Occupational Health and Wellness (OHW) integrates and coordinates the management of occupational (work related) and non-occupational related illness and injury. OHW provides support, guidance and consultation to employees related to temporary or permanent medical limitations, impacting their ability to function in the workplace and facilitates Return to Work programs and accommodation for an early and safe return to work. Our goal is to integrate health promotion and disease prevention strategies. This supports a culture of health and well-being within the University community. OHW can be contacted by email at firstname.lastname@example.com [3], or at 519-824-4120 ext. 52647.


* It is commonly hypothesized that stand-level fine root biomass increases as soil fertility decreases both within and among tropical forests, but few data exist to test this prediction across broad geographic scales. This study investigated the relationships among fine roots, arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and soil nutrients in four lowland, neotropical rainforests. * Within each forest, samples were collected from plots that differed in fertility and above-ground biomass, and fine roots, AM hyphae and total soil nutrients were measured. * Among sites, total fine root mass varied by a factor of three, from 237+/-19 g m-2 in Costa Rica to 800+/-116 g m-2 in Brazil (0-40 cm depth). Both root mass and length were negatively correlated to soil nitrogen and phosphorus, but AM hyphae were not related to nutrients, root properties or above-ground biomass. * These results suggest that understanding how soil fertility affects fine roots is an additional factor that may improve the representation of root functions in global biogeochemical models or biome-wide averages of root properties in tropical forests.


Human rights abuses occur regularly around the world, affecting millions of people each year. In the post-World War II era, a human rights movement helped create regional and international human rights regimes. This thesis tries to assess the impact of international human rights pressure on state compliance with international human rights norms and conventions. In investigating the impact of human rights pressure on states, I hypothesize that certain conditions are helpful. The first condition is the absence of a strong public opinion and/or cultural sentiment against what the pressuring entities are trying to achieve. The second condition is dependency: dependent countries are more vulnerable to economic and military threats, and thus are more likely to comply with international pressures. To support this hypothesis, I analyze human rights situations in one dependent country, the Dominican Republic; and a rising power, China. This thesis concludes that indeed, a strong public opinion and/or cultural sentiment militate against what the pressuring entities are trying to achieve. Thus, international human rights campaigns need domestic support as Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink' s seminal book Activists Beyond Borders notes. Contrary to my assumption that small dependent states are more susceptible to international human rights pressure, dependency did not play a significant role in the case studied.


This paper refers to the morphological analysis of words, as an important process in the domain of natural language processing. We will present the classical solution, based on the use of inflected paradigms and of an extended data base, containing all roots of the words, and then there are emphasized some of the disadvantages of this method. Then we will present an original method, which dynamically generates the roots of words, using phonetic alternances in the context of flexionary rules. There are also presented some optimisations of the morphologic analysis algorithm.


Empirical evidence suggests that users often exhibit a viewing pattern that favors the top and left sides of web pages (Nielsen, 2006). According to the model of visual hierarchy, viewing pattern is guided by two distinct cognitive processes: searching and scanning, both influenced by the attributes of the web components (Faraday, 2000). When used effectively, these attributes create a visual hierarchy that can guide users in viewing a page. In addition, a number of studies show that web users often exhibit a viewing pattern that is shaped like the letter "F" (Nielsen, 2006; Shrestha and Lenz, 2007). F-pattern is common to text-based pages, but can be diminished for an image-heavy page and can also be taskdependent (Shrestha and Lenz, 2007). Because images often serve as entry points to web pages (Faraday, 2000), these findings suggest that visual hierarchy manipulated by images may have an impact on users' pattern of viewing. This study investigates two factors that may affect the F shaped viewing pattern: 1) visual hierarchy, and 2) task. Two prototypes of a homepage from a financialsrf company were designed to be different in only one section, which was named "Expert Insights". The location of the section was below the fold of the page, a spot typically missed when users exhibit an F-shaped viewing pattern. One prototype was named Faces as its Expert Insights section included images of faces, while the other, the No Faces prototype, contained no images of faces. Because images tend to attract users' attention, their inclusion affects the visual hierarchy of the homepage (Faraday, 2000). Two tasks were designed in this study: browsing and searching. In the searching task, participants were asked questions such as "You want to know more about a fall in Brazil's stocks" and needed to retrieve information which lay in the Expert Insights section. 34 participants were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions in this two-task (browse or search) X twoprototype (Faces or No Faces prototype) design. Their viewing patterns and eye fixations were collected by the non-intrusive Tobii 1750 and analyzed using heat maps. Results of this study showed that 1) consistent with previous findings, the content above the fold received more fixations overall; 2) more fixations in the center of the page were shown in the browsing task, whereas long fixations on navigations and more scattered pattern were shown in the searching task; 3) Faces prototype received more fixations on the text in Expert Insights, but No Faces prototype showed fixations only on the titles. Compared with a previous study in F-pattern (Shrestha and Lenz, 2007), our homepage had a more complex visual hierarchy, which could guide users' attention to areas outside of the pattern found on less visually complex pages. This study also shows that visual complexity may affect the effect of task on viewing pattern, and that task has an effect on viewing a page with a more complex visual hierarchy. Images of the faces have served as effective entry points, helping users to retrieve the information with fewer fixations. In addition, including images of faces on a homepage can help guide users in viewing and retrieving information adjacent to those images, even when the images are located below the fold of the webpage. Last, creating visual appeal in central area may be of great importance in creating a favorable aesthetic experience. These results not only have theoretical importance, but also have practical value.


Based on systematic data from 1988 to 2015, the main sources of soil contamination in forest and industrial areas of Bulgaria were presented. The processes of soil acidification and eutrophication as well as accumulation of heavy metals in forest and industrial soils were analysed. The content of heavy metals in soils, pasture grasses and medicinal plants from two National Parks—Central Balkan and Pirin, as well as from two Natural Parks—Bulgarka and Strandzha was also reported. Data on heavy metals accumulation in leaves of tree species in some industrial areas of the country were presented as well. Soil and plant contamination with heavy metals were estimated according to the applied criteria of ICP Forests.


The so-called commitment decision procedure, introduced into European competition law with Art. 9 of Regulation 1/2003, was meant to provide the Commission with the possibility to dispose of competition law cases by way of a kind of formal settlement, roughly analogous to the US consent decree. It has quickly become an important instrument of European competition law enforcement. Since May 2004, roughly 50 % of all Commission decisions applying Art. 81 or Art. 82 in non-hardcore-cartel cases have been taken under Art. 9 of Reg. 1/2003. However, the CFI's Alrosa judgment of 11 July 2007 calls into question the Commission's commitment decision practice in various respects. Alrosa does not conceive commitment decisions as settlements proper, but treats them as public law enforcement largely analogous to infringement decisions under Art. 7 of Reg. 1/2003. It emphasizes the Commission's duty to investigate and clearly formulate the competitive concern, insists on a full judicial review of the proportionality of the commitments and underlines the full judicial protection of the concerned undertakings' procedural rights, namely the right to access to the file and the right to be heard. This paper provides an overview of the Commission's commitment decision practice since Art. 9 of Reg. 1/2003 has entered into force, discusses the concerns that this practice has raised and the implications of the Alrosa judgment, should it be upheld by the ECJ. According to the author, the Alrosa judgment fundamentally re-conceptualizes the function and structure of commitment decision procedures, with likely repercussions on analogous provisions in national competition laws. It creates important safeguards against the real risk that the Commission's incentives to settle cases may diverge from the public interest in effective protection of competition.


The Alya System is the BSC simulation code for multi-physics problems [1]. It is based on a Variational Multiscale Finite Element Method for unstructured meshes. Work distribution is achieved by partitioning the original mesh into subdomains (submeshes). This pre-partition step has until now been done in serial by only one process, using the metis library [2]. This is a huge bottleneck when larger meshes with millions of elements have to be partitioned. This is due to the data not fitting in the memory of a single computing node and in the cases where the data does fit; Alya takes too long in the partitioning step. In this document we explain the tasks done to design, implement and test a new parallel partitioning algorithm for Alya. In this algorithm a subset of the workers, is in charge of partition the mesh in parallel, using the parmetis library [3]. Partitioning workers, load consecutive parts of the main mesh, with a parallel space partitioning bin structure [4], capable of obtaining the adjacent boundary elements of their respective submeshes. With this local mesh, each of the partitioning workers is able to create its local element adjacency graph and to partition the mesh. We have validated our new algorithm using a Navier-Stokes problem on a small cube mesh of 1000 elements. Then we performed a scalability test on a 30M element mesh to check if the time to partition the mesh is reduced proportionally with the number of partitioning workers. We have also done a comparison between metis and parmetis, the balancing of the element distribution among the domains, to test how the use of many partitioning workers to partition the mesh affects the scalability of Alya. We have noticed in these tests that it's better to use fewer partitioning workers to partition the mesh. Finally we have two sections explaining the results and the future work that has to be done in order to finalise and improve the parallel partition algorithm.


Summary form only given, as follows. A study is presented of precision constraints imposed by a hybrid chip architecture with analog neurons and digital backpropagation calculations. Conversions between the analog and digital domains and weight storage restrictions impose precision limits on both analog and digital calculations. It is shown through simulations that a learning system of this nature can be implemented in spite of limited resolution in the analog circuits and using fixed-point arithmetic to implement the backpropagation algorithm.<<ETX>>


This article discusses the status of the concept of hegemonic masculinity in research on men and boys in Sweden, and how it has been used and developed. Sweden has a relatively long history of public debate, research, and policy intervention in gender issues and gender equality. This has meant, in sheer quantitative terms, a relatively sizeable corpus of work on men, masculinities, and gender relations. There is also a rather wide diversity of approaches, theoretically and empirically, to the analysis of men and masculinities. The Swedish national context and gender equality project is outlined. This is followed by discussion of three broad phases in studies on men and masculinities in Sweden: the 1960s and 1970s before the formulation of the concept of hegemonic masculinity; the 1980s and 1990s when the concept was important for a generation of researchers developing studies in more depth; and the 2000s with a younger generation committed to a variety of feminist and gender critiques other than those associated with hegemonic masculinity. The following sections focus specifically on how the concept of hegemonic masculinity has been used, adapted, and indeed not used, in particular areas of study: boys and young men in family and education; violence; and health. The article concludes with review of how hegemonic masculinity has been used in Swedish contexts, as: gender stereotype, often out of the context of legitimation of patriarchal relations; "Other" than dominant, white middle-class "Swedish," equated with outmoded, nonmodern, working-class, failing boy, or minority ethnic masculinities; a new masculinity concept and practice, incorporating some degree of gender equality; and reconceptualized and problematized as a modern, heteronormative, and subject-centered concept.


This study describes the use of calcein as a chemical tagging methodology to estimate growth rate variation of the stalked barnacle Pollicipes pollicipes , an ecologically important intertidal species and economic resource, in SW Portugal. Calcein tagging had a high success rate (94%) in marking both juvenile and adult barnacles for a period of 2.5 months, providing a valuable method for obtaining reliable data in growth studies of P. pollicipes . Growth rate decreased with barnacle size and was highly variable amongst individuals, particularly in smaller barnacles. No effect of shore level on barnacle growth was detected. Growth rates were higher in smaller juvenile barnacles, peaking at a 1.1-mm monthly increment in rostro-carinal length (RC) for individuals with RC=5 mm, and decreased with barnacle size (monthly growth rates of 0.5 mm for adult barnacles with RC~12.5 mm). Growth rates observed in adults with commercial interest (RC ≥ 18 mm) was P. pollicipes with calcein were the possibility of mass marking individual barnacles of different size cohorts within a short period (less than 1 day of manipulation); and reduced time of fieldwork, which is very important because this species inhabits very exposed rocky shores.


This paper investigates the relationship between income inequality and political party alternation at the US state level using panel data from 1971 to 2015. We hypothesize that income inequality leads to more regime instability in the form of alternation of governors' parties. We also test the similar hypothesis that income inequality affects the likelihood of a party gaining two-thirds control over state legislative chambers. The evidence from a panel fixed-effects model suggests that income inequality has a nonlinear relationship with gubernatorial-party instability. We also find a positive linear relationship between income inequality and political party instability when a governor's party controls the state legislature. Finally, our results suggest that higher income inequality reduces the likelihood that Republicans will gain or maintain a two-thirds majority in either chamber of a state's legislature, and we find a similar but weaker effect for Democrats in state senates. These results suggest that income inequality at the state level should be examined to understand the fiscal and other economic consequences that arise through its impact on party alternation and legislative control.


CONTEXT: The dichotomous outcome of a clinical intervention may be defined as success versus failure and subsequently expressed in the number of intervention successes and failures. Success and failure numbers of two clinical interventions may be compared and the resulting effect estimate expressed either as Risk ratio (RR) or Odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). The expression of effect estimates in Risk ratio appears to be easier to interpret. Also, Risk ratio of success rates implies the "risk of success", which seems counter-intuitive from a linguistic point of view and it has been suggested that failures are of more interest for interventions that aim to heal or have positive effects, while successes or survivals are of more interest in circumstances of harm. Based on these considerations, the comparison of two intervention indented to heal based on their number of failures and the expression of the resulting effect estimate in Risk ratio, appears to be most appropriate. PROBLEM: Pure logical conjecture may not provide sufficient reason for choosing comparison of failures above successes and Risk ratio above Odds ratio and a more empirical basis for an informed choice is needed. SUGGESTED SOLUTION: The outcome of this brief investigation suggest that the use of Risk ratio for expressing differences in success rates may lead to statistically significant results when comparison of failure rates based of Risk ratio or the use of Odds ratios for failures and successes does not. These findings support the use of Risk ratio for failure rates instead of success rates for comparison of interventions that aim to heal in order to be easier interpretable and in order to avoid potentially misleading results.


Description of the first Soviet semester (1941) in the official instruction and research report of Tartu State University Urmet Paloveer, University of Tartu History Museum After the forceful joining of the Republic of Estonia to the Soviet Union, immediately in the summer of 1940 large scale reorganisation of Tartu University started. The university was renamed Tartu State University. In the present paper, on the basis of the official report of the autumn semester of the university, the author observes how the introduction of Soviet reorganisation in instruction and research took place and which difficulties accompanied the process and to which extent the problems related to teaching new and ideological general subjects were dealt with. It is revealed that the part of the official report reflecting instruction and research was of most general character and not exact especially concerning research. In the field of instruction much attention was devoted to the problems and obstacles: difficulties in the transfer to the system of courses, the later beginning of lectures and earlier finishing than planned, the problem of lecture rooms which was caused by making attending of lectures obligatory. In comparison with other faculties, institutes and chairs most of the space of the report was given to the Chair of Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism as the main introducer of new ideology. Consequently, it may be stated that the studies of the speciality and the related problems were considered second-ate by the then university administration and the problems of research even third-rate in comparison with the ideological education which was obligatory to everybody. The assessments in the report that students' opposing attitudes to ideological subjects became mostly positive of even supportive during the semester should be viewed with doubts because in the memoirs of the then students it cannot be seen. As always, the researcher should analyze the Soviet period resources carefully and critically.


One of the major goals of the 2005 Antarctic Tropospheric Chemistry Investigation (ANTCI) was to bridge the information gap between current knowledge of South Pole (SP) chemistry and that of the plateau. The former has been extensively studied, but its geographical position on the edge of the plateau makes extrapolating these findings across the plateau problematic. The airborne observations reported here demonstrate that, as at SP, elevated levels of nitric oxide (NO) are a common summertime feature of the plateau. As in earlier studies, planetary boundary layer (PBL) variations were a contributing factor leading to NO fluctuations. Thus, extensive use was made of in situ measurements and models to characterize PBL depths along each flight path and over broader areas of the plateau. Consistent with earlier SP studies that revealed photolysis of nitrate in surface snow as the source of NO x , large vertical gradients in NO were observed over most plateau areas sampled. Similar gradients were also found for the nitrogen species HNO3 and HO2NO2 and for O3. Thus, a common meteorological-chemical feature found was shallow PBLs associated with nitrogen species concentrations that exceeded free tropospheric levels. Collectively, these new results greatly extend the geographical sampling footprint defined by earlier SP studies. In particular, they suggest that previous assessments of the plateau as simply a chemical depository need updating. Although the evidence supporting this position comes in many forms, the fact that net photochemical production of ozone occurs during summer months over extensive areas of the plateau is pivotal.


Proper surface characteristics for a titanium implant are crucial for the formation of different cellular protrusions known as filopodia and lamellipodia, both of which have a significant impact on cell attachment, spreading, migration, and proliferation. Microstructural features such as grain boundaries and defects of implant surface can modulate the cellular components and structure at the leading edge of cells. Here, a nano-grained Ti–29Nb–13Ta–4.6Zr (NG TNTZ) substrate was produced by high-pressure torsion (HPT) for improved biofunctionality. Cellular response of human osteoblast cells on nano-grained TNTZ substrates is evaluated and compared with the cellular response of those on coarse-grained TNTZ. High wettability, which depends on high internal energy due to the nano-sized grains that are full of boundaries, interfaces, and high dislocation density, influenced the hOBs cells on NG TNTZ to form highly developed cellular protrusions. Large number of filopodia protrusions resulted in excellent cell attachment as consistent with high level of vinculin and superior cell proliferation. This study demonstrates the advantages of nanocrystalline surface modification using HPT for processing metallic biomaterials that are proper for orthopedic implants.


A computer model of fine magnetic particles has been developed based on the Landau-Lifshitz equation. It is a dynamic model which allows the detailed behaviour of the magnetic moments during magnetisation changes to be investigated.
The model was initially used to study gyroremanent magnetisation (GRM) which is observed in magnetic rocks. Stephenson proposed that GRM was caused by the gyroscopic precession of the moments. In collaboration with Stephenson a model was developed to show the complex motion of the moments in an alternating field and it was found that positive and negative cycles of the field produced an asymmetry in the motion.
This asymmetry leads to one of the easy magnetisation directions being favoured so that when the field is cycled to zero a remanence is produced, the observed GRM.
The model was then extended to include thermal agitation through the addition of a random field term in the simulation. It was found that in the absence of thermal agitation two particles always moved coherently but when thermal agitation was included other modes appeared. This work showed the importance of ncluding thermal agitation in any micromagnetic
model.
The model was then used to simulate ferromagnetic resonance on a single particle and the results precisely matched the results predicted by analytical theory. The effect of particle anisotropy and alignment on the response was then investigated and the computed results agreed with experimental measurements. The model was further extended to include dipolar
interactions firstly in a chain of spheres and then on an array of particles. Results agreed very well with experimental measurements on tapes with different packing densities and have helped to indicate the local fields acting in an assembly of fine magnetic particles.


This work explores the timing of very short utterances in conversations, as well as the effects of excluding intervals adjacent to such utterances from distributions of betweenspeaker interval durations. The results show that very short utterances are more precisely timed to the preceding utterance than longer utterances in terms of a smaller variance and a larger proportion of no-gap-no-overlaps. Excluding intervals adjacent to very short utterances furthermore results in measures of central tendency closer to zero (i.e. no-gap-no-overlaps) as well as larger variance (i.e. relatively longer gaps and overlaps). Index Terms: Human speech production, Prosody


In Southeast Asia, upland rice (Oryza sativa L.) is an annual crop that is typically cultivated on hilly sites, contributing to the erosion of soil and the degradation of watersheds. We wish to develop a perennial upland rice that would help conserve natural resources via a permanent ground cover, while providing subsistence farmers with a valued food. Oryza longistaminata A. Chev. et Roehr. is a highly perennial, rhizomatous relative of O. saliva that may be a useful source of genes for developing perennial upland rice. This study was conducted to evaluate the potential of an O. saliva/O. longistaminata intermated population for developing perennial upland rice. As a baseline for comparison, none of the cultivar controls survived 1 yr. Among 94 S 1 families, 1-yr survival ranged from 0 to 63.6% but only six families had more than 30% survival. On the basis of observations at the soil surface, less than 1% of the progeny plants produced rhizomes. However, three families produced approximately 25% rhizomatous individuals, suggesting the presence of a single locus with large effect. Interspecific crossing barriers led to low S 1 yields, with many plants being completely sterile. The low fertility and limited perenniality observed may make further breeding progress with this population difficult.


The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) was set up to facilitate and promote equality of opportunity, good relations, harmony and peaceful coexistence between persons of the different ethnic and racial communities of Kenya, and to advise the Government on all aspects thereof after the violence that followed the December 2007 elections. In Kenya, Bridging Ethnic Divides: A Commissioner's Experience on Cohesion and Integration, Commissioner Alice Wairim? Nderit? looks behind the scenes at the NCIC's efforts to ensure peaceful co-existence. Such as, working with elders, mediating confidentially between political leaders at the highest levels and co-founding and working as first Co-Chair of Uwiano Platform for Peace, a conflict prevention agency largely credited with leading efforts in ensuring peaceful processes during the 2010 Constitutional referendum and 2013 General elections. The book tells of NCIC's efforts in grappling with the seemingly intractable problem of managing the negative consequence of ethnic differences on questions such as: Why is Kenya so ethnically polarised? Why is an ethnic group the key defining factor in Kenyan politics? What hope is there for an inclusive Kenya? The book shows that positive policies and intra- and inter-ethnic spaces can be used to counter negative influences that lead to fear, exclusion and violence. The diversity of Kenya's ethnicities and races need not be a pretext for conflict, but a source of truly national identity. It proves that dialogue on understanding differences and commonalities leads to improved relationships and understanding on societal dynamics. This in turn, contributes to preventing and transforming conflicts through appropriate inclusion policies, identifying entry points for change as well as opportunities to tackle the norms and behaviours that underpin structural disparities.


Abstract. Bridge Glacier is a lake-calving glacier in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia and has retreated over 3.55 km since 1972. The majority of this retreat has occurred since 1991. This retreat is substantially greater than what has been inferred from regional climate indices, suggesting that it has been driven primarily by calving as the glacier retreated across an overdeepened basin. In order to better understand the primary drivers of ablation, surface melt (below the equilibrium line altitude, ELA) and calving were quantified during the 2013 melt season using a distributed energy balance model (DEBM) and time-lapse imagery. Calving, estimated using areal change, velocity measurements, and assuming flotation were responsible for 23 % of the glacier's ablation below the ELA during the 2013 melt season and were limited by modest flow speeds and a small terminus cross-section. Calving and surface melt estimates from 1984 to 2013 suggest that calving was consistently a smaller contributor of ablation. Although calving was estimated to be responsible for up to 49 % of the glacier's ablation for individual seasons, averaged over multiple summers it accounted between 10 and 25 %. Calving was enhanced primarily by buoyancy and water depths, and fluxes were greatest between 2005 and 2010 as the glacier retreated over the deepest part of Bridge Lake. The recent rapid rate of calving is part of a transient stage in the glacier's retreat and is expected to diminish within 10 years as the terminus recedes into shallower water at the proximal end of the lake. These findings are in line with observations from other lake-calving glacier studies across the globe and suggest a common large-scale pattern in calving-induced retreat in lake-terminating alpine glaciers. Despite enhancing glacial retreat, calving remains a relatively small component of ablation and is expected to decrease in importance in the future. Hence, surface melt remains the primary driver of ablation at Bridge Glacier and thus projections of future retreat should be more closely tied to climate.


The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has a program to certify doctors as competent to interpret pulmonary X-rays using the International Labour Office (ILO) International Classification of Radiographs (X-rays) of Pneumoconiosis. Doctors so certified are referred to as B Readers. The NIOSH B Reader Program was established to reduce the level of variability among X-ray readers by objectively documenting proficiency in evaluating the characteristics and patterns of images on chest X-rays for occupationally related lung disease. NIOSH currently certifies approximately 400 B Readers. Of this number, approximately 15-25 current and former B Readers have done a majority of the several hundred thousands of B-readings that have been submitted in support of asbestos and silica-related personal injury claims. In several published articles, I have offered the opinion, based upon the evidence I presented, that many of these 15-25 B Readers are not engaged in good faith medical practice but rather provide X-ray readings and diagnoses for litigation purposes that are primarily a function of the millions of dollars a year in income that they receive for their services. Earlier this year, U.S. District Court Judge Janis Jack, presiding over the silica MDL (Docket No. 1553), concluded that lawyers, doctors and screening companies had created a scheme to manufacture [diagnoses] for money. Taking note of the mounting evidence that certain physicians, including NIOSH-certified B Readers, were engaged in improper practice, NIOSH is proposing to adopt Ethical Considerations for B Readers. Federal Register, Vol. 70, No. 221 (Thursday, Nov. 17, 2005/Notices at 69765). I have responded to NIOSH's request for comments on its proposal. In my comments, I briefly review the elements of an entrepreneurial model of nonmalignant asbestos litigation that I more fully describe in my published writings as having come into being in the mid to late 1980s. The core of this entrepreneurial model is the mass screening and the use of B Readers and other physicians to generate medical evidence in support of hundreds of thousands of mostly specious claims. I recommend that NIOSH create an audit process to review the work of high volume B Readers who read X-rays for litigation purposes. Under my proposal, a neutral panel of B Readers will, upon complaint, reread a sample of the B-reads of a litigation doctor to determine whether there is a prima facie case of nonconformance with ILO standards. If the panel concludes that that B Reader has substantially departed from ILO standards, it shall recommend to NIOSH that it withdraw its certification of that Reader. In the event of such recommendation, NIOSH shall notify appropriate state licensing authorities and medical certification boards of that recommendation.


ii NASA STI Program…in Profile Since its founding, NASA has been dedicated to the advancement of aeronautics and space science. The NASA scientific and technical information (STI) program plays a key part in helping NASA maintain this important role. The NASA STI program operates under the auspices of the Agency Chief Information Officer. It collects, organizes, provides for archiving, and disseminates NASA's STI. The NASA STI program provides access to the NASA Aeronautics and Space Database and its public interface, the NASA Technical Report Server, thus providing one of the largest collections of aeronautical and space science STI in the world. Results are published in both non-NASA channels and by NASA in the NASA STI Report Series, which includes the following report types: • TECHNICAL PUBLICATION. Reports of completed research or a major significant phase of research that present the results of NASA Programs and include extensive data or theoretical analysis. Includes compilations of significant scientific and technical data and information deemed to be of continuing reference value. NASA counterpart of peer-reviewed formal professional papers but has less stringent limitations on manuscript length and extent of graphic presentations. • TECHNICAL MEMORANDUM. Scientific and technical findings that are preliminary or of specialized interest, e.g., quick release reports, working papers, and bibliographies that contain minimal annotation. Does not contain extensive analysis. • CONTRACTOR REPORT. Scientific and technical findings by NASA-sponsored contractors and grantees. • CONFERENCE PUBLICATION. Collected papers from scientific and technical conferences, symposia, seminars, or other meetings sponsored or co-sponsored by NASA. • SPECIAL PUBLICATION. Scientific, technical, or historical information from NASA programs, projects, and missions, often concerned with subjects having substantial public interest. • TECHNICAL TRANSLATION. English-language translations of foreign scientific and technical material pertinent to NASA's mission. Specialized services also include creating custom thesauri, building customized databases, and organizing and publishing research results. For more information about the NASA STI program, see the following: • Access the NASA STI program home page at


A recent threat to the sustainability of grape production is Grapevine vein-clearing virus (GVCV), the first DNA virus discovered in grapevines. Infection with GVCV leads to vine decline, lower quality berries, and eventual death of the grapevine. Since GVCV was discovered in cultivated grapevines, research has been dedicated to investigating its range and origin. The entire genome of the first GVCV isolate from a grape cultivar 'Chardonel' has been deposited in GenBank and is used as a reference genome. More recently, two GVCV isolates were found in native Vitis rupestris in Missouri. In this thesis project, I applied polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays to screen for GVCV in native Ampelopsis cordata, which is also in the Vitaceae family. I found GVCV in two accessions of this wild plant species. The entire genomes of the two GVCV isolates, GVCV-AMP1 and GVCV-AMP2, from A. cordata were sequenced. The GVCV-AMP1 genome is composed of double-stranded DNA, 7,749 bp long, while GVCV-AMP2 is 7,765 bp long. Genomic analysis indicated that they are new isolates with signature 9base pair inserts in open reading frame II. A survey of GVCV in seventeen A. cordata plants around the Springfield area found that five were infected with GVCV, suggesting high incidence of GVCV among these native plants. These results demonstrated that GVCV spreads among species across genera in native habitats, and yielded crucial clues on origin and epidemics of GVCV. These findings will aid in developing new strategies for the management of GVCV-associated disease.


The Singapore and Melaka Straits are a place where regional and long-distance maritime trading networks converge, linking Europe, the Mediterranean, eastern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent with key centres of trade in Thailand, Indochina, insular Southeast Asia, China, Korea and Japan. The first half of the seventeenth century brought heightened political, commercial and diplomatic activity to this region. It has long been clear to both the Portuguese and the Dutch that whoever controlled the waters off modern Singapore gained a firm grip on regional as well as long-distance intra-Asian trade. By the early 1600s Portuguese power and prestige were waning and the arrival of the Dutch East India Company constituted a major threat. Moreover, the rapid expansion and growing power of the Acehnese Empire, and rivalry between Johor and Aceh, was creating a new context for European trade in Asia. Drawing on maps, rare printed works, and unpublished manuscripts written in Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and Latin, Peter Borschberg provides new information on the diplomatic activities of Asian powers, and shows how the Portuguese and Spanish attempted to restore their political fortunes by containing the rapid rise of Dutch Power in the region. Key documents, transcribed and translated into English for the first time, make up a series of appendices. The product of more than two decades of research in European libraries, archives, The Singapore and Melaka Straits will be of great interest to readers in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, where little is known about this pivotal pre-colonial period. It is also an invaluable resource for historians and other students of early modern Europe and of the European presence in Asia.


Effective conservation management of deep-sea sponges, including design of appropriate marine protected areas, requires an understanding of the connectivity between populations throughout a species' distribution. We provide the first consideration of larval connectivity among deep-sea sponge populations along the southeastern coast of North America, illustrate the influence of the Gulf Stream on dispersal, and complement published distribution models by evaluating colonization potential. Connectivity among known populations of the hexactinellid sponge Vazella pourtalesii was simulated using a 3-D biophysical dispersal model throughout its distribution from Florida, United States to Nova Scotia, Canada. We found no exchange with an estimated pelagic larval duration of 2 weeks between populations north and south of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina at surface, mid-water and seabed release depths, irrespective of month of release or application of a horizontal diffusion constant specific to cross-Gulf Stream diffusivity. The population north of Cape Hatteras and south of Cape Cod was isolated. There was some evidence that Gulf Stream eddies formed near Cape Hatteras could travel to the northwest, connecting the populations in the two sub-regions, however that would require a much longer pelagic duration than what is currently known. More likely almost all larval settlement will be in the immediate area of the adults. At sub-regional scales, connectivity was found from the Strait of Florida through to the Blake Plateau, southeastern United States, with the latter area showing potential for recruitment from more than one source population. The influence of the Charleston Bump, a shallow feature rising from the Blake Plateau, was substantial. Particles seeded just north of the Bump were transported greater distances than those seeded to the south, some of which were caught in an associated gyre, promoting retention at the seabed. To the north on the Scotian Shelf, despite weaker currents and greater distances between known occurrences, unidirectional transport was detected from Emerald Basin to the Northeast Channel between Georges and Browns Banks. These major conclusions remained consistent through simulations run with different averaging periods for the currents (decades to daily) and using two ocean model products (BNAM and GLORYS12V1).


The present study aimed to determine the effects of breed and sex on growth patterns and metabolic features of advanced-pregnancy foetuses exposed to the same environmental conditions. Thus, at Day 62 of pregnancy, swine foetuses from an obese breed with leptin resistance (Iberian breed) were compared to lean crossbred foetuses (25% Large White ×25% Landrace ×50% Pietrain). There were differential developmental patterns in foetuses with leptin resistance, mainly a higher relative weight of the brain resembling "brain-sparing effect". Prioritization of brain growth may be protective for the adequate growth and postnatal survival of the Iberian individuals, an ancient breed reared in extensive semi-feral conditions for centuries. There were also clear sex-related differences in foetal development and metabolism in the Iberian breed. Female Iberian foetuses were similar in size and weight to male littermates but had a significantly higher relative liver to body weight ratio resembling "liver-sparing effect" and a trend for a higher relative intestine to body ratio. Moreover, the availability of triglycerides, cholesterol and IL-6 in female Iberian foetuses was similar to that of lean crossbred foetuses. Overall, these features may favour a better postnatal survival and development of females, the sex more critical for the species survival. These findings set the basis for future translational studies aimed at increasing the knowledge on the interaction between genetic and environmental factors in the early programming of the adult phenotype.


This paper looks at the surprisingly different labor market performance of the United States, Canada, Germany, and several other OECD countries during and after the Great Recession of 2008–9. A first important finding is that the large employment swings in the construction sector linked to the boom and bust in US housing markets is an important factor behind the different labor market performances of the three countries. We also find that cross-country differences among OECD countries are consistent with a conventional Okun relationship linking gross domestic product growth to employment performance.


Abstract The Colon platform, located in the Bocas del Toro region of Panama, was studied as a near-modern analog for buried reefal platforms. The platform has an areal extent of ∼ 90 km2 and formed in a convergent tectonic setting (backarc) under a tropical climatic regime. The attached platform formed as part of a discontinuously rimmed shelf along the Caribbean side of the Isthmus of Panama and consisted of mixed carbonates and siliciclastics. Based on field relations and strontium-isotope stratigraphy, three depositional sequences were identified in the near-surface deposits of the uplifted platform. A Miocene to late Pliocene lithic sandstone unit (sequence 1, Old Bank Formation) forms the foundation of the platform. Coral-rich limestone and coral-rich siliciclastic units were deposited during both the late Pliocene (sequence 2, Isla Colon Formation) and early Pleistocene (sequence 3, Urraca Formation). In sequences 2 and 3 the sediment composition and fauna show distinct differences between the windward and leeward sides of the platform, with the main lithologic variable being the amount of siliciclastic sediment that was admixed with the biogenic carbonate sediments. The siliciclastic deposits (mud rich) in sequences 2 and 3 exhibit lower permeability and relatively minor diagenetic modification, and they lack major karst features. Conversely, the more carbonate-rich deposits are well cemented and strongly affected by meteoric dissolution and karstification. This facies-selective dissolution occurred when middle Pleistocene regional uplift exposed the platform to a tropical climate with high rainfall. Earthquakes and associated uplift of the platform over the past ∼ 1 Myr intensely fractured the limestone. Fracture porosity has contributed to rapid infiltration of meteoric water and pervasive dissolution that resulted in numerous vertical sinks as well as an extensive network of horizontal conduits. A large, incised channel feature connects several of the pre-existing caves and conduits. The Colon platform limestone is a product of an equatorial humid carbonate system and is of size similar to platforms of Oligo-Miocene age near Malaysia (Sarawak), Indonesia, and farther north in the South China Sea.


This literature review was commissioned as part of research for the project 'Enhancing women's role in peace and security in Yemen'.2 The research is being led by the Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient (CARPO) and the Yemen Polling Center (YPC) in partnership with Saferworld, and will inform programme activities to support women's peacebuilding efforts in Yemen by Saferworld in cooperation with the National Foundation for Development and Humanitarian Response (NFDHR) and Wogood for Human Security. The review intends to provide an overview of women's interactions with peacebuilding efforts in Yemen, in view to informing current strategies on how to enhance their role.


We proposed a mode group delay managed transmission line for a WDM-MIMO system consisting of fibers with positive and negative DMDs to compensate for the total DMD. We show numerically that the multi-step index fiber can flexibly tune the DMD. We fabricated fibers for use in a C-L band WDM-MIMO system, and realized a 20.4 km-long DMD compensated transmission line with a total absolute DMD of less than 111 ps over the entire C-L band. Finally, we achieved a 2<formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\times\,$</tex> </formula>2 WDM-MIMO transmission within the C-L band by using equalizers with a small tap number.


Studies on Daphnia distribution in Indian subcontinent have been few and regionally restricted despite Daphnia being by far the most studied cladoceran. We here present a first biogeographical assessment of the genus on the Indian subcontinent (Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka). We collected all pertinent literature and considered nineteen bioclimatic variables along with latitude, longitude, and altitude for statistical analysis of factors governing distribution in space. Significant variables (determined by Kruskal Wallis test) were tested by nonparametric multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) to clarify whether Daphnia species had specific environmental requirements. Canonical correspondence analysis was used to understand how environmental variables affected distribution.  Eight Daphnia ( Ctenodaphnia ) and 4 Daphnia s.str. occurred at 100 different localities. The variables temperature, altitude and latitude differed among species and so did their bio-climatic requirements. Daphnia distribution responded positively to altitude and negatively to a decrease in latitude and temperature.


This study examines the factors affecting joint venture employees' loyalty to supervisor in the People's Republic of China. The trust framework and justice framework are employed to develop two competing models for studying the antecedents and consequences of loyalty to supervisor in the context of Chinese joint ventures. The direct effect model proposes that there is a direct effect of employees' perception of interactional justice and of trust in supervisor on their loyalty to supervisor, while the mediation model considers trust in supervisor as a mediating variable between interactional justice and loyalty to supervisor. Additionally, the two models suggest that loyalty to supervisor affects the in-role job performance and organizational citizenship behaviour of workers. The results showed that the mediation model was better supported than the direct effect model. It has been found that trust in supervisor mediates the relationships between interactional justice and loyalty to supervisor. In addition, loyalty to supervisor has significant effects on both employees' performance and organizational citizenship behaviour. Practically, the findings of the present study provide considerable implications for managing Chinese workers in joint ventures.


Pr:CaGdAlO4 (Pr:CGA) crystals have been grown and investigated for the first time. A Na+ flux was designed to improve the crystal quality in the Czochralski growth process. The effect of the addition of the Na+ flux on crystal quality has been investigated, and its beneficial impact on the crystallinity, optical homogeneity and thermal properties of the grown crystals has been demonstrated. The optical spectra of Pr:CGA have been measured in order to assess its potential for photonics applications. The intensities of the absorption transitions have been analyzed by means of the Judd–Ofelt approach and the intensity parameters, the branching ratios and the radiative lifetimes of the emitting states have been evaluated. These have been compared with the experimental values obtained from pulsed light measurements. All the properties indicate that the Pr:CGA crystal has great prospects in the applications of visible lasers.


Recently, earthquake damage assessment using satellite images has been a very popular ongoing research direction. Especially with the availability of very high resolution (VHR) satellite images, a quite detailed damage map based on building scale has been produced, and various studies have also been conducted in the literature. As the spatial resolution of satellite images increases, distinguishability of damage patterns becomes more cruel especially in case of using only the spectral information during classification. In order to overcome this difficulty, textural information needs to be involved to the classification to improve the visual quality and reliability of damage map. There are many kinds of textural information which can be derived from VHR satellite images depending on the algorithm used. However, extraction of textural information and evaluation of them have been generally a time consuming process especially for the large areas affected from the earthquake due to the size of VHR image. Therefore, in order to provide a quick damage map, the most useful features describing damage patterns needs to be known in advance as well as the redundant features. In this study, a very high resolution satellite image after Iran, Bam earthquake was used to identify the earthquake damage. Not only the spectral information, textural information was also used during the classification. For textural information, second order Haralick features were extracted from the panchromatic image for the area of interest using gray
level co-occurrence matrix with different size of windows and directions. In addition to using spatial features in classification, the most useful features representing the damage characteristic were selected with a novel feature selection method based on high dimensional model representation (HDMR) giving sensitivity of each feature during classification. The method called HDMR was recently proposed as an efficient tool to capture the input-output relationships in high-dimensional systems for many problems in science and engineering. The HDMR method is developed to improve the efficiency of the deducing high dimensional behaviors. The method is formed by a particular organization of low dimensional component functions, in which each function is the contribution of one or more input variables to the output variables.


Evolution in software systems is a necessary activity that occurs due to fixing bugs, adding functionality or improving system quality. Systems often need to be shown to comply with regulatory standards. Along with demonstrating compliance, an artifact, called an assurance case, is often produced to show that the system indeed satisfies the property imposed by the standard (e.g., safety, privacy, security, etc.). Since each of the system, the standard, and the assurance case can be presented as a model, we propose the extension and use of traditional model management operators to aid in the reuse of parts of the assurance case when the system undergoes an evolution. Specifically, we present a model management approach that eventually produces a partial evolved assurance case and guidelines to help the assurance engineer in completing it. We demonstrate how our approach works on an automotive subsystem regulated by the ISO 26262 standard.


The influence of media on society is unquestioned. Its reach penetrates nearly every corner of the world and every aspect of life. But it has also been a contested realm, embodying class politics and the interests of monopoly capital. In "The Political Economy of Media", one of the foremost media critics of our time, Robert W. McChesney, provides a comprehensive analysis of the economic and political powers that are being mobilized to consolidate private control of media with increasing profit - all at the expense of democracy.In this elegant and lucid collection, McChesney examines the monopolistic competition that has created a global media that is ever more concentrated and centralized. McChesney reveals why questions about the ownership of commercial U.S. media remain off limits within the political culture; how private ownership of media leads to the degradation of journalism and suppression of genuine debate; and why corporate rule threatens democracy by failing to provide the means for an educated and informed citizenry. "The Political Economy of Media" also highlights resistance to corporate media over the last century, including the battle between broadcasters and the public in the 1920s and 1930s and the ongoing media reform movement today. "The Political Economy of Media" makes it clear that the struggle over the ownership and the role of media is of utmost importance to everyone.


Abstract. Glyoxal, CHO.CHO, is produced during the oxidation of volatile organic compounds, VOC, released by anthropogenic activities, biogenic processes and biomass burning. It has a short chemical lifetime of a few hours in the boundary layer and lower troposphere and therefore serves as an indicator and a marker of photochemical hot-spots and their response to changing atmospheric conditions around the globe. For this reason more than five years of CHO.CHO observations (2002–2007), retrieved from the radiances measured by the satellite instrument SCIAMACHY, were obtained and analyzed both temporally and spatially. The largest columns of CHO.CHO (>6.1014 molec cm−2) are found in the tropical and sub-tropical regions, associated with high biological activity and the plumes from vegetation fires. The majority of the identified hot spots are characterized by a well-defined seasonality: the highest values being observed during the warm and dry periods as a result of the enhanced biogenic, primarily isoprene, emissions and/or biomass burning from natural or man-made fires. The regions influenced by anthropogenic pollution also encounter enhanced amounts of glyoxal. The ratio "CHO.CHO to HCHO, RGF" over the biogenically influenced photochemical hot-spots is approximately 0.045. For the studied regions, the presence of pyrogenic and anthropogenic emissions increases and decreases this number respectively. Although the 2002–2007 period of observation is limited, over the northeastern Asia a significant annual increase in CHO.CHO in addition to a seasonal cycle is reported.


A method for the theoretical determination of the wall shear stress under impinging jets of various configurations is presented. Axisymmetric and two-dimensional incompressible jets of a wide range of Reynolds numbers and jet heights are considered. Theoretical predictions from this approach are compared with available wall shear stress measurements. These data are critically evaluated based on the method of measurement and its applicability to the boundary layer under consideration. It was found that impingement-region wall shear stress measurements using the electrochemical method in submerged impinging liquid jets provide the greatest accuracy of any indirect method. A unique wall shear stress measurement technique, based on observing the removal of monosized spheres from well-characterized surfaces, was used to confirm the impinging jet analysis presented for gas jets. The technique was also used to determine an empirical relation describing the rise in wall shear stress due to compressibility effects in impinging high-velocity jets.


In the eastern United States, American chestnut (Castanea dentata) was historically a major component of forest communities, but was functionally extirpated in the early 20th century by an introduced pathogen, chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica). Because chestnut is fast-growing, long-lived, and resistant to decay, restoration of American chestnut using blight-resistant stock could have the potential to increase carbon sequestration or storage in forested landscapes. However, carbon dynamics are also affected by interspecific competition, succession, natural disturbance, and forest management activities, and it is unknown how chestnut restoration might interact with these other processes. We used the PnET-Succession extension of the LANDIS-II forest landscape model to study the implications of chestnut restoration on forest composition and carbon storage in the context of other disturbances, including timber harvest and insect pest outbreaks. Our results imply that it could take a millennium or more for chestnut to fully occupy landscapes without aggressive restoration efforts. When successful, chestnut restoration activities displaced other species approximately in proportion to their abundance on the landscape, rather than replacing a single species or genus (e.g., Quercus). Insect pests increased the rate of chestnut colonization by reducing the abundance of competitors, and also had a dominant effect on carbon dynamics. Although chestnut is fast-growing, moderately shade-tolerant, and decomposes very slowly, our results suggest that it can only modestly increase the carbon storage potential of eastern forests. However, our results also demonstrate that compositional changes in forest communities can have noticeable effects on biomass accumulation, even with the large uncertainties introduced by invasive pests.


Automated audio captioning (AAC) is the task of automatically generating textual descriptions for general audio signals. A captioning system has to identify various information from the input signal and express it with natural language. Existing works mainly focus on investigating new methods and try to improve their performance measured on existing datasets. Having attracted attention only recently, very few works on AAC study the performance of existing pre-trained audio and natural language processing resources. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of off-the-shelf models with a Transformer-based captioning approach. We utilize the freely available Clotho dataset to compare four different pre-trained machine listening models, four word embedding models, and their combinations in many different settings. Our evaluation suggests that YAMNet combined with BERT embeddings produces the best captions. Moreover, in general, fine-tuning pre-trained word embeddings can lead to better performance. Finally, we show that sequences of audio embeddings can be processed using a Transformer encoder to produce higher-quality captions.


A longstanding goal in biomedical research has been to create organotypic cocultures that faithfully represent native tissue environments. There is presently great interest in representative culture models of the lung, which is a particularly challenging tissue to recreate in vitro. This study used magnetic levitation in conjunction with magnetic nanoparticles as a means of creating an organized three-dimensional (3D) coculture of the bronchiole that sequentially layers cells in a manner similar to native tissue architecture. The 3D coculture model was assembled from four human cell types in the bronchiole: endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells (SMCs), fibroblasts, and epithelial cells (EpiCs). This study represents the first effort to combine these particular cell types into an organized bronchiole coculture. These cell layers were first cultured in 3D by magnetic levitation, and then manipulated into contact with a custom-made magnetic pen, and again cultured for 48 h. Hematoxylin and eosin staining of the resulting coculture showed four distinct layers within the 3D coculture. Immunohistochemistry confirmed the phenotype of each of the four cell types and showed organized extracellular matrix formation, particularly, with collagen type I. Positive stains for CD31, von Willebrand factor, smooth muscle α-actin, vimentin, and fibronectin demonstrate the maintenance of the phenotype for endothelial cells, SMCs, and fibroblasts. Positive stains for mucin-5AC, cytokeratin, and E-cadherin after 7 days with and without 1% fetal bovine serum showed that EpiCs maintained the phenotype and function. This study validates magnetic levitation as a method for the rapid creation of organized 3D cocultures that maintain the phenotype and induce extracellular matrix formation.


Solar cells based on polycrystalline Cu(In,Ga)Se2 absorber layers have yielded the highest conversion efficiency among all the thin-film technologies. CIGS thin-films possess large optical absorption coefficient (≈105 cm−1) and a suitable bandgap of ≈ 1.20 eV for an ideal stoichiometry of CuIn0.7Ga0.3Se2. In the present study, Direct Current (DC) and Pulsed Current (PC) electrodeposition techniques are employed to obtain the near ideal stoichiometric CIGS thin-films on a Mo foil using a two electrode system at a constant potential. Deposited films are annealed at 550 °C under Ar atmosphere. Characterization of the annealed CIGS films is performed using SEM-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and photoelectrochemistry to study the morphology, stoichiometry, phase constitution, and the photoelectrochemical response. PC deposition offered suitable manipulation of various parameters, which has helped in obtaining a better quality stoichiometric single phase chalcopyrit...


Abstract
 This book has been a collective effort by 26 members of the International Parthenium Weed Network, which is an International network of expert volunteers devoted to creating awareness about the parthenium weed (Parthenium hysterophorus) threat, and to sharing information on how to reduce its adverse impacts upon agro-ecosystems, the environment and human health. The book builds on a fundamental understanding of invasive plant biology and weed science that can be acquired from the many good texts available. Its broad aim is to emphasize the practical relevance of understanding biology and ecology to enable effective and sustainable management. The book has a conspicuously world focus, drawing on examples from 48 countries invaded by this phenomenal weed. It contains 16 chapters covering aspects of: (i) biology; (ii) ecology; (iii) genetics; (iv) introduction histories; (v) geographical distribution; (vi) the impact on agriculture, natural forests and the environment of protected areas; (vii) allelopathy; (viii) impacts on human and animal health; (ix) potential uses; and (x) management strategies, including chemical, cultural and biological control methods. This book will be a comprehensive reference book for researchers, students, professionals involved in weed management, government officials and policy makers and anyone interested in parthenium weed. As the research needs and knowledge gaps vary widely across different countries, the book has also identified these gaps, and provides direction for future research for various countries.


Implications The objective of this study was to determine the effect of breed, gender, and halothane genotype on the amount of phospholipid, triacylglycerol, and total lipid in longissimus dorsi (LD) of market pigs. There were breed and gender effects (P<0.05) for total lipid concentration in the LD, with barrows and gilts averaging 2.88 and 2.21 g lipid per 100 grams meat, respectively. The Yorkshire, Hampshire, Landrace, and Chester White breeds had the least amount of total lipid and were not different from each other. The Duroc and Berkshire breeds had the greatest total lipid and were not different from each other. There were no breed or gender effects for phospholipids; however, the triacylglycerol data nearly mirrored the patterns observed for total lipid data. Therefore, differences noted in total lipid are explained by differing amount of triacylglycerol and not differing amount of phospholipid. There were no differences noted for halothane genotype with respect to amount of total lipid, phospholipid, or triacylglycerol. In conclusion, as total lipid increases, triacylglycerol increases during growth while phospholipid remains constant.


Since the passage of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) in 1997, the term indigenous peoples or IPs has become codified in Philippine Law. However, legal usage of the term indigenous cultural communities/indigenous peoples (ICCs/IPs) contrasts starkly with the ways that members of these communities refer to themselves. In Southern Mindanao, members of government (GO) and non-government organizations (NGO) employ lumad to refer to the people that they are committed to assist; so do artists and cultural workers who draw on highland Mindanao cultural traditions. But Bagobo, T'boli, Mandaya or B'laan peoples in Southern Mindanao rarely refer to themselves as lumad in everyday speech. Those who do refer to themselves as lumad regularly engage with NGOs or the government and may be observed dressed in denotative clothing, with traditional chiefly emblems playing a central part. The profound significance of names and visual symbols in native claims to power is relevant to the Mindanao case. This paper analyzes how textile practices of the Bagobo, along with comparative data from neighboring groups, pose special challenges to the conceptual category of a pan-Mindanao native. Elderly women, most knowledgeable in cloth lore and manufacture, rarely refer to themselves as lumad; yet women traditionally made ceremonial clothes for men, and continue to do so today. These clothes signal the men's stature as datu, and the means by which these textiles are acquired remain within the purview of women. How does the lumad/IP discourse depend on the erasure of group- and gender-specific knowledge systems? Using local delineations of a pan-Mindanao or pan-Philippine "indigenous person," this paper will re-examine lumad as a political category and problematize its meaning as a cultural referent.


This paper uses Stephen Best's None Like Us and Charles H. Long's Significations: Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion to redescribe the notion of sacred space in light of the national African American museum. After highlighting religion and the museum's mutual Romantic origins, it underscores the invisible institution of slave religion as a modern counterpoint that is harrowingly evocative of the indeterminacy of human meaning-making. The national African American museum, represented by offerings from the Smithsonian Institution and the Equal Justice Initiative, operates as a social technology for working through the tensions of history. "Hallowed Haunts" examines its function as a matrix of haunting, where a variety of multi-sensory experiences lead visitors into a participatory reckoning with the legacy of slavery, one through which they determine how to face the challenges and potential opportunities that await them. As such, the national African American museum exemplifies Long's thesis of sacred space as human centers, a metonym for the places humans visit for orientation.


The paper deals with the process of mathematical modeling representations of exponential and logarithmic functions hypercomplex number system of generalized quaternions via determining a linear differential equation with hypercomplex coefficients. Simulation is performed using symbolic computation system Maple. Some properties of these concepts and their relation to the exponential representations of specific non-commutative hypercomplex number systems of dimension four.


PURPOSE
In children with severe unilateral reflux nephropathy and diminished relative renal function (RRF) a dilemma exists between the choice of treatment with ureteral reimplantation or nephrectomy. Limited followup data are available regarding relative renal function or postoperative complications after ureteral reimplantation in kidneys with significant unilateral reflux nephropathy.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
We retrospectively reviewed the records of 460 patients who underwent ureteral reimplantation between 1980 and 2002, and identified children with primary vesicoureteral reflux and severe unilateral reflux nephropathy (RRF 30% or less on renal scintigraphy). The postoperative outcomes were assessed for relative renal function and complications including hypertension, pyelonephritis or persistent reflux.

RESULTS
A total of 18 girls and 14 boys with a mean preoperative relative renal function of 20.1 +/- 7.8% (range 2% to 30%) met the inclusion criteria. Reflux grade in the poorly functioning kidney was II in 4 children (13%), III in 14 (44%), IV in 11 (34%) and V in 3 (9%). Reflux was unilateral in 15 children (47%) and bilateral in 17 (53%). Mean followup from surgery was 3.7 years (range 0.3 to 12.9). In 28 children with both preoperative and postoperative renal scans, mean preoperative RRF was 20.3 +/- 7.4% and mean postoperative RRF was 20.5 +/- 8.6% with a mean time between renal scans of 2.3 years. No statistically significant change was noted from preoperative to postoperative relative renal function with a mean change of +0.2 +/- 3.7% (range -6.5% to +10%, p=0.82). Postoperative complications occurred in 7 of the 32 children (22%), including hypertension (1), pyelonephritis (3) and persistent reflux (4). Pyelonephritis occurred in 1 child with persistent reflux. No statistically significant difference existed in mean preoperative relative renal function between those with and without complications (24.6 +/- 8.9% vs 18.8 +/- 7.2%, p = 0.09).

CONCLUSIONS
Children who underwent ureteral reimplantation in association with unilateral reflux nephropathy maintained stable relative renal function.


The Higher Education Authority recently reported an average drop-out rate of 16% for Irish third level students, which poses significant pedagogical and economic challenges across the educational sector and negatively impacts the Irish economy. With respect to tackling this issue, a considerable body of international research has identified a strong positive correlation between higher levels of emotional intelligence (EI) and increased levels of student engagement and academic attainment. A wealth of previous research has also shown that employers favour graduates who possess higher levels of EI, for example, Job Outlook Survey, 2008, therefore, increasing students' levels of EI is also a viable means of improving graduate employment rates. Previous attempts to improve students' emotional competencies have involved 'whole school' approaches, whereby generic EI skills development programmes are designed and delivered to all of the students in a given school or third level institute. As of yet, no attempt has been made to develop a range of programmes explicitly aimed at targeting specific populations of students. Therefore, this represents a significant gap in current knowledge. This research aims to conduct a comprehensive survey of employers and based on these findings and follow up qualitative interviews, a suite of educational modules will be developed that will specifically aim to enable students to develop key emotional strengths that are linked with academic and career success in their chosen field of study. It is anticipated that this will lead to reduced attrition rates and higher engagement levels and allow students to develop key abilities that will help them to improve their employment prospects. Employer engagement will be a critical aspect of this project and employers will be involved in student assessment, which will include practical workshop assessments, self-reflection via an e-portfolio and competency based interviews with employers and academic staff.


IN AN EFFORT TO BE INCLUSIVE, Arkansas history has been broadly defined in the compilation of this bibliography. Some materials, such as genealogical or local history society journals, government documents, and nonprint productions, have been omitted. Some older material that did not appear in an earlier year's bibliography is included. The Arkansas Historical Quarterly is cited as AHQ. BOOKS Anderson, Karen. Little Rock: Race and Resistance at Central High. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010. Beyond Central, Toward Acceptance: A Collection of Oral Histories from Students of Little Rock Central High. Little Rock: Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, 2010. Bradburd, Rus. Forty Minutes of Hell: The Extraordinary Life of Nolan Richardson. New York: Amistad, 2010. Brown, Robert L. Defining Moments: Historic Decisions by Arkansas Governors from McMath through Huckabee. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2010. Christ, Mark K. Civil War Arkansas, 1863: The Battle for a State. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010. Christ, Mark K., ed. The Die Is Cast: Arkansas Goes to War, 1861. Little Rock: Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, 2010. Coakley, Robert W. Operation Arkansas. Little Rock: Center for Arkansas Studies, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2010. [military history of the 101st Airborne's deployment to Little Rock in 1957] Dillard, Tom W. Statesmen, Scoundrels, and Eccentrics: A Gallery of Amazing Arkansans. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2010. Gromley, Ken. The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr. New York: Crown, 2010. Hanley, Steven G. and Ray Hanley. Malvern. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2010. [pictorial history in the Images of America series] Harper, Kimberly. White Man's Heaven: The Lynching and Expulsion of Blacks in the Southern Ozarks, 1894-1909. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2010. Harrison, A. Cleveland. A Little Rock Boyhood: Growing Up in the Great Depression. Little Rock: Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, 2010. Heilemann, John and Mark Halperin. Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime. New York: Harper, 2010. Jennings, Jay. Carry the Rock: Race, Football, and the Soul of an American City. New York: Rodale, 2010. [Little Rock, Little Rock Central Tigers football, and local history] Morgans, James Patrick. The Underground Railroad on the Western Frontier: Escapes from Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, and the Territories of Kansas, Nebraska, and the Indian Nations, 1840-1865. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. Robinson, Charles F. Forsaking All Others: A True Story of Interracial Sex and Revenge in the 1880s South. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2010. [Desha County sheriff and his marriage] Robinson, Charles F. and Lonnie R. Williams. Remembrances in Black: Personal Perspectives of the African American Experience at the University of Arkansas, 1940s-2000s. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2010. Schuette, Shirley and Nathania Sawyer. From Carnegie to Cyberspace: 100 Years at the Central Arkansas Library System. Little Rock: Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, 2010. Silverman, Jonathan. Nine Choices: Johnny Cash and American Culture. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010. Takiff, Michael. A Complicated Man: The Life of Bill Clinton as Told by Those Who Know Him. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Thompson, Brock. The Un-Natural State: Arkansas and the Queer South. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2010. Velasco, Antonio. Centrist Rhetoric: The Production of Political Transcendence in the Clinton Presidency. New York: Lexington Books, 2010. Williams, Joshua. Hope. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2010. [pictorial history in the Images of America series] ARTICLES "Arkansas Memories: Interviews from the Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History-Edith Irby Jones. …


A compact polarizing beam splitter based on a photonic crystal (PC) directional coupler with a triangular lattice of air holes is designed and simulated. In the employed PC structure, transverse-electric (TE) light is confined with the photonic bandgap effect, while transverse-magnetic (TM) light is guided through an index-like effect. Due to the different guiding mechanisms, TM and TE light have strikingly different beat lengths, which is utilized to separate the two polarizations in a directional coupler no longer than 24.2 /spl mu/m. The two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method of computation is used to evaluate the device performance. The extinction ratios are found to be around 20 dB for both TE and TM polarized light.


The main purpose of this paper is to estimate an equilibrium model of private and public school competition that can generate realistic pricing patterns for private universities in the U.S. We show that the parameters of the model are identified and can be estimated using a semi-parametric estimator given data from the NPSAS. We find substantial price discrimination within colleges. We estimate that a $10,000 increase in family income increases tuition at private schools by on average $210 to $510. A one standard deviation increase in ability decreases tuition by approximately $920 to $1,960 depending on the selectivity of the college. Discounts for minority students range between $110 and $5,750.


I. INTRODUCTION The small firm has engaged the attention of law reformers in the United States for the last decade. Close corporation reform continues in many states, and the revisions to uniform partnership law, resulting in the Revised Uniform Partnership Act (RUPA),1 have been well publicized. In addition to reform of "traditional" business forms, recent years have seen the emergence of new business forms in U.S. jurisdictions, such as the Limited Liability Company (LLC)2 and the Limited Liability Partnership (LLP).3 Similar reform efforts are now under way in Europe. In the United Kingdom, the recent Review of Company Law has made the needs of small companies one of its "core concerns."4 Partnership law is currently under review in the United Kingdom for the first time in over a hundred years5 and reforms are also imminent in other European jurisdictions such as the Netherlands.6 Furthermore, the proliferation of new statutory forms appears to be spreading to Europe with the introduction of the U.K. Limited Liability Partnerships Act.7 The task of the law reformer working in this area is a complex one. Small firms are very different from widely-held, exchange-traded firms, where wealth-maximizing governance institutions are obstructed by endemic collective action problems and high agency costs. The small firm differs radically in the capability of investors to be actively involved in the design of governance processes that lower agency costs.8 The lawmaker must focus on what role the law can uniquely serve in small firms without duplicating what parties can do for themselves. Economic analysis of law has conventionally approached this question by explaining how the relations between investors, creditors, and managers are contractual and illustrating the governance problems arising from these incomplete contracts.9 Its exponents often conclude that the functional role the law can serve in small firms is limited to the lower-order function of decreasing transaction costs by plugging gaps in contracts with suitable default rules.10 Yet this leaves a nagging question unanswered: Why does the state have a comparative advantage in the supply and enforcement of these terms over private interest groups and arbitrators, who respectively supply standard terms for, and adjudicate disputes arising under, other varieties of relational contract?11 When "rule competition"--both between jurisdictions and between public and private suppliers of terms-is included in the equation, the role of the statutory law reformer seems increasingly marginal. 12 Our answer to this problem rests in an appreciation of the law's role in giving proprietary effect to the entitlements that the participants share. With a few exceptions, law and economics scholarship has failed to consider the proprietary foundations of intrafirm governance. This neglect is surprising. These proprietary foundations are the most important instance where law performs a unique function, a function neither Coasean trade nor private provision can easily emulate.13 A study of proprietary entitlements offers promise for uniting developments in the economics of the firm with legal scholarship.14 Finally, the principal organizational alternatives for small firms-- close corporations and partnerships-are most meaningfully differentiated according to the proprietary effect those firms give to organizational entitlements. At the outset, it should be made clear that this analysis is an internal critique that extends the existing theory. Consequently, it does not consider social objectives of the state other than facilitation of private parties' goals. This does not imply that other social goals are considered irrelevant. On the contrary, a proprietary analysis provides more scope for considering, for example, issues of distribution than does a contractarian model.15 A study of how the law can most efficiently facilitate parties' goals is nevertheless useful for two reasons. …


SURFACE processing tools and techniques have a long history in the fields of computer graphics, computer aided geometric design and engineering. In this thesis we consider variational methods and geometric evolution problems for various surface processing applications including surface fairing, surface restoration and surface matching. Geometric evolution problems are often based on the gradient flow of geometric energies. The Willmore functional, defined as the integral of the squared mean curvature over the surface, is a geometric energy that measures the deviation of a surface from a sphere. Therefore, it is a suitable functional for surface restoration, where a destroyed surface patch is replaced by a smooth patch defined as the minimizer of the Willmore functional with boundary conditions for the position and the normal at the patch boundary. Surface denoising (left) and surface restoration (right) by the Willmore flow. However, using the Willmore functional does not lead to satisfying results if an edge or a corner of the surface is destroyed. The anisotropic Willmore energy is a natural generalization of the Willmore energy which has crystal-shaped surfaces like cubes or octahedra Surface restoration by the semi-implicit scheme of the anisotropic Willmore flow. as minimizers. The corresponding L2-gradient flow, the anisotropic Willmore flow, leads to a fourth-order partial differential equation that can be written as a system of two coupled second second order equations. Using linear Finite Elements, we develop a semi-implicit scheme for the anisotropic Willmore flow with boundary conditions. This approach suffer from significant restrictions on the time step size. Effectively, one usually has to enforce time steps smaller than the squared spatial grid size. Based on a natural approach for the time discretization of gradient flows we present a new scheme for the time and space discretization of the isotropic and anisotropic Willmore flow. The approach is variational and takes into account an approximation of the L2-distance between the surface at the current time step and the unknown surface at the new time step as well as a fully implicity approximation of the anisotropic Willmore functional at the new time step. To evaluate the anisotropic Willmore energy on the unknown surface of the next time step, we first ask for the solution of an inner, secondary variational problem describing a time step of anisotropic mean curvature motion. The time discrete velocity deduced from the solution of the latter problem is regarded as an approximation of the anisotropic mean curvature vector and enters the approximation of the actual anisotropic Willmore functional. The resulting two step time discretization of the Willmore flow is applied to polygonal curves and triangular surfaces and is independent of the co-dimension. Various numerical examples underline the stability of the new scheme, which enables time steps of the order of the spatial grid size. Different time steps of the two step time discretization for the anisotropic Willmore flow of an original bunny-shaped curve towards a square. The Willmore functional of a surface is referred to as the elastic surface energy. Another interesting application of modeling elastic surfaces as minimizers of elastic energies is surface matching, where a correspondence between two surfaces is subject of investigation. There, we seek a mapping between two surfaces respecting certain properties of the surfaces. The approach is variational and based on well-established matching methods from image processing in the parameter domains of the surfaces instead of finding a correspondence between the two surfaces directly in 3D. Besides the appropriate modeling we analyze the derived model theoretically. The resulting deformations are globally smooth, one-to-one mappings. A physically proper morphing of characters in computergraphic is capable with the resulting computational approach. A 3D morph between two different faces is shown.


The industry's renewed expansion has resulted in a rapid influx of talented new geoscientists into the world of integrated geological and geophysical interpretations. A dramatic difference this time around is that the industry is no longer relying on the super majors to serve as the training ground for new hires. Large and even modest-sized independents are hiring entry-level geoscientists at an aggressive pace, attempting to address the widely anticipated departure of seasoned oil and gas professionals to join newly formed companies, and, increasingly, to retirement. The attrition of highly experienced oil finders comes at a particularly difficult time, leaving the ranks of those who can fill the critical mentoring roles increasingly thin. Thus, the opportunity for hands-on learning with a trusted resource to look over your shoulder is decreasing as practical, effective industry training becomes ever more critical.


Whether a metallic material fractures by brittle cleavage or by ductile rupture is primarily governed by the competition between cleavage and dislocation emission at the crack tip. The linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) based criterion of Griffith, respectively the one for dislocation emission of Rice, are sufficiently reliable for determining the possible crack tip propagation mechanisms in isotropic crystalline metals. However, the applicability of these criteria is questionable when non-cubic, anisotropic solids are considered, as e.g. ordered intermetallic TiAl phases, where slip systems are limited and elastic anisotropy is pronounced. We study brittle versus ductile failure mechanisms in face-centered tetragonal TiAl and hexagonal Ti3Al using large-scale atomistic simulations and compare our findings to the predictions of LEFM-based criteria augmented by elastic anisotropy. We observe that the augmented Griffith and Rice criteria are reliable for determining the direction dependent crack tip mechanisms, if all the available dislocation slip systems are taken into account. Yet, atomistic simulations are necessary to understand crack blunting due to mixed mechanisms, or shear instabilities other than dislocation emission. The results of our systematic study can be used as basis for modifications of the Griffith/Rice criteria in order to incorporate such effects.


The study deals with the two main problems in geographical education: How to inform students about a spatial practicing learning and teaching and how to evaluate this form of learning in comparison to theoretical non spatial forms of learning. The classic form of spatial learning is the outdoor excursion. But there are some new and actual alternatives when realizing the former intended aims of a spatial learning, so for instance didactical pathways, field trips or field works, but also the new way of geocaching and learning by GPS when dealing with the themes of orientation or finding out points of geographic importance for explaining the genetic processes. The necessary skills can be combined to improve the success of learning and to maximize the motivation.
The base of this motivation behavior is the existence of a hide and seek-game as a modern version of a scavenger hunt. This motivates the students and is furthermore the attraction of Geocaching. Methodical skills can also be trained very automatically during this search.
The GPS devices are of common use in the daily life and its use may increase much more in the fu-ture and in geographical use, too. Nowadays the literature about this theme is merely descriptive and thematically reduced to the function of orientation. The first study describing the learning suc-cess of using GPS devices and Geocaches in geography class had been made by NEEB. She tested the variation of the competence of orientation in different old classes when examining the use of GPS devices and Geocaches.
Even though GPS devices and Geocaches are very efficient for instructing the students' competence of orientation there may be the question, in what forms and circumstances the learning can be done. The time and effort necessary to generate a didactical and educational trail has to be justified against the background of the achieved learning effect.
Educational trails need students, walking outside of the schools, looking for information along teaching paths and learning by the results. This active experienced learning leads to a better understanding of the environment, the outdoor circumstances and the people living in this area. You can structure such educational trails by Geopoints, this means points of a special geographic interest.
Geocaches can structure such paths didactically. These structuring points are GEOpoints. The tasks at such Geopoints are structured didactical as well.
GPS devices and Geocaches are complementing one another. They fulfill an important function in geographic orientation and the respective local information.
Two important ministries in Germany (Bavaria, Baden-Wurttemberg) demand the use of extra¬curri-cu¬lar educational objectives in geography education. This means: visiting locations outside of the school and using the advantages of a fully learning by excursions.
Neurobiology supports the idea that pupils completing the educational trail will learn much more and efficiently than students in "normal" classes: Indeed: A successful contextualization of modern geomedia stimulates the motivation. Geocaches are suitable for didactical structuration and motivation. A better and more comprehensive addressing to all senses will lead to a better sustainability.
When testing the advantage of excursional learning comparing the same themes with a classical learning at school you have to differ within the students capacity of learning and the cognitive and methodical competence.
For 17years aged students the theme of "Umgestaltung von Flusslandschaften" (rearrangements of fluvial topography) was chosen because using this example of anthropogenic rearrangements of the Rheinaue wetlands near Karlsruhe shows the interdependency between human and environment was in the direct neighborhood of the students. Therefore the excursion could be realized very good without long transports.
The "Nordlinger Ries" between the Swabian and the Franconian Jura is an impact-crater of world-wide importance. This location had been chosen for Students of grade 5 (10 years old students). The themes to work out were: The typical elements of the Swabian Jura (karst formation, hydrogeology, typical vegetation) and the special forms of the impact tectonics.
The sustainability of educational trails using GPS had been evaluated by the answers of 441 ques-tionnaires. In grade 5 a multiple-choice-test had to be answered while grade 11 had to answer open questions in complete sentences. The influence of the teachers on the overall result is being kept low through the random selection, the number of the comparison groups and the teaching manuals.
The overall results of these questionnaires show that the students of grade 5 which completed the educations trail achieved 11% higher scores in areas of the cognitive performance compared to the students who experienced classical learning at school.
In grade 11 the students who completed the educational trail received 5% higher scores.
Both differences in the results are significant and show a magnitude of effect, which is high in certain items. Consequently, the study has proven that educational trails evocate better cognitive performances than classical learning at school.
The current state of research suggests that the development of environmental trails from teachers for teachers is not sustainable because the teachers don't have the time to refine environmental trails didactically.
The experience while creating the educational trails and the feedback of the participant teachers showed that teachers should cooperate for creating educational trails. The strain for each single person is reduced and the regularly use of the educational trails can be assured.


Abstract Poor lifestyle choices including physical inactivity, adverse nutrition and tobacco use are strongly associated with heart disease, diabetes, respiratory disease and cancer. These four diseases are responsible for over 50% of mortality worldwide. Yet lifestyle intervention is underemphasised in the undergraduate training of doctors and other health professionals. This article reviews the lifestyle factors related to chronic non-communicable disease and suggests small but meaningful interventions for general practitioners to incorporate into daily practice. The upcoming series to be published in Family Practice regarding "lifestyle modification in chronic disease states" is introduced.


Toxic shock syndrome (TSS) caused by the superantigen exotoxins of Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes is characterized by robust T cell activation, profound elevation in systemic levels of multiple cytokines, including interferon-γ (IFN-γ), followed by multiple organ dysfunction and often death. As IFN-γ possesses pro- as well as anti-inflammatory properties, we delineated its role in the pathogenesis of TSS. Antibody-mediated in vivo neutralization of IFN-γ or targeted disruption of IFN-γ gene conferred significant protection from lethal TSS in HLA-DR3 transgenic mice. Following systemic high dose SEB challenge, whereas the HLA-DR3.IFN-γ+/+ mice became sick and succumbed to TSS, HLA-DR3.IFN-γ−/− mice appeared healthy and were significantly protected from SEB-induced lethality. SEB-induced systemic cytokine storm was significantly blunted in HLA-DR3.IFN-γ−/− transgenic mice. Serum concentrations of several cytokines (IL-4, IL-10, IL-12p40 and IL-17) and chemokines (KC, rantes, eotaxin and MCP-1) were significantly lower in HLA-DR3.IFN-γ−/− transgenic mice. However, SEB-induced T cell expansion in the spleens was unaffected and expansion of SEB-reactive TCR Vβ8+ CD4+ and CD8+ T cells was even more pronounced in HLA-DR3.IFN-γ−/− transgenic mice when compared to HLA-DR3.IFN-γ+/+ mice. A systematic histopathological examination of several vital organs revealed that both HLA-DR3.IFN-γ+/+ and HLA-DR3.IFN-γ−/− transgenic mice displayed comparable severe inflammatory changes in lungs, and liver during TSS. Remarkably, whereas the small intestines from HLA-DR3.IFN-γ+/+ transgenic mice displayed significant pathological changes during TSS, the architecture of small intestines in HLA-DR3.IFN-γ−/− transgenic mice was preserved. In concordance with these histopathological changes, the gut permeability to macromolecules was dramatically increased in HLA-DR3.IFN-γ+/+ but not HLA-DR3.IFN-γ−/− mice during TSS. Overall, IFN-γ seemed to play a lethal role in the immunopathogenesis of TSS by inflicting fatal small bowel pathology. Our study thus identifies the important role for IFN-γ in TSS.