Inspired by the famous Warren & Brandeis conceptualization of the "right to privacy", this article tries to answer a modern conceptual lacuna and present the argument for the need to conceptualize and recognize a new, independent legal principle of a "right to information-identity". This is the right of an individual to the functionality of the information platforms that enable others to identify and know him and to remember who and what he is. Changes in technology and social standards make the very notion of identity increasingly fluid, transforming the way it is treated and opening new and fascinating ways of relating to it. Simultaneously, they intensify the dangers threatening it. The tremendous extent of distortion, impersonation, filtering, deleting and concealing of information-identity, demands a legal response grounded in solid conceptual and normative foundations. However, contemporary legal protection for the existence of information-identity is partial and insufficient and provided incidentally by a variety of legal doctrines, lacking any consolidated conceptual and normative foundations.


Japan–Taiwan Symposium on Infectious Diseases of Animals and Quarantine

Sapporo, Japan

October 20–21, 2004

The Japan–Taiwan Symposium on Infectious Diseases of Animals and Quarantine, sponsored by the Japan Interchange Association, was held October 20–21, 2004, at the Sapporo Convention Center. The symposium focused mainly on human health and food safety. Issues that were discussed included 1) infectious diseases of animals that caused economic loss, and those diseases that threaten the health of companion animals, 2) infectious diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans, 3) emerging infectious diseases that have been reported recently in world news, such as bovine spongiform encephalomyopathy and avian influenza, and 4) animal quarantine measures to prevent the spread of the aforementioned diseases. Challenges posed by infectious diseases of animals that were faced in the past, are being faced now, and will be faced in the future were highlighted in the 3 plenary lectures.

The first plenary lecture described how Japan struggled to control rabies, Japanese encephalitis, Korean hemorrhagic fever, anthrax, and other zoonoses after the Second World War (1941–1945) when poverty and poor sanitary conditions were common in Japanese. The second plenary lecture reported on the economic loss to the pig industry in Taiwan brought about by diseases such as foot and mouth disease and circovirus infection. Also described were the efforts of Taiwanese public health officials to control the epizootic diseases through the strategic use of vaccine.The third plenary lecture described our responses to a variety of risks and focused on the necessity of risk management by an ideologically mature society when it is challenged. The need to integrate diverse expertise was reiterated and examples of collaboration with mass media to solve problems were presented.

Speakers reported on the recent outbreaks of avian influenza in Yamaguchi, Oita, and Kyoto; the crisis control measures being implemented to curb the spread of the disease; and Dr. S. Y. Lin, Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, Taiwan, and finding and eradicating the H5N2 subtype of avian influenza virus in Taiwan. The pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus was found in 6 ducks in the Taiwan Sea straits. The ducks had been thrown overboard by smugglers on a boat from mainland China who were being pursued by the coast guards at Kinmen Prefecture. This occurrence illustrates that infectious diseases know no national boundary and underscores the need for a global surveillance system to prevent the spread of the virus.

One session detailed how an echinococcosis transmission was interrupted and monitored. Praziquantel-laced bait was distributed to wild foxes in Hokkaido in a mass deworming program attempting to interrupt the transmission cycle; the efficacy of the program was monitored by using the worm coporantigen detection method. This method did not disrupt the movement or eco-hierarchy of the red fox population and was sustainable in its efficacy. The drug-laced bait was produced by using marine waste products. Prevalence of echinococcosis in the red foxes in Hokkaido was reduced by using this method (1,2). This method was also successful in reducing the prevalence of the cestode infection in Zurich, Switzerland (3). Knowledge of being protected against infection will instill a sense of safety among the inhabitants, which in turn will lead to increased agricultural activities, as well as developing tourism industry in the region.

The control policy against echinococcosis was presented, as was the manditory reporting of infection in dogs, which became part of a revised law that became effective after October 1, 2004. This implementation is the first of its kind in the world.

Also noted was that a mutual understanding and consensus must exist among all parties concerned to effectively eradicate Echinococcus from red foxes. The stakeholders in this case are the inhabitants of the area, government officials, researchers, farmers, and tourist organizations.

Contemporary society is confronted with many forms of risk, including infectious disease risks and risks that threaten our food safety, that need urgent attention. This symposium brought researchers, government officials, and members of the public from Taiwan and Japan together to facilitate the bilateral regional exchange of information, with the understanding that technology that is applicable to both regions can also be extrapolated to the whole world. With the current pace of globalization, the concepts demonstrated in this symposium can serve as worldwide models.

After the symposium, the Taiwan delegation was asked for a comment on future development. The answer was that the symposium started on a bilateral basis but the discussion should be expanded to include other neighboring countries, such as Korea. Too strong a sense of nationalism may not protect national interests or the wellbeing of a nation itself.

Regarding the control of infectious diseases in animals, the symposium urged that research and development efforts tailored to specific needs be conducted. Government authorities should not ignore problems and leave them for future generations to solve. Professional organizations, such as veterinary associations, should address the problems directly; scientific societies should not limit their activities to meetings or congresses. When these aspirations take shape, the world will have changed for the better.

The abstract of this symposium is published in Japanese and English and can be obtained through a request to Kamiya Masao.


OBJECT
The authors report on the treatment of primary brachial plexus tumors in 25 patients at the University of California, San Francisco. They compare their findings with those obtained in similar series.

METHODS
The authors reviewed the electronic and medical records, radiological images, operative reports, and pathological findings in 25 consecutive cases of primary brachial plexus tumors. Cases of metastatic lesions or adjacent neoplasms extending into and involving the brachial plexus were excluded. At presentation patients ranged in age from 19 to 71 years (mean 47-15 years), and neurofibromatosis was present in eight patients (32%). Presenting signs and symptoms included palpable mass (60%), numbness/paresthesias (44%), radiating pain (44%), local pain (16%), and weakness (12%). Duration of symptoms ranged from 2 months to 10 years. Neuroimaging revealed lesions ranging widely in size (volume approximately 1 to 100 ml). Pathological diagnoses included schwannoma (15 [60%]), neurofibroma (five [20%]), malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor (four [16%]), and desmoid tumor (one [4%]).

CONCLUSIONS
Primary tumors arising in the brachial plexus are rare. Careful workup, surgical technique, and attention to pathological diagnosis optimize management.


It is demonstrated, for the first time to our knowledge, that torsion characteristics of resonant wavelength of long-period fiber gratings (LPFGs) induced by high-frequency CO2 laser pulses depend strongly on the twist directions. That is, the resonant wavelength shifts linearly toward the longer wavelength as the LPFG is twisted clockwise, whereas it shifts linearly toward the shorter wavelength as the LPFG is twisted anticlockwise. On the other hand, the loss peak amplitude decreases gradually whether the LPFG is twisted clockwise or anticlockwise. If the twisted fiber is much longer than the twisted LPFG, the resonant wavelength shifts wavelike toward the longer and shorter wavelength as the LPFG is twisted clockwise and anticlockwise, respectively, and the loss peak amplitude decreases wavelike with the twist rate applied. An asymmetric refractive-index distribution exists within the cross section of the LPFG fabricated by high-frequency CO2 laser pulses, which results in obvious linear birefringence in the LPFG. The right- and left-rotatory elliptical birefringence are induced when the LPFG with a linear birefringence is twisted clockwise and anticlockwise, respectively. So the twist-induced right- and left-rotatory elliptical birefringence in the LPFG show that the shift of resonant wavelength is dependent on the twist directions. The twist-induced circular birefringence in the fiber shows that the resonant wavelength and amplitude of the LPFG change wavelike.


ABSTRACT To investigate the transmission of novel infectious agents by blood transfusion, we studied changes in the virome composition of blood transfusion recipients pre- and posttransfusion. Using this approach, we detected and genetically characterized a novel human virus, human hepegivirus 1 (HHpgV-1), that shares features with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human pegivirus (HPgV; formerly called GB virus C or hepatitis G virus). HCV and HPgV belong to the genera Hepacivirus and Pegivirus of the family Flaviviridae. HHpgV-1 was found in serum samples from two blood transfusion recipients and two hemophilia patients who had received plasma-derived clotting factor concentrates. In the former, the virus was detected only in the posttransfusion samples, indicating blood-borne transmission. Both hemophiliacs were persistently viremic over periods of at least 201 and 1,981 days. The 5′ untranslated region (UTR) of HHpgV-1 contained a type IV internal ribosome entry site (IRES), structurally similar to although highly divergent in sequence from that of HCV and other hepaciviruses. However, phylogenetic analysis of nonstructural genes (NS3 and NS5B) showed that HHpgV-1 forms a branch within the pegivirus clade distinct from HPgV and homologs infecting other mammalian species. In common with some pegivirus variants infecting rodents and bats, the HHpgV-1 genome encodes a short, highly basic protein upstream of E1, potentially possessing a core-like function in packaging RNA during assembly. Identification of this new human virus, HHpgV-1, expands our knowledge of the range of genome configurations of these viruses and may lead to a reevaluation of the original criteria by which the genera Hepacivirus and Pegivirus are defined. IMPORTANCE More than 30 million blood components are transfused annually in the United States alone. Surveillance for infectious agents in the blood supply is key to ensuring the safety of this critical resource for medicine and public health. Here, we report the identification of a new and highly diverse HCV/GB virus (GBV)-like virus from human serum samples. This new virus, human hepegivirus 1 (HHpgV-1), was found in serum samples from blood transfusion recipients, indicating its potential for transmission via transfusion products. We also found persistent long-term HHpgV-1 viremia in two hemophilia patients. HHpgV-1 is unique because it shares genetic similarity with both highly pathogenic HCV and the apparently nonpathogenic HPgV (GBV-C). Our results add to the list of human viruses and provide data to develop reagents to study virus transmission and disease association and for interrupting virus transmission and new human infections. More than 30 million blood components are transfused annually in the United States alone. Surveillance for infectious agents in the blood supply is key to ensuring the safety of this critical resource for medicine and public health. Here, we report the identification of a new and highly diverse HCV/GB virus (GBV)-like virus from human serum samples. This new virus, human hepegivirus 1 (HHpgV-1), was found in serum samples from blood transfusion recipients, indicating its potential for transmission via transfusion products. We also found persistent long-term HHpgV-1 viremia in two hemophilia patients. HHpgV-1 is unique because it shares genetic similarity with both highly pathogenic HCV and the apparently nonpathogenic HPgV (GBV-C). Our results add to the list of human viruses and provide data to develop reagents to study virus transmission and disease association and for interrupting virus transmission and new human infections.


Smoking conventional lit-end cigarettes results in exposure of nonsmokers to potentially harmful cigarette smoke constituents present in environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) generated by sidestream smoke emissions and exhaled mainstream smoke. ETS constituent concentrations generated by a conventional lit-end cigarette and a newly developed electrically heated cigarette smoking system (EHCSS) that produces only mainstream smoke and no sidestream smoke emissions were investigated in simulated "office" and "hospitality" environments with different levels of baseline indoor air quality. Smoking the EHCSS (International Organisation for Standardization yields: 5 mg tar, 0.3 mg nicotine, and 0.6 mg carbon monoxide) in simulated indoor environments resulted in significant reductions in ETS constituent concentrations compared to when smoking a representative lit-end cigarette (Marlboro: 6 mg tar, 0.5 mg nicotine, and 7 mg carbon monoxide). In direct comparisons, 24 of 29 measured smoke constituents (83%) showed mean reductions of greater than 90%, and 5 smoke constituents (17%) showed mean reductions between 80% and 90%. Gas-vapor phase ETS markers (nicotine and 3-ethenylpyridine) were reduced by an average of 97% (range 94-99%). Total respirable suspended particles, determined by online particle measurements and as gravimetric respirable suspended particles, were reduced by 90% (range 82-100%). The mean and standard deviation of the reduction of all constituents was 94 +/- 4%, indicating that smoking the new EHCSS in simulated "office" and "hospitality" indoor environments resulted in substantial reductions of ETS constituents in indoor air.


Objectives: Patients on anti-tuberculosis therapy (ATT) are more prone to drug interactions in the presence of coexisting illnesses which warrant drug therapy. Rifampicin is a strong CYP enzyme inducer while isoniazid is a potent CYP inhibitor. The objective of the study was to find the net effect of one month ATT on CYP2C9 enzyme and to correlate it with respect to the CYP2C9 genetic polymorphisms. Materials and Methods: Forty eight newly diagnosed tuberculosis patients were included in the study based on the inclusion-exclusion criteria. Before commencing ATT, they were given a single dose of phenytoin 300 mg as a probe drug for CYP2C9. Blood sample was collected after three hours to carry out CYP2C9 genotyping by PCR-RFLP method. Phenotyping for CYP2C9 enzyme was done by measuring the ratio of phenytoin and its metabolite p-HPPH (para hydroxy phenyl hydantoin) by reverse phase HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography) method before and after one month of ATT. Results: In the CYP2C9*1*1 genotype, the mean plasma concentrations of phenytoin before and after one month of ATT were 5.2 ± 0.3 μg/ml and 3.5 ± 0.4 μg/ml respectively, a reduction by 33% showing significant induction (P < 0.001). There was also significant decrease in the metabolic ratio after one month of ATT from 23.2 ± 4.8 to 10.1 ± 1.9 (P < 0.001). The metabolic ratio was also observed to reduce significantly (P < 0.05) when the CYP2C9*1*2, CYP2C9*1*3, and CYP2C9*3*3 data were pooled together. Conclusion: The presence of polymorphisms in the CYP2C9 gene does not affect the induction potential of ATT.


This article examines the terms "culturally deprived" and "disadvantaged" in light of their popular use in the sixties and following decades, particularly in the ethnic and mainstream press. These expressions represented an effort to explain differences in educational attainment and academic achievement along lines of social class, race, and ethnicity from an environmental, liberal viewpoint. We consider the use of such terms from the standpoint of both the African American and Mexican American communities at the time, representing perspectives from the North, South, and West Coast. In doing this, we document a national effort by educators and the concerned public to comprehend and address long-standing patterns of social and educational inequity. State and federal programs that used "compensatory" and "remedial" education to address the problems of "culturally deprived" and "disadvantaged" communities are also considered, along with political tensions within and between the African American and Mexican American communities over benefits to be gained. The use of these expressions was eventually marked by controversy as ethnic communities and academic critics labeled them a new form of prejudice, based on conceptions of cultural and academic inadequacy. While the terms fell out of favor, a new generation was left with the problem of explaining persistent differences in educational outcomes and academic achievement that marked children's lives. The expression "at risk" was brought into the mainstream, and the academic terms "social capital" and "cultural capital" were introduced and gained currency. While these new terms have not sparked the controversies of the past, they fail to fully characterize the systematic educational disadvantages experienced by children from poor or minority backgrounds. The article closes with a brief discussion of the recurring dilemma of how best to describe persistently unequal educational outcomes, particularly when they continue to correspond to broad patterns of social and economic inequality in contemporary society.


Moral foundations theory (MFT) claims that individuals use their intuitions on five "virtues" as guidelines for moral judgment, and recent research makes the case that these intuitions cause people to adopt important political attitudes, including partisanship and ideology. New work in political science, however, demonstrates not only that the causal effect of moral foundations on these political predispositions is weaker than once thought, but it also opens the door to the possibility that causality runs in the opposite direction—from political predispositions to moral foundations. In this manuscript, I build on this new work and test the extent to which partisan and ideological considerations cause individuals' moral foundations to shift in predictable ways. The results show that while these group-based cues do exert some influence on moral foundations, the effects of outgroup cues are particularly strong. I conclude that small shifts in political context do cause MFT measures to move, and, to close, I discuss the need for continued theoretical development in MFT as well as an increased attention to measurement.


The thesis presents millimetre (mm) and submm continuum imaging observations of the
four, nearby active galaxies Cygnus A, NCC 4374, Centaurus A and M 82. These were
undertaken using the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) on the
James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii. The study focused on the properties of the
cool to cold dust (~ 80 to 10K) and its associations with star formation and nuclear
activity in the galaxies.

The observations of Cygnus A constrained the galaxy's cold dust temperature between
37 and 85K, corresponding to dust masses between 1.0 x 10 8M® and 1.4 x 106M®
respectively. Based on the dust spatial and mass limits, it is possible the heating of the
cold dust in Cygnus A is dominated by high-energy nuclear activity or star formation.
Detailed photometric observations of the core and two major hotspots (A and D) in
Cygnus A showed that their mm to submm spectral indices extend smoothly to about
450μm (677GHz), with no evidence of spectral steepening. The results allow tight determinations
for model parameters of synchrotron electron lifetimes in these components.

In pilot survey observations of the elliptical galaxy NGC 4374, a mass upper-limit
Of ~ 2 x 107M® (i.e. comparable to the dust contents of luminous spiral galaxies) was
placed on the diffuse dust that, if it exists, would affect colour and metallicity studies of elliptical galaxies. Following the pilot observations, a strategy was devised to select a good sample of ellipticals in which to search for this low-level, very cold dust.

For the first time ever, the observations of Centaurus A delineated the galaxy's submm
unresolved core, an inner-jet interacting with gas in the dust lane, and extended emission
from multi-temperature cold dust at ~ 40, 30 and 12K. Also for the first time ever, a
submm high surface brightness ringed, spiral structure of radii ~ 90", that coincides with
the regions of intense star formation and mid-infrared continuum, was revealed in the
optical dust-lane, confirming predictions by a geometric warped disc model consisting of
tilted rings. From the spatial associations in the galaxy, star formation seems to dominate
at lease 50% of the heating of the cold dust, while the rest appears to be heated by diluted
stellar radiation.

In M82, the 850μm continuum has been detected out to 1.5kpc, at least 10% farther
in radius than previous detections in this starburst galaxy. The overall submm morphology
and nuclear spectral index distribution have a general north-south asymmetry similar
to that of H. and X-ray winds, supporting the association of the extended continuum
with outflows of dust grains from the nucleus into the halo. The work of M 82 raises many
interesting points about the origin and structure of the submm emission, however the
results are displayed here still under investigation and therefore are rather preliminary.

In short, the submm continuum observations of Cygnus A, NGC 4374, CentaurusA
and M 82 are presented in this thesis that constrain the physical properties of cold dust
in these active galaxies and elucidate the associations of the dust with star formation,
nuclear activity and stellar components in these galaxies in particular, and other similar
galaxies in general.


This article considers how after-school digital media clubs, as an example of informal learning, can provide meaningful opportunities for youth to participate in the creation of interest-driven learning ecologies through media production. Ethnographic research was conducted in two after-school digital media clubs at a large, ethnically diverse, low income, public high school over the course of an academic year. The after-school clubs provided students with opportunities to develop digital literacies that could be leveraged for the acquisition of cultural and social capital. Although participation in the clubs expanded students' offline social networks, restrictive school policies blocked access to social media and video sharing sites. Students were unlikely to share their work online and missed opportunities to develop network literacies that are crucial to more equitable modes of online participation.


OBJECTIVE
To describe scintigraphic and transrectal ultrasonographic anatomic variants of the lumbosacral (LS) articulation in horses and to determine the agreement between results obtained with each imaging modality.

ANIMALS
243 horses (81 Selle Français Warmbloods, 81 French Standardbred Trotters, and 81 Thoroughbreds).

PROCEDURES
A retrospective search of clinical records was conducted to identify horses that had undergone nuclear scintigraphy and transrectal ultrasonography of the LS region of the vertebral column between January 2016 and December 2019. Scintigraphic images were evaluated by 2 observers blinded to the other's results for classification of LS articulation anatomic variants (scintigraphic type); intra- and interobserver agreement were determined. Ultrasonographic images were evaluated for classification of LS intervertebral symphysis anatomic variant (ultrasonographic grade) by 1 observer blinded to horses' identities and scintigraphic findings; agreement analysis was performed between scintigraphic type and ultrasonographic grade. Descriptive and statistical analyses were performed to describe distribution of anatomic variants.

RESULTS
The scintigraphic classification system (scintigraphic type) had excellent intra- and interobserver agreement. Agreement between results for scintigraphic type and ultrasonographic grade was moderate (κ = 0.61; 95% CI, 0.52 to 0.70). Anatomic variants of the LS articulation were observed in all groups. The distribution of variants differed significantly among breeds but not sexes.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Anatomic variations of the LS articulation in horses must be known to avoid misinterpreting them as clinically meaningful findings. Further research is needed to determine potential relationships between these anatomic variants and LS lesions, their clinical manifestations, and their influence on athletic performance.


Prior research has found a) recovery from overshadowing as a result of posttraining
extinction of comparator stimuli (i.e., the overshadowing stimulus), and b) context
modulation of conditioned responding to Pavlovian stimuli (i.e., renewal). The
present research brought together these two findings by investigating whether comparator
stimuli are subject to contextual control. In a Pavlovian conditioned suppression
situation, rats were exposed to an overshadowing procedure (i.e., AX1) in one
context and then received extinction of the overshadowing cue (i.e., A2) in the same
or a different context. If AX1 training and subsequent extinction of A occurred in
the same context, animals exhibited recovery of responding to the target cue (i.e.,
X) regardless of the test context. However, if AX1 training and extinction of A
occurred in different contexts, behavior depended on the test context. If X was tested
in the overshadowing context, overshadowing was observed. But if X was tested
in the context where A had been extinguished or in a third (neutral) context, overshadowing
was not observed. Thus, context modulates comparator effects in a manner
somewhat similar to how it modulates simple Pavlovian responding. The notable
exception was that robust responding to both A and X was observed in the neutral
context, which is problematic for most contemporary theories of learning.


Human longevity and quality of life remain key societal drivers, but the healthcare burden of diet-related chronic diseases is economically unmanageable. In recent years, it has been proposed that the composition and abundance profiles of certain bacterial phyla in the gut are indicators of malnutrition, and ill health. But, how much does the gut microbiome and diet really contribute to outcomes? The description of three microbial enterotypes remains to be verified, as does its significance for health tested across continents and within people who migrate from one lifestyle to another. It is not simply that the diet of one region causes a dominance of microbes not found in another, or that it leads to adverse outcomes. Venezuelans have a diet different from Americans, yet life expectancy and causes of death are somewhat similar. Pregnant east African women have very different diets to Europeans, yet excluding infectious disease exposure, successful reproduction occurs in both. The microbiome has added another layer of complexity to nutrition management, but with modern sequencing platforms and bioinformatics tools, integration of this information will soon be feasible. In providing dietary recommendations, especially during pregnancy, more consideration is needed on reducing exposure to environmental toxins, encouraging intake of fermented foods and those designed to improve fetal and infant development. By focusing on the first 1000 days of life, it may be possible to improve how we produce and allocate food, and provide a newborn with the best chance of leading a productive life.


Disclosed is an apparatus and method for manufacturing a swing-ring plate. More particularly, the apparatus and method for manufacturing the swing-ring plate comprises a bending mechanism that moves a linear plate cut to a certain length from a first side to a second side, and bends the linear plate so as to face both ends thereof each other to form a ring shape; a pre-bonding mechanism that fixes the bent plate in the ring shape and pre-bonds the ends in the horizontal and vertical directions; and a final bonding mechanism that completely bonds the pre-bonded part of the plate by revolving around the fixed pre-bonded plate and positioning so that the top and bottom surfaces of the pre-bonded plate face upward. According to the present invention, due to the fact that the swing-ring plate can be manufactured by bending a single plate, the traditional task of adjusting the smoothness of each part can be reduced, reducing work time and costs, and particularly, due to the lack of wasting raw materials, as occurs in the traditional processing of a unit plate that carries a certain curvature from a limited area, manufacturing costs can be further reduced, and smoothness can be readily adjusted to improve product reliability.


The introduction of biotechnology is part of a global process of structural change in agriculture characterized by an increased integration of world agriculture with high corporate control. However, as the legal competence to allow the planting and trade of genetically modified (GM) crops commonly lies at the level of the nation state, this remains strategic in the politics of GM crops, both for actors promoting the technology and for social movements struggling against it. This paper illustrates this argument with an analysis of the struggles over GM crops in Brazil. It shows how the implementation of a food regime based on biotechnology, corporate control and neoliberal globalism depended on the state and was a contested process.


This intermediate language text, written for those who already have a basic knowledge of Vietnamese, stresses conversational skills. The goal is to help students communicate effectively and absorb meaning through speaking, listening, reading, and writing, incorporating the most up-to-date features of the interactive approach to language learning. The book provides insights into Vietnam's multifaceted culture. Each of the 24 chapters includes a list of competencies to be achieved and concepts to be studied; vocabulary lists, pronunciation drills, dialogues, and oral activities; a section devoted to grammar with exercises, and explanations in English; proverbs and popular phrases to be memorized and recited; situations to help achieve fluidity of speech in real-life communication; a summary of vocabulary, grammar pointsk and pattern sentences for review; a listening section; and Vietnamese newspaper articles with reading and writing assignments. The text also includes three audio CDs, a glossary, and an index to grammar notes. Review lessons following every three chapters are designed to keep the learner current at all times.


This paper assesses the relationship between cash transfers to families and fertility timing. We make use of a cash-for-care (CFC) policy introduced in Norway in 1998/1999, which entitled all parents of oneand two-year old children to a monthly payment if their child did not use publicly subsidized child care. Although not introduced as a pro-natalist policy, this CFC benefit did indeed reduce the costs of childbearing. We use Norwegian registry data to explore whether being eligible for the CFC benefit change the likelihood of having another child before the eligible child is four years old. Our comparison group consists of mothers giving birth in the period before the benefit was introduced. Preliminary results indicate a negative and rather substantial effect on having a new birth in the four year period, which differs somewhat between different groups of mothers.


In this paper, we present an in-depth decomposition analysis of trends in CO2 emissions in the iron and steel industry using physical indicators. Physical indicators allow a detailed analysis of intra-sectoral trends, in contrast to the mostly used monetary indicators. Detailed decomposition analysis makes it possible to link developments in energy intensity to technology change and (indirectly) to policy. We present an analysis for the iron and steel industry in seven countries, i.e. Brazil, China, India (developing countries), Mexico and South Korea (newly industrialized countries) and the United States (industrialized country). We found substantial differences in energy efficiency among these countries. In most countries the increased (or decreased) production was the main contributor to changes in CO2 emissions, while energy-efficiency was the main factor reducing emission intensities of steel production in almost all countries. Changes in power generation contributed to a reduction of specific emissions in the case of South Korea only. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.


This banded dissertation contains three related products: a conceptual article, a research article, and the development of an original social work course. Together the products conceptualize, research, and envision how accredited social work programs can integrate tribal sovereign status relevant theories and concepts into curriculum to prepare social workers to collaborate and work with Indigenous peoples and communities. The primary conceptual framework that informs the dissertation is decolonization theory. Decolonization entails a broad theoretical spectrum that includes both philosophical-oriented and action-effort approaches to combat the generational effects that colonization has inflected on Indigenous peoples (Gray, M., Coates, J., Yellow Bird, M., & Hetherington, T., 2013; Aquash, 2013; Mbembe, 2013; Gibson, 2007). An elder epistemological framework is also utilized whereas Indigenous elders are consulted as informers to the research findings and the dissertation work at-large (Christensen & Poupart, 2013) . The first section of this banded dissertation is a conceptual article that focuses on the intersection of decolonization and the social work curriculum. Theoretical and action-efforts of the decolonization theoretical spectrum are examined. Early social work activities in the United States inflicted the dominant cultural values of an imperial or colonial nature on Indigenous Peoples (Gray, Coates, Yellow Bird, & Hetherington, 2013). These values were adapted into social welfare polices and social work standards of practice, and are often dissimilar to Indigenous cultural values. How ideologies of decolonization can be integrated into the social work curriculum, its learning spaces, and its assessment are conceptualized within the context of the Council on Social Work Education's (CSWE) Education and Policy Accreditation Standards (EPAS) Competency 2 – Engage Diversity and Difference in Practice. TRIBAL SOVEREIGN STATUS iii The second section of this banded dissertation describes a qualitative study. In the exploratory study, 12 social workers with practice experience working with tribal communities were interviewed in order to identify indigenous-relevant content for social work curricula. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. Social work practice-oriented (i.e. historical trauma, cultural appropriation, and identity) and policy-oriented themes (i.e. tribal governance structure, historical policy and action, self-governance, and environmental justice) emerged from the investigation. Aligning with principles of elder epistemology, tribal elders were consulted and provided feedback about the study's findings and the elders provided recommendations for the direction of further research. The third section of this banded dissertation is the design of a master of social work level course entitled: Indigenous Communities and Peoples: Effective Social Work Practice. The 5 curriculum content themes (Table 1) that emerged from the findings of the qualitative study outlined in section two of this banded dissertation are foundational and inform the course learning objectives. Social workers with practice experience working with tribal communities identified and inform indigenous-relevant, tribal sovereign status defining content, for social work curricula. The course is organized into 5 modules and includes both practice and policyoriented topics. Consistent to the conceptual framework of the research study and the resulting course, decolonization ideologies and action-efforts and elder epistemology are primary course


The European Commission's in-depth inquiry into retail banking is long overdue. Its findings are hardly surprising: for years high fees persisted, market concentration loomed and there was little cross-border competition. Times could now be changing for the better. DG Competition states that it has found 'widespread competition barriers' that raise the cost of retail banking, but 'competition concerns' are not evidence of breaches of competition law. The Commission must now prove that its claims are not unfounded: the next steps are investigation and prosecution of individual cases.


Devolution of government functions is one of the key moves introduced by the government, to enhance its service delivery and promote self-governance at County level. At a glance, devolution has come with both benefits and downsides, which are unique to the service/function that has been devolved. Agriculture was previously a function of the National government, under the Ministry of Agriculture. It is currently a devolved ministry, no longer under the sole control of the National government. Same as other devolved functions, it was expected that devolving the ministry of Agriculture would lead to better agricultural production at county level. Devolution Agricultural functions was expected to enhance agricultural production in the counties. The study thus sought to establish the effect of devolution of the agricultural sector on the livelihoods in Wajir County. This study was guided by the following objectives; to establish the effects of devolution of agricultural sector on the empowerment of small-scale farmers, to determine the effects of devolution of agricultural sector on incomes of households and to examine the effects of devolution of agricultural sector on food security of households in Wajir County. The study is hinged on the Sustainable Livelihood Approach. The study adopted a descriptive survey that helped in determining and reports the way things are and attempts to describe such things as possible behavior, attitudes, values, and characteristics. The study targeted5273 small-scale farmers and agricultural officers across all Wajir sub-counties. The study sampled 372 farmers from all the Sub-Counties in Wajir. Therefore, 372 farmers and 6 agricultural officers were used making a total sample size of 378 respondents. The researcher purposively selected six agricultural officers one from each sub-county. In identifying the farmers from each sub-county, the study used simple random sampling. The study will adopt both qualitative and quantitative data. The study used questionnaires for collecting data from 372 farmers, which will be constructed based on the research objectives. The questionnaires were administered using drop and pick method; this provided farmers with enough time to answer the questions. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics such as mean, mode, percentages and standard deviation. The study used Chi-Square to establish the relationship between the variables. The study findings indicated that the effect of devolution of agricultural activities in Wajir County has significantly affected the level of food security, sources of income and empowerment among the households in the county. Due to devolution of the agricultural activities, the county government now provides extension services, funds, inputs such as fertilizers and credits for agricultural activities and that has led to an increase in food production which has greatly improved food security and enhanced income generation. The small scale farmers no longer rely on livestock farming but also crop farming. Since the study findings present a significant effect of devolution of the agricultural activities to the county level in Wajir, it recommends that the county government should invest more in some of the agricultural activities such as access to agricultural services like Plough and tractor, Borehole and dam for irrigation, Extension services, Livestock vaccination and Disease surveillance, control, and awareness. There should also be an increase in the provision of services such as the provision of farm inputs and marketing of farm products on behalf of farmers in order to encourage more participation in agriculture by the households. In so doing, the small scale farmers in Wajir County will be more empowered, their income will improve and food security will also be enhanced.


The Reconstruction and Development Programme adopted by the Government of National Unity is more than a list of the services required to improve the quality of life of the majority of South Africans. It is not just a call for South Africans to unite to build a country free of poverty and misery; it is a programme designed to achieve this objective in an integrated and principled manner. Based on the strategic objectives, as highlighted in the White Paper on Water Supply and Sanitation Policy, with regard to alleviating the chronic potable water shortages in South Africa, this thesis investigates a design methodology to supply potable water through the use of wind energy. The design focuses on small rural off-grid developments where grid electricity either has not or will not reach, and where renewable energy is the only viable option. This thesis provides an overview of wind energy and presents the fundamentals of wind power calculations. It also formulates an overview of the historic and present situation with regards to potable water supply, and reflects on the need for urgent intervention. The feasibility of using wind energy to supply potable water to rural communities in South Africa is explored in a case study. The various problem areas are identified and examined and a wide range of possible solutions are recommended. A final flow chart for the system design is proposed, thus ensuring comprehensive design methodology from which future design of similar systems can be based.


This paper constructs and estimates a dynamic model of the evolution of health for those over the age of 50 and then embeds that model of health dynamics in a structural, econometric model of retirement and saving. The health model traces the effects of smoking, obesity, alcohol consumption, depression and other proclivities on medical conditions, including hypertension, diabetes, cancer, lung disease, heart problems, stroke, psychiatric problems and arthritis. These in turn influence an overall index of health status based on self-reported health, work limitations and ADLs, which is used to classify the population into good, fair, poor or terrible health. Compared to a situation where the entire population is in good health, the current health status of the population reduces the retirement age of the entire population by an average of about one year. While poor health or terrible health have a great impact on the disutility of work and thus on retirement, fair health as opposed to good health has a relatively minor effect. Smoking depresses full-time work effort by up to 3.5 percentage points by those in the early sixties, reducing the average retirement age by four to five months. Effects of trends in health care and health policies on retirement are also analyzed. Including detailed measurement of health dynamics in a retirement model improves understanding of the effects of health on retirement. It does not, however, influence estimates of the marginal effects of economic incentives on retirement.


Condensation of water from warm, humid air to cold rock walls in caves is regarded to play a significant role in speleogenesis. The water condensing to the cave walls quickly attains equilibrium with the carbon dioxide in the surrounding air, and consequently dissolves limestone or gypsum forming various types of macro- ,meso-, and micromorphologies. In this paper we present the basic physical principles of condensation and give equations, which allow a satisfactory estimation of condensation rates. Water condensing to a cooler wall releases heat of condensation, which raises the temperature of the wall thus reducing the temperature difference ∆T between the warm air and the cave wall. Furthermore one has to take into account the heat flux from the air to the cave wall. This defines the boundary conditions for the equation of heat conduction. For a constant temperature of the air initial condensation rates are high but then drop down rapidly by orders of magnitude during the first few days. Finally constant condensation rates are attained, when the heat flux into the rock is fully transmitted to the surface of the karst plateau. For spherical and cylindrical conduits these can be obtained as a function of the depth Z below the surface. When diurnal or seasonal variations of the air temperature are active as is the case close to cave entrances, condensation rates can become quite significant, up to about 10 6 m/year. The theoretical results are applied also to corrosion of speleothems and the formation of »rohrenkarren« as described by Simms (2003). To convert condensation rates into retreat of bedrock the saturation state of the solution must be known. In the appendix we present experiments, which prove that in any case the solution flowing off the rock is saturated with respect to limestone or gypsum, respectively.


In this letter, we investigate the characteristics of the dielectric properties of urea and ions such as potassium and sodium, which are the principal molecules studied during dialysis treatment. The method involves measuring the electrical properties of varying concentrations of the constituent solutions over a broad frequency range and estimating the associated Cole-Cole parameters. We utilized concentrations above those expected in vivo to achieve a more accurate characterization. In these studies, we found that the conductivity was essentially constant with respect to urea concentration but had a strong, nearly linear correlation with potassium. In addition, the alpha factor had a distinct, monotonically varying relationship for both urea and potassium with significantly different initial slopes. Utilizing these two curves, simple inversion algorithms are possible to compute the solute concentrations given the Cole-Cole parameters. This concentration monitoring technique would be performed directly on the dialysate eliminating contamination from blood, which could substantially obscure the data. We expect that, using the Maxwell-Fricke mixture law, we will be able to compute the constituent concentrations even in the presence of trace amounts of competing molecules.


This paper focuses on the prediction of temperature profiles on the surface of Lithium-ion cells. In particular, the paper proposes the adoption of the impulse response technique to predict cell surface temperatures consequent to generic discharge conditions applied to the targeted cell. The method is fed by data obtained by dedicated experiments to be performed on the targeted cell. In order to feed the proposed method, these experiments aim at obtaining cell surface temperature profiles consequent to short-time current discharge impulses. A set of dedicated validations is finally included in the paper in order to verify the validity of the proposed method.


The sailfin catfish, a collection of several morphologically similar species belonging to the genus Pterygoplichthys of the Loricariidae from South America, has been widely introduced to tropical and subtropical freshwater environments worldwide and has caused serious ecological impacts. Although listed as one of the most serious invasive species, the taxonomic status of this fish in Taiwan has never been precisely described. In this study, we used morphological traits and mitochondrial DNA sequences to identify the fish which currently occur in Taiwanese rivers. Evidence from both datasets rejected the existence of P. multiradiatus, which was once the most widely applied name in local references. Pterygoplichthys gibbiceps and P. joselimaianus, 2 other species commonly appearing in the aquarium fish trade, were also not detected in the wild. Our results indicated that the fish occurring in Taiwanese rivers should be identified as P. pardalis and P. disjunctivus. Nevertheless, fish collected from the wild present a contiguous variation, among which roughly 28.3% could not be defined as either species and thus were grouped as an intermediate form. Morphological identification did not match the 2 mitochondrial clades. Compared to a native population of a pure-line P. pardalis collected from the Amazon River at Manaus, Brazil, exotic populations showed much wider morphological variations and higher genetic diversities. We put forth 2 hypotheses and 1 speculation to explain the current situation: (1) P. disjunctivus might just be a synonym of P. pardalis; (2) the exotic populations may have originated from hybridization between the 2 species or allopatric populations; and (3) superiority of the hybrid may have helped increase their fitness during invasions.


Philip J. Stephens was a theoretical chemist who brought to fruition two new forms of optical spectroscopy, using circularly polarized light, for the determination of electronic structure and molecular stereochemistry. The first was magnetic circular dichroism (MCD), the wavelength dependence of the differential absorption of left and right circularly polarized light induced by a magnetic field applied parallel to the light beam. Stephens established a methodology for extracting from MCD spectra the angular momentum characteristics of ground and excited electronic states and demonstrated applications to the assignment of the optical spectra of coordination complexes of transition metals and to metalloproteins. In the second half of his career Stephens led the field of vibrational circular dichroism (VCD), the measurement of the natural circular dichroism (CD) arising from the vibrational transitions of chiral molecules. He developed instrumental techniques to measure this weak dichroism over a wide frequency range with high sensitivity. Subsequently he developed a quantum-mechanical method that yielded reliable calculations of VCD spectra by using density functional theory. Thus absolute configurations of all the chiral centres in an organic molecule are readily established. Given the increasing importance of enantiomerically pure chiral drugs, VCD has found widespread application in the pharmaceutical industry. Philip had not only a deep understanding of chemical theory but also a thorough grasp of experiments. His lectures on theoretical topics were models of clarity. He was also an accomplished pianist in demand, when a student at Oxford University, as an accompanist and for chamber concerts.


Many systems, such as distributed operating systems, complex networks, and high throughput web-based applications, are continuously generating large volume of event logs. These logs contain useful information to help system administrators to understand the system running status and to pinpoint the system failures. Generally, due to the scale and complexity of modern systems, the generated logs are beyond the analytic power of human beings. Therefore, it is imperative to develop a comprehensive log analysis system to support effective system management. Although a number of log mining techniques have been proposed to address specific log analysis use cases, few research and industrial efforts have been paid on providing integrated systems with an end-to-end solution to facilitate the log analysis routines. In this paper, we design and implement an integrated system, called FIU Log Analysis Platform (a.k.a. FLAP), that aims to facilitate the data analytics for system event logs. FLAP provides an end-to-end solution that utilizes advanced data mining techniques to assist log analysts to conveniently, timely, and accurately conduct event log knowledge discovery, system status investigation, and system failure diagnosis. Specifically, in FLAP, state-of-the-art template learning techniques are used to extract useful information from unstructured raw logs; advanced data transformation techniques are proposed and leveraged for event transformation and storage; effective event pattern mining, event summarization, event querying, and failure prediction techniques are designed and integrated for log analytics; and user-friendly interfaces are utilized to present the informative analysis results intuitively and vividly. Since 2016, FLAP has been used by Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd for internal event log analysis, and has provided effective support in its system operation and workflow optimization.


Social Security has made it possible for the vast majority of workers to enjoy a period of retirement in at least modest comfort without relying on their children for support. The average length of retirement has increased consistently since the program was started in 1937. However, the increase in the normal retirement age from 65 to 67 that is being phased in over the years 2003 to 2022 largely offsets the increase in life expectancy. As a result, workers who work long enough to collect their full benefits will see little gain in the expected length of their retirement over this period. These gains have gone overwhelmingly to workers in the top half of the income distribution. Consequently, the increase in retirement age will offset the gains in retirement lengths for the bottom half — even if there is no further inequality in improvements in life expectancy. If such inequality in improvements persist, then the bottom half of workers born in 1973 will have retirements no longer than those born in 1937.


NASA has told several Chinese students at U.S. universities that they cannot attend an astrophysics conference next month at its Ames Research Center. Scientists say they were surprised to learn about the NASA policy, aimed at thwarting military and economic espionage, and some want their colleagues to boycott the meeting.


Considering from the aspect of ecological society and harmonious development, the coordinated development of urbanization and new rural construction is the main trend of the rapid development of the society, which can clearly guide the direction of development. This present paper first determines ecological environmental subsystem index of coordinated development of new rural construction and urbanization to lay a solid foundation for the form of the index system. The second part is to make evaluation on the importance of various index factors through the constructing process of the evaluative index system of coordinated development of new rural construction and urbanization. And the research mainly focuses on two aspects: factor analysis of the cumulative contribution rate and of the concrete composition of the evaluative index system of coordination development of new rural construction. Then based on expertsÂ' judgment, the paper makes comprehensive calculation of the matrix input and index weight to carry out a specific research on the importance of each indicator towards the urbanization and new rural construction. And make further analysis on the output of the index weight to calculate the weight value of the various indicators in each index layer. Finally analyze the whole factors in the relative level of the coordinated development of the new rural construction and urbanization, mainly combining the characteristic value of the factor, the calculation of the contribution rate and the cumulative contribution rate, Component Matrix and extraction and interpretation of the common factor, comprehensive score of weighted factors in the city, clustering analysis of the coordinated development of the new rural construction on the relative level as well as the construction of the hierarchical diagram of the comprehensive score on the relative level of coordinated development. This is the main idea of the paper, from which the fundamental purpose and main contents of the study can be seen.


With the advances in wireless communications large scale Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are emerging with many applications. These networks are deployed to serve single objective application, with high optimization requirements such as performance enhancement and power saving. Application specific optimization is achieved using formal models and evaluation based simulations of distributed algorithms (DA) controlling such networks. The WSN design problem is of high complexity, and requires robust methodologies, including simulation support. Although we know several works on WSN simulation, these solutions fail to match requirements on a whole set of desirable criteria: scalability, flexibility, concurrent execution and performance. We present a model based approach of WSN application specification separating network organization from behaviors, allowing them to vary independently. Through this approach, network description can be achieved with high level tools independently from the programming syntax. We have specified and simulated number of WSN protocols with varying objectives and semantics using a time-driven execution model incorporated in the proposed meta-simulator. The empirical analysis has revealed flexibility, scalability and performance. The tool flow targets an Occam compiler producing efficient multi-threaded binaries. We expect the final flow of this project to enable sensor code production out of the simulated specification.


Farmers use antibiotics to treat, prevent, and control animal diseases and increase the productivity of animals and operations. However, there is concern that routine antibiotic use in livestock will contribute to antimicrobial-resistant pathogens, with repercussions for human and animal health. Given these concerns, pressure to limit antibiotic uses for purposes other than disease treatment is mounting. Changes in use will lead to a series of adjustments in animal agriculture as producers change production practices, with potential repercussions for prices and volumes in livestock markets. This report addresses the following questions: How widely are antibiotics used in the livestock industries? How could the current structure of the livestock industry influence the effects of restrictions on certain uses of antibiotics? How might the restriction of antibiotics affect production and costs at the animal and farm levels? How might those impacts affect production and prices in markets?


In the low bit-rate video applications, the matching pursuit video coder based on the redundancy dictionary can produce better visual quality than DCT-based video coder. Due to the communication band limitation, uniform visual quality cannot be acquired for the whole image. In most cases, some interesting regions will be chosen for preferential coding according to the properties of human observation and understanding. In this paper, the important regions of interest (ROI) will be ascertained dynamically during the coding process firstly. Referring to above results, original atoms searching scheme will be modified in order to distribute the atoms around the interesting regions, thus the reconstructed images' quality of the matching pursuit video coder can be promoted.


This journal was founded in the 60s under the direction of Prof. Franco Granone of the University of Turin, remembered as the first neuropsychiatrist who gave an academic and scientific body to clinical hypnosis with its "Hypnosis Treaty" published by UTET. The first name given to the journal, published for the types of Minerva Medica, was "Rassegna di Ipnosi e Medicina Psicosomatica". By the will of all the members of the Italian Center for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis of Turin, in 1974 the Journal changed its title in "Rassegna di Psicoterapia, Ipnosi, Stati di Coscienza" (Authorization Court of Turin n. 2423 of 18.6.1974). However, at the departure of the Director of Minerva Medica Dr. Tommaso Oliaro, the journal, as well as other journals, suffered the unpleasant deletion due to lack of funds. It was on that date that my teacher of Hypnosis, the same Franco Granone, asked me to take care of the journal so that it could be republished and, in my transfer (May 1988) from the University of Bari to the University of Rome "Sapienza", I proceeded with the due timescales for the formalizations to submit the journal to the same Sapienza University of Rome, with a first moment of transition at the Roman University Editions and the registration at the Court of Rome n. 341/90 on 28.5.1990. But very soon, the Senate Academic and the Board of Directors of Sapienza University of Rome, resolved to become "owned" by the same University and, also as a quarterly periodical, was registered at the Court of Rome n. 00325/96 the 28.6.1996 changing entirely the title, as it was directed by my person at the time Holder of the Chair of Forensic Psychopathology. The title became "Rassegna di psicoterapie, Ipnosi, Medicina Psicosomatica, Psicopatologia Forense". This title continued to exist until, in the physiological passage to another Director, further formalizations including the Sapienza Board of Directors, resolved, on 30 October 2017, to definitively change its name as "Rivista di Psicopatologia forense, Medicina Legale, Criminologia" with Director Prof. Natale Mario Di Luca, head of the Legal Medicine Section of the Department of Anatomical Sciences, Histology, Legal Medicine and of the Locomotor System of Sapienza University of Rome. The Evaluation Committee of the New Journal decided to delegate the professors who appear in the cover page of the new issue, each with the respective task, and I accepted the position of Responsible Coordinator and Scientific Director of the Journal. The advisory committee has been chosen among the most prestigious signatures of the best-known Italian and foreign universities. Obviously, a section will still be reserved for memory duty to Clinical Hypnosis. I wish to this journal, now become historic for its birth and its evolution, the best of luck.


This thesis sets out the way in which histology became established in the
curriculum of the London medical schools between 1826 and 1886. The text provides
a very large number of references to original material, some of it previously
unreported.
Histology had its origins in continental Europe in the early years of the
nineteenth century, in the work of Bichat. The introductory chapter examines how
this was translated both as to language and as to practical experience into England.
The role of the developing achromatic microscope is also briefly considered.
The changes in medical education in London which fostered the teaching of
'general anatomy' (histology) are then described from primary sources in some detail,
and with extensive necessary quotation. The establishment and development of
medical departments and the appointment of key teachers was pivotal and is fully
investigated, while the role of the medical press in infuencing change is also assessed.
The teaching programme of each college is explored using evidence from surviving
lecture notes, texts, diaries, calendars and correspondence. The changing
requirements for qualification, and their influence on the examination system, which
accompanied the growth of histological teaching, are discussed.
In order to trace the incorporation of the cell theory, the growing
understanding of the tissue concept, and the relationship between structure and
function, into the teaching of histology, a case study of the histology of the liver has
been pursued throughout the thesis. The development of knowledge of the histology
of the liver has been traced through the large number of textbooks which were
produced to support courses in histology.
Throughout the period, steadily increasing specialisms from virtually all other
aspects of the curriculum vied for inclusion, with more and more time being given
over to new and diverse subjects. In this competition for time and resources histology
eventually found a permanent place. The events leading to a formal requirement to
teach practical histology are examined, and key people in these changes are identified.
The effects of the legislation on texts, equipment, specialist accommodation, teaching
skills, and time are assessed.


This paper reviews Creation Without Restraint: Promoting Liberty and Rivalry in Innovation, the pathbreaking book by Christina Bohannan and Herbert Hovenkamp (Oxford Univ. Press 2012). The Review begins by summarizing the book's descriptive insights and analyzing one of its important normative proposals: the adoption of an IP injury requirement. This requirement would demand that infringement plaintiffs prove -- before obtaining damages or an injunction -- an injury to the incentive to innovate. After explaining how this requirement is easy to justify under governing law and is largely consistent with recent Supreme Court decisions in the field of patent law, the Review considers whether the concept of IP injury is useful in resolving the most vexing problem in patent law today: the scope of patentable subject matter. The Review also weighs how the institutional structure of the patent system might affect adoption of the authors' innovation-focused approach. Although the book's proposals are directed largely at the courts, the semi-specialized court for patent appeals, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, might resist deciding patent cases by considering innovation policy. The Review thus examines other institutions, such as the Office of the Solicitor General, that may be well-positioned to put the book's thoughtful proposals into action.


In this paper, we study the problem of generating control programs, i.e. strings of symbolic descriptions of control-interrupt pairs (or modes) from input-output data. In particular, we take the point of view that such control programs have an information theoretic content and thus, that they can be more or less effectively coded. As a result, we focus our attention on the problem of producing low-complexity programs by recovering the strings that contain the smallest number of distinct modes. An example is provided where the data is obtained by tracking ten roaming ants in a tank.


We study the selection problem in economic experiments by focusing on its dynamic and network aspects. We develop a dynamic network model of student participation in a subject pool, which assumes that students' participation is driven by the two channels: the direct channel of recruitment and the indirect channel of student interaction. Using rich recruitment data from a large public university, we find that the patterns of participation and biases are consistent with the model. We also find evidence of both short- and long-run selection biases between males and females, as well as between cohorts of students. Males tend to have higher participation rates than females, and participation rates tend to decrease with a cohort's age. Our empirical findings confirm that dynamic and peer effects play an important role in shaping the selection problem. Our model allows us to reconcile some of the mixed results in previous studies.


BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in delayed diagnosis and treatment for cancer patients and increases in elective surgery waiting lists. The impact on other 'long-term' conditions (LTCs) is unclear. We examined the effects of the pandemic on the recorded incidence of 20 LTCs to inform decisions on treatment pathways and resource allocation.
ApproachWe included Welsh residents diagnosed with any of 20 LTCs for the first time between 2000-2021.
Data were accessed and analysed within the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank.
The primary aim was to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on trends in recorded incidence. Secondarily we examined incidence by socio-demographic and clinical subgroups: age, sex, deprivation quintile, ethnicity, frailty score and learning disability.
Incidence were presented as monthly rates for each LTC. We performed interrupted time series analyses to estimate; the immediate and long-term change in rates following the pandemic; and the size of the undiagnosed population.
ResultsWe included 2,206,070 individuals diagnosed with at least one LTC.
An immediate reduction in recording of new diagnoses was observed in April 2020 across all 20 LTCs, followed by a gradual recovery towards pre-pandemic levels over the next 18 months, though at different rates across conditions. The largest difference between observed and expected (as predicted using pre-pandemic trends) incidence between January 2020 and June 2021 were in the diagnoses of COPD (-43%, 95% CI (-50%, -34%)), Asthma, Hypertension and Depression and the smallest difference was in Type 1 diabetes, dementia, stroke and TIA (-8%, 95% CI (-19% ,5%)).
Differences in the proportions of incidence by socio-demographic and clinical subgroups in the years preceding and following the pandemic have also been analysed (results to be finalised).
ConclusionThere was an abrupt reduction in the observed incidence of all 20 LTCs after March 2020 followed by a gradual recovery over consequent months towards pre-pandemic levels. Of 20 LTCs, 15 strongly indicate a reservoir of yet undiagnosed patients. The results from this study will have implications in resource allocation.


Streamflow information is of great significance for flood control, water resources utilization and management, ecological services, etc. Continuous streamflow prediction in ungauged basins remains a challenge, mainly due to data paucity and environmental changes. This study focuses on the modification of a nonlinear hydrological system approach known as the time variant gain model and the development of a regressive method based on the modified approach. This method directly correlates rainfall to runoff through physically based mathematical transformations without requiring additional information of evaporation or soil moisture. Also, it contains parsimonious parameters that can be derived from watershed properties. Both characteristics make this method suitable for practical uses in ungauged basins. The Huai River Basin of China was selected as the study area to test the regressive method. The results show that the proposed methodology provides an effective way to predict streamflow of ungauged basins with reasonable accuracy by incorporating regional watershed information (soil, land use, topography, etc.). This study provides a useful predictive tool for future water resources utilization and management for data-sparse areas or watersheds with environmental changes.


A rapid, sensitive, and accurate high performance liquid chromatography for the determination of axitinibe (AN) in rabbit plasma is developed using crizotinibe as an internal standard (IS). Axitinibe is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, used in the treatment of advanced kidney cancer, which works by slowing or stopping the growth of cancer cells. The chromatographic separation was performed on a Waters 2695, Kromosil (150 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 µm) column using a mobile phase containing buffer (pH 4.6) and acetonitrile in the ratio of 65:35 v/v with a flow rate of1 mL/min. The analyte and internal standard were extracted using liquid-liquid extraction with acetonitrile. The elution was detected by photo diode array detector at 320 nm.The total chromatographic runtime is 10.0 min with a retention time for axitinibe and IS of 5.685, and 3.606 min, respectively. The method was validated over a dynamic linear range of 0.002-0.2µg/mL for axitinibe with a correlation coefficient of r2 0.999.


Motivated by the desire to explore future traffic flows that will consist of a mixture of classical vehicles and vehicles equipped with advanced driver assistance systems, new mathematical theories and models are developed. The basis for this theory was borrowed from the kinetic description of gas flows, where we replaced the behaviour of the molecules by typical human driving behaviour. From a methodological point of view, this 'human-kinetic' traffic flow theory provides two major improvements with respect to existing theory. Firstly, the model builds exclusively on a mathematical description of individual driver behaviour, whereas traditionally field measurements of traffic flow variables like flow rate and average speed of the flow are needed. This is of major importance for the exploration of future traffic flows with vehicles and equipment that are not yet on the market, and for which at best individual test results from driving simulator experiments or small scale field trials are available. Secondly, the model accounts for the more refined aspects of individual driver behaviour by considering the 'internal' state of the driver (active/passive, aware/unaware,...) and the variations of driving strategy that occur during driving. This is important when the ambition is to capture refined congestion patterns like the occurrence of stop-and-go waves, oscillating congestion and long jams, where the driving strategy may depend for instance on the motivation of the driver to follow closely. This new theory links together the worlds of traffic engineers and behavioural scientists. As such, it is a promising tool that increases the insight in the human behaviour as a basis of various dynamic congestion patterns, and it facilitates the design and evaluation of electronic systems in the vehicle that assist the driver to behave safer, more comfortable and more efficient in busy traffic flows. Herewith, the results of this research are relevant, both for the theoretical interest of the TRAIL research school, and for the more practically oriented work of TNO, who provided financing for this research in the joint T3 research program.


Poly(l-lactic acid) (PLLA) is a biocompatible and biodegradable polymer that has received much attention as a biomedical material. However, PLLA also produces by-products that acidify the surrounding tissues during in vivo degradation, which induces inflammatory responses. To overcome these problems, magnesium hydroxide nanoparticles (nano-magnesium hydroxide; nMH) were added to the PLLA matrix as a bioactive filler that can suppress inflammatory responses by neutralizing the acidified environment caused by the degradation of PLLA. Despite the advantages of nMH, the strong cohesion of these nanoparticles toward each other makes it difficult to manufacture a polymer matrix containing homogeneous nanoparticles through thermal processing. Here, we prepared two types of surface-modified nMH with oligolactide (ODLLA) utilizing grafting to (GT) and grafting from (GF) strategies to improve the mechanical and biological characteristics of the organic-inorganic hybrid composite. The incorporation of surface-modified nMH not only enhanced mechanical properties, such as Young's modulus, but also improved homogeneity of magnesium hydroxide particles in the PLLA matrix due to the increase in interfacial interaction. Additionally, the PLLA composites with surface-modified nMH exhibited reduced bulk erosion during hydrolytic degradation with lower cytotoxicity and immunogenicity. Hemocompatibility tests on the PLLA composites with nMH showed a higher albumin to fibrinogen ratio (AFR) and a lower influence of platelet activation, when compared with unmodified control samples. Taken all together, the surface-modified nMH could be seen to successfully improve the physical and biological characteristics of polymer composites. We believe this technology has great potential for the development of hybrid nanocomposites for biomedical devices, including cardiovascular implants.


Crime and insecurity have been major political issues in France during the past 20 years, and especially during the presidential election campaign of 2002. This survey focuses on empirically-based social science that is relevant to these issues. Key themes are crime trends and the influence of incivilities and of fear of crime. The political debate about crime and crime reduction since the 1970s is described and analysed. The paper describes and critically assesses the various measures of the crime phenomenon (vital statistics, victim surveys, self-report studies) and summarizes the information provided by these measures at various times. The various societal responses to crime and insecurity are reviewed, including police work (and police reform), incarceration trends, social prevention and the new partnerships at a local level. Moves to decentralize policy and practice in the field of control and prevention of crime are discussed. Finally, key publications, centres of criminological research and sources of funding are reviewed.


Objectives Our objectives were to analyse the effects of text messaging versus usual care in improving adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) in people living with HIV using individual patient data meta-analysis. Adjusted, sensitivity and subgroup analyses were conducted. Setting 3 randomised controlled trials conducted between 2010 and 2012 in rural and urban centres in Cameroon and Kenya (two studies) were used. Participants A total of 1166 participants were included in this analysis (Cameroon=200; Kenya=428 and 538). Primary and secondary outcomes The primary outcome was adherence to ART >95%. The secondary outcomes were mortality, losses to follow-up, transfers and withdrawals. Results Text messaging improved adherence to ART (OR 1.38; 95% CIs 1.08 to 1.78; p=0.012), even after adjustment for baseline covariates (OR 1.46; 95% CI 1.13 to 1.88; p=0.004). Primary education (compared with no formal education) was associated with a greater intervention effect on adherence (OR 1.65; 95% CI 1.10 to 2.48; p=0.016) and also showed a significant subgroup effect (p=0.039). In sensitivity analysis, our findings were robust to a modified threshold of adherence, multiple imputation for missing data and aggregate level data pooling, but not to fixed-effects meta-analyses using generalised estimation equations. There was a significant subgroup effect for long weekly (p=0.037), short weekly text messages (p=0.014) and interactive messaging (p=0.010). Text messaging did not significantly affect any of the secondary outcomes. Conclusions Text messaging has a significant effect on adherence to ART, and this effect is influenced by level of education, gender, timing (weekly vs daily) and interactivity. We recommend the use of interactive weekly text messaging to improve adherence to ART, which is most effective in those with at least a primary level of education.


This article explores the factors that account for variation in remittance flows. Why do some immigrants send much more money to their country of origin than others? This is a question that, in the aggregate, has implications for national economies and migration-related policy. The analysis departs from the classic studies of remittances and considers how the context of contemporary migration in Europe is likely to affect remittance patterns. Possible influences on remittance-sending are disaggregated into nine domains, and each is discussed with reference to theoretical arguments and empirical findings. The temporal aspects of remittance-sending are discussed separately. The final section of the article considers implications of the micro-level analysis for aggregate remittance flows and policy. It is argued that the focus on altruism versus self-interest in the literature has partly diverted attention from explaining the actual variation that is important in a policy perspective.


Several approaches to the preservation of biological materials at ambient temperature and the relative impact on sample stability and degradation are reviewed, with a focus on nucleic acids. This appraisal is undertaken within the framework of biobank risk, quality management systems, and accreditation, with a view to assessing how best to apply ambient temperature sample storage to ensure stability, reduce costs, improve handling logistics, and increase the efficiency of biobank procedures.


Climate change has strong effects on traits such as phenology and physiology. Studies typically assume that climate‐induced trait changes will have consequences for population dynamics, but explicit tests are rare. Body condition reflects energy storage and may directly affect how much can be invested in reproduction and survival. However, the causal pathway by which decreased body condition impacts population dynamics has never been quantified across multiple populations and species. Therefore, we lack a general understanding of the consequences of changes in condition for variables more relevant for conservation, such as population size. Using structural equation modeling, we investigate how temperature‐induced changes in body condition affect reproduction, and the subsequent impact on population growth rates of 19 bird species across 80 Dutch sites over a 21‐year period. Warmer temperatures were associated with decreased body condition, which led to both decreased and increased reproduction at different sites, cancelling out any overall effect. The indirect effect of temperature on population growth (via body condition and reproduction) only explained within‐species variation in the total effects of temperature on population growth. Instead, the direct effect of temperature on population growth (unrelated to condition and reproduction) was the most important pathway underlying the total effects of temperature on population growth, suggesting that unknown variables are mediating this effect. About half of the species are expected to increase under global warming, but this variation was not associated with any species characteristic. Overall, body condition responses to global warming are common, but their consequences on reproduction and subsequently population growth contribute relatively little to the total temperature impacts on population dynamics. Given that warming temperatures have strong effects on population dynamics, understanding the pathways via which temperature impacts population dynamics will be crucial for our ability to predict climate change effects in the future and improve conservation efforts.


3, 4-Dihydroxyphenylanine (Dopa)-containing proteins are key to wet adhesion in mussels and possibly other sessile organisms also. However, Dopa-mediated adhesive bonding is a hard act to follow in that, at least in mussels, bonding depends on Dopa in both reduced and oxidized forms, for adhesion and cohesion, respectively. Given the vulnerability of Dopa to spontaneous oxidation, the most significant challenge to using it in practical adhesion is controlling Dopa redox in a temporally- and spatially defined manner. Mussels appear to achieve such control in their byssal attachment plaques, and factors involved in redox control can be measured with precision using redox probes such as the diphenylpicryl hydrazyl (DPPH) free radical. Understanding the specifics of natural redox control may provide fundamentally important insights for adhesive polymer engineering and antifouling strategies.


This paper takes a sectoral, panel approach to investigating the electricity-growth nexus for the Eastern Cape province of South Africa between the period of 2003 and 2017. The empirical investigation was carried out using the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) panel estimators applied to an augmented dynamic growth model whilst the caulisty tests between electricity consumption and growth where performed using the Dumitrescu-Hurlin (2012) panel non-causality tests. The findings confirm the absence of significant long-run relationship between electricity and growth whilst finding a significant and positive effect over the short-run. Moreover, our causality tests provide strong evidence of causality running from electricity consumption to economic growth hence supporting the "growth hypothesis". In a nutshell, our results not only demonstrate the importance of performing the electricity-growth analysis at provincial level as opposed to relying on national aggregated estimates but also provides important provincial-specific policy implications and recommendations.


Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have commanded considerable public attention due to their sudden rise and disruptive potential. But there are no robust, published data that describe who is taking these courses and why they are doing so. As such, we do not yet know how transformative the MOOC phenomenon can or will be. We conducted an online survey of students enrolled in at least one of the University of Pennsylvania's 32 MOOCs offed on the Coursera platform. The student population tends to be young, well educated, and employed, with a majority from developed countries. There are significantly more males than females taking MOOCs, especially in BRIC and other developing countries. Students' main reasons for taking a MOOC are advancing in their current job and satisfying curiosity. The individuals the MOOC revolution is supposed to help the most — those without access to higher education in developing countries — are underrepresented among the early adopters.


Several long.term field studies (i.e. 6 yrs or more) conducted by the USDA/ARS and the University of California have demonstrated that saline drainage water (EC w as high as 8 dS/m and 8 mg/L B) applied in a cyclic manner with good quality water could be used successfully as a supplemental source of irrigation water. Success of the strategy has been attributed to transient soil salinity profiles that are created under this practice allowing for more salt-sensitive crops to be included in the rotation and imposing salt-stress for shorter durations and during the portion of the season when the crop is more tolerant to salinity. However there are limits on the extent to which drainage water can be used for irrigation. Besides salinity, the major concerns with recycling drainage water over the long.term are the accumulation of B in the soil profile to toxic levels (i.e. drainage waters with over several mg/L B) and potential degradation of soil structure (i.e. using sodic drainage waters)


The FDI debate is often characterised by generalities about the importance of these flows within the global context. This article aims to unpack the African-specific FDI issues in order to get a clearer and more substantiated understanding of the current trends, dynamics and challenges, with emphasis on the period since 2000. The research concludes that nominal flows to the continent are on the increase, with exponential increases over the past decade. The descriptive analysis indicates that flows to the continent are unevenly spread and are concentrated in the largest economies and/or in petroleum-/oil-exporting countries. The impact of FDI on growth and investment in particularly smaller economies indicates that FDI inflows are making a substantial contribution to these economies and illustrates the importance of this source of investment. The econometric analysis reveals that oil exporters and the size of the economy are powerful explanatory variables in explaining FDI flows to Africa, with trade openness a positive, but less powerful variable.


In the spring of 1949, Idahoans made a decision that forever altered the character of Eastern Idaho. The decision to embrace the US Atomic Energy Commission's (AEC) latest project, the National Reactor Testing Station, was a momentous one. Idahoans living near the proposed site counted on this decision to bring a treasure trove of economic benefits to the surrounding rural communities. By the 1970s as increasing information about the costs of the AEC's nuclear waste disposal programs became public many in Idaho found themselves shifting from overwhelming support of the AEC to a sort of middle ground. These Idahoans were careful to make clear that they supported the broad nuclear project within the state what they opposed was the AEC's nuclear waste disposal in the state of Idaho. This meant that in Idaho a total opposition to nuclear research never materialized at a time when anti-nuclear sentiment rose sharply throughout the broader US. The overwhelming opposition to Yucca Mountain Waste repository by the people of Nevada is the contrast to Idahoan's unique position of opposition balanced with accommodation. By tracing the history of these two projects and showing how Idahoans reacted in complex ways to the mounting information about the problems surrounding the AEC's nuclear waste disposal programs, important lessons are revealed about the ways local knowledge, scientific knowledge, and mass media interacted in the American West to create different environmental ethics.


The ever growing popularity and availability of multimedia information has rendered automatic image-language association essential in a number of multimedia integration applications. Bridging the gap between the two media requires an appropriate feature-set for describing their common reference; one that will be both distinctive of the entities referred too and feasible to extract automatically from visual media. In this paper, we suggest an alternative –to current approaches- feature set, which has been used in OntoVis, a domain model for a prototype that describes three-dimensional (3D) indoor scenes. We argue that it is worth employing this feature-set in a larger scale for image-language association and investigating the feasibility of doing so and of detecting such features automatically even beyond 3D visual data, in 2D images.


This is the first of a series of papers on African allodapine bee larvae. It is intended to provide comparative data on these, the most diverse and interesting of all bee larvae, so that a classification of them can be made and compared with that based on adults. This paper provides an account of ontogenetic changes that occur during larval life, as well as a study of specific differences among mature larvae of the genus Allodape. As restricted by Michener (1969 and in press), the genus Allodape occurs only in tropical and southern Africa. Included species are listed by Michener (in press) and those on which nest data are available are treated by Michener (1971). Major larval features of some species of Allodape have been known through the works of Brauns (1926) and Skaife (1953) but many details have remained undescriptionbed. Mature larvae of Allodape differ from those of other genera of allodapine bees in having long hairs on the head but these limited to the vertex and eight or less in number; in the large, rounded ventrolateral protuberances of the first body segment, these bearing seven to about twenty very long hairs; and in the presence of hairs on the dorsal surfaces only of most of the other body segments, the venter and other ventrolateral protuberances being hairless. The curled body, very short antennae, long hairs in the cephalic area, and other characters suggest the genus Braunsapis, but in nearly all species of that genus the long hairs are limited to the head and there are more than eight.


Eccrine spiradenom is a rarely seen benign adnexal tumor. It is originated from sweat glands. Etiology of the disease is not known. It is generally solitary, but multiple lesions can be seen. Number of patients with multiple lesions that have been reported in the literature is limited. 69 years old women with multiple nodules on her scalps, forehead and ears has been presented here because it is rarely seen.


Objective: to assess the impact of telecare on the use of social and health care. Part of the evaluation of the Whole Systems Demonstrator trial. Participants and setting: a total of 2,600 people with social care needs were recruited from 217 general practices in three areas in England. Design: a cluster randomised trial comparing telecare with usual care, general practice being the unit of randomisation. Participants were followed up for 12 months and analyses were conducted as intention-to-treat. Data sources: trial data were linked at the person level to administrative data sets on care funded at least in part by local authorities or the National Health Service. Main outcome measures: the proportion of people admitted to hospital within 12 months. Secondary endpoints included mortality, rates of secondary care use (seven different metrics), contacts with general practitioners and practice nurses, proportion of people admitted to permanent residential or nursing care, weeks in domiciliary social care and notional costs. Results: 46.8% of intervention participants were admitted to hospital, compared with 49.2% of controls. Unadjusted differences were not statistically significant (odds ratio: 0.90, 95% CI: 0.75–1.07, P = 0.211). They reached statistical significance after adjusting for baseline covariates, but this was not replicated when adjusting for the predictive risk score. Secondary metrics including impacts on social care use were not statistically significant. Conclusions: telecare as implemented in the Whole Systems Demonstrator trial did not lead to significant reductions in service use, at least in terms of results assessed over 12 months. International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number Register ISRCTN43002091.


'Post-culturalist art history' doesn't take for granted the ontological fact of culture as the context and content in dealing with the concrete material things and aesthetic practices which make up the putative 'objects' of art history. And therefore it doesn't take for granted the epistemological primacy of cultural history in interpretation and explanation of its objects. It means offering a nontautological analysis of the social emergence and partial consolidation of visual culture, including traditions of pictorial art. What this analysis claims and does in its terms and details is less important than the very fact of a strenuous effort to provide it. Precisely because post-culturalist thinking doesn't take for granted the fact of culture and the primacy of cultural history, potentially it can situate itself in productive and practical ways in relation to non-cultural inquiries in art history and in studies of art. The present essays began as presentations given at a symposium organized by Jakub Stejskal at the Dahlem Humanities Center, Freie Universitat Berlin, in April 2016.


Upon accession [into the WTO], China must comply with the TRIMs Agreement to eliminate all TRIMs [Trade-Related Investment Measures] in existence. This article discusses Chinese Foreign Investment Law (FDI Law) and the criteria to be used in assessment of TRIMs. The standard for identifying TRIMs existing in Chinese FDI Law is the TRIMs Agreement and its extension in the Protocol of China's Accession which will be addressed.


This article studies the supervisory role of the Finnish Parliamentary Ombudsman during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. A major legal problem during emergencies is that respect for the rule of law tends to get lost in the midst of rapid decision-making procedures. Therefore, in addition to the parliamentary control and the judicial review of courts, the Ombudsman finds a complementary position in supervising the legality of public actions during emergencies. The annual report of the Finnish Parliamentary Ombudsman shows that 931 complaints arrived this Office in 2020, concerning issues on the COVID-19 pandemic. These cases have tested public actions against the Finnish Constitution and other laws during the pandemic. To analyse the legal supervisory role of the Ombudsman during this period, we have selected three themes including restrictions on the freedom of movement, imposing visit bans on care centres, and limiting business activities. This analysis exposes the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic as a societal syndemic, meaning that although the health-related aspect of this crisis prevailed initially, the use of public power may not only endanger the principle of legality, but also cause societal, economic, and political changes, which may last for years after the crisis.


DNA methylation can contribute to the maintenance of genome integrity and regulation of gene expression. In most situations, DNA methylation patterns are inherited quite stably. However, changes in DNA methylation can occur at some loci as a result of tissue culture resulting in somaclonal variation. To investigate heritable epigenetic changes as a consequence of tissue culture, a sequence-capture bisulfite sequencing approach was implemented to monitor context-specific DNA methylation patterns in ∼15 Mb of the maize genome for a population of plants that had been regenerated from tissue culture. Plants that have been regenerated from tissue culture exhibit gains and losses of DNA methylation at a subset of genomic regions. There was evidence for a high rate of homozygous changes to DNA methylation levels that occur consistently in multiple independent tissue culture lines, suggesting that some loci are either targeted or hotspots for epigenetic variation. The consistent changes inherited following tissue culture include both gains and losses of DNA methylation and can affect CG, CHG, or both contexts within a region. Only a subset of the tissue culture changes observed in callus plants are observed in the primary regenerants, but the majority of DNA methylation changes present in primary regenerants are passed onto offspring. This study provides insights into the susceptibility of some loci and potential mechanisms that could contribute to altered DNA methylation and epigenetic state that occur during tissue culture in plant species.