In 2009, a water district located in southern California offered its retail customers an opportunity to participate in a rebate program to replace their turf. From 2009 to 2015, 227 retail customers participated in the water agency's Turf Replacement Program, where 166,499 m2 (792,185 ft2) of turf was removed. An analysis was conducted to evaluate the water savings related to removing turf and replacing it with drought tolerant landscape. Difference in Difference design and a time component were utilized to identify how many neighbors replaced their turf after the participant did, also known as the neighborhood multiplier effect. Neighbor controls were incorporated into the analysis as the program ran during a significant drought in California. One year before starting the program, the average annual water usage was 1,437.93 m3 (1.17 acre-feet [ac-ft]) for 193 of the participating customers. One year after each customer participated, the average water usage was 1,045.74 m3 (0.85 ac-ft). The average reduction of water usage per customer (392.19 m3 [~ 0.32 ac-ft]) is statistically significant at the 0.01 level (paired t-test, T = 9.797, p < 0.0001). When comparing the differences in usage between the program participants and the neighbor controls (Difference in Difference approach), we see that the difference in usage (after-before) is statistically significant between the two groups (t-test unequal variances, T = −5.655, p < 0.0001). The results also indicate that with a greater area of turfgrass replaced, there was significantly less water savings. In this study, the multiplier effect was analyzed. The multiplier is a factor of proportionality that measures how many neighbors switched out their turf because their neighbor (participant) switched out their turf. On average, 2.5 neighbors out of the boundary (on average included 13 neighbors) switched their turf after the participant replaced their turf (Z-test, Z = 6.46, p < 0.0001). With investment of public monies, transparency in program results and benefits should be a priority. To do this, managers should focus on collecting more data to help address some of the confounding variables and explain some of the trend relationships found in this study for their turf replacement programs. Such data could include measuring the total area of the yard that can be landscaped and finding information about plans for the rest of the yard.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate, in a prospective design, whether migraine is an independent risk factor for subsequent stroke.

DESIGN
Evaluated as part of the Physicians' Health Study, a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of aspirin and beta-carotene in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer begun in 1982. The aspirin component of the study was terminated in 1988, with average follow-up of 60.2 months.

SETTING
Conducted by mail among male physicians throughout the United States.

PARTICIPANTS
A total of 22,071 US male physicians aged 40 to 84 years in 1982 with no prior history of cancer or cardiovascular diseases who were enrolled in the Physicians' Health Study.

INTERVENTIONS
Participants were randomized to receive 325 mg of aspirin or aspirin placebo every other day and to receive 50 mg of beta-carotene or placebo on alternate days.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
The primary outcomes of the Physicians' Health Study were cardiovascular disease and cancer. Because stroke was a main outcome, this provided the opportunity to evaluate the association between migraine headaches and stroke.

RESULTS
Physicians reporting migraine (n = 1479) had significantly increased risks of subsequent total stroke and ischemic stroke compared with those not reporting migraine. After adjustment for age, aspirin and beta-carotene treatment assignment, and a number of cardiovascular risk factors, the relative risks were 1.84 (95% confidence interval, 1.06 to 3.20) for total stroke and 2.00 (95% confidence interval, 1.10 to 3.64) for ischemic stroke. There were too few hemorrhagic strokes in the study to evaluate this end point. No associations were seen between ordinary nonmigraine headache and subsequent stroke or between migraine and subsequent myocardial infarction or cardiovascular death.

CONCLUSION
These data raise the possibility that vascular events associated with migraine may also have causative importance in stroke but require confirmation in other studies specifically designed to evaluate this question.


Many advanced programming tools---for both end-users and expert developers---rely on program synthesis to automatically generate implementations from high-level specifications. These tools often need to employ tricky, custom-built synthesis algorithms because they require synthesized programs to be not only correct, but also optimal with respect to a desired cost metric, such as program size. Finding these optimal solutions efficiently requires domain-specific search strategies, but existing synthesizers hard-code the strategy, making them difficult to reuse. This paper presents metasketches, a general framework for specifying and solving optimal synthesis problems. metasketches make the search strategy a part of the problem definition by specifying a fragmentation of the search space into an ordered set of classic sketches. We provide two cooperating search algorithms to effectively solve metasketches. A global optimizing search coordinates the activities of local searches, informing them of the costs of potentially-optimal solutions as they explore different regions of the candidate space in parallel. The local searches execute an incremental form of counterexample-guided inductive synthesis to incorporate information sent from the global search. We present Synapse, an implementation of these algorithms, and show that it effectively solves optimal synthesis problems with a variety of different cost functions. In addition, metasketches can be used to accelerate classic (non-optimal) synthesis by explicitly controlling the search strategy, and we show that Synapse solves classic synthesis problems that state-of-the-art tools cannot.


Synchrotron‐based Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy are applied with submicrometer spatial resolution to multiple grains of Sutter's Mill meteorite, a regolith breccia with CM1 and CM2 lithologies. The Raman and infrared active functional groups reveal the nature and distribution of organic and mineral components and confirm that SM12 reached higher metamorphism temperatures than SM2. The spatial distributions of carbonates and organic matter are negatively correlated. The spatial distributions of aliphatic organic matter and OH relative to the distributions of silicates in SM2 differ from those in SM12, supporting a hypothesis that the parent body of Sutter's Mill is a combination of multiple bodies with different origins. The high aliphatic CH2/CH3 ratios determined from band intensities for SM2 and SM12 grains are similar to those of IDPs and less altered carbonaceous chondrites, and they are significantly higher than those in other CM chondrites and diffuse ISM objects.


ABSTRACT The South Asian security landscape is increasingly dominated by a complex four-way dynamic between India, Pakistan, China, and the United States. The stresses and strains of the relationships between these states directly affect the prospects for peace and prosperity for almost half of humanity. This article describes some of the military contours of this landscape, with a focus on strategic postures, weapon acquisitions, and the role of nuclear weapons. It maps the India–Pakistan arms race over the past decade, the economic constraints on the two states, the role of China and the United States as weapons suppliers, and the risk and consequences for nuclear war. The authors then look at India's relationship with China, which is marked by both cooperation and competition, and the rise of China as a close military, political, and economic ally of Pakistan. While the United States has had long-standing cooperative relationships with both India and Pakistan, these relationships have been undergoing major shifts over the last two decades. U.S. concerns about China's increasing military and economic power have also intensified over this period as well. Of particular significance has been the effort to create a U.S.–India strategic partnership to balance and contain a rising China, which may become a central feature of the emerging global order. This article also offers a brief overview of what is publicly known about the nuclear arsenals of the four countries, ongoing production of weapons-usable fissile materials in Pakistan and India, as well as the race to build longer-range missiles.


We study a continuous-time version of the optimal risk-sharing problem with one-sided commitment. In the optimal contract, the agent's consumption is non-decreasing and depends only on the maximal level of the agent's income realized to date. In the complete-markets implementation of the optimal contract, the Alvarez-Jermann solvency constraints take the form of a simple borrowing constraint familiar from the Bewley-Aiyagari incomplete-markets models. Unlike in the incomplete-markets models, however, the asset buffer stock held by the agent is negatively correlated with income.


Our poor understanding of the boundaries of convective cores generates large uncertainties on the extent of these cores and thus on stellar ages. Our aim is to use asteroseismology to consistently measure the extent of convective cores in a sample of main-sequence stars whose masses lie around the mass-limit for having a convective core. We first test and validate a seismic diagnostic that was proposed to probe in a model-dependent way the extent of convective cores using the so-called $r_{010}$ ratios, which are built with $l=0$ and $l=1$ modes. We apply this procedure to 24 low-mass stars chosen among Kepler targets to optimize the efficiency of this diagnostic. For this purpose, we compute grids of stellar models with both the CESAM2k and MESA evolution codes, where the extensions of convective cores are modeled either by an instantaneous mixing or as a diffusion process. Among the selected targets, we are able to unambiguously detect convective cores in eight stars and we obtain seismic measurements of the extent of the mixed core in these targets with a good agreement between the CESAM2k and MESA codes. By performing optimizations using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, we then obtain estimates of the amount of extra-mixing beyond the core that is required in CESAM2k to reproduce seismic observations for these eight stars and we show that this can be used to propose a calibration of this quantity. This calibration depends on the prescription chosen for the extra-mixing, but we find that it should be valid also for the code MESA, provided the same prescription is used. This study constitutes a first step towards the calibration of the extension of convective cores in low-mass stars, which will help reduce the uncertainties on the ages of these stars.


Purpose
Law enforcement may require police officers to inhibit intuitive responses to high threat and thereby affect their emotional reaction and operational effectiveness. Upon this premise, the current study reports two experiments which compare the impact of two relevant shot execution strategies on police officers' shooting performance under high threat, including (1) fire at an armed assailant and then step away from the assailant's line of fire ('fire-step') or (2) step away from the assailant's line of fire and then fire ('step-fire').

Method
In Experiment 1, 15 experienced police officers performed both shot execution strategies against a stationary assailant who occasionally shot back with coloured soap cartridges (high threat), while we measured their state anxiety, movement times and shot accuracy. In Experiment 2, the same 15 officers remained stationary and fired at the assailant who now performed both shot execution strategies in random order, thereby providing an indication of the risk (i.e., chance to get hit) associated with performing either strategy.

Results
Experiment 1 showed that officers preferred using the step-fire strategy and that using this strategy resulted in lower levels of anxiety, increased time for aiming and more accurate shooting than the fire-step strategy. Experiment 2, however, indicated that the step-fire strategy also increases one's chance of getting hit.

Conclusions
Findings suggest that inhibition of preferred responses under high threat (as in the fire-step strategy) may increase state anxiety and negatively affect shooting performance in police officers. Future work is needed to reveal underlying mechanisms and explore implications for practice.


The paper aims at analyzing the impact of immigration of Syrian asylum seekers on the German energy market. Germany has been a leader of the energy transition, and has been effectively shaping European Union's environmental policies. The unprecedented influx of the newcomers following the chancellor Merkel's political move to open the boarders challenges feasibility of this project. This study evaluates the challenge from the supply and demand side of the energy market. It does so through the thorough examination of available data, government documents and literature to analyze historical developments and current implementation of the energy transition, together with Syrian impact on the energy market. The paper argues that although Syrian asylum seekers constitute only a small fraction of the whole group of incomers to Germany, the analysis of their impact suggests that usage of coal in the energy mix should not be expected to fall soon. 2 Abstract The paper aims at analyzing the impact of immigration of Syrian asylum seekers on the German energy market. Germany has been a leader of the energy transition, and has been effectively shaping European Union's environmental policies. The unprecedented influx of the newcomers following the chancellor Merkel's political move to open the boarders challenges feasibility of this project. This study evaluates the challenge from the supply and demand side of the energy market. It does so through the thorough examination of available data, government documents and literature to analyze historical developments and current implementation of the energy transition, together with Syrian impact on the energy market. The paper argues that although Syrian asylum seekers constitute only a small fraction of the whole group of incomers to Germany, the analysis of their impact suggests that usage of coal in the energy mix should not be expected to fall


Introduction: In some trials in United States of America (USA) and Bangladesh, vasodilating non selective β blockers (e.g. carvedilol, propranolol etc.) have been shown to be better tolerated than nonvasodilating β1 selective blocker (e.g. atenolol, metoprolol etc.) to prevent cardiovascular diseases (Coronary Heart Disease, Ischemic Heart Disease and other cardiovascular conditions)
Objective: To compare the role of atenolol and carvedilol in the prevention of adrenaline induced myocardial infarction (MI) in experimental animal (rats).
Materials and Methods: This experimental study was carried out in the Department of Pharmacology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), Dhaka for a period of one year (from July 2014 to June 2015). Seventy two (72) healthy rats of Long Evan Norwegian strains, 3-4 months of ages of both sexes, weight between 180-220g were used. These rats were randomly selected and ethical issues were addressed. In this study cardio-protective effect was assessed by measuring the serum enzymes (CK-MB and AST) levels and antiperoxidative action was estimated by the hepatic and cardiac reduced glutathione (GSH) contents in experimentally (adrenaline) induced myocardial infarction.
Results: Adrenaline (2mg/kg) induced myocardial damage in rat model was evaluated biochemically by significant (P<0.001) increase in CK-MB and AST levels. Free radical production following adrenaline induced myocardial infarction was indirectly reflected by significant (P<0.001) depletion in hepatic & cardiac GSH contents. Cardio protection provided by atenolol and carvedilol pretreatment in adrenaline induced myocardial infraction was assessed by significant prevention of increase in serum CK-MB and AST levels. Antioxidant properties of carvedilol & atenolol were evaluated by significantly (P<0.001) increase in and significantly no (NS) change in GSH (hepatic & cardiac) contents respectively.
Conclusion: The study indicated that carvedilol (nonselective β blocker) through their antioxidant property in addition to α and β- blocking effect afforded more cardio protection than atenolol (selective β1adrenoceptor blocker) in experimental MI.
JAFMC Bangladesh. Vol 17, No 2 (December) 2021: 65-70


Direct cholangioscopy (DC) provides high-quality endoscopic visualization of the biliary mucosa and has gained momentum in recent years, given the staggering technological and technical advancements. However, validated and/or conceptual quality indicators which are increasingly proposed for various endoscopic procedures remain poorly defined, focusing on pre-defined clinical targets (e.g., indeterminate strictures as per endoscopic retrograde cholangiography and/ or endoscopic ultrasound/other imaging findings) or on scope advancement up to the hilum. Thus, there is widespread consensus on presumed procedural completeness, i.e., advancement, up to a pre-defined target lesion and/or the liver hilum. By contrast, visualization of the most distal part of the common bile duct, i.e., the transitional zone from the biliary to the papillary mucosa, has been neglected in practice and research, mostly because of technical difficulties in stabilizing the endoscopic vision because of the sharp angulation of the duodenum-bile duct axis. A novel quality indicator of DC, described in its freehand fashion without ancillary techniques, is being proposed and illustrated: the "bilio-papillary Z line" reminiscent of its more easily accessible esophago-gastro-duodenoscopy counterpart. A 360° visualization of the bilio-papillary junction, in particular its medio-cranial aspects, remains difficult to achieve with currently established techniques (Fig. 1A, B). Likewise, because of prolapsing papillary mucosa, adequate endoscopic vision of the bilio-papillary transitional zone may become blurred (Fig. 1C), highlighting the need for technical advancements to gently flatten abundant papillary mucosa comparable to, though less aggressive than, endoscopic papillary large balloon dilation (Fig. 1D). Further research on this topic and future technical/technological refinements, e.g., dedicated cap-assisted freehand-intubated cholangioscopy as is in clin-


Background: Diabetes is characterized by hyperglycaemia resulting from defective secretion, defective action, or both of insulin. The aim of this study was to determine the high sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-CRP) levels in type 2 diabetics and correlate hs-CRP levels with glycaemic control (Glycated Haemoglobin HbA1c levels), body mass index (BMI) and blood pressure. Methodology: It was a cross-sectional study carried out at Endocrinology Unit of Hayatabad Medical complex (HMC) and samples were analyzed in the laboratory of Rehman Medical Institute, Peshawar. A total of 125 known diabetic patients were recruited by non-probability convenience sampling. HbA1c, and hs-CRP were measured through immunoassay method besides Fasting Blood Glucose, Blood Pressure, Height and Weight. Results: Out of 125 patients, 68% were females and 32% were males, 16% had normal BMI, 48% were overweight and 36% were obese. In the male patients, 4% had good, and 28% had poor glycaemic control. In females, 8.8% had good glycaemic control and 59.2% had poor glycaemic control. There was significant small positive correlation of HbA1c and hs-CRP (r=0.207, p=0.020), significant weak positive correlation of hs-CRP and BMI (r=0.299, p=0.001), and no correlation of hs-CRP and systolic blood pressure in the data (r=0.059, p=0.555). Conclusion: There is a positive association of hs-CRP with HbA1c and BMI. If better glycaemic control is maintained, chances of getting cardiovascular diseases are reduced.


We present a prospective observational study of 18 consecutive nonanoxic patients with Periodic Lateralized Epileptiform Discharges (PLEDs) on their EEG, who were followed acutely till resolution of their PLEDs. We followed their electroencephalographic and clinical courses. 13 of the 18 patients were discharged from the hospital at their baseline mental status, 3 died in the hospital and 2 patients did not show any clinical improvement. All the 13 patients who improved showed complete resolution of PLEDs on their follow-up EEG. The 3 patients who died showed severe diffuse cerebral dysfunction without PLEDs on their follow-up EEGs. Of the 2 patients with no improvement, one showed severe diffuse cerebral dysfunction and the other showed persistent intermittent PLEDs which were state dependent. All patients received anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs). Structural versus nonstructural PLEDs etiology made no difference in terms of the discharged patients' outcome. Our study thus far suggests that a majority of the patients showed neurological improvement with resolution of PLEDs on their EEG. 4 of the 5 patients who did not improve showed severe diffuse cerebral dysfunction on their EEG and 1 showed intermittent PLEDs. All the patients who did poorly had initially presented with multiple convulsive generalized seizures and had multiple medical complications. We would like to see if this trend continues in a larger cohort of patients.


In recent years, the annual summer journey of Moroccan families from Europe towards 'home' has become a state-acknowledged event as their arrivals
number in the millions. These holidays serve an important role in molding ideas
and practices of 'Moroccanness' for post-migrant generation diasporic visitors, as it
is during this time that those of Moroccan descent raised in Europe have the most
exposure to Morocco in situ – to language, community and space as they are
practiced within the territorial boundaries of the nation – instead of their habitually
practiced ways of being Moroccan (or not-being Moroccan) elsewhere.
Using an approach based in linguistic anthropology alongside a
geographical consideration of embodiment and mobilities, this thesis focuses on
communicative and consumption practices of such individuals during their visits to
Morocco. I traveled with participants, observing and recording interactions amongst
diasporic visitors and community members resident in Morocco, and engaging with
them in their practices of touristic leisure consumption. Thinking about ideas of
'Moroccanness' as a node in assemblage, unfixed yet specific, I demonstrate how
their communicative and consumption practices shape an evolving sense of what it
means to be 'Moroccan' for diasporic visitors. Their ideas of 'Moroccanness', which
take shape both as rooted in diasporic connection and as touristic appreciation
through consumption, resonate with the sense of 'being Moroccan' during their
holidays and when they return 'home' to Europe. Yet, their diasporic orientation
towards Morocco as a place of leisure consumption has ramifications on the
relationship between future diasporic generations and the territory as 'homeland'.
My main theoretical contributions are: reimagining 'diasporic' in materialist
terms, as an action instead of a state of being; and reimagining 'hybridity' as a set of
interactions responding to multiple attractors in multiplicity, rather than an unstable
condition of being neither one, nor the other.


Improved long-stroke shape-memory-alloy (SMA) linear actuators are being developed to exert significantly higher forces and operate at higher activation temperatures than do prior SMA actuators. In these actuators, long linear strokes are achieved through the principle of displacement multiplication, according to which there are multiple stages, each intermediate stage being connected by straight SMA wire segments to the next stage so that relative motions of stages are additive toward the final stage, which is the output stage. Prior SMA actuators typically include polymer housings or shells, steel or aluminum stages, and polymer pads between successive stages of displacement-multiplication assemblies. Typical output forces of prior SMA actuators range from 10 to 20 N, and typical strokes range from 0.5 to 1.5 cm. An important disadvantage of prior SMA wire actuators is relatively low cycle speed, which is related to actuation temperature as follows: The SMA wires in prior SMA actuators are typically made of a durable nickel/titanium alloy that has a shape-memory activation temperature of 80 C. An SMA wire can be heated quickly from below to above its activation temperature to obtain a stroke in one direction, but must then be allowed to cool to somewhat below its activation temperature (typically, less than or equal to 60 C in the case of an activation temperature of 80 C) to obtain a stroke in the opposite direction (return stroke). At typical ambient temperatures, cooling times are of the order of several seconds. Cooling times thus limit cycle speeds. Wires made of SMA alloys having significantly higher activation temperatures [denoted ultra-high-temperature (UHT) SMA alloys] cool to the required lower return-stroke temperatures more rapidly, making it possible to increase cycle speeds. The present development is motivated by a need, in some applications (especially aeronautical and space-flight applications) for SMA actuators that exert higher forces, operate at greater cycle speeds, and have stronger housings that can withstand greater externally applied forces and impacts. The main novel features of the improved SMA actuators are the following: 1) The ends of the wires are anchored in compact crimps made from short steel tubes. Each wire end is inserted in a tube, the tube is flattened between planar jaws to make the tube grip the wire, the tube is compressed to a slight U-cross-section deformation to strengthen the grip, then the crimp is welded onto one of the actuator stages. The pull strength of a typical crimp is about 125 N -- comparable to the strength of the SMA wire and greater than the typical pull strengths of wire-end anchors in prior SMA actuators. Greater pull strength is one of the keys to achievement of higher actuation force; 2) For greater strength and resistance to impacts, housings are milled from aluminum instead of being made from polymers. Each housing is made from two pieces in a clamshell configuration. The pieces are anodized to reduce sliding friction; 3) Stages are made stronger (to bear greater compression loads without excessive flexing) by making them from steel sheets thicker than those used in prior SMA actuators. The stages contain recessed pockets to accommodate the crimps. Recessing the pockets helps to keep overall dimensions as small as possible; and, 4) UHT SMA wires are used to satisfy the higher-speed/higher-temperature requirement.


Welcome to Essentials of Nutrition: A Functional Approach! This book is written for students who are not majoring in nutrition, but want to learn about the fundamental aspects of nutrition and how it applies to their own lives. We have written this book with the assumption that you have little or no prior knowledge of college level chemistry, biology, or physiology. But that does not mean it's not scientific! Nutrition is a science-based discipline, so all the material included is backed up by rigorous scientific research, but it is presented in a clear, easy-to-understand fashion without requiring a background in science.


From the stages of Broadway and London to university campuses, Paris, and the bourgeoning theaters of Africa, Greek tragedy remains constantly in production. This global revival, in addition to delighting audiences, has highlighted both the promise and the pitfalls of staging ancient masterpieces in the modern age. Addressing the issues and challenges these performances pose, renowned classicist Simon Goldhill responds here to the growing demand for a comprehensive guide to staging Greek tragedy today. In crisp and spirited prose, Goldhill explains how Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles conceived their works in performance and then summarizes everything we know about how their tragedies were actually staged. The heart of his book tackles the six major problems facing any company performing these works today: the staging space and concept of the play; the use of the chorus; the actor's role in an unfamiliar style of performance; the place of politics in tragedy; the question of translation; and the treatment of gods, monsters, and other strange characters of the ancient world. Outlining exactly what makes each of these issues such a pressing difficulty for modern companies, Goldhill provides insightful solutions drawn from his nimble analyses of some of the best recent productions in the United States, Britain, and continental Europe. One of the few experts on both Greek tragedy and contemporary performance, Goldhill uses his unique background and prodigious literary skill to illuminate what makes tragedy at once so exciting and so tricky to get right. The result will inspire and enlighten all directors and performers - not to mention the growing audiences - of ancient Greek theater.


We describe an iterative refinement procedure for computing extended precision or exact solutions to linear programming problems (LPs). Arbitrarily precise solutions can be computed by solving a sequence of closely related LPs with limited precision arithmetic. The LPs solved share the same constraint matrix as the original problem instance and are transformed only by modification of the objective function, right-hand side, and variable bounds. Exact computation is used to compute and store the exact representation of the transformed problems, while numeric computation is used for solving LPs. At all steps of the algorithm the LP bases encountered in the transformed problems correspond directly to LP bases in the original problem description.
 We demonstrate that this algorithm is effective in practice for computing extended precision solutions and that this leads to direct improvement of the best known methods for solving LPs exactly over the rational numbers.


Parkinson's Disease (PD) is the second most common neurological disorder after Alzheimer's Disease. The disease will manifest with the loss of up to 70% of the dopaminergic neurons in the Substantia Nigra (SN) region and it mainly affects the elderly. One of the common pathological hallmarks for PD is the excessive iron accumulation within the SN region of the brain. However, the pathogenesis for of the excessive iron levels accumulation in the SN is unclear. The increase in intracellular oxidative stress may play a role in disrupting neuronal iron homeostasis by increasing the expression of iron intake proteins and decreasing expression of iron exporter. Furthermore, iron itself increases reactive oxygen species formation via the Fenton Reaction.

 It was found that there is a possible link between PD and melatonin, a neurohormone secreted by the pineal gland of the brain. Firstly, there is a decreased in melatonin receptor expression in the brain of PD patients. Furthermore, serum melatonin levels decreased as people age, which could be a link on why PD tend to affect the elderly. Hence the purpose of these study is to elucidate the link between PD and melatonin. The neurohormone itself is a well-studied antioxidant. The decrease in melatonin secretion and receptor could play a role increasing the dopaminergic neuron susceptibility to oxidative stress. The increase of oxidative stress could trigger for disrupting neuronal iron homeostasis.

 In this thesis, the human neuroblastoma cell line SH-SY5Y was used as an in vitro model for dopaminergic neurons to study the effects melatonin on iron overloaded SH-SY5Y cells. Using qRT-PCR to determine the gene expression of iron transport proteins DMT1, TfR, LfR and FPN1. The protein expression were determined using Cell based ELISA (CBE). It was found that iron loading increases the gene expression of all four iron transport proteins. The protein expression level of the same iron transport proteins was increase similarly. The increased in iron uptake protein expression resulted in increased neuronal iron content after ICP-MS analysis. Melatonin as an anti-oxidant and anti-inflammation attenuated the increase in both the gene and protein expression of the iron transport proteins induced by iron loading. This resulted in decreased intra-neuronal iron levels groups given both iron and melatonin treatment.

 By using MTT assay to determine cell viability, iron loading induces cell death up to 25% and through cell cycle analysis, it supported the observation that iron loading induced cellular apoptosis. Although, there is minimal improvement in cell viability in the groups given both iron and melatonin. But the findings of cell cycle analysis, showed that melatonin successfully reduced cellular apoptosis in comparison to iron treated group.

 The increased neuronal apoptosis from iron loading is mediated by the activation components of the MAPK pathway, including both C-Raf and p-C-Raf and p38 kinase. Moreover, the protein expression of NF-κB increased from iron loading, which indicates that iron loading is pro-inflammatory. The increase oxidative stress and inflammation signalling played a role in causing iron homeostasis dysregulation. Co-treatment with melatonin were successful in ameliorating the expression of MAPK markers, C-Raf, p-C-Raf and p38 kinase, along with NF-κB.


Among the most impressive of aspects of human intelligence is skill acquisition—the ability to identify important behavioral components, retain them as skills, refine them through practice, and apply them in new task contexts. Skill acquisition underlies both our ability to choose to spend time and effort to specialize at particular tasks, and our ability to collect and exploit previous experience to become able to solve harder and harder problems over time with less and less cognitive effort.
Hierarchical reinforcement learning provides a theoretical basis for skill acquisition, including principled methods for learning new skills and deploying them during problem solving. However, existing work focuses largely on small, discrete problems. This dissertation addresses the question of how we scale such methods up to high-dimensional, continuous domains, in order to design robots that are able to acquire skills autonomously. This presents three major challenges; we introduce novel methods addressing each of these challenges.
First, how does an agent operating in a continuous environment discover skills? Although the literature contains several methods for skill discovery in discrete environments, it offers none for the general continuous case. We introduce skill chaining, a general skill discovery method for continuous domains. Skill chaining incrementally builds a skill tree that allows an agent to reach a solution state from any of its start states by executing a sequence (or chain) of acquired skills. We empirically demonstrate that skill chaining can improve performance over monolithic policy learning in the Pinball domain, a challenging dynamic and continuous reinforcement learning problem.
Second, how do we scale up to high-dimensional state spaces? While learning in relatively small domains is generally feasible, it becomes exponentially harder as the number of state variables grows. We introduce abstraction selection, an efficient algorithm for selecting skill-specific, compact representations from a library of available representations when creating a new skill. Abstraction selection can be combined with skill chaining to solve hard tasks by breaking them up into chains of skills, each defined using an appropriate abstraction. We show that abstraction selection selects an appropriate representation for a new skill using very little sample data, and that this leads to significant performance improvements in the Continuous Playroom, a relatively high-dimensional reinforcement learning problem.
Finally, how do we obtain good initial policies? The amount of experience required to learn a reasonable policy from scratch in most interesting domains is unrealistic for robots operating in the real world. We introduce CST, an algorithm for rapidly constructing skill trees (with appropriate abstractions) from sample trajectories obtained via human demonstration, a feedback controller, or a planner. We use CST to construct skill trees from human demonstration in the Pinball domain, and to extract a sequence of low-dimensional skills from demonstration trajectories on a mobile robot. The resulting skills can be reliably reproduced using a small number of example trajectories.
Finally, these techniques are applied to build a mobile robot control system for the uBot-5, resulting in a mobile robot that is able to acquire skills autonomously. We demonstrate that this system is able to use skills acquired in one problem to more quickly solve a new problem.


Social networking services have been prevalent at many online communities such as Twitter.com and Weibo.com, where millions of users keep interacting with each other every day. One interesting and important problem in the social networking services is to rank users based on their vitality in a timely fashion. An accurate ranking list of user vitality could benefit many parties in social network services such as the ads providers and site operators. Although it is very promising to obtain a vitality-based ranking list of users, there are many technical challenges due to the large scale and dynamics of social networking data. In this paper, we propose a unique perspective to achieve this goal, which is quantifying user vitality by analyzing the dynamic interactions among users on social networks. Examples of social network include but are not limited to social networks in microblog sites and academical collaboration networks. Intuitively, if a user has many interactions with his friends within a time period and most of his friends do not have many interactions with their friends simultaneously, it is very likely that this user has high vitality. Based on this idea, we develop quantitative measurements for user vitality and propose our first algorithm for ranking users based vitality. Also, we further consider the mutual influence between users while computing the vitality measurements and propose the second ranking algorithm, which computes user vitality in an iterative way. Other than user vitality ranking, we also introduce a vitality prediction problem, which is also of great importance for many applications in social networking services. Along this line, we develop a customized prediction model to solve the vitality prediction problem. To evaluate the performance of our algorithms, we collect two dynamic social network data sets. The experimental results with both data sets clearly demonstrate the advantage of our ranking and prediction methods.


In this article, we present our investigation of materialization of intentions using the input-output data based Six Sigma methodology for problem solving. The investigation is inspired by our respective Gurus, the wisdom of present and past seers, and the works of several scientists. We present two examples of materialization of intentions (change of pH and levitation). The pH example is preliminary requiring additional experimentation. We believe that the evidence presented is very supportive of the hypothesis of materialization of intentions. We hope this paper will contribute towards the unfolding of a Copernican-like revolution which will have profound positive impact on humanity.


Malnutrition resulting from intake of food poor in nutritional value, particularly lacking in micronutrients, has been
recognized as a serious health problem in developing countries including India. Nutritional security is a priority for India.
Crop diversification in agriculture contributes to balanced diet and nutritional security. Production intensification of
nutrient-dense crops, contributes to their increased production, and consequently enhances their accessibility at affordable
prices to meet nutritional security. Grain legumes produce nutrient-dense grains rich in proteins, vitamins, minerals and
micronutrients essential for growth and development. However, cultivation of grain legumes is often neglected resulting in
poor production in the country, and consequently poor access to legumes at affordable prices. Pigeonpea or red gram
(Cajanus cajan L.), chickpea or bengal gram (Cicer arietinum L.) and groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.), the three nutritious
grain legumes are grown widely across the country and are major constituents of Indian diets. They are climate- resilient
crops adapted to water-limiting conditions making them choice crops for cultivation in adverse conditions. Policy options
for promoting cultivation and increased production of pigeon pea, chickpea and groundnut are needed. Technology options
for intensification of their cultivation include improved cultivars of grain legumes with enhanced adaptation and nutritional
properties, their processing, plugging post-harvest and storage losses, and development of alternative food products. The
chapter discusses the contribution of agriculture to nutritional security and the need to diversify cultivation of crops to
include nutrient-dense grain legumes, and intensification of their cultivation to achieve their enhanced production and
productivity. The scope to develop bio-fortified grain legumes is also discussed. Some countries have successfully harnessed
the potential of processed grain legumes for use as food supplements for children and elderly, as well as to prepare readyto-use-therapeutic-food
products to treat acute malnutrition.


The Supreme Court's Daubert trilogy places judges in the unenviable position of assessing the reliability of often unfamiliar and complex scientific expert testimony. Over the past decade, scholars have therefore explored various ways of helping judges with their new gatekeeping responsibilities. Unfortunately, the two dominant approaches, which focus on doctrinal tests and external assistance mechanisms, have been largely ineffective. This Article advocates for a neglected but important method for improving scientific decisionmaking--independent judicial research. It argues that judges facing unfamiliar and complex scientific admissibility decisions can and should engage in independent library research to better educate themselves about the underlying principles and methods. Independent research, however, is controversial. A survey of state appellate judges shows sharp divisions on the issue, and at the same time, the rules governing independent research are astonishingly unclear. The Article responds to the likely objections some judges have to independent research and also offers a way of interpreting the existing laws to permit the practice. Finally, the Article assesses independent research's chances for success as a method of scientific evidence reform. Based on the survey results, it concludes that a substantial number of judges will indeed take up the mantle of independent research. An equally substantial portion will likely resist, however, raising deeper issues about the importance of uniformity in judicial practice.


Although mother and daughter are two central female roles, they have rarely been investigated. The relationship is specific, certainly different than the mother-son or father-daughter relationships. And this difference manifests itself in sex-specific language behavior. Despite 'eternal' features of the mother-daughter relationship, its quality is affected by individual psychological and by sociocultural variables. Thus, investigations took place in two big cities with very different structures and traditions: Vienna and Los Angeles. This is the first cross cultural study which reflects and combines multiple linguistic, socio-psycholinguistic and text linguistic categories, approaches and methods to be able to investigate such an important topic as family relationships and the 'place' of women nowadays in our societies.


The Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report is an annual publication prepared by staff of the Trade and Investment Division as a full in-house publication. The Report replaces the Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Review with its first issue in 2009. The theme of APTIR 2009 is: "trade-led recovery and beyond". This issue analyses the impact of the global economic crisis on trade and investment flows in and to the region and implications for trade policy. It provides a conceptual framework for trade policy which should contribute to achieving inclusive and sustainable development. It makes a case for the multilateral trading system as the prime international trade governance system and gives an overview of the latest developments in the Doha Round. This issue of the Report also calls for an expansion of intraregional trade and deeper regional integration for that purpose and discusses the role of regional trade agreements in that regard. The Report also emphasizes the role of trade facilitation and needs for trade finance and explores issues related to business survival and development in time of crisis and beyond, including the development of regional value chains and the need for business to adopt principles related to corporate social responsibility.


The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the European Union, the Southern African Development Community and the Union of South American Nations have increasingly been involved in health diplomacy in the past decade, yet little is known about how they frame health as a foreign policy issue and how this has an impact on their prioritisation of policies. For this, we conducted a review of existing grey and peer-reviewed literature that address regional integration and health, as well as a documentary review according to security, development, trade, human rights, moral/ethical reasonings and global public goods frames identified in the literature. The policy frames identified responded to the challenges these regions currently face. The Association of Southeast Asian Nation's struggle with re-emerging diseases has led to favouring a securitisation approach to health, the European Union approaches health as a cross-cutting policy issue, the Southern African Development Community presents health as a driver for development, and while the Union of South American Nations emphasises health as a human right and addresses the social determinants of health as an ethical imperative. Overall, these policy frames were useful in analysing the framing of health in foreign policy at the regional level. However, within our analysis, we identified a new frame that approaches health as an intersectoral issue. The impact of regional organisations' forward will depend on their ability to harness their convening power and speak in a coherent voice on health matters.


Fusarium solani infects roots of a number of different plant species and some strains produce Phytotoxins. F. solani f. sp. glycines, the causal organism of sudden death syndrome (SDS) of soybean (Glycine max), colonises soybean roots and produces toxin(s) that are translocated to leaves and cause intervienal chlorosis and necrosis. Several experiments evaluated the phytotoxicity of cell-free culture filtrates of F. solani f. sp. glycines by immersing cuttings of soybean seedlings into filtrates to determine what in vitro growth conditions alter the phytotoxicity, and to determine the specificity of toxicity of F. solani f. sp. glycines and other F. solani on cuttings of soybean and other legume species. Foliar disease severity ratings of soybean cuttings in cell-free culture filtrates diluted 25- and 50-fold were higher than when diluted 100-fold or more. Cell-free culture filtrates originating from cultures grown at 15, 20, and 25°C caused greater (P = 0.05) foliar disease severity ratings on cutting than when the fungus was grown at 30°C. Cell-free culture filtrates of F. solani isolates from cucumber (Cucumis sativus) and pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo) did not cause symptoms on soybean cuttings whereas filtrates of F. solani isolates obtained from other hosts caused some leaf chlorosis and/or necrotic spots. F. solani f. sp. glycines inoculated on eight legume species caused symptoms such as leaf chlorosis, defoliation, wilt or death on most of the species, but azuki bean (Vigna angularis), common pea (Pisum sativum) and vetch (Vicia sativa) were symptomless. Cell-free culture filtrates of F. solani f. sp. glycines caused foliar symptoms on all cuttings of legume species except for mung bean (Vigna radiata), although none of the symptoms matched the SDS symptoms observed on soybean foliage.


Purpose

Retailers may respond to a manufacturer discontinuing a brand or product range in three ways: not offering an alternative, thus reducing the assortment size; replacing it with a substitute; or introducing a rebranded product by the same manufacturer, if such an option is available. This study aims to evaluate all three scenarios and assess the extent to which total category sales are affected; how these discontinuations affect alternative offerings within the product category; and whether usage levels moderate within category switching behaviour. Shoppers did not have the option of switching stores to acquire the discontinued brand – their preferred brand/product range ceased to exist.

Design/methodology/approach

All three studies are quasi-experiments using scanner panel data. The product discontinuations examined are real events that took place within the major supermarket chain in New Zealand.

Findings

In all the three scenarios, average category sales decreased for the three-month period following the discontinuation. In Study 1, where a preferred brand of milk was discontinued with no replacement, overall category sales decreased but competing brands gained sales; introducing a replacement corn chip range (Study 2) successfully captured the spend on the discontinued range, but other brands lost sales; and rebranding a cereal (Study 3) decreased both brand sales and category sales. With the exception of Study 1, near-substitute product offerings did not capture a greater proportion of the spend from the discontinued brand as compared to less similar substitutes. Expectations were that heavy users would have a greater propensity to shift to near alternatives than would medium/light users; however, none of the studies lend support.

Originality/value

This is the first research effort to use scanner panel data to explore the reactions by brand loyal customers to three different brand discontinuation scenarios initiated by the manufacturer.


Innovation has traditionally been seen as the province of producers. However, theoretical and empirical research now shows that individual users – consumers – are also a major and increasingly important source of new product and service designs. In this paper, we build a microeconomic model of a market that incorporates demand-side innovation and competition. We explain the conditions under which firms find it beneficial to invest in supporting and harvesting users' innovations, and show that social welfare rises when firms utilize this source of innovation. Our modeling also indicates reasons for policy interventions with respect to a mixed user and producer innovation economy. From the social welfare perspective, as the share of innovating users in a market increases, profit-maximizing firms tend to switch "too late" from a focus on internal R&D to a strategy of also supporting and harvesting user innovations. Underlying this inefficiency are externalities that the producer cannot capture. Overall, our results explain when and how the proliferation of innovating users leads to a superior division of innovative labor involving complementary investments by users and producers, both benefitting producers and increasing social welfare.


In the field of structural engineering, current design procedures use the envelope of individual hazard demands on a structure to ensure safety against multiple hazards. With regard to wind and seismic hazard, these actions can reasonably considered uncorrelated and, therefore, the design can be carried out separately; however, a difficulty in multi-hazard design for wind and earthquake is that the
load and resistance factor method makes use of different design philosophies developed by different subdisciplines. Seismic design explicitly allows for inelastic behavior. In contrast, wind design assumes that the structures behaves in elastic range both for damage limit state (DLS) and ultimate limit state (ULS), although ULS typically refers to return periods shorter than those used for seismic design. In this context, a probabilistic multi-hazard approach can be employed to investigate the performance of a structure under critical events and to ensure its acceptable performance during its entire lifetime. Following the approach proposed by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) for Performance-Based
Earthquake Engineering, the purpose of the thesis is to define a reliable methodology for probabilistic estimation of the annual wind risk associated to the achievement of specific limit states. Such approach must be implemented in
probabilistic terms due to the stochastic nature of both resistance and loading parameters. These uncertainties affect the wind field, the structural response and
also the aerodynamic interaction between the environment and the structure. Therefore, a reliable evaluation of structural performances needs the statistical treatment of recorded data, that is the first step towards the investigation of the performance of wind-exposed structures, the characterization of the interaction by
wind tunnel testing or computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques and also the knowledge of the structural behavior, i.e. the analysis of all possible failure
mechanism induced by wind loads. Starting from this point, the main statistical methods for treatment of extreme wind speeds are presented in the Chapter 2, including the methods for correction of non-standard conditions in terms of roughness and orography. The theoretical background is then applied by performing the statistical analyses of observed data collected starting from 1951 by the Air Force meteorological service. Some of the results are presented in the Chapter 3 whereas the detailed results in terms of fitted parameters, 50-year return period wind speeds, directional and seasonal coefficients estimated by different
methods are presented in the Appendixes. The effect of the dowsampling is also investigated and the underestimation of 50-year return period wind speeds is quantified for all the stations available. A further step of the research activity has consisted in the characterization of the structural vulnerability. In fact, the Chapter 4 provides a brief review of properties of materials, structural details and structural types adopted in the past for steel hangars, that are considered as representative wind-exposed structures. These structural types are characterized by large spans and, in some cases, have borrowed design solutions from other industrial buildings. The attention is focused on historical evolution of structural types and adopted design standards; some failure cases which occurred during the last years due to extreme wind events are illustrated. Hence the main elements of vulnerability are
discussed. Furthermore, the aerodynamic interaction is investigated; the role of the location and size of the openings is outlined and, in particular, the main theories
about the propagation of the internal pressure due to a dominant opening are examined. In fact, due to their particular use, the steel aircraft hangars have a
dominant opening that allows increased internal pressures to occur. By assembling of all the previously mentioned tools, a methodology for assessing wind risk is
proposed aiming at the evaluation of the annual probability of achievement a fixed limit state due to wind actions. In a multihazard framework, the resulting value can
be compared with the same probability referred to seismic actions obtained by applying the IDA approach. Finally, in order to implement and explain the multihazard risk assessment, two case studies are presented and briefly discussed.


The Rice Krispies™ process consists essentially of the cooking of short or medium rice grains, followed by a mechanical compression between two rolls (bumping), a tempering step and a toasting operation (puffing) which expands the grains into the finished product. The objectives of this project were to clarify which molecular phenomena take place inside the rice grains during the process and to facilitate the improvement and optimisation of the process parameters. The composition and gelatinisation behaviour of seven different raw rice varieties used either in the United States or the United Kingdom were studied. The glass transition of the cooked rice material was determined by dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA), which allowed each step of the process to be mapped onto a temperature / moisture content state diagram. The bumping step of the process and its effect on the various molecular entities present in the cooked rice were studied in details. Amylose was found to form complexes with the lipids present in the material during cooking, and these reinforced the cooked rice grain structure. One of the roles of the bumping could be to partially dislocate these amylose-lipid complexes to enable the rice grains expansion at the puffing step of the process. The bumping also reduced the molecular weight of amylopectin, which is thought to weaken the rice grains structure and improve the puffed grains expansion. The mill gap between the bumping rolls was the key factor determining the quality of the puffed product. The temperature at which the rice grains are bumped had a secondary influence on the quality of the puffed rice, within the range 26°C to 57°C. The RVA provided a very effective method to categorise post-bumped samples and could be a useful diagnostic tool in case of production problems. Evidence of physical ageing and moisture content equilibration during the tempering step was found. Physical ageing did not have a detectable effect on the expansion of the rice grains, while it was important that moisture content was equilibrated inside the grains to ensure a proper puffing. Finally, correlations were found between the puffed rice grains expansion and the post-bumped grains height recovery, which made it possible to predict the quality of the expanded grains from the characterisation of the post-bumped rice. Overall, the project is a good example of the application of general starch science concepts to the study of a specific industrial process.


The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different breeds and breed crosses on age (AC, d), BW (kg), price (PR, $/kg), and market value (MV, $/calf) of purebred and crossbred calves sold for veal and beef production. The Kovieh wholesale cattle organization (Bolzano, Italy) grouped calves from several dairy herds located in the Trentino-Südtirol region in Italy and sold them by public auctions. Data on AC, BW, PR, and MV from 96,458 calves were recorded from January 2003 to December 2007 and consisted of 4 pure breeds [2 dairy, Brown Swiss (BS) and Holstein-Friesian (HF); and 2 dual-purpose, Simmental (SI) and Alpine Grey (AG)], and 8 crossbreds by crosses of Limousin (LI) and Belgian Blue (BB) with the 4 dam breeds. Least squares means for AC, BW, PR, and MV were calculated for breeds and breed crosses with a model that included fixed effects of herd of birth, age (except for AC), sex, and breed of the calf, year and season of auction, and interactions between the main effects. The coefficients of determination of the models were 0.41, 0.51, 0.84, and 0.82 for AC, BW, PR, and MV, respectively. Sex, age, and breed were the most relevant sources of variation for BW (P < 0.001), whereas breed and sex were the most important sources of variation for AC, PR, and MV (P < 0.001). Also, PR and MV were significantly influenced (P < 0.01) by all the effects included in the model, except for season x age interaction in the case of MV. Market value of male was greater (P < 0.001) than that of female calves, with the exception of BS (-$28.76/calf) and HF (-$20.70/calf) purebred males. Dual-purpose purebred calves presented greater (P < 0.001) PR and MV than dairy purebreds (MV of $426.97/calf and $307.96/calf for SI and AG, and $256.24/calf and $275.65/calf for BS and HF, respectively). Calves from SI and AG dams had greater (P < 0.001) BW, PR, and MV than calves from BS and HF dams. Calves from SI cows had greater (P < 0.001) BW, PR, and MV than calves from AG cows. Crossbreeding with beef bulls increased (P < 0.001) BW, PR, and MV of calves from dairy and dual-purpose dams. Crossbreeding with BB bulls increased PR (+$2.58 +/- 0.04/kg; P < 0.001) and MV (+$190.84 +/- 3.62/calf; P < 0.001) of calves much more than LI. The use of beef bull semen on dairy herds resulted in an economic revenue from selling crossbred calves.


Abstract Streptococcus pneumoniae is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in pediatric patients, particularly in infants and children younger than 2 years. Each year, S pneumoniae is responsible for significant morbidity and mortality in the United States. During the past several decades, the emergence of penicillin-nonsusceptible and multidrug-resistant pneumococcal isolates has become a major cause for concern, with the overuse or inappropriate use of antibiotics playing a significant role in the increase of resistance. Because the resistance of S pneumoniae to antibiotics has complicated the treatment of pneumococcal infections, attention has focused on the need to prevent disease through vaccination. The objective of this article is to describe the rationale for the development of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines and to summarize the clinical experience to date with these vaccines in infants and children.


Estimating fitness differences between allelic variants is a central goal of experimental evolution. Current methods for inferring such differences from allele frequency time series typically assume that the effects of selection can be described by a fixed selection coefficient. However, fitness is an aggregate of several components including mating success, fecundity, and viability. Distinguishing between these components could be critical in many scenarios. Here, we develop a flexible maximum likelihood framework that can disentangle different components of fitness from genotype frequency data, and estimate them individually in males and females. As a proof-of-principle, we apply our method to experimentally evolved cage populations of Drosophila melanogaster, in which we tracked the relative frequencies of a loss-of-function and wild-type allele of yellow. This X-linked gene produces a recessive yellow phenotype when disrupted and is involved in male courtship ability. We find that the fitness costs of the yellow phenotype take the form of substantially reduced mating preference of wild-type females for yellow males, together with a modest reduction in the viability of yellow males and females. Our framework should be generally applicable to situations where it is important to quantify fitness components of specific genetic variants, including quantitative characterization of the population dynamics of CRISPR gene drives.


Planktonic ciliates occasionally form brief rapid increases in numbers (blooms) that can be trophically important. Although model simulations and mesocosm studies indicate that blooms occur over 10 to 20 days, field data are rarely sufficiently detailed to reveal their occurrence and demise. Our data (collected over 57 weeks across a coastal lagoon) offer insights into the population dynamics of a single species, place these in the context of the entire ciliate assemblage, and provide guidance on what should continue to be examined. Specifi- cally, to evaluate population dynamics we examine two species of Cyrtostrombidium, characterise temporal and spatial variation of their abundance, and relate these to abiotic phenomena and biological factors. This is also the first report of Cyrtostrombidium in a tropical coastal lagoon. Collectively our analysis reveals key aspects of the dynamics of this genus: 1) small-scale peaks in abundance are ~30 m in size and can persist for ~10-30 days, reaching a maximum of 100 cells ml -1 ; 2) these increases are driven by biotic factors (revealed through autocorrelation analysis); 3) long-term trends are driven by the shift between dry and rainy seasons and by the periods of isolation of lagoon from the sea (revealed through multiple regression analysis); 4) blooms may at times control primary production; 5) conjugation, an ecologi- cally important event, may be associated with blooms (at times 9% of population was conjugating); and 6) dinoflagellate parasitism, poorly described in oligotrichs, is potentially important in population demise. These results both reflect on how ciliates may behave in short-term events and should encourage the continued need for detailed observations of field samples at a high taxonomic resolution.


Adorno's essay on Schubert opens by invoking a fraught move across the threshold that separates the death of Beethoven from the death of Schubert. He goes on to read Schubert's music through a series of dichotomies whose opposite terms are distinctly Beethovenian: Schubert's themes are self-possessed apparitions of truth rather than inchoate ideas that require temporal evolution; his repetitive, fragmentary forms are inorganic rather than organic, crystalline rather than plantlike. Above all, Adorno develops the idea that Schubert's music offers the repeatable truth of a landscape rather than the processive trajectory of a teleological history. Schubert's themes, like landscapes, are forms of permanence that cannot be fundamentally altered but can only be revisited.

With special emphasis on Schubert's G-Major String Quartet, this article inflects Adorno's view of Schubert's landscapes by considering how these "truths" also present themselves as illusory and inward (e.g., how some of Schubert's thematic areas can be heard to project a visionary interior space in the way that they suddenly introduce a markedly different realm or the way that they obliquely inhabit their tonal centers). It is then argued that Schubert's music is thus steeped in an existential consciousness for which subjectivity is the only knowable truth. And this truth bears repeating, in the double sense that it can be repeated and it must be repeated.


Urban functions refer to the purposes of land use in cities where each zone plays a distinct role and cooperates with each other to serve people's various life needs. Understanding zone functions helps to solve a variety of urban related problems, such as increasing traffic capacity and enhancing location-based service. Therefore, it is beneficial to investigate how to learn the representations of city zones in terms of urban functions, for better supporting urban analytic applications. To this end, in this paper, we propose a framework to learn the vector representation (embedding) of city zones by exploiting large-scale taxi trajectories. Specifically, we extract human mobility patterns from taxi trajectories, and use the co-occurrence of origin-destination zones to learn zone embeddings. To utilize the spatio-temporal characteristics of human mobility patterns, we incorporate mobility direction, departure/arrival time, destination attraction, and travel distance into the modeling of zone embeddings. We conduct extensive experiments with real-world urban datasets of New York City. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed embedding model to represent urban functions of zones with human mobility data.


Maternal and newborn health (MNH) is a high priority for global health and is included among the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, the slow decline in maternal and newborn mortality jeopardizes achievements of the targets of MDGs. According to UNICEF, 60 million women give birth outside of health facilities, and family planning needs are satisfied for only 50%. Further, skilled birth attendance and the use of antenatal care are most inequitably distributed in maternal and newborn health interventions in low- and middle-income countries. Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes have been shown to increase health service utilization among the poorest but little is written on the effects of such programmes on maternal and newborn health. We carried out a systematic review of studies on CCT that report maternal and newborn health outcomes, including studies from 8 countries. The CCT programmes have increased antenatal visits, skilled attendance at birth, delivery at a health facility, and tetanus toxoid vaccination for mothers and reduced the incidence of low birthweight. The programmes have not had a significant impact on fertility while the impact on maternal and newborn mortality has not been well-documented thus far. Given these positive effects, we make the case for further investment in CCT programmes for maternal and newborn health, noting gaps in knowledge and providing recommendations for better design and evaluation of such programmes. We recommend more rigorous impact evaluations that document impact pathways and take factors, such as cost-effectiveness, into account.


Human communication can be either monosemiotic or polysemiotic, depending on whether it combines ensembles of representations from one or more semiotic systems such as language, gesture and depiction. Each semiotic system has its unique storytelling potentials, which makes intersemiotic translation from one system to another challenging. We investigated the influence of the source semiotic system, realised in speech and a sequence of pictures, respectively, on the way the same story was retold using speech and co-speech gestures. The story was the content of the picture book Frog, where are you? A group of Finnish speakers saw the story in pictures, and another group heard it in matched oral narration. Each participant retold the story to an addressee and all narrations were video-recorded and analysed for both speech and gestures. Given the high degree of iconicity in depiction, we expected more iconic gestures (especially enactments) in the narratives translated from pictures than from speech. Conversely, we expected greater narrative coherence in the narratives translated from speech. The results showed that more iconic gestures were produced in the narratives translated from speech, but these were primarily not from the enactment subtype. As expected, iconic enactments were more frequent in the narratives translated from the story presented in pictures. The narratives produced by participants who had only heard the story did not have a greater variety of connective devices, but the type of devices differed slightly between the groups. Together with some additional differences between the groups that had not been anticipated, the results indicate that a story presented in different semiotic systems tend to be translated into different polysemiotic narratives. (Less)


Even though value chain analysis has proven to be problematic when applied to services, we test the compatibility of the methodology to the complex world of health care services. Health care sector differentiates from the traditional industries in many respects: providers can exercise power on customer behaviour because of a particularly strong information asymmetry and further, the sector is heavily regulated. Three case studies, a two surface dental filling (basic health care service), hernia repair (specialized health care service), and thrombolytic therapy of stroke (acute health care service provided at central hospital), are used to examine the value chains of health care. Despite the complexity and diversity of the seemingly standardised case studies, some general remarks can be made. First, it turns out that health care generates value mostly locally: especially simple, public sector health care processes that involve very little outsourcing, retain most of the value within the country. Second, the costs of the health care services are dominated by overhead costs. As a result, the value chain analysis captures more the characteristics of the production unit than the characteristics of the health care product itself. In fact, it seems that health care service prices correlate quite poorly with the actual costs of production. We conclude by stating that the value chain analysis can be applied to the health care sector and health care products. However, it seems that the most interesting results emerge in the spill-over insights of the service in focus.


Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus was discovered in 2003 but was isolated two decades ago during the investigation of a pneumonia outbreak, while trying to isolate Legionella-like bacterial pathogens that infect and survive in amoebae. Acanthamoeba polyphaga marseillevirus was isolated five years thereafter. These two viruses are the founding members of two new viral families whose members are the largest known viruses based on the sizes of the capsid and the genome. Beyond being giant, mimiviruses and marseilleviruses exhibit several unexpected and remarkable features. Their genomes encode proteins involved in translation, these viruses harbour messenger ribonucleic acid in addition to their double-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) genome, and their gene repertoire indicates that they have a common ancestral origin with other large DNA viruses. Finally, mimiviruses and marseilleviruses are likely to be common in our biosphere and have begun to be isolated from humans.

Key Concepts:

Mimiviruses and marseilleviruses are giant viruses that infect phagocytic protists (Acanthamoeba spp. in most cases).

Mimiviruses are the largest known viruses, and their genomes are the largest among viruses and are larger than those of the smallest cellular life.

Mimiviruses and marseilleviruses differ greatly from 'classical' viruses in several respects.

Mimiviruses and marseilleviruses are linked by phylogeny based on certain genes and their core genomes to the members of the five families of nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses; these seven families were recently proposed to be assigned to a new viral order, Megavirales.

The mosaic gene repertoires of mimiviruses and marseilleviruses are likely linked to their sympatric lifestyle within phagocytic protistan grazers.

Mimiviruses and marseilleviruses are common in our biosphere.

Mimiviruses may cause pneumonia in humans.

Keywords:

mimivirus;
marseillevirus;
megavirales;
mimiviridae;
marseilleviridae;
giant viruses;
nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses;
fourth domain


Technology scaling enables the design of low cost biosignal processing chips suited for emerging wireless body-area sensing applications. Energy consumption severely limits such applications and memories are becoming the energy bottleneck to achieve ultra-low-power operation. When aggressive voltage scaling is used, memory operation becomes unreliable due to the lack of sufficient Static Noise Margin. This paper introduces an approximate biosignal Compressed Sensing approach. We propose a digital architecture featuring a hybrid memory (6T-SRAM/SCMEM cells) designed to control perturbations on specific data structures. Combined with a statistically robust reconstruction algorithm, the system tolerates memory errors and achieves significant energy savings with low area overhead.


From twice-Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Steve Coll comes "Private Empire", winner of the Ft/Goldman Sachs business book of the year award 2012. The oil giant ExxonMobil makes more money annually than the GDP of most countries; has greater sway than US embassies abroad; and spends more on lobbying than any other corporation. Yet to outsiders it is a mystery. In "Private Empire", award-winning reporter Steve Coll tells the truth about the world's most powerful and shadowy company. From the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, via Moscow, the swamps of the Niger Delta and the halls of Congress, he reveals a story of dictators, oligarchs, civil war, blackmail, secrecy and ruthlessness. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and newly declassified documents, this is a chilling portrait of unchecked power. Reviews: "Magisterial ...a revealing history of our time". ("New York Review of Books"). "Meticulous, multi-angled and valuable...Coll's prose sweeps the earth like an Imax camera". (Dwight Garner, "The New York Times"). "Jaw-dropping reading". ("Kirkus Reviews"). "The definitive work on its subject ...at every stop there are vivid anecdotes, sharp insights and telling details". (Ed Crooks, "Financial Times"). About the author: Steve Coll is the author of the "New York Times" bestseller "The Bin Ladens". He is president of the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy institute headquartered in Washington, D.C., and a staff writer for "The New Yorker". He won a Pulitzer prize for explanatory journalism while working at the "Washingon Post". He is the author of six other books, including the bestseller "Ghost Wars", which won him a second Pulitzer prize. He lives in Washington and New York.


The GeV and TeV emission from M82 and NGC 253 observed by Fermi, HESS, and VERITAS constrain the physics of cosmic rays (CRs) in these dense starbursts. We argue that the γ-rays are predominantly hadronic in origin, as expected by previous studies. The measured fluxes imply that pionic losses are efficient for CR protons in both galaxies: we show that a fraction Fcal ≈ 0.2–0.4 of the energy injected in high-energy primary CR protons is lost to inelastic proton–proton collisions (pion production) before escape, producing γ-rays, neutrinos, and secondary electrons and positrons. We discuss the factor of ∼2 uncertainties in this estimate, including supernova rate and leptonic contributions to the GeV–TeV emission. We argue that γ-ray data on ULIRGs like Arp 220 can test whether M82 and NGC 253 are truly calorimetric, and we present upper limits on Arp 220 from the Fermi data. We show that the observed ratio of the GeV to GHz fluxes of the starbursts suggests that non-synchrotron cooling processes are important for cooling the CR electron/positron population. We briefly reconsider previous predictions in light of the γ-ray detections, including the starburst contribution to the γ-ray background and CR energy densities. Finally, as a guide for future studies, we list the brightest star-forming galaxies on the sky and present updated predictions for their γ-ray and neutrino fluxes.


Objectives: To test the hypothesis that in mechanically ventilated children with respiratory failure, aerosolized albuterol modifies functional residual capacity, lung mechanics, oxygen consumption, and hemodynamics. Design: Prospective, self-control clinical trial. Setting: A 24-bed PICU in a quaternary care, academic children's hospital. Patients: 25 children (age range, 1–18 yr) undergoing mechanical ventilation to treat respiratory failure. Entry criteria included previously prescribed inhaled &bgr;2 agonists. Physiologic measurements were performed prior to and 20 minutes after administration of aerosolized albuterol solution. Functional residual capacity was determined via nitrogen washout. Interventions: Functional residual capacity, oxygen consumption, respiratory mechanics, and vital signs were measured were measured prior to and 20 minutes after administration of aerosolized albuterol solution. Functional residual capacity was determined via nitrogen washout. Measurement and Main Results: At baseline, functional residual capacity is only 53% of predicted. After aerosolized albuterol, functional residual capacity increased by 18.3% (p = 0.008). Overall, aerosolized albuterol had no effect on airway resistance. However, in patients with an endotracheal tube size of more than or equal to 4.0 mm, resistance decreased from 33 ± 3 to 25 ± 3 (p < 0.02). Inhaled albuterol administration had no effect on oxygen consumption despite an increase in heart rate from 116 ± 2 to 128 ± 2 beats/min (p < 0.0001). Conclusions: In pediatric patients with respiratory failure, aerosolized albuterol increases functional residual capacity without a decrease in resistance. In infants and children, aerosolized albuterol might favorably enhance pulmonary mechanics and thereby represent a novel strategy for lung recruitment in children with respiratory failure.


Maritime shipping is a key factor that enables the global economy, however the pressure it exerts on the environment is increasing rapidly. In order to reduce the emissions of harmful greenhouse gasses, the search is on for alternative fuels for the maritime shipping industry. In this work the usefulness of hydrogen and hydrogen carriers is being investigated as a fuel for sea going ships. Due to the low volumetric energy density of hydrogen under standard conditions, the need for efficient storage of this fuel is high. Key processes in the use of hydrogen are discussed, starting with the production of hydrogen from fossil and renewable sources. The focus of this review is different storage methods, and in this work we discuss the storage of hydrogen at high pressure, in liquefied form at cryogenic temperatures and bound to liquid or solid-state carriers. In this work a theoretical introduction to different hydrogen storage methods precedes an analysis of the energy-efficiency and practical storage density of the carriers. In the final section the major challenges and hurdles for the development of hydrogen storage for the maritime industry are discussed. The most likely challenges will be the development of a new bunkering infrastructure and suitable monitoring of the safety to ensure safe operation of these hydrogen carriers on board the ship.


Increasing water use and droughts, along with climate variability and land use change, have seriously altered vegetation growth patterns and ecosystem response in several regions alongside the Andes Mountains. Thirty years of the new generation biweekly normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI3g) time series data show significant land cover specific trends and variability in annual productivity and land surface phenological response. Productivity is represented by the growing season mean NDVI values (July to June). Arid and semi-arid and sub humid vegetation types (Atacama desert, Chaco and Patagonia) across Argentina, northern Chile, northwest Uruguay and southeast Bolivia show negative trends in productivity, while some temperate forest and agricultural areas in Chile and sub humid and humid areas in Brazil, Bolivia and Peru show positive trends in productivity. The start (SOS) and length (LOS) of the growing season results show large variability and regional hot spots where later SOS often coincides with reduced productivity. A longer growing season is generally found for some locations in the south of Chile (sub-antarctic forest) and Argentina (Patagonia steppe), while central Argentina (Pampa-mixed grasslands and agriculture) has a shorter LOS. Some of the areas have significant shifts in SOS and LOS of one to several months. The seasonal Multivariate ENSO Indicator (MEI) and the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO) index have a significant impact on vegetation productivity and phenology in southeastern and northeastern Argentina (Patagonia and Pampa), central and southern Chile (mixed shrubland, temperate and sub-antarctic forest), and Paraguay (Chaco).


Jeremy I. Bulow and Paul D. Klemperer (AER, 1996) argue that the usual concerns of auction design miss the big picture, and show that a simple English auction without a reserve price and N + 1 bidders attains expected revenue in excess of any auction with N bidders. The issue of how this additional bidder might be attracted is not treated in their model. In fact, that an auction can convince another bidder it is worth his while to compete carries a critical message about expected revenue. In those many markets where potential bidders decide whether to compete in an auction based on the expected probability of bidding, Bulow and Klemperer's conclusion is shown here to be overturned. I explore the symmetric equilibrium of a model where potential bidders first decide whether to participate in an auction, and then participants select bidding strategies. Expected revenue is increased by some degree of bidder discouragement, in that it is never optimal to have all N potential bidders participate with probability one, even for very small N


Studies on the distribution, soil requirement for establishment and the phenology of Bushmango, Irvingia wombolu were undertaken in four selected geographic zones of Southeastern Nigeria. Enumeration and inventory of ten selected woody food tree crops were made in the homestead and outlying farms of each zone, with emphasis on Irvingia wombolu . Twenty soil samples comprising of ten samples from each of the farming zones were analysed for their physical and chemical properties. Phenological sequences of I. wombolu were made in the farming zones of the study areas. The plant species had generally very low densities. 0.3 – 2.7 trees/ha, and 1. wombolu had density 2.4 trees/ha. Irvingia wombolu occurred more in the outlying farms than in the homestead farms. Umuozu and Enugu-Ezike had higher densities of 1. wombolu in the two farming zones than the other towns. 1. wombolu had positive and significant relationship with P. macrophylla and Monodora. myristica, and positive but non-significant relationship with the other seven plant species. Soil samples obtained from different locations were heterogeneous. The species appear to thrive well in soils containing adequate amount of N, K, Ca, and C. The species' period of leaf flush appears an adaptive strategy for mobilizing nutrients for its reproductive phase, flowering and fruiting. Agro-Science Vol. 7 (1) 2008: pp. 1-8


&NA; Peacebuilding processes operate within a nexus of historical events, contemporary dynamics and future possibilities. This paper explores the possibilities presented by narrative based historical memory work in enabling an understanding of conflicting stories and perspectives needed to build an understanding of contemporary dynamics of a society or context. The narrative repair created by hearing contrasting stories has the potential to facilitate shifts from previously divisive and exclusionary modes of remembering to more collective ways of moving forward, with lower levels of enmity and violence. The personal insights, as well as the social and relational networks that can emerge out of this work, have the potential to support and undergird the more systemic dimensions of a peace process aimed at addressing legacies of violent conflict.


Using the theoretical tools of reflections on self-translation and the heritage of Deconstruction and Postcolonial thinking, this article strives to deform discourse surrounding a canonical author. It constructs a third text in-between the self-translation of Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable and L'Innommable. The third text is a performative space, where reading takes immediate form in its rewriting, its transformation. It creates new syntagms, figures, stories and themes in the transport routes shared by translation and metaphor. After a brief look at work on self-translation, specifically in Beckett, the article attempts to deconstruct theory with practice, reading (and thus rewriting) translations of the same, instances of self-allegory, and figures of displacement in time and space.


The present research intends to investigate and compare the relationship between anxiety and self-esteem amongst high school freshman students (male and female) with Amblyopia in Gachsaran city. To this end, all the male and female freshman students (1st Grade) in high school suffering from Amblyopia in Gachsaran participated in the study as the research statistical population among which 80 students, including 40 girls and 40 boys, were selected based on Simple Random Sampling Method. Materials and tools used in this research included Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Cooper-smith Self-esteem Inventory (CSEI) and Snellen chart. In order to analyze results obtained from the present research, t-student test and correlation coefficient were used to investigate the relationship between the variables. Accordingly, the results indicated that: there is a statistically significant relationship between anxiety and self-esteem in students with Amblyopia (PEA''0.000). Statistically significant difference in anxiety between male and female students with Amblyopia (PEA''0.05) was observed. The results also showed that there is no any statistically significant difference in self-esteem between male and female students with Amblyopia (PEA''0.66).


Abstract This article details the social construction of the 'swiftlet farming' industry in George Town, Malaysia. It argues that narratives of health and disease continually police which landscape practices are acceptable for the increasingly globalizing and image conscious city. 'Swiftlet farming' refers to the use of inner city shophouses and other commercial buildings for harvesting the edible nests of swiftlets (constructed from their saliva). Due to the high global demand and prices for birds' nests, the number of swiftlet farms have exploded in cities and towns across the country over the past decade, as entrepreneurs have been trying to cash in on the lucrative industry. The competing discourses and reactions to swiftlet farming in George Town, particularly in relation to its alleged potential for causing outbreaks of disease such as avian flu or dengue fever offer an apt entry point for studying this contested normative landscape. In doing so, I draw on recent writing on landscape and political ecology to analyze how swiftlet farm(er)s have been politicized by various stakeholders as (in)appropriate for the urban landscape. The article concludes by considering the significance of such an approach can help to make sense of the contradictions and uncertainties that abound in urban health controversies. Key words: political ecology, health, disease, landscape, birds' nest, Malaysia


Policy initiatives such as increases in the full retirement age implicitly reduce benefits for early retirement. Yet research suggests that those in physically demanding jobs may be particularly adversely affected by such policies. We examine to what extent physical job demand relates to early retirement decisions in a population of aging manufacturing workers. We follow a cohort of approximately 1,500 stably employed male Alcoa employees aged 51-58 in 2001 followed forward to 2008. We use a variety of models to examine whether externally rated physical job demand at middle age is related to early retirement. We also examine whether pension eligibility and payouts induce earlier retirement, especially for those with more physically demanding jobs, while accounting for wage differentials, injury history, and underlying health. Our results suggest that workers whose jobs have high physical demand retire earlier after accounting for the wage differential and health. We also find that the minority of workers who transition to lower demand jobs, due to previous injury or health issues, are less likely to retire early. Finally, while we find evidence that pension eligibility and wealth accumulation induce earlier retirement, there was limited evidence of a difference by job demand.


This Article examines the Government Performance and Results Act framework for performance-based management and oversight of federally-funded programs, describes emerging efforts to incorporate tax expenditures into the performance review process, and places these developments into context by evaluating past experiences with tax expenditure reform. Government-wide performance-based management reforms provide a promising executive branch mechanism for achieving more coordinated review of functionally related government programs, whether funded or implemented through direct expenditures, tax expenditures, or regulatory programs. However, as past experience illustrates (including, for example, experience with employment subsidies such as the Work Opportunity Tax Credit and the Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit), significant institutional obstacles stand in the way of comprehensive reform. The Article ends with a discussion of the type of fundamental structural reforms that will be needed before meaningful legislative oversight of functionally related government programs can be achieved.


This paper deals with the product design, engineering, and material selection intended for the manufacturing of an eco-friendly chair. The final product is expected to combine design attributes with technical and legal feasibility with the implementation of new bio-based materials. Considering the industrial design, a range of objectives and trends were determined after setting the market requirements, and the final concept was proposed and modeled. The product geometry, production technology, and legal specifications were the input data for product engineering. The material selection was based on the technical requirements. Polypropylene (PP) composite materials based on coupled-fiberglass, sized-fiberglass, and coupled-stone ground wood reinforcements were prepared and characterized. Final formulations based on these PP composites are proposed and justified.


ABSTRACT The post-Jurassic bathymetric and subsidence history of the Mid-Norwegian Atlantic margin (Møre and Vøring basins) has been investigated using the technique of 3D-flexural backstripping. Eleven mapped horizons from seabed to the Base Cretaceous have been sequentially backstripped to produce a suite of palaeobathymetry and palaeostructure maps for all horizons at all time stages. Backstripping has incorporated thermal subsidence in response to (1) an initial rift event at c. 140 Ma and (2) a subsequent rift-to-break-up event in the latest Cretaceous/early Tertiary. Transient dynamic uplift of the margin during the Paleocene is also incorporated, having a particular impact on palaeobathymetric predictions at this time. In an exploration context, the palaeobathymetric maps were used predictively to investigate sediment dispersal and deposition through time; the subsurface palaeostructure maps were used for maturation modelling and identification of hydrocarbon-migration pathways, while all of the maps contribute to an understanding of hydrocarbon-trap development through time. The backstripped maps yield considerable information on the regional structural evolution of the margin. After regionally distributed extension of both the Møre and Vøring basins during the Late Jurassic/Early Cretaceous, map restorations of the two basins show contrasting structural histories. There is no younger fault-controlled overprint on the Møre Basin, whereas the inner Vøring Basin was extended again in the mid-Cretaceous and the outer Vøring Basin was extended in the latest Cretaceous/Paleocene. Three-dimensional backstripping also confirms an active compressional origin, rather than a wholly passive loading origin, for the post-break-up Tertiary domes located along the margin. This is the first time that a temporal analysis of the domes' formation has been possible in 3D map form rather than 2D section form. The technique of 3D flexural backstripping has wide application to the study of rifts and continental margins elsewhere.


Faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is an important therapeutic option for Clostridium difficile infection. Promising findings suggest that FMT may play a role also in the management of other disorders associated with the alteration of gut microbiota. Although the health community is assessing FMT with renewed interest and patients are becoming more aware, there are technical and logistical issues in establishing such a non-standardised treatment into the clinical practice with safety and proper governance. In view of this, an evidence-based recommendation is needed to drive the practical implementation of FMT. In this European Consensus Conference, 28 experts from 10 countries collaborated, in separate working groups and through an evidence-based process, to provide statements on the following key issues: FMT indications; donor selection; preparation of faecal material; clinical management and faecal delivery and basic requirements for implementing an FMT centre. Statements developed by each working group were evaluated and voted by all members, first through an electronic Delphi process, and then in a plenary consensus conference. The recommendations were released according to best available evidence, in order to act as guidance for physicians who plan to implement FMT, aiming at supporting the broad availability of the procedure, discussing other issues relevant to FMT and promoting future clinical research in the area of gut microbiota manipulation. This consensus report strongly recommends the implementation of FMT centres for the treatment of C. difficile infection as well as traces the guidelines of technicality, regulatory, administrative and laboratory requirements.