This study explores the experiences of female athletes from New Zealand and Australia who migrate temporarily to play cricket in England. It locates the migration network of female cricket within the modern global sport space and challenges the overall perception of what the typical global athlete is today. The game of cricket has long been regarded as the 'gentleman's' game and originated in England as an aristocratic sport, a symbol of wealth and hierarchy among the British elite. It has diffused into many Commonwealth countries and has developed into a game that is played by both sexes. This study is situated within the anthropology of sport and includes aspects of culture, identity, and gender in the globalised world we live in today. It offers a unique perspective because the research is conducted by a migrant female cricketer in the field and combines ethnographic and auto-ethnographic material. Attention to the migration of female athletes has been minimal but research into this area of the sporting world raises a number of broader questions relating to sporting migration, personal/national identity, transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, diaspora, the gender divide in sport and globalisation. This study summarises some of the key literature relating to globalisation, sports migration, identity and gender, applying it anthropologically to the experiences of the migrant female cricketer. The main finding is the movement of female cricketers from country to country is not influenced by the commodification of modern sport; instead the athletes are motivated by social and personal factors, as opposed to the material (monetary) ones that now apparently dominates contemporary sport. Movement reflects a basic migratory network that has developed between New Zealand, Australia and England, influenced by seasonal migration, and the social, cultural and historical connections between the countries. The research offers a contrasting perspective on current sporting migration literature by sharing the experiences of female athletes who migrate for sport and locating the findings within larger analytical concepts.


Kikuchi-Fujimoto disease is a rare disease of unknown etiology and characterized by benign selflimiting cervical lymphadenopathy. It is an extremely rare disease with higher prevalence amongst Japanese and other Asiatic individuals. Its recognition is important because it can be mistaken for immunologic, infective, and even lymphomas, and the patient may be subjected to inappropriate and costly diagnostic workup and treatment. A 21-year-old female presented to the clinic with chief complaint of swelling over the left neck with fever since 10 days. On examination, patient was febrile, and she had multiple small enlarged cervical lymph nodes, that were mildly tender. Other system examination was normal. Her laboratory investigations were normal. FNAC of the cervical lymph node was suggestive of necrotizing lymphadenitis. Patient was started on a course of ciprofloxacin. Her lymph node biopsy confirmed Kikuchi's disease. Immunohistochemistry further confirmed the diagnosis. The patient has been free of symptoms and in remission on followup after six months.


Abstract In June 2007, the United States Supreme Court rendered its most recent decision on the constitutionality of race-based education policies. The Court decided that race-based student assignment policies implemented in two school districts to ensure racially integrated schools violated the United States Constitution. Since the implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the creation of affirmative action policies, the legal and political debate regarding race-based policies has been constant and explosive; there does not seem to be an end in sight. In this first decade of the 21st century, the debate is rooted in age-old legal cases and legislation. The United States' legal history helped to shape current educational policies as well as societal attitudes which consider race in the academic admissions process. This examination of federal race-based legal cases and legislation addressing the period from the mid-1800s through the implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 reveals the courts' role in perpetuating the notion of White privilege and legally endorsing discrimination and segregation in education for more than a hundred years. The examination also demonstrates how legal cases and legislation necessitated race-conscious affirmative action policies. Introduction Once again the United States Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of race-based policies in an educational setting in June 2007 (Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 ,et al.; Crystal D. Meredith, Custodial Parent and Next Friend of Joshua Ryan McDonald v. Jefferson County Board of Education, et al., 2007). It ruled that two school districts' policies of race-based student assignment to schools to ensure racial integration were in violation of the United States Constitution. The Court has been relatively quiet on this issue since the University of Mchigan decisions in Gratz v. Bollinger (2003) and Grutier v. Bollinger (2003). In Gratz (2003), the Supreme Court found that the University of Mchigan's undergraduate freshman admissions policy was not narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling state interest in diversity because underrepresented minorities were automatically assigned points during the admissions process. Therefore, the undergraduate admissions policy was unconstitutional (Gratz v. Bollinger, 2003). On the other hand, in Grutier the Supreme Court held that the University of Mchigan Law School had a compelling state interest in attaining a diverse student body, and the admissions policy's use of race was narrowly tailored to further that interest. The Law School's policy of seeking to enroll a critical mass of minority students did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or Title VI of the Civil Rights Act since it engaged in a highly individualized, holistic review of each applicant's file (Grutier v. Bollinger, 2003). The divergent decisions delivered in these cases made the already divisive topic of race-based affirmative policies even more perplexing and controversial for American citizens and policymakers. The fact that Justice O'Connor, who wrote the Grutter opinion, urged that all race-conscious admissions policies have a logical end point of preferably 25 years or fewer meant that the legal debate would likely live on until race-based policies were eliminated completely (Grutter v. Bollinger, 2003). In addition to the Mchigan legal cases, the debate surrounding race-based policies in education was just as strong in the state legislatures and state executive offices at the conclusion of the 20th century as it was on a federal level. For instance, several states in the union led the anti-affirmative action cause by either completely banning or severely limiting the use of any race-conscious policies. Voters in California, Washington, and Mchigan abolished affirmative action policies through state referenda (California Civil Rights Initiative, Proposition 209, 1996; Mchigan Civil Rights Initiative, Proposition 2, 2007; Washington State Civil Rights Initiative 200, 1998). …


Numerical simulations of complex earthquake cycles are conducted using a model with two patches (asperities) on a fault, where friction obeys a rate‐and‐state‐dependent law. The patches are represented by regions of steady‐state velocity‐weakening friction and are in contact with each other or are separated by a region of steady‐state velocity‐strengthening friction. Simulated earthquake cycles are examined by changing the characteristic slip distance of friction in one patch, while that in the other patch is maintained at a constant. As the characteristic slip distance in a patch increases, the slip at the patch tends to be aseismic and rupture tends to be delayed, as compared to rupture at the other patch, or arrested due to an increase in fracture energy. As a result, the slip pattern changes in a complicated manner with the change of the parameter. A complex multiperiodic or aperiodic slip pattern occurs in the simulation, and this pattern tends to occur near the boundaries between regions of different slip behavior characteristics, such as the boundary between seismic and aseismic slip in the patch with a larger characteristic slip distance. Iteration maps of the recurrence intervals of simulated earthquakes for an aperiodic sequence are sometimes expressed by simple curves, suggesting that the simulated earthquake cycles exhibit deterministic chaos. In the two‐patch models of the present study, an aperiodic slip pattern is observed for narrower parameter ranges than in a model of a two‐degree‐of‐freedom spring‐block system, which is usually regarded as a simplified model of a fault with two patches.

Online Material: Simulated histories of moment release rate and recurrence interval of simulated slip events in the two patches and seismic coupling coefficients.


This paper argues
that there are at least five reasons why the claim that the Bible is to be
taken literally defies logic or otherwise makes no sense, and why literalists
are in no position to claim that they have the only correct view of biblical
teachings. First, many words are imprecise and therefore require
interpretation, especially to fill in gaps between general words and their application
to specific situations. Second, if you are reading an English version of the
Bible you are already dealing with the interpretations of the translator since
the earliest Bibles were written in other languages. Third, biblical rules have
exceptions, and those exceptions are often not explicitly set forth. Fourth,
many of the Bible's stories defy logic and our experiences of the world. Fifth,
there are sometimes two contrary versions of the same event, so if we take one
literally then we cannot take the second one literally. In each of these five
cases, there is no literal reading to be found. Furthermore, this paper sets
forth three additional reasons why such a literalist claim probably should not
be made even if it did not defy logic to make such a claim. These include The Scientific Argument: the Bible
contradicts modern science; The
Historical Argument: the Bible is historically inaccurate; and The Moral Argument: the Bible violates
contemporary moral standards.


Some lymphocytes become highly motile upon immunological stimulation in vivo or in vitro. When introduced into a culture of 3T3 or L cells and followed by live-cell microscopy, some of these lymphocytes were observed to crawl on top of, along the edges of, and preferentially beneath the attached fibroblasts. The crawling could be as rapid as 20 mum/min, easily detectable without a time-lapse device. The striking ability of crawling lymphocytes to penetrate beneath attached 3T3 cells provided a quantitative means to compare the crawling activity of different lymphocyte populations under various conditions. Crawling was diminished by inhibitors of energy metabolism, by agents that disrupt the cytoskeleton, and by absence of Mg(2+) and Ca(2+), but not of Ca(2+) alone. Crawling lymphocytes were virtually absent in normal thymus and spleen cells. They increased greatly in 5-day mixed lymphocyte cultures and in peritoneal exudate lymphocytes taken after mice had been immunized with allogeneic tumor cells. T cells accounted for most of the crawlers. Of two T-cell leukemias tested, R1(+) cells were crawlers whereas EL-4 cells were not. The H-2 haplotype of the 3T3 fibroblasts (i.e., whether syngeneic or allogeneic) had no apparent effect on lymphocyte crawling activity. The crawling may relate to the exploration of cell surface antigens by lymphocytes (immune surveillance), to the mode of action of cytotoxic T cells, to the migration of lymphocytes across blood vessel walls, or to the penetration of lymphocytes into "solid" masses of normal tissue or tumor cells.


Abstract. The metric documentation of architectural complexes requires today the use of several integrated survey methodologies. This need is an answer to the morphology of the object such as dimension, geometry, inaccessible areas and urban context. These properties inhibit the use of single surveying techniques and force the integration of Geomatics tools. In addition, the metric documentation of Cultural heritage objects not always requires uniform accuracy and resolution, therefore the integration of different surveying methodologies and techniques become the only effective solution both from a technical and economic point of view. The integration, that is today adopted as normal strategy, allows also the better understanding of the benefits which can arise to speed up the metric documentation of Cultural Heritage objects and the benefits that each of the possible surveying techniques can have thanks to the integration of the different potentialities. This study starting from an integrated survey, performed whit a combined use of Mobile Mapping System (MMS), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) and show the results of the comparisons between the possible achievable accuracies by using a correct integration between the different used technologies and the ones achievable by using the same techniques as independent tools.The case study is the architectural complex of the Ducal Palace in Gubbio (Italy), located upstream of the most important town square facing the cathedral in a very complex but realistic urban context.


List of abbreviations. Introduction. Part I Statistical Prediction Theory. 1 Statistical prediction. 1.1 Filtering. 1.2 Some examples. 1.3 The prediction model. 1.4 P-sufficient statistics. 1.5 Optimal predictors. 1.6 Efficient predictors. 1.7 Loss functions and empirical predictors. 1.7.1 Loss function. 1.7.2 Location parameters. 1.7.3 Bayesian predictors. 1.7.4 Linear predictors. 1.8 Multidimensional prediction. 2 Asymptotic prediction. 2.1 Introduction. 2.2 The basic problem. 2.3 Parametric prediction for stochastic processes. 2.4 Predicting some common processes. 2.5 Equivalent risks. 2.6 Prediction for small time lags. 2.7 Prediction for large time lags. Part II Inference by Projection. 3 Estimation by adaptive projection. 3.1 Introduction. 3.2 A class of functional parameters. 3.3 Oracle. 3.4 Parametric rate. 3.5 Nonparametric rates. 3.6 Rate in uniform norm. 3.7 Adaptive projection. 3.7.1 Behaviour of truncation index. 3.7.2 Superoptimal rate. 3.7.3 The general case. 3.7.4 Discussion and implementation. 3.8 Adaptive estimation in continuous time. 4 Functional tests of fit. 4.1 Generalized chi-square tests. 4.2 Tests based on linear estimators. 4.2.1 Consistency of the test. 4.2.2 Application. 4.3 Efficiency of functional tests of fit. 4.3.1 Adjacent hypotheses. 4.3.2 Bahadur efficiency. 4.4 Tests based on the uniform norm. 4.5 Extensions. Testing regression. 4.6 Functional tests for stochastic processes. 5 Prediction by projection. 5.1 A class of nonparametric predictors. 5.2 Guilbart spaces. 5.3 Predicting the conditional distribution. 5.4 Predicting the conditional distribution function. Part III Inference by Kernels. 6 Kernel method in discrete time. 6.1 Presentation of the method. 6.2 Kernel estimation in the i.i.d. case. 6.3 Density estimation in the dependent case. 6.3.1 Mean-square error and asymptotic normality. 6.3.2 Almost sure convergence. 6.4 Regression estimation in the dependent case. 6.4.1 Framework and notations. 6.4.2 Pointwise convergence. 6.4.3 Uniform convergence. 6.5 Nonparametric prediction by kernel. 6.5.1 Prediction for a stationary Markov process of order k. 6.5.2 Prediction for general processes. 7 Kernel method in continuous time. 7.1 Optimal and superoptimal rates for density estimation. 7.1.1 The optimal framework. 7.1.2 The superoptimal case. 7.2 From optimal to superoptimal rates. 7.2.1 Intermediate rates. 7.2.2 Classes of processes and examples. 7.2.3 Mean-square convergence. 7.2.4 Almost sure convergence. 7.2.5 An adaptive approach. 7.3 Regression estimation. 7.3.1 Pointwise almost sure convergence. 7.3.2 Uniform almost sure convergence. 7.4 Nonparametric prediction by kernel. 8 Kernel method from sampled data. 8.1 Density estimation. 8.1.1 High rate sampling. 8.1.2 Adequate sampling schemes. 8.2 Regression estimation. 8.3 Numerical studies. Part IV Local Time. 9 The empirical density. 9.1 Introduction. 9.2 Occupation density. 9.3 The empirical density estimator. 9.3.1 Recursivity. 9.3.2 Invariance. 9.4 Empirical density estimator consistency. 9.5 Rates of convergence. 9.6 Approximation of empirical density by common density estimators. Part V Linear Processes in High Dimensions. 10 Functional linear processes. 10.1 Modelling in large dimensions. 10.2 Projection over linearly closed spaces. 10.3 Wold decomposition and linear processes in Hilbert spaces. 10.4 Moving average processes in Hilbert spaces. 10.5 Autoregressive processes in Hilbert spaces. 10.6 Autoregressive processes in Banach spaces. 11 Estimation and prediction of functional linear processes. 11.1 Introduction. 11.2 Estimation of the mean of a functional linear process. 11.3 Estimation of autocovariance operators. 11.3.1 The spaceA S. 11.3.2 Estimation ofA C 0 . 11.3.3 Estimation of the eigenelements ofA C 0 . 11.3.4 Estimation of cross-autocovariance operators. 11.4 Prediction of autoregressive Hilbertian processes. 11.5 Estimation and prediction of ARC processes. 11.5.1 Estimation of autocovariance. 11.5.2 Sampled data. 11.5.3 Estimation ofA p A and prediction. Appendix. A.1 Measure and probability. A.2 Random variables. A.3 Function spaces. A.4 Common function spaces. A.5 Operators on Hilbert spaces. A.6 Functional random variables. A.7 Conditional expectation. A.8 Conditional expectation in function spaces. A.9 Stochastic processes. A.10 Stationary processes and Wold decomposition. A.11 Stochastic integral and diffusion processes. A.12 Markov processes. A.13 Stochastic convergences and limit theorems. A.14 Strongly mixing processes. A.15 Some other mixing coefficients. A.16 Inequalities of exponential type. Bibliography. Index.


Abstract:
From a psychological perspective, human mate choice has been viewed as a problem of identifying the indi- vidual cognitive preferences and decisions that explain empirical results such as similarity in attractiveness between mates and the right-skewed unimodal marriage hazard curves for marriage rates. Agent-based mod- els provide a powerful theoretical tool for investigating this relationship, but until now have not considered the effects of local neighborhoods or mobility on emergent population dynamics. In failing to do so, they have effectively ruled out the population-level complexity inherent in human mate choice. Real people live in physical space, and their interactions are constrained by their location in and mobility among physical neigh- borhoods and social networks. We developed a general model of human mate choice in which agents are localized in space, interact with close neighbors, and tend to range either near or far. At the individual level, our model uses two oft-used but incompletely understood decision rules: one based on preferences for similar partners, the other for maximally attractive partners. We show that space and mobility can interact nonli- nearly with these individual decision rules and nonspatial aspects of the population structure. In particular, local interactions and limited mobility decrease interpair matching and increase mate search time. We also show that it is too easy to fit various model configurations to the scant available data. More data and more specific predictions are required. Human mate choice is a complex system with properties that emerge from space, mobility, and other factors that structure social dynamics.

The model is fully described in:
Smaldino, PE, & Schank, JC (2012). Human mate choice is a complex system. Complexity 17(5), 11-22
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cplx.21382/full


How anatomical, physiological and ecological (life history) features scale with body mass is a fundamental question in biology. There is an ongoing debate in the scientific literature whether allometric scaling follows a universal pattern that can be described in a single model, or diff ers between groups. However, recently some analyses were published demonstrating a change in scaling across the body mass range: brain-size allometry of mammals indicates that scaling follows a curvilinear pattern in double-logarithmic space, and a quadratic pattern in double-logarithmic space was found in one of the largest physiological datasets, on basal metabolic rate (MR) in mammals. Here, we analysed a variety of independent datasets on anatomical, physiological and ecological characteristics in mammals, birds and reptiles to answer the question whether the quadratic scaling is a universal biological law, or a pattern unique to mammals. Th e pattern was present in mammalian basal and field MR, brain size, and reproduction parameters, but neither in other organ allometries in mammals, nor in the scaling of MR in birds and reptiles. However, the curvature was better explained by separate allometric scaling of three different mammalian reproduction strategies: marsupials, and eutherian mammals with one and with many off spring. The two latter strategies are distributed unequally over the body mass range in eutherian mammals. Our fi ndings show that a quadratic model, as well as a traditional allometric model with a universal scaling exponent (such as 0.67 or 0.75), may be inappropriate in mammals as they are a result of different scalings within these three reproductive groups. We propose that the observed distribution pattern is the result of the eutherian mammal clade's uniquely pronounced dichotomy of reproductive strategies.


This study aimed to elucidate cardiovascular loads (CVL) in construction workers during work and leisure by relative heart rate (RHR) over several days. Furthermore, we sought to evaluate the level of CVL in relation to individual factors, work ability, musculoskeletal pain and subjective general health. From a group of 255 construction workers responding to the baseline questionnaire, the CVL during work and leisure time was determined by recording RHR in 42 workers over 3–4 days. Almost 60% of the workday was spent below 20% RHR. The mean RHR during work for all participants was 16% RHR, with large differences between professions. On average, the 42 workers spent 14% of the workday at a RHR above 33%, and four subjects (10%) had a mean RHR above 33% during work. Eight (19%) of the participants had a mean length of their workday exceeding calculated maximal acceptable work time. Seven persons (17%) experienced on average one or more episode(s) of 5 min or more continuously above 33% RHR. The cardiovascular load at work was significantly associated with age and V˙O2max, but not with work ability, musculoskeletal pain or subjective general health.


Allosteric regulation is found across all domains of life, yet we still lack simple, predictive theories that directly link the experimentally tunable parameters of a system to its input-output response. To that end, we present a general theory of allosteric transcriptional regulation using the Monod-Wyman-Changeux model. We rigorously test this model using the ubiquitous simple repression motif in bacteria by first predicting the behavior of strains that span a large range of repressor copy numbers and DNA binding strengths and then constructing and measuring their response. Our model not only accurately captures the induction profiles of these strains but also enables us to derive analytic expressions for key properties such as the dynamic range and [EC50]. Finally, we derive an expression for the free energy of allosteric repressors which enables us to collapse our experimental data onto a single master curve that captures the diverse phenomenology of the induction profiles.


Scientific documents rely on both mathematics and text to communicate ideas. Inspired by the topical correspondence between mathematical equations and word contexts observed in scientific texts, we propose a novel topic model that jointly generates mathematical equations and their surrounding text (TopicEq). Using an extension of the correlated topic model, the context is generated from a mixture of latent topics, and the equation is generated by an RNN that depends on the latent topic activations. To experiment with this model, we create a corpus of 400K equation-context pairs extracted from a range of scientific articles from arXiv, and fit the model using a variational autoencoder approach. Experimental results show that this joint model significantly outperforms existing topic models and equation models for scientific texts. Moreover, we qualitatively show that the model effectively captures the relationship between topics and mathematics, enabling novel applications such as topic-aware equation generation, equation topic inference, and topic-aware alignment of mathematical symbols and words.


Background
In Australia, significant resources have been invested in producing health promotion best practice guidelines, frameworks and tools (herein referred to as health promotion tools) as a strategy to improve Indigenous health promotion programmes. Yet, there has been very little rigorous implementation research about whether or how health promotion tools are implemented. This paper theorizes the complex processes of health promotion tool implementation in Indigenous comprehensive primary healthcare services.

Methods
Data were derived from published and grey literature about the development and the implementation of four Indigenous health promotion tools. Tools were theoretically sampled to account for the key implementation types described in the literature. Data were analysed using the grounded-theory methods of coding and constant comparison with construct a theoretical implementation model.

Results
An Indigenous Health Promotion Tool Implementation Model was developed. Implementation is a social process, whereby researchers, practitioners and community members collectively interacted in creating culturally responsive health promotion to the common purpose of facilitating empowerment. The implementation of health promotion tools was influenced by the presence of change agents; a commitment to reciprocity and organizational governance and resourcing.

Conclusion
The Indigenous Health Promotion Tool Implementation Model assists in explaining how health promotion tools are implemented and the conditions that influence these actions. Rather than simply developing more health promotion tools, our study suggests that continuous investment in developing conditions that support empowering implementation processes are required to maximize the beneficial impacts and effectiveness of health promotion tools.


The formation of a nano-porous structure in amorphous Ge thin film (sputter-deposited on SiO2) during ion irradiation at room temperature with 300 keV Ge+ has been observed. The porous film showed a sponge-like structure substantially different from the columnar structure reported for ion implanted bulk Ge. The voids size and structure resulted to be strongly affected by the material preparation, while the volume expansion turned out to be determined only by the nuclear deposition energy. In SiGe alloys, the swelling occurs only if the Ge concentration is above 90%. These findings rely on peculiar characteristics related to the mechanism of voids nucleation and growth, but they are crucial for future applications of active nanostructured layers such as low cost chemical and biochemical sensing devices or electrodes in batteries.The formation of a nano-porous structure in amorphous Ge thin film (sputter-deposited on SiO2) during ion irradiation at room temperature with 300 keV Ge+ has been observed. The porous film showed a sponge-like structure substantially different from the columnar structure reported for ion implanted bulk Ge. The voids size and structure resulted to be strongly affected by the material preparation, while the volume expansion turned out to be determined only by the nuclear deposition energy. In SiGe alloys, the swelling occurs only if the Ge concentration is above 90%. These findings rely on peculiar characteristics related to the mechanism of voids nucleation and growth, but they are crucial for future applications of active nanostructured layers such as low cost chemical and biochemical sensing devices or electrodes in batteries.


In this paper, I propose a Construction Grammar approach to the count/mass distinction in French. Rather than confine my analysis to NPs, I examine the effects of mass conversion in the broader context of two partially-filled idiomatic constructions: the CCDN construction ( ca c'est de la voiture! 'that's some car') and the CDN construction ( cette voiture, c'est de la bombe! 'that car rocks!'). Both inherit properties from the Copular Subject Predicate construction ( c'est une voiture 'that's a car"), except their nominal predicates undergo count-to-mass conversion. Generally, count-to-mass conversion has a quantitative function: it turns NPs whose referents are numerically quantifiable into an NP whose referents cannot be quantified as separate entities. In the CCDN and the CDN, count-to-mass conversion has a qualitative function: it predicates a quality of the subject by identifying this subject with the prototype of the category denoted by the nominal predicate. I show that the CCDN and the CDN belong to the same constructional network, even if they differ as to the kinds of identification that they realize.


Information and communications technologies are a device set of technological tools and resources used to communicate rural people about to disseminate awareness, create interest and to stimulate enroll intentions of insurance. It has enabled countries to leapfrog traditional modes of service delivery and make manifold improvements in process effectiveness and efficiency. Widespread adoption and application of information communication technology across the different fields of society and the economy is presently considered to be the key factor behind boosting competitiveness and developing an informed society. In general, information communication technology and its tools that people use to share, distribute, information gathering and to communicate with insurance providers, or in groups, through the use of media such as print, visual and interconnected computer networks.


Bakhtin (1990) observed that looking into a mirror can be a ghostly and unsettling experience. In the image before us we see, simultaneously, both the object of the other's view, and that of our own authoring. William James called the image the 'Me' in contradistinction to the 'I'. But as Bakhtin observed, there is an unsettling absence in the mirror experience because the mirror furnishes no context for authorship. Both the mirror experience and the act of authoring are analogous in this sense because in both experiences there is a fundamental multiplicity. In both experiences we employ our capacity for 'distancing' – that is, we take up a second position, or a third-person perspective on the self. But in both circumstances we also need a third position, a context that is provided by the others' view. This third position is conspicuously absent in the mirror experience. From this premise, I argue that questions about the emergence of the dialogical self must address processes of symbolic mediation involving dialogical triads of the original form: I-Me-Other. In psychology, the idea of 'thirdness' has been used in a wide range of triadic models that draw on principles of semiotic mediation, first proposed by C. S. Peirce in the United States, and by Vygotsky and others in Europe. In my talk, links are developed between these principles and the role of 'mediating objects' as third-term semiotic markers for our multiplicity. A distinctive feature of dialogical self theory is that it is spatial in its structural organization - there is no centre as such, but rather a terrain of decentralized 'locations' from which to speak. At the same time, however, our positioning must have continuity in the temporal domain. Hence, the dialogical self can be thought of as organized within a temporal-spatial matrix. Bakhtin called such a matrix the "chronotope" (meaning literally, 'time-space'). Using case material from life histories, the emergence of personal chronotopes in individuals is illustrated. I argue that the personal chronotope is comprised of a temporally organized string or sequence of dialogical triads. Each triad is defined by an I-position, a counter-position, and an ambiguous third as mediator.


In spite of the many advances in modern scientific medicine, plant-based traditional medicine still plays an important role in the health care. The acetogenins of Annonaceae are known by their potent cytotoxic activity. In fact, they are promising candidates as a new future generation of antitumoral drugs to fight against the current chemiotherapic resistant tumors. The present review will describe the source and chemistry of Annonaceousacetogenins, their diverse biological activities and their anticancer mechanism of action with highlighting on their toxicity and previously reported total synthesis


OBJECTIVE
To quantify body weight distribution (BWD) in seated posture with an office chair instrumented with load cells and to evaluate the effects of ergonomic advice and Global Postural Reeducation (GPR) on seated BWD and on musculoskeletal pain.

METHODS
Nineteen healthy females were randomly assigned: nine to the experimental group and 10 to the control group. Control group (CG) received only ergonomic verbal advice (EVA) regarding BWD in a seated position. Experimental group (EG) also received EVA and furthermore attended eight GPR sessions. Difference in the effects of the different therapeutic approaches was investigated using the non-parametric Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test.

RESULTS
After treatments, there was no significant difference between the two groups as regards seated BWD. EG improved musculoskeletal pain significantly more than CG (p<0.005). Instead, musculoskeletal pain frequency decreased (p<0.005) only in EG (after EVA and GPR sessions), in neck, cervical, thoracic, lumbar, shoulders and wrists areas.

CONCLUSIONS
Despite both interventions did not induce any significant improvement on seated BWD, adding GPR to EVA was related to a better reduction on musculoskeletal pain in young health females.


In the past half-decade crowdfunding has emerged as a popular way to raise money online for a wide range of projects. As the reach of crowdfunding has expanded, the field of community development has the potential to benefit from the practice, both as a straight fundraising mechanism and as a way to give greater voice to community members. This paper makes the case that in order for community development crowdfunding to reach its potential scale, and to involve the full range of potential stakeholders, better standards of data reporting and collection need to be established. The authors propose a draft crowdfunding data model to enable community development professionals and the crowdfunding industry to more thoroughly analyze the field, begin to measure the impact of crowdfunding and better understand its potential future pathways.


BACKGROUND
A previous small-sample (N.=150) Rasch analysis of the Swedish modified version of the Postural Assessment Scale for Stroke Patients (SwePASS) suggested problems regarding response categories and redundant items that need confirmation in larger samples with more severe strokes.

AIM
The aim of this study was to evaluate the measurement properties of the SwePASS in patients with acute stroke.

DESIGN
A multicenter, cross-sectional study.

SETTING
Two stroke units in Western Sweden.

POPULATION
The study cohort included 250 consecutive inpatients undergoing rehabilitation after acute stroke.

METHODS
The SwePASS assessments were performed once within the first four days after admission to the stroke units. The data were analyzed according to the Rasch measurement model regarding targeting, model fit, reliability, response category function, local dependence and differential item functioning.

RESULTS
Postural control of 250 patients (median age, 76.5 years) was assessed with the SwePASS within median of two days after admission to the stroke units. The SwePASS covered a continuum of different levels of postural control, but had suboptimal targeting with insufficient representation of lower and higher levels of postural control. The reliability was high, the item fit statistics were generally acceptable and there was no differential item functioning by sex, age and stroke localization. However, response categories did not function as expected for four of the 12 SwePASS items and five items exhibited local dependency.

CONCLUSIONS
The SwePASS exhibited several promising measurement properties. To improve the scale, poor targeting, illogical response categories and local dependency should be addressed.

CLINICAL REHABILITATION IMPACT
The SwePASS provides valuable clinical information regarding postural control in the acute phase after stroke.


Degradation of invariant chain (Ii) is a critical step in major histocompatibility complex class II-restricted antigen presentation. Cathepsin L was found to be necessary for Ii degradation in cortical thymic epithelial cells (cTECs), but not in bone marrow (BM)-derived antigen-presenting cells (APCs). Consequently, positive selection of CD4+ T cells was reduced. Because different cysteine proteinases are responsible for specific Ii degradation steps in cTECs and BM-derived APCs, the proteolytic environment in cells mediating positive and negative selection may be distinct. The identification of a protease involved in class II presentation in a tissue-specific manner suggests a potential means of manipulating CD4+ T cell responsiveness in vivo.


The Royal Statistical Society was founded to address social problems 'through the collection and classification of facts', leading to many developments in the collection of data, the development of methods for analysing them and the development of statistics as a profession. Nearly 200 years later an explosion in computational power has led, in turn, to an explosion in data. We outline the challenges and the actions needed to exploit those data for the public good, and to address the step change in statistical skills and capacity development necessary to enable our vision of a world where data are at the heart of understanding and decision making.


New management techniques such as 'just‐in‐time', 'lean manufacturing' and 'Six Sigma' allow management accountants to shift their focus from the management and control of production processes to the management of strategic issues. This paradigm shift resulted from shorter product life cycles, due to technological advances and a more competitive business environment. Recent revisions to the International Accounting Standards which are particularly supportive of life cycle costing and project management are likely to increase the focus on strategic management accounting further. This article describes developments in management accounting and the recent convergence of financial reporting in terms of International Accounting Standards with strategic management accounting and project management techniques. Strategic management accounting (particularly life cycle costing) involves applying project management techniques and using the calculus of investment to manage the project as a whole. This contrasts with managing only costs and revenues during the manufacturing phase of a project. The article demonstrates that project management techniques and the calculus of investment provide the information needed to account for the value of a project in terms of IAS 38: Intangible Assets. This will ultimately give rise to both improved decision‐making and more relevant financial reporting.


BACKGROUND: Laser treatment for malignant dysphagia is limited by recurrent intraluminal tumour requiring repeated treatment at four to eight week intervals. AIMS: To reduce the need for follow up treatment and to improve survival, patients successfully palliated by laser were treated with intraluminal radiotherapy. PATIENTS: 32 patients with inoperable oesophageal carcinoma (18 adeno and 14 squamous cell carcinoma). METHODS: The patients were initially palliated by a median of three laser treatments. They were then treated with intraluminal radiotherapy, receiving 10-15 Gy at 1 cm from the source as a single treatment with the Selectron system. Patients with squamous cell carcinoma also received external radiotherapy (30 to 50 Gy). RESULTS: After the radiotherapy nine patients survived a median of 22 (range 4-40) weeks without requiring any further endoscopic treatment. The remaining patients survived a median of 40 (range 4-102) weeks and required a median of three follow up endoscopic treatments over that time. Eleven patients developed fibrous strictures with no intraluminal tumour and were treated by dilatation. Twelve patients required dilatation and repeat laser therapy for a combination of fibrous stricture and recurrent intraluminal tumour. Six patients eventually required Atkinson tubes. CONCLUSIONS: The combination of laser treatment with intraluminal radiotherapy provides good palliation and may reduce the need for repeated endoscopic treatment. Fibrous stricture formation is a common complication.


Respectful functions were introduced by Sangiorgi as a compositional tool to
formulate short and clear bisimulation proofs. Usually, the larger the
respectful function, the easier the bisimulation proof. In particular the
largest respectful function, defined as the pointwise union of all respectful
functions, has been shown to be very useful. We here provide an explicit and
constructive characterization of it.


[Review of Teaching English, Language and Literacy - Wyse, D and Jones, R] When David Wray decides to accord to any work the status of "an impressive achievement" (Wyse and Jones 2008: xvi), it bears some serious scrutiny. Written for "all primary education students and their teachers" (Wyse and Jones 2008: xviii), this is the second edition of a book first published in 2001 and its authors can lay claim to some substantial revisions. Having sought to address the National Literacy Strategy in 2001, Dominic Wyse and Russell Jones now offer a critique of the Primary National Strategy Literacy Framework and set that out in a much wider and ambitious context as "an essential guide to the teaching of English" (Wyse and Jones 2008: xviii). I found myself in the interesting position of assessing that claim from a tangential Scottish perspective, hoping to mine some generic gems. With the usual reservations about the inevitable limitations of any such guide, I believe that this book offers a great deal of interest and value, not only to primary teachers but to a wider audience. Without doubt, it has a distinct voice which dissents very audibly from some current practice where that has its roots in reactive policy initiative rather than research evidence.


Mobile sensing technologies present exciting opportunities for healthcare. Wireless sensors can automatically provide sensor data to care providers, dramatically improving their ability to diagnose, monitor, and manage a wide range of medical conditions. Using mobile phones to provide connectivity between sensors and providers is essential to keeping costs low and deployments simple. Unfortunately, software-based attacks against phones, which can have significant consequences for patients, are also on the rise.
 This poster describes a simple, flexible, and novel approach to protecting both the confidentiality and integrity medical sensing and data processing on vulnerable mobile phones, using plug-in smart cards---even a phone compromised by malware. We describe our design, implementation, and initial experimental results using real smart cards and Android smartphones.


Sjöblom et al. (Research Article, 13 October 2006, p. 268) reported nearly 200 novel cancer genes said to have a 90% probability of being involved in colon or breast cancer. However, their analysis raises two statistical concerns. When these concerns are addressed, few genes with significantly elevated mutation rates remain. Although the biological methodology in Sjöblom et al. is sound, more samples are needed to achieve sufficient power.


Background: Intracranial intra-arterial calcifications (ICAC) are a common finding on head CT examinations, but their significance is not known. The aim of this study is to determine if a relationship exists between ICAC on head CT and the presence of a high-grade atherosclerotic stenosis on cerebral angiography. Methods: This was a retrospective study of 108 consecutive patients admitted to the stroke service at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Tex., USA. Each patient had undergone a head CT and catheter-based angiographic study to meet the inclusion criteria. Demographic information was recorded along with CT imaging data in regards to the amount of calcification. Angiographic images were reviewed independently, and a comparison was made to determine if calcification was predictive of finding a high-grade stenosis on angiography. Results: A total of 108 consecutive patients with a mean age of 56 ± 12 years were studied. Of the 540 vessels studied, 65 (12%) were found to have a stenosis of ≥50% on angiography, and 71 (13.1%) were found to have a calcium grade of 3 or 4 on head CT. ICAC appeared to be more common in the anterior circulation compared to the posterior circulation. Patients with grade 3 or 4 calcification of an intracranial vessel on head CT were more likely to have a stenosis of ≥50% on cerebral angiography. Conclusions: The presence of ICAC on head CT appears to correlate with the presence of an underlying intracranial stenosis on angiography. Further study is required to validate these preliminary findings.


The Carnian stratigraphy of the Dogna area (Julian Alps, Northern Italy) has been investigated. Six lithostratigraphic units have been recognized between the Ladinian Sciliar (or Schlern) dolomite and the latest Carnian base of the Dolomia Principale. Facies analysis indicates that the Carnian succession of Dogna has been deposited in a shallow water, carbonate-siliciclastic ramp sedimentary environment. New biostratigraphic data (palynomorphs, and a few ammonoids) allow a correlation with the better known areas of Cave del Predil and Dolomites. This correlation framework highlights striking differences in the evolution of the Carnian carbonate platforms of the Southern Alps.


Does the Elephant Dance? Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy David M. Malone New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, 425 pp. After more than 20 years of major market reforms that followed a foreign exchange crisis in 1991, India's stunning economic growth has enlarged its international profile. But unlike China, India's security challenges and perspectives on foreign policy remain largely unknown to the rest of the world. What kind of great power does India aim to be? The timing is right for Does the Elephant Dance? Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy, a concise treatment of India's growing stature in Asia's geopolitics and in international affairs. This lucidly written tome draws on the personal experience of its author, David M. Malone, until recently Canada's high commissioner to India (2006-08), and his in-depth study of the existing Indian literature. Chapters 1 and 2 are brisk introductions to India's unique civilization and its ancient and modern history. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 assess India's vexing security challenges, its striking economic growth, and its relations with neighboring states, respectively. Those three chapters provide the thematic backdrop for much of the book. Malone fluently identifies key internal and external barriers that will hamper India's striking economic growth: rampant corruption, poor business conditions, law and order problems, communal unrest, religious conflict, and abject poverty. Although the conflict in Kashmir attracts Western headlines, India's most insidious internal threat remains the Naxalite movement, a Maoist insurgency whose violence has spread to almost a quarter of Indian districts. An estimated 30 armed insurgent groups operate in the country's ethnically diverse northeast. Despite India's robust linguistic, ethnic, and religious links with much of the region, its diplomatic relations remain poor with virtually all of its neighbors. Malone cites the tiny landlocked kingdom of Bhutan and the Indian Ocean archipelago of Maldives as the only two examples of India's successful relations with smaller neighbors. Ties between India and Bangladesh remain marred by disputes over terrorist havens and illegal migrants. Nepal is resentful of what it views as excessive Indian interference. India's intelligentsia remains hostile toward Myanmar's military junta, despite India's careful relations with it for the sake of Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state adjacent to Myanmar, which China claims. In Sri Lanka, after nationalism coalesced around a Sinhalese Buddhist identity, India, in the guise of peacekeeping, intervened militarily, becoming embroiled in combat against Tamil separatists, who in 1991 assassinated Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The book comes up short on the question of Pakistan, despite offering a fascinating and impressive survey of New Delhi's dangerous neighborhood. Malone contends that the possibility of a full-scale Indo-Pak war is "less likely" than ever barring the rise to power in Islamabad of a radical group or individual. But perhaps that assessment would have been more compelling had Malone devoted more than six of his 425 pages to the countries. On Indo-Afghan relations, in league with popular opinion, Malone finds that shared history, culture, and the desire to rid the region of undue Pakistani influence bind the countries, with many Afghan elites, including President Hamid Karzai, educated in India. Of course, warm Indo-Afghan relations also complicated Washington's aim of getting Islamabad to cooperate fully after 9/11. Some readers might be surprised that Does the Elephant Dance? leaves out a meaningful treatment of India's growing links with Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Latin America generally. However, the countries Malone discusses are tremendously important. Chapters 6 through 11 survey India's relations beyond the subcontinent: with respect to China, the United States, the Middle East or "West Asia," East and Southeast Asia, Europe and Russia, and the multilateral institutions and processes that have mattered most to New Delhi. …


This paper shows trends in harmonic emission by large groups of modern computers over a 7-year period. The measurements were obtained at computer tournaments where almost exclusively the newest types of computers are used. The measurements clearly show that the harmonic distortion is decreasing significantly while the power consumption per computer does not change significantly.


As key agents of conflict management, political parties should play a critical role in peacebuilding. But despite a widespread consensus on the importance of parties for both political and economic development, international interventions in post-conflict states often have the effect of undermining, rather than promoting, the development of strong parties and stable party systems. While both the scholarly literature and much domestic political practice favour the development of aggregative and nationally focused parties, international post-conflict peacebuilding efforts – particularly cases where the United Nations is involved – often privilege descriptive representation and inclusion over other goals, resulting in fragmented and ethnically based party systems. This neglect of systemic party-building has contributed to extreme political sclerosis in recent high-profile international interventions such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Nepal, amongst others.


This article examines the humanitarian premise on which refugee law rests and finds it tragically inadequate for our time. It observes that contemporary refugee law is primarily human rights law and was designed to relieve victims of defunct regimes. Today, however, the persecutors are existing governments, able to insist on the prerogatives of sovereignty while creating or helping to generate refugee crises, and likely to castigate as politically motivated the human rights claims made against them. Censuring these governments as persecutors often exacerbates a refugee crisis because it diminishes the opportunity to gain their necessary cooperation.This article promotes the more traditional concept of international law (as dealing with inter-state rights and obligations) as a key to the problem of the refugee. Its thesis is that the humanitarian premise of refugee law seriously limits, and even undermines, constructive response to the problem of the refugee, and that the problem becomes more manageable the more it is treated as a problem of relations and obligations among states. This article calls for a new foundation for refugee law built upon the fundamental principle of international law that every state is obligated to respect the territorial integrity and rights of other states. Territorial sovereignty includes both a state's right to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over its own territory and its legal obligation to prevent its subjects from committing acts which violate another state's sovereignty. Mass expulsions clearly run against the principle of territorial sovereignty because of the burden cast on receiving states. This article's new formulation of refugee law is designed to take advantage of the politics of sovereignty and articulates inter-state obligation as the basic foundation for international refugee protection and relief, replacing human rights principles at center stage. The goal is not to eliminate the humanitarian aspect, but to identify mass exodus as a matter of international legal responsibility, not just a violation of human rights ideals that states can denigrate on the basis of national sovereignty. This approach would avoid the moral judgments of humanitarianism and preserve and advance opportunity for negotiated resolution.


The International Center for Aggregates Research (ICAR) Research Report 502 has focused on determining structural considerations of unbound aggregate pavement layers for a proper representation in the new AASHTO Pavement Design Guide 2002. The research team developed models for the resilient and permanent deformation behavior from the results of triaxial tests conducted at the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) and at the University of Illinois. The studies have mainly indicated that the unbound aggregate base (UAB) material should be modeled as nonlinear and cross-anisotropic to account for stress sensitivity and the significant differences between vertical and horizontal moduli and Poisson's ratios. UABs were constructed at the TTI Riverside research facility and tested for response and performance using the one-third scale model of the Texas Mobile Loading Simulator. The resilient responses of the test sections were modeled. The nonlinear cross-anisotropic material models used in the base layer predicted vertical deflections that are close to field deflections in the analyzed TTI pavements. Field validation data were also collected from a full-scale pavement test study conducted at Georgia Tech. The test sections had extensive instrumentation and the pavement response variables, such as stresses, strains, and deformations, were measured in all pavement layers including the UABs. The validation of the anisotropic modeling approach was accomplished by analyzing these test sections using GT-PAVE finite element program, predicting UAB responses, and comparing them to the measured ones. Laboratory testing of the aggregate samples was conducted at the University of Illinois and the characterization models were developed for the stress sensitive, cross-anisotropic aggregate behavior. With nonlinear anisotropic modeling of the UAB, the resilient behavior of pavement test sections was successfully predicted at the same time for a number of response variables. In addition, the stress sensitive, cross-anisotropic representation of the base was shown to greatly reduce the horizontal tension computed in the granular base when compared to a linear isotropic representation.


Study Design. A prospective study on predictive factors for the outcome of 164 patients with adult isthmic spondylolisthesis operated on with fusion. Objective. In view of the need to better select patients for fusion, we investigated the use of the pain drawing (PD) and other potential factors for predicting the outcome of fusion. Summary of Background Data. Results on predictive factors of outcome after spinal fusion have been contradictory and large, well-defined, patient samples with adequate observation times are lacking. Methods. Questionnaires including possible predictive factors and PDs were obtained before surgery. Degree and level of slip were documented. Outcome was quantified by measurement of pain (VAS), Disability Rating Index, the Oswestry Disability Index, and global assessment by the patient into "much better," "better," "unchanged," or "worse." The 2-year follow-up rate was 160 of 164 (98%). Results. In the total sample 49% of patients were much better, 25% better, 14% unchanged, and 12% worse. The following preoperative factors correlated to a worse outcome in the univariate analysis: not working, no regular exercise, female gender, shortness in stature, and a nonorganic PD. The multivariate regression analysis showed that work status was the main determinant of outcome. Gender and exercise had less but significant impact (P = 0.004 and 0.02, respectively). In the multivariate regression analysis the PD was not a significant predictor (P = 0.06). Conclusion. The present study shows that patients working before surgery have a more favorable outcome. Also male gender and regular exercise are indicators of a better outcome after fusion. Female patients not working, not exercising or, if these factors are not known, with nonorganic PDs, should be informed about their suboptimal chances of an excellent outcome after fusion.


The incorporation of a phase change material (PCM) in building integrated photovoltaic (BiPV) façade can be applied to improve its thermal performance including more effective electrical conversion, however their real interaction needs to be investigated at adequate level. The aim of the presented paper is focused on the application of a material with high latent heat capacity based on PCM in the structure of double-skin BiPV façade. The key aspect concerns on an analysis of natural air flow movement affected by the storing/releasing heat energy from the PCM during daytime/night-time of days. The experimental campaign was performed using an experimental outdoor test cell where two full-scale façade samples (reference BiPV and experimental BiPV/PCM) were investigated. The strong effect of thermal inertia of the PCM identified by experimental measurements was observed on the façade air cavity temperature and air flow movement. Experimental results revealed that natural air flow regimes in façade cavities are nearly equal in the daytime, but in the night-time are totally different. The thermal emission from PCM increase the air temperature in the façade cavity and increase the velocity of air flow movement (PCM started solidified), mainly in the night-time.


This study applied multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) to explore the non-linear relationships between suppliers' learning traits and knowledge transfer in international outsourcing alliances. There are five learning traits included in this study: organisational learning intent, employee learning intent, self-learning commitment, manufacturing ability and integrated databases. Through a dataset of 206 suppliers, this study revealed that organisational learning intent, employee learning intent, self-learning commitment and integrated databases have non-linear and positive influences on knowledge transfer, while manufacturing ability has a non-linear and negative influence on knowledge transfer. Therefore, suppliers eager to learn could enhance their performance in knowledge transfer by paying more attention to their learning traits.


Chemical fixation is the slowest and often the most uncontrolled step in the multi-step process of preparing tissue for histopathology. In order to reduce the time from taking a core needle biopsy to making a diagnosis, a new approach is proposed that optically monitors the common formalin fixation process. A low-cost and highly-sensitive laser speckle imaging technique is developed to measure shear wave velocity in a biospecimen as small as 0.5 mm in thickness submerged in millifluidic channels. Shear wave velocity, which is the indicator of tissue mechanical property and induced by piezoelectric-actuation, was monitored using gelatin phantom and chicken breast during fixation, as well as post-fixed liver and colon tissues from human. Fixation levels in terms of shear wave velocity increased by approximately 271.0% and 130.8% in gelatin phantom and chicken breast, respectively, before reaching the plateaus at 10.91 m/s and 7.88 m/s. Within these small specimens, the plateaus levels and times varied with location of measurement, and between gelatin and chicken breast. This optical-based approach demonstrates the feasibility of fine-tuning preanalytical variables, such as fixation time, for a rapid and accurate histopathological evaluation; provides a quality metric during the tissue preparation protocol performed in most pathology labs; and introduces the millifluidic chamber that can be engineered to be a future disposable device that automates biopsy processing and imaging.


The persistence of capital punishment as a constitutional form of punishment in the United States reflects deep denialism about the practice and the role of the courts in regulating it. Denialism allows judges to embrace empirically contested narratives about the death penalty within judicial decisions, to sanction execution methods that shield and distort the pain associated with state killing, and to ignore the documented influence of race on the death penalty's administration. This Article draws upon the concept of denialism from the transitional justice context, a theory that explicates denial in responses to mass human rights violations and collective violence. It describes mechanisms of denial in judicial regulation of capital punishment and argues that conditions will not be ripe for judicial abolition of the death penalty until this denialism is better understood and confronted. I identify potential entry points for exposing and overcoming denialism in Eighth Amendment analysis.


–  We compared gonadosomatic index (GSI) and histological analysis of ovaries for identifying reproductive periods of fishes to determine the validity of using GSI in future studies. Four small-bodied riverine species were examined in our comparison of the two methods. Mean GSI was significantly different between all histological stages for suckermouth minnow and red shiner. Mean GSI was significantly different between most stages for slenderhead darter; whereas stages 3 and 6 were not significantly different, the time period when these stages are present would allow fisheries biologists to distinguish between the two stages. Mean GSI was not significantly different for many histological stages in stonecat. Difficulties in distinguishing between histological stages and GSI associated with stonecat illustrate potential problems obtaining appropriate sample sizes from species that move to alternative habitats to spawn. We suggest that GSI would be a useful tool in identifying mature ovaries in many small-bodied, multiple-spawning fishes. This information could be combined with data from histology during mature periods to pinpoint specific spawning events.


The authors investigate whether parental use of punitive discipline and yielding to coercion varies in levels and associated child outcomes for mothers with different parenting styles. Participants were fourth-grade children (N = 370) and their mothers. Maternal parenting style was determined based on levels of responsiveness and demandingness. Authoritative mothers used less punitive discipline than indifferent mothers. Authoritative and authoritarian mothers engaged in less yielding to coercion than indifferent or indulgent mothers. More punitive discipline and yielding to coercion were associated with lower academic grades and more punitive discipline was associated with more social problems, with these effects not moderated by parenting style. Negative effects of yielding to coercion in terms of internalizing, externalizing, and social problems were observed only within authoritarian families. Greater use of punitive discipline was associated with more externalizing problems within the indulgent and authoritarian parenting style groups and more internalizing problems within the authoritarian group.


Knowledge management is the practice of capturing critical information and making the right information available to the right people at the right time. Such practices are critical for US government agencies that must make ethical and safety-oriented decisions in regulating commercial operations and waste disposal in the nuclear power industry. The development of knowledge management and knowledge transfer practices related to ethical decision making is critical in preventing the loss of skills, experience, routines and capabilities when employees with expertise on the ethical issues of nuclear power regulation leave their respective organisations. This article uses applied research to explore the required measures for developing knowledge transfer-oriented ethical cultures in government organisations. The goal of this research is to develop solutions that can influence the international world of practice in the areas of knowledge transfer and ethical leadership development.


ABSTRACT Table Mountain pine (Pinus pungens) is an Appalachian endemic that requires canopy-opening disturbance such as fire or logging for successful regeneration. The infrequency and typically moderate intensity of Appalachian lightning-ignited fires combined with Table Mountain pine's requirement for canopy disturbance for successful recruitment posed an ecological question: How did Table Mountain pine (TMP) persist in North America for almost 1.5 million years without anthropogenic fires? An early monograph on TMP suggested that the species might have persisted without fire on extremely xeric and sterile rock outcrops. Motivated by this suggestion, in 1976 the first author located a small TMP population on a xeric rock outcrop in western North Carolina where no fires had occurred since 1889. Three longitudinal censuses in 1976, 1986, and 1996 showed that the population had perpetuated itself without fire for more than 100 years. The current study extends this record of self-maintenance an additional 20 years and compares decadal variations in age structure with 120 years of drought records from western North Carolina. An unexpected observation of this 40-year study was a slow invasion of the TMP study site by ericaceous shrubs, a terminal transition that was predicted in a 2010 model of oak-pine-heath succession without fire.


Traffic accidents kill more people than most diseases—and the roads in India are among the most dangerous in the world. CMOS-based vision sensors could help save lives by extending drivers' sight far beyond their mirrors and headlights, enabling them to react more quickly to potential hazards.


Some moral realists draw on the analogy between colours and values in order to claim that 'desirability' is a quality to which agents are sensitive under ideal conditions. The paper sets out objections to Michael Smith's view that moral reasons are response-dependent and that they constitute the kind of reasons which would motivate ideal agents. The agent's response to what appears to him or her morally desirable or morally mandatory is not a response in the same sense that our perception of a colour is a response to a disposition in the object to produce that perception. For a responsible agent appreciates values and reasons in the light of a plurality of moral considerations.


Mormopterus kalinowskii, is an insectivorous species restricted to the Andean western slopes of Peru and Chile, it is rare and has very scarce available information. We evaluated sex ratio, roost use, and relationship between reproductive patterns and monthly seasonal variation throughout a 13-month period. In addition, we performed the first description and characterization of its echolocation calls. The study area was located in the Ite Valley, Tacna department (southwestern Peru) at the northernmost part of the Atacama Desert, one of the driest deserts in the world. Bats were caught using mist-nets. Sex ratio in the population was calculated from all individuals captured, and its difference with regard to a 1:1 ratio was assessed through a Binomial Coefficient Test. Roost use was assessed through observation and inspection of the study area. Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients were calculated to establish the relationship between the number of captures and temperature and precipitation data. Echolocation calls were recorded using a Petterson D240x Ultrasound detector plugged to a digital recorder. Spectrogram displays of recorded calls allowed describing structural patterns within echolocation calls and to measure frequency and time parameters. 79 individuals of M. kalinowskii were captured; 30 males and 49 females. Sex ratio obtained, 1:1.63, evidenced more females in the study area. M. kalinowskii uses crevices as roosts and has a single reproductive cycle per year. Higher capture rates are correlated with temperature (r = 0.526), but not precipitation (r = 0.096). Calls in search phase exhibited long duration pulses and a descending quasi-constant frequency (QCF) component from 39 to 33 kHz, reducing length and increasing bandwidth when attempting to catch prey. The sex ratio, 1:1.63 (≈ 2), suggests that M. kalinowskii is a polygamous species, as occurs in the others molossids, whereas the single annual reproductive cycle shown by M. kalinowskii would indicate a seasonal monoestrous reproductive pattern. Echolocation calls share several traits observed in other molossids; however, the frequency values for M. kalinowskii search phase pulses could be the highest recorded among the molossid bats of the Pacific coastal desert, allowing them to detect smaller prey as a strategy to mitigate food competition among insectivorous bats in arid environments.


Banks rely heavily on information security (IS) by preserving confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information. A key layer for ensuring information security is the employees, who need to be aware of possible information security issues and behave accordingly. Banks introduce information security policies (ISP) to establish required rules for IS behavior and implement information security awareness (ISA) programs, which are systematically planned ISA interventions such as structured campaigns using intranet messages or posters to educate employees and enhance their ISA. According to previous conceptual research, the most cost-effective method to prevent IS incidents is fostering ISA.
The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the role of ISA for promoting employees' ISP compliance. The four stages of this dissertation project focus on organizational efforts such as ISA programs to improve employees' compliant IS behavior and identifying predecessors for explaining employees' ISP compliance based on established scientific theories. A developmental mixed methods approach is conducted through these four stages of analysis. Primary data were collected in each stage to investigate banks operating in countries such as Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Rumania.
In the first research stage, semi-structured expert interviews were conducted with operational risk and IS managers to explore banks' efforts to counteract IS incidents. The considered banks primarily use online methods such as intranet articles and conventional methods such as posters for building ISA. Second, the findings from stage one were incorporated in research stage two, in which a positivistic case study was conducted to test the Theory of Reasoned Action, Neutralization Theory, as well as the Knowledge-Attitude-Behavior model. The data were analyzed by utilizing partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). In addition to several qualitative interviews and an online survey at the headquarters of the case bank, data such as internal ISA materials (e.g., posters or IS intranet messages) were also analyzed. The second research stage provided empirical evidence that ISA program components affect employees' ISA, which further positively affects employees' attitudes and social norms toward compliance with ISPs, but negatively affects the use of neutralization techniques. All of these effects should eventually positively influence IS. This is shown in the chain of subsequent factors. The employees' attitudes and social norms positively affect the intention for compliant IS behavior, which is negatively affected by the use of neutralization techniques. In the third research stage, the influence of employees' perception of ISA programs on the Protection Motivation Theory was examined by conducting an online survey among German bank employees. It is demonstrated that employees' perception of ISA programs positively affects perceived severity as well as their coping mechanisms, which play the most important role in positively affecting the intention for compliant IS behavior. Surprisingly, employees' perception of ISA programs negatively affect perceived vulnerability. Moreover, perceived monitoring has a positive moderation effect on the intention-behavior link. Finally, the fourth research stage consists of a qualitative study to analyze the efforts of IS managers to enhance IS and examine how these efforts are perceived by users. Further, the inductive part of the study uncovers factors that influence the compliant IS behavior of users. Therefore, semi-structured interviews with IS managers were carried out to discover ISA program designs and categorize them according to design recommendations gained from current literature. In addition, this stage shows that individual ISP compliance seems to be connected with individual perceptions centering on IS risks, responsibilities, ISP importance and knowledge, and neutralization behaviors.
To conclude, this dissertation provides several practical as well as theoretical contributions. From an academic perspective, the findings highlight the importance of attitudes, social norms, neutralization techniques, as well as coping mechanisms for employees' intentions to comply with their ISP. Future research might extend the findings by establishing and characterizing IS enhancing social norms and exploring methods of counteracting the common use of neutralization techniques. For practitioners, analysis of the design practices of ISA programs provides a better understanding of effectively using ISA interventions in the context of banks. (author's abstract)


The Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project is the first major opportunity to use a behavioral economics lens to examine programs that serve poor and vulnerable families in the United States. Sponsored by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation of the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and led by MDRC, the project applies behavioral insights to issues related to the operations, implementation, and efficacy of social service programs and policies.This report presents findings from an intervention designed to increase the number of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients in Los Angeles who "reengaged" in the county's welfare-to-work program. Some adults with young children had been exempt from participating in the welfare-to-work program, but this exemption ended in 2013 due to a change in state policy. In late 2013, Los Angeles County began scheduling appointments with formerly exempt parents to bring them into the welfare-to-work program and engage them in program activities. The county made at least four attempts to contact participants and inform them of the new requirements prior to the appointment: sending two notices, 60 days and 30 days before the appointment, and placing two reminder calls, 10 days and 3 days before the appointment. Despite all of this communication, only about half of the participants who received a re-engagement notice between September 2013 and January 2014 attended the scheduled mandatory re-engagement appointment.The BIAS team tested sending additional, behaviorally informed materials to participants one week before the re-engagement appointment. The team designed two different notices that employed behavioral techniques; one highlighted the losses participants might experience by not attending the appointment and the other highlighted the benefits they might gain by attending.Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (1) a program group that received the gain-framed notice; (2) a program group that received the loss-framed notice; or (3) a control group, which did not receive additional materials. The test found that receiving an additional behavioral message increased the percentage of program group members who engaged in the program within 30 days of their scheduled appointment by a statistically significant 3.6 percentage points. This increase was largely driven by the loss notice, which increased engagement at 30 days by 4.4 percentage points, while the gain notice, when compared with the control condition, did not produce a statistically significant impact at 30 days. No impacts were found for either group after 60 and 90 days. The behavioral outreach did not significantly reduce the percentage of participants sanctioned by the program for non-participation after 60 and 90 days.This intervention was added to a fairly intensive campaign to increase engagement among TANF recipients. Given that this was one additional piece of mail on top of at least four other attempts to reach participants and convey the importance of participating, it is notable that it helped participants to engage earlier than they would have otherwise.


This article examines Wei Beihua's modernist works, which have receded into the shadows of Sinophone Malayan (Mahua) literary history, in relation to Indonesian poet Chairil Anwar, to excavate a neglected route of transculturation at the height of Southeast Asia's nationalist movements during the 1950s. Unlike Anwar's modernist poems that thrive in Indonesia, Wei Beihua's works were considered outliers during a period when realist literature was deemed an effective tool for social mobilization in postwar Malaya. Nonetheless, it is critical for us to recognize that Wei Beihua did not reject realism or underestimate the role of literature in nation building. This article argues that Wei Beihua's idea of modernism is premised on an artist's affective and self-reflexive engagement with realism, which gives rise to a dialectical tension. The tension between his advocacy of an artist's individualism, which is inspired by Anwar, and the impetus of responding to nationalism manifests in his meta-fictional short stories that reflect on the varying motivations behind art creation. His works offer a productive perspective to reconsider the modernist artist's role during revolution and "the limits of realism" of revolutionary works when art was deemed integral to nation building in postwar Southeast Asia.


Innovation issues are increasingly highlighted in public policy, including competition policy. Not only is innovation a major factor behind economic growth in society, it is also increasingly shaping market conditions and affecting market participants' behaviour. It therefore in various ways influences the legal analysis of markets and market practices. This dissertation examines the legal standards for the protection of competition in the innovation process in European competition law and American antitrust law. The legal frameworks are evaluated with regard to their underlying economic rationale. At the centre of the study is the innovation market concept. This concept entails the delineation, for purposes of antitrust analysis, of an upstream market for competing R&D. The innovation market analysis and its relationship to other tools for analysing the innovation process are investigated. Questions of market definition, the assessment of innovation competition in defined markets, the role of efficiencies in the appraisal of transactions and possible remedies to alleviate anticompetitive effects are explored. For this purpose a range of case law is reviewed which assesses whether a transaction or unilateral conduct would limit market participants' incentives and abilities for continued innovation and future competition. Such analysis may be conducted at various levels. It may be part of assessing actual and potential competition in relation to existing product or technology markets. When existing markets do not adequately frame the analysis, e.g. where the relevant R&D is expected to result in radical innovation, the innovation market concept itself delimits the relevant market. Sometimes, a more general innovation analysis is conducted, based on a more broadly defined innovation market that is not confined to the development of specific future products or technologies. A variety of competitive effects can be appraised through a properly executed analysis of the competitive conditions in the innovation process. Identifying innovating firms and analysing their R&D-related assets and capabilities, undertaken R&D projects and the effects of entry barriers, may be key to drawing prospective conclusions – whether the primary effect relates to product innovation, variety or price. The constituent elements of a policy for conducting this kind of analysis are presented, summarising the conclusions and recommendations derived from the study. (Less)


This paper presents methods for automatically creating pictorial video summaries that resemble comic books. The relative importance of video segments is computed from their length and novelty. Image and audio analysis is used to automatically detect and emphasize meaningful events. Based on this importance measure, we choose relevant keyframes. Selected keyframes are sized by importance, and then efficiently packed into a pictorial summary. We present a quantitative measure of how well a summary captures the salient events in a video, and show how it can be used to improve our summaries. The result is a compact and visually pleasing summary that captures semantically important events, and is suitable for printing or Web access. Such a summary can be further enhanced by including text captions derived from OCR or other methods. We describe how the automatically generated summaries are used to simplify access to a large collection of videos.


Pioneer battalions were units of the British Army created during the First W orld W ar to operate as both infantry and engineers. This article examines whether the concept of the hybrid engineer/infantry unit was an effective addition to British and dominion divisions, specifically focusing on the Australian Army, which, unlike the British Army, continued pioneer battalions in the Second World War. Despite the valuable additional engineering capability they gave Australian divisions, they seldom operated as combat troops, and thus the concept of pioneer battalions was not effectively employed by Australian commanders. Throughout the war the AIF overused its pioneers as engineers, creating organisational, administrative and command and control problems, while neglecting their combat potential, denying their divisions' additional firepower. This stands in contrast to the British Army, which was able to find a better and more effective balance between the pioneer battalions' two functions.


I NINETEEN NINETY-NINE WAS THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY of the birth of Leo Strauss. It is a pleasure and an obligation for a former student to accept an invitation to reflect in public on the thought of that extraordinary man. I say "obligation" because Strauss, despite or perhaps because of the apparent lucidity of his best-known work, is not at all easy to understand. His friends and admirers are rightly compelled to present his teaching in its deepest and most beautiful form. Like many another charismatic teacher and subtle writer, he has been praised and vilified for what are too often the wrong reasons. One wants to set the record straight. But this is as it happens not a simple task, since Strauss's understanding of the nature of philosophy is aporetic, and there is good reason to suppose that his very formulation of this aporia is itself aporetic. To put this in another way, Strauss articulated a public teaching that was not necessarily in conflict with his private views on philosophy, but which served as an ambiguous surface to still more ambiguous depths. Strauss takes his bearings in part from Nietzsche's analysis of the defects of late modernity, and still more fundamentally, from Heidegger's attempt to return to the origin of western philosophy by a destruction of its history. But Strauss differs sharply with his two teachers on the nature and the destination of that destruction. He defends modern liberalism in a way that is both invigorated and obscured by a rhetoric derived from the ancients (and medievals). At a theoretical level, he seeks to return, not to the archaic Greeks (as Nietzsche does) or to the aboriginal moment just prior to the fateful beginning of the Greek epoch in the history of being (as Heidegger does), but to the pretheoretical dimension of Greek political experience and common sense. The vigor derived from the return to the common roots of political life, undistorted in the texts of Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle by twenty-five hundred years of theoretical construction, is obscured if not in fact diminished by a stubborn theoretical problem. The pretheoretical experience to which Strauss returns is precisely the precondition of the emergence of Greek, and so western European, theory. If we think this through, the following dilemma arises. Either the truth of Greek pretheoretical experience is available in principle at any time, and so a return to the Greeks is superfluous; or else Strauss advocates the historicist thesis that our Greek heksis has predisposed us to search for the origin of philosophy in the pretheoretical understanding of the Greeks themselves. If then we put to one side for the moment all questions of political doctrine and scholarly interpretations, the central fact about the thought of Leo Strauss is his confrontation with Heidegger on the nature of philosophy (a point to which I will return at greater length). For reasons which I have just indicated, Heidegger's "return" is too radical, because it directs us back to a moment that is outside our history, and poses in prophetic terms (the only terms suitable to the enterprise) that we make a different choice, not just a radically different choice but one that can be made only after we have pulled up our roots. I will not comment here upon the content of Heidegger's prophetic vision of "the other way," except to say that it is not as free of western elements as he seems to believe. This to one side, the very attractiveness of the Heideggerian return must rest upon his interpretation of Western philosophy, and thus not only of its origins among the Greeks but its ostensible distortion by Platonism throughout its subsequent history. The first step in assessing the merit of Heidegger's wish to return to the origin is then to consider his interpretation of Platonism. We cannot enter into the trance-like atmosphere of the Beitrage without having worked our way through the Nietzsche lectures, to say nothing of other central texts in the Heideggerian corpus. …


Distributed digital manufacturing offers a solution to medical supply and technology shortages during pandemics. To prepare for the next pandemic, this study reviews the state-of-the-art of open hardware designs needed in a COVID-19-like pandemic. It evaluates the readiness of the top twenty technologies requested by the Government of India. The results show that the majority of the actual medical products have some open source development, however, only 15% of the supporting technologies required to produce them are freely available. The results show there is still considerable research needed to provide open source paths for the development of all the medical hardware needed during pandemics. Five core areas of future research are discussed, which include (i) technical development of a wide-range of open source solutions for all medical supplies and devices, (ii) policies that protect the productivity of laboratories, makerspaces, and fabrication facilities during a pandemic, as well as (iii) streamlining the regulatory process, (iv) developing Good-Samaritan laws to protect makers and designers of open medical hardware, as well as to compel those with knowledge that will save lives to share it, and (v) requiring all citizen-funded research to be released with free and open source licenses.


Because of its impacts on democracy, there is an important debate on whether the recent trends towards greater use of social media increases or decreases (political) polarization. One challenge for understanding this issue is how social media affects the equilibrium prevalence of different types of media content. We address this issue by developing a model of a social media network where there are two types of news content: mass-market (mainstream news) and niche-market (biased or more "extreme" news) and two different types of individuals who have a preference for recommending one or other type of content. We find that social media will amplify the prevalence of mass-market content and may result in it being the only type of content consumed. Further, we find that greater connectivity and homophily in the social media network will concurrently increase the prevalence of the niche market content and polarization. We then study an extension where there are two lobbying agents that can and wish to influence the prevalence of each type of content. We find that the lobbying agent in favor of the niche content will invest more in lobbying activities. We also show that lobbying activity will tend to increase polarization, and that this effect is greatest in settings where polarization would be small absent of lobbying activity. Finally, we allow individuals to choose the degree of homophily amongst their connections and demonstrate that niche-market individuals exhibit greater homophily than the mass-market ones, and contribute more to polarization.


Changes in tree, liana, and understory plant diversity and community composition in five tropical rain forest fragments varying in area (18–2600 ha) and disturbance levels were studied on the Valparai plateau, Western Ghats. Systematic sampling using small quadrats (totaling 4 ha for trees and lianas, 0.16 ha for understory plants) enumerated 312 species in 103 families: 1968 trees (144 species), 2250 lianas (60 species), and 6123 understory plants (108 species). Tree species density, stem density, and basal area were higher in the three larger (> 100 ha) rain forest fragments but were negatively correlated with disturbance scores rather than area per se. Liana species density, stem density, and basal area were higher in moderately disturbed and lower in heavily disturbed fragments than in the three larger fragments. Understory species density was highest in the highly disturbed 18‐ha fragment, due to weedy invasive species occurring with rain forest plants. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling and Mantel tests revealed significant and similar patterns of floristic variation suggesting similar effects of disturbance on community compositional change for the three life‐forms. The five fragments encompassed substantial plant diversity in the regional landscape, harbored at least 70 endemic species (3.21% of the endemic flora of the Western Ghats–Sri Lanka biodiversity hotspot), and supported many endemic and threatened animals. The study indicates the significant conservation value of rain forest fragments in the Western Ghats, signals the need to protect them from further disturbances, and provides useful benchmarks for restoration and monitoring efforts.


Summary: Digital games continue to enable innovative learning in the classroom, however, its implementation into the educational system requires a fundamental approach to achieve its greatest level of effectiveness.

New Pedagogical Approaches in Game Enhanced Learning: Curriculum Integration addresses the major challenges associated with adopting digital games into a standard curriculum. By providing fresh perspectives from current practitioners in the education field, this publication serves as a guide for successfully implementing game learning and provides a valuable reference for educators, professionals, and even parents.


Automotive and light-duty vehicle heat exchangers such as radiators are now predominantly made of aluminum alloys. For over 20 years, a brazing technique known as "controlled atmosphere brazing (CAB) with noncorrosive fluxes" has become the preferred process for producing aluminum automotive heat exchangers for original equipment manufacturers and aftermarket suppliers. Fluoride-based fluxes are typically used in the CAB processes to dissolve the aluminum oxide layer on the surface and inhibit reoxidation during the brazing cycle to allow the clad alloy to flow properly. The flux is generally a mixture of potassium fluoroaluminate, (K3AlF6, K2AlF5, and KAlF4). The flux residue left on the internal surface of heat exchangers after brazing is thought to be insoluble and noncorrosive, hence no removal is necessary. Although external corrosion of brazed aluminum heat exchangers has been studied using salt spray tests, a study addressing the effect of interaction between different antifreeze and flux residues on internal corrosion has not been reported. To the authors' knowledge, few studies on the effect of fluoride in engine coolants on metal corrosion are available. In this paper, laboratory test data are provided to show that flux residue is soluble in commercially available coolants and can generate fluoride ions that enhance cooling system corrosion. Systematic study on the effect of fluoride on metal corrosion in cooling systems and its remedies are also presented and discussed.


Enterovirus 71 (EV71) is a major causative viral agent responsible for large outbreaks of hand,foot and mouth disease (HFMD), a common rash illness in children and infants.There is no effective antiviral treatment for severe EV71 infections and no vaccine is available. The objectives of this study were to design and constructa DNA vaccine against Enterovirus 71 using the viral capsid protein(VP1) gene of EV71 and to verify the functionality of the DNA vaccine in vitro and in vivo.The VP1 gene of EV71 isolate S2/86/1 and isolate 410/4 obtained from Prof.Mary Jane Cardosa,Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) were amplified using PCR and then inserted into a eukaryotic expression vector,pVAX1.The 3.9 kb recombinant constructs were transformed into competent E.coli cells and the positive clones were screened and selected using PCR analysis,restriction digestion analysis and DNA sequencing. The pVAX1 vector that was successfully cloned with the VP1 gene from each of the isolate (S2/86/1 and 410/4) in the correct orientation and in-frame, were designated as pVAX1/VP1-S and pVAX1/VP1-4,respectively.The DNA vaccine constructs with the VP1 gene were shown to be
expressed in a cell-free in vitro expression system. The constructs were then tested for protein expression in Vero cells.The VP1 protein was successfully expressed in
the mammalian cell line and was detected using RT-PCR, Indirect Immunofluorescence Assay (IFA) and western blotting.Subsequently,in the in vivo studies,female Balb/c mice were immunized with the DNA vaccine constructs.Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) was performed to detect the presence of anti-VP1 IgG in mice.The anti-VP1 IgG levels in mice immunized with the DNA vaccine constructs increased after the first booster but declined following
the second booster.The anti-VP1 IgG in the mice immunized with the DNA vaccine constructs exhibited neutralising activity against EV71.The promising results
obtained in the present study have prompted further testing to improve the expression and immunogenicity of this potential EV71 DNA vaccine


AIM
to determine the distribution of PRMT-1 gene polymorphism and ADMA levels among continuing hemodialysis patients.

METHODS
genotyping of PRMT-1 polymorphism was performed in 57 hemodialysis patients at Al Irsjad Hospital. All participants were recruited for physical examination, questionnaire, and collection of 5 mL fasting venous blood. The blood was treated with phenol-chloroform extraction of genomic DNA. The candidate's single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were genotyped by using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). The ADMA plasma levels was determined by ELISA and all biochemical indicators of serum were examined.

RESULTS
fifty-seven hemodialysis patients participated in our study, 54 (95.4%) of them had increased ADMA plasma levels. DNA sequencing analysis of 13 patients showed a suspected PRMT-1 gene polymorphism at sequence 5837 as there were different genotypes between C and G.

CONCLUSION
the increased levels of ADMA might be caused by PRMT-1 gene polymorphism.


This is one of the best-known plays by Africa's major dramatist, Wole Soyinka. It is set in the Yoruba village of Ilunjinle. The main characters are Sidi (the Jewel), 'a true village belle' and Baroka (the Lion), the crafty and powerful Bale of the village, Lakunle, the young teacher, influenced by western ways, and Sadiku, the eldest of Baroka's wives. How the Lion hunts the Jewel is the theme of this ribald comedy.