Infertility affects approximately 15–20% of individuals of reproductive age worldwide. Over the last 40 years, assisted reproductive technology (ART) has helped millions of childless couples. However, ART is limited by a low success rate and risk of multiple gestations. Devising methods for selecting the best gamete or embryo that increases the ART success rate and prevention of multiple gestation has become one of the key goals in ART today. Special emphasis has been placed on the development of non-invasive approaches, which do not require perturbing the embryonic cells, as the current morphology-based embryo selection approach has shortcomings in predicting the implantation potential of embryos. An observed association between embryo metabolism and viability has prompted researchers to develop metabolomics-based biomarkers. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy provides a non-invasive approach for the metabolic profiling of tissues, gametes and embryos, with the key advantage of having a minimal sample preparation procedure. Using NMR spectroscopy, biologically important molecules can be identified and quantified in intact cells, extracts or secretomes. This, in turn, helps to map out the active metabolic pathways in a system. The present review covers the contribution of NMR spectroscopy in assisted reproduction at various stages of the process.


The aim of the present investigation was to standardize techniques for in vitro culture of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) tissues and their ultimate use in plant genetic engineering. Conditions for in vitro culture of calli from hypocotyl, epicoty1, cotyledon and leaflet explants in Gamborg (B5) and Murashige and Skoog (MS) media supplemented with phytohormones have been established. In terms of fresh and dry weight 2,4-D with higher concentration of cytokinin yielded high amount of calli. Among the four explants studied hypocotyl gave maximum response for callusing. Morphogenetic expression of calli in different hormonal combinations has been studied and discussed. Although the calli derived fromdifferent explants underwent rhiogenesis but they failed to produce shoots.Both hypocoty1 and leaflet originated calli although showed some meristemoidal activities but only hypocoty1 derived calli underwent organogenesis to regenerate shoots. Pattern of shoot morphogenesis from hypocoty1 calli shows that regeneration of shoot buds required the presence of an organized meristematic region in the intact callus. The data obtained clearly demonstrate that various tissue explants exhibited specific and differential response attributable in endogenous levels of hormones and variations in the internal cellular organization. Changes in DNA, RNA and protein content were in correlation with the callus growth and are manifestation of metabolic activity associated with active and stationary growth phase of call.

Direct regeneration ability of three meristematic parts (hypocoty1, nodal explants and shoot apieces) of four genotypes of chickpea showed that the treatment combination not only produced pronounced variation in days to shoot initiation, frequency of shoot formation and shoot growth but also had a significant effect on number of shoot/explant and shoot length. The number of shoot/explant increased with the increase of concentration of BAP. Further increase in shoot number was observed with the additional of NAA or IAA. When two cytokinins (BAP and KIN) were applied together in the medium containing IAA maximum shoot number was achieved. The rate of increase or decrease in number of shoot/explant was negatively correlated with that of shoot length. Significant interactions were observed between genotypes and treatment combination.

The rooting experiment conducted with microcuttings of two-week-old seedlings of four genotypes showed that full strength MS medium with 1uM IBA improved rooting frequency, root quality, root number and root length. Therefore, all the regenerated shoots obtained directly form meristematic parts or indirectly via callus phase were transferred to same rooting medium for induction of roots to raise ful-fledged plants. The directly or indirectly regenerated shoots could be multiplied by repeated subculturing of stock cultures and in ths way they could be maintained for several months. The subculturing process might change the physiological state and gradually rejuvenate the cultures which in turn promoted better rooting.

All the four genotypes of chickpea were found to be susceptible to all virulent strains of A. tumefaciens and A. rhizogenes. The ability of the bacteria to form a compatible reaction varied greatly. The differences were also observed among the protocols used for transformation. Percent visual tumor formation and tumor sixe varied greatly among the genotypes. In co-cultivation system hypocoty1 explants were found more responsive than interenode and leaflet explants. In all conditions A281 produced large tumors as compared to A6 and C58. Autonomous growth of the transformed tissues in the absence of exogenous phytohormones, production of novel strain specific opines and presence of T-DNA genetic sequences demonstrate the stable transformation of chickpea tissues by Agrobacterium.


The aim of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) (2000/60/EC) (WFD) is 'to establish a framework for the protection of inland surface waters, transitional waters, coastal waters and ground waters'. The Directive calls for integrated catchment management plans to be prepared for all river basins in order to achieve 'good ecological status' (GES) in all EU waters by 2015. As such, the Directive aims at a minimum for a 'good' and 'non-deteriorating status' for surface, underground and coastal waters and sets common approaches and goals for water management in EU member states. An important element of the Directive is that it calls for a consideration of the economic costs and benefits of improvements to ecological status in catchment management plans, along with the introduction of full social cost pricing for water use. Hence, benefits play an important role in the assessment of the proportionality of costs in the implementation of the WFD. This report explores the use of benefit transfer (BT) techniques in placing a value on achieving GES, as specified in the WFD, across water bodies in Ireland. Given that no major valuation exercises on water quality in Ireland have been conducted, BT will be crucial for estimating these benefit/cost ratios, and thus identifying cases of disproportionate costs for which derogations can be sought.


The Third Way debate has, so far, not been very successful. While governments across the world search for a new political synthesis, the theoretical debate has offered little to those interested in a new framework for progressive politics. This essay presents an account of what the Third Way really means, and roots it in a communitarian vision of the good society. It argues that such societies achieve a dynamic balance between state, market and community, and blends theoretical discussion with the practical implications of such an approach. At the core of the analysis is the idea that the Third Way is an ethical position that seeks to treat people as ends in themselves. While flexibility and pragmatism are important to the new politics, they should be understood as components of a broader framework, in which social progress is measured by more than the accumulation of material goods. How do we manage devolution successfully? What approach should government take to inequality? What is the proper relationship between rights and responsibilities? The essay illuminates these and other issues, and calls for a broad-ranging moral dialogue to address them.


Abstract Focusing on synthetic zeolites that adsorb hydrogen isotopes at liquid N2 temperature with priority in the order of T2, DT, D2, HT, HD and H2, we have been developing a pressure swing adsorption process system for hydrogen isotope separation. For this purpose, we carried out fundamental experiments of adsorption and desorption of a tracer D2 in bulk H2 with zeolite packedbed columns. In this paper, the results are reported that D2 is enriched in the adsorbed phase at separation factors near 2.0, flowing through zeolite 5A and 13X packed-beds at 77.4 K. These are in agreement with values predicted from the multi-component equilibrium characteristics. In the gas samples recovered by evacuating the packed-beds, however, D2 was detected at a relative concentration of 1.20 or 1.32 to that in the feed gas. This lower range results from the isotopic mass effect in kinetic process. That suggests a highly D2-enriched residual left during evacuation. This is verified with an unusually high enrichment factor of 6.68 or 9.21 for zeolite 5A or 13X measured in the residual sample desorbed from the packed-bed by heating up to room temperature.


The movement of workers from the farm sector to a more productive nonfarm sector has failed to generate significant gains in labor productivity in recent decades in many developing countries. This paper offers a new perspective on the barriers to growth-enhancing structural transformation, combining structural modeling with enterprise census data from Ghana. The paper argues that subnational differences in the intersectoral productivity gap between the nonfarm informal and formal sectors constrain the productivity gain from structural transformation. In Ghana, intersectoral productivity gaps among the richer regions are on average three times larger than among the poorer regions. The disparity in regional intersectoral productivity gaps is modeled as reflecting the disparity in the regional misallocation of labor between the informal and formal sectors. Misallocation is identified as the output wedge between the informal and formal sectors. Simulations suggest that a more productive nonfarm informal sector reduces the disparity in regional intersectoral productivity gaps and, in turn, increases national productivity and the contribution of structural transformation to national productivity. For example, a 90-percent reduction in the disparity in regional intersectoral productivity gaps raises Ghana's national aggregate productivity by 11.9 percent and the contribution of structural transformation to productivity by 19.7 percent.


Sepsis-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) has high morbidity and mortality and arises after lung infection or infection at extrapulmonary sites. An aberrant host response to infection leads to disruption of the pulmonary alveolar-capillary barrier, resulting in lung injury characterized by hypoxemia, inflammation, and noncardiogenic pulmonary edema. Despite increased understanding of the molecular biology underlying sepsis-induced ARDS, there are no targeted pharmacologic therapies for this devastating condition. Here, we review the molecular underpinnings of sepsis-induced ARDS with a focus on relevant clinical and translational studies that point toward novel therapeutic strategies.


Cultural heritage buildings were typically built without considering seismic action and are therefore potentially susceptible to earthquake damage. The performance states and protection objectives developed for ordinary buildings are not directly applicable since they do not address the cultural importance of the heritage buildings. This paper proposes a seismic conservation strategy for cultural heritage buildings in Switzerland, which is a country of low to moderate seismicity. Based on the performance states for cultural heritage buildings that were developed within the Pereptuate project, a matrix of performance states has been developed in function of the importance category of the cultural property, the conservation strategy chosen and the return periods for seismic events to be considered. It is proposed that the performance states and return periods for ordinary buildings should define the lowest performance that is acceptable for cultural heritage buildings since these performance states were derived considering minimum protection requirements for people. For cultural heritage buildings such low performance states are acceptable if the importance of the heritage is minor and/or if a conservation strategy is chosen, which is based on the documentation of the status quo with the objective of reconstruction after a seismic event rather than retrofit and improvement of the seismic performance.


The ripple effects of the foreclosure crisis have created increased instability for children and families. In this brief we focus on two such sources of instability in the lives of public school students in Washington, D.C.: moving homes and switching schools. We find high rates of residential and school mobility for students in general, and even higher rates associated with students who lived in buildings that entered the foreclosure process. These mobile students tended to stay in the same neighborhood or move to areas that were similarly poor and high-crime. In this policy brief, we make a series of low-cost recommendations to school districts and nonprofit housing counseling agencies in order to minimize the harm of additional instability on children.


Reduced cloudiness and enhanced downwelling radiation are associated with the unprecedented 2007 Arctic sea ice loss. Over the Western Arctic Ocean, total summertime cloud cover estimated from spaceborne radar and lidar data decreased by 16% from 2006 to 2007. The clearer skies led to downwelling shortwave (longwave) radiative fluxes increases of +32 Wm−2 (−4 Wm−2) from 2006 to 2007. Over three months, simple calculations show that these radiation differences alone could enhance surface ice melt by 0.3 m, or warm the surface ocean by 2.4 K, which enhances basal ice melt. Increased air temperatures and decreased relative humidity associated with an anti‐cyclonic atmospheric circulation pattern explain the reduced cloudiness. Longer‐term observations show that the 2007 cloudiness is anomalous in the recent past, but is not unprecedented. Thus, in a warmer world with thinner ice, natural summertime circulation and cloud variability is an increasingly important control on sea ice extent minima.


OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the comparative benefits and harms in both mother and child of antidepressant treatment for depression in pregnant or postpartum women. DATA SOURCES: MEDLINE, the Cochrane Library, CINAHL, Scopus, ClinicalTrials.gov (inception to July 2013), manufacturers, and reference lists. METHODS OF STUDY SELECTION: Two reviewers independently selected studies of pregnant women with depression comparing antidepressants with each other, placebo or no treatment, or nondrug treatments. Studies making comparisons among women taking antidepressants for any reason and those not taking antidepressants (depression status unknown) were used to fill gaps in the evidence. TABULATION, INTEGRATION, AND RESULTS: Dual study data extraction and quality assessment were used. Six randomized controlled trials and 15 observational studies provided evidence. Low-strength evidence suggested neonates of pregnant women with depression taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors had higher risk of respiratory distress than did neonates of untreated women (13.9% compared with 7.8%; P<.001) but no difference in risk of neonatal convulsions (0.14% compared with 0.11%; P=.64) or preterm birth (17% compared with 10%; P=.07). Indirect evidence from studies of pregnant women receiving antidepressants for mixed or unreported reasons compared with pregnant women not taking antidepressants (depression status unknown) suggested future research should focus on congenital anomalies and autism spectrum and attention deficit disorders in the child. In postpartum depression, low-strength evidence suggested symptom response was not improved when sertraline was added to psychotherapy or when cognitive–behavioral therapy was added to paroxetine. Evidence was insufficient for other outcomes, including depression symptoms, functional capacity, breastfeeding, and infant and child development. A serious limitation is the lack of study populations of exclusively depressed pregnant and postpartum women. CONCLUSION: Evidence about the comparative benefits and harms of pharmacologic treatment of depression in pregnant and postpartum women was largely inadequate to allow informed decisions about treatment. Considering the prevalence of depression, filling this gap is essential.


In this article, I draw from fieldwork on the micropractices of hawkers' illicit dealings with low-level state functionaries in Mumbai, India, to explore how claims to city space are negotiated. I argue that what is often understood as a breakdown in urban governance is, instead, what I call an "ordinary space of negotiation" that constitutes the grounds on which claims to substantive citizenship are made. This ethnographic exploration of what practices of corruption produce has the possibility to expand how scholars think about the state and political claim making in liberal democratic contexts at large.


With the ever increasing demand for suitable tissue engineering and drug delivery systems, hydrogel fiber spinning has drawn increasing attention due to its ability to create threedimensional (3D) structures using biomaterials. Hydrogel materials have shown a great promise to be used as templates for tissue engineering and implantable devices. Among the many production techniques available, advanced fiber processing, such as coaxial and triaxial spinning of natural hydrogels, has attracted a great deal of attention because the basic core-sheath structure provides a drug delivery system capable of delivering high concentrations of drug for localized drug delivery and tissue engineering applications. Encapsulating the drug and bioactive cores with a more bio-friendly coating allows for a versatile system for producing devices with appropriate mechanical, chemical and biological properties that can mimic the native extracellular matrix, better supporting cell growth and maintenance. This chapter presents a novel fabrication method using a wet-spinning process that allows for the routine production of multifunctional coaxial hydrogel fibers that take advantage of the encapsulating properties of a hydrogel core while also promoting good cell growth and biocompatibility via the use of bio-friendly material in the sheath.


Despite a long unsuccessful history, civil law codification has entered into a new stage in China in 2014 when the Central Committee of the Communist Party (CCP) made its call for this compilation in its Decisions on Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Moving Governing the Country According to the Law Forward (2014 Decisions) for the first time since the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC).1 Although the political promotion may be welcomed as an encouraging sign of the Party-State's commitment to the rule of law development in China's social and market transition, the codification is still facing a wide range of challenges, ranging from political ideology to technical controversies. This article critically examines the background of the new round of codification, the progress made thus far and some major issues that have been heatedly debated. It is argued that in terms of the path for civil and private law development China may take no exception to other developed market economies with profound political and institutional reform.


The advantage of low-temperature Raman spectroscopy is well known, and this technique is now widely used for many different types of compounds. The recent interest in resonance Raman spectroscopy applied to the biological compounds posed new demands for the experimental techniques. Several valuable improvements have been made in this area, especially for samples which require handling under anaerobic conditions. In 1986 Czernuszewicz presented an anaerobic sample cell use in conjunction with a closed-cycle helium refrigerator. This type of cell has been successfully applied to the resonance Raman spectra collected under back-scattering geometry with incident radiation at 135° to the surface of the sample. However, this arrangement is not suitable for collection of scattering at 90° to the incident beam, the conventional arrangement of the majority of commercial Raman spectrometers. Thus a simple low-temperature anaerobic cell suitable for 90° scattering geometry has been designed, and it is presented here.


Organizations today engage in various forms of alliances to manage their existing business processes or to diversify into newprocesses to sustain their competitive positions. Many of today's alliances use the IT resources as their backbone. The resultsof these alliances are collaborative organizational structures with little or no ownership stakes between the parties. Theemergence of Web 2.0 tools is having a profound effect on the nature and form of these alliance structures. These alliancesheavily depend on and make radical use of the IT resources in a collaborative environment. This situation requires a deeperunderstanding of the governance of these IT resources to ensure the sustainability of the collaborative organizationalstructures. This study reports on the first stage of this initiative. It suggest the types of IT governance structures required forcollaborative organizational structures. Semi-structured interviews with senior executives who operate in such alliancesreveal that co-created IT governance structures are necessary. Such structures include co-created IT-steering committees, cocreatedoperational committees, and inter-organizational performance management and communication systems. The findingspave the way for the development of a model for understanding approaches to governing IT and evaluating the effectivenessfor such governance mechanisms in today's IT dependent alliances.


BACKGROUND/AIMS
The protective role of HBV-specific CD8+ cells is dependent on their ability to efficiently migrate to the infected liver, where they may exert an effector function. The migratory behavior of CD8+ cells is influenced by their expression of different chemokine receptors. This study was intended to analyse the pattern of chemokine receptor expression of HBV specific CD 8+ cells in chronic B viral infection.

METHODS
We analysed the CCR5 and CCR3 profile of HBV-specific CD8+ cells isolated from the blood and liver of patients with different patterns of HBV infection. Purified T cells were stained directly ex vivo, or after antigen-specific stimulation, using HBV peptide-specific HLA tetramers and monoclonal antibodies to CD8, CCR5 and CCR3, with analysis by flow cytometry.

RESULTS
In patients with chronic hepatitis B characterised by low levels of virus (serum HBV DNA <0.5 pg/mL) and minimal liver inflammation, analysis of circulating and intrahepatic CD8+ cells demonstrated that liver infiltrating Tc18-27-specific cells were preferentially CCR5+ (up to 80% of HBV-specific CD8+ cells), in contrast to cells of the same specificity within the circulating compartment (up to 35% of HBV-specific CD8+ cells). Furthermore, CCR3 was expressed by about 10% of Tc18-27+ cells infiltrating the liver, but was absent from circulating cells. Following HBV-specific stimulation in vitro the CCR5 expression of circulating Tc18-27-specific cells was up-regulated, to levels found in liver infiltrating cells, whereas CCR3 expression was unchanged.

CONCLUSIONS
The chemokine receptor profile of HBV-specific CD8+ cells is influenced by the anatomical site of these cells, and the clinical pattern of disease. The ability of circulating HBV-specific CD8+ cells of patients with low replicating virus to upregulate CCR5 suggests that these cells may respond to increases in virus replication by efficiently migrating into the infected liver.


This research was undertaken with the aim to identify the robustness of available genetic markers (chloroplast DNA sequences and nuclear microsatellites) to differentiate G. parviflora subsp. parviflora (Gpp) from five closely related taxa within the Linearifolia Group of grevilleas; particularly G. humilis subsp. humilis (Ghh) in the Lake Macquarie area. One chloroplast region had a consistent character that separated the northern populations of Gpp (northern: Hunter area) from populations in the south of its range (southern: Cumberland Plains area) and all other taxa. This character was an 11 base pair sequence inversion. An assessment of over 50 microsatellite loci led to the identification of nine primer pairs that consistently amplified variable product in the target taxon. Genetic profiling using the microsatellites from a minimum of 10 individuals per taxon demonstrated a number of important issues: (1) some individuals amplify three alleles at one or more loci, suggesting possible aneuploidy or triploidy; (2) some individuals from the same population have identical, or near identical, genotypes which may be indicative of vegetative propagation; (3) genetic profiles among all samples were complex and the microsatellite loci provided moderate support for some of the taxa while other samples suggest a likely history of admixture, hybridisation, or the mis-identification of plant material. These possibilities need to be assessed along with morphological studies being undertaken by Mr Bob Makinson as a complementary component to this research. Particular consideration should be given to the southern populations of the focal taxon which, based on cpDNA and microsatellites, were genetically more similar to the geographically closer G. parviflora subsp. supplicans. Overall, the genetics tools (cpDNA and microsatellites) show great promise for delineating northern populations of G. parviflora subsp. parviflora and for deeper investigations into population genetic structure including the number of unique genotypes within and among populations, the physical spread of clonal genotypes within populations, the genetic differentiation and the genetic health (as assessed by heterozygosity and inbreeding) of populations of this threatened taxon.


Alarmist narratives about online misinformation continue to gain traction despite evidence that its prevalence and impact are overstated. Drawing on research examining the use of big data in social science and reception studies, we identify six misconceptions about misinformation and highlight the conceptual and methodological challenges they raise. The first set of misconceptions concerns the prevalence and circulation of misinformation. First, scientists focus on social media because it is methodologically convenient, but misinformation is not just a social media problem. Second, the internet is not rife with misinformation or news, but with memes and entertaining content. Third, falsehoods do not spread faster than the truth; how we define (mis)information influences our results and their practical implications. The second set of misconceptions concerns the impact and the reception of misinformation. Fourth, people do not believe everything they see on the internet: the sheer volume of engagement should not be conflated with belief. Fifth, people are more likely to be uninformed than misinformed; surveys overestimate misperceptions and say little about the causal influence of misinformation. Sixth, the influence of misinformation on people's behavior is overblown as misinformation often "preaches to the choir." To appropriately understand and fight misinformation, future research needs to address these challenges.


Medium-chain triacylglycerols (MCT) are present in milk, coconut oil and other foods, and are used therapeutically in special diets for certain disorders of lipid and glucose utilization. Recently, it has become apparent that MCT are not only oxidized in the liver, but are also present in lymph and fat tissue, particularly after chronic treatment. To evaluate the influence of MCT on metabolism in fat cells, we compared incorporation of octanoate and oleate into cellular triacylglycerols of 3T3-L1 adipocytes as well as their effects on preadipocyte differentiation. We found that less octanoate than oleate was stored and that more octanoate than oleate was oxidized. Octanoate was esterified to a greater extent at the sn-1,3 position of glyceryl carbons than at the sn-2 position, whereas the opposite was true for oleate. Glycerol release from fat cells pre-treated with octanoate was also greater than from cells pre-treated with oleate, presumably related to the preferential release of octanoate from the sn-1,3 position. Octanoate was not incorporated into lipids in undifferentiated cells and did not induce differentiation in these cells, whereas oleate was readily stored and actually induced differentiation. Incorporation of octanoate into lipids increased as cells differentiated, but reached a maximum of about 10% of the total stored fatty acids. If these effects in vitro also occur in vivo, substitution of octanoate for oleate or other long-chain fatty acids could have the beneficial effect of diminishing fat-cell number and lipid content.


Inversions have been performed separately on spectral solar beam extinction data (0.4–1.0 μm) and on solar aureole scattering data (scattering angle ≲13°) to derive aerosol size distributions over the radius range of sensitivity appropriate to each inversion methodology. The bimodal size distributions derived from the two optical data types were normally found to be consistent in the region of overlapping radius. In one example, however, the presence of an independent absorber was postulated to bring the extinction and the scattering results into agreement. The derived aerosol particle size distributions were substituted into a Mie code to compute a scattering phase function which was then used in a radiative transfer model (discrete ordinate method) in order to compare calculations of sky radiance at large angles from the sun with radiometer field data. Data analysis illustrates the importance of the small-particle modal feature and of atmopsheric absorption to obtain consistency between extinction, aureole, and sky radiance data.


Kauri dieback is a pest issue that is increasingly affecting kauri forests. A water and soilborne pathogen, Phytophthora taxon Agathis (PTA), has been identiied as a causal agent of kauri dieback at multiple locations, particularly within Auckland and Northland. In 2008, a passive surveillance and adaptive management programme was initiated to manage the disease across the natural range of kauri. Surveys were initially undertaken to determine the distribution and rate of spread of kauri dieback on private land in the Auckland region. Methods to evaluate and monitor overall tree health, disease symptoms and other potential contributing factors were developed. Diagnostic sampling was undertaken to isolate and identify pathogens associated with kauri dieback. Along with PTA, other Phytophthora species and environmental stress were frequently associated with symptoms at over 400 properties inspected. Further management is now required to develop control tools and mitigate further spread.


The weight of a syllable-sized reduplicant is never dependent on the syllabification of the base — that is, no language has a reduplicative morpheme that copies a coda in [pat-pat.ka] but no coda in [pa-pa.ta]. Yet this behavior is attested in the second syllable of foot-sized reduplicants: [pa.ta-pa.ta.ka], [pa.tak-pa.tak.ta]. Why is dependence on base syllabification possible in foot-sized reduplicants, but not in syllable-sized ones? This article provides an answer to that question in the form of a novel theory of reduplication called Serial Template Satisfaction (STS), which is situated within Harmonic Serialism (a derivational variant of Optimality Theory). In STS, a reduplicative template of type X can be filled by copying constituents of type X-1 from the base. A foot-sized reduplicant can be filled by copying syllables, but not a syllablesized reduplicant, which must be filled by copying segments. Lacking base-reduplicant correspondence constraints, STS has no way of forcing segment copying to depend on base syllabification, so it cannot produce the unattested pattern. This article also fleshes out STS as a general theory of reduplication that can be compared to other approaches in Optimality Theory and rule-based phonology. Phenomena discussed include reduplicant size, locality, and identity of base and reduplicant.


This investigation on spatial justice, while being fundamental research, has empirical pertinence and operational quality in the form of a justice-minded urbanism. Connecting the concreteness of cities with the societal objectives of development and of justice lays at the heart of the relationship between space and justice that this thesis sets out to develop. This project proposes an encounter among erudite studies on space, justice and spatial justice and between these theories and the discourses of citizens on what matters for justice in space. A theoretical contribution (a program for a theory of spatial justice) intersects an empirical terrain, based on the metropolitan area of Porto. Exploratory interviews with a sample of this society allow the participants to determine the themes of pertinence to discuss the spatial dimension of justice. Listening to what the inhabitants of metropolitan Porto have to say about injustice and their habitat produces a better understanding on the ways in which space and ethics are related in this society. Does space matter for justice? How do individuals problematize injustice through space? Is there one or several spatial justice conception in the society? Are individuals coherent or do they affiliate with different political-philosophical orientations in function of the themes at stake? In the pursuit of answers to these questions we conceive space and justice as two separate planes. We are interested in seeing the specific contribution of deontological components (rationality, impartiality and reasonableness) and ideas of justice (equality and freedom and their interrelations) vis-a-vis the proper spatial imagination of inhabitants. We arrive at the conclusion that there is a strong interconnection between the ways in which inhabitants treat these two dimensions in their configuration of spatial injustices and the proposition of their contraries. The capacity to imagine space as a resource for society's development project co-varies with the comprehensiveness of the "materials of justice" which are implied in the reversal of injustice. We identify that there is a proper ethical capacity involved in telling the just and that such capacity has varying degrees in different individuals. Through the quantitative and qualitative exploration of the corpus we observe that there are today, in Porto, ten different ways of connecting space and justice. Two main fields ? one located in an epoch of morality and the other in ethics ? compose contrasting urban problems: societal versus non-societal scales, metrics of continuity or of separateness, and varying degrees of complexity of the substance of space. These contradictions confirm the idea that urbanism needs to be a political process, inclusive of all voices of a society holding different spatial justice conceptions, yet working towards their convergence as well. A theory of spatial justice can support the actors in detecting the reasons for their disagreements and in their reconstructive work towards the consensus of spatial-ethical values.


ABSTRACT Objective: The adaptive behavior of mobile phone–distracted drivers has been a topic of much discussion in the recent literature. Both simulator and naturalistic studies suggest that distracted drivers generally select lower driving speeds; however, speed adaptation is not observed among all drivers, and the mechanisms of speed selection are not well understood. The aim of this research was to apply a driver behavioral adaptation model to investigate the speed adaptation of mobile phone–distracted drivers. Methods: The speed selection behavior of drivers was observed in 3 phone conditions including baseline (no conversation) and hands-free and handheld phone conversations in a high-fidelity driving simulator. Speed adaptation in each phone condition was modeled as a function of secondary task demand and self-reported personal/psychological characteristics with a system of seemingly unrelated equations (SURE) accounting for potential correlations due to repeated measures experiment design. Results: Speed adaptation is similar between hands-free and handheld phone conditions, but the predictors of speed adaptation vary across the phone conditions. Though perceived workload of secondary task demand, self-efficacy, attitude toward safety, and driver demographics were significant predictors of speed adaptation in the handheld condition, drivers' familiarity with the hands-free interface, attitude toward safety, and sensation seeking were significant predictors in the hands-free condition. Drivers who reported more positive safety attitudes selected lower driving speeds while using phones. Conclusion: This research confirmed that behavioral adaptation models are suitable for explaining speed adaptation of mobile phone distracted drivers, and future research could be focused on further theoretical refinement.


Objective: The objective of this work is to present longterm results of valve replacement using SJM-BiocorTM bovine pericardial bioprostheses. Methods: From 1992 to 2000, 304 patients were discharged from hospital after bioprosthesis implantation. Ages ranged from 15 to 83 years (mean: 60.6 ± 14.3 years) and 50.3% were male. Patient deaths and events related to bioprosthesis (infection, thromboembolism and structural failure) were considered for estimation of cumulative probability of survival and event-free survival. Results: Total follow-up was 931.0 patients-year. During follow-up there were 28 (9.2%) deaths. Causes were bioprosthesis failure in five (1.6%), cardiac in seven (2.3%), non-cardiac in four (1.3%), and unknown in 12 (3.9%) patients. Events related to bioprosthesis were: endocarditis: 18 (5.9%), fibrocalcific degeneration: 15 (4.9%), thromboembolism: three (1.0%), hemolysis: one (0.3%). Bioprosthesis dysfunctions resulted in 16 (5.2%) reoperations due to fibrocalcific degeneration (nine), endocarditis (six) and thromboembolism (one). Probability of survival was higher in the young population (< 40 years, n=35) when compared to the older group (> 60 year, n=187): 82.0 ± 13.3% vs. 58.8 ± 13.6% in the 9th year. Event-free survival was 77.5 ± 3.7% for 5th year and 40.2 ± 9.0% for 10th year. Overall estimative of structural failure for a SJM-BiocorTM was 5% in 5th year increasing to 20% in the 10th year. In the aortic position the values were zero and 8%, respectively. Considering current clinical conditions, 88.5% are in NYHA class I, 9.1% in class II and 2.3% in class III. Conclusions: SJM-BiocorTM bovine pericardial bioprostheses resulted in satisfactory survival of patients, related to low prevalence of bioprosthesis dysfunction. Descriptors: Bioprosthesis. Heart valve prosthesis. Heart valves. Resumo Objetivo: Nosso objetivo é apresentar resultados a longo prazo da subsituição valvar por bioprótese de pericárdio bovino SJM-BiocorTM. Método: Entre 1992 e 2000, tiveram alta hospitalar, após substituição valvar por bioprótese de pericárdio bovino SJMBiocorTM 304 pacientes. Idades eram de 15 a 83 anos (média: 60,6±14,3), sendo 50,3% do sexo masculino. Pacientes tiveram situação clínica atualizada e análise atuarial foi empregada no cálculo da sobrevida simples e livre de eventos.


DISCLAIMER This report was prepared as the result of work sponsored by the California Energy Commission. It does not necessarily represent the views of the Energy Commission, its employees or the State of California. The Energy Commission, the State of California, its employees, contractors and subcontractors make no warrant, express or implied, and assume no legal liability for the information in this report; nor does any party represent that the uses of this information will not infringe upon privately owned rights. This report has not been approved or disapproved by the California Energy Commission nor has the California Energy Commission passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of the information in this report.


A well-known approach for collaborative spam filtering is to determine which emails belong to the same bulk, e.g. by exploiting their content similarity. This allows, after observing an initial portion of a bulk, for the bulkiness scores to be assigned to the remaining emails from the same bulk. This also allows the individual evidence of spamminess to be joined, if such evidence is generated by collaborating filters or users for some of the emails from an initial portion of the bulk. Usually a database of previously observed emails or email digests is formed and queried upon receiving new emails. Previous evaluations [2,10] of the approach based on the email digests that preserve email content similarity indicate and partially demonstrate that there are ways to make the approach robust to increased obfuscation efforts by spammers. However, for the settings of the parameters that provide good matching between the emails from the same bulk, the unwanted random matching between ham emails and unrelated ham and spam emails stays rather high. This directly translates into a need for use of higher bulkiness thresholds in order to ensure low false positive (FP) detection of ham, which implies that larger initial parts of spam bulks will not be filtered, i.e. true positive (TP) detection will not be very high (FP-TP conflict). In this paper we demonstrate how, by use of the negative selection algorithm, the unwanted random matching between unrelated emails may be decreased at least by an order of magnitude, while preserving the same good matching between the emails from the same bulk. We also show how this translates into an order of magnitude (at least) of less undetected bulky spam emails, under the same ham miss- detection requirements.


A Sensory Education takes a close look at how sensory awareness is learned and taught in expert and everyday settings around the world. Anna Harris shows that our sensing is not innate or acquired, but in fact evolves through learning that is shaped by social and material relations. The chapters feature diverse sources of sensory education, including field manuals, mannequins, cookbooks and flavour charts. The examples range from medical training and forest bathing to culinary and perfumery classes. Offering a valuable guide to the uncanny and taken-for-granted ways in which adults are trained to improve their senses, this book will be of interest to disciplines including anthropology and sociology as well as food studies and sensory studies.


Digital Addiction, (hereafter referred to as DA), has become a serious issue that has a diversity of socio-economic side effects. In spite of its high importance, DA has received little recognition and little guidance as to how software engineering should take it into account. This is in stark contrast to other domains known for traditional addiction, e.g. drugs, gambling, and alcohol, in which there are clear rules and policies on how to manufacture, market and sell the products. We contend that software engineering is required to attempt to provide ways to develop software that does not lead to addiction and to accommodate users who are genuinely vulnerable to addictive behaviour. This thesis will concentrate on conceptualising DA to advance the understanding of how addiction elements influencing features and functionalities of social networking systems.


The commemoration of individuals in the parish churches of late medieval York was
primarily embodied in chantdes, funerary monuments and windows, although other forms, such as
misericordes and roof bosses, were also included. This thesis is based on the evidence of late
sixteenth- to late eighteenth-century antiquarians who visited the parish churches and noted
monuments, windows and other church fittings, most of which no longer exist. In addition the thesis
uses medieval testamentary and other documentary evidence as well as surviving visual evidence to
flesh out a portrait of the commemorated, particularly with regard to their professional and social
activities.
Chapter 1 introducest he topic and discussesth e limits of the thesis,r eviews the secondary
literature on the topic and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the primary evidence, i. e. the
antiquarian evidence, the medieval documentary evidence and the surviving visual material. Chapter
2 sets the parish churches into their historical context and discusses the origins, development and
decay of the church fabrics. Chapter 3 discusses general problems of dating and identification, the
mechanics of commemoration, and the heraldic evidence; it then analyzes the evidence regarding the
commemorated to indicate the social categories involved in parish church commemoration, their
activities over the late medieval period and what factors they had in common; it discusses absent
social groups; it places commemoration into context by discussing the objects which were found in
the late medieval churches and by analyzing testamentary evidence of bequests to parish churches as
wells as to friaries and the Minster; the chapter concludes with an overview of commemorative
genres over time. Chapter 4 discusses the visual components of monuments and windows and their
development over time; the use of status symbols in commemorative panels; the iconography of
heraldry and merchants' marks; the role of inscriptions and scrolls; and the way in which all the
different components of memorials worked together. Chapter 5 concludes the thesis with some
observations about the interaction of religious and secular aims in the memorials and with
suggestions for further study. Two appendices are also included - the first contains a full
transcription of the antiquarian evidence on a church-by-church basis; the second lists the names of
the commemorated alphabetically and each entry includes biographical notes and details of their
commemoration in the parish churches.


Modeling the specificity of transcription factors to the DNA is one of the challenges that has kept many bioinformatics researchers busy since the early beginnings. Initially it was expected that a universal recognition code describing the amino acid to base pair contacts would be able to describe protein-DNA complex formation. However, until this very day a universal recognition code has not yet been found and alternative methods became more important. Nowadays, methods that describe the specificity of only one transcription factor (or a small family of transcription factors) are used most often. These methods make use of a set of experimentally validated binding sites to construct a profile for each transcription factor. One of the oldest profile-based methods is the consensus sequence method. Consensus sequences consist of a simple text string in which each character of the string represents the most prevalent nucleotide in the corresponding position of DNA binding sites. As an extension to these consensus sequences, in 1982, Gary Stormo introduced the well-known and very popular positional weight matrix (PWM). These PWMs consist of a 4xL matrix, with L being the length of the binding sites. In each row of these matrices, the frequency of occurrence of one of the four nucleotides is given for a certain position in the binding sites. Even though these PWMs are a big improvement to the consensus sequences method, they also lead to many false positive predictions. Many alternative methods try to improve the accuracy of these PWMs, most of them with very limited success. In this thesis I will discuss the shortcomings of the previous generation of prediction methods and I will suggest new methods that overcome some of these shortcomings.
The first method that will be discussed in this thesis makes use of a multiple sequence alignment (MSA) to visualize evolutionary conserved transcription factor binding sites that are predicted with the PWM method. Binding sites that are conserved across all species in these alignments have a higher likelihood to be functional. Mutation of these binding sites would result in a less fit species, therefore mutations in these binding sites would have a negative effect. By inspecting these multiple sequence alignments for putative PWM hits we can reduce a large number of false positive predictions as false positive hits are less likely to be conserved.
A second contribution of this thesis to the improvement of prediction methods is the research on and development of a number of new methods that make use of the structure and the biophysical characteristics of protein-DNA complexes. These characteristics are often overlooked in the previous generation of prediction methods even though they are very important for binding specificity in many protein-DNA complexes. With the help of the Random Forest classification method and sequence-based structural and biophysical characteristics we managed to develop models that can predict transcription factor binding sites with a higher level of accuracy. Based on this method, we also developed a user-friendly web-tool that can make use of a large number of pre-calculated transcription factor models.


Entrepreneurship studies started out as a young field, one where a mix of economists, psychologists, geographers and the occasional anthropologist came together to study the wonder and weirdness that is entrepreneurship, in a wide range of fashions and with few a priori assumptions to hold it back. Today, some of this eclecticism lives on in the field, but at the same time we have seen that the field has matured and its popularity has led to the field becoming increasingly institutionalized – and thereby beset by an increasing number of assumptions, even myths. Consequently, this special issue queries some of the assumptions and potential myths that flourish in the field, inquiring critically into the constitution of entrepreneurship as a field of research – all in order to develop the same. Without occasions where a field can question even its most deeply held beliefs, we are at risk of becoming ideologically rather than analytically constituted, which is why we in this special issue wanted to create a space for the kind of critical yet creative play that e.g. Sarasvathy (2004) has encourages the field to engage with.


Abstract Historical accounts and descriptions of the Boston Harbor Islands were searched for references to the islands' vegetation. They indicate dramatic changes in vegetation structure and composition since 1600. Many of the islands were wooded prior to European settlement, although Native American use is evident before 1600. Forests were cleared for agriculture, building materials, and firewood. Through the centuries since European settlement, the islands have variously supported municipal and military facilities, some of which have since been abandoned. As use of the islands changed, the vegetation of the islands also changed; in some cases native trees and other species returned to abandoned areas, while in others new, exotic species became established or were planted. By the end of the 20th century the vegetation had become a mixture of woodlands (roughly 25% of the islands as a whole), shrub thickets, open lands, and manicured landscapes, all of which include a large component of non-native species.


Holy wars, crusades, discrimination, hate these by-products of religion are all many contemporary commentators can see. But is religion dangerous? Is it a force for evil, something to oppose as a corrupt system that leads to terrorism and violence? Is it something to disdain as irrational and out of step with modern society? Keith Ward here addresses these concerns intelligently and insightfully. Looking at the evidence from history, philosophy, sociology, and psychology, he focuses on the main question at issue: does religion do more harm than good? He begins with a clear definition of what religion actually is, examining the key area of religion and violence. Ward goes on to assess the allegations of irrationality and immorality before finally exploring the good religion has engendered over the centuries. Without religion, the human race would be considerably worse off with little hope for the future. In fact, he argues, religion is the best rational basis for morality. Thought-provoking and powerful, Is Religion Dangerous? is essential reading for anyone interested in the confluence of truth, freedom, and justice.


We wish to defend Jonathan Westphal's view that colour is complex against a recent 'phenomenological' criticism of Eric Rubenstein. There is often thought to be a conflict between two kinds of determinants of colour, physical and phenomenal. On the one hand there are the complex physical facts about colour, such as the determination of a surface colour by an absorption spectrum. There is also, however, the fact that the apparently simple phenomenological quality of what is seen is a function of the physiological and psychological state of the viewing subject. Should the physical trump the phenomenal, or is it the other way round? Much of the phenomenal variation of colour, however, is explained by physical facts. There is a physics and a psychophysics of colour. Colours appear, to the colour scientists at least, to be in some sense objective, a sense not explained by the view that they are purely phenomenal. Taking physics and psychophysics into account will mean rejecting the claim that the content of what our concepts of colours are concepts of is exhausted by the purely phenomenal, or that we can determine these concepts simply by gazing at a colour. Taking account of physics will lead, as Westphal argued, instead to a view about white and the other colour terms like Putnam's account of gold. Necessary truths about colours cannot be explained without reference to the logic of the compossibility of what is given in reflection and absorption spectra, the analogue of H2O.


In Kisor v. Wilkie, the Supreme Court recently confronted whether to overrule the doctrine under which courts defer to agencies' interpretations of their own ambiguous regulations—so-called Auer or Seminole Rock deference. In its prior reexaminations of Seminole Rock, the Court had progressively restricted the doctrine's scope, leading observers to wonder whether the Justices would scrap it for good. This question of administrative law ignited a corollary debate about stare decisis. Writing for the majority, Justice Kagan argued that stare decisis mandated the preservation of Seminole Rock. Yet as she appealed to stare decisis, her opinion further restricted the conditions under which deference applies. Concurring in the judgment, Justice Gorsuch contended that the majority was wrong to invoke stare decisis while simultaneously modifying the doctrine in basic respects. Preservation of precedent, in his view, was inconsistent with its continued modification. Embedded in Justice Gorsuch's opinion was a deep question about identity over time: If a precedent is heavily modified through subsequent case law, may the final case "reaffirming" and further modifying the precedent justifiably trace its lineage to the original case announcing the principle, such that the principle's supposed "antiquity" lends it enhanced stare decisis weight? This Article, extending Justice Gorsuch's critique, answers in the negative. Continuous and profound modification of a precedent casts doubt on the quality of the Court's original reasoning and erodes the connection between earlier and later cases, thus weakening the stare decisis weight due the precedent upon its reconsideration.


Photojournalist Larry Towell is the only Canadian member of the prestigious Magnum Photos Agency. Over the span of his career he has concerned himself primarily with issues of land and landlessness and has engaged in a number of long-term projects documenting the human stories amid political and religious conflict in Central America and the Middle East; he has also chronicled the migrant Mennonite workers of Mexico. This thesis focuses specifically on Towell's work photographing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in No Man's Land, a book project that was accompanied by newspaper and magazine publications, exhibitions, a video, audio CDs, public performances and multi-media projects. The extensive dissemination and documentation of Towell's work from No Man's Land offers an opportunity to examine a cohesive body of work in a number of forums and see how the context in which photojournalistic images appear can subsequently affect their meaning. This thesis undertakes a thorough examination of the photographs from No Man's Land in the context of the book, the printed press and exhibitions, considering the intent of the photographer in relation to audience perception of the work. With the new direction in photojournalism leading toward more subjective and self-reflexive projects and with expanding opportunities in digital and art worlds, it is essential that context and presentation be thoroughly understood to ensure the integrity of the issues and the photographer's intent.


Objectives
There is today ample evidence that negative aging stereotypes impair healthy older adults' performance on cognitive tasks. Here, we tested whether these stereotypes also decrease performance during the screening for predementia on short cognitive tests widely used in primary care.

Method
An experiment was conducted on 80 healthy older adults taking the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) under Threat or Reduced-threat condition.

Results
Stereotype threat significantly impaired older adults' performance on both tests, resulting in 40% of older adults meeting the screening criteria for predementia, compared with 10% in Reduced-threat condition (MMSE and MoCA averaged).

Discussion
Our research highlights the influence of aging stereotypes on short cognitive tests used to screen for predementia. It is of critical importance that physicians provide a threat-free testing environment. Further research should clarify whether this socially induced bias may also operate in secondary care by generating false positives.


Central white matter and peripheral nerves function by conducting action potentials, which rely on the presence of transmembrane potentials generated by ion gradients. The maintenance of these transmembrane potentials is the main energy-dependent process in the nervous system. In this thesis I investigated the ability of endogenous glycogen to support the energy requirements of nervous tissue and the role of lactate in this process. Glycogen in the CNS is located in astrocytes but is capable of supporting axonal conduction, implying axon-glial metabolic interactions. These interactions were investigated in both the mouse optic nerve (MON), a central white matter tract, and the mouse sciatic nerve (MSN), a mixed peripheral nerve. Electrophysiological techniques were used to record action potential conduction in the nerves as an index of nerve function. Parallel experiments to quantify glycogen content using biochemical assay, or simultaneous real-time measurement of lactate release from the nerves using enzyme-based lactate biosensors, correlated action potential conduction with glycogen content, or lactate release, respectively. Depletion of glycogen leaves the MON vulnerable to irreversible injury to a greater extent than exposure to moderate hyperthermia during aglycemia. Glycogen also greatly enhanced the neuroprotective effects of mild hypothermia during aglycemia. Under resting conditions lactate in the immediate vicinity of the MON was stable at ~0.5 mM, a concentration that increased with axonal activity, dependent upon stimulus intensity. Raising extracellular K+ evoked lactate release, suggesting that increased neuronal activity promotes lactate release. Inhibition of glycogen metabolism, partly reduced lactate release from the MON, implying that glycogen metabolism is important under normal physiological conditions. The relative contribution of glycogen to lactate release increased with axonal activity, consistent with activity-induced glycogenolysis. These studies were then extended to the peripheral nervous system as the role of glycogen in this tissue has not previously been considered. Glycogen, which was present in Schwann cells, supported myelinated, but not un-myelinated axons during aglycemia, suggesting a more complex and selective neuroprotective role than that in central white matter.

These results advance our understanding of white matter energy metabolism in relation to both the contributions of glycogen and lactate. The novel functional role of glycogen in supporting peripheral nerve function has also been described.


Three rhyolite eruptive units totaling 3 km3 dense rock equivalent volume are the youngest products from the Valles caldera, New Mexico. These pyroclastic and effusive units, herein called the El Cajete Series, were erupted over an appreciable time period with Plinian and ignimbrite-forming activity preceding an effusive phase by a lengthy but indeterminable interval. New U-Th disequilibrium and published fission track dates support an age for the event between 170 and 130 ka. The explosive phases formed the El Cajete Plinian deposit (about 1.3 km3), minor dry pyroclastic surges, and the Battleship Rock tuff (about 1.0 km3), a valley-confined welded ignimbrite. The Plinian eruption column is estimated to have been 28 km high during deposition of the most widely dispersed pumice fall unit. Slow effusion of the Banco Bonito obsidian lava flow (<1.0 km3) onto a dissected surface cut into the El Cajete and Battleship Rock pyroclastic deposits, accompanied by minor explosive activity, terminated the event. Twenty-four bulk-rock samples from all three eruptive stages exhibit little significant compositional variation, and the three units are petrographically identical apart from differences arising from contrasting eruption styles. Very few phenocrysts appear to have been in equilibrium with their enclosing high-silica rhyolitic liquid. Plagioclase grains are typically strongly resorbed, while biotite and hornblende frequently occur in aggregate grains in which textures characteristic of plutonic rocks can be discerned. These features result from partial melting of preexisting crustal igneous rock, probably of dioritic to granodioritic composition, and subsequent eruption of the resulting liquid plus restite crystals. Rapid generation and eruption of rhyolitic magma during this most recent phase of activity in the Jemez Mountains may imply that the Valles magma system is presently in a state where small magma bodies are transient phenomena.


BACKGROUND
Several psychiatric disorders are considered to be neurodevelopmental in origin. Population-based research provides us with a unique opportunity to explore how prenatal factors influence neurodevelopment.

AIM
To analyse whether non-verbal child iq is linked to gestational duration and birth weight and to find out whether these birth factors can be seen as to reflect the intra-uterine environment.

METHOD
Participants were 5,893 (73.6%) children enrolled in the Generation R Study. The gestational duration was determined on the basis of foetal ultrasound scans. Birth weight was measured and transformed into standard deviation scores corrected for gestational duration and gender. The non-verbal iq was measured when the child reached the age of six.

RESULTS
Even during in the a-term period, gestational duration showed a linear association with non-verbal iq, whereas the association between birth weight and non-verbal iq was found to be curvilinear.

CONCLUSION
Independently and showing different patterns, both gestational duration and birth weight were found to have a predictive value for childhood non-verbal iq. This finding illustrates the various mechanisms that could lead to neurodevelopmental disorders.


The aim of the current study was to investigate based on a five-year crop rotation experiment (field pea, potato, barley under-sown with red clover, red clover, and winter wheat) situated in Tartu, Estonia, the impact of cover crops (oilseed-rape, rye and perennial ryegrass), alone or with cattle manure (40 t ha-1), in organic farming and mineral fertilizers (up to N150P25K95) effect in conventional farming in soil chemical (pHKCl, SOC, Ntot, available P, K, Mg and Ca) and physical properties (bulk density, porosity, water permeability and penetration resistance) since 2008 till 2014. In addition in 2013–2014 the effect of cover crop on soil aggregate stability, earthworm population and microbial activity (FDA) was also tested in organic farming. After the first rotation, the organic systems counted with the highest C input as a result of the incorporation of the main crop residues, plus the ploughing of cover crops and the yearly addition of cattle manure, resulting a positive effect on SOC and N, increasing SOC by 1.47% since experiment started. However, the larger number of tillage operations carried out in these systems counterbalanced the positive effect of cover crops and manure on the soil physical properties in the organic systems which presented the highest bulk density (1.47 Mg m-3 and 1.48 Mg m-3, respectively) and the lowest percentage of air filled pores (14.6% and 14.1% respectively) compared with the conventional fertilized systems with lower bulk density (1.39 Mg m-3), higher percentage of air filled pores (19.1%) and plant available water (22.8%). During the second period, the sum of different factors such as intensive tillage and the decrease in Mg, affected the percentage of soil stable aggregates in the organic systems with cover crops and cattle manure, decreasing it by 1.6% and 9.5% respectively. Contrary, these systems presented higher number of earthworms and the highest enzymatic activity with FDA average values of 59.7 μg and 58.4 μg fluorescein g dry soil-1 h-1, respectively, compared to the control treatment. In summary, the use of cover crops alone or with cattle manure cannot be considered sufficient for maintaining a constant concentration of nutrients and good soil physical conditions in the soil after seven years of rotation under intensive tillage and further research is needed under lower tillage intensity.


This study investigated the performance of graduate students enrolled in introductory statistics courses. The course in Fall 2005 was delivered in a traditional face-to-face manner and the same course in Fall 2006 was blended by using an online commercial tutoring system (ALEKS) and making attendance of several face-to-face classes optional. There was no significant difference in the t-test comparing performance in the courses, which used the students' combined score on two mid-terms and the final exam to indicate performance. The ANCOVA analyzing influences on performance in the blended class yielded no significant influence for gender, ethnicity, age, or class type (traditional vs. blended), but a significant influence from students' incoming GREQuantitative score. Seven Likert questions on students' perception of blended learning were not correlated with student performance. Three focus groups – comprised of low-, medium-, and high-performing students – revealed three themes and several subthemes and differences based on students' performance level.


Many potential therapies are currently being studied that may promote neural regeneration and guide regenerating axons to form correct connections following injury. It has been shown that adult neurons have some limited regenerative capabilities, and the lack of connection formation between neurons is not an intrinsic inability of these cells to form axons after being damaged, but rather the inhibitory microenvironment of the injured tissue prevents regeneration. In this study, the polarization and chemotaxis of neuronal stem cells (NSC) in response to quantified gradients of nerve growth factor (NGF) was examined. To accomplish this, a microfluidic device was designed and fabricated to generate stable concentration gradients of biomolecules in a cell culture chamber within a 3D microenvironment. Numerical simulation was implemented to optimize the device geometry for generating a uniform concentration gradient of NGF which was found to remain stable for multiple hours. NSCs migration was studied within this microfluidic device in response to NGF concentration and within a 3D environment of collagen matrix. This device is expected to have wide applicability in the study of shear-sensitive cells such as NSC and non-adherent cell types as well as in the study of migration through three dimensional matrices.


Around the globe, natural and agrarian landscapes are subject to agricultural intensification to meet the increasing and changing demands for resources of the growing population. This intensification takes place at two different scales: (1) At a landscape scale by reducing natural and semi-natural habitats to make room for the expansion of agriculture through monocultures and few crop types. (2) At a local scale, agricultural intensification implies shifts in agronomic practices such as the increasing application of agrochemicals, the use of heavy machinery, the cultivation of improved crop varieties and the reduction of genetic crop diversity. A decline of agrobiodiversity and associated ecosystem functions and services are one of the consequences, yet a changing agricultural system also impacts the social-ecological system. These transformations also affect small-scale and subsistence farming in the tropics. This thesis focuses on paddy cultivation systems in Wayanad district, Kerala State, South India and provides new results about effects of land-use change and agricultural intensification on agrobiodiversity and social-ecological processes.
In Wayanad, paddy cultivation has a very long tradition and is closely linked to the culture and religion of the inhabitants, especially in case of indigenous communities. However, traditional paddy cultivation is gradually intensified, mainly by the use of chemical fertilisers, insecticides and machinery as well as cultivation of high yielding varieties. Driven by the commercialisation of agriculture, paddy land has been and still is transformed to cultivate cash crops such as bananas, ginger, cassava or arecanut. Furthermore, increasing amount of semi-natural habitats such as homegarden polycultures is converted into simplified plantations.
For the ecological studies of the first and the second chapter of this thesis, we selected 18 paddy fields, which were cultivated by local farmers applying either high-intensity or low-intensity management. For the analysis, we focused on the three major agronomic practices, namely the amount of fertiliser application, insecticide application and weeding. Paddy fields were located either next to homegarden polycultures or banana monocultures. Samples were taken in three transects: (1) at the edge, close to adjacent habitat, (2) in the centre and (3) at the bund of the fields to consider possible edge effects. Additionally, we mapped the landscape components within a 500m radius around each field. The social-ecological study of the third chapter focuses on the three largest indigenous communities, the landowning agriculturalists Kuruma and Kurichya and the Paniya who are predominantly landless, agricultural labourer.

In the first chapter we analyse the response of paddy weeds, pests and predators to agricultural intensification at a local and landscape scale. Weeds, planthoppers and spiders were collected in the 18 paddy fields described above. The results showed that adjacent banana monocultures enhanced weed and planthopper population. Furthermore, the abundance of planthoppers was positively related to the density of weedy grasses but negatively affected by weed diversity (dominated by dicots). Spiders in contrast, benefited from weed diversity. However, spider population was mainly driven by prey availability. Increased fertiliser application had an indirect positive effect on spiders through increased prey abundance and weed richness. Spider abundance and richness decreased with increasing distance from the field edges, indicating influences of adjacent habitat on paddy field colonisation. The findings of this study suggest that paddy cultivation in Wayanad should consider the identity of adjacent habitat and weeds (monocots vs dicots) but also the amount of applied fertilisers to maintain a balanced agroecosystem.
The second chapter particularly focuses on the spider community in paddy fields. In addition to the abundance of the main spider families, we considered different web types as well as potential prey. Furthermore, effects of landscape characteristics and cultivation practices are taken into account. The analysis highlighted that the major determining factor for overall spider and web abundance was the prey availability; hence, the spider community in this paddy fields was driven by bottom up effects. A closer look at different families and web types revealed differences within this general pattern. For the web building Tetragnathidae and Linyphiidae Lepidoptera and leafhopper abundance were most important while Araneidae responded to Lepidoptera. The hunting spider Oxyopidae responded positively to Lepidoptera, leafhoppers and other insects. For this family we also found a slight negative effect of increasing herb cover in the paddy fields. The number of Salticidae and Lycosidae, also ahunting spiders, were only correlated with increasing numbers of Lepidoptera. Diverging results for web and spider abundances suggest that spider web sampling can be a useful complement to spider sampling. Furthermore, huge numbers of tetragnathid webs, which are easy to observe in the field, can be an indicator for the farmers to check their fields for possibly harmful infestation with rice pests.
In the third chapter, we focus on a social-ecological approach to assess the ecological knowledge and agricultural practices as well as the multiple meanings of social-ecological transformation processes. This qualitative study focused on the three major indigenous communities and their agrarian systems in Wayanad. We used three methodological tools, namely key informant interviews, village maps and seasonal calendars and focus group discussions. Central to this study was the development of a social-ecological web, which is understood as a bridging concept that integrates knowledge from social and natural science. This method is a useful tool to illustrate and compare the three different agrarian systems existing in Wayanad. Our results revealed that land-use change and intensification causes different degrees of social-ecological transformation among the three indigenous communities. Furthermore, the communities are affected by different factors of this change. For instance, the Kurichya's family structure remains largely unaffected so far while the Kuruma increasingly seek higher education and formal employment but deforestation negatively impacts livelihood strategies of the Paniya.

Overall, we argue that paddy agroecosystems in Wayanad were mainly driven by bottom-up effects: increasing resources led to an increase of individual numbers in higher trophic levels. Adjacent monocultures such as banana fields could enhance the population of rice weeds and pests. Intensification at the local scale had only minor effects, which may indicate that the intensification of paddy cultivation in Wayanad did not yet reached disastrous dimensions. Additionally, land-use change and agricultural intensification not only impact the ecological system, but also shape social-ecological transformation processes, which indicates the importance to examine such systems from an interdisciplinary angle.


The vulnerability of a municipal well in the Northwest well field in southeastern Florida to potential contamination by Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts was assessed in a large‐scale, forced‐gradient (convergent) injection and recovery test. The field study involved a simultaneous pulse introduction of a nonreactive tracer (SF6, an inert gas) and oocyst‐sized (1.6, 2.9, and 4.9 μm diameter) carboxylated polystyrene microspheres into karst limestone of the Biscayne aquifer characterized by a complex triple (matrix, touching‐vug, and conduit) porosity. Fractional recoveries 97 m down gradient were inversely related to diameter and ranged from 2.9% for the 4.9 μm microspheres to 5.8% for 1.6 μm microspheres. Their centers of mass arrived at the pumping well approximately threefold earlier than that of the nonreactive tracer SF6 (gas), underscoring the need for use of colloid tracers and field‐scale tracer tests for these kinds of evaluations. In a modified triaxial cell using near in situ chemical conditions, 2.9 and 4.9 μm microspheres underestimated by fourfold to sixfold the attachment potential of the less electronegative 2.9–4.1 μm oocysts in the matrix porosity of limestone core samples. The field and laboratory results collectively suggested that it may take 200–300 m of transport to ensure even a 1‐log unit removal of oocysts, even though the limestone surfaces exhibited a substantive capability for their sorptive removal. The study further demonstrated the utility of microspheres as oocyst surrogates in field‐scale assessments of well vulnerability in limestone, provided that differences in attachment behaviors between oocysts and microspheres are taken into account.


Genetic programming (GP), is a very general and efficient technique, often capable of outperforming more specialized techniques on a variety of tasks. In this paper, we suggest a straightforward novel algorithm for post-processing of GP classification trees. The algorithm iteratively, one node at a time, searches for possible modifications that would result in higher accuracy. More specifically, the algorithm for each split evaluates every possible constant value and chooses the best. With this design, the post-processing algorithm can only increase training accuracy, never decrease it. In this study, we apply the suggested algorithm to GP trees, extracted from neural network ensembles. Experimentation, using 22 UCI datasets, shows that the post-processing results in higher test set accuracies on a large majority of datasets. As a matter of fact, for two setups of three evaluated, the increase in accuracy is statistically significant.


Diabetes is a general illness regularly contaminated in people. Numerous approaches to recognize diabetes, one of them is checking circulatory strain, however, along these lines isn't compelling, in light of the fact that it takes blood first and takes a ton of time. Iridology is a one-way investigation wellbeing dependent on the iris. In this manner, we need an apparatus used to recognize pancreatic harm as a sign of diabetes through iridology. TheBurden picture is the initial step to distinguish pancreatic organs dependent on the iris. The eye picture that we utilized as the info framework originates from the eye facility database. The subsequent stage is a versatile middle sifting utilized in the process preprocessing to lessen the commotion on the picture. After that, the subsequent stage is a division process utilizing Hough circle change technique. The consequences of division will be standardized and take the Region of intrigue. Return for money invested will be done element extraction by utilizing GLCM (Gray Level Co-Occurrence Matrix). To know the state of a pancreas organ utilizing back propagation strategy.


Supporting a Process Oriented Requirements Method

Process modelling as a way to inform requirements has seen somewhat of a resurgence in recent years, particularly in those methods that utilise a Role Activity Diagram based approach. By using these models within the requirements phase the client needs can be captured effectively in a notation that makes sense to the business user, whilst also providing a rigorous description.

However, the move to specification still has pitfalls, notably in ensuring that the understanding gained from process modelling can be transferred effectively to the specification so that alignment of business need and software system is maintained.

This talk outlines issues and potential solutions in ensuring such alignment, and incorporates our recent experiences in attempting to provide tool support.

In particular, we describe tool support for model driven development (as part of the collaborative EC project VIDE), and the use of process mashups, including work undertaken at SAP research. In both cases our focus has been on providing sets of notations and tools which are accessible to a variety of users, often including those stakeholders who are not IT experts.

Mashups are a relatively new approach, and use web 2.0 technologies to combine data from different sources to create valuable information, principally for data aggregation applications. This utilises the potential of the internet and related technologies, to allow users to process tasks collaboratively, and form communities among those with similar interests. We present currently available mashup platforms and demonstrate how situational enterprise applications can be built by combining social software, feeds, widgets, web services, open APIs, and so on.

The session does not require any specific technical skills, though experienced process engineers will have the opportunity to share their views.

Participants will learn:

• How to use simple role based process models
• Issues in moving from process model to specification
• How to use simple notational devices to ensure alignment
• How development tools can help, with a particular focus on the use of mashups
• Current process mashup approaches and future directions.


A constitutively active G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) resulting in the production of adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate (cAMP) has been implicated in maintaining meiotic arrest. El-Jouni et al. investigated whether vesicular trafficking at the plasma membrane may be involved in this process. Using Xenopus oocytes, they inhibited exocytosis with a dominant-negative form of SNAP25 (a protein that functions as a critical component of the SNARE machinery that allows vesicles to fuse with the plasma membrane) and found that the oocytes were released from meiotic arrest in the absence of hormonal stimulation (progesterone). Membrane capacitance was monitored as an indicator of exocytosis. Forskolin, which directly activates adenylyl cyclase in the absence of receptor stimulation, and cholera toxin, which activates Gαs proteins, prevented progesterone and the dominant-negative SNAP25 from triggering maturation, suggesting that these two agents act upstream of adenylyl cyclase and Gαs. Oocytes have constitutive endocytosis as well as clathrin-mediated endocytosis. Blocking constitutive endocytosis had no effect on oocyte maturation, whereas blocking clathrin-mediated endocytosis with monodansylcadaverine delayed progesterone-mediated oocyte maturation. Thus, membrane trafficking, which presumably includes internalization and recycling of the GPCR, may contribute to the receptor's constitutive activity. Inhibiting exocytosis may be one mechanism that contributes to the maturation process. A role for a block in exocytosis in Xenopus is consistent with the morphological changes and decrease in surface area associated with maturation. It will be interesting to understand how the physiological stimuli that trigger maturation are connected to changes in vesicular traffic. W. El-Jouni, S. Haun, R. Hodeify, A. H. Walker, K. Machaca, Vesicular traffic at the cell membrane regulates oocyte meiotic arrest. Development 134, 3307-3315 (2007). [PubMed]


Background: Recently, an open letter calling for a ban on tackling in school rugby was sent to the Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) and Ministers of Sport in Education and Health in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), and the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine (FSEM), have responded with statements on their respective websites.1 ,2 These statements mirror claims made in a commentary in the BJSM co-written by the CMO of Scotland, entitled "Turning people into couch potatoes is not the cure for sports concussion".3

Both the RCPCH and FSEM statements take an approach of denying the evidence that exists, creating a smokescreen of new initiatives that await evaluation and finally conflating the benefits of physical activity and exercise with sport and contact sport in particular.

First, turning to the suppression and denial of evidence of harm. Writing on behalf of the FSEM, Dr Jackson claims that "There is insufficient good evidence to …


U–Pb detrital zircon data from the Baixo Alentejo Flysch Group in the South Portuguese Zone show significant age differences between formations. The Visean Mértola Formation and Serpukhovian to early Bashkirian Mira Formation are dominated by zircons in the 316–388 Ma age range, whereas the late Bashkirian to late Moscovian Brejeira Formation is dominated by zircons with an age range of 498–687 Ma. Detrital zircons spanning an age range of 0.9–1.1 Ga are present in the Brejeira Formation but are absent in the Mértola and Mira formations. Detrital zircon ages of the Mértola and Mira formations indicate provenance from an extra-basinal source (Ossa–Morena Zone) with a minor intra-basinal contribution (South Portuguese Zone). The abundant presence of detrital zircon with age ranges of 500–750 and 0.9–1.1 Ga in the Brejeira Formation suggests a sediment source from the Avalon–Meguma terranes with limited recycling from the SW Portugal Domain. The different inferred source areas for the Baixo Alentejo Flysch Group formations are attributed to the presence of a forebulge that was formed in Mid-Visean times during the foreland phase of the South Portuguese Zone. The forebulge acted as a physical barrier separating sub-basins that accumulated the Mértola–Mira and Brejeira sediments respectively.


Maasai regard the success of their warfare in precolonial times as largely due to the oracular power of the dynasty of their Prophets. In return for his advice, a Prophet who instigated a raid would be given a prime share of the cattle gains. Following the abolition of intertribal warfare with colonialism, the dynasty of Prophets have retained considerable power among the Maasai In a transformation of their former role, they now sustain their herds through continued tribute of cattle from the Maasai themselves in exchange for ritual protection from super-human agencies that are felt to pose a widespread threat. The thrust of this paper is to examine the contemporary ideological framework that links Maasai attitudes towards cattle with the oracular power of their Prophets. The herd of the Prophets are assumed to play a role in their mystical ability to divine and control misfortune. It is the ideological aspect of tribute that underpins the continuing economic success of the Prophets.


Previously, we reported that killing tumor cells in vivo with the HSV thymidine kinase/ganciclovir system generates potent antitumor immunity, determined in part by the mechanism by which the cells die and by the levels of inducible heat shock protein (hsp) expression induced during the process of cell death. Here, we show that induction of hsp70 expression induces an infiltrate of T cells, macrophages, and predominantly dendritic cells (DCs) into the tumors as well as an intratumoral profile of Th1 cytokine expression (IFN-gamma, TNF-alpha, and IL-12) and enhances immunogenicity via a T cell-mediated mechanism. In addition, the protection conferred by hsp70 is both tumor and cell specific. We also demonstrate that hsp70 targets immature APC to make them significantly more able to capture Ags. This is likely to optimize cross-priming of the infiltrating APC with tumor Ags, which are simultaneously being released by the dying cells. In addition, using an Myc epitope-tagged hsp70 expression vector, we present evidence that hsp70 released from dying tumor cells is taken up directly into DCs and may, therefore, be involved in direct chaperoning of Ags into DCs. Taken together, our data suggest that hsp70 induction serves to signal the immune system of the presence of an immunologically relevant (dangerous) situation against which an immune reaction should be raised.


Summary Immunoglobulin (Ig)G4-related sclerosing disease (IgG4-RSD) is a new disease entity first proposed with regard to autoimmune pancreatitis. A 67-year-old male patient was examined because of weight loss and an abdominal pain. Based on the clinical characteristics, laboratory parameters and ultrasound features, we identified the diagnosis of the IgG4-related systemic disease (IgG4-RSD), that was confirmed by the histopathological analysis after the biopsy of the head of pancreas. After confirmation, we started with the corticosteroid therapy with a good clinical, biochemical and morphological response. During the previous therapy, the disturbance of glucoregulation appeared, so we had to change the modality of treatment. We decided to add Azathioprine to the therapy in a dose of 150 mg/day. We achieved a stable phase of the disease with IgG 4.37 g/l and IgG4 0.179 g/l, and with no side effects from the therapy. Learning points There are potential clinical applications of identifying subsets of patients with IgG4 thyroiditis (FVHT and Riedel thyroiditis). A trial of immunosuppressive therapy should be included if a resection is deemed inadvisable. In particular, cases of FVHT that mimic malignancy, tissue and serum IgG4 may provide supportive diagnostic information.


We tested the limits of working-memory capacity (WMC) of young adults, old adults, and children with a memory-updating task. The task consisted of mentally shifting spatial positions within a grid according to arrows, their color signaling either only go (control) or go/no-go conditions. The interference model (IM) of Oberauer and Kliegl (2006) was simultaneously fitted to the data of all groups. In addition to the 3 main model parameters (feature overlap, noise, and processing rate), we estimated the time for switching between go and no-go steps as a new model parameter. In this study, we examined the IM parameters across the life span. The IM parameter estimates show that (a) conditions were not different in interference by feature overlap and interference by confusion; (b) switching costs time; (c) young adults and children were less susceptible than old adults to interference due to feature overlap; (d) noise was highest for children, followed by old and young adults; (e) old adults differed from children and young adults in lower processing rate; and (f) children and old adults had a larger switch cost between go steps and no-go steps. Thus, the results of this study indicated that across age, the IM parameters contribute distinctively for explaining the limits of WMC.


Ciprofloxacin hydrochloride (CIP) is the second generation of fluoroquinolone antibiotics whose residues are found in wastewater and surface water. CIP has high aqueous solubility under different pH conditions and high stability in the soil system. In this study, bentonite was used as a potential sorbent for the removal of CIP from aqueous solutions using batch experiments. The effects of various parameters such as contact time, pH, adsorbent dosage, agitation speed, ionic strength and initial concentration of CIP in aqueous solution on the adsorption capacity were investigated. The optimum contact time, pH, agitation speed and adsorbent dosage were found to be 30 min, 4.5 pH, 150 rpm and 2.5 g L(-1), respectively. When the ionic strength was increased from 5 to 50 mM, the adsorption of CIP decreased from 97.8 to 93.4%. The isotherm adsorption data fitted well with the Langmuir model, Kl and qe were found to be 0.27 L mg(-1) and 147.06 mg g(-1), and the data fitted well with the pseudo-second order kinetics, whereby k was found to be 2.19 g mg(-1) h(-1).


Cecere J.G., Cornara L., Mezzetta S., Ferri A., Spina F. & Boitani L. 2011. Pollen couriers across the Mediterranean: the case of migrating warblers. Ardea 99: 33–42. At stopovers sites in the Sahara and on Mediterranean islands, European warblers may feed on nectar. As a consequence of this behaviour the pollen of exploited plants often sticks on the birds' bill or plumage. We analyzed pollen samples carried by migrating warblers staging at Ventotene Island (Italy), a stopover site located in the Central Mediterranean and reached by large numbers of birds after a direct flight from North Africa. We discuss the possible role of migrants as pollen vectors. A total of 38 plant taxa were recorded in the pollen samples collected on 147 migrants. Pollen of Brassica sp., Ferula communis, Citrus sp. and Eucalyptus sp. were most commonly found. The nectar of the first two plants is largely exploited by warblers on Ventotene and the presence of their pollen on plumage is principally due to nectar feeding in situ. On the contrary, Citrus sp. and Eucalyptus sp., which are scarce and absent on the island respectively, were mainly collected on dried and agglutinated samples and their presence is likely to be due to nectar feeding at other sites than Ventotene. The other 34 plant taxa were recorded with low frequencies. Overall, the data suggest that nectar feeding migrants could play a role as pollen vectors only for Citrus sp., Eucalyptus sp., F. communis and Brassica sp. However, the other less common plant taxa could also be useful markers of migration routes. We found species-specific relationships between bird species and the plants used for nectar feeding: short-distance migrants (mainly Eurasian Blackcap Sylvia atricapilla and Subalpine Warbler S. cantillans) land on Ventotene when Brassica sp. flowers are more abundant and they mainly carry the pollen of this species. On the contrary, long-distance migrants (Garden Warbler S. borin and Common Whitethroat S. communis) principally transport the pollen of F. communis, whose flowering period takes place at the same time as their staging period on the island. The study underlines the tendency of warblers towards nectar feeding during migration.


When describing bidirectional model transformations in a declarative (relational) way, the relation between structures in source and target models is specified. But not only structural correspondences between source and target models need to be described. Another important aspect is the specification of the relation between attribute values of elements in source and target models. However, most existing approaches either do not allow such a relational kind of specification for attributes or allow it only in a restricted way. We consider the challenge of bridging the gap between a flexible declarative attribute specification and its operationalization for the triple graph grammar (TGG) specification technique as an important representative for describing bidirectional model transformations in a relational way. First, we present a formal way to specify attributes in TGG rules in a purely declarative (relational) way. Then, we give an overview of characteristic barriers that bidirectional model transformation tool developers are confronted with when operationalizing relational attribute constraints for different TGG application scenarios. Moreover, we present pragmatic solutions to overcome the operationalization barriers for different TGG application scenarios in our own TGG implementation.


When agents are liquidity constrained, two options exist (cid:150) sell assets or borrow. We compare the allocations arising in two economies: in one, agents can sell government bonds (outside bonds) and in the other they can borrow (issue inside bonds). All transactions are voluntary, implying no taxation or forced redemption of private debt. We show that any allocation in the economy with inside bonds can be replicated in the economy with outside bonds but that the converse is not true. However, the optimal policy in each economy makes the allocations equivalent.


E-healthcare system have been increasingly facilitating health condition monitoring, disease modeling and early intervention, and evidence-based medical treatment by medical text mining and image feature extraction. Owing to the resource constraint of wearable mobile devices, it is required to outsource the frequently collected personal health information (PHI) into the cloud. Unfortunately, delegating both storage and computation to the un trusted entity would bring a series of security and privacy issues. The existing work mainly focused on fine-grained a privacy-preserving static medical text access and analysis, which can hardly afford the dynamic health condition fluctuation and medical image analysis. In this paper, a secure and efficient privacy-preserving dynamic medical text mining and image feature e extraction scheme PPDM in cloud-assisted e-healthcare system sis proposed. Firstly, an efficient privacy-preserving fully data aggregation is proposed, which serves the basis for our proposed PPDM. Then, an outsourced disease modeling and early intervention is achieved, respectively by devising an efficient privacy-preserving function correlation matching PPDM1 from dynamic medical text mining and designing a privacy-preserving medical image feature extraction PPDM2. Finally, the formal security proof and extensive performance evaluation demonstrate our proposed PPDM achieves a higher security level (i.e. information-theoretic security for input privacy and adaptive chosen cipher text attack (CCA2) security for output privacy) in the honest but curious model with optimized efficiency advantage over the state-of-the-art in terms of both computational and communication overhead.


Questions around what audiences do are becoming ever more complex
as innovative modes of participation are developed in contemporary immersive,
interactive and intermedial theatre. Drawing on examples from Uninvited Guests,
Void Projects, Punchdrunk, Blast Theory and other contemporary theatre practitioners,
this article suggests that new models are needed in order to reason about
the experience of the contemporary theatre audience. It proposes that the philosophical
framework of Possible Worlds Theory, as used by digital theorists to
elucidate the reader's experience of hypertext fiction, can also provide tools and a
language which recognise and validate the complexities of spectatorial practices
in participatory theatre. The article uses digital theory and several applications of
Possible Worlds Theory to reveal some implications of active spectating as it
explores what it means to manoeuvre between successive states of immersion and
interaction through an aesthetic process.