The U.S. phenomenon of divided government has its counterpart in a parliamentary system as a result of the politics of coalition. One legislative coalition may put the executive in place, a different legislative coalition may sustain it in a vote of confidence, while yet another legislative coalition enacts measures that thwart its day-to-day business. I explain such division between executive and legislature by relaxing the party-as-unitary-actor assumption and recognise that executive and legislative elements of the same party may pursue different strategies. Party leaders may enter into commitments to coalition partners that involve implicit or explicit obligations to impose intraparty discipline. Leaders may do this with greater or lesser enthusiasm, and the required discipline may or may not be forthcoming. Thus, governments may be defeated in legislative votes because the legislature fails to honour obligations entered into by the executive. This paper sets out a simple model of this process, begins to analyse it, and elaborates a recent real-world example of the phenomenon.


The theoretical and experimental investigation of a new chiral second-harmonic generation technique that utilizes a counterpropagating optical geometry was conducted. The counterpropagating optical geometry employed here can effectively separate the chiral and achiral contributions to the SH emission, which cannot be easily accomplished under a copropagating geometry. The technique was applied to an experimental investigation of the molecular adsorption of (R)-(+)-1, 1′-bi-2-naphthol to a planar-supported lipid bilayer of 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphotidylcholine. A strong chiral second-harmonic generation response was observed when a single enantiomer intercalated into the membrane, but showed no chiral response when equal concentrations of the enantiomers were present in the bilayer.


Can exercise slow neurodegeneration? Modern medicine has demonstrated the virtues of healthy diet and routine exercise for cardiovascular health, preventing diabetes, and lowering cholesterol. But a role for exercise in combating neurodegenerative diseases is less well understood. On page 690 in this issue, Fryer et al. (1) present compelling evidence suggesting that exercise might have a long-lasting beneficial effect on slowing neurodegenerative disease progression.


Unravelling the nature of the interactions between photogenerated charge carriers in solar energy conversion devices is key to enhance performance. In this perspective, we discuss electroabsorption spectroscopy (EAS), as the spectral bandshape of the electroabsorption (EA) signal directly depends on the strength of the charge carrier interactions. For instance, the electroabsorption response in molecular or confined excitonic systems can be modelled perturbatively yielding the Stark effect. In contrast, most solids exhibit weaker interactions, and a perturbative approach cannot be taken in general. For solids with negligible charge carrier interactions, one resorts to the Franz-Keldysh theory of a continuum in a field, that, in the low-field limit, simplifies to the low-field FKA effect. Alternatively, when the continuum approximation breaks down, the problem of a Wannier exciton in a field has to be solved, and numerical methods emerged as the best solution. We illustrate our discussion with two examples involving lead-halide perovskites, a new, high-stake solar cell material. In the first example, we discuss the lineshape of the electroabsorption response for thin-films of lead-iodide perovskite, that sustains the photogeneration of free carriers. In the second example, we address a confined excitonic case with lead-bromide perovskite nanoparticles, and demonstrate the presence of so-called charge-transfer excitons.


Recording the activity of a group of neurons in a freely-moving animal is a challenging undertaking. Moreover, as the brain is dissected into smaller and smaller functional subgroups, it becomes paramount to record from projections and/or genetically-defined subpopulations of neurons. Fiber photometry is an accessible and powerful approach that can overcome these challenges. By combining optical and genetic methodologies, neural activity can be measured in deep brain structures by expressing genetically-encoded calcium indicators, which translate neural activity into an optical signal that can be easily measured. The current protocol details the components of a multi-fiber photometry system, how to access deep brain structures to deliver and collect light, a method to account for motion artifacts, and how to process and analyze fluorescent signals. The protocol details experimental considerations when performing single and dual color imaging, from either single or multiple implanted optic fibers.


The Recording Industry Association of America ("RIAA") has sued over 35,000 people for illegal file-sharing music, or uploading and downloading music. The RIAA has sued anyone under its "making available" theory, or anyone who offers to distribute copyrighted music without the owner's consent. However, the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals are split on whether copyright infringement occurs when a file is "made available" or when there is actual dissemination of a file. Due to this split, the RIAA has negotiated deals with internet service providers to penalize individuals who illegally share files. This article analyzes a recent decision, Capitol Records v. Thomas, and argues why the RIAA could not enforce its rights under a deal with ISPs. Furthermore, this article argues that the RIAA should continue to sue for direct infringement and contributory infringement. Finally, this article proposes a modification to section 101 of the Copyright Act. Copyright © 2009 The John Marshall Law School


Radiotherapy resistance in prostate cancer is promoted by androgen receptor-stimulated transcription of DNA repair genes. The survival of prostate cancer patients receiving radiotherapy is improved by coincident androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). Two laboratories have discovered the molecular basis for this synergy (see Bartek et al.). Through transcriptome analysis of primary human prostate cancer cells treated with an antiandrogen drug (ARN-509), Polkinghorn et al. identified an androgen receptor (AR)–mediated expression profile that included 144 DNA damage response (DDR) genes. Chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing in LNCaP cells treated with synthetic androgen (R1881) showed that AR bound to 32 DDR genes at a consensus binding site in either their enhancer or promoter regions. Compared with mock-treated cells, androgen-supplemented LNCaP cells had increased DSB repair efficiency and cell survival after ionizing radiation (IR), whereas ARN-509–treated cells showed increased persistence of DSBs even in the absence of IR as well as increased cell death after IR, suggesting that androgen is an important mediator of DSB repair. LNCaP cells treated with ARN-509 showed decreased repair mediated by the DSB repair pathway nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ), similar to that shown by an NHEJ-deficient cell line, whereas it showed no difference in its use of an alternate DSB repair pathway, homologous recombination. Goodwin et al. first confirmed in culture and in mouse xenografts that ADT or treatment with an AR antagonist (MDV3100) enhanced the antiproliferative and apoptotic effects of radiotherapy on AR-positive, ADT-sensitive LNCaP cells as well as AR-positive but ADT-resistant (also called castration-resistant) C4-2 and 22rv1 cells, mimicking the synergistic effects of combination therapy in humans. IR increased the expression of AR target genes in C4-2 cells, as did doxorubicin (which also induces DSBs) but not ultraviolet light exposure (which primarily induces single-strand DNA breaks). Pretreating cells with the reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenger N-acetylcysteine prevented the transcriptional effects of IR or doxorubicin on AR target genes, suggesting that AR activation in response to DSBs is mediated at least in part by DNA damage–induced ROS. IR or supplementation with androgen induced the binding of AR to and expression of genes encoding DNA repair enzymes, in particular PRKDC, which encodes DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (DNA-PKcs, a critical NHEJ protein). Knocking down DNA-PKcs impaired the ability of C4-2 cells to repair IR-induced DSBs and undergo NHEJ in a plasmid recombination assay. The findings from both laboratories establish that interplay between AR and the NHEJ pathway maintains genome integrity and thus promotes the survival of prostate cancer cells after DNA damage. J. F. Goodwin, M. J. Schiewer, J. L. Dean, R. S. Schrecengost, R. de Leeuw, S. Han, T. Ma, R. B. Den, A. P. Dicker, F. Y. Feng, K. E. Knudsen, A hormone-DNA repair circuit governs the response to genotoxic insult. Cancer Discov. 3, 1254–1271 (2013). [PubMed] W. R. Polkinghorn, J. S. Parker, M. X. Lee, E. M. Kass, D. E. Spratt, P. J. Iaquinta, V. K. Arora, W.-F. Yen, L. Cai, D. Zheng, B. S. Carver, Y. Chen, P. A. Watson, N. P. Shah, S. Fujisawa, A. G. Goglia, A. Gopalan, H. Hieronymus, J. Wongvipat, P. T. Scardino, M. J. Zelefsky, M. Jasin, J. Chaudhuri, S. N. Powell, C. L. Sawyers, Androgen receptor signaling regulates DNA repair in prostate cancers. Cancer Discov. 3, 1245–1253 (2013). [PubMed] J. Bartek, M. Mistrik, J. Bartkova, Androgen receptor signaling fuels DNA repair and radioresistance in prostate cancer. Cancer Discov. 3, 1222–1224 (2013). [PubMed]


Bruce Friedrich, director of vegan outreach for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), discusses factory farming and how it is harming the environment, health, and animals. He suggests that the best solution is to adopt a plant-based diet.

Bruce shows the video Meet Your Meat during his presentation. That video is released by PeTA into the public domain and is included here. You are free to redistribute Meet Your Meat in any format. You are also free to redistribute the video of Bruce's talk in any format. We ask that you do not edit the content, however.

MARS website is http://www.umich.edu/~humanity/

SALDF website is http://sitemaker.umich.edu/umls_saldf/

PeTA's website is http://www.peta.org/


In December 2013, the new European transport infrastructure policy has been launched through the adoption of the new TEN-T (Trans European Transport Network) guidelines, and throughout to the "Connecting Europe Facility" as the related funding instruments.
The previous TEN-T regulation achieved certain successes in cross border infrastructure. However, the revision is necessary for the development of the internal market and to allow the achievement of the Europe 2020 objectives (reduction of CO2, removing bottlenecks
from transport chains that limit the smooth functioning of the European internal market and the regular flows of passengers and goods, etc.), translated as a more sustainable, green, efficient energy, safe and secure EU Transport. In order to support the implementation of the Core network Corridors, the new Regulation contains specific tools: Corridors and Coordinators. The corridors will allow bringing together all relevant stakeholders (such as Member States, regions, local authorities, infrastructure
managers, port authorities, and users) under the leadership of a European coordinator and concentrate on cross border sections, intermodality and interoperability. The TENT revision aims to establish and develop an integrated trans-European transport network
which covers the infrastructure for all transport modes, ensures the functioning of the internal market and strengthens economic and social cohesion. This paper introduces the WiderMoS project, an initiative promoted by the TEN-T program through the INEA "Innovation and Network Executive Agency", and developed by 5 EU countries and 16 institutions leaded by La Spezia Port Authority, which will meet interoperability among some of the nine Priority Core Network Corridors, from west Mediterranean countries to central – north Europe, promoting the integration of transport infrastructures (port, road
and rail), information structures (info-structures: Port Community Systems and Single Window Services) and transport actors, from a Business to Business (B2B) point of view, in a private – public action. The main outcomes of the project are to efficiently and commercially exploit the corridors drawn by the TEN-T making European economy more competitive, efficient and smart.


We model a regional grain reserve as a game of two countries that agree to pool together a fraction of their grain to cope with production risk, but that can also repudiate their obligations at any moment. The reserve can be operated as a "credit union" or an "insurance union". We find that although risk sharing is more effective when production shocks are negatively correlated, the regional reserve is more sustainable when the correlation is positive. We also find that an "insurance" game can be more sustainable than a "credit" game.


Background The Department of Parks and Wildlife manages the whale shark tourism industry within the Ningaloo Coast World Heritage Area, Western Australia. Guided by the Wildlife Management Program no. 57, Whale shark management with particular reference to Ningaloo Marine Park, the Department licences and monitors the activity of 15 commercial tour operators. A key strategy in the Management Program is to continue to research and monitor the impacts of whale shark interaction tourism on whale sharks in Ningaloo Marine Park, providing an on-going challenge. Approach This presentation will discuss the utility of the various approaches taken by both the Department and researcher activity licensed by the Department. These include the use of electronic monitoring systems on board the commercial tour operators' vessels which document encounter duration, photo identification of whale sharks, aerial behavioural monitoring and archival, acoustic and satellite tagging. Results As a management agency, the Department has identified a number of questions as outlined in the Management Program that aim to determine the level of impact on whale sharks. Potential impacts on whale sharks can arise from a number of anthropogenic sources including tourist vessels, recreational vessels and research activity. Finding the appropriate methodology to answer these questions is the key. Encounter duration is useful for determining short-term intra-season impacts. Photo identification catalogues combined with satellite tagging have been useful for determining longer-term inter-season return rates. Acoustic tagging will reveal patterns of residency while archival tagging has the potential to allow detailed behavioural studies. Photo identification also allows the analysis of scarring and potential impact on survival of the whale sharks visiting Ningaloo Marine Park and where possible can attribute scars to anthropogenic sources. Aerial monitoring of whale shark behaviour allows us to study whale shark swimming behaviours and direction in the presence and absence of vessels and swimmers. Conclusions Understanding and managing the impacts on whale sharks is a complex, challenging task. A single method cannot determine disturbance level on whale sharks. Determining which approach is appropriate to the given question and drawing upon the expertise of others to make informed management decisions is paramount and we will continue to take a multidisciplinary approach.


The article deals with current developments in industrial relation – traditionally organized within a national framework –, in the context of growing globalization. More precisely, it examines what happens to the Belgian system of industrial relations confronted to globalization. The paper first sums up the main challenges that globalization represents for national industrial relations systems. Second, it looks to those systems and refers to recent research to show how they keep their national specificity even though they are not static. They face external pressures but react with their own specific dynamics. Applied to the Belgian case, that means that the industrial relations system does not copy a foreign model nor follows an European standard. On the contrary, it remains characterized by a high level of institutionalisation, a high degree of internal co-ordination and a significant rate of union affiliation. In sum, the industrial relations « a la belge» keep their characteristics, while they integrate cross-national movements. Finally, the paper examines the specific case of multinational companies, in which interdependencies between global trends and local institutional conditions are frequent. Based on exploratory research conducted in Belgian subsidiaries of foreign groups in the chemical industry, it illustrates the complex interactions between local industrial relations and decision-making at the top of the multinational company. As such, multinationals materialize interdependencies between local and global levels. The two levels are intricate and their interactions result in local adjustments under constraints.


This article is dedicated to community health nursing which today constitutes the indispensable cornerstone of Slovenian and Croatian primary health-care. Authors also stress that community health nursing is recognized of crucial importance for public health and various vulnerable groups (e.g., children, elderly, …) in many other European as well as non-European states. In Chapter 2, the authors represent basic historical milestones in both countries, Slovenia and Croatia, which have common historical roots. In Chapters 3 and 4, the central part of the article, authors analyze the current legal regulation related to community health nursing and thereby give special attention to differences in both national legal regulations. The major difference is given in concessions. Namely in Slovenia, community health nursing can be performed also based on a granted concession, but not in Croatia. In Chapter 5, some legal views on the role of community health nursing in local communities are emphasized (e.g., domestic violence). The last chapter is dedicated to the summarization of the authors' conclusions, in which they especially stress that the community health nursing in both countries today represents an important key factor for ensuring the constitutional right to health-care.


Women are increasingly visible in politics around the world but there is still a yawning gap in their political representation compared with men. In Myanmar, gender inequality and women's rights are major challenges across economic, social and political spheres. Myanmar's historic election in November 2015 saw a big increase in the numbers of women candidates and women MPs elected to parliament: the new government has nearly three times the number of women MPs than the previous one. But with close to 10 percent of elected parliamentary seats held by women, Myanmar is still the worst performer in the region for representation of women in parliament. This paper takes a snapshot of women's rights and political representation in Myanmar today, looks at the experience of countries around the world in increasing women's political representation, and examines the potential of a quota system for a country at a true turning point in its history.


Detecting skin lentigo in reflectance confocal microscopy images is an important and challenging problem. This imaging modality has not yet been widely investigated for this problem and there are a few automatic processing techniques. They are mostly based on machine learning approaches and rely on numerous classical image features that lead to high computational costs given the very large resolution of these images. This paper presents a detection method with very low computational complexity that is able to identify the skin depth at which the lentigo can be detected. The proposed method performs multiresolution decomposition of the image obtained at each skin depth. The distribution of image pixels at a given depth can be approximated accurately by a generalized Gaussian distribution whose parameters depend on the decomposition scale, resulting in a very-low-dimension parameter space. SVM classifiers are then investigated to classify the scale parameter of this distribution allowing real-time detection of lentigo. The method is applied to 45 healthy and lentigo patients from a clinical study, where sensitivity of 81.4% and specificity of 83.3% are achieved. Our results show that lentigo is identifiable at depths between 50μm and 60μm, corresponding to the average location of the the dermoepidermal junction. This result is in agreement with the clinical practices that characterize the lentigo by assessing the disorganization of the dermoepidermal junction.


Results are presented of analyses of melt inclusions in >3.0 Ga zircon grains from three lithologies in South Africa: the Orange Grove Quartzite of the Witwatersrand Supergroup, quartzite of the Beit Bridge Group and the S-type Singelele orthogneiss, the latter both of the Central Zone of the Limpopo Belt. In each case, the presence of melt inclusions indicates that the zircon is magmatic in origin. No melt inclusions occur in metamorphic overgrowths in some grains. Melt inclusions in detrital zircon grains from the two quartzite units indicate that both tonalitic-trondhjemitic and granitic magmas were being emplaced in the source areas at about 3.2 Ga. Granitic magmatism at that time is among the earliest recognized in southern Africa. Inclusions in zircon grains from the Singelele orthogneiss are compositionally similar to the host rock, showing that they are a magmatic phase rather than a xenocrystic phase.


Since the organization of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (The World Bank) in 1944, a large number of development oriented financial institutions have emerged throughout the world. By applying their unique form of intermediation to development problems, these Development Banks (DBs), as they have come to be known, have become a major catalyst in the process of economic development. Over the years, numerous proposals for funding borderlands development have surfaced but few of them have directly addressed the possibility of establishing a Borderland Development Bank (BDB). A related proposal was outlined at a conference of U.S.-Mexico border state governors by Carols G. Velez-Ibanez (1983). The proposal called for the establishment of a "Borderlands Development Foundation" which would assist area development in a number of ways; including, stabilizing the region's infrastructure, environment, and population movements. It was also suggested that such a foundation might develop a data base for use in planning and in monitoring demographic, economic, political and social trends in the region. Unfortunately, this rather promising proposal has yet to be realized. This study examines the contributions to development that could be made by a BDB, and the potential public support for such an institution. If a BDB could be organized in such a way as to minimize the Mexican fear of U.S. domination of the bank's activities, it could play a major role in the economic development of the region and strengthen what Hansen (1986b) describes as "the many interdependencies that exist between the Mexican and U.S. borderlands." Most of the development proposals, including government sponsored commissions, have been unilateral, focusing on the needs of only one side of the border, which may explain why they have thus far not been very successful. Perhaps a BDB which enjoyed bilateral public and private sponsorship, and whose mandate was to foster economic development on both sides of the border would stand a better chance of success. The first section of this article discusses the nature of a development bank, the second section discusses the possible impediments to growth along the border, the third section discusses the BDB as a possible solution to these impediments, and the last section provides a summary and concluding remarks.


Anterior cruciate ligament tears are one of the most common injuries that occur, especially in female athletes. It requires surgery and months of physical therapy to get these athletes back in playing condition. The angle of women's hips and lack of strength of inner quadriceps muscles enhances the risk of injuries to the knees. One specific muscle that is known for being a stabilizer of the knee and may help in preventing ACL tears is the vastus medialis. By understanding what exercises activate this muscle the most, conditioning plans and preventative workouts need to be created to help female athletes stabilize the knee. Therefore, this research could impact the prevention of ACL tears in female athletes. By taking a generalized approach, a variety of exercises in each of the three muscle contractions: concentric, eccentric, and isometric, will be evaluated by a Vernier Electromyography system. For this research, one female will be tested doing all the movements three times to measure the average peak muscle activation for each exercise. This will help prevent outliers and human error. For this study, variables such as percent body fat, BMI, history of exercising, and previous strength were ignored.


This article presents a response to Néron and Norman's contention that the language of citizenship is helpful in thinking about the political dimensions of corporate responsibilities. We argue that Néron and Norman's main conclusions are valid but offer an extension of their analysis to incorporate extant streams of literature dealing with the political role of the corporation. We also propose that the perspective on citizenship adopted by Néron and Norman is rather narrow, and therefore provide some alternative ways in which corporations and citizenship might be brought together. We conclude by suggesting that, rather than simply applying the concept of citizenship to corporations, we now need to go further in exploring how corporations might play an active role in reconfiguring the whole notion of citizenship itself.


The following article is to introduce the reader into a cultural and intellectual movement whose aim is to identify the need for improvement in human life in the sphere of physicality as well as mentality with the aid of modern technologies – transhumanism. With the dramatic change in the perception of technology, transhumanist welcome the opportunity to improve cognitive skills, help to perpetuate human happiness, or increase longevity. Although the opponents of the transhumanist thought dismiss it as "the world's most dangerous idea," the adversaries advocate that the alternation of human form is both practical and reasonable. With the use of modern technology, enthusiasts of transhumanism try to prove that the human body needs to be re-invented in order to transcend the natural limitations. In my work I will try to tackle the problem of human body being currently subject to gradual transition from Homo Sapiens to Robo Sapiens, the process of 'becoming' a cyborg. By incorporating bodily augmentation, contemporary artists such as Stelarc or Neil Harbisson cast a light on the change of physical form, as well as the definition of being human. Evoking much controversy, transhumanism brings a completely new dimension to the understanding of the current human condition.


Chemotherapy-resistant acute myeloid leukemia may respond to inhibition of ATR or ATM. New hope for AML patients A pair of papers provides new hope for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) by showing that the DNA replication checkpoint pathway is a viable target for therapeutic intervention. By integrating survival data from 198 treated AML patients with gene expression data for genes encoding proteins involved in the regulation of DNA replication, David et al. identified the CHEK1 gene and its product, the DNA replication checkpoint kinase CHK1, as both a prognostic indicator of survival and a therapeutic target to overcome resistance to the current standard of chemotherapy. The patients had all received standard-of-care chemotherapy. Patients with high expression of CHEK1 in their AML cells had reduced survival, and AML patient cells with high CHK1 abundance were resistant to the toxic effects of the DNA replication inhibitor cytarabine. CHK1 is activated by the kinase ATR in response to DNA replication stress arising from DNA damage. The identification of CHEK1 expression as high in lymphomas and leukemias, including AML, prompted Morgado-Palacin et al. to investigate targeting ATR and ATM, the most upstream kinases in the DNA damage response, as possible AML therapies. AML cells with oncogenic rearrangements in MLL are particularly resistant to genotoxic therapies that form the backbone of AML treatment. Inhibiting ATR resulted in death of AMLMLL cells in culture and exhibited antitumoral activity in AMLMLL mouse models. Inhibiting ATM also prolonged survival of the allograft mouse model, indicating that targeting the DNA damage response pathways alone or in combination with other chemotherapeutic agents may be beneficial in patients with AML. Among the various subtypes of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), those with chromosomal rearrangements of the MLL oncogene (AML-MLL) have a poor prognosis. AML-MLL tumor cells are resistant to current genotoxic therapies because of an attenuated response by p53, a protein that induces cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in response to DNA damage. In addition to chemicals that damage DNA, efforts have focused on targeting DNA repair enzymes as a general chemotherapeutic approach to cancer treatment. Here, we found that inhibition of the kinase ATR, which is the primary sensor of DNA replication stress, induced chromosomal breakage and death of mouse AMLMLL cells (with an MLL-ENL fusion and a constitutively active N-RAS) independently of p53. Moreover, ATR inhibition as a single agent exhibited antitumoral activity, both reducing tumor burden after establishment and preventing tumors from growing, in an immunocompetent allograft mouse model of AMLMLL and in xenografts of a human AML-MLL cell line. We also found that inhibition of ATM, a kinase that senses DNA double-strand breaks, also promoted the survival of the AMLMLL mice. Collectively, these data indicated that ATR or ATM inhibition represent potential therapeutic strategies for the treatment of AML, especially MLL-driven leukemias.


Empirical research by Jonathan Haidt and Joshua Greene seems to support the idea that in moral decision‐making under uncertainty, people follow their initial intuitions and 'gut feelings'. Rational judgements are at most rationalizations or afterthoughts in our judgements about risks. This paper will challenge the theoretical assumptions made by Greene and Haidt, by proposing a different theory of ethical intuitions and emotions. Ethical intuitions and emotions should not be conflated with spontaneous 'gut reactions'. Rather, ethical intuitions and emotions can be the source and the result of ethical reflection and deliberation. This allows for different interpretations of the empirical findings of Haidt and Greene and of psychologists who study emotional responses to risks, such as Paul Slovic and George Loewenstein. Emotional and intuitive responses to risk should not be seen as heuristics that are prone to be biases; rather, they should be seen as invaluable sources of insight when it comes to judging the moral acceptability of risks.


In vertebrates, gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) is a crucial decapeptide that activates the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis to ensure successful reproduction. Recently, a GnRH-like molecule has been isolated from a gastropod mollusk, Aplysia californica. This GnRH (ap-GnRH) is deduced to be an undecapeptide, and its function remains to be explored. Our previous study demonstrated that ap-GnRH did not stimulate a range of reproductive parameters. Instead, it affected acute behavioral and locomotive changes unrelated to reproduction. In this study, we used electrophysiology and retrograde tracing to further explore the central role of ap-GnRH. Sharp-electrode intracellular recordings revealed that ap-GnRH had diverse effects on central neurons that ranged from excitatory, inhibitory, to the alteration of membrane potential. Unexpectedly, extracellular recordings revealed that ap-GnRH suppressed the onset of electrical afterdischarge in bag cell neurons, suggesting an inhibitory effect on female reproduction. Lastly, using immunocytochemistry coupled with nickel backfill, we demonstrated that some ap-GnRH neurons projected to efferent nerves known to innervate the foot and parapodia, suggesting ap-GnRH may directly modulate the motor output of these peripheral tissues. Overall, our results suggested that in A. californica, ap-GnRH more likely functioned as a central modulator of complex behavior and motor regulation rather than as a conventional reproductive stimulator.


Parathormone (PTH) is composed of four glands embedded in the thyroid gland, but its function is mainly to keep calcium in the blood within normal range. It has got sensitive receptors that trigger the PTH to act in correcting serum calcium. As calcium is important for the normal functioning of many organs including vital organs like heart and brain, the PTH has to be prompt in maintaining calcium in the blood within normal. The function of PTH is to increase absorption of calcium in the gut and to reduce its excretion in the kidneys. When vitamin is low it leads to drop of calcium in the blood leading to calcium being mobilized from the high calcium reserves in the bone by the action of PTH. The loss of calcium in the bones leads to decalcification of the bones which makes the clinical features of rickets in the bones. In case of rickets bones become soft leading to bow legs in walking infants. All these features are the result of action of Parathormone as with the rise of PTH it is noticed the gradual increase of calcium together with high alkaline phosphatase as an indication of activity of rickets in infants and osteomalacia in the mothers. This review is to express the mechanism of causation of rickets and osteomalacia by the activity of the hyperparathyroidism which is secondary to hypocalcemia due to vitamin D deficiency in the breast feeding infant and their mothers where the latter is considered in the phase of biochemical osteomalacia.


Factor analysis has been applied to the analysis of the x-ray-induced decomposition of sodium Perchlorate, which yields chlorate and chloride as products. The analysis indicates that the chlorate ion cannot be an intermediate in the perchlorate-to-chloride reduction, as has been reported. A new mechanism consistent with the analysis and rate data for the decomposition are discussed.


Christou, Anastasis and Agüera, Ana and Bayona, Josep Maria and Cytryn, Eddie and Fotopoulos, Vasileios and Lambropoulo, Dimitra and Manaia, Célia M. and Michael, Costas and Revitt, D. Mike and Schröder, Peter and Fatta-Kassinos, Despo (2017) The potential implications of reclaimed wastewater reuse for irrigation on the agricultural environment: the knowns and unknowns of the fate of antibiotics and antibiotic resistant bacteria and resistance genes – a review. Water Research, 123 . pp. 448-467. ISSN 0043-1354


A remarkably long period of Northern Hemispheric cooling in the 6th century CE, which disrupted human societies across large parts of the globe, has been attributed to volcanic forcing of climate. A major tropical eruption in 540 CE is thought to have played a key role, but there is no consensus about the source volcano to date. Here, we present evidence for El Chichon in southern Mexico as the most likely candidate, based on a refined reconstruction of the volcano's eruption history. A new chronological framework, derived from distal tephra deposits and the world's largest Holocene beach ridge plain along the Gulf of Mexico, enabled us to positively link a major explosive event to a prominent volcanic sulfur spike in bipolar ice core records, dated at 540 CE. We speculate that voluminous tephra fall from the eruption had a severe environmental impact on Maya societies, leading to temporary cultural decline, site abandonment, and migration within the core area of Maya civilization.


The work presented in this thesis was undertaken to increase understanding of the intracellular mechanisms regulating acid secretion by gastric parietal cells. Investigation of the effects of protein kinase C on secretory activity induced by a variety of agents was a major objective. A further aim was to establish the sites at which epidermal growth factor (EGF) acts to stimulate prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) production and to inhibit acid secretion. These investigations were carried out by using the HGT-1 human gastric cancer cell line and freshly isolated rat parietal cells. In HGT-1 cells, the cyclic AMP response to histamine and to truncated glucagon-like peptide 1 (TGLP-1) was reduced when protein kinase C was activated by 12-0-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate (TPA). Receptor-binding studies and experiments in which cyclic AMP production in HGT-1 cells was stimulated by gastric inhibitory polypeptide, cholera toxin and forskolin suggested that the effect of TPA was mediated by uncoupling of the histamine H2 receptor from the guanine nucleotide regulatory protein Gs, possibly by phosphorylation of the receptor. An involvement of protein kinase C α in this effect was suggested because an antibody to this isoform specifically prevented the inhibitory effects of TPA on histamine-stimulated adenylate cyclase activity in a membrane fraction prepared from HGT-1 cells. Carbachol-stimulated secretory activity in parietal cells was specifically inhibited by Ro 31-8220, a bisindolylmaleimide inhibitor of protein kinase C. Thus protein kinase C may play a role in the activation of the secretory response to carbachol. In parietal cells prelabelled with [3H]-arachidonic acid or [3H]myristic acid, EGF did not affect [3H]-fatty acid or [3H] - diacylglycerol content. No evidence for effects of EGF on phosphatidylinositol glycan-specific phospholipase C, phospholipase A2 or on low Km cyclic AMP phosphodiesterase activities were found.


Expression of the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) (AD169) DNA polymerase gene under the control of the polyhedrin promoter of Autographa californica nuclear polyhedrosis virus in Spodoptera frugiperda (Sf9) cells has provided a source of highly active CMV DNA polymerase. In extracts from CMV-infected cells, the CMV DNA polymerase is found strongly associated with an additional polypeptide, ICP36. This protein has been identified as the CMV homolog of the herpes simplex virus type 1 UL42 gene product and may have a similar function. We have expressed HCMV DNA polymerase and ICP36 in the same system and demonstrated that they interact to form a stable complex. Moreover, ICP36 functions to stimulate the DNA polymerase activity in a template-dependent manner. We have compared the activity of the recombinant DNA polymerase in the presence and absence of ICP36 on a number of DNA templates and measured the effect of the polymerase inhibitors phosphonoformic acid and acyclovir triphosphate.


This paper examines the political economy of Estonian trade policy in the 1990s. Estonia is a unique case in the world economy, in that the country rapidly implemented unilateral free trade after regaining independence and sustained it right through the 1990s. We analyse the circumstances, interests, ideas and institutions that have shaped Estonian trade policy during the past decade. Our stress is on institutions, particularly the national decision-making setting for trade policy. Through this prism we try to understand how a free trade regime was implemented and sustained, and what this experience suggests for the feasibility of tree trade elsewhere. We also look at the increasingly 'multi-track' nature of Estonian trade policy through bilateral free trade agreements, WTO accession and, especially, the movement towards EU accession. Although the other trade policy tracks to some extent provide a lockin for unilateral reforms, we argue that EU accession is undermining the simple, classical liberal trade policy regime that existed during the 1990s. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.


Diesel emissions legislation continues to tighten around the world, and Particulate Matter (PM) emissions are currently the focus of much attention. Diesel PM can be controlled using Diesel Particulate Filters (DPFs), which can effectively reduce the level of carbon (soot) emissions to ambient background levels. In the Heavy Duty Diesel (HDD) area, the Continuously Regenerating Trap (CRT®) [1] has been widely applied in the retrofit market. This system will henceforth be referred to as the Continuously Regenerating DPF (CR-DPF). There are currently over 100,000 of these systems in use in retrofit applications worldwide. This system comprises a specially formulated Diesel Oxidation Catalyst (DOC) upstream of a DPF; the NO 2 generated by the DOC is used to combust the carbon collected in the DPF at low temperatures. A model describing the performance of the CR-DPF has been developed. This model comprises two basic components: i) a 1-D DOC model based on laboratory microreactor data, and ii) a 1-D DPF model. The DOC model includes Langmuir-Hinshelwood expressions to describe the kinetics of the NO, CO and HC oxidation reactions. This model has been validated using engine data measured over both low and high temperature driving cycles. The DPF model has been validated using engine bench pressure drop data measured over the ESC (European Stationary Cycle). These 2 models have been combined to create a full model of the CR-DPF system, which has been validated over a wide range of conditions. Very good agreement between the experimental data and the model has been achieved.


Middles across languages share a core of common semantic characteristics. Yet they exhibit striking differences, as shown on the language-sample that includes Dutch, English, Hebrew, French, Italian, Polish, and Serbo-Croat. The author argues that a single ARB operation, inspired by the ARB-saturation of Chierchia for impersonals, can derive the shared semantic properties of middles across languages. The operation is parameterized to apply in the lexicon or in the syntax, along the lines proposed by Reinhart and Siloni for reflexivization. This explains the linguistic variation.

The theoretical framework assumed in the study is Reinhart s Theta System. The analysis rests on further development of the thematic feature-system (theta roles). A new feature cluster (ARB) - unspecified for any feature is introduced. Logically, this cluster is needed for the feature system to be well defined, but it had no empirical witness before. The author argues that when Middle Formation applies in the lexicon, it involves a feature-change, creating the ARB role. When it applies in the syntax (LF), role-manipulation is not available, and it involves the arbitrarization of a variable instead. The syntactic differences follow from the locus of the operation. The lexicon operation is restricted to operate on the verb s grid, the syntax operation can access ECM subjects. A further consequence is that in lexicon languages the middle subject is base generated, but in syntax languages it merges internally and moves.

Several other modifications of the Theta System are proposed such as a restriction on the realization of the clusters (FITR), which restricts the expressive power of the system and facilitates the solution to puzzles of theta realization other than middles.


The aim of this study was establish if Leander versus Static traction was useful for the treatment of facet syndrome, a common type of mechanical lower back pain seen by chiropractors. Two groups of fifteen participants were chosen on the basis of the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The first objective was to determine if Static linear traction was effective for the treatment of lumbar facet syndrome in terms of subjective and objective findings. The second objective was to determine if Leander traction was effective for the treatment of lumbar facet syndrome in terms of subjective and objective clinical findings. Lastly the third objective was to compare the subjective and objective clinical findings for both groups. Design: A randomised, two group parallel controlled clinical trial was carried out between the two sample groups. Participants had to have had chronic lower back pain (> 3months). Thirty symptomatic volunteer participants between 25 and 55 were randomly divided into two equal groups – group A (Leander traction) received 5 treatments over a 2 week period. Similarly, group B (Static linear traction) also received 5 treatments over a 2 week period. Algometer readings, Numerical Pain Rating Scale (NRS101), Pain Severity Scale (PSS) and Oswestery Disabilty Index (ODI) were used as v assessment tools. Subjective and objective clinical findings were taken on the first and second visits (i.e. 48 hours) prior to treatment and immediately after treatment. Another set of subjective and objective readings were taken one week after the fifth treatment in order to gauge the long term effects of both treatments. No treatment was given on the sixth visit. Pressure tolerance measurements using an algometer were taken at the end ranges of motion in Kemp's test and spinal extension. Outcome measures: SPSS version 15 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois, USA) was used for statistical analysis of data. A p value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. The two groups were compared at baseline in terms of demographics variables and location using Pearson's chi square tests and ttests as appropriate. Intra-group comparisons were made between all time points. A significant time effect indicated successful treatment intervention. Inter-group comparisons were achieved using repeated measures ANOVA tests for each outcome measured separately. A significant time group interaction effect indicated a significant treatment effect. Profile plots were used to assess the trend and direction of the treatment effect. Results: The results of the study showed that Leander traction and Static linear traction were both effective for treating chronic lumbar facet syndrome and no statistically significant difference was found between subjective and objective clinical findings between the two groups.


This paper presents a careful study related to a more efficient energy management between lithium battery (with rated voltage of 24V) and Ultracapacitors (UC) for Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) applications. This association is due to the present trend in the field, knowing that the major drawback of the HEV is the autonomy problem. Thus, using the Hybrid energy source (such as UC + battery) and with a good energy management improves the HEV performances. In this paper, battery and Ultracapacitors (10 cells of 2.7V in series) are coupled to DC-bus using two buck-boost converters. The main contribution of this paper is focused on DC-bus voltage and currents control strategy based on polynomial (RST) controller. Through some simulations in MATLAB/Simulink software and experimental results, the authors present an improved energy management for HEV.


Nano-crystalline silicon/silicon oxide (nc-Si/SiO2 structures have been prepared from amorphous silicon films on both silicon and quartz substrates by using electron-beam evaporation approach and annealing at temperatures about 600 oC in air. As a thermal oxidation procedure, the annealing treatment is not only a crystallization process but also an oxidation process. Scanning electron microscopy is employed to characterize the surface morphology of the nc-Si/SiO2 layers. Transmission electron microscopy study shows the sizes of nc-Si grains on the two different substrates. The nc-Si/SiO2 structures exhibit visible luminescence at room temperature as confirmed by photoluminescence spectroscopy. Comparing the photoluminescence spectra of different samples, our results agree with the quantum confinement-luminescence center model.


Abstract For many years the Drunella lata complex of eastern North America consisted of 4 recognized species: 3 described from the Northeast, Drunella lata (Morgan), Drunella cornuta (Morgan), and Drunella cornutella (McDunnough), and 1, Drunella longicornis (Traver), from the southern Appalachian Mountains region. Recently, all 4 were synonymized to a single species (D. lata [Morgan], by priority) because morphological variation was perceived to be continuous and historical characterizations of species were viewed as arbitrary. We used genetic, morphometric, and life-history data to reevaluate D. lata, D. cornuta, and D. cornutella in northeastern North America, where all 3 morphotypes coexist in certain catchments and often in the same reach of stream. Pairwise genetic comparisons of coexisting morphotypes revealed fixed allelic differences at 6 to 10 of 19 allozyme loci, showing reproductive isolation among D. cornuta, D. cornutella, and D. lata even within the same reach of stream. Morphometric studies confirmed their distinction by uncovering significant differences in a suite of characters, some with nonoverlapping ranges (i.e., diagnostic). The 3 taxa also were shown to be segregated ecologically by consistent differences in seasonality, thermal requirements, and spatial distribution. We conclude that D. cornuta, D. cornutella, and D. lata are all worthy of full species status, and so reinstate D. cornuta and D. cornutella. Diagnostic descriptions are provided and existing keys emended.


This book is dedicated to the generations of Penn Social Work faculty, staff, and students who advanced the field of Social Work and made Philadelphia, the nation, and the world a better place to live. We are thankful to Susan Molofsky Todres, an Overseer of the School, who generously supported the production of this book. Her commitment to the School and the University is greatly appreciated. And finally our gratitude to Ram A. Cnaan, Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Doctoral Education at our School, for his patience and persistence in the planning, supervising and coordinating the details of this volume of institutional history. Disciplines Social Work Comments Mark Frazier Lloyd has been Director of the University Archives and Records Center at the University of Pennsylvania since 1984. This book is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/centennial/1 A Centennial History of the School of Social Policy & Practice by Mark Frazier Lloyd & 100 Years of SocialWork Education


It has been hypothesized that statins, HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, may be used to treat fungal infections. Here we review data on antifungal properties of statins, effects on the host inflammatory response as well as available clinical evidence. We conclude that: statins exhibit antifungal properties in vitro although at supraphysiological concentrations; statins appear to have anti-inflammatory effects on host cells in vitro; statins have effects on fungal physiology beyond direct growth inhibition; clinical studies are scarce (n = 5), and their design is retrospective and observational, which is associated with a high risk of bias. Given the limited evidence for a beneficial effect of statins in fungal infection, randomized and controlled trials are highly warranted in this field.


Within Extension, certain personnel, facilitators, and volunteers expected to conduct research in the form of program evaluation may have little or no training in effective research design and practices. This circumstance can lead to difficulties in the implementation of evaluation procedures, particularly with regard to program evaluation fidelity. In addition, a lack of familiarity with effective program evaluation and research methods may limit an individual's understanding of the importance of evaluation itself, as well as the importance of fidelity in conducting an evaluation. Effective planning of, training in, and monitoring of program evaluation procedures is essential for maintaining fidelity and ensuring accurate evaluation of program outcomes.


The effects of phosphorus and organic carbon on bacterial growth were investigated in the laboratory. The bacteria sampled from the drinking water network of Tianjin were inoculated into water samples with different content of phosphorus (0~15µg PO43--P/L) and assimilable organic carbon (10~200µgAOC/L). The inoculated water samples were incubated at 20°C. Bacterial growth was monitored in every 2 days in the beginning of cultivation and in every 4 days or more in the later of the cultivation. Results showed that Phosphorus had obvious promotion on bacterial growth, which included shortening the lag phase evidently, increasing the growth rate and the maximum cell count in stationary phase. Carbon can only increase bacterial number. Under oligotrophic condition,when ratio of AOC: P in nutrients of water was more than 100:5, phosphorus was the limiting factor of bacterial growth. The bacterial yield factors against phosphorus and AOC were 1.1×109CFU/µgP and 9.0×107CFU/µgAOC respectively. Phosphorus was more sensitive than AOC. When the phosphorus concentration was less than 0.7µg/L in water samples, it was very difficult for bacteria to obtain phosphorus, and then growth of bacteria was very slowly or in lag phase in the first nine days of incubation time. In drinking water with low concentration of phosphorus (<0.7µg/L) and disinfectants, bacterial regrowth may be controlled. The paper will be Narrated in two parts, "Effects of AOC and Phosphorus on Bacterial Growth under Oligotrophic Condition (1)" and "Effects of AOC and Phosphorus on Bacterial Growth under Oligotrophic Condition (2)".


Dominated by LGBTQ+ and female-identified fans from various backgrounds, Tumblr blogs dedicated to queer readings of the BBC television series Sherlock (2010–ongoing) are a breeding ground for less-discussed forms of unremunerated queer labor: utopian, heuristic, and care work. In their digital fanworks, Tumblr queer users marry crafts associated with domestic heterosexual femininity (collage and scrapbooking) with established female fan practices (slashing and shipping) to articulate complex sexual and gender identities and navigate neuro-divergent mental health statuses. This article examines the shifts real-time digital interactivity and transmedia storytelling have introduced to viewer/producer power relations. Unpacking "queer cryptography" as a form of reception labor offers a feminist reading of the diverse modes of LGBTQ+ identification, kinship, and activism performed by queer female viewers on Tumblr, while questioning the vulnerability and possible exploitation of the unsanctioned affective labor produced by such a desperately underrepresented demographic.


The guided and leaky modes of the optical waveguides (fibers) are analyzed by the finite-element method (FEM) with the integral boundary conditions. The initial equations are reduced to the algebraic general eigenvalue problem, which is solved by the Arnoldi algorithm. The mode dispersion characteristics, fields, and cutoff frequencies are calculated for several waveguide structures, including flat and multilayer fibers with different shapes of cross sections.


The study presented here aims to validate some operating speed prediction models calibrated on two-lane rural roads by using speed data collected in Northern and Southern Italy. Operating speed is defined as the speed at which drivers of passenger cars travel on a dry road in free flow conditions during daylight hours and it is calculated using a specific percentile of speed distribution, typically the 85th. Speed measurements were carried out by using laser detectors in connection with previous environmental and traffic conditions. The study is addressed to emphasize the reliability and easy application of one predictive speed model working both on tangent segments and on circular curves. The calibration phase involved roads in the Northern Italy, while the validation phase involved roads in the Southern Italy. Three models were validated applying them on eight two-lane rural roads falling within the road network of the Province of Salerno with features that reflect those adopted in the calibration phase; the selected models to be validated present the simplest analytical structure for type and number of explanatory variables and for the performance diagram shape of the operating speed values. The validation procedure was to estimate some synthetic statistical parameters as mean absolute deviation, mean squared error and coefficient of variation. The results allow in a simple way to trace continuous operating speed profiles on two-lane rural roads and to carry out safety analyses on the horizontal alignment.


Concept of Group or Team Effectiveness A lot of Indian firms find their ways through acquisition, strategic alliances and joint ventures, mergers and divestments. They have their concern towards managing change, turnaround and transformation, improving R&D, enhancing creativity, culture building, people issues etc. The present study raises a perspective from HR where ultimately it is the people whose consistent performance enables the company reach the goal. Team effectiveness is important right from the top to the bottom of the organization. We find that the use of team/group has expanded rapidly in response to competitive challenges. Numerous studies have shown how to design empowered or self-directed work teams, parallel learning teams, cross-functional project teams, executive teams, and team-based organizations. The words "team" and "group" are used interchangeably in this paper. The popular management literature has tended to use the term "team," for example, empowered teams, quality improvement teams, and team effectiveness. The academic literature has tended to use the word "group," for example, group cohesion, group dynamics, and group effectiveness. No differentiation is being made here in the concept of group and team. Likert (1961) emphasized that management can derive maximum benefit out of it's human resources if the work groups are marked by a high degree of group loyalty, effective skills of interaction and high performance goals. He maintained that an organization may be called successful when, besides maximizing its profit, it makes the greatest use of human capacity consisting of highly effective work groups, linked together in an overlapping pattern by other similarly effective groups. McGregor (1960: 235-40) distinguishes between effective and less effective groups. "The 'good' managerial team is one where the atmosphere is relaxed with people listening to each other without tension. People participate and try to reach an agreement. When disagreements cannot be resolved, the group attempts to live with them, and criticism, while frequent, is constructive but not personal. Evaluation of group performance is constant. On the other hand, a less effective group has little idea of group task objectives. A few people dominate, and their contributions are often not to the point. Disagreements are either suppressed out of fear of conflict, or actual warfare emerges. Meetings produce tension but little of value in reaching any clear goal". A group's ability to be effective depends particularly upon how well it transforms the resource inputs into group's outputs. The inputs would include the organizational settings, nature of the task, individual attributes and general member characteristics. The group process would include things like norms and cohesion, interaction patterns, decision making and task maintenance activities. These may be related both to required behaviours in the formal systems and the emergent behaviours in the informal systems. The outputs may include the task performance and human resource maintenance. Cartwright and Zander (1960) suggested that a group is more effective if it specializes the tasks of its member. From the vast literature on group dynamics, few models of group effectiveness which attempt to develop new theoretical perspectives in this area are the work of Cummings (1981), Hackman (1976), and Gladstein (1984) who developed the model of group effectiveness out of the social-technical tradition that focuses on the interaction between leadership skills, technical skills, and group interaction. Guzzo (1986) focuses on three determinants of group effectiveness, namely, task interdependence, outcomes interdependence or the contingency between rewards and group performances, and potency of the collective belief that group can be effective. The work by Gladstein (1984) must be incorporated in this status report because it represents one of the first attempts to pose and to test the comprehensive model of work group effectiveness. …


A study performed in all the St. Petersburg traumatologic-and-orthopedic departments simultaneously has demonstrated that the proportion of patients with indications for transosseous osteosynthesis performance amounts to 0.6-1.6%. Among them 43% are socially unprotected. The necessity for staying 45% of patients in a hospital for a long time (above 3 weeks) is connected not only with transosseous osteosynthesis technology, but with inadequate work of out-patient departments as well. It has been found that 86% of traumatologists questioned have no adequate specialized training in the field of external fixation. The current state of external fixation presupposes two levels of its organization: "traumatologic (urgent)" and "orthopedic" which differ significantly in the required level of specialist training, equipping and treatment process organization. There is a need for foundation of the specialized centre for treatment of difficult orthopedic-and-traumatologic pathology with the use of transosseous osteosynthesis technologies, the adoption of progressive techniques and the perfection of the known ones, as well as for methodical and educational support organizing.


Abstract The South China Sea is one of the youngest marginal seas and understanding its development is important for reconstructing the tectonic evolution of Southeast Asia. The South China Sea is thought to have been actively spreading between 32 Ma and 15.5 Ma. The East Taiwan Ophiolite (ETO) is one of the few preserved remnants of the South China Sea on land and provides an opportunity to investigate the age and the tectonic setting of the accreted easternmost portion. The age of the ETO was obtained by LA-ICP-MS in situ zircon U–Pb methods and yielded a mean 206Pb–238U age of 14.1±0.4 Ma, suggesting that magmatic activity in the South China Sea continued ~1.5 million years beyond current estimates. Cr-spinel data (Cr no. = 42–54) and depleted εNd(t) values (i.e. +9.1 to +11.4) from the serpentinized peridotites and gabbros and the light rare earth element depleted patterns (La/Yb ≤ 1) of the ETO mafic rocks are consistent with a ridge setting (i.e. N-MORB composition). Therefore, the ETO likely represents the terminal portion of the South China Sea spreading ridge that was sheared off during the northward translation of the Luzon arc.


The skyline is an important query operator for multi-criteria decision making. It reduces a dataset to only those points that offer optimal trade-offs of dimensions. In general, it is very expensive to compute. Recently, multicore CPU algorithms have been proposed to accelerate the computation of the skyline. However, they do not sufficiently minimize dominance tests and so are not competitive with state-of-the-art sequential algorithms. In this paper, we introduce a novel multicore skyline algorithm, Hybrid, which processes points in blocks. It maintains a shared, global skyline among all threads, which is used to minimize dominance tests while maintaining high throughput. The algorithm uses an efficiently-updatable data structure over the shared, global skyline, based on point-based partitioning. Also, we release a large benchmark of optimized skyline algorithms, with which we demonstrate on challenging workloads a 100-fold speedup over state-of-the-art multicore algorithms and a 10-fold speedup with 16 cores over state-of-the-art sequential algorithms.


In this thesis, production of Co, Ni, and Cu nanoparticles by hydrogen reduction of metal chlorides in gas phase was studied. Nanoparticles have unique properties not found in bulk or micron-scale materials. These enable new products or reduced use of raw materials. Metal nanoparticle production has been studied widely, but especially for coated metal particles, research of coating mechanisms and economic production methods is still needed. The method used in this thesis combines a high yield, a high production rate, low production costs, high particle quality, and a good range of available particle number average diameters and other properties. These particles could be utilised in conductive inks, antenna substrates, medical imaging, or as sensors and catalysts. The number average primary particle diameter (NAD) of Co particles increased from 20 to 84 nm as the particle mass concentration increased from 0.5 to 10 g/m. For even higher particle mass concentrations, the NAD did not increase. The Co and Cu particles were coated in-situ with carbon, by adding ethene to the reaction flow. Copper particles were also coated with carbon and carbon nanotube-like structures by adding ethene and water to the reaction flow. When ethene concentration was increased from zero to 9.2 mol-%, the NAD decreased from 84 to 17 nm for cobalt. Particle mass concentration was 10 g/m or higher in these experiments. The standard deviation was 17 nm when NAD 84 nm and 7 nm when NAD was 17 nm. For copper, the NAD increased from 20 to121 nm. The particles were crystalline with an FCC structure in all cases. The particle growth was modelled in a simplified way. It appears, that surface reaction is an important part of the particle growth process. The most likely scenario is that first, seed particles form by gas phase reaction and nucleation. Then, these particles grow partly by surface reaction and partly by condensation growth. In the gas phase, some backward reaction of metal to metal chloride occurs. The saturation magnetic moment of the Co and Co+C particles was 141– 147 emu/g, which is close to bulk Co (159 emu/g). No hysteresis was observed for these particles. Cobalt particles with and without carbon coating were used to fabricate polymer composites, which could be applied in RF antennae. The relative permeability of the composite was increased from 1 to 3 as the loading of the particles increased from zero to 28 vol-%. Copper particles coated with carbon coating and CNT-like structures were used to fabricate inkjet fluid capable of producing conductive lines after printing a single layer. The best achieved conductivity was 6.4 S/m.


In an effort to understand the mechanisms by which nonsense codons affect RNA metabolism in mammalian cells, nonsense mutations were generated within the gene for the secretory major urinary protein (MUP) of mice. The translation of MUP mRNA normally begins within exon 1 and terminates within exon 6, the penultimate exon. Through the use of Northern (RNA) blot hybridization and assays that couple reverse transcription and PCR, a nonsense mutation within codon 50 of exon 2 or codon 143 of exon 5 was found to reduce the abundance of fully spliced, nuclear MUP mRNA to 10 to 20% of normal without an additional reduction in the abundance of cytoplasmic mRNA. In contrast, a nonsense mutation within codon 172 of exon 5 was found to have no effects on the abundance of MUP mRNA. These findings suggest that a boundary between nonsense mutations that do and do not reduce the abundance of nuclear mRNA exists within the exon preceding the exon that harbors the normal site of translation termination. In this way, the boundary is analogous to the boundary that exists within the penultimate exon of the human gene for the cytosolic enzyme triosephosphate isomerase. Assays for exon skipping, i.e., the removal of an exon as a part of the flanking introns during the process of splicing, reveal that 0.1, 2.0, and 0.1% of MUP mRNA normally lack exon 5, exon 6, and exons 5 plus 6, respectively. Relative to normal, the two nonsense mutations within exon 5 increase the abundance of RNA lacking exon 5 on average 20-fold and increase the abundance of RNA lacking exons 5 plus 6 on average 5-fold. Since only one of these nonsense mutations also reduces the abundance of fully spliced nuclear mRNA to 10 to 20% of normal, the two mechanisms by which a nonsense mutation can alter nuclear RNA metabolism must be distinct. The analysis of missense mutations within codons 143 and 172, some of which retain the nonsense mutation, indicates that the reduction in the abundance of fully spliced nuclear mRNA is dependent upon the premature termination of MUP mRNA translation, whereas skipping is attributable to nonsense mutation-mediated changes in exon 5 structure rather than to the premature termination of translation. The increase in exon 5 skipping by either the nonsense or missense mutations within codon 172 correlates with a decrease in the complementarity of exon 5 to U1 snRNA. This suggests that a 5' splice site may extend as far as 12 nucleotides into the upstream exon, which is, to our knowledge, the largest extension.


The incorporation of the further education sector in 1993 was followed by a period of extreme turbulence. Colleges plunged into the complex task of managing huge organizations while under pressure from cuts in funding and a steady expansion in the number and range of students. While financial scandals may have attracted attention, the success of the further education sector in continuing to provide a vital educational service for millions of people has been less recognized.
Despite the significant contribution of the sector to education and training, practitioners struggle to find adequate research evidence on which to base reflection and practice. They need material relevant to the specific situation of managers working within this very hybrid sector, part public sector education and part commercial organization, catering for an age and ability range greater than that of any other educational sector.
Based on a national survey of college managers, this book investigates how managers are responding to the challenge to increase the numbers and range of students and to improve learning and teaching. The author shows what it means to lead in a college and how the culture has evolved. Each chapter focuses on an aspect of management. The book concludes that 'learning enterprise' is an apt description of further education, a sector which has retained learning at its core and has learned to adopt an entrepreneurial spirit to shape its future.


Research on stable marriage problems has a long and mathematically rigorous history, while that of exploiting greedy matchings in combinatorial scientific computing is a younger and less developed research field. We consider the relationships between these two areas. In particular we show that several problems related to computing greedy matchings can be formulated as stable marriage problems and as a consequence several recently proposed algorithms for computing greedy matchings are in fact special cases of well known algorithms for the stable marriage problem. However, in terms of implementations and practical scalable solutions on modern hardware, work on computing greedy matchings has made considerable progress. We show that due to this strong relationship many of these results are also applicable for solving stable marriage problems. This is further demonstrated by designing and testing efficient multicore as well as GPU algorithms for the stable marriage problem.


The invasive ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi has a strong reputation as a threat to fish stocks. Apart from competitive relationships between M. leidyi and fish larvae, direct predation by the ctenophore on both eggs and larvae is considered an important factor linking ctenophore and fish populations. We therefore estimated abundances of both the ctenophore and its potential prey in the spring of 2008. No significant correlations were detected between ctenophore numbers and the abundance of fish eggs. We further carried out stable isotope analyses to investigate the trophic position of M. leidyi. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope signatures of three potential prey groups (fish eggs, small plankton and larger plankton) showed that M. leidyi primarily feeds on plankton, while fish eggs are of minor importance. Mnemiopsis leidyi was located roughly one trophic level above the indigenous cteno- phore Bolinopsis infundibulum, whereas its trophic position was more similar to another native ctenophore, Pleurobrachia pileus. A feeding selection experiment, with fish eggs and copepods offered in the same proportion, corroborated these find- ings. Mnemiopsis leidyi ingested significantly more copepods; feeding on fish eggs was not significantly different from zero. Based on these experiments, we conclude that in the North Sea, M. leidyi has no serious potential as a direct predator of fish eggs, but individuals of this species might compete for food with larval fish as well as with the native ctenophore P. pileus.


Background: The DENERHTN trial (Renal Denervation for Hypertension) confirmed the blood pressure–lowering efficacy of renal denervation added to a standardized stepped-care antihypertensive treatment for resistant hypertension at 6 months. We report the influence of adherence to antihypertensive treatment on blood pressure control. Methods: One hundred six patients with hypertension resistant to 4 weeks of treatment with indapamide 1.5 mg/d, ramipril 10 mg/d (or irbesartan 300 mg/d), and amlodipine 10 mg/d were randomly assigned to renal denervation plus standardized stepped-care antihypertensive treatment, or the same antihypertensive treatment alone. For standardized stepped-care antihypertensive treatment, spironolactone 25 mg/d, bisoprolol 10 mg/d, prazosin 5 mg/d, and rilmenidine 1 mg/d were sequentially added at monthly visits if home blood pressure was ≥135/85 mm Hg after randomization. We assessed adherence to antihypertensive treatment at 6 months by drug screening in urine/plasma samples from 85 patients. Results: The numbers of fully adherent (20/40 versus 21/45), partially nonadherent (13/40 versus 20/45), or completely nonadherent patients (7/40 versus 4/45) to antihypertensive treatment were not different in the renal denervation and the control groups, respectively (P=0.3605). The difference in the change in daytime ambulatory systolic blood pressure from baseline to 6 months between the 2 groups was –6.7 mm Hg (P=0.0461) in fully adherent and –7.8 mm Hg (P=0.0996) in nonadherent (partially nonadherent plus completely nonadherent) patients. The between-patient variability of daytime ambulatory systolic blood pressure was greater for nonadherent than for fully adherent patients. Conclusions: In the DENERHTN trial, the prevalence of nonadherence to antihypertensive drugs at 6 months was high (≈50%) but not different in the renal denervation and control groups. Regardless of adherence to treatment, renal denervation plus standardized stepped-care antihypertensive treatment resulted in a greater decrease in blood pressure than standardized stepped-care antihypertensive treatment alone. Clinical Trial Registration: URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01570777.


While the literature on directly elected mayors has largely neglected the relationship between mayors and their parties, studies of party transformation have generally ignored how changes in local democratic rules and practices affect parties. This article addresses these questions using a qualitative case study of the relationship between mayors and the three faces of their parties (in local public office, local central office and on the ground) in Genoa and Lausanne. Based on interviews with the mayors, elected representatives and party members, it finds in the two cases that, as long as these mayors can count on high levels of popularity and are not nearing the end of their term, they are 'party detached'. When these factors do not apply and/or party institutionalization increases, the relationship with the party in local central office (although not with the party in local public office or on the ground) becomes more significant.


In order to clarify the histogenesis of alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS), an immunohistochemical and biochemical study was performed on three cases. The immunohistochemical study indicated the presence of actin, desmin, vimentin, and Z-protein in all cases. On the other hand, intermediate filaments other than desmin and vimentin were not detected immunohistochemically. The presence of desmin and Z-protein strongly suggests the myogenic character of this tumor. As to whether ASPS shows striated muscle differentiation or smooth muscle differentiation, the immunohistochemical absence of myoglobin in the three cases suggests that the tumor does not differentiate in the direction of striated muscle. However, biochemical assay of subunits of enolase revealed significantly high amounts of beta-enolase, which is known as a marker for striated muscle, in all three cases. The determined values--735, 426, and 584 ng/mg of protein --are indicative of striated muscle differentiation. In addition, the immunohistochemical study of all cases revealed the presence of beta-enolase in tumor cells. These data definitely show the myogenic character and rhabdomyoblastic differentiation of ASPS.


The era of transnational sport migration (TSM) has been one of heady celebration, seemingly free movement across borders, and lucrative business. The predominant (and outmoded) models of sport migration currently ignore state controls of migration. This paper brings the state back into analyses of TSM and looks at strategies migrants have used to skirt governmental attempts to control their movements. Understanding the issues surrounding state constructions of national citizenship is essential – both for this paper but also for migrants themselves in order to manipulate these controlling mechanisms to work in their favour. After identifying classificatory themes for determining national and professional status, this paper draws on examples that highlight states' attempts to control the movements of sport professionals. Using a combination of ethnographic material gathered over the past decade along with interviews and investigative reports, this article argues that an updated theory for understanding transnational sport migration must incorporate and reflect the actual experiences, routes and roots of TSM and the multiple forces that contour these processes.


Multi-robot teams offer possibilities of improved performance and fault tolerance, compared to single robot solutions. In this paper, we show how to realize those possibilities when starting from a single robot system controlled by a Behavior Tree (BT). By extending the single robot BT to a multi-robot BT, we are able to combine the fault tolerant properties of the BT, in terms of built-in fallbacks, with the fault tolerance inherent in multi-robot approaches, in terms of a faulty robot being replaced by another one. Furthermore, we improve performance by identifying and taking advantage of the opportunities of parallel task execution, that are present in the single robot BT. Analyzing the proposed approach, we present results regarding how mission performance is affected by minor faults (a robot losing one capability) as well as major faults (a robot losing all its capabilities). Finally, a detailed example is provided to illustrate the approach.


Atmospheric methane concentrations in the Arctic are the highest on earth. Sea ice retreat, thinning, and decreasing multiyear and increasing one-year sea ice will have consequences for the sea-ice-air exchange of that greenhouse gas. A cascade of feedback processes triggered by freezing and melting events may induce seasonally the uptake of methane from sources remote from the locations where methane is released again, either to the atmosphere or the ocean acting as final sink. We investigated sea ice cores from the interior Arctic Ocean, Spitsbergen and the southern Beaufort Sea. We found strong gradients in methane concentrations which correspond to super-saturation related to atmospheric equilibrium. We identified stable carbon isotopic signatures of sea ice-methane in the range of strongly 13C-enriched to 13C-depleted in relation to atmospheric background methane. Measured methane oxidation rates reveal methanotrophic activities, especially at the bottom of the sea ice. We used backward trajectories of sea ice cores to identify the general source regions from the ice cores in the interior Arctic, while the d18O signature of the ice provided information in respect to location on or off the shelf regime and also on specific setting on the inner shelf e.g. on water depth and potential sediment load. Our results highlight sea ice as a potential source of bacterially produced methane but also as a buffer for methane up-taken from terrestrial or fossil methane from degrading permafrost regions on the shelf.


Describe differences in Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) screening among a Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare elderly population by ethnicity, place of birth, and gastric cancer (GC)-related conditions, as chronic infection with H. pylori is the strongest risk factor for distal GC. Methods: We used the National Cancer Institute's population-based SEER-Medicare cancer database for GC (1997–2010). We extracted demographic, location and disease staging information from the SEER data file, Patient Entitlement and Diagnosis Summary File. We obtained information on frequencies of various GC-related conditions (e.g., peptic ulcer, gastric ulcer, gastritis) and screening (H. pylori testing and endoscopy) from inpatient hospital and physician/outpatient services claims. Results: Data from 34,730 subjects were analyzed. The majority of Asian American/Pacific Islanders (AAPIs), 65.1%, were foreign-born, while majority of Non-Hispanic Whites (NHW), Hispanics and Blacks were US-born (88.7%, 51.3%, and 96.9%, respectively). NHWs were oldest at diagnosis (74.7 y.); Hispanic and Black cases were the youngest (72.4 and 72.9 y., respectively). For NHWs, the most frequently diagnosed GC site was the cardia (36.1%), while for AAPIs, Hispanics and Blacks, the most diagnosed sites were non-cardia (>80%, P < 0.001). Over 55% of NHW, Hispanic and Black cases were diagnosed at regional or distant stage, while 55% of AAPIs were diagnosed at local or regional stage. Over 57% of all cases had a history of GC-related conditions (AAPIs were highest at 64.1%). However, only 11.2% of total cases showed evidence of H. pylori testing. H. pylori testing was more frequent for foreign-born than US-born (2-fold increase in proportions) and AAPIs exhibited the highest proportion of H. pylori testing (22.6% among those with a GC-related condition). Conclusions: Screening for H. pylori was low for all GC cases, despite race/ethnic groups exhibiting conditions for which H. pylori testing is recommended. AAPI GC cases had the highest frequency of H. pylori testing with tumors staged locally or regionally; increased testing could lead to earlier stage of tumor at diagnosis. Future studies should investigate why screening rates are low in patients with GC-related conditions.


Objective: Ovarian cancer in pregnancy is uncommon; however, this diagnosis adds complexity to cancer treatment recommendations. This is the first systematic review to synthesize all available data and evaluate the efficacy and safety of taxanes during pregnancy in ovarian cancer. Methods: This systematic review was performed in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. All studies that examined the efficacy and safety of taxanes administered during pregnancy in ovarian cancer, regardless of sample size, were considered eligible. Results: Overall, 8 articles (11 pregnancies, 12 newborns) were retrieved for paclitaxel and 1 for docetaxel (1 pregnancy, 1 newborn). In 92.31% of cases a healthy child was born, with a median follow-up of 20 months. The mean weight of the babies at delivery was 2,381 g. One study providing follow-up until the 11th year of age reported a case of attention deficit disorder. In 6 out of 8 case reports providing survival data, the mother was alive and disease free at the end of follow-up (ranging from 9.75 to 45 months). Conclusion: Taxanes may play a significant role in the treatment of ovarian cancer patients during the 2nd and 3rd trimesters. Before that, the risk of abortion or congenital anomalies is increased.


Fusarium graminearum is a pathogenic fungus that causes Fusarium head blight in wheat and lowers the yield and quality of grains by contamination with the trichothecene mycotoxin deoxynivalenol. The fungi coexist and interact with several different fusaria as well as other plant pathogenic fungi and bacteria in the field. In Canada, F. graminearum exists as two main trichothecene chemotypes: 3-acetyldeoxynivalenol and 15-acetyldeoxynivalenol. To understand the potential interactions between two isolates of these chemotypes, we conducted coinoculation studies both in culture and in planta. The studies showed that intraspecies interaction reduces trichothecene yield in culture and disease symptoms in wheat. To elucidate the genes involved in the intraspecies interaction, expression profiling was performed on RNA samples isolated from coinoculated cultures, and potential genes were identified by using the genome sequences of the respective isolates.


The Planck design and scanning strategy provide many levels of redundancy that can be exploited to provide tests of internal consistency. One of the most important is the comparison of the 70 GHz (amplifier) and 100 GHz (bolometer) channels. Based on different instrument technologies, with feeds located differently in the focal plane, analysed independently by different teams using different software, and near the minimum of diffuse foreground emission, these channels are in effect two different experiments. The 143 GHz channel has the lowest noise level on Planck, and is near the minimum of unresolved foreground emission. In this paper, we analyse the level of consistency achieved in the 2013 Planck data. We concentrate on comparisons between the 70, 100, and 143 GHz channel maps and power spectra, particularly over the angular scales of the first and second acoustic peaks, on maps masked for diffuse Galactic emission and for strong unresolved sources. Difference maps covering angular scales from 8◦ to 15′ are consistent with noise, and show no evidence of cosmic microwave background structure. Including small but important corrections for unresolved-source residuals, we demonstrate agreement (measured by deviation of the ratio from unity) between 70 and 100 GHz power spectra averaged over 70 ≤ ` ≤ 390 at the 0.8% level, and agreement between 143 and 100 GHz power spectra of 0.4% over the same ` range. These values are within and consistent with the overall uncertainties in calibration given in the Planck 2013 results. We also present results based on the 2013 likelihood analysis showing consistency at the 0.35% between the 100, 143, and 217 GHz power spectra. We analyse calibration procedures and beams to determine what fraction of these differences can be accounted for by known approximations or systematic errors that could be controlled even better in the future, reducing uncertainties still further. Several possible small improvements are described. Subsequent analysis of the beams quantifies the importance of asymmetry in the near sidelobes, which was not fully accounted for initially, affecting the 70/100 ratio. Correcting for this, the 70, 100, and 143 GHz power spectra agree to 0.4% over the first two acoustic peaks. The likelihood analysis that produced the 2013 cosmological parameters incorporated uncertainties larger than this. We show explicitly that correction of the missing near sidelobe power in the HFI channels would result in shifts in the posterior distributions of parameters of less than 0.3σ except for As, the amplitude of the primordial curvature perturbations at 0.05 Mpc−1, which changes by about 1σ. We extend these comparisons to include the sky maps from the complete nine-year mission of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), and find a roughly 2% difference between the Planck and WMAP power spectra in the region of the first acoustic peak.


During 2007–2013, the Swedish Board of Agriculture granted support within a national program to about 1000 wetlands, corresponding to a 5300-hectare wetland area, with the dual goal to remove nutrients from water and to improve biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. The aim of the present study was to compare the effects on nutrient transports that are realized within the national program to what could be obtained with the same area of wetlands if location and design of wetlands were optimized. In single, highly nutrient-loaded wetlands, a removal of around 1000 kg nitrogen and 100 kg phosphorus per hectare wetland area and year was estimated from monitoring data. Statistical models were developed to estimate the overall nutrient removal effects of wetlands created within the national program. Depending on model, the effect of the national program as a whole was estimated to between 27 and 38 kg nitrogen and between 2.7 and 4.5 kg phosphorus per hectare created wetland area and year. Comparison of what is achieved in individual wetlands to what was achieved in the national program indicates that nutrient removal effects could be increased substantially in future wetland programs by emphasising location and design of wetlands.


Abstract Introduction Many aspects of the management of esophageal atresia (EA) and tracheoesophageal fistula (TEF) are controversial and the evidence for decision making is limited. Members of the European Reference Network for Rare Inherited Congenital Anomalies (ERNICA) conducted a consensus conference on the surgical management of EA/TEF based on expert opinions referring to the latest literature. Materials and Methods Nineteen ERNICA representatives from nine European countries participated in the conference. The conference was prepared by item generation, item prioritization by online survey, formulation of a final list containing the domains diagnostics, preoperative, operative, and postoperative management, and literature review. The 2-day conference was held in Berlin in October 2018. Anonymous voting was conducted via an internet-based system. Consensus was defined when 75% of the votes scored 6 to 9. Results Fifty-two items were generated with 116 relevant articles of which five studies (4.3%) were assigned as level-1evidence. Complete consensus (100%) was achieved on 20 items (38%), such as TEF closure by transfixing suture, esophageal anastomosis by interrupted sutures, and initiation of feeding 24 hours postoperatively. Consensus ≥75% was achieved on 37 items (71%), such as routine insertion of transanastomotic tube or maximum duration of thoracoscopy of 3 hours. Thirteen items (25%) were controversial (range of scores, 1–9). Eight of these (62%) did not reach consensus. Conclusion Participants of the conference reached significant consensus on the management of patients with EA/TEF. The consensus may facilitate standardization and development of generally accepted guidelines. The conference methodology may serve as a blueprint for further conferences on the management of congenital malformations in pediatric surgery.


Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is one of the most common opportunistic infections affecting the central nervous system (CNS) in AIDS patients. Disease results from a reactivation of a latent infection in the brain resulting in a severe and necrotizing encephalitis. In this study we infected a primary culture from human fetal brain with T. gondii and studied the behavior of both the active and latent stages in this culture system. We found that the active (tachyzoite) stage of T. gondii can infect both astrocytes and neurons. However, a higher percentage of astrocytes were infected than neurons. Additionally, astrocytes were found to support more replication of T.gondii than did neurons. Both astrocytes and neurons also supported the cyst stage, found in the latent infections. These data indicate that astrocytes are the host cells supporting most of the replication of T. gondii in the brain in reactivated infections, but both host cell types may be able to support the cyst stage in latent infections. However, evidence indicates that cysts formed in astrocytes may be distinct from neuronal cysts. These findings may have relevance to reactivation of latent T. gondii infections in AIDS patients.


The relationship between the United States and the Muslim/Arab world has deteriorated since September 11, 2001. The United States is widely perceived as targeting Arab nations for their oil, especially in the wake of the war in Iraq. Measures are needed on both sides to build a more peaceful, prosperous Middle East. A free trade agreement with Egypt could be an instrument toward achieving this goal. If the United States were to select its FTA partners based on relative political importance in their regions, Egypt would top the list among Arab states. This study considers the key economic and political characteristics of Egypt as a potential FTA partner. It examines the benefits and challenges in pursuing bilateral negotiations with Egypt, examines the Bush proposal for a regional arrangement, and assesses the impact of a prospective FTA on other trading partners, on the Middle East/Arab world, and on the multilateral trading system. If an FTA with Egypt materializes, the gains can be substantial to all parties involved.


Abstract Back to Netball (B2N) is a coach-led programme established by England Netball, to encourage inactive individuals to re-engage. B2N engages a typically hard to reach group, with 52% of participants being mums. This study aims to understand how a physical activity intervention (i.e. B2N) influences mums' identity. There is a distinct lack of qualitative studies that include mums' own voices and how they negotiate being physically active alongside the role expectations associated with being a mum. A qualitative approach was utilised to consider and represent participant's experiences. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 women who were engaged with the Back to Netball scheme. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the experience of mothers who take part in B2N. Two key themes were identified (1) mum identity as enabler for relatedness and (2) exercise identity as an additional identity. Following the identification of the two key themes, two non-fiction constructs were created which illustrate each theme in the context of a B2N participant's life. The narratives explore social categorisation and the development of social identity and exercise identity and how it can influence attitudes, beliefs and levels of engagement in other forms of physical activity. Practically, this paper demonstrates how future physical activity interventions can cater for a traditionally hard to reach group, such as mums. To be able to engage mums and facilitate the development of an exercise identity, relatedness should be a focus of a physical activity programme.


In this paper, we document the long-run impact of the geographical heterogeneity in skills among the first settlers to Latin America. To this end, we compile administrative data on the early settlers in the Americas between 1492 and 1540 including, among others, name, city of origin, destination, and occupation. From a methodological perspective, a focus on the initial period of colonization in Latin America offers several advantages. First, differences in the geographical distribution of occupations among the first settlers are likely to be accidental. Second, a set-up that analyzes an area with a single colonizer (Spain) allows to hold constant formal institutions and legal origin. Our results show a relevant effect of the skills of first colonizers on long-run levels of development of the areas located around the original settlements. We find evidence of persistence in the form of market orientation and entrepreneurial spirit.


Ultrasound-assisted (UA) hollow fiber (HF) liquid-phase microextraction (LPME) coupled with flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS) has been developed to preconcentrate and determine ultra-trace amounts of cobalt (Co) and nickel (Ni) ions in human urine. To the best of our knowledge, no previous reports have described the coupling of UA-ionic liquid (IL)-HF-LPME with an FAAS system to analyze metal ions in biological samples. In this study, the ILs 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate, sodium hexafluorophosphate, and 1-(2-pyridylazo)-2-naphthol were used as extraction, ion-pairing, and chelating agents, respectively. With the assistance of an ultrasonic probe, the analyte exchange between the phases increased, and the extraction efficiency of Co and Ni ions improved significantly. The collected extraction phase was subsequently analyzed directly through FAAS. Under optimized conditions, the detection limits of Co and Ni ions were 0.09 and 0.03 μg L−1, respectively. The precision of the analysis of Co and Ni ions was within a relative standard deviation of 10% under normal operating conditions. The ultrasonic assistance provided enrichment factors of 66 and 82 for Co and Ni ions, respectively. The recoveries of Co and Ni ions spiked in urine samples ranged from 93.8 to 104.3%. The practicality of the proposed method was demonstrated through satisfactory analyses of samples of a standard reference material and real human urine.