Carl Schmitt ranks among the few German savants who are equal to the professional dangers of a teaching chair in the present era. I do not hesitate to suggest that he has taken and established for himself the type of the new German savant. If the writings of this remarkable professor (not to say confessor) served only towards the recognition and study of its author's catholic (universal) physiognomy, that alone would be enough to assure him a preeminent status. In a fine essay, "On Ideals," Chesterton says that the remediation of our confused and desperate age in no way requires the great "practical man" who is clamored for the world over, but rather the great ideologist. "A practical man means a man accustomed to mere daily practice, to the way things commonly work. When things do not work, you must have the thinker, the man who has some doctrine about why they work at all. It is wrong to fiddle while Rome is burning; but it is quite right to study the theory of hydraulics while Rome is burning." Carl Schmitt belongs to those who "study the theory of hydraulics." He is an ideologist of rare conviction, and indeed it's safe to say that he will restore to this word a new prestige, which among Germans has carried a pejorative meaning since Bismarck.


The fresh water field crab, Spiralothelphusa hydrodroma is an important food source in parts of South India. The impact of cypermethrin on the variations in the enzyme activity of gills and hemolymph of the experimental female crab S.hydrodroma was carried out. The toxicity of the cypermethrin on the crab was estimated using LC₅₀. Quantitative enzymatic studies of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), succinate dehydrogenase (SDH), acid phosphatase (ACP) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) in the gills and hemolymph was undertaken.


Despite mounting pressure on universities to produce quality work-ready STEM graduates, the relationship between discipline-based learning and employability is poorly understood. Applying the Career Information Literacy Learning Framework, we address this gap in a study on STEM students and employers/industry stakeholders. This paper reports findings from a subset of STEM disciplines: Information Systems, Information Technology and Engineering. Student data were collected from capstone units from the STEM faculty in an Australian university. A parallel STEM employer study was conducted concurrently. Four learning approaches and career development learning components across three levels of information literacy were examined. The study found this student cohort's (N=160) emphases on and views of career development consistent with their peers within the same STEM faculty (N=492). However, their focuses differ significantly from STEM employers (N=62). Students focus on discipline-specific knowledge while employers value transformative capabilities most. The finding presents implications for STEM workforce preparation.


Precipitation over and near mountains is not caused by topography but, rather, occurs when storms of a type that can occur anywhere (deep convection, fronts, tropical cyclones) form near or move over complex terrain. Deep convective systems occurring near mountains are affected by channeling of airflow near mountains, capping of moist boundary layers by flow subsiding from higher terrain, and triggering to break the cap when low‐level flow encounters hills near the bases of major mountain ranges. Mesoscale convective systems are triggered by nocturnal downslope flows and by diurnally triggered disturbances propagating away from mountain ranges. The stratiform regions of mesoscale convective systems are enhanced by upslope flow when they move over mountains. In frontal cloud systems, the poleward flow of warm‐sector air ahead of the system may rise easily over terrain, and a maximum of precipitating cloud occurs over the first rise of terrain, and rainfall is maximum on ridges and minimum in valleys. If the low‐level air ahead of the system is stable, blocking or damming occurs. Shear between a blocked layer and unblocked moist air above favors turbulent overturning, which can accelerate precipitation fallout. In tropical cyclones, the tangential winds encountering a mountain range produce a gravity wave response and greatly enhanced upslope flow. Depending on the height of the mountain, the maximum rain may occur on either the windward or leeward side. When the capped boundary layer of the eye of a tropical cyclone passes over a mountain, the cap may be broken with intense convection resulting.


Clinical Research is a systematic study for new drugs in human subjects to generate data for discovering or verifying the Clinical, Pharmacological (including pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic) or adverse effects with the objective of determining safety and efficacy of the new drug. Clinical Research is conducted in 4 Phases. Phase I trials - the new drug is administered to a small number, around 20-80 healthy, informed volunteers under the close supervision of a doctor is to determine whether the new compound is tolerated by the patient's body and behaves in the predicted way. Phase II trials – the medicine is administered to a group of approximately 100-300 informed patients to determine its effect and also to check for any unacceptable side effects. Phase III trials - between 1000 and 5000 patients use statistics to analyze the results. If the results are favourable, the data is presented to the licensing authorities for a commercial licence. Phase IV trials - the medicine is make available to doctors, who start prescribing it & effects are monitored on thousands of patients to help identify any unforeseen side effects. The role of statics is to investigate proposed medical treatments, assessing benefits of competing therapies and establishing optimal treatment combination. Clinical Trial Methodology emphasizes the importance of statistical thinking in clinical research and presents the methodology as a key component of clinical research. Selection of the proper statistical test depends on the type and number of variables and whether parametric conditions are met. Various methods include t-tests, analysis of variance, repeated measures ANOVA, linear regression, analysis of covariance, non-parametric tests, binomial tests, chi-square test, Fisher's exact test, McNamara's test, Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test, logistic regression, log-rank test, and Cox proportional hazards model. Bio statistical analysis is an important part of clinical trials because it allows researchers to determine whether or not their results were meaningful on a statistical level. Thus Biostatisticians are those who perform statistical programming, design, and analysis for clinical trial projects. Planning, coordinating and providing statistical analyses, summaries and reports of studies is also a part of their job profile. They are also responsible for New Drug Applications and Biological License Applications submissions. Keywords Biostatistics, Clinical research, ANOVA, Research methodology


THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY is central to the history of the United States and especially the South. As Ira Berlin recognizes in his recent study, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, slavery shaped Americans'definition of race. Since race remains a major force in our society today, understanding the basis of our racial thought continues to be critical. The earliest scholars of slavery tended to look at it as an institution the slaveholders made, but in the last thirty years researchers have turned toward understanding slavery from the perspective of the slaves themselves. What might be called revisionist historians have examined in detail the development of the various social dimensions of the slave community.1 This new scholarship, however, has had little impact on our understanding of slavery in Arkansas. Orville Taylor's Negro Slavery in Arkansas remains the standard work and was exemplary for its time. Published in 1958 before recent research developments, it contributes little to the current discussion of the nature of slave life.2 This study seeks to rectify that deficiency with a look at one aspect of the slave community, the family. The slave family has been of particular interest to scholars, since understanding it has been considered critical to explaining the basic dynamics of the master-slave relationship and thus the character of the institution. Serious scholarly study of the slave family began with the work of one individual, E. Franklin Frazier, who published The Negro Family in Chicago in 1932 and The Negro Family in the United States in 1939. Frazier, concerned with what he considered to be the instability of the African American family in the 1930s, located the roots of that instability in slavery. He concluded that the slave family was little more than an accommodation to the institution. It never had the capacity to tie together households into units of common interest and purpose. The reason for this failure, Frazier hypothesized, was that the slave family could not be protected by its adult members and, often dispersed by owners, seldom existed over any length of time.3 Later historians, such as Kenneth Stampp and Stanley Elkins, followed in Frazier's wake, agreeing with him that even where the slave household existed it lacked cohesiveness. The frequent breakup of families by masters prevented the development of strong bonds among family members. In the end, Stampp and Elkins concluded, as Frazier had, that the slave family reflected little more than the slave owner's desire to create stability within the plantation community. These conclusions became the textbook history for a generation and even the basis for public policy. Daniel P. Moynihan's book, The Negro Family in America: The Case for National Action, published in 1965, integrated this analysis into his explanation of modern problems of the African American family and his proposal for their solutions.4 Scholarship in the 1970s, by looking at the slave family from the viewpoint of the slaves, developed a different and revisionist interpretation. Examining new sources that ranged from the reminiscences of ex-slaves to plantation records, historians found an institution not simply shaped by the interests of the master but also by the interests of the African American slave community. They discovered stability rather than instability. The idea that slaves sought to create two-parent nuclear families that then became the vehicle for the formation of a larger and uniquely African American culture first appeared in 1972 in John Blassingame's Slave Community. It received subsequent support in Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman's controversial Time on the Cross and Eugene Genovese's Roll, Jordan, Roll. Herbert Gutman carried the idea further in his Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, concluding that the two-parent family was the norm among slaves.5 By the 1990s the revisionist model had displaced that of Frazier, Stampp and Elkins. …


This study investigates the contagious nature of tax avoidance by examining how narratives affect tax avoiding behavior. We adapt the idea of narrative economics indicating that individuals' actions are stimulated by stories that spread within a society. We employ two types of infection models to theoretically investigate how tax avoidance schemes spread over time and vanish eventually consistent with patterns known from epidemiology. We find that general tax avoidance can persist even if its expected outcome is negative, while specific tax avoidance schemes might vanish even though their expected outcome is positive. We find empirical support for the predicted dissemination of narratives related to both general and specific tax avoidance schemes in google n-grams. Finally, we show that dissemination of specific tax avoidance schemes is attenuated by anti-narratives in (social) media. Our findings help to understand how tax avoidance spreads, under what conditions anti-avoidance measures can effectively curb tax avoidance and point towards the crucial role of transparency of enhanced enforcement by visible narratives. JEL: H26, C73, K34


In the words of Justin Lewis (1991), any screen production power lies in its encounter with the audience. One cannot exist without the other. As he immediately proceeds to acknowledge, however, this idea is "often difficult to grasp empirically" (p. 61) and the issue of how the idea works in practice remains full of methodological confusion and perplexity. This article reviews the contemporary shift and the importance of understanding of audience preferences, perspectives, behaviours, and routines towards the production of films, movies and television production
in Malaysia. It proceeds to examine the comparatively
underdeveloped state of Malaysian research about screen
production audiences, and the variety of incentives to develop such research. The distance between academic and industry research in Malaysia is discussed, and possible explanations of the gap in our academic knowledge of Malaysian screen and film audiences are offered. Finally, the article considers possible means to approach the meaningful study of the media reception process within Malaysian audiences or viewers. The audience profile is
considered as a key factor for programming of screen production. Understanding audience and their preferences could sustain continuous programming and development of new production. This article advocated the need for the professionals in the industry to inculcate such understanding and call for more qualitative research into audience analysis for sustainable development of the industry in this country.


The response of hillslope processes to changes in precipitation may drive the observed changes in the solute geochemistry of rivers with discharge. This conjecture is most robust when variations in the key environmental factors that affect hillslope processes (e.g., lithology, erosion rate, and climate) are minimal across a river's catchment area. For rivers with heterogenous catchments, temporal variations in the relative contributions of different tributary subcatchments may modulate variations in solute geochemistry with runoff. In the absence of a dense network of hydrologic gauging stations, alternative approaches are required to distinguish between the different drivers of temporal variability in river solute concentrations. In this contribution, we apportion the water and solute fluxes of a reach of the Madre de Dios River (Peru) between its four major tributary subcatchments during two sampling campaigns (wet and dry seasons) using spatial variations in conservative tracers. Guided by the results of a mixing model, we identify temporal variations in solute concentrations of the main stem Madre de Dios that are due to changes in the relative contributions of each tributary. Our results suggest that variations in tributary mixing are, in part, responsible for the observed concentration‐discharge (C‐Q) relationships. The implications of these results are further explored by reanalyzing previously published C‐Q data from this region, developing a theoretical model of tributary mixing, and, in a companion paper, comparing the C‐Q behavior of a suite of major and trace elements in the Madre de Dios River system.


A commonly held view about neurons in early visual cortex is that they serve as localized filters. Here, however, we demonstrate that the responses of neurons in early visual cortex are sensitive to perceptual grouping based on global image structures. First we measured neural responses to an oriented Gabor ("target") embedded in various orientation patterns using multiple methodologies— psychophysics, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and electroencephalography (EEG). Specifically, we varied whether a central target deviated from its context by changing distant orientations while leaving the immediately neighboring flankers unchanged. The results of psychophysical contrast adaptation and fMRI experiments show that a target that deviates from its context results in more neural activity compared to a target that is grouped into an alternating pattern. For example, the neural response to a vertically oriented target was greater when it deviated from the orientation of flankers (HHVHH) compared to when it was grouped into an alternating pattern (VHVHV). We then found that this pattern-sensitive response manifests in the earliest sensory component of the event-related potential to the target. In a forced-choice classification task of "noise" stimuli, perceptions are biased to "see" an orientation that deviates from its context. These results show that neurons in early visual cortex are sensitive to large-scale global patterns in images in a way that is more sophisticated than localized feature detection. Finally, we show using event-related potential (ERP) that the well-known orientation-specific surround suppression effect is dependent on the surface structure in the image, demonstrating an important role of high-level, global processes in determining when contextual effects occur in early visual cortex. Overall, our results demonstrate an important role of high-level, global processes in determining when contextual effects occur in early visual cortex. The effect of high-level image structure in early Human Visual Cortex


Abstract. The MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) snow cover product was evaluated by Parajka and Blosch (2006) over the territory of Austria. The spatial and temporal variability of the MODIS snow product classes are analyzed, the accuracy of the MODIS snow product against numerous in situ snow depth data are examined and the main factors that may influence the MODIS classification accuracy are identified in their studies. The authors of this paper would like to provide more discussion to the scientific community on the "Validation of MODIS snow cover images" when similar methodology is applied to mountainous regions covered with abundant snow but with limited number of ground survey and automated stations. Daily snow cover maps obtained from MODIS images are compared with ground observations in mountainous terrain of Turkey for the winter season of 2002–2003 and 2003–2004 during the accumulation and ablation periods of snow. Snow depth and density values are recorded to determine snow water equivalent (SWE) values at 19 points in and around the study area in Turkey. Comparison of snow maps with in situ data show good agreement with overall accuracies in between 62 to 82 percent considering a 2-day shift during cloudy days. Studies show that the snow cover extent can be used for forecasting of runoff hydrographs resulting mostly from snowmelt for a mountainous basin in Turkey. MODIS-Terra snow albedo products are also compared with ground based measurements over the ablation stage of 2004 using the automated weather operating stations (AWOS) records at fixed locations as well as from the temporally assessed measuring sites during the passage of the satellite. Temporarily assessed 20 ground measurement sites are randomly distributed around one of the AWOS stations and both MODIS and ground data were aggregated in GIS for analysis. Reduction in albedo is noticed as snow depth decreased and SWE values increased.


Abstract—Human eyes not only serve the function of enabling us "to see" something, but also perform the vital role of allowing us "to show" our gaze for non-verbal communication, such as through establishing eye contact and joint attention. The eyes of service robots should therefore also perform both of these functions. Moreover, they should be friendly in appearance so that humans may feel comfortable with the robots. Therefore we maintain that it is important to consider gaze communication capability and friendliness in designing the appearance of robot eyes. In this paper, we propose a new robot face with rear-projected eyes for changing their appearance while simultaneously realizing the showing of gaze by incorporating stereo cameras. Additionally, we examine which shape of robot eyes is most suitable for gaze reading and gives the friendliest impression, through experiments where we altered the shape and iris size of robot eyes. Keywords: Gaze reading; facial design; projector camera system


Feature extraction for activity recognition in context-aware ubiquitous computing applications is usually a heuristic process, informed by underlying domain knowledge. Relying on such explicit knowledge is problematic when aiming to generalize across different application domains. We investigate the potential of recent machine learning methods for discovering universal features for context-aware applications of activity recognition. We also describe an alternative data representation based on the empirical cumulative distribution function of the raw data, which effectively abstracts from absolute values. Experiments on accelerometer data from four publicly available activity recognition datasets demonstrate the significant potential of our approach to address both contemporary activity recognition tasks and next generation problems such as skill assessment and the detection of novel activities.


Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLBs) are critical for building performant virtual memory systems. Because most processors do not provide coherence for TLB mappings, TLB shootdowns provide a software mechanism that invokes inter-processor interrupts (IPLs) to synchronize TLBs. TLB shootdowns are expensive, so recent work has aimed to avoid the frequency of shootdowns through techniques such as batching. We show that aggressive batching can cause correctness issues and addressing them can obviate the benefits of batching. Instead, our work takes a different approach which focuses on both improving the performance of TLB shootdowns and carefully selecting where to avoid shootdowns. We introduce four general techniques to improve shootdown performance: (1) concurrently flush initiator and remote TLBs, (2) early acknowledgement from remote cores, (3) cacheline consolidation of kernel data structures to reduce cacheline contention, and (4) in-context flushing of userspace entries to address the overheads introduced by Spectre and Meltdown mitigations. We also identify that TLB flushing can be avoiding when handling copy-on-write (CoW) faults and some TLB shootdowns can be batched in certain system calls. Overall, we show that our approach results in significant speedups without sacrificing safety and correctness in both microbenchmarks and real-world applications.


Topological semimetals have revealed a wide array of novel transport phenomena, including electron hydrodynamics, quantum field theoretic anomalies, and extreme magnetoresistances and mobilities. However, the scattering mechanisms central to these behaviors remain largely unexplored. Here we reveal signatures of significant phonon-electron scattering in the type-II Weyl semimetal WP$_{2}$ via temperature-dependent Raman spectroscopy. Over a large temperature range, we find that the decay rates of the lowest energy $A_{1}$ modes are dominated by phonon-electron rather than phonon-phonon scattering. In conjunction with first-principles calculations, a combined analysis of the momentum, energy, and symmetry-allowed decay paths indicates this results from intraband scattering of the electrons. The excellent agreement with theory further suggests that such results could be true for the acoustic modes. We thus provide evidence for the importance of phonons in the transport properties of topological semimetals and identify specific properties that may contribute to such behavior in other materials.


This paper presents a framework model for structuring a controlling system for portfolio-, asset- and property management for profit-oriented housing companies. The starting point in the analysis is the changing market conditions for housing management in Europe and particularly in Germany. Despite these developments, scientific papers dealing with the topic of controlling for housing portfolios are hardly to find in management science literature. The current state is separately typical for the issue of the arrangement of management and controlling functions and the constructing process of controlling systems for housing companies. Therefore a general view of publications in real estate literature dealing with the topic of the paper is given. A comparison of the assumed needs in practice with the unsatisfying state of knowledge of the scientific research points out a high research potential. Further a general management model is adapted to the characteristics of the housing industry with emphasis on the financial dimension. Based on these findings the value creation chain and its interactions with management and controlling processes in the portfolio-, asset- and property management are described. In this context controlling is defined as a function of supporting management with information, while securing the internal and external adaptation-ability of the company. The influencing factors on the creating process of a controlling system for portfolio-, asset- and property management are highlighted systematically. Finally the paper outlines further research potential in the presented issues.


Objectives: Scientometric methods and the resulting citations have been applied to investigate the scientific performance of a nation. The present study was designed to collect the statistical information of dental articles by Iranian authors published in PubMed. Materials and Methods: We searched the PubMed database for dental articles of Iranian authors until June 31, 2015. All abstracts were manually reviewed in order to exclude false retrievals. The number of articles per dental subspecialties, distribution of research designs, Scopus/Google Scholar citation of each article, number of authors and affiliation of the first/corresponding author were extracted and transferred to Microsoft Excel. The data were further analyzed to illustrate the related scientometric indicators. Results: A total of 3,835 articles were retrieved according to the selection criteria. The number of PubMed-indexed publications between 2008 and 2015 showed a seven-fold increase. The majority of articles were written by four authors (24.56%). Systematic reviews and clinical trials constituted 9.20% of all publications. The number and percentage of articles with ≥4 citations from Google Scholar (n=2024; 52.78%) were higher than those from Scopus (n=1015; 26.47%). According to affiliated departments of the first authors, the top three dental subspecialties with the highest number of publications belonged to endodontics (19.82%), orthodontics (11.13%) and oral and maxillofacial surgery (10.33%). Moreover, the majority of articles originated from Shahid Beheshti- (14.47%), Tehran- (13.72%) and Mashhad- (12.28%) University of Medical Sciences. Conclusions: Analysis of PubMed-indexed dental publications originating from Iran revealed a growing trend in the recent years.


Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus) is the largest falcon in the world. It inhabits a wide range of climate zones in the Northern Hemisphere, from boreal forests in the south of its range to the arid polar deserts of the High Arctic. In Greenland, because of the harsh, remote environments in which gyrfalcons live, research related to the contemporary and pre-modern periods has been limited to the north-west, central west and central east coasts, with no specific investigations being conducted for the north-east. Here, we report the first pre-modern record of a gyrfalcon in north-east Greenland, located at 80.4°N in Kronprins Christian Land. Skin tissue from a decaying gyrfalcon's body was radiocarbon dated to 769–944 CE (common era) using a terrestrial-only calibration curve, and 1182–1456 CE using a marine-only calibration curve. Since the gyrfalcon has a mixed terrestrial/marine diet, the actual age can be said to belong between these two groups. This limited data, therefore places the presence of the gyrfalcon in north-east Greenland during a period of prolonged elevated temperatures and climate stress associated with the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Whether the gyrfalcon was part of a larger population or a straggler, and whether the species survived the whole of the Medieval Climate Anomaly in north-east Greenland, is unknown.


In the present article, I discuss recent developments in the naming of the TOR (target of rapamycin) protein. In particular, I address the issue of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) versus the newer mechanistic target of rapamycin (MTOR). mTOR is the name given by the TOR community almost two decades ago and widely used ever since. MTOR is a name recently imposed on the TOR community by database curators and used mainly by newcomers. I argue that MTOR is causing needless confusion in the field, and conclude that one should use the name mTOR.


Odonates are considered to be good ecological indicators, hence, they are used in biological assessment of habitat quality. However, species responses may vary spatiotemporally and therefore, it is useful to establish species-habitat relationships at a regional level. To test if tropical urban odonates respond to seasons, and to explore species-habitat relationships with an emphasis on water pollution, I studied six wetlands in the city of Pune for a year. I also investigated whether combining data on dragonflies and damselflies, as is often done in many studies, skews the results. I recorded seasons, water pollution and habitat attributes as predictors of the odonate diversity and assemblage. I analyzed the data on dragonflies, damselflies and odonates (dragonfly-damselfly combined) separately for seasonal variation, and species-habitat relationships. I used multiple regression and canonical correspondence analyses. Forty-four species were recorded during the study. No seasonal variation was detected, except for damselflies, which showed an increase in the diversity and species number post-monsoon. Multiple regression analysis showed that damselfly and dragonfly diversity varied as a function of season and water pollution, and monsoon respectively. In pre-monsoon, damselfly diversity marginally increased with pollution. Both the analyses suggest that combining data on dragonflies and damselflies may skew the end results. Therefore, I recommend further intensive and long-term research using accurately sampled habitat and pollution attributes, as well as habitat restoration through conserving urban green spaces and promoting gardens with streams and ponds.


Background The efficacy of intermittent preventive treatment for malaria with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (IPTp-SP) in pregnancy is threatened in parts of Africa by the emergence and spread of resistance to SP. Intermittent screening with a rapid diagnostic test (RDT) and treatment of positive women (ISTp) is an alternative approach. Methods and Findings An open, individually randomized, non-inferiority trial of IPTp-SP versus ISTp was conducted in 5,354 primi- or secundigravidae in four West African countries with a low prevalence of resistance to SP (The Gambia, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana). Women in the IPTp-SP group received SP on two or three occasions whilst women in the ISTp group were screened two or three times with a RDT and treated if positive for malaria with artemether-lumefantrine (AL). ISTp-AL was non-inferior to IPTp-SP in preventing low birth weight (LBW), anemia and placental malaria, the primary trial endpoints. The prevalence of LBW was 15.1% and 15.6% in the IPTp-SP and ISTp-AL groups respectively (OR = 1.03 [95% CI: 0.88, 1.22]). The mean hemoglobin concentration at the last clinic attendance before delivery was 10.97g/dL and 10.94g/dL in the IPTp-SP and ISTp-AL groups respectively (mean difference: -0.03 g/dL [95% CI: -0.13, +0.06]). Active malaria infection of the placenta was found in 24.5% and in 24.2% of women in the IPTp-SP and ISTp-AL groups respectively (OR = 0.95 [95% CI 0.81, 1.12]). More women in the ISTp-AL than in the IPTp-SP group presented with malaria parasitemia between routine antenatal clinics (310 vs 182 episodes, rate difference: 49.4 per 1,000 pregnancies [95% CI 30.5, 68.3], but the number of hospital admissions for malaria was similar in the two groups. Conclusions Despite low levels of resistance to SP in the study areas, ISTp-AL performed as well as IPTp-SP. In the absence of an effective alternative medication to SP for IPTp, ISTp-AL is a potential alternative to IPTp in areas where SP resistance is high. It may also have a role in areas where malaria transmission is low and for the prevention of malaria in HIV positive women receiving cotrimoxazole prophylaxis in whom SP is contraindicated. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01084213 Pan African Clinical trials Registry PACT201202000272122


This article considers the issue of who should rebuild after war. Many leading advocates of the relevance of jus post bellum for Just War Theory adhere to the 'Belligerents Rebuild Thesis', which holds that those who have been involved with the fighting – such as the victor, just belligerent, unjust aggressor or humanitarian intervener – should be tasked with the responsibility to rebuild. By contrast, this article argues that there is a collective, international duty to rebuild that should be assigned primarily according to the agent's ability to rebuild – and not necessarily to the belligerents. The article also claims that, in contrast to the prevailing view, considerations of jus post bellum do not play any moral role in the justifiability of a war. Accordingly, defending the Belligerents Rebuild Thesis by invoking the alleged moral relevance of jus post bellum for Just War Theory is mistaken.


CLINICAL PRESENTATION & EXAM: During a patient history, patient may report feeling a snap in the knee following hyperextension or rotation of the leg while the foot is planted on the ground. There may not be immediate swelling following the tear, but swelling will develop as well as pain and tenderness of the area. The knee may also catch or lock, the patient may report feeling instability, and the patient may be unable to fully extend the leg. Pain is exacerbated with hyperextension or rotation of the leg. ANATOMY & PATHOLOGY: The menisci are two fibrocartilaginous, wedge-shaped discs that reside within the knee joint. They are attached to the medial and lateral tibial plateau by roots that are connected to the anterior and posterior horns of the menisci. This type of connection results in a strong connection with the tibial plateau that prevents shifting and maintaining stable contact with the femoral condyles. The menisci are involved in providing shock absorption for the force between the femur and the tibia as well as a means of knee stabilization. Damage often occurs concurrently with an anterior-cruciate ligament (ACL) injury due to the internal rotation of the ligaments located in the knee joint. Risk increases in an older population due to the menisci degenerating with age and increase of falls. If damage does occur to the menisci, stability will diminish as well as the ability to dissipate force across the tibial plateau, meaning that there will be more stress due to reduced shock absorption. DIAGNOSTIC TESTING & CONSIDERATIONS: Three commonly used physical examination tests for a meniscal tear are the joint line test, McMurray's test, and Apley's test. In the joint line test, physicians palpate the joint line for any tenderness while the knee is at 90o of flexion; tenderness indicates a positive test. McMurray's test requires the patient to flex the knee and then extend and rotate it. A clicking sound or feeling a click when palpating indicates a positive test. Apley's test requires the patient to be in a prone position with the knee bent at 90o. The physician presses the tibia onto the knee while externally rotating the leg; pain indicates a positive test. Physical examination tests are not sufficient in diagnosing a meniscal tear and they are used in conjunction with either arthroscopy or MRI to confirm the diagnosis. Arthroscopy is the gold standard and allows physicians to look directly with the joint at the menisci, but it is an invasive procedure and can carry risks such as infection or septic arthritis. MRI is the preferred method due to it being a noninvasive procedure. TREATMENT & RETURN TO ACTIVITY: Repairing the meniscus is the key in allowing the patient to return to activity. Surgically repairing the meniscus is one of the methods used to alleviate the problem. It is preferable to a meniscectomy, as the meniscectomy may lead to further joint problems in the future. However, the repair does have a longer recovery time because the meniscus needs to heal itself after it is sutured back together. Weight bearing should be kept at a minimum after surgery. The patient will require the use of a brace to keep the knee stable and use crutches to keep weight off of the affected knee. Rehabilitation exercises will be prescribed to restore range of motion and strength. There are many factors that can affect return to activity, but generally it occurs at three to four weeks following a meniscectomy or approximately three months following a meniscus repair.


Detection of images or moving objects have been highly worked upon, and has been integrated and used in commercial, residential and industrial environments. But, most of the strategies and techniques have heavy limitations. One of the limitations is due to low computational resources at user level. Other important limitations that need to be tackled are lack of proper data analysis of the measured trained data, dependency on the motion of the objects, inability to differentiate one object from other, and also concern over speed of the object under detection and Illuminacy. Hence, there is a need to draft, apply and recognize new techniques of detection that tackle the existing limitations. In our project we have worked upon a model based on Scalable Object Detection, using Deep Neural Networks to localize and track people, cars, potted plants and 16 others categories in the camera preview in real-time. The large Visual Recognition ImageNet package 'inception5h' from google is used. This is a trained model, with images of the respective categories, which is then converted to a graph file using neural networks. The graph nodes are usually huge in number and these are optimized for the use in android. The use of already available trained model is just for the purpose of ease and convenience, nevertheless any set of images can be trained and used in the android application. An important point to note is that training the images will need huge computational speeds and more than one computer supporting GPU. Also a.jar file built with the help of bazel is added to android studio to support the integration of Java and tensorflow. This jar file is the key to getting tensorflow in a mobile device. The jar file is built with the help of openCV, which is a library of programming functions mainly aimed at real-time computer vision. Once this has been integrated, any input to the android application inputed at real-time, is predicted with the help of tiny-yolo (you look only once – a darknet reference network). This application supports multi object detection, which is very useful. All the steps occur simultaneously with great speeds giving remarkable results, detecting all the categories of the trained model within a good illuminacy. The real time detection reference network used also works with an acceptable acceleration of moving objects but is not quite effective with low illumination. The objects are limited to identify only 20 categories but the scope can be broadened with a revised trained model. The 20 categories include «aeroplane»,»bicycle»,»bird»,»boat», «bottle», «bus», «car», «cat», «chair», «cow»,»diningtable»,»dog»,»horse»,»motorbike»,»person», «pottedplant», «sheep»,»sofa»,»train» and «tvmonitor». The application can be used handy in a mobile phone or any other smart device with minimal computational resources ie.., no connectivity to the internet. The application challenges speed and illuminacy. Effective results will help in real-time detection of traffic signs and pedestrians from a moving vehicle. This goes hand in hand with the similar intelligence in cameras which can be used as an artificial eye, and can be used in many areas such as surveillance, Robotics, Traffic, facial recognition, etc.


Today energy demand in the world cannot be met based on the growing population of the countries. Exhaustible resources are not enough to supply this energy requirement. Furthermore, the pollution created by these sources is one of the most important issues for all living things. In this context, clean and sustainable energy alternatives need to be considered. In this study, a novel interval-valued neutrosophic (IVN) ELECTRE I method is conducted to select renewable energy alternative for a municipality. A new division operation and deneutrosophication method for intervalvalued neutrosophic sets is proposed. A sensitivity analysis is also implemented to check the validity of the proposed method. The obtained results and the sensitivity analysis demonstrate that the given decision in the application is robust. The results of the proposed method determine that the wind power plant is the best alternative and our proposed method's decisions are consistent and reliable through the results of comparative and sensitivity analyses.


High-worth individuals are typically underrepresented or completely missing in population surveys. The lack of a register-based sampling frame on high-worth individuals in many countries challenged previous attempts to sample high-worth individuals in voluntary scientific surveys. In a novel research design, we draw on register data on the shareholding structures of companies as a sampling frame. Our design builds on the empirical regularity that high-worth individuals are likely to hold at least part of their assets in the form of shareholdings. Based on data from over 270 million companies worldwide, we identified individuals who are both German residents and registered shareholders of companies. In a feasibility study, we interviewed 124 households from a gross sample of 2,000 anchor persons. Our analysis shows that register data on shareholding structures correctly identifies the individuals' rank in the wealth distribution, that the quality of personal information, particularly the residential address, is sufficiently high for subsequent interviewing, and that the approach can fill a major data and research gap in the study of high-worth individuals and the top-end of the wealth distribution.


To enhance Java programming educations, we have developed a Java Programming Learning Assistant System (JPLAS) that offers various types of exercise problems to cover studies at different levels. Among them, the code writing problem asks a student to write a source code that passes the given test code in the assignment. In Java programming, encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism are the fundamental object-oriented programming (OOP) concepts that every student should master and freely use, which is very hard for novice students. In this paper, we propose the informative test code approach in the code writing problem for studying the three OOP concepts. This test code describes the necessary information to implement the source code using the concepts, such as the names, access modifiers, data types of the member variables and methods. Then, a student is expected to learn how to use them by writing a source code to pass the test code. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposal, we generated informative test codes for 10 assignments using three concepts, and asked eight students who are currently studying Java programming in Myanmar and Japan to solve them. Then, all of them could complete source codes that pass the test codes, where the quality metrics measured by Metrics plugin for Eclispe were generally acceptable. Unfortunately, due to the insufficiency of test codes, the coverage metric by code coverage tool for Eclipse was not 100% at some source codes. The informative test code generation by a teacher should be assisted to avoid this problem.


Professor Levinson has wisely called for an extended conversation regarding the possibility and desirability of a new Constitutional Convention, which might be called so as to correct some of the more glaring failings of our current governing document. Chief among those, in his view, are a handful of doctrines that belie our commitment to democratic self-government, such as the two-senators-per-state makeup of the United States Senate and the Electoral College. Perhaps these provisions once had some rhyme or reason to them, but, as Levinson suggests, it is not at all clear that they do now. They assure that our legislative branch will not be even remotely representative, and that the Executive branch will likewise, at least on occasion, fail to represent the will of the people. This democratic deficit ought to cause us concern. We should at least have the luxury of debating the point.Thus, I think Levinson's claim is essentially right, and I would like to make two friendly amendments to his proposal. There is, indeed, a worrisome democratic deficit in our own constitutional scheme. I suggest, however, that there are two additional problems with our constitutional practices, besides those Levinson has flagged for revision, that also impact detrimentally our democratic commitments. Echoing Levinson's framework, I would call the first of these two additional problems a "political deficit," and the second a "legal deficit." Our current dilemma exists not only because our written Constitution clearly tilts against representative democracy in the way Levinson decries. Our constitutional practices also tilt against politics, democratic or otherwise, and the ordinary law - legislation - that is its product. These political and legal deficits also deserve our critical attention.


The 'central-peripheral' hypothesis has provided a baseline for many studies of population dynamics and genetic variability at species distribution limits. Although peripheral populations are often assumed to occur in ecologically marginal conditions, little is known about whether they effectively occur in a distinct ecological niche. A cross-taxa analysis of 11 Mediterranean vascular plants were studied. We quantified variation in the ecological niche between populations at the northern range limits of species in Mediterranean France and those in the central part of the distribution in continental Spain or Italy in 2013–2014. We analyzed both the macroecological niche where populations occur in terms of broad habitat and altitudinal range and the micro-ecological niche where individual plants grow in terms of soil and structural biotic and abiotic characteristics. Most species occur in a single broad habitat type common to central and peripheral populations and have a narrower altitudinal range in the latter. In contrast, for the micro-ecological niche we detected marked variation in several niche parameters among central and peripheral populations. Although many differences are species-specific some are common to several species. We found a trend towards narrower microniche breadth in peripheral populations. Our results illustrate the importance of studying the precise ecological characteristics where plants grow and the pertinence of a multi-species approach to correctly assess niche variation. The ecological originality of peripheral populations underlines their evolutionary potential and conservation significance.


Wound infections present major health problems worldwide. It has been revealed that
bacterial biofilm communities frequently colonise chronic wounds.Biofilms with Multidrugresistant organisms (MDRO) such as Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
and Pseudomonas aeruginosa are increasingly implicated in chronic wound infections. The
limited therapeutic options are further compromised by the fact that wound-infecting bacteria
often co-exist within a polymicrobial biofilm community, which enhances bacterial tolerance
or resistance to antimicrobials. The polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) compounds including
Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) offer both
immunomodulatory and antimicrobial properties that could enhance wound healing.
This study evaluated the activity and efficiency of these compounds against wound
pathogens and compared them to common antibiotics Linezolid (LZD) and vancomycin
(VAN). Standard antibiotic sensitivity assays were used to determine the ability of PUFAs to
inhibit growth and biofilm formation. Most activity was observed against S. aureus strains.
The bacteriostatic activity (minimum inhibitory concentration - MIC) of DHA and EPA for S.
Aureus SA3 and P. aeruginosa PA01 was 65 and 117 μgml-1
respectively. Meanwhile, the bacteriocidal activity required higher concentrations (MBC) of 260 and 468 μgml-1
respectively. The antibiotic LZD was most active against Gram positive bacteria (MIC range
from 1.9 µg ml-1 to 3.9 µg ml-1). However, vancomycin was the most potent biofilm disrupter, with MBECs ranging from 5-12.5 µg ml-1. These concentrations were 35-fold lower than the MBECs recorded for linezolid (125 -500 µg ml-1). Considerably higher concentrations of
PUFA compounds were required to disrupt biofilms. The MBECs of DHA ranged between
750 and 3125 µg ml-1. EPA was found to be more disruptive than DHA (MBECs ranging
between 500 and 2250 µg ml-1), while the MBECs of combination treatment with both
PUFAs (DHA+EPA) ranged from 750 - 1500 µg ml-1.
The antimicrobial activity of different concentrations of PUFAs was further
Assessed by monitoring inhibition of growth of a clinical wound isolate of S. aureus (SA3)for
24 h. PUFAs were shown to differentially affect expression of global gene regulators using
RT-qPCR. DHA and EPA were found to upregulate agrA and icaA but downregulate sarA at
the same concentrations and exposure times.
Two different infection models were used to assess the activity of PUFAs in vivo (Galleria mellonella) and on ex-vivo skin compared to common antibiotics (LZD and
VAN). PUFAs reduced virulence of SA3 in G.mellonella, protecting the larvae from death.
Furthermore, prolonged exposure to sub-inhibitory concentrations affected growth
Efficiency of SA3 in vivo. Whole genome sequencing of parent vs PUFA and antibiotics adapted strains of S. aureus SA3 revealed some common mutations in sarA and clfB genes, that
may contribute to altered virulence and susceptibility to treatment. Preliminary studies with
the ex-vivo skin model suggested that this may be a useful system for testing the efficacy of
antimicrobial compounds for wound-treatment. Differences in SA3 survival and growth were
measurable in the presence of PUFAs or absence of PUFAs.
In conclusion, PUFAs (DHA and EPA) showed weak antimicrobial activity
compared to common antibiotics against common wound-associated bacteria. However, this
study shows evidence that PUFAs have additional desirable properties, including disruption
of global gene regulation, reduction of virulence and low potential to promote development
of resistance.


Forms of official multiculturalism that many recent scholars have characterized as a reflection of post–Cold War social movements and emergent forms of neoliberal governmentality can be experienced locally in ways that reflect a greater degree of continuity with older institutions and styles of politics. In Yucatan, ambiguities in the meaning of officially sanctioned categories such as "Maya" and "indigenous" have persisted even as local people and representatives of the state collaborate in the consolidation of official cultural institutions. The collective experience of several generations of Maya speakers in negotiating this ambiguous discursive space creates strong parallels between contemporary multiculturalism and older indigenist policies. [Maya, Mexico, Yucatan, multiculturalism, indigenous policy, ambiguity]


Southern Ocean (SO) shortwave (SW) radiation biases are a common problem in contemporary general circulation models (GCMs), with most models exhibiting a tendency to absorb too much incoming SW radiation. These biases have been attributed to deficiencies in the representation of clouds during the austral summer months, either due to cloud cover or cloud albedo being too low. They affect simulation of New Zealand (NZ) and global climate in GCMs due to excessive heating of the sea surface and the effect on large-scale circulation. Therefore, improvement of GCMs is necessary for accurate prediction of future NZ and global climate. We performed ship-based lidar, radar, radiosonde andweather observations on two SO voyages and processed data from multiple past SO voyages. We used the observations and satellite measurements for evaluation of the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 3 (HadGEM3) and contrasting with the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2) to better understand the source of the problem. Due to the nature of lidar observations (the laser signal is quickly attenuated by clouds) they cannot be used for 1:1 comparison with a model without using a lidar simulator, which performs atmospheric radiative transfer calculations of the laser signal. We modify an existing satellite lidar simulator present in the Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP) Observational Simulator Package (COSP) for use with the ground-based lidars used in our observations by modifying the geometry of the radiative transfer calculations, Mie and Rayleigh scattering of the laser signal. We document and make the modified lidar simulator available to the scientific community as part of a newly-developed lidar processing tool called the Automatic Lidar and Ceilometer Framework (ALCF), which enables unbiased comparison between lidar observations and models by performing calibration of lidar backscatter, noise removal and consistent cloud detection. We apply the lidar simulator on HadGEM3 model fields. Significant SW radiation errors in the SO of up to 21 Wm−2 are shown to be present in the model. Using the lidar observations, we find that the model underestimates overall cloud cover by about 9% and strongly underestimates boundary layer low-level stratocumulus (Sc) cloud below 1 km and fog. By using radiosonde observations, we find that the observed cloud was strongly linked to the boundary layer stability and sea surface temperature, while this relationship is weaker in the model. We identify that these errors are not due to misrepresentation of large-scale circulation, which is prescribed in our model based on global satellite observations by nudging. We conclude that the problem is likely in the subgrid-scale parametrisation schemes of the boundary layer, convection and large-scale could. In order to address the deficiencies identified we perform experimental simulations of HadGEM3 with modifications of the parametrisation schemes. We find that a three-layer cloud profiles were common in the Ross Sea region, consisting of cumulus (Cu) below Sc, and corresponding to local thermodynamic levels: lifting condensation level, dry and moist neutral buoyancy levels of parcels lifted from the surface. We find that not enough moisture is transported to the top of the boundary layer to form Sc clouds. By increasing surface moisture flux and convective mass flux in the model we improve the Sc cloud simulation, but we show that a lack of vertical moisture transport across the lifting condensation level from the surface layer to the zone of convective mass flux is a likely limiting factor. We show that the modifications had a positive impact on the Southern Ocean and global radiation balance of up to 5 Wm−2 in zonal average over this limited time period. We suggest that further research should focus on the weak vertical coupling between the boundary layer turbulence and boundary layer convection parametrisation in the model, and that the lidar simulator framework is used as a cloud evaluation tool in further studies due to its benefits over more statistical approaches, which tend to hide compensating biases.


The differences between Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany have historically been reduced to a simple binary pronouncement: assimilationist versus separatist. Now Robert S. Levine restores the relationship of these two important nineteenth-century African American writers to its original complexity. He explores their debates over issues like abolitionism, emigration, and nationalism, illuminating each man's influence on the other's political vision. He also examines Delany and Douglass's debates in relation to their own writings and to the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Though each saw himself as the single best representative of his race, Douglass has been accorded that role by history--while Delany, according to Levine, has suffered a fate typical of the black separatist: marginalization. In restoring Delany to his place in literary and cultural history, Levine makes possible a fuller understanding of the politics of antebellum African American leadership.


There exists little to no data on the development of donor‐site scars that remain after split skin graft harvesting. The objectives of this study were to (a) examine changes in characteristics of donor‐site scar quality over time and (b) assess the agreement between patient‐reported and observer‐reported donor‐site scar quality in a burn population. A prospective cohort study was conducted including patients who underwent split skin grafting for their burn injury. Patients and observers completed the Patient and Observer Scar Assessment Scale (POSAS) for the first harvested donor site at 3 and 12 months post‐surgery. This study included 80 patients with a median age of 34 years. At 3 months post‐surgery, the patients scored the POSAS items itch and color as most deviant from normal skin, both improved between 3 and 12 months (3.1 vs 1.5 and 5.0 vs 3.5, respectively [P < .001]). Other scar characteristics did not show significant change over time. The patients' overall opinion score improved from 3.9 to 3.2 (P < .001). Observers rated the items vascularization and pigmentation most severe, only vascularization improved significantly between both time points. Their overall opinion score decreased from 2.7 to 2.3 (P < .001). The inter‐observer agreement between patients and observers was considered poor (ICC < 0.4) at both time points. Results of current study indicate that observers underestimate the impact of donor‐site scars. This has to be kept in mind while guiding therapy and expectations.


The first of the women we now call Native American were among the prehistoric nomads who crossed a land bridge between Asia and North America 40,000 years ago. Over centuries, these humans formed larger bands, and eventually farming villages and even larger units, the seeds of the many tribes and nations that we call Indians or Native Americans. In most of these cultures, women held positions of honor in the community. John Demos looks at four Native American groups--the Puebloans of the North American Southwest, the Iroquois of the Northeast woodlands, the fur-trading tribes of the central Great Lakes region, and the Cherokees of the interior Southeast--and explores the possibilities open to women and how colonization by Europeans forever changed their lives. In many Indian tribes, property passed through the female line, from mothers to daughters to granddaughters, giving women considerable power and influence through the link to their clan. Women often held the primary responsibility for farming, craft production, and even house construction or boat building. Behind this broad array of roles and duties lay a fundamental respect for women as women. In startling contrast to the premodern European view, Native American cultures supported a balanced view of the sexes. Men were considered superior in some ways, women in others, and both were necessary to the survival of the group. Contact with European explorers and missionaries, the effects of the American Revolution, and the new United States government's policies toward Native American cultures irrevocably transformed every tribe. As a result Native American culture declined and women in particular lost opportunities, influence, and status that had formerly belong to them. But The Tried and the True is not only a story of decline. John Demos looks at the full range of Native American women's experiences and finds that words like adaptation, recovery, and survival also apply. These first American women laid the foundation for future generations and began a struggle for equality and respect that continues today.


A world that is changing faster and faster forces companies to a continuous performance monitoring. Indicators give the impression to be the real engine of organizations or even the economy at large. But performance indicators are not simple observation tools. They can have a deep normative effect, which can modify organizational behaviour and influence key decisions. Companies are what they measure! The selection of good performance indicators is not an easy process. This monograph focuses on the designing of a Performance Measurement System (PMS), knowing that magic rules to identify them do not exist. Some indicators seem right and easy to measure, but have subtle, counter-productive consequences. Other indicators are more difficult to measure, but focus the enterprise on those decisions and actions that are critical to success. This book suggests how to identify indicators that achieve a balance in these effects and enhance long-term profitability.


Diadenosine oligophosphates are ubiquitous compounds that were discovered over 30 years ago. Diadenosine 5',5"'-P(1), P(4)-tetraphosphate (Ap(4)A) is the most studied member of this family, and its function in yeast is unknown. To investigate possible functions, we changed the intracellular Ap(4)A concentration in Schizosaccharomyces pombe via disruption and overexpression of the aph1 gene, which encodes an Ap(4)A hydrolase (Aph1). S. pombe Aph1 is 52% identical with a human tumour suppressor protein, Fhit, in a core region of 109 amino acids. Disruption of aph1 resulted in an 85% decrease in Ap(4)A hydrolase activity and a 290-fold increase in the intracellular Ap(4)A concentration. The disruption and subsequent increase in intracellular Ap(4)A concentration had no significant effect on the growth of S. pombe. Overexpression of the S. pombe aph1 gene, resulting in 17- and 84-fold increases in Ap(4)A hydrolase activity above wild-type levels, resulted in 60 and 80% decreases respectively in the intracellular Ap(4)A concentration. This represents the first report of a decrease in the intracellular Ap(4)A concentration in response to overexpression of a degradative enzyme in any eukaryotic organism. We describe a new S. pombe expression plasmid, pPOX, which was used to achieve the largest increase in expression of aph1. Overexpression of aph1 at the highest level resulted in a 46% increase in generation time in comparison with the control strain. Neither overexpression nor disruption had any effect on the intracellular ATP or ADP concentrations. This is the first report of ADP and ATP concentrations in S. pombe. These data also indicate that Aph1 functions in vivo to degrade Ap(4)A, and that high-level overexpression of this enzyme reduces the growth rate.


Chaucer called it "spiritual manslaughter"; Barthes and Benjamin deemed it dangerous linguistic nihilism. But gossip-long derided and dismissed by writers and intellectuals-is far from frivolous. In Idle Talk, Deadly Talk , Ana Rodriguez Navas reveals gossip to be an urgent, utilitarian, and deeply political practice-a means of staging the narrative tensions, and waging the narrative battles, that mark Caribbean politics and culture. From the calypso singer's superficially innocent rhymes to the vicious slanders published in Trujillo-era gossip columns, words have been weapons, elevating one person or group at the expense of another. Revising the overly gendered existing critical frame, Rodriguez Navas argues that gossip is a fundamentally adversarial practice. Just as whispers and hearsay corrosively define and surveil identities, they also empower writers to skirt sanitized, monolithic historical accounts by weaving alternative versions of their nations' histories from this self-governing discursive material. Reading recent fiction from the Hispanic, Anglophone, and Francophone Caribbean and their diasporas, alongside poetry, song lyrics, journalism, memoirs, and political essays, Idle Talk, Deadly Talk maps gossip's place in the Caribbean and reveals its rich possibilities as both literary theme and narrative device. As a means for mediating contested narratives, both public and private, gossip emerges as a vital resource for scholars and writers grappling with the region's troubled history.


This paper introduces a new version of the multiobjective Alliance Algorithm (MOAA) applied to the optimization of the NACA 0012 airfoil section, for minimization of drag and maximization of lift coefficients, based on eight section shape parameters. Two software packages are used: XFoil which evaluates each new candidate airfoil section in terms of its aerodynamic efficiency, and a Free-Form Deformation tool to manage the section geometry modifications. Two versions of the problem are formulated with different design variable bounds. The performance of this approach is compared, using two indicators and a statistical test, with that obtained using NSGA-II and multi-objective Tabu Search (MOTS) to guide the optimization. The results show that the MOAA outperforms MOTS and obtains comparable results with NSGA-II on the first problem, while in the other case NSGA-II is not able to find feasible solutions and the MOAA is able to outperform MOTS.


AUSTIN CO., a firm of consultants, designers, architects, engineers, and constructors located in CLEVELAND HTS., was one of the most important innovators in the construction industry. Among its noteworthy achievements are the Austin Method of "undivided responsibility," the standardization of factory construction, and the development of the controlled-conditions plant. The company was founded by SAMUEL AUSTIN (1850-1936), who emigrated from England to the U.S. in 1872 and settled in Cleveland. In 1881 he began building and designing commercial, residential, and factory buildings, especially in the Broadway district. By 1900 the Austin Method was evolving, whereby the client contracted with one organization that handled all the activities of design, engineering, and construction. Ensuring speed, efficiency, economy, and unity of engineering and architectural design, the company's first major achievement was NELA PARK, begun in 1911. In 1914 Samuel's son, WILBERT J. AUSTIN, conceived of the standardization of factory design. During World War I, Austin built the Curtiss aircraft plant, covering 28 acres in Buffalo. In 1929 Austin erected the first all-welded steel frame building at 10465 Carnegie Ave. in Cleveland. As part of the Soviet attempt to industrialize rapidly under Stalin, in 1929-30 the company designed and built a giant automobile plant and an entire workers' city at Nizhni Novgorod in Russia. The company's prefabricated porcelain enamel service stations probably created its most visible impact across the country in the 1930s. On the eve of World War II, Austin built the first windowless, completely "controlled-conditions" factory for the Simonds Saw & Steel Co. (1938). In the postwar period, the Austin Co. became an international corporation with subsidiaries offering the same "undivided" services in 40 offices in 10 countries. The company's recent work in the Cleveland area includes the PLAIN DEALER production plant in BROOKLYN, LINCOLN ELECTRIC world headquarters in EUCLID, and the SOCIETY CORP. (KeyCorp)'s Operation Center in the old May Co. building (see KAUFMANN'S). Greif, Martin. The New Industrial Landscape (1978).


Recent long term planning studies have demonstrated the important role of variable renewables (VRE) in decarbonising our energy system. However, cost-optimising models do not capture the visual impact of VREs on the landscape which can act to undermine their public acceptability. Here, we use crowd-sourced scenicness data to derive spatially explicit wind energy capacity potentials for three scenarios of public sensitivity to this visual impact. We then use these scenarios in a cost-optimising model of Great Britain's power system to assess their impact on the cost and design of the electricity system in 2050. Our results show that total system costs can increase by up to 14.2% when public sensitivity to visual impact is high compared to low. It is thus essential for policy makers to consider these cost implications and to find mechanisms to ameliorate the visual impact of onshore wind in local communities.


In this study, areca palm (Dypsis lutescens), crossandra (Crossandra infundibuliformis), pentas (Pentas lanceolat), and philodendron (Philodendron) 'Hope' plants were transplanted into containers filled with four growing substrates and watered daily, every 2 days, or every 3 days using subirrigation or overhead irrigation. Plants were grown in either a pine bark/sedge peat/sand substrate (BSS), Metro-mix 500 (MM), Pro-mix GSX (PM), or a 60% biosolid substrate (SYT). For both irrigation systems, final shoot dry weight of pentas, crossandra, philodendron, and areca palm plants in each substrate was greatest for plants watered every day and least for plants watered every 3 days. At all three irrigation frequencies, pentas, crossandra, and philodendron shoot dry weight in subirrigated pots filled with PM was greater than in overhead watered pots filled with PM. PM had the highest total pore space and moisture content of the four substrates examined. There was no difference in pentas, crossandra, or philodendron shoot dry weight between the irrigation systems, at all three irrigation frequencies, when plants were grown in BSS, MM, or SYT. However, for all four substrates and at all three irrigation frequencies, areca palm shoot dry weight was greater in overhead watered pots than in subirrigated pots. The final substrate electrical conductivity (EC) in all four subirrigated palm substrates was more than double the concentrations in overhead watered palm substrates. In this study, largest pentas, crossandra, and philodendron plants were grown in pots filled with PM and subirrigated daily, while largest areca palm plants were grown in pots filled with MM or SYT and watered overhead daily.


I am deeply honoured to have been invited to deliver the Olcott Oration 2017 and to join a list of great Anandians who have delivered this Oration before. I cannot think of a greater honour that my school could confer on me. I accepted this invitation with humbleness, with gratitude and respect, and with great pride. Let me also take this opportunity to appreciate the support and guidance I received during my school career at Ananda College. The guidance our teachers gave us laid the foundation for any success later on in our lives. My oration today, is on the rather technical topic of monetary and exchange rate policy. The biggest challenge that I have to face is to present such a topic to an audience with a majority who might not be familiar with the technical jargon involved. However, I will attempt to keep the discussion as simple as possible.


The spaceborne ESA-mission CHRIS/PROBA (Compact High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer-Project for On-board Autonomy) provides hyperspectral and multi- directional data of selected targets spread over the world. This coupled system represents a new source of information for Earth observation purposes. While the spectral information content of CHRIS data is able to assess the biochemistry of a vegetation canopy, the directional information can describe the structure of an observed canopy. Both biochemical content and canopy structure change with phenological development. During May to September 2005, numerous spectro-directional CHRIS data sets for six different phenological stages were acquired over a testsite in Switzerland. The area covered is dominated by agricultural fields and forests. A selection of CHRIS data sets that span the observed growing phase were geometrically and atmospherically corrected using a parametric geocoding approach and the physically based atmospheric correction software ATCOR. The analysis of the CHRIS data focuses on the interpretation of HDRF (Hemispherical Directional Reflectance Factor) changes contained in the various data sets over time. The spectrodirectional behaviour of agricultural crops varies over time as a function of vegetation stages (phenology). Understanding of this effect, which is studied on selected crops, may improve agricultural monitoring and crop classification. Accurate spatial mapping of crop status serves as an important input to precision agriculture.


The general concept of a Securities Transaction Tax is controversial among academics and politicians. While theoretical research is quite advanced, the empirical guidance in a fragmented market context is still scarce. Possible negative effects for market liquidity and market efficiency are theoretically predicted, but have not been empirically tested yet. In light of the agreement of eleven European member states to implement an STT, this study aims to give a comprehensive overview of the effects of the STT, introduced in France in 2012, on liquidity demand, liquidity supply, volatility and inter-market information transmission. The results show that the STT has led to a decline in liquidity demand, has had a detrimental effect on liquidity supply and negatively influences the inter-market information transmission efficiency. However, no effect on volatility can be observed.


The more neuroligin-1 present, the more likely a synapse is to form. Neuroligin-1 (NL1) is a transsynaptic cell adhesion molecule present on the postsynaptic side of excitatory synapses. Studies in vitro have indicated that the abundance of NL1 controls the activity of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)–type glutamate receptors and the number of synapses, with more NL1 promoting both of these events. Although NL1 knockout mice show a similar reduction in NMDA receptor signaling, they do not show alterations in synaptic density or morphology (see Barrow and McAllister). Kwon et al. used in vivo RNA interference strategies to produce mosaic mice with different proportions of neurons lacking NL1, with some mice showing loss of NL1 in most neurons and some showing loss in only a sparse number of neurons. Imaging and electrophysiological analysis of brain slices showed that neurons in which NL1 was knocked down had dendritic spines with altered morphology compared with those of neighboring wild-type neurons and that the frequency of miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents (mEPSCs) was reduced in the NL1-knockdown neurons. In contrast, spine density and mEPSC frequency were unchanged in total NL1-knockout mice. Electrophysiological analysis after release of caged glutamate at specific sites showed that NL1 deficiency or knockout resulted in reduced NMDA-mediated currents. The success rate of new synapse formation in response to uncaging of glutamate to produce activity-dependent synaptogenesis was reduced in neurons in which NL1 was knocked down compared with that in the neighboring neurons or the neurons of NL1-knockout mice. Thus, sparse, but not global, absence of NL1 increased the threshold for activity-dependent synaptogenesis, suggesting that NL1 may confer a competitive advantage in a mixed population of neurons. Coculture experiments with wild-type and NL1-knockout neurons confirmed this hypothesis: Spine density was lower for the NL1-deficient neurons, but only when these cells were cocultured with wild-type neurons. Experiments with interfering RNAs of differing effectiveness confirmed that spine density and mEPSC frequency depended on the amount of NL1, with more NL1 conferring an advantage. H.-B. Kwon, Y. Kozorovitskiy, W.-J. Oh, R. T. Peixoto, N. Akhtar, J. L. Saulnier, C. Gu, B. L. Sabatini, Neuroligin-1–dependent competition regulates cortical synaptogenesis and synapse number. Nat. Neurosci. 15, 1667–1674 (2012). [PubMed] S. L. Barrow, A. K. McAllister, Neuroligins help dendrites keep up with the Joneses. Nat. Neurosci. 15, 1609–1611 (2012). [PubMed]


This chapter reviews the results of a set of experiments that examined foreign-language (FL) vocabulary learning by late learners, exploiting the paired-associate-learning (PAL) paradigm. The effects on acquisition and retention of the concreteness and frequency of the native-language (L1) words, the (phonotactical) typicality of the FL words, and the cognate relation between the L1 words and their FL translations were studied. To determine long-term retention a retest took place one week after learning. The results showed substantial effects of concreteness, typicality and cognate status: More concrete, typical, and cognate words were learned than abstract, atypical, and non-cognate words, respectively. Learning was also better for frequent than for infrequent words, but this effect was relatively small. Furthermore, the retest indicated that the words acquired best during the learning phase were also those retained best: The forgetting functions were steeper for abstract, atypical, and non-cognate words than for concrete, typical, and cognate words. We explain these effects in terms of differential pre-experimental long-term memory knowledge (concreteness and frequency), phonological short- and long-term memory (typicality), and a retrieval cue that exists for cognates but not for non-cognates (cognate status).


Particle-induced background, or "instrument background", produced from the interaction of background photons and charged particles with a detector, either as primaries or through the generation of secondary photons or particles, is one of the major sources of background for the focal plane sensors in X-ray astronomy missions. In previous studies for the European Space Agency (ESA) X-ray Multi Mirror (XMM-Newton) mission, the dominant source of background was found to be caused by the knock-on electrons generated as high-energy protons pass through the shielding materials surrounding the detector. From XMM-Newton, the contribution of Compton and other photon-generated background was small in comparison to the knock-on electron component. However, for the Wide Field Imager (WFI) on board the ESA Advanced Telescope for High-ENergy Astrophysics (ATHENA) mission Athena, which houses much thicker silicon in the depleted p-channel field effect transistor (DEPFET) active pixel sensors of the focal plane when compared to the Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs) used in the XMM-Newton EPIC MOS cameras, this photon component may no longer be expected to have such a minimal impact and therefore both the photon and proton-induced components must be considered in more detail. In order to minimise the background, studies have been conducted on the use of a graded-Z shield in addition to an aluminium proton shield (employed for radiation damage minimization). For thin detectors, a low-Z component alone may suffice, reducing the fluorescence components of the background. However, with thicker detectors a high-Z component may give added benefit through the combination of the high-Z component to reduce the photon-induced effects and a low-Z component to reduce the fluorescence components from the shielding's inner-surfaces, thus creating an "aluminium sandwich". In all cases, careful optimization of the shielding configuration is required to balance each component of background specific to the design of the instrument involved. The optimization of any shielding relies heavily upon a validated and verified simulation toolkit. Here we present the latest progress on our ongoing validation and verification studies of the GEANT4 simulations used for such an optimization process through a series of experimental test campaigns.


A team led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists has developed a more human-like mouse model of cancer they say will aid the search for cancer-causing genes and improve the predictive value of laboratory drug testing. Ronald A. DePinho, MD, of Dana-Farber has created mice that form tumors that are more genetically complex and unstable - and therefore a better stand-in for human cancers - than those of conventional genetically engineered mouse models of cancer. To characterize these mouse tumors, DePinho collaborated with Lynda Chin, MD, also at Dana-Farber, to perform high-resolution array-CGH profiling, a genome-scanning technology that can define regions of DNA abnormalities. The report was posted as an advanced online publication by the journal Nature and will appear in a forthcoming print version. The scientists, working with a large dataset generated by the Chin laboratory during the past several years, compared the patterns of these chromosomal changes in the mice with patterns observed in more than 400 human tumor specimens, including melanoma, lung, colon, and pancreatic cancers, and multiple myeloma. The comparisons showed that genetic instability in the mouse cancer cells caused DNA alterations that in many cases were identical to such changes in human tumors. This match up, said the researchers, suggested that the new mouse model may be useful in guiding the search for genes that are important for cancer growth. To that end, it may facilitate research associated with the National Institutes of Health-funded Human Cancer Genome Atlas Project, which involves sifting the entire human DNA and identifying the immensely complicated, interacting molecular changes that initiate and maintain tumors. "We found a rather striking overlap of genetic alterations in the mouse and human cancers, which should greatly help us sort out genetic events that drive cancers from those that are simply irrelevant 'passenger' events," DePinho said. Indeed, using the new 'instability' model of cancer in collaboration with Michael Stratton, PhD, and Andy Futreal, PhD, at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in England, the team discovered a pair of gene mutations involved in a type of human blood cancer. Stratton, Futreal, Chin, and DePinho are co-senior authors of the report. As part of the ongoing Cancer Genome Project at the Sanger Institute, its researchers analyzed human cancer cell lines and clinical samples to identify the new mutated genes. These studies have uncovered an unexpectedly large number of genetic alterations present in the typical human cancer genome, presenting challenges in the identification of truly causative events. DePinho said that the overlap in patterns of genetic abnormalities found in both mouse and human tumors shows that cancer mechanisms in the two species are more alike than had been thought. Futreal, co-director of the Cancer Genome Project at the Sanger Institute, said that such mouse models and cross-species genomic comparisons will be of "real importance" in facilitating the identification of new human cancer genes and understanding their role in the formation of tumors, "as well as a potential avenue to explore new therapeutic strategies." Conventional mouse models are made by transferring a cancer-causing oncogene into a mouse embryo. "You plug it into the mouse, and lo and behold, it gets cancer," explained Richard Maser, PhD, of Dana-Farber, one of the study's lead authors. "But that's rigging the game - it's not identical to the process by which tumors normally arise," he said. These tumors lack some key characteristics of human tumors, such as genomic instability - pieces of chromosomes breaking apart and reattaching, which result in widespread abnormalities like missing genes or extra copies of genes some of which are essential to the tumors' formation. In the current study, the scientists used gene knockouts to create mice whose cells lacked crucial molecules whose role is to guard the genome from instability and chaos in the DNA. As a result, the mice developed T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoma, or T-ALL, and the cancer cells exhibited "rampant genome instability" leading to a complex pattern of mutations, chromosomal rearrangements, gene amplifications and gene deletions similar to those in human solid tumors. The mouse model's close resemblance to human T-ALL enabled the scientists to rapidly and efficiently identify two genes, FBXW7 and PTEN, to be commonly deleted or mutated in this type of human cancer. The research was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute, the Wellcome Trust, and the Center for Applied Cancer Research of the Belfer Institute for Innovative Cancer Science at Dana-Farber, which DePinho heads. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (www.dana-farber.org) is a principal teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School and is among the leading cancer research and care centers in the United States. It is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC), designated a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute. For more information contact: Bill Schaller or Richard Saltus; Tel.: 617.632.4090


A 42-year-old man presented with a penetrating neck injury from a pellet gun. Physical examination showed an open 1 cm wound on the right side of the neck, hematoma of the right sternocleidomastoid muscle, and carotid artery injury. He was hemodynamically stable and there was no neurological deficit. Arteriogram of the neck disclosed a pseudoaneurysm with an arteriovenous fistula between the common carotid artery and internal jugular vein. At surgery, the tears in the carotid artery and jugular vein were sutured and a vacuum drain was introduced. The postoperative course was uneventful, and the patient was discharged 5 days later. Instead of the expected results of a penetrating carotid artery injury, such as blood loss, airway obstruction or neurological deficit, the arteriovenous fistula caused by the pellet actually saved the patient's life. Blood flow from the artery via the pseudoaneurysm to the jugular vein kept the patient in stable condition.


Low cost evaporative cooling systems were developed and investigated for their cooling efficiency to improve the shelf life of tomatoes. Average cooling efficiencies of bamboo jute and pot in pot coolers before being loaded with tomatoes were 82% and 79% and after being loaded were 67.6% and 61.6%, respectively. Physiological weight losses were 1.03%, 1.32% and 1.42% for bamboo jute, pot in pot coolers and ambient storage, respectively. The sensory results revealed that the shelf life of tomatoes were 5, 19 and 21 days for ambient, pot in pot and bamboo jute coolers, respectively. Storage type has significant difference on cooling efficiency but not on physiological weight loss, physical damage, freshness and rot incidence at p < 0.05. Thus, both evaporative coolers were found to be energy efficient, environmentally sound and can be used in areas where there is no electricity to improve the shelf life of tomatoes.


In the past fifteen years, ethics has come under the spotlight in the accounting profession. In this study, I examine ethics research in accounting by looking at publications in the Journal of Accountancy, a leading professional journal in accounting, over the period from 2002 to 2016. I found that 32 out of 4,851 (0.66%) articles published in the journal were ethics-focused. Further, I observed spikes in the percentage of ethics-focused articles in the years 2003 and 2009/2010, following key events such as the passing of SOX and the global financial crisis. I also perform content analysis of the ethics-focused articles by categorizing them to one of four research areas: (1) code of conduct, (2) corporate culture, (3) ethical decision making, and (4) reputation management. Given that the majority of ethics-focused articles published relate to encouraging ethical behaviour among accounting professionals, my results suggest that such articles present a good source of information that accounting professionals can turn to when making decisions which have ethical implications. My study makes important contributions by providing insights into the overall proportion of ethics-focused articles that is published in the journal, and assesses the progress/evolution of ethics research over the time period. From a broader perspective, the findings in my study also add to the overall literature on business ethics by highlighting significant themes that accounting researchers have focused on. In addition, it provides insights into how ethics research has been incorporated into the area of accounting, particularly from a practice perspective. It also highlights four key areas of ethics research in accounting, and helps identify areas of future research.


The use of cryptographic protocols that enforce a variety of security properties has become more and more important in every day's Internet transactions. The task of designing such protocols is tedious and error prone: many protocols that were believed to be correct for years have been shown to contain subtle errors. Moreover, it is difficult to design protocols that are adaptable to different constraints on their execution environment such as CPU power and bandwith. Security protocols can be built from simple communication primitives provided by standard protocols, and from cryptographic primitives. The rules of the protocol, can be derived from a high-level specification of what the protocol is designed to achieve, and under what hardware and software constraints it will be used. It has been shown that most of these specifications are best captured from a knowledge and belief-based viewpoint. In this work, we propose a technique allowing the automatic synthesis of security protocols that satisfy, by construction, their logical specification. Such specifications can be expressed using high-level communication primitives. Primitives have security and cryptographic attributes that include confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and nonrepudiation, and can be implemented using public and secret cryptography.


In recent years, informal, online communication has transformed the ways in which we connect and collaborate with friends and colleagues. With millions of individuals communicating online each day, we have a unique opportunity to observe the formation and evolution of roles and relationships in networked groups and organizations. Yet a number of challenges arise when attempting to infer the underlying social network from data that is often ambiguous, incomplete and context-dependent. In this paper, we consider the problem of collaborative network discovery from domains such as intelligence analysis and litigation support where the analyst is attempting to construct a validated representation of the social network. We specifically address the challenge of relationship identification where the objective is to identify relevant communications that substantiate a given social relationship type. We propose a supervised ranking approach to the problem and assess its performance on a manager-subordinate relationship identification task using the Enron email corpus. By exploiting message content, the ranker routinely cues the analyst to relevant communications relationships and message traffic that are indicative of the social relationship.


We utilize extensive Internal Revenue Service data to investigate the tax behavior of comparable privately-held and publicly-held corporations. Our findings paint a nuanced picture of private versus public firm tax planning. Consistent with prior research, we find that private firms are more willing to engage in tax strategies that also decrease financial accounting income (conforming tax planning). Additionally, we find that private firms are more responsive to shareholder-level dividend taxes. However, tests reveal that private firms engage in either the same or less of other types of tax planning than their public peers. These tests include general measures of nonconforming tax planning and aggressive tax planning, in addition to specific measures such as tax haven usage and use of certain credits and deductions. Overall, our findings suggest that private firms have advantages over their public peers for some types of tax planning, but are not more active tax planners otherwise.


This text seeks to further our understanding of the historical movement which underlies the implementation of policies of affirmative action for Negroes in the field of education considering this to be the condition for attending the interests and needs of this group, in the perspective of transformation. To this end, the text takes up reflections developed on other opportunities explaining ideas debated for years by scholars and militant Negroes and discussing the moments in which differences are transformed into a "problem", when they are in fact distinctive and necessary marks of the human condition. Thereafter, we seek to evaluate the material and ideological conditions of present day capitalism, the process of 'ethnicisation' of the work force and the dislocation of the debate from the cultural/ educational sphere promoted by international organisations.


The intraruminal papillation pattern indicates the degree of rumen contents stratification, and is related to the feeding niche of a ruminant. Muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) display a variety of morphophysiological adaptations typical for grazers. We investigated the intraruminal papillation of 22 free-ranging muskoxen from 5 different months, by comparing the surface enlargement factor both between seasons, and between individual rumen regions. The seasonal pattern of rumen papillation indicated a distinct seasonality in food quality. The intraruminal papillation indicated a moderate degree of rumen contents stratification typical for intermedate feeders. The nutritional ecology of muskoxen is characterized by specific morphophysiological adaptations to a grass-dominated diet that nevertheless allow extensive seasonal use of browse forage.


Web browsing has been one of the most popular activities on the internet. The increasing importance of the Web in everyday life calls for device-independent access to existing web sites. Although, there is full Web access available on mobile phones the user experience is often poor when compared to the Web user experience on Personal Computer (PC). Therfore, it is important for the Internet service provider to find the indications of user dissatisfaction from the network. While using the mobile Web, user can normally abort the transfer by pressing the stop or reset buttons in the browsers, leaving the page being downloaded by following a bookmark or can close the connection. Such events can be observed through the TCP reset (RST) flag from traffic on network level. In this thesis we have investigated the possible causes of TCP RST flags mobile Web session is interrupted. We further analyze up to what extent we can rely on TCP RST flags for being an indication of user dissatisfaction in mobile web browsing. Therefore, an experiment testbed is developed to capture the TCP packet traces during controlled active tests. Results are gathered using mobile devices with four popular mobile operating systems (OS). The trace files captured are analyzed using perl script to dicern the flow and focusing on the TCP RST flag during the flow. Further, TSTAT tool is used to validate our trace files.


The conventional synthetic route to urethane polymers involves the use of hazardous dflsocyanates which are synthesised using phosgene, the use of which produces a significant chlorine-waste stream. The processing of high molecular mass specialty polyurethanes regularly requires the use of organic solvents. This research aims to address these issues by separately employing enzyme-catalysis in order to synthesise high molecular mass polyurethanes and by investigating the use of high pressure CO2 as an alternative to the use of organic solvents in the synthesis of urethane polymers.
The main building blocks in the enzyme-catalysed synthesis of urethane polymers are based on di-functional carbamate-blocks, synthesised by reaction of diamines with ethylenecarbonate or dimethylcarbonate. In addition to the more conventional di-functional carbamate-blocks, the synthesis of a novel mono-carbamate based on an amino acid has been investigated.
The mechanism of the polymerization of adipic acid and hexane diol was investigated. The reaction was optimised for the high vacuum reaction in bulk and solution, as well as for the polymerisation under Dean-Stark distillation conditions. Although the dimethylcarbonate-based carbamate-compounds proved to be too resistant against enzymatic cleavage, the enzyme-catalysed co-polymerisation of ethylene-based carbamate-blocks with adipic acid and hexane diol eventually led to the synthesis of high molecular mass segmented urethane polymers in excess of 30000 g moi1.
The crystallisation behaviour of both enzyme-catalysed polyesters and polyurethanes has been investigated and the differences in crystallisation for the polyesters have been shown to be caused by the presence of small quantities of residual enzyme. The enzyme appears to act as a nucleating agent for the crystallisation and increases the uniformity of crystallisation and the rate at which a crystalline structure was obtained upon cooling. The thermal properties of the enzyme-catalysed polyurethanes have been determined and compared to conventional polymers. Although the molecular mass of the enzyme-catalysed urethane polymers are comparable to those obtained via the conventional route, it has not been possible to reproduce their physical p rope rties.
The use of high pressure CO2 to eliminate the need of a solvent in the synthesis of a urethane polymer was studied. The use of a pressure of 4.5 bar 002 has been shown to enhance the reaction rate for this reaction procedure. GPC analysis confirmed that polyurethanes with a molecular mass of approximately 53000 g moi1 were synthesised in 200 minutes, whereas the same reaction under atmospheric conditions required a longer reaction time (260 minutes) before the same molecular mass polyurethane was obtained.