In recent years, social innovation has become an increasingly prominent concept employed by political leaders and administrations across Europe. It has been posited as a solution to both old and new social risks at a time of heightened uncertainty and pressure on public administrations and finances (Bonoli, 2005; OECD, 2011; Sinclair and Baglioni, 2014). There is broad recognition that,
growing interest in social innovation is intimately linked to the Great Recession, structural unemployment and the social challenges arising as a result (European Commission., 2014). In political and policy rhetoric, the European Union repeatedly cites social innovation as a solution to the persistence of socio-economic, environmental and demographic challenges. These challenges are placing increasing pressure on Europe's systems of welfare, health, education and care
provision. Budgetary constraints and increased demand on public services has fuelled the desire to capitalise on social innovation so that public and private institutions are able to do and achieve more with less (TEPSIE, 2014). Not only is social innovation understood as a means to achieve an
end in this regard, it is also recognised as an end in itself.

Social innovation has been cited by the European Commission as 'another way to produce value, with less focus on financial profit and more on real demands or needs… for reconsidering production and redistribution systems' (European Commission., 2014: 8).

The European Commission defines social innovation as:
the development and implementation of new ideas (products, services and models) to meet social needs and create new social relationships or collaborations. It represents
new responses to pressing social demands, which affect the process of social interactions. It is aimed at improving human wellbeing. Social innovations are innovations that are social in both their ends and their means. They are innovations
that are not only good for society but also enhance individuals' capacity to act. (European Commission., 2013a: 6)

Work Package 6 of the Creating Economic Space for Social Innovation (CRESSI) research programme examines how this definition (or perhaps ideal) is translated and realised in the EU and domestic policymaking process. Whilst this research
pays some attention to definitional issues of social innovation and the implications of conceptualising social innovation in a particular way, the principle objective of the EU social
innovation policy survey is to identify and review 'social innovation in the context of European policymaking' (Borzaga and Bodini, 2014: 412). As such, the range of ways in which social innovation has been conceptualised and translated into European public policy have been considered at the Pan-European and domestic level.


Abstract. We computed high-resolution (1o latitude x  1o longitude) seasonal and annual nitrous oxide (N2O) concentration fields for the Arabian Sea surface layer using a database containing more than 2400 values measured between December 1977 and July 1997. N2O concentrations are highest during the southwest (SW) monsoon along the southern Indian continental shelf. Annual emissions range from 0.33 to 0.70 Tg N2O and are dominated by fluxes from coastal regions during the SW and northeast monsoons. Our revised estimate for the annual N2O flux from the Arabian Sea is much more tightly constrained than the previous consensus derived using averaged in-situ data from a smaller number of studies. However, the tendency to focus on measurements in locally restricted features in combination with insufficient seasonal data coverage leads to considerable uncertainties of the concentration fields and thus in the flux estimates, especially in the coastal zones of the northern and eastern Arabian Sea. The overall mean relative error of the annual N2O emissions from the Arabian Sea was estimated to be at least 65%.


Aim: The aim of the trial was to measure the effect of apple cider vinegar on glycemic control and biochemical parameters in type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) patients with poor glycemic control. Methods: A single-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial was conducted on 110 eligible types 2 DM patients who were selected and allocated into 2 groups. The interventional group was given 15 ml apple cider vinegar in 200 ml water during dinner for 3 months while the other group was placebo. Before and after HbA1C (glycosylated hemoglobin), fasting lipid profile, fasting blood sugar, anthropometrics, and dietary changes were assessed and analyzed using IBM SPSS version 20, through statistical tests. Formal ethical approval was obtained from the local institutional review board. Results: Significant mean change was found in interventional group in HbA1c (p<0.001), blood sugar fasting (p<0.001), total cholesterol (p=0.002), triglyceride (p=0.002) and hip-waist ratio (p=0.002). No significant change was observed in the mean of these statistics in the placebo group. No significant change was observed in height, weight, mid-upper arm ratio, and low density lipoprotein, high density lipoprotein and food frequency in intervention and placebo groups before and after. Conclusion: Apple cider vinegar if used regularly is effective in controlling diabetes, lowering hypercholesterolemia and hypertriglyceridemia in DM type 2 patients.


As a result of a Federal Constitutional Court decision on coercive treatment, in its state Law the federal state of Hesse has newly regulated the possibility of coercive treatment (Section 7 Paragraph 2 of the Hesse Law on the Enforcement of Court-ordered Hospital Treatment) and expressly incorporated the observance of a patient's advance directive as defined by Sections 1901a and 1901b of the German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch [BGB]). Having been sentenced to hospital order treatment under section 63 of the German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch [StGB]), in the Vitos Haina Forensic Psychiatric Hospital thirteen patients with schizophrenia stated in a patient's advance directive that they wished to be treated with certain antipsychotic medication in case of a recurring psychotic episode. In particular, the patient's advance directive stated that this treatment should be compulsory if necessary. Based on a case vignette this article delineates both the motivation of the patients for such a patient's advance directive as well as the legal limitations and the enforceability of such a patient's advance directive. There is no prevailing view in the jurisdiction or literature on the utilization of a patient's advance directive to guarantee an explicitly desired treatment in case of incapacity for consent. This article wishes to highlight the perspectives of those directly affected and to encourage discussion. Being of special interest for forensic psychiatry, these considerations may also be of importance for treatment considerations in general psychiatry.


Objective: The present training study aimed to examine the fine-scale behavioral and neural correlates of phonetic learning in adult postlingually deafened cochlear implant (CI) listeners. The study investigated whether high variability identification training improved phonetic categorization of the /ba/–/da/ and /wa/–/ja/ speech contrasts and whether any training-related improvements in phonetic perception were correlated with neural markers associated with phonetic learning. It was hypothesized that training would sharpen phonetic boundaries for the speech contrasts and that changes in behavioral sensitivity would be associated with enhanced mismatch negativity (MMN) responses to stimuli that cross a phonetic boundary relative to MMN responses evoked using stimuli from the same phonetic category. Design: A computer-based training program was developed that featured multitalker variability and adaptive listening. The program was designed to help CI listeners attend to the important second formant transition cue that categorizes the /ba/–/da/ and /wa/–/ja/ contrasts. Nine adult CI listeners completed the training and 4 additional CI listeners that did not undergo training were included to assess effects of procedural learning. Behavioral pre-post tests consisted of identification and discrimination of the synthetic /ba/–/da/ and /wa/–/ja/ speech continua. The electrophysiologic MMN response elicited by an across phoneme category pair and a within phoneme category pair that differed by an acoustically equivalent amount was derived at pre-post test intervals for each speech contrast as well. Results: Training significantly enhanced behavioral sensitivity across the phonetic boundary and significantly altered labeling of the stimuli along the /ba/–/da/ continuum. While training only slightly altered identification and discrimination of the /wa/–/ja/ continuum, trained CI listeners categorized the /wa/–/ja/ contrast more efficiently than the /ba/–/da/ contrast across pre-post test sessions. Consistent with behavioral results, pre-post EEG measures showed the MMN amplitude to the across phoneme category pair significantly increased with training for both the /ba/–/da/ and /wa/–/ja/ contrasts, but the MMN was unchanged with training for the corresponding within phoneme category pairs. Significant brain–behavior correlations were observed between changes in the MMN amplitude evoked by across category phoneme stimuli and changes in the slope of identification functions for the trained listeners for both speech contrasts. Conclusions: The brain and behavior data of the present study provide evidence that substantial neural plasticity for phonetic learning in adult postlingually deafened CI listeners can be induced by high variability identification training. These findings have potential clinical implications related to the aural rehabilitation process following receipt of a CI device.


During the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008, the financial press attracted criticism for its coverage: specifically that it did not provide any forewarnings to the general public; that it lacked sufficient scepticism when reporting on financial and economic trends; and that reporters were too close to the sources they used for information. This paper argues the GFC represents only the latest manifestation of dissatisfaction with the financial press, with similar concerns being raised in previous financial crises such as the recession of the late 1990s and the Dot Com boom in 2000. The paper presents the results of a longitudinal tri-nation quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the reportage in three mainstream newspapers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia across three decades, along with industry insights provided by interviews with reporters in each of the countries studied. The interviews and empirical evidence indicate there has been a decline in mainstream financial journalism standards since the 1980s, as the media have faced increasing institutional, ideological, and industrial pressures.


In relation to thinking-for-speaking, research has focused on the spatial domain, in particular Satelliteand Verbframed languages (e.g. Slobin 1996, 2003, 2004), however, much less attention has focused on the temporal domain. In the temporal domain two distinct language typologies have been identified, based on whether languages have grammatical marking of both poles of the imperfective-perfective aspectual contrast or not (Berman & Slobin 1994). In Spanish, Turkish and English which have distinct grammatical or obligatory marking of the imperfective-perfective aspectual contrast, narrators tend to make use of these options to encode overlapping events depicted in Pictures 2 and 12 of the frog story picture book. In contrast, in German and Hebrew, which lack this aspectual contrast, but instead have the option to mark this aspectual distinction through other more indirect linguistic means, narrators tend not to distinguish the temporal contours of the overlapping temporal events depicted. In addition, German and Hebrew narrators do not tend to "compensate" using other devices, such as temporal connectives or adverbials. Hence, there appear to be differences in what temporal experiences are encoded by speakers from these two language typologies. Thai offers an interesting comparison as it has a rich aspectual system including the imperfectiveperfective contrast, but aspectual marking is not obligatory (Koenig & Muansuwan, in press). Data will be presented on how Thai in comparison to English children and adults express temporal relations. Instead of a picture book, short animations depicting varying degrees of overlap between two actions were used to elicit spoken language from ten Thai and ten English speaking children from each of the following age groups; 4 years, 5 years, 6 years and 7 years and a comparison adult group. The animations are for example of 'a person painting a wall and a monkey painting on a piece of paper', or in another animation 'a girl is talking on the phone and a baby crawls into the room and plays with a ball then exits' (see pictures below). The different patterns and linguistic devices that children use at different ages to express these temporal relations will be compared and contrasted in these two typologically distinct languages. This forms part of a larger cross-linguistic study.


This study was aimed at investigating smoking and causes of cigarette smoking among college students of Warsak Road Peshawar. The sample consisted of forty (N=40) students of Warsak Model School and College and Peshawar Public School and College. Average age of the students was 18.7. Among the 100 students, 40 were smokers while 60 were non-smokers. Convenient sampling technique was used for selection of the sample. Structured survey questionnaire was used for data collection. The objectives of the study were To provide an initial estimate on the frequency of cigarette smoking among students of college level on Warsak road Peshawar and explore causes of smoking in these students. Cross-sectional study design was used. The study was a small scale one due to limited financial resources and a short time frame. Students were busy in their annual exams and thus could not fully co-operate. The results revealed the main reasons for smoking were fashion and style, tension due to studies and family problems. Twenty-five (n=25) out of forty (n=40) students smoke more than 2 cigarettes per day. Out of forty (N=40) smoker students twenty-four (n=24) were introduced to smoking by their friends, 10 students by class-fellows, three (n=3) by relatives, one(n=1) by parents, two (n=2) by other people. 54 out of 60 non-smokers agreed that smoking is a bad habit. Cigarette smoking is very common among college students. Further in depth research is recommended to assess the frequency of smoking on a larger scale. Health education and awareness should be promoted in young adults in order to decrease the frequency of smoking.


Painting as a Foreign Language was a group exhibition of twenty-three British artists curated by Professor
Gerard Hemsworth that formed part of the 25th Sao Paulo Biennial, 2002. The aim of the exhibition was to
highlight the resurgence of painting as a vital practice in the British art environment.

A fully illustrated catalogue published by Editora Cultural Inglesa (ISBN 8588116073) accompanied the
exhibition, and included an essay by Suhail Mallik.

Related Artists: Alain Miller - Bob and Roberta Smith - Brad Lochore - Clare Woods - Claudia Marchetti -
Daniel Sturgis - David Thorpe - DJ Simpson - Glenn Brown - Jane Harris - John Chilver - Kathleen
Mullaniff - Liz Arnold - Machiko Edmondson - Mark Wallinger - Michael Raedecker - Michael Stubbs - Paul
Morrison - Perry Roberts - Peter Davies - Richard Kirwan - Simon Linke - Sybille Berger

Mullaniff contributed
The Storyteller, a large-scale (18 foot) painting comprising seven wood and gesso panels inscribed with
painted and drawn motifs.
'For the form and content of The Storyteller, Mullaniff drew on her archival research into the home as a place
laden with memory and cultural identity, which are reflected in domestic memorabilia and decorative
artefacts. Mullaniff has explored these issues through paintings that encompass the use of printed fabric,
photographic imagery and floral illustrations, reconfiguring past design motifs and their cultural connotations
into a contemporary context. In The Storyteller, Mullaniff repeated and cropped a basic rose motif across the
surface such that the colour appeared to fade where it was absorbed into the gesso surface. The motif was
derived from Mullaniff's research into the book of prints, Les Roses, by Pierre-Joseph Redoute, a French artist
of the late 18th/ early 19th century, complemented by investigations into the patterns used for textiles,
Version 3 – updated 20.11.03 7 of 4
wallpaper and lace ornamentation dating from 1830 to 1900.'


Low catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) activity (less than 8 units per milliliter) in the human erythrocyte is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait (COMTL). The average half-life of COMT in erythrocyte lysates incubated at 48 degrees C was significantly shorter in lysates from three subjects with low enzyme activity than in lysates from three subjects with high enzyme activity (12.5 +/- 0.9 minutes compared with 21.2 +/- 1.4 minutes, P less than .01). When the ratios of COMT activities in lysates heated at 48 degrees C for 15 minutes to enzyme activities in unheated samples were used as a measure of enzyme thermostability in blood samples from 316 randomly selected subjects, the ratios were significantly less for subjects with low enzyme activity than for subjects with higher enzyme activity. The presense of thermolabile COMT in blood of individuals homozygous for COMTL raises the possibility that the locus COMT may represent the structural gene for the human enzyme.


Research into nitric oxide (NO) in the inner ear has expanded explosively during recent years. There is evidence that NO is present in the various cochlear structures and its action is involved in physiological mechanisms, such as neurotransmission, and in pathological processes, e.g. ototoxicity. In order to obtain more data, sections of human cochlea were studied with immunostaining, using monoclonal antibodies to nitric oxide synthase (NOS) isoforms. Both constitutive NOS isoforms (I and III) were detected, but the predominant isoform was the neural type NOS I. Greatest affinity for NOS I was located in spiral ganglion (SG) cells and adjacent nerve fibres. The results imply that NO in the human cochlea could act as neurotransmitter. In the human inner ear, it has also been identified nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (n-ACh-r) by studying localization and distribution of α and β subunits. Both subunits were identified on SG cells, adjacent nerve fibres and in vestibular hair cells. It would appear that the subunits form an active complex at the level of these structures. Differences in the staining of β subunits at the level of the outer hair cells (OHC) suggest that different rows of OHCs could participate to different degrees in the function of n-ACh-r of the cochlea. The animal experiments were been designed to obtain information about NO involvement in the pathological mechanism of hearing impairment and to study the protection afforded by various drugs against damage to the inner ear associated with NO. The results of our investigations have demonstrated that NO produced by cNOS may mediate neurotoxicity in the inner ear early in the pathological process, whereas NO from inducible NOS may contribute by its cytotoxicity to the late phase of tissue damage in the inner ear. Analyses of the pharmacological effects of different drugs have shown that inhibitors of NO production and glutamate overproduction, as well as reactive oxygen species scavengers, could effectively protect the inner ear from injury caused by various pathological agents.


To examine the open access availability of Library and Information Science (LIS) research, a study was conducted using Google Scholar to search for articles from 20 top LIS journals. The study examined whether Google Scholar was able to find any links to full text, if open access versions of the articles were available and where these articles were being hosted. The results showed that the archiving of articles is not a regular practice in the field; articles are not being deposited in institutional or subject repositories at a high rate; and, overall, the percentage of available open access articles in LIS was similar to the findings in previous studies. In addition, the study found that Google Scholar is an effective tool for finding known LIS articles.


Purpose: The study sought to test the effect of financial technology on money demand in selected African states. The study drew from the fact that there is significant latent demand for digital payments in many markets of sub-Saharan Africa, and widespread consumer acceptance of mobile-communications technology is highly encouraging. The study sought to examine the effect of technology, among other things, on money demand. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study used panel data and a GMM panel technique to analyse the study's findings. Findings: Results showed that all variables that captured financial technology have a negative effect with money demand (MD). Both Mobile Subscriptions (MS) and ATM (Automated Teller Machines) have a negative relationship with money demand (MD). Practical implications: Based on the results obtained in this study, the study recommended that Central Banks need to monitor and predict the consequences of financial innovations. As African states proceed with reforms of its financial sector, the stability of the demand for money would have to be reexamined and instruments of the Central Bank modified to ensure an effective control of money demand. Originality/Value: A little has been done on the effect of technological developments on money demand in Africa. An understanding of the way technological developments may positively or negatively impact on money demand may guide Central banks in adopting and implementing appropriate monetary policies and actions.


In the past 10 years, China has grown its higher education sector into the largest in the world. At the same time, growing international integration of Chinese institutions means increasing cross-fertilization of ideas across national borders. While the literature on these developments has focused largely on their economic implications, this study asks what they mean politically. In light of current questions regarding political debate and reform in the Chinese Communist Party, this paper suggests new higher education policies may have important unintended consequences for the future of Chinese political development. As Chinese political leaders continue to reform and adapt policies to strengthen CCP legitimacy, they hope elite universities will train a new generation of leaders and advise current decision-making through think tanks and research centers. Once they train people to think critically and independently, however how long can the CCP expect to retain control over the direction of that thinking? Higher education is an uncertain variable. Based on the massive expansion of China's higher education system, this study suggests it could hold potential for farreaching unintended consequences.


This article is based on the associated linearity of magnetic flux leakage signal eigenvalues and detection status information, proposing a methodology that applies multiple magnetic flux leakage signal eigenvalues to evaluate defects and goes a step further in conforming the limitation of the traditional evaluation system, which merely uses signal peak values. In response to the situation that magnetic flux leakage testing signal peak values have been applied as the main parameters to evaluate defects and carry out various related research, we find that the single magnetic flux leakage testing signal peak values cannot exactly represent the leakage magnetic field and reflect the information of the defects. So we attempt to come up with a new way of defects evaluation to better and more accurately evaluate defects. By means of simulation analysis in simulation software ANSYS and experimental verification, the linear relationships between multiple magnetic flux leakage signal eigenvalues and defect parameters through which we can exactly evaluate the defects are obtained, respectively. Finally, the validity of this evaluation system is firmly demonstrated by a practical defect.


Intelligent agents are continuously faced with the challenge of optimizing a policy based on what they can observe (see) and which actions they can take (do) in the environment where they are deployed. Most policies can be parametrized in terms of these two dimensions, i.e., as a function of what can be seen and done given a certain situation, which we call a mixed policy. In this paper, we investigate several properties of the class of mixed policies and provide an efficient and effective characterization, including optimality and non-redundancy. Specifically, we introduce a graphical criterion to identify unnecessary contexts for a set of actions, leading to a natural characterization of non-redundancy of mixed policies. We then derive sufficient conditions under which one strategy can dominate the other with respect to their maximum achievable expected rewards (optimality). This characterization leads to a fundamental understanding of the space of mixed policies and a possible refinement of the agent's strategy so that it converges to the optimum faster and more robustly. One surprising result of the causal characterization is that the agent following a more standard approach—intervening on all intervenable variables and observing all available contexts—may be hurting itself, and will never achieve an optimal performance.


A study was conducted for comparative analysis of demographic, production economics and determinants of potato production between Kakani rural municipality and Bidur municipality of Nuwakot district. Altogether 120 potato producers, 56 from Kakani and 64 from Bidur were randomly selected. Pretested semi-structured questionnaire was administered to randomly selected farmers. Potato growers were interviewed using face to face interview method in the month of October 2018. All the data were entered into SPSS and Microsoft excel and analysis was done by using Microsoft excel, STATA and SPSS. Average productivity in the research area was 14.69 ton per hectare. Average cost of production and profit was Rs 8614.61 per ropani and Rs 6083 per ropani respectively. B/C ratio in the research area was 1.71. 10% increase in organic manure (FYM and poultry manure), pesticide and tuber resulted in 1.88%, 1.99% and 0.05% increase in income respectively. 10% increase in labor and chemical fertilizer resulted into 0.1% and 0.5% decrease in output. Labor and chemical fertilizer was over utilized resource for potato production. The probability of cultivation of potato in large scale was found to be 56.92% higher for those with access to extensive service and 47.89% higher for those who have received training.  Most of the farmers don not use improved seed thus distributing improved seed, providing training and extension services help to increase profit of potato production in Nuwakot district. 100% increase in all the factor of production would result in 32.39% increase in potato production.
Int. J. Appl. Sci. Biotechnol. Vol 7(1): 62-68


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Background: Vancomycin is commonly used to treat acute cystic fibrosis (CF) exacerbations associated with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Multiple studies have demonstrated pharmacokinetic differences of antimicrobials in the CF population. Very little data exist regarding pharmacokinetics postlung transplant, but 2 studies have noted changes in tobramycin pharmacokinetics. No such studies exist evaluating vancomycin in CF patients postlung transplant. Methods: A retrospective cohort review of CF patients who underwent lung transplantation and received vancomycin pre- and posttransplant was conducted. CF patients who underwent transplant between 2007 and 2016 at 4 medical centers throughout the United States were included. The primary endpoint was the change in elimination rate constant. The secondary endpoints were subgroup analyses of patients grouped by age, time posttransplant, and number of nephrotoxic medications. Results: A total of 25 patients were included, of which just under half were pediatric. Patients were significantly older and heavier posttransplant and had higher serum creatinine and number of nephrotoxic medications. The change in elimination rate constant from pre- to posttransplant was −0.50 hr−1 which was statistically significant (P < .001). This significant decrease was consistent among all subgroups of patients evaluated with the exception of pediatric patients. Conclusion: Vancomycin pharmacokinetics are significantly altered in CF patients in the posttransplant setting as evidenced by a decrease in elimination rate constant. This decrease may be related to a decrease in renal clearance and higher numbers of nephrotoxic medications posttransplant. Regardless, pretransplant vancomycin regimens may not predict appropriate posttransplant regimens.


In the span of a year, COVID-19 would affect every corner of the globe. During this period, governments were confronted with difficult choices about how to respond to the evolving pandemic. In rapid succession, states imposed lockdown measures that ran headlong into the Constitution. Several states deemed houses of worship as non-essential, and subjected them to stringent attendance requirements. In short order, states restricted the exercise of a constitutional right, but allowed the exercise of preferred economic privileges. And this disparate treatment was premised on a simple line: whether the activity was "essential" or "non-essential." If the activity fell into the former category, the activity could continue. If the activity fell into the latter category, it could be strictly regulated, or even halted immediately. Houses of worship challenged these measures as violations of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. This article provides an early look at how the courts have interpreted the "essential" Free Exercise Clause during the pandemic. This ongoing story can be told in six phases. In Phase 1, during the early days of the pandemic, the courts split about how to assess these measures. And for the first three months of the pandemic, the Supreme Court stayed out of the fray. In Phase 2, the Supreme Court provided its early imprimatur on the pandemic. In South Bay Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, the Court declined to enjoin California's restrictions on religious gatherings. Chief Justice Roberts wrote a very influential concurring opinion that would become a superprecedent. Over the following six months, more than one hundred judges would rely on Roberts's opinion in cases that spanned across the entire spectrum of constitutional and statutory challenges to pandemic policies.In Phase 3, the Roberts Court doubled-down on South Bay. A new challenge from Nevada, Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley Church v. Sisolak, upheld strict limits on houses of worship. Once again, the Court split 5 - 4. Justice Kavanaugh wrote a separate dissent. He treated the Free Exercise of Religion as a "most-favored" right. Under Justice Kavanaugh's approach, the free exercise of religion is presumptively "essential," unless the state can rebut that presumption. South Bay and Calvary Chapel would remain the law of the land through November.Phase 4 began when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was replaced by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The new Roberts Court would turn the tide on COVID-19 cases in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo. Here, a new 5 - 4 majority enjoined New York's "cluster initiatives," which limited houses of worship in so-called "red" zones to ten parishioners at a time. Now, Chief Justice Roberts dissented. Roman Catholic Diocese effectively interred the South Bay superprecedent.Phase 5 arose in the wake of Roman Catholic Diocese. Over the course of five months, the Court consistently ruled in favor of the free exercise of religion. South Bay II and Harvest Rock II enjoined California's prohibitions on indoor worship. And Tandon v. Newsom recognized the right of people to worship privately in their homes. We are now in the midst of Phase 6. States are beginning to recognize that absolute executive authority cannot go unchecked during ongoing health crises. Going forward, states should impose substantive limits on how long emergency orders can last, and establish the power to revoke those orders.The COVID-19 pandemic will hopefully soon draw to a close. But the precedents set during this period will endure.


The 1936 Berlin Olympics brought together athletes, politicians, socialites, journalists, soldiers and artists from all over the world. But behind the scenes, they were a dress rehearsal for the horrors of the forthcoming conflict. Hitler had secretly decided the Games would showcase Nazi prowess and the unwitting athletes became helpless pawns in his sinister political game. Berlin Games explores the machinations of a wide cast of characters, including sexually incontinent Nazis, corrupt Olympic officials, transvestite athletes and the mythic figure of Jesse Owens. By illuminating the dark, controversial recesses of the world's greatest sporting spectacle, Guy Walters throws shocking new light on the whole of Europe's troubled pre-war period.


Over the last thirty years, India has seen a shift from reservoirs to groundwater as the main source of irrigation. Major investments in watershed programmes have reduced soil erosion and runoff, but the unintended result has been that many watercourses are drying up. There is a need for catchment-wide planning that takes into account groundwater abstraction, water harvesting and downstream use of water.


Oceans have played a critical role in shielding Earth from some of the more serious impacts of climate change by absorbing approximately 30 percent of emitted anthropogenic carbon dioxide. However, this has resulted in an approximate 26 percent increase in acidity of oceans since the industrial period. This not only presents the scientific challenge of addressing the problem of ocean acidification and its impacts on ocean marine life, but also presents many legal challenges. This Article will assess if the existing international legal framework provides the necessary foundation to address these legal challenges. Specifically, this Article will analyze whether two key global regimes, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, provide the necessary legal foundation to address ocean acidification. It concludes that while UNCLOS establishes the legal obligation of States to address ocean acidification, it does not by itself provide for the framework for taking the collective action needed for a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. By contrast, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change regime appears to provide a better vehicle for the collective action necessary to mitigate emissions of carbon dioxide causing ocean acidification.


BACKGROUND
Non-cardiac surgical morbidity and mortality is a major global public health burden. Sub-Saharan African perioperative outcome data are scarce. South Africa (SA) faces a unique public health challenge, engulfed as it is by four simultaneous epidemics: (i) poverty-related diseases; (ii) non-communicable diseases; (iii) HIV and related diseases; and (iv) injury and violence. Understanding the effects of these epidemics on perioperative outcomes may provide an important perspective on the surgical health of the country.

OBJECTIVES
To investigate the perioperative mortality and need for critical care admission in patients undergoing inpatient non-cardiac surgery in SA.

METHODS
A 7-day national, multicentre, prospective, observational cohort study of all patients ≥16 years of age undergoing inpatient non-cardiac surgery between 19 and 26 May 2014 at 50 public sector, government-funded hospitals in SA.

RESULTS
The study included 3 927/4 021 eligible patients (97.7%) recruited, with 45/50 hospitals (90.0%) submitting data that described all eligible patients. Crude in-hospital mortality was 123/3 927 (3.1%; 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.6 - 3.7). The rate of postoperative admission to critical care units was 255/3,927 (6.5%; 95% CI 5.7 - 7.3), with 43.5% of admissions being unplanned. Of the surgical procedures 2,120/3,915 (54.2%) were urgent or emergency ones, with a population-attributable risk for mortality of 25.5% (95% CI 5.1 - 55.8) and a risk of admission to critical care of 23.7% (95% CI 4.7 - 51.4).

CONCLUSIONS
Most patients in SA's public sector hospitals undergo urgent and emergency surgery, which is strongly associated with mortality and unplanned critical care admissions. Non-communicable diseases have a larger proportional contribution to mortality than infections and injuries. However, the most common comorbidity, HIV infection, was not associated with in-hospital mortality. The study was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02141867).


edited and with an introduction by Benjamin M. Friedman The connection between price inflation and real economic activity has been a focus of macroeconomic research--and debate--for much of the past century. Although this connection is crucial to our understanding of what monetary policy can and cannot accomplish, opinions about its basic properties have swung widely over the years.Today, virtually everyone studying monetary policy acknowledges that, contrary to what many modern macroeconomic models suggest, central bank actions often affect both inflation and measures of real economic activity, such as output, unemployment, and incomes. But the nature and magnitude of these effects are not yet understood.In this volume, Robert M. Solow and John B. Taylor present their views on the dilemmas facing U.S. monetary policymakers. The discussants are Benjamin M. Friedman, James K. Galbraith, N. Gregory Mankiw, and William Poole. The aim of this lively exchange of views is to make both an intellectual contribution to macroeconmics and a practical contribution to the solution of a public policy question of central importance.


Introduction Methylene blue (MB) is a molecule that has been playing important roles in microbiology and pharmacology for some time. It has been widely used to stain living organisms and to treat methemoglobinemia, and lately it has been considered as a drug for photodynamic therapy. Nowadays, it is used in the treatments of basal cell carcinoma, Kaposi's sarcoma, melanoma, and virus and fungal infections. MB has low toxicity and no adverse effects. Patients and methods This study was conducted in Aswan University on female and male patients. Our study was done on 70 patients, who had an average age of 29.8 years, with minimum of 25 years and maximum of 35 years. Patients were studied preoperatively with complete investigations, a multidisciplinary workup including specialist counseling (internal medicine, psychiatry, and anesthesiology), and complete performance status evaluation. Patients were well informed about the surgical procedure, with all potential advantages and possible complications and adverse effects. Then they were proceeded to laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy and the uses of intraoperative MB to confirm any leaks from the stapler line. Postoperative data regarding fever, tachycardia, vomiting, abdominal pain and distention, abdominal ultrasound for any collection, and complete blood count were recorded. All the above data were collected and analyzed to obtain statistically relevant results. Results Apart from mild abdominal pain and tenderness, and low-grade fever, no collection appeared clinically or by ultrasound examination in all cases. All patients received oral fluids on the third postoperative day, and no vomiting developed. White blood cell count was done for all patients, and they were normal except five patients who developed chest infection with low-grade fever which improved with antibiotic. Before discharging the patients, abdominal ultrasound was done for all, and no collection of fluid appeared. Conclusion Intraoperative MB usage is a safe and effective technique in detecting gastric leak during laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy.


User ratings play a significant role in spoken dialogue systems. Typically, such ratings tend to be averaged across all users and then utilized as feedback to improve the system or personalize its behavior. While this method can be useful to understand broad, general issues with the system and its behavior, it does not take into account differences between users that affect their ratings. In this work, we conduct a study to better understand how people rate their interactions with conversational agents. One macro-level characteristic that has been shown to cor-relate with how people perceive their inter-personal communication is personality [1, 2, 12]. We specifically focus on agreeableness and extraversion as variables that may explain variation in ratings and therefore provide a more meaningful signal for training or personalization. In order to elicit those personality traits during an interaction with a conversational agent, we designed and validated a fictional story, grounded in prior work in psychology. We then implemented the story into an experimental conversational agent that allowed users to opt-in to hearing the story. Our results suggest that for human-conversational agent interactions, extraversion may play a role in user ratings, but more data is needed to determine if the relationship is significant. Agreeableness, on the other hand, plays a statistically significant role in conversation ratings: users who are more agreeable are more likely to provide a higher rating for their interaction. In addition, we found that users who opted to hear the story were, in general, more likely to rate their conversational experience higher than those who did not.


Thesis Submitted To The School Of Humanities And Social Sciences At The United States International University – Africa In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirement For The Award Of Degree Of Master Of Arts In International Relations


A nascent but burgeoning literature examines the importance of non-cognitive skills in determining success across many facets of life. The majority of these papers treat these skills as fixed traits for adults. We estimate the impact of a number of life events on the Big Five personality traits and locus of control. A subset of life events have large impacts on these non-cognitive skills, especially on locus of control. For some events, these impacts persist in the medium-run. We then demonstrate that treating personality traits as fixed can lead to biased estimates of their relationship with socioeconomic outcomes.


The aim of this study was to examine how timing of supplemental lighting and different light combinations affect the vegetative and reproductive responses of petunia (Petunia × hybrida Super cascade Blue). This experiment was designed as a factorial based on a randomized complete blocks design with three replications. After being in the greenhouse for 12 hours, the plants received supplemental lighting at two different times (from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. and 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.) by the usage of various combinations of red light (R, 625 nm) and blue light (B, 467 nm) including 100% R, 15% B : 85% R, 30% B : 70% R and high pressure sodium lamp (HPS, serving as control). Results showed that there was not significant interaction between light combination and the timing of supplemental lighting on vegetative characteristics. Plants under 30% B : 70% R light ratio had the highest foliage fresh weight (15.73 g) and dry weight (0.86 g), root fresh weight (1.13 g) and dry weight (0.3 g), average height of lateral shoots (6.63 cm), Chlorophyll a, b, total and carotenoids contents (1.03, 0.35, 1.38 and 0.44 mg/g FW, respectively) and the plants under 15% B : 85% R light ratio had the highest height of central stem (14.4 cm), leaf area (313.07 cm), number of leaves (80.5) and number of lateral shoots (9.83). Also, results revealed that there was significant interaction between timing of supplemental lighting and light combination on the flowering time, and the shortest time to flowering (56 days after sowing) was obtained under 30% B : 70% R light ratio from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.


The ideas of 'responsible development' in the scientific-technological advance and of 'responsible innovation' in the field of new products, services and systems have been discussed for some years now with increasing intensity (Siune et al. 2009) and led to the phrase of 'Responsible Research and Innovation' (RRI). The postulate of responsible innovation adds explicit ethical reflection to Technology Assessment (TA) and science, technology and society (STS) studies and includes all of them into integrative approaches to shaping technology and innovation. Responsible innovation brings together TA with its experiences on assessment procedures, actor involvement, foresight and evaluation with ethics, in particular under the framework of responsibility, and also builds on the body of knowledge about R&D and innovation processes provided by STS and STIS studies (science, technology, innovation and society). Ethical reflection and technology assessment are increasingly taken up as integrative part of R&Dprogrammes (Siune et al. 2009). Science institutions, including research funding agencies, have started taking a pro-active role in promoting integrative research and development. Thus, the governance of science and of R&D processes is changing which opens up new possibilities and opportunities for involving new actors and new types of reflection. In this paper I want to demonstrate at a more conceptual level that Responsible Innovation can build on experiences and knowledge provided by the three mentioned fields of research: ethics, technology assessment, and STS respective STIS studies. To this end I will start by a brief analysis of the thematic dimensions included in the notion of responsibility and the respective disciplinary approaches to explore and investigate them (Sec. 2). The field of technology assessment is then introduced as a major origin of the Responsible Innovation movement including already some of the main ideas behind Responsible Innovation (Sec. 3). Based on the TA tradition Responsible Innovation may be characterized as a broadened extension of technology assessment complemented by ethics and STS (Sec. 4). As an illustration, the field of Synthetic Biology is introduced (Sec. 5).


A mathematical model for a consolidation process of a highlyconcentrated, flocculated suspension is developed.Thesuspension is treated as a mixture of a fluid and solidparticles by an Eulerian two-phase fluid model.W e characterizethe suspension by constitutive relations correlating thestresses, interaction forces, and inter-particle forces toconcentration and velocity gradients.This results in threeempirically determined material functions: a hystereticpermeability, a non-Newtonian viscosity and a non-reversibleparticle interaction pressure.P arameters in the models arefitted to experimental data.A simulation program using finite difference methods both intime and space is applied to one and two dimensional testcases.Numer ical experiments are performed to study the effectof different viscosity and permeability models. The effect ofshear on consolidation rate is studied and it is significantwhen the permeability hysteresis model is employed.


Anti-type 1 (Mahoney) poliovirus neutralizing antibodies were obtained by immunizing rabbits with structural polypeptide VP1. This polypeptide was isolated from the virion by PAGE-SDS electrophoresis and extracted from the gel by electroelution. Anti VP2 and anti VP3 sera prepared in the same was did not display any significant antipolio neutralizing activity.


This paper addresses the problem of mapping images between different vision sensors. Such a mapping could be modeled as a sampling problem that has to encompass the change of geometry between the two sensors and the specific discretization of the real scene observed by the two different imaging systems. We formulate the problem in a general framework that can be cast as a minimization regularized problem with a linear operator, that applies to any image geometry. We then focus on the particular problem of the generation of planar images from omnidirectional images, in any viewing direction and for any size and resolution. In this regularized approach, the fidelity term is expressed in the original omnicam geometry and the regularization is based on Total Variation (TV) solved here with proximal methods. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of this approach with respect to alternative schemes based on linear interpolation or TV in-painting.


In this paper deals with the cash flow analysis in agricultural companies in particular regions of the Slovak Republic. At present, from a company's point of view it is not so important to reach a profit but to have a sufficient cash to keep solvency. On base of column and balance cash flow composition we determine in which areas agricultural companies invested money and what sources they used to finance their activities. Agricultural companies in the Slovak Republic financed their activities particularly from internal sources, however, they used external sources, too. Companies situated in better natural conditions spent more external sources than companies in LFA. The companies used the financial sources in operating and investment activities equally.


Though Haskell's module language is quite weak, its core language is highly expressive. Indeed, it is tantalisingly close to being able to express much of the structure traditionally delegated to a seperate module language. However, the encodings are awkward, and some situations can't be encoded at all. In this paper we refine Haskell's core language to support first-class modules with many of the features of ML-style modules. Our proposal cleanly encodes signatures, structures and functors with the appropriate type abstraction and type sharing, and supports recursive modules. All of these features work across compilation units, and interact harmoniously with Haskell's class system. Coupled with support for staged computation, we believe our proposal would be an elegant approach to run-time dynamic linking of structured code. Our work builds directly upon Jones' work on parameterised signatures, Odersky and La¨ufer's system of higher-ranked type annotations, Russo's semantics of ML modules using ordinary existential and universal quantification, and Odersky and Zenger's work on nested types. We motivate the system by examples, and include a more formal presentation in the appendix.


Submarine canyons are conduits for episodic and powerful sediment density flows (commonly called turbidity currents) that move globally significant amounts of terrestrial sediment and organic carbon into the deep sea, forming some of the largest sedimentary deposits on Earth. The only record available for most turbidity currents is the deposit they leave behind. Therefore, to understand turbidity current processes, we need to determine the degree to which these flows are represented by their deposits. However, linking flows and deposits is a major long-standing scientific challenge. There are few detailed measurements from submarine turbidity currents in action, and even fewer direct measurements that can be compared to resulting seabed deposits. Recently, an extensive array of moorings along Monterey Canyon, offshore California, took measurements and samples during sediment density flow events, providing the most comprehensive dataset to date of turbidity current flows and their deposits. Here, we use sediment trap samples, velocity measurements, and seafloor cores to document how sand is transported through a submarine canyon, and how the transported sediment is represented in seafloor deposits. Sediment trap samples from events contain primarily fine to medium-grained sand with sharp bases, normal grading, and muddy tops. Sediment captured from the water column during the flow shows normal grading, which is broadly consistent with the initial peak and waning of flow velocities measured at a single height within the flow, and may be enhanced by collapsing flows. Flow events contain coarser sand concentrated toward the seafloor and larger grain sizes on the seafloor or in the dense near-bed layer, possibly representative of stratified flows. Although flow velocity varies, sand grain sizes in sediment traps are similar over distances of 50 km down-canyon, suggesting that grain size is an unfaithful record of down-canyon changes in maximum flow speeds. Sand transported within flow events and sampled in sediment traps is similar to sand sampled from the seafloor shortly after the events, but traps do not contain pebbles and gravel common in seabed deposits. Seabed deposits thus appear to faithfully record the sand component that is transported in the water column during sub-annual turbidity currents.


An equation for quenching distance based on the destruction of chain carriers by the surface is derived. The equation expresses the quenching distance in terms of the diffusion coefficients and partial pressures of the chain carriers and gas phase molecules, the efficiency of the surface as a chain breaker, the total pressure of the mixture, and a constant which depends on the geometry of the quenching surface. Quenching distances measured by flashback for propane-air flames are shown to be consistent with the mechanism. The derived equation is used with the lean inflammability limit and a rate constant calculated from burning velocity data to estimate quenching distances for propane-air (hydrocarbon lean) flames satisfactorily.


Ringing in the new year 2017! This may finally be the year of real practice improvement after many false starts. Research into practice transformation has informed both local work and national policy. Human factors and payment structures are key. And payment structures depend on how quality is measured. Large gaps between practicing physician recommendations for the most important quality measures and those currently imposed externally are exposed in this issue. Also see information on in-practice social work consultations and their outcomes and recommendations from innovators in integrated care, and for chronic opioid therapy management based on visits to many family medicine offices. Visit entropy is negative for hospital readmissions. Another article reaffirms the importance of family physicians in rural obstetrics, including Cesarean deliveries. Two articles address changing Latino health care access. New Mexico's innovative health extension agent implementation now includes research in ways that benefit all. And a glass half-full: the growth in the diversity of family medicine faculty is above average, but is not occurring as quickly as in the general population.


There is little debate that protecting eco-systems and sustaining the environment is important, critical even, now and in the future. From an educational perspective, there is an imperative to provide authentic, ecology-based learning experience for all students. In the Australian Curriculum, Environmental Sustainability is a cross-curricula priority. More specifically, there are also outcomes in the Australian Curriculum Science in the sub-strands, Science as a Human Endeavour and Science Understanding (Biological sciences) that focus on the environment: caretaking, respect, and an awareness of the complex connectedness of biotic and abiotic factors. Seemingly Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education has concurrently risen as the new panacea to address economic and employment issues globally. This paper posits that STEM education could be re-imagined by addressing the E as "eco-thinking", and that this could provide a more cogent and inclusive approach to addressing environmental issues. Integrated and authentic STEM education could not only provide a space to investigate environmental issues but also offer a frame to image and implement solutions or resolutions. In this paper we explore this notion and consider how STEM education could look as ST(Environment)M in elementary schools, either within classrooms or elsewhere in the school.


In his book Darkness in El Dorado (W. W. Norton), Patrick Tierney attacks the research methods and the conclusions reached by Napoleon Chagnon and several other researchers who were involved in studies of the Yanomamo people in Venezuela, studies that were carried out several decades ago (see Science , 29 Sept., p. [2251][1], and 19 Jan., p. [416][2]). In the course of his book, Tierney weaves in half-truths that sweep honorable and decent researchers into his path in his efforts to disqualify everything related to his target.

Such is the case in the accusations and offensive allegations regarding the role played by Marcel Roche, a distinguished Venezuelan man of science. We, the authors of this letter, are some of Roche's colleagues who have devoted our lives over the last half-century to conducting and advancing, together with him, the best possible science in Venezuela. For all of us who collaborated with and learned from Roche in the 1950s and 1960s, it is offensive to read descriptions that imply he was a poorly trained or careless local doctor (he received his medical degree at The Johns Hopkins University and pursued medical research as a Fellow at Harvard Medical School).

Tierney argues that a deadly outbreak of measles in the Yanomamo in 1968 originated with the Edmonston B vaccine, which was administered by Roche and others according to a protocol designed by James Neel. We have no doubt that Roche, an endocrinologist, inoculated Yanomamo people in an effort to stop the spread of the infection, and not as part of an obscure effort to destroy the Yanomamo or to assess their limits of endurance to foreign microorganisms such as the measles virus, "in the attempt to resolve the great genetic question of selective adaptation." The criticized Edmonston B vaccine against measles was later discontinued, but at the time was still used. It was the only weapon available to Roche in the field to fight the epidemic outbreak of the disease (live vaccines, which are prepared with attenuated pathogens, cannot produce a transmissible disease, although they are able to induce defenses against it). In fact, measles is known to have been present in the region before the arrival of the expedition in which Roche took part, as evidenced by testimonies by respected anthropologists from Venezuela (Nelly Arvelo, personal communication) and France (Jacques Lizot, in El Nacional , Caracas, 17 Nov. 2000). Furthermore, Tierney notes on page 82 of the book that a measles outbreak occurred in neighboring Brazil in 1967. What can be judged as an act of charity and good will is transformed by Tierney into a misleading complot in his dark book.

Even more absurd are the implications that autopsies were done at the Instituto de Investigaciones Medicas de la Fundacion Luis Roche, of which Roche was director, to steal bones to be sent to U.S. agencies where studies on the effects of radiation on virgin populations were being carried out. At the Instituto, which was a refuge for Venezuelan researchers upon closure of the Caracas university by the dictatorial regime of Marcos Perez Jimenez, no studies on humans were ever performed nor any forensic work done. Such activities were carried out at public hospitals.

The Instituto was closed in 1958 when the dictatorship was overthrown, but Tierney refers to the activities at the Instituto involving the Atomic Energy Commission, in juxtaposition to events involving Roche that occurred 10 or more years later, at a different location and with different people, linking his story of the Edmonston B vaccine to studies by Roche using radioactive iodine. By citing the events in 1968, Tierney appears to be trying to throw a questionable light on Roche's work 10 years before. And in the discussion of Roche's studies with iodine, Tierney suggests that the doses Roche used were dangerous; however, the oral dose administered by Roche to study thyroid uptake of iodine, which he used with thousands of subjects, has no toxic effect. He used the standard dose for radioactive iodine uptake (RAIU) tests that is still used today in medical practice and can be found in any general medicine textbook. This is one of many details revealing Tierney's ignorance of the subject matter and lack of appropriate technical advice.

Roche was indeed one of the few Venezuelan scientists who, in the early 1950s, had been trained in nuclear medicine. He took part, beginning in 1952, in studies recognized worldwide that led to the eradication of goiter, and the consequent myxedema and retardation, in the Andean region. These studies, using radioactive iodine, were already advanced by mid 1954 and were completed in 1955. He became the director of the Nuclear Center in Venezuela in 1958 and the first president of the Venezuela National Research Council in 1969. Would there be a better person to contact than Marcel Roche if an officer from a foreign nuclear agency (specifically, Paul Aebersold) was to visit Venezuela in 1954. Would it not be justified to make a mark next to his name, as Aebersold did in a list of potential interviewees. However, Roche is portrayed by Tierney as the "contact" of some kind of an atomic mafia that harmed the aborigines to fill data records. Whatever Tierney has written about him, Marcel Roche will be remembered as a distinguished scholar and pacifist.

 [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.289.5488.2251
 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.291.5503.416


Phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) is a membrane lipid that serves as a substrate for the production of signaling messengers, as well as a direct regulator of the activity of proteins in various cellular compartments through its presence in cellular membranes. Heilmann et al. analyzed the amounts of PIP2 and the amount and activity of phosphatidylinositol phosphate kinase (PIPK) in the plasma membrane and microsomal membrane preparations of the thermo-acidophilic red algae Galdieria sulphuraria. Their results show that during stationary growth in culture, the plasma membrane amounts of PIP2 and the activity and amount of PIPK decrease. In microsomal membranes, the amount of PIP2 and the activity of PIPK increase during the same time period. In cells exposed to mild hyperosmotic conditions, the amounts of inositol trisphosphate (IP3) produced were the same in 7-day or 12-day cultures. However, the 12-day cultures showed increased activity of PIPK, suggesting that increased synthesis of PIP2 was required to maintain the plasma membrane pool in the older cells. To assess whether the decreased plasma membrane pool of PIP2 could impact signaling, the response of cells exposed to mild or extreme osmotic shock were compared in terms of PIP2 production. Older cells were unable to respond to the more extreme stress with the comparable production of IP3 despite strong activation of PIPK, suggesting that the PIP2 pool had been depleted sufficiently to decrease signaling output. The results presented here imply two findings important for signal transduction: (i) the intracellular and plasma membrane pools of PIP2 are regulated separately, and (ii) changes in plasma membrane concentrations of PIP2 can alter the amplitude of signals dependent on metabolism of this precursor. The question remains open regarding whether the changes in the PIP2 in the cellular membranes have any direct consequences for altering protein activity in these separate cellular domains. I. Heilmann, I. Y. Perera, W. Gross, W. F. Boss, Plasma membrane phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate levels decrease with time in culture. Plant Physiol. 126, 1507-1518 (2001). [Abstract] [Full Text]


OBJECTIVE: "The objective of this selective EBM review is to determine whether or not mechanical pressure-equalizing devices relieve or reduce ear pain and pressure in aircraft passengers during flight." STUDY DESIGN: A review of two double-blind control trials and one case control study published between 1988 and 2010 in the English language. DATA RESOURCES: Double-blind control trials focused on the use of pressure-equalizing ear plugs (PREP) and a case control study on the Otovent® auto-inflation device for the prevention of barotrauma in aircraft passengers were found using Cochraine Library, Medline, and PubMed. OUTCOMES MEASURED: Outcomes measured include subjective reported level of pain on a visual analog scale; otoscopic findings reported according to the Teed scale classification, a graded scale of middle ear barotrauma; subjective questionnaires which focused on a number of subjective pressure symptoms during flight. RESULTS: The Otovent® study showed that 76% of the 43% of adults who used the device reported relief from Otovent® use. Although children reported a higher incidence of barotitis than adults in the study, they were not trained to use the device and therefore were not included in that part of the study. While both PREP studies show that PREP has no effect on ET function, one study concludes that PREP has a positive effect on subjective state in those suffering from pressure equalization problems, while the other concludes that PREP did not demonstrate any effect other than noise reduction. CONCLUSIONS: The Otovent® device may be an effective way to relieve barotrauma. However, since a single study has been conducted with few subjects, more research with larger study groups as well as education for children on how to use the device is necessary to give a recommendation. Since the two PREP studies showed no positive effect on ET function and found conflicting subjective results, a recommendation for PREP cannot be made. Future studies with larger subject groups could help to answer the question of whether or not mechanical devices have any positive effect on barotrauma and the discomfort it causes to aircraft passengers and pilots.


This study presents a situation analysis of persons with disability in the Caribbean. It includes a compilation and analysis of national census data from 16 countries including data from both the 2000 and the 2010 census rounds. The study also assesses national laws, policies and programmes in the context of relevant international treaties and agreements. The topics covered include health and rehabilitation, accessible buildings, transport, information and communications technology, education and labour market participation. In each of these areas, good practices, gaps, and priorities for action are identified and there are policy recommendations to support governments in further addressing the issue of disability.


There are various medical treatments for breast cancer. One of the most minimally invasive and promising medical treatments for early-stage noninvasive breast cancer is radiofrequency ablation (RFA). RFA can reduce both mental and physical damage to women with breast cancer. However, it is very difficult to accurately insert diagnosis and treatment needles in cases of early-stage breast cancer, because the cancer is a minimal target in soft tissues. Therefore, we have developed a robotic system to make needle insertion more accurate. Our system is comprised of two main components: a breast deformation simulation system for determining a needle approach path and a palpation system that uses force information to search for the cancer. This paper focuses on our palpation system. We performed three experiments to verify the efficiency of our palpation system's control algorithm, based on the hypothesis that force information from multiple-axes is necessary to search for a hard body in soft tissue. Based on the results of the experiments, we conclude that our approach is useful to pinpoint the center of a spherical hard body in soft tissue.


Low-dimensional quantum magnets at finite temperatures present a complex interplay of quantum and thermal fluctuation effects in a restricted phase space. While some information about dynamical response functions is available from theoretical studies of the one-triplet dispersion in unfrustrated chains and ladders, little is known about the finite-temperature dynamics of frustrated systems. Experimentally, inelastic neutron scattering studies of the highly frustrated two-dimensional material ${\mathrm{SrCu}}_{2}{({\mathrm{BO}}_{3})}_{2}$ show an almost complete destruction of the one-triplet excitation band at a temperature only 1/3 of its gap energy, accompanied by strong scattering intensities for apparent multi-triplet excitations. We investigate these questions in the frustrated spin ladder and present numerical results from exact diagonalization for the dynamical structure factor as a function of temperature. We find anomalously rapid transfer of spectral weight out of the one-triplet band and into both broad and sharp spectral features at a wide range of energies, including below the zero-temperature gap of this excitation. These features are multi-triplet bound states, which develop particularly strongly near the quantum phase transition, fall to particularly low energies there, and persist all the way to infinite temperature. Our results offer valuable insight into the physics of finite-temperature spectral functions in ${\mathrm{SrCu}}_{2}{({\mathrm{BO}}_{3})}_{2}$ and many other highly frustrated spin systems.


Node attributes such as MAC and IP addresses, and even GPS position, can be considered as exclusive identity in the distributed networks such as cloud computing platform, wireless body area networks, and Internet of Things. Nodes can exchange or transmit some important information in the networks. However, with the openness and exposure of node in the networks, the communications between the nodes are facing a lot of security issues. In particular, sensitive information may be leaked to the attackers in the presence of side-channel attacks, memory leakages, and time attacks. In this paper, we present a new notion of attribute-based hash proof system ( <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathsf{AB\mbox{-}HPS}$</tex-math></inline-formula>) in the bounded key-leakage model, to be resistant to the possible quantum attackers. The notion of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathsf{AB\mbox{-}HPS}$</tex-math></inline-formula>s is so attractive and powerful and can be considered as implicit proofs of membership for languages. We also give a construction of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathsf{AB\mbox{-}HPS}$</tex-math></inline-formula> in lattices and prove the security of indistinguishability of valid and invalid ciphertext and leakage smoothness under the decisional learning-with-errors assumption. We also provide the general leakage-resilient attribute-based encryption construction using <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathsf{AB\mbox{-}HPS}$</tex-math></inline-formula> as the primitive without indistinguishable obfuscator. Finally, we discuss some extensions to improve the schemes in larger space for the message, larger alphabet for the attribute, and arbitrary access structure for the policy, respectively. We also give the performance evaluation in theoretic analysis and practical computation.


The purpose of this study is to systematically analyze the content of articles published in Korean Journal of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (KJIOP) which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2018. In this current study, we analyzed 625 out of 627 articles published in 85 volumes over the past 30 years since its first issue in 1988. These articles were analyzed according to analysis items and classification criteria: the demographic characteristics of authors, research topics, research settings, research methods, types of participants, and types and frequency of statistical analysis. It was found that most of authors, 1,027 (83.9%) out of 1,401, belong to psychology and the I/O psychology department, and 1,265(90.3%) researchers were from universities. Also, the number of female researchers, 15 in the first 10 years, had gradually increased to 109(23.2%) in the mid-term and increased to 293(36.0%) in the recent 10 years. In regards to the topic of the articles, 376(60.2%) were related to organizational psychology, which is one of the sub-categories in I/O psychology. The results from the analysis of research settings show that the majority of studies were conducted in the industrial setting. In the research method, survey by questionnaire was the most common method with 74.1%(463). Most of the studies(66.4%) obtained data from job incumbents in industrial settings. Similar to the first 10 years, factor analysis, correlational analysis, and regression analysis were most frequently used over 30 years and the types of statistical analysis have become more diverse. Furthermore, the use of on-line questionnaires in research have been expanded in the recent 10 years. As research topics had been sophisticated, new methods of analysis such as multi-level analysis, survival analysis, and non-linear analysis were actively used. Finally, research results published over the past 30 years were summarized according to their research topics. Based on the content analysis, the direction of the future KJIOP and additional research topics were discussed.


In this paper, we present a novel incremental and decremental learning method for the least-squares support vector machine (LS-SVM). The goal is to adapt a pre-trained model to changes in the training dataset, without retraining the model on all the data, where the changes can include addition and deletion of data samples. We propose a provably exact method where the updated model is exactly the same as a model trained from scratch using the entire (updated) training dataset. Our proposed method only requires access to the updated data samples, the previous model parameters, and a unique, fixed-size matrix that quantifies the effect of the previous training dataset. Our approach can significantly reduce the storage requirement of model updating, preserve the privacy of unchanged training samples without loss of model accuracy, and enhance the computational efficiency. Experiments on real-world image dataset validate the effectiveness of our proposed method.


More than 5 million children under five years die from largely preventable or treatable medical conditions every year, with an overwhelmingly large proportion of deaths occurring in under-developed countries with low vaccination uptake. One of the United Nations' sustainable development goals (SDG 3) aims to end preventable deaths of newborns and children under five years of age. We focus on Nigeria, where the rate of infant mortality is appalling. We collaborate with HelpMum, a large non-profit organization in Nigeria, to design and optimize the allocation of heterogeneous health interventions under uncertainty to increase vaccination uptake, the first such collaboration in Nigeria. Our framework, ADVISER: AI-Driven Vaccination Intervention Optimiser, is based on an integer linear program that seeks to maximize the cumulative probability of successful vaccination. Our optimization formulation is intractable in practice. We present a heuristic approach that enables us to solve the problem for real-world use-cases. We also present theoretical bounds for the heuristic method. Finally, we show that the proposed approach outperforms baseline methods in terms of vaccination uptake through experimental evaluation. HelpMum is currently planning a pilot program based on our approach to be deployed in the largest city of Nigeria, which would be the first deployment of an AI-driven vaccination uptake program in the country and hopefully, pave the way for other data-driven programs to improve health outcomes in Nigeria.


The scientific community has been suffering from peer review for decades. This process (also called refereeing) subjects an author's scientific work or ideas to the scrutiny of one or more experts in the field. Publishers use it to select and screen manuscript submissions, and funding agencies use it to award research funds. The goal is to get authors to meet their discipline's standards and thus achieve scientific objectivity. Publications and awards that haven't undergone peer review are often regarded with suspicion by scholars and professionals in many fields. However, peer review, although universally used, has many drawbacks. We propose replacing peer review with an auction-based approach: the better the submitted paper, the more scientific currency the author likely bid to have it published. If the bid correctly reflects the paper's quality, the author is rewarded in this new scientific currency; otherwise, the author loses this currency. We argue that citations are an appropriate currency for all scientists. We believe that citation auctions encourage scientists to better control their submissions' quality. It also inspire them to prepare more exciting talks for accepted papers and to invite discussion of their results at congresses and conferences and among their colleagues. In the long run, citation auctions could have the power to greatly improve scientific research.


Introduction Literature as a creative arts draws her breadth from the society employing the highly skillful manipulation of language as its cloak. Hence, literature is an exploration of experience(s) located in time and space. According to (Brown (ed.): 1973:7), Literature is a: Work of art ... always produced by a certain man in a certain time and place, and it is always related to its author's other works, his contemporaries, his sources and traditions, his intellectual, political, economic, and aesthetic climate. A dimension of the above definition of literature by Brown is a pointer to even the tripartite nature of man with the spirit, the soul and the body which must work in harmony for a wholistic him. The work of arts thus encapsulates these man's essences. It is worth noting that man is virtually on a journey to self-discovery on this planet earth. He tries his hand on a number of things in this course. He asks many questions and seeks answers in several ways. Some of the basic questions man asks are: Who am I? Where am I? Why am I? How was I made? When was I made? Who made me? What am I doing here? Where did I come from and where am I going to? Attempted answers to these questions reveal the perplexity and complexity of man's life. Man's inability to reconcile with himself and often times others or his frustrating attempt to do so, manifests in his desire for a higher authority to look on to for help, and answers in order to demystify himself. It is in this quest that man locates the various gods which he worships. As an outlet to vent his confusion, the woman, the female, becomes the bin into which man's frustration is dumped. Man's quest to know the creator of the universe, life and the meaning of life is at the centre stage of religious inquiry. In man's attempt to unravel this mystery, many answers and perspectives have emerged from his religious heritage for instance: What, the yogas mean for the Hindus, Budha's analysis of the cause of life's dislocation' ideal of the Gentleman, who Lao Tzu was, Islam's Five Pillars, what the Exodus meant to the Jews, the substance of the Good News for the early Christians ... the worth of an answer depends more on the adequacy with which it is defended than on whether it is right or wrong in any objectively demonstrable sense (Smith 1965:350-1). The above quotation highlights the allusions to God in our Arts' Literary tradition globally; that of British and American Literatures are delineable from this also. Worthy of note is the common Divine ground each of man's religions toes. This includes the 'Golden Rule'--this Rule holds man's self-centeredness as the source of his troubles and seeks to help in its conquest--this self centeredness gives birth to the gender war palpable in our Arts' Literature. Another common ground of all man's religions is that there is a "Belief in God--if there be God", and "Life is worth living--sometimes" (Smith 353:). * This may account for the dwindling population of men in Churches where women are permitted on the pulpit and vice versa where there are mostly or all men*. It is in the light of the above that this paper interrogates the incredibly limited gender space for the woman, challenges our brothers, fathers, sons, uncles and nephews to search the scripture afresh with a view to getting their prayers to heaven unhindered. Another keyword in the topic in focus is "Heaven". Heaven according to Crudence Complete Concordance (1967:294) is: The abode of the redeemed after death and the second resurrection. It is also used for God, without whom there would be no Heaven ... sometimes used of the air ... and for the sky, wherein the sun, moon and stars are placed ... it is located above the earth ... it is the firmament. Again the Holy Bible defines Heaven as the: 'New and Holy Jerusalem', 'tabernacle of God', "the throne of God", 'a place where God will wipe away tears from his people', 'a city of Gold with twelve pearly gates', 'a place where God is', 'the temple', 'a place for overcomers of sinful life', 'a place not for the fearful', and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars (Revelation 21 verses 1-22). …


Geological aqueous fluids operate in a wide range of temperatures (from 0 to 1000 °C) and depths (from Earth surface to ~10s km), over which the physical-chemical properties of water and water-salt-gas systems and, consequently, their capacities to dissolve minerals and to transport chemical elements are very different. The principal types of geological fluids are illustrated in Figure 1, showing the domains of the liquid, vapor, and supercritical fluid phases in the water phase diagram as a function of temperatures ( T ) and pressures ( P ) typical of Earth's crust. Understanding the impact of these different fluid phases on geological processes requires knowledge of mineral solubility and metal speciation and partitioning among the different fluid phases. The degree of this knowledge also significantly varies across this T-P range, as roughly illustrated by the three fields identified in Figure 1. In the domain of moderate-temperature aqueous solutions (light-gray field, labeled 1) a large amount of data exists about the nature and stability of major metal complexes, and thermodynamic models have been developed over ~50 years for predicting ore mineral solubilities. By contrast, it is only recently that new insights were obtained into the speciation and transport of economic metals in low-density vapor and fluid phases typical of hydrothermal-magmatic deposits (white field, labeled 2 in Fig. 1), but a number of questions still remain concerning the role of the vapor phase in metal transfers. Similarly, our current knowledge is still insufficient in the domain of high-pressure fluids typical of subduction zones (dark-gray field, labeled 3 in Fig. 1), for which very little is known about the effect of the major ligands like chloride, sulfur, carbon or silica on metal mobility. These lacks hamper our understanding of the geological impact of all these fluids in the continuity of metal and volatile transfers through …


Vertical equilibrium (VE) models have proved to be attractive for simulation of CO2 storage scenarios. Their primary advantage is a substantial reduction in computational requirements compared to standard 3D simulation tools. In this work, we aim to include the effects of geomechanics on aquifer flow while preserving computational efficiency. When fluids are injected into a geological formation, changes in pore pressure leads to rock deformation, which influence the flow properties of the formation. To fully model this effect, a two way coupling between flow and mechanics equations is generally necessary, including the full underand overburden. This leads to a computationally expensive system, thus reducing the computational advantage of using VE models. Within a linear poroelastic framework, the full effect of deformation on flow is captured through changes in volumetric strain, which can be precomputed for a given pressure basis at grid generation time and used directly in the flow equations during simulation. This allow us to model the full effect of geomechanics on aquifer flow while eliminating the need for solving the mechanics equations at simulation time. We demonstrate the approach on 2D and 3D examples, and compare with results obtained from a standard VE flow models and a model that includes the full poroelastic set of equations. Compared to the latter, we observe a significant computational benefit using our proposed approach. On the other hand, the impact of geomechanics appears to be primarily captured by a well-chosen rock compressibility coefficient, suggesting that a fully coupled model might not be required in many practical cases. c © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of GHGT-13.


Abstract Literature has the potential to play a crucial role in peace education, particularly during childhood and adolescence when literature is considered a strong political socializing agent. Analyzing Hebrew literature curriculum for secondary schools in the Arab sector of Israel/Palestine, this study examines the portrayal of Arab women in this curriculum as well as the socio-ideological and civic aims of the curriculum, described by the Israeli Ministry of Education and Culture as "consideration for social and cultural sensitivities". Given the possibility of curricula to enact expressions of social change, the study analyzes if the representation of Arab women in the curriculum contributes to peace-building dialogue between Arabs and Jews. The analysis is informed by Kristeva's notion of abjection as it is often used to describe the state of marginalized groups, as well as the theories of literary criticism that claim literature instills values, reflects social changes and evolving perceptions, and shapes the identity of the reader. Finally, the analysis draws from peace studies research that argues literature is a powerful tool for cultivating peaceful co-existence, mutual respect, ethical values, and social responsibility. Keywords: literature curriculum, representation of Arab women, Hebrew language, peace, socialization, abjection Literature as an agent for peace In every discipline, and especially in the humanities, the curriculum is based on two considerations: on one hand, there are pedagogical assessments stemming from the structure of the body of knowledge in the discipline and its pedagogical adaptation, and on the other hand the ideological considerations based, to a large extent, on a philosophy of life, reflecting, through the general aims of teaching the discipline, the myth and ethos of the society, its identity and values at a given time. Curricula should be perceived as concrete expressions of social processes and social change since it create beliefs and skills that society finds worthy of bequeathing to the next generation (Iram, 1991).1 Given the possibility of curricula as an expression of social change, the aim of this research is to examine the portrayal of the Arab woman in the corpus of Hebrew literature curriculum for secondary schools in the Arab sector of Israel/Palestine. We analyze the status of women portrayed in this literature, the characteristic traits displayed in narrative and imagery as well as her conduct within the problematical reality of Israel. The research asks an important question: does the representation of women in this curricular literature contribute to peace-building dialogue between the Arabs and the Jews living in Israel? Literary criticism, identity, and peace building The theory of literary criticism that claims that literature instills values and shapes the identity of the reader can be divided into three approaches: the historical-documentary approach, the moral-ideological approach, and the socio-national approach (Feingold, 1977). The historical-documentary approach holds that literature is an important source of information about people, cultures and historical periods; knowing "where we come from" will help the reader answer the question about "where we are going". To "remember" is not a purely intellectual activity, but it can motivate people to act in the present and in the future. This approach holds that literature fulfils a very important function in instilling in the student a national education: reading literature describing the characteristics and the unique features of national life in the past, the reader-learner learns about herself/himself as a member of a nation, intensifying her/his identification with his people and society (Cohen, 1985). The moral-ideological approach maintains that literature is a means of instilling universal human values; literature enables the reader to assimilate important universal ideals and to deal with the negative influence of extraneous ideals. …


Abstract In this time of amounting cancer incidence and mortality, genetic testing may be greatly valuable in deciding on appropriate clinical management. It is unfortunate that the test is not a practical interrogative problem. When positive, the patients can settle down with what to do next, whereas when negative, their family members may breathe out in relief from unnecessary intensive surveillance and prophylaxis, and then there is VUS (Variants of Uncertain Significance). How should a health provider deliver the elaboration and implication of VUS to a patient who had expended a lump sum of and had expected a level of certainty? Variants of Uncertain Significance have nowadays become a challenging spoiler in the setting of clinical management of cancer. How would one inform someone else on anything uninformative? BRCA1 and BRCA2 are two genes with high penetrance in breast cancer. Since their functions as tumor suppressor genes and DNA repair regulators, their mutation effects are only visible when there is Loss of Heterozygosity. Mutation of BRCA1/2 gene can be demonstrated within the tissue specimen and blood sample DNA; that would mean it has occupied all tissues and is inheritable. In the case of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, 10-20% of all genetic test results will read VUS,  In one previous study of sixteen Indonesian patients, 13 (81,25%) patients had VUS. There were variants that had not been found in other population. Trans-academically speaking, the reclassification of VUS in BRCA 1/2 gene is not merely a challenge to clarify its clinical impacts, but also an obligation to accomplish our community contribution to science. There can be a set of factors to suggest that a VUS may be a deleterious mutation: Co-segregation : when the variant comes with multiple and multigenerational incidence of cancer, it is possible. Epidemiology : when a case control study demonstrates prevalence discrepancy, it is possible. Co-occurrence with deleterious mutation : when the variant is shared within the same gene in other individuals, it is possible. Evolutionary data : when the sequence is carried across species, it is possible. Amino acid substitution : when the substitute is structurally similar, it is impossible. Loss of heterozygosity : when there is loss of a wild type allele in tumor specimen, it is possible. Functional analysis : should an in vitro assay demonstrate a loss of protein function, it is probable. The ultimate solution is not yet available. However, there is clinical significance for families with VUSs, only if that can confidently be classified as the presence or absence of the associated disease. That condition may be achieved by increasing the availability of genetic testing so that there can be a larger, open-access repertoire of VUSs.


The inverse dynamics problem for a robotic manipulator is to compute the torques needed at the joints to drive it along a given trajectory; it is beneficial to be able to learn this function for adaptive control. A robotic manipulator will often need to be controlled while holding different loads in its end effector, giving rise to a multi-task learning problem. By placing independent Gaussian process priors over the latent functions of the inverse dynamics, we obtain a multi-task Gaussian process prior for handling multiple loads, where the inter-task similarity depends on the underlying inertial parameters. Experiments demonstrate that this multi-task formulation is effective in sharing information among the various loads, and generally improves performance over either learning only on single tasks or pooling the data over all tasks.


By promoting Ras depalmitoylation, the prolyl isomerase FKBP12 regulates Ras trafficking and activity. The Ras family of guanosine triphosphatases plays key roles in signaling downstream of growth factors, and mutations in the encoding genes are associated with various types of cancer. All of the proteins are prenylated, and H-Ras, N-Ras, and K-Ras4A (but not K-Ras4B) are also palmitoylated at the Golgi and depalmitoylated at the plasma membrane. Indeed, the palmitoylation status of the proteins controls their cellular localization, with palmitoylation promoting transport to the plasma membrane and depalmitoylation returning Ras to the Golgi to reinitiate the cycle. Ahearn et al. show that the prolyl isomerase FKBP12 (named for its ability to bind the immunosuppressive agent FK506 that binds and inhibits this protein; see Liu et al.) bound to palmitoylated Ras isoforms and promoted their depalmitoylation and thus their trafficking to the Golgi. The authors noticed that a green fluorescent protein (GFP) fusion construct with only 10 amino acids of the H-Ras C-terminal tail (GFP-H-Ras10aaTail) showed reduced localization at the Golgi compared with full-length tagged H-Ras, whereas a construct with 19 amino acids of the H-Ras C-terminal tail (GFP-H-Ras19aaTail) had a distribution more like that of the full-length protein. GFP-H-Ras10aaTail had more palmitoylation than did GFP-H-Ras19aaTail. Because the GFP-H-Ras19aaTail contained several proline residues not present in the GFP-H-Ras10aaTail, the authors examined the effects of inhibition or knockdown of prolyl isomerases and found that reducing the activity of FKPB12 specifically enhanced full-length H-Ras and GFP-H-Ras19aaTail palmitoylation and that this depended on the presence of Pro179. Coimmunoprecipitation experiments with both tagged proteins and endogenous proteins revealed that FKBP12 only bound to those Ras isoforms that could be palmitoylated and that mutation of the palmitoylated residues blocked the interaction, although Pro179 was not required for the interaction. Inhibition of FKBP12 reduced the abundance of GFP-H-Ras19aaTail or full-length H-Ras at the Golgi and enhanced the activation of H-Ras but not K-Ras. Furthermore, application of FK506 to a neuronal-like cell line (PC12 cells) increased the proportion of neurites formed in response to transfection of constitutively active H-Ras and N-Ras but not K-Ras. This work reveals a previously unknown function for the prolyl isomerase activity of FKBP12 in promoting Ras depalmitoylation and shows that proline-directed conformational changes influence its posttranslational processing. I. M. Ahearn, F. D. Tsai, H. Court, M. Zhou, B. C. Jennings, M. Ahmed, N. Fehrenbacher, M. E. Linder, M. R. Philips, FKPB12 binds to acylated H-Ras and promotes depalmitoylation. Mol. Cell 41, 173–185 (2011). [PubMed] J. O. Liu, D. V. Titov, Y. Dang, Q. He, Regulator of Ras depalmitoylation and retrograde trafficking: A new hat for FKBP. Mol. Cell 41, 131–133 (2011). [PubMed]


Reduction of poverty has been the single most important goal in all development efforts in the recent past. Although there is a general understanding of what poverty is its measurement has always been a challenge. Difficulty arises in determining which approach one should adopt and what indicators to use in measuring poverty. The type of poverty measures and indicators to be used depends on the purpose of measurement. Policy-makers quite often look for the number of people below the poverty line to assess the success or failure of policies. Programme managers at the grassroots level look for easily measurable proxy indicators which are useful to identify the poor and bring them under the coverage of different programmes and also to measure changes. In addition the challenges faced vary by the nature of the economy in the society where the measurement is to be carried out. Poverty lines such as the population living with less than US$1 a day are generally used for cross-national comparisons. In the recent past attempts have been made to use household assets to classify households into various groups of socioeconomic status in a relative sense. Whether direct or indirect measures and indicators are used it is important to know how well they are consistent in identifying the poor. However the selection of indicators would finally be judged by taking into consideration the marginal gain in precision weighing against easiness of collection of data and analysis and finally practicable applicability. It is against this background that this paper examined the correspondence of results between various methods and indicators used for assessing poverty in a rural setting in Bangladesh. (excerpt)


Despite years of research, the name ambiguity problem remains largely unresolved. Outstanding issues include how to capture all information for name disambiguation in a unified approach, and how to determine the number of people K in the disambiguation process. In this paper, we formalize the problem in a unified probabilistic framework, which incorporates both attributes and relationships. Specifically, we define a disambiguation objective function for the problem and propose a two-step parameter estimation algorithm. We also investigate a dynamic approach for estimating the number of people K. Experiments show that our proposed framework significantly outperforms four baseline methods of using clustering algorithms and two other previous methods. Experiments also indicate that the number K automatically found by our method is close to the actual number.