I. Introduction The advent of the Internet has created a world of new opportunities for commerce and communication. The Internet is virtually revolutionizing the way people live. Today e-mail is more common than paper mail, a buyer can shop online without going to a store, a person can make friends without ever leaving home, and the best libraries in the world are only a mouse-click away. Despite these new opportunities, the Internet raises unique and challenging legal problems. These problems pervade Internet access and use, ranging from jurisdictional disputes involving choice of law to free speech concerns. There is no area of Internet activity that is unaffected. One new area of concern is Internet political speech organized to promote vote trading. During the 2000 presidential election, the Internet was used in new and inventive ways. The 2000 election was the first time that candidates for President fully utilized the Internet. The websites included general information, organizational information, candidate messages tailored to the cookie profile of the accessing computer, and campaign fundraising activity.1 However, the use of the Internet was not limited to the two major parties. The Nader presidential campaign made use of the Internet, as did other smaller campaigns. Not only was the 2000 election a website-savvy election, but it was also one of the closest in United States history. Early on, both parties realized that the election would be a close race. A chief concern of the Gore campaign was that Nader's efforts to garner votes would take away liberal Democratic supporters in a close race. Gore had seen this scenario play out in 1992 when Bill Clinton was elected President with only forty-three percent of the vote.2 In the 1992 election, third-party candidate Ross Perot cost Republican George Bush the election by securing votes that would otherwise have been part of the Republican base. Gore, realizing that this scenario was playing itself out in liberal circles, sought to limit Nader's impact. Late in the summer of 2000, many liberal Democrats appeared to support Nader. In swing states a vote for Nader could have been the deciding factor in Gore's loss. Many Nader supporters, however, would have rather seen Gore elected President than Bush. Voting for Gore, though, meant that Nader would not receive enough support to win the five percent of the popular vote necessary to receive federal funding in the next election. Voting for Nader would likely cost Gore the election. At this time, University of Wisconsin at Madison doctoral candidate Jeff Cardille posted the idea of vote swapping on the Web.3 His idea was simple: Gore voters in secure Bush states would trade their votes with Nader voters in swing states. By doing so, two goals could be met: Al Gore would become President and Ralph Nader would get the five percent of the national vote needed for matching federal funds in the next election. Mr. Cardille did not set up a site dedicated to vote swapping,4 but his plan spread quickly in cyberspace. Soon after he posted the idea, many sites sprang up that allowed voters to swap their votes. It looked as if Gore might prevail despite the presence of a third-party candidate, and he owed it all to the Internet. If former President Bush had developed such a way to combat losing voters to Ross Perot's third-party campaign, Al Gore may have never been Vice President. The use of the Internet offered a solution to the third-party problem by connecting voters with similar political interests. Voters were no longer isolated in their states; the Internet enabled voters to connect across state lines. Voters were now finding a way to manipulate their votes from state to state, thereby influencing the outcome of the election. During the 2000 presidential elections, the State of California attempted to shut down vote swapping websites. The state's action raises interesting legal questions concerning the exercise of political expression. …


Since the first symposium, "Living to 100 and Beyond: Survival at Advanced Ages" held in 2002, a collaborative effort has been made to assemble an international database on longevity, gathering validated longevity records for people having reached at least their 110 birthday. More than 15 countries, including the United States of America, Canada and Japan, along with European countries, have been participating in this Supercentenarian project. Collaboration with national statistical offices or health departments has allowed the investigators to obtain complete lists of alleged supercentenarians in most countries. Different validation processes are then undertaken by the participating teams. By March 2004, more than 500 validated records had been gathered. This paper first evaluates the quality of data according to several criteria, such as the country of residence or the validation process undertaken, and then provides an estimation of the mortality trajectory up to age 114.


In 2012, two curiously similar novels appeared in the Netherlands and the United States: Dave Eggers's A Hologram for the King and Arnon Grunberg's The Man without Illness. Both feature Western male protagonists who travel to the Gulf region for business purposes and utterly fail. This article explores these narratives as "fictions of globalization" (James Annesley) that use spatial tropes and imaginaries as well as multiple references to the work of Franz Kafka to tell stories of alienation and Western masculine failure in the global capitalist economy. In both novels an alternative is imagined as possible only from a marginal position outside the discourses and spaces of globalization: in intimacy, personal encounters, and gestures of care.


The escalation in numbers of orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa has become a human catastrophe. If governments do not deal with this phenomenon as a priority it might spiral beyond control. Very few studies have been done to investigate the psychosocial impact of orphanhood on children and communities in developing countries. Very little is known about the life world of orphans in developing countries and even less is known about factors in these children's lives which can affect their mental health. The researchers decided to undertake research in three areas in Southern Africa to investigate the psychosocial well-being of orphans and to compare the findings with existing research findings. A survey was done in three rural areas to determine the perceptions of orphans regarding their own personal experiences and emotional feelings which may reflect on psychosocial well-being, as well as the perceptions of teachers working with these orphans. Except for depression, the findings with regard to most of the psychosocial aspects were in accordance with the literature. The most important findings were that bereavement practices and approaches fit for developed communities might be of little value in developing settings. We are, however, more than aware that orphans from developed counties or even urban settings might differ from those of developing or deep rural areas. Keywords: Orphans; psychosocial well-being; bereavement; poverty; stigmatisation


Context. Another outburst of the recurrent M 31 nova M31N 2008-12a was announced in late November 2013. Optical data suggest an unprecedentedly short recurrence time of approximately one year. Aims: In this Letter we address the X-ray properties of M31N 2008-12a. Methods: We requested Swift monitoring observations shortly after the optical discovery. We estimated source count rates and extracted X-ray spectra from the resulting data. The corresponding ultraviolet (UV) data were also analysed. Results: The nova M31N 2008-12a was clearly detected as a bright supersoft X-ray source (SSS) only six days after the well-constrained optical discovery. It displayed a short SSS phase of two weeks' duration and an exceptionally hot X-ray spectrum with an effective black-body temperature of ~97 eV. During the SSS phase the X-ray light curve displayed significant variability that might have been accompanied by spectral variations. The very early X-ray variability was found to be anti-correlated with simultaneous variations in the UV flux. Conclusions: The X-ray properties of M31N 2008-12a coherently point towards a high-mass white dwarf in the nova system. This object might be a promising Type Ia supernova progenitor. We rediscovered additional X-ray detections of M31N 2008-12a that are consistent with our data and increase the number of known nova outbursts to seven. This nova is an exceptional object that merits further attention in the future.


Fat oxidation of peanut is a serious problem, because it could reduce of peanut quality and form a hydroperoxide compound. Hydroperoxide could be broken down into acid, ketone and low peptide, and resulted in volatile compounds with undersirable aroma. Extraction on enzyme was carried out by water, while purification and fractination were conducted using ammonium sulphate and chromatography. The objective of this research was to evaluate of the protein fraction, lipoxygenase properties, and enzyme activity during fractionation. The result showed that the highest fraction of protein was globulin, i.e 41-48% of total extracted protein, and the activity of lipoxygenase enzyme in the albumin fraction was 40-54% of the total activity. Purification of lipoxygenase enzyme was conducted by using ammonium sulphate (40-60% saturated) and this increased its specific activity up to 2.0-4.2 timer from the crude enzyme. Separation of lipoxygenase enzyme using sephadex G-150 revealed 3 (tree) peaks of activities, with specific activities 6.0-70.0 fold of the crude enzyme. Lipoxygenase enzyme of gajah variety denatured when heated at 70 0 C during 30 minutes. The activition energy of lipoxygenase enzyme from Gajah variety (19.083 Cal/Mol) was relatively lower than 1509 and 1512 which were, 25.446 Cal/Mol and 24.780 Cal/Mol, respectively. The result showed that lipoxygenase enzyme from Gajah variety was relativeky more heat stable as compared to the 1509 and 1512 lines. Lower activation energy of lipoxygenase enzyme indicated that effect of temperature alteration toward A¢â'¬EœkA¢â'¬â"¢ value was smaller. Lipoxygenase enzyme was active at pH higher than 3.0 or lower than 10.0. the data indicated that A¢â'¬EœKmA¢â'¬â"¢ value of lipoxygenase enzyme from Gajah variety was higher than that of 1509 and 1512 lines. It means that lipoxygenase enzyme from 1509 and 1512 lines more reactive that gajah variety. Key words : Lipoxygenase, peanut, purification


Despite considerable resources devoted to developing databases to support competitive credible claims for next generation sequencing (NGS) claims, we have yet to meet the standards required in health technology assessment to support such claims. The purpose of this commentary is to consider options open in establishing claims for NGS recommendations. Although NGS platforms offer potential promise in improving clinical outcomes, supporting cost-effectiveness and reducing the overall cost of care in target populations, this has yet to be demonstrated on a scale that is likely to satisfy reimbursers and health care decision makers. Issues addressed include (i) the importance of credible, evaluable and replicable claims from individual NGS platforms; (ii) the difficulties in moving beyond broad-brush claims for improved survival; (iii) the standards required for an NGS evidence base; (iv) protocol designs in establishing the independent contribution of NGS actionable therapy recommendations to outcomes claims; (v) the role of NGS registries; and (vi) protocols to support ongoing credible, evaluable and replicable claims in target patient populations. The critical issue is not analytical and clinical validity but clinical utility. This has yet to be demonstrated.

Type: Commentary


The measured CMB angular distribution shows a great consistency with the LCDM model. However, isotropy violations were reported in CMB temperature maps of both WMAP and Planck data. We investigate the influence of different masks employed in the analysis of CMB angular distribution, in particular in the excess of power in the Southeastern quadrant (SEQ) and the lack of power in the Northeastern quadrant (NEQ). We compare the two-point correlation function (TPCF) computed for each quadrant of the CMB foreground-cleaned temperature maps to 1000 simulations generated assuming the LCDM best-fit power spectrum using four different masks. In addition to the quadrants, we computed the TPCF for circular regions in the map where the excess and lack of power are present. We also compare the effect of Galactic cuts in the TPCF calculations as compared to the simulations. We found consistent results for three masks, namely mask-rulerminimal, U73 and U66. The results indicate that the excess of power in the SEQ tends to vanish as the portion of the sky covered by the mask increases and the lack of power in the NEQ remains virtually unchanged. When UT78 mask is applied, the NEQ becomes no longer anomalous and the excess of power in the SEQ becomes the most significant one among the masks. Nevertheless, the asymmetry between the SEQ and NEQ is independent of the mask and it is in disagreement with the isotropic model with at least 95% C.L. We find that UT78 is in disagreement with the other analysed masks, specially considering the SEQ and the NEQ individual analysis. Most importantly, the use of UT78 washes out the anomaly in the NEQ. Furthermore, we found excess of kurtosis, compared with simulations, in the NEQ for the regions not masked by UT78 but masked by the other masks, indicating that the previous result could be due to non-removed residual foregrounds by UT78.


Throughout the eighteenth century, Jamaican maroons, or original bands of
runaway slaves, utilized frontier zones to maintain independence. Frontier zones were
desolate, unoccupied areas that no group fully controlled because of the harsh
environments. Jamaican maroon groups lived autonomously from the late seventeenth
century until the end of the eighteenth century, due to the inaccessibility of their villages
and an expertise in unconventional warfare. In 1739, treaties ended years of fighting with
the British colonists. The treaties damaged the frontier areas through the presence of
British officers, the maintenance of clear roads, and a requirement that granted the
maroons freedom for their collaboration. Despite the treaties, frontier zones remained
until the Trelawny maroon rebellion in 1795. This event marked an ending point in one
Jamaican frontier. Furthered colonization, along with added fears of widespread
rebellion, compromised the frontier areas surrounding the Trelawny community. Only in
frontier zones could maroons exist autonomously and apart from the rest of the colony.
As demonstrated by the Trelawny event, without surrounding frontier zones the maroons
held no place in social structure of colonial Jamaica.


List of Contributors. Preface. 1. Landslide Hazard and Risk: Issues, Concepts, and Approach (M. J. Crozier and T. Glade). Part I: Conceptual Models in Approaching Landslide Risk. 2. The nature of landslide hazard impact (T. Glade & M. Crozier). 3. A review of scale dependency in landslide hazard and risk (T. Glade & M. Crozier). 4. Systematic procedures of landslide-hazard mapping for risk assessment using spatial prediction models (Chang-Jo F. Chung & Andrea G. Fabbri). 5.Vulnerability to landslides (David Alexander). Part II: Evaluation of Risk. 6. Landslide risk perception, knowledge, and associated risk management: Case studies and general lessons from Glacier National Park, Montana, USA (David R. Butler & Lisa M. DeChano). 7. Cultural consideration in landslide risk perception (Garth Harmsworth & Bill Raynor). 8 Reply of insurance industry to landslide risk (Hans-Leo Paus). 9. The role of administrative bodies in landslide risk assessment (Kurt Hollenstein). 10. Addressing landslide hazards: Towards a knowledge management perspective (S. Michaels). Part III: Management of Landslide Risk. 11. Management frameworks for landslide hazard and risk: issues and options (M. J. Crozier). 12. Reducing landslide hazards and risk in the United States: The role of the U. S. Geological Survey (G. F. Wieczorek, P. L. Gori & L. M. Highland). 13. Basic data and decision support for landslide management: A conceptual framework (Walter Pfluegner). 14. Instability management from policy to practice (R. McInnes). 15. Geomorphologic mapping to assess landslide risk: concepts, methods and applications in the Umbria Region of central Italy (Paola Reichenbach, Mirco Galli, Mauro Cardinali, Fausto Guzzetti & Francesca Ardizzone). 16. Remote sensing of landslides (Vern Singhroy). 17. The rise and fall of a debris-flow warning system for the San Francisco Bay Region, California (Raymond C. Wilson). 18. Reforestation schemes to manage regional landslide risk (Chris Phillips & Michael Marden). 19. Geotechnical structures for landslide risk reduction (Edward Nicholas Bromhead). Part IV: 'End-to-End Solutions' for Landslide Risk Assessment. 20. Towards the development of a landslide risk assessment for rural roads in Nepal (D. Petley, G. J. Hearn & A. Hart). 21. Quantitative landslide risk assessment of Cairns, Australia (Marion Michael-Leiba, Fred Baynes, Greg Scott & Ken Granger). 22. The story of quantified risk and its place in slope safety policy in Hong Kong (A. W. Malone). 23. Rockfall risk management in high density urban areas. The Andorran experience (Ramon Copons, Joan Manuel Vilaplana, Jordi Corominas, Joan Altimir & Jordi Amigo). 24. Landslide risk assessment in Italy (Marino Sorriso-Valvo). 25. An initial approach to identifying slope stability controls in southern Java and to providing community-based landslide warning information (D. Karnawati, I. Ibriam, M. G. Anderson, E. A. Holcombe, G. T. Mummery, J-P. Renaud & Y. Wang). Part V: Synopsis. 26. Landslide hazard and risk - concluding comment and perspectives (T. Glade & M. Crozier). Glossary. Thematic Index. Locations/regions.


Identification of Harris lines (HLs), a non-specific indicator of bone growth disruption, is usually achieved radiographically. Histological methods have only been implemented to explore the underlying processes of HL formation in longitudinal sections of animal bone. No prior study has examined HL histopathology in a human skeletal specimen. Here, a first insight into HL formation, from transverse sections in a human distal tibia, is provided. Results will aid understanding about the nature of HL, and its identification from histology.

Distinct HLs were identified macroscopically, and from a radiograph, in a left distal tibia taken from an adult male dating to the British Medieval period. Multiple transverse sections were taken through the HL, and also from trabecular bone regions located immediately proximal and distal to the HL. Thin sections of undecalcified bone were produced following standard histological procedures. Slides were examined under a high-powered microscope at 20x, 40x, and 60x using polarized light. Images were captured using a digital microscope camera and imaging software, and later assembled into montages.

Trabeculae proximal and distal to the HL exhibited no abnormal growth, displaying numerous osteocyte lacunae and a healthy lamellar structure. However, the microanatomy of the HL was characterised by three main features: 1) non-lamellar appearance, 2) lack of osteocyte lacunae, 3) presence of irregular bundle-like canals oriented in multiple directions. These histopathological features indicate an abnormal manner of bone deposition, implying that trapping of osteoblasts does not take place during HL formation. Pictorial and descriptive records of tibial HL histopathology are provided.


One of the Golgi compartments of Saccharomyces cerevisiae is defined by the presence of a specific endoproteinase, Kex2p, which cleaves precursor polypeptides at pairs of basic residues. We have used antibodies directed against the cytoplasmically disposed C-terminal domain of Kex2p to develop an immuno-affinity procedure for the isolation of Kex2p-containing organelles. The method gives a high yield of sealed organelles that are essentially free of contamination from other secretory pathway organelles while being significantly enriched for two other late Golgi enzymes, dipeptidylaminopeptidase A and the Kex1 carboxypeptidase. Our findings provide clear evidence for a single yeast Golgi compartment containing all three late-processing enzymes, which is likely to be the functional equivalent in yeast of the mammalian trans-Golgi network.


We present a first theoretical analysis of the power of polynomial-time preprocessing for important combinatorial problems from various areas in AI. We consider problems from Constraint Satisfaction, Global Constraints, Satisfiability, Nonmonotonic and Bayesian Reasoning. We show that, subject to a complexity theoretic assumption, none of the considered problems can be reduced by polynomial-time preprocessing to a problem kernel whose size is polynomial in a structural problem parameter of the input, such as induced width or backdoor size. Our results provide a firm theoretical boundary for the performance of polynomial-time preprocessing algorithms for the considered problems.


The experimental study has been performed on two flexible free-hanging circular cantilevers in tandem configurations subjected to uniform cross-flows. The experiment was intended to investigate the time-dependent forces characteristics acting on the cylinders due to Vortex-
Induced Vibration (VIV) phenomenon. The tests cylinders have free bottom-end conditions and can freely oscillate. The motions of the cylinders are evaluated as a bidirectional motion, in-line and transverse to the flow. Each cylinder has a length-to-diameter ratio of 34.4 with a low mass ratio of aboat 1.24. Based on cylinders diameter and free-stream flow velocities, the Reynolds number varied from 10800 to 37800. For examining Wake Induced Vibration (WIV) on the induced forces characteristics, five different gaps between the cylinders were employed. New various findings indicated that the dynamics of the present two free-hanging cantilever cylinders in tandem
configurations are unique and definitely different to those other tandem configurations of either, two stationary cylinders or a transverse-only motion downstream cylinder lies behind a stationary upstream one.


Asthma is a disorder characterized by inflammation of the airways. Oxidative stress may play a role in the pathophysiology of several diseases including asthma. Characterizing biomarkers of oxidative stress in the context of other systemic measures of immune function or inflammation could provide insight regarding underlying mechanisms inducing asthma. We evaluated whether oxidative stress in the form of plasma reactive oxidants differs between asthmatic and non-asthmatic children and elucidate relationships between plasma reactive oxidants and other asthma-related immunological markers. Plasma reactive oxidants, white blood cell counts, total serum immunoglobulin E(IgE), and a multi–allergen-specific IgE screen were measured in 74 asthmatic and 74 non-asthmatic children(9 to 13 years of age) from the Detroit, Michigan area. Plasma reactive oxidants were measured using a lucigenin-based chemiluminescence assay. Plasma reactive oxidants, eosinophils, and neutrophils(absolute counts and percent of total white blood cell counts), total IgE, and allergen-specific IgE levels were elevated in asthmatics after adjusting for age, gender, and ethnicity. IgE(total or allergen-specific), eosinophils and neutrophils were not significantly associated with plasma reactive oxidant levels. The association between plasma reactive oxidants and asthma status was similar when eosinophils, neutrophils, total IgE, or allergen-specific IgE were included as possible confounders in multivariate logistic regression models. In conclusion, plasma reactive oxidants are elevated in asthmatics and appear to be an independent predictor of asthma status. Measurement of plasma reactive oxidants may be a useful adjunct diagnostic tool and potential mechanistic indicator relevant to the study of asthma and asthma exacerbation


This draft of the ICCA-Queen Mary Task Force on Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration is now available until 31 October 2017. The Task Force is composed of over fifty members from over twenty different jurisdictions around the world, and includes representation of stakeholders from diverse perspectives, including arbitrators, in-house counsel, State parties, external counsel, representatives with experience at arbitral institutions, academics, and a range of third-party funders and brokers.
The Task Force aims generally to improve understanding about third-party funding through multi-lateral dialogue about the issues it raises in international arbitration, and to promote greater consistency in addressing these issues. In approaching these aims, the Task Force generally limited its work to those issues that: (1) directly affect international arbitration proceedings; and, (2) are capable of being addressed at an international level.
The current draft was assembled from several separate reports that were initially drafted by various Sub-Committees. Those reports and this Draft also benefitted from discussion at multiple roundtable meetings of the Task Force and comments submitted on the various Sub-Committee reports. The Co-Chairs are enormously grateful for all the hard work and careful deliberation of the Task Force Members in producing this Draft.
In terms of the structure of this Draft Report, after Chapter One's general introduction and overview of the Task Force's work, Chapter Two provides an overview of the market and mechanics of third-party funding. It begins with an examination of the reasons parties seek funding, and the process funders use to evaluate whether to fund a dispute. It then provides a descriptive overview of the range of means for financing disputes, including both modern case-specific non-recourse funding and a range of other sources that serve similar functions. Chapter Three provides a broad working definition and examines different possible definitions, surveys the range of definitions that have been adopted by various other sources, and concludes by examining how different definitions affect analysis of different issues addressed in subsequent chapters.
Each of the three subsequent chapters addresses a specific substantive issue, and begins by articulating Principles for each of the following topics: Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest (Chapter 4), Privilege (Chapter 5), and Costs and Security for Costs (Chapter 6). The body of each of these chapters then delineates the sources and competing viewpoints the Task Force considered in reaching these Principles, as well as the reasons why particular viewpoints were eventually incorporated into the Principles instead of others.
Chapter Seven summarizes best practices for funding agreements and Chapter Eight examines policy issues that affect third-party funding in investment arbitration.


PURPOSE
To compare diagnostic performance and time efficiency of double-reading first-reader computer-aided detection (CAD) (DR FR CAD) followed by radiologist interpretation with that of an unassisted read using segmentally unblinded colonoscopy as reference standard.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The local ethical committee approved this study. Written consent to use examinations was obtained from patients. Three experienced radiologists searched for polyps 6 mm or larger in 155 computed tomographic (CT) colonographic studies (57 containing 10 masses and 79 polyps ≥ 6 mm). Reading was randomized to either unassisted read or DR FR CAD. Data sets were reread 6 weeks later by using the opposite paradigm. DR FR CAD consists of evaluation of CAD prompts, followed by fast two-dimensional review for mass detection. CAD sensitivity was calculated. Readers' diagnoses and reviewing times with and without CAD were compared by using McNemar and Student t tests, respectively. Association between missed polyps and lesion characteristics was explored with multiple regression analysis.

RESULTS
With mean rate of 19 (standard deviation, 14; median, 15; range, 4-127) false-positive results per patient, CAD sensitivity was 90% for lesions 6 mm or larger. Readers' sensitivity and specificity for lesions 6 mm or larger were 74% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 65%, 84%) and 93% (95% CI: 89%, 97%), respectively, for the unassisted read and 77% (95% CI: 67%, 85%) and 90% (95% CI: 85%, 95%), respectively, for DR FR CAD (P = .343 and P = .189, respectively). Overall unassisted and DR FR CAD reviewing times were similar (243 vs 239 seconds; P = .623); DR FR CAD was faster when the number of CAD marks per patient was 20 or fewer (187 vs 220 seconds, P <01). Odds ratio of missing a polyp with CAD decreased as polyp size increased (0.6) and for polyps visible on both prone and supine scans (0.12); it increased for flat lesions (9.1).

CONCLUSION
DR FR CAD paradigm had similar performance compared with unassisted interpretation but better time efficiency when 20 or fewer CAD prompts per patient were generated.


The purpose of this action research was to determine the effect of a variety of mindfulness activities and exercises on self-regulation. Twenty-eight students from a lower elementary class of first, second, and third graders in a public Montessori school participated in the study. Data was collected over a period of six weeks using an on task behavior tally sheet, productivity scoring rubric, observational notes, behavior logs, self-assessments, student feedback, and an auditory following directions matrix. Results show a promising association between mindfulness and self-regulation. All students enjoyed partaking in mindfulness and reported positive associations with the intervention and showed increases in multiple measures. Improvements were observed in productivity, behavior, listening and following directions, and focus to include a decrease in the amount of disruptive behaviors. The data shows that mindfulness can be integrated into the classroom to assist students socially, emotionally and academically. Further research should be conducted to validate these results.


The advances in our understanding of extratropical atmosphere‐ocean interaction over the past decade and a half are examined, focusing on the atmospheric response to sea surface temperature anomalies. The main goal of the paper is to assess what was learned from general circulation model (GCM) experiments over the recent two decades or so. Observational evidence regarding the nature of the interaction and dynamical theory of atmospheric anomalies forced by surface thermal anomalies is reviewed. Three types of GCM experiments used to address this problem are then examined: models with fixed climatological conditions and idealized, stationary SST anomalies; models with seasonally evolving climatology forced with realistic, time-varying SST anomalies; and models coupled to an interactive ocean. From representative recent studies, it is argued that the extratropical atmosphere does respond to changes in underlying SST although the response is small compared to internal (unforced) variability. Two types of interactions govern the response. One is an eddy-mediated process, in which a baroclinic response to thermal forcing induces and combines with changes in the position or strength of the storm tracks. This process can lead to an equivalent barotropic response that feeds back positively on the ocean mixed layer temperature. The other is a linear, thermodynamic interaction in which an equivalent-barotropic low-frequency atmospheric anomaly forces a change in SST and then experiences reduced surface thermal damping due to the SST adjustment. Both processes contribute to an increase in variance and persistence of low-frequency atmospheric anomalies and, in fact, may act together in the natural system.


This thesis aims to develop a scalable distributed system that provides reliable information about the trend that a certain security will follow in the Stock Market using Machine Learning techniques.
The core of the research presented in this thesis is the creation of a Multi Agent based
system capable of predicting whether the price of a stock will rise, drop or stay. In order to do so, the problem is divided into three parts: Information Retrieval, Data Analysis and Data Visualization.
The first part is focused on retrieving the necessary information from Internet and on
transforming this raw data into computer-understandable structures that will allow further analysis. In addition to this, new financial indicators are calculated to provide more meaningful data to the system.
The second part is focused on analyzing this preprocessed data using several Machine
Learning methods. The methods that have been selected to execute the analysis are:
Artificial Neural Networks, Decision Trees, Support Vector Machines and Reinforcement
Learning. The idea behind using different methods besides testing the performance of
each in this scenario, is the creation of a team of "data analyzers" like the ones found at investment firms. Following the "Keep it Simple" principle, third party libraries have been used when possible to diminish implementation costs.
Finally, the third part deals with the problem of how to present the data and results to the users in a clear but informative way. Just this part on this own could perfectly be a Final
Project in a Media Degree, so here we will present a gentle introduction to the Data
Visualization world.
Since this thesis is also a Computer Science Engineering Final Project, emphasis will be
made in describing the system architecture and the technologies used to create it. In part because of this, this Thesis aims to create a Proof of Concept for a possible future product instead of realizing just a evaluation of Machine Learning methods applied to predicting stock trends


1. A study was made of the biodegradation of alkylbenzene sulphonate homologues, one of the major components of commercially marketed detergents. A Bacillus species was elected for growth on alkylbenzene sulphonate homologues as the sole source of carbon and sulphur. 2. The results from both whole-cell and cell-free systems indicated that the alkyl, aryl and sulphonate moieties of alkylbenzene sulphonate homologues were all further metabolized by the Bacillus species. 3. The alkyl side chain, after a presumed initial oxidation of the terminal methyl group, was subsequently oxidized by a ,B-oxidation pathway. Three enzymes of the fl-oxidation pathway, i.e. acyl-CoA synthetase, acyl-CoA dehydrogenase and ,B-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase, were identified in cell-free extracts of the detergent-grown Bacillus species. The substrate specificity of acyl-CoA synthetase indicated activity towards several alkylbenzene sulphonate homologues. 4. The sulphonate moiety was released as sulphite by a desulphonating enzyme. Some kinetic properties of this enzyme were determined. The sulphite was subsequently metabolized to either sulphate or adenosine 5'-sulphatophosphate. Two enzymes involved in sulphite metabolism, i.e. sulphite-cytochrome c reductase and adenosine 5'-sulphatophosphate-cytochrome c reductase were detected in cell-free extracts of undecylbenzenep-sulphonate-grown Bacillus species. 5. The combined results of continuous sampling programmes monitored by both t.l.c. and sulphite appearance in the growth medium indicated that desulphonation of the aromatic moiety was the likely first step in the overall biodegradation of several alkylbenzene sulphonate homologues. 6. The presence of p-hydroxyphenylpropionate, p-hydroxybenzoate and 3,4-dihydroxybenzoate in cells after growth on several alkylbenzene sulphonate homologues containing an odd number of carbon atoms in the side chain was confirmed by g.l.c. and t.l.c. analysis. Cells grown on several homologues containing an even number of carbon atoms in the side chain were shown to contain p-hydroxyphenylacetate and 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetate. 7. The aromatic nucleus obtained from undecylbenzene-p-sulphonate was further metabolized by an oxidation sequence involving an 'ortho-cleavage' route. 8. An overall metabolic pathway for the biodegradation of various alkylbenzene sulphonate homologues by this Bacillus species is proposed.


Leadership studies ask 'what makes an effective leader?' To answer this question analyses have to become practical and real-world oriented. The research question in this thesis is: 'How can the three factors - vision, decision-making style, and delegation - explain whether John F. Kennedy was an effective President?'While there are many other leadership factors such as integrity, political/legislative skills and communications skills three factors were chosen. 'Vision' mobilizes external support for the leader's overarching goals, and charts out a national direction. 'Decision making style' focuses on the 'internal', process-oriented aspects of leadership. The Delegation factor assesses what competence and perspectives that will bring input into the decision-making which will carry out the vision.The research methodology has been to conduct a single case study. His two year and ten months Presidency was short but contained several important Cold War eventsivThe Vision HypothesisA President will be effective if he has a compelling vision of the future of AmericaThe MA thesis tested whether 'The New Frontier' was a successful vision from which visionary initiatives were derived. The Moon Project was the most ambitious national scientific project in two decades, propelling the U.S. for-ward in the space race.JFK's ideas on peaceful cooperation with the Soviets were a consequence of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The vision was enunciated with his 'Strategy of Peace' speech at American University, in which he pledged for a pause in the Cold War, and announced the signing of the Test Ban Treaty.In the selected cases he strived to educate the American public on urgent needs by pursuing longer-term goals in the interest of national security.The Decision Making Style HypothesisA President will be effective if he has a competent personal decision making styleThe thesis tested whether President JFK had an effective personal decision making style. JFK often took issues out of the bureaucratic system in time to defend his own right to decide and his own right of innovation. JFK's collegial decision making model was a consensus-seeking vehicle which ensured that problems were debated through cross-fertilization.vThe Delegation Hypothesis:A President will be effective if he delegates with an eye to his political controlJFK knew what he was looking for in every position. Secretary of State Dean Rusk was probably chosen because JFK had conceived a greater role for himself in this area. Recent scholarly work has demonstrated that JFK was one of the most engaged Presidents in foreign affairs. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara was chosen as a rational, intelligent civilian that could provide political control over the military establishment.Speech Writer Ted Sorensen knew JFK's intellectual ideas, and they cooperated closely on the speeches of the Administration. JFK relied on external advisors to balance decision-making information, and the British Ambassador Ormsby-Gore saw his ideas being put into use with regards to the quarantine line in the Cuban Missile Crisis.JFK's selection of advisors reflected the strengths and weaknesses of his own policy experience, demonstrating what Neustadt calls a 'rare' fine distinction among his 'fellow kings'.The thesis concludes by briefly testing the three factors in a comparison between President JFK and President George W. Bush, and finds that the current administration seems to have set too ambitious goals in its vision lacking good contextual intelligence.


This short article analyzes the complicated role that tax law plays in regulating campaign finance, using a request from the Price for Congress Committee as a case study. The Price Committee asked the Federal Election Commission for an Advisory Opinion approving transfer of its remaining campaign funds to a section 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The piece first describes applicable campaign finance law and the FEC proceedings that ended in a deadlock. It next considers the advantages of transferring remaining campaign funds to a section 501(c)(4) organizations instead of a section 501(c)(3) charity. It cautions, however, that a transfer to a section 501(c)(4) could result in adverse tax consequences to the former candidate under section 527. This analysis exposes uncertainties in both federal election and tax law. Now that the Federal Election Commission lacks a quorum, however, tax regulation of campaign finance has particular importance.


This article explores women's bargaining with a patriarchal Islamic state in Sudan. The article is situated within the realm of the literature on post-Islamism, which claims that Islamism becomes compelled both by its own internal contradictions and by societal pressure to reinvent itself through a "secular," "democratic," and "feminist" transformation of Islamic theology. The emergence of Islamic feminisms is thus regarded as a paradoxical consequence of the spaces that Islamism created in the course of participation in the political game. The article argues that women are continuously bargaining with patriarchy in Sudan, but the processes of renegotiating women's rights within the context of an Islamic state do not only take an Islamic feminist direction as post-Islamist scholars propose. What we see in contemporary Sudan is different types of women's (non)movements offering qualitatively different and competing interpretations of the shari'a. The processes of (re-)Islamization and post-Islamization in Sudan are thus conflated. The paradoxical consequence of Islamism in Sudan is that women's activism is seen in not only those acts that resist patriarchy, but also those acts that aim to preserve patriarchy. It is based on fieldwork in Sudan in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009.


Systems for the appraisal of teachers have been in place since 1992, bringing with them considerable controversy. How effective are they? What does this mean for the classroom teacher? This major new study, led by Ted Wragg, uses as its basis information gathered from all 109 Local Education authorities, 658 primary and secondary teachers and 479 appraisers. Teacher appraisal is examined from the perspectives of all those concerned and at all levels. The main focus of the study is on teacher competence in the classroom, which lies at the heart of school effectiveness and improving pupils' achievement. Through the use of a variety of methods including intensive case studies, the book provides a unique insight into the quality of classroom practice and teacher appraisal today, what it means for those involved and how to use this knowledge to move on from this point.


Earlier studies indicate that G₁ mediates enhanced renovascular responses to Ang II in SHR. The potentiation of Ang II by the G₁ pathway is blocked by pretreatment with pertussis toxin, an inhibitor of G₁. The G₁ pathway is also activated by receptors for PP-fold peptides; NPY, PYY, and PYY₃₋₃₆. Therefore, we hypothesize that in genetically predisposed models of hypertension PP-fold peptides augment renovascular responses to endogenous Ang II. Our study shows that LPNPY, an analogue of NPY selective for the Y₁ receptor, potentiates Ang II responses in SHR, but not WKY, kidneys in vitro. LPNPY'fs ability to potentiate Ang II renovascular responses is dependent on the Y₁ receptor and an intact G₁ pathway. The renal expression of Y₁ receptors is similar in SHR versus WKY. Our study also demonstrates that PYY₃₋₃₆, selective for the Y₂ receptor, potentiates renovascular responses to Ang II in SHR, but not WKY, in vitro. PYY₃₋₃₆ is dependent on an intact Y₂-G₁ pathway, and the Y₂ receptor is similarly expressed in the kidney of both strains. In comparing the PP-fold peptides, PYY is the most efficacious at potentiating Ang II-induced renovascular responses. Lower levels of these peptides have little effect on renal vasculature. Yet, these peptides are released with other G₁ coupled agonists, namely NE that acts on ∀₂-adrenoceptors. We observe a significant enhancement of Ang II-induced renal vasoconstriction with low level combinations of UK 14,304, an ∀₂-adrenoceptor agonist, and PYY/NPY. We demonstrate, in SHR, that nerve stimulation potentiates renal vasoconstrictive responses to Ang II. This interaction is dependent on an intact Y₁-G₁ pathway suggesting that NPY plays a predominate role in increasing renal vascular responses. PYY is a more potent agonist at augmenting renal vascular responses than is PYY₃₋₃₆. Blockade of the conversion of PYY to PYY₃₋₃₆ via a DPPIV inhibitor, P32/98, results in an increase in MABP in SHR. We also demonstrate that this effect is dependent on the Y₁ receptor pathway. This project demonstrates that PP-fold peptides may play a role in the etiology of genetic hypertension. This project is significant because it suggests a link between a high fat diet, sympathetic activation, and hypertension in a genetically susceptible animal.


This thesis is an exploratory study into the experiences of older ex-prisoners pre- and post-release from prison. Its theoretical framework draws upon convict criminology and intersectionality. Growing number of offenders aged over 50 pose unique challenges for the prison estate and for those involved in ex prisoner resettlement. There are concerns that the criminal justice system is ill-prepared to meet these challenges. There is little research so far exploring the experiences of older ex prisoners. This thesis contributes to this knowledge gap. The literature review identifies that there are concerns about the inadequacies of resettlement information, planning and support, which may involve breaches of human rights and equality legislation. An overarching concern is the implications of the absence of a national strategy for the lack of consistent and adequate provision for older prisoners and ex-prisoners. A small-scale qualitative research project was conducted involving thematic analysis of eight semi-structured interviews, two with older ex-offenders and six with professionals working with/in relation to older offenders. The researcher identified several problems recruiting older ex-offender participants, and ways in which these might be resolved in a larger scale project. The findings highlight many concerns regarding provision within the prison estate and community services, which included a lack of training, information sharing, and awareness among staff, combined with poor planning and resources. There is an urgent need for further research which identifies both the barriers and facilitators to resettlement among older ex prisoners. There is a particular need to understand how older (higher risk) ex-prisoners are being dealt with by the Probation Service in comparison to those older (lower risk) ex prisoners on CRC caseloads. The thesis makes the following recommendations: the production of a national strategy; the wholesale delivery of pre-existing toolkits on working with older offenders; the delivery of older age-specific training for CRC case managers.


This work discusses how to use OSM for robotic applications and aims at starting a discussion between the OSM and the robotics community. OSM contains much topological and semantic information that can be directly used in robotics and offers various advantages: 1) Standardized format with existing tooling. 2) The graph structure allows to compose the OSM models with domain-specific semantics by adding custom nodes, relations, and key-value pairs. 3) Information about many places is already available and can be used by robots since it is driven by a community effort.


Decision making is a key activity for management in any organization, several decision making methods including Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) have been used to assist this process especially when the decision involves multiple stakeholders and multiple criteria. These methods, which evaluate each alternative by a set of criteria, tend to be subjective in nature. However, although they are subjective it should be ensured that the decisions makers have as much knowledge about the alternatives as is possible. This would include understanding all the consequences of each alternative and all the effects of these consequences. This requires a thorough understanding of the domain within which the decision is being made. We argue that an organizational ontology provides this understanding and propose a method for integrating an ontology into typical multi-criteria decision making techniques. The overall aim of this method is to improve the decision making process. We demonstrate the applicability of this method by applying it to decision making at a university in the Caribbean.


The Supreme Court of Canada's decision in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 represents a response to a pair of problems which have plagued Canadian administrative lawyers for decades: selecting the standard of review and applying the reasonableness standard. More broadly, however, the articulation of reasonableness review in Vavilov fits into a much larger picture of the seemingly inexorable rise – in Canada and elsewhere in the common law world – of a "culture of justification" in administrative law. Despite the culture of justification's contemporary status, and a significant amount of scholarship on its benefits, what it actually consists of remains somewhat obscure. Adopting a descriptive and analytical approach, I seek to describe and analyze the culture of justification in contemporary administrative law, with particular reference to the majority reasons in Vavilov.

I suggest in Part I that the four strands of reasonableness review woven together by the majority in Vavilov – reasoned decision-making, responsiveness, demonstrated expertise and contextualism – provide an account of the culture of justification. In Part II, I expand on the discussion of Vavilov, a case concerned with substantive review – the assessment of the reasonableness of administrative decisions – and describe how the culture of justification has permeated other areas of administrative law, such as procedural fairness, justiciability and standing. I then venture, in Part III, to explain why the culture of justification has risen to such prominence in contemporary administrative law. Focusing on endogenous rather than exogenous factors I identify the development of general principles of administrative law and the expanded record of administrative decision-making as likely contributors, hypothesizing that expansive reason-giving and record generation have caused more exacting standards of reasonableness and fairness. Finally, in Part IV, I assess the future prospects of the culture of justification. Noting that a culture of authority had crept into substantive review in Canadian administrative law in the years leading up to Vavilov, I suggest that the majority's approach represents a repudiation of claims to authority based on political legitimacy, expediency and technocratic expertise.

Finally, having bracketed normative questions at the outset, I return to address them in the Conclusion, arguing that there are good normative reasons to support a culture of justification in administrative law, grounded in the rule of law and democracy, two of the unwritten principles of the Canadian constitutional order.


In this paper we demonstrate a procedure for preparing bacterial arrays that is fast, easy, and applicable in a standard molecular biology laboratory. Microcontact printing is used to deposit chemicals promoting bacterial adherence in predefined positions on glass surfaces coated with polymers known for their resistance to bacterial adhesion. Highly ordered arrays of immobilized bacteria were obtained using microcontact printed islands of polydopamine (PD) on glass surfaces coated with the antiadhesive polymer polyethylene glycol (PEG). On such PEG-coated glass surfaces, bacteria were attached to 97 to 100% of the PD islands, 21 to 62% of which were occupied by a single bacterium. A viability test revealed that 99% of the bacteria were alive following immobilization onto patterned surfaces. Time series imaging of bacteria on such arrays revealed that the attached bacteria both divided and expressed green fluorescent protein, both of which indicates that this method of patterning of bacteria is a suitable method for single-cell analysis.


Abstract The dominant debate in India on the role of development in reducing conflicts still remains open. Despite development measures by both state and non-state actors, conflicts continue to emerge frequently in the country. In Koraput district of Odisha state, development models implemented by the state and by non-state actors have accentuated conflicts. The Sahukar-model of development has caused land alienation among marginalised communities leading to conflicts between the landowners and the landless. Large-scale displacements caused by mega development projects have intensified the confrontation between the displaced and the state. The Communist Party of India-Maoist ('Maoists' in short) claims to have an alternative development model, which rejects the state-led development plan. The alternative model imposed by the Maoists—reclaiming land from the rich and adopting 'Community Farming'—has further exacerbated the conflicts among various communities. Though the nature of conflict and its contenders keep changing, the conflicts as such refuse to die down in Koraput.


The objective of this research is to provide a novel approach to improving retrieval performance by exploiting Ontology with the statistical language model (SLM). The proposed methods consist of two major processes, namely ontology-based query expansion (OQE) and ontology-based document classification (ODC). Research experiments have required development of an independent search tool that can combine the OQE and ODC in a traditional SLM-based information retrieval (IR) process using a Web document collection.
This research considers the ongoing challenges of modular ontology enhanced SLM-based search and addresses three contribution aspects. The first concerns how to apply modular ontology to query expansion, in a bespoke language model search tool (LMST). The second considers how to incorporate OQE with the language model to improve the search performance. The third examines how to manipulate such semantic-based document classification to improve the smoothing accuracy. The role of ontology in the research is to provide formally described domains of interest that serve as context, to enhance system query effectiveness.


Abstract: The late John Howard Yoder's posthumously published essays on Jewish-Christian relations display the breadth and depth of his scholarship. In them Yoder integrated biblical, historical and theological scholarship into multiple, provocative theses about how Christians should conceive their relationship with the people first called Israel. This essay outlines Yoder's main contentions, critically examines the main critiques leveled against his claims and proposes areas for further theological discernment on the part of churches in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition that would engage in the broader Christian conversation as to how Christians and Jews are to be the people of God together. ********** Perhaps no other matters engender more controversy or are of as much theological import to the church's identity and her witness than the questions of the proper Christian understanding of Judaism and of the church's relationship to the Jewish people. The past half-century has witnessed a flurry of theological exploration and re-visioning on these contested issues, from academic treatises to ecclesial declarations. The Catholic and mainline Protestant churches have undertaken major study projects over the past decades, tackling such questions as: Do Jesus and Paul set aside "Judaism"? Does the church replace the synagogue? Should Christians proselytize Jews? How to atone for the evils of the Holocaust (Shoah)? How to relate theologically to the State of Israel? (1) While these reexaminations of the church's theology of and approach to Judaism emerged in large part out of a desire to repent for the church's history of anti-Jewish actions, culminating in the genocide of millions of European Jews during the Second World War, at their most profound level these new theological currents have been products of the recognition that the church, if it is to be the people of God with any integrity, must grapple theologically and reconcile with the people who were first called "Israel." Anglican theologian Oliver O'Donovan poignantly asks: "How can the church be clothed with Israel's name and vocation if the possessor of that vocation is remote from it?" (2) Mennonite involvement and engagement with these efforts to rethink the Christian relationship with Judaism have been limited, even as Mennonite missionaries have been active supporters of Messianic Jewish communities in Israel and as Mennonite relief and development workers have walked alongside the Palestinian victims of the Jewish state. (3) Some of the limited Mennonite reflection on Judaism has reproduced the "supersessionist" assumptions of traditional Christian thought, whereby the election of the Jewish people is set aside and the church replaces the Jewish people as the rightful and exclusive bearer of the name Israel. In the early years of his ministry in Israel, for example, Roy Kreider, a longtime Mennonite missionary, expressed the traditional view when he wrote that "Jews are no longer covenant people except as individuals make covenant with God through Jesus Christ." (4) The posthumous publication of essays on Jewish-Christian relations by the late Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder represents an opportunity for the churches in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition to join the broader Christian conversation about the proper theological understanding of Judaism. From the 1970s to the 1990s, Yoder delivered a series of lectures at the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem, Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas, and Earlham College in Indiana, assessing Jewish history and Christianity's relationship to Judaism from a "free church" perspective. Michael Cartwright, a Methodist theologian and careful student of Yoder's work, and Peter Ochs, a leading Jewish thinker, have provided an invaluable service in faithfully bringing these essays, previously available only as a "desktop packet" that Yoder had assembled, to print under the title The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited (Eerdmans, 2003). …


Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) is the most harmful mycotoxin that occurs as natural contaminant of agricultural commodities, particularly maize. Practical solutions for detoxification of contaminated staples and reduction of agricultural wastes are scarce. We investigated the capability of the white-rot and edible fungus Plerotus eryngii (king oyster mushroom) to degrade AFB1 both in vitro and in a laboratory-scale mushroom cultivation, using a substrate similar to that routinely used in mushroom farms. In malt extract broth, degradation of AFB1 (500 ng/mL) by nine isolates of P. eryngii ranged from 81 to 99% after 10 days growth, and reached 100% for all isolates after 30 days. The growth of P. eryngii on solid medium (malt extract-agar, MEA) was significantly reduced at concentrations of AFB1 500 ng/mL or higher. However, the addition of 5% wheat straw to the culture medium increased the tolerance of P. eryngii to AFB1 and no inhibition was observed at a AFB1 content of 500 ng/mL; degradation of AFB1 in MEA supplemented with 5% wheat straw and 2.5% (w/v) maize flour was 71–94% after 30 days of growth. Further, AFB1 degradation by P. eryngii strain ITEM 13681 was tested in a laboratory-scale mushroom cultivation. The mushroom growth medium contained 25% (w/w) of maize spiked with AFB1 to the final content of 128 μg/kg. Pleurotus eryngii degraded up to 86% of the AFB1 in 28 days, with no significant reduction of either biological efficiency or mushroom yield. Neither the biomass produced on the mushroom substrate nor the mature basidiocarps contained detectable levels of AFB1 or its metabolite aflatoxicol, thus ruling out the translocation of these toxins through the fungal thallus. These findings make a contribution towards the development of a novel technology for remediation of AFB1- contaminated corn through the exploitation of the degradative capability of P. eryngii and its bioconversion into high nutritional value material intended for feed production.


This paper will take its cue from recent work in international migration, particularly the writings of Ewa Morawska and Karen O'Reilly, that has explicitly placed structuration theory at its heart in analysing issues of causality. While firmly endorsing this work, I argue that it is possible to further strengthen the use of structuration in international migration studies by paying more attention to certain tenets of strong structuration theory (SST), synthesised with aspects of critical realism. This entails closer engagement with issues of epistemology and methodology, and also a more fine-grained approach to ontological concepts, the relationships between them, and their use in empirical analysis. The device of a 'theorised contextual frame' is introduced as a reference point that can be used to systematically evaluate the status and adequacy of individual migration studies. The device combines attention to the structural context or field relevant to a particular migration issue with the systematic focus demanded by a specific research question or objective. In sketching out the structural context, I draw out the relationship between critical realism's emphasis on plural causal mechanisms or 'planes of analysis', and strong structuration theory's emphasis on clusters of position-practice relations. The device is also designed to highlight the phenomenological and interpretative dimensions within particular causal processes, while insisting that such dimensions need to be grounded within the relevant structural aspects of the contextual frame. Two ideal types of 'hermeneutic-structural' text – contextualising and floating – are presented to help sharpen a sense of how to employ the theoretical model to heighten critical awareness of the status and quality of particular research accounts of international migration. Finally, I conduct a close analysis of Ewa Morawska's recent structuration-inspired account of large-scale migration across the Atlantic from Polish villages in the longue duree from the 1870s to the 1930s. This is undertaken in order to illustrate, clarify and exemplify the strengths of the approach.


We describe a class of mechanical systems for which the "method of controlled Lagrangians" provides a family of control laws that stabilize an unstable (relative) equilibrium. The controlled Lagrangian approach involves making modifications to the Lagrangian for the uncontrolled system such that the Euler-Lagrange equations derived from the modified or "controlled" Lagrangian describe the closed-loop system. For the closed-loop equations to be consistent with available control inputs, the modifications to the Lagrangian must satisfy "matching" conditions. Our matching and stabilizability conditions are constructive; they provide the form of the controlled Lagrangian, the control law and, in some cases, conditions on the control gain(s) to ensure stability. The method is applied to stabilization of an inverted spherical pendulum on a cart and to stabilization of steady rotation of a rigid spacecraft about its unstable intermediate axis using an internal rotor.


The stink bug complex in soybeans has a great potential to cause damage, their control has been difficult due to high population densities at the end of the season. Studies related to entomopathogenic organisms in stink bugs are interesting for their possibilities to be used as biological control agents and because they could be an etiological agent in mass rearing. We determined the prevalence of trypanosomatids in the most important species of the stink bug complex in soybean, from Brazil, Nezara viridula (L.), Euschistus heros (Fabricius) and Piezodorus guildinii (Westwood). Insects were collected in soybean and on alternate hosts during the intercrop season. Hemolymph drops from each adult were mounted on slides and observed under microscope; stink bug numbers with and without flagellates were recorded. The flagellates found in P. guildinii or E. heros populations were smaller than that found in N. viridula. The higher prevalence of the trypanosomatids was observed on soybean reaching a peak of 30% of the sampled N. viridula specimens in January, 2001, and 44% prevalence in February, 2003. The maximum prevalences (16%) in P. guildinii were observed in January and February, 2003 and on July 27, 2003 with 20% of the specimens infected. Flagellates in the hemolymph of E. heros were less frequent (maximum prevalence of 8.7%), suggesting that this species is less susceptible than N. viridula and P. guildinii. Trypanosomatid prevalence was higher than that observed for entomopathogenic fungi, however they seem to be inefficient control agents in short term condition.


For IT Infrastructure Support (ITIS), it is crucial to identify opportunities for reducing service costs and improving service quality. We focus on streamlining service levels i.e., finding right resolution level for each ticket, to reduce time, efforts and cost for ticket handling, without affecting workloads and user satisfaction. We formalize this problem and present two statistics-based search algorithms for identifying problems suitable for left-shift (from expensive, expertise intensive L2 level to cheaper, simpler L1 level) and right-shift (from L1 to L2). The approach is domain-driven: it produces directly usable and often novel results, without any trial-and error experimentation, along with detailed justifications and predicted impacts. This helps in acceptance among end-users and more active use of the results. We discuss one real-life case-study of results produced by the algorithms.


In this work, we present MapLite: a one-click autonomous navigation system capable of piloting a vehicle to an arbitrary desired destination point given only a sparse publicly available topometric map (from OpenStreetMap). The onboard sensors are used to segment the road region and register the topometric map in order to fuse the high-level navigation goals with a variational path planner in the vehicle frame. This enables the system to plan trajectories that correctly navigate road intersections without the use of an external localization system such as GPS or a detailed prior map. Since the topometric maps already exist for the vast majority of roads, this solution greatly increases the geographical scope for autonomous mobility solutions. We implement MapLite on a full-scale autonomous vehicle and exhaustively test it on over 15 km of road including over 100 autonomous intersection traversals. We further extend these results through simulated testing to validate the system on complex road junction topologies such as traffic circles.


The increasing number of the so-called non-native English users has resulted in their views of English to be crucial. This qualitative study of thirty-two Indonesian lecturers, teachers, and students is aimed at revealing perceptions of English in relation to communication, culture, and national as well as religious identities. The findings reveal various perceptions of the language. Some references to Caucasians as potential interlocutors are found even though the participants believe that English has been used among 'non-native' speakers and that the relationship between English and the West is diminishing. The participants also view English as either not related or positively related to their national, religious, and ethnic identities. Overall, there is a demand for accentuating English in Indonesia with the local cultures.


Flt3 is the most recently discovered member of the platelet-derived growth
factor receptor (PDGFR) subfamily of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs).
It is expressed on early hematopoietic progenitor cells and is involved in their
growth. Activating mutations of Flt3, such as internal tandem duplications
(ITD) in the juxtamembrane (JM) region of Flt3, are among the most
common genetic alterations found in patients with acute myeloid leukemia
(AML). For this reason Flt3 is an attractive target for specific tyrosine kinase
inhibitors, and a number of such compounds are currently being tested
in clinical trials. However, the mechanisms of Flt3-mediated signal transduction
are poorly understood.
Src family tyrosine kinases (SFKs) are involved in the signaling processes
of various RTKs, including those of the PDGFR subfamily . Most SFKs are
expressed predominantly or exclusively in hematopoietic cells, and at least
Hck and Lyn were found to be activated in AML patients. These observations
indicate that SFKs could also be involved in Flt3 signaling. In this
work the role of SFKs in signal transduction of the Flt3 receptor was investigated.
A panel of Hck and Flt3 mutants was used in biochemical and
biological assays to deduce the contribution of kinase activity, SH2 and SH3
binding domains and tyrosine phosphorylation status to Flt3-SFK interaction.
The work presented shows that SFKs interfere with the maturation of
wild type and Flt3 ITD receptors in human embryonic kidney 293 (HEK-
293) cells in a kinase-dependent manner. The SFK-mediated effect on receptor
maturation is reflected by accumulation of the immature, intracellular
form of Flt3 at the expense of the mature, plasma membrane-inserted form
of the receptor. This effect of SFK kinase activity on receptor maturation is
not limited to Flt3, because analogous results were also obtained for the Kit
receptor, another member of the PDGFR subfamily. The demonstration of
the role of SFKs in regulation of receptor maturation is novel and the exact
mechanism underlying this effect requires further investigation.
Using the HEK-293 cells it was also shown that Hck is able to phosphorylate
Flt3 on tyrosine residues and to associate with autophosphorylated
Flt3 in an SH2 domain-dependent manner. Hck-mediated tyrosine phosphorylation
occurs in the JM region of Flt3. Tyrosine residues 589 and 591
in the JM region, when phosphorylated, were also identified as the docking
sites for Hck. Although Hck phosphorylation and binding sites on Flt3
overlap, Hck-mediated phosphorylation of Flt3 is not sufficient for Flt3-Hck
association.
In contrast to the situation in HEK-293 cells, Hck neither interferes with
Flt3 maturation nor phosphorylates Flt3 on tyrosine residues, and does not
detectably associate with the Flt3 receptor in the hematopoietic murine cell
line 32D clone 3 (32D cl.3). However, the level of the ectopic expression of
Hck in 32D cl.3 cells was lower than in HEK-293 cells. This difference in
Hck expression level probably accounts for both the lack of the Hck-mediated
phosphorylation of Flt3 and the interference with its maturation in 32D cl.3
cells. The lower Hck expression level, however, does not account for the lack
of detectable association of Hck with Flt3 in 32D cl.3 cells. Using biological
assays in which activation of Flt3 can partially overcome the requirement
for cytokine stimulation in 32D cl.3 survival and proliferation, it was shown
that Hck is not involved in Flt3 signal transduction leading to Flt3-mediated
cell survival and Flt3 ITD-dependent cell growth. Therefore, biological relevance
of SFKs in Flt3 signaling remains unclear.
In summary, although the binding and phosphorylation of Flt3 by Hck
can be shown, the biological relevance of Hck in Flt3 signaling remains
to be formally demonstrated. This research led to the novel finding that,
at least when over-expressed or hyperactivated, SFKs interfere with the
maturation process of RTKs. Various studies have shown that the ligandindependent
activation of RTKs as well as their premature phosphorylation
can interfere with maturation of RTKs. This study reveals that, by virtue
of their phosphorylating of Flt3, Kit and possibly other RTKs, SFKs can
regulate maturation of these RTKs and consequently alter their transport
to the plasma membrane. Further studies are required to investigate the
biological relevance of this function of SFKs.


Achievements in intracortical brain-machine interfaces are compromised by limitations in long-term performance and information transfer rate. A biological intermediary between devices and the brain based on synaptic integration may offer a specificity and permanence that has eluded neural interfaces to date. Accordingly, we have developed the first "living electrodes" comprised of implantable axonal tracts protected within soft hydrogel cylinders to enable biologically-mediated monitoring and modulation of brain activity. Here we demonstrate the controlled fabrication, rapid axonal outgrowth, reproducible cytoarchitecture, and axonal conduction of these engineered constructs in vitro. We also present simultaneous optical stimulation and recording of neuronal activity in vitro, transplantation in rat cortex, and their survival, integration, and activity over time in vivo as a proof-of-concept for this neural interface paradigm. The creation and functional validation of living electrodes is a critical step towards developing a new class of neural interfaces using targeted, synaptic-based integration with native circuitry.


We propose a new method to detect when users express the intent to leave a service, also known as churn. While previous work focuses solely on social media, we show that this intent can be detected in chatbot conversations. As companies increasingly rely on chatbots they need an overview of potentially churny users. To this end, we crowdsource and publish a dataset of churn intent expressions in chatbot interactions in German and English. We show that classifiers trained on social media data can detect the same intent in the context of chatbots. We introduce a classification architecture that outperforms existing work on churn intent detection in social media. Moreover, we show that, using bilingual word embeddings, a system trained on combined English and German data outperforms monolingual approaches. As the only existing dataset is in English, we crowdsource and publish a novel dataset of German tweets. We thus underline the universal aspect of the problem, as examples of churn intent in English help us identify churn in German tweets and chatbot conversations.


—This paper investigates the joint effect of the interconnected (n,k)-star network topology and Multi-Agent automated control on restoration and reconfiguration of power systems. With the increasing trend in development in Multi-Agent control technologies applied to power system reconfiguration in presence of faulty components or nodes. Fault tolerance is becoming an important challenge in the design processes of the distributed power system topology. Since the reconfiguration of a power system is performed by agent communication, the (n,k)-star interconnected network topology is studied and modeled in this paper to optimize the process of power reconfiguration. In this paper, we discuss the recently proposed (n,k)-star topology and examine its properties and advantages as compared to the traditional multi-bus power topologies. We design and simulate the topology model for distributed power system test cases. A related lemma based on the fault tolerance and conditional diagnosability properties is presented and proved both theoretically and practically. The conclusion is reached that (n,k)-star topology model has measurable advantages compared to standard bus power systems while exhibiting fault tolerance properties in power restoration, as well as showing efficiency when applied to power system route discovery.


Deep reinforcement learning (RL) has achieved breakthrough results on many tasks, but agents often fail to generalize beyond the environment they were trained in. As a result, deep RL algorithms that promote generalization are receiving increasing attention. However, works in this area use a wide variety of tasks and experimental setups for evaluation. The literature lacks a controlled assessment of the merits of different generalization schemes. Our aim is to catalyze community-wide progress on generalization in deep RL. To this end, we present a benchmark and experimental protocol, and conduct a systematic empirical study. Our framework contains a diverse set of environments, our methodology covers both in-distribution and out-of-distribution generalization, and our evaluation includes deep RL algorithms that specifically tackle generalization. Our key finding is that `vanilla' deep RL algorithms generalize better than specialized schemes that were proposed specifically to tackle generalization.


It has been argued that asylum seekers (AS) consume more health care resources than the local Swiss population. In this study we compare the health care costs of a group of AS who attended an outpatient clinic (OPC) at the University Hospital in Basel, Switzerland, between 2000 and 2003 with a control group of local patients attending the same OPC. Using data routinely collected by the hospital finance department, we measured the monthly health care costs of all the AS at the OPC. The mean costs of health care for the AS were lower than those of the local outpatients. These differences remain significant in multiple analyses controlling for sex and screening in the younger age groups, but not in the older age group. Our study did not confirm the assumption that AS consume more health care resources. Our results suggest that younger and middle aged AS may consume fewer health care resources than the general population.


A simple low-energy two-step dilution process has been applied in oil/surfactant/water systems with pentaoxyethylene lauryl ether (C12E5), dodecyldimethylammonium bromide, sodium bis(2-ethylhexyl)sulfosuccinate, sodium n-dodecyl sulfate-pentanol, and hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide-pentanol. Appropriate formulations were chosen for the concentrate to be diluted with water to generate oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions or nanoemulsions. For the system of decane/C12E5/water, bluish, transparent nanoemulsions having droplet radii of the order of 15 nm were formed, only when the initial concentrate was a bicontinuous microemulsion, whereas opaque emulsions were generated if the concentrate began in an emulsion-phase region. Nanoemulsions generated in the system decane/C12E5/water have been investigated both by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and contrast-variation small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). The SANS profiles show that nanodroplets exist as spherical core-shell (decane-C12E5) particles, which suffer essentially no structural change on dilution with water, at least for volume fractions phi down to 0.060. These results suggest that the nanoemulsion droplet structure is mainly controlled by the phase behavior of the initial concentrate and is largely independent of dilution. A discrepancy between apparent nanoemulsion droplet sizes was observed by comparing DLS and SANS data, which is consistent with long-range droplet interactions occurring outside of the SANS sensitivity range. These combined phase behavior, SANS, and DLS results suggest a different reason for the stability/instability of nanoemulsions compared with earlier studies, and here it is proposed that a general mechanism for nanoemulsion formation is homogeneous nucleation of oil droplets during the emulsification.


The expansion of Western European production accelerated in the first half of 1997. Exports were the main engine, driven by a devaluation of European currencies and strong growth abroad. Domestic demand also picked up somewhat led by investment in machinery and equipment. Inflation remained at low levels. However, in most countries the bottom seems to have been reached. One major concern is the rise in import prices. The upswing will further gain momentum in the coming months and in 1998 as conditions shaping the cycle remain favorable. Real GDP in Western Europe will increase by 3 percent in 1998. Under the assumption that the decision concerning EMU due in spring 1998 is made in favor of a large monetary union, those countries with relatively high short-term interest rates will lower them quite substantially in next year. Against the background of high unemployment, countries with low interest rates will not raise key interest rates significantly. As a consequence, monetary policy in Western Europe on average will be further loosened. This will additionally stimulate economic activity but also raise risks of inflation. The major problem in Western Europe is unemployment, which remains stubbornly high or is even rising. As a contrast, unemployment in the United States has come down to the lowest level since decades. It is often stated that high unemployment in Europe is due to a restrictive monetary policy, led by a—supposedly—deflationary policy pursued by the Deutsche Bundesbank. This view, however, does not find any support when indicators of monetary policy are taken into account. Rather, they suggest that monetary policy has been expansionary in Europe for some time. In addition, the reduction of inflation since 1990 has been equally pronounced in Europe and the United States, which indicates that the monetary stance has not been significantly different. Furthermore, a striking fact in this regard is that the relatively steep fall of inflation in the United Kingdom was associated with a significant decline in unemployment. While total unemployment in Europe has followed an upward trend resulting in an approximate doubling of the rate, there have been notable exceptions within Europe. Among those economies that have experienced a decline in recent years are the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Ireland; other countries seem to have joined the club. Overall, a variety of measures has contributed to the improvement of labor market performance in these countries. They include deregulations of product and labor markets that have led to wage moderation and more wage differentiation, and reforms of the tax and transfer systems that have resulted in improved incentives for both labor demand and labor supply. A central feature of individual countries' experience is that reforms tend to be more effective when they are comprehensive since there are important synergies between structural reforms in different fields.


Athletic training is a health care profession with roots in athletics and kinesiology that has evolved into a critical component of contemporary sports medicine. The aim of this article is to review the history and evolution of the athletic training profession, contextualize the current state of athletic training education and research, and address priorities and challenges that the athletic training profession must confront if it is to continue to thrive. Specific challenges include addressing health disparities in sports medicine, increasing the diversity of the athletic training profession, clearly delineating athletic training's place in the health care arena, and increasing salaries and retention of athletic trainers in the profession.


Cigarette smoking has been reported to be prevalent in military training populations, and associated with lower cardiorespiratory fitness and higher risk of training-related injury. However, it is unclear whether habitual smoking impairs development of physical fitness. It is possible that smoking-induced alterations in oxidative stress, inflammation and hormone balance may disrupt training adaptation in smokers. The aim of this programme of work was to identify the influences of smoking on physical performance adaptation, selected biomarkers and injury risk in a military trainee population. The first study established that habitual smokers comprised 48% of a cohort of 2087 trainees. Upon closer examination, both at entry (Study 2) and during 10 weeks of training (Study 3) smokers exhibited chronically elevated oxidative stress and, after commencement of training, evidence of significantly higher resting inflammation compared with non-smokers. Throughout the full duration of training, performance of smokers in military physical fitness tests was significantly worse than non-smokers (Study 4), but neither muscular adaptation nor physical performance improvement were impaired in smokers in the early stages (10-14 weeks) or over the full duration (26 weeks) of training. It was expected that smokers would experience greater acute inflammatory responses to exercise but neither these, nor hormonal responses, differed between smokers and non-smokers in response to consecutive days of military field exercise (Study 5). In addition to poorer physical performance in smokers, training-related injury incidence was higher in smokers than non-smokers, specifically injuries attributed to overuse (Study 6). Overall, smoking appears to cause some physiological alterations which, while not impairing adaptation to training, may have adverse implications on health outcomes. Although the specific underlying mechanisms are unclear, habitual smokers exhibit greater injury risk and typically lower physical fitness than non-smoking counterparts.


Investments in production equipment are made to generate desired production benefit. This work examines how benefit generally is defined and to what extent the benefit is well defined when equipment investments are made. The study revealed that benefit from investments often is unclearly or inconsistently defined, with a narrow system view and often has a weak correlation with benefit for a production system with broader boundaries. This could hamper the possibility to capitalize on industrial trends that indicate a shift in focus, from products, to the benefit utilization of the products can deliver.


This paper analyzes how well the parameters of microscope objectives correspond to the recommended series of standardized values and determines the requirements on the parameters of objectives and eyepieces from the condition that they match the properties of the eye. The conditions are determined for coherent and incoherent illumination of an observed object, and the results are presented of a study of how the degree of coherence of the illumination affects the image quality as a basis for optimizing the matching of the parameters of the illuminator optical system with the parameters of the observer optical system of a microscope. It is shown that a low utilization efficiency of the light flux formed by a microscope's illuminating system can be increased by an order of magnitude if the illuminating system is based on a variable-magnification system. A relationship is obtained that determines the possibility of choosing the optimum system of the parameters of microscope objectives.


paper, we present the WebProfiles model, a negotiation mechanism that allows HTTP-based clients and servers to adapt services seamlessly by providing contextual information prior to service execution in order to obtain a more adapted service experience. The negotiation process, implemented extending HTTP traditional interactions, provides evidence about how the WebProfiles model can be used to facilitate user experience when surfing the web, by automatically negotiating user's preferences with the server.


Abstract A genealogical account of state sovereignty explores the ways in which the concept has emerged, evolved, and is in decline today. Sovereignty has a theological foundation, and is deeply bound up with the idea of God, in particular a voluntarist God, presented as being capable of intervening directly in the world. Religious conflicts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries forced the separation between religion and politics, and opened the space for the emergence of a national state endowed with sovereignty which has dominated the world until now. Today's rise of international and transnational obligations challenges the conventional understanding of state sovereignty, which cannot account for the normative density of the global order and the corresponding decline of state-based political authority. In order to explain that, I contrast two competing understandings of state sovereignty: a static one and a dynamic one. The static understanding regards sovereignty as absolute within the state territory. The dynamic understanding regards sovereignty as evolutionary: according to this account, the state is just one possible form that sovereignty can take. I conclude by suggesting that the dynamic understanding of state sovereignty is better suited to explaining the decline of state sovereignty.


Working with data from the decadal US Census and the annual American Community Survey (ACS), the authors document four decades of increasing participation in registered nursing among US men and explore reasons for this change. Increasing educational attainment, rising labor demand in health care, rising urbanization, and liberalizing gender role attitudes explain approximately 50% of the growth. Results show that a large component of the increase occurs when men switched into nursing during their 20s and early 30s. Important countervailing factors include poor early labor market conditions and immigrant inflows, both of which are associated with less movement into nursing by men. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for policies that encourage men to take up high growth, non-traditional skilled jobs.


The electrification of the drivetrain offers a viable solution for the sustainability needs in the automotive industry. But, at the meantime, battery electric vehicles have high costs, a low level of consumer acceptance and there is a lack of recharging points. Thus, the situation opens a technology-driven niche market, attractive for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and allows them offering innovative electric vehicle solutions for the niche market. Yet, business strategies of SMEs vary in different regions since supply chain development, the manufacturing incentives and the infrastructure development are often regional diverse. To understand the motivations driving the developments of SMEs, the European Network on Electric Vehicles and Transferring Expertise (ENEVATE) partnership conducted several interviews with SMEs throughout North-West Europe. In order to interview the SMEs, qualitative research methodology and semi structured in-depth interviews are adopted. Required data was gathered from intentionally chosen companies that are engaged in electric vehicles business related activities in North-West Europe. The raw data was then analysed and key themes were identified by means of the seven stages of an interview investigation method. It was found that whereas some themes are same such as consumer relations, initial motivation, target market, financing and technology strategies some themes are regional such as manufacturing and business model decisions and manufacturing incentives. For example, whereas SMEs` initial motivation is same that is the attraction of a niche market, their business models vary owing to the financing situations. Similarly, their manufacturing strategies are also subject to the funding available. Yet, the technology choices of SMEs are independent and all of them offer cutting-edge technology solutions for various applications.


This report presents the final realization and implementation of a global inexact Newton method proposed by Deuflhard. In order to create a complete piece of software, a recently developed iterative solver (program GBIT) due to Deuflhard, Freund, Walter is adapted and serves as the standard iterative linear solver. Alternative linear iterative solvers may be adapted as well, e.g. the widely distributed code GMRES. The new software package GIANT (Global Inexact Affine Invariant Newton Techniques) allows an efficient and robust numerical solution of very large scale highly nonlinear systems. Due to the user friendly interface and its modular design, the software package is open for an easy adaptation to specific problems. Numerical experiments for some selected problems illustrate performance and usage of the package.


To ensure that they can participate in the Semantic Web, libraries need to prepare their legacy metadata for use as linked data. eXtensible Catalog (XC) software facilitates converting legacy library data into linked data using a platform that enables risk-free experimentation and that can be used to address problems with legacy metadata using batch services. The eXtensible Catalog also provides "lessons learned" regarding the conversion of legacy data to linked data by demonstrating what MARC metadata elements can be transformed to linked data, and helping to suggest priorities for the cleanup and enrichment of legacy data. Converting legacy metadata to linked data will require a team of experts, including MARC-based catalogers, specialists in other metadata schemas, software developers, and Semantic Web experts to design and test normalization/conversion algorithms, develop new schemas, and prepare individual records for automated conversion. Library software applications that do not depend upon linked data may currently have little incentive to enable its use. However, given recent advances in registering legacy library vocabularies, converting national library catalogs to linked data, and the availability of open source software such as XC to convert legacy data to linked data, libraries may soon find it difficult to justify continuing to create metadata that is not linked data compliant. The library community can now begin to propose smart practices for using linked data, and can encourage library system developers to implement linked data. XC is demonstrating that implementing linked data, and converting legacy library data to linked data, are indeed achievable.


OBJECTIVE
To compare health insurance payments and patient outcomes for recurrent episodes of care for nine common lumbar and low-back conditions initiated with chiropractic treatment vs. episodes initiated with medical treatment.

DATA AND METHODS
Retrospective analysis of episodes constructed using 208 ICD-9-CM codes from 2 yr of insurance claims data for a large population of beneficiaries in the private fee-for-service sector. A total of 7077 patients were represented within 9314 episodes of care, of which 8018 episodes were initiated by clearly identified chiropractic or medical physicians. There were 1215 patients with initial physician or chiropractic-initiated episodes who had recurrent episodes. Outcome measures included total insurance payments, total outpatient payments, lengths of initial and recurrent episodes, consistent use of initiating providers for recurrent episodes and time lapsed between episodes.

RESULTS
Total insurance payments within and across episodes were substantially greater for medically initiated episodes. Analysis of recurrent episodes as measures of patient outcomes indicated that chiropractic providers retain more patients for subsequent episodes, but that there is no significant difference in lapse time between episodes for chiropractic vs. medical providers. Chiropractic and medical patients were comparable on measures of severity; however, the chiropractic cohort included a greater proportion of chronic cases.

CONCLUSION
Patients who "cross over" between providers for multiple episodes are more likely to return to chiropractic providers, which suggests that chronic, recurrent low-back cases may gravitate to chiropractic care over time. The findings from this and related studies point out the importance of appropriately operationalizing cost and outcome variables in analyses of care for conditions such as chronic and/or recurrent low-back pain.


We analyze the transitional dynamics of a model with heterogeneous consumption goods. In this model, convergence is driven by two different forces: the typical diminishing returns to capital and the sectoral change inducing the variation in relative prices. We show that this second force affects the growth rate if the two consumption goods are not Edgeworth independent and if these two goods are pro- duced with technologies exhibiting different capital intensities. Because the afore- mentioned dynamic sectoral change arises only under heterogeneous consumption goods, the transitional dynamics of this model exhibits striking differences with the growth model with a single consumption good. We also show that these differences in the transitional dynamics can give raise to large discrepancies in the welfare cost of shocks between the economy with a unique consumption good and the economy with multiple consumption goods.


Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is a quite common illness but its etiology and mechanism remain unclear. Neural epidermal growth factor-like like 2 (NELL2) plays multifunctional roles in neural cell growth and is strongly linked to the urinary tract disease. Current study aims to determine the expression, functional activities and underlying mechanism of NELL2 in BPH. Human prostate cell lines and tissues from normal human and BPH patients were utilized. Immunohistochemical staining, immunofluorescent staining, RT-PCR and Western-blotting were performed. We further generated cell models with NELL2 silenced or overexpressed. Subsequently, proliferation, cycle, and apoptosis of prostate cells were determined by CCK-8 assay and flow cytometry analysis. The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and fibrosis process were also analyzed. Our study revealed that NELL2 was upregulated in BPH samples and localized in the stroma and the epithelium compartments of human prostate tissues. NELL2 deficiency induced a mitochondrial-dependent cell apoptosis, and inhibited cell proliferation via phosphorylating ERK1/2 activation. Additionally, suppression of ERK1/2 with U0126 incubation could significantly reverse NELL2 deficiency triggered cell apoptosis. Consistently, overexpression of NELL2 promoted cell proliferation and inhibited cell apoptosis. However, NELL2 interference was observed no effect on EMT and fibrosis process. Our novel data demonstrated that upregulation of NELL2 in the enlarged prostate could contribute to the development of BPH through enhancing cell proliferation and inhibited a mitochondrial-dependent cell apoptosis via the ERK pathway. The NELL2-ERK system might represent an important target to facilitate the development of future therapeutic approaches in BPH.