The Coalition has proposed to cut the size of the Commonwealth public service workforce by 12,000 over the next two years. There has been considerable debate in Canberra, which employs more Commonwealth public servants than any other city, about the likely impact of such a contraction on the local economy. In addition to the direct effect of a reduction in the size of the public service it is also important to consider the indirect effects of such employment reductions. That is, when jobs are lost in one industry in a local economy the reduction in demand has 'spill over' or 'multiplier' effects on other industries. It was with these effects in mind that the ACTU recently estimated that, in addition to the 12,000 direct jobs that the Coalition planned to remove from the public service there would be an additional 18,000 jobs lost through this multiplier effect. The ACTU justified the claim that all 30,000 jobs would be lost in the ACT on the basis that the Coalition had ruled out cuts to 'front line' service delivery workers . In responding to this claim, the Liberal Senator for the ACT Gary Humphries claimed that the estimated reduction in Canberra's employment of 30,000 was exaggerated. His critique was based on the claim that only around one third of Commonwealth employment was based in Canberra . By that logic, the job losses in Canberra would be around 10,000 with the other 20,000 job losses spread across the country. Senator Humphries view appears, however, to contradict the view of Tony Abbot who has stated that 'front line service positions would be exempt'. While it is unclear whether or not the Coalition's plan to cut 12,000 jobs will be concentrated entirely in Canberra or spread across the country it is clear that the direct and indirect job losses associated with the proposed policy will have significant regional effects. This paper provides estimates of the likely job losses in other regions if, as suggested by Senator Humphries, the Coalition plans to spread the public sector cuts around the country rather than confine them to the ACT. Image: ajft / flickr


In the poster we summarize the main results of the research on the EU news media landscape. It looked for similarities and differences in the coverage of European affairs across 7 different countries and 14 different national media outlets in 4 periods in 2014 and 2015. Three questions have been crucial: 1. Do national media show interest in European Affairs? 2. How and on which issues do they talk about European Union? 3. How and on which issues do they talk about European Union? Media coverage of European issues tends to be cyclical and to peak during events that national journalism sees as characterized by a specific European dimension. The debate on refugee and, more in general, the so- called "migration crisis" or "refugee crisis" is the most prevalent and spatially universal theme dominating the samples collected from 2015. Youth are only rarely mentioned in connection with European affairs, and their presence is associated only to a limited variety of issues, like education and unemployment. Thus even when rarely evoked as voters, they are considered "bad voters", under the influence of extreme populism. Youth-oriented media such as the hybrid journalism of VICE (examined in six of its national-language websites), together with the television and radio programs selected by each national team, provide a very different picture of young people: (a) an unrecognized collective force, especially in relation to new technologies and innovation, entrepreneurship and start-ups; (b) growing disenfranchised from and disillusioned with mainstream politics but interested in other forms of participation (i.e. protest and dissent actions; volunteering); (c) generally interested in environmental and cultural issues and active within these realms, especially oriented towards music, cinema and arts; (d) a global (or rather glocal) community of workers, consumers and travelers that goes beyond the European borders.


Trochus niloticus (Linnaeus) is a tropical marine gastropod that is of significant economic importance among the poorer maritime states of the IndoPacific region. This study was done to: • determine patterns of T. niloticus settlement and movement within a reef system • make observations of predators and their impact on juvenile T. niloticus • develop a novel packaging method to maintain juvenile T. niloticus in good condition during transit. A small reef system in the north of West Australia was divided into six distinct habitats in which a total of 123 T. niloticus, at an overall density ofO.58/m 2, were found over a 12 month period. A substrate in the inner reef, composed of Porites nigrescens and Thalassia hemprichii, was identified as a nursery habitat where 95% of the T. niloticus found (density 0.46/m2) had a shell width 30 mm. T. niloticus were shown to gain a high degree of size refuge from Thalamita crenata and Gonodactylus sp. when they grew to a shell width of 25-30 mm. Observations of predators suggested that the principal benthic predators of juvenile T. niloticus are Morula margariticola, Thalamita crenata and Gonodactylus sp. The principal pelagic predator appeared to be Choerodon cyanotus. Each of these predators has a distinctive method of hunting and breaking open T. niloticus that left a characteristic damage pattern on the shell remnants. The common defence used by T. niloticus was a 'drop response'-when a T. niloticus was touched, it released its grip and dropped into the substrate. When attacked by M. margariticola, however, T. niloticus employed a range of defence measures including flight, passive defence (gripping the substrate firmly and relying on the strength of its shell) and active defence (rapidly spinning its shell in a slashing motion). The survival rate of juvenile T. niloticus after long periods in transit (> 24 hours) was improved by packing them upright on a solid substrate in rigid containers. This study is significant because it has identified a specific habitat for juvenile T. niloticus and linked the choice of that habitat to predator foraging behaviour. Applying this knowledge to future T. niloticus reseeding projects will reduce mortality from predation and ensure that the juvenile T. niloticus are placed in the most advantageous environment for their survival. The use of the packaging method described in this study should also reduce mortality rates suffered as a result of juvenile T. niloticus being in transit for long periods of time.


Over the past decade, it has become apparent that tropical geometry and non-Archimedean geometry should be studied in tandem; each subject has a great deal to say about the other. This volume is a collection of articles dedicated to one or both of these disciplines. Some of the articles are based, at least in part, on the authors' lectures at the 2011 Bellairs Workshop in Number Theory, held from May 6-13, 2011, at the Bellairs Research Institute, Holetown, Barbados. Lecture topics covered in this volume include polyhedral structures on tropical varieties, the structure theory of non-Archimedean curves (algebraic, analytic, tropical, and formal), uniformisation theory for non-Archimedean curves and abelian varieties, and applications to Diophantine geometry. Additional articles selected for inclusion in this volume represent other facets of current research and illuminate connections between tropical geometry, non-Archimedean geometry, toric geometry, algebraic graph theory, and algorithmic aspects of systems of polynomial equations.


Aflatoxin contamination of peanut is a major threat to consumers in West Africa. High levels of aflatoxin have been reported in West and Central Africa, particularly in Niger. Field trials were conducted from 1991 to 1994 at ICRISAT Sahelian Center, Sadore Research Station near Niamey, Niger. Various production practices were compared to examine their effects on water stress and Aspergillus flavus infection and aflatoxin contamination. Different levels of water stress were achieved by varying planting date and frequency of irrigation in two resistant and two susceptible cultivars. Contamination of seed with A. flavus and aflatoxin was determined. The susceptible cultivars 28–206 and JL 24 had much higher levels of seed infection following 3 wk or more of water stress than did the resistant cultivars. Susceptible cultivars showed up to 81% seed infection. Cultivar 28–206 had low levels of contamination when there was low water stress but became very susceptible when the period of water stress increased (3 wk of drought). Seed infection by A. flavus and contamination by aflatoxin were highly correlated across years and cultivars. Although seed infection by A. flavus was very responsive to water stress in the field, aflatoxin contamination did not increase proportionally. This may have been influenced by high soil temperatures in Niger, which may exceed 40 C. Most reports indicate that a minimum of 20 to 30 d of drought is needed for significant aflatoxin contamination, but contamination was observed after 14 d of water stress in this study.


This essay, to be published in the First Amendment Law Review's forthcoming symposium issue on Public Citizens, Public Servants: Free Speech in the Post-Garcetti Workplace, critiques the Supreme Court's decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos as reflecting a distorted understanding of government speech that overstates government's own expressive interests while undermining the public's interest in transparent government. In Garcetti, the Court held that the First Amendment does not protect public employees' speech made "pursuant to their official duties," concluding that a government employer should remain free to exercise "employer control over what the employer itself has commissioned or created." The Court thus created a bright-line rule that essentially defines public employees' speech delivered pursuant to their official duties as the government's own speech for which it paid with a salary - i.e., speech that the government may control free from First Amendment scrutiny regardless of the strength of the public's interest in it or its impact, if any, on the government's efficiency. But in suggesting that any speech pursuant to a public employee's official duties constitutes government speech, the Court ignored the fact that government speech merits insulation from First Amendment scrutiny only because of its instrumental value in enabling the public to identify and evaluate its government's priorities - and to hold the government politically accountable for those choices. Indeed, the government's political accountability to the electorate for its effectiveness is undercut by the carte blanche Garcetti now gives government to discipline workers who truthfully report irregularities and improprieties pursuant to their official duties. Rather than identifying a theoretically principled approach for capturing the value of empowering government to control its own speech, the Garcetti Court instead formalistically imposed a bright-line rule to avoid the often challenging but entirely commonplace task of balancing constitutional interests.


During the past fifteen years, the Internet has swelled into its own virtual world of commentary, opinion, criticism, news, music, videos, gaming, role playing, shopping, banking, finance, and digital commerce. Coupled with the growth of blogs and social networking sites, millions of Americans appear willing to share online their own thoughts and experiences regarding products, services and companies. In response to the public's interest, companies have begun to rely more heavily in recent years on word of mouth marketing, often referred to as "buzz marketing," a technique that attempts to generate conversations among and with current and potential customers. Marketers have discovered that the Internet is an excellent interactive medium to promote goods and services. Some marketers have begun to engage in the flourishing business of "stealth marketing," a method of communicating with potential customers in a way that disguises the originator of the communication. The increase in use of the Internet as a marketing medium gives rise to a conundrum: consumers are bombarded by, skeptical of, and generally ignore overt commercial messages, but consumers are more likely to pay attention to—even seek out—and regard as credible, reviews and opinions by fellow consumers. Marketers therefore hope to convey their advertising messages through consumer comments (endorsements/testimonials). However, if consumers know a marketer sponsors the comments, the comments are less likely to be viewed as credible, and if the marketers do not disclose the sponsorship, they are potentially deceiving the public.


In this essay, Candace Johnson and Mae Quinn respond to Tamar Birckhead's important article The New Peonage, based, in part, on their work and experience representing youth in St. Louis, Missouri. They concur with Professor Birckhead's conclusions about the unfortunate state of affairs in 21st century America - that we use fines, fees, and other prosecution practices to continue to unjustly punish poverty and oppressively regulate racial minorities. Such contemporary processes are far too reminiscent of historic convict leasing and Jim Crow era efforts intended to perpetuate second-class citizenship for persons of color. Johnson and Quinn add to Professor Birckhead's critique by further focusing on the plight of children of color and surfacing nonfinancial sanctions in our juvenile courts that similarly marginalize minority youth. They argue these practices - including shackling, intentional and unintentional shaming, and educational deprivation - also work to reproduce a secondary caste in communities across the country.


The northern Sinai inverted basins exhibit superb outcrop examples of compressional transfer zones and display the control of these zones on syntectonic and post-tectonic sedimentation. Two main types of transfer zones, hard- and soft-linkage transfer zones, were identified at different scales. Hard-linkage transfer zones form inward and outward fault kinks whereas the soft-linkage transfer zones are expressed by plunging anticline–syncline pairs between overlapping positively inverted fault segments. An example of a wrench-related compressional transfer zone is also displayed by a restraining-bend anticline formed within the strike-slip fault system of the Sinai hinge belt. The displayed examples of compressional transfer zones invariably exerted fundamental control on deposition of syn- and post-tectonic sediments, flow directions of drainage systems, locations of sediment entry points, and the intensity of erosion patterns of the structurally high sediment source areas. This study highlights the close relationship between the transfer zones and hydrocarbon accumulations in clastic syntectonic reservoirs in inverted and wrench basins.


ABSTRACT The Flavivirus Zika virus (ZIKV) is the causal agent of neurological disorders like microcephaly in newborns or Guillain-Barre syndrome. Its NS5 protein embeds a methyltransferase (MTase) domain involved in the formation of the viral mRNA cap. We investigated the structural and functional properties of the ZIKV MTase. We show that the ZIKV MTase can methylate RNA cap structures at the N-7 position of the cap, and at the 2′-O position on the ribose of the first nucleotide, yielding a cap-1 structure. In addition, the ZIKV MTase methylates the ribose 2′-O position of internal adenosines of RNA substrates. The crystal structure of the ZIKV MTase determined at a 2.01-Å resolution reveals a crystallographic homodimer. One chain is bound to the methyl donor (S-adenosyl-l-methionine [SAM]) and shows a high structural similarity to the dengue virus (DENV) MTase. The second chain lacks SAM and displays conformational changes in the αX α-helix contributing to the SAM and RNA binding. These conformational modifications reveal a possible molecular mechanism of the enzymatic turnover involving a conserved Ser/Arg motif. In the second chain, the SAM binding site accommodates a sulfate close to a glycerol that could serve as a basis for structure-based drug design. In addition, compounds known to inhibit the DENV MTase show similar inhibition potency on the ZIKV MTase. Altogether these results contribute to a better understanding of the ZIKV MTase, a central player in viral replication and host innate immune response, and lay the basis for the development of potential antiviral drugs. IMPORTANCE The Zika virus (ZIKV) is associated with microcephaly in newborns, and other neurological disorders such as Guillain-Barre syndrome. It is urgent to develop antiviral strategies inhibiting the viral replication. The ZIKV NS5 embeds a methyltransferase involved in the viral mRNA capping process, which is essential for viral replication and control of virus detection by innate immune mechanisms. We demonstrate that the ZIKV methyltransferase methylates the mRNA cap and adenosines located in RNA sequences. The structure of ZIKV methyltransferase shows high structural similarities to the dengue virus methyltransferase, but conformational specificities highlight the role of a conserved Ser/Arg motif, which participates in RNA and SAM recognition during the reaction turnover. In addition, the SAM binding site accommodates a sulfate and a glycerol, offering structural information to initiate structure-based drug design. Altogether, these results contribute to a better understanding of the Flavivirus methyltransferases, which are central players in the virus replication.


Surface roughness and vacuum characteristic of pure titanium plates modified by buffing and electrolytic polishing were investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and thermal desorption spectroscopy. Surface roughness of the titanium plates decreases after polishing and a typical value of the surface roughness (Ra) is 12.9 nm at 10 × 10 μm range by AFM. The magnitudes of ion currents due to outgassing such as H2, H2O, N2 and CO2 from the polished titanium plates are smaller than those from the polished stainless steel plates by a factor of 10. The polished titanium is used to prepare a vacuum chamber with O-ring seals. The chamber is pumped down by a turbo molecular pump and the pressure reaches 1.2 × 10-7 Pa after a 78 h baking at 150°C.


The "first principle of insurance law" is that ambiguities in an insurance policy must be construed in favor of the policyholder. In general, if a policy provision is found to be ambiguous, the policyholder prevails; if the provision is found to be unambiguous, the insurer prevails. The purpose of this monograph is to describe and analyze the role of ambiguity in insurance policy interpretation. It identifies a "broad" version of the rule supported in the majority of courts, and a "narrow" version that is a minority rule. The broad version generally provides that a provision is ambiguous when it is susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation. The narrow version of the rule provides that a provision is ambiguous only if the rules of interpretation cannot resolve the purported ambiguity. In other words, a provision is ambiguous only if the two proffered interpretations are equally likely based on the language of the policy and the applicable circumstances. The monograph argues that the narrow version of the rule is superior to the broad version because it will result in more consistent judgments, is consistent with linguistic practices, and improves the likelihood the policy will be interpreted consistently with the expectations of the policyholder and the insurer.


Political parties always disliked the Progressive Era changes that pulled the entire electorate into nominating candidates. Why, after all, should non-party members participate in the affairs and choices of private organizations? Over the course of a century, Democrats, Republicans, and minor parties repeatedly mounted lawsuits to attack new primary laws, and they eventually prevailed on a key constitutional issue: the First Amendment right of association. But when political actors access the courts for strategic purposes, they can get caught in the vagaries of history and public attitudes, with outcomes they might not like. This essay focuses on the history of Washington State's "direct primary" and "blanket primary" systems, the repeated lawsuits challenging them, and the freedom of association doctrine that propelled the blanket primary's 2004 demise. It then recounts the blowback from Washington voters, who enacted a "top two" primary system that sidelined the political parties by sending the two highest vote-getters to the general election regardless of political affiliation. It asserts that remaining aspects of Washington's election system might violate the state's own constitution, and that things could get worse than ever for the parties, perhaps disrupting precinct officer elections and even the state's presidential primary. How did the political parties wind up at odds with their own voters, with an outcome opposite to what they intended? This essay suggests that the answer lies in a web of conflicts: between litigation and political strategies; between the federal and state constitutions; and between the First Amendment's protections of freedom of association, the late nineteenth century populist constitutional ban on public assistance to private entities, and the early twentieth century progressive goal of forcing private political parties to open their processes to the voting public. It concludes that long-term litigation strategies to address political issues can fail to achieve their objectives when those lawsuits overlook historical policy choices and ignore popular sentiments entrenched in the national and state constitutions.


: This dissertation investigates how ideas of the right relationships among science, the public, and collective decision-making about science and technology come to be envisioned in constructions of public engagement. In particular, it explores how public engagement has come to be constructed in discourse around gene editing to better understand how it holds together with visions for good, democratic governance of those technologies and with what effects. Using a conceptual idiom of the co-production of science and the social order, I investigate the mutual formation of scientific expertise, responsibility, and democracy through constructions of public engagement. I begin by tracing dominant historical narratives of contemporary public engagement as a continuation of public understanding of science's projects of social order for democratic society. I then analyze collections of prominent expert meetings, publications, discussions, and interventions about development, governance, and societal implications human heritable germline gene editing and gene drives that developed in tandem with commitments to public engagement around those technologies. Synthesizing the evidence from across gene editing discourse, I offer a constructive critique of constructions of public engagement as expressions and evidence of scientific responsibility as ultimately reasserting and reinforcing of scientific experts' authority in gene editing decision-making, despite intentions for public engagement to extend decision-making participation and power to the public. Such constructions of public engagement go unrecognized in gene editing discourse and thereby subtly reinforce broader visions of scientific expertise as essential to good governance by underwriting the legitimacy and authority of scientific experts to act on behalf of public interests. I further argue that the reinforcement of scientific expert authority in gene editing discourse through public engagement also centers scientific experts in a sociotechnical imaginary that I call "not for science alone." This sociotechnical imaginary envisions scientific experts as guardians and guarantors of good, democratic governance. I then propose possible alternatives to public engagement alone to improve gene editing governance by orienting discourse around notions of public accountability for potential shared benefits and collective harms of gene editing.


This study examines the contribution of the French artist Jacques le Moyne de Morgues to the development of seventeenth-century Netherlandish flower stilllifes, a heretofore understudied subject. Le Moyne has mostly been discussed as a cartographer and as the official artist for the French expedition to Florida from 1564 to 1565, and his impact on the origin of seventeenth-century Netherlandish flower still lifes has been largely overlooked because he was from abroad and active in England. Le Moyne was a botanical artist who gained his early training in the French manuscript tradition and continued to develop his career as flower painter in a world fascinated with collecting rare and exotic plants. Le Moyne's experiences of collecting and recording plants during the Florida exploration encouraged him to portray botanical specimens as living plants after his return to France. Soon after, his accurately and delicately illustrated floral images were known to seventeenth-century Netherlandish flower artists, including the printmaker Crispijn de Passe the Elder and the painter Jacques de Gheyn. At the core of this study is the conclusion that the collaboration between botanists, artists and publishers was a crucial component in the development of independent flower paintings. Botanists and publishers were at the center of a network of flower collectors, gardeners and artists, focusing on collecting and exchanging rare and exotic plants as well as illustrations of them. In particular, the renowned botanist Carolus Clusius and the publisher Hans Woutneel were important links between Le Moyne and seventeenth-century Netherlandish flower artists, involving a young generation of flower painters with projects that incorporated floral illustrations. In circulating botanical illustrations, Clusius and Woutneel supplied precisely colored drawings by Le Moyne to early Netherlandish flower artists, including Jacques de Gheyn and Crispijn de Passe the Elder, encouraging them to expand on Le Moyne's approach in their own floral images. Clusius engaged Jacques de Gheyn to illustrate flowers and small creatures in the Lugt album containing twenty-two watercolors (1600-1604), and Woutneel encouraged De Passe to base many of the images in his Congnoscite Lilia (c. 1604) on Le Moyne's delicately rendered watercolors.


Based on studies in ancient Greek sources, mainly produced by men, combined with results from fieldwork carried out on contemporary Greek religious festivals, a comparison is made with similar ancient festivals through an analysis of the fertility-cult, which is important in the festivals. This is a useful way to try to consider the female part of society, since women are the central performers of the actual cult that plays an important role within the official male value-system. This is the valuesystem, which the festivals and the society that they reflect, traditionally have been considered from. The absence of the female value-system leaves previous analyses one-sided and incomplete. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis requires the female point of view to be included. Hence, the paper argues for the importance of changing our approach when working with ancient culture. Taking account of the female sphere, which still exists in Greece, provides us with a basis for considering the female part of society. But, by so doing, the official male perspective, which is similar to the Western male perspective generally applied within Greek studies, has to be deconstructed. By arguing for the importance of not using the general male model when presenting Greek women, the article thus tries to deconstruct the male ideologies "from within".


Knowledge graphs provide a powerful representation of entities and the relationships between them, but automatically constructing such graphs from noisy extractions presents numerous challenges. Knowledge graph identification (KGI) is a technique for knowledge graph construction that jointly reasons about entities, attributes and relations in the presence of uncertain inputs and ontological constraints. Although knowledge graph identification shows promise scaling to knowledge graphs built from millions of extractions, increasingly powerful extraction engines may soon require knowledge graphs built from billions of extractions. One tool for scaling is partitioning extractions to allow reasoning to occur in parallel. We explore approaches which leverage ontological information and distributional information in partitioning. We compare these techniques with hash-based approaches, and show that using a richer partitioning model that incorporates the ontology graph and distribution of extractions provides superior results. Our results demonstrate that partitioning can result in order-of-magnitude speedups without reducing model performance.


Organizations live with residual IT security risk since technological controls are imperfect. This underlines the importance of cyber insurance in the management of IT security risk. Despite the obvious advantages, cyber insurance instruments are scarcely utilized in practice. Extant research mostly considers the economic aspects of the rational purchase of cyber insurance. In contrast, we take an organizational perspective and attempt to isolate the paradigms, contexts and constituent forces that shape the organizational decision making process towards utilization of cyber insurance. Prescriptive and descriptive decisional models are analyzed, organizational decision constituencies are explained and domain specific contexts are included before we propose an integrated decision framework for organizational utilization of cyber insurance.


Biotic gas generation from the degradation of organic carbon in marine sediments supplies and maintains gas hydrates throughout the world's oceans. In nascent, ultraslow-spreading ocean basins, methane generation can also be abiotic, occurring during the high-temperature (>200 °C) serpentinization of ultramafic rocks. Here, we report on the evolution of a growing Arctic gas- and gas hydrate–charged sediment drift on oceanic crust in eastern Fram Strait, a tectonically controlled, deep-water gateway between the subpolar North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. Ultraslow-spreading ridges between northwest Svalbard and northeast Greenland permit the sustained interaction of a mid-ocean ridge transform fault and developing sediment drift, on both young ( 10 Ma) oceanic crust, since the late Miocene. Geophysical data image the gas-charged drift and crustal structure and constrain the timing of a major 30 km lateral displacement of the drift across the Molloy transform fault. We describe the buildup of a 2 m.y., long-lived gas hydrate– and free gas–charged drift system on young oceanic crust that may be fed and maintained by a dominantly abiotic methane source. Ultraslow-spreading, sedimented ridge flanks represent a previously unrecognized carbon reservoir for abiotic methane that could supply and maintain deep-water methane hydrate systems throughout the Arctic.


String diagrams are a powerful tool for reasoning about physical processes, logic circuits, tensor networks, and many other compositional structures. Dixon, Duncan and Kissinger introduced string graphs, which are a combinatoric representations of string diagrams, amenable to automated reasoning about diagrammatic theories via graph rewrite systems. In this extended abstract, we show how the power of such rewrite systems can be greatly extended by introducing pattern graphs, which provide a means of expressing infinite families of rewrite rules where certain marked subgraphs, called !-boxes ("bang boxes"), on both sides of a rule can be copied any number of times or removed. After reviewing the string graph formalism, we show how string graphs can be extended to pattern graphs and how pattern graphs and pattern rewrite rules can be instantiated to concrete string graphs and rewrite rules. We then provide examples demonstrating the expressive power of pattern graphs and how they can be applied to study interacting algebraic structures that are central to categorical quantum mechanics.


Tired of filling up your blog with boring posts? Take the next step and get inspired to create something unique. Author Margaret Mason shows you the way with this fun collection of inspirational ideas for your blog. Nobody Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog is a unique idea-book for bloggers seeking fun, creative inspiration. Margaret gives writers the prompts they need to describe, imagine, investigate and generate clever posts. Sample ideas include: Writing a serial novel Conducting unnecessary experiments Creating your autobiography Public eavesdropping And much, much more


Equity is a major policy objective in the Spanish health care system, both at national and regional levels. Partly in consequence, there have been many studies of inequalities in health and health care in Spain. However, given the decentralisation process of health care such research efforts should better be addressed at the appropriate level of policy-making, which in the case of Spain are largely the regions enjoying full competencies such as Catalonia. The objectives of this research were to study the extent to which the health system in Catalonia delivered services according to need criteria and, further, to find patterns of inequality in the utilisation of health care services by types of care. The 1994 Catalan Health Survey (15,000 interviews) has been used to assess whether the goal of equal treatment for equal need has been achieved, taking equal treatment as equal expenditure, and equal need as equal ill-health and self-reported morbidity. Concentration curves, Le Grand and Collins and Klein indices of inequality have been used together with logistic regressions models of the determinants of utilisation. The results suggest that, to a large extent Catalonia has achieved equity in the provision of health care overall. Despite this, different patterns of utilisation of services according to primary care, outpatient care and inpatient care have emerged. Utilisation of primary care is marked, by infants and old age groups, by women, and low income groups and education levels. Out-patient care utilisation is dominated by intermediate age groups, particularly among women, and high income groups and education levels. Finally, inpatient care, representing almost half of the health care budget, has not shown income nor education as significant variables, pointing to medical need as the variable that could best explain utilisation. In all three patterns described it is need, in terms of acute sickness, limiting chronic illness and self-perceived health status. which stand out as significant predictors of utilisation. Among many other issues, this research has disclosed at a regional level of analysis that overall equitable systems may co-exist with inequalities in more specific services and types of care. Policy implications derived from this study aim at better targeting the causes of inequality and to foster the need of continuing research along these and other lines, both better to understand the dimensions of inequalities and to monitor the effectiveness of policy responses.


INTRODUCTION
In 2012, an international expert committee in diabetes wrote in favor of screening adult and paediatric patients for glucose intolerance and type 2 diabetes using glycated haemoglobin. The aim of this study was to evaluate glycated haemoglobin utility as a screening tool in a young obese mainly Caucasian population.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Children [(n = 266), body mass index z-score 3.35 ± 0.59, 90% Caucasian 90%, 55% female, median age 12.3 (range: 8.9 - 17.6) years old] recently referred to a tertiary hospital-based obesity clinic underwent a routine oral glicose tolerance test and glycated haemoglobin measurement.

EXCLUSION CRITERIA
abnormal forms of haemoglobin and conditions linked to increased erythrocyte turnover.

RESULTS
The oral glicose tolerance test diagnosed 13 (4.9%) subjects as prediabetic but none as diabetic. According to glycated haemoglobin, 32 would be prediabetic (29 false positives) and one would be diabetic (when he was only glucose intolerant). On the other hand, 10 prediabetic patients would not have been identified (false negatives). Glycated haemoglobin receiver operator characteristic analysis area under the curve was 0.59 (CI 95% 0.40 - 0.78), confirming its reduced capacity to identify prediabetes. Better results were achieved when calculating receiver operator characteristic analysis area under the curve for fasting glucose (0.76;CI 95% 0.66 - 0.87), homeostasis model assessment for insulin resistance (0.77; CI 95% 0.64 - 0.90) and triglycerides:HDL cholesterol ratio (0.81; CI 95% 0.66 - 0.96).

DISCUSSION
In Paediatric populations, especially when mainly Caucasian, glycated haemoglobin does not seem to be a useful screening tool for prediabetes.

CONCLUSION
For this reason, it would appear premature to advise it as a diagnostic tool until significantly more data is available. Homeostasis model assessment for insulin resistance and triglycerides: HDL cholesterol have higher precision and can be calculated using a fasting blood sample.


Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 remains one of the most horrifying and hotly debated crimes in American history. Just as perplexing as the assassination is the assassin himself; the 24-year-old Oswald's hazy background and motivations--and his subsequent murder at the hands of Jack Ruby--make him an intriguing yet frustratingly enigmatic figure. Because Oswald briefly defected to the Soviet Union, some historians allege he was a Soviet agent. But as Peter Savodnik shows in The Interloper, Oswald's time in the U.S.S.R. reveals a stranger, more chilling story. Oswald ventured to Russia at the age of 19, after a failed stint in the U.S. Marine Corps and a childhood spent shuffling from address to address with his unstable, needy mother. Like many of his generation, Oswald struggled for a sense of belonging in postwar American society, which could be materialistic, atomized, and alienating. The Soviet Union, with its promise of collectivism and camaraderie, seemed to offer an alternative. While traveling in Europe, Oswald slipped across the Soviet border, soon settling in Minsk where he worked at a radio and television factory. But Oswald quickly became just as disillusioned with his adopted country as he had been with the United States. He spoke very little Russian, had difficulty adapting to the culture of his new home, and found few trustworthy friends; indeed most, it became clear, were informing on him to the KGB. After nearly three years, Oswald returned to America feeling utterly defeated and more alone than ever--and as Savodnik shows, he began to look for an outlet for his frustration and rage. Drawing on groundbreaking research, including interviews with Oswald's friends and acquaintances in Russia and the United States, The Interloper brilliantly evokes the shattered psyche not just of Oswald himself, but also of the era he so tragically defined.


As one of the largest and most complex organizations in the world, the Department of Defense (DoD) faces many challenges in solving its well-documented financial and related business operations and system problems. The DoD is in the process of implementing modern multifunction enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to replace many of its outdated legacy systems. This paper explores the ERP implementations of the DoD and seeks to determine the impact of the ERP implementations on the alignment of the DoD's business and IT strategy. A brief overview of the alignment literature and background on ERP are followed by case study analysis of the DoD ERP development and current implementation status. Lastly, the paper explores the current successes and failures of the ERP implementation and the impact on the DoD's goal of strategic alignment.


The IBM RISC System/6000, a superscalar microprocessor, is presented. The architecture of this processor has its instruction set specifically designed for a superscalar machine containing three independent units-branch, fixed-point, and floating-point. The design also emphasizes high-performance floating-point operations. The design principles are to offer maximum overlap of the three functional units, avoid dead cycles, and define instructions that can (for the most part) be completed at a rate of one per cycle. The branch cycle, fixed- and floating-point units, cache management, and performance are described. Benchmark results are given.<<ETX>>


OBJECTIVE
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is known to exert a positive effect in preventing bone loss and a beneficial effect on the disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We evaluated the effects of HRT on bone mineral density (BMD) and on the course of established RA.

METHODS
Eighty-eight postmenopausal women with RA were randomly allocated to receive HRT, vitamin D3, and calcium supplementation or vitamin D3 and calcium supplementation alone for 2 years. The effects of additional HRT on laboratory and clinical measures of disease activity, quality of life, and BMD and on radiographic joint damage were investigated.

RESULTS
Treatment with HRT suppressed signs of inflammation as shown by reduction in erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) (p = 0.025) and an elevation in hemoglobin concentration (p = 0.007), a better clinical outcome assessed by response on the Disease Activity Score 28 (DAS28) (p = 0.036), increased BMD in the forearm, proximal femur and spine (p < 0.01), and retarded (p = 0.026) progression of joint destruction among patients with radiological progressive disease. No significant effect on quality of life was seen.

CONCLUSION
Two years of HRT in women with active RA had significant ameliorating effects on inflammation, DAS28 response, and BMD and was associated with slower progression of radiological joint destruction. The mechanisms by which HRT exerts its effects remain to be elucidated. We suggest HRT can be used in addition to conventional therapy in the management of postmenopausal patients with RA.


Sunflower downy mildew is one of the most important and destructive diseases of this crop in WestA zarbaijan. The disease causes epidemic damages and yield losses at favorite environmental conditions for the pathogen activity. Application of disease resistant cultivars is considered as one of the effective control methods. During the growing season of 2009 in West-Azarbaijan, infected sunflower plants were collected and used as a source of Plasmopara halstedii for inoculation of standard differential lines to identify the variation of pathogenicity. The resistance of seven open-pollinating cultivars and two hybrids of sunflower to the dominant race (race 100) of P. halstedii, was evaluated employing the whole seedling immersion (WSI) method in the greenhouse. In this investigation, nine macroscopic disease symptoms including damping-off, sporulation on cotyledons and leaves, sporulation on leaves, stunting, sporulation on cotyledons, mosaic on leaves, deformation of leaves, lesion on hypocotyls and root reduction on the inoculated plants were considered for disease rating and calculating the disease severity index (D.S.I). The experiment was conducted in three replications for each cultivar. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed and the means were compared using Duncan multiple range test (P = 0.05) in SAS ver. 9.1 (SAS institute Inc., Cary, NC.). According to the analysis of variance (ANOVA) for disease severity index, cultivars and hybrids were classified into five significantly different groups (P< 0.05): resistant, moderately resistant, moderately susceptible, susceptible, and highly susceptible. Cultivars Lakumka and Master were in the same group as resistant cultivars, whereas Record was highly susceptible.


This is an essential read for anyone interested in the way language is used in the world of politics. Based on Aristotle's premise that we are all political animals, able to use language to pursue our own ends, the book uses the theoretical framework of linguistics to explore the ways in which we think and behave politically. Contemporary and high profile case studies of politicians and other speakers are used, including an examination of the dangerous influence of a politician's words on the defendants in the Stephen Lawrence murder trial. International in its perspective, Analysing Political Discourse also considers the changing landscape of political language post-September 11, including the increasing use of religious imagery in the political discourse of, amongst others, George Bush. Written in a lively and engaging style, this book provides an essential introduction to political discourse analysis.


Anchoring is a well-documented behaviour pattern. It occurs when agents form their expectations of an objective variable by only partially adjusting from some given starting value. We present a model of the foreign exchange market in which there are two types of traders: those who are fully rational and those whose expectations are anchored to the forward exchange rate. Under plausible conditions, a significant proportion of the anchored traders survive in the market in the long-run. The model explains both forward discount bias in the direction consistently observed in foreign exchange markets and the results of surveys of market participants' exchange rate expectations.


Nitrogen Use Efficiency of Polymer-Coated Urea Curtis Joel Ransom Department of Plant and Wildlife Sciences, BYU Master of Science Plants require N to complete their life cycle. Without adequate concentration of N, crops will not produce their potential yields. For turfgrass systems, N fertilizer application allows for the maintenance of functional, aesthetic, and recreational properties. However, fertilizer mismanagement is common and leads to N pollution in the environment. Controlled-release and slow-release fertilizers can enhance nitrogen (N)-use efficiency, reduce N pollution, minimize the need for repeated fertilizer applications, and reduce turfgrass shoot growth and associated costs. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of these fertilizers in the Intermountain West, research is needed. The timing of N release was evaluated for seven urea fertilizers: uncoated, sulfur coated (SCU), polymer-sulfur coated (PSCU), and four polymer-coated (PCU) with release timings of 45, 75, 120, and 180 d estimated release. These products were placed on bare soil, a Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) thatch layer, and incorporated into soil. These three placement treatments were replicated to allow for enough samples to be placed in two locations. The first was outside in a field to represent field conditions with diurnal fluctuating temperatures and the second was placed in a storage facility to replicate laboratory conditions with static diurnal temperatures. The PCU prills incorporated into soil under field conditions generally released N over the estimated release period. However, when applied to bare soil or thatch, N from PCU had 80% or greater N release by 35 d after application regardless of expected release time. Fertilizers under laboratory conditions had minimal N release despite having similar average daily temperatures, suggesting that fluctuating temperatures impact N release. The PSCU and SCU treatments were no different from uncoated urea, showing no slow release properties for this particular product. Spring-applied N fertilizer trials were conducted over two years to determine the optimal N rate for Kentucky bluegrass. Similar PCU120 products were applied at 50, 75, and 100% of the recommended full rate, while also being compared to an unfertilized control and urea applied either all at once or split monthly. Spring-applied PCU showed minimal initial N response while urea applied all at once resulted in an initial spike of N uptake. Once PCU began to release N, there was minimal difference for all rates compared to urea split monthly for biomass growth, verdure, and shoot tissue N. Although at the 50% rate, there were a few sampling dates with slower growth and lower verdure. The decrease in verdure at this low rate was slight, and it is recommended that PCU could be applied effectively at a reduced rate between 50 and 75%. Although for better results, additional quick release N is required to compensate for early season lag in N release.


This article highlights a disturbing gap between what is currently known about stress across a range of disciplines and the way stress is treated at law. It does so by focusing on parties who seek relief from harmful contracts, on the grounds that they consented under stress. The article first exposes the leading legal view that stress is merely a subjective feeling and therefore merits no legal recognition. It then provides a pragmatic synthesis of the rich study of stress, in order to counter that misguided legal presumption and to offer a better understanding of the physical, social and psychological dimensions of stress. Exploring both scientifically accepted causes of stress (stressors) and its known outcomes, the article offers a new framing of stress and a set of analytic tools that allow better legal access to the problem. It argues that legal actors can and should use the non-legal scientific understanding of stress to evaluate the arguments of those who claim to have consented to an unwanted contract while under stress. The article concludes that informed evaluation of stress arguments is not only pragmatically necessary, but also conceptually required for any legal system that, like contract law, relies on the power of choice and consent.


Bacterial persisters are rare phenotypic variants that are temporarily tolerant to high concentrations of antibiotics. We have previously discovered that persisters are mostly derived from stationary-phase cells with high redox activities that are maintained by endogenous protein and RNA degradation. This intracellular degradation resulted in self-inflicted damage that transiently repressed the cellular functions targeted by antibiotics. Leveraging this knowledge, we developed an assay integrating a degradable fluorescent protein system and a small library, containing FDA-approved drugs and antibiotics, to detect chemicals that target persister metabolism. We identified several metabolic inhibitors, including anti-psychotic drugs, that can reduce Escherichia coli persistence. These chemical inhibitors also reduce Pseudomonas aeruginosa persistence, potentially verifying the existence of similar mechanisms in a medically relevant organism.


Intervention Strategies to Decrease Discipline Issues in an Urban pre-K-8 Public School by Wendy A. Mason MEd, Walden University, 2005 BA, Kean University, 1979 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education Walden University October 2015 Abstract The educational problem addressed in this study was the lack of empirically grounded evidence of the intervention strategies an urban school in the northeast region of the United States used to decrease school discipline problems. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to identify, explore, and understand the strategies used by school personnel to decrease discipline problems. The conceptual framework was anchored in social learning and communities of practice theories. The research questions focused onThe educational problem addressed in this study was the lack of empirically grounded evidence of the intervention strategies an urban school in the northeast region of the United States used to decrease school discipline problems. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to identify, explore, and understand the strategies used by school personnel to decrease discipline problems. The conceptual framework was anchored in social learning and communities of practice theories. The research questions focused on identifying the types of student discipline problems, the strategies developed and deployed to decrease the discipline problems, and the outcomes of the strategies. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 12 participants: 1 administrator, 10 teachers, and 1 counselor. Archival documents such as incident reports, discipline referral forms, the school's year-end report, and district suspensions reports were also examined for discipline patterns. Data analysis strategies included transcribing interview data, identifying patterns, and data triangulation. Results indicated that disrespect, noncompliant behavior, willful disobedience, fighting, and bullying were major discipline problems at the school. A multiplicity of strategies such as in-school and out-of-school suspension and character education effectively decreased discipline issues. Recommendations include a regular review of prevention strategies to determine which strategies are effective at reducing discipline. Positive social change implications include implementing invention strategies that create safe learning environments for students and staff in which all students can achieve academic success that leads to timely graduation and productive and responsible citizenship in the communities in which students live. Intervention Strategies to Decrease Discipline Issues in an Urban pre-K-8 Public School by Wendy A. Mason MEd, Walden University, 2005 BA, Kean University, 1979 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education


Pesticides are an important farm input both in terms of cost and in terms of their impact on crop yields and quality. With freer trade in agricultural output, differences in cost of production, yield and quality can have a large effect on competitiveness. Thus there is an increased demand by farmers in Canada and the United States for harmonization of pesticide regulations, and in particular for the option to import registered pesticides for their own use. Under NAFTA the three national governments are moving to make pesticide regulation more uniform, but there are still significant differences in regulatory structure and these effectively preclude direct imports by farmers at this time. Moreover, while farmers believe they would as a group benefit from a single market this is unlikely to be the case. Under the current regulatory system pesticide companies have an incentive to practice price discrimination, which results in farmers with the most inelastic demand facing a higher price. In a single market one would expect prices to equalize, but at a price closest to the price prevailing in the larger-volume market. In addition if one market is relatively small it may no longer be profitable to serve it and those farmers could lose access to certain compounds, because there would be no domestic registration. Thus this paper argues that the welfare gains from introducing free trade in pesticides are more complex than have normally been assumed. In particular, regulators in Canada, Mexico and the United States should consider differences in market structure in their efforts to harmonize pesticide regulations.


Nanoscale molecular electronic devices amenable to bottom-up self-assembly into a crossbar structure have emerged as a promising candidate for future electronic systems. To address some of the design challenges in molecular crossbar, we propose "memory-based architecture for reconfigurable computing" (MBARC), where memory, instead of switch-based logic functions, is used as the computing element. MBARC leverages on the fact that regular and periodic structures of molecular crossbar are attractive for a dense memory design. The main idea in MBARC is to partition a logic circuit, store the partitions as multi-input-multi-output lookup tables in a memory array, and then, use a simple CMOS-based scheduler to evaluate the partitions in a topological time-multiplexed manner. Compared to existing reconfigurable nanocomputing models, the proposed memory-based computing has three major advantages: 1) it minimizes the requirement of programmable interconnects (PIs); 2) it minimizes the number of CMOS interfacing elements that are required for level restoration and cascading logic blocks; and 3) it can achieve higher defect tolerance through efficient use of redundancy. Simulation results for a set of ISCAS benchmarks show average improvement of 32% in area, 21% in delay, and 34% in energy per vector compared to the implementation of a nanoscale field-programmable gate array. Effectiveness of the framework is also studied for two large sequential circuits, namely, 2-D discrete cosine transform and eight-tap finite-impulse-response filter.


Aim: Purpose of our research is to study the release of nickel as well as chromium ions from orthodontic wires in patients who are using teeth whitening mouthwashes.Methodology: In vitro, experimental study was carried out on 50 orthodontic wires of same length of SS, and NiTi. The samples were immersed in Oral B and Listerine (20 each) for 1, 6, 24, and 168 h. 10 samples immersed in distilled water served as the control group. Atomic absorption spectroscopy served to compute the number of released ions.Results: Nickel ions were released from both wires at all time-points; the highest amount was in Listerine and the lowest in Oral B mouthwashes. The process of release of chromium from the SS wire was the same as that of nickel. However, the release trend in NiTi wires was not uniform.Conclusion: Listerine caused the highest release of ions. Oral B showed the lowest amount of ion release.


In this paper, a full vehicle active suspension system is considered with the dynamics of the four force actuators. Being a large-scale and complex nonlinear system, it is physically decomposed into five interconnected subsystems. For each subsystem, a local controller is designed. Each control module is decomposed into functional submodules. In a higher level, a global module is designed to supervise all the submodules. In parallel to this hierarchical structure of control, a fault diagnosis structure is constructed. A local diagnosis module is designed for each subsystem to detect and isolate sensor faults. The local modules are monitored by a global module. Simulation is done to illustrate the system control, diagnosis, and fault tolerance.


In this paper, the authors examine levels and trends of labor market outcomes for women in the 1990's using household survey data for 18 Latin American countries covering several years per country. The outcomes analyzed include labor force participation rates, the distribution of employment of women across sectors of the economy (formal versus informal), and earnings. Next, the authors examine the role of schooling in explaining the increase in female labor force participation in LAC countries. All of these findings suggest a fair degree of change in the role of women within households and in the labor market. The authors conclude that the macro economic picture of stagnation for LAC in the 1990s masks non-trivial developments in the division of labor and time allocation by gender.


Over the last decade or so, the number of commercial radio licensees in the country has grown substantially. Just last year in April, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) awarded Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the North West province new commercially licensed radio stations. These newcomers to the commercial radio market hope to provide added choice and variety to their specific audiences.


In 1993, residents of the Lago Agrio region of the Ecuadorian Amazon sued Texaco, Inc. alleging extensive environmental damage and personal injuries caused by Texaco's oil extraction operations there. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the suit on forum non conveniens grounds in favor of the courts of Ecuador, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed in 2002. Meanwhile, Chevron Corp. had acquired Texaco in 2001. After the forum non conveniens dismissal, the Lago Agrio plaintiffs sued Chevron in an Ecuadorian court, which entered a $17.2 billion judgment against Chevron. Since then, the parties have been engaged in an extensive litigation and public relations battle over the enforcement of the judgment, a battle that has reached beyond the United States and Ecuador to countries including Argentina, Brazil and Canada.Although the Chevron-Ecuador case raises many interesting legal issues, this Essay sounds a note of caution about the lessons of the case for transnational litigation. On the one hand, as Part One argues, the case usefully highlights two important transnational litigation trends: the growing multipolarity of transnational litigation and the increasing interaction between the transnational litigation system and other international legal sub-systems. On the other hand, as Part Two argues, the lessons of the Chevron-Ecuador case for law reform are, and should be, limited. Judges, scholars and policymakers may understandably feel pressure to push the law in a particular direction in order to address perceived imperatives that are specific to the Chevron-Ecuador case. But this would risk bypassing the careful evidence-based deliberation needed for sound law reform. The Essay illustrates this risk using examples from the law governing the enforcement of foreign country judgments. The overarching argument is this: Judges, policymakers and scholars should use caution to avoid unduly "Chevronizing" the law of transnational litigation.


We analytically study received waveform asymmetries induced by chromatic dispersion (CD) for signed CD monitoring in differential quadrature phase-shift keying (DQPSK) systems and show that the asymmetries are results of differential detection and the ±π/4 phase shifters used in conventional DQPSK receivers. The theoretical insights developed help explain various published results on signed CD monitoring based on waveform asymmetries and allow us to further propose signed CD monitoring for differential eight phase-shift keying (D8PSK) systems without any modification to the receiver. Simulation results also show that the CD-induced waveform asymmetric features are preserved in presence of self-phase modulation (SPM) and polarization-mode dispersion (PMD).


Abstract This paper examines the structure of scientific collaborations in Berlin as a specific case with a unique history of division and reunification. It aims to identify strategic organizational coalitions in a context with high sectoral diversity. We use publications data with at least one organization located in Berlin from 1996–2017 and their collaborators worldwide. We further investigate four members of the Berlin University Alliance (BUA), as a formerly established coalition in the region, through their self-represented research profiles compared with empirical results. Using a bipartite network modeling framework, we move beyond the uncontested trend towards team science and increasing internationalization. Our results show that BUA members shape the structure of scientific collaborations in the region. However, they are not collaborating cohesively in all fields and there are many smaller scientific actors involved in more internationalized collaborations in the region. Larger divides exist in some fields. Only Medical and Health Sciences have cohesive intraregional collaborations, which signals the success of the regional cooperation established in 2003. We explain possible underlying factors shaping the intraregional groupings and potential implications for regions worldwide. A major methodological contribution of this paper is evaluating the coverage and accuracy of different organization name disambiguation techniques.


Researchers have been hot on the trail of the elusive Denisovans, a type of ancient human known only by their DNA and thought to have lived across Asia. Now, traces of them have turned up in an unexpected place—Spain. In a technical feat, researchers sequenced the oldest human DNA yet, retrieving an almost complete mitochondrial genome from a 300,000- to 400,000-year-old sliver of human bone found in Spain's Atapuerca Mountains. To their surprise, this proto-Neandertal yielded ancestral Denisovan DNA.


Background and Aims: Spinal anesthesia is the preferred technique over general anesthesia in caesarean section. General anesthesia is still used for category-1 emergency caesarean section because of time constraints. We usually follow rapid sequence general anesthesia in obstetrics to avoid aspiration. However, this technique poses several problems. An approach of spinal anesthesia termed as rapid sequence spinal anesthesia has been described. The present study was designed to compare the time intervals (time for anesthesia, time to surgical readiness, incision to delivery time, emergence time) and Apgar score between rapid sequence spinal anesthesia and rapid sequence general anesthesia during category-1 caesarean section and to evaluate whether rapid sequence spinal anesthesia is a better option in category-1 caesarean section. Materials and Methods: In this prospective randomized study, 60 patients of American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status (ASA-PS) I posted for category-1 emergency caesarean section were randomly allocated into two equal groups and received either of the two techniques. Demographic data, respective time intervals, and Apgar scores were noted and compared. Results: The time for anesthesia, surgical readiness, and emergence were significantly longer (P < 0.001) in rapid sequence general anesthesia group as compared to rapid sequence spinal anesthesia group (144.80 ± 3.42 vs 131.20 ± 3.40 s, 178.76 ± 4.09 vs 169.93 ± 3.08 s, 512.13 ± 34.33 vs 222.10 ± 12.80 s). No significant difference was found in incision to delivery time and Apgar scores between the two groups. Conclusion: Because anesthesia to delivery time is shorter in rapid sequence spinal anesthesia, this technique may be equivalent to rapid sequence general anesthesia in category-1 emergency caesarean section.


The overall objective of this study is to examine the welfare impact of the IBMS programme in Pemalang Regency
Central Java, Indonesia. To achieve this objective, supply and
demand models for fish were estimated . The simultaneous
equation model consists of supply,demand,and identity
equations. The Two Stage Least Square (2 SLS) was utilized to
estimate the model using time series quarterly data from 1976.2 to 1990.2. All the key variables in the model were found to be
consistent with postulated behaviour and theoretical
expectations.
All variables specified in the supply model had expected
signs and significant except for the fishing effort and the
probability to catch fish. As expected the supply function was found to be positively related with respect to its own price.
However, its price elasticity in pre-IBMS is greater (0.224)
than in post-IBMS (0.126). This shows that the rate of increase
in fish product ion from additional input is diminishing after IBMS as evidence to the existence of over exploitation of the
resource in the study area.
All of the signs of estimated parameters in the demand
model were consistent with the theory except for the lagged
price of fish variable. Results also showed that all of
coefficient parameters were greater than half of their standard errors except for the intercept and lagged quantity demand at
pre-ISMS. Furthermore, the price of substitute goods and income
were found to be the major determinants of the quantity of fish
demanded. The elasticity of fish demanded with respect to its
own price i s greater (-0.676) at post-ISMS than a t pre-ISMS (-0.295). However, the income elasticity of demand for fish was found to be more elastic before (0.740) than after(0.580) IBMS.
The welfare analysis showed that the IBMS programme was
ineffective. The overall impact showed that welfare loss to the
society was 142.86 percent from the original condition. The
biggest loss (two-third) was incurred by consumer sand the
remainder was incurred by producers.


Marine fish farming is one of Norway's largest industries and exports. The industry is in rapid development and secures employment for several thousand people, all along the Norwegian coastline. Fish farming is regarded as a relative sustainable method for food production. However, the industry is still prone to certain challenges and problems. Escape of fish, for instance, is one of the industry's main challenges and also the emphasis of this thesis. Interactions between escapees and wild populations are unwanted because of potential for interbreeding, competition for food and transfer of disease and pathogens. Financial penalties and damaged reputations are additional downsides related to the escape of fish. This thesis investigates the risk of fish escape from marine fish farms. The Directorate of Fisheries' database on previous escapes is reviewed and literature studies are performed to reveal particular causes and factors associated with the escape of fish. Furthermore, the concept of risk indicators is utilized in order to provide a means for monitoring the risk of escape. The underlying principle is that by measuring the state of risk-influencing factors (RIFs), it is possible to monitor how the relative risk level develops. However, RIFs are not necessarily directly measurable, thus indicators are developed as tools for measuring the state of RIFs. Consequently, risk-mitigating measures can be implemented at the correct time and the correct place in order to prevent or reduce the probability of escapes. It is believed that the database on previous escapes may be utilized to a greater extent in preventing future escapes. This may be achieved by, for instance, making the database available to the public and by considering the possibility of including underlying and organizational aspects with potential influence on escapes. However, through assessment of the current method for data collection on fish escapes, it is revealed that the database is prone to certain limitations and challenges. To cope with these challenges, the thesis suggests potential measures in order to improve the validity and general usefulness of the database. To the author's best knowledge, no previous work exists on the use of risk indicators within marine fish farming. Thus, this thesis relies upon similar works within oil and gas (O&G) to assess the problem. The O&G industry utilizes technical safety barriers to prevent major accidents, e.g. hydrocarbon leaks. These barriers are then candidates for indicator development. However, the only evident technical safety barriers to prevent escapes are the main components of the fish farm itself. This creates a challenge in identifying suitable technical risk indicators. However, organizational and human aspects are more comparable between the industries. In this regard, this thesis proposes a set of indicators and RIFs to monitor the risk of escape from marine fish farms. They are, however, presented without any form of testing, and would benefit from further assessment using field data and expert judgments.


Clustering is the task of grouping a set of examples so that similar examples are grouped into the same cluster while dissimilar examples are in different clusters. The quality of a clustering depends on two problem-dependent factors which are i) the chosen similarity metric and ii) the data representation. Supervised clustering approaches, which exploit labeled partitioned datasets have thus been proposed, for instance to learn a metric optimized to perform clustering. However, most of these approaches assume that the representation of the data is fixed and then learn an appropriate linear transformation. Some deep supervised clustering learning approaches have also been proposed. However, they rely on iterative methods to compute gradients resulting in high algorithmic complexity. In this paper, we propose a deep supervised clustering metric learning method that formulates a novel loss function. We derive a closed-form expression for the gradient that is efficient to compute: the complexity to compute the gradient is linear in the size of the training mini-batch and quadratic in the representation dimensionality. We further reveal how our approach can be seen as learning spectral clustering. Experiments on standard real-world datasets confirm state-of-the-art Recall@K performance.


Hearing loss may be caused by certain viral infections. The hearing loss due to viral infection can be congenital or acquired, bilateral or unilateral. The viral infections typically cause sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL), although conductive or mixed hearing loss can be found. The corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection has deleterious impact on the cochlear hair cells. The hearing loss will not improve even patient recovered from COVID-19 infections. This is probably a neuro-auditory involvement in COVID-19 infections. The current COVID-19 is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2. The audiologic and radiologic investigations are helpful for evaluation of the hearing loss in COVID-19 patients. Hearing loss due to COVID-19 infections is rarely reported in medical literature so far. Hearing loss specifically SNHL is often challenging to the clinicians in this current pandemic. The mechanism for this deleterious effect on the cochlear hair cells requires further research. There is a large gap in the understanding of the etiopathogenesis, epidemiology, and clinical presentations such as hearing loss and human transmission of this disease. There should be a continuous monitoring of the hearing loss and tracing of this COVID-19 infection is needed to ensure the detail understanding of this inner ear pathogenesis. This review article provides an overview of COVID-19 infections and its impact on hearing loss.


When it enacted the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, Congress gave statutory recognition to collectively bargained terms and conditions of employment. In recent decades, the number of cases in which the Supreme Court has interpreted the NLRA has declined, leaving the Act's interpretation and enforcement primarily to the National Labor Relations Board and the federal courts of appeals. In this Article, Professor Brudney presents the results of his study of 1,224 NLRB adjudications and their fate upon federal court review, from 1986 to 1993. Professor Brudney analyzes the reversal and affirmance data, and identifies areas of general Board-court agreement and disagreement regarding how the Act should be construed. In particular, Professor Brudney identifies a cluster of NLRA issues involving the survival of the collective bargaining relationship, over which the Board and courts markedly split. A closer look at recent cases presenting these issues, Professor Brudney argues, reveals recurrent Board-court tensions over the relative importance of stable collective bargaining relationships versus individual employee free choice Professor Brudney contends that by preferring employee free choice to bargaining stability, courts are reflecting the emphasis on individual rights and freedom that pervades contemporary employment law, as well as contemporary law and society in general. He further argues that the federal courts' apparent effort to "update" the sixty-year-old Act to conform to the larger legal landscape is misguided and may bring considerable costs.


The prevalence of obesity, an established risk and progression factor for many cancers, has more than doubled over the past three decades in the US, with ~36% of adults currently obese. The mechanisms underlying the obesity and cancer connection are becoming increasingly clear and reveal several potential targets and strategies for breaking the obesity-cancer link. We have established in multiple genetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs) of mammary, pancreatic and other epithelial cancers that diet-induced obesity (DIO) increases serum levels of bioavailable insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1, induces insulin resistance, and enhances tumor development and progression. In contrast the maintenance of a lean phenotype via a calorie restriction (CR) regimen decreases IGF-1 levels, improves insulin sensitivity, and inhibits cancer development and progression in these same models. Furthermore, biochemical, genetic and pharmacologic studies in GEMMS further suggest components of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway, downstream of insulin and IGF-1 receptors, interact with inflammatory signals and provide important targets for disrupting the obesity-cancer link. Translational studies involving weight loss interventions in obese women at high risk for breast cancer show good concordance between mouse and human serum markers of energy balance-related hormones (including bioavailable IGF-1) and cytokines, as well as tissue mTOR signaling. We conclude from these transdisciplinary findings that several promising molecular targets (such as mTOR) are emerging for offsetting the procancer effects of obesity. Moreover, preclinical studies of several CR-mimetic agents (such as rapamycin, metformin, and several bioactive food components) provide further proof of the principle that mechanism-based approaches to break the obesity-cancer link by targeting mTOR and/or inflammation are plausible. Citation Format: Stephen D. Hursting. Obesity, IGF-1 and cancer prevention: Mechanistic insights from transdisciplinary studies. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; 2014 Sep 27-Oct 1; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Can Prev Res 2015;8(10 Suppl): Abstract nr PL05-01.


Case Description- An eight-year-old Holstein cow with inflammed and abnormal left eyelid was referred to the veterinary clinic of Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman.
Treatment and Outcome- Because of involvement of all structures of the eye, exenteration was done and abnormal tissues sent for histopathologic examination. Microscopic evaluations revealed mononuclear histiocytes filled with lipid in the dermis. Therefore, xanthelasma was diagnosed.
Clinical Relevance- Xanthelasma is a kind of xanthoma of the eyelid which appeared as yellow, raised plaques contain foamy lipid laden macrophages. This tumor-like lesion is reported in human and rarely in dog, cat and birds. Some authors believe that hyperlipoproteinemia is the cause of the disease. This is the first report of occurrence of xanthelasma in cow.


It is proved here that the conjugate Fourier-Stieltjes integral of a finite-valued Borel measure μ on Euclidean k space, k ^ 1, taken with respect to a Calderon-Zygmund kernel in Lip α, 0 < a < 1, is almost everywhere (with respect to Lebesgue measure) Abel summable to the conjugate function of μ taken with respect to the above mentioned kernel. This has been already established for k ^ 3 and for k even.


Soil solution data from the UK Environmental Change Network (ECN) terrestrial sites. Variables measured include pH, conductivity, alkalinity, aluminium, calcium, chloride, ammonium, nitrate nitrogen, phosphate phosphorous, potassium, sulphate sulphur, sodium, total nitrogen and total dissolved phosphorous. These data are collected by suction samplers at all of ECN's terrestrial sites using a standard protocol. They represent continuous fortnightly records from 1992 to 2015. ECN is the UK's long-term environmental monitoring programme. It is a multi-agency programme sponsored by a consortium of fourteen government departments and agencies. These organisations contribute to the programme through funding either site monitoring and/or network co-ordination activities. These organisations are: Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru - Natural Resources Wales, Defence Science & Technology Laboratory, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Environment Agency, Forestry Commission, Llywodraeth Cymru - Welsh Government, Natural England, Natural Environment Research Council, Northern Ireland Environment Agency, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Scottish Government and Scottish Natural Heritage.


True cellulase activity (i.e. degradation of crystalline cellulose) was markedly derepressed when cellobiose-grown cells were transferred to fructose or sorbitol, especially while the cells were adapting over many hours to these carbon sources. On the other hand, the long lag phase on glucose was not accompanied by derepression. Transfer to cellobiose resulted in low cellulase production. Growth on crystalline cellulose derepressed cellulase production. Addition of cellobiose (the preferred carbon source for growth) to cells adapting to fructose caused a rapid burst of growth and cessation of cellulase synthesis. After cells had adapted to growth on fructose or sorbitol, repression set in and, after a number of transfers, growth on these carbon sources yielded cellulase at a level even lower than with cellobiose or glucose. It appears that rapid growth on a soluble sugar such as cellobiose causes carbon source repression which is relieved during slow growth on crystalline cellulose or during the growth lag on fructose or sorbitol. The reason for the lack of cellulase derepression during the growth lag on glucose is unexplained.


The English of northwestern Ireland allows quantifier float of a previously undocumented kind in wh-questions. The quantifier all, though construed with a fronted wh-pronoun, may appear in a position considerably to the right of that pronoun. It is argued that all so stranded marks a position through which a wh-phrase has passed or in which a wh-phrase originates. The construction then provides visible evidence for intermediate derivational stages. This evidence is used to develop a new argument for successive cyclicity and to argue for overt object shift in English and for an origin site for subjects strictly within VP and below the object shift position.


This paper aims to explain why David Hume supported the religious establishment despite his anti-clericalism. First, the Church of England could be regarded as a happy medium between two forms of false religion: superstition and enthusiasm. Second, Hume's concern over "the tyranny of priests" led him to advocate a spiritual establishment bound to secular authority. Hume's Erastianism does not contradict his opinion that civil magistrates should maintain impartiality in religious matters: both views reflect his thoroughly secular attitude towards religious institutions. Despite alleged differences between Hume and Adam Smith, they shared much common ground in their approach to religious institutions.


AIM
To evaluate the effectiveness and the use of Glasgow Coma Score (GCS) and Full Outline of Unresponsiveness (FOUR) score by nurses in the follow-up and evaluation of patients admitted to the neurosurgical intensive care unit for cranial surgery or head trauma.

MATERIAL and METHODS
The study was performed at a neurosurgical intensive care unit. Sample size was determined as 47 patients (a= 0.05, power= 0.95). The correlation coefficient less than 0.5 was accepted as weak. In the first 24 hours, Karnofsky Performance Scale was applied and the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) Score calculated for patients who were admitted to the intensive care unit for cranial surgery or head trauma. Also FOUR and GCS were applied by two different nurses twice a day. Intraclass Correlation Coefficient, Pearson Correlation and Cronbach?s Alpha Security Index analyses were used to evaluate the data.

RESULTS
Concordance was above 0.810 and correlation was above 0.837 between GCS and FOUR score evaluation results of nurses. Correlation of two different evaluation at every shift for GCS was 0.887, and for FOUR was 0.827 and above. Karnofsky Performance Scale correlation with FOUR and GCS scores of patients at admission and discharge from the intensive care unit was 0.709 and above. The correlation between APACHE II and FOUR was 0.851; between APACHE II and GCS 0.853. There was no difference between the evaluations of two scores and two nurses statistically.

CONCLUSION
Concordance between nurses was found high both for GCS and FOUR. The FOUR score is as effective as GCS on the follow-up of patients who are managed in the neurosurgical intensive care units.


Abstract Synthesis of GVL (γ-valerolactone) via hydrogenation of aqueous LA (levulinic acid) with H2 over heterogeneous catalyst (Ru/C) was investigated. In the first part, a study of the influence of various operating conditions was conducted including that of temperature (90–180°C), stirring rate (500–1200 rpm), catalyst loading (0.1–2.0 g), hydrogen pressure (0.4–2.8 MPa) and initial LA concentration (0.5–2 M). In the second part, influence of supercritical CO2 (scCO2) on hydrogenation rate and GVL yield were investigated. Hydrogenation of aqueous LA under scCO2 and under N2 atmosphere was carried out in batch reactor at 150°C and was compared with the case when no additional gases were present. The result indicated that the use of scCO2 had no beneficial effect neither in terms of LA conversion nor hydrogenation rate when the amount of hydrogen was relatively low compared to the stoichiometry. This effect was mitigated when more hydrogen was present.


This unique volume contains, in parallel translation, a thousand of the most frequently performed Lieder, both piano-accompanied and orchestral. Composers are arranged alphabetically, with their songs appearing under poet in chronological order of composition - thus allowing the reader to engage in depth with a particular poet and at the same time to follow the composer's development. Richard Stokes, whose work in this field is already widely acclaimed, provides illuminating short essays on each of the fifty composers' approach to Lieder composition, as well as well as notes on all the poets who inspired the songs. The volume is notable for the accuracy and elegance of its translations, and for its fidelity to the German verse: every care has been taken to print the words of the sung text, while adhering to the versification and punctuation of the original poem. Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann, Goethe, Heine and Schiller are among the highlights of a book which illuminates one of the great musical traditions and will be an indispensable handbook for every music lover.


This case study is one of ten international studies developed by the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements (KRIHS), in association with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), for the cities of Anyang, Medellin, Namyangju, Orlando, Pangyo, Rio de Janeiro, Santander, Singapore, Songdo, and Tel Aviv. At the IDB, the Competitiveness and Innovation Division (CTI), the Fiscal and Municipal Management Division (FMM), and the Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative (ESCI) coordinated the study. This project was part of technical cooperation ME-T1254, financed by the Knowledge Partnership Korean Fund for Technology and Innovation of the Republic of Korea. At KRIHS, the National Infrastructure Research Division coordinated the project and the Global Development Partnership Center provided the funding. The smart city initiative of Singapore originated from Smart Nation Vision established in 2014 which seeks to harness ICT, networks and data as a response to growing urban challenges of the aging population, urban density and energy sustainability. With its legendary infrastructure, technical advancement and the quality of human resources, Singapore's smart services are expected to be highly advanced. So far, the most developed smart services in Singapore is the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) with history of more than 10 years, as well as e-government which has been incubated since the early 80s. Smart Nation Vision includes a broad spectrum including smart transport, security, energy, building, education, health, and many more, and some services have been launched as trials while others are on their planning stage. Singapore provides an interesting unique case of an entire nation being developed with utilization of highly advanced smart systems and a new form of data sharing platform among various agencies that operate in a discrete manner.


The basic plasma physics device TORPEX features some of the main ingredients of the Scrape-Off Layer (SOL) of fusion devices, including gradients of density and magnetic field, as well as magnetic field curvature. A simple magnetized torus configuration (SMT) is produced using a small vertical magnetic field component superimposed to the main toroidal field, resulting in helical open magnetic field lines. A comprehensive study of electrostatic instabilities and turbulence in TORPEX plasmas has been performed in the last years. A new experimental set-up has been recently implemented on the TORPEX device to produce a poloidal magnetic field and a rotational transform. This set-up is based on an in-vessel toroidal copper wire of 1 cm of radius, suspended in the middle of the vacuum vessel of TORPEX by several horizontal and vertical supports. These supports can also be used to position the current carrying wire at different vertical positions up to the top of the chamber to recover the original SMT configuration. The wire is powered by an external power supply providing a maximum current of 1 kA during a flat-top of about 0.5s. A 0.2s dynamics for the ramp-up and the ramp-down phases is given by the power supply temporal response. The current flowing in the toroidal wire generates a poloidal magnetic field that leads to a rotational transform. In the resulting magnetic field lines configuration the characterization of the plasma turbulence and instabilities can be performed on both the core region of closed flux-surfaces and the SOL region of open field lines. A proper value of the vertical magnetic field is used to precisely define the geometry of closed/open field lines, with the vessel walls acting as a limiter. An overview of the new experimental set-up will be presented, together with the background plasma parameters and profile. We will discuss the first measurements of plasma fluctuations in the SOL and their spatio-temporal evolution. The more advanced magnetic configurations that are accessible with this new experimental set-up will also be presented.


Geoffrey Hill's prose has prompted longstanding critical controversy, much of which turns on the perceived difficulty, intransigence and anachronism of his oeuvre as a whole. This paper proposes that new ways to navigate this controversy can be found in Hill's preoccupation with the exemplary dimensions of writing – that is, in his interest in the poet's capacity to offer examples (positive and negative) to a community of readers. The discussion pays particular attention to the connections Hill's reviews establish between style and ethical choice and between literary difficulty and democracy; connections which are intertwined with his ethics of exemplarity in fundamental ways. The paper also engages with those dimensions of literary exemple-use which emerge in new or unusual ways in his prose: his presentation of 'models' or ideals for the organisation of civil society; his treatment of certain literary works as exemplars or embodiments of philosophical ideas; and his procedural tic of 'sampling' regularly for the purpose of chastisement the 'bad example' set by some of the works he criticises.


Salespeople today face a fast-paced and increasingly crowded marketplace where meaningful product differentiation has all but disappeared. To compete successfully, sellers must set themselves apart in the eyes of buyers. Amp Up Your Sales shows anyone how to become the trusted sales professional who consistently wins new business.

 Customers are overloaded with information, overwhelmed by options, and short on time—so the salesperson who is always responsive and completely focused on value, is the one who will stand out from the crowd and get the sale. Combining leading-edge research with field experience, the book shows readers how to:

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Purpose
Whereas the integration of sustainability into business schools has received increasing attention in recent years, the debate continues to be generic rather than recognising the peculiarities of the more quantitative sub disciplines such as accounting and finance which may of course be intimately linked to professional standards. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to examine the extent to which sustainability is integrated into accounting and finance curricula in business schools, how, and to understand some of the challenges of doing so.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents the findings from a systematic form of literature review which draws on the previous literature about how sustainability is embedded into business school curricula and the challenges in doing so. A particular focus is placed on how the ways in which sustainability is integrated into accounting and finance curricula in business schools.

Findings
The paper demonstrates that accounting and finance lags behind other management disciplines in embedding sustainability and that institutional commitment is oftentimes a strong imperative for effective integration of sustainability.

Practical implications
This paper is a call to practitioners and researchers alike to explore new ways of integrating sustainability in the accounting and finance curricula, including working across boundaries to provide learning opportunities for future accountants, financial managers and generalist managers.

Originality/value
The paper offers an original analysis and synthesis of the literature in the context of the accounting and finance curricula in business schools, and proposed a conceptual framework to further develop sustainability education in the context of business schools.


The Organization of African Unity (OAU), the League of Arab States (Arab League), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) were all established as post-colonial projects with the explicit aim to safeguard state borders and shield sovereign governments from external interference. Yet, their approaches to regional interference in domestic affairs have with time taken on different trajectories. This working paper traces the present diversity in regional approaches to negative sanctions against members back to formative events in the early days of regional cooperation. All three organizations had to confront political problems of substantial regional weight at an early stage: the OAU the apartheid regimes in Southern Africa, ASEAN the Vietnam War, and the Arab League the creation of the state of Israel. The analysis demonstrates that the concepts of the region the organizations articulated as they dealt with these problems continue to inform present positions on involvement in domestic affairs.


Many organisations have adopted chargeback systems whereby users are charged for the IT resources which they use. The purpose is to control the costs of information technology. Chargeback systems have recently received a resurgence of interest with the rapid change in IT. Many writers are currently advocating chargeback systems to control the escalating costs. Chargeback systems are expected to increase user awareness of IT costs, and thereby, improve decision-making and effectiveness of Information Technology. Many organisations have never adopted chargeback systems. They have used other management techniques for controlling IT costs. Chargeback systems have been controversial since the earliest computer applications. The current environment has added new issues which have provoked discussion. This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of chargeback systems. The emphasis is on new issues which have arisen due to the changing technological environment. The dimensions which frame the discussion are the evolving empowerment of users, complexity of systems, and the cost structure. Recommendations are made for effectively using chargeback systems alternatives.


One of the most widely used interfaces for the retrieval of information from biological databases is the NCBI Entrez system. Entrez capitalizes on the fact that there are pre‐existing, logical relationships between the individual entries found in numerous public databases. The existence of such natural connections, mostly biological in nature, argued for the development of a method through which all the information about a particular biological entity could be found without having to sequentially visit and query disparate databases. Two basic protocols describe simple, text‐based searches, illustrating the types of information that can be retrieved through the Entrez system. An alternate protocol builds upon the first basic protocol, using additional, built‐in features of the Entrez system, and providing alternative ways to issue the initial query. The support protocol reviews how to save frequently issued queries. Finally, Cn3D, a structure visualization tool, is also discussed. Curr. Protoc. Bioinform. 34:1.3.1‐1.3.25. © 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


The article by Halabchi et al. provides a comprehensive, thoughtful and balanced analysis of the literature on sudden cardiac death (SCD) in young athletes . The article is unique in providing a special perspective for Asia as contrasted with those in Europe and the United States. This aspect is extremely important to recognize for the management of young athletes in different parts of the world. In the United States, the history and physical examination has been the standard of cardiovascular screening for competitive athletes, although several studies have questioned the efficacy of the screening history and physical examination  alone in identifying athletes at risk for cardiovascular adverse events.