Introduction: The concept of clopidogrel resistance, first described in biology is being strengthened by recent data from clinical epidemiology. The cardiologists have been sensitized to this concept because of its possible involvement in the occurrence of coronary stent thrombosis. Purpose of the study: The purpose of this study was to investigate the genetic variant of the gene CYP 2C19 inour population and to assess the involvement of this genetic profile in the occurrence of major cardiovascular events (MACE) during the follow-up period. Methods: Our prospective study was conducted between May 2009 and September 2010 including 100 patients admitted to the cardiology department for percutaneous coronary stenting. The patients were divided into 2 groups: those with at least one CYP2C19*2 allele (*2 carriers) and non-carriers. Results: The mean age of our patients was 56.7 years ± 10, 5. No remarkable differences in the baseline characteristics were noted between the two groups. The prevalence of CYP2C19*2 allele in our population was 11.5%. Hospital mortality was estimated at 3%. No statistically significant differences were noted between the two groups regarding the occurrence of intra hospital MACE. The mean follow up was 7.5 ± 4.87 months for the entire study population. The rate of MACE during the follow-up of patients receiving clopidogrel was 8.2% throughout the study population: 5.3% in the *2 non-carriers versus 18.2% in the *2 carriers with a statistically significant difference (p = 0.075) at the risk of error of 10%. Concerning the occurrence of stent thrombosis, there was no significant statistical difference between the two study groups. Conclusion: From these results it is suggested that CYP2C19*2 polymorphism is associated with increase in the occurrence of MACE among Tunisian patients receiving clopidogrel. A larger study is needed to assess the role of genotyping in the evaluation of the phenomenon of clopidogrel resistance.


Rampant sexual violence is one of the most horrendous human rights abuses taking place within Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) armed conflict. The UN has called these abuses "strategic" and a "weapon of war." Both labels carry specific implications within the human rights discourse. However, there is a lack of structured data exploring these concepts in the context of the DRC. To address this empirical gap, twenty-five rape survivors were interviewed. In the eyes of the victims the rapes served a multitude of different purposes and appear to be both endemic and indiscriminate. The rapes are the modus operandi of the war.


Hydraulic power is a renewable energy with a very advantageous price, and its flexibility of use coupled with its storage possibilities easily enables to meet the peak demand. Refurbishment of old hydraulic power plants is an important topical issue and the upgrading of the power stations of the years 1940 to 1960 can considerably increase both efficiency and power with minimal costs. The current challenge for the turbine manufacturers is the accurate flow prediction in the whole turbine and across a broad operating range, taking into account the unsteady features of the flow. For further developing flow computation tools, the major hydraulic turbine manufacturers : ALSTOM Power Hydro, GE Hydro, VATECH Escher Wyss, VOITH-SIEMENS Hydro have joined Electricite de France and EPFL, in the European initiative framework EUREKA n° 1625. This project has been financially supported by CTI – Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation. The aim of the project was to analyze the flow within the draft tube of a turbine theoretically, experimentally and numerically, and the present work is a part of the project. In this general framework, the objective of the thesis was to set up PIV measurements for analyzing the flow behavior in the draft tube of a Francis turbine. Several enhancements of the PIV technique have been carried out for acceding to the 3D velocity field, both in single and two-phase flows, in the cone and at the outlet of the draft tube. Due to the complex geometry of the draft tube, particular attention has been given to calibration, allowing obtaining 3% uncertainty on the measured velocity field. In two-phase flow, corresponding to partial load operation in cavitation conditions, two measurement methods have been set up, allowing simultaneous measurement of the velocity field and volume of the vapors-core vortex. The first one relies on the 2D PIV method: two cameras focused on the same measurement zone provide separately the shape of the vapors core and the velocity of fluorescent seeding particles in the flow. The second method, 3D PIV, is based on the separation on the same image of the fluorescent seeding particles from the shape of the vapors core, taking advantage of background lighting in a specific wavelength. Using two cameras in stereoscopic arrangement allows, in this case, obtaining the third component of the velocity. Adaptive image processing algorithms have been developed in both cases for detecting the vapors core boundary and calculating its geometrical characteristics in the measurement section. These experimental developments have allowed studying several phenomena and characterizing several flow types in the draft tube. For this draft tube, the efficiency characteristic shows a severe drop close to the best efficiency point, and this part has been particularly addressed. The 3D velocity field has been measured at the runner outlet and diffuser outlet for a flow rate range of ± 20 % of the best efficiency point flow rate, and these results allowed explaining the source of the hydraulic losses that lead to the drop of the efficiency characteristic. A second issue concerns the spatial distribution of the non-uniformity of the velocity field at the runner outlet, synchronous with the runner blades passage. The velocity field development in the cone of the draft tube from the runner outlet to the cone outlet has been determined and the mixing length of the sheared flow has been studied. In low charge operating conditions (70% of the best efficiency point flow rate), relevant results of unsteady velocity field and related vapors volume are obtained for different pressure levels in the draft tube, which correspond to different cavitation conditions from single-phase flow to vortex-circuit interaction in two-phase flow. The shape of the vortex core has been determined and a parametrical model is proposed. Its influence on the flow, as well as its stability, has been evaluated depending on the pressure level. Particular attention has been paid to the characterization of the interaction of the synchronous part of the vortex-induced pulsations and the circuit. These results have been used to calibrate and validate flow computation codes and they form a database available to the project partners. An example is given of the validation of the vortex flow simulation at partial load in single-phase flow conditions. Unlike the usual data comparison based on wall pressure signals, the velocity field and vortex filament are also assessed.


Littlestone developed a simple deterministic on-line learning algorithm for learning k-literal disjunctions. This algorithm (called Winnow) keeps one weight for each of the n variables and does multiplicative updates to its weights. We develop a randomized version of Winnow and prove bounds for an adaptation of the algorithm for the case when the disjunction may change over time. In this case a possible target disjunction schedule T is a sequence of disjunctions (one per trial) and the shift size is the total number of literals that are added/removed from the disjunctions as one progresses through the sequence. We develop an algorithm that predicts nearly as well as the best disjunction schedule for an arbitrary sequence of examples. This algorithm that allows us to track the predictions of the best disjunction is hardly more complex than the original version. However the amortized analysis needed for obtaining worst-case mistake bounds requires new techniques. In some cases our lower bounds show that the upper bounds of our algorithm have the right constant in front of the leading term in the mistake bound and almost the right constant in front of the second leading term. Computer experiments support our theoretical ndings.


As COVID-19 spreads rapidly across Africa, causing havoc to economies and disruption to already fragile healthcare systems, it is becoming clear that despite standardised global health strategies, national and local government responses must be tailored to their individual settings. Some African countries have adopted stringent measures such as national lockdown, quarantine or isolation, in combination with good hand hygiene, mandatory wearing of masks and physical distancing, to prevent an impending healthcare crisis. The impact of stringent measures in low- to middle-income African countries has bought time for healthcare facilities to prepare for the onslaught of COVID-19 cases, but some measures have been challenging to implement. In some settings, public health measures have been associated with serious violations of individual rights owing to abuse of power and gaps in implementation of well-intentioned policy. Collateral damage with regard to non-COVID-19 diseases that were suboptimally managed in pre-pandemic times may mean that lives lost from other diseases could exceed those saved from COVID-19. While individuals complying with lockdown regulations have embraced an acceptance of the concept of the common good, at a broad community level many are finding the transition from individualism to collective thinking required during a pandemic difficult to navigate. In this article, we look at government responses to the pandemic in six African countries (Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana), and highlight ethical concerns arising in these contexts.


The nation is once again rushing to establish new and improved academic standards. However, unresolved issues remain from the previous wave of standards reform in the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, the California standards-based reforms for history-social science over the past 25 years should provide a cautionary tale for those advocating new standards-based reforms. California has three primary documents for history education: The History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, published in 1988 and revised significantly for the first time in 2009; the History-Social Science Content Standards for California Public Schools, developed between November 1997 and October 1998; and the California Standards Tests for History-Social Science, first fully implemented in 2003. The California Department of Education intends for the framework, standards, and tests to work in concert and promote the teaching and learning of history-social science. The standards define the content and skills that all students should learn. The framework provides guidance for educators to implement the standards. The tests generate information about student achievement and hold schools accountable for implementing the standards. These documents established California as a leader in standards-based reforms for history education. Such organizations as the Fordham Foundation, Achieve Inc., and the American Federation of Teachers have continually awarded the framework and standards high marks and ratings. The Fordham report (Finn and Petrilli 2000) refers to them as the "gold standard" for state history curricula. The California Standards Tests, administered at the end of 8th, 10th, and 11th grades, constitute one of the nation's most extensive testing regimes for history-social science. Unfortunately, instead of working together symbiotically to promote history education, these documents present educators with inconsistent--even antagonistic--content, strategies, and tools to teach and assess history-social science. A COMPARATIVE CASE STUDY Between 2008 and 2009, I conducted a comparative case study of the California framework, standards, and tests. I collected detailed accounts of the policy making processes that created these influential curriculum and assessment documents. Drawing on interviews, minutes, and transcripts from meetings and public hearings, memos, sample test questions, technical reports, and various draft documents, I explored the political, institutional, and historical factors that shaped decision making. I wanted to focus on the goals and assumptions that policy makers used to frame the issues, problems, and solutions. I then compared the California case to others to compare the objectives and content of each. What follows are some highlights from this work. THE 2010 FRAMEWORK In January 2008, the California Department of Education began revising the History-Social Science Framework. This was the first major revision of the framework since 1987. In 1987, the framework was California's primary document for history education. It featured narrative course descriptions of grade-level content to help align state textbooks, assessments, and instructional materials. In 2001, the department integrated the standards into the framework without fully revising the framework's course descriptions. The primary objectives of the latest adaptation were to align the framework with the standards; to develop new chapters on assessment, instructional strategies, and universal access; and to update course descriptions with current historiography. Between February and June 2009, the 20-member Curriculum Framework and Evaluation Committee (CFCC), working in conjunction with the California Subject Matter Project--which won the contract to write the new framework--and the California Department of Education, drafted a new framework. This was a relatively harmonious process because members of the CFCC and writers from the subject-matter project were primarily history educators--teachers, administrators, and academics--with similar political and pedagogical views. …


Purpose: This study aimed to analyze the effects of removal of hexavalent Chromium using carbonated almond green hulls. In the present study, derived carbon fromalmond green hulls of zonal district of Iran were used to remove hexavalent Chromium from Synthetic wastewater. Materials and Methods: The effects of pH (2-10), Adsorbent dose (2-24 g/L), Cr (VI) concentration (10-100 mg/L), Contact time (1-60 min) and temperature (5-50°C) were studied. The experimental data fitted well to Langmuir isotherm (R2 = .853; maximum adsorption capacity 1.90 mg/g). At the end, to assess hexavalent Chromium, Spectrophotometer UV/VIS Spectrometer T80+ at 540 nm wavelength was used. Results: The findings of the present study revealed that hexavalent Chromium removal was highly dependent on the pH. Surprisingly it was understood that due to limited space in the adsorbent, the increase in the initial hexavalent Chromium density caused the removal efficiency to decrease. Conclusion: Carbonated almond green hull does efficiently remove hexavalent Chromium from industrial water wastes.


Several studies have reported that molecular hydrogen (H 2 ) acts as a therapeutic medical gas owing to scavenging reactive oxygen species (ROS). However, little is known about effects of H 2 on exercise-induced oxidative stress. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of weekly hydrogen bathing on exercise-induced oxidative stress and delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS). Nine healthy and active young men participated in this study, and each subject performed hydrogen bathing trial and placebo bathing trial in a crossover design. The subjects performed downhill running (8 % decline) at 75 % peak oxygen uptake (V 4 O 2 peak) for 30 min, and each subjects conducted hydrogen or placebo bathing for 20 min, respectively, 1-6 days after downhill running. Before and after exercise, we measured visual analogue scale (VAS) and collected blood samples (Pre- and 5 min, 60 min after the end of bathing, 1day, 2days, 3days, 7days after downhill running). Blood sample analyses include creatine kinase (CK), myoglobin (Mb), malondialdehyde (MDA), reactive oxygen metabolites (d-ROMs), biological antioxidant potential (BAP), myeloperoxidase (MPO), interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-17a (IL-17a) and lactate concentrations. Weekly hydrogen bathing had no effects of exercise-induced oxidative stress and muscle damage. On the other hand, hydrogen bathing significantly reduced DOMS (VAS) 1 and 2days after downhill running (p=0.033). These findings suggest that hydrogen bath after downhill exercise can be effective for reduction of DOMS.


This paper provides a brief overview of the stochastic modeling of variance swap curves. Focus is on affine factor models. We propose a novel drift parametrization which assures that the components of the state process can be matched with any pre-specified points on the variance swap curve. This should facilitate the empirical estimation for such stochastic models. Moreover, sufficient and yet flexible conditions that guarantee positivity of the rates are readily available. We finally discuss the relation and differences to affine yield-factor models introduced by Duffie and Kan [8]. It turns out that, in contrast to variance swap models, their yield factor representation requires imposing constraints on systems of nonlinear equations that are often not solvable in closed form.


Abstract. Density is a fundamental property of porous media such as snow. A wide range of snow properties and physical processes are linked to density, but few studies have addressed the uncertainty in snow density measurements. No study has yet quantitatively considered the recent advances in snow measurement methods such as micro-computed tomography (μCT) in alpine snow. During the MicroSnow Davos 2014 workshop, different approaches to measure snow density were applied in a controlled laboratory environment and in the field. Overall, the agreement between μCT and gravimetric methods (density cutters) was 5 to 9 %, with a bias of −5 to 2 %, expressed as percentage of the mean μCT density. In the field, density cutters overestimate (1 to 6 %) densities below and underestimate (1 to 6 %) densities above a threshold between 296 to 350 kg m−3, dependent on cutter type. Using the mean density per layer of all measurement methods applied in the field (μCT, box, wedge, and cylinder cutters) and ignoring ice layers, the variation between the methods was 2 to 5 % with a bias of −1 to 1 %. In general, our result suggests that snow densities measured by different methods agree within 9 %. However, the density profiles resolved by the measurement methods differed considerably. In particular, the millimeter-scale density variations revealed by the high-resolution μCT contrasted the thick layers with sharp boundaries introduced by the observer. In this respect, the unresolved variation, i.e., the density variation within a layer which is lost by lower resolution sampling or layer aggregation, is critical when snow density measurements are used in numerical simulations.


This paper presents a system to identify and characterise public safety related incidents from social media, and enrich the situational awareness that law enforcement entities have on potentially-unreported activities happening in a city. The system is based on a new spatio-temporal clustering algorithm that is able to identify and characterize relevant incidents given even a small number of social media reports. We present a web-based application exposing the features of the system, and demonstrate its usefulness in detecting, from Twitter, public safety related incidents occurred in New York City during the Occupy Wall Street protests.


This is the second volume of a modern introduction to quantum field theory which addresses both mathematicians and physicists ranging from advanced undergraduate students to professional scientists. This book seeks to bridge the existing gap between the different languages used by mathematicians and physicists. For students of mathematics it is shown that detailed knowledge of the physical background helps to discover interesting interrelationships between quite diverse mathematical topics. For students of physics fairly advanced mathematics, beyond that included in the usual curriculum in physics, is presented. The present volume concerns a detailed study of the mathematical and physical aspects of the quantum theory of light.


cGAS controls replication dynamics and suppresses replication-associated DNA damage. The cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS), a sensor of cytosolic DNA, is critical for the innate immune response. Here, we show that loss of cGAS in untransformed and cancer cells results in uncontrolled DNA replication, hyperproliferation, and genomic instability. While the majority of cGAS is cytoplasmic, a fraction of cGAS associates with chromatin. cGAS interacts with replication fork proteins in a DNA binding–dependent manner, suggesting that cGAS encounters replication forks in DNA. Independent of cGAMP and STING, cGAS slows replication forks by binding to DNA in the nucleus. In the absence of cGAS, replication forks are accelerated, but fork stability is compromised. Consequently, cGAS-deficient cells are exposed to replication stress and become increasingly sensitive to radiation and chemotherapy. Thus, by acting as a decelerator of DNA replication forks, cGAS controls replication dynamics and suppresses replication-associated DNA damage, suggesting that cGAS is an attractive target for exploiting the genomic instability of cancer cells.


This paper reports on a novel method for manufacturing microscopic Langmuir probes with spherical tips from platinum bond wires by fusing for plasma characterization in microplasma sources. Here, the resulting endpoints, formed by droplets on the ends of a fused wire, are intended to act as spherical Langmuir probes. For studying the fusing behavior, bond wires were wedge bonded over a 2 mm wide slit, to emulate the final application, and fused with different voltages and currents. For electrical isolation, a set of wires were coated with a 4 μm thick layer of Parylene before they were fused. After fusing, the gap size, as well as the shape and area of the ends of the remaining stubs were measured. The yield of the process was also investigated, and the fusing event was studied using a high-speed camera for analyzing its dynamics. Four characteristic tip shapes were observed: spherical, folded, serpentine shaped and semi-spherical. The stub length leveled out at  ∼400 μm as the fusing power increased. The fusing of the coated wires required a higher power to yield a spherical shape. Finally, a Parylene coated bond wire was integrated into a stripline split-ring resonator (SSRR) microplasma source, and was fused to form two Langmuir probes with spherical endpoints. These probes were used for measuring the I–V characteristics of a plasma generated by the SSRR. In a voltage range between  −60 V and 60 V, the fused stubs exhibited the expected behavior of spherical Langmuir probes, and will be considered for further integration.


Understanding the factors that affect the rate and direction of technical change has been a central aim of research in the study of science and innovation for more than a half-century. Although substantial evidence exists regarding the policies and institutions that affect the rate of knowledge accumulation, substantially less is known about factors that affect the direction of inventive activity. We examine how a change in the cost of access to knowledge influences the direction of inventive activity by exploiting the hack of Microsoft Kinect as an exogenous event that resulted in a sudden, unexpected, and substantial reduction in the cost of motion-sensing research technology. To estimate whether this shock induces changes in scientists' research trajectories, we employ novel measures based on machine learning (topic modeling) techniques as well as traditional measures based on bibliometric indicators of knowledge accumulation Our analysis demonstrates that the Kinect shock increases the diversity of research of both incumbents and entrants in motion-sensing and that the effect is greater for entrants than for incumbents. Importantly, the increase in diversification of entrants is not fully explained by diversification into motion-sensing. Rather, entrants diversify their research even in projects that do not directly use motion-sensing. Our results paint a picture in which a reduction in the cost of research tools increases the breadth of research activity, expanding the trajectories of scholars both inside and outside of the affected area.


The external evaluation and management of hospital quality are two intimately related aspects of the same phenomenon: the need to improve the quality of health services and provide confidence of this quality to all stakeholders. The objective of this study is to analyze the hospital accreditation programs and ISO 9001 quality management and certification schemes of health institutions, as well as to identify the benefits of each of them, their similarities and differences. Hospital accreditations and ISO 9001 certifications are important instruments to improve the health service quality and to give confidence to the society about the health care provider. Both guide management strategies to improve service quality and patient safety. They differ in some aspects: accreditation is based on the best practices of the quality of the medical assistance and have a more technical character. The ISO 9001 standard is more process oriented and constitutes a suitable framework for incorporating the requirements of hospital accreditation programs and existing international methodologies for risk management in health institutions.


The effects of water management and nitrogen fertilization, on yield, quality, and sensory profile of the red table-grape cultivars Redglobe and Michele Palieri were studied. Two irrigation volumes (1000 and 2000 m3/ha) and two nitrogen levels (120 and 180 kg/ha) were imposed. The effects of these parameters were cultivar-dependent. For Redglobe, irrigation resulted in significant increases in soluble solids and titratable acidity and significant decreases in resistance to compression and resistance to penetration. Increased nitrogen fertilization level exerted a significant effect only on titratable acidity (increased) and resistance to compression (decreased). Significant interactions between the two practices were demonstrated for soluble solids, pH, and resistance to compression. For Michele Palieri, increased irrigation resulted in significant decreases in soluble solids and resistance to penetration and significant increases in resistance to compression. Higher nitrogen caused decreases in berry weight but increases in soluble solid content and resistance to mechanical stress. Significant interactive effects were highlighted on yield, cluster weight, titratable acidity, and resistance to penetration. The lack of a significant correlation between physical/chemical and sensory results indicated that the changes induced by the agricultural practices on composition and mechanical behavior of berries were not perceptible by a trained panel.


Systems pharmacology aims to holistically understand genetic, molecular, cellular, organismal, and environmental mechanisms of drug actions through developing mechanistic or predictive models. Data-driven modeling plays a central role in systems pharmacology, and has already enabled biologists to generate novel hypotheses. However, more is needed. The drug response is associated with genetic/epigenetic variants and environmental factors, is coupled with molecular conformational dynamics, is affected by possible off-targets, is modulated by the complex interplay of biological networks, and is dependent on pharmacokinetics. Thus, in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of drug actions, systems pharmacology requires integration of models across data modalities, methodologies, organismal hierarchies, and species. This imposes a great challenge on model management, integration, and translation. Here, we discuss several upcoming issues in systems pharmacology and potential solutions to them using big data technology. It will allow systems pharmacology modeling to be findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable, reliable, interpretable, and actionable.


R Christensen

Correspondence to: Mr R Christensen, Parker Institute, Musculoskeletal Statistics Unit, Frederiksberg Hospital, Frederiksberg, Denmark; email@example.com

In obese patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA), does weight loss reduce pain and improve functional disability?

### Data sources:

MEDLINE (1966 to April 2006), EMBASE/Excerpta Medica (1980 to April 2006), CINAHL (1982 to April 2006), Web of Science (1945 to April 2006), Scopus (1966 to May 2006), Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group's trials register, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, conference abstracts, and reference lists.

### Study selection and assessment:

randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that evaluated any intervention reporting weight change as the only difference between the treatment and control groups in obese patients with knee OA. Concomitant treatments (eg, medication, exercise, or …


While investing in the teacher workforce is central to improving schools, school resources are notoriously limited, forcing school leaders to make difficult decisions on how to prioritize funds. This paper examines a critical input to resource allocation decisions: teacher preferences. Using an original, online discrete choice survey experiment with a national sample of 1,030 U.S. teachers, we estimate how much teachers value different features of a hypothetical teaching job. The findings show that (a) teachers value access to special education specialists, counselors, and nurses more than a 10% salary increase or 3-student reduction in class size, (b) investments in school counselors and nurses are strikingly cost-effective, as the value teachers alone place on each of these support roles far exceeds the per teacher cost of funding these positions, and (c) teachers who are also parents treat a 10% salary increase and a child care subsidy of similar value as near perfect substitutes. These novel estimates of teachers' willingness to pay for student-based support professionals challenge the idea that inadequate compensation lies at the root of teacher workforce challenges and illustrate that reforms that exclusively focus on salary as a lever for influencing teacher mobility (e.g. transfer incentives) may be poorly aligned to teachers' preferences.


By conceptualizing the recovery from Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill as forming part of ongoing processes of "becoming" and the everyday, this article explores how the relative power of a historically privileged group of White males in rural Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, faced significant challenge. First, through the breakdown of informal racial segregation in local social institutions, and through the newly ubiquitous nature of mobile homes threatening their rejection of "trailer trash" culture. Second, however, this impact must be understood within ongoing changes across wider American society, where a locally valorized ideal of normative 1950s culture was seen to be in conflict with the civil rights and feminist movements of the late twentieth century. This imagined cultural hegemony was therefore in serious decline long before these catastrophes, yet has now been confined to the time "before the Storm."


The cellular slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum contains a total number of 13 kinesins. Two of them, kinesins Kif3 and Kif5, represent the Kinesin-1 family (formerly conventional kinesins) in D. discoideum whose members are dimeric molecular motors that move as single molecules micrometer-long distances on microtubules by using the energy from ATP hydrolysis.
In this study constructs of both kinesins were expressed in E. coli, purified, and tested in biochemical assays. A GFP-fusion protein of Kif3 revealed an overall cytoplasmic localization with accumulations that could not be assigned to a specific cellular structure or vesicle. Using immunofluorescence staining an association with the endoplasmic reticulum or mitochondria was ruled out. Full-length and truncated Kif3 motors were active in gliding and ATPase assays. They showed a strong dependence on ionic strength. Like the full-length motor, the truncated Kif3-592 motor (amino acids 1-592; comprising motor domain, neck and partial stalk) reached its maximum speed of around 2.0 µms-1 at a potassium acetate concentration of 200 mM. The velocity from the microtubule-gliding assay was confirmed using kinesin labeled with Q-Dots. The shortened Kif3-342 motor (amino acids 1-342; comprising motor domain, partial neck) and the Kif3-592 construct showed an ATP turnover comparable to the fungal Nkin motor. Kif3-full-length displayed less activity in ATPase assays, possibly resulting from tail-motor inhibition. Results from the duty ratio calculations and single-molecule gliding assays indicated that Kif3 is a processive enzyme. Overall, D. discoideum's Kif3 revealed a closer similarity to fungal rather than animal kinesins.
The truncated motor Kif5-476 (amino acids 1-476; comprising motor domain, neck and partial stalk) turned out to bind microtubules, but was immotile in gliding assays. Still, this construct, as well as the shorter variant Kif5-353 (amino acids 1-353; comprising motor domain), showed activity in ATPase assays, indicating that a significant portion of the isolated protein was active. Unlike Kif3, the Kif5 motor protein was sensitive to potassium-acetate concentrations exceeding 25 mM and lost its capability to bind microtubules with increasing ionic strength. D. discoideum knockout strains showed no apparent phenotype under standard culture conditions or during development. Merely a reduced growth speed was observed in submerged cultures of kif5-null cells. A GFP-Kif5 construct showed a strong accumulation in the cell's peripheries, in agreement with previous reports. Microtubule recovery experiments after nocodazole treatment did not reveal any significant differences between wild type and knockout strains, arguing against an influence of Kif5 on microtubule organization.


Flow of a viscoelastic liquid in a cylindrical cavity driven by rotating finite disks is investigated. The cylindrical sidewall is fixed and the covers rotate with different angular velocities either in the same or in opposite directions. A regular perturbation in terms of the angular velocity of the caps is used. The flow field is resolved into a primary azimuthal stratified viscometric field and a weaker secondary meridional field. Results are presented for a range of cylinder aspect and cap rotation ratios and viscoelastic parameters. Interesting instabilities of the fluid of second grade are discussed. The controversy surrounding the sign of the first Rivlin-Ericksen constant is completely irrelevant to the discussion. It is shown qualitatively that loss of stability occurs repeatedly and bifurcating flows exist for critical values of an elasticity parameter at fixed aspect and cap rotation ratio. Branching flows also occur at a fixed value of the elasticity parameter for critical values of the cap rotation ratio, when the aspect ratio is fixed.


The authors investigate the artificial frequency correlation induced by polarization scrambled statistical polarization-mode-dispersion emulators. A simple model is derived that accurately predicts the average frequency correlation when the scrambling is symmetric. It is shown that the nature of the symmetry affects the emulator performance, and that increasingly, isotropic scrambling gives lower correlation. The derived model shows a good agreement with Monte Carlo simulation and experiment


This paper presents education finance trends for Bangladesh since 2000. It shows that while government spending on education as a proportion of national income has stagnated, it has increased in real terms. Real increases in education spending have resulted in substantial increases in per student spending in basic education. At primary, enrolment declines have reinforced these trends and in 2005 per student spending in government primary schools was 30% higher, in real terms than in 2001. Despite these increases, per student spending on education in Bangladesh remains low compared to other countries in the region and countries at similar levels of development. Levels of government funding also vary enormously across different providers of basic education although these differences do not appear to have a significant impact on education outcomes at the primary level. At secondary, there appears to be a closer correlation between levels of public funding and outcomes although the socio-economic status of student intakes also appears to play an important role. To achieve equitable access to basic education, it is important to narrow these public funding differences. However, given the comparatively low levels of funding across the basic education system it is perhaps more important to increase overall levels of funding if the quality and overall efficiency of the system is to be improved.


Classification of hyperspectral images is a challenging task owing to the high dimensionality of the data, limited ground truth data, collinearity of the spectra and the presence of mixed pixels. Conventional classification techniques do not cope well with these problems. Thus, in addition to the spectral information, features were developed for a more complete description of the pixels, e.g., containing contextual information at the superpixel level or mixed pixel information at the subpixel level. This has encouraged an evolution of fusion techniques which use these myriad of multiple feature sets and decisions from individual classifiers to be employed in a joint manner. In this work, we present a flexible decision fusion framework addressing these issues. In a first step, we propose to use sparse fractional abundances as decision source, complementary to class probabilities obtained from a supervised classifier. This specific selection of complementary decision sources enables the description of a pixel in a more complete way, and is expected to mitigate the effects of small training samples sizes. Secondly, we propose to apply a fusion scheme, based on the probabilistic graphical Markov Random Field (MRF) and Conditional Random Field (CRF) models, which inherently employ spatial information into the fusion process. To strengthen the decision fusion process, consistency links across the different decision sources are incorporated to encourage agreement between their decisions. The proposed framework offers flexibility such that it can be extended with additional decision sources in a straightforward way. Experimental results conducted on two real hyperspectral images show superiority over several other approaches in terms of classification performance when very limited training data is available.


Participation in sporting, cultural and community activities can have significant emotional, physical and social benefits for children. A small literature now exists exploring the factors that promote or inhibit children's participation in these activities. This paper adds to the literature using a large child-based dataset collected in Ireland, the Growing Up in Ireland dataset. The paper investigates the role of minority status as a barrier to child participation in a range of activities. Minority status in this paper is characterised as being non-Irish born, non-Roman Catholic, or having a family member in receipt of some form of social welfare. The association between such characteristics and child participation in sporting, cultural and community activities is examined using multivariate analyses. The results highlight that these factors are associated with lower participation in structured activities though the impact varies according to activity and minority grouping. The implications of the findings for policy are discussed.


For policymakers, litigants, and commentators seeking to address the threats digital technology poses for privacy, electronic surveillance law remains a weapon of choice. The debate over how best to respond to the spyware problem provides only the most recent illustration of that fact. Although there is much controversy over how to define spyware, that label encompasses at least some software that monitors a computer user's electronic communications. Federal surveillance statutes thus present an intuitive fit for responding to the regulatory challenges of spyware, because those statutes bar the unauthorized acquisition of electronic communications and related data in some circumstances. Indeed, those who argue that no new federal legislation is needed to address the spyware problem rely in part on the opportunities for criminal prosecution and civil suits under surveillance statutes and related doctrines. As the debate on the need for new federal legislation proceeds, however, there is good reason to question whether federal electronic surveillance statutes can successfully combat anything but the most extreme forms of spyware. Electronic surveillance law does not apply by any reasonable construction to many forms of spyware. Moreover, the overall record on application of surveillance law statutes to a variety of digital-age problems is in fact quite mixed. Courts have reached privacy-protective outcomes on very bad facts, but have also let seemingly problematic practices pass unsanctioned. The difficulty with efforts to apply surveillance law statutes to new privacy problems is that our federal electronic surveillance statutes are emphatically not general data privacy statutes. Unfortunately, efforts to treat them as such have produced a body of confused - even incoherent - case law. That case law, moreover, tends to make many impediments to application of surveillance law seem technical rather than structural or conceptual. To that extent, it diverts attention from important policy questions, including whether Congress should consider legislative solutions tailored to specific privacy threats (such as spyware), or whether broader data privacy statutes are necessary or appropriate. This Article uses the difficulties of applying electronic surveillance law statutes to spyware to illustrate the broader limits of surveillance law. Current case law suggests that electronic surveillance statutes are likely to constrain only the most egregious forms of spyware, and there may even be some difficulties in surveillance law performing that limited task. Efforts to use surveillance law to push for more privacy-sensitive industry practices are likely to fail altogether. My predictive judgments may be controversial, partly because surveillance law is sufficiently unstable that there is room for courts to adopt approaches that are more privacy-protective. I thus consider whether courts should use surveillance law to respond more aggressively to privacy challenges such as spyware. Drawing upon case law from other contexts, I show that there is good reason to be wary of using surveillance law as a vehicle for addressing various information privacy problems. Indeed, if electronic surveillance cases were to more plainly expose the limits of surveillance law, they would generate a more fruitful legislative debate about the propriety of true data privacy legislation, whether broadly or narrowly conceived.


A creative approach is presented for understanding the attitudes of Royal Engineer (RE) Geographic Technicians (Geo Techs) to training and education. Through a grounded theory methodology, participants' experiences of learning and teaching are explored. These provide a greater awareness and perception of attitudes than have emerged through more established, formal methods of evaluating the effectiveness of training. Recent developments in technology, doctrine, requirements and operations have brought about significant changes to the range and complexity of subjects taught in the field of Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT). This in turn has increased the challenges to RE staff and students, many of whom find themselves instructing on or undertaking demanding degree level courses without the requisite formal qualifications. Grounded theory, based on guidelines rather than rigid rules, is adopted to provide a study of RE Geographic Technicians' learning experiences from the perspective of those who live it and for an interpretive understanding of their meanings to emerge. The policies, culture and social processes in which the RE Geo training takes place are explored to appreciate the influence of the training environment on learning. Data obtained through focus groups held with students and instructors, and through in-depth interviews with individuals who hold key roles associated with the course, recognises the relativism of multiple social realities in developing a rich source of knowledge on attitudes to learning. The collection, synthesis and analysis of data led to the emergence of core categories: context, commitment, expectations, motivation, qualifications, relevance and respect. Through their engagement the research participants' awareness, in particular of instructors, of Geographic Technicians' attitudes to training and education has been raised. Using the theoretical framework of communities of practice, the challenges and effectiveness of the RSMS as a learning organisation for the instructors is reviewed. By exploring beyond the routine, an insight is offered into how the quality of teaching and learning can be enhanced for RE Geographic Technicians through a better understanding of attitudes to learning. Whilst the research is focused on a specific environment the lessons identified can have relevance to other learning situations where the training and education are closely aligned to the work place or to professional practice. In particular, the way in which teacher-practitioners are inducted, developed and employed in training and education has resonance with the wider lifelong learning sector.


Previous Bayesian phylogeographic studies of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIVs) explored the origin and spread of the epidemic from China into Russia, indicating that HPAIV circulated in Russia prior to its detection there in 2005. In this study, we extend this research to explore the evolution and spread of HPAIV within Europe during the 2005–2010 epidemic, using all available sequences of the HA and NA gene regions that were collected in Europe and Russia during the outbreak. We use discrete-trait phylodynamic models within a Bayesian statistical framework to explore the evolution of HPAIV. Our results indicate that the genetic diversity and effective population size of HPAIV peaked between mid-2005 and early 2006, followed by drastic decline in 2007, which coincides with the end of the epidemic in Europe. Our results also suggest that domestic birds were the most likely source of the spread of the virus from Russia into Europe. Additionally, estimates of viral dispersal routes indicate that Russia, Romania, and Germany were key epicenters of these outbreaks. Our study quantifies the dynamics of a major European HPAIV pandemic and substantiates the ability of phylodynamic models to improve molecular surveillance of novel AIVs.


The Bologna process has drawn increasing attention to the ways in which English is taught at universities throughout the E.U. One widely used approach to EAP writing instruction combines process-oriented and genre-based pedagogies. The present study explores the cross-cultural adaptability of these pedagogies by reporting on the results of a three-year research-action project, designed to adapt a process-genre approach to teaching EAP writing tasks in a French university setting. The results underscore the cultural embeddedness of the process-genre approach and call into question whether a total alignment of English language writing instruction on process-oriented and genre-based methodologies would be a positive development in the LMD harmonization process


This article describes the evolution of a project examining the impact of encounters on public confidence in the police. It reviews the background of the research, the central puzzle that drove the project, and the events that led to its discovery. I was surprised by my initial inability to confirm the expected relationship between encounters and confidence. Rather than encouraging confidence, encounters that people themselves rated positively did not seem to increase satisfaction with police, and for many actually made things worse. Here I discuss how I confronted this puzzle, what I concluded, and what other researchers have since done with the findings. I conclude with some notes on the research agenda implied by all of this research, and how the entire process accords with the ways in which scientific research proceeds.


Hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) can fix N₂ for subsequent release to a corn (Zea mays L.) crop, but kill date effects on vetch N accumulation, soil water, and subsequent corn production have not been studied. A hairy vetch cover crop can deplete soil water through transpiration, but cover crop mulches can conserve soil water for no-till corn. In order to determine optimum spring kill date and corn fertilizer N (FN) rates, hairy vetch was killed early April, late April, or mid-May, followed by three corn planting dates and four FN rates (0, 45, 135, and 202 kg N ha⁻¹). From early April to mid-May, hairy vetch aerial phytomass and N content increased significantly, from 2800 to 4630 and 96 to 149 kg ha⁻¹, respectively. Corn grain yields ranged from 5.2 to 10.1 Mg ha⁻¹ and were significantly greater following mid or late kill, compared with early kill of vetch, regardless of corn planting date or FN rate. Gravimetric soil water under mid- or late-kill vetch was often significantly greater than after early-kill vetch. We conclude that soil water conservation by late-killed vetch mulches had a greater influence on corn production than vetch spring water use. Optimum N production and water conservation occurred when vetch was killed the last week of April. Earlykill vetch sacrificed N production and minimized soil water conservation, resulting in reduced corn grain yield. Late kill did not add significant N benefits, but could deplete soil water or interfere with timely corn planting. Contribution no. 8777. Scientific Article no. A6565. Maryland Agric. Exp. Stn.


This research is concerned with shape modelling in computer graphics. The dissertation provides a review of the main research topics and developments in shape modelling and discusses current visualisation techniques required for the display of the models produced. In computer graphics surfaces are normally defined using analytic functions. Geometry however, supplies many shapes without providing their analytic descriptions. These are defined implicitly through fundamental relationships between primitive geometrical objects. Transferring this approach in computer graphics, opens new directions in shape modelling by enabling the definition of new objects or supplying a rigorous alternative to analytical definitions of objects with complex analytical descriptions. We review, in this dissertation, relevant works in the area of implicit modelling. Based on our observations on the shortcomings of these works, we develop an implicit modelling approach which draws on a seminal technique in this area: the distance based object definition. We investigate the principles, potential and applications of this technique both in conceptual terms (modelling aspects) and on technical merit (visualisation issues). This is the context of this PhD research. The conceptual and technological frameworks developed are presented in terms of a comprehensive investigation of an object's constituent primitives and modelling constraints on the one hand, and software visualisation platforms on the other. Finally, we adopt a critical perspective of our work to discuss possible directions for further improvements and exploitation for the modelling approach we have developed.


Mobile network operators are facing a huge increase in data traffic. Moreover, several mobile traffic forecasts indicate that this trend will continue to increase in upcoming years. Nowadays, delivering adequate quality of service is already an important challenge for operators, and it will also be in the future. A critical issue is the availability of radio resources, which are licensed, intrinsically finite and usually costly. Alternatively, there are also unlicensed bands used by technologies like WiFi, which can be exploited. Indeed, mobile network operators are already using WiFi hotspots for offloading the data traffic from their macro networks. However, available offloading strategies cannot provide continuous connectivity across different networks, due to intrinsic limitations of current Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). Multipath TCP is a recent protocol that enables more flexible connectivity by extending conventional TCP, and could be used for offloading data traffic. The aim of this paper is not to propose a new solution, but to summarize the points which should be considered on the radio access when implementing data offloading with Multipath TCP.


Success in an online learning environment is tied to both human and system factors. This study illuminates the unique contributions of human factors (comfort with online learning, self-management of learning, and perceived Web self-efficacy) to online learning system success, which is measured in terms of usage and satisfaction. The research model was tested employing SEM on a sample of 674 college students enrolled in at least one online course. The factors of comfort with online learning and perceived Web self-efficacy were significant predictors of satisfaction. Comfort with online learning was significant in predicting usage. The impact of demographic variables was examined.


Lexicographic meaning descriptions of German lexical items which are formally and semantically similar and therefore easily confused (so-called paronyms) often do not reflect their current usage of lexical items. They can even contradict one's personal intuition or disagree with lexical usage as observed in public discourse. The reasons are manifold. Language data used for compiling dictionaries is either outdated, or lexicographic practice is rather conventional and does not take advantage of corpus-assisted approaches to semantic analysis. Despite of various modern electronic or online reference works speakers face uncertainties when dealing with easily confusable words. These are for example sensibel/sensitiv (sensitive) or kindisch/kindlich (childish/childlike). Existing dictionaries often do not provide satisfactory answers as to how to use these sets correctly. Numerous questions addressed in online forums show where uncertainties with paronyms are and why users demand further assistance concerning proper contextual usage (cf. Storjohann 2015). There are different reasons why users misuse certain items or mix up words which are similar in form and meaning. As data from written and more spontaneous language resources suggest, some confusions arise due to ongoing semantic change in the current use of some paronyms. This paper identifies shortcomings of contemporary German Dictionaries and discusses innovative ways of empirical lexicographic work that might pave the way for a new data-driven, descriptive reference work of confusable German terms. Currently, such a guide is being developed at the Institute for German Language in Mannheim implementing corpora and diverse corpus-analytical methods. Its objective is to compile a dictionary with contrastive entries which is a useful reference tool in situation of language doubt. At the same time, it aims at sensitizing users of context dependency and language change.


Predicting fluctuations in annual risk of Lyme disease would be useful in focusing public health efforts. However, several competing hypotheses have been proposed that point to weather variables, acorn production, or mouse abundance as important pre- dictors of Lyme disease risk. We compared the ability of acorn production, mouse density, and four relevant weather variables to predict annual Lyme disease incidence (detrended) between 1992 and 2002 for Dutchess County, New York, and seven states in the northeastern United States. Acorn production and mouse abundance measured in Dutchess County were the strongest predictors (r $ 0.78) of Dutchess County Lyme disease incidence, but the increase in mouse abundance from 1991 to 1992 was contrary to a decrease in Lyme disease in the following years. The Palmer Hydrologic Drought Index (PHDI) was a significant positive predictor of Lyme disease incidence two years later for three states (0.58 # r # 0.88), but summer precipitation was generally negatively correlated with Lyme disease incidence the next year (20.79 # r # 0.02). Mean temperatures for the prior winter or summer showed weak or inconsistent correlations with Lyme disease incidence. In four states, no variable was a statistically significant predictor of Lyme disease incidence. Syn- chrony in Lyme disease incidence between pairs of states was not significantly concordant with synchrony in any weather variable that we examined (0.02 # r # 0.21). We found that acorns and mice were strong predictors of Dutchess County Lyme disease incidence, but their predictive power appeared to be weaker spatially. Moreover, evidence was weak for causal relationships between Lyme disease incidence and the weather variables that we tested. Reliable prediction of Lyme disease incidence may require the identification of new predictors or combinations of biotic and abiotic predictors and may be limited to local scales.


Drawing on structural and relational dimensions of social capital, this study examines the simultaneous effects of both the structure of a social network and peer-to-peer relations within such a network on user innovation behaviour in online community-based innovation contests (OCICs). Specifically, it explores the interplay between relational mechanisms that drive and explain peers' interactions (namely learning and trust) and how diverse network configurations affect this relationship. Previous research has studied how either network structure or peer-to-peer relationships within social networks affect innovation. However, scholars know little about the way network structure and relational mechanisms interact in influencing users' innovative behaviour. Furthermore, OCICs, as a context in which user innovation occurs, have received scant attention so far. To address its objectives, the research adopts a single-case approach. The selected case, MoFilm, is an online community for film makers who compete to produce short films for global brands. A three-phase mixed-methods data-collection approach is adopted, which involves two qualitative phases and social network analysis of user innovators within the community. The findings unravel critical relational mechanisms of competence-based and intention-based trust, affective learning and cognitive learning. They show how these mechanisms interplay to influence user innovation. Furthermore, the results unravel network configurations of core–periphery, triads and a sparse network of strong ties, which act as major structures underpinning users' innovative behaviour. Finally, this study demonstrates how each of these structural configurations interacts with the unravelled relationships between trust and learning to impact on user innovation behaviour.


This paper analyzes a capacity‐planning and pricing problem of a monopolist facing uncertain demand. The model incorporates "soft" and "hard" capacity constraints (soft constraints can be relaxed at a cost while hard constraints cannot be relaxed) and demand uncertainty. The firm receives additional demand information within the plan‐ning horizon. The solution to the planning problem depends crucially on what is known about demand at the time of the capacity decision as well as the pricing decision. Historical acquisition costs of capacity are relevant for pricing whenever the same information is available for capacity planning and pricing. However, when the firm re‐ceives additional demand information before making the pricing decision, only marginal cost is relevant for pricing. Different types of capacity constraints, i.e., soft vs. hard, affect how much capacity the firm obtains, but not how the firm sets prices.


Much has been said about the re-emergence of China to its historical position of eminence in the world economy, yet little is understood about the kind of economic system China is evolving. What are the rules of the game of business in today's China, and how are they likely to change over the next decades? The answers to these questions are crucial to business persons formulating strategy toward China, but also for policy-makers concerned with retaining the competitiveness of their nations in the face of Chinese competition and for researchers seeking to gain deeper insights into the workings of economic systems and institutional change. Written by two leading experts in the field, this book sheds much-needed light on these questions. Building on recent conceptual and empirical advances, and rich in concrete examples, it offers a comprehensive and systematic exploration of present-day Chinese capitalism, its component parts, and their interdependencies. It suggests that Chinese capitalism, as practiced today, in many respects represents a development from traditional business practices, whose revival has been greatly aided by the influx of investments and managerial talent from the Regional Ethnic Chinese. On the basis of present trends in the Chinese economy as well as through comparison with five major types of capitalism - those of France, Germany, Japan, Korea, and the United States - the book derives a prediction of the probable development paths of Chinese capitalism and its likely competitive strengths and weaknesses.


This study is important due to the long terms negative effects of using stimulants for ADHD therapy as they manifest negative side effects. The amphetamine stimulants are neurotoxic with long-terms use and it's imperative to use it in lower dosages while at the same time yielding the maximum affects to treat ADHD symptoms. This narrative review is conducted to explore the professional literature between 2000-2015. The trials conducted to explore the efficacy of adjunctive therapy with stimulants demonstrated various results. The supplementation of combined magnesium and vitamin B6 yielded positive results with significant improvement in ADHD, specifically in hyperactivity, aggression, and low attention span. Zinc supplementation, with 30 mg or more, with amphetamine aided in lowering the dosage of amphetamine use by at least 20% while yielding the same results compared to higher amphetamine use without zinc. Zinc + methylphenidate combination yielded positive results to lower ADHD symptoms; however the results are not conclusive due to more trials are needed in different dosages of zinc. Based on the clinical studies, dietary supplements are useful in treating ADHD symptoms. Clinical trials with zinc and magnesium+B6 have shown to yield positive results in lowering the ADHD symptoms. With current ADHD therapy, continued stimulant use leads to tolerance and increases with continued use; hence the stimulant dosage also needs to be increased to reach efficacy. Adding adjunctive dietary supplements have demonstrated that the stimulant dosages can be lowered. However, further study is needed to factor in bioavailability, efficacy of other dosages, diet, and any other factors that could hinder the function of the dietary supplements internally.


CRISPR-Cas9 is a powerful genome editing technology in which a single guide RNA (sgRNA) confers target site specificity to achieve Cas9-mediated genome editing. Numerous sgRNA design tools have been developed based on reference genomes for humans and model organisms. However, existing resources are not optimal as genetic mutations or single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the targeting region affect the efficiency of CRISPR-based approaches by interfering with guide-target complementarity. To facilitate identification of sgRNAs (1) in non-reference genomes, (2) across varying genetic backgrounds, or (3) for specific targeting of SNP-containing alleles, for example, disease relevant mutations, we developed a web tool, SNP-CRISPR (https://www.flyrnai.org/tools/snp_crispr/). SNP-CRISPR can be used to design sgRNAs based on public variant data sets or user-identified variants. In addition, the tool computes efficiency and specificity scores for sgRNA designs targeting both the variant and the reference. Moreover, SNP-CRISPR provides the option to upload multiple SNPs and target single or multiple nearby base changes simultaneously with a single sgRNA design. Given these capabilities, SNP-CRISPR has a wide range of potential research applications in model systems and for design of sgRNAs for disease-associated variant correction.


In 1993, Bill Clinton signed the National Voter Registration Act. This act was designed to expand ballot access by making voter registration services more widely available. The federal legislation requires all 50 states to offer voter registration services by mail, at social service offices, and at motor vehicle offices. The National Voter Registration Act is considered by many to be an important victory for the Clinton administration. A closer look at the origins of the act, however, suggests that Clinton's success story is really the success story of a broad and influential social movement. Like previous extensions of voting rights, this victory was in large part the result of a political struggle that the dominant power structure ultimately supported, but did not initiate. The history of voting rights in the United States is more a legacy of exclusion than of inclusion. At the founding of the nation, the vote was extended to a limited few. Access to the ballot box has expanded only gradually over the years. This process of enfranchisement has always been rooted in political struggle among contending forces. Voting rights have expanded further under the Clinton administration, and this latest chapter of expanded voting rights also emerged as a product of political straggle. It is the political straggle surrounding the passage of the National Voter Registration Act that is the focus of this article. Within the social science literature, many argue that voting is a weak form of political participation that distracts our attention from other, more meaningful, ways of influencing our economic and social well-being (Ginsberg, 1981). In a representative democracy, voters only select leaders and rarely are able to directly express a voice on the issues that most affect them. For this reason, some may consider a focus on voting reform as a social justice issue to be misguided. However, the historical reality is that voting reform has been a centerpiece of progressive activism for social justice throughout U.S. history. Though the substantive victories these movements have yielded are rarely as large as movement actors had hoped for, the focus on voting rights has been both substantively and symbolically important. Symbolically, a focus on voting rights reveals who is not included in the political discourse, and this can provide an opportunity for social movement activity. Substantively, the expansion of voting rights has the potential to create real and enduring changes. In this article, we explore the historical developments that culminated in passage of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. We begin by examining the current state of voting within the United States, focusing on the problems of limited and declining participation in electoral politics. We then explore some of the reasons for this decline and attempt to link the etiology of the problem to the range of policy reforms available to policymakers. The article then describes the legislative history of the National Voter Registration Act, analyzing the influences exerted by social movement actors and legislators alike, with particular focus on the events that occurred during the early days of the Clinton administration. Finally, we speculate about the possible consequences of this reform, including the strange irony that the National Voter Registration Act may turn out to be as much a victory for the Republican Party and previously organized interests as it is for President Clinton. The Historical Background of Voting Rights in the United States The authors of the United States Constitution designed a political system that would limit the influence of factious elements in society. Their response to the "fear of factions" was to formulate a decentralized political system in which people vote for "representatives" to conduct policy-making in their name, rather than allowing all citizens to participate more directly in substantive decision-making processes (Madison, 1961). …


'Draw' was the inaugural show at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, a major new venue for international art in the north east of England. The first show paired internationally active contemporary British artists with established modern masters, the intention being to investigate the current meaning of drawing in relation to these historical models of practice. I was paired with Joseph Beuys; the other pairings were Damien Hirst and Francis Bacon, Ceal Floyer and Marcel Duchamp, Gavin Turk and Andy Warhol, Chris Ofili and Henri Matisse, D J Simpson and Jackson Pollock, and Chantal Joffe and Pablo Picasso.

The work I made and selected to exhibit with Beuys was intended to establish a clear contrast between Beuys' vocabulary of symbols and myths, and my own compression of thought and experience into the uncertain moment of looking. Despite this fundamental divide, there was a correspondence between all the works from the perspective of material transformation.


A mechanism based on the sequential absorption of two photons by the components of a redox couple has been recently proposed for catalysis of the energetically demanding reduction of aryl halides. Here, we analyze the suggested photochemical mechanism of this reaction, which employs perylenediimide (PDI) as a photocatalyst, on the basis of spectroscopic, electrochemical and electron paramagnetic resonance data. Our results indicate that the photoexcited PDI radical anion (*PDI˙-) cannot play the role of a photosensitizer in the aforementioned process. Instead, the reduction of 4'-bromoacetophenone likely involves *PDI˙- decomposition products. The extremely short lifetime of the photoexcited transient species, as *PDI˙-, is a major general limitation for photocatalytic schemes based on sequential two-photon excitation. In order to better understand the potential of such schemes, we discuss them in the context of the Z-scheme in natural photosynthesis.

publisher-specific, author manuscript: http://rsc.li/journals-terms-of-use


This paper reviews the typology and distribution of vowel systems which include nasalized vowels. It is well-known that languages with distinctively nasalized vowels have an equal or lower number of nasalized vowel qualities than of oral vowel qualities. However, there are interesting areal differences in the distribution of systems with equal and fewer numbers of nasalized vowels. Languages in Africa usually have fewer nasalized than oral vowels; languages in the southern part of the Americas more often have equal numbers of oral and nasalized vowel qualities. The latter pattern is sometimes associated with a morphological function for vowel nasalization and with long-range nasal spreading.


ABSTRACT Australian guitar manufacturers are increasingly competitive globally, known for quality, design, and sustainability. Also distinguishing Australian guitar making is the use of native timbers—a result of unforeseen historical endowments of available trees from earlier eras of colonial appropriation and State-sponsored planting. We develop a critical-materialist, and historical, evolutionary economic geography to trace an example of unintentional path dependence. Present craft-based manufacturing is linked to past regimes of resource stewardship. We illustrate this through the example of the bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii), an endemic tree with Indigenous significance now used industrially as a 'tonewood' in guitar making. With limited geographic range, bunya was planted by State forestry during the inter-war period, considered 'useful' in difficult locations where other industrial species failed. Reflecting prevailing stewardship norms, bunya trees were pruned and cared for, even though always considered marginal. Abandoned as an industrial forestry species, a half century later surviving cultivated bunya trees were rediscovered for guitar making. From this case, we argue that economic geographers remain attentive to material resource histories, as antecedent to contemporary configurations. Earlier decisions, ideologies and labour processes bestow present generations with available material resources, enabling new geographic concentrations of expertise. Acknowledging how historical materialities of resource stewardship reverberate unpredictably in the present, guitar makers and tonewood specialists are contemplating prospects for longer-term scarcities, and experimenting in anticipation of them now.


Key Words: Metropolitan Manila, Environmental
Health Risk Assessment,
Life
Expectancy, Age, Educational Level, Particulate
Air Pollution, PM10
Background and Objectives: Metropolitan
Manila is
considered
a
Mega-City
with approximately 10 million people
as
of
1995.
Due to
rapid
industrialization
and urbanization, environmental health problems
including
air
pollution
have
become very prominent. In this study,
the
potential
magnitude
of
environmental
health inequalities with particular reference
to
particulate
air
pollution
in
Metropolitan Manila, Philippines has been
assessed
in terms
of
mortality
by
adapting the risk assessment method.
Utilizing
various
indicators
of
mortality
such as life expectancy and years of
life lost,
modification
of
the
chronic
health
impact by markers of population heterogeneity particularly
age and
educational
attainment has been explored In addition,
the impact
of various
pollution
reduction scenarios were evaluated.
Methodology: Published Environmental
Health Risk Assessment
methods
were
adapted and applied for estimating chronic mortality effects
of
PM10
pollution
in
the city of Metropolitan Manila. Pooled estimates
derived from the
exposure-response coefficients of the two US longitudinal epidemiological
studies
on
PM10
and chronic mortality were used primarily.
These
pooled
estimates which
signify
increases in mortality with incremental increase in
PM10
were
applied
to the
indicators of mortality. Hence, the methodology
involved
a
life table
approach
using age-specific mortality rates from Metropolitan Manila in 1995.
Annual
averages of PM10 for the whole of Metropolitan
Manila
and
for the
cities
within
were also used. Life expectancies using
two
pollution
reduction
scenarios
were
compared with the 1995 life table to
determine
pollution
reduction
benefits.
All
causes and cardio-respiratory causes of
deaths
were
evaluated.
Apart from
gains
in life expectancy, other effect measures
such
as
years
of
life loss
and number
of
deaths were also assessed.
Findings: Health impact as a result of particulate
pollution
reduction
by
10 μg/m3
resulted in gains in life expectancies
of
approximately
five
months
for
both
males and females. Inclusion of effects on the elderly
in the
model
did
not make much
of a difference in terms of life expectancy gains.
However,
with
the
addition of
the
effects on infants in the model and retaining
the
effects on
adults
and
the
elderly,
life expectancy gains, years of life lost and
attributable
deaths increased.
Life
expectancy gains were also estimated
to be
more
for the low
education
level
as
compared to the middle and high education
levels. The
overall
life
expectancy
gains for a reduction to the international annual guideline
of
50 μg/m3
PM10
scenario were 2.22 years for males and
1.88
years
for females.
By
educational
level, the life expectancy gains at age
25
years old
in the
same pollution
reduction scenario, range from 0.74 years
for
males
and
0.59
years
for females in
the high educational level to more than four
years
for
males and more
than three
and half years for females in the low educational
level. Improvements in the
cardio-respiratory causes of death alone contributed most
to the life
expectancy
gains. The estimates that resulted
from this
assessment
were
found to
be
sensitive to the exposure-response
coefficients used,
the
exposure reduction
scenarios, the measures of heterogeneity (particularly
age
and educational
level),
baseline rates and the time period of effect.
In
addition,
geographic
differences in
gains in life expectancy within Metropolitan Manila
were
like
wise
assessed.
Higher gains in life expectancy were seen
in the
cities
in the
north
where
pollution
levels are also greater than in the cities
in the
south.
Implication: The air pollution studies
have found
relatively
small
exposure
response coefficients. However, the impact on
public
health is
quite substantial
and relevant to prioritising intervention to
control
air
pollution.
The
results
in this
study could be used in several aspects of public
policy
as
discussed in the thesis.
These results were presented to decision-makers in the
government and
the
responses summarised.


Critical incidents are environments that can be characterised by complexity, high-stakes, ambiguity, time-urgency and uncertainty, and often involve a multi-agency response (e.g. Fire and Rescue, Police, and the Military); for example, in terror attacks (e.g. Manchester bombings, London Bridge), fire disasters (e.g. California wildfires, Grenfell Towers), and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. In this respect, critical incidents are distinctive, dynamic events in which multi-agency systems lack the situational awareness and operational experience to make effective strategic and tactical decisions. Whilst research has begun to understand and explore decision-making in complex environments, there is limited research that focuses on understanding the processes used to coordinate effective responses in situ within critical incident environments; specifically, critical incident decision-making. This review sought to (i) identify relevant studies, (ii) critically appraise concepts that relate to the central theme of critical incident decision-making in-situ, and (iii) examine the barriers that compound effective strategic and tactical decision-making. The research identified numerous factors that affect the decision-making process (e.g. political agendas, disparity between operational objectives, and intra-and-inter agency collaboration). Additionally, several theoretical and applied decision-making frameworks were identified (e.g. Joint Decision Model; JESIP), that to date, have not factored in how complex, high-stake multi-agency decisions are made under conditions of uncertainty and time-urgency. This presentation will discuss the theoretical implications across security, defence, and law enforcement contexts and present pathways for future research.


The paper deals with the problem of test frequency selection for multi-frequency parametric fault diagnosis of analog linear circuits. An appropriate set of test frequencies is determined by minimizing the conditionality of the sensitivity matrix based on the system of fault equations using a global stochastic optimization. A novel method based on the Particle Swarm Optimization, which provides more accurate results and improves the convergence rate, is described. The paper provides several practical examples of its application to test frequency selection for active RC filters. A comparison of the results obtained by the proposed method and by the Genetic Algorithm is also presented.


One of the cornerstones of the science of economics in its post-marginalist-revolution period is the realization that the necessity of 'economizing' – i.e., maximizing individual desire satisfaction whilst minimizing the exploitation of productive resources – stems from the fact that the said resources are not sufficient to satisfy all of the desires entertained by the totality of purposive agents. In this essay I suggest that in order to paint an accurate picture of human psychology, the desires in question should be thought of as unsatisfiable rather than unlimited. Furthermore, I propose that this observation provides yet another avenue for making a cogent analytical distinction between Hayek's "knowledge problem" and Mises' "calculation problem", i.e., it allows for further elucidating the nuanced differences between these two authors' views on the efficiency (or lack thereof) of centrally planned economies, thus making a contribution to what has become known as the "dehomogenization debate" within the Austrian School.


The aim of the workshop is to co-create different types of collaborative elements, models and strategies for inclusion in schools and for learning in other settings. Participants from a variety of organizations are invited: game designers; drama, history, and social science teachers; principals; school developers; writers; theater professionals'; and researchers in interaction, design and digital literacy. Our ambition is to share place-bounded experiences and ideas among various competence groups focusing on design for inclusion. All schools and all settings have their own possibilities and challenges. These possibilities and challenges need to be addressed in a game design that builds upon students' interaction with society, other students and different digital technologies. The expected results from the workshops will include heightened sensitivity to the need for cross-competence collaboration in design processes to support student-driven content creation with digital media.


Cloud data centers host diverse applications, mixing workloads that require small predictable latency with others requiring large sustained throughput. In this environment, today's state-of-the-art TCP protocol falls short. We present measurements of a 6000 server production cluster and reveal impairments that lead to high application latencies, rooted in TCP's demands on the limited buffer space available in data center switches. For example, bandwidth hungry "background" flows build up queues at the switches, and thus impact the performance of latency sensitive "foreground" traffic.
 To address these problems, we propose DCTCP, a TCP-like protocol for data center networks. DCTCP leverages Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) in the network to provide multi-bit feedback to the end hosts. We evaluate DCTCP at 1 and 10Gbps speeds using commodity, shallow buffered switches. We find DCTCP delivers the same or better throughput than TCP, while using 90% less buffer space. Unlike TCP, DCTCP also provides high burst tolerance and low latency for short flows. In handling workloads derived from operational measurements, we found DCTCP enables the applications to handle 10X the current background traffic, without impacting foreground traffic. Further, a 10X increase in foreground traffic does not cause any timeouts, thus largely eliminating incast problems.


Making concrete structure without compaction has been done in the past. Like placement of concrete underwater by the use of termie without compaction. Inaccessible areas were concreted using such techniques. The production of such mixes often used expensive admixtures and very large quantity of cement. But such concrete was generally of lower strength and difficult to obtain. This lead to the development of Self Compacting Concrete (SCC) The workability properties of SCC such as filling ability, passing ability and segregation resistance are evaluated using workability tests such as slump flow, Vfunnel and L-Box tests. KeywordsSelf Compacting Concrete, flowability, passing ability, resistance to segregation, fly ash, superplasticizer.


This study aimed to assess the impact of interacting with two infotainment systems, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, on four driver performance measures: reaction time, driving behaviour, eyes-off road and self-reported performance. It also compared the results with other forms of driver impairment studied previously. Twenty regular Android users took part in the Android Auto trial and 20 regular Apple users took part in the Apple CarPlay trial. Each participant completed three 20 minute drives in TRL's DigiCar simulator: control (no interaction with infotainment system), voice enabled and touch enabled. The route was divided into sections and participants performed music, navigation, texting and calling tasks at specific times during the drive. Compared with the control drive, participants in both trials showed a reduction in average speed, increase in deviation of headway and larger deviation of lane position for most tasks; this effect was greater when using touch features than voice features. Eye gaze measures indicated that participants did not meet the NHTSA criteria for most of the tasks when using touch controls for both systems, but they met the criteria when using voice control. Self-reported data suggested that participants found interacting through touch to be more difficult and distracting than voice. Most critically, reaction time to a stimulus on the road ahead was significantly higher when selecting music through Spotify when using Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Participants also failed to react more to the stimulus on the road ahead when engaging with either Android Auto or Apple CarPlay compared with a control drive. Comparison with previous driver impairment studies showed that the increase in reaction time when interacting with either system using touch was higher than previously measured forms of impairment, including texting and hand-held calls.


Abstract. Timely and accurate change detection of Earth's surface features is extremely important for understanding relationships and interactions between human and natural phenomena to promote better decision making. The bi-temporal hyperspectral imagery has a high potential for the detection of surface changes. However, the extraction of changes from bi-temporal hyperspectral imagery due to special content of data, and environment conditions (atmospheric condition), change into challenging task. To this end, this research proposed a change detection framework based on deep learning using bi-temporal hyperspectral imagery. The proposed framework is applied in two main steps: (1) predict phase that the change areas highlighted from no-change areas using image differencing algorithm (ID), (2) decision phase that it decides for detecting change pixels based on 3D convolution neural network (CNN). The efficiency of the presented method is evaluated using Hyperion multi-temporal hyperspectral imagery. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, two bi-temporal hyperspectral Hyperion with a variety of land cover classes were used. The results show that the proposed method has high accuracy and low false alarms rate: overall accuracy is more than 95%, and the kappa coefficient is greater than 0.9 and the miss-detection is lower than 10% and the false rate is lower than 4%.


It is difficult to imagine two fields of scholarly inquiry with so much in common and yet so little interaction as diplomatic and policy history. Policy, policy process, policymakers, policy origins, policy intentions, policy consequences—those terms and ones of a similar stripe roll just as easily off the tongues and word processors of diplomatic historians as of self-described policy historians. Moreover, the questions asked and the methods employed by the two groups of scholars bear a striking resemblance. Both fields focus perforce on the state and state-centered actors, concern themselves with elite-level decision making, interrogate fundamental issues of power within societies, and concentrate overwhelmingly on the twentieth century to the relative neglect of earlier periods. Each field occupies as well an embattled position within the larger historical profession, where social and cultural history have predominated since the 1960s.


Objective: This study was designed to define the differences between Stage IIIB cervical cancer patients with and without renal impairment (RI), particularly with regard to the pathology results, laboratory values, therapies, and prognoses, in order to justify the need for separate classifications for these two different patient types. Materials and Methods: A retrospective cohort technique was used to evaluate consecutive Stage IIIB cervical cancer patients from July 2010 to July 2015. The data collected included the age, parity, cancer cell type, pelvic wall involvement, hydronephrosis degree and bilateral involvement, laboratory values (urea, potassium, and creatinine), treatment modalities, 3-month postradiation treatment response, hospital stay duration, and 1-year survival rate. Results: The study patients included 102 Stage IIIB cervical cancer patients with RI and 204 individuals without RI. The results showed significant differences between individuals with and without bilateral pelvic wall involvement (100% vs. 68.1%, respectively), hydronephrosis degree (severe hydronephrosis incidences: 69% vs. 3.9%, respectively), bilateral hydronephrosis (96.5% vs. 6.9%, respectively), median urea level (148 vs. 22 mg/dl, respectively), median creatinine level (8.0 vs. 0.8 mg/dl, respectively), and median potassium level (5.8 vs. 3.9 mEq/L, respectively). The hazard ratio was 3.07 for the survival analysis. Conclusion: Cervical cancer patients with RI are faced with worst prognosis, and their treatment modalities are limited due to their renal comorbidities, resulting in lesser type of therapy modalities (such as chemotherapy procedure prohibition), longer hospital stays, and a lower survival rate. Therefore, a new classification for cervical cancer patients with kidney impairment, named Stage IIIB-plus, should be considered.


We present computational analysis of flow-driven string dynamics in a pump and the related residence time calculation. The objective in the study is to understand how the strings carried by a fluid interact with the pump surfaces, including the blades, and get stuck on or around those surfaces. The residence time calculations help us to have a simplified but quick understanding of the string behavior. The core computational method is the Space–Time Variational Multiscale (ST-VMS) method, and the other key methods are the ST Isogeometric Analysis (ST-IGA), ST Slip Interface (ST-SI) method, ST/NURBS Mesh Update Method (STNMUM), a general-purpose NURBS mesh generation method for complex geometries, and a one-way-dependence model for the string dynamics. The ST-IGA with NURBS basis functions in space is used in both fluid mechanics and string structural dynamics. The ST framework provides higher-order accuracy. The VMS feature of the ST-VMS addresses the computational challenges associated with the turbulent nature of the unsteady flow, and the moving-mesh feature of the ST framework enables high-resolution computation near the rotor surface. The ST-SI enables moving-mesh computation of the spinning rotor. The mesh covering the rotor spins with it, and the SI between the spinning mesh and the rest of the mesh accurately connects the two sides of the solution. The ST-IGA enables more accurate representation of the pump geometry and increased accuracy in the flow solution. The IGA discretization also enables increased accuracy in the structural dynamics solution, as well as smoothness in the string shape and fluid dynamics forces computed on the string. The STNMUM enables exact representation of the mesh rotation. The general-purpose NURBS mesh generation method makes it easier to deal with the complex geometry. With the one-way-dependence model, we compute the influence of the flow on the string dynamics, while avoiding the formidable task of computing the influence of the string on the flow, which we expect to be small.


We simulate whistler mode waves using a hybrid code. There are four species in the simulations, hot electrons initialized with a bi‐Maxwellian distribution with temperature in the direction perpendicular to background magnetic field greater than that in the parallel direction, warm isotropic electrons, cold inertialess fluid electrons, and protons as an immobile background. The density of the hot population is a small fraction of the total plasma density. Comparison between the dispersion relation of our model and other dispersion relations shows that our model is more accurate for lower frequency whistlers than for higher frequency whistlers. Simulations in 2‐D Cartesian coordinates agree very well with those using a full dynamics code. In the 1‐D simulations along the dipole magnetic field, the predicted frequency and wave number are observed. Rising tones are observed in the one‐fourteenth scale simulations that have larger than realistic magnetic field spatial inhomogeneity. However, in the full‐scale 1‐D simulation in a dipole field, the waves are more broadband and do not exhibit rising tones. In the 2‐D simulations in a meridional plane, the waves are generated with propagation approximately parallel to the background magnetic field. However, the wavefronts become oblique as they propagate to higher latitudes. Simulations with different plasma density profiles across L shell are performed to study the effect of the background density on whistler propagation.


Vegetation optical depth (VOD) retrievals from three satellite‐based passive microwave instruments were merged to produce the first long‐term global microwave‐based vegetation product. The resulting VOD product spans more than two decades and shows seasonal cycles and inter‐annual variations that generally correspond with those observed in the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Some notable differences exist in the long‐term trends: the NDVI, operating in the optical regime, is sensitive to chlorophyll abundance and photosynthetically active biomass of the leaves, whereas the microwave‐based VOD is an indicator of the vegetation water content in total above‐ground biomass, i.e., including wood and leaf components. Preliminary analyses indicate that the fluctuations in VOD typically correlated to precipitation variations, and that the mutually independent VOD and NDVI do not necessarily respond in identical manners. Considering both products together provides a more robust structural characterization and assessment of long‐term vegetation dynamics at the global scale.


TaON is a good photoanode material with a suitable band structure for water splitting as well as coupling with TiO2 for efficient charge separation. However, the synthesis of TaON that requires high temperature nitridation (850 °C) limits the combination with other materials. In this work, we deposited a thin amorphous TaOxNy layer on N-doped TiO2 nanotubes (N-TNTs) through low temperature nitridation (500 °C) and demonstrated its successful performance as an efficient photoanode for water-splitting. Since the preparation temperature is low, TaOxNy on N-TNTs has a unique amorphous structure with a smooth thin layer (5 nm). It is proposed that the thin amorphous TaOxNy layer plays dual roles: (i) surface sensitization and/or charge rectification at the heterojunction between the TaOxNy layer and N-TNTs, and (ii) passivation of N-TNT surface trap states to retard the charge recombination. TaOxNy layer-decorated N-TNTs as dual modified TNTs (N-doping in the bulk and TaOxNy overlayer deposition on the surface) have significantly improved both visible (ca. 3.6 times) and UV (ca. 1.8 times) activities for PEC water-splitting as well as the faradaic efficiency (ca. 1.4 times, η = 98%) for H2 production. Making the amorphous TaOxNy layer crystalline at higher temperatures reduced the PEC activity of the hybrid photoanode, in contrast, which indicates that the amorphous TaOxNy layer deposition on N-TNTs through low temperature nitridation (500 °C) is optimized for the PEC activity. A range of spectroscopic and electrochemical techniques were systematically employed to investigate the properties of the PEC process.


Abstract. Models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) show substantial biases in the deep ocean that are larger than the level of natural variability and the response to enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations. Here, we analyze the influence of horizontal resolution in a hierarchy of five multi-resolution simulations with the AWI Climate Model (AWI-CM), the climate model used at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, which employs a sea ice–ocean model component formulated on unstructured meshes. The ocean grid sizes considered range from a nominal resolution of ∼1∘ (CMIP5 type) up to locally eddy resolving. We show that increasing ocean resolution locally to resolve ocean eddies leads to reductions in deep ocean biases, although these improvements are not strictly monotonic for the five different ocean grids. A detailed diagnosis of the simulations allows to identify the origins of the biases. We find that two key regions at the surface are responsible for the development of the deep bias in the Atlantic Ocean: the northeastern North Atlantic and the region adjacent to the Strait of Gibraltar. Furthermore, the Southern Ocean density structure is equally improved with locally explicitly resolved eddies compared to parameterized eddies. Part of the bias reduction can be traced back towards improved surface biases over outcropping regions, which are in contact with deeper ocean layers along isopycnal surfaces. Our prototype simulations provide guidance for the optimal choice of ocean grids for AWI-CM to be used in the final runs for phase 6 of CMIP (CMIP6) and for the related flagship simulations in the High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP). Quite remarkably, retaining resolution only in areas of high eddy activity along with excellent scalability characteristics of the unstructured-mesh sea ice–ocean model enables us to perform the multi-centennial climate simulations needed in a CMIP context at (locally) eddy-resolving resolution with a throughput of 5–6 simulated years per day.