Monocular image-based 3D reconstruction of faces is a long-standing problem in computer vision. Since image data is a 2D projection of a 3D face, the resulting depth ambiguity makes the problem ill-posed. Most existing methods rely on data-driven priors that are built from limited 3D face scans. In contrast, we propose multi-frame video-based self-supervised training of a deep network that (i) learns a face identity model both in shape and appearance while (ii) jointly learning to reconstruct 3D faces. Our face model is learned using only corpora of in-the-wild video clips collected from the Internet. This virtually endless source of training data enables learning of a highly general 3D face model. In order to achieve this, we propose a novel multi-frame consistency loss that ensures consistent shape and appearance across multiple frames of a subject's face, thus minimizing depth ambiguity. At test time we can use an arbitrary number of frames, so that we can perform both monocular as well as multi-frame reconstruction.


The results of the pilot study reported on in this article indicate that the combination of children's books supplementary to the biology lessons does not diminish reading-achieve-ment test scores, and that there seems to be an advantage in domain-specific word knowledge. For 14 weeks, the time normally spent on unsustained silent reading in class was filled in by reading on particular subjects that were being discussed in biology lessons. The basic research assumption was that reading various texts on the same subject would not only positively affect the children's knowledge about this subject but would also improve their reading skills and their attitudes towards reading. The experimental group scored significandy better than their peer group on a domain-specific vocabulary test. This indicates that the books were used as stepping stones for building mental knowledge structures. Tests with respect to the other variables such as reading skills yielded no significant differences between the groups. However, post-hoc analysis showed an advantage for pupils from the lower social groups. Their attitude towards reading impro-ved considerably, in which respect they differed significandy from their peers. The results seem to confirm the ideas expressed in the international literature about content area reading and in aspects of schema theory. By reading the books in combination with the biology lessons, certain schemata could be activated which enable the pupils better to understand the new information and store it firmly in their memory. The redundancy of important words appearing in various contexts is a determinant of word knowledge.


On November 28, 2011, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the United States District Court in Manhattan declined to approve a consent judgment between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Citigroup. Because Citigroup had not admitted or denied the allegations in the consent decree, Judge Rakoff concluded that he was unable to make an informed judgment about the merits of the settlement. Judge Rakoff's decision has met with serious criticism from legal observers and rekindled discussion about the scope of judicial review of agency consent decrees, which have become a valuable agency enforcement tool. This paper attempts to articulate a clear standard of review focused on agency disability caused by a misalignment of interest or inadequate information. The concrete and deferential standard described in this paper would maintain an important gate-keeping function for the court without unduly interfering with agency policy. And a restricted inquiry, focused on conflicts of interest and adequate consideration, is appropriate given the limited institutional competence of the judiciary. The judiciary is not well situated to evaluate the terms of a settlement, which is the product of a complex balancing of agency priorities and is informed by the agency's overall strategy and policy objectives. It is difficult to see what advantages a judge with a heavy caseload can add to a deal brokered by an agency staff charged solely with promoting the public interest in a particular area. By contrast, judges can be alert to conflicts of interest, as they are in other areas of the law. When evaluating an agency's structure and information, the reviewing judge is not at an informational disadvantage relative to the parties. As a result, the court can determine whether the agency is properly accounting for social costs and benefits, and can ensure that the agency is not ignoring an important third party interest. Absent any indication of conflict or structural impairment, and given a reasonable justification for the settlement, the judge need not scrutinize the merits of the settlement and incur the costs of judicial review.


Background: The present study aims to identify different work-family boundary management profiles among Finnish employees, and examine how these relate to conflict between work and family or their mutual enrichment. Method: Participants from two samples, one consisting of university staff (n1 = 1,139) and another of nurses (n2 = 271), were asked to respond to an online survey concerning work-family boundary management, work-to-family enrichment, and work-to-family conflict scales. Results: A cluster analysis identified three profiles in both samples: segmentors, integrators and favoring family over work in the university sample, and segmentors, integrators and favoring work over family in the nurse sample. In both samples integrators experienced a higher level of work-to-family enrichment and a lower level of work-to-family conflict in comparison to segmentors. Conclusion: Individuals with a tendency to integrate work and family domains experience higher work to family enrichment and lower work to family conflict compared to those who separate work and family domains.


Flexibility is desirable in optical systems for transfer, processing, and display of pictorial information. Two important operations in this respect are image rotation and magnification. Simple means for their realization by one single system are discussed. Experimental verifications using diffractive and refractive elements are described.


BACKGROUND/AIMS
To investigate the prevalence of malnutrition in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) by subjective global assessment (SGA) and the effects of oral nutritional support on the clinical parameters, consumption of energy, macronutrients and fiber intake in the Study and Control groups, prospectively.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A total of 38 (28 Male; 10 Female) hospitalized patients with moderate or severe IBD (13 with Crohn's disease (CD); 25 with Ulcerative colitis (UC)) were included. At stage 1, the disease severity, clinical symptoms and, signs, food consumption and nutritional status by using subjective global assessment (SGA) were recorded. At stage 2, the patients were blindly randomized into a Study Group and Controls. In the Study Group, a standard enteral product was added into the regulated hospital diets, but for the Controls, deficits were regulated by only hospital diets for 3 weeks. the independent variables were the group, the disease and its activity, age, Body body mass index (BMI), weight loss history, the hospitalization period; the dependent variables were SGA, bowel movements, change in nutritional status, disease severity, clinical findings, and also consumption of macronutrients.

RESULTS
Prevalance of malnutrition (SGA-B or SGA-C) for all the patients was 92.1% at the beginning and 71.1% at the end of study. Improvements in disease activity score for the patients with UC were statistically significant in both the Study Group and the Controls (p=0.006 for the Study Group and p=0.001 for the Controls, respectively). Macronutrients, total and water soluble fiber consumption levels improved, with statistically significant differences for all the groups.

CONCLUSION
The prevalence of malnutrition is a major problem in patients with IBD. Not only the regulation of hospital food, but also enteral nutritional support, improved their levels of malnutrition, as well as their energy, macronutrients, and fiber consumption, and SGA is an easy method for nutritional monitoring.


Introduction One important aspect of a Systematic Review (SR) is to use a comprehensive search strategy to identify evidence such as randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from multiple sources. One particular concern is to find unpublished evidence to avoid publication bias. Traditional methods to identify RCTs which are mentioned in the Cochrane Collaboration Handbook include using Collaborative Review Group trial registers, checking reference lists, personal communication, electronic databases and hand searching. The Internet represents a potential additional source for identifying evidence for systematic reviews, but the actual use of the Internet for locating unpublished evidence has not been systematically studied. Objectives To determine whether and to which extent RCTs and other unpublished evidence useful for systematic reviews can be identified by searching the World-Wide-Web in addition to using traditional approaches mentioned in the Cochrane Collaboration Handbook. To determine on which kind of web pages hints to unpublished RCTs could be located and to determine possible search strategies and tools for the Internet. To provide future directions for research in this area and for the development of specialised search engines. Methods A random sample of 8 completed, recently updated Cochrane Systematic Reviews (CSR) were selected and their search strategies were adapted for the World-Wide-Web. The Internet was searched and hints to potentially relevant unpublished or ongoing trials found on Web Pages were recorded and compared to unpublished evidence used in the original CSRs. Results Information on unpublished and ongoing trials could be found on the Internet for 4 of the 8 CSRs. Conclusions Searches on the Internet should be routinely included in the search strategies for CRs. New tools for locating ongoing trials (a specialised search engine) should be considered. A problem is how to deal with published evidence with questionable reliability found on the Internet that has not been published in peer-reviewed journals.


Palmer Deep sediment cores are used to produce the first high-resolution, continuous late Pleistocene to Holocene time-series from the Antarctic marine system. The sedimentary record is dated using accelerator mass spectrometer radiocarbon methods on acid insoluble organic matter and foraminiferal calcite. Fifty-four radiocarbon analyses are utilized in the dating which provides a calibrated timescale back to 13 ka BP. Reliability of resultant ages on organic matter is assured because duplicates produce a standard deviation from the surface age of less than laboratory error (i.e., ±50 years). In addition, surface organic matter ages at the site are in excellent agreement with living calcite ages at the accepted reservoir age of 1260 years for the Antarctic Peninsula. Spectral analyses of the magnetic susceptibility record against the age model reveal unusually strong periodicity in the 400,–200 and 50-70 year frequency bands, similar to other high-resolution records from the Holocene but, so far, unique for the circum-Antarctic. Here we show that comparison to icecore records of specific climatic events (e.g., the 'Little Ice Age', Neoglacial, Hypsithermal, and the Bølling/Allerød to Younger Dryas transition) provides improved focus upon the relative timing of atmosphere/ocean changes between the northern anid southern high latitudes.


Seifertite is a dense orthorhombic polymorph of silica with the scrutinyite (α-PbO2) type structure that was found as lamellae occurring together with dense silica glass lamellae in composite silica grains in the heavily shocked Martian meteorite Shergotty. The mineral is also intergrown in some grains with minor stishovite and a new unnamed monoclinic dense silica polymorph with a ZrO2-type structure. Seifertite has also been found in the Martian shergottite Zagami and is a minor constituent in other Martian shergottites. Chemical analyses of seifertite in Shergotty indicate major SiO2 with minor concentrations of Al2O3 and Na2O. Selected-area electron diffraction (SAED) and X-ray diffraction can be interpreted in terms of an orthorhombic pattern from a scrutinyite (α-PbO2) structure. The cell parameters are a = 4.097(1) A, b = 5.0462(9) A, c = 4.4946(8) A, V = 92.92 A3, Z = 4, and the space group is Pbcn or Pb 2 n . Density is (calc.) = 4.294 g/cm3 (with pure SiO2), 4.309 g/cm3 (with empirical formula). It is inferred that seifertite was formed by shock-induced solid-state transformation of either tridymite or cristobalite on Mars at an estimated minimum equilibrium shock pressure in excess of 35 GPa. The new mineral is named after Friedrich A. Seifert (b. 1941), founding Director of the Bayerisches Geoinstitut, Universitat Bayreuth, Germany, for his seminal contributions to high-pressure geoscience.


In mid-September 2008, following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, international interbank markets froze and interbank lending beyond very short maturities virtually evaporated. Despite massive central bank support operations and purchases of key assets, many financial markets remained impaired for a long time. Why was this funding crisis so much worse than other past major bank failures and why has it proved so hard to cure? This paper suggests that much of that answer lies in the balance sheets of international banks and their customers. It outlines the basic building blocks of liquidity management for a bank that operates in many currencies and then discusses how the massive development of foreign exchange (forex) and interest rate derivatives markets transformed banks' strategies in this area. It explains how the pervasive interconnectedness between major banks and markets magnified contagion effects. Finally, the paper provides some recommendations for how strategic borrowing choices by international banks could make them more stable and how regulators could assist in this process.


Background and Purpose— Intracerebral hemorrhage leads to disability or death with few established treatments. Adverse outcomes after intracerebral hemorrhage result from irreversible damage to neurons resulting from primary and secondary injury. Secondary injury has been attributed to hemoglobin and its oxidized product hemin from lysed red blood cells. The aim of this study was to identify the underlying cell death mechanisms attributable to secondary injury by hemoglobin and hemin to broaden treatment options. Methods— We investigated cell death mechanisms in cultured neurons exposed to hemoglobin or hemin. Chemical inhibitors implicated in all known cell death pathways were used. Identified cell death mechanisms were confirmed using molecular markers and electron microscopy. Results— Chemical inhibitors of ferroptosis and necroptosis protected against hemoglobin- and hemin-induced toxicity. By contrast, inhibitors of caspase-dependent apoptosis, protein or mRNA synthesis, autophagy, mitophagy, or parthanatos had no effect. Accordingly, molecular markers of ferroptosis and necroptosis were increased after intracerebral hemorrhage in vitro and in vivo. Electron microscopy showed that hemin induced a necrotic phenotype. Necroptosis and ferroptosis inhibitors each abrogated death by >80% and had similar therapeutic windows in vitro. Conclusions— Experimental intracerebral hemorrhage shares features of ferroptotic and necroptotic cell death, but not caspase-dependent apoptosis or autophagy. We propose that ferroptosis or necroptotic signaling induced by lysed blood is sufficient to reach a threshold of death that leads to neuronal necrosis and that inhibition of either of these pathways can bring cells below that threshold to survival.


Topological insulators (TI) are new phases of matter with topologically protected surface states (SS) possessing novel physical properties such as spin-momentum locking. Coupling optical angular momentum to the SS is of interest for both fundamental understanding and applications in future spintronic devices. However, due to the nanoscale thickness of the surface states, the light matter interaction is dominated by the bulk. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a plasmonic cavity enabling both nanoscale light confinement and control of surface plasmon-polariton (SPP) spin angular momentum (AM)--towards coupling to topological-insulator SS. The resulting SPP field components within the cavity are arranged in a chess-board-like pattern. Each chess-board square exhibits approximately a uniform circular polarization (spin AM) of the local in-plane field interleaved by out-of-plane field vortices (orbital AM). As the first step, we demonstrate the predicted pattern experimentally by near-field measurements on a gold-air interface, with excellent agreement to our theory. Our results pave the way towards efficient optical access to topological-insulator surface states using plasmonics.


The construction of the steel arched Tsakona Bridge, designed to overpass an active landslide, required several temporary projects. Auxiliary steel towers were used for the erection and welding of the arch segments. Most of them had to be founded in the body of the sliding mass. An automated instrumentation and monitoring system was installed on site providing early warning to the engineers in charge in case large displacements were measured. The real-time recording data provided valuable information about the landslide movements. These monitoring results defined the geotechnical and structural design criteria for the deep foundation of the temporary towers. Several 2D and 3D geotechnical and structural models were created to evaluate the sliding effect on the foundation components, finalize their dimensioning and calculate the required reinforcement. The procedure followed for the design of the temporary deep foundation is described based on the criteria devised using the monitoring system, emphasizing on the continuous feedback between the geotechnical and structural design teams. Several key structural design issues required during construction are also presented.


This article considers the filtering problem for linear and Gaussian state-space models with large dimensions, a setup in which the optimal Kalman Filter (KF) might not be applicable owing to the excessive cost of manipulating huge covariance matrices. Among the most popular alternatives that enable cheaper and reasonable computation is the Ensemble KF (EnKF), a Monte Carlo-based approximation. In this article, we consider a class of a posteriori distributions with diagonal covariance matrices and propose fast approximate deterministic-based algorithms based on the Variational Bayesian (VB) approach. More specifically, we derive two iterative KF-like algorithms that differ in the way they operate between two successive filtering estimates; one involves a smoothing estimate and the other involves a prediction estimate. Despite its iterative nature, the prediction-based algorithm provides a computational cost that is, on the one hand, independent of the number of iterations in the limit of very large state dimensions, and on the other hand, always much smaller than the cost of the EnKF. The cost of the smoothing-based algorithm depends on the number of iterations that may, in some situations, make this algorithm slower than the EnKF. The performances of the proposed filters are studied and compared to those of the KF and EnKF through a numerical example.


This paper presents a topology optimization approach to design planar transitions between a microstrip line (MSL) and a rectangular waveguide (RWG) in the K-band. The transition comprises two sub-transitions: one from the MSL to a substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) and the second from the SIW to the RWG. Both are on the same substrate and can be manufactured with a standard printed circuit board process. This leads to a very cost-effective solution compared with other approaches. A WR-42 waveguide can easily be surface mounted to the transitions using a standard flange. The transitions have been fabricated, and their measured performance shows good agreement with the simulations. The MSL-SIW transition has a broadband behavior and the SIW-RWG transition still reaches a relative bandwidth of 10%.


Abstract Large digital archives of ethnic music require automatic tools to provide musical content descriptions. While various automatic approaches are available, they are to a wide extent developed for Western popular music. This paper aims to analyse how automated tempo estimation approaches perform in the context of Central-African music. To this end we collect human beat annotations for a set of musical fragments, and compare them with automatic beat tracking sequences. We first analyse the tempo estimations derived from annotations and beat tracking results. Then we examine an approach, based on mutual agreement between automatic and human annotations, to automate such analysis, which can serve to detect musical fragments with high tempo ambiguity.


ABSTRACT

Fog harvesting techniques for water collection have been implemented successfully worldwide for several decades. However, at locations with high wind speeds, traditional installations require high maintenance efforts endangering the sustainability of projects. Furthermore, the efficiency of fog collection meshes and the water quality in the field are key questions for the implementation of large-scale facilities. This study presents a novel, durable fog collector design and investigates the yield (fog + rain) and inorganic water quality of different potential collection meshes at a test site in Morocco. The pilot facility proved very reliable with only minimal maintenance required. Rankings of the efficiency of different fog nets were set up, with monofilaments and three-dimensional structures tending to show higher yields than woven fabrics such as the traditional 'Raschel' mesh. However, differences from fog event to fog event could be identified. Water quality was better than that of local wells and met WHO guidelines, except for the 'first flush' just after the start of fog events.


Alex Cukierman is well known for his work on central bank behavior. This book brings together a large body of Cukierman's research and integrates it with recent developments in the political economy of monetary policy. Filled with applications and carefully worked out technical detail, it provides a valuable comprehensive analysis of central bank decisions, of the various effects of policy on inflation, and of the feedback from inflationary expectations to policy choices. Cukierman uncovers and analyzes the reasons for positive inflation and rates of monetary expansion. He shows that the money supply, and therefore inflation, are not exogenous. They are influenced by interactions involving distributional considerations, private information, personal motives, and the political environment. This point of view makes it possible to identify the institutional, political, and other features of a country that may be conducive to inflationary environments. Cukierman presents new multidimensional evidence on both legal and actual central bank independence for a sample of up to 70 countries and uses it to investigate the interconnections between the distributions of inflation and of central bank independence. He takes up such issues as why some countries have more independent central banks than others and identifies reasons for the substantial cross country variation in seigniorage. He provides positive explanations for the tendency of central banks, like the US Federal Reserve, to smooth interest rates and to be secretive. Observing that it is likely that the European Economic Community will have a monetary union before the turn of the century, Cukierman applies the techniques of modern political economy to discuss the effect of this change on the commitment to price stability. The book includes simple and advanced materials as well as informal summaries of the major technical results. The introduction contains a modular guide for reading and teaching the material.


It is widely believed that companies owned by private-equity sponsors have significant advantages over public companies. Among the advantages of private equity cited by commentators are: (1) better governance and a greater willingness to take risks, (2) the ability to focus on long-term issues and a more stable shareholder base, (3) the ability to attract better management talent, (4) creating a sense of urgency, (5) the ability to use leverage more effectively, (6) avoiding the costs imposed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and (7) freedom from shareholder suits. It would be helpful if public companies could gain some of these advantages. This Article examines whether changes in existing legal rules governing how public company directors are chosen and the extent to which public company directors can be held liable for damages if they do not have a conflict of interest would be likely to increase the ability of public companies to obtain some of the benefits that companies owned by private-equity sponsors appear to have. My conclusion is that, while changing the rules for selecting directors would not be worthwhile, a reduction in the potential liability of directors for damages in situations in which they do not have a conflict of interest would be likely to increase the ability of public company companies to mirror the effectiveness of privateequity portfolio companies without creating other problems that would be unacceptable.


In this paper, we deal with mobility management for wireless sensor networks and we focus on the first phase of a handoff procedure which is concerned with the mechanics of measuring important parameters and initiating (triggering) the handoff decision process. We introduce a range of metrics that could potentially be used in triggering a handoff and we focus on two easy-to-find local values, namely the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) and the Local Link Loss. We investigate these metrics on their ability to provide correct triggers for the decision process, taking into account different threshold values, averaging methods, averaging windows, and hysteresis margins. We evaluate the performance of the different metrics and methods using not only the resulting end-to-end packet loss, the handoff triggers, the eventual handoffs performed, and the handoff success rate, but also using the new concept of on-time triggering. Our evaluation provides a unique insight into the mechanics of the handoff trigger and decision phases.


Parallel data flow analysis methods offer the promise of calculating detailed semantic information about a program at compile-time more efficiently than sequential techniques. Previous work on parallel elimination methods has been hampered by the lack of control over interval size; this can prohibit effective parallel execution of these methods. To overcome this problem, we have designed the region analysis method, a new elimination method for data flow analysis. Region analysis emphasizes flow graph partitioning to enable better load balancing in a more effective parallel algorithm. We present the design of region analysis and the empirical results we have obtained that indicate: the prevalence of large intervals in flow graphs derived from real programs; and the performance improvement of region analysis over parallel Allen-Cocke interval analysis. Our implementation analyzed programs from the Perfect Benchmarks and netlib running on a Sequent Symmetry S81.<<ETX>>


Full-length cDNA copies of the M2 gene of BTV-2, -11, and -13 serotypes obtained by a modified polymerase chain reaction (Clamp-R) were cloned into pUC19 plasmid. The entire nucleotide sequences of each M2 gene were determined and compared with BTV-10 and BTV-17, thus completing the sequencing of these cognate M2 gene segments from all five U.S. BTV serotypes. Each M2 segment contained 1769 nucleotides, a single open reading frame (ORF) with an initiation codon at nucleotides 35-37, and a termination codon at nucleotides 1691-1693. This ORF can encode the 552-amino-acid NS1 protein (64 KDa) which has an isoelectric point of 7. Analyses of the nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequences of the five U.S. BTV serotypes indicated that the most recently isolated BTV-2 serotype was more distantly related than BTV-10, -11, -13, or -17. Analyses of the evolutionary relatedness of the cognate M2 genes by codon positions indicate that the rate of mismatch accumulations in the first and second base codon positions are less than 4%. However, the mismatch accumulations in the third base codon position are quite evident (23%) when BTV-2 serotype was compared with the other U.S. BTV serotypes. This suggests that BTV-2 has separated from the other four U.S. serotypes long before they themselves diverged. These data also indicate that the five U.S. BTV serotypes were apparently derived from two distinct gene pools that reflected geographic distribution in North America.


The Permo-Carboniferous tectonic setting of the SE Central Asian Orogenic Belt is poorly understood, especially with regard to the development of the Solonker (Suture) Zone. New stratigraphic, geochemical and detrital zircon analyses for Permo-Carboniferous sediments have been undertaken to resolve this problem. In the Mandula area, the Baotege Formation and former Amushan Formation were deposited in the early Permian. An unstable alluvial–proluvial fan to a stable shallow marine environment has been proposed. In the NE Sonid Youqi area, late Carboniferous to middle Permian carbonate–clastic rocks were deposited in a relatively stable shallow sea with a series of transgressions. Upper continental crust-like geochemical features, magmatic zircons and petrography show that the clastic rocks have a felsic source ranging from granites to tonalite–trondhjemite–granodiorite. Detrital zircons with prominent age groupings at c. 280–330 Ma, c. 350–370 Ma and/or c. 400–500 Ma with some Precambrian ages, together with zircon Hf isotopic data, indicate that the sediments were dominantly sourced from the orogenic belt itself and microcontinents. Basin analysis shows a transition from restricted basins in the late Carboniferous–early Permian to wider and deeper basins in the middle Permian. Accordingly, an extensional stage has been proposed, at least before the final closure of the Solonker Zone. Supplementary material: Detailed geochemical data, zircon Th/U ratios, U–Pb ages, Hf isotopic data and figures showing samples are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3948325


In this Article the Author, a member of the group of European investigators involved in the searching process for a Common Core of Family Law in Europe, does not want to present the results of the project, that will be published in a forthcoming volume, but, instead, seeks to distinguish the FLCCP (Family Law Common Core Project) from similar research experiences, such as the CEFL (Commission of European Family Law) one. In order to highlight these differences, in the first part (paragraphs 1,2,3) the paper describes the goals of the Common Core Project and the methodology it employs, making references to the Cornell's Studies, the Schlesinger's factual approach and the Sacco's formants theory. In the second part the analysis pinpoints the peculiarities of functionalism and the way the Common Core method re-interprets it on a large scale as a collaborative effort, because of the synergy between the work of the national rapporteurs, the answers obtained through the questionnaires and the group sessions and reports (par. 4). Further, the Article stresses the different goals of CEFL and FLCCP and argues how these differences concerning also their respective goals and methods affect the research's results and the idea of what the harmonization of family law (if any and possible) might be expression of (par. 5). In the last part the Author maps an alternative route to the harmonization of European family law,which combines the use of European international private law regulations on family matters, the concepts of private autonomy and Courts rulings, together with doctrine efforts (par. 6).


Love is a many splendoured thing, a diverse jewel, and nowhere is that more evident than in this unique publication. Offering a most distinctive take on its subject, Love lets us walk hand in hand through the twentieth century with some of its most famous couples. Their desire might have been to make a private world together, but they are also among those who have reformulated our ideas of what relationships could be, who have found equal status as independent but supportive partners, both making a difference to their times. Sometimes seen as threatening, they nevertheless show that, whether heterosexual or gay, there is no secret recipe to emotional success, no genetic elixir save commitment and trust. Presented in the context of their age, year by year and couple by couple, we watch the world change through their eyes, and learn at the same time about related topics like the Kinsey Report, psychoanalysis, lingerie, the role of the church, femmes fatales, and sex in pop music and the cinema. Whether you're JFK and Jackie O, Kurt and Courtney or Hillary and Bill, success in love remains the great unknown, and whether you're after lust or dreamy romance, you'll love this book.


This paper analyzes agricultural policy in Argentina and calculates the degree of support received by producers and consumers. We present a summary of developments in the agricultural policy environment that have occurred in the last decades in Argentina, as well as the resulting performance of the agricultural sector. The concepts of Producer Support Estimates, Consumer Support Estimates, General Services Support Estimates, Producer Nominal Assistance Coefficient and Nominal Protection Coefficient are used to analyse different dimensions of transfers occurring between agricultural producers, consumers and taxpayers in the period 2007-2012. Total transfers from producers have averaged US$ 11.000 million annually or 26% of total gross farm receipts. Support flowing from the public sector to producers in the form of R&D, infrastructure and other "public good" type of inputs totalize some 500 million annually.


This best-selling non-technical, reader-friendly introduction to GIS makes the complexity of this rapidly growing high-tech field accessible to beginners. It uses a "learn-by-seeing" approach that features clear, simple explanations, an abundance of illustrations and photos, and generic practice labs for use with any GIS software. What Is a GIS? GIS's Roots in Cartography. Maps as Numbers. Getting the Map into the Computer. What Is Where? Why Is It There? Making Maps with GIS. How to Pick a GIS. GIS in Action. The Future of GIS. For anyone interested in a hands-on introduction to Geographic Information Systems.


Aim: To evaluate the Safety and Efficacy of Perioperative Lidocaine Infusion. Material and Methods: This was prospective non-randomized, controlled clinical trial done in the Department of Anesthesia, Metro Hospital and Cancer Research Center, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India. Total 100 patients were included in this study. All surgeries were performed under general anesthesia and patients were divided into two groups. Group I (Controlled Fentanyl Group) and Group II (Opioid Free Anesthesia Group). Intraoperative fentanyl consumption and visual analog scale (VAS) pain score assessment at immediate recovery time as well as after 24 hours postoperatively were assessed and analgesic requirements were recorded. Results: In the current study there were no significant differences between the 2 groups as regarding age, sex, body weight, BMI, and ASA physical status. Therefore, mentioned variables would have minimal influence on the assessed parameters when comparing the safety and efficacy of perioperative lidocaine infusion with or without fentanyl adjustment at the induction of anesthesia. Comparison between the groups showed a significant difference in amount of Propofol during induction and difference in intraoperative fentanyl requirements. Patients in group I; supplemental fentanyl was needed in 4 cases (8%) while in group II fentanyl was needed in 16 cases (32%). In group II, 72% of cases i.e. in 36 patients' anesthesia were opioid-free. In group I propofol dose for induction of anesthesia was significantly lower than in group II. These differences were statistically significant. In group II patients; there was more hyperdynamic reactions to skin incision (rise of heart rate and mean arterial blood pressure more than 30% above baseline) and there was a need of higher MAC (1.41) of sevoflurane during the first 30 minutes of surgery. After 8 hours of continuous lidocaine infusion, there was a low VAS of pain score and minimal or no need of additional opioid or non-opioid analgesia during 24hours. After laparoscopic colorectal and cholecystectomy surgery postoperative bowel sound recovery time in both groups of patients was clinically equal. There were neither perioperative complications nor clinical signs of lidocaine toxicity detected perioperatively. Conclusion: Safety and efficacy of perioperative lidocaine infusion have been demonstrated. Opioid free anesthesia (OFA) is possible in 70% of cases. Post-operative lidocaine infusion for 5-8 hours was sufficient for pain relieve with minimal non opioid analgesia for 24 hours.


As a response to extreme water shortages in southeast Queensland, Australia, brought about by reduced rainfall and increasing population, the Queensland government decided to explore the potential for cloud seeding to enhance rainfall. The Queensland Cloud Seeding Research Program (QCSRP) was conducted in the southeast Queensland region near Brisbane during the 2008/09 wet seasons. In addition to conducting an initial exploratory, randomized (statistical) cloud seeding study, multiparameter radar measurements and in situ aircraft microphysical data were collected. This comprehensive set of observational platforms was designed to improve the physical understanding of the effects of both ambient aerosols and seeding material on precipitation formation in southeast Queensland clouds. This focus on gaining physical understanding, along with the unique combination of modern observational platforms utilized in the program, set it apart from previous cloud seeding research programs. The overarching goals of the ...


Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of zinc and omega-3 supplements as adjunctive drugs in the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) of children. Methods: This study is a randomized, double-blind clinical trial conducted on 150 children aged 6–15 years old that diagnosed as new cases of ADHD. Study subjects were evaluated for 8 weeks. Besides of drug of choice (methylphenidate) for the ADHD, patients received placebo in the control group (n = 50), zinc sulfate in second group (n = 50), and omega-3 (n = 50) in third group. Clinical improvement was checking by Conners' Parent and Teacher Rating Scales before and in 2nd, 4th, and 8th week of treatment. Results were analyzed with SPSS version 16 software. Findings: In this study, mean scores of Conners' scale showed significant improvement during treatment in the zinc group compared to control group in children that affected to attention-deficit disorder subtype of ADHD (P = 0.02). Moreover, in omega-3 group, better clinical response was seen than other groups (P < 0.05). However, there was no significant difference between omega-3 group compared to placebo group in the mean scores of Conners' scale (P = 0.89). Conclusion: Zinc supplementation accompanied by the main treatment significantly improves symptom of attention-deficit disorder subtype of ADHD. However, omega-3 supplementation was superior to zinc and placebo in the clinical improvement of ADHD.


In the year and a half leading up to mid-2003, both employment and labour force participation increased at an unusually rapid pace compared to domestic economic activity. Gains in employment were unusually large, relative to output growth, compared to gains in total hours worked. This is explained by a faster rate of increase in the participation rate of the 55 and older age group, many of whom opted for part-time employment. This shift in the composition of employment contributed to a reduction in the length of the average workweek in 2002. As a result, labour input progressed at a rate that was markedly slower than for employment and more in line with its historical relationship to output growth. The authors anticipate that the 55 and older age group will continue to participate strongly in the labour force, but that as the economy rebounds and uncertainty diminishes, the cyclical component in the growth of part-time work should diminish and that of full-time employment increase. Employment growth should moderate in relation to output growth and there may be a cyclical rebound in labour productivity as total hours worked increases during the initial recovery in output growth.


Background/Aims: Pharmacogenomics aims to use the information derived from an individual's genomic profile in the context of individualizing medical treatment modalities. However, currently, pharmacogenomics education is not uniformly provided to health care professionals. This study investigates the status of pharmacogenomics education in Southeast Europe. Methods: University websites served as information sources in order to investigate the discrepancies in pharmacogenomics education in Southeast Europe. In parallel, a survey was conducted at the University of Cagliari (Italy) to test pharmacogenomics knowledge and understanding among specialists, residents and undergraduate students. Results: Our study shows that pharmacogenomics knowledge is not uniformly spread in universities in Southeast Europe and provides the basis for the harmonization of pharmacogenomics education that would directly impact on a smoother integration of pharmacogenomics into mainstream medical practice. Also, a considerable gap in pharmacogenomics education was obvious between the group of specialists and the groups of residents and undergraduate students. Conclusions: Pharmacogenomics education as well as the continuous enrichment of pharmacogenomics knowledge for health care professionals are fundamental approaches toward personalized medicine. Ideally, pharmacogenomics should be taught as a stand-alone course or at least in the context of genetics courses that already exist in universities in Southeast Europe.


Abstract The influence of die wall lubrication during warm die compaction on densification, microstructure and mechanical properties of three low alloy ferrous powders was investigated. Specimens were sintered at 1250°C. Die wall lubrication leads to higher green and sintered density and enhances the dimensional stability. It does not affect the microstructure of the matrix, while pores are smaller and more rounded than in bulk lubricated specimens. In TRS tests, both strength and deformation are higher in die wall lubricated specimens than bulk lubricated ones.


Recently, there has been growing international interest regarding food safety. Unlike many physical elements, the impact of most chemical and biological hazards is complex and has not been fully characterized. Establishing a database of parameters associated with such molecular interactions would not only be beneficial for the scientific community, but may allow consumers to wisely choose certain food products. By examining the interaction between a simple phenol and the divalent magnesium ion, we propose a new approach to assess the interactions between biologically relevant compounds using widely accepted theoretical methods such as ab initio computations, while taking into consideration recent developments in the field. Certain theoretical cases were examined, while others were collected from scientific literature on phenols/phenolics. Experimental and theoretical methods should complement each other to provide a more complete picture of molecular interactions. A common database of interactions between common chemicals detectable in foodstuffs and human systems will enable consumers to make more informed decisions regarding their purchases.


On November 26, 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States agreed to hear two cases — Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius — challenging the validity of the Affordable Care Act's ("ACA") mandate that employer-sponsored health plans cover all FDA-approved contraceptives (the "Contraceptive Mandate"). In each case, closely held plaintiff corporations contend that the Contraceptive Mandate illegally infringed upon the corporations' freedom to exercise religion. The problem confronting the Supreme Court as it takes up the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood cases is that the concept of corporate personhood did not develop gradually or in an evolutionary process in which the meaning of the concept was developed and defined. Instead, the concept of the corporate person was imposed on the law ipse dixit, that is, by judicial fiat and without definition, in a series of late nineteenth century Supreme Court cases decisions. Those opinions were written by the same Supreme Court Justice, Stephen J. Field, who, if not beholden to railroad interests, was certainly a devoted friend of the railroads. Moreover, Field has no occasion to explain the reasons that corporations possessed the rights of natural persons because, in every one of those cases, the Supreme Court held that, person or not, the corporations had no viable claim for relief. Although corporations have been treated as legal persons capable of exercising at least some of the rights of natural persons since Colonial times, and despite urban legends to the contrary, the Supreme Court has never provided a rationale that explains why, or when, a corporation is allowed to assert the rights of a natural person. As a result, the concept of the corporate person seems to expand, or contract, depending on the circumstances and on the personal predilections of the speaker. The resultant confusion about the meaning of corporate personhood makes application of the concept troublesome in any case, but it is particularly problematic in the context of statutes, like the ACA, which attempt to fundamentally change basic aspects of societal structure and, therefore, implicate divisive questions — here, contraception and abortion — grounded in deeply-held and profoundly personal beliefs. As Conestoga Wood and Hobby Lobby illustrate, the undefined and ubiquitous corporate person provides little guidance to those who must assess the legal viability of statutes like the ACA and, equally problematic, results in polarization and politicization of already difficult matters, thereby preventing or impeding implementation of ground-breaking reforms, like the ACA. The question whether a corporation is a "person" able to assert the constitutional and statutory rights of natural persons — and, if so, the basis on which it may do so — has been debated for over 150 years. That debate has featured contrived test cases, blatantly false evidence, a facetious Supreme Court argument, the reappearance — and then re-disappearance — of a supposedly secret Journal of the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment, a Supreme Court Reporter who knowingly and falsely stated in a headnote that the existence of the constitutional corporate person had been decided, and a Supreme Court Justice who used the false headnote and the nineteenth century Court's decision-making process to embed the corporate person in constitutional law at virtually the same time that his brethren asserted that the issue remained undecided. Not surprisingly, all of this led to allegations by respected New Deal and Progressive Age historians that Gilded Age robber barons and their legislative henchmen had successfully conspired to secretly insert protection for corporations into the text of the Fourteenth Amendment. This article argues that, while it is clear that there was no robber baron-driven corporate conspiracy to highjack the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment, as was once popularly believed, constitutional protection for the corporate person became settled law because Justice Stephen J. Field, in a series of ipse dixit assertions, made it so. The historical significance of Field's achievement cannot be gainsaid: If "person," as used in the Constitution, does not include a corporation, a corporation is not entitled to equal protection of the laws and it is irrelevant whether the due process clauses imposes substantive limits on regulation of corporations. By establishing the constitutional corporate person as settled law, Field erected the foundation for the development of substantive due process and for the Court's laissez-faire era. This article begins by reviewing the legal context in which the debate regarding the constitutional person arose. Initially, two decisions of the the Supreme Court of the United States are examined, one of which, County of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. has erroneously been viewed by "[m]any scholars, judges, and even U.S. Supreme Court Justices . . . as affirming the concept of corporate personhood because of an inaccurate headnote in the official published version of the opinion written by the Supreme Court Reporter, J.C. Bancroft Davis". Thereafter, each Supreme Court decision expressly addressing the corporate person question between 1886, when Santa Clara was decided, and Justice Field's 1897 retirement is examined. This analysis demonstrates that Field unilaterally created a web of cross-corroborating decisions claiming that corporate personhood had been definitively established by Supreme Court precedent. This article then considers the practical implications of Field's actions, focusing first on whether Field's corporate person decisions, even if sui generis, nonetheless reflected the position of the Court or were simply one man's opinion. This article concludes with the argument that the discussion regarding corporate personhood needs to focus on what it means to be a corporate person and on identifying the source of corporate constitutional rights. This is so, notwithstanding general agreement that corporate persons and natural persons share some constitutionally protected rights, the corporate person has never had the benefit of incremental, evolutionary development that tests, validates and clarifies most common law concepts. Instead, the Court has never articulated a consistent, principled rationale for the corporate person, making it largely impossible — other than on a case-by-case basis — to identify the scope, nature or limits of such rights. The virtually unexplained and unexplainable discordant outcomes in Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood are merely among the latest illustrations of the confusion and contradictory precedent resulting from the Supreme Court's failure to establish a definitive rationale explaining when a corporation may, and may not, assert the rights of a natural person. Failure to define the meaning of corporate personhood exhaults ad hoc judicial decision-making over the structure, predictability and even-handedness that the law ought to provide. The resultant uncertainty impedes meaningful assessment of the legal viability of complex statutes that attempt to restructure important societal programs and promotes divisiveness by creating the impression that the validity of such legislation is dependent on personal predilection rather than on consistently applied standards, both of which forestall effective implementation of such legislation. The Supreme Court can, and should, use Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood to eliminate the uncertainties and define the meaning of the corporate person.


Abstract. Andosols require the regular application of phosphorus (P) to sustain crop productivity. On an Andosol in NW Tanzania, we studied the short-term effects of amending standard compost, biogas slurry and CaSa compost (containing biochar and sanitized human excreta) on (i) the soil's physico-chemical properties, on (ii) biomass growth and crop productivity, and on (iii) the plants' nutrient status. The practice-oriented experiment design included the intercropping of seven locally grown crop species planted on 9 m2 plots with five repetitions arranged as a Latin rectangle. Differences in plant growth (biomass production and crop yield, e.g., of Zea mays) and crop nutrition (total C, N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Zn, etc.) were related to pH, CEC (cation exchange capacity), total C and the availability of nutrients (N, P, K, etc.) and water (water retention characteristics, bulk density, etc.) in the soil. None of the amendments had any significant effect on soil water availability, so the observed variations in crop yield and plant nutrition are attributed to nutrient availability. Applying CaSa compost increased the soil pH from 5.3 to 5.9 and the level of available P from 0.5 to 4.4 mg per kg. Compared to the control, adding biogas slurry, standard compost and CaSa compost increased the aboveground biomass of Zea mays by, respectively, 140, 154 and 211 %. The grain yields of maize on soil treated with biogas slurry, standard compost and CaSa compost were, respectively, 2.63, 3.18 and 4.40 t ha−1, compared to only 1.10 t ha−1 on unamended plots. All treatments enhanced crop productivity and increased the uptake of nutrients into the maize grains. The CaSa compost was most effective in mitigating P deficiency and soil acidification. We conclude that all treatments are viable as a substitute for synthetic fertilizers. Nevertheless, further steps are required to integrate the tested soil amendments into farm-scale nutrient management and to balance the additions and removals of nutrients, so that the cycle can be closed.


We present an effective method for defocus map estimation from a single natural image. It is inspired by the observation that defocusing can significantly affect the spectrum amplitude at the object edge locations in an image. By establishing the relationship between the amount of spatially varying defocus blur and spectrum contrast at edge locations, we first estimate the blur amount at these edge locations, then a full defocus map can be obtained by propagating the blur amount at edge locations over the entire image with a nonhomogeneous optimization procedure. The proposed method takes into consideration not only the affect of light refraction but also the blur texture of an image. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method is more reliable in defocus map estimation compared to various state-of-the-art methods.


I investigate the effect of trading restrictions on price efficiency in a model with short-term shareholders. I show that insider trading constraints set a floor on prices. More importantly, as trade is the mechanism that transfers information into the price, the market maker's pricing function has nonconstant sensitivity to order flows, with selling orders impacting the price less than positive orders. These two effects decrease price volatility. Prices will be more efficient in good states of the world but lose their informativeness in bad states of the world. Trading constraints will emerge in equilibrium when shareholders have preferences for short-term market prices. In such a case, an increase in cash flow volatility can translate into more severe limitations, while the impact of noise variance depends on the short-term shareholder's preferences.


As a whole, the environments in which we make our food choices do not typically reinforce and support healthy behaviours. The Canadian food environment in which we live, work, and play is failing to provide and promote healthy diets; as a result, Canada has seen high and continually rising rates of overweight and obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) across the life course and among all sectors of society, with particularly high rates among vulnerable populations (such as Indigenous populations and those with low socioeconomic status). Swinburn and colleagues conceptualized the food environment as "the collective physical, economic, policy and sociocultural surroundings, opportunities and conditions that influence people's food and beverage choices and nutritional status."1 The scope of what is captured by the term "food environment" is broad, and includes such areas as food access and availability; food promotion and pricing; food labelling; the nutritional composition of the food supply and foods provided in public and private sector settings; and the retail food environment. These areas are influenced by the major actors that play roles in establishing a healthy food environment, including government (health, education, agriculture, finance, and international trade, among others), the food industry, and civil society more broadly.

Importantly, policies, interventions and actions aimed at improving the food environment shift the responsibility for improving dietary habits from individual responsibility for behaviours and choices to the collective environmental factors that support (or discourage) healthy food choices. This population-level approach works to shift the curve for both the highrisk and general populations, and focuses https://doi.org/10.24095/hpcdp.37.9.01 on interventions that have a broad reach and scope, while acknowledging the variety of societal factors that drive social norms and social structures that can endorse or impede healthy behaviours. Health-promoting food environments serve to make the healthy choice not only the easy choice, but also the most accessible, available, affordable, and preferred choice for consumers.2

Globally, there appears to be a significant window for policy action to address the food environment. The United Nations (UN) Political Declaration of the High-level Meeting of the General Assembly on the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases3 in 2011 set the stage for global efforts combating diet-related NCDs, which led to the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of NCDs.4 Subsequently, the WHO Report of the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity5 and Set of Recommendations on the Marketing of Foods and Non-alcoholic Beverages to Children6 set out strong policy recommendations for improving aspects of the food environment, among other major documents and efforts. At the country level, Brazil's revolutionary food guide7, which encompasses a holistic view of healthy eating, Mexico's excise tax on beverages with sugar and calorically-dense foods8, and Chile's comprehensive policies on food labelling and marketing to children9 are a few examples of cutting edge policies that have been implemented to support and reinforce a healthy food environment. Within Canada, the announcement of the Healthy Eating Strategy10 will, if fully implemented, position Canada as a world leader in tackling multiple dimensions of the food environment through innovative and comprehensive policy and programming. The September and October special issues of this journal aim to deconstruct aspects of the Canadian food environment across a variety of domains, and demonstrate some of the opportunities for major actors to take action in this area. In this September issue, the article by Potvin Kent et al.11 examines the relative 'healthiness' of breakfast cereals in the Canadian food supply, which are commonly targeted towards children and families via advertising on food packages and in mainstream media channels. They found that the nutritional profile of cereals with advertising targeted towards children was of particularly poor quality. The article by Prowse12 examines food marketing policies using a settings-based approach to determine what policies are currently in place to limit the power and the exposure of marketing to young audiences who are particularly vulnerable to such practices. Both the Potvin Kent and Prowse articles highlight policy options for decreasing the impact of marketing as well as the need to engage with the food industry to move forward on an agenda for improving the quality of the food supply.

Jalbert-Arsenault et al.13 explore aspects of marketing and promotion of foods within supermarkets, one of the most proximal retail environments that can significantly influence consumer food choices at the point of sale. They used a tool developed to measure the availability, price, promotion and placement of healthful (i.e., vegetables and fruit) and less healthful (i.e., ultra-processed food products and carbonated beverage) items. The great variation in retail environments between different chain supermarkets in one low-to-mediumincome neighbourhood in Montreal, and the high proportion of larger retailers promoting the sale of ultra-processed food products to a greater extent than their healthier counterparts, defies the common definition of supermarkets as 'healthy' food outlets and highlights the opportunity for health promotion within consumer retail food environments.

The article by Orava and colleagues14 explores the implementation of mandatory nutrition standards in school settings in Ontario to promote healthy eating among students using a Comprehensive School Health approach. Orava identifies that while the physical environment within schools may support healthy eating, the social environment is not uniformly conducive to improving healthy eating. Engaging with stakeholders and champions within programs is likely to increase uptake and implementation of policy. The article provides insight into the importance of the context within which policy is it implemented, and a need for a policy approach to implementing Comprehensive School Health to promote healthy eating and behaviours in the school environment.

Lastly, with increasing global activity in food environment policy, monitoring is critical to understand the extent of implementation and evaluate the impact of policy. In this September issue, Boucher and colleagues15 explore indicators of healthy food access, food literacy, and food environments using publicly available data already collected in Ontario and in Canada, and identify major gaps that currently prevent thorough monitoring in Ontario. As efforts to improve the food environment move forward in Canada, comprehensive data at the federal, provincial and municipal levels will be increasingly required to map and monitor progress in improving both the food environment and dietary habits. Within Canada, Raine and colleagues have developed the Report Card for Healthy Environments that is currently used in Alberta to comprehensively monitor the status of the food environment and provide recommendations for action.16 This is on trend with efforts to monitor food environments globally, such as the International Network for Food and Obesity/non-communicable Diseases Research, Monitoring and Action Support (INFORMAS). INFORMAS is a group of academic and public-sector stakeholders who have worked to collectively establish a set of common methods which can be used to monitor food environments globally, and this work is ongoing in Canada.1

The diversity of articles in this special issue underscores the breadth of work being conducted within Canada to fill evidence gaps and inform policy to address healthy eating. Dietary behaviours are the leading behavioural risk factor for death globally, greater than tobacco, alcohol use, and physical inactivity.17 As policies and interventions are implemented in Canada to shift the food environment towards one that is health-promoting, the monitoring and subsequent evaluation of the impact of these efforts will be critical to identify future directions to improve the diet and health of Canadians.


The aim of this study was to evaluate the biomechanical effect of rapid maxillary expansion (RME) on the craniofacial complex by using a three-dimensional finite element model (FEM) of the craniofacial skeleton. The construction of the three-dimensional FEM was based on computer tomography (CT) scans of the skull of a 12-year-old male subject. The CT pictures were digitized and converted to the finite element model by means of a procedure developed for the present study. The final mesh consisted of 2270 thick shell elements with 2120 nodes. The mechanical response in terms of displacement and von Mises stresses was determined by expanding the maxilla up to 5 mm on both sides. Viewed occlusally, the two halves of the maxilla were separated almost in a parallel manner during 1-, 3- and 5-mm expansions. The greatest widening was observed in the dento-alveolar areas, and gradually decreased through the superior structures. The width of the nasal cavity at the floor of the nose increased markedly. However, the postero-superior part of the nasal cavity was moved slightly medially. No displacement was observed in the parietal, frontal and occipital bones. High stress levels were observed in the canine and molar regions of the maxilla, lateral wall of the inferior nasal cavity, zygomatic and nasal bones, with the highest stress concentration at the pterygoid plates of the sphenoid bone in the region close to the cranial base.


Over the last 30 years the African wild dog population has declined dramatically. Dogs have disappeared from 25 of the 39 countries in which they were previously found, and only 6 populations are believed to number more than 100 animals. Today it is believed that between 3,000 and 5,500 dogs remain in 600-1,000 packs only and most of these are to be found in eastern and southern Africa. The dramatic reduction in the wild dog population has been attributed to a number of factors, among them, human population growth and activities, deterioration of their habitat and contact with domestic dogs and the diseases they carry. This action plan explores some of the reasons behind the disappearance of these creatures and provides a number of proposed solutions to stem this. Solutions range from habitat management and conservation to keeping close tabs on domestic dogs and are split into three priority areas.


This paper describes experiences from a management course in a business school, aiming at virtual team and communications skills development. To reach the learning goals of the course, a decentralized business simulation game was applied and tailored. The virtual teams formed during the course were geographically and organizationally decentralized, and they were brought together by information and telecommunication technologies. We will first introduce the theoretical ideas behind the communication skills course. After this we will introduce the structure of the course and the technical architecture in the simulation game. Finally, we will illustrate some of the learning results from the learning experiment.


Uncovering the genes, variants, and interactions underlying crop diversity is a frontier in plant genetics. Phenotypic variation often does not reflect the cumulative effect of individual gene mutations. This deviation is due to epistasis, in which interactions between alleles are often unpredictable and quantitative in effect. Recent advances in genomics and genome-editing technologies are elevating the study of epistasis in crops. Using the traits and developmental pathways that were major targets in domestication and breeding, we highlight how epistasis is central in guiding the behavior of the genetic variation that shapes quantitative trait variation. We outline new strategies that illuminate how quantitative epistasis from modified gene dosage defines background dependencies. Advancing our understanding of epistasis in crops can reveal new principles and approaches to engineering targeted improvements in agriculture. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Genetics, Volume 54 is November 23, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


CYP3A4, an important drug-metabolizing enzyme, is known to have genetic variants. We have previously reported that CYP3A4 variants such as CYP3A4.2, 7, 16, and 18 show different enzymatic kinetics from CYP3A4.1 (wild type). In this study, we quantitatively investigated the inhibition kinetics of two typical inhibitors, itraconazole (ITCZ) and cimetidine (CMD), on CYP3A4 variants and evaluated whether the genetic variation leads to interindividual differences in the extent of CYP3A4-mediated drug interactions. The inhibitory profiles of ITCZ and CMD on the metabolism of testosterone (TST) were analyzed by using recombinant CYP3A4 variants. The genetic variation of CYP3A4 significantly affected the inhibition profiles of the two inhibitors. In CYP3A4.7, the Ki value for ITCZ was 2.4-fold higher than that for the wild-type enzyme, whereas the Ki value for CMD was 0.64-fold lower. In CYP3A4.16, the Ki value for ITCZ was 0.54-fold lower than that for wild-type CYP3A4, whereas the Ki value for CMD was 3.2-fold higher. The influence of other genetic variations also differed between the two inhibitors. Docking simulations could explain the changes in the Ki values, based on the accessibility of TST and inhibitors to the heme moiety of the CYP3A4 molecule. In conclusion, the inhibitory effects of an inhibitor differ among CYP3A4 variants, suggesting that the genetic variation of CYP3A4 may contribute, at least in part, to interindividual differences in drug interactions mediated by CYP3A4 inhibition, and the pattern of the influences of genetic variation differs among inhibitors as well as substrates.


Vagueness in event times pertains to the observation that one usually finds it difficult to slice the continuous flux of space-time into a series of events with clear-cut temporal boundaries. I argue that such vagueness originates from our ignorance of discrete changing points wherein states of affairs begin or cease to obtain. Applying the epistemic view on vagueness (Williamson 1994) to vagueness in event times, I contend that the lagging nature of knowledge prevents one from knowing the abrupt changes taking place between contiguous minimal time intervals. In turn, vagueness in the conception of event times is construed in terms of epistemic modality (Jaszczolt 2009), viz. a gradation of a thinker's epistemic certainty towards the occurrence of a physical change.


Abstract The digital age brings with it novel forms of data flow. As a result, individuals are constantly being monitored while consuming products, services and content. These abilities have given rise to a variety of concerns, which are most often framed using "privacy" and "data protection"-related paradigms. An important, oft-noted yet undertheorized concern is that these dynamics might facilitate the manipulation of subjects; a process in which firms strive to motivate and influence individuals to take specific steps and make particular decisions in a manner considered to be socially unacceptable. That it is important and imperative to battle manipulation carries with it a strong intuitive appeal. Intuition, however, does not always indicate the existence of a sound justification or policy option. For that, a deeper analytic and academic discussion is called for. This Article begins by emphasizing the importance of addressing the manipulation-based argument, which derives from several crucial problems and flaws in the legal and policy setting currently striving to meet the challenges of the digital age. Next, the Article examines whether the manipulation-based concerns are sustainable, or are merely a visceral response to changing technologies which cannot be provided with substantial analytical backing. Here the Article details the reasons for striving to block manipulative conduct and, on the other hand, reasons why legal intervention should be, in the best case, limited. The Article concludes with some general implications of this discussion for the broader themes and future directions of privacy law, while trying to ascertain whether the rise of the manipulation-based discourse will lead to information privacy's expansion or perhaps its demise.


This paper gives an overview of the CARMENES instrument and of the survey that will be carried out with it during the first years of operation. CARMENES (Calar Alto high-Resolution search for M dwarfs with Exoearths with Near-infrared and optical Echelle Spectrographs) is a next-generation radial-velocity instrument under construction for the 3.5m telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory by a consortium of eleven Spanish and German institutions. The scientific goal of the project is conducting a 600-night exoplanet survey targeting ~ 300 M dwarfs with the completed instrument. The CARMENES instrument consists of two separate echelle spectrographs covering the wavelength range from 0.55 to 1.7 μm at a spectral resolution of R = 82,000, fed by fibers from the Cassegrain focus of the telescope. The spectrographs are housed in vacuum tanks providing the temperature-stabilized environments necessary to enable a 1 m/s radial velocity precision employing a simultaneous calibration with an emission-line lamp or with a Fabry-Perot etalon. For mid-M to late-M spectral types, the wavelength range around 1.0 μm (Y band) is the most important wavelength region for radial velocity work. Therefore, the efficiency of CARMENES has been optimized in this range. The CARMENES instrument consists of two spectrographs, one equipped with a 4k x 4k pixel CCD for the range 0.55 - 1.05 μm, and one with two 2k x 2k pixel HgCdTe detectors for the range from 0.95 - 1.7μm. Each spectrograph will be coupled to the 3.5m telescope with two optical fibers, one for the target, and one for calibration light. The front end contains a dichroic beam splitter and an atmospheric dispersion corrector, to feed the light into the fibers leading to the spectrographs. Guiding is performed with a separate camera; on-axis as well as off-axis guiding modes are implemented. Fibers with octagonal cross-section are employed to ensure good stability of the output in the presence of residual guiding errors. The fibers are continually actuated to reduce modal noise. The spectrographs are mounted on benches inside vacuum tanks located in the coud´e laboratory of the 3.5m dome. Each vacuum tank is equipped with a temperature stabilization system capable of keeping the temperature constant to within ±0.01°C over 24 hours. The visible-light spectrograph will be operated near room temperature, while the near-IR spectrograph will be cooled to ~ 140 K. The CARMENES instrument passed its final design review in February 2013. The MAIV phase is currently ongoing. First tests at the telescope are scheduled for early 2015. Completion of the full instrument is planned for the fall of 2015. At least 600 useable nights have been allocated at the Calar Alto 3.5m Telescope for the CARMENES survey in the time frame until 2018. A data base of M stars (dubbed CARMENCITA) has been compiled from which the CARMENES sample can be selected. CARMENCITA contains information on all relevant properties of the potential targets. Dedicated imaging, photometric, and spectroscopic observations are underway to provide crucial data on these stars that are not available in the literature.


Many potential diversification and conversion options are available for utilization of natural gas resources, and several design configurations and technology choices exist for conversion of natural gas to value-added products. Therefore, a detailed mathematical model is desirable for selection of optimal configuration and operating mode among the various options available. In this study, we present a simulation-optimization framework for the optimal selection of economic and environmentally sustainable pathways for natural gas downstream utilization networks by optimizing process design and operational decisions. The main processes (e.g., LNG, GTL, and methanol production), along with different design alternatives in terms of flow-sheeting for each main processing unit (namely syngas preparation, liquefaction, N2 rejection, hydrogen, FT synthesis, methanol synthesis, FT upgrade, and methanol upgrade units), are used for superstructure development. These processes are simulated using ASPEN Plus V7.3 to determine the yields of different processing units under various operating modes. The model has been applied to maximize total profit of the natural gas utilization system with penalties for environmental impact, represented by CO2eq emission obtained using ASPEN Plus for each flowsheet configuration and operating mode options. The performance of the proposed modeling framework is demonstrated using a case study.


Summary Transforming growth factors-beta (TGFs-β) are representative of a superfamily whose members were first identified as regulators of morphogenesis and differentiation, and subsequently found to be structurally related. Other members of the family include the activins and inhibins, BMPs, MIS, the DPP-C gene product and Vg-1. When assayed by affinity-labelling techniques, TGFs-β bind to three distinct cell surface proteins which are present on most cells. These proteins are all of relatively low abundance but bind TGFs-β with affinities consistent with the biological potency of the factors. The Type I and Type II binding proteins are glycoproteins with estimated molecular weights of 53 and 73×103Mr, respectively. They both bind TGF-β1 significantly better than TGF-β2. The Type I receptor has been identified as the receptor which mediates many of the responses of TGFs-β, based on somatic cell genetic studies of epithelial cell mutants unresponsive to TGFs-β. Betaglycan is the third binding protein present on many, but not all, cell types and is a large proteoglycan (∼280×103Mr) with 100–120×103Mr, core proteins. A soluble form of this molecule is present in conditioned media of many cell lines and may be derived from the cell surface-associated molecule by cleavage of a small membrane anchor. Betaglycan binds TGF-β1 and TGF-β2 with similar affinity and this binding is to the core proteins, not the glycosaminoglycan side chains. This molecule may have a function in the localization and delivery or the clearance of activated TGFs-β. The molecular basis of TGF-β signalling is still largely unknown, but it is possible that one or more of these cell surface molecules signals via a novel mechanism, as the TGFs-β are biologically quite distinct from other factors that act via well-characterized signalling systems.


The Medical Article Records System (MARS) developed by the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications uses scanning, OCR and automated recognition and reformatting algorithms to generate electronic bibliographic citation data from paper biomedical journal articles. The OCR server incorporated in MARS performs well in general, but fares less well with text printed in small or italic fonts. Affiliations are often printed in small italic fonts in the journals processed by MARS. Consequently, although the automatic processes generate much of the citation data correctly, the affiliation field frequently contains incorrect data, which must be manually corrected by verification operators. In contrast, author names are usually printed in large, normal fonts that are correctly converted to text by the OCR server. The National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE database contains 11 million indexed citations for biomedical journal articles. This paper documents our effort to use the historical author, affiliation relationships from this large dataset to find potential correct affiliations for MARS articles based on the author and the affiliation in the OCR output. Preliminary tests using a table of about 400,000 author/affiliation pairs extracted from the corrected data from MARS indicated that about 44% of the author/affiliation pairs were repeats and that about 47% of newly converted author names would be found in this set. A text-matching algorithm was developed to determine the likelihood that an affiliation found in the table corresponding to the OCR text of the first author was the current, correct affiliation. This matching algorithm compares an affiliation found in the author/affiliation table (found with the OCR text of the first author) to the OCR output affiliation, and calculates a score indicating the similarity of the affiliation found in the table to the OCR affiliation. Using a ground truth set of 519 OCR author/OCR affiliation/correct affiliation triples, the matching algorithm is able to select a correct affiliation for the author 43% of the time with a false positive rate of 6%, a true negative rate of 44% and a false negative rate of 7%. MEDLINE citations with United States affiliations typically include the zip code. In addition to using author names as clues to correct affiliations, we are investigating the value of the OCR text of zip codes as clues to correct USA affiliations. Current work includes generation of an author/affiliation/zipcode table from the entire MEDLINE database and development of a daemon module to implement affiliation selection and matching for the MARS system using both author names and zip codes. Preliminary results from the initial version of the daemon module and the partially filled author/affiliation/zipcode table are encouraging.


Traditional public safety responses to crime involve interactions with the criminal justice system. However, recent killings by police of unarmed black men, women, and children have led to a national dialogue on the fundamental strategy of public safety. The narrative of "Black Lives Matter" offers a new framework for policymakers, activists, practitioners, and other stakeholders to think about a public safety strategy that is not solely defined by arrests and admissions to prison. This essay provides an overview of evidence-based approaches for public safety interventions that exist outside of law enforcement interactions.


To achieve a high penetration level of intermittent renewable energy, the operation and control of power systems need to account for the associated high variability and uncertainty. Power system stability and security need to be ensured dynamically as the system operating condition continuously changes. A wide-area measurement based dynamic stochastic optimal power flow (DSOPF) control algorithm using the adaptive critic designs (ACDs) is presented in this paper. The proposed DSOPF control replaces the traditional AGC and secondary voltage control, and provides a coordinated AC power flow control solution to the smart grid operation in an environment with high short-term uncertainty and variability. The ACD technique, specifically the dual heuristic dynamic programming (DHP), is used to provide nonlinear optimal control, where the control objective is explicitly formulated to incorporate power system economy, stability and security considerations. The proposed DSOPF controller dynamically drives the power system to its optimal operating point by continuously adjusting the steady-state set points sent by the traditional OPF algorithm. A 12-bus test power system is used to demonstrate the development and effectiveness of the proposed DSOPF controller.


A key limitation for achieving deep imaging in biological structures lies in photon absorption and scattering leading to attenuation of fluorescence. In particular, neurotransmitter imaging is challenging in the biologically-relevant context of the intact brain, for which photons must traverse the cranium, skin and bone. Thus, fluorescence imaging is limited to the surface cortical layers of the brain, only achievable with craniotomy. Herein, we describe optimal excitation and emission wavelengths for through-cranium imaging, and demonstrate that near-infrared emissive nanosensors can be photoexcited using a two-photon 1560 nm excitation source. Dopamine-sensitive nanosensors can undergo two-photon excitation, and provide chirality-dependent responses selective for dopamine with fluorescent turn-on responses varying between 20% and 350%. We further calculate the two-photon absorption cross-section and quantum yield of dopamine nanosensors, and confirm a two-photon power law relationship for the nanosensor excitation process. Finally, we show improved image quality of the nanosensors embedded 2 mm deep into a brain-mimetic tissue phantom, whereby one-photon excitation yields 42% scattering, in contrast to 4% scattering when the same object is imaged under two-photon excitation. Our approach overcomes traditional limitations in deep-tissue fluorescence microscopy, and can enable neurotransmitter imaging in the biologically-relevant milieu of the intact and living brain.


The desire of social scientists in general and psychologists in particular to contribute through research to climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies and practices should not blind us to the theoretical, methodological and ethical issues such research raises. The emphasis by governments on reducing carbon emissions and arresting climate change has largely focussed on consumption i.e., those who are consuming goods and services rather than those who are producing them. As a consequence consumer focussed behaviour change is regarded as the policy option of choice by government. But do individualistic perspectives dominant in psychology deflect attention from the larger social, environmental, economic and political context? Does the current emphasis on coercive behaviour change strategies raise ethical issues concerning psychological interventions and the role of psychologists? Is the way research is currently framed on climate change awareness and concern telling us more about the problems of research methodologies rather than the problems of the environment and society? This paper critically and constructively addresses these questions and suggests a broader agenda for psychology's contribution to tackling the problem of climate change mitigation, adaptation and suffering.


Entering the 9th year of the Syrian Crisis, there are still more than 400 thousand school aged Syrian children considered 'out-of-school' in Turkey. Several previous studies as well as reports of International Organisations and Civil Society Organisations such as UNICEF and Support to Life argue that out-of-school Syrian children have formed part of the Turkish informal labour market. Restrained migration policies incorporated with the needs of global labour markets have caused precarisation of the migrant labour, and in the case of Turkey precarisation of migrant child labour as well. The aim of the current study is to critically analyse the strategies and interventions of this multilevel governance targeting migrant child labour. Hence, a qualitative research method was employed in order to answer the study's research questions. First, document analysis was conducted to identify the multilevel institutional framework; and second, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with selected informants working for International Organisations. By facilitating Carol Bacchi's 'What is the problem represented to be?' (WPR) approach, each actor's strategies and interventions directed to migrant child labour are scrutinised. While each actor by definition manages to identify the causes of (migrant) child labour, the strategies and interventions are constrained by the conventional migration management approach as well as the discourses of "the best interest of the child" and "fair trade".


Sub-Arctic and Arctic regions are warming faster than nearly all other areas of the global ocean, leading to significant changes in ice quality and the duration of ice-covered periods. The impacts of this warming and sea ice variability on higher trophic levels in the Bering Sea is well documented, but the effects on lower trophic levels are less well understood. Phytoplankton biomass (as chlorophyll a [chl a]) and primary and nitrogen production measurements in the Bering Sea are presented from 2006-2016, a period that covers relatively colder (2007-2012) and warmer (2014-2016) temperature regimes. In warm spring periods, relative to cold spring periods, the frequency of subsurface chl a maxima increased, but with no significant differences in integrated chl a inventories. In contrast, cold fall periods were characterized by greater integrated chl a inventories than warm fall periods. Integrated net primary production (NPP) increased from the cold period (2007-2011) to the warm period (2014-2016). The difference in patterns in chl a and NPP resulted in higher phytoplankton growth rates during warm periods. Nitrate uptake rates increased from spring to fall during cold periods, while rates decreased from spring to fall during warm periods, suggesting changes in the balance of new versus regenerated production. While changes in phenological timing cannot be ruled out, changes in phytoplankton growth rate appear more important than changes in chl a biomass underlying increasing daily NPP. This distinction directly impacts our understanding of the linkages between warming temperatures and phytoplankton production and its implications in evaluating and understanding energy flow to higher trophic levels.


We define a class of ranked tree automata TABG generalizing both the tree automata with local brother tests of Bogaert and Tison (1992) and with global equality and disequality constraints (TAGED) of Filiot et al. (2007). TABG can test for equality and disequality modulo a given flat equational theory between brother subterms and between subterms whose positions are defined by the states reached during a computation. In particular, TABG can check that all the subterms reaching a given state are distinct. This constraint is related to monadic key constraints for XML documents, meaning that every two distinct positions of a given type have different values. We prove decidability of the emptiness problem for TABG. This solves, in particular, the open question of decidability of emptiness for TAGED. We further extend our result by allowing global arithmetic constraints for counting the number of occurrences of some state or the number of different equivalence classes of subterms (modulo a given flat equational theory) reaching some state during a computation. We also adapt the model to unranked ordered terms. As a consequence of our results for TABG, we prove the decidability of a fragment of the monadic second order logic on trees extended with predicates for equality and disequality between subtrees, and cardinality.


Strawberry fruit has very short postharvest life because of its soft texture. To evaluate application effects of amino acids on Post-harvest life of Strawberry fruits, a factorial experiment was carried out based on completely randomized design in Research Greenhouse of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. Experimental treatments were three amino acids (Arginine, Glutamine and Alanine) at three levels (0, 500 and 1000 μM) and two cultivars of strawberry (Camarosa and Gaviota). Strawberry fruits were harvested at commercial maturity stage and transported to the laboratory. Then fruits were kept in plastic containers and stored at 4 oC. After 15 days, total soluble solids (TSS), titrable acidity (TA), flavor index (TSS/TA), total anthocyanin, total phenol, phelavonoid, total antioxidant capacity and percentage of fruit weight loss were determined. Results showed that the highest flavor index (18.41) was observed in Alanine1000cultivar Gaviota. Also, the lowest fruit weight loss was related to Alanine 500cultivar Gaviota (18%) and Arginine 500cultivar Gaviota (14.5%) treatments. These two treatments were not statistically different. The highest fruit-weight loss (65.5%) was observed in Glutamine 500cultivar Gaviota. Also, Glutamine 500cultivar Gaviota had the highest Antocyanine. It can be concluded from this experiment that application of Arginine and Alanine amino acids prior to harvest of strawberry fruits can increase their postharvest life and quality.


Objectives
To compare self-reported dietary intakes using food frequency questionnaires (FFQs) adjusted for 7-d food checklists against recovery biomarkers (doubly labeled water (DLW) for energy; 24-h urine for protein, sodium, potassium).

Methods
Over 12-months, participants aged 50-74 years, from the Interactive Diet and Activity Tracking (IDATA) Study, were asked to complete 2 FFQs, 2 7-d, 32-item food checklists, 2 24-h urine collections, and 1 DLW administration. Participants who completed at least 1 FFQ, 1 food checklist with ≥5 days, and had DLW and urine results were included (N = 742). FFQ energy, protein, sodium, and potassium intakes and densities were calculated both directly (unadjusted) and adjusted by the ratio of reported intakes, calculated as the average percentage of days with reported intake from the 7-d food checklist divided by the summed FFQ frequency for each food group. The discrepancy between FFQ values and biomarkers were determined by comparing mean unadjusted and checklist-adjusted values to biomarkers. Attenuation factors and validity coefficients were determined for all unadjusted and adjusted FFQ values.

Results
Overall, adjusting FFQ values by estimates from the 7-d food checklist resulted in higher values for protein, sodium, potassium, and energy. For both men and women, FFQ energy, protein, sodium and potassium values were lower than biomarker estimates, but all differences were reduced when adjusted for checklist values. The greatest reduction in differences between self-reported values (unadjusted vs. adjusted) and biomarkers were seen for sodium and energy intake in females (-36% to -21% and -29% to -14%, respectively), and total energy intake in males (-29% vs. -14%). , The checklist-adjusted potassium values were higher than the biomarker values, but for men, they were closer to the biomarker. Finally, the adjustment process improved the level of attenuation and validity coefficients for each nutrient and energy.

Conclusions
Though past studies have shown 24-h recalls and food records have higher correlations with recovery biomarkers than FFQs, our results suggest that, simple adjustment of FFQs using food checklists reduces reporting error and may improve the power to detect relationships between dietary exposures from FFQs and health outcomes.

Funding Sources
N/A.


Spatial studies of colonization and succession of soil algae and chemical analyses of the various soils on the cinde cone of Kilauea Iki in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii are outlined. There is a positive correlation between the diversity and quantity of soil algae with nutrient levels and organic matter accumulation in each locale. Three distinct edaphic‐biotic zones existing in this area are differentially revealed by the soil chemical composition, quantity and diversity of soil algae, and as evident variations in higher plant growth and colonization. Varying colonization and successional phases of higher plant growth around standing and fallen tree snags killed by volcanic activity also reflect variations in the soil algal flora. These variations appear largely as a function of differential water interception, absorption, and retention as well as differential accumulation of organic matter, and the initiation of various biogeochemical cycles.


1 Peter 1:3-5: [3] Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, [4] to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, [5] who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.


Orchids are largest and most diverse group among angiosperms. They are cultivated for beautiful flowers. They are widely known their economic importance but less for medicinal value. Some plants like Dendrobium crumenative, Eulophia campestris, Orchis latifolia, Vanda roxburghii and Vanda tessellata have been documented for their medicinal value.. Phytochemically some orchids have been reported to contain alkaloids, triterpenoids, flavonoids and stilbenoids. Ashtavarga (group of eight medicinal plants) is vital part of Ayurvedic formulations like Chyvanprasha and four plants viz, Riddhi, Vriddhi, Jivaka and Rishbhaka have been discussed as possible members of family Orchidaceae. Recently there has been tremendous progress in medicinal plants research; however orchids have not been exploited fully for their medicinal application. The article reviews medicinally important orchids along with recent pharmacological investigations.


Abstract The silicoflagellates are a class of enigmatic chrysophytes characterized by netlike skeletons composed of opaline silica. Other major groups of siliceous plankton—the diatoms and radiolarians—exhibit evidence of decreasing size or silicification over the Cenozoic. We investigated trends in the silicoflagellate fossil record by constructing a species-level database of diversity and morphological metrics. This new database reveals a proliferation of silicoflagellate species with spined skeletons along with an increase in the mean number of spines per species over the Cenozoic. Although there is little change in skeleton size or silicification among species with spines, those without spines are larger than species with spines and exhibit a decrease in size toward the present. Increased grazing pressure combined with declining surface silicate availability may have shifted the costs and benefits of silicification, causing divergent responses in skeletal morphology between these different morphological lineages of silicoflagellates over time. We postulate that diminishing Cenozoic surface silicic acid availability may have predisposed large spineless silicoflagellate species to extinction, whereas increased grazing pressure may have contributed to the extinction of all remaining spineless species within the edible size range of grazers.