Background The oncology pharmacist was consulted about the neoadjuvant carboplatin-based chemotherapy regimen for a 59-year-old woman with triple negative stage IIA breast cancer and stage 4 chronic kidney disease. She was undergoing haemodialysis three times a week, on a Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday schedule. The chemotherapy regimen was docetaxel 75 mg/m² IV D1, carboplatin AUC 5 IV D1, Q21D, 6 cycles. The major dose-limiting toxicity of carboplatin is myelosuppression, especially thrombocytopenia. As carboplatin is eliminated mainly through the kidneys, dosage adjustment and timing is required for patients with impaired renal function to prevent severe hematologic toxicity. Carboplatin is removed by haemodialysis. Purpose To examine the tolerability and safety of carboplatin-based chemotherapy and the applicability of the Calvert formula in a haemodialysis patient with localised breast cancer. Materials and Methods We reviewed the literature on the pharmacokinetics, efficacy, tolerability and dosage adjustment of carboplatin. In patients on chronic haemodialysis, the issue is how to evaluate the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in the Calvert formula. We planned the administration of chemotherapy on a non-dialysis day and the following haemodialysis session to occur 24 hours afterwards. The GFR value was assumed to be 0 mL/min and the carboplatin dose calculated was 125 mg. Results The first two chemotherapy cycles were found to be safe and well tolerated. Neither neutropenia nor thrombocytopenia occurred. After the first cycle, absolute neutrophil nadir count was 5.51 10e-3/mcL and platelet nadir count was 238 10e-3/mcL. Neither allergic or hypersensitivity reactions nor delayed nausea or vomiting occurred. CTCAE grade 3 diarrhoea was controlled with loperamide. Furthermore, a significant reduction in the tumour size was attained. Conclusions Dosage adjustment and timing of carboplatin-based chemotherapy can result in a safe and well-tolerated preoperative treatment option in a haemodialysis patient with localised breast cancer. No conflict of interest.


A colorimetric assay for the detection of DNA fragments associated with the oil palm pathogen Ganoderma boninense is reported, which is based on the aggregation of DNA-nanoparticle conjugated in the presence of complementary DNA from the pathogen. Here, various designs of DNA-nanoparticle conjugates were evaluated, and it was found that the best design gave a visually observable colour change with as little as 2 pmol of double-stranded DNA analyte even in the presence of a large excess of a mixture of non-complementary DNA. The assay was also able to differentiate analyte sequences with three or more single nucleotide mismatches. Overall, this label-free system is rapid, sensitive, selective, simple in design and easy to carry out. It does not require specialist equipment or specialist training for the interpretation of the results and therefore has the potential to be deployed of agricultural diagnostics in the field.


We present a detailed experimental and theoretical study of nonlinear pulse propagation in an apodized fiber Bragg grating. In particular, we consider the generation and the propagation of Bragg solitons with a frequency content just outside the grating's photonic bandgap, where, thanks to the apodization, the transmissivity of the grating is high and the strong grating dispersion dominates. We demonstrate the efficient launching of Bragg solitons with velocities as low as 50% of that in untreated fiber. The experimental results agree well with numerical simulations obtained by solving the full nonlinear coupled-mode equations that govern the experimental geometry. We also show that, for most parameters, the experimental results are in very good agreement with a nonlinear-Schrodinger-equation model. Thus many of the results known for the nonlinear Schrodinger equation can be brought to bear on our results.


Cardiac imaging is central to the diagnosis and risk stratification of coronary artery disease, beyond symptoms and clinical risk factors, by providing objective evidence of myocardial ischaemia and characterisation of coronary artery plaque. CT coronary angiography can detect coronary plaque with high resolution, estimate the degree of functional stenosis and characterise plaque features. However, coronary artery disease risk is also driven by biological processes, such as inflammation, that are not fully reflected by severity of stenosis, myocardial ischaemia or by coronary plaque features. New cardiac CT techniques can assess coronary artery inflammation by imaging perivascular fat, and this may represent an important step forward in identifying the 'residual risk' that is not detected by plaque or ischaemia imaging. Coronary artery disease risk assessment that incorporates clinical factors, plaque characteristics and perivascular inflammation offers a more comprehensive individualised approach to quantify and stratify coronary artery disease risk, with potential healthcare benefits for prevention, diagnosis and treatment recommendations. Furthermore, identifying new biomarkers of cardiovascular risk has the potential to refine early-life prevention strategies, before atherosclerosis becomes established.


Differentiating natural climate change from anthropogenic forcing is a major challenge in the prediction of future climates. In this context, the investigation of interglacials provides valuable information on natural climate variability during periods that resemble the present. This paper shows that natural cyclic changes in winter climates affected central European environments during the last interglacial, i.e., the Eemian, 126–110 ka. As a result of the extraordinarily high counting sums performed at Eemian pollen samples, it was possible to reveal a robust presence–absence pattern of the insect-pollinated, and therefore in the pollen rain underrepresented, taxon Hedera . This plant is known to require the influence of oceanic winter climates, i.e., moist and mild, in northwest and central Europe. By analogy with recent findings from the North Atlantic's Holocene interglacial, the trigger of the Eemian climate variability may have been changes in solar activity, possibly amplified by changes in North Atlantic ocean currents and/or in the North Atlantic Oscillation. Our findings suggest natural cyclic changes to be a persistent feature of interglacial climates.


INTRODUCTION
Metabolic Syndrome (MS) is a complex of risk factors for the development of cardiovascular complications and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (DM). Pharmacological management of the condition is complex, as multiple drug groups have to be used, as the syndrome itself is multi faceted. Angiotensin Converting Enzyme Inhibitors (ACEIs) are chiefly used to manage the hypertensive component of the syndrome. However, recent studies have shown that these drugs may have a role in the non hypertensive aspects of the syndrome as well.

AIM
To evaluate the therapeutic effect of enalapril on total body weight, random blood glucose and serum lipid profile in a rodent model of olanzapine induced MS.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Three different dosages (1 mg/kg/day, 10 mg/kg/day and 20 mg/kg/day) of oral enalapril were administered (for three weeks) in albino wistar rats, which received prior intra peritoneal olanzapine (for three weeks), and compared against control (normal saline) and standard (olanzapine only and enalapril only) groups. Parameters like total body weight, random blood glucose and serum lipid profile were measured at baseline, at three weeks and at six weeks.

RESULTS
Enalapril at 20 mg/kg/day was found to be effective in reversing the weight gain, hyperglycaemia and hypercholesterolaemia, without any changes in triglycerides, High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) and Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL). 10 mg/kg/day of enalapril prevented any further rise in body weight, blood glucose, total cholesterol and serum triglycerides, after olanzapine was stopped. 1 mg/kg/day of enalapril was ineffective.

CONCLUSION
High dose of enalapril may be considered as a component of therapeutic regimens to combat weight gain, hyperglycaemia and dyslipidaemia seen in MS, in addition to its antihypertensive utility. Further rodent and clinical studies may be required to ascertain the same.


With the purpose of identifying management factors that may be influencing the prevalence of bovine tuberculosis under tropicalconditions, namely in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1632 cows were tested through the single cervical tuberculin test. A questionnairewas completed for each herd. A total of 207 positive reactions were observed, corresponding to 12.7% of the studied cattle. Themain factors observed that may be influencing the prevalence of bovine tuberculosis on those farms were the absence orreduced veterinary assistance and the herd size. The presence of adequate cattle houses and the highly intensive managementare also considered to be likely to influence the prevalence of the disease. Under tropical conditions, a tuberculosis controlprogram, in addition to the test-and-slaughter control method, should include an investigation of herd management practices totry to identify factors that are likely to influence the prevalence of the disease.


Abstract:This essay argues that a queer archive in Felicia Luna Lemus's Like Son (2007) recovers the historical Mexican figure Nahui Olin and allows the trans protagonist to navigate less tangible inheritances, including a destructive romantic legacy and a complex Mexican American identity. This essay asks whether, and how, inheritances can be curated and posits that queer archival practices are useful for simultaneously drawing from and rejecting powerful familial and cultural legacies. At the end the essay situates Like Son as part of a group of contemporary Chicana/o texts that claim control over the access and representation of Chicana/o histories and imagine queer futures through queer archives and archival practices. The affective and political possibilities of these queer archives further discourse of the interdisciplinary archival turn. U.S. multiethnic literature is often lauded for helping to fill in the gaps of the dominant historical archive by providing access to silenced histories of the Americas, yet contemporary Chicana/o texts such as Like Son also challenge the epistemologies and power structures that undergird institutional archives.


AbstractA hydrostatic global weather prediction model based on an icosahedral horizontal grid and a hybrid terrain-following/isentropic vertical coordinate is described. The model is an extension to three spatial dimensions of a previously developed, icosahedral, shallow-water model featuring user-selectable horizontal resolution and employing indirect addressing techniques. The vertical grid is adaptive to maximize the portion of the atmosphere mapped into the isentropic coordinate subdomain. The model, best described as a stacked shallow-water model, is being tested extensively on real-time medium-range forecasts to ready it for possible inclusion in operational multimodel ensembles for medium-range to seasonal prediction.


Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a targeted radiation therapy that significantly increases the therapeutic ratio relative to conventional radiotherapeutic modalities. BNCT is a binary approach: A boron-10 (10B)-labeled compound is administered that delivers high concentrations of 10B to the target tumor relative to surrounding normal tissues. This is followed by irradiation with thermal neutrons or epithermal neutrons which become thermalized at depth in tissues. The short range (5-9 microm) of the alpha and 7Li particles released from the 10B(n,alpha)7Li neutron capture reaction make the microdistribution of 10B of critical importance in therapy. The radiation field in tissues during BNCT consists of a mixture of components with differing LET characteristics. Studies have been carried out in both normal and neoplastic tissues to characterize the relative biological effectiveness of each radiation component. The distribution patterns and radiobiological characteristics of the two 10B delivery agents in current clinical use, the amino acid p-boronophenylalanine (BPA) and the sulfhydryl borane (BSH), have been evaluated in a range of normal tissues and tumor types. Considered overall, BSH-mediated BNCT elicits proportionately less damage to normal tissue than does BNCT mediated with BPA. However, BPA exhibits superior in vivo tumor targeting and has proven much more effective in the treatment of brain tumors in rats. In terms of fractionation effects, boron neutron capture irradiation modalities are comparable with other high-LET radiation modalities such as fast-neutron therapy. There was no appreciable advantage in increasing the number of daily fractions of thermal neutrons beyond two with regard to sparing of normal tissue in the rat spinal cord model. The experimental studies described in this review constitute the radiobiological basis for the new BNCT clinical trials for glioblastoma at Brookhaven National Laboratory, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and at the High Flux Reactor, Petten, The Netherlands. The radiobiology of experimental and clinical BNCT is discussed in detail.


AIMS
This descriptive, exploratory, correlational analysis investigated patients with type 2 diabetes and their diabetes knowledge, depression, diabetes-management self-efficacy, and social support and sought to determine the effects of these factors on psychological insulin resistance among type 2 diabetes patients in South Korea.

METHODS
This descriptive cross-sectional study included 136 patients with type 2 diabetes who visited an endocrinology clinic. A structured questionnaire and electronic medical records were used to collect data regarding demographic and disease-related characteristics as well as scores on the Diabetes Knowledge Tests, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, Diabetes Management Self-efficacy Scale, Social Support Scale, and Psychological Insulin Resistance Scale, between September and December 2017. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, a one-way ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient, and stepwise multiple regression.

RESULTS
The total score for psychological insulin resistance was 60.92 ± 14.75 of a maximum of 90. Stepwise multiple regression showed that diabetes knowledge, diabetes-management self-efficacy, social support, absence of diabetes complications, and depression explained 38.6% of the variance in psychological insulin resistance.

CONCLUSION
Diabetes knowledge was found to have the largest influence on psychological insulin resistance, followed by social support, absence of complications, depression, and diabetes-management self-efficacy. Development of interventions that consider all these factors is required, and the effects of such interventions should be tested through further research.


We propose a new solution for discrete exchange economies and resource‐allocation problems, the exclusion core. The exclusion core rests upon a foundational idea in the legal understanding of property, the right to exclude others. By reinterpreting endowments as a distribution of exclusion rights, rather than as bundles of goods, our analysis extends to economies with qualified property rights, joint ownership, and social hierarchies. The exclusion core is characterized by a generalized top trading cycle algorithm in a large class of economies, including those featuring private, public, and mixed ownership. It is neither weaker nor stronger than the strong core.


Bereavement is often treated as a psychological condition of the individual with both healthy and pathological forms. However, this empirically-grounded study argues that this is not always the best or only way to help the bereaved. In a radical departure, it emphasises normality and social and cultural diversity in grieving. Exploring the significance of the dying person's final moments for those who are left behind, this book sheds new light on the variety of ways in which bereaved people maintain their relationship with dead loved ones and how the dead retain a significant social presence in the lives of the living. It draws practical conclusions for professionals in relation to the complex and social nature of grief and the value placed on the right to grieve in one's own way - supporting and encouraging the bereaved person to articulate their own experience and find their own methods of coping. Based on new empirical research, Bereavement Narratives is an innovative and invaluable read for all students and researchers of death, dying and bereavement.


Abstract Academic scholarship addressing transnational cult fandom, particularly Western cult fans forming attachments to films outside their cultures, has frequently addressed the issue of exoticism. Much attention has been paid to how Western fans are problematically drawn to artefacts outside of their own cultures because of exotic qualities, resulting in a shallow and often condescending appreciation of such films. In this article, I critique a number of such articles for merely assuming such processes without proffering sufficient supporting evidence. In fact, I argue that a number of such exotic-oriented critiques of transnational cultism are actually guilty of practising what they preach against: an insufficient contextualization of fandom and a tendency to downplay the messiness of empirical data in favour of generalized abstractions. Further, I argue that the constant critique of fans as avoiding contextualization has not only been overstated but stringently used as a yardstick to denigrate fan engagements with texts as improper. As such, fans are often 'othered' within such articles, a process mirroring the ways they are accused of othering distant cultural artefacts.


With the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) having entered into force on 22 January 2021, the time has come for states parties to start operationalizing its obligations. The TPNW not only bans nuclear weapons but also includes provisions designed to reduce the ' unacceptable suffering ' caused by past use and testing. These positive obligations require states parties to assist victims, remediate the contaminated environment, and provide international cooperation and assistance to support those efforts. To inform the work of the TPNW ' s First Meeting of States Parties, which will start the implementation process, this commentary proposes strong standards for assisting victims in a nuclear weapons context. The standards draw on the TPNW ' s language, humanitarian disarmament ' s victim assistance norms, and principles for assisting victims of toxic remnants of war. This commentary addresses the types of harm, types of assistance, framework of shared responsibility, imple- mentation measures, and guiding principles that constitute an effective and feasible assistance program for nuclear weapon victims. Collectively the proposed standards aim to advance the humanitarian purpose of the TPNW.


At Dartford Creek bridge, the abutments were supported on piled foundations with the bored piles extending through an upper soft layer of alluvium and founded in chalk at 24m depth. During construction of the 6m high approach embankment behind the abutment, measurements were made of lateral deformation of one of the piles and of the flow of soil between two adjacent piles. Lateral stresses acting on the abutment wall were also monitored using earth pressure cells. The field data were compared with predictions based on a design approach developed from centrifuge model test and numerical analyses. (A)


An experiment with treatments comprising of five nitrogen rates (0, 120, 160, 200 and 240 kg N/ha) applied as urea was carried out to evaluate the effects of high nitrogen application on the yield and agronomic performance of two rice varieties; MR 211 and MR 219. Raising nitrogen application was found to increase (P<0.05) the number of spikelets per panicle but reduce the percentage of filled spikelets (P<0.05). Although the increment in number of spikelets per panicle resulted in the reduction of the filled spikelets percentage, the grain yield was not affected due to sufficient production of spikelets per square meter which maintained the grain productivity. The plant agronomic characteristics such as stem height and duration to grain maturity also increased (P<0.05) with nitrogen application. Both varieties differ in the yield components and agronomic characteristics. Between the two varieties, MR 219 is superior to MR 211 in view of the higher grain yield and grain: straw ratio. The result from correlation between yield and yield components implies that the total number of spikelets per square meter was believed to be the major determinant of grain yield.


Invasive Alien Species (IAS) pose a major threat to biodiversity and ecosystem services worldwide. Even if preventing biological invasions should be the most cost-effective way to minimise the impact of IAS on biodiversity, new efforts are necessary to identify early signs of invasion and to assess invasion risk. In this context, the implementation of invasive Species Distribution Models (iSDMs) could represent a sound instrument that merits further research. Acaciasaligna is an Australian vascular plant introduced into Europe during the last half century and is one of the most aggressive IAS in the Mediterranean basin.
 In this work, we model the occurrence of A.saligna in the coastal landscapes of central Italy (Adriatic coast) while accounting for the simultaneous effect of multiple factors (propagule pressure, abiotic, biotic factors). The iSDM for A.saligna was implemented on a representative tract of the Adriatic coast in central Italy (Molise region), largely included in two Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites which actively contribute to the description of the considered ecosystem status and possible future trends. By using a Generalised Linear Model (GLM) with a binomial distribution of errors based on field and cartographic geo-referenced data, we examined the statistical relationship between the occurrence of A.saligna and a comprehensive set of environmental factors. The iSDM effectively captured the role of the different variables in determining the occurrence of A.saligna in the coastal dunes. Its occurrence is primarily related to Wooded dunes with Pinuspinea and/or P.pinaster (EU Habitat 2270) and distance from the sea and, to a lesser extent, with distance from roads and rivers. This research provides a first exploratory analysis of the environmental characteristics that promote the rapid growth and development of A.saligna in Italian dune ecosystems, identifying the habitats that are mainly affected by the invasive process in coastal areas and, by doing so, contributing to filling the gap between theory and practice in conservation decision-making. Finally, the LTER network benefitted from this research, confirming its relevance in providing useful information for modelling and monitoring invasion processes.


The formation of amyloid plaques is being intensively studied, as this process underlies severe human diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, and the exact mechanism of this specific aggregation has not been resolved yet. The investigation of its formation is accompanied by the search for substances inhibiting this aggregation process. Here we studied the process of hen egg white lysozyme (HEWL) amyloid aggregation process in bulk solution within a time scale of about a week. We also examined the influence of four dicationic (gemini) surfactants, including 3,3′-[1,6-(2,5-dioxahexane)]bis-(1-dodecylimidazolium) dichloride (oxyC2), as well as selected reference sulfobetaines, on the aggregation process and found that at certain concentrations gemini surfactants remarkably inhibited amyloidogenesis. A microfluidic system was designed to mimic the in vivo-like conditions of flow in order to assess the influence of flow on the amyloid formation process. The flow was found to induce severe amyloid formation in just a few hours of exposition to the conditions which without flow would induce amyloidogenesis within a few days. The results shed light on the mechanisms responsible for the amyloid aggregation process and make an important contribution to understanding of the process.


While there has been research on rainwater quality and quantity from green roofs and some conventional roof systems, there does not appear to be any significant study regarding the quality of rainwater harvested from selected white membrane roof systems and subsequently treated for potable use in an urban, institutional setting. A new Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED ® ) Canada Gold facility on the campus of McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada offered an excellent opportunity to analyze the quality of rainwater from different roof assemblies. Field research was undertaken on the evaluation of three white roof membranes: modified bitumen finish ply, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO); and their effects on the runoff water quality were studied. An analysis of the quality of runoff was performed from each of these three membranes and compared with Ontario provincial drinking water standards. This paper provides the results of runoff quality testing on these membranes and their suitability for future institutional green building applications.


AIMS
People who use heroin are frequently incarcerated multiple times. Reducing re-incarceration of this group is important for reducing both health risks associated with incarceration and the costs of correctional administration. Opioid substitution treatment (OST) in prisons may help to reduce re-incarceration, but research findings on this topic have been mixed. In this study, we examined the effect of OST in prison and after release on re-incarceration.

DESIGN
Longitudinal cohort study. SETTING, PARTICIPANTS AND MEASUREMENTS: Data on OST and incarceration were linked for a cohort of 375 male heroin users recruited originally in prisons in New South Wales, Australia. Data were linked for the period 1 June 1997-31 December 2006. Re-incarceration was examined using recurrent-event survival analysis models. Model 1 examined the effect of OST status at release from prison (i.e. in treatment versus out of treatment on the day of release) on re-incarceration. Model 2 considered the effect of remaining in OST after release on risk of re-incarceration.

FINDINGS
Ninety per cent of participants were re-incarcerated following their first observed release. Pre-incarceration cocaine use was associated with a 13% increase in the average risk of re-incarceration. There was no significant association between simply being in OST at the time of release and risk of re-incarceration; however, in the model taking into account post-release retention in treatment, the average risk of re-incarceration was reduced by 20% while participants were in treatment.

CONCLUSIONS
In New South Wales, Australia, opioid substitution treatment after release from prison has reduced the average risk of re-incarceration by one-fifth.


The adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) offers the potential to improve the delivery, quality, and continuity of clinical care, but widespread use has not yet occurred. In this article, we describe our use of clinical (production) data that were derived from outpatient and inpatient visits at a university teaching hospital for clinical research, a use for which the data and their structure were not originally designed. Similar data exist at many outpatient and inpatient clinical facilities, and we believe that our insights are relevant to electronically captured medical data regardless of their origin. We describe the approaches taken to ensure compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and to leverage the vast stores of structured and unstructured data that are currently underused. We conclude by reflecting on what we would have done differently and by making recommendations to streamline the process.


This
study focused on identifying drought patterns particularly during the growing
seasons along the coastal zone of Tanzania in order to facilitate the
determination of drought impacts on forest Ecosystem. The growing seasons were
March, April and May (MAM) referred as long growing season and October,
November and December (OND) which is known as short growing season. The main data were precipitation from 16 weather
stations covering the coastal zones of Tanzania. Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was used to establish
meteorological drought patterns. The duration of records was between 34 and 59
years depending on the available data on the concerned stations. The SPI time
series of 3 and 12 months showed that the coastal region of Tanzania
experienced frequent drought conditions ranging from mild, moderate, severe and
extreme droughts during both short and long growing seasons. It was found that
the coastal zone of Tanzania experienced higher drought duration, severity and
intensity with frequent extreme events after 2000 than before. Despite that
Kisarawe area revealed low frequency of drought events (88%) than other study areas;
it exhibited greater frequency of extreme droughts (46%) over the whole study areas.
Higher drought duration (40 months) and severity (sum of SPI -36) were observed
for precipitation data from Unguja Islands, while data from Julius Nyerere
International Airport areas displayed higher drought intensity (SPI value of -1.9). Generally, Tanzania coastal zone was
never completely without drought or anomalously wet conditions at any time
scale during the period of record. The coastal zone was nearly entirely in
drought periods especially the last decade after 2000. This suggests that vegetation
in the coastal zone might have experienced the impacts of these droughts within
the period. The magnitude of the impacts will be understood by tracking changes
of biomass and forest cover along the coastal zone within the last decade from
2000 to 2011 in addition to the 1990/92 which experienced drought dominance for
Pemba.


The ability to engineer ordered arrays of objects on multiple length scales has potential for applications such as microelectronics, sensors, wave guides, and photonic lattices with tunable band gaps. Since the invention of surfactant templated mesoporous sieves in 1992, great progress has been made in controlling different mesophases in the form of powders, particles, fibers, and films. To date, although there have been several reports of patterned mesostructures, materials prepared have been limited to metal oxides with no specific functionality. For many of the envisioned applications of hierarchical materials in micro-systems, sensors, waveguides, photonics, and electronics, it is necessary to define both form and function on several length scales. In addition, the patterning strategies utilized so far require hours or even days for completion. Such slow processes are inherently difficult to implement in commercial environments. The authors present a series of new methods of producing patterns within seconds. Combining sol-gel chemistry, Evaporation-Induced Self-Assembly (EISA), and rapid prototyping techniques like pen lithography, ink-jet printing, and dip-coating on micro-contact printed substrates, they form hierarchically organized silica structures that exhibit order and function on multiple scales: on the molecular scale, functional organic moieties are positioned on pore surfaces, on the mesoscale, mono-sized pores are organized into 1-, 2-, or 3-dimensional networks, providing size-selective accessibility from the gas or liquid phase, and on the macroscale, 2-dimensional arrays and fluidic or photonic systems may be defined. These rapid patterning techniques establish for the first time a link between computer-aided design and rapid processing of self-assembled nanostructures.


In "Reciprocity and the Welfare State," Christina Fong, Samuel Bowles, and Herbert Gintis (2005) cite Friedrich Hayek on the relation between the ancestral band and the welfare state, but they completely omit any engagement of Hayek's criticism of the social-democratic welfare state as atavistic. That moment in their work epitomizes something occurring in a major new line of literature. In the last thirty years there has been a boom in works exploring the origin of human cooperation and morality. Many works of that literature, from Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson's Unto Others to Bowles and Gintis's A Cooperative Species to Christopher Boehm's Moral Origins, explain cooperation and morality by drawing on the principle of sympathy that Adam Smith explored in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Fong, Bowles, and Gintis (2005) argue that the welfare state has benefited from our sympathetic instincts, and that good welfare policies must take advantage of those instincts. This general argument about the nature of the welfare state is not unique. Frans de Waal has made similar arguments in his The Age of Empathy. In this paper, I elaborate on Smith's insights about moral sentiments and argue that they dovetail with Hayek's criticism of large-scale welfare statism. Thus, Smith does not provide a good basis for the evolutionary left. Although our social instincts do desire cooperation encompassing all of society, such cooperation is impossible today because of the complex nature of modern society. The desire for a welfare state supported by our social instincts is therefore atavistic, as Hayek argued in The Fatal Conceit, and originates from a desire for a society simpler than the one people live in today. In the present article I develop ideas from Smith and Hayek to insist that those who explore connections between the band ancestry of sympathy and solidarity and the modern appeal and politics of the welfare state must face up to and engage the classical liberal contention that the latter is atavistic.


A potentially powerful method of social-scientific data collection and investigation has been created by an unexpected institution: the law. Article 15 of the EU's 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) mandates that individuals have electronic access to a copy of their personal data, and all major digital platforms now comply with this law by providing users with "data download packages" (DDPs). Through voluntary donation of DDPs, all data collected by public and private entities during the course of citizens' digital life can be obtained and analyzed to answer social-scientific questions – with consent. Thus, consented DDPs open the way for vast new research opportunities. However, while this entirely new method of data collection will undoubtedly gain popularity in the coming years, it also comes with its own questions of representativeness and measurement quality, which are often evaluated systematically by means of an error framework. Therefore, in this paper we provide a blueprint for digital trace data collection using DDPs, and devise a "total error framework" for such projects. Our error framework for digital trace data collection through data donation is intended to facilitate high quality social-scientific investigations using DDPs while critically reflecting its unique methodological challenges and sources of error. In addition, we provide a quality control checklist to guide researchers in leveraging the vast opportunities afforded by this new mode of investigation.


Purpose - – Agricultural education and training (AET) institutions will play a strategic role in helping to prepare Africa's rapidly growing youth populations for productive careers in agriculture and related agri-businesses. The purpose of this paper is to examine the magnitude of skills and youth employment needs emanating from high-population growth rates. It then explores how agricultural education institutions are responding to these challenges in four different countries at different levels of food system development: South Africa tier 1, Tanzania in tier 2 and Malawi and Uganda in tier 3. Design/methodology/approach - – Demographic and school enrollment data provide information on the magnitude of job market entrants at different levels of education while Living Standards Measurement Studies in the respective countries provide a snapshot of current skill requirements in different segments of the agri-food system. In order to evaluate AET responses, the authors have conducted country-level reviews of AET systems as well as in-depth assessments at key tertiary AET institutions in each of the four case study countries. Findings - – Growth rates in primary school enrollments are high in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, because of budgetary constraints, transition rates decline rapidly – about 40 percent from primary to secondary and 7 percent from secondary to tertiary. As a result, substantial numbers of primary and secondary school graduates seek jobs. Research limitations/implications - – The case study countries are limited to four. Had more financial resources and time been available, researchers could have spread further afield and in so doing increasing the precision of the results. Originality/value - – Estimation of the number of primary and secondary school leavers seeking employment because of failure to proceed to the next level of education. Estimation of the level of education shares in the various components of the agri-food system.


The critical role of the learner in the language learning process has been stressed within recent approaches in the humanities and language studies. For this reason the term learner autonomy is now a very fashionable word in the fields of language learning and teaching. On a general note, there are two dominant approaches to knowledge and learning, each of which adopts a different stance on learner autonomy. These two opposing camps are usually referred to as positivism and constructivism. Although learner autonomy is welcomed by many educators, there is not a broad consensus of opinion on its definition. In this article attempts have been made to show that learner autonomy is a dual conceptualization which incorporates the notions of dependence and independence. The ideology driving the view of learner autonomy presented here has been that learner autonomy should be achieved through the tenets of the scaffolding theory proposed by Bruner (1988). Additionally, the authors will highlight the factors involved in building up autonomy in students. It is hoped that the way we go about dealing with this concept may shed some light on the labyrinth that we are all in, namely the field of ELT.


Given the influence of publications from the World Bank on educational policy makers, this paper looks critically at the 1995 Review of Priorities and Strategies for Education. The rationale of the review is considered and the internal processes taking place prior to publication are outlined. The main arguments and recommendations are considered in detail and out of this a number of major concerns emerge which are addressed in detail. It is clear that in the final analysis the World Bank is a bank and its concerns are largely with questions of finance, economic returns, efficiency and so on with the result that the complexity of human interactions within educational organisations tends 10 be reduced 10 economic statistics.


Media reports predicted that the stock market decline in October 2008 would cause changes in retirement intentions, due to declines in retirement assets. We use panel data from the Health and Retirement Study to investigate the relationship between stock market performance and retirement intentions during 1998–2008, a period that includes the recent crisis. While we find a weak negative correlation between stock returns and retirement intentions, further investigation suggests that this relationship is not driven by wealth shocks brought about by stock market fluctuations, but by other factors that are correlated with both the stock market and retirement intentions.


This is a systematic review of the research data between 1995 and June 2013 concerning faculty development in the use of high-fidelity patient simulation for health professionals and students with a search of the following databases: CINAHL, Nursing and Allied Health Collection: Comprehensive, OVID Medline, ScienceDirect, PubMed, Scopus, and ProQuest Dissertation/Theses Database. The primary search terms were high-fidelity patient simulation and faculty development. Reference lists from relevant articles were also reviewed. Twenty-five studies were included for this review. The majority of the studies were surveys with a few quasiexperimental designs. The themes were similar to those found in the non-research literature: strengths, incentives, barriers, use of faculty champions/simulation coordinator, and faculty development. The validity and reliability differed by study. There are numerous incentives and barriers to the use of high-fidelity patient simulation by faculty. Several examples of faculty development programs have been described in the literature but little evaluation has taken place beyond the end of the program. The goal of the use of high-fidelity patient simulation is to enhance the student's knowledge, skills, and critical thinking in the care of patients. It is essential that the faculty are competent to provide instruction with high-fidelity patient simulation and therefore, the efficacy of these developmental programs need closer attention.


There has in recent years been an increasing focus in both research and policy on considering infrastructure networks as interdependent systems, rather than as separate interconnected entities. This has resulted from a recognition that the functionality of transport, energy, water, waste, and ICT networks is inextricably linked, with their efficiency, effectiveness and resilience dependent on their connectivity to the other systems with which they interact. The importance of such interdependencies has been reflected in policy making, with the recent establishment of a National Infrastructure Commission by the UK government, and in the development of a range of research projects focusing on network interconnections (in other words, on infrastructure nexus thinking). This session will focus on the geographies of interdependency between transport and other infrastructure networks, examining how nexus thinking can 1) enhance existing approaches to dealing with and exploiting infrastructure interdependencies, in order to realise a more efficient, equitable and sustainable use of transport infrastructure and 2) help understand and address the impacts of interdependencies on society.


Art and international relations during the Late Bronze Age formed a symbiosis as expanded travel and written communications fostered unprecedented cultural exchange across the Mediterranean. Diplomacy in these new political and imperial relationships was often maintained through the exchange of lavish art objects and luxury goods. The items bestowed during this time shared a repertoire of imagery that modern scholars call the first International Style in the history of art. Marian H. Feldman's "Diplomacy by Design" examines the profound connection between art produced during this period and its social context, revealing inanimate objects as catalysts - or even participants - in human dynamics. Feldman's fascinating study shows the ways in which the exchange of these works of art actively mediated and strengthened political relations, intercultural interactions, and economic negotiations. Previous studies of this international style have focused almost exclusively on stylistic attribution at the expense of social contextualization. Written by a specialist in ancient near Eastern art and archaeology who has excavated and traveled extensively in this area of the world, "Diplomacy by Design" provides a much broader consideration of the symbolic power of material culture and its centrality in the construction of human relations.


Institutions of higher learning in the Muslim world are generally under pinned by an Islamic ethos; but, despite this, they have encountered numerous challenges from various stakeholders inside and outside their structures. This article undertakes a review of Bakar, Eric Winkel and Amran's co-edited conference proceedings titled Contemporary higher education needs in Muslim countries : Defining the role of Islam in 21st century higher education (2011). The reason is basically twofold : the first is that there are few English publications that have dealt with themes that the conference set itself out to explore, and the second is to assess whether the set of papers in this publication satisfactorily succeeded in addressing the themes.


The entanglement spectrum was calculated for a contiguous block of spins in a Kitaev chain with a power law decay of interactions. Changes in the degeneracies of the four largest eigenvalues of the spectrum identify the quantum critical line separating the paramagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic phases of the model. Effective central charges along the critical lines are calculated by analyzing the finite-size scaling of the entanglement entropy with block length. For power law exponents that correspond to short-ranged interactions the effective central charge is that of free-fermionic models. For longer ranged interactions the obtained central charge deviates from this value.


We report that the hypodense eosinophil population in three patients with corticosteroid-unresponsive IHES was uniquely long lived ex vivo in the absence of exogenous cytokines. Serum or plasma from these patients conferred prolonged viability ex vivo to normodense eosinophils from reference donors and converted them to a functionally activated hypodense phenotype. In that antibody against IL-5 neutralized this activity in IHES serum, excessive quantities of this cytokine may account for the characteristic eosinophilia and long- lived, functionally augmented eosinophil phenotype in this disorder.


We characterized the properties of Drosophila melanogaster DAAM-FH2 and DAAM-FH1-FH2 fragments and their interactions with actin and profilin by using various biophysical methods and in vivo experiments. The results show that although the DAAM-FH2 fragment does not have any conspicuous effect on actin assembly in vivo, in cells expressing the DAAM-FH1-FH2 fragment, a profilin-dependent increase in the formation of actin structures is observed. The trachea-specific expression of DAAM-FH1-FH2 also induces phenotypic effects, leading to the collapse of the tracheal tube and lethality in the larval stages. In vitro, both DAAM fragments catalyze actin nucleation but severely decrease both the elongation and depolymerization rate of the filaments. Profilin acts as a molecular switch in DAAM function. DAAM-FH1-FH2, remaining bound to barbed ends, drives processive assembly of profilin-actin, whereas DAAM-FH2 forms an abortive complex with barbed ends that does not support profilin-actin assembly. Both DAAM fragments also bind to the sides of the actin filaments and induce actin bundling. These observations show that the D. melanogaster DAAM formin represents an extreme class of barbed end regulators gated by profilin.


We have successfully demonstrated the fabrication of self-actuating multilayer NEMS resonators including cantilevers and double clamped beams. Resonant sensors are widely used as precision mass sensors for the detection and quantification of small concentration of analyte molecules in a gaseous solution or bacteria from biological sample which requires extremely high mass sensitivity and responsivity of the resonant sensor. Nanofabrication techniques have enabled the use of ultrathin layers for the fabrication of resonant sensors to significantly enhance sensitivity by reducing the mass of the sensor. Aluminum nitride (AIN) as an ultra-thin PZE layer has significant advantages over other transduction techniques due to its high PZE efficiency, good mechanical and thermal stability and compatibility with CMOS processing. 50nm ultra-thin layer of AIN was deposited over 25nm thin layer of platinum (Pt) in order to get well textured columnar growth of AIN crystals. AIN deposition parameters were carefully optimized to enhance piezoelectric response. The residual stress and piezoelectric properties of AIN film were studied as a function of deposition conditions. Short circuiting of electrodes was the most critical problem which was solved after implementing two different process flows. Oxide bridges were fabricated in order to avoid unwanted electrical contact between different metallic layers. At the end, suspended cantilevers and beams were suffering from bending due to high compressive stress in the active layer. Residual stress of -169.80 MPa was calculated using Stoney formula by measuring the curvature of wafer before and after the deposition of individual layers. Numerous studies have already been done on shifting of the resonance frequency due to the variations in attached mass on the surface of a resonator but there is still room for the investigation of surface stress changes on the resonance frequency. Application of surface stress induces a change in beam stiffness and dimensions which alter the resonance frequency of the cantilevers and doubly clamped beams. The motivation of this project was to carried out different experiments to study the effect of surface stress on the resonance frequency by using an active piezoelectric layer for the actuation of resonant structures. Application of voltage across PZE layer generates a longitudinal stress across the beam which leads to a shift in resonance frequency. Vibrometer was used to find the resonance frequency of the released devices.


The world in which we are living is a huge network of networks and should be described by interdependent networks. The interdependence between networks significantly affects the evolutionary dynamics of cooperation on them. Moreover, due to the diversity and complexity of social and biological systems, players on different networks may engage in different forms of interactions, which should be described by multiple game models in the evolutionary game theory, such as the Prisoner's Dilemma and Snowdrift Game. We therefore study the evolutionary dynamics of cooperation on two interdependent networks playing different games, respectively. We show that, with the increment of network interdependence, the evolution of cooperation is dramatically promoted on the network playing Prisoner's Dilemma, and the cooperation level of the network playing Snowdrift Game reduces correspondingly. Remarkably, there exists an optimal intermediate region of network interdependence maximizing the growth rates of cooperation on the network playing Prisoner's Dilemma. Also on the network playing Prisoner's Dilemma, players contacting with the other network have an advantage in the evolution of cooperation over the other players on the same network, which is contrary to the network playing Snowdrift Game.


After characterizing the study of second language acquisition (SLA) from three viewpoints, I try to answer the question, raised by DeKeyser (2010), of whether the SLA field is disintegrating. In answering this question, I first propose a distinction between SLA as the relatively fundamental academic discipline and SLA as the relatively applied field of language education. Instead of portraying the field in terms of quantitative or laboratory studies on the one hand, and qualitative or anthropological studies on the other, I will look at SLA in terms of theories that differ in their empirical basis. All scientific disciplines must create room for ideas or theories that do not yet lend themselves to empirical testing, but for a discipline to develop fruitfully it is crucial that nonempirical ideas do not outnumber the empirical. The fact that the number of empirical SLA theories is large is not in itself a problem: through the practices of rational 'normal science' (Kuhn 1962), the best theories (in terms of coherence, testability and scope) will rightfully come out on top.


The right of self-defense is often viewed as a bedrock principle in the criminal law. That right, however, is subject to certain restrictions. Among those restrictions is the requirement in most jurisdictions that the individual claiming self-defense cannot have provoked the conflict. The precise contours of what constitutes provocation vary by jurisdiction. Each jurisdiction, to some extent, leaves unanswered the question of whether individuals can intentionally insert themselves into situations where violence is reasonably foreseeable and still maintain a claim of self-defense. The key problem in making these determinations is distinguishing between vigilant community members hoping to protect their communities and vigilantes seeking to mete out their own brand of extrajudicial law enforcement. While the former may be socially desirable, a society of laws can have little tolerance for the latter. Defining the boundary between these behaviors requires a carefully crafted rule that balances the interests of society and the needs of the individual. After identifying and examining the three primary frames for defining provocation in the context of self-defense, this article argues that courts should adopt a two-part inquiry when weighing whether a defendant is precluded from claiming self-defense: (1) Were the defendant's allegedly provocative actions objectively reasonable?, and (2) Was the risk of violence that the defendant incurred reasonable in light of the totality of circumstances? Either as a stand-alone rule or as a gloss on the currently existing frames, this standard would preserve societal notions of justice while providing a measure of clarity to jurors and members of society at large.


Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) is a well-established technique to assess the probability of failure or success of a system. Classical PRA does not consider the contributions of software to risk. Dr. B. Li and C. Smidts have established a framework to integrate software into PRA which recognizes the existence of four classes of risk contributors: functional, input, output and support failures. Input/Output failures have been shown to make up 57.4 % of the failures experienced during software development of major aerospace systems and have been at the origin of a number of major accidents such as the Mars Polar Lander. This research quantifies the contribution of the input failures. More specifically, this dissertation (1) defines the concept of input failure, (2) studies the related propagation mechanisms, (3) estimates the propagation probability for different types of input failures, and (4) applies the fault propagation analysis to the framework of integrating software into PRA.
The dissertation defines the concept of artifact as a reference point to identify expected inputs and consequently input failures (inputs which differ from the expected ones). Input failures are divided into value-related failures (including value, range, type and amount failures) and time-related failures (including time, rate and duration failures). Value failures are examined first. The concept of masking areas and flat parts is defined, and the dissertation proposes an Image Reconstruction Method (IRM) to estimate the propagation probability of input value failures. This method is proven to require less number of test cases than one that could be based on random testing to reach the same relative error.
For the other input failure modes, the dissertation reveals how they transform to the data state error and formalizes their propagation criteria so that the IRM can be applied to estimate the propagation probability. The contributions are thus: (1) Clear definition of the concept of input failure; (2) Definition of a systematic process of identification and quantification of the contributions of input failures to risk; (3) Systematic analysis of the propagation mechanisms of each type of input failures.


The extraordinary letters of Italo Calvino, one of the great writers of the twentieth century, translated into English for the first time by Martin McLaughlin, with an introduction by Michael Wood. Italo Calvino, novelist, literary critic and editor, was also a masterful letter writer whose correspondents included Umberto Eco, Primo Levi, Gore Vidal and Pier Paolo Pasolini. This collection of his extraordinary letters, the first in English, gives an illuminating insight into his work and life. They include correspondence with fellow authors, generous encouragement to young writers, responses to critics, thoughts on literary criticism and literature in general, as well as giving glimpses of Calvino's role in the antifascist Resistance, his disenchantment with Communism and his travels to America and Cuba. Together they reveal the searching intellect, clarity and passionate commitment of a great writer at work. "This literally marvelous collection of letters shows him to have been gregarious, puckish, funny, combative, and, above all, wonderful company, and opens a new and fascinating perspective on one of the master writers of the twentieth century. Michael Wood and Martin McLaughlin have done Calvino, and us, a great and loving service". (John Banville). "A charming addition to the Planet Calvino - a place cluttered with sphinxes, chimeras, knights, spaceships and viscounts both cloven and whole". (Guardian). Italo Calvino, one of Italy's finest postwar writers, was born in Cuba in 1923 and grew up in San Remo, Italy. Best known for his experimental masterpieces, Invisible Cities and If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, he was also a brilliant exponent of allegorical fantasy in works such as The Complete Cosmicomics. He died in Siena in 1985.


The prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) is increasing the world over, and it is now regarded as a public health problem. The prevalence of CKD in Nigeria remained largely unknown with hospital-based data of 2-8%. However, emerging community studies show a prevalence of 10-26.8%. This study was conducted during the 2013 world kidney day activities in Uyo, Akwa Ibom, State of Nigeria, with an estimated population of 554,906 people. Sensitizations of members of the public were ensured through the media. Trained nurses of the dialysis unit were recruited for the exercise. A well-structured questionnaire was used to collect demographic data and medical history. Subjects also had measurements of their blood pressure, random blood sugar, urinalysis, serum creatinine, and anthropometric data. Five hundred and two adults (70.6% females and 29.4% males) aged 18-78 years participated in the study. A family history of CKD was found in 4.3% of the study participants. The risk factors for CKD investigated in this population included hypertension, diabetes mellitus, obesity, proteinuria, and hematuria. The prevalence of hypertension in this sample was 30.16% [95% confidence interval (CI) 26.14-34.18%]. Only 12.58% (95% CI 9.54-15.61%) were aware of their hypertension status. There was an increasing trend in the proportion of individuals with hypertension in each higher 10 years age group (P = 0.03). The independent predictors of hypertension in this cohort were age and body mass index. The proportion of those with diabetes mellitus in the study population was 5.8% (95% CI 3.7-7.8%). Obesity was found in 31.8% individuals' proteinuria in 23.5% and hematuria in 3.0%. There is a high prevalence of risk factors for CKD in our population. Therefore, screening for early detection should be encouraged.


This paper analyses how the properties of locational equilibrium models can be used to evaluate approaches for constructing price indexes for heterogeneous houses. Housing markets play a key role in locational equilibrium models. Prices for houses determine that implicit costs that households bear when locating in a given community. We evaluate a variety of price indexes all relying on hedonic models for predicting interjurisdictional housing prices. The application uses a unique panel data set of housing transactions in Southern California. The rank predictions of different models are robust with respect to the hedonic model and the composite commodity definition used in aggregation. They do not depend significantly on the spatial or temporal definitions used to define the choice set of local housing markets. Finally, housing price estimates are strongly correlated with education and environmental amenities.


We demonstrate the utility of massively parallel computational infrastructure for statistical computing using the MapReduce paradigm for R. This framework allows users to write computations in a high-level language that are then broken up and distributed to worker tasks in Google datacenters. Results are collected in a scalable, distributed data store and returned to the interactive user session. We apply our approach to a forecasting application that fits a variety of models, prohibiting an analytical description of the statistical uncertainty associated with the overall forecast. To overcome this, we generate simulation-based uncertainty bands, which necessitates a large number of computationally intensive realizations. Our technique cut total run time by a factor of 300. Distributing the computation across many machines permits analysts to focus on statistical issues while answering questions that would be intractable without significant parallel computational infrastructure. We present real-world performance characteristics from our application to allow practitioners to better understand the nature of massively parallel statistical simulations in R.


We study the frictions in the patterns of trades in the Euro money market. We characterize the structure of lending relations during the period of recent financial turmoil. We use network-topology method on data from overnight transactions in the Electronic Market for Interbank Deposits (e-Mid) to investigate on two main issues. First, we characterize the division of roles between borrowers and lenders in long-run relations by providing evidence on network formation at a yearly frequency. Second, we identify the 'key players' in the marketplace and study their behaviour. Key players are 'locally-central banks' within a network that lend (or borrow) large volumes to (from) several counterparties, while borrowing (or lending) small volumes from (to) a small number of institutions. Our results are twofold. We show that the aggregate trading patterns in e-Mid are characterized by largely asymmetric relations. This implies a clear division of roles between lenders and borrowers. Second, the key players do not exploit their position of network leaders by imposing opportunistic pricing policies. We find that only a fraction of the networks composed by big players are characterized by interest rates that are statistically different from the average market rate throughout the turmoil period.


Enhancing the brain's endogenous inhibitory mechanisms represents an important strategy for suppressing epileptic discharges. Indeed, drugs that boost synaptic inhibition can disrupt epileptic seizure activity, although these drugs generate complex effects due to the broad nature of their action. Recently developed chemicogenetic techniques provide the opportunity to pharmacologically enhance endogenous inhibitory mechanisms in a more selective manner. Here we use chemicogenetics to assess the anti-epileptic potential of enhancing the synaptic output from three major interneuron populations in the hippocampus: parvalbumin (PV), somatostatin (SST) and vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) expressing interneurons. Targeted pre- and post-synaptic whole cell recordings in an in vitro hippocampal mouse model revealed that all three interneuron types increase their firing rate and synaptic output following chemicogenetic activation. However, the interneuron populations exhibited different anti-epileptic effects. Recruiting VIP interneurons resulted in a mixture of pro-epileptic and anti-epileptic effects. In contrast, recruiting SST or PV interneurons produced robust suppression of epileptiform activity. PV interneurons exhibited the strongest effect per cell, eliciting at least a five-fold greater reduction in epileptiform activity than the other cell types. Consistent with this, we found that chemicogenetic recruitment of PV interneurons was effective in an in vivo mouse model of hippocampal seizures. Following efficient delivery of the chemicogenetic tool, pharmacological enhancement of the PV interneuron population suppressed a range of seizure-related behaviours and prevented generalized seizures. Our findings therefore support the idea that selective chemicogenetic enhancement of synaptic inhibitory pathways offers potential as an anti-epileptic strategy. Significance statement Drugs that enhance synaptic inhibition can be effective anticonvulsants but often cause complex effects due to their widespread action. Here we examined the anti-epileptic potential of recently developed chemicogenetic techniques, which offer a way to selectively enhance the synaptic output of distinct types of inhibitory neurons. A combination of in vitro and in vivo experimental models were used to investigate seizure activity in the mouse hippocampus. We find that chemicogenetically recruiting the parvalbumin-expressing population of inhibitory neurons produces the strongest anti-epileptic effect per cell, and that recruiting this cell population can suppress a range of epileptic behaviours in vivo. The data therefore support the idea that targeted chemicogenetic enhancement of synaptic inhibition offers promise for developing new treatments.


South Africans leaving their country of birth is not a new phenomenon. South Africa currently has a large shortage of engineers and the fact that engineers are seeking better opportunities abroad is worsening the skills shortage in South Africa. Engineers form a vital part of any manufacturing, design, supply or production entity and leave a large setback if a skilled, experienced engineer decides to emigrate. Official statistics from self-declared emigrants showed that 601 engineers out of the total 16,165 self-declared emigrants left the country in 2003. This figure can be double the given number of 601 if the multiplication factor of 2.0 is taken into consideration for people that do not complete the emigration forms at the airports. The focus of this study was to investigate the emigration potential of the skilled engineer along with the factors that might lead to emigration, and were classified into three distinctive groups, namely, economic, political and social. These aspects are generally referred to as "push" factors that drive people out of the country such as racism, crime and violence; as well as "pull" factors that attract people such as better work opportunities, better salaries and better education. An electronic survey questionnaire was used to determine the emigration potential of the engineers within a large mining organisation. The respondents had to indicate their emigration potential as well as the major factors that would contribute to them leaving South Africa. The overall measured potential for emigration within the specific mining organisation was Significantly low. Only twenty percent of respondents agreed that they are planning to emigrate within the next five years and only two percent within the next year. Forty-six percent of respondents agreed that they would rather like to work in another country for only a few years than to emigrate permanently. Various reasons could have lead to the contradicting low measured emigration potential within this specific


Environmental monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems are indispensable tools for sustainable land management, especially in dry and fragile ecosystems. The reporting and dissemination of its products and indicators are the key roles to perform their missions. Furthermore, the overall success of such multilateral projects and networks depends on well-organized infrastructures for spatial data management. A spatial data infrastructure (SDI) is an efficient framework to centralize the management of spatial data and information related to multilateral projects for the best sharing and exchange between partners and stakeholders in order to ensure that they are interactively connected to use the data efficiently and in a flexible manner. This paper outlines the work undertaken in partnership between the Geography and GIS Department of the Faculty of Arts, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia Kingdom, the Geomatics, Earth and Land Settlement Branch of the Department of Geology, Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, Tunis El Manar University, Tunisia, and the Sahara and Sahel Observatory OSS which is an intergovernmental organization, in order to build a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for the ROSELT/OSS program (Long-Term Environmental Monitoring Observatories Network in the Circum-Sahara of the Sahara and Sahel Observatory). This SDI is entirely developed using Open Source technologies and the extensive suite of OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) standards and specifications, to enable interoperability among and between its different components.


This series aims to introduce students to a wide variety of critical opinion and to show students, by example, how to construct a good critical essay. This collection of specially-commissioned short critical essays is designed for A level students. The essays contain diverse, often conflicting opinions, presented a clearly written and carefully structured manner which reflects the student's need to construct well thought-out arguments in the limited time examinations allow. They are also designed to act as a stimulus for independent thought and for the development of personal viewpoints. Each essay concentrates on a single area of thought or study of direct relevance to the type of essay students will be required to write, and uses textual evidence and quotations in support of the conclusions. A variety of approaches are used in the essays, to illustrate the various ways in which literary evidence can be organized to argue a viewpoint. Bryan Loughrey has been involved in A level paper-setting and policy-making. Linda Cookson has edited several Longman Study Texts titles published by Longman for the UK Secondary Schools English List.


Abstract The history of free will has yet to be written. With few exceptions, the literature on the subject is dominated by legal and philosophical works, most of which recount the ideas of prominent thinkers or discuss hypothetical questions far removed from specific historical contexts. The following article seeks to redress the balance by tracing the debate on hypnosis in Germany from 1894 to 1936. Examining responses to hypnosis is tantamount to recording common understandings of autonomy and heteronomy, self-control and mind control, free will and automaticity. More specifically, it is possible to identify distinct philosophical positions related to the question as to whether hypnosis could surmount free will or not. The article demonstrates that the discourse often centred on the perceived struggle, located within a particular 'personality', between an individual's 'character' or 'soul' and the infiltration by a foreign or hostile force. While one group (compatibilists) emphasized the resilience of the 'moral inhibitions', another group (determinists) doubted that these were sufficient to withstand hypnosis.


We describe a method for learning an overcomplete set of basis functions for the purpose of modeling sparse structure in images. The sparsity of the basis function coefficients is modeled with a mixture-of-Gaussians distribution. One Gaussian captures nonactive coefficients with a small-variance distribution centered at zero, while one or more other Gaussians capture active coefficients with a large-variance distribution. We show that when the prior is in such a form, there exist efficient methods for learning the basis functions as well as the parameters of the prior. The performance of the algorithm is demonstrated on a number of test cases and also on natural images. The basis functions learned on natural images are similar to those obtained with other methods, but the sparse form of the coefficient distribution is much better described. Also, since the parameters of the prior are adapted to the data, no assumption about sparse structure in the images need be made a priori, rather it is learned from the data.


Sensory information in language enables us to share perceptual experiences and create a common understanding of the world around us. Especially in the creative language, which reveals itself in many forms, such as figurative language, persuasive or effective language, sensory factors impose a leveraging effect into semantic meaning by its expressive power. Although in the last decade, the studies focusing on the perceptual aspects of language have been thriving, automatic creative language analysis still suffers from the lack of perceptual grounding with its characteristics of vivid, non-literal and complex semantics.
In this thesis, we propose the exploitation of the association between human senses and words as an external device to improve the computational linguistic models focusing on creative language. First, we present that sensory information reserved in the word meaning is obtainable by a distributional strategy over language. Second, we show that properly encoded sensory cues can enhance the automatic identification of figurative language. Finally, we argue that the exploitation of sensory information residing in linguistic modality in combination with the information coming from the perceptual modalities reinforces the computational assessment of multimodal creativity.
We present a large scale sensory lexicon generation approach followed by its utilization in two main computational creativity experiments to confirm our arguments: 1) phrase-level and word-level metaphor identification in existing metaphor corpora; 2) creativity appreciation assessment in multimodal advertising prints incorporating the linguistic and visual modalities. The findings of the experiments show that sensory information is an invaluable indication of the creative aspect of the language and makes a significant contribution to the state of the art creative language analysis systems.


Does migrating make you sick? In view of the large and increasing number of migrants worldwide, the question is relevant to any country migrants leave or enter – and that means just about every country in the world. People who migrate are taking a risk. They often travel long distances, frequently under difficult or dangerous circumstances. Upon arriving at their destination they are commonly disadvantaged from a socioeconomic perspective, often living and working, for example, under worse conditions than the non-migrant majority population. For this reason, migrants are exposed to greater health risks. Those particularly at risk are undocumented refugees and migrants without legal residence status (so-called "irregular" migrants). Migration, it seems, goes hand in glove with health risks and can make you sick. On the other hand, migrants are especially active and courageous people who want to determine their own lives. They are mostly young, and their health is above average compared with the population in their country of origin. If they are going from a poorer, developing country to a richer, developed country, they can benefit from improved hygiene conditions and better health care. Therefore, compared with the population in their home country, it seems that migrants have vastly improved health prospects. Migration makes you sick; migration improves your health prospects". The current debate on "migration and health" moves between these two opposing elements. Given the highly heterogeneous nature of migrants as a group, a still unsatisfactory situation as far as data is concerned, and a lack of theoretical models for the evaluation of migrant health, resolving this contradiction is going to take time. The aims of this policy brief are to illustrate the current state of debate on the health of migrants and its determinants, and to demonstrate the obstacles that lie in the way of health care for migrants.


Schematic maps of spatial distribution of seasonal precipitation amounts and average air temperatures were obtained for the areas studied in years with normal and extreme values of annual river runoff. Data on precipitation for January–December (I–XII) and on average air temperatures for June–September (VI–IX) during 1961–1990 collected at 93 meteorological stations located along 30.20°–44.08°N and 67.20°–82.98°E, altitude 122–4 169 m above sea level, were used in the maps' compilation. For each point-element (i.e. a meteorological station with proper data), the ordinates of an integral empirical function of distribution of probabilities P were calculated from these data for a 30-year sample period and for each year were received average values and standard deviations of P. In characteristic years were revealed, significant differences of spatial distribution of climatic factors and runoff. It was found out also that the spatial distribution of the total volume of glaciers melting is less variable in the years with extreme water yields compared to the average years. This peculiarity is very beneficial for hydropower and agriculture sectors because it provides additional natural ability to stabilize water balance of reservoirs. Piecewise multi-factor linear equations were obtained to calculate the statistical probability of glaciers' total melting in low and high flow years as a function of geographical coordinates and the average altitude of firn boundary.


This paper proposes a novel system for enterprise computing that reduces energy consumption without sacrificing performance or putting devices to sleep. It uses a hybrid architecture composed of multiple device classes and it runs an application in the most energy-efficient location. Our prototype, called Any-ware, provides desktop-class performance while reducing energy consumption by 75% through a combination of lightweight clients and a small number of servers. Providing such an elastic system invisibly to end users requires solving many challenges, including deciding where to run applications while simultaneously making it appear they all run locally. Anyware's hybrid design suggests a new way to think about using the modern spectrum of personal computing devices.


Fixed automated spray technology (FAST) has emerged as a solution to provide quick, effective service delivery to high-risk locations prone to icy conditions or with high traffic volumes. The Colorado Department of Transportation has installed and used FAST on bridges since 1998, with 32 units currently installed on bridges around the state. There is some concern regarding the effectiveness of FAST in reducing accidents during winter weather. Previous studies of FAST have considered the changes to crash occurrence following deployment, but these studies were basic and compared seasonal figures or rates without accounting for site conditions. To address this shortcoming, an observational before–after study with the empirical Bayes technique was used to determine the effect of FAST systems on crash frequencies. The results revealed that at sites where crashes were reduced, FAST systems contributed to an annual reduction of 2% on multilane rural highways, 16% to 70% on urban Interstates, 31% to 57% on rural Interstates, and 19% to 40% on interchange ramps between Interstates. However, at some sites, safety deteriorated with an increase in crashes. Although the precise causes of such increases are not completely clear, they may have been the result of increased traffic, systems not being maintained properly, or systems applying fluids in improper amounts or at the wrong time. On the basis of the collective results, high-traffic, high-crash severity locations are most suitable for FAST deployment.


This thesis investigates the mechanics and predominant theories (neo-functionalism and intergovernmentalism) at work in the process of European integration. Indeed, it provides an illustration of the difficulties in achieving
the harmonisation of Member State legislation and identifies the intricacies and practicalities of successful decision-making in the European Union (EU). In the aftermath of the Single European Act (SEA), the beginnings of the Single European Market (SEM) and the Maastricht Treaty, it has become evident that financial service sectors need to involve themselves in the creation of the EU. Through grounded theory methodology, an empirical study of the European life insurance industry in general and of the Third Life Assurance Directive in particular, this thesis investigates the extent of sector involvement in the
EU's decision-making processes and in doing so, critically analyses theoretical understandings of European integration. Grounded theory methodology is illustrated by the thesis in the following ways. First, through a comparative analysis which was achieved through the open coding (conceptualisation, categorisation and dimensionalisation) of individual Member States' life
insurance regulations. Open coding leads to the formulation of a regulation table and matrix. Further coding, through a survey of Member State life insurance industries, refined and verified the matrix. This investigation raised questions as to how the legislative differences (that underpin regulatory structures) between Member States may be resolved. Secondly, through an interview programme, process was verified and illustrated through a series of models. The tables, models and the matrix provide the
building blocks of the substantive theory. Thirdly, axial coding is illustrated by the matrix and models fitting together around the core category of European integration. The core category was identified through selective coding and is the category around which sub-categories are integrated. Axial coding draws all parts of the analysis together: it is the pivot or the axis of theory building. Finally, substantive theory is formulated through grounded
theory techniques in relation to the formal theories of neo-functionalism and intergovernmentalism; this allows a reassessment of European integration and provides a clearer understanding of the formal theories.


Developed as well as developing countries will have to increase their ambition relative to their stated Nationally Determined Contributions to limit global temperature increases to 2°C above pre-industrial levels. South Africa's Nationally Determined Contribution, in line with national policy, is to follow a peak, plateau, and decline emissions trajectory to 2050, with the contribution post-2030 contingent on a fair contribution from other countries. Given the high levels of unemployment, poverty, and inequality in South Africa, there are concerns that a rapid transition to a low-carbon energy system would have severe socioeconomic consequences. This paper builds on initial work from the Deep Decarbonisation Pathways Project, and analyses the impacts on the energy system and the economy of an increase in ambition, in order to shed light on these concerns. The key policy recommendation from this analysis is that further investments in fossil fuel infrastructure in South Africa will have significant negative socioeconomic implications, and that further work should be done to reassess development pathways that could mitigate these negative impacts.


Significant effort in machine learning and information retrieval has been devoted to identifying personalized content such as recommendations and search results. Personalized human computation has the potential to go beyond existing techniques like collaborative filtering to provide personalized results on demand, over personal data, and for complex tasks. This work-in-progress compares two approaches to personalized human computation. In both, users annotate a small set of training examples which are then used by the crowd to annotate unseen items. In the first approach, which we call taste-matching, crowd members are asked to annotate the same set of training examples, and the ratings of similar users on other items are then used to infer personalized ratings. In the second approach, tastegrokking, the crowd is presented with the training examples and asked to use them predict the ratings of the target user on other items.


Abstract This article investigates infant comprehension of filler-gap dependencies. Three experiments probe 15- and 20-month-olds' comprehension of two filler-gap dependencies: wh-questions and relative clauses. Experiment 1 shows that both age groups appear to comprehend wh-questions. Experiment 2 shows that only the younger infants appear to comprehend relative clauses, while Experiment 3 shows that when parsing demands are reduced, older children can comprehend them as well. We argue that this discontinuous pattern follows from an offset in the development of grammatical knowledge and the deployment mechanisms for using that knowledge in real time. Fifteen-month-olds, we argue, lack the grammatical representation of filler-gap dependencies but are able to achieve correct performance in the task by using argument structure information. Twenty-month-olds do represent filler-gap dependencies but are inefficient in deploying those representations in real time.


Plasmonics has established itself as a branch of physics which promises to revolutionize data processing, improve photovoltaics, and increase sensitivity of bio-detection. A widespread use of plasmonic devices is notably hindered by high losses and the absence of stable and inexpensive metal films suitable for plasmonic applications. To this end, there has been a continuous search for alternative plasmonic materials that are also compatible with complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology. Here we show that copper and silver protected by graphene are viable candidates. Copper films covered with one to a few graphene layers show excellent plasmonic characteristics. They can be used to fabricate plasmonic devices and survive for at least a year, even in wet and corroding conditions. As a proof of concept, we use the graphene-protected copper to demonstrate dielectric loaded plasmonic waveguides and test sensitivity of surface plasmon resonances. Our results are likely to initiate wide use of graphene-protected plasmonics.


Socioeconomic Challenges Faced by African American Men Entering the Information Technology Industry by Melvin Smith MA, University of Phoenix, 2006 BS, University of Phoenix, 2003 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Information Systems Management Walden University June 2015 Abstract African American men experience impediments when entering the field of Information Technology (IT), which may portend the disappearance of this ethnic group from the technology-driven work force of the future. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to investigate the socioeconomic factors faced by African American men from their own viewpoints. With this goal in mind, three research questions were studied focusing on the availably of IT resources; the quality of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) based education; and existing hiring practices within the IT industry. The conceptual framework for this study was the critical theory perspective, which provided an understanding of real and perceived problems of African American men attempting to enter the field of IT. To facilitate the collection of data for this study, a Web questionnaire program was used. The data analysis process was a 3-phase coding method which included open, axial, and selective coding in order to identify emergent themes such as: racial discrimination, economic hardships, employment opportunity, interpretations from job seeking experiences, the effects of unfulfilled needs, and inadequate access to IT. The data analysis strategy used for this research was theAfrican American men experience impediments when entering the field of Information Technology (IT), which may portend the disappearance of this ethnic group from the technology-driven work force of the future. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to investigate the socioeconomic factors faced by African American men from their own viewpoints. With this goal in mind, three research questions were studied focusing on the availably of IT resources; the quality of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) based education; and existing hiring practices within the IT industry. The conceptual framework for this study was the critical theory perspective, which provided an understanding of real and perceived problems of African American men attempting to enter the field of IT. To facilitate the collection of data for this study, a Web questionnaire program was used. The data analysis process was a 3-phase coding method which included open, axial, and selective coding in order to identify emergent themes such as: racial discrimination, economic hardships, employment opportunity, interpretations from job seeking experiences, the effects of unfulfilled needs, and inadequate access to IT. The data analysis strategy used for this research was the homogeneous sampling method, which made it possible to choose a target population of African American men enrolled in the City Colleges of Chicago who have sought employment in the IT field. The findings from this study have implications for social change by illuminating the experiences of previously-underrepresented African American men in the IT industry. Socioeconomic Challenges Faced by African American Men Entering the Information Technology Industry by Melvin Smith MA, University of Phoenix, 2006 BS, University of Phoenix, 2003 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Information Systems Management


This study shows a reconstruction of fluvial dynamics and evolutionary trends, applied to the terminal sectors of Bradano and Basento rivers (Basilicata Region, South of Italy) using historical maps, aerial photos and more recent remote sensed images. In order to cover the widest possible time range, 1873-'75 and 1943-'45 old maps, were integrated with aerial photos (1972, 1954-'55, 1987, 1996) and optical satellite data (2011, 2013). Data analysis was conducted in a G.I.S., which allowed the comparisons and quantitative geomorphic river measures. After a preliminary image processing of the all dataset, we have applied on the historical maps, a planimetric accuracy analysis the extent to which distances and bearings between identifiable objects coincide with their true value which is useful to indicate the geometric reliability of information extracted. For this purpose we have used the technique based on Map Analyst, a Java software application (developed and maintained by Bernhard Jenny, RMIT University, Melbourne; with the contribution of Adrian Weber, at ETH Zurich) for the automatic generation of accuracy visualizations. The 1972, 1987, and 1996 aerial photos were orthorectified with the LPS – Leica photogrammetry Suite-2011, a digital photogrammetry software, using the "camera frame" model, as camera calibration certificates were available. The 1954/'55 aerial photos, for which only camera type and focal length were available, were georeferenced paying attention to Root Mean Square Error value, bearing a maximum RMSE value of about 1.5 m. All of the data mentioned were finally integrated with Bing Maps – GeoEye satellite (acquired on February 22th, 2011) and Google maps – Worldview satellite (acquired on May 18th,2013), which did not need any pre-processing step. ∗Speaker †Corresponding author: firstname.lastname@example.com ‡Corresponding author: firstname.lastname@example.com §Corresponding author: firstname.lastname@example.com sciencesconf.org:eugeo2017:149928 Each preliminary data processing was conducted to make a rigorous quantitative analysis, which could be, as far as possible, accurate. Then, for each dataset, was conducted a photo interpretation and digitization, aimed to highlight fluvial geomorphic characteristics (among them, channel width, sinuosity and degree of braiding). The analysis shows a rapid channel changing, probably linked to climatic, geological and geomorphological region features which was connected to the semi–arid environment.


In most parts of the world pepper has become a popular spice that makes food hot in addition to its much needed nutrients of carotenoids and vitamins. This report has its objective to evaluate the parents and hybrid of three Nigerian pepper genotypes (Shombo, Tatase and Nsukka yellow pepper) for growth and yield; and to estimate their genetic parameters. Conventional breeding by hand pollination was adopted. The mean performance of the parents and hybrids for morpho-agronomic characters were evaluated. Heterosis and inbreeding depression were estimated. The F1 hybrids showed superiority over the parental genotypes with Sho x Nsky-rw having significantly (P ≤ 0.05) the highest value in most of the traits. In morphological traits, Sho x Nsky-rw hybrid had highest values in canopy diameter, number of leaves, number of nodes and number of branches per plant, while in fruit traits, it also had significantly the highest values in the number of fruits, fruit length and weight of fruits per plant. Sho x Nsky – rw had positive heterobeltiosis over the better parent in most of the yield and yield component characters. While Sho x Nsky – rw had the highest yield, Tat x Sho had the highest fruit wall thickness. The combinations of these traits are important to both the farmers and consumers. Having appropriate parents with genetic variability F1 pepper plants having distinct superiority above the mid and better parents could be developed.

 Key words: Capsicum annuum, chili pepper; heterosis, hybrid, inbreeding depression.


Build systems translate sources into deliverables. Developers execute builds on a regular basis in order to integrate their personal code changes into testable deliverables. Prior studies have evaluated the rate at which builds in large organizations fail. A recent study at Google has analyzed (among other things) the rate at which builds in developer workspaces fail. In this paper, we replicate the Google study in the Visual Studio context of the MSR challenge. We extract and analyze 13,300 build events, observing that builds are failing 67%-76% less frequently and are fixed 46%-78% faster in our study context. Our results suggest that build failure rates are highly sensitive to contextual factors. Given the large number of factors by which our study contexts differ (e.g., system size, team size, IDE tooling, programming languages), it is not possible to trace the root cause for the large differences in our results. Additional data is needed to arrive at more complete conclusions.


Crosslinking agents such as psoralens, nitrogen mustards or cisplatin are bifunctionally acting chemicals that generate a fraction of their adducts as covalent linkages between complementary deoxyribonucleic acid strands. Since many of these agents are of importance in genetic toxicology and cancer therapy, repair of interstrand crosslinks has been studied extensively in bacteria and in lower and higher eukaryotes. The main repair pathway in Escherichia coli involves the sequential action of nucleotide excision repair (NER) and recombinational repair. In eukaryotes, several repair pathways play important roles not only in repair including NER, translesion synthesis and recombination, but also mismatch repair. Relative contributions of the various pathways depend on cell cycle position and agent used. Eukaryotic proteins that specifically enhance resistance to crosslinking agents have been identified (FANC family of proteins, SNM1).

Key Concepts:

Chemicals with two or more correctly spaced reactive groups can covalently link opposing DNA strands.

Several repair or tolerance pathways such as nucleotide excision repair, recombination and translesion synthesis can work together to overcome such complex damage.

Cell cycle stage may determine the choice of repair pathway combinations.

A heritable human syndrome with multiple diverse phenotypes (Fanconi anaemia) has been associated with defects in crosslink repair.

By integrating in vitro studies and analysis of Fanconi proteins, current models of replication-dependent crosslink repair assume the creation of double strand breaks at stalled replication forks that are repaired by homologous recombination.

Keywords:

DNA repair;
crosslinks;
excision;
bifunctional alkylation;
recombination;
translesion synthesis