size was found to be decreased with an increasing number of elements. Both non-isothermal as well as iso-thermal sintering were performed on a vertical dilatometer. Non-isothermal shrinkage data were analyzed. It was observed that for a given number of alloying elements, FCC alloys exhibit slightly larger activation energy than BCC alloys. Results suggest a noticeable trend in the estimated activation energy of sintering, with alloying numbers and configurational entropy. For a given phase (FCC or BCC), higher the configurational entropy of the alloy, larger the activation energy of sintering. It was also found that the grain coarsening slows down with increasing alloying elements. It is expected that as-milled powders may contain high defect concentration, large grain boundary fraction and metastable phases, etc. However, through the annealing of the powder, effect of many of these factors can be minimized. A comparative study on sintering kinetics of two different initial conditions of CoCrFeNi and CoCrFeNiMn HEA powders (i.e., asmilled state and phase stabilized powders through heat treatment prior to compaction and sintering) has been made. Dilatometric results show a decrease in densification for annealed powder, compared to as-milled powders. The activation energies evaluated through nonisothermal sintering using grain boundary diffusion (GBD) and volume diffusion (VD) mechanisms show increased values after annealing. The estimated activation energies were compared with the available data in the literature for different mechanisms for constituting elements. Results show, the activation energies of GBD mechanism are close to that of reported data; suggesting the possibility of dominating GBD mechanism in as-milled powders during initial sintering. Whereas activation energy measured for VD in CoCrFeNiMn annealed powders are in close proximity to the literature data; suggesting that in annealed powder VD may be a dominating sintering mechanism during non-isothermal sintering. To get a more clear understanding about sintering mechanisms of HEA powders in initial stage sintering, isothermal sintering data were analyzed through the sintering models (Johnson 1969) for both VD and GBD mechanisms. Employing these models, requires some materials specific data, namely atomic volume () and specific surface energy (s), etc., viii which were not available in the literature. Therefore, values of s were determined experimentally whereas atomic volume () was estimated theoretically. Another issue was, about using the existing models (which were developed for spherical powders) for the current powders (which are highly irregular in shape and varied size). Therefore, to overcome such problems, models were employed in a novel way in the current work, by normalizing with respect to the grain size. With the help of these equations, both coefficient of diffusion as well as activation energy for a given mechanism (VD or GBD) could be obtained from the shrinkage data of HEA powders. In the next step, the set of values (coefficient of diffusion along with respective activation energy) were compared with the available set of values in the literature for various constituting elements in the alloy. In the as-milled 4F and 5F powders, domination of any single sintering mechanism was ruled out. Whereas, in the annealed 4F and 5F powders, volume diffusion was clearly identified as dominating sintering mechanism. The thesis has been organized into five chapters, and a brief overview has been given below: The first chapter mainly consists of three sections. First section presents the historical development of HEA, and some properties. Second section highlights the synthesis routes and sintering of HEAs. Third section deals with the different methods of sintering, sintering mechanisms and relevant sintering models. At the end of the chapter, objectives of the present work, have been listed. Second Chapter deals with the experimental procedure; it includes mechanical alloying, compaction, sintering using dilatometer, etc. It also includes characterization of powders and sintered samples. The third chapter presents the results of powder synthesis, sintering, phase evolution, microstructures and other characterizations. Effect of increasing alloying and configuration entropy on sintering kinetics has been shown for both FCC and BCC HEAs. Further, the effect of initial powder condition of two FCC powders on sintering, have also been shown. In the Fourth Chapter, obtained results at various sections have been discussed and analyzed. In the first section, phase formation has been discussed. In the second section effect of increasing elements in HEA on sintering kinetics, has been discussed. The comparison of diffusion parameters with existing literature to find out controlling mechanisms have been discussed. The last chapter (fifth chapter) summaries major findings of the present investigation, including powder synthesis, phase formation, powder sintering, and sintering mechanisms.


We present a proper-motion study of the shock waves within the classic stellar jet HH 47 based on Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Hα and [S II] images of the region taken over two epochs. Individual knots within the jet and in the bow shock/Mach disk working surface of HH 47A move significantly in the 5 yr that separate the images, and the excellent spatial resolution of HST makes it possible to measure the proper motions with enough precision to easily observe differential motions throughout the flow. The bright portion of the jet emerges at 37.°5 ± 2.°5 from the plane of the sky with an average velocity of 300 km s-1. Dynamical ages of the shock waves in the jet range from a few decades for knots recently ejected by the source to ∼1300 yr for the faint extended bow shock HH 47D. The jet curves, but motions of knots in the jet are directed radially away from the exciting source, and velocity variability in the flow drives the shock waves that heat the jet internally. The jet orientation angle varies with time by about 15° and currently points to the northwestern portion of a cavity outlined by a reflection nebula, where a quasi-stationary shock deflects the jet. The major working surface HH 47A is more complex than a simple bow shock/Mach disk and contains numerous clumps that move relative to one another with velocities of ∼±40 km s-1. Small clumps or instabilities affect the Mach disk, and dense clumps may move all the way through the working surface to cause the bumpy morphology seen at the bow shock. A localized area between the bow shock and Mach disk varies significantly between the two sets of images.


Tree nuts have a fatty acid profile that favourably affects blood lipids and lipoproteins. They are low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fatty acids and are rich sources of other nutrients. An extensive database consistently shows total and LDL cholesterol-lowering effects of diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol and high in unsaturated fat provided by a variety of tree nuts. Collectively, a summary of studies conducted to date shows that tree nuts reduce LDL cholesterol by 3–19 % compared with Western and lower-fat diets. Nuts also contain many nutrients and bioactive compounds that appear to contribute to the favourable effects on lipids and lipoproteins – these include plant sterols, dietary fibre and antioxidants. Because of their unique nutrient profile, nuts can be part of a diet that features multiple heart-healthy foods resulting in a cholesterol lowering response that surpasses that of cholesterol-lowering diets typically used to reduce CVD risk.


Transient protection is an important issue in pipeline design. As protective devices impose a huge cost on the project, it is better and more efficient to use optimization models for determination of their position and type with the aim of cost reduction. Except for the cost, the other important issue in obtaining the number and locating of protective devices is the consideration of important operational parameters during the utilization of the pipelines. This paper introduces a new objective function called 'serviceability factor' for achieving the best layout for protection devices by considering five main operational parameters. A double-objective model has been used to optimize the protective devices to obtain the minimum of cost and the most appropriate level of operational parameters. The presented model utilizes the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGAII) simultaneously with transient analysis through the method of characteristics. A real pipeline has been optimized using this model and the results are presented in the form of Pareto optimal solutions.


Background: Problem-based learning curricula have been introduced in many medical schools around the world. This approach to teaching brings prior knowledge into play more rapidly and ends up fostering learning that adapts to new situations and related domains as quickly [1,2]. However, their adoption was met with some concern, primarily because of the substantial manpower and money involved [3]. Given the limited resources available, evidence-based evaluations of the effects of problem-based learning on improving physician competency strengthens any justification for the adoption of such programs [4, 5-9]. Method: The I MBBS students of 2011-2012 Batch who had enrolled in RG KAR Medical College and Hospital were subjects. The class was divided into groups of approximately five students each. The groups' membership remained constant throughout the term. The section on Vitamins was divided into two sections with one section being taught by traditional method and the other by Problem-based learning. A total of one hundred fifty students were assessed in six days. At the end of the term, assessment of students was done by multiple choice questions and student's response towards traditional method versus Problem-based learning was gauged. Results: Out of 150 students, 90 students participated in the PBL exercise. 72 students voted for PBL, 10 were against and 8 were neutral. Students' performances in the multiple choice question tests when taught by PBL were marginally better in comparison to traditional method. Conclusion: In Problem-based learning students learn to be self directed, independent and interdependent learners motivated to solve a problem. Problem-based learning during medical school has positive effects on physician competencies, especially in the social and cognitive dimensions.


Abstract. This study focuses on physiochemical processes occurring in a brittle–ductile shear zone at both fluid-present and fluid-limited conditions. In the studied shear zone (Wyangala, SE Australia), a coarse-grained two-feldspar–quartz–biotite granite is transformed into a medium-grained orthogneiss at the shear zone margins and a fine-grained quartz–muscovite phyllonite in the central parts. The orthogneiss displays cataclasis of feldspar and crystal-plastic deformation of quartz. Quartz accommodates most of the deformation and is extensively recrystallized, showing distinct crystallographic preferred orientation (CPO). Feldspar-to-muscovite, biotite-to-muscovite and albitization reactions occur locally at porphyroclasts' fracture surfaces and margins. However, the bulk rock composition shows very little change in respect to the wall rock composition. In contrast, in the shear zone centre quartz occurs as large, weakly deformed porphyroclasts in sizes similar to that in the wall rock, suggesting that it has undergone little deformation. Feldspars and biotite are almost completely reacted to muscovite, which is arranged in a fine-grained interconnected matrix. Muscovite-rich layers contain significant amounts of fine-grained intermixed quartz with random CPO. These domains are interpreted to have accommodated most of the strain. Bulk rock chemistry data show a significant increase in SiO2 and depletion in NaO content compared to the wall rock composition. We suggest that the high- and low-strain microstructures in the shear zone represent markedly different scenarios and cannot be interpreted as a simple sequential development with respect to strain. Instead, we propose that the microstructural and mineralogical changes in the shear zone centre arise from a local metasomatic alteration around a brittle precursor. When the weaker fine-grained microstructure is established, the further flow is controlled by transient porosity created at (i) grain boundaries in fine-grained areas deforming by grain boundary sliding (GBS) and (ii) transient dilatancy sites at porphyroclast–matrix boundaries. Here a growth of secondary quartz occurs from incoming fluid, resulting in significant changes in bulk composition and eventually rheological hardening due to the precipitation-related increase in the mode and grain size of quartz. In contrast, within the shear zone margins the amount of fluid influx and associated reactions is limited; here deformation mainly proceeds by dynamic recrystallization of the igneous quartz grains. The studied shear zone exemplifies the role of syn-deformational fluids and fluid-induced reactions on the dominance of deformation processes and subsequent contrasting rheological behaviour at micron to metre scale.


Energy analysis programs are becoming more advanced and energy standards are becoming more stringent. This is driving more design teams to use a performance approach to comply with codes or to qualify for incentive and recognition programs. Each software application produces output in a different format and each code authority or energy program administrator requires that information be submitted in a different format. Energy modelers spend considerable time translating software results in to a suitable format for the program administrator. This paper recommends a standard results format to serve as a sort of Rosetta Stone to ease and facilitate communication between energy modelers and energy program administrators. The standard format is electronic and defined as an extended markup language (XML) schema. Each software application can write simple routines to port their results to this format and each program administrator can write simple parsing routines to read the standard XML format and transfer it to their database format.


Human mathematicians often "prove" theorems by the use of diagrams and manipulations on them. We call these diagrammatic proofs. rn (Jamnik, Bundy, & Green 1997) we presented how "informal" reasoning with diagrams can be automated. Three stages of proof extraction procedure were identified. First, concrete rather than general diagrams are used to prove particular instances of the universally quantified theorem. The diagrammatic proof is captured by the use of geometric operations on the diagram. Second, an abstracted schematic proof of the universally quantified theorem is automatically induced from these proof instances. Third, the final step is to confirm that the abstraction of the schematic proof from the proof instances is sound. Our main focus in this paper is on the third stage, the verification of schematic proofs. We define a theory of diagrams where we prove the correctness of a schematic proof. Vie give an example of an extraction of a schematic proof for a theorem about the sum of odd naturals, and prove its correctness in the theory of diagrams.


This chapter presents a relatively new approach to show how a web usability classi- cal paradigm can benefit from quantitative data of a nonclassical approach. In the pilot stage, we used experimental eye tracking data acquired from 11 participants faced to a web page to perform three simple tasks. Results show advantages by using eye tracking data to identify and verify some usability problems of such a web page. In this chapter, some hints are presented for people interested in measuring web usability by using such an approach. However, a deeper study should be carried out in order to generalize our results toward the construction of a methodology to be followed by a web developer or interested people in such a field of research.


Background: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) came out to attract wide attention and had become one of the hotspots of most diseases' research in decades. But at present, the mechanisms of how MSCs work on chronic asthma remain undefined. Our study aims at verifying whether MSCs play a role in preventing inflammation and airway remodeling via PI3K/AKT signaling pathway in the chronic asthma rats model. Methods: First, an ovalbumin (OVA)-induced asthma model was built. MSCs were administered to ovalbumin-induced asthma rats. The total cells in a bronchial alveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and inflammatory mediators in BALF and serum were measured. Histological examination of lung tissue was performed to estimate the pathological changes. Additionally, the expression of phosphorylated-Akt (p-Akt) in all groups was measured by western blot and immunohistochemistry (IHC). Results: Compared to normal control group, the degree of airway inflammation and airway remodeling was significantly increased in asthma group. On the contrary, they were obviously inhibited in MSCs transplantation group. Moreover, the expression of p-Akt was increased in lung tissues of asthmatic rats, and suppressed by MSCs transplantation. Conclusion: Our results demonstrated that MSCs transplantation could suppress lung inflammation and airway remodeling via PI3K/Akt signaling pathway in rat asthma model.


New techniques in polarization measurement allow gamma-ray emission from a black hole binary in the Milky Way to be associated with a jet. An important advance in high-energy astrophysics over the past decade has been the detailed understanding of the nature of binary stellar systems in which material from an ordinary star is being accreted on to a compact object, either a neutron star or a black hole (1, 2). These systems are called x-ray binaries because emission from the accretion disk and associated material appears very bright in the x-ray regime. In recent years, it has become clear that a substantial amount of the energy generated as matter is accreted can be ejected in the form of high-velocity jets that inject energy into the environment around the binary system (3, 4). Because of similarities in their structure, these x-ray binaries (or microquasars) may offer us insights into the much more powerful, but much more distant, outflows associated with the supermassive black holes at the centers of active galaxies such as quasars. Moreover, their smaller size allows us to watch them evolve over time scales that are compatible with a human lifetime. Direct measurements of the properties of the jets in x-ray binaries have been rather elusive, however. On page 438 of this issue, Laurent et al. (5) show that gamma-ray polarization measurements can be used to make a convincing case for a jet origin for some of the gamma-ray emission observed from the prototypical x-ray binary, Cygnus X-1.


For a space X and a regular uncountable cardinal κ ≤ |X| we say that κ ∈ D(X) if for each T ⊂ X2 −∆(X) with |T | = κ, there is an open neighborhood W of ∆(X) such that |T−W | = κ. If ω1 ∈ D(X) then we say that X has a small diagonal, and if every regular uncountable κ ≤ |X| belongs to D(X) then we say that X has an H-diagonal. In this paper we investigate the interplay between D(X) and topological properties of X in the category of generalized ordered spaces. We obtain cardinal invariant theorems and metrization theorems for such spaces, proving, for example, that a Lindelof linearly ordered space with a small diagonal is metrizable. We give examples showing that our results are the sharpest possible, e.g., that there is a first countable, perfect, paracompact Cech-complete linearly ordered space with an H-diagonal that is not metrizable. Our example shows that a recent CH-result of Juhasz and Szentmiklossy on metrizability of compact Hausdorff spaces with small diagonals cannot be generalized beyond the class of locally compact spaces. We present examples showing the interplay of the above diagonal conditions with set theory in a natural extension of the Michael line construction.


Considerable research interest has been directed towards the use of composite for
crashworthiness applications, because they can be designed to provide impact energy
absorption capabilities which are superior to those of metals when compared on
weight basis. The use of composite parts in structural and semi-structure applications
is becoming more widespread throughout the automotives, aircraft and space vehicles.
In this study, an innovative lightweight composite energy-absorbing keel beam system
has been developed to be retrofitted in aircraft and helicopter in order to improve their crashworthiness performance. The developed system consists of everting stringer and
keel beam. The sub floor seat rails were designed as everting stringer to guide and
control the failure mechanisms at pre-crush and post crush failure stages of composite
keel beam webs and core. Polyurethane foam was employed to fill the core of the
beam to eliminate any hypothesis of global buckling. The numerical prediction was
obtained using commercially available finite element analysis software. The
experimental data are correlated with predictions from finite element model and
analytical solution. An acceptable agreement between the experimental and
computational results was obtained. For all structures considered classical axial
collapse eigen values were computed.
The results showed that the crushing behaviour of the developed system is found to be
sensitive to the change in keel beam core cross-section. Laminate sequence has a
significant influence on the failure mode types, average crush loads and energy
absorption capability of composite keel beam. The desired energy absorbing
mechanism revealed that the innovated system can be used for aircraft and helicopter
and meet the requirements, together with substantial weight saving.


In the target article, Dolinski (2018, this issue) showed that empirical studies of "real" behaviour are an almost extinct species of research, judged from articles published in the most recent volume of JPSP (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology). This finding continues a trend identified by Baumeister and colleagues ten years ago. The reliance on self-reports and rating scales can hardly be explained as an aftermath of the cognitive revolution in psychology, or a preoccupation with measurements and advanced statistical analyses, as Dolinski suggests, but is more compatible with the ease of collecting questionnaire data, combined with the pressure to publish large multi-study papers and to obtain approval from ethical review boards. This development is further strengthened by the accessibility of online participant pools. An informal count showed that students participating for course credit were in 2006 involved more than 90% of empirical JPSP studies, as against 22.5% in 2017. In contrast, Amazon Mechanical Turk workers, non-existent in 2006, participated in 55.3% of the empirical studies published in the most recent volume. Parallel to this development the number of participants per study and the number of studies per article have vastly increased.


The field of scene understanding endeavours to extract a broad range of information from 3D scenes. Current approaches exploit one or at most a few different criteria (e.g., spatial, semantic, functional information) simultaneously for analysis. We argue that to take scene understanding to the next level of performance, we need to take into account many different, and possibly previously unconsidered types of knowledge simultaneously. A unified representation for this type of processing is as of yet missing. In this work we propose MCGraph: a unified multi-criterion data representation for understanding and processing of large-scale 3D scenes. Scene abstraction and prior knowledge are kept separated, but highly connected. For this purpose, primitives (i.e., proxies) and their relationships (e.g., contact, support, hierarchical) are stored in an abstraction graph, while the different categories of prior knowledge necessary for processing are stored separately in a knowledge graph. These graphs complement each other bidirectionally, and are processed concurrently. We illustrate our approach by expressing previous techniques using our formulation, and present promising avenues of research opened up by using such a representation. We also distribute a set of MCGraph annotations for a small number of NYU2 scenes, to be used as ground truth multi-criterion abstractions.


Recent techniques for fault localization leverage code coverage to address the high cost problem of debugging. These techniques exploit the correlations between program failures and the coverage of program entities as the clue in locating faults. Experimental evidence shows that the effectiveness of these techniques can be affected adversely by coincidental correctness, which occurs when a fault is executed but no failure is detected. In this paper, we propose an approach to address this problem. We refine code coverage of test runs using control- and data-flow patterns prescribed by different fault types. We conjecture that this extra information, which we call context patterns, can strengthen the correlations between program failures and the coverage of faulty program entities, making it easier for fault localization techniques to locate the faults. To evaluate the proposed approach, we have conducted a mutation analysis on three real world programs and cross-validated the results with real faults. The experimental results consistently show that coverage refinement is effective in easing the coincidental correctness problem in fault localization techniques.


1. Introduction English Language Learners of All Kinds Language Learning: How Does It Happen? BICS and CALP All Teachers as Teachers of English Language Learners A Look Back Is a Look Forward Overview of the Book Cast of Characters A Note for Readers 2. Six Principles for Teaching English Language Learners: The Instructional Model The CREDE Five Pedagogy Standards The Model Enacted in Seventh Grade Reflection on Cori's Teaching Cori and the CREDE Standards Joint Productive Activity Contextualization Language and Literacy Rigorous Curriculum Instructional Conversation This Seems Overwhelming: Can I Do It? Scaffolding the Five Standards 3. Joint Productive Activity (JPA) and English Language Learners Reflection on Vickie's Lesson Rationale/Definition of JPA Is This JPA? Indicators of Joint Productive Activity Classroom Culture The Juggling Act: Grouping and Scheduling of JPA Example of JPA in Study of Race and Racism Reflection on Justin's Teaching JPA in Middle School ESL: Learning From Our Mistakes Reflection on Jayne's Teaching Assessing JPA in Your Teaching Teaching Tips for JPA 4. Contextualization and English Language Learners: Making Learning Meaningful Reflection of Johanna's Teaching Meaning of Contextualization Are We Connecting? Indicators of Contextualization Examples of Contextualization Contextualization in Middle School Language Arts Contextualization in Kindergarten Contextualization in Fourth-Grade Science and Mathematics Reflection on Examples Assessing Contextualization of Lessons Teaching Tips 5. Language and Literacy for ELLs Rationale/definition of Developing Language and Literacy Indicators of Language and Literacy Teaching The Case for Home Language Development Reading Instruction and ELLs Georgia's Second Grade Mary's Fourth Grade Writing in Middle School Writing Across the Curriculum Tips for Language and Literacy Teachers Assessing Your Language and Literacy Teaching 6. Engaging Students With Rigorous Curriculum: High Expectations for English Language Students Meaning of Rigorous Curriculum Indicators of Rigorous Curriculum Examples of Rigorous Curriculum Rigorous Curriculum Enacted in Kindergarten Rigorous Curriculum Enacted in Middle Grades Language Arts Reflection on Examples Questions to Guide Planning Teaching Tips Assessing Your Rigorous Curriculum 7. Instructional Conversation (IC) Rationale and Definition of IC How Does IC Differ From Traditional Teaching? Beyond Discussion: Indicators of Instructional Conversation Assistance Through Good Questioning Think-Pair-Share Strategy Examples of IC Instructional Conversation in Middle School Instructional Conversation With Young Children Tips for Instructional Conversation Assessing Your IC 8. Engaging Families of English Language Learners Importance of Involving Families Successful Ways to Involve Families of English Language Learners Communicating With Families Involving Families in Classrooms Increasing Help at Home Engaging Families in Workshops and Other School Events Visiting in Students' Homes Challenges to Involving Families Tips for Engaging Families Assessing Your Family Involvement 9. Conclusion Beyond a Model Approach Compatible Views Development of CREDE Standards Preparation of Teachers and Teacher Educators Concluding Remarks References Index


As people continue to author and share increasing amounts of information in social media, the opportunity to leverage such information for relationship discovery tasks increases. In this paper, we describe a set of systems that mine, aggregate, and infer a social graph from social media inside an enterprise, resulting in over 73 million relationships between 450,000 people. We then describe SaNDVis, a novel visual analytics tool that supports people-centric tasks like expertise location, team building, and team coordination in the enterprise. We also provide details of a 12-month-long, large-scale deployment to almost 1,800 users from which we extract dominant use cases from log and interview data. By integrating social position, evidence, and facets into SaNDVis, we demonstrate how users can use a visual analytics tool to reflect on existing relationships as well as build new relationships in an enterprise setting.


Ecological regime shifts and carbon cycling in aquatic systems have both been subject to increasing attention in recent years, yet the direct connection between these topics has remained poorly understood. A four-fold increase in sedimentation rates was observed within the past 50 years in a shallow eutrophic lake with no surface in- or outflows. This change coincided with an ecological regime shift involving the complete loss of submerged macrophytes, leading to a more turbid, phytoplankton-dominated state. To determine whether the increase in carbon (C) burial resulted from a comprehensive transformation of C cycling pathways in parallel to this regime shift, we compared the annual C balances (mass balance and ecosystem budget) of this turbid lake to a similar nearby lake with submerged macrophytes, a higher transparency, and similar nutrient concentrations. C balances indicated that roughly 80% of the C input was permanently buried in the turbid lake sediments, compared to 40% in the clearer macrophyte-dominated lake. This was due to a higher measured C burial efficiency in the turbid lake, which could be explained by lower benthic C mineralization rates. These lower mineralization rates were associated with a decrease in benthic oxygen availability coinciding with the loss of submerged macrophytes. In contrast to previous assumptions that a regime shift to phytoplankton dominance decreases lake heterotrophy by boosting whole-lake primary production, our results suggest that an equivalent net metabolic shift may also result from lower C mineralization rates in a shallow, turbid lake. The widespread occurrence of such shifts may thus fundamentally alter the role of shallow lakes in the global C cycle, away from channeling terrestrial C to the atmosphere and towards burying an increasing amount of C.


The development initiatives of cities are prioritized by the city councils in the city strategies. This master's thesis studies the occurrence of open data themes among city priorities. The theoretical background of the thesis is based on knowledge of open data literature and city strategies. It is studied how the cities promote open data in their city strategies: how are the themes of open data visible in the strategies. Opening data is an active topic in cities. Among other drivers, legislation in national and European Union level is pushing proceeding. Opening datasets in new sectors meets also barriers. In this thesis, a review is done for the classifications of driving and hindering factors. A possible mandate and assignment from the highest municipal decision-making level to the open data promotion work provides a significant support when solving obstacles in the operational level. For a municipal unit, composing a strategy is a duty based on the Finnish Local Government Act. It directs the strategy work only in a high level, though. It does not instruct the form or accurate contents of the strategy, but the cities determine the composition themselves. City strategies not only present the visions and strategic objectives, but they can also be seen as a part of the city management system. In order to find out if the open data initiatives are among top priorities of cities, the research question for this thesis is formed: how the city strategies promote open data themes? The research studies if the open data themes are visible in strategies. If the city top decision-making sees open data themes as high priorities, open data promotion work has more tools to win barriers. This thesis aims at increasing the knowledge regarding the factors that have an effect on open data work. In this thesis, city strategies are analysed through strategy documents from Finnish large cities. The data was collected from the city strategy documents, approved for council terms that started in 2013. Methodologically this study is a qualitative content analysis. The approach is data-driven; the analysis is based on document data from the city strategy. According to the results of this study, cities see the themes that support open data work as high priorities, and city strategies express objectives that can be used as tools for open data promotion. Especially transparency and openness in decision-making as well as resident participation are widely supported themes. Direct expressions of opening datasets and business promotion with open data are also visible, but not as commonly.


The asteroid exploration mission, Hayabusa2, needs to develop the shape model of 162173 RYUGU, because the shape model helps to control the spacecraft safely and examine the nature of the asteroid. We utilized images of a vertical asteroid Ryugoid generated for a dry-run test of LSS sequence to simulate the real RYUGU, developed its image-based shape model, and evaluated its accuracy from comparing it with the true shape of Ryugoid. Then, we use software called Gaskell's Stereophotoclinometry (SPC), which develops the shape using stereo imaging and photoclinometry. The former method determines the elevation from the parallax between two or more images. The latter method determines the slope and albedo from the variation in brightness of three or more images. We used a sphere with 450 m in radius as an initial shape and 128 boxA images with a resolution of ~ 2.0 m/pixel, 101 boxC images (0.5-0.7 m/pixel), 220 Mid-Altitude images (~0.5 m/pixel), and additional images to show the southern hemisphere. As a result, we made the shape model of entire Ryugoid. In the presentation, we will show our shape model, its accuracy compared with the true shape, and the time required to develop it.


Phospholipids in water form lamellar phases made up of alternating layers of water and bimolecular lipid leaflets. Three complementary methods, osmotic, mechanical, and vapour pressures, were used to measure the work of removing water from lamellar phases composed of frozen dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine ( DPPC ), melted DPPC, egg phosphatidylethanolamine or equimolar mixtures of DPPC and cholesterol ( DPPC/CHOL ), Concurrently the structural changes that resulted from this water removal were measured using X-ray diffraction. The work was divided into that which forces the bilayers together ( F ) and that which compresses the molecules together within the bilayers ( F ) # A large repulsive force exists between bilayers composed of each of the lipids studied and this force increases exponentially as bilayer separation is decreased. F is affected by the nature of the head groups, conformation of the acyl chains and heterogeneity of these chains. In general all of the melted phosphatidylcholines ( melted DPPC, egg lecithin and DPPC/CHOL ) have large equilibrium separations in excess water resulting from large repulsive hydration forces between these bilayers. By comparison, egg PE has an increased attractive force, and frozen DPPC has a decreased hydration force; each results in smaller separations in water for these two lipids. The chemical potentials of the water between the bilayers for all these lipids lie on a continuum, indicating that interbilayer water cannot be characterized by two discrete states, usually referred to as "bound" or "non**bound". For all lipids studied a maximum of 25 % of the total work done on the system goes into deforming the bilayers. The method used here


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to outline relevant policies on the integration of health and social care (HSC) in the four home nations: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England and offer a comparison of emphasis and approaches and draw out general insights on the implementation of integrated care policy.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is written as a piece of critical reflection by drawing on the authors' knowledge and expertise and wider evidence where available.

Findings

Since 2010, HSC integration has started to diverge significantly in the four constituent countries of the UK. Although England and Wales have undergone considerable re-organisation of the NHS, Scotland and Northern Ireland have largely been marked by organisational continuity. However, beyond organisational differences, policy approaches, policy emphases and implementation strategies have also started to show considerable dissimilarity across the UK. An important contributory factor may be different ideological perspectives on the role of competition and pilots, partnership, patient choice and organisational incentives to bring about change in the field.

Research limitations/implications

The paper identifies a serious lack of comparative research in integration policy, despite the considerable opportunities for quasi-experimental studies. This lack of empirical research impedes shared learning across the home nations.

Originality/value

The paper presents a descriptive comparison of current integration policy between HSC providers in the four home nations. It reveals considerable opportunities for further research and comparative modelling of integration approaches.


Privacy and security concerns of consumers have been touted as one of the hindrances in the growth of e-commerce. These concerns increase risk perception of consumers. Understanding the consequences of privacy and security concerns, and their relationship to risk perceptions may provide a solution. The relationship between privacy and security is investigated using the Theory of Planned Behavior. The model proposed in this study, investigates the relationship of trust, privacy and security concerns to the risk perception adoption of e-commerce. The results from a field study validate the model.


"From midday to midnight St Augustine's Tower will be a performance space dedicated to the exploration of Time; as a construct and a natural force, how it is valued and perceived, regimented and elastic, strange and unyielding. Sounds from the clock, the surroundings and live performances will echo through the tower across the twelve hours like sand through an hour glass.

How do you capture an moment of sound in time? How do you photograph a voice? E5 Process photography collective have been collaborating to explore how collodion process and pin-hole techniques can be used to capture fragments of time at the tower.

The piece is the culmination of a six month residency at the tower supported by OCM's BOOM program and is supported by Hackney Historic Buildings Trust and the Department of Creative Professionals & Digital Arts at Greenwich University."


The literature on spousal violence suggests that abusive men, their female victims, and others in society often fail to blame abusers for their violent behavior. This failure perpetuates spousal violence because it allows abusers to continue being abusive without being held responsible for their actions. This study analyzed the attributions of male and female university students concerning written scenarios portraying moderate levels of spousal violence to determine whether observers tend to explain the violence using internal or external attributions. Male participants in the study reported a very low tendency, if any, to engage in spousal violence, while the female participants had very little, if any, experience as victims of abuse during the previous six months. Four theories were used to formulate the research questions concerning whether respondents would make internal or external attributions for spousal violence: Kelley's Covariation Theory, Jones and Nisbett's Actor-Observer Bias, Shaver's Defensive Attribution, and Backman's Self-Theory. The results indicated that the majority of male and female observers attributed the cause of violence to the abuser by making internal attributions for the abuse. These results offer an element of hope to the spousal violence literature. To the extent that members of society make internal attributions for spousal violence, abusers are held responsible for their behavior and ultimately may feel pressured to


We use administrative data to examine the various milestones achieved and pathways followed by new Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) awardees. Our findings show that 80% of DI-first awardees and 53% of SSI-first awardees either achieved none of the milestones we tracked in the 10 years after their initial award or their only milestone was death or attainment of full retirement age. Furthermore, many DI and SSI awardees who achieved work- or program-related milestones during the analysis period did not make additional progress toward exiting the program. For example, one third of DI-first and one fifth of SSI-first awardees who enrolled in employment services had no other milestones and one quarter of DI-first awardees who completed a trial work period either had no other milestones or their only additional milestone was enrolling in employment services. We also found that approximately one quarter of SSI-beneficiaries who later received DI had their SSI benefits suspended and terminated due to excess income that included DI payments as the only additional milestones. Finally, our analysis reveals great diversity in the paths taken to achieve work- and program-related milestones, which policy makers should consider when designing interventions to help awardees return to work.


Transnational business regulation is increasingly implemented through private voluntary programs-like certification regimes and codes of conduct-that diffuse global standards. But little is known about the conditions under which companies adhere to these standards. We conduct one of the first large-scale comparative studies to determine which international, domestic, civil society, and market institutions promote supply chain factories' adherence to the global labor standards embodied in codes of conduct imposed by multinational buyers. We find that suppliers are more likely to adhere when they are embedded in states that participate actively in the ILO treaty regime and that have stringent domestic labor law and high levels of press freedom. We further demonstrate that suppliers perform better when they serve buyers located in countries where consumers are wealthy and socially conscious. Taken together, these findings suggest the importance of overlapping state, civil society, and market governance regimes to meaningful transnational regulation.


One of the core activities of Design and Technology Education is designing, which is a thinking activity that benefits greatly from expression. Verbal expression serves interaction. A teacher can induce verbal expression in pupils by inviting them to interact about familiar subjects. This interaction is a stepping stone towards an integration of exploring, creating and thinking, resulting in broad thinking, and to sharing ideas. In order to establish interaction, ideas need to be verbalised into informative expressions that are recognisable as such by the whole class. Teachers can influence the quality of interaction by teaching the rules and means of verbal expression. This teaching needs the golden mean of non-authoritative guidance, oriented towards discovery of the rules and means, and a carefully prepared environment leading to insight in the concept of verbalisation. This kind of teaching will make pupil's feelings change from curious into smart and competent with regard to verbalisation. The case study focused on enabling pupils to verbally express the features of a cuddly toy. The age of the pupils was of four to six years old and the thinking hats of De Bono were used as a structuring instrument to initiate the activity. The results show that through this approach the teacher succeeded in teaching the rules and means of verbal expression, without hampering the expressiveness and autonomy of the pupils. As a result class and teacher together managed to create a starting point for further procedural growth about "how to express yourself". They also set a structure in which other subjects could be discussed in future.


The role of heterotrimeric G‐proteins on the formation of constitutive secretory vesicles (CSVs) and immature secretory granules (ISGs) from the trans‐Golgi network (TGN) of PC12 cells was investigated. Using immunofluorescence and subcellular fractionation in conjunction with immunoblotting or ADP‐ribosylation by either pertussis toxin or cholera toxin, TGN membranes were found to contain not only several alpha i/alpha o G‐protein subunits including apparently alpha i3, but also alpha s. Pertussis toxin treatment of cells, which resulted in the stoichiometric ADP‐ribosylation of alpha i/alpha o, a modification known to prevent their coupling to receptors, led to the stimulation of cell‐free CSV and ISG formation, suggesting the presence of a guanine nucleotide exchange factor for alpha i/alpha o on the TGN. Mastoparan‐7, a peptide known to mimic an activated receptor and to stimulate nucleotide exchange on alpha i/alpha o, inhibited cell‐free vesicle formation, an effect abolished by pertussis toxin. In contrast, activation of alpha s by cholera toxin treatment of cells resulted in a stimulation of cell‐free CSV and ISG formation. This stimulation could be reversed when the alpha subunits not activated by cholera toxin, i.e. alpha i/alpha o, were activated by GTP gamma S and [AIF4]‐. Our results show that both inhibitory and stimulatory trimeric G‐proteins on the TGN participate in the regulation of secretory vesicle formation.


Social creativity is defined as the creative methods in individuals' interaction. The present study deals with the survey of the relationship between teacher-student interaction and social creativity in the primary school boy students. The study participants are 114 primary school boy students from the four educational districts in Shiraz who have been selected by taking advantage of multistage clustering sampling method with a basic sample class unit; and they were asked to complete the teacher-student interaction and creativity questionnaire. To determine the reliability and validity the Cronbach's alpha and items correlation were used respectively along with their dimensions and dimensions correlation with the total score. The results and evidences were indicative of the favorable validity and reliability of the questionnaire. The results obtained from the Pierson correlation coefficient showed that there is a negative and significant relationship between the dimension of responsibility and freedom with creativity. Also, the results of the regression analysis indicated that from among the dimensions of teacherstudent interaction only dimension of responsibility and freedom are negative and significant predictor of the social creativity in primary school boy students.


ABSTRACT This paper addresses the economic role of these two countries: Will the Chinese economy, as many suggest, continue its strong economic advance under its system of "undemocratic capitalism" and surpass in size the United States and its economically-integrated partners (currently NAFTA), or will China convulse and stagnate? This paper explores the scenario that the United States will see its destiny at the heart of a Free-Trade Area of the Atlantic with an economy significantly greater than China's and with even a larger population. China will remain the dominant Asian economy, but independently and not part of a regional economic union. MARKET AND POLITICS World economies strongly affect international politics. At present, about 210 national economies interact on the world political and economic stages. This interaction raises important questions: Will the United States maintain not only military superiority, buf also its economic dominance in the world? Will any country or group of countries challenge the U.S. as the superpower? Will the reconfiguration of the world market in the 21st century mean peace or war? Will it mean the "clash of civilizations," or the "end of history?" Many books and articles have sprung up, suggesting that China will become the world's largest market (Lin and Robinson, 1994; Henderson, 1999; Foy and Maddison, 1999; Mines, 1997). The same kind of predictions were made back in the 1970s, when Japan's economy was growing 7 percent annually and very soon, according to some writers, would become the number one economy in the world. However, since 1989 the Japanese economy has stagnated, real estate and stock markets have imploded, and the Japanese government has been unwilling, if not unable, to tend to its wounds. Japan's role in the world has contracted. In the 1980s, when the Asian Tigers were also growing at 7 percent, a few writers even predicted that sooner or later they would become the largest economy. However, these implausible predictions were not fulfilled. The Asian crisis in 1997 proved that the Asian Tigers had switched to a restricted "diet" as the region passed through a disastrous economic contraction. It has become evident that the Asian Tigers are more economically dependent on the West than vice-versa. Both the "Tigers," collectively, and Japan, individually, are too small to become the world's dominant economy. The People's Republic of China is the only economy that has the economic potential to possibly challenge the U.S. for economic leadership in the next generation. The question, however, is whether China can actually fulfill that potential. A related issue is whether, in an era of regional economic integration, the United States will become the heart of an even larger economic group than the current North American Free-Trade Area (NAFTA) during this decade. Current trends could well see NAFTA (comprised of the United States, Canada and Mexico) expanding to encompass most of the Americas (the Free-Trade Area of the Americas - FTAA). An even grander, but still very plausible, scenario could see the Americas plus most of Europe (perhaps to be called the Free-Trade Area of the Atlantic - FTAAT), unite into a massive free trade area. That economic integration, coupled with the economic dynamics resulting from that process, would likely maintain the American economic predominance. This process could integrate as many as fifty to sixty Western-Civilization countries and create the world's largest market by 2020. It would have even more consumers than China and include almost half of the world's gross national product in 2020. This development could lead to a continuation of the long dominance by Western Civilization but it could also lead to a "clash of civilizations" between east and west. Much will depend upon the country that will possibly be the dominant Asian country in the first third of the 2 P1 Century: China. …


As well known, the stability assessment of turbomachines is strongly related to internal sealing components. For instance, labyrinth seals are widely used in compressors, steam, and gas turbines and pumps to control the clearance leakage between rotating and stationary parts, owing to their simplicity, reliability, and tolerance to large thermal and pressure variations. Labyrinth seals working principle consists of reducing the leakage by imposing tortuous passages to the fluid that are effective on dissipating the kinetic energy of the fluid from high-pressure regions to low-pressure regions. Conversely, labyrinth seals could lead to dynamics issues. Therefore, an accurate estimation of their dynamic behavior is very important. In this paper, the experimental results of a long-staggered labyrinth seal will be presented. The results in terms of rotordynamic coefficients and leakage will be discussed as well as the critical assessment of the experimental measurements. Eventually, the experimental data are compared to the numerical results obtained with the new bulk-flow model (BFM) introduced in this paper.


The warthog (Phacochoerus aethiopicus), a game species from Africa, has been evaluated in this study as a potential meat source according to carcass and meat quality characteristics. Dressing percentage, calculated on the basis of cold carcass weight without skin and head, presents a value of 52 %. The contribution of the shoulder (37 %), loin (7 %), back (9 %), belly (14 %) and hind legs (32 %) to the cold carcass weight also differ substantially from that found for the domestic pig. However, pH (6.32), pH , (5.49), drip loss (2.76 %), cooking loss (16.79 %), shear force (3.36 kg), colour characteristics CIEL (46.37), CIEa* (5.06) and CIEb* (9.21), moisture (74.04 %), lipid (1.69 %), protein (22.14 %) and ash (1.29 %) compared well to literature values for meat from other pig species. The fatty acid profile of the meat differs substantially from other pig species, with unsaturated, mono-unsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acid contents of 35.75, 16.70 and 47.56 %, respectively, resulting in a polyunsaturated:saturated fatty acid ratio of 1.33. It has been concluded from this study that warthogs provide a meat source suitable for human consumption that can also be promoted on its health properties.


The First World War Diaries of Manchester Pals Captain Charlie May - written and kept in secret and published now for the first time. A born storyteller, Charlie May's vivid eye for detail and warm good humour brings his experience in the trenches (and the experience of millions of ordinary men like him) to life for a 21st-century readership. Captain Charlie May was killed, aged 27, in the early morning of 1st July 1916, leading the men of 'B Company', 22nd Manchester Service Battalion (the Manchester Pals) into action on the first day of the Somme. This tolerant and immensely likeable man had been born in New Zealand and - against King's regulations - he kept a diary in seven small, wallet-sized pocket books. A journalist before the war and a born storyteller, May's diaries give a vivid picture of battalion life in and behind the trenches during the build-up to the greatest battle fought by a British army and are filled with the friendships and tensions, the home-sickness, frustrations, delays and endless postponements, the fog of ignorance, the combination of boredom and terror to which every man that has ever fought could testify. His diaries reflect on the progress of the war, tell jokes - good and bad, give details of horse-rides along the Somme valley, afternoons with a fishing rod, lunch in Amiens, a gastronomic celebration of Christmas 1915 and concerts in 'Whiz Bang Hall'. He describes battles not just with the enemy, but with rats, crows and on the makeshift football pitch - all recorded with a freshness that brings these stories home as if for the first time. The diaries are also written as an extended and deeply-moving love letter to his wife Maude and baby daughter Pauline. 'I do not want to die', he wrote - 'Not that I mind for myself. If it be that I am to go, I am ready. But the thought that I may never see you or our darling baby again turns my bowels to water.' Fresh, eloquent and warm, these diaries were kept secret from the censor and were delivered to his wife after his death by a fellow soldier in Charlie's company. Edited by his great-nephew and published for the first time, these diaries give an unforgettable account of the war that took Charlie May's life, and millions of others like him.


The chemical composition of the global ocean is governed by biological, chemical and physical processes. These processes interact with each other so that the concentrations of carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrate and phosphate vary in constant proportions, referred to as the Redfield ratios. We build here the Generalized Total Least-Squares estimator of these ratios. The interest of our approach is twofold: it respects the hydrological characteristics of the studied areas, and it can be applied identically in any area where enough data are available. The tests performed on the Atlantic Ocean high-
light a variability of the Redfield ratios, both with geographical location and with depth. This variability emphasizes the importance of local and accurate estimates of Redfield ratios.


This working paper analyses the effect climate change is expected to have on agricultural productivity, caloric consumption, and vulnerability to food insecurity of household agricultural producers in Paraguay. Our results suggest that increasing temperatures and reduced precipitation will reduce agricultural productivity and caloric consumption, and increase vulnerability to food insecurity. Specifically, a 1 percent increase in average maximum temperatures is associated with a 5 percent reduction in agricultural productivity. A 5 percent reduction in agricultural productivity translates into nearly a 1 percent reduction in caloric consumption. Vulnerability to food insecurity in Paraguay is expected to increase by 28 percentage points by 2100 due to climate change, increasing fastest in areas where temperatures are increasing and rainfall is diminishing. We explore a number of interventions that policy makers can pursue to limit the impact of climate change on food insecurity.


If it is true that the pen is mightier than the sword and that one picture is worth a thousand words, Thomas Nast must certainly rank as one of the most influential personalities in nineteenth-century American history. His pen, dipped in satire, aroused an apathetic, disinterested, and uninformed public to indignation and action more than once. The most notable Nast campaign, and probably the one best recorded today, was directed against New York City's Tammany Hall and its boss, William Marcy Tweed. Boss Tweed and his ring so feared the power of Nast and his drawings that they once offered him a bribe of $500,000. Six presidents of the United States received and gratefully accepted Nast's support during their candidacies and administrations. Two of these, Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant, credited Nast with more than mere support. During the Civil War, Lincoln called Nast his "best recruiting sergeant," and after the war Grant, then a general, wrote that Nast had done as "much as any one man to preserve the Union and bring the war to an end." Throughout his career the cartoonist remained an ardent champion of Grant who, after his election in 1868, attributed his victory to "the sword of Sheridan and the pencil of Thomas Nast." Nast's work is still familiar today. It was Nast who popularized the modern concepts of Santa Claus and Uncle Sam and who created such symbols as the Democratic donkey, the Republican elephant, and the Tammany tiger. With more than 150 examples of Nast's work, Thomas Nast: Political Cartoonist recreates the life and pattern of artistic development of the man who made the political cartoon a respected and powerful journalistic form.


Today, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is one of the leaders among cloud APIs. Although it was established only five years ago, GCP has gained notable expansion due to its suite of public cloud services that it based on a huge, solid infrastructure. GCP allows developers to use these services by accessing GCP RESTful API that is described through HTML pages on its website. However, the documentation of GCP API is written in natural language (English prose) and therefore shows several drawbacks, such as Informal Heterogeneous Documentation, Imprecise Types, Implicit Attribute Metadata, Hidden Links, Redundancy and Lack of Visual Support. To avoid confusion and misunderstandings, the cloud developers obviously need a precise specification of the knowledge and activities in GCP. Therefore, this paper introduces GCP Model, an inferred formal model-driven specification of GCP which describes without ambiguity the resources offered by GCP. GCP Model is conform to the Open Cloud Computing Interface (OCCI) metamodel and is implemented based on the open source model-driven Eclipse-based OCCIware tool chain. Thanks to our GCP Model, we offer corrections to the drawbacks we identified.


The association of chronic toxoplasmosis with mental disorders in general and with schizophrenia in particular was noticed in the mid-1950s. In subsequent years, the role of Toxoplasma gondii was established based on its ability to survive for long periods of time in the nerve cells of the brain. As a consequence, acute manifestations of the infection lead to psychopathic symptoms similar to schizophrenia and hallucinations. In the former USSR, and in other parts of the world, a number of studies were performed with respect to the association of latent toxoplasmosis and schizophrenia. However, with the dissolution of the USSR at the beginning of the 1990s, studies on the subject were halted due to financial problems and have resumed only recently. The reasons for the resumption of such studies in contemporary Russia are related to the progressively increasing incidence of schizophrenia over the last 25-30 years in the country. According to official data, approximately 550 000 persons reported suffering from the disease in 2014. There are reasons to believe that this is only a fraction of the real burden of the disease. Economically, it cost the state no less than approximately US $10 billion. The purpose of the study was to identify the level of toxoplasmosis seroprevalence in patients with verified diagnoses of schizophrenia in comparison to healthy people in Moscow City and in the Moscow region. A total of 155 persons constituted the experimental group and 152 healthy people were in the control group. An integrated approach to the diagnosis and comparison of data from the entire spectrum of serological markers of infection was used, including the detection of specific IgM and the determination of IgG concentrations and the IgG avidity index. It was found that among persons with neuropsychiatric disorders, the incidence of cases with chronic toxoplasmosis was higher than in the control group. The effect of toxoplasmosis was significant and similar for men and women. Further statistical analyses revealed that among patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, the incidence of chronic toxoplasmosis was significantly higher than in the control group. These data are in agreement with the results of similar studies in other countries.


Sketching is a natural and effective way to capture designer's brainstorms ideas. This paper presents a sketch-based graphics input system for conceptual design (SketchGIS), which is mainly based on online graphic recognition and dynamic user modeling. Online graphic recognition can discover latent primitive shapes among user-drawn strokes and show the regularized shape on the screen immediately based on spatial-relation graph (SRG) representation and conditioned partial matching by shape preparing, feature recognition, shape filtering and regularization. Dynamic user modeling method is used to recognize and predict sketchy composite shapes before they are completely drawn for user adaptation, which is based on the SVM-based incremental active learning method and the incremental decision tree induction method. Experiments show that the proposed method in this paper can yield good recognition precision, and the prototype system proposed provides fine user interaction effect, especially for UML diagramming.


In this book, Bryant Simon brings to life the politics of white South Carolina millhands during the first half of the twentieth century. His revealing and moving account explores how this group of southern laborers thought about and participated in politics and public power. Taking a broad view of politics, Simon looks at laborers as they engaged in political activity in many venues--at the polling station, on front porches, and on the shop floor--and examines their political involvement at the local, state, and national levels. He describes the campaign styles and rhetoric of such politicians as Coleman Blease and Olin Johnston (himself a former millhand), who eagerly sought the workers' votes. He draws a detailed picture of mill workers casting ballots, carrying placards, marching on the state capital, writing to lawmakers, and picketing factories. These millhands' politics reflected their public and private thoughts about whiteness and blackness, war and the New Deal, democracy and justice, gender and sexuality, class relations and consumption. Ultimately, the people depicted here are neither romanticized nor dismissed as the stereotypically racist and uneducated "rednecks" found in many accounts of southern politics. Southern workers understood the political and social forces that shaped their lives, argues Simon, and they developed complex political strategies to deal with those forces. |Brings to life the politics of white South Carolina millhands from 1920 to 1945. Examines laborers as they engaged in political activity and shows how their politics reflected their public and private opinions.


The fact that various instruments used to determine photographic density yield different results makes it desirable that some one method should be chosen as a standard. This method should produce results which are in keeping with the implications of the Hurter and Driffield definition of photographic density. A study has been made, extending some of the previous work of Tuttle, of the factors responsible for discrepancies between the readings of existing densitometers, and it is concluded that the integrating sphere densitometer is best suited to serve as a standard instrument. The relations existing between its readings and those of other densitometers are given and it it is shown that these relations are valid for a wide range of photographic materials of varying grain size. Toy's experiments to determine contact printing densities have been repeated with somewhat different results. Certain effects connected with opal densitometers and reported by Bull and Cartwright have been explained. The dependence of photographic density upon orientation of the photographic sample, that is, whether the emulsion side or base side acts as first surface, is shown. Thin metallic films on glass have been suggested to serve as standard densities. It is shown that such films are not suitable for this purpose since their optical properties are quite different from those of the photographic density.


A confocal direct imaging Raman microscope (CDIRM) based on two synchronized scanning mirrors, a monochromator, and two charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras has been developed. With this system it is possible to make both Raman spectra of a small measurement volume and images of a larger sample area in one specific Raman band. The spatial resolution of the system was determined for two limiting situations: a small sphere and a thin layer. The image of a 0.282 μm sphere appeared to have a full width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 1.2 μm in the axial and 0.37 μm in the lateral direction, whereas the image of a 275 nm layer showed an FWHM of 1.4 μm in the axial direction. Confocal Raman images were made of the DNA and protein distribution in polytene chromosomes with a relatively weak Raman signal [0.1 photons/(second·pixel)]. Further, a three-dimensional Raman image of the drug distribution in a phthalocyanine-incubated fixed cell is presented. These examples show that the CDIRM can be used to image samples with a weak Raman signal and that three-dimensional images of the distribution of specific molecules in a sample can be made.


The arid conceptionalism of the power theory of state-court jurisdiction derived from Pennoyer v. Neff is nowhere more prevalent than in the exercise of jurisdiction based upon the attachment of intangible obligations. This comment discusses that vulnerable segment of current jurisdictional law in order to expose the theoretical and constitutional inadequacies of the Pennoyer power theory and its attendant differentiation between jurisdiction in rem and in personam. The comment proceeds by the following steps: first, consideration of the theoretical necessity for the in rem-in personam distinction under the power theory; second, observations on the erosion of the Pennoyer rationale; third, review of the conceptual and constitutional difficulties created by application of the Pennoyer theory to intangibles in Seider v. Roth and Podolsky v. Devinney; and finally, suggestions for a jurisdictional theory of general application founded upon the minimumcontacts approach of International Shoe Company v. Washington.


ABSTRACT Molecular dynamics simulations (dissipative particle dynamics–DPD) were developed and used to quantify wall-normal migration of polymer chains in microchannel Poseuille flow. Crossflow migration due to viscous interaction with the walls results in lowered polymer concentration near the channel walls. A larger fraction of the total flow volume becomes depleted of polymer when the channel width h decreases into the submicron range, significantly reducing the effective viscosity. The effective viscosity was quantified in terms of channel width and Weissenberg number Wi, for 5% polymer volume fraction in water. Algebraic models for the depletion width δ(Wi, h) and effective viscosity μe(δ/h, Wi) were developed, based on the hydrodynamic theory of Ma and Graham and our simulation results. The depletion width model can be applied to longer polymer chains after a retuning of the polymer persistence length and the corresponding potential/thermal energy ratio. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT


ABSTRACT The genus Amphithectus Hartig, 1840 is reviewed and differentiated from Sarothrus Hartig, 1840. The type species Amphithectus areolatus Hartig, 1840 is redescribed and a new species, Amphithectus coriaceus n. sp., is described. This new species is the first Amphithectus species described since the description of the type species in 1840. Amphithectus coriaceus n. sp. is characterised by having fine coriaceous sculpture in the head and mesoscutum. Both species are fully illustrated with SEM pictures.


Most introductions to apologetics begin with the "how to" of defending the faith, diving right into the major apologetic arguments and the body of evidence. For those who want a more foundational look at this contested theological discipline, this book examines Christian apologetics in its nature, history, approaches, objections and practice. What is apologetics? How has apologetics developed? What are the basic apologetic approaches? Why should we practice apologetics? Countless Christians today are seeking a responsibe way to defend and commend their faith. If you are one them, Thinking About Christian Apologetics is the place to start.


For decades, scholars and policy-makers have disputed whether environmental degradation caused by human-induced climate change needs to be addressed and reversed in order to prevent conflict, or whether the instabilities generated by such degradation (resource scarcity, reduction of arable land, mass migration of so-called environmental refugees, etc.) provides a compelling new rationale for preparing militarily to fight the "climate change conflicts" of the future. Exploring the tension between these perspectives, the paper argues that any effective practical response implies and requires a change in the conceptual climate of the debate sufficient to discredit a literally devastating circular argument: that environmental problems, caused in part by the multiple impacts of industrial militarism, can be adequately addressed by new military strategies and spending, a "war reflex" only serving to exacerbate political tensions, widen and deepen already chronic inequalities, and inflict further ecological harm. The paper contrasts the state-centric status quo with the human-centric agenda of sustainable peace, a concept with the potential – if defined with sufficiently radical, transnational rigor – to disrupt and transform the sovereignty paradigm. The paper concludes by drawing on both Western and Indigenous political theory to ask what we think we mean by – or have come to accept as – "peace" and "power."


Echolocation can be used by blind and sighted humans to navigate their environment. The current study investigated the neural activity underlying processing of path direction during walking. Brain activity was measured with fMRI in three blind echolocation experts, and three blind and three sighted novices. During scanning, participants listened to binaural recordings that had been made prior to scanning while echolocation experts had echolocated during walking along a corridor which could continue to the left, right, or straight ahead. Participants also listened to control sounds that contained ambient sounds and clicks, but no echoes. The task was to decide if the corridor in the recording continued to the left, right, or straight ahead, or if they were listening to a control sound. All participants successfully dissociated echo from no echo sounds, however, echolocation experts were superior at direction detection. We found brain activations associated with processing of path direction (contrast: echo vs. no echo) in superior parietal lobule (SPL) and inferior frontal cortex in each group. In sighted novices, additional activation occurred in the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and middle and superior frontal areas. Within the framework of the dorso-dorsal and ventro-dorsal pathway proposed by Rizzolatti and Matelli (2003), our results suggest that blind participants may automatically assign directional meaning to the echoes, while sighted participants may apply more conscious, high-level spatial processes. High similarity of SPL and IFC activations across all three groups, in combination with previous research, also suggest that all participants recruited a multimodal spatial processing system for action (here: locomotion).


Defects in myosin VIIa, the PDZ-domain-containing protein harmonin, cadherin 23 and protocadherin 15 (two cadherins with large extracellular regions), and the putative scaffolding protein Sans underlie five genetic forms of Usher syndrome type I (USH1), the most frequent cause of hereditary deafness-blindness in humans. All USH1 proteins are localised within growing stereocilia and/or the kinocilium that make up the developing auditory hair bundle, the mechanosensitive structure receptive to sound stimulation. Cadherin 23 has been shown to be a component of fibrous links interconnecting the growing stereocilia as well as the kinocilium and the nearest tall stereocilia. A similar function is anticipated for protocadherin 15. Multiple direct interactions between USH1 proteins have been demonstrated. In particular, harmonin b can bind to the cytoplasmic regions of cadherin 23 and protocadherin 15, and to F-actin, and thus probably anchors these cadherins to the actin filaments filling the stereocilia. Myosin VIIa and Sans are both involved in the sorting and/or targeting of harmonin b to the stereocilia. Together, this suggests that the disorganisation of the hair bundles observed in mice mutants lacking orthologues of USH1 proteins may result from a defect of hair-bundle-link-mediated adhesion forces. Moreover, several recent evidences suggest that some genes defective in Usher type II syndrome also encode interstereocilia links, thus bridging the pathogenic pathways of USH1 and USH2 hearing impairment. Additional functions of USH1 proteins in the inner ear and the retina are evident from other phenotypic abnormalities observed in these mice. In particular, myosin VIIa could act at the interface between microtubule- and actin-based transport.


In September 2010, media reports emerged about a new form of cyber attack that appeared to target Iran, although the actual target, if any, is unknown. Through the use of thumb drives in computers that were not connected to the Internet, a malicious software program known as Stuxnet infected computer systems that were used to control the functioning of a nuclear power plant. Once inside the system, Stuxnet had the ability to degrade or destroy the software on which it operated. This book examines the discovery of the Stuxnet worm which has raised several issues for Congress, including the effect on national security, what the government's response should be, whether an international treaty to curb the use of malicious software is necessary, and how such a treaty could be implemented.


Gene expression involves ribonucleic acid (RNA) synthesis and processing, RNA transport and protein synthesis and localization, which are dynamic processes in time and space. With the advent of nucleic-acid probe and green fluorescent protein technologies, and developments in real-time microscopy, it is possible now to study these processes at real time in single cells, meaning that information concerning transcription, protein localization and protein–protein interactions can be obtained from genes whose functions might be known or unknown.

Keywords:

expression;
real-time microscopy;
green fluorescent protein;
fluorescence resonance energy transfer;
fluorescence lifetime imaging


Grape leaves are widely consumed in Palestine, and many Mediterranean countries. This food item is considered as a delicacy in many cultures, and most consumers consider it as also a healthy food. Accordingly, we started two years ago a study to assess the nutritional quality of leaves collected from two grape varieties, namely Shami and Baituni, which were collected from two regions, namely Dahria (considered as an arid region) and Beit Umar (considered as temperate region). Leaves were collected during spring time in three replicates and directly grinded to powder in liquid nitrogen. To assess the nutritional quality, leaf extract were tested as anticancer agent, and tested further for the total antioxidants potential. Moreover, leaf extracts were subjected to detailed analysis for active compounds using GC-MS and LC-MS. Results show that leaves from Shami grapes clearly inhibited the proliferation of lung cancer cells. Concerning the influence of cultivation area, Shami leaves from the temperate region (Beit Umar) proved to be more effective that those collected from Dahria (the arid region). In addition, leaves from Baituni grapes proved to be ineffective against lung cancer. In contrast, the GC-MS analyses of primary metabolites show that leaves of both grape varieties, which were collected from the arid region, contain higher levels of a large set of compounds including alanine, valine, isoleucine, proline, serine, threonine, uracil, sorbose, malitol, quercetin, and maltotriose. This dramatic increase in these compounds may be attributed to osmotic adjustment of plants to cope with drought stress prevailed in that region compared to the temperate region. The analyses for secondary metabolites and total antioxidants potential are closed and will be represented, in connection with changes in primary metabolites and anticancer activity of grape leave extracts. In conclusion, results clearly show that consumption of grape leaves is very healthy, and its consumption may contribute to Mediterranean diet by preventing the occurrence of severe diseases. Moreover, detailed analyses using GC-MS, and LC-MS may reveal the active compounds behind the health-promoting impact of grape leaves. Further purification of these compounds may allow for future usage of leaf extract of Shami grapes as natural pharmaceuticals.