Recent developments in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) enabled common access for researchers and thus offers solutions to various complex problems in many different fields. With this motivation, in this study, two kinds of numerical methods were employed to investigate the vertical motions in variable regular waves. While the potential method is commonly known as linear "strip theory", the viscous approach is (the state of the art) named as URANS (Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes) solver which has a fully non-linear base. The DTMB 5415 ship model form was selected for a series of computational work. A numerical study was carried out to understand the seakeeping behaviour of the displacement hull for the stationary case Fn=0 and a high speed case Fn=0.41. The RAO (Response Amplitude Operator) graphs for the coupled heave pitch motions and the ship's vertical accelerations were generated for five encounter frequencies. The numerical results obtained were validated with the existing experimental data and comparisons were made between the two numerical approaches with the help of RAO graphs. The obtained results showed that the limitations of the strip theory pose a handicap as the assumptions involved in the theory narrow down its application. The nonlinear viscous URANS approach tends to be a better option returning closer results to experiments in a wide Froude number range but on the other hand it does not possess the practicality of the strip theory.


On 1 April $85bn (£56bn; €66bn) in this year's mandatory budget cuts will kick in, affecting doctors, hospitals, research centers, Medicare, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other essential parts of US healthcare. Only defense spending will be hit harder.

The cuts must be made in the current fiscal year, which ends on 30 September. More cuts will happen in the next 10 years as part of the $1.2 trillion reduction in spending spread over the next decade.

Nationally the sequester cuts will affect research and innovation, food safety, and mental health as well as payments to doctors and hospitals. The White House has estimated that the cuts would lead to 2100 fewer food inspections and 12 000 researchers and scientists losing their jobs. Cuts to mental health would leave nearly 400 000 mentally ill adults and severely emotionally disturbed children without treatment, leading to more hospitalizations, involvement with the criminal justice system, and homelessness, the White House said.

This year the sequester cuts will reduce Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals by 2%. Public health and research programs face big cuts.

A joint report from the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, and the American Nurses Association estimated that 766 000 healthcare and related jobs could be lost by 2021 as a result of the 2% cut to Medicare.1

Jeremy Lazarus, president of the AMA, said, "The across the board cut will hit physicians particularly hard because of the fundamentally flawed Medicare physician payment system. Since 2001 Medicare payments for physician services have only increased by …


In IEEE 802.15.4 networks, nodes access the medium using a CSMA/CA method to avoid collisions. As the networks use robust physical layers, they benefit from the capture effect: a receiver can correctly receive a frame even if it collides with another transmission. The capture effect and the access scheme result in significant unfairness between nodes depending on their positions. In this paper, we propose new adaptive medium access control algorithms to improve fairness and performance. The algorithms adapt the contention parameters and transmission power depending on the observed busy channel and transmission failure rates to achieve a target frame delivery rate. We have carried out extensive simulations to evaluate the performance gains of the algorithms compared to legacy IEEE 802.15.4 with static transmission power and default contention parameters. Simulations show important improvement in terms of the frame delivery rate, energy consumption, and fairness.


This paper considers the use of multiple description coding (MDC) for image transmission in communication systems where long burst errors and sometimes complete channel failures are inevitable. A general framework for MDC is proposed, which uses nonhierarchical signal decomposition at the encoder and image reconstruction at the decoder. A realization of this framework using lapped orthogonal transforms (LOTs) is developed. In the encoder, the bitstream generated by a conventional LOT-based image coder is decomposed so that each description consists of a subsampled set of the coded LOT coefficient blocks. In the decoder, instead of using the inverse LOT directly, a novel image reconstruction technique is employed, which makes use of the constraints between adjacent LOT coefficient blocks and the smoothness property of common image signals. To guarantee a satisfactory reconstruction quality, the transform should introduce a desired amount of correlation among adjacent LOT coefficient blocks. The tradeoff between coding efficiency and reconstruction quality obtainable by using different LOT bases is investigated.


Water resource shortage is paradoxical in a context of increasing water need, under the combined effects of demographic growth and the impacts ofclimatic changes inducing water resources degradation. So there was an awakening of conscience about water resources management which presents a capital stake for all water actors around Okpara dam in Benin.The major concern in this study area always remains the lack of knowledge which requires the availability of quantity and quality of data for all water related sciences. In this context, Principle of least actions is used to determine the series ofstream flows to the dam fora best monitoring of water Supply system at Parakou.That makes it possible to have a long time series of flows that is enough to estimate water resource and its seasonal and inter-annual fluctuations. The results show that overall the model represents in a satisfactory way the form of observed hydrographs.The calculated output of peak is well located in time, even if they are sometimes underestimated or over-estimated. On the other hand,the low levels of water are perfectly reconstituted and there is a good superposition of initial hydrographs of flows and the calculated oneComparatively to the period of 1950 to 1969 it comes out that for the period of 1990 to 2010 precipitations is reduced in frequency and intensity: For an intensity of rain superior to 2 mm, 10 mm, 20 mm and 30 mm respectively, the decrease correspond to 7%, 8%, 18% and 41% respectively; whereas the annual average pluviometry is reduced at 10%. Indeed,flows depend on precipitations and are downward trend more amplified:over the four last decades compared to the wettest period of 1951 to 1970, the tendency is with the fall, as well for the minimal flows (17%) as for the maximum flows which are reduced by 22% for the period of 1971-1990, and of 18% for the period of 1971-1990. finally, the average of the flows has been reduced by 19% for the four last decades.Three rivers sections were now identified for further field hydrological measurements. They are accessible by the road at Binassi, Darnon and Douroube. Request are already introduced to equip those land markstations very soon.


A possible role of transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP)-l in the pathogenesis of IDDM has been investigated by examining the level of TAP-1 expression in the islets of IDDM pancreas and by studying in vitro the effect of interferon (IFN)-γ, IFN-α, and tumor necrosis factor-α in TAP-1 expression by cultured islet cells. A remarkable hyperexpression of TAP-1 has been found in the endocrine cells (β and non-β) of IDDM islets, which constitutes first evidence of hyperexpression of this molecule in the target organ of an autoimmune disease. TAP-1 hyperexpression correlated clearly with HLA class I hyperexpression but only very partially with HLA class II ectopic expression. IFN-γ and IFN-α, both cytokines putatively implicated in IDDM pathogenesis, were capable of inducing TAP-1 protein (as assessed by immunofluorescence flow cytometry) and message (by Northern blot analysis and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction). These findings suggest that under the influence of cytokines (most probably IFN-α) β-cells may express in their surface a high density of HLA class I–peptide complexes that may facilitate their recognition and lysis by low-affinity CD8+ T-cells.


This paper investigated the extent of awareness of climate change by livestock farmers in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It further explored the choice of adaptation measures that were followed and factors that affected adaption measures. The results indicated that marital status, level of education, formal extension, temperatures and the way in which land was acquired, significantly affected awareness of climate change. Variables that significantly affected adaptation selections were gender, formal extension, information received about climate change, temperatures and the way in which land was acquired. The study suggested that the positive and significant variables that affected awareness and adaptation measures by livestock farmers be considered when awareness and adaptation strategies are implemented.


This article focuses on the judicial consideration of the scientific analysis of the Tomašica mass grave, in the Prijedor municipality of Republika Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Often referred to as the largest mass grave in Europe since the Second World War, this grave was fully discovered in September 2013 and the scientific evidence gathered was included in the prosecution of Ratko Mladić before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Based on the exhaustive analysis of all the publicly available trial transcripts, this article presents how the Tomašica evidence proved symptomatic of the way in which forensic sciences and international criminal justice intertwine and of the impact of the former over the latter on the admissibility of evidence, the conduct of proceedings and the qualification of the crimes perpetrated.


I have been blessed to have had the opportunity of knowing Paul A. Gange for a long time and becoming a good friend of his. Paul is the founder and President of RELIANCE ORTHODONTIC PRODUCTS, INC. He holds a B.S.B.A. in marketing – from the John Carroll University. Paul has had a career in the orthodontic industry that spans over three decades. He has been directly involved with the development of orthodontic adhesives, sealants and cements for over thirty-four years. Some of the highlights of his successful career include: the development of the first "No Mix" adhesive, the advancement of newest bonding adhesives and techniques, as well as the development of many of the products that you use in your everyday bonding procedures both direct and indirect. Paul Gange has also been a guest speaker in numerous study clubs, universities, continuing education courses and Regional Component meetings in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Far East. Also, he has been guest lecturer with several leading clinicians worldwide. His publications include numerous journal articles and textbook chapters, and he holds several patents. Paul is married to Sharon, the Vice President at Reliance Orthodontic Products. Together, they started the business in 1982. They have two children, Paul Jr., who is the National Sales and marketing manager at Reliance and a daughter, Nicole, who is a first-year resident in the orthodontic program at Case Western Reserve University. Paul enjoys golf, horse racing, exercising at the gym, spending time with my family and being a part of solving orthodontic bonding problems within the greatest industry in the world. There is nobody more qualified to answers questions on adhesives. Thank you Paul for making our lives so much easier! I also would like to thank our select group of interviewers.


STUDY OBJECTIVES
A strong association between sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) and atrial fibrillation and/or atrial flutter (AF) has consistently been observed in epidemiologic and interventional studies. The effect of positive airway pressure (PAP) on AF recurrence is inconclusive. This study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of PAP therapy for SDB on AF recurrence.

METHODS
This was a single-center, retrospective study conducted at a tertiary referral center. All adult patients who had SDB on polysomnography and underwent AF intervention (ablation or cardioversion) following polysomnography from January 1992-December 2014 were analyzed. Primary outcome was time to first-documented recurrence of AF after AF intervention by Kaplan-Meier estimates.

RESULTS
Among 30,188 patients with obstructive and central SDB, 429 had this diagnosis before AF intervention; 269 were "PAP-adherent users," the remaining 160 were "PAP-nonusers." Patients in both groups had similar age, sex, body mass index (BMI), ejection fraction, left atrial volume index (LAVI), antiarrhythmic medications, diabetes mellitus, systemic hypertension, and heart failure diagnoses. Time to recurrence of AF postintervention was no different in PAP-adherent users and nonusers (4.8 and 4.1 months respectively, P = .7). Cardioversion (compared to catheter ablation) was the strongest independent predictor of recurrent AF (hazard ratio [HR] 2.02, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.39-2.94, P < .001). BMI and LAVI were also significant predictors of recurrence in adjusted analyses (HR 1.01, 95% CI 1.003-1.023, P = .10 and HR 1.01, 95% CI 1.001-1.019, P = .024 respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
Our study found no effect of PAP treatment of SDB on time to recurrence of AF post-AF intervention. Increased risk of recurrent AF was associated with high BMI and LAVI. These findings may affect the clinical management of AF.


In this article the question of how to unite scientific reasoning and practical knowledge is brought to the fore Experiences from a postgraduate course in special education are discussed, since attempts to make different vocational education programs more academic often lead to special problems. The overarching question connected with scientific reasoning can be formulated thus: "How do we gain assured knowledge about reality?", a question with its roots in ontological, epistemological and methodological issues. Using such questions as a starting point for reflection proved to be a way to practice scientific thinking. In order to deepen the understanding of how knowledge is constructed, as well as of the contents of practical knowledge, tacit knowledge and scientific reasoning, some distinctions are made. First, three forms of knowledge products and knowledge processes are distinguished and secondly, the issue of unconscious and automatized knowledge is elaborated on.


The 3D reconstruction algorithm of DIATOOL is applied to the BTS1940 antenna, recently measured at the DTU-ESA Spherical Near-Field Antenna Test Facility in Denmark. The antenna was measured mounted on the antenna tower through a custom support structure. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the support structure on the measured field, by reconstructing the currents induced on the support frame with DIATOOL. The field obtained by filtering these currents is presented. Moreover, the spatial resolution obtained by the 3D reconstruction is discussed and compared with the one obtained by traditional microwave holography and by the inverse Fourier transform of the plane wave spectrum with knowledge of the invisible region.


We can define all negative factors affecting plant growth as stress. We can say that one of the most important problems among stress factors is salt stress. Although, many researches have been done regarding the effects of salt stress, especially the different responses to salt stress among young and old leaves are being investigated nowadays. For this purpose, responses to salt stress on young and old leaves of salsola ( Stenoptera ) plant which is considered halophyte, and tomato ( Lycopersicon esculentum L.) which is considered glycophyte has been investigated. According to the results of the research, based on chlorophyl, MDA, ions (Na + , K + , Ca +2 and Cl - ) and enzyme (reduced glutathione (GR) ascorbate peroxidase (APX, EC 126.96.36.199) superoxide dismutase (SOD, EC 188.8.131.52) and catalase (CAT, EC 184.108.40.206) amounts, it was determined that young upper leaves gave positive responses compared to old lower leaves, and young upper leaves were more resistant.


The basinal San Cassiano Formation (Triassic, Dolomites, Italy) is interfingered with clinostratified megabreccia slope deposits of coeval carbonate platforms, and to a large extent is composed of metre-scale thickening, coarsening-upward cycles. These asymmetrical cycles, often representing bundles of five coarsening-upward sequences, are interpreted as platformbasin interactions governed by fourth- and fifth-order eustatic oscillations. According to this model, progradation of Triassic platforms of the Dolomites occurred mainly during fourthorder sea-level lowstands.


The results of GaN epitaxial crystal growth on 4° off-axis Si- and C-face 4H-SiC without buffer layers by tri-halide vapor-phase epitaxy (THVPE) with high-speed wafer rotation and the properties of the obtained material are briefly described in this paper. GaN epitaxial layers were grown on 4° off-axis 4H-SiC(0001)Si and 4H-SiC(000-1)C substrates. The obtained material's properties were studied by Nomarski optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, photoluminescence, surface two-photon excitation microscopy, X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. The structural and optical properties of the GaN epitaxial layer are presented and discussed. By adopting an external GaCl3 material supply system, high-speed rotation was applicable, and its effect was confirmed. The results show that when THVPE was used under growth pressure of 600 mbar at 900 °C–950 °C, the surface reaction rate was sufficiently high, and the GaN epitaxial layer was grown under conditions of controlled raw-material supply rates. High growth rates (40–50 μm h−1) and relatively low threading dislocations (∼7 × 107 cm−2) were achieved on 4° off 4H-SiC(000-1)C despite the large lattice mismatch (3.1%) between SiC and GaN and without any buffer layers by introducing step flow growth and growth on a high-quality 4H-SiC substrate. We found that epitaxial layers with a smooth surface morphology can be grown on 4H-SiC(000-1)C compared with growth on 4H-SiC(0001)Si.


Central banks are not profit-maximising institutions; their objectives are rather of macroeconomic nature. The European Central Bank's overriding objective is price stability. Nevertheless, there are three good reasons to conclude that it is preferable for central banks to achieve profits rather than to record losses. First, taxpayers endow central banks with large amounts of resources and one should be worried if this amount of resources did not produce any income. In a way, the efficient use by the central bank of the financial resources with which it is endowed is as relevant as the efficient use of the human resources at its disposal. Second, financial strength could affect the ability of monetary authorities to fulfil their mandates. In particular there is the fear that a central bank incurring systematic losses and ending up with negative capital would find it difficult to effectively pursue its macroeconomic objective. Third, profitable operations might be an indication that central banks are implementing the right policies - to achieve profits the central bank must purchase assets when they are undervalued and sell when they are overvalued, thus stabilising their prices. Overall, the Eurosystem has so far respected the principle of it being better to realise profits than losses. The accounts of the ECB, indeed of the entire Eurosystem, show that it generates a fairly stable profit flow. Monetary operations, ie refinancing operations, and securities purchases contribute substantially to these profits. This conclusion is confirmed by measuring the financial results of past purchases of foreign exchange and more recent purchases of securities from a mark-to-market perspective, instead of an accounting perspective. In the specific case of the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) this was because the coupons on the securities more than offset the capital losses - overall the Eurosystem has bought securities under the PSPP programme at prices higher than current ones. The considerations that might justify purchase operations, like the PSPP or other similar interventions, are very complex and require careful judgement. Once their macroeconomic desirability is established, however, the ECB has the necessary financial strength to implement them safely.


In this paper I first provide an overview of alternative approaches to money, contrasting the orthodox approach, in which money is neutral, at least in the long run; and the Marx-Veblen-Keynes approach, or the monetary theory of production. I then focus in more detail on two main categories: the orthodox approach that views money as an efficiency-enhancing innovation of markets, and the Chartalist approach that defines money as a creature of the state. As the state's "creature," money should be seen as a public monopoly. I then move on to the implications of viewing money as a public monopoly and link that view back to Keynes, arguing that extending Keynes along these lines would bring his theory up to date.


The chapters are a rich collection of case studies, concepts, projects, experience and interpretations from policy makers, practitioners and institution leaders right at the forefront of international education developments. Edited by Mary Stiasny OBE and Tim Gore OBE of the University of London the book arises from the presentations, discussions and sessions held at the highly successful Going Global 2013 conference in Dubai, attended by over 1,300 world leaders in international education. In keeping with the themes they explore how international collaboration facilitates the following: research and innovation, increased skilled knowledge workers and internationalised education structures and systems. Going Global is a series of international educational conferences hosted by the British Council, offering an open forum for policy makers and practitioners from around the world to discuss issues facing the international education community.


Describes different forms of labour flexibility and examines legislative reforms and measures related to flexibility in external and internal labour markets and occupational and individual flexibility. Investigates trends in flexible forms of employment across countries during the 1990s and analyses the outcomes, highlighting the association between flexibilization and increasing labour market insecurity and inequality. Recommends measures for balancing the needs for flexibility, stability and worker protection.


Despite the success of deep neural networks (DNNs), state-of-the-art models are too large to deploy on low-resource devices or common server configurations in which multiple models are held in memory. Model compression methods address this limitation by reducing the memory footprint, latency, or energy consumption of a model with minimal impact on accuracy. We focus on the task of reducing the number of learnable variables in the model. In this work we combine ideas from weight hashing and dimensionality reductions resulting in a simple and powerful structured multi-hashing method based on matrix products that allows direct control of model size of any deep network and is trained end-to-end. We demonstrate the strength of our approach by compressing models from the ResNet, EfficientNet, and MobileNet architecture families. Our method allows us to drastically decrease the number of variables while maintaining high accuracy. For instance, by applying our approach to EfficentNet-B4 (16M parameters) we reduce it to the size of B0 (5M parameters), while gaining over 3% in accuracy over B0 baseline. On the commonly used benchmark CIFAR10 we reduce the ResNet32 model by 75% with no loss in quality, and are able to do a 10x compression while still achieving above 90% accuracy.


Background Research shows that the academic profession is largely held together by cultural rules and norms imparted through various socialization processes, all of which are viewed as sensible ways to orient rising professionals. In this paper, a critical perspective is assumed, as we utilized the concept legitimacy and legitimation to better understand the implications of various socialization tactics within academia. Purpose Specifically, the purpose of this paper was to study how faculty members, employed across different types of institutions, defined legitimacy and what it takes to be deemed legitimate in the context of the academic profession. Research Design A critical qualitative research design guided this study. Specifically, we collected fifty in-depth, semistructured, conceptual interviews from faculty members employed across two community colleges, two regional comprehensive universities, one liberal arts college, and one high activity research university. Data Analysis Our analysis of interview transcripts was largely guided by Saldaña's suggestions for affective, pattern, and elaborative coding. Findings We found that all faculty members, regardless of institution type, discipline, or tenure status, held ideas as to what constitutes legitimate work/legitimacy within academia. We interrogated these findings further through the lens of New Institutionalism and determined that professors spent most of their time describing professional legitimacy. Professional legitimacy seemed to be contingent on (1) research and (2) institutional type. However, faculty also described what can be understood as normative legitimacy, which is an endorsement granted when one conforms to implicit cultural rules and ideals held by any community of relevance (e.g., governmental leaders, administrators, tax payers/public). Normative legitimacy seemed to be granted to professors who presented themselves as selfless, ideal workers who could account for and maximize their productivity. Conclusions/Recommendations A number of specific policy and practice related recommendations are gleaned from this work. In terms of faculty preparation and socialization, it is imperative that faculty members acknowledge that both processes are steeped in relations of power, as they engender notions of who and what fits into academia. Several specific questions and small adjustments in terms of practice are noted in the paper. Also, in terms of faculty evaluation, a return to Boyer's work and newer iterations of Boyer's work by Henderson (2013) could be helpful.


Energy retrofitting of the existing dwelling stock represents one of the major challenges for the transition to a low carbon society, as about 19% of the final energy consumption in the European Union relates to heating of dwellings. Danish homeowners' experiences with the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) are examined, as it was introduced in 1997 (prior to a similar scheme introduced later in the European Union). The main research question is whether the EPC has an influence on Danish homeowners' energy retrofit practices. Homeowners' understanding of and trust in the EPC are analyzed, based on an online survey of homeowners (N = 743) living in a home with a recently issued EPC. Results indicate that the EPC has a limited influence on homeowners' energy retrofit practices. Despite most homeowners finding the EPC reliable and easy to understand, relatively few find it useful as a source of information for home retrofits. In its current form, the EPC is insufficient to encourage homeowners to undertake energy retrofits of their home. Improvements to address this problem in the administration, scope and layout of the EPC are suggested.


This article surveys fundamental and applied aspects of symmetry in system models, and of symmetry reduction methods used to counter state explosion in model checking, an automated formal verification technique. While covering the research field broadly, we particularly emphasize recent progress in applying the technique to realistic systems, including tools that promise to elevate the scope of symmetry reduction to large-scale program verification. The article targets researchers and engineers interested in formal verification of concurrent systems.


We investigate the model problem of flow of a viscous incompressible fluid past a symmetric curved surface when the flow is parallel to its axis. This problem is known to exhibit boundary layers. Also the problem does not have solutions in closed form, it is modelled by boundary-layer equations. Using a self-similar approach based on a Blasius series expansion (up to three terms), the boundary-layer equations can be reduced to a Blasius-type problem consisting of a system of eight third-order ordinary differential equations on a semi-infinite interval. Numerical methods need to be employed to attain the solutions of these equations and their derivatives, which are required for the computation of the velocity components, on a finite domain with accuracy independent of the viscosity v, which can take arbitrary values from the interval (0,1]. To construct a robust numerical method we reduce the original problem on a semi-infinite axis to a problem on the finite interval [0, K], where K = K(N) = ln N. Employing numerical experiments we justify that the constructed numerical method is parameter robust.


Recent governments in the United Kingdom have introduced a number of initiatives aimed at improving the literacy levels of children. Policy and practice should be informed by rigorous evidence, and this evidence should be subjected to critical scrutiny. In the present paper the results of a 'tertiary' review of systematic reviews in literacy learning are presented. The methods, results and conclusions of 14 systematic reviews, containing meta-analyses and meeting all the inclusion criteria for the tertiary review, are presented. The quality of the reviews, appraised using an adaptation of the Quality of Reporting of Meta-analyses statement, is discussed. Overall the quality of the meta-analyses included in this tertiary review was good; all reviews clearly stated their research question, and their methods of searching for and selecting included studies; most described their data extraction and used some form of quality assessment of included studies. However, six reviews did not make an assessment of publication bias, which is potentially a major threat to the validity of any systematic review. A number of reviews in this tertiary review are judged to be of sufficiently high quality in order to provide reliable evidence for the effectiveness of literacy interventions.


In digital holographic microscopy, if an optical setup is well aligned, the phase curvature introduced by the microscope objective (MO) together with the illuminating wave to the object wave is a spherical phase curvature. It can be physically compensated by introducing the same spherical phase curvature in the reference beam. Digital holographic microscopy setups based on the Michelson interferometric configuration with MO and an adjustable lens are presented, which can well perform the quasi-physical phase compensation during the hologram recording. In the reflection mode, the adjustable lens serves as both the condensing lens and the compensation lens. When the spatial frequency spectra of the hologram become a point spectrum, one can see that the phase curvature introduced by imaging is quasi-physically compensated. A simple plane numerical reference wavefront used for the reconstruction can give the correct quantitative phase map of the test object. A theoretical analysis and experimental demonstration are given. The simplicity of the presented setup makes it easy to align it well at lower cost.


RATIONALE
The mechanism by which low-dose macrolide therapy reduces exacerbations in non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis is not known. Pseudomonas aeruginosa quorum sensing controls the expression of a range of pathogenicity traits and is inhibited by macrolide in vitro. Quorum sensing inhibition renders P. aeruginosa less pathogenic, potentially reducing its contribution to airway damage.

OBJECTIVES
The aim of this study was to determine whether long-term low-dose erythromycin inhibits P. aeruginosa quorum sensing within the airways of patients with non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis.

METHODS
Analysis was performed on induced sputum from P. aeruginosa-positive subjects at recruitment to the BLESS (Bronchiectasis and Low-Dose Erythromycin Study) trial and after 48 weeks of treatment with erythromycin or placebo. To avoid changes in gene expression during culture, bacterial mRNA was extracted directly from sputum, and the relative expression of functionally critical quorum sensing genes was determined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
In keeping with the BLESS study, a significant reduction in total exacerbations was seen in this subgroup (placebo: 6, [interquartile range (IQR), 4-8]; erythromycin: 3, [IQR, 3-4]; P = 0.008; Mann-Whitney test). Erythromycin therapy did not change P. aeruginosa bacterial load determined by polymerase chain reaction. A significant reduction was observed in the expression of the quorum sensing genes, lasR (erythromycin: fold change, 0.065 [IQR, 0.01-0.85], n = 11; placebo: fold change, 1.000 [IQR, 0.05-3.05]; P = 0.047, Mann-Whitney U test) and pqsA (erythromycin: fold change, 0.07 [IQR, 0.02-0.25]; placebo: fold change, 1.000 [IQR, 0.21-4.31], P = 0.017, Mann-Whitney U test), after 48 weeks of erythromycin, compared with placebo.

CONCLUSIONS
We demonstrate inhibition of P. aeruginosa quorum sensing within the airways of patients with non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis receiving long-term, low-dose erythromycin, without a reduction in bacterial load, representing a potential mechanism of therapeutic impact beyond a classical antimicrobial or antiinflammatory pathway.


Herbivory is an important part of most ecosystems and affects the ecosystems' carbon balance both directly and indirectly. Little is known about herbivory and its impact on the carbon balance in high arctic mire ecosystems. We hypothesized that trampling and grazing by large herbivores influences the vegetation density and composition and thereby also the carbon balance. In 2010, we established fenced exclosures in high arctic Greenland to prevent muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) from grazing. During the growing seasons of 2011 to 2013 we measured CO2 and CH4 fluxes in these ungrazed blocks and compared them to blocks subjected to natural grazing. Additionally, we measured depth of the water table and active layer, soil temperature, and in 2011 and 2013 an inventory of the vegetation density and composition were made. In 2013 a significant decrease in total number of vascular plant (33–44%) and Eriophorum scheuchzeri (51–53%) tillers were found in ungrazed plots, the moss-layer and amount of litter had also increased substantially in these plots. This resulted in a significant decrease in net ecosystem uptake of CO2 (47%) and likewise a decrease in CH4 emission (44%) in ungrazed plots in 2013. While the future of the muskoxen in a changing arctic is unknown, this experiment points to a potentially large effect of large herbivores on the carbon balance in natural Arctic ecosystems. It thus sheds light on the importance of grazing mammals, and hence adds to our understanding of natural ecosystem greenhouse gas balance in the past and in the future.


It is generally stated that acceptance of heretics in the Catholic Church without baptism has always been normal use in the church and has been confirmed by general councils. The only exceptions would be some groups in North Africa in the third through the fifth century. This opinion is mainly based on Au- gustine's "De baptismo". The author of this article argues that Augustine is historically incorrect and systematically weak in this respect. Baptism of converted heretics was normal, except from Rome, and even the council of Nicea confirms that normal use. The bishop of Rome in the fifties of the third century, Stephan, had his own reasons for refusing to rebaptise heretics. Augustine's view that the baptismal rite and its salutary effect by faith can be received separately is a break with early Christian ecclesiology and its impact on the Western Church has been enormous.


China's economic and social achievements since the beginning of reform and opening are unprecedented in global history. Managing the growth process in this continuously changing environment has required great skill and the use of unconventional economic policy. Now China has entered a new era in its development process with a set of challenges largely different from those of the recent past. Some problems - such as growing internal and external structural imbalances, increasing income and regional inequality – have arisen from, or been exacerbated by, the very pattern and success of high growth since reforms began. Others are newly posed by rapid changes in the global economy. These challenges can best be tackled in an integrated and coordinated fashion. This report, supported by the China Economic Research and Advisory Programme (CERAP), identifies the primary challenges facing China today and presents options for meeting them. [Jointly published as Center for International Development Working Paper No. 126 and KSG Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP06-029.]


An 80-year-old man was admitted to a neighboring hospital with severe diarrhea and bloody stools. He did not have a remarkable medical history, was not homosexual, and had not traveled outside the country for several years. Colonoscopy was performed on the day of admission and revealed multiple ulcerations with edematous mucosa throughout the colorectum. Histopathological findings of biopsy specimen could not identify the reason for the inflamed colon. On postadmission day 6, the patient developed severe abdominal pain and underwent an emergent surgery for pan-peritonitis due to bowel perforation. The laparotomy revealed glossy fecal pan-peritonitis with perforation of the sigmoid colon; necrosis was observed through the entire length of the colon. The colonic tissue was extremely fragile and exhibited a blotting paper-like appearance. Total colectomy, sigmoid mucous fistula, ileostomy, and intraperitoneal drainage were performed. On postadmission day 12, histopathological findings of resected specimen raised the suspicion of amebic dysentery, and we accordingly treated him with metronidazole (2,250 mg/day) administered orally. Abdominal CT images taken on days 12 and 20 postadmission showed multiple liver abscesses, which improved following metronidazole administration. Metronidazole was discontinued 14 days after initiation as the patient's general condition improved. His condition remained stable thereafter, and he was transferred two months after admission. doi:10.11482/KMJ-E43(1)13 (Accepted on February 23, 2017)


In this work a novel, environmental friendly , fast and simple extraction method based on magnetite molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (MMIPNP S) as a sorbent for measurement of phenol was investigated. The synthesized silicacoated magnetite modified with polymer by using of methacrylic acid (MAA) as a functional monomer and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as across-liker and phenol as the template. Main factors influencing the extraction efficiency including pH, amount of sorbent, time of extraction and type of desorption solvent were optimized. Then for analysis of phenol from extraction solvent, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with ultraviolet (UV) detection on reversed-phase octadecyl silica (C 18 ) column using 0.05 M phosphat buffer– methanol as the mobile phase has been used. Method validations such as linear range, detection limit, precision and extraction recovery were evaluated. Phenol was separated, preconcentrated and determined successfully in spiked sample of wastewaters.


The Adobe Production Studio offers a complete post-production package that combines Adobe's video and graphics software with the timesaving integration and workflow features of Adobe Dynamic Link and Adobe Bridge. With the addition of Flash, videographers and filmmakers can bring their content to a rich, interactive presence on the Web as well. The benefits of using all of the tools in the bundle are many and here to help guide readers through the wide range of features is an info-packed guide that hits all the key techniques they are most likely to use in their digital video projects. Each stand-alone tip includes relevant hints and a graphic example so that readers can learn exactly what they need to know and move on to the next important technique. When each program has been explored, additional tips on integration and workflow are included to show how you can use the various programs for a complete solution in this exciting, integrated environment.


The concept of Scandinavian management as a specialized field of interest, began in the early 1980s with a variety of methods, including quantitative questionnaires, surveys, case studies and narratives within the organization. This dissertation uses discourse analysis as a tool for studying Swedish management characteristics outside of Scandinavia, mainly in Singapore. The Singapore Chinese management style is also presented and investigated as a comparative style of management to the Swedish management style in Singapore. The study hopes to shed light on how the tools provided by systemic functional linguistics can be used in discourse analysis, to study patterns of Swedish management characteristics, values and beliefs. The questions that this study hopes to address include: does there exist a Swedish management style outside of Sweden? And if yes, is it different from the Swedish management style or model in Sweden? Interviews were conducted in 2004, with 33 Scandinavian and Asian top-level managers in Swedish managed organizations based in Singapore, in order to get insight into their working lives in a cross-cultural environment. This rendered a total of about 54 hours interview time with a database of more than 260, 000 words. The coding procedures of grounded theory from Strauss and Corbin (1998) were used as a data management tool, to sort topics and identify main categories of topics that the respondents brought up during the interviews. It was also used to make more stringent the selection of texts for discourse analysis. The study found that a distinct Swedish management style existed in Swedish managed organizations in Singapore as many of the Swedes who worked in Singapore saw themselves as a 'culture bearer', so that they brought over values and work processes from Sweden, to Singapore. As the Swedish management style differs from the Singapore Chinese management style, cooperative adjustments and efforts at working together were also made such as finding a best practice method for doing things in the office. This study is inherently cross-disciplinary in nature, contributing not only to linguistics, but to the fields of leadership / management studies, human resource management and specifically Swedish management studies. The last chapter of this dissertation presents ideas for further discourse analytical research in the field of Swedish management studies and studies of management in a cross-cultural environment. Keywords discourse analysis, systemics functional linguistics, grounded theory, Swedish management style, Singapore Chinese management style, cross-cultural management, hierarchy, assimilation, integration, human resource management


Several hundred creative design firms have work included in "American Advertising and Design 25", ranging from the well known to the up-and-coming. Many trendsetting styles have first appeared in this series since its inception, making this book the must-have reference for every designer's book shelf.


Cancer cells have been shown to undergo a metabolic reprogramming, known as the Warburg effect, which results in enhanced glycolytic fluxes and down- regulated oxidative phosphorylation even in the presence of abundant oxygen. Experiments show that disruption of expression of enzymes that contribute to the enhancement of this glycolytic flux stimulates oxidative phosphorylation and leads to a decrease in tumor cell proliferation. Such observations have originated much interest in the study of tumor cell metabolism with the purpose of investigating possible targets for the development of new cancer therapies. Nevertheless, to date, the mechanistic details of this metabolic reprogramming, and in particular the physiological conditions that lead to the activation of this metabolic switch, have not been well characterized. Metabolic modeling has proven to be a valuable tool for the investigation of cellular physiology in metabolic engineering studies. Recently Hatzimanikatis and coworkers have developed a new framework called Flux Directionality Profile Analysis (FDPA) that aims to enumerate, characterize and rank all thermodynamically feasible intracellular flux states based on a pre-selected set of metabolic objectives. We apply the proposed methodology on a model of central carbon metabolism of mammalian cells in order to characterize the cellular physiology in terms of intracellular fluxes that are associated with the Warburg phenotype.


This paper aims to explore the intellectual dialogue between Longus, the learned composer of the Daphnis and Chloe novel, and his learned reader public. In support of the traditional view that Longus should firmly be situated in the context of the so-called Second Sophistic, it is argued that some narratological techniques deployed in the novel find their parallel in the practice of Second Sophistic speech delivery and other sorts of prose literature from this cultural climate. By means of an analysis of the proem and a scene from book II, the paper shows how reader-response and generic expectations shape a framework for an astute reader of the novel to prove his distinguished position as a pepaideumenos in opposition to a naive reader of this seemingly - but only seemingly - simple story. Jeroen Lauwers (K.U.Leuven) is a fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (Belgium). His research revolves around notions of authority and self-presentation in Second Sophistic oratory, with particular attention to Maximus of Tyre. His work explores the dynamics of reader/hearer response and the place of the author within the culture of the Second Sophistic.


We investigate whether the value of large banks, defined as banks with assets in excess of the Dodd-Frank threshold for enhanced supervision, increases with the size of their assets using Tobin's q and market-to-book as our valuation measures. Many argue that large banks receive subsidies from the regulatory safety net, so they should be worth more and their valuation should increase with size. Instead, using a variety of approaches, we find (1) no evidence that large banks are valued more highly, (2) strong cross-sectional evidence that the valuation of large banks falls with size, and (3) strong evidence of a within-bank negative relation between valuation and size for large banks from 1987 to 2006 but not when the post-Dodd-Frank period is included in the sample. The negative relation between bank value and bank size for large banks cannot be systematically explained by differences in ROA or ROE, equity volatility, tail risk, distress risk, and equity discount rates. However, we find that banks with more trading assets are worth less. A 1% increase in trading assets is associated with a Tobin's q lower by 0.2% in regressions with year and bank fixed effects. This relation between bank value and trading assets helps explain the cross-sectional negative relation between large bank valuation and size. Our results hold when we use instrumental variables for bank size.


In pregnancy megaloblastic anaemia commonly results from folic acid deficiency partly due to placenta transfer to fetus, but mainly because of increased folate catabolism due to cleavage of folate coenzymes in rapidly proliferating tissues. Cobalamin deficiency causing megaloblastic anaemia has been described in infants born to severely cobalamin deficient mothers, but its deficiency is very rare. Similarly Pyridoxine deficiency is also rare but if it does occur, it is often in association with deficiency in several B- Complex vitamins. We report a case of megaloblastic anaemia in pregnancy which was responsive to pyridoxine with a view to increasing the awareness of pyridoxine deficiency complicating megalobastic anaemia. Keywords: Megaloblastic Anaemia, Pyridoxine Deficiency, Pregnancy


Long-running distributed applications that automate critical decision processes require Byzantine fault tolerance to ensure progress in spite of arbitrary failures. Existing replication protocols for data servers guarantee that externally requested operations execute correctly even if a bounded number of replicas fail arbitrarily. However, since these protocols only support passive state machine replication, they are insufficient to support continued correct execution of autonomous long-running distributed applications. Building on the Castro and Liskov Byzantine Fault Tolerance protocol for replicated state machines (CLBFT), we present a practical algorithm for Byzantine faulttolerant execution of autonomous distributed applications. The algorithm supports replicated clients that actively execute application logic by issuing operation requests on replicated data servers as well as other replicated clients. Our work facilitates dynamic upgrades to replica groups, supports both synchronous and asynchronous operation requests, and provides fault isolation between replica groups with respect to both correctness and performance. The algorithm scales well to large replica groups with only twice the latency and message complexity as compared to CLBFT, which supports only unreplicated clients.


Black women are one of the fastest growing minority populations on United States (US) college campuses. In addition, they are disproportionately burdened by the sexually transmitted infection (STI) and HIV epidemics facing young adults. Despite these deleterious health outcomes, little is known about the sexual behaviors and factors that affect Black college women's sexual health. One avenue of sexual health research with potential to shed light on this population's sexual behavior and risk is hookup culture. The 'hookup'—a casual sexual encounter between individuals without the expectation of a dating or romantic relationship—has become increasingly prevalent on US college campuses with 60-80% of students reporting at least one hookup experience during their college career. Considering that young adults aged 15-24 account for half of new STI diagnoses in the US each year, hookups present a potential health risk to college students. However, the existing hookup literature is overwhelming White and female, and often exclusive of historically marginalized populations such as Black women. Accordingly, the purpose of this dissertation study was two-fold. The first goal was to quantitatively examine the intersecting relationship of race and gender and its association with hookup attitudes and condomless vaginal sex during hookups. The study also explored the association between pre-hookup relationship intentions and condomless vaginal sex. The second goal of the study was to qualitatively describe Black college women's perceptions of and attitudes toward hookup culture on their respective college campuses. In all, the quantitative findings from this study indicated that both race and gender were statistically, significantly associated with college students' attitudes toward hooking up. Black students and female students held more conservative attitudes toward hooking up than their White and male counterparts, respectively. Further, both race and gender were statistically, significantly associated and condom use during last vaginal hookup. Black students and male students were more likely to report condom use during their last vaginal hookup when compared to their White and female counterparts, respectively. Pre-hookup relationship intentions were also found to play a significant role in condom use atlast vaginal hookup. Students who desired a relationship with their hookup partner were less likely to report condom use than those who had no desire or were unsure of their relationship intentions. In both studies, the interaction between race and gender was found to have no influence on attitudes toward hooking up and condom use during last vaginal hookup. The preliminary qualitative findings from the focus groups suggest that Black college women's sexual attitudes and experiences of romantic and casual sexual relationships with hookup culture are influenced by both racial and gendered stereotypes and expectations of appropriate sexual behavior. Accordingly, future research should further examine the intersectional influences of race and gender on Black college women's sexual experiences to enhance our understanding of the sexual health disparities facing this population and inform culturally congruent interventions.


This paper analyzes the joint association of tax incentives and tax law enforcement strictness on earnings and balance sheet properties of private firms. It answers a call for additional research on why "there is (...) substantial within-country variation in managers' incentives to [manage] earnings" (LaFond et al. (2007), p. 14). There is some evidence that something as homogeneous as tax law seems to be enacted differently within a country's legal framework. The key results are that stricter enforcement seemingly impairs managers' ability or willingness to engage in income-decreasing accrual earnings management. On the downside, managers instead seem to resort to real earnings management choices which are associated with potentially negative long-term real business impact.


Abstract This article provides thoughts and guidelines on how a country could exit from the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and its currency the euro. We take the hypothetical exit of Finland as a concrete example. Although there is a way out of the euro for Finland and other member countries, exit would not be easy, nor would its short-term costs be known beforehand with any clear margin. We find the lack of a domestic payments system and uncertainty concerning the redenomination costs to be the biggest risks associated with the cost of Finland's exit. Still, the costs of Finland's exit need not be very large, around 10 billion euros in the best-case scenario, but we also acknowledge a very costly scenario for the exit.


Objective To evaluate several biomechanical factors of the head during a sparring session and their link to cognitive function. Design Instrumented Boxing Headgear (IBH) was used for data collection during four 2 min sparring sessions. Neurocognitive assessment was measured using the ImPACT© Concussion management software. A baseline neurocognitive test was obtained from each athlete prior to sparring; two additional tests were obtained and compared with the baseline. Setting Male and female amateur boxers. Participants Data were collected from 30 male and 30 female amateur boxers. Main outcome measurements Head accelerations (translational and rotational), injury severity indexes (Head Injury Criteria (HIC) and Gadd Severity Index (GSI)) and cognitive function scores. Results Peak translational and rotational acceleration values were 191 g and 17 156 rad/s2, respectively, for males and 184 g and 13 113 rad/s2, respectively, for females. The peak HIC and GSI values for males were 1652 and 2292, respectively, and for females 1079 and 1487, respectively. There was no significant difference in the neurocognitive scores between genders. A decrease was exhibited in the delayed memory postbout scores. All other scores either increased or did not significantly decrease when compared with the baseline. Conclusions The majority of impacts experienced by both genders were under the threshold for mild head injury. There was a statistically significant difference between peak translational and rotational acceleration, HIC and GSI when comparing genders. When analysing cognitive functions, there was no statistical difference between genders.


Nonlocal stochastic moment equations have been used successfully to analyze steady state and transient flow in randomly heterogeneous media conditional on measured values of medium properties. We present a nonlinear geostatistical inverse algorithm for steady state flow that makes it possible to further condition such analyses on measured values of state variables. Our approach accounts for all scales of spatial variability resolvable by the computational grid. It is based on recursive finite element approximations of exact nonlocal first and second conditional moment equations. Hydraulic conductivity is parameterized geostatistically on the basis of measured values at discrete locations and unknown values at discrete "pilot points." Prior estimates of pilot point values are obtained (optionally) by generalized kriging. Posterior estimates at pilot points and (optionally) at measurement points are obtained by calibrating mean flow against measured values of head. The parameters are projected onto a computational grid via kriging. Maximum likelihood calibration allows estimating not only hydraulic but also (optionally) unknown variogram parameters with or without prior information about the former. The approach yields covariance matrices for parameter estimation as well as head and flux prediction errors, the latter being obtained a posteriori. We implement our inverse approach on highly and mildly heterogeneous media under superimposed mean uniform and convergent flows in a bounded two‐dimensional domain. Our examples illustrate how conductivity and head data act separately and jointly to reduce parameter estimation errors and to model predictive uncertainty. We also evaluate the functional form of the log conductivity variogram and its parameters using likelihood‐based model discrimination criteria.


This paper presents a novel solution for the posture control and ride comfort between the proposed wheel-legged robot (four wheel-legged robot (FWLR)) and the unstructured terrain by means of an actively passively transformable suspension system. Unlike most traditional robots, each leg of FWLR is independent of each other with a spring-damping system (passive system) is connected in series with an actuator (active system), so the posture control and ride comfort in complex terrain can be realized by the combination between active and passive systems. To verify the performance of posture control in complex terrain, a prototype and complex terrain are established first, then a posture control model, algorithm, and controller considering the suspension system are proposed and verified by the comparison between co-simulation and experiment, the results showed that the pitch angle and roll angles in complex terrain can be controlled. To show the impact of the actively passively transformable suspension system on ride comfort (vibration isolation performance), different dynamic models with different degree-of–freedom (DOF) are established, the co-simulation results showed that the passive system and active posture control system can also effectively improve the ride comfort of FWLR in complex terrain. The research results of this paper have important reference significance and practical value for enriching and developing the mechanism design and theoretical research of wheel-legged robot and promoting the engineering application of all-terrain robot.


Report of a meeting of the Mineral Deposits Studies Group held on 14—15 December 1987, at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. The meeting included a thematic session on the use of stable isotopes in ore genetic studies. In order to take advantage of the location, the annual meeting started with an excursion to visit sites of dolerite-associated mineralization within the North Pennine orefield, led by B. Young of the British Geological Survey. Thirty participants braved the seasonal weather for a most instructive day, and were joined later by a further seventy participants for the subsequent indoor activities of the conference. Details of the thematic session on Stable Isotopes in Ore Genetic Studies have already been given as part of the thematic set of papers published elsewhere in this issue. Other contributions covered a variety of topics. P. R. Ineson (University of Sheffield) reminded the audience of the importance of industrial minerals in his paper on sands which stressed the construction industry's need for good quality, salt-free, sand. Returning to base metals, D. A. C. Manning & E. 1. C. Rae (University of Newcastle upon Tyne) reported the results of experiments to determine the behaviour of Pb-rich feldspars during dissolution, which demonstrate that clastic feldspars within sediments are a significant potential source for Pb. The role of diagenetic processes in ore formation was examined further by M. C. Akhurst (University of Newcastle upon Tyne), who was able to place episodes of mineralization into the diagenetic sequence at Tynagh, and


Crystal-scale control on magmatic mush mobilization and mixing Jillian M. Schleicher Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Dr. George Bergantz Department of Earth and Space Sciences Magmatic systems present an apparent paradox: they exist as long-term, crystal-rich magmas (called mushes) which are mechanically locked, yet crystals in exposed plutons and volcanic deposits with diverse histories indicate magmatic mobilization and mixing processes are common. Geochemical and petrologic analyses of igneous rocks and crystals provide a way to distinguish magmatic events such as intrusion, crystallization, assimilation, and mixing that occurred. These events cannot be directly observed, so previous studies have used experiments and numerical simulations to investigate the dynamics of mobilization and mixing. The highcrystal fractions in mushes require consideration of particle-particle-liquid interactions, which previous continuum and quasi-multiphase models do not recover. This dissertation takes a multi-scale approach to understanding the processes of mush mobilization and mixing. Chapters 2 and 3 present a discrete element method-computational fluid dynamics (DEM-CFD) model of a basalt and olivine magmatic mush subject to intrusion by basaltic magma from below. Chapter 2 demonstrates the crystal-scale control on the system-wide response to the intrusion. The localized mobilization of crystals above the intrusion site produces a region called the mixing bowl, where liquids and crystals are fluidized and mixed. Monitoring the crystals and liquid throughout the intrusion demonstrates the potential for diverse crystal populations to be created in even simple magmatic systems. Chapter 3 quantifies the dispersion of crystals in the simulations from their initial state for a range of intrusion velocities. The crystal dispersion occurs with an exponential relationship with time, and a mixing time scaling produces a single curve for the tested intrusion rates. Extrapolating the results to a realistic magmatic system produces mixing times that agree with those inferred for mixing events occurring in nature. Chapter 4 is a case study of a natural mush, the 1868 picrite eruption of Mauna Loa, Hawaii. Geochemical analyses at the crystal-scale demonstrate the existence of six olivine populations. These populations reflect a diversity of magmatic conditions and processes within the central and rift magmatic systems in Mauna Loa. Also included with this dissertation are three supplementary movies. These movies show the simulation presented in Chapters 2 and 3. Movie 2.1 shows the intrusion of the magma into the mush, Movie 2.2 shows the coordination number of the crystals within the mush, and Movie 2.3 tracks the three pairs of crystals described in the text.


The diagnosis of cancer during pregnancy is relatively uncommon. However, with the rising trend of delaying childbearing, more cancer patients are expected to be diagnosed during the course of gestation. The exact incidence is unknown, although it is estimated that around 1 in 1000 pregnancies is complicated with cancer. Pregnant patients are often diagnosed with cancer at relatively late clinical stages, which makes delaying therapy until delivery not feasible in the majority of cases. Induction of abortion could be proposed, even if there is no evidence supporting a therapeutic role for this approach. In addition, it is considered ethically unacceptable by some individuals and cultural groups. In this chapter, we will provide key tips on managing pregnant cancer patients and discuss in greater detail the most common tumours diagnosed during pregnancy.


This Address builds upon ideas first presented in Richard L. Hasen, After Scalia: The Future of United States Election Law, 17 AMERIKA HŌ 1 (Koji Higashikawa trans., 2017) (Japan), and RICHARD L. HASEN, THE JUSTICE OF CONTRADICTIONS: ANTONIN SCALIA AND THE POLITICS OF DISRUPTION (2018). It is a revised version of a Keynote Address delivered at "The Supreme Court and American Politics," a symposium held October 17, 2017 at the Chicago-Kent College of Law.
It considers through the lens of Justice Scalia's opinions the role that views of the political process play, at least rhetorically, in how Supreme Court Justices decide cases. It focuses on Justice Scalia's contradictory views on self-dealing and incumbency protection across a range of cases, comparing campaign finance, on the one hand, to partisan gerrymandering, voter identification laws, political patronage, and ballot access rules on the other. In this context, I argue that the defects in the political process he sometimes flagged appeared to do little work, and that his decisions are better understood by his ideological commitments to what Chicago-Kent Professor Steven Heyman calls "conservative libertarianism."
Part II describes Justice Scalia's contradictory approaches on questions of self-dealing and incumbency. Part III argues that, the contradictions lined up with the Justice's ideological and partisan commitments, and that this is hardly unique to Justice Scalia. Finally, Part IV offers three lessons to be learned from this case study for the interaction of the Court, the political branches, and election law.


The four of us are known in antitrust circles for the points on which we disagree. We do agree, however, that price fixing among competitors is inadequately deterred, is often profitable despite existing fines and damages actions, and that it's time to focus more on the individuals who participate in illegal cartels. We propose that, as part of its plea agreements, the Department of Justice should insist that corporate defendants agree not to hire or rehire anyone who has been convicted of price fixing. This re-employment often occurs today. In addition, the Department should insist that corporations agree not to pay the fines of their convicted employees, either directly or indirectly, or compensate them for serving time. No new legislation would be needed to implement these measures, and there would be no significant budgetary consequences for taxpayers. These policies are logical extensions of a long-term bipartisan agreement on the necessity of tough anti-cartel enforcement, something that both conservatives and liberals support.


BACKGROUND
little is known about the treatment needs of older prisoners and to what extent they are being met.

SUBJECTS
representative sample of 203 sentenced prisoners aged 60 and over in 15 prisons in England and Wales.

DESIGN
case notes were surveyed using a standardised proforma and information on current medication was collected.

RESULTS
three-quarters of older prisoners were prescribed medication. Those with cardiovascular, respiratory and endocrine health problems were prescribed medication that was mostly appropriately targeted. In contrast, only 18% of inmates with recorded psychiatric morbidity were prescribed psychotropic medication.

CONCLUSIONS
reviewing the medical records of older prisoners and considering the appropriateness of their current medication regime would be a primary care intervention that could significantly improve the health of this marginalized group.


A bivariate Granger-causality test on money and output finds statistically significant causality when data are measured in log levels, but not when they are measured in first differences of the logs. Which of these results is right? The answer to that question matters because a finding of no Granger-causality from money to output would substantially embarrass existing business cycle models in which money plays an important role [Eichenbaum and Singleton (1986)]. Monte Carlo simulation experiments indicate that, most probably, the first difference results reflect lack of power, whereas the level results reflect Granger-causality that is actually in the data.


The paper forecasts the residential property price index in Belgium with a dynamic factor model (DFM) estimated with a dataset of macro-economic variables describing the Belgian and euro area economy. The model is validated with out-of-sample forecasts which are obtained recursively over an expanding window over the period 2000q1-2012q4. We illustrate how the model reads information from mortgage loans, interest rates, GDP and inflation to revise the residential property price forecast as a result of a change in assumptions for the future paths of these variables


This thesis is largely based on data edited from original field sheets of the survey of sample households in the Western Area, It provides a description of the structure and distribution of selected population characteristics, an explanation of the patterns observed and an identification of population types and areas using principal components analysis. In a brief original historical analysis, the population living within what is now the Western Area prior to the establishment of the 1787 settlement, is estimated to be about 3,000 persons. According to the 1963 census, 195,023 persons lived-in the area. The review of population growth in the 19th and 20th centuries and the urbanization experienced emphasises the significant role played by immigration in population growth and in an understanding of compositional features. The relationship between migration and population characteristics is hypothesised and the discussion of the different characteristics indicates that: (1) Age and sex compositions are sensitive to migration but, sex ratio is shown to be a stronger indicator of migratory tendencies shown by various population groups than age structure (2) The marital status and the family and household compositions are characteristics based on cultural and traditional practices which only slowly respond to modernising influences. There is some limited evidence of a more traditional attitude to marriage and household composition in the rural communities than in the urban. (3) Industrial and occupational structures are largely an outcome of the acquired traits of the population and there is a clustering of persons with particular traits in areas where they can best exploit them. Consequently, urban areas attract the educated, the technically skilled and the professionals. In contrast, the predominance of agriculture in rural areas means that the rural population is largely without a formal education. The effect of the differences in the nature of economic activities and skills is reflected in differences in levels of income by industry, occupation, ethnic or tribal group and by residential area. Four clustering's of different unit areas, demarcated for the the analysis of data, are identified by the use of principal components analysis. First, Freetown and its immediate environs clustered on the 'urban' component to which a high population density, a high proportion of the working population in the professions and nearness to the seat of government (Tower Hill), were strongly contributing parameters. Second, was a cluster identified as a second zone of urbanization and made up of areas adjacent to the urban cluster (Lumley, Mountain district, Wellington) and also containg large centres at a distance from Freetown (Hastings and Waterloo Villages), This second cluster retained some features of the urban component whilst having additional features that are more clearly defined in the third group. The Macdonald group of villages in Waterloo district and Koya district clustered on the "rural' component with high activity rate, high proportion of the sample married and a high dependency ratio contributing strongly. Finally, York and Mountain district together form the fourth cluster In which the high sex ratio and a high proportion of one-person households are the main contributing parameters.


This paper addresses the question question: How do individuals affect others cognitively and emotionally through performance? Performance here is broadly defined as purposeful enactment or display behavior carried out in front of an audience. Following Alfred Schutz, Erving Goffman, Deborah Tannen and others, the paper posits that performance works through the creation of behavior that is embedded in cognitive "frames" that determine the symbolic interpretation of events. The framed event allows the performer to stimulate the emotions of the audience through pragmatically determined communication in a psychologically protected environment. Both performer and audience utilize the natural human ability to predict the emotional states of others, currently known as Theory of Mind, in order to generate and feel these emotions in an act of co-creation of experience. It is posited that performance has evolutionary value in allowing humans to practice the experience of emotions, and to create group solidarity.


The Oct4 gene is an essential transcription factor for maintenance of pluripotency in mammals. Here, we report the production of cloned transgenic pigs carrying a genomic construct encompassing murine Oct4 regulatory regions and driving an enhanced green fluorescent protein (Oct4-EGFP) construct. We employed fetal porcine fibroblasts, stably co-transfected with neomycin and the mouse Oct4-EGFP construct, for somatic cell nuclear transfer to reconstruct transgenic embryos. The cloned embryos (811 embryos) were surgically transferred into the oviducts of 8 recipient animals. Two pregnancies were terminated at Day 25 for recovery of fetuses and the others delivered a total of 23 piglets, of which 11 survived the postpartum period. A detailed analysis showed that the Oct4-EGFP construct was active in cloned pig blastocysts from Days 5 to 6. EGFP fluorescence was found exclusively in the primordial germ cells of Day 25 fetuses, whereas somatic tissues did not express the transgene. We could also detect expression of Oct4-EGFP in individual cells of the postnatal testis. Testis-specific expression was confirmed by Northern blotting. We fused transgenic porcine fibroblasts with murine embryonic stem cells to analyze reactivation of the Oct4-EGFP transgene under experimental reprogramming conditions. The fused hybrids displayed stem cell morphology and a high proliferation rate and started to express EGFP fluorescence 72 h after fusion. In conclusion, we report the production of viable Oct4-EGFP transgenic piglets that express EGFP exclusively in germ line and pluripotent cells. This transgenic pig line is a valuable tool for derivation and maintenance of porcine embryonic stem cells and will be of utmost interest for reprogramming studies and for preclinical testing of stem cell therapies in a large animal model. Funded by BMBF.


Cell-cycle checkpoint proteins arrest cell division in response to genomic damage and are important in development, but in nondividing cells, these proteins may play a further role in cell maintenance. Olsen et al. show that decreased function of checkpoint proteins in postmitotic, somatic cells of the adult worm triggered increased expression of genes that allow the organism to resist stress. This adaptive response increased organism survival and extended life span by up to 25%. Thus, checkpoint proteins may control whole organism susceptibility to stress, survival, and normal aging. A. Olsen, M. C. Vantipalli, G. J. Lithgow, Checkpoint proteins control survival of the postmitotic cells in Caenorhabditis elegans. Science 312, 1381-1385 (2006). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The spread of enterobacteria producing extended-spectrum s-lactamases (ESBLs) is sharply increasing in Italy, while the detection of isolates resistant to carbapenems is still sporadic. Isolates of Klebsiella pneumoniae resistant to all cephalosporins, aminoglycosides and fluoroquinolones have been isolated in Trieste since 2008. Because of the altered profile of resistance to carbapenems, these strains were reported as ESBL-negative and possible carbapenemases producer by the expert system, leaving tigecycline as the only therapeutic choice.The purpose of this study is the characterization of the mechanisms involved in resistance to carbapenems in these strains and the evaluation of a reliable and simple test for phenotypic confirmation of ESBL and/or carbapenemase production. 25 isolates of MDR K. pneumoniae were collected between October 2008 and May 2009, mainly from urinary samples of elderly patients hospitalized in medicine wards. Identification and susceptibility testing were performed using the Vitek 2 system.The double-disc (DD) test was used to check the production of ESBLs, while imipenem and imipenem-EDTA synergy test was used to detect the production of metallo-slactamase (MBL). Carbapenemase activity was tested by an hydrolysis assay and the production of MBLs was also investigated by PCR. The DD synergy test highlighted the possible production of ESBLs in 18 out of 22 strains, considered as negative by Vitek. All ESBLs producers tested positive for the blaCTX-M-15 allele. Only one isolate was resistant to carbapenems and resulted positive for production of MBL by the phenotypic test.The crude extract showed carbapenemase activity inhibited by EDTA; PCR test gave positive result for a blaVIM-type allele. PCR analysis performed on representative isolates, followed by sequencing, showed that coding sequence of ompk35 was not functional. Results of this study confirmed the emergence of ESBL-positive strains of K. pneumoniae that showed altered sensitivity to carbapenems in absence of carbapenemases. For a correct identification of the resistance mechanisms of these isolates we used phenotypic tests (modified DD test and synergy test for MBL) coupled with molecular techniques.The MDR strains isolated in Trieste are particularly difficult in terms of therapeutic management, especially in case of at-risk subjects.


We study the positive and normative effects of counterfeiting, i.e.,trademark infringement, in markets where consumers are not deceived by forgeries.The fact that consumers are willing to pay more for counterfeits than for generic merchandise of similar quality suggests that they value the prestige, or status, associated with brand-name trademarks. Counterfeiters of status goods impose a negative externality on consumers of genuine items, as fakes degrade the status associated with a given label. But counterfeits allow consumers to unbundle the status and quality attributes of the brand-name products, and alter the competition among oligopolistic trademark owners. We analyze two policies designed to combat counterfeiting: enforcement policy which increases the likelihood of confiscation of illegal items, and the imposition of a tariff on low-quality imports.


Given a Boolean formula F, the problem of model counting, also referred to as #SAT, seeks to compute the number of solutions of F. Model counting is a fundamental problem with a wide variety of applications ranging from planning, quantified information flow to probabilistic reasoning and the like. The modern #SAT solvers tend to be either based on static decomposition, dynamic decomposition, or a hybrid of the two. Despite dynamic decomposition based #SAT solvers sharing much of their architecture with SAT solvers, the core design and heuristics of dynamic decomposition-based #SAT solvers has remained constant for over a decade.

In this paper, we revisit the architecture of the state-of-the-art dynamic decomposition-based #SAT tool, sharpSAT, and demonstrate that by introducing a new notion of probabilistic component caching and the usage of universal hashing for exact model counting along with the development of several new heuristics can lead to significant performance improvement over state-of-the-art model-counters. In particular, we develop GANAK, a new scalable probabilistic exact model counter that outperforms state-of-the-art exact and approximate model counters sharpSAT and ApproxMC3 respectively, both in terms of PAR-2 score and the number of instances solved. Furthermore, in our experiments, the model count returned by GANAK was equal to the exact model count for all the benchmarks. Finally, we observe that recently proposed preprocessing techniques for model counting benefit exact model counters while hurting the performance of approximate model counters.


We present a novel and compact architecture for deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) in this paper, termed 3D-FilterMap Convolutional Neural Networks (3D-FM-CNNs). The convolution layer of 3D-FM-CNN learns a compact representation of the filters, named 3D-FilterMap, instead of a set of independent filters in the conventional convolution layer. The filters are extracted from the 3D-FilterMap as overlapping 3D submatrics with weight sharing among nearby filters, and these filters are convolved with the input to generate the output of the convolution layer for 3D-FM-CNN. Due to the weight sharing scheme, the parameter size of the 3D-FilterMap is much smaller than that of the filters to be learned in the conventional convolution layer when 3D-FilterMap generates the same number of filters. Our work is fundamentally different from the network compression literature that reduces the size of a learned large network in the sense that a small network is directly learned from scratch. Experimental results demonstrate that 3D-FM-CNN enjoys a small parameter space by learning compact 3D-FilterMaps, while achieving performance compared to that of the baseline CNNs which learn the same number of filters as that generated by the corresponding 3D-FilterMap.


Music and visuals have coexisted together in film for years, with millions of viewers and listeners attending film showings in a way of escaping their normal lives. This aim of escapism gives the viewer a chance to surround themselves in another world, apart from their own, and in doing so they can become immersed. To allow themselves the act of disbelief for a short period in order to find enjoyment and experience enhanced emotional involvement, where this could not be possible in day to day life. So what makes this combination of visuals and sound so appealing to the masses? What is it about the relationship between these two medias that culminates to create something truly captivating? When music and film connect in a perfect way it can make a masterpiece of audio-visual content, though there is a lot at play to make this happen. This dissertation delves into what it is that makes film so immersive to its audience, discovering multiple ways of composing music to film and how using similar formulas to those used in successful film, similar results can be yielded in terms of the ability to become immersed. However, an individual's personal opinion and experience can often be the deciding factor in that person becoming immersed. With this in mind this dissertation investigates the role of subjectivity in conjunction with immersion and film, exploring how subjectivity can affect how immersive a film can be to the viewer.

The following films are analysed in detail: Birdman , dir. by Alejandro G. Inarritu (Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2014), Fight Club , dir. by David Fincher (20th Century Fox, 1999), and Inception , dir. by Christopher Nolan (Warner Bros. Pictures, 2010). These three films have been chosen for analysis because they share similar narrative themes, that being the idea that the mind can influence the world, and in some cases create new worlds. These three films show their main characters interacting with parts of their mind, and in some cases being transported into their own minds.


This paper finds significant predictability in stock returns across technology-linked firms. Using patent-holding information to identify firms' technological linkage, we show that a long–short equity trading strategy sorted on lagged returns of technology-linked firms yields monthly alphas of around 105 basis points. The findings are robust to a number of specifications and are not driven by industry predictability, customer-supplier relationships, and strategic alliances. We provide supportive evidence that investors' limited attention to technological linkages contributes to the return predictability across technology-linked firms. Our study uncovers technological relatedness as an important information linkage between firms.


The expanding genus Yersinia is composed of multiple nonpathogenic species and a few pathogenic species, including the deadly etiologic agent of plague, Yersinia pestis. In 2 decades, the number of genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic studies on Yersinia grew massively, delivering a wealth of data. ABSTRACT The genus Yersinia includes a large variety of nonpathogenic and life-threatening pathogenic bacteria, which cause a broad spectrum of diseases in humans and animals, such as plague, enteritis, Far East scarlet-like fever (FESLF), and enteric redmouth disease. Like most clinically relevant microorganisms, Yersinia spp. are currently subjected to intense multi-omics investigations whose numbers have increased extensively in recent years, generating massive amounts of data useful for diagnostic and therapeutic developments. The lack of a simple and centralized way to exploit these data led us to design Yersiniomics, a web-based platform allowing straightforward analysis of Yersinia omics data. Yersiniomics contains a curated multi-omics database at its core, gathering 200 genomic, 317 transcriptomic, and 62 proteomic data sets for Yersinia species. It integrates genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic browsers, a genome viewer, and a heatmap viewer to navigate within genomes and experimental conditions. For streamlined access to structural and functional properties, it directly links each gene to GenBank, the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), UniProt, InterPro, IntAct, and the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins (STRING) and each experiment to Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA), or the Proteomics Identifications Database (PRIDE). Yersiniomics provides a powerful tool for microbiologists to assist with investigations ranging from specific gene studies to systems biology studies. IMPORTANCE The expanding genus Yersinia is composed of multiple nonpathogenic species and a few pathogenic species, including the deadly etiologic agent of plague, Yersinia pestis. In 2 decades, the number of genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic studies on Yersinia grew massively, delivering a wealth of data. We developed Yersiniomics, an interactive web-based platform, to centralize and analyze omics data sets on Yersinia species. The platform allows user-friendly navigation between genomic data, expression data, and experimental conditions. Yersiniomics will be a valuable tool to microbiologists.


Research on virtual environments has provided insights into the experience of presence (or being there) and copresence (being there together). Several dimensions of this experience, including the realism of the environment and of the avatar embodiment, have been investigated. At the same time, research on a number of new media has begun to use concepts that are similar to copresencesuch as mutual awareness, connected presence, and engagement. Since digital environments can be reconfigured and combined easily, and since an increasing number of such environments are used to connect people in their everyday lives, it is useful to think about the various modalities of connected presence as a continuumwith shared virtual environments in which people are fully immersed as an end-state. This paper proposes a model for the different modalities of connected presence whereby research on shared virtual environments can be modeled as approaching this end-state. It is argued that this model can improve our understanding both of the uses of shared virtual environments and of their future development among a variety of media for being there together. This paves the way for integrating research on shared virtual environments with research on other new media.


Abstract. Biogenic non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) emitted
from vegetation are a primary source for the chemical production of carbon
monoxide (CO) in the atmosphere, and these biogenic emissions account for
about 18 % of the global CO burden. Partitioning CO fluxes to different
source types in top-down inversion methods is challenging; typically a
simple scaling of the posterior flux to prior flux values for fossil fuel,
biogenic and biomass burning sources is used. Here we show top-down
estimates of biogenic CO fluxes using a Bayesian inference approach, which
explicitly accounts for both posterior and a priori CO flux uncertainties.
This approach re-partitions CO fluxes following inversion of Measurements Of
Pollution In The Troposphere (MOPITT) CO observations with the GEOS-Chem
model, a global chemical transport model driven by assimilated meteorology
from the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS). We compare these
results to the prior information for CO used to represent biogenic NMVOCs
from GEOS-Chem, which uses the Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from
Nature (MEGAN) for biogenic emissions. We evaluate the a posteriori biogenic
CO fluxes against top-down estimates of isoprene fluxes using Ozone
Monitoring Instrument (OMI) formaldehyde observations. We find similar
seasonality and spatial consistency in the posterior CO and top-down
isoprene estimates globally. For the African savanna region, both top-down
CO and isoprene seasonality vary significantly from the MEGAN a priori
inventory. This method for estimating biogenic sources of CO will provide an
independent constraint on modeled biogenic emissions and has the potential
for diagnosing decadal-scale changes in emissions due to land-use change and
climate variability.


Materials with controllable stiffness are of great interest to many fields, including medicine and robotics. In this paper we develop a new type of variable stiffness material based on the combination of a rigid low-melting-point-alloy (LMPA) microstructure embedded in soft poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS). This material can transition between rigid and soft states by controlling the phase of the LMPA through efficient, direct Joule-heating of the LMPA microstructure. The devices tested demonstrate a relative stiffness change of >25× (elastic modulus is 40 MPa when LMPA is solid and 1.5 MPa when LMPA is liquid) and a fast transition from rigid to soft states (<1 s) at low power (<500 mW). Additionally, the material possesses inherent state (soft and rigid) and strain sensing (GF = 0.8) based on resistance changes.


This paper analyzes the effects of the solar rota- tional (27-day) irradiance variations on the chemical compo- sition and temperature of the stratosphere, mesosphere and lower thermosphere as simulated by the three-dimensional chemistry-climate model HAMMONIA. Different methods are used to analyze the model results, including high reso- lution spectral and cross-spectral techniques. To force the simulations, an idealized irradiance variation with a constant period of 27 days (apparent solar rotation period) and with constant amplitude is used. While the calculated thermal and chemical responses are very distinct and permanent in the up- per atmosphere, the responses in the stratosphere and meso- sphere vary considerably in time despite the constant forcing. The responses produced by the model exhibit a non-linear behavior: in general, the response sensitivities (not ampli- tudes) decrease with increasing amplitude of the forcing. In the extratropics the responses are, in general, seasonally de- pendent with frequently stronger sensitivities in winter than in summer. Amplitude and phase lag of the ozone response in the tropical stratosphere and lower mesosphere are in sat- isfactory agreement with available observations. The agree- ment between the calculated and observed temperature re- sponse is generally worse than in the case of ozone.


Conceptual primitives and semantic universals are the cornerstones of a semantic theory which Anna Wierzbicka has been developing for many years. Semantics: Primes and Universals is a major synthesis of her work, presenting a full and systematic exposition of that theory in a non-technical and readable way. It delineates a full set of universal concepts, as they have emerged from large-scale investigations across a wide range of languages undertaken by the author and her colleagues. On the basis of empirical cross-linguistic studies it vindicates the old notion of the 'psychic unity of mankind', while at the same time offering a framework for the rigorous description of different languages and cultures.


Abstract English Language Learners (ELLs) represent the fastest growing segment of pre-K-12 students in the United States. Currently, Montana has the highest percentage of ELLs who are American Indian/Alaska Native. Although there is tremendous linguistic diversity among students, more than 80% of ELLs in the US speak Spanish as their first language. This is not the case in Montana, where 80% of ELLs are American Indians who do not necessarily speak their heritage languages; yet, their academic English skills are inadequate to support content mastery. Students whose first language is an American Indian language and who are learning English as a second language (ESL) are easier to identify as ELLs. Students who do not speak a heritage language but have not acquired academic English proficiency are harder to identify. This unique group of ELLs had their English acquisition framed by parents/grandparents or guardians themselves who were ELLs who did not fully acquire Standard English and currently speak and model a non-standard or non-academically proficient variety of English. Recommendations for how to broaden policy perspectives to facilitate comprehensive educational support for the full range of culturally and linguistically diverse American Indians in all classrooms are highlighted.


MOTIVATION
Despite the success and popularity of oligonucleotide arrays as a high-throughput technique for measuring mRNA expression levels, quantitative calibration studies have until now been limited. The main reason is that suitable data was not available. However, calibration data recently produced by Affymetrix now permits detailed studies of the intensity dependent sensitivity. Given a certain transcript concentration, it is of particular interest to know whether current analysis methods are capable of detecting differential expression ratios of 2 or higher.

RESULTS
Using the calibration data, we demonstrate that while current techniques are capable of detecting changes in the low to mid concentration range, the situation is noticeably worse for high concentrations. In this regime, expression changes as large as 4 fold are severely biased, and changes of 2 are often undetectable. Such effects are mainly the consequence of the sequence specific binding properties of probes, and not the result of optical saturation in the fluorescence measurements. GeneChips are manufactured such that each transcript is probed by a set of sequences with a wide affinity range. We show that this property can be used to design a method capable of reducing the high intensity bias. The idea behind our methods is to transfer the weight of a measurement to a subset of probes with optimal linear response at a given concentration, which can be achieved using local embedding techniques.

AVAILABILITY
Program source code will be sent electronically upon request.


A Coloured woman was admitted to hospital with a 3-day history of acute right upper abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. Acute cholecystitis was confirmed by biliary imaging using technetium-99m. An acutely inflamed gallbladder and two pigment stones in the common bile duct were removed. There were numerous retained gallstones in biliary radicles of the right hepatic duct; attempts to dislodge these by saline flushing failed. An extended choledochotomy with further exploration of the intrahepatic radicles also failed to remove the incarcerated stones. Biliary enteric drainage was achieved by choledochoduodenostomy and short-term postoperative progress was uneventful.


RÉSUMÉ This paper revisits the role of human capital for economic growth among pre-modern ethnic groups. We hypothesize that exposure to rare natural events drives curiosity and prompts thinking in an attempt to comprehend and explain the phenomenon, thus raising human capital and, ultimately, pre-modern growth. We focus on solar eclipses as one particular trigger of curiosity and empirically establish a robust relationship between their number and several proxies for economic prosperity: social complexity, technological level and population density. Variation in solar eclipse exposure is exogenous as their local incidence is randomly and sparsely distributed all over the globe. Additionally, eclipses' non-destructive character makes them outperform other uncanny natural events, such as volcano eruptions or earthquakes, which have direct negative economic effects. We also offer evidence compatible with the human capital increase we postulate, finding a more intricate thinking process in ethnic groups more exposed to solar eclipses. In particular, we study the development of written language, the playing of strategy games and the accuracy of the folkloric reasoning for eclipses.