This book contains a collection of papers that discuss the experience of an Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) capacity building program in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The program was the AusAID-funded Agricultural Research and Development Support Facility (ARDSF), which ran for five years from 2007 to 2012, and which sought to improve the delivery of services by agricultural research organisations to smallholder farmers. AR4D is an emerging mode of agricultural research practice in the international development community. Definitions of this practice are rather fluid, but its key intent is to directly link investments in research with tangible development outcomes. The way to actually do this is still a work in progress — a gap that this book seeks to fill. However, it seems quite clear that AR4D's use of systems perspectives on learning, innovation and change have fundamental implications for the way agricultural research is conducted and the way capacity is built.


Theoretical analysis of the MIMO outage capacity distribution for an uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channel reveals that the Gaussian distribution is a good approximation, especially for large a number of antennas. The question as to whether the measured channel capacity distribution is close to the theoretical one has not been answered yet in a satisfactory way. We address this problem by developing a statistically-rigorous procedure (in terms of hypothesis testing) for the analysis of the mean and outage capacities of MIMO channels (both, theoretical models and measured) with the main goal being to compare the theoretical and measured capacity distribution, especially the validity of Gaussian approximation for the measured outage capacity. As we demonstrate, there is a tight lower bound on the amount of measured data necessary to provide a unique answer with high confidence probability. Additionally, based on the procedure above, we develop guidelines for future measurements and Monte-Carlo simulations in terms of accuracy.


If dark matter stems from the background of a very light gauge boson, this gauge boson could exert forces on test masses in gravitational wave detectors, resulting in displacements with a characteristic frequency set by the gauge boson mass. We outline a novel search strategy for such dark matter, assuming the dark photon is the gauge boson of U(1)_{B} or U(1)_{B-L}. We show that both ground-based and future space-based gravitational wave detectors have the capability to make a 5σ discovery in unexplored parameter regimes.


Abstract. Humic-Like Substances (HULIS) are a major contributor to the organic carbon in atmospheric aerosol. It would be necessary to standardize an analytical method that could be easily and routinely used for HULIS measurements. We present one of the first comparisons of two of the main methods in use to extract HULIS, using I) a weak anion exchanger (DEAE) and II) the combination of two separation steps, one according to polarity (on C18) and the second according to acidity (with a strong anion exchanger SAX). The quantification is performed with a TOC analyzer, complemented by an investigation of the chemical structure of the extracted fractions by UV-Visible spectroscopy. The analytical performances of each method are determined and compared for humic substances standards. These methods are further applied to determine the water extractable HULIS (HULISWS) and the 0.1 M NaOH alkaline extractable HULIS (HULIS T) in atmospheric aerosol collected in an Alpine Valley during winter time. This comparison, although on a limited batch of samples shows that the simpler DEAE isolation procedure leads to higher recoveries and better reproducibility than the C18-SAX procedure, and might therefore be preferable.


Sonification of N-benzyl-N-(methoxymethyl)-N-[(trimethylsilyl)methyl]amine (5a) in the presence of LiF led to the formation of the reactive azomethine ylide 1d, which was intercepted by cyclic thioketones to give spirocyclic 1,3-thiazolidines. In the case of 2,2,4,4-tetramethylcyclobutane-1,3-dithione, the 1:1- and 1:2-cycloadduct, respectively, was formed as the major product depending on the ratio of the starting materials. With 1,3-thiazole-5(4H)-thiones, 1d undergoes stereoselective [2+3]-cycloadditions with the C=S group to yield spirocyclic 1:1-adducts. In the case of the 1,3-dipole generated from N-benzyl-N-(methoxymethyl)-N-[1-(trimethylsilyl)ethyl]amine (5b), the [2+3]-cycloaddition proceeded in a non-regioselective manner leading to a mixture of regio- and diastereoisomers.


Increasing application of DG on distribution networks is the direct impact of development of technology and the energy disasters that the world is encountering. To obtain these goals the resources capacity and the installation place are of a crucial importance. Line loss reduction is one of the major benefits of DG, amongst many others, when incorporated in the power distribution system. The quantum of the line loss reduction should be exactly known to assess the effectiveness of the distributed generation. In this paper, a new method is proposed to find the optimal and simultaneous place and capacity of these DG units to reduce losses, improve voltage profile too the total loss of a practical distribution system is calculated with and without DG placement and an index, quantifying the total line loss reduction is proposed. To demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm, computer simulations are carried out on actual power network of Kerman Province, Iran and the simulation results are presented and discussed.


This wonderful new survey follows the evolution of the sports helmet from early military and aviation uses, through early motorcycle and auto racing, and to modern helmets used in a wide variety of sports today. The science of helmet design and manufacture is covered before moving into the art of the helmet. Helmets for six major sports are extensively covered: auto and motorcycle racing, bicycling, equestrian activities, skiing, football, and ice hockey. Some lesser known sports and their helmets are also included to give a fascinating and complete panorama of the field. The design innovations, both for safety and appearance, the colors, and the fascinating history will engage the reader, while nearly 600 color images will please even the most particular sports fan. For designers, players, scientists, and historians this book is a true delight.


BACKGROUND
Muscle mass maintenance is largely regulated by basal muscle protein synthesis rates and the ability to increase muscle protein synthesis after protein ingestion. To our knowledge, no previous studies have evaluated the impact of habituation to either low protein intake (LOW PRO) or high protein intake (HIGH PRO) on the postprandial muscle protein synthetic response.

OBJECTIVE
We assessed the impact of LOW PRO compared with HIGH PRO on basal and postprandial muscle protein synthesis rates after the ingestion of 25 g whey protein.

DESIGN
Twenty-four healthy, older men [age: 62 ± 1 y; body mass index (in kg/m2): 25.9 ± 0.4 (mean ± SEM)] participated in a parallel-group randomized trial in which they adapted to either a LOW PRO diet (0.7 g · kg-1 · d-1; n = 12) or a HIGH PRO diet (1.5 g · kg-1 · d-1; n = 12) for 14 d. On day 15, participants received primed continuous l-[ring-2H5]-phenylalanine and l-[1-13C]-leucine infusions and ingested 25 g intrinsically l-[1-13C]-phenylalanine- and l-[1-13C]-leucine-labeled whey protein. Muscle biopsies and blood samples were collected to assess muscle protein synthesis rates as well as dietary protein digestion and absorption kinetics.

RESULTS
Plasma leucine concentrations and exogenous phenylalanine appearance rates increased after protein ingestion (P < 0.01) with no differences between treatments (P > 0.05). Plasma exogenous phenylalanine availability over the 5-h postprandial period was greater after LOW PRO than after HIGH PRO (61% ± 1% compared with 56% ± 2%, respectively; P < 0.05). Muscle protein synthesis rates increased from 0.031% ± 0.004% compared with 0.039% ± 0.007%/h in the fasted state to 0.062% ± 0.005% compared with 0.057% ± 0.005%/h in the postprandial state after LOW PRO compared with HIGH PRO, respectively (P < 0.01), with no differences between treatments (P = 0.25).

CONCLUSION
Habituation to LOW PRO (0.7 g · kg-1 · d-1) compared with HIGH PRO (1.5 g · kg-1 · d-1) augments the postprandial availability of dietary protein-derived amino acids in the circulation and does not lower basal muscle protein synthesis rates or increase postprandial muscle protein synthesis rates after ingestion of 25 g protein in older men. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01986842.


How effective are call and SMS logs in modeling tie strength? Frequency and duration of communication has long been cited as a major aspect of tie strength. Intuitively, this makes sense: people communicate with those that they feel close to. Highly cited research papers have pushed this idea further, using communication as a direct proxy for tie strength. However, this operationalization has not been validated. Our work evaluates this assumption. We collected call and SMS logs and ground truth relationship data from 36 participants. Consistent with theory, we found that frequent or long-duration communication likely indicates a strong tie. However, the use of call and SMS logs produced many errors in separating strong and weak ties, suggesting this approach is incomplete. Follow-up interviews indicate fundamental challenges for inferring tie strength from communication logs.


Semiconductor design is a frequently-cited example of the new wave of offshoring and foreign-outsourcing of service sector jobs. It is certainly a concern to U.S. design engineers themselves. In addition to the current wave of white-collar outsourcing, the industry also has a rich experience with offshoring of manufacturing activity. Semiconductor companies were among the first to invest in offshore facilities to manufacture goods for imports back to the U.S. A brief review of these earlier manufacturing experiences and their impact on the fortunes of the domestic industry and its workers can help to illuminate the current debates over offshoring in services. Because meaningful data about the impact of the offshoring of chip design (and even manufacturing) are limited, we rely on a more qualitative analysis for our key points. We have conducted dozens of interviews with engineers and managers at numerous semiconductor and related companies in the United States, Asia, and Europe over the past six years. Our research also incorporates the rich store of publicly available information in trade journals and company reports. This paper describes the two previous stages of offshoring semiconductor assembly jobs and of outsourcing semiconductor manufacturing and the impact they had on the U.S. semiconductor industry. We argue that the initial concern about losing domestic jobs in both stages turned out to be unfounded as the industry used the situation to its competitive advantage by becoming cost competitive (assembly stage) and by developing the fabless sector (manufacturing stage). We then analyze the on-going stage of offshoring design jobs, and compare this stage to the two that came before in order to explore the possible impact on domestic jobs and the U.S. semiconductor industry. We begin in section one with a brief description of the stages of semiconductor production and our analytical framework. Section two looks at the offshoring of assembly jobs, and section three analyzes the foreign outsourcing of manufacturing. Section four explores the offshoring of design jobs, and concludes with a discussion of what this means for the U.S.


In a highly influential piece supporting a patient's right to choose euthanasia, Dan Brock uses an incomplete notion of autonomy in one of the key premises to his argument. He defines autonomy as the individual's ability to pass judgment on the value of his/her own life, using his/her established set of values, and then to act accordingly. The respect that others should have for the patient's autonomy is then seen as primarily the negative 'letting alone' of the patient. Brock identifies autonomy, in this sense, to be a necessary element in a person's 'dignity.' In other words, suffering, terminally ill patients who do not have the freedom to determine the amount of suffering they experience before death, or to decide the timing and manner of their death, are seen to be 'undignified.' What this view leaves out is the necessary analysis of how patients go through the process of their life assessments, the intrinsic relational nature of this process, and how respect for autonomy and dignity understood in a broader sense can be seen to entail obligations to foster positive opportunities and beneficial circumstances for terminally ill persons, rather than acquiescence to their demands. One of the most biting criticisms of this account of autonomy comes from a type of feminist bioethical thinking called 'the ethics of care.' The ethics of care aims to replace the false moral ideal of the masculine, atomistic, emotionless individual who seeks control with a feminine, interdependent, emotional individual who seeks positive relationships. However, the ethics of care goes too far in its opposition to the importance of autonomy in the moral life of the individual. There is a better concept of autonomy that simultaneously defends the individuality of the person deciding (free from coercion) and the interdependence of that person on others in that person's: 1) formation of values, 2) deliberation or assessment of how to decide based on those values, and 3) following through with the action decided upon. This 'redefined' autonomy requires, not only the negative allowing of decision and action on the part of others emphasized by Brock, but also and primarily the positive support of others and their input into those three steps of autonomous decision-making, as Grace Clement speaks of. It is this concept of autonomy as intrinsically relational that allows us to focus, not on obeying or allowing a patient's wishes at all costs (such as euthanasia), but in fact commits us to respond to and to attempt to influence the process by which the patient arrives at his/her judgments. We see that the circumstances and opportunities open to a person are a significant part of the persons' life assessment, and that these circumstances and opportunities depend to a large extent on the social structures surrounding the patient and the messages coming from society, and most directly from one's caregivers. The best thing for caregivers to do is to focus on the intrinsic dignity of each patient and to help identify an array of opportunities available to each patient to exercise his/her autonomy and to grow in virtue. The feeling or sense that patients have over their own dignity relates more to how they perceive their losses and circumstances than to what those losses are. The patient's self-worth is not completely invulnerable to the loss of health. Both external goods, such as health and wealth, and relational goods influence the value judgment of a person and can, in fact, influence the very character of the person- positively or negatively. The ancient philosopher, Aristotle, says that 'eudemonia' or happiness is vulnerable to the great loss of external goods, such as in the case of a patient who has lost health to the point of being terminally ill. Yet, he also says that even in great loss, the "fineness shines through" in the person who is noble and magnanimous. Within the hierarchy of goods, Aristotle places the goods of the soul as higher than the goods of the body. Relational goods play an especially important role, and are also higher than the goods of the body. From this perspective, a terminally ill patient and his/her caregivers may be encouraged to place greater weight on relationships and virtue than on physiological limitations. In fact, the loss of health and function can be re-evaluated as precisely the needed opportunity to grow in certain context-dependent relational virtues. Within the appropriate circumstances, the patient will be more easily able to live more of 'the good life', and become, not less human through external loss, but rather more human through relational virtues. The new moral ideal becomes, not the atomistic-autonomous individual, but the interdependent-autonomous individual. Politically, socially, and personally, we would do better to promote this latter moral ideal by creating circumstances and opportunities for caregivers to respect the patients' autonomy and dignity in the positive sense.


A full-scale experimental study on the structural performance of load-bearing wall panels made of cold-formed steel frames and boards is presented. Six different types of C-channel stud, a total of 20 panels with one middle stud and 10 panels with two middle studs were tested under vertical compression until failure. For panels, the main variables considered are screw spacing (300 mm, 400 mm, or 600 mm) in the middle stud, board type (oriented strand board - OSB, cement particle board - CPB, or calcium silicate board - CSB), board number (no sheathing, one-side sheathing, or two-side sheathing), and loading type (1, 3, or 4-point loading). The measured load capacity of studs and panels agrees well with analytical prediction. Due to the restraint by rivet connections between stud and track, the effective length factor for the middle stud and the side stud in a frame (unsheathed panel) is reduced to 0.90 and 0.84, respectively. The load carrying capacity of a stud increases significantly whenever one- or two-side sheathing is used, although the latter is significantly more effective. It is also dependent upon the type of board used. Whereas panels with either OSB or CPB boards have nearly identical load carrying capacity, panels with CSB boards are considerably weaker. Screw spacing affects the load carrying capacity of a stud. When the screw spacing on the middle stud in panels with one-side sheathing is reduced from 600 mm to 300 mm, its load carrying capacity increases by 14.5 %, 20.6% and 94.2% for OSB, CPB and CSB, respectively.


Purpose: Several scholars have pointed out that absorptive capacity (AC) is critical for the innovation process in large firms. However, many other authors consider startups as key drivers for innovation in the current global economy. Therefore, this article aims to identify how the concept of AC has been addressed in the new venture context. Methodology: A systematic literature review analyzing 220 papers published between 2001 and 2018. Findings: The systematic literature review identifies three clusters of research addressing AC in startups: Knowledge, Innovation, and Performance, along with the central authors of the discussion, the main contributions, theoretical references, and their future research agenda guidelines. Implications for theory and practice: This study contributes to the innovation and entrepreneurship literature by connecting the importance of AC and new venture creation, and providing a better understanding of how entrepreneurs could enhance their innovative processes. Originality and value: Based on the analysis of the literature review, a framework that differentiates knowledge acquisition strategies for new ventures was created. The framework categorizes the strategies according to the knowledge source (i.e., internal or external) and the degree of intentionality (i.e., formal or informal).


Information technologies have become an essential component of government administrative reforms and governance strategies around the world. Although Internet portals are now some of the most mature technologies, they continue to be the most important channel for governments to provide information and services to citizens and other stakeholders. However, studies about government portals still lack the level of detail necessary to better understand the specific variables that affect their success and, more prominently, how these variables intertwine. Based on institutional theory, particularly the technology enactment framework, and one in-depth case study in Mexico, this paper shows how leadership from the governor, the establishment of government-wide rules and standards, and the existence of a powerful centralized IT agency collectively affect the process of enacting a state government website and its potential results. The paper also identifies other variables and discusses some of their interactions and mechanisms of influence.


Trophoblast, the only fetal tissue in direct contact with maternal cells, fails to express the polymorphic HLA class I molecules HLA-A and -B, but does express the nonpolymorphic class I molecule HLA-G. It is thought that HLA-G may provide some of the functions of a class I molecule without stimulating maternal immune rejection of the fetal semiallograft. As a first step in identifying the cis-acting DNA regulatory elements involved in the control of class I expression by extraembryonic tissue, several types of transgenic mice were produced. Two HLA-G genomic fragments were used, 5.7 and 6.0 kb in length. These included the entire HLA-G coding region, 1 kb of 3' flanking sequence, and 1.2 or 1.4 kb of 5' flanking sequence, respectively. A hybrid transgene, HLA-A2/G, was produced by replacing the 5' flanking sequence, first exon, and early first intron of HLA-G with the corresponding elements of HLA-A. Comparison of transgene mRNA expression patterns seen in HLA-A2/G and HLA-G transgenic mice suggests that 5' flanking sequences are largely responsible for the differing patterns of expression typical of the classical class I and HLA-G genes. Studies comparing the extraembryonic HLA-G expression levels of founder embryos transgenic for either the 5.7- or 6.0-kb HLA-G transgene showed that the 6.0-kb transgene directed HLA-G expression far more efficiently than did the 5.7-kb HLA-G transgene, producing extraembryonic HLA-G mRNA levels similar to those seen in human extraembryonic tissues. The results of these studies suggest that the 250-bp fragment present at the extreme 5' end of the 6.0-kb HLA-G transgene and absent from the 5.7-kb HLA-G transgene contains an important positive regulatory element. This 250-bp fragment lies further upstream than any of the previously documented class I regulatory regions and may function as a locus control region.


Author(s): Meyers, Stephen; Williams, Alison; Chan, Peter; Price, Sarah | Abstract: This paper presents estimates of the key impacts of Federal energy and water conservation standards adopted from 1987 through 2015. The standards for consumer products and commercial and industrial equipment include those set by legislation as well as standards adopted by DOE through rulemaking. In 2015, the standards saved an estimated 4.49 quads of primary energy, which is equivalent to 5% of total U.S. energy consumption. The savings in operating costs for households and businesses totaled $63.4 billion. The average household saved $320 in operating costs as a result of residential appliance standards. The estimated reduction in CO2 emissions associated with the standards in 2015 was 238 million metric tons, which is equivalent to 4.3% of total U.S. CO2 emissions. The estimated cumulative energy savings over the period 1990-2090 amount to 216.9 quads. Accounting for the increased upfront costs of more-efficient products and the operating cost (energy and water) savings over the products' lifetime, the standards have a cumulative net present value (NPV) of consumer benefit of between $1,627 billion and $1,887 billion, using 7 percent and 3 percent discount rates, respectively. The water conservation standards, together with energy conservation standards that also save water, reduced water use by 1.9 trillion gallons in 2015 and estimated cumulative water savings by 2090 amount to 55 trillion gallons. The estimated consumer savings in 2015 from reduced water use amounted to $12 billon.


Craniopagus twins (CPT) are an uncommon, highly fascinating accident of nature. The clinical pathology of this complex entity is reviewed and placed in perspective. A logical classification aids understanding of the anomaly, and is essential to gauge outcome from separation attempts. 'Partial forms' lack significant shared dural venous sinuses (SDVS) and 'Total forms' with SDVS also exhibit more severe compressional brain distortion. Our classification consists of Partial Angular (PA), Partial Vertical (PV), Total Angular (TA) and Total Vertical (TV, formerly O'Connell Types I-III). Total vertical has a continuous cranium, and inter-twin axial facial rotation <40 degrees (Type I), 140-180 degrees (Type II) or intermediate (Type III). The term 'Angular' denotes an inter-twin longitudinal angle below 140 degrees , regardless of axial rotation. Our review categorized 64 well-delineated CPT, including 41 operative separation attempts in small children since initial success in 1952. Just over one-half were TV, almost one-third TA, and partial forms accounted for the remaining one-sixth. About 30% of CPT had shared or fused brain tissue, and a similar percentage of TA twins shared a posterior fossa. Partial forms had significantly higher birth weights, were separated at an earlier age (6 versus 11 months) and had lower mortality and better outcome compared with Total forms. A multi-staged surgical separation for Total CPT had a significantly better mortality than single-staged separation. Discussion emphasizes embryological, anatomical and clinical aspects of the malformation, with emphasis upon obstacles to a successful outcome.


My family and I moved to the Washington, D.C. area toward the end of Lent last year. Since we knew no one who could take care of our young children, when it came time to keep the liturgies of Holy Week we looked for an Episcopal church where they would be welcome. We discovered a parish not too far away that offered child care on Maundy Thursday and had a special Good Friday service for preschool children-so off we went. When it came time for the foot-washing-an occasion of awkward silence in many parishes-we were struck by the number of people who went forward and how attentively and comfortably they washed each other's feet. Old and young, male and female, people of many colors and languages, all participating in an ancient and rather intimate ritual of menial service. We felt too new and too laden with children to go forward ourselves, so we went home feeling rather lonely, aware we were in transition, separated from our previous community and not yet a part of this new one. Later that evening, after the baby was snuggled into his crib, I was wearily participating in another kind of ritual-our five-year-old's bath before bedtime. After he was washed and scrubbed, Benjamin sat on the edge of the tub waiting to be dried, cheerfully dripping and chattering on with his customary telling of stories about his imaginary friends, monsters, heroes, and dinosaurs. As I knelt to dry his feet I suddenly felt I was back in church. This moment was an invitation to the foot-washing on Maundy Thursday, too. These familiar, beloved, small feet also needed to be washed, just as much as the larger feet of strangers and fellow Christians. It dawned on me that drying Benjamins feet was at that moment as much a fulfillment of Jesus' call to "do as T have done to you" (John 13:15) as washing the feet of parishioners when I am serving as deacon in the liturgy. Although I was ordained to the diaconate in the late 1980s and have woi'ked as a deacon for most of those years, since I have been staying home to care for our children it has often been hard to hold on to this identity-I feel more like a mom most of the time. I have joined the millions of women and men who try to balance several vocations in different locations: work and parenting, home and office, iactory and school. Sometimes I see the connections; at other times, juggling these two dimensions has been awkward, with the diaconal vocation seemingly set aside by the immediate, pressing, ever-present needs of an infant or toddler. And yet I have begun to see that my definition of "diaconal duties" may be too narrow, and in fact I have been practicing a "domestic diaconate" all along. Until now diaconal ministry was for me closely connected to the institutional church: volunteering in a diocesan soup kitchen, working on a parish staff, planning and providing hospitality at a diocesan retreat house, editing and designing religious books, participating in the liturgies of the parish. Caring for young children at home does not fit that institutional definition. Yet perhaps I have unknowingly been enrolled in another kind of school for deacons as I have tended to the emotional, physical, and spiritual needs of these little ones. If deacons are to be "in the world," serving "all people, particularly the poor, the weak, the sick, and the lonely,"1 then it can be very good practice to Ieam servanthood by parenting little children. So I have been thinking lately about what our children have taught me about being a servant. Not just in the Upstairs, Downstairs sense: when Benjamin orders us with all the authority of a five-year-old to get him a glass of milk, we parents usually respond, "No, we are not your servants. You know how to pour that yourself." And yet at a more profound level-as one Christian to another-we are his servants, for we have in fact chosen to lay down our lives for him. When Benjamin is poor, we feed and clothe him; when he is weak, we give him our strength until he finds his own; when he is sick, we hold his hand and soothe his fever; when he is lonely, we cuddle him and wipe away his tears. …


Abstract RENO-CC, a system to optimize nuclear fuel lattices for boiling water reactors using a multistate recurrent neural network, is shown. This kind of neural network is formed by only one layer of neurons. Each neuron is associated with a pin of the fuel lattice array. RENO-CC was tested through the fuel lattice design of 10 × 10 arrays with two water channels. Thus, the neural network has a total of 51 neurons; four neurons are associated with the channels (they correspond to a half fuel lattice). The neuron's outputs are known as the neural states. The RENO-CC's neural network works by changing the neural states in order to decrease or increase the value of an objective function. Neural states are chosen from an inventory of pins with different 235U enrichment and gadolinia concentrations. The objective function includes both the local power peaking factor and the infinite multiplication factor. These parameters are calculated with the HELIOS code. A fuzzy logic system is applied in order to decide if the designed fuel lattice is suitable to be evaluated by a three-dimensional reactor core simulator. To carry out the assessment, the fuel lattices with the best fuzzy qualification are placed at the bottom zone of a predesigned fuel assembly and predesigned fuel loading and control rod patterns. Fuel lattice performance is verified with the Core Master PRESTO core simulator. According to the obtained results, RENO-CC could be considered as a powerful tool to design fuel lattices. The system was programmed with Fortran 77 using a UNIX interface in an Alpha workstation.


Objective: The aim was to gain knowledge of fibromyalgia (FM) patients on long-term sick leave and with particular difficulties in resuming work, and to compare them with patients with myalgia, back or joint diagnoses, and depression. Methods: Patients were identified by and referred from social insurance offices and were multidisciplinarily examined by three board-certified specialists in psychiatry, orthopedic surgery and rehabilitation medicine. Ninety-two women were diagnosed with FM only. Three female comparison groups were chosen: depression, back/joint diagnoses, and myalgia. Results and conclusions: Ceaseless pain was reported by 73% of FM patients, 54% of back/joint diagnoses patients, 43% of myalgia patients, and 35% of depression patients. The distribution of pain (>50%) in FM patients was to almost all regions of the body, and in depression patients to the lower dorsal neck, upper shoulders and lumbosacral back but not in the anterior body. Reduced sleep was more evident in FM patients. FM patients did not meet more criteria for personality disorder than patients with the other somatic pain conditions. The most common dimension of "personality traits" of somatic pain conditions was the "obsessive compulsive" but at a level clearly below that indicating a personality disorder. More FM patients experienced disabilities, the most common being in the mobility and domestic-life areas.


The Cox maze III and Cox maze IV procedures are surgical solutions for the treatment of symptomatic stand-alone atrial fibrillation. Despite their proven efficacy, these procedures have not gained widespread acceptance because of the invasiveness, complexity, and technical difficulty. Endocardial pulmonary vein isolation is the cornerstone of percutaneous catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation. It is currently accepted as an invasive therapy, if rhythm control has failed using antiarrhythmic drugs or electrical cardioversions. Pulmonary vein isolation is reported to be effective in 60%–85% of patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation and in 30%–50% of patients with persistent atrial fibrillation. A second or third ablation is often necessary to achieve these results, and complications may occur in up to 6% of patients.

Surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation has seen important improvements in the last decade. New technologies have simplified creation of transmural lesions on the beating heart through a less-invasive, thoracoscopic procedure. This allows for pulmonary vein isolation, isolation of the posterior wall, and left atrial appendage exclusion—usually combined with ganglionic plexi evaluation and destruction. Nonetheless, it is still uncertain whether these procedures are effective in restoring permanent sinus rhythm since transmurality of a lesion set cannot be guaranteed with current ablation catheters on the beating heart.

In an attempt to limit the shortcomings of an endo- or an epicardial technique, a hybrid approach has recently been introduced. This approach is based on a close collaboration between the surgeon and the electrophysiologist, employing a patient-tailored procedure which is adapted to the origin of the patient's atrial fibrillation and takes into consideration triggers and substrate. Using a mono- or bilateral energy source, a thoracoscopic epicardial approach is combined with a percutaneous endocardial ablation in a single-step or in a sequential-step procedure.

This article provides our experience and an overview of the current knowledge in the hybrid treatment of stand-alone atrial fibrillation.


Stock inventory cards are capable of filling a long-standing need for a simple and inexpensive system for the filing of references, papers and reprints in the spectrographic laboratory. The materials required consist of a number of 8½ in x 11 in stock file cards, a hole punch and a stacking frame. Each of these cards has a title line in the upper left corner as well as 7000 numbered squares on its face (Figure 1). This means that a total of 7000 references can be handled by the initial system; in order to expand the system, it is merely necessary to purchase a supply of cards of a different color. In addition, a series of 3 in x 5 in file cards and two filing cases to hold the cards are needed.


The effects of 3 different stocking rates (1, 2 and 3 cows/ha/yr) on sward structure and the amount and pattern of live leaf defoliation were studied at different hierarchical levels within swards of signal grass ( Brachiaria decumbens ) pastures. Permanently marked plants and tillers were followed non-destructively during 8 consecutive grazing periods for each stocking rate treatment. Leaf and stem lengths were measured before and after the introduction of cattle for all marked tillers. The vertical distribution of leaves and stems within the sward was quantified and the fate of tillers after grazing was also considered. Vertical live leaf weight distributions in the canopy followed those of their apical meristem heights. The proportion of tillers defoliated per plant mainly explained the proportion of live leaf defoliated per plant at different stocking rates. The proportion of tillers decapitated during grazing was related to the proportion of tillers defoliated per plant. Apical meristem height was the main physical barrier to leaf defoliation upon a minimum leaf height of 2‐4 cm, under which leaves were inaccessible to cattle. Different stocking rates created different tiller heights and canopy structures in the medium term, but did not affect the pattern of defoliation relative to the height of the apical meristem.


Rape is one of the most offensive crimes a person can be subjected to and it is a matter that keeps aggravating and lead to discussion. Hopefully this discussion will lead us closer to a solution that will decrease the number of rapes. An important part of the solution is an effective legislation. Today the Swedish legislation regulating rape is based on force meanwhile the legislation in England and Wales is based upon consent. Many in Sweden advocate an introduction of a legislation based upon consent, as it is believed that it could change norms in society and in the long haul decrease the number of rapes. Which type of legislation prevents rape most efficiently? The purpose of this paper is to investigate if legislation based upon consent has a greater normative effect and more efficiently prevents rape than legislation based upon force. The investigation is based on a comparison between of Swedish legislation and that of England and Wales.
 In a report produced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, it is presented that Sweden has the highest number of police recorded rapes in all of Europe and the second highest in the world, more than double the police recorded rapes per 100 000 citizens compared to England and Wales. Based on these statistics consent legislation seems to be more efficient than a legislation based on force. But there are a lot of factors that influence these statistics and make it impossible to make that conclusion, among those are the differences in extent of the provisions.
 To be able to evaluate the statistics in a fair way, I first of all narrate the legislation and practice. Then determine which provisions of the English law that can be translated into the Swedish provision of rape. There is also a short narrative covering unrecorded sexual offences. When the differences in the extent of the provisions as well as the number of unrecorded crimes have been taken into account. It turns out that the statistics of police recorded rapes in Sweden and England and Wales are almost equal to one another. The previous difference of more than a 100 % is basically eliminated. This depends on the fact that the Swedish provision of rape covers more violations, which in England and Wales are covered by other provisions.
 Apart from the recorded crimes statistics, crime surveys are narrated. These surveys where not comparable with regard to rape because the Swedish survey only presents the number of rapes and the survey for England and Wales presents only the number of persons being subjected to rape. Based on this investigation the conclusion that legislation based on consent works better in order to achieve a decrease in the number of rapes committed, than legislation based on force, cannot be made.


Some research has been developed to handle aleatory and epistemic uncertainty in various engineering systems. But in this paper, we have established two methods, namely mass distribution and fuzzy reliability theory, to deal with these uncertainties in non-repairable k-out-ofn: G (F) systems, which has not been seen in the past. In the presented methodology, the failure rate (λ) is taken as a trapezoidal fuzzy number. Using the trapezoidal fuzzy number, expression for α-cut of fuzzy failure rate of every component and corresponding fuzzy reliability function has been calculated. Then, masses to the components are distributed with the help of these fuzzy reliability functions. By using these masses, reliability and MTTF of the considered systems have been computed. At last, a numerical example is taken to demonstrate the present approach.


This paper examines the recent development of biotechnology related industry in the Finnish city of Turku, where especially pharmaceutical industry has adopted the use of post-1970s molecular biology breakthroughs in ?biotechnology?. Finland is now listed in numbers of biotech firms as the 10th largest in Europe and Turku is the only Finnish city mentioned in the European Commission report among the 20 most significant European biotech centres (2000). The interest of study is to scrutinise the dynamics behind the development as a combination of technological, institutional and economic factors. The main objective of this study is to focus on the link between technology and institutions but also on the role of different organisations in the process of building capability to produce new innovations and new industrial activity. This paper claims that the rapid development of the biotechnology industry in the 1990s in Turku arises from a much older story, with historical capabilities been gradually built up especially within pharmaceuticals over decades both in industry and university research. The interaction between universities and companies has been primarily driven and institutionalised by larger pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies in the past, and more recently by smaller start-ups and spin-offs. The latter do not have large corporate R&D capabilities and must thus depend to a greater extent on external research links. From the university point of view, the interaction has been more based on resource constraints than a dedicated strategy for developing co-operation in the field of biotechnology. From the policy standpoint, the development of the innovation system in Turku to support a new technology area has been different from many other Finnish cities, in a way that public sector has not played a very active role in the beginning. For a long time, the mobilising of local resources and the successful attempts to influence national S&T policy have mainly been a result of a network of individuals working in the industry and in the universities rather than a general strategy of the universities or the local government. More recently, the City of Turku has been much more active and even instrumental in building new institutions and infrastructure to support the growth of the new industry. Thus, the rise of Turku should be seen as building on older capabilities, recently driven forward by new institutions that have come about due to resource constraints, external economic shocks and fundamental changes in the global pharmaceutical industry. The new ?BioTurku? has arisen, therefore, more as a reconsolidation of expertise across sectors under a new banner of ?biotech?, which has in turn, allowed new configurations of innovative actors to link up and create new technological services and products as well. As a result, a variety of earlier unrelated sectors in food, pharmaceuticals and materials sciences, have now been pulled together with a common technological base. This development has also made it easier for the policy makers to formulate a focused strategy for local innovation policy.


In the current study, Scutellinia legaliae is reported for the first time from Turkey. In addition, this is the first report of this taxon growing in a forest under the relict endemic Liquidambar orientalis. Description of the taxon is given together with macrophotographs and line drawings of microscopic structures. In addition, a key of the currently known species of the genus Scutellinia in Turkey is presented.


In this paper, we present virtual prototyping of the distributed control for a modular multilevel inverter used as a grid-tie interface for photovoltaics. Due to the distributed control and inherent redundancy in the system composed of many panels and inverter modules, the system topology exhibits fault-tolerance capabilities that we study through virtual prototyping. The fault-tolerance is enabled by several distributed algorithms, such as services to identify which, if any, agents controlling inverter modules have failed. A distributed identifier algorithm allows the system to keep track of the number of operating panels to appropriately regulate the dc voltage output of the panels using buck-boost converters and determine appropriate switching times for H-bridges in the grid-tie. We evaluate the distributed inverter, its control strategy, and fault-tolerance through thousands of simulation scenarios in Mathworks Simulink/Stateflow. Our virtual prototyping framework allows for generating multilevel inverters composed of many inverter modules, and we evaluate inverters composed of five to dozens of inverter modules. Our analysis suggests the achievable total harmonic distortion of the modular multilevel inverter may allow for operating solar arrays in spite of failures of the power electronics, control software, and other subcomponents.


[1] We estimate the concentration of fine magnetic particles in ice samples from the North Greenland Ice Core Project core from the central Greenland ice sheet, using lowtemperature (77K) isothermal remanent magnetization (IRM) analysis and compare it with the mass concentration of aerosol dust. Samples were taken from six climatic intervals, spanning the time from the Holocene (Preboreal) back to the Last Glacial Dansgaard/ Oeschger cycle 5. The mean IRM intensity of the ice varies by a factor of 3 from glacial to interglacial stages, being lower during interglacials. The IRM acquisition curves of the ice do not quite saturate at the maximum available field of 0.8 T and show a relatively broad coercivity, which is compatible with a mixture of maghemite or magnetite and hematite. Comparison of the IRM intensity and total dust mass shows a remarkably good correlation but also reveals a large background magnetization, which may be essentially constant over the different climatic stages. IRM suggests that the dust properties are independent of the background signal and that the dust aerosol has a magnetization within about 30% of pristine loess from the Chinese Loess Plateau, which is considered to have the same source in the same east Asian deserts as dust in Greenland ice. Ice contamination and the flux of extraterrestrial dust particles were considered in order to explain the origin of the background magnetization. Nevertheless, we could not find a convincing explanation for this signal, which represents a considerable part of the IRM signal and is the dominant component during interglacial intervals, without invoking the presence of undetected dust mass. The alternative hypothesis of a varying magnetization of the ice dust at different climatic periods would suggest that different sources of aerosol are active during different climatic periods. This, however, has not proven to be the case so far for studies of the provenance of dust in Greenland ice. INDEX TERMS: 0305 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801); 0399 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: General or miscellaneous; 0394 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Instruments and techniques; KEYWORDS: magnetization, IRM, Greenland, ice core, NorthGRIP, aerosol


Financial crises in emerging economies in the 1980s and 1990s often entailed abrupt declines in foreign capital inflows, improvements in trade balance, and large declines in output and total factor productivity (TFP). This paper develops a two-sector small open economy model wherein heterogeneous firms face collateralized credit constraints for investment loans. The model is calibrated using Mexican data, and explains the economic downturn and subsequent recoveries following financial crises. In response to a sudden tightening of credit availability, the model generates a large decline in external debt, an improvement in trade balance, and declines in output and TFP, consistent with the stylized facts of sudden stop episodes. Tighter borrowing constraints lead firms to reduce investment and production, which in turn results in some firms holding capital stock disproportionate to their productivity levels. This disrupts the optimal allocation of capital across firms, and generates an endogenous fall in measured TFP. Furthermore, the subsequent recovery is driven by the traded sector, since the credit crunch is more persistent among domestic financing sources relative to foreign financing sources. This is consistent with the experience of Mexico, where the relatively fast recovery from the 1994-95 crisis was driven mainly by the traded sector, which had access to international financial markets.


The creep properties of a cast gamma-alpha-2 lamellar titanium aluminide of type Ti-46Al-2W-0.5Si (at. %) containing beta-particles was investigated using both helium-implanted and non-implanted material. Creep tests were performed in vacuum under constant stress using small miniaturized dog-bone shaped samples with gauge dimensions of 10 × 2 × 0.2 mm3. Creep temperatures ranged from 700 °C to 1000 °C and applied stresses ranged from 75 MPa to 400 MPa. Helium implantation was carried out with 0-24 MeV helium ions homogeneously implanting the miniaturized samples from 6.3 to 1333 appm He, at temperatures of 150 °C and 630 to 1000 °C. Non-implanted samples showed very good creep resistance up to temperatures of roughly 850 °C; at temperatures above 900 °C a decrease in creep resistance was observed. For temperatures up to 900 °C the activation energy of creep was determined to 405 kJ/mol and the stress exponent of 7.2. Size and geometry effects of miniaturized samples were observed in form of large scatter in creep strain rates and lower strains at fracture. Electron microscopy showed that the initial microstructure was unstable and that the alloy had a tendency to decompose the alpha-2 phase and form beta-gamma structures, loss of initial microstructure was accelerated with increasing temperature. The creep deformation mechanism was determined to be a combination of stress-induced phase change and dislocation creep. A gradual change in fracture behavior was observed, at lower temperatures fracture was brittle with little necking, at the highest temperature the fracture was completely ductile. Material crept and implanted at 700 and 800 °C exhibited embrittlement at helium contents above 10 appm, characterized by a strong loss of ductility and creep lifetime. Samples crept and implanted at 900 °C experienced embrittlement for all tested helium contents. Investigations with transmission electron microscopy revealed a substantial clustering and growth of helium bubbles at interfaces in the alpha-2 phase. An average bubble size for embrittlement between 5.3 and 6.7 nm was determined. The behavior and evolution of helium bubbles were studied with post implantation annealing experiments. Samples were implanted at 150, 630, 800 and 1000 °C and subsequently annealed at temperatures from 600 to 900 °C. Material implanted at 150 °C showed no bubbles before annealing, only after post-implantation annealing was widespread clustering observed. Material implanted at temperatures of 630 °C or higher, exhibited bubbles before post-implantation annealing. Depending on the implantation temperature, two different branches were observed in the size and distribution of helium bubbles even after post-implantation annealing. Samples implanted at 150 or 630 °C and then annealed at higher temperatures had high bubble density with small bubbles found in the entire microstructure. Samples implanted at 800 or 1000 °C had low bubble densities and the bubbles were only observed at alpha-2/beta and alpha-2/gamma interfaces, with sizes larger than the average bubble radius for embrittlement. Based on the post-implantation annealing experiments, a temperature limit for the onset of helium embrittlement between 630 and 700 °C is predicted. The helium embrittlement, the loss of initial microstructure and decreased creep resistance at temperatures above 900 °C suggests a limited applicability of lamellar TiAl in advanced nuclear reactor environments.


rescued from an infectious cDNA clone of the CSFV Abstract from Workshop on Laboratory Diagnosis of Classical Swine Abstract The BAC clone, pBeloPader10, contains a complete cDNA of the CSFV strain Paderborn. Virus, named vPader10, was rescued from this construct by electroporation of RNA transcripts into porcine PK15 cells. To further study the characteristics of vPader10, we evaluated the virulence of this virus in vivo in pigs. An animal experiment was performed where three pigs were inoculated with vPader10 and housed in-contact with two non-inoculated pigs for 5 weeks. Following inoculation with vPader10, two out of three pigs displayed severe clinical signs of CSF from PID 14 that progressed until death of the pigs at PID 21 and PID 22, respectively. High fever (>41 ° C) was observed in these pigs from PID 14 and remained at a high level until day of death. One of two contact pigs developed similar clinical disease that initiated at PID 21 and progressed until it was euthanised at PID 32 due to severe clinical signs. One inoculated and one in-contact pig showed little or no clinical symptoms. Virus was detected in blood by RT-qPCR from PID 3-4 in all inoculated pigs and from PID 14 in both contact pigs. In the severely diseased pigs the viral loads reached high levels (Ct ≈ 20) whereas the two pigs without clinical symptoms displayed transient viral loads that peaked at Ct ≈ 30. The results from this experiment demonstrate that vPader10 rescued from pBeloPader10 is virulent and transmissible in pigs.


In this paper, the effect of low temperature on the dynamic behavior of laminated composite plate subjected to impact load has been investigated experimentally and numerically. A special refrigerator device was designed and manufactured to achieve the required test temperature up to -30 ◦ C. Four types of fiber reinforced/ risen plates (E-glass woven roving/UP, E-glass mat chopped/UP, carbon/UP and carbon/EP) are produced using the wet hand layup technique at 30% volume fraction. The tensile tests are done according to ASTM D3039. The plate was fixed from all sides and a steel ball of 23g mass is freely dropped from height of 0.5 m. The dynamic response of the plate was measured using vibration data collector (TVC 200). In numerical analysis the drop load impact behavior of composite plates was modeled using ANSYS finite element software. The results show that the laminated plates have the same dynamic behavior but differ in magnitude. The mechanical properties improved and the deflection decreased as the temperature decrease. The deflection decrease as the fibers layers number increase. The plate deflection of use E-glass fibers is greater than that of use the carbon fibers. The effect of temperature on composite plates use E-glass fiber reinforced is higher than that of using carbon. The effect of temperature on the composite plates use polyester resin is less than that of using epoxy resin. The experimental and numerical results showed a good agreement.


Soft gamma repeaters (SGRs) and anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) are thought to be magnetars: neutron stars powered by extreme magnetic fields. These rare objects are characterized by repeated and sometimes spectacular gamma-ray bursts. The burst mechanism might involve crustal fractures and excitation of non-radial modes which would emit gravitational waves (GWs). We present the results of a search for GW bursts from six galactic magnetars that is sensitive to neutron star f-modes, thought to be the most efficient GW emitting oscillatory modes in compact stars. One of them, SGR 0501+4516, is likely ∼1 kpc from Earth, an order of magnitude closer than magnetars targeted in previous GW searches. A second, AXP 1E 1547.0−5408, gave a burst with an estimated isotropic energy >1044 erg which is comparable to the giant flares. We find no evidence of GWs associated with a sample of 1279 electromagnetic triggers from six magnetars occurring between 2006 November and 2009 June, in GW data from the LIGO, Virgo, and GEO600 detectors. Our lowest model-dependent GW emission energy upper limits for band- and time-limited white noise bursts in the detector sensitive band, and for f-mode ringdowns (at 1090 Hz), are 3.0 × 1044d21 erg and 1.4 × 1047d21 erg, respectively, where and d0501 is the distance to SGR 0501+4516. These limits on GW emission from f-modes are an order of magnitude lower than any previous, and approach the range of electromagnetic energies seen in SGR giant flares for the first time.


: The article focuses on the ways in which genre, narrative and time intersect in readings of cultural responses to both the global economic crash of 2008 and the implosion of Ireland's Celtic Tiger debt economy. Justin Quinn's employment of an iteration of the bildungsroman in Mount Merrion (2013) is telling in the context of the demise of the Irish economic "boom", given that it references one of the classic realist narrative forms through which citizen-consumers were hailed and ratified. In this sense, the novel partially furnishes a deeper historical contextualisation of the roots and the development of the political and economic environments that eventuate with the Celtic Tiger "boom". Additionally, with its attention to teleology and its structural affinities to the bildungsroman , Mount Merrion raises questions about competing and interlocking varieties of temporality. In Quinn's employment of the bildungsroman form, and its allegorical and temporal features, we identify youthful characters that defy the allegorical form and temporal trajectories of the generic conventions of the bildungsroman . While Quinn's narrative does not ultimately fashion radical aesthetic or political alternatives to the prevailing neoliberal-capitalist conjuncture, it raises provocative questions regarding the possibilities of imaginative alternatives that are coeval with, and embedded within, dominant narrative forms.


BACKGROUND:
Transitioning low-risk cancer survivors back to their primary care provider (PCP) has been shown to be safe but the effect on health system resources and costs has not been examined.

METHODS:
A Well Follow-Up Care Initiative (WFCI) was implemented in the publicly funded health system. Low-risk breast cancer (BC) survivors in the WFCI intervention group were transitioned from oncologist-led cancer clinics to PCPs. We compared health system costs ($2,014 in Canadian dollars) and resource utilization in this intervention group with that in propensity-score-matched nontransitioned BC survivors (ie, controls) diagnosed in the same year, with similar disease profile and patient characteristics using publicly funded administrative databases.

RESULTS:
A total of 2,324 BC survivors from the WFCI intervention group were 1:1 matched to controls and observed for 25 months. Compared with controls, survivors in the intervention group incurred a similar number of PCP visits (6.9 v 7.5) and fewer oncologist visits (0.3 v 1.2) per person-year. Fewer survivors in the intervention group (20.1%) were hospitalized than in the control group (24.4%). There were no differences in emergency visits. More survivors in the intervention group had mammograms (82.6% v 73.1%), but other diagnostic tests were less frequent. There was a 39.3% reduction in overall mean annual costs ($6,575 v $10,832) and a 22.1% reduction in overall median annual costs ($2,261 v $2,903). Overall survival in the intervention group was not worse than controls.

CONCLUSION:
Transitioning low-risk BC survivors to PCPs was associated with lower health system resource use and a lower annual cost per patient than matched controls. The WFCI model represents a reasonable approach at the population level to delivering quality care for low-risk BC survivors that seems to be cost effective.


Investment companies knew that the Food and Drug Administration safety database carried a signal for acute pancreatitis with the antidiabetic drug exenatide (a glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) agonist) in 2006, a year before the agency alerted doctors—a curious reflection on the way we mix business with medicine. The signal had reached astronomical dimensions (more than 10 times that in control drugs) by 2011 and has accelerated since. Furthermore, all GLP-1 based agents that have been on the market for more than two years have also generated a signal for acute pancreatitis, suggesting a class effect. The regulators asked companies to provide more data, and companies have responded with studies showing that acute pancreatitis is more common in diabetes than previously thought and that clear evidence of an increased risk of pancreatitis with GLP-1 based treatments is lacking. Warnings on the label notwithstanding, the industry has been able to maintain that the problem does not exist—and has a huge incentive to do so. This is no longer tenable. A report in JAMA Internal Medicine describes a case-control study of more than a million people with diabetes, which yielded 1269 cases of acute pancreatitis in people aged 35-64 years using exenatide or sitagliptin, and an equal number of cases in people on non-GLP based drugs for diabetes. However, after multiple adjustments, current users and recent users (one month to two years) of GLP-1 based treatments had a twofold increased risk of acute pancreatitis (adjusted odds ratio 2.24 (95% confidence interval 1.36 to 3.68) for current use and 2.01 (1.27 to 3.18) for recent use) compared with those taking non-GLP based drugs for diabetes. A company sponsored study previously found an increase in episodes of pancreatitis in recent users of exenatide, but it discounted the observation because those affected were no longer taking the drug. Should we be worried about this? Very much so. GLP-1 is a pleiotropic agent that has many actions apart from its therapeutic effects in promoting insulin secretion, inhibiting glucagon release, delaying gastric emptying, and reducing appetite. It also interacts, for example, with receptors in the heart, kidneys, thyroid, and exocrine pancreas. Furthermore, GLP-1 is a very short acting peptide, and the consequences of long term pharmacological stimulation in humans are unknown. GLP-1 promotes cell replication in some tissues, and it was hoped that it would promote pancreatic β cell regeneration until this action was found to be restricted to immature rodents. This may have distracted attention from the fact that it also stimulates pancreatic duct cells to divide, regardless of age. It has been known for more than a decade that animal pancreas tissue increases in weight on exposure to GLP-1 and that this must represent overgrowth of the exocrine pancreas. Further observations in experimental animals prompted the hypothesis that overgrowth of pancreatic duct cells produces occasional obstruction of the smallest ducts, with the potential to cause subclinical pancreatic inflammation in many users and full blown acute pancreatitis in rare instances.Acute pancreatitis is unpleasant enough, but themajor concern relates to subclinical inflammation of the pancreas. Postmortem analysis of humans exposed to GLP-1 based agents has yet to be reported, but it is well known that concentrations of pancreatic enzymes rise in animals and humans taking GLP-1 based drugs compared with other treatments for diabetes. Companies havemodestly omitted these data from their published trials, sometimes with the comment that no "clinically significant" changes were seen. As a result, there is only one formal description of the phenomenon—from an independent group—in the literature. Subclinical increases in enzyme concentrations may not prove subclinical pancreatitis, but they provide no reassurance about its absence. One reason why the merest possibility of pancreatitis has been contested so vigorously is that all forms of pancreatitis, clinical or subclinical, predispose to carcinoma of the pancreas. The harbingers of this unpleasant cancer, known as pancreatic intraepithelial lesions, are widely present as potential seeds of cancer in the adult population. These lesions carry the GLP-1 receptor, as do pancreatic carcinomas. Increased reporting of pancreatic cancer was independently noted in both the FDA and German regulatory databases. 8 Why have the companies been so slow to respond to this threat? Because of the "three monkey paradigm," which operates as follows. Companies are legally responsible for monitoring the safety of their own products, but self evidently cannot be held responsible for tackling a safety concern that does not exist. A concern that can be plausibly doubted or denied carries no legal


Neuroimaging research is growing rapidly, providing expansive resources for synthesizing data. However, navigating these dense resources is complicated by the volume of research articles and variety of experimental designs implemented across studies. The advent of machine learning algorithms and text-mining techniques has advanced automated labeling of published articles in biomedical research to alleviate such obstacles. As of yet, a comprehensive examination of document features and classifier techniques for annotating neuroimaging articles has yet to be undertaken. Here, we evaluated which combination of corpus (abstract-only or full-article text), features (bag-of-words or Cognitive Atlas terms), and classifier (Bernoulli naïve Bayes, k-nearest neighbors, logistic regression, or support vector classifier) resulted in the highest predictive performance in annotating a selection of 2,633 manually annotated neuroimaging articles. We found that, when utilizing full article text, data-driven features derived from the text performed the best, whereas if article abstracts were used for annotation, features derived from the Cognitive Atlas performed better. Additionally, we observed that when features were derived from article text, anatomical terms appeared to be the most frequently utilized for classification purposes and that cognitive concepts can be identified based on similar representations of these anatomical terms. Optimizing parameters for the automated classification of neuroimaging articles may result in a larger proportion of the neuroimaging literature being annotated with labels supporting the meta-analysis of psychological constructs.


The San Andreas Fault and a large fault off British Columbia are interpreted as examples of the recently proposed "transform faults." They are joined by a short, isolated length of oceanic ridge striking N20°E, with an associated "window" of young crust. The displacement along these faults is estimated at 400 kilometers.


Article type: Original Article Received: Jan. 2017 Accepted: Mar. 2017 e-Published: 4 Apr. 2017 Corresponding author: Ameneh Sotoodeh Moridiani e-mail: amanehsotodeh9@yahoo .com Background & Aim: Mastalgia is one of the most common complaints of women and its cyclic type constitutes two-thirds of the cases. This study aimed to determine the effect of Nigella Sativa syrup on cyclic mastalgia. Methods & Materials: This study is a triple-blind randomized clinical trial (IRCT201104304785N3). The study samples included 65 women with cyclic mastalgia referred to the Breast Cancer Research Center (BCRC), Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research (ACECR) in Tehran in 2014-2015. The samples were randomly divided into two groups: intervention group (Nigella Sativa=36) and placebo group (oral paraffin=36). The pain was measured by the VAS and McGill Short Form questionnaire two months before and three months after the intervention. Data were analyzed using statistical tests on the SPSS software version 18. Results: The results of the VAS and McGill pain score changes showed a significant difference between the two groups. Considering that the interaction between time and group was significant, the two groups were compared at each stage using independent t-test and the Bonferroni correction test. Thus, there was no significant difference between the two groups of Nigella Sativa and placebo on the basis of the McGill instrument but a significant difference was observed between the two groups on the basis of the VAS (P=0.002). Conclusion: According to the results, Nigella Sativa reduces pain more than placebo. Therefore, it can be used along with other medications for the treatment of mastalgia.


It is a well-established fact that universities in the United States are examining processes of expanding into the international market by attracting students from all over the world. This global strategy by U.S. universities and colleges expands their footprint, increases partnerships with international educational and research agencies, and brings cultural diversity to a campus. International student recruiting has also become a good business model for American universities. As a result, U.S. institutions of higher education have committed increasing amounts of resources and infrastructure support in order to attract international students. If higher education entities are motivated in recruiting globally, why should intercollegiate athletics lag behind?


Dipicolinic acid was investigated as a new anchoring group for DSSCs. A pilot dye (PD2) bearing this new anchoring group was found to adsorb significantly stronger to TiO2 than its cyanoacrylic acid analogue. The electrolyte composition was found to have a strong effect on the photoelectrochemical properties of the adsorbed dye in the device, allowing the dye LUMO energy to be tuned by 0.5 eV. Using a pyridine-free electrolyte, panchromatic absorption of the dye on TiO2 extending to 900 nm has been achieved. Solar cells using PD2 and a Co(bpy)3 based electrolyte showed unique stability under simulated sunlight and elevated temperatures.


Using the ECLS-K national database, this study compared the self-concepts in reading, math, general academic (all-subjects), and peer areas for third-grade students with and without identified learning disabilities. Unlike most similar research on academic self-concept, students' measured achievement in reading and math was controlled, thereby effectively comparing students at similar levels of achievement. Correlations between achievement and self-concept were small for both LD and non-LD groups. When controlling for achievement, academic self-concepts were not lower for the students with LD. Similar to other studies, students with LD tended to statistically over-predict their achievement compared to the non-LD group. This study extends the Strein and Signor (2005) study that used similar methodology on a national database of high school sophomores.


HYPOTHESIS
Esophageal intubation with a bougie during laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication (LNF) is commonly used to prevent an excessively tight wrap. However, a bougie may cause intraoperative gastric and esophageal perforations. We hypothesized that LNF is safe and effective when performed without a bougie.

DESIGN
Retrospective review of 102 consecutive patients who underwent LNF without a bougie.

SETTING
Tertiary care university hospital.

PATIENTS
All patients presented with symptoms of reflux disease. Mean (+/- SD) percentage of time with pH of less than 4 was 12.6% +/- 9.4%. Mean DeMeester score was 47.8. Mean (+/- SD) resting lower esophageal sphincter pressure was 15.0 +/- 9.4 mm Hg. Mean (+/- SD) distal esophageal amplitude was 69.4 +/- 39.2 mm Hg.

INTERVENTION
During LNF, we obtained 2 to 3 cm of intra-abdominal esophagus, divided all short gastric vessels, reapproximated the crura, and performed a loose 360 degrees fundoplication without a bougie.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Postoperative rates of dysphagia, gas bloat, and recurrent reflux.

RESULTS
In the early postoperative period, 50 patients (49.0%) complained of mild, 11 (10.8%) of moderate, and 7 (6.9%) of severe dysphagia. Average (+/- SD) duration of early dysphagia was 4.6 +/- 2.1 weeks. Dysphagia resolved in 61 (89.7%) of 68 patients within 6 weeks. Late resolution of dysphagia was noted in 4 (5.8%) patients. Three patients were successfully treated with esophageal dilatations. Persistent dysphagia was found in 1 patient. Thirty patients (29.4%) had transient gas bloat. Mild persistent reflux, requiring daily medication, was noted in 5 (4.9%) patients.

CONCLUSIONS
Performance of LNF without a bougie offers a safe and effective therapy for gastroesophageal reflux disease. While avoiding the potential risks for gastric and esophageal injury, it may provide low rates of long-term postoperative dysphagia and reflux recurrence.


Traditionally fault seal calculations take place directly within the simulation grid. This approach works well for grids where all the faults are aligned along the grid pillars, but implementing an algorithm that works with stair-stepped representation of the faults has proven to be very difficult. Especially the calculation of the displacement field used both indirectly in the fault seal parameter calculation and directly in the calculation of fault zone permeability is challenging. It is hard to find where the different grid layers intersect the fault trace, and the layers are not always completely represented on both sides of the fault. We present a novel algorithm where the calculation of the fault zone permeability is carried out on a 2D plane representing the fault surface. The input parameters needed for calculating the fault zone permeability are resampled from the simulation grid onto the 2D plane, while the resulting fault zone permeability is resampled back into the simulation grid, prior to calculation of the fault transmissibility. The new approach is shown to generate good results both for pillar-faulted grids, and for grids with stair-stepped faults, and also works well near complex truncations.


`Avoid trivia.' Such was the advice given to George F. Kennan, first director of the Policy Planning Staff (s/P)1 of the United States Department of State by the Secretary of State, George C. Marshall. The staff was created by Marshall in April 1947 in response to perceived threats of economic collapse and political chaos in postwar Europe. Kennan and his five-man staff assumed active roles in the formulation of the Marshall Plan, attesting to their acceptance of Marshall's advice. The effects of the plan were not only to speed immediate European economic recovery, but also to lay the foundation for future European economic prosperity.2 In this situation the Policy Planning Staff had a dramatic impact on the direction of American foreign policy. The powerlessness of the staff in the formulation of United States policy in Vietnam during the early and mid-1960s provides a striking contrast. Although Director Walt Rostow instituted the National Policy Papers as strategies for developing innovative policy guidelines, his efforts went unheeded by the Secretary of State, Dean Rusk. According to many observers, the influence of the Policy Planning Staff dropped to the lowest point in its history during the 1961-6 period, and particularly with respect to Vietnam policy.3
What has made the difference between success and failure for the Policy Planning Staff over time? Why has it had an impact on policy in some situations but not in others? More generally, what does the staff's experience tell us about the conditions under which planners can influence the direction of foreign policy?


Fibroblast growth factors are a family of intercellular signaling molecules that participate in the normal growth of the craniofacial skeleton. Advances in molecular genetics have revealed that fibroblast growth factors are involved in the regulation of bone growth by maintaining a balance between the differentiation of osteoblasts and the proliferation of mesenchyme (Morriss-Kay and Wilkie, 2005). The focus of my research is fibroblast growth factor 20a because it seems to play a significant role in the normal development of the skull. At birth, the skull is made up of bony elements, that meet at fibrous membranes called sutures. Throughout development, those bony elements fuse together at different rates to form solid bone. Previous research has shown that zebrafish deficient in fgf20a, which are referred to as dob mutants, have abnormal suture patterning and exhibit several craniofacial defects that are similar in presentation to the defects seen in individuals with craniosynostosis (Albertson, unpublished data). Craniosynostosis is a birth defect that is caused by the premature closure of sutures and is characterized by an irregular craniofacial shape. Using whole mount in situ hybridization (WISH) methods and advanced microscopic imaging, I gained insights into the pathological mechanisms that lead to aberrant suture formation in humans. Our research results suggest that fgf20a directly affects suture and skull development. We have demonstrated this in two ways. Firstly, we showed that in the absence of fgf20a, zebrafish have abnormal suture patterning. Secondly, we showed that the fgf20a gene is normally expressed in the cranial sutures of wild-type zebrafish through WISH methods. Our results are important because this is the first instance where an fgf ligand is implicated in craniosynostosis. Furthermore, we have established a molecular foothold (via fgf20a) into skull and suture development, and we have established a model system for studying the developmental origins and mechanisms of craniosynostosis.


We report a photothermal nanoblade that utilizes a metallic nanostructure to harvest short laser pulse energy and convert it into a highly localized and specifically shaped explosive vapor bubble. Rapid bubble expansion and collapse punctures a lightly-contacting cell membrane via high-speed fluidic flows and induced transient shear stress. The membrane cutting pattern is controlled by the metallic nanostructure configuration, laser pulse polarization, and energy. Highly controllable, sub-micron sized circular hole pairs to half moon-like, or cat-door shaped, membrane cuts were realized in glutaraldehyde treated HeLa cells.


The growing interest and awareness of sustainable development in the last decade has been remarkable. The construction industry has taken the centre stage in driving sustainable development through sustainable construction due to its impacts in the society. It has been argued that 80% target reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the United Kingdom (UK) by 2050 can be realised if the industry recognises the need for sustainable retrofitted building projects. It has been revealed that there is a possibility for substantial reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the environment through sustainable retrofitted building projects. However, the challenges of delivering sustainable retrofitted building projects are enormous and complex in the industry particularly with key stakeholders' lack of managing project knowledge in making informed and appropriate decisions. This can improve if the industry recognises the need of a knowledge system that will enable key stakeholders to make informed decisions in the delivery of sustainable retrofitted building projects. This paper presents a conceptual framework that would assist key stakeholders in managing project knowledge in making an informed decision towards delivering of sustainable retrofitted building projects. This was achieved through the review of literatures. The conceptual framework recognises the need to understand the social, economic and environmental issues and aspects of sustainability in delivering sustainable retrofitted building projects. It also considers some decision components such as of measurement such as problem identification determine the objective; identification; knowledge learning procedures for key stakeholders; knowledge maps; sustainability assessments; identify and compare alternatives; estimating of weights; evaluation of choice in making an informed decision. The framework was formulated through critical literature review in consideration of some existing decision support frameworks.


The architecture of the fault network and the late- to post-metamorphic structural evolution in the internal Cottian Alps have been studied by an integrated approach combining morphostructural analysis, field mapping and detailed mesostructural analysis between the Susa and Pellice Valleys. Available apatite fission track data indicate that this sector of the Western Alps reached shallow crustal levels, where brittle deformation mechanisms prevail, by Late Oligocene times. The analysed area comprises two main N-S striking regional, polyphasic semi-brittle to brittle deformation zones: the Colle delle Finestre Fault Zone (CFFZ) and the Col del Lis-Trana Deformation Zone (LTZ). The activity of those long-lived structures evolved, respectively, from dextral and dextral-reverse to extensional. In the block bounded by these two regional structures, the late- to post-metamorphic tectonic evolution is characterized by two faulting stages: (a) the development of an E-W left-lateral fault zone with a minor normal component of movement; at the regional scale, this fault zone may be considered as an antithetical shear of the major LTZ and the CFFZ; (b) the extensional reactivation and development of N-S normal faults, coeval with those recorded both by the LTZ and the CFFZ. The geometry of the fault and fracture systems has been compared with the remote sensed lineaments pattern, characterized by four main systems: Ln1 (N0°-30°E), Ln2 (N45°-70°E), Ln3 (N80°-100°E) and Ln4 (N100°-120°E). The lineament systems display similarities in terms of orientation, geometry and length with the fault systems observed at different scales. These similarities allowed us to extrapolate the structural model outlined in the mapped area to the adjoining sectors. Comparison between the different data suggests that the pattern of the lineaments detected between the LTZ and the CFFZ agrees with the architecture of a strike-slip fault network, which accommodated the internal deformation of the block bounded by these two major N-S transcurrent deformation zones. The transcurrent activity of these faults is here interpreted as coeval with the late dextral movements along the Canavese Line and with the propagation, in the Late Oligocene-Early Miocene, of the roughly E-vergent South-Alpine Thrusts beneath the Tertiary Piemonte Basin. The extensional event that followed may be related to the uplift with the subsequent isostatic readjustment of the chain which may have also induced the normal reactivation of the Penninic Frontal Thrust. This extensional regime is also in agreement with focal mechanisms of recent earthquakes.


A seminal result in game theory is von Neumann's minmax theorem, which states that zero-sum games admit an essentially unique equilibrium solution. Classical learning results build on this theorem to show that online no-regret dynamics converge to an equilibrium in a time-average sense in zero-sum games. In the past several years, a key research direction has focused on characterizing the day-to-day behavior of such dynamics. General results in this direction show that broad classes of online learning dynamics are cyclic, and formally Poincar\'{e} recurrent, in zero-sum games. We analyze the robustness of these online learning behaviors in the case of periodic zero-sum games with a time-invariant equilibrium. This model generalizes the usual repeated game formulation while also being a realistic and natural model of a repeated competition between players that depends on exogenous environmental variations such as time-of-day effects, week-to-week trends, and seasonality. Interestingly, time-average convergence may fail even in the simplest such settings, in spite of the equilibrium being fixed. In contrast, using novel analysis methods, we show that Poincar\'{e} recurrence provably generalizes despite the complex, non-autonomous nature of these dynamical systems.


The ability to choose freely is captured under the umbrella concept of "free will," which designates an ability that plays a crucial role in most understandings of autonomy and responsibility and, thus, bears significance for moral practice and moral theory. Some claim that neuroscience research challenges the existence of free will/voluntary action while some who adopt stronger eliminativist stances have gone as far as describing free will as an illusion. Contrary to that, those relying on realist stances have restated the foundational value and role of folk psychological concepts of voluntary action and free will in, for example, the domains of ethics and law. An emerging body of research in cognitive science and social psychology has generated results suggesting that the phenomena captured by the concepts describing free will and voluntary action are dynamic and responsive to priming and framing effects. We propose that this body of research suggests the existence of dynamic and consequential properties of free will better captured following pragmatist theory and instrumentalist epistemology. This contrasts the simpler static concept of free will and the related metaphysics that was at the basis of earlier debates and structured around the poles of realism and eliminativism. This paper contextualizes ontological and epistemological debates about free will, describes a scientifically-informed and instrumentalist account of the concept of free will and voluntary action consistent with recent research in cognitive science, and discusses its implications for research (e.g., theoretical assumptions of research paradigms, interdisciplinary research) and practice (e.g., impact on self-image and social behavior).


The seemingly idiosyncratic distribution of glides in the weak verb stems of Classical Arabic is given a coherent analysis as the consequence of constraint interaction, as defined by Optimality Theory. At the core of the analysis are two constraint rankings that determine the vowels of the verb stem. One ranking, which ensures harmonic parsing of a low vowel over high vowels, is based on input/output faithfulness; the other ranking, which ensures harmonic parsing of high vowels over a low vowel, is based on intercandidate faithfulness, as defined by Sympathy Theory. These constraint rankings interact with generally defined markedness constraints to account for glide distribution in all measure I verb forms without specific reference to morphological contexts. As a result, the complex distribution of glides in Arabic is not typologically anomalous.


The high spatiotemporal variability of clouds requires automated monitoring systems. This study presents a retrieval algorithm that evaluates observations of a hemispherically scanning thermal infrared radiometer, the NubiScope, to produce georeferenced, spatially explicit cloud maps. The algorithm uses atmospheric temperature and moisture profiles and an atmospheric radiative transfer code to differentiate between cloudy and cloudless measurements. In case of a cloud, it estimates its position by using the temperature profile and viewing geometry. The proposed algorithm was tested with 25 cloud maps generated by the Fmask algorithm from Landsat 7 images. The overall cloud detection rate was ranging from 0.607 for zenith angles of 0 to 10° to 0.298 for 50–60° on a pixel basis. The overall detection of cloudless pixels was 0.987 for zenith angles of 30–40° and much more stable over the whole range of zenith angles compared to cloud detection. This proves the algorithm's capability in detecting clouds, but even better cloudless areas. Cloud-base height was best estimated up to a height of 4000 m compared to ceilometer base heights but showed large deviation above that level. This study shows the potential of the NubiScope system to produce high spatial and temporal resolution cloud maps. Future development is needed for a more accurate determination of cloud height with thermal infrared measurements.


This paper seeks to chart a concept of historical experience that French Romantic writers first developed to describe their own relationship to historical time: the notion of the "transitional period." At first, the term related strictly to the evolving periodic conception of history, one that required breaks, spaces, or zones of indeterminacy to bracket off periods imagined as organic wholes. These transitions, necessary devices in the new grammar of history, also began to attract interest on their own, conceived either as chaotic but creative times of transformation, or, more often, as slack periods of decadence that possessed no proper style but exhibited hybrid traits. Their real interest, however, lies in their reflexive application to the nineteenth century itself, by writers and historians such as Alfred de Musset, Chateaubriand, Michelet, and Renan, who in their effort to define their own period envisioned the "transitional period" as a passage between more coherent and stable historical formations. This prospective self-definition of the "age of history" from a future standpoint is very revealing; it shows not just the tension between its organic way of apprehending the past and its own self-perception, but it also opens a window on a new and paradoxical experience of time, one in which change is ceaseless and an end in itself. The paper also presents a critique of the way the term "modernity" has functioned, from Baudelaire's initial use to the present, to occlude the experience of transition that the Romantics highlighted. By imposing on the nineteenth-century sense of the transitory a heroic period designation, the term "modernity" denies precisely the reality it describes, and sublimates a widespread temporal malaise into its contrary. The paper concludes that the peculiarly "modern" mania for naming one's period is a function of transitional time, and that the concept coined by the Romantics still governs our contemporary experience.


This article is based on a review of the literature and recent clinical studies on changes in plasma cortisol hormone concentrations in cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease. The article presents the reasons for the relationship between cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease, in particular vascular Parkinsonism and neurodegenerative diseases, as well as the results of neuropsychological tests. Methods: We studied the level of morning plasma cortisol in 68 patients with Vascular Parkinsonism (VP) who were hospitalized in 1 st neurology department of TMA in the period from 2015 to the present.The relationship between increased morning plasma cortisol and cognitive impairment was determined.The results of the study were statistically analyzed.Cortisol was determined in all blood samples of patients of the Main and Control groups.The control group consisted of 47 volunteers. Results: Normal levels of cortisol were observed in 20 patients (29%) with vascular parkinsonism,, moderate increases in cortisol were observed in 37 patients (54.4%), and elevations in cortisol were observed in 11 patients (16.1%). Was determined the relationship between the value of cortisol and the assessment of cognitive impairment.In the main group, a statistically significant moderate inverse correlation was determined between plasma cortisol level and cognitive impairment in VP. When studying cortisol levels in VP, its significant increase is noted than in the control (p <0.05). Conclusion: Increased levels of the hormone cortisol in Parkinson's disease play an important role in cognitive impairment and during the course of the disease and affect the effectiveness of VP therapy.


Numerous studies have been conducted on caffeine and its stimulant
effects. However, studies that have been conducted to examine the effects of caffeine on
alertness and memory have produced conflicting results. Several factors may be critical
in explaining these mixed results, one of them being dose level. Past research has shown
that performance improved with low doses of caffeine but higher doses of caffeine
hindered performance on mental rotation. The purpose of the present study was to test the
effects of caffeine under conditions that are better controlled than previous studies to
determine its dose-related effects on a mental rotation task and a paired-word verbal
memory task. Low levels of caffeine were predicted to improve performance on the
Mental Rotation and Verbal Short-Term Memory tasks and higher doses to produce a
decrement in performance on these tasks. "Average" caffeine consumers were recruited
with a screening survey. Subjects were administered caffeine in capsules (0mg/kg,
1mg/kg, 2mg/kg & 3mg/kg in capsules or 0mg/kg or 2mg/kg caffeine in a decaffeinated
cup of coffee). Procedural variables were controlled for that many past studies have failed
to control for, such as caffeine dose, participant's weight, participant's caffeine use
frequency, participant's drug use history, time of day effects, influence that food
consumption may have on caffeine, gender effects and withdrawal effects.
The results showed that there were no significant differences in
performance between the dose groups. But when a cup of coffee condition was added,
performance for subjects given both decaffeinated coffee and caffeine coffee was
significantly better, or showed a trend for better performance, on the mental rotation task
and the paired-word task than did the capsule conditions. The results also agreed with past research that males performed significantly better than females on the mental
rotation and that females performed better on the task of verbal memory.


The didgeridoo is a wind instrument composed of a single large tube often used as drone instrument for backing up the mids and lows of an ensemble. A didgeridoo is played by buzzing the lips and blowing air into the didgeridoo. To play a didgeridoo continously one can employ circular breathing but the volume of air required poses a real challenge to novice players. In this paper we replace the expense of circular breathing and lip buzzing with electronic excitation, thus creating an electro-acoustic didgeridoo or electronic didgeridoo. Thus we describe the didgeridoo excitation signal, how to replicate it, and the hardware necessary to make an electro-acoustic didgeridoo driven by speakers and controllable from a computer. To properly drive the didgeridoo we rely upon 4th-order ported bandpass speaker boxes to help guide our excitation signals into an attached acoustic didgeridoo. The results somewhat replicate human didgeridoo playing, enabling a new kind of mid to low electro-acoustic accompaniment without the need for circular breathing.


Despite the vast changes in plantation agriculture following the Civil War and Reconstruction, the lot of small farmers was little improved. Examining the nonplantation region of upcountry Georgia as a microcosm of the South, Steven Hahn showed how farmers were buffeted by such forces as the unravelling of antebellum household economy, the development of market forces, the growth of a new class of merchants-landlords, and rising tensions between town and countryside-and how their resentments fueld the Populist movement at the end of the 19th century. For this updated edition, Hahn will add new material to discuss how the book has stood up since it was published over twenty years ago, how the arguments and questions were received, and what influence they may have had on scholarship. He will also consider what has happened to historical interest in Populism, poor white people and populist politics, as well as why he thinks it likely that interest may revive and what sort of questions and arguments may drive it.


Abstract Over recent years, considerable effort has been put into increasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) participation in higher education. While there are signs that enrolments are increasing, the sustained engagement and successful completion of higher education remains challenging, particularly in remote locations. With this in mind, a collaborative research project among researchers from three northern Australian tertiary education institutions was designed to understand student perspectives, particularly from remote contexts, about their engagement and success towards completion in higher education. Based on a qualitative research design situating Indigenist/interpretive research within a critical realism metatheory, we present findings from the study, based in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, and unpack implications for higher education provision in remote contexts. The findings point to the unique challenges faced by students who live in the Kimberley—and perhaps in other remote locations around Australia. In order to meet these needs, we suggest that tertiary education providers must tailor provision to ensure that engagement with Aboriginal students is relational and culturally safe.


It has been established recently that sparse non-negative signals can be recovered using non-negativity constraints only. This result is obtained within an idealized setting of exact sparsity and absence of noise. We propose non-negative least squares − without any regularization − followed by thresholding for the noisy case. We develop conditions under which one can prove a finite sample result for support recovery and tackle the case of an approximately sparse target. Under weaker conditions, we show that non-negative least squares is consistent for prediction. As illustration, we present a feature extraction problem from Proteomics.


Event-related potentials (ERPs) to tone pairs and single tones were measured for 16 participants with specific language impairment (SLI) and 16 age-matched controls aged from 10 to 19 years The tone pairs were separated by an inter-stimulus interval (ISI) of 20, 50 or 150 ms. The intraclass correlation (ICC) was computed for each participant between the ERP to a single tone and the ERP to the tone pair. A high ICC indicates that the brain response to a tone pair is similar to that for a single tone. ICCs were significantly higher at short than at long ISIs. At 50-ms ISI, ICCs were higher for younger than older participants. Age and ISI interacted with SLI status: ERPs of older participants with SLI differed from age-matched controls, and resembled ERPs of younger controls, consistent with a theory of immature auditory processing in SLI.